Curiosity's Path

Living Raw While on the Road

2011-07-26T19:06:00.001-07:00

A number of friends and clients have asked me how to manage a raw food diet and stay healthy while traveling. I decided to create some classes and put the basic outlines on this page.

Classes:

In a one and a half to two hour class I can give a lot of pointers plus a couple of demonstrations.

A half day class includes more demonstrations, samples and recipes.

A full day's class can cover a lot of food options which will allow you to eat well with your minuscule traveling kitchen and include more long term solutions such as dorm room or whole vacation dining.

Topics covered can include:

☀Food First Aid....how to deal with traveler's headache, belly ache, fatigue, stress....without reaching for a pain drug to deal with the symptoms. Deal with the problem and re-alkalize your system.

☀Your Survival Kitchen: light and compact equipment to take with you. Several possibilities depending upon the length of your trip and your needs.

☀Breakfast: Get a great start to your day! How to make fresh raw, delicious, nutritious, sugarless, fiber filled filling breakfasts that taste better than the high carb, high sugar pastry that's served with coffee in a "Continental breakfast" and keep you energized for hours.

This raw apple crumb cake is delicious, quick to make and a great breakfast.

☀Thinking Ahead: Power bar snacks you can make for your trip plus a few pre-packaged ingredients to pack to make meals fast and easy on your trip.

☀Lunch: Away all day? Take-along snacks can save the day.

Little key lime pies can be made in a personal blender.

☀Raw and Social: Tips for surviving, thriving and enjoying business lunches or social events while staying healthy and raw.

☀Entrees: On a budget? No good restaurants around? Tired? You can make delicious dinners in your room with little fuss. Smoothies, fresh soups, puddings, zucchini "pasta" with raw marinara sauce, not a problem.

☀A few examples:

This is a hand cut wide noodle zucchini pasta with a "pesto rustica"....a hand cut pesto, everything uses only a knife.

This pesto can be made in a small travel blender.

These are zucchini hummus and a raw babaganouj, easy to make in a personal blender.

Pear and arugula salad.

Strawberry custard tart. Raw Desserts are no problem.

Soups are fast and delicious!

You can be healthy and stay raw while traveling for work or on vacation.
Contact me if you'd like more information.

I can also teach classes for home raw food kitchens, for example: how to create delicious and beautiful raw (dehydrated at 105 degrees), non gluten crackers and flat breads.

Mango Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

2011-02-17T15:57:00.001-08:00

I'm really enjoying making pies that are hidden inside forms, so that the opening is a surprise.
This one was for James' birthday. Since we had a key lime pumpkin for Valentine's Day, only the opening part was a surprise this time.

Opening the pumpkin.

When I asked James what he wanted for his birthday, he said mangos. There are three forms of mango in this pie. The outer crust is made with dried mango, dried coconut and dried goji berries. Between layers of chocolate, there is a layer of mango and goji berry jam. In the center is a mango/coconut cream/chia pie filling with a "seed" made of chocolate covered mango jam.

The different textures, flavours and tastes made it fun to eat.

Here's how it's made. I used a form to press the two layers of crust into. To make the melted chocolate, I ran pieces of some very dark chocolate through the food processor so that it was in small uniform pieces. (This makes it melt better). I put the chocolate pieces in a small pan and put this in the dehydrator to melt. It's wonderful to use the dehydrator this way, rather than melting over simmering water, because no water can get into the chocolate and the temperature is kept constant.

Once I pressed both the outer and inner crusts into the mold, I put it in the freezer to chill. For the outer crust, blend dried mango, coconut and goji berries in the dry carafe for vitamix. The recipe for the inner crust is the same as the key lime pumpkin, found here. That's the basic recipe, anyway. I never really measure. Once the crusts have chilled and the chocolate is melted, swirl a layer of chocolate into the molds and put them in the freezer to harden.

To make the mango jam, I just added water to the extra mixture I had made for the outside layer and blended it. Let it sit for a few minutes until it is fully hydrated. This is the most wonderful, no sugar way of making jams and spreads! Remove the molds from the freezer and add the jam layer. Let this firm up in the freezer.

Add another layer of chocolate. This is why it is so great to have the chocolate in the dehydrator, because you can just leave it there between layers and it's always ready for you when you need it. At this time, make a 2 balls of the mango jam, flat on the top, and coat them with chocolate. These will be the "seeds" of your strange "fruit". These go in the freezer too.

Put some chia seeds on to soak. Blend some mango into a puree with some coconut cream or coconut milk (just a little). Then add the soaked chia seeds and blend just enough to stir. This is the mango pie filling. Remove the forms from the freezer and spoon in just enough of the pie filling so that when you add the "seed" it will not over flow. Back into the freezer they go.

Of course, with each layer, you need to be aware that the two halves need to fit together, so don't make any one layer higher than the other.

Push the two halves together gently. Add a little more of the outside coating along the seam if needed. The final step is to coat the stem of the pumpkin with chocolate. Keep in the refrigerator or freezer until you are ready to serve.

We never eat dessert at the end of a meal. For us, a dessert IS a meal. This is both filling and nutritious. Enjoy!

Valentine Surprise

2011-02-13T21:29:00.001-08:00

February is usually a busy month of celebration for us.
Valentine's day, James' birthday and our own yearly holiday: Pumpkin Day.

Pumpkin day occurs any day of the month in February. It notes the cooking and eating of the last pumpkin from the fall harvest. Before we began eating mostly raw food, we took delight in cooking the entire pumpkin in the oven, like a turkey.
I was wondering how we would celebrate Pumpkin Day this year, with raw food. I began to think that a pumpkin cheesecake would be fun and could also be James's birthday cake.

This year, while all three of these celebrations are happening in the same week, James is also leaving one job to begin another. At long last, he will be working from home, which will change aspects of our day to day life.

Because of this, I wanted to make a dessert that we could share.

*(just as a matter of scale, the spoons and forks are tiny dessert sized, not regular size.)

So, here we are, out by the little nectarine tree which has graciously burst into flower for the big week.

But there needed to be a twist, because of the surprise of the new job, and our new life about to begin.

Green is for new beginnings, and as I was thinking about making pumpkin cheesecake I found some beautiful little ripe key limes, and a recipe for a raw key lime pie arrived in my mailbox.

So this is the Valentine Surprise....a creamy mango key lime pie, hiding inside the pumpkin like treats in a piñata.

The basic recipe for our Pumpkin Day Surprise came from here.

The outer crust for the pumpkin was made by grinding dried mango, coconut and goji berries together.

Happy Valentine's Day!

PS: I made this and took the photos the day before partly because I don't like to stop to take photos in the middle of a nice dinner but also because I was testing the structural integrity of the form: the pumpkin shape. I didn't want it to fall apart while we were looking at it or while I was bringing it to the table. It needs to be refrigerated, but the form was strong, and worked well.

When I served it for dinner, I added fresh, plump blueberries to each half before I sealed them together. I served the pumpkin with an extra dish of blueberries. (The dark blue looked wonderful in the light green of the pie).

The combination of the creaminess of the key lime pie, the two layers of crust, with their different flavours and the taste and texture of little orbs of blueberries was truly a feast for the mouth! A guilt free, nutritious treat.

The recipe made this pie plus several small lunch pies and a try of thumb print cookies. I added some water to the extra outer layer (made of dried mango, dried coconut and dried goji berries) and this made a delicious mango jam to put in the thumb print indentation of the cookie. (I didn't actually use my thumb. I had a metal tool from a small mortar and pestle that I used.)

I did not use agave in the key lime pie. I used maple syrup, but less than suggested in the recipe. Because of that, I used a little less lime juice, to keep the balance of the taste.

Our Daily Bread Part 3

2011-02-13T20:29:00.001-08:00

Cumin Flatbread

Once again, I was so hungry that I forgot to sprinkle cayenne and add a squeeze of lime to the soup before I took the photo.
This flatbread is hearty, robust and full of flavour.
It is adapted from Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenny.
1&1/2 C walnuts, soaked overnight
2C pumpkin, chopped
1&1/2 T. ground cumin
1/4C olive oil
1/2 onion or 1 shallot, chopped
1-2 t. nutritional yeast
1-2 T. sweetener (I use maple syrup, which is not raw. Often raw chefs use agave, which is also not raw).
1/2T. salt
pepper
1C flax meal or 1&1/2 C soaked flax seed

If you are using flax meal, put that in a large bowl first, the process all other ingredients in a food processor until the mixture is quite smooth, then add the mixture to the flax and stir well. If you soak the flax seeds so that the phytates are removed, you need a high speed blender. Blend all ingredients except the flax. Cut the flax "cake" into strips that can be fed into the top of the vitamix, a little at a time, and blend in. This will give a somewhat different texture than using the food processor and flax meal.

Spread the mixture onto teflex sheets. This is a flat bread, not a cracker, so make them thicker, more than a quarter of an inch thick. Sprinkle cumin or salt or seeds of your choice on top if you feel like adding some texture. Dehydrate at 105-115 degrees until almost dry but still with a little "give" or pliability.
These are hearty and delicious with soups or spreads.

Our Daily Bread Part 2

2010-09-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

If you like the taste of onion seed bagels but want to avoid the wheat, calories and baking that a traditional bagel brings, try these fabulous onion flatbreads.

There are two recipes today that use sunflower seeds, so the first thing to do is get about 3 cups of sunflower seeds soaking. Some chefs only soak seeds for an hour or so, but I like to sprout the seeds, so they soak overnight, I rinse them and let them grow for a day, then make these breads. Don't forget to put flax seeds on to soak.

Have I introduced you to Golubka's blog yet? I found these delicious flatbreads here.

