Sunday 30 October 2011

Rawnnaise

Time for a sauce. A sauce which is admittedly, not my favourite. Why? Because mayonnaise DISGUSTS me and I mean REALLY, REALLY disgusts me. However, my husband LOOOOOVED the stuff. He could have eaten a mayonnaise sandwich (hmm, not unlike my brother...if only I lived close enough to convince him to try this)! So I like a lot of the "raw" versions of things, but this one tastes exactly like mayonnaise. Wow. I have offended myself. Paul, on the other hand, I have made a happy man. So if you are like Paul, and you love mayonnaise, try my recipe:

175ml (3/4 cup) Macadamia Nuts
175 ml (3/4 cup) Cashews
120 ml (1/2 cup) Water-Add a little bit more if you want this to be more of a "salad dressing" type mayo.
2-3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Raw, Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Clove of Garlic
1/4 to 1/3 tsp Fleur De Sel
1/4 tsp ground Mustard seed/Mustard powder
Pinch of Basil
Pinch of Cayenne powder

Blend it up, and there ya go!

Thursday 27 October 2011

Moist Carrot Cake

mmm...

Cake:
4 Organic Carrots
240 ml/1 cup Desiccated Coconut
240 ml/1 cup Dried, pitted Dates
1 Cup Mixed Nuts
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/3 tbsp raw Carob Powder
1-2 tbsp Maple Syrup

Wash & finely grate the carrots into a large bowl. Tedious, but this recipe is well worth it, believe me. Grind (pulse, stir, pulse, stir...) Dates & Nuts together in a blender or food processor until they are a relatively smooth mush. Add this and the rest of the ingredients to your large bowl. You may whisk or stir this until it is very well blended, but I found it easier to just get in there with my hands and mix it up. Press the cake mix into a glass pan and even it out with your fist. Alternatively, you could turn these into cupcakes! Frost and enjoy. Will easily serve 4-6, or more...but not if you're hungry like we were when I made it. The two of us ate about half of it in one sitting. :))

Frosting:
About 1 cup Ground Almonds (you may grind them yourself in a food processor if you wish, but they were cheaper to buy pre-ground at Tesco's. Easier too.
4 Tbsp Maple syrup
2 Tbsp Desiccated Coconut
Rice Milk

Add all ingredients into a bowl & stir, add rice milk gradually until the desired consistency is obtained. Recipe may be doubled if you want a sweet cake or you just want some extra frosting for whatever else. Smooth onto the cake with a knife or the back of a spoon.

Why go RAW?

I wanted to do a special post here and tell my readers about my decision to become a raw vegan. What swayed me.

1. I wanted to make a change for the environment. Livestock are responsible for 18% of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. I have never wanted to drive, majoratively for the sake of reducing my carbon footprint, and I have known of this fact for much of my life. It has been a large source of my guilt and unhappiness.
2. Meat is a murdered animal. There is absolutely no getting around that fact. Between avocadoes, nuts, seeds, olive oil, and leady greens I see no reason to get my protein, iron or anything else from a nonrenewable source.
3. Dairy and eggs? Even crueler than meat. Cows are forcibly impregnated (raped), babies are taken off their mothers without being able to bond or nurse, and the cows are killed anyway. Hens spend their lives in cages.
4. Cow's milk DECREASES bone density, contrary to popular belief. In tribal societies where it is not consumed, they do not suffer osteopourosis.
5. Raw foods=I know what's going into my meals, all of the time. I do not buy anything with preservatives. We are soy free, gluten free, and preservative-free. There is this saying I heard once, something about how if your grandparents wouldn't know what it is, don't eat it-for the most part, that makes a lot of sense to me. Chemicals begone!
6. I have lived with an unhealthy relationship with food for almost half of my life. I have fallen in and out of disordered eating from the time I became a teenager. Those days are behind me. There is nothing to feel guilty about when the food you eat is dense in nutrients. Everything I eat is vital to my health and wellbeing. No empty calories, no "junk".
7. I have more or less spent 4 years of my life bedridden when I became the victim of an "adverse reaction" to Gardasil. Yes. I am a grown-up Gardasil girl. I am now walking several times a week, doing my own grocery shopping, cooking, doing light housework, lugging my kid around all the time (instead of just playing with him on the bed/floor) I am still heavily fatigued and feel a lot of pain, but I am no longer stiff or weak. I am 50% of what I used to be and that is a VERY, VERY DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT! I do not know whether I will ever be 100%, but I know that I owe this tremendous recovery to raw foods and getting rid of toxic garbage (including chemical laden cleaning products, ect) from my life.
8. What could be more loving than the gift of good health to one's family?
9. I wanted to do something for myself, and this is, I feel, the kindest, most loving thing you can do for your body, your mind, your soul. Alleviating the guilt, and replacing it with vital nutrition.