I make these breads in a high speed blender instead of a food processor. It really doesn't matter, except for how you process the flax seeds.
2 medium onions, cut into large pieces for the blender to handle.
1 cup of sprouted sunflower seeds (you will use more later on the top of the flatbreads)
4 tablespoons tamari or nama shoyu
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup flax seeds BUT if you are making them in a high speed blender and have soaked the flax seeds first, you will have what looks like a little flax cake. Once you have blended the other ingredients, cut the flax into strips that will drop through the feed hole in the top of your blender. With the blender on high speed, gradually feed in the strips until they are blended to the consistency you like (some like to have some whole flax seeds in the bread, some don't). If you don't have a high speed blender.....don't do this!!!! Your blender will choke and die quite quickly. If a Vitamix overheats, it simply stops until it cools down (or you put it in the freezer for awhile). If a regular blender becomes overburdened, the motor can quickly burn out.
If you are making these in a food processor, pre-grind the seeds in a coffee grinder or dedicated seed grinder and add them after you have processed the other ingredients. If you are using a regular blender, you have cut the onions smaller, for sure, and you can put the blended mixture into a bowl where you have already placed the flax seeds. Be ready to stir like crazy before it clumps.
(I know I said all this in part 1 but I don't want to feel responsible for your fried blender or sad, lumpy flatbread).

It's all good. This is not brain surgery or rocket science.

Place teflex sheets on your drier shelves and spread the mixture out. Now for the fun part....find every delicious kind of seed you have in your pantry or garden and you are ready to create the topping. I found fennel and parsley seeds in the garden and poppy, hemp, sesame in the pantry. I corse ground some coriander on top and sprinkled the rest, with lots of the sprouted sunflower seeds. Chop parsley leaves and sprinkle. Golubka has a wonderful tip for the next step. Wet your hands and press the seeds and leaves into the mixture. (I used to have problems with the seeds falling off in the dehydrator or when cutting, but no more. Wet hand patting really embeds the seeds into the mixture.)
That's it!

Dehydrate at 105 degrees until they are ready to come off the teflex sheets. Turn them over, remove the sheets, dehydrate some more until they can be cut with a knife, scissors or a pizza wheel. Dehydrate a little more to dry the edges. If you want them really crispy, dehydrate longer. For a bread, leave the pieces bigger. Great for bruschettas. Crispy, they are fabulous with new cashew cheese.

I said there would be another recipe today but I'm out of time. Put those extra soaked seeds in the refrigerator until tomorrow. They will be fine.

Our Daily Bread, Part 1

2010-09-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

Often when I tell someone I'm eating a mostly raw diet I can tell they are imagining nothing but an endless parade of salads, and it seems bleak. Nothing could be further from the truth. Raw food also includes a variety of flat breads, crackers and wraps, all dehydrated at 105 degrees, all gluten free and delicious.

Wraps are flexible squares that can be made into many different dishes. They can be made from a variety of vegetables, with the addition of flax or chia seeds for flexibility and nutrition. The green wraps at the top of the photo are adapted from a recipe by Russell James in his E-book Thai Recipes. These green wraps are based on a Russell James recipe from his E-book Thai Raw Recipes.

The wraps on the lower left, covered with hemp seeds, were made with zucchini, tomato and tomatillo.
Green Wraps:

Shred zucchini in a food processor, enough to make about 5 and a half cups.
Put into high speed blender with:
1 tablespoon lime juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
a pinch of salt
Blend.
Now to add some flax seed. You need about a quarter cup........it can be more if you like. My favorite way to use flax seed is to soak it, so that it wakes up its potential and almost begins to sprout. When it does this it looks almost like a cake. I cut it into strips and feed it, a little at a time into the blender. (Too much at once will cause it to overwork and shut off). Some people just grind flax sees, put them in a bowl and add the other blended ingredients to it, stirring furiously so it doesn't clump. The least nutritious option is to buy already ground flax seeds, but they tend to be so delicate once ground that it is easy for them to become rancid, so this is never an option I choose.
Pour
Pour onto teflex sheets which sit on dehydrator shelves, spread out into large squares covering the sheets. These will later be cut into 4. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for as many hours as necessary, so that they are dry but still flexible.

They can be rolled, as in the raw cannelloni above which has a pesto cashew cheese inside and a raw marinara sauce on top. Cucumbers, salad vegetables, raw hummus and raw baba ghanouj are all delicious and quick meals rolled into one of these wraps.

Envelopes:

One can also make envelopes by putting a filling in the center, wetting the edges and folding them toward the center, overlapping a little, then turning them over so that the folded corners are on the bottom. This particular mixture is made with home sprouted mung beans, shitake mushrooms, shallots, red pepper, Thai pepper, cilantro, lime juice, tamari, corriander seed, cumin, sesame oil, sesame seeds, tamarind, and some Indonesian comet tail pepper.

Place in the dehydrator until the envelope becomes somewhat crisp and the filling is warm.

Dipping Sauce:

Dipping sauces can be made from blending fruits in season, like peaches or mango, with cucumber, lime, Thai pepper, cilantro, green onion to garnish. They can also be more like a salsa or a marinera sauce, depending upon the filling you have inside the envelope. Savory or sweet, spicy or mild.

In the next post, hearty walnut cumin flat bread and chewy onion mulit-seed flatbread.

Raw Baba Ghanouj: Fast, Easy and Delicious!

2010-09-13T20:42:00.001-07:00

It was time to harvest some eggplant.
I don't know why I forgot to photograph the nice plump vegetables.

Here is the eggplant when it was still a flower.

I had found a recipe that talked about freezing then thawing the eggplant to soften the texture and the taste of the raw eggplant. I chopped up a few of the long thin Japanese eggplants from the garden, put them in the freezer, put some cashews on to soak and went on with my day.

Here is the recipe I found which uses a food processor to make the baba ghanoush. (We spell it differently......it's the same thing).
I used a Vitamix blender.
Throw everything in together:
2-3 cloves of garlic
a half cup of previously soaked cashews
a double handful of diced, frozen and thawed eggplant
juice from half a lemon (I actually peeled it, took out the seeds and put half of the lemon in the vitamix)
2T olive oil
a couple grinds of salt
Moroccan spice blend (add whatever Mediterranean spices you like or leave it plain).
Blend until its silky fine.
Make a well in the middle to put some fine olive oil in. Add sprigs of parsley and kalamata olives around the outside add a grind of good black pepper.
Really, this is the only thing I've made this year that I haven't photographed the first time I made it, but I was too busy eating it with a variety of flatbreads that I've made to even think of photographing. Maybe next time. I love baba ghanouj and I'm excited to find that I can make it easy and raw and delicious.

Researching Cactus: Nopales drinks, salsa and jerky

2010-08-19T22:52:00.001-07:00

Cactus, Super Food of the South

It has taken me several years of living here in California, at the same latitude as Morocco, to begin to make friends with Native plants. Its not that I never saw a cactus in Canada...they do grow....but they are stubby little things, often bent over, low growing and tiny enough to make one wish they had never worn sandals on a hike. I saw cacti every winter when I visited my parents on their winter sojourn to California, and also when I lived in Mexico for a year but somehow they had always been a part of the exotic foliage. Beautiful strangers, not friends.

Last year, when I was still making fermented drinks like kombucha and water kefir, I had read that that some people thought that some of the first "grains" for making water kefir had come from the cactus, found as little crystal like deposits on the cactus. I thought this was interesting, but couldn't find any more information about it. I asked as many Mexican Americans as I could and none had heard of his. Then I found this web page: "World's Best Water Purifier May Be The Cactus"

This is what scientists have discovered that the Mexican Natives probably knew for centuries:

"Scientists from the University of South Florida have discovered the water purifying power of the prickly pear cactus. An extract from the desert-dweller is very effective at removing sediment and bacteria from dirty H2O and, even better, it grows all around the world.

The scientists aren't the first to realize this plant's ability. Nineteenth-century Mexican communities used the cactus as a water purifier. The thick gum in the cactus that stores water is responsible for the purification. The scientists extracted the gum and then added it to water that had been dirtied up with sediment and bacteria.

The gum caused the sediment and bacteria to combine and settle to the bottom, filtering 98 percent of the bacteria from the water. The next phase is to test it on natural water.

The scientists see communities in developing countries using the cactus on daily basis. They could boil a slice of it to release the gum and then add it to water just like the scientists did. But there are hurdles to overcome. What resources would be necessary for widespread growth of the cactus for this purpose and how can people ensure the "treated" water is truly bacteria free? If these problems can be solved, cheap, clean water could be accessible for millions who are currently without. "

I was still excitedly thinking about this when I saw nopales in the supermarket, both the whole paddle and a bag of cut up pieces.

The nopales paddles have single thorns sticking out of raised parts in the paddle.

The best tools I found to remove the thorns were a strawberry huller and a small cheese knife. I'm sure there must be a dedicated tool for this somewhere, but the little strawberry nipper worked well.

The idea that nopales could be used as a water purifier intrigued me so the first thing I wanted to make was a drink. In a high speed blender I combined nopales pieces, ripe mango, fresh young coconut water, coconut kefir, lime juice and ice cubes. Ahhh...it was Heaven! Refreshing, delicious and thirst quenching.

The next experiment was a salsa with tomatillos from the garden, heritage tomatoes, cilantro, avocado, slivers of red onion, lime juice, cumin, cayenne, corriander.......all the usual salsa ingredients with this one added surprise. When I eat nopales I feel the hydrating effect throughout my body. The salsa was delicious and it was also a hydrating medicine.

Dehydrating into a cactus jerky came to mind. I sliced the cleaned nopales paddles and massaged an Asian inspired sauce onto the strips. As I was doing this I was thinking of all of the different kinds of sauces I could marinate these strips in. I mean, how many kinds of beef jerky are out there? ( I don't actually know, having never looked at the stuff, but there must be different kinds). Once the strips were marinated, I sprinkled hemp seeds on them, thinking that I could also use sesame seeds. The strips were lined up on teflex sheets on dehydrator trays and dehydrated for hours at 105. Once dried, they must be stored in lock-tight glass containers with a desccicant inside because the whole nature of the cactus is to capture and hold water. I love these chewy morsels.

So now I feel like I know this cactus a little better. She is becoming my friend. I have planted some on the South side of the garden. The next time I go to the desert, I will go to meet friends.

Nutrients:
Vitamins: A, B1, B2, B3 and C
Fibers: lignen, cellulose, hemicelluloses, mucilages, pectins, gum
Minerals: calcium, magnesium, iron, sodium, potasium
Amino acids:
17 amino acids (including 8 of the essential which must be ingested as food), in the form of easily digestible protein

Benefits:
*Helps balance blood sugar.
*Known to reduce cholesterol.
*Provides nutrients to pancreas and liver, which support digestion and maintain blood sugar balance.
*detoxifies and aids in prevention of various illnesses.
*Gentle alternative to psyllium.

Wouldn't it be great to re-introduce this wonderful plant to the Native populations and to make it available to everyone? It grows easily on land where nothing else will grow. I'm so excited about this plant.

I found a website that makes an extract of nopales.

Thick Rich Raw Sauces

2010-08-18T15:49:00.001-07:00

When I first began to make raw food I couldn't imagine how to create that slow simmered thick goodness that one gets with cooked sauces like marinara sauce or with dips, like hummus. Even the recipe books, in the case of raw zucchini hummus, will say that it's not as thick as hummus made with cooked garbanzo beans. I thought of that cooked down juicy goodness in apple pie...surely that must be impossible with raw food. Nope, it's not. Rich goodness begins by adding dehydrated tomatoes to a marinara sauce, dehydrated zucchini chips and extra sesame seeds to hummus, dried apple chips to the sauce for apple pie and......I haven't gotten around to making a mushroom gravy, but I will.

I hadn't imagined the bonus of zucchini chips tasting sweet and delicious, or my own "sun dried" (in the dehydrator) tomatoes added to so many dishes. I'd eaten apple chips before, but when marinated in lemon juice and cinnamon then dehydrated at 105 degrees, they achieve a whole new level of flavour.

The sauce for this raw apple pie was made with apple chips, dates, goji berries (for the warm delicious colour as well as the nutrients) and some water, whipped to silky smoothness in a high speed blender. The crusts had been made before hand and refrigerated. The ingredients are simple: walnuts, dates, goji berries, a few raisins, and vanilla pulsed in a food processor. Press into a form with a removable bottom and freeze or refrigerate. The apples are quickly sliced in the food processor, so the pie goes together, with layers of sauce and layers of apples, making a delicious apple pie dessert.

Here, laying out apple slices to go into the dehydrator.

The last two blog entries cover zucchini hummus and marinara sauce.

The latest, warm from the dehydrator, item in the "dried and ready to eat or make a sauce with" are spicy crooked neck squashes which are plentiful in the garden right now. These chips are delicious! Here, laying out the slices, marinated in sauce, in the outdoor kitchen.

Marinated crook neck squash, ready to dehydrate.

In this batch, there won't be enough left to make a sauce with. These are the best chips I've ever tasted! The marinade was made with a little tamari, olive oil, garlic, some red pepper, a seeded heritage tomato, some onion, lemon, a touch of avocado honey, turmeric, cayenne, oregano....all whirled in the blender and taste as you go to balance. Hemp seeds were sprinkled on top, but they didn't stick very well.

It's exciting to be keeping up with the pounds and pounds of produce from the garden this year, making things I hadn't even tasted this time last year.

Raw Zucchini Hummus

2010-07-31T11:07:00.001-07:00

A brief foraging trip to the garden this morning brought me an armload of zucchini and two kinds of cucumber. I wanted to use both vegetables for lunch. Zucchini hummus with cucumber sticks came to mind. Back to the garden I went for some garlic, chives and coriander seed.
I hadn't made zucchini hummus for awhile so wanted to look at a recipe. I do have a couple of cookbooks, but for a quick meal like this it's faster to google the name of the dish, scan 3 recipes and either go with the most interesting or improvise from what I've read.
This was the most interesting of the three, and I improvised from this recipe.
raw zucchini hummus (adding garlic to the recipe, of course).

The first time I made this raw zucchini hummus, I looked in Raw Food Made Easy I'm giving you the Amazon link here for a reason. If you go to the Amazon page, you will see that there is a "click to look inside" button. If you click on that, you will find a "search inside this book" dialogue box. If you type in zucchini hummus you will find all references to those words, including the recipe (page 73..yield 1Cup is an indication that that this one is the recipe and the others use the recipe to make other dishes).
I have her book, but I always know where the recipe is when I look for it on my computer.

Most zucchini Hummus recipes are much thinner than regular hummus. What I learned from the recipe in the first link was to add sesame SEEDS as well as tahini to make the mixture thicker. When I thought about it later, I realized that maybe I could make the hummus without buying expensive tahini! I could make the whole thing in my high speed blender with raw sesame seeds, from scratch, and get exactly the texture I wanted! (It works!)

I served the hummus with cucumber sticks, tomatoes, olive tapenade and crackers . The dappled light is caused by the grape arbor above us.

Review: So, while this is about zucchini hummus, the subtext of this post is that there is so much information to be found on the internet, so many recipes, so many ways of doing things...remember to give yourself choice. There was a time when the way to get information was through teachers. Now, one can more easily teach oneself. Please consider this option when you are beginning. Consider spending your money on the equipment you need to more easily make raw food rather than building up a cook book supply or taking lessons. Once you find yourself referring back to a particular chef again and again.....that's the time to invest in their books or lessons. Most chefs have news letters or blogs as well that are a wonderful source of information.

Happy Days with raw food! I just put on some jeans I was wearing 17 years ago when I met James. They fit!

Raw Pasta with Marinara Sauce

2010-06-21T22:39:00.001-07:00

Once I began this raw food adventure, I thought I had said Goodbye to glorious pastas and sauces. Luckily, I was wrong.

Raw Pasta
I use this Vietnamese tool to make the "pasta" from zucchini. I bought it from Ronnie and Minh. If you think you'd like to go all out and get the Veggie Spiral Slicer instead of this little tool, you can get it much cheaper at Amazon than on this site. You can also make pasta from zucchinis by cutting lines down the length of the zucchini, then cutting down the length across these cuts to create long thin noodles. Practice your knife skills by making noodles.

I couldn't imagine how a raw marinera sauce could have the rich flavour of slow simmered tomatoes, but there is a secret that makes this sauce thick and rich.
It's the sun dried tomatoes.
Raw Marinera Sauce
Here's a basic recipe. Once you make it you can adjust the sweetness and the seasonings.
*First, soak 10 to 15 sun dried tomato halves.
*2-3 Cups of tomatoes (I love Heritage tomatoes for this, but Romas are fine too) If there are a lot of seeds I take some out.
*1-2 dates. If they are not fresh, soak them. (Start with adding one date. That might be enough for your tastes. It is for ours. Add a second or a third if the dates are small or if your sauce needs it.)
*garlic to your tastes. We add 3 cloves, but we love garlic. Remember, Raw is stronger in flavour than cooked.
*1/4 cup of good olive oil
*seasonings: Celtic sea salt, oregano, Italian parsley, cayenne (I put in a whole cayenne pepper, seeds removed, but one could start with a pinch of powdered cayenne and taste.

Blend this up in a high speed blender until it has a wonderfully smooth texture and taste. You might want to add a little fresh lemon juice if it needs it, or some water if the tomatoes weren't really juicy. Enjoy the tasting part and make the sauce perfect for your taste buds.

Cultured Nut Cheeze
I don't even miss Parmesan cheese when I add some pistachios (or pine nuts) and this time I added a light and breezy cultured Brazil Nut cheeze. I use coconut kefir to culture my cheezes. It was a perfect compliment to the sauce.

Marinated Shitake Mushrooms
These aren't essential, but give an added flavour. Wipe the mushrooms with a cloth, remove woody stems and slice. Add some wheat free Tamari (this isn't raw, omit if you are 100% raw) and lemon juice to marinate.

That's it! A perfect summer lunch. For a larger meal, add a salad and flax crackers or flatbread. I'll post a raw flat bread recipe soon.

Mango Coconut Happy drink

2010-06-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

We've been inventing a lot of delicious drinks lately..still drinking green smoothies a lot, but also becoming more adventurous and at home with pairing ingredients we might not have before.

This one was a great finish to a wonderful day in the garden:

Half of the meat and juice of a young coconut
1 Mexican or Phillipino mango (the small yellow ones with the interesting magatama shape)
a tablespoon or two of coconut milk (or about a third of a can if you like creamy drinks or don't have fresh coconut)
tray of ice
cup of water (or coconut kefir)
a couple of spoons of coconut sugar (to taste). This can be sprinkled on top of the drink for texture and interest.

Whizz up in the Vitamix until silky, pour into glasses, top with grated nutmeg, cinnamon and a little coconut sugar.

Refreshing and delicious drink for two. Serve with spoons because it's thick.

I'm not sure why the texture is so much more velvety when using this kind of mango.

James applies the nutmeg to the drinks.

Also delicious with the coconut milk and ice is fresh pineapple (raw pina colada) and combining mango with pineapple. The combination of papaya and pineapple is also good but in a more quiet, subtle way.

Happy Summer Celebration!

Raw learning: Owning rather than being owned by Raw Learning

2010-04-13T15:52:00.001-07:00

I've been struggling.

Not with inventing new raw food delicacies. Not with loosing weight or feeling great with this new approach to food.

It's about noticing my approach to learning anything new.

I jump in head first, then find myself in a school or study program and I'm mad as hell because I wanted to discover all these things myself and now the thrill if discovery is replaced with a time bound curriculum. This time I imagined myself at a raw chef school. Training to work in restaurants. This would involve thousands of dollars. Months away and thousands of miles away from home....and I'm pretty sure that I don't ever want to work in a restaurant. Then there are the home study courses. A lot of them. I think I found the best one. But still.......even though I was conflicted, I was even dreaming about the things I would learn, the food I would make. I woke up thinking about the shelf I would make to house all of those DVDs from the home study course.

Whoa! That was when I began to wake up and come back to my purpose. Oh, there was one other thing. Looking at the student kit for the Raw Chef school, I noticed that the chef's coats looked great on the 20 something men, but the women looked uniformly frumpy in their chef coats. Still in the grip, being OWNED by the idea, I researched chef coats, found some made for women's bodies and looked at them all. When I noticed that I was designing my own...the exact chef coat I would like that was not for sale anywhere, I finally stopped and wondered how the hell I had taken myself out on this limb. I had allowed myself, in my eagerness to take ownership of raw food preparation, to be owned by the idea of learning about it.