We are not 100% raw, I should admit, it is more like 85%. We do eat rye/linseed bread (wheat & gluten free) and some wholegrain pasta, and I like to make potato wedges on my George Foreman grill. We have no oven however, and as aforementioned, I check the ingredient labels on EVERYTHING-no preservatives, no chemicals, no JUNK.

Paul's Mushroom Salad

OK, I am...not a mushroom person. However, it was a big effort on my former cheese luvvin' husband's part to go vegan, let alone RAW (you rock, Paul, seriously). So, to thank him for the tremendously good thing he is doing for: the environment, animals, plants, his body and health, in being a positive role model for our son, ridding himself of his negative relationship with food and boosting my ego (by loving my uncooking!) and happiness...well, to thank him, I take the rare requests he makes and do my best to uncook what I can with them. So, my husband loves mushrooms. LOVES. Here is a hearty, earthy salad we've invented together:

2 Large Chestnut Mushrooms, chopped
1 Large Tomato, diced
About 2/3 of a Leek, diced
About a Tablespoon's worth of diced Red Onion
Small handful of Pine Nuts
Black Pepper

Toss ingredients in a bowl. Paul used a Mexican honey-mustard for a dressing, but you could use whatever you like.

The cancer cure: BURGERS?!

OK, these might not magically cure cancer, but the ingredients contained in these brrgers will come a long way in helping to prevent cancer and will also help you fight cancer if you are unfortunate enough to already be doing so. Plus, they are pretty darn tasty, so what have you got to lose?

3 Organic Carrots (see my note on organic fruit & veg)
100g Sesame Seeds
A small handful's worth of Broccoli-heads only
4 Sun Dried Tomatoes
2 Tbsp Olive Oil (the herbed OO from the Sun-Dried Tomato jar-optional, but it is so much yummier than regular olive oil)-NOTE: I think my burgers may have came out more pliable with less liquid, so feel free to only add 1 tbsp, nonetheless I love the taste!!)
1 Fresh Tomato
About 1 tsp Leek
1 small handful of Pine Nuts
2 Garlic cloves
A few sprigs each of fresh Parsley & Basil
1 Tbsp Fleur De Sel (grey salt)
1 tbsp Black pepper
1/3 tsp Mustard seed
1/2 tsp Cayenne powder
1 Tbsp Basic Cashew Cheeze, optional

Pulse, stir, repeat until you get a gritty but well blended burger mix. I served ours using Cornish Greens leaves in place of buns, but you may use some flatbread or linseed/rye bread (wheat free, score) if you feel so inclined. These go nicely with American mustard or hummous.

HOW do these fight cancer, you ask? Well...you may read more in detail here and here. This is also a great blend of foods for recalcification of the body, to reverse tooth and bone decay. I had 4 visible cavities before I began recalcifying, now I cannot notice any tooth decay!

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Butternut Soup and...Nutterbutt Ice Cream!

Creamy Winter Squash Soup:

About 240 ml/1 cup Butternut Squash, peeled and chopped
1 Small carrot
1/2 to one whole small leek leaf, depending how you want it to taste
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tbsp ground Black Pepper
2 tbsp Sunflower oil
2 tbsp Basic Cashew Cheeze
1 Tbsp Pine Nuts
1 Clove Garlic
1 tsp Fleur de Sel (which you can read about here, it is so good and loaded with minerals-I highly reccomend ditching your white salt and opting for this instead!)
240 ml/1 cup warm Water
Dash of Allspice, optional.