I'm no stranger to learning, or even to writing courses for degree granting programs. I know how I like to learn through exploration yet and I had immediately hopped on the learning train and off of my path.

It wasn't only with the food and learning. I did exactly the same thing with the technology behind this blog. I had begun the blog so that when I travelled, or even if I was in the kitchen, all of the recipes I had discovered and wanted to try again would be in one place. I hadn't really considered that others would read, and if they did, I was happy to share. Simple. So what did I do? Of course, I wanted to do the very best I could, so I enrolled in a course to learn about optimizing for Google, and so many other technical things I could do to optimize this blog it would take me eight hours a day for who knows how long to do everything I envisioned. it was a great course, but with so much of my creative mind going to learning a whole new way of relating to food, I just wasn't ready to take on the optimization of my blog.

That was the last time I wrote here. The day before I went on a learning binge and imagined myself into a completely different life with one part of my brain while another part firmly planted its feet and said fagetaboutit! I'm not going there.

So I've been stuck when it comes to using this little blog or writing anything at all. This didn't stop the discoveries in raw food. I think it may have intensified the walk along curiosity's path. At least I took photos. I have the evidence. I can re-imagine the dishes and write them down. I own them. As glorious as it is, this raw food inquiry doesn't own me.

I'm back on the path, one step at a time.

If you would like to home study or go to a fabulous raw chef school, here are the best I've found.

Russell James has a home study course that looks awesome. His dishes are as beautiful as they are balanced and delicious.

105 Degrees Academy has a seriously wonderful chef training program.

Crooked Brook is the maker of "The World's Highest Quality Chef Jackets". If you want mother of pearl buttons, embroidered flowers on the cuffs, organic pima cotton, that's be extra. Great fun to look at.

Ryan Nagy for reasonably priced teleseminars on internet presence, with tons of extra information to use whenever one is ready for it. Absolutely the best in the field.

OK...Now I'm ready to write about my food. The blog is simple and clunky without an index. I know what I should do to make it easier to use and look more beautiful but the food, beautiful raw food, is calling.

Ode To Tomatoes

2010-02-25T11:45:00.001-08:00

And Also To Tomatillos:

This morning I found this beautiful gift in the garden, somehow left from last summer's harvest.

By the time you read this, it has been planted.

Ode To Tomatoes by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue salt cellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign magesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profoound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer, the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery colour
and cool completeness.

With such a mild winter, the tomatoes have continued to grow, slowly and quietly. Somehow they have found nourishment on their withered vines.....the ones I forgot to pull out last fall.....and now they offer their sweet, ripe goodness.

Today, in this house, and completely out of season in most places, we celebrate the rich goodness of the tomato
...and the promise of the tomatillo.

Salad for lunch!

Oda al Tomate, in Spanish, here

Thanks, Richard Banks, for posting this poem on Facebook in response to my tomato bruschetta photo. I might not have noticed the tomatillo in the garden, so well hidden but badly placed for growing, if I had not been thinking of the sweet sensuality of Neruda's words on all things tomato.

Learning and Inspiration

2010-02-24T16:16:00.001-08:00

I am finding that as well as a learning curve in raw food preparation there are other, more profound, shifts.

My sense of time is altered, and it noticeably affects other parts of my life. Raw food preparation is different than the buy, prep, cook, eat, clean up time line for eating cooked food. With raw food, sometimes the preparation begins days ahead, with soaking and sprouting. Dehydrating can take a couple of days if one wants to keep the enzymes intact. When a lunch or dinner item calls for some aspects to be pre-made, one must have thought that out previously. One slips more into The Long Now way of thinking about time. The granola I make takes me about a week of soaking sprouting and dehydrating many separate items before it is complete. Not a lot of time every day, but the process does sit on the dash board of consciousness with a check list of items to be added. This calls for a broader view, like a slower heart beat, to the day and to the week, and to the season.

With cooked food the question is always what is the best way to cook this? what temperature? what else needs to be cooked with it?
With raw food, the question is always How can I bring more LIFE to this food? Will soaking or sprouting or chopping bring out the life in it? Can I keep the dehydrating temperature low enough to ensure that its enzymes are still intact? Can I melt the cacao butter slowly enough so that the temperature is not raised too high? These are gentle questions. There is time and encouragement to breathe, and to think, while preparing raw food.

I'm thinking about learning and inspiration. A great example has just shown itself. I began to make a bruschetta from a recipe, and somehow, between the trip to the panty and answering the phone, I find myself making the mixture not from the recipe, but from the list of ingredients that appears on the bottle of organic bruchetta we bought at the farmer's market.
Huh!
I think of the people at the Mt. Olive stand at the farmer's market in Ojai. Their farm is in Paso Robles.

I am inspired by what they are doing and by how they are combining their families (three families), their passion, their faith and their hard work to make the land into an abundant paradise. Everything is organic and everything at their stand is made in the farm kitchen from their organic produce.

If you stop by the stand, you are invited to taste everything from little wooden sticks that they dip into their sample jars then hand to you. How to choose? Everything is fresh, organic, raw and delicious.
They tell us about their farm and answer questions about their worm beds which is how they create great soil for their plants and trees.
The first treats we bought were dehydrated persimmon slices, persimmon leather and persimmon/walnut bars.
Theses were delicious. We had never tasted fuyu persimmon before. The next week we caught the end of the persimmon season and bought a basket full of persimmons. We were Inspired.

I lined the persimmons up near the window sill, more to look at them than anything.

Then I made our own leather, dried slices and a walnut persimmon bar that we liked better than the Mt. Olive Farm bar...without sugar the bar was sweet enough for us! The next week there were no more persimmons at the market.

For some reason, the only photo I took of the walnut bar was as it was going in to the dehydrator, ( I know....it doesn't look as good as it tasted at this point in its life). Laer it was cut it into bars. How exciting it is to discover a new fruit.

We planted a persimmon tree in the front yard. We learned that the best one would be a pollination constant, non astringent fuyu.

We tasted our first persimmon on a little sample stick on January 10 and by February 20th we were planting our own tree. We were inspired and we brought that inspiration into our lives. Learning happened.

A few years ago, my friend Yaanna told me about a book she was reading. She told me that when British soldiers were getting ricketsand scurvey at sea, Ligurian sailors were eating the food their wives had sent with them and the sailors were returning home healthy. Questions about food preservation in the days before refrigeration and canning burst into mind.

The British sailors just had limes from the tropics to keep them from scurvy and rickets. The Ligurians had a whole culture of good food. I spent two years getting up every day and wondering, in this season, what can I make that would last on a long journey? I imagined Liguria, the kitchens, their cookwear, the utensils.....I never read the book, but this inspiration, this wondering, led me into fermenting vegetables in all kinds of ways, making cheeses and non alcaholic fermented drinks, preserving food in oil, preserving by dehydrating, sauces in bottles (small necks topped with oil or wax, then corked).

I still haven't read the book. I don't even remember the name. The inspiration leading to all those imaginings created a learning environment that went far beyond where any recipe could take me. I had a whole Ligurian village in my head that I could stop in at any house to see what was cooking, to hear stories of the day and find out when the ships were coming home. This acted like a file folder for information I would glean in the rest of my day and store there. From this, food inventions would appear.

We are working our way through the Mt. Olive line and enjoying every treasured bottle we bring home.
Here is the bruschetta I've made from enjoying theirs. Before I was eating raw food, I thought of bruchettas as roughly chopped mix to put on bread. Now that we don't have bread to soak up the tomato juice, I'm happy to have this version, where I use half dehydrated tomatoes. Mine is made from colourful heritage tomatoes, four colours here, each with a different flavour. ( Organic Brandywine, Yellow pineapple, Green Zebra Heritage tomatoes and Organic Roma tomatoes ( to make the fourth colour). Mine is quite different, but the inspiration?

I'll take the inspiration given, (Thank You Mt. Olive friends), and I'll taste, imagine and learn.

Banana Ice Cream

2010-02-20T18:13:00.001-08:00

Sooner or later that question simmers, behind it, a little nagging voice arises and it is saying louder and louder: I WANT ICE CREAM!
Have you ever looked at the list of ingredients in commercial ice cream? Frightening!

Better yet, have you ever heard of One Ingredient Ice Cream?

That one delicious ingredient is Musa sapienta. It contains vitamin A, vitamin B6, Vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin G. It contains potassium, calcium, phosphorous and selenium. It reduces blood pressure. It has been used to treat cataracts, for stomach ulcers, and contains pectin which inhibits colon cancer.*

Where do you find Musa sapienta, especially if you don't speak Latin? (Bad joke, no one speaks Latin). It's common name is banana and it makes WONDERFUL ice cream. Cut bananas into chunks and freeze. Then they are ready to use either in smoothies, or alone as a base for ice cream. One can add half a vanilla pod or fruit or cacao powder. Chopped nuts, dates or raisins would be good. Chocolate sauce if feeling a little decadent or lime zest, chipoltle pepper (just a little), cinnamon, kiwi, star fruit......almost endless in possibilities with almost instant gratification, as long as you have those banana pieces frozen. When that voice begins to nag, take out some banana pieces, whirl in the vitamix and put in a bowl. Best if you assemble all add-ons first so it doesn't melt.

I freeze the pieces, not touching, on a teflex sheet sitting on a cookie tray that fits inside the freezer. I put a smaller teflex sheet or a paper towel on top, let the pieces freeze then transfer them to a sealed container which I keep in the freezer. (yes, I once froze a banana with its skin on and then felt really retarded when it proved difficult to remove the skin.) Mashing the banana and freezing it in ice cube trays also works. One never needs to throw out over-ripe bananas. Just freeze them at their finest moment and enjoy later.

*Information about the banana from Natural News .

Birthday Cake

2010-02-18T18:56:00.001-08:00

I made a birthday cake for my honey. It was OK, but not fabulous, so I'm not posting even a bit of a recipe. Following some of the recipes in RAW was probably the first time I've ever more or less followed a recipe. I usually get an idea, google for a recipe, look at four or five different ones then go create my own.

This time, I used a recipe from a cookbook that was created by someone I've looked up to for awhile. Now I see we obviously have different tastes, particularly when it comes to sugar. I made the bottom crust according to instructions, tasted it, then took only one quarter of the mixture and added a whole new batch of ground walnuts to it. It was still a little too sweet! Then a layer of strawberries....not much can go wrong there. The pink layer has raspberries and a little piece of beet to create more colour, and the top layer is chocolate. Both layers have cacao butter in them. Each layer called for half a cup of agave nectar but I put less than a quarter of a cup and still it was sweet. The chocolate sauce on top was just agave and cacao powder. That does not qualify as a sauce.

Sometimes we don't learn what we think we are going to learn, but still we learn big lessons.

I made the mistake of deciding to make this cake with a time pressure for a celebration so there was no chance to properly think it through and re-create the recipe in a way that would make sense to me. Nothing in the recipe said it was an ice cream cake, but there was nothing in the ingredients to make the cake set other than freezing it. It was supposed to be a mousse cake. Irish moss, a tiny bit of ground flax, agar agar.....any of these of these would have created some body in the mousse layers. Using this recipe as it is, without the freezer this would not have been a cake. It would have had no form at all and no separation of layers.

So, this post is not so much about cake, or eaven about food. It's about putting ones trust in oneself and not in other people, however much press or experience they've had. It's about understanding that their "product" might not be useful or helpful or even healthy for you. I was disappointed, then surprised and finally happy to find that I have my own strong aesthetic with raw food cooking. So I learned something good after all.

After a month and a half of drinking green smoothies and eating healthy food, I felt heavy and unhappy after eating a slice of this. It was fairly delicious, but I'm interested in finding ways to create celebration dishes that both work as delicious food and don't add unnecessarily to the calorie load.

I'm going to be thinking about this and eventually I'll come up with a nice, raw, light raspberry/chocolate mousse.

This was just one step along the path, and it involved finding confidence in my own ability to create what I need.

WuBe Bars raw banana energy bars

2010-02-16T00:13:00.001-08:00

If I gave instructions that followed my path to making these bars it would begin: Plant several kinds of bananas. Nourish them.

When the bunch has matured, cut it down. While waiting for the bananas to ripen off the plant, one can make a salad or banana flower curry from the flower that hangs below the banana bunch. You can make a hair rinse, Bali style, from the rising sap of the fresh cut banana plant.

I know, I know, you just want a quick and delicious raw snack! Well, here it is, and it IS quick and delicious.
For those of you with banana plants, I've tried this with Brazilian bananas (light and strawberry tasting) as well as the regular Cavandish variety.
For this bar, the Cavandish is better. More meaty and chewy when dehydrated. Yes, the recipe begins with dehydrated bananas, so you can buy a package (Cavandish is the commercial variety you will find in stores) or dehydrate a few bananas at 105 degrees if you have a dehydrator.

This photo is of a bunch of the little thumb sized Brazilian bananas we harvested recently. Our plants are buffeted by the western winds from the Pacific and the Eastern wind from the desert so the skin looks quite scruffy but this does not affect the interior. Commercial bananas are bagged on the "tree" as they grow so they look cosmetically nicer. (It's not really a tree. The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant). They take time to ripen and do so in seemingly random patterns. The word banana comes from the Arabic banan which means "finger".

The bananas are peeled, cut and arranged on teflex sheets to go into the dehydrator.

I didn't dehydrate these as hard and chewy as I could have.

For these sorts of jobs I put on my favourite music or podcast or downloaded TV show. The fastest way I've found to make the pieces small is to snip them with scissors. (It's also an opportunity for a meditation in action).

Now! I should have given these ingredients at the beginning:
Goji berries, soaked, patted dry, and chopped
raw macadamia nuts
vanilla
angel hair coconut (nice long, wide pieces give more texture)
hemp seeds
cacao butter (sometimes called white chocolate)
add some coconut butter too, if you like

Amounts? Think about creating a balance with the banana pieces. It's hard to go wrong. Add warm (not hot) water to the goji berries. While they are soaking chop the nuts and add them to the bananas. Add the coconut angel's hairs(can't you just see a coconut angel with long coconut strand hair?), hemp seeds and coconut butter if you are adding a little. (The reason for adding more cacao butter than coconut butter is that the cacao butter has a higher melting point and so will hold the mixture together better at room temperature). It also tastes delicious. By the time you've finished chopping and adding everything else except the cacao butter the goji berries will be ready. (You can also soak them for several hours). Pat the goji berries somewhat dry, chop and add them to the mix. Stir well. The goji berries will give the mix a golden glow. As I stir I wonder if they would make a good dye for thin silk. I am also reminded to plant some as the leaves of goji are good in green smoothies.

I'm curious to know your decisions about creating balance with these ingredients.

Looking at the size of your batch, choose a pot to gently melt the cacao butter which will also hold all of the ingredients as you stir the cacao butter into everything, coating each piece. The cacao butter will both flavour the mixture and hold it together. Also choose a container to put the mixture in. It should fit in a spot in your freezer or refrigerator. Spread a thin layer of coconut butter on the inside of the pan or glass container so it will be ready when you have stirred in the cacao butter.
GENTLY heat. This will go slowly but you don't want it so hot it sizzles your raw ingredients. Cutting the cacao butter into pieces before you melt it will make this part a little faster and easier.

Once the mixture has been completely coated in cacao butter, turn the mixture into the oiled container. Use a spice bottle as a tamper to compact everything into a block. When you have a well compacted, flat surfaced block, cover with a clean kitchen towel or a loose lid and put it in the freezer or refrigerator. When it has set a little (it doesn't need to be frozen hard) bring it back out and cut into squares or bar shapes.

Enjoy! Your bar will be better tasting and cheaper than the energy bars you buy. No cook, raw living food goodness.

When artist Alex Gorlizki saw a photo of these he said "I'm sure these are downloadable if I just press the right keys while licking the mouse.."

I hope you check out Alex's work while munching your WuBe bars.

Bananas contain considerable amounts of vitamin B6, vitamin C and potassium. This is why they are particularly good in energy bars. Replenish your electrolytes!

Saffron Coconut Kefir.....A Valentine delight.

2010-02-15T15:18:00.001-08:00

In the past, Valentine's Day would have been a time to bring out the champagne. Now, with our raw food life, we bring out the coconut kefir but still, the Spirit of Valentine's inspired something a little more lively.
Saffron Kefir.

This was especially fun because the little crocus flowers are poking up all over the garden. I always wonder about the crocus that grows the delicate strands of saffron. Humans have loved this herb for more than 4,000 years. There are frescoes in the palace of Knossos of Minoan Crete of the saffron harvest.

I "wake up" the saffron threads in a little Japanese pot used for toasting all kinds of seeds and nuts. I like that one puts what one wants to toast in the centre hole, then pours it out through the hole in the handle. I don't want to toast the saffron, just warm and wake it.

I peer into the hole and enjoy the scent of the saffron.

Waking the saffron does not change how it looks.

Put the saffron in the bottom of the champagne flutes (we might as well use them, as usual, for celebrations).

Et Voilà!
Happy St. Valentine's Day.

Art Chips (Eating little Paintings)

2010-02-04T23:09:00.001-08:00

A theme begins to emerge. I learn something and go through several iterations and the food evolves. Yesterday I realized I was eating little paintings. I've been making flax chips for awhile, always adding different spices or vegetables on top. I spread the mixture out on a teflex sheet, add toppings (or not) and put trays in the dehydrator. When the flax sheet is dry on top I turn it over, letting the dry side sit directly on the rack. When this side is somewhat drier, I cut the sheet into cracker or chip sized pieces. The patterned side is still upside down. When the chips are completely crisp, they are left to cool to room temperature then put in an airtight tin. I was busy and hadn't really looked at the chips until it was time to eat them.
What interesting compositions some of them had!

These little abstract paintings with their vegetable brush strokes........alright, by now you've probably realized that I'm an artist who cooks, not a trained cook or chef.

There was a time when I heartily wished that I could just take a pill and have the day's nourishment taken care of. I would have LOVED green smoothies. I just wanted to make art, not cook or even take time to eat. Art was my nourishment then.

Sometimes the events of a single afternoon can change one's path forever. Our landlords were a sweet old Ukrainian couple. They had terraced gardens in their yard but one day they invited us to their large food garden which was a couple of miles from the house.

We were amazed to find so many different vegetables growing in one space. In the center of the garden was a gorgeous cherry tree, giving ample shade for a picnic.

Sensing that we were clueless about gardening, we were given a jar of cherries that had been marinating in vodka since the summer before, a blanket, and a place in the shade of the tree.

We were soon cheerfully drunk on the perfect summer's afternoon, in the shade with the most amazing cherries I had ever tasted. I began to see the garden and food in a completely different way.

One act of kindness, or teaching by example, can change everything.

Now where was I? Oh yes, eating little paintings.

Essene Bread (non gluten grains)

2010-02-02T17:37:00.001-08:00

I make Essene bread in the dehydrator using non gluten grains. Soak Buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, millet (all or some) in water over night. Drain, rinse and cover. Rinse two or three times a day until the grains are sprouted. (Depending on the room temperature, this can take two or three days).

Grind in a food processor or Vitamix.

For this bread, I added some soaked barhi dates and a little salt, nothing else. Leave out some of the sprouts to add in later for texture, if you like a more rustica looking and feeling Essene bread.
Turn out the dough on a teflex sheet and form into shape.
I also wanted it to have a sourdough flavour so I dehydrated it first at 105 degrees F for the afternoon, then at 100 degrees F overnight, turning it back up to 105 in the morning. Imagine hot desert winds several thousand years ago.

You can see part of a date near the center of the bread. Dates are rough cut throughout. The sourdough taste is subtle. The whole grains in the bread give it a crunch but the center, like all Essene breads, is soft. Delicious with raw butter.