...You know the drill...toss it in the blender and mix on high speed until creamy and smooth. Serves 2.

Carob Nut Ice Cream

The bottom (round plump part) half of a Winter/Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded and chopped (I left about half of the mulch/pulp inside, but not the seeds.)
1 large handful of dried, pitted/stoned Dates
2 handfuls of nuts (I used 1 ea of Walnuts and a "Mixed Nuts" blend that contained Almonds, Peanuts and Walnuts)
3 Tbsp Maple Syrup
3 1/2 tsp Raw Carob Powder
1/3 tsp Allspice (I know, I use this stuff in everything...but it's so damn good!)
1 Tbsp Rice, Almond, Coconut or Breastmilk (for this particular batch I used Provamel's Rice Milk, which is one of the nicer milks I think)

It is important to note that this is not one of my easier recipes, so, I apologise in advance (but HEY, give me some credit, most of my things are pretty cheap and easy). This might not be the case however if you have a really good food processor, but if you are like me and are working with a cheap blender, be prepared to put in a bit of elbow grease.

Now. Chop up that squash into small pieces because otherwise you will do what I did and be stuck blending the darn thing a bit longer than you will like to. I put in very large pieces and was blending for ages. Toss the squash in with the liquid ingredients and pulse, stir, pulse, stir until you've got it into a chunky mush. Now add the dates and nuts and continue doing that pulse and stir thing until you have a consistency you are happy with, it should be like runny home-made ice cream with small chunks (I like chunks in my ice cream, don't you?) now add the powdered ingredients, pulse and stir a couple more times, and you can put this into a couple of plastic tubs and freeze it. I used two large hummous pots and managed to fill them to the brink, so in other words this will easily serve 4, or could just as easily serve only 2 if you keep it on hand in your freezer for those occasions, you know, when a friend needs you to come over pronto with a tub of ice cream...keep this on hand for just such occasions. What a favour you'll be doing them, bringing something so delicious AND giving their body to a raw treat... :) This has a very carob-y, nutty, ice-cream esque taste and consistancy and is just. YUM.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Apple Walnut Pie With Caramel Crust

More sweet, un-sugary, un-baked goodness for the harvest season. Yummy yummy!!

First, I made the caramel crust:

240 ml/1 cup Dried, Stoned/Pitted Dates
About 180 ml(3/4 cup) Nuts (I got a bag of mixed nuts at Tesco's for .50p that had Almonds, Peanuts and Walnuts and that is what I used here. Bargain!)
1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp carob powder

Mix all ingredients in the blender/food processor on high-speed-pulse, stir, pulse, stir, repeat until the dough is gritty and well mixed. scoop into a bowl and refrigerate while you prepare the apples.

Apple-walnut filling:

3 organic apples, peeled and diced
120 ml(1/2 cup) chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp allspice

Stir together the walnuts and apples in a large bowl. In a small bowl, stir together the maple, water and allspice. Add into the apple-nut blend and stir continuously until they are evenly glazed.

Pull the 'crust' out of the refrigerator and press as evenly as you can into a small round cake or pie pan. Spoon the apple-walnut blend on top of it and spread it out. Serves 3-4 (or less if you're feeling gluttonous...warning, this is very hard to put down!)

NOTE: This is quite sticky and a bit hard to serve (though surprisingly easy to clean out of the dish) so unless you are like me and eating this with someone you don't mind eating straight out of the pan with I recommend halving or quartering the dough beforehand onto separate dishes to make individual pies. :)

Sunday 23 October 2011

Mambo Italiano!

This meal is a beauty (and very heart-healthy with all the tomatoey goodness :)) it is not entirely raw, but mostly so and is jam packed with Italian inspired flavours.

For a starter, we have:

Stuffed Tomatoes with Pine Nut Pesto

2 large Aromatic Tomatoes
1 large Greens leaf (I don't know what kind of "greens" these are...at the store it just says "Cornish Greens" :/ The leaves are however HUGE, very long and dark green and they come in a big bulb somewhat like cabbage does, I hope that helps some...they are similar to spinach so spinach could easily be substituted if you cannot find something like this! )
Pine Nut Pesto, which I will detail below.