It was interesting to see that after all of the green smoothies and other raw food we were not so enamored with bread as we used to be, even if it was low temperature dehydrated, living Essene bread.
Some was put in the bread box and promptly forgotten about. The crackers, made a little thicker, are a great base for an open faced sandwich or bruschetta.

Pine Nut Mayonnaise

2010-01-31T18:47:00.001-08:00

These gorgeous pine nuts were hand picked in Nevada. I bought them at the ojai market and hand shelled them (check out the link to this post if you have never seen pine nuts in the shell). The crazy thing is that even if pine nuts are picked in this country, they are shipped to China to be shelled because there is no equipment to shell pine nuts in this country. It's another small example of how the country's jobs have been given away. So the nuts are picked here, where the scent of the pine forest is everywhere, stuffed into the hold of a smelly diesel ship, and who knows if they are hit with fungicide or pesticide there? Or if they are steamed? Then imagine the journey they go on in China, only to be loaded back on a ship....it's complete madness!

It's a meditation to crack the nuts in my molcajete, feeling their soft silky inner nut emerge from the shell. The nuts look and feel completely different. They are still alive. Soaking them brings them into a vivid aliveness!

So, soak 1/2 cup raw pine nuts overnight, then drain.
Add 1/4 cup water
2 tbsp. organic extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

This recipe is from RAW. I actually made my mayo by first adoring the plump soaked pine nuts then putting them in the vitamix. I tipped in a bit of water, a couple of glugs of olive oil then went out to the east side of my garden to harvest the first lemon from my most recent tree, a gorgeous little lemon tree. (So this mayo is a celebration of the first of the harvest).

Season with salt or any herb or spice that takes your fancy. The mayo thickens as it sits, so you may want to add a little more water next time you use it.

This is so good I never want to eat regular mayo or even Vegenaise again! So worth the time it took to crack the nuts in the first place.

So where is the photo of the mayo? Come on...it looks just like mayo!
It is not. at. all. the. same.

Spinach Hearts with Sesame Sauce

2010-01-31T18:03:00.001-08:00

I love it when I find a treasure that someone has thrown away, not seeing its beauty. That's how I feel about spinach hearts. Some people call them crowns or feet, but most people call it the part that gets thrown away. It's the stem clusters at the bottom of the spinach plant.

In Japan, this dish is called Horenso No Neno Goma-Ae.

There is a wonderful book, now out of print, written by Soei Yoneda (High Priestess of the Sanko-in Temple). This recipe and many other beautiful, simple recipes are in this book. If you browse used book stores, watch out for this treasure of a book.

I think of preparing the spinach hearts as a meditation. One needs to make sure all of the grit is removed and that while removing the leaves for another purpose, one preserves the beauty and integrity of the heart. Once prepped, I always let the hearts sit in a bowl covered with a damp cloth over night (or for a few nights....you can keep them in the refrigerator in a container if you want to. I keep mine on the counter. The hearts open joyfully.

It was always curious to me to find that the Japanese serve spinach cold. The leaves are usually blanched quickly, plunged into ice water, squeezed into a block, then the block of spinach is cut into slices.

The hearts, too, in Soei Yoneda's recipe, were blanched for a couple of minutes, then took the ice water plunge. They certainly retain more of their crisp beauty that way, and for a summer dish, I'd do that too. Right now, I'm more interested in a hot dish because almost everything else I eat is cold, so I'll sacrifice looks for warm food. Wilty, but warm and still delicious.

Sesame Sauce:
4 tbsp raw tahini
2 tbsp tamari
2 tbsp mirin (Japanese rice vinegar)
2 tbsp sake (or not...it's up to you)

I make a much larger batch than this because it's also delicious with cooked grains and as a basis for salad dressing. Whisk until smooth. Add a little water if it's too thick. (Some tahini is thicker than others).

You'll need more spinach hearts than you think because they cook down, even when you only blanch them briefly. I usually plan a "spinach week" where I'm using spinach two or three times for other things. (Not hard when you are drinking a lot of green smoothies ). I collect all of the hearts for this dish, and it's a treat.

Designing a RAW kitchen

2010-01-31T16:37:00.001-08:00

I'm seeing the kitchen differently since we've been eating mostly raw, living food. Today I noticed that I've begun to put vegetables in water, like flowers, until they are used. We eat so many vegetables it's not long before they are used, but treating the vegetables like precious roses makes a significant difference to both how they look and their flavour. Being refrigerated seems to make them go to sleep. Cutting their stems so they can accept the water they are standing in brings the life back to them.

Washing salad greens, spinning them in the salad spinner, then letting them sit there with the water from spinning beneath the basket of the spinner with the lid on for a little while, gives the lettuce a fresh picked perkiness.

I've recently found a recipe for "spinach crowns" (although I call them spinach hearts) which uses the bottom part of the spinach normally thrown away. They don't look like much when first separated from the leaves, but once cleaned , I wash them and put them in a bowl with a tiny bit of water at the bottom. A damp cloth goes over top. They spring to life in a few hours and look beautiful on the plate. Not convinced? I'll post the recipe soon.

This is the damp environment to wake up the spinach hearts. They open beautifully under cover.

See?

There is a different pace to a raw kitchen. Because so much attention is paid to waking the living spirit of food, a lot of grains and nuts and seeds are soaked. Some are then also sprouted before using. Grains might be soaked, sprouted, ground, dehydrated and finally used as flour. Why soak?

Seeds, nuts and grains want to protect themselves from sprouting at inappropriate times or rotting so they have enzyme inhibitors called phytates in them. Soaking removes the phytates and wakes up the plant in the grain, nut or seed. This also makes its nutrients more bio-available to us. One needs to think in the Long Now to begin the process of soaking or sprouting ahead of time.

One also needs a soaking and sprouting station in the kitchen. When I first began I had bowls of soaking grains, seeds and nuts in random places on the kitchen counter. It was chaos. A simple tiered shelf meant to go in a cupboard gave me the soaking station I needed. Of course, one could also use a cupboard but I know if I did that I'd forget about whatever was in the containers. These containers have lids but they are not airtight. Air is essential for waking up. I also use this station for culturing nut cheeses once they have soaked.

I was lucky to find a large Ball jar with a sprouting lid (allows water in and out but does not allow contents to escape).

While I am sprouting grains or seeds in it, I keep it in a draining rack, but covered from daylight with a cloth. (You are probably wondering what those doily things are. I'll get to that in a minute.)

After an initial over night soaking, the spouts need to be rinsed two or three times a day, depending on the temperature. Maybe it's just that I am amused by small things, but I enjoy that I can fill the jar with water without taking the lid off and that it's so easy to lean the jar in the drying rack and watch the water come out the spout. A drying rack with a spout? Like I said...small things.....

Oh, and the things that look like doilies? Well, practically, they tell me that something in side is processing, becoming more alive, and may need my attention. On a higher level, it connects with the work of Masaru Emoto. Maybe I'll explain that more in another post.

So, as fire and ice are central to a regular kitchen (stove and refrigerator), water and wind (high speed blender and dehydrator) are essential to a raw kitchen. Time is entirely different in a raw kitchen. Dishes are made on nature's time. "Cooking" is done by sprouting or slowly drying. It almost feels like I use a different part of my brain to prepare food this way.

I'd like to design a raw kitchen from scratch. Even to SEE one! I'd like that for a start.

Walnut Persimmon Bars

2010-01-28T14:47:00.001-08:00

Perssimons were known to the Greeks as "the fruit of the Gods". It is mentioned in "The Odyssey" as being so delicious that those who ate it forgot about returning home and wanted to stay with the "Lotus Eaters". In Japan, it's name is kaki.

I lived in Japan for two years and ate Japanese food almost exclusively, yet never had the courage to try the beautiful kaki, which was allowed to ripen to a jelly-like state before eating. Maybe this was why I eventually came back home.
This fruit, from the Ojai farmer's market, the last fruit on the trees for this season, is a fuyu persimmon. It is less astringent and the flesh can be eaten when still firm. I think they are beautiful.

I grew up in the North, where the growing season is so short that September found almost every house with green tomatoes lining the window sills, brought inside to save them from the frost. It pleased me to line up these persimmons near the window to let them ripen a little more, but not to the squishy soft stage.

Making the bars couldn't be easier. Cut open the persimmons and remove any seeds. Remove the gorgeous leaf part at the top, and any blemishes on the fruit. Wash and put the persimmon pieces in the Vitamix. I didn't add any sugar because it seemed sweet enough to me. If you regularly eat sugar, sweeten to taste. Chop up walnuts and mix the puree and walnuts together.

These bars are not baked. They are dehydrated. I use an Excalibur dehydrator. Arrange the mixture on a teflex sheet. I made the outside edges higher because I thought the mixture would slump, but it didn't. Dehydrate at 105 degrees F until firm. If you want some extra sweetness, dust organic powdered cane sugar on the bars after you've cut them.....but taste them first. They may just be perfect as they are!

Cultured Cashew Cheese Variations

2010-01-26T14:58:00.001-08:00

When I first made cultured cashew cheese, I fell back on my cultured goat cheese ways and put the cashew cheese in a press. Since then, I've been making variations that are different in both flavour and shape.

This is a lemon zest and cracked peppercorn cheese. The lemon zest and peppercorns were folded into the cheese and then it was formed into a ball, just by using thin spatulas. Because I was celebrating the return of the sun after a week of rain, I gave it a sun ray crown and brought out the citrus locally called "The Hand Of Buddha".

It was delicious with olive tapenade, hummus, salsa and tomatoes. I still have some of the basil oil that I made the other day. It is holding its colour nicely, and still fun to drizzle on the plate.

The second variation is a red pepper and chipotle pepper with smoked paprika and herbs.

This shape is traditionally a goat cheese shape, but since I have the form I'm using it. I partially dehydrated the red pepper that I put on the top of the cheese (in the bottom of the mould).

The next time I make this I'm going to partially dehydrate the red pepper that I add to the cheese as well, because the moisture in the red pepper makes the cheese softer than I would have liked. It still tastes and spreads well, but it was too soft to pick up the veins of the banana leaf in the mould. That would have been a nice touch.....next time.....

The piccante cheese was good pared with salad and the, by now, ubiquitous flax chips. Just before lunch, the sun slid under a cloud and as we were finishing, the rain began. Blessed rain! We need it.

So, there you have it: two kinds of pepper cheese, variations on a theme.

Strawberry Raw Granola Bars

2010-01-25T11:29:00.001-08:00

I've been making sprouted buckwheat granola, and since I'm half way through making another batch, decided use what I already have to make granola bars. This is the granola....

There were extra dehydrated strawberry slices, so I chopped them fine and also cut up several white turkish figs, both to bind the granola together and for added fruit flavour. The cacao butter was still on my mind from making the bars yesterday , so I heated some up and this time added the granola mixture to the melted cacao butter, then put the mixture in a pan.

This went into the freezer until the bars were cold enough to cut into squares.

Pretty can also pack a lot of nutrition.

My Own Yoga Bar

2010-01-24T16:02:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was reading Natural News and Mike Adams was reviewing a new raw food bar. He was excited that there were only five ingredients in the bar, all raw and all organic: Dates, pistachios, cacao butter and honey. I happened to have all of those ingredients in the house so I decided to make my own yoga bar based upon what I thought it might taste like. James and I shelled raw pistachios by the fireplace, then I soaked the cashews and the pistachios over night.

In the morning I dehydrated them a little then chopped the nuts and the dates together. (Easy with a mezzaluna). Heat the cacao butter gently (also added a little coconut butter on a whim). I had decided that the mixture was sweet enough with all of the dates so skipped the honey. When the cacao butter was melted, I quickly poured it into the mixture in a thin stream while mixing. Everything was transfered to a cookie sheet and put into the freezer for a few minutes.

Once the mixture was partially hard, I cut (nudged, really) it into bars and put the tray back into the freezer. Mostly because I wanted to go to the beach.

I didn't chop everything super fine because I wanted the crunch. I enjoyed giving each portion its own wrapper.

My very own Yoga Bar. Now, for fun, I need to find one of those bars Mike was talking about and do my own comparison.

Seriously, fruit and nut bars are so easy to make and delicious to eat..why buy them?

Cacao Goji Bites

2010-01-22T21:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes just a bite of a treat is enough.
That's when I bring out the balls. I suppose I should call them truffles, but around here, they're just happy balls.

Here's what they are made of. There are no exact measurements. I put in varying amounts of each ingredient, depending on how much chocolate or other ingredient I'd like at that moment. The yacon is really all of the sweetening that's necessary, but some coconut palm sugar granules could be added for more sweetness. Taste as you go.

At the top (twelve o'clock) are cacao beans. They can be broken down in the vitamix to cacao nibs (at 6 o'clock), and then into powder. Leave some nibs if you like their chewiness. At 1 and 2 o'clock are yacon slices. At 3 o'clock is cacao butter. I also use some coconut butter (not shown), but this makes them softer, not so good for summer. At 4 and 5 o'clock (it's so anachronistic to be writing o'clock and using a clock face model) are poppy seeds and hemp seeds which can go into the truffle but I roll the balls in these. At 7, the goji berries. At 9, pumpkin seeds. At 10 or 11, angel hair coconut.

Soak the pumpkin seeds, goji berries, yacon slices and coconut. Strain and put into the dehydrator just long enough so that the excess water is off them. Put them all in the dry carafe of the vitamixer and blend them all to a nice consistency (or chop by hand with a mezzaluna), some of the coconut can be reserved to add in later for texture. Melt the cacao butter and coconut butter slowly, keeping the temperature low. When melted, stir in the mixture. roll into balls and then roll in hemp seeds or poppy seeds. Refrigerate.

I began to make these when I decided that I could have chocolate whenever I wanted, as long as I began with the whole cacao bean. Spending the time making these, and other chocolate treats certainly cuts down on my chocolate consumption.

Flax Chip Variation (from Dragon Snaps)

2010-01-21T16:21:00.001-08:00

I've been trying variations of the Dragon Snaps recipe because we like these crispy critters. This last batch I added more onion and garlic, less tamari and maple syrup. I left out the garam masala and paprika. In some, oregano was added. I wanted, with these chips, to have both crispy and chewy parts, so small pieces of red pepper (previously partly dehydrated) and very thinly sliced pieces of onion were sprinkled on top of the large sheet of flax puree just before it went into the dehydrator.
These chips are wonderful with hummus, guacamole, salsa or anything else you would eat with regular chips....just a whole lot healthier!

This is how the mixture looks before it goes into the dehydrator. Any herbs can be sprinkled on top, as well as tiny zucchini bits or, as in the photo, onion and red pepper.

Crispy Kale Chips, Italian Style

2010-01-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I posted a recipe for cheesy kale green chips which is a bit of a misnomer because the cheesy taste comes from nutritional yeast. Anyway, with this batch I tried two different things. I used the "Italian" recipe which can be found at the bottom of the cheesy kale post. Purple curly kale was used. I remade the recipe somewhat and, for ease of massaging the sauce into the kale and to save room in the dehydrator, I ripped the kale into bite sized pieces instead of dipping whole leaves.
The new small size was a hit for casual eating, but I over-did the dehydrated tomato slices so the tomato flavour dominated too much. Next time I'll add more jalapeno pepper, less tomato, more nutritional yeast and some oregano.

P.S Below is the original recipe, with green curly kale, torn into bite sized bits. All time favourite, so far.

Massaging the sauce into the kale.

Massaged kale on the dehydrator rack.

Fuyu Persimmons

2010-01-21T15:06:00.001-08:00

I have always been uncertain of when to eat persimmons. The fuyus are ready to eat when a little soft....no need to wait until they are jelly-like. My only complaint is that I waited so long to try them, as the season is nearly over and they are delicious. I'm hoping there will be more at the farmer's market this weekend, because I want to make a persimmon puree with walnuts, which will be dehydrated and cut into squares. For now, pictured are two whole persimmons, dehydrated peeled fuyus on the left, unpeeled fuyus on the right and a persimmon fruit leather in the centre. Dehydrate at 105 Degrees F. so that the enzymes are not destroyed.

Herbal Vinegar (Boost Mineral Intake)

2010-01-18T16:23:00.001-08:00

Herbs like nettle, chicory, burdock, dandelion, kale, mustard greens, and lamb's quarters are nutritive and tonic. Adding a splash of vinegar to your food helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables and greens you are eating.

Find a glass jar that you like. If it has a metal lid, the best thing you can do is cover it with melted beeswax, as metal reacts to the metal and will, in time, actually eat though the metal lid. Even several layers of waxed paper, fixed in place with elastic bands will suffice to cover while the herbs macerate.

Stuff the jar full of the herb (I've used lamb's quarters today). Best to chop it up, although I forgot to do that this time. I just used the fresh tips. in this early spring here, most of the plant is fresh. Pour room temperature apple cider vinegar (I use living cider, with the mother). Label with name of herb and date. Put it in a dark cupboard for six to eight weeks, then strain and bottle your vinegar. Some use the "pickled" herbs, others discard them.
Pour a little over cooked greens, stir fry and use as an ingredient in salad dressing. A teaspoon or so in a glass of water, hot or cold, is delicious, always refreshing and makes your body more alkaline.

Other vinegars can be made with aromatic herbs, single or in combination.

Raw green weed and fermented coconut pudding

2010-01-17T20:49:00.001-08:00

Here is another green pudding. This time the star ingredient is lamb's quarters. This pudding is fast and easy to make in the vitamix. Lamb's quarters, with one peach, one mango and either a handful of strawberries or lemon juice to balance the sweetness. With a dollup of cultured coconut on top.

Lamb's quarters (pig weed, goose foot, wild spinach) Chenopodium album is usually thought of as a weed. It is one of the most nutritious wild foods you can eat, and it's probably growing in your garden.

Pine Nuts In The Shell

2010-01-17T16:03:00.001-08:00

When I bought the pine nuts at (Ojai Farmer's market), I had no notion that I was also taking home with me the essence, the sweet scent, of a pine forest.

Crushing the shells and removing the nuts was a meditation for me. The scent of the pines was released, subtly, as the shells were cracked. The nuts inside were surprisingly soft and delicious, with a flavour different than dehydrated pine nuts usually available. When opening the nut, tiny shoots were sometimes present.........living food. The first thing I made with these fresh pine nuts was a pine nut/date pudding.

Young Coconut Kefir

2010-01-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

Coconut kefir is delicious, sparkly and full of healthy, healing probiotics. I know of only one company that makes and sells coconut kefir, and it's price is comparable to a fine wine. Best to make your own. You need fresh young coconut juice. See opening a young coconut if you have never done this. The best place to find fresh young coconuts is in an Asian grocery. Once you get the hang of making kefir, you might like to buy a case (usually 9) and get a discount (if your grocery gives case discounts). Look on the bottom of the coconut. If it has any dark spots, don't buy it.
Most people make coconut kefir from a commercial starter, the same as with cultured young coconut pudding It's more adventurous, and more life sustaining (I think) to use kefir grains, both the milk and water grains. Dominic Anfiteatro's wonderful kefir site has all the information you will need to step into the world of live cultures.

Serve alone as a refreshing drink or with a simple desert like this raspberry tower. The wonderful thing about this sparkly, champagne-like drink is that it's healthy for the whole family. Great for celebrations.

Three Pudding Raw Parfait (Healthy Fun Food)

2010-01-17T15:06:00.001-08:00

If you have just finished whipping up the coconut pudding from the last post, here is something to do while it ferments, so you will be ready to make 3 Pudding Raw Parfait.
The white layer is the cultured coconut pudding .

The brown layer is a date/pine nut pudding. Simple to make: either use very fresh dates, or soak dry ones. Combine equal parts dates, pine nuts, water in the high speed blender. Voila! Creamy and delicious. I used fresh pine nuts. You can also soak dried pine nuts. Grate nutmeg on top or add into pudding.

The Green Pudding uses green smoothie ingredients, so consider making yourself a green smoothie for lunch on the day the coconut pudding is ready, using the rest to make this pudding in the evening.