Gently cut off only the very tops of the tomatoes. Cut them in half and scoop out the innards. Chop and dice your greens and divide them into quarters. If you desire, you may gently cook the tomatoes open-face down on a skillet-but be careful not to cook them too much because A. the nutrient content will be drastically altered with cooking which is why we eat raw to begin with and B. they will fall apart when you try to "stuff" them. Now, simply stuff the greens inside and garnish with as much pine-nut pesto as you like. Serves 1-4, depending on how much you want to eat ;)

Pine Nut Pesto

3 Handfuls of Pine Nuts
2-3 tablespoons Olive Oil (I used the nice flavoured oo from the sun dried tomato jar, but EVOO will substitute fine.)
1 clove Raw Garlic
A few sprigs of fresh Basil
A few grinds of black pepper

Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor. Pulse, stir, and repeat a few times, noting that it will be chunky.

Pasta

Whole-wheat spaghetti
Sauce of your choice (I used Napolina's Tomato & Basil, I know...lazy!)
Pine Nut Pesto

Cook, top with sauce and pesto, enjoy!

Saturday 22 October 2011

Superfood Soup

This soup is very healthy - loaded with rich vegetable antioxidants such as vitamin A, B vitamins, calcium, lycopene, fatty acids, omegas and protein. To health!

1/2 of a large, ripe Hass Avocado
1 Small Carrot
2 Large Aromatic Vine-Ripened Tomatoes
A small handful of uncooked, thawed frozen spinach-one or two large handfuls of fresh spinach would do equally well.
1 Sun Dried Tomato (from a jar if possible, soaked in olive oil)
2 tbsp Olive Oil from the sun-dried tomato jar, seasonings included (optional-I just think it makes it taste better. You may use regular EVOO if this is not available.)
A few sprigs of fresh parsley
1/2 clove raw garlic
240 ml/1 cup warm water
1/4 tbsp dried basil
Black pepper for garnish

Cut the very tops only off of the tomatoes & carrots. Chop carrot and spoon out avocado. Add all ingredients to blender and pulse until smooth and creamy. A spoonful or two of Basic Cashew Cheeze may be added if you wish to make the soup creamier. Serve and crack black pepper on top to garnish. Serves 2.

Friday 21 October 2011

Basic Cashew Cheeze

200ml Cashews
About 3 tbsp Sunflower oil
1 Clove Raw Garlic
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

Soak cashews in water overnight. Put drained cashews, oil & garlic into blender or food processor, add a fair amount of sea salt (maybe a half a tablespoon, but your taste buds are your best guide) and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Blend, stir, blend, stir, blend, stir, ect until smooth and creamy...and enjoy! Tastes great on everything and you can hardly tell it's not real cheese!

A Taste Of Autumn: Creamy Spiced Corn Chowder & (un)Cookies

Mm, mmm! Dinner turned out SO yummy...I LOVE my cheap blender.

Creamy Spiced Corn Chowder:

1 Tin of Green Giant Sweet Corn
Warm Water
About 3 big spoonfuls of Basic Cashew Cheeze
Fresh parsley
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1/4 tsp Allspice
Sea salt
Black Pepper

Empty the tin of corn, including the water in it, into your blender. Scoop in the cheeze and add the oil. Rip off a tiny handful of fresh parsley and toss it in. Add the allspice and put a few grinds each of black pepper and salt. Finally, fill the tin with warm water and add this to the mix. Blend on high speed until smooth and serve. Garnish each bowl with a sprig of parsley. Serves 2-3.

We ate this with carrots and hummous. Mm, mm! For dessert, we had...

Maple (un)Cookies

240 ml (1 cup) Pitted Dates
240 ml (1 cup) Cashews
1-1 1/2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
1/4 tsp Allspice

Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend on high speed, pulse and then stir, pulse and then stir, ect...do this as many times as you can be bothered to do, basically. Then, form the dough into balls, mash flat in your palms and serve. These keep very well and taste great with a side of rice milk. Yum, yum!