Green Smoothie:
In a high speed blender combine:
lettuce, avocado, pears, pea sprouts (can be any kind of sprouts or microgreens), one cup water (more or less).
Make it on the thick side with the pudding in mind, like a thick milkshake.

After you have a delicious glass full, refrigerate the leftover smoothie (which makes it a little thicker). Stir in long strand raw coconut and a tiny bit of coconut palm sugar. Finito! Green pudding.

For more information on green smoothies and many combinations ( I add new combinations as we make them), read Green Smoothies also see weed pudding (lamb's quarters) for another green pudding that would work just as well as the green smoothie above.Adding the coconut makes the desired texture and mouth feel.

Now find some nice glasses, cut fresh strawberries, banana and walnuts. Enjoy layering alone, or get everyone to help. It's a festive meal by itself.

Cultured Young Coconut Pudding

2010-01-17T14:03:00.000-08:00

Cultured coconut pudding is delicious on its own or with any kind of fruit.

Once you have opened the young coconut, make sure that the "meat" is white, not pink or purple, which indicates that it has spoiled. Spoon out the white meat. Add it to the high power blender. If you want vanilla, snip off the hard ends of the vanilla bean cut in half and add. Blend to a smooth paste. If you have coconut kefir already made, add some before blending. This will be the culturing agent. If you are beginning, you can order a culture starter. (Just google coconut kefir starter...there are many options now, Body Ecology being the first). This starter can be reused for a few generations if you keep it going, as you would with yogurt, by adding some of the previous batch to the new batch.

You can also make coconut pudding and kefir from kefir "grains". If you use milk grains (putting some grains in with the coconut before you blend it) use extra grains, because you won't be getting those back. You can also start your kefir or pudding by adding water kefir grains or the kefir made from them. I like to do this, as it's cheaper and sustainable.
To learn more about fermenting coconut or water grains or milk grains, check out Dominic Anfiteatro's wonderful and comprehensive site. This page is specifically about water kefir, but there are hundreds of other pages with fermenting information as well.
click here for more information. You can buy "grains" from Dom and also join his Yahoo group where thousands of people from all over the world compare, ask questions and trade grains. Dominic also has a book on kefiring. He's truly a treasure.

Well, you made it back from Dom's site! Here is what the coconut pudding looks like once it has cultured...full of air bubbles.

This is an image of what NOT to do. The first time I made coconut pudding, I had this romantic notion that I could make them in these sweet little jars, just like yogurt cups. In the middle of the night I heard strange sounds. Plurp, blrap, pluuurp, and then a loud band as one great air bubble erupted and sent pudding all over the ceiling. This stuff is alive! It needs air to breathe and space to grow. Use large jars, leave lots of head room and don't attach the lid tightly.

Fermenting kefirs and puddings like a temperature of around 70 degrees Farenheit to grow and develop. If your house is cooler than that, you can wrap the jar in a wool blanket and put it in an insulated picnic cooler. If it's warmer, put the jar in the cooler with some ice packs. Don't worry too much....it's not rocket science. If it cultures too quickly, in the heat, the flavour will not be as delicious. If it's way too cold it will be difficult for the culture to begin its work.
Once the coconut has cultured keep it in the refrigerator....assuming you will have enough left. This is delicious food.

**I just found an email that I sent writing about what happened with the exploding kefir. I had forgotten some of the funny details:
"I have to tell you what happened last night with the young coconut meat.
I thought I would try an experiment, inspired by you saying that you couldn't see the grains but still something was making kefir.

Water grains look different than milk grains.
They are smaller and sometimes called crystals because they are translucent.
Lately I've been making fruit kefirs with only the residue in the bottom of the last batch, no visible grains in the residue (as an experiment).
Last night, after putting the coconut meat in the blender with some coconut juice and vanilla bean seeds, I put some of the thick residue with kefir into the creamy coconut as a starter.
This was a big deal, because I had been using the body ecology starter that comes in packets for the coconut kefir pudding. (expensive)

I filled the jars a little over half full, leaving what I thought was a generous amount of space for expansion) and as an afterthought, set them on plates.
At a little after one in the morning I was wakened by a "pfffttttttt", "ppppfffftttttt", "pfttttt" sound, getting louder and louder.
I thought maybe raccoons had gotten in the cat door or something.

I went downstairs and found the coconut pudding oozing out of the jars and taking over the kitchen. I was using snap top jars and so decided to ease off some of the pressure. Half awake, I chose the biggest jar first. In an instant, soft, fluffy coconut pudding was all over me AND the kitchen.
OK.....I was now AWAKE!!
It took about an hour to clean up most of it, but the experiment was a success. Water kefir grains and even the residue works!

Meanwhile, the kefir grains which had been in the refrigerator for a week and a half were still dozing in the coconut juice and nothing much was happening. (This morning they are awake and the juice is beginning to fizz.) They must really hate being refrigerated.

I feel like my kitchen is getting more energized and in tune with the kefir, as each time I make something I put less starter in and get a bigger result.
Either that or it was the Beltane eve (half way between vernal equinox and summer solstice) moon acting on it.

For whatever reason, it was deliciously alive,"

Silani

I'll write about water kefir one of these days, but I'm sure you'll find it on Dom's site.

Thai Miang Khum (little bites)

2010-01-15T11:20:00.001-08:00

I was wondering what to make for dinner. Something light. Finger food. I stopped for tea at Peet's and glanced at the paper. There it was, the perfect idea for dinner. I decided to make up the recipe from the newspaper image.

Wash the spinach leaves.

Prepare coconut noodles.

I was happy to find some Thai peppers in the garden.

Wildcrafted jungle peanuts

Slice lime as thinly as possible then mince.

Prep work can be done ahead of time.

The finer you can cut the strands, the better.

Filling:

*young coconut strands

*lightly toasted wild jungle peanuts and sesame seeds

*sprouts: pea, broccoli, sunflower (or micro greens)

*chopped: Thai peppers( seeds removed), green onion, red onion, ginger, lime (skin on), mint leaves, cilantro leaves

Sauce:
ume vinegar,
tamari,
tamarind sauce,
toasted dehydrated coconut,
mince together: lime, ginger, cilantro, mint,
add a little coconut palm sugar and water to blend, as finely as possible.

James thought it needed a little more sweetness. I'm always trying to skimp on sugar.

Next time I'll look up a recipe but it was fun to bring a black and white image found in a newspaper to life.

Opening a Young Coconut

2010-01-11T20:21:00.001-08:00

Young coconuts already have the green outer covering cut off when they arrive here.

I'm including photos of opening a young coconut, the way I do it, because I haven't seen anyone else do it this way. When I'm cooking I don't like to smash garlic or whack or saw open the coconut. I do it gently and quietly, even fairly tough, mature young coconut like these were. I'm not saying it's the best way, it's just the way I do it.

Trim off the tops of the coconut in a circular pattern until you come to the hard brown shell. Make the circle large enough to dig the coconut meat out.

Pointing an old knife into the coconut, tap it with a hammer or rock. (I like my rock). When the knife slides into the coconut, turn your wrist and gently pry it open.

Some coconuts will begin to open along a circular path (I love this part) with just one tap hole, but coconuts with thicker meat will need more tap holes made until it opens. Remember to use an old knife. Sometimes they break, although I've only had one do that, a long time ago.

This is a healthy coconut. The juice is clear and the meat is white. If it is pink or purple, don't use it. Throw it away. Occasionally, on a very young coconut, the meat will be almost transparent, like jelly, and the brown skin of the shell will show through. This is fine and the very young meat is delicious.

Pour out the juice. I've cut the bottom out of a gallon vinegar bottle, and cut on an angle, which I invert into a big gravy pitcher so that I don't loose a drop of the juice when pouring.

In this case, I want threads of coconut, like pasta, so I take a knife and cut through the meat all around the coconut to the bottom.

Then spoon out the rough cut pieces.

Some of the brown husk sticks to the coconut slices.

These are the tools I used for opening . Someone gave me the rock painted like an airstream trailer and it's the perfect tapping tool. I broke the end off the larger knife doing something else completely inappropriate, but now the square end is perfect for jobs like this.

Use whatever implement you have to clean up the strands of coconut.

Then make the strands thinner and more elegant.
That's it. In future posts, cultured coconut pudding, coconut kefir and my version of Thai Miang Khum (little bites) will be discussed.

Raspberry Tower

2010-01-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

If you remember to soak the cashews the night before, this tower is quick and easy to make. Kids can help.
Cashew Cream:
blend soaked cashews with coconut strands, vanilla and a little coconut palm sugar. Add some water to make the mixture creamier.
Thinly slice a banana. Arrange slices on plate in a circle to form a base. cover with a thin layer of cashew cream. Add a smaller layer of banana slices, and another layer of cashew cream. Keep doing this, making smaller and smaller layers until you reach the single top banana of your tower. Place a raspberry on the top of the tower, then, with the rest of the raspberries, cover the tower, using extra cashew cream as mortar, if necessary, to stick the berries in place.

Serve with coconut kefir in a champagne flute. The kefir goes well with this desert.

Cultured Cashew Cheese and Crackers

2010-01-07T13:02:00.001-08:00

Ultimate Vegan Cheese and Crackers (so far). This recipe incorporates the raw cashew cheese, dragon snaps, spicy cashews and basil oil.

Assembly: Chop 1/2 C. sun dried tomatoes that have been marinated in olive oil, with half a cup pitted kalamata olives and a couple of handsful of fresh basil leaves. (basil should be around 2 Tbsp. when minced.) All approximate, don't fret about it.

I'm leaving the cheese whole, to serve family style.
For individual servings, cut in four or six and arrange.
Press the olive/basil/tomato mixture into the sides of the cheese. Cut tomatoes into wedges and arrange around the cheese.
Add micro greens. Sprinkle with spicy pine nuts. Drizzle basil oil around. Stick some dragon snap sails into this cheese ship. Enjoy making a space monster. Whatever makes you happy.

Serve quarters and have extra dragon snaps, tomatoes, greens and basil oil to drizzle at the table.

The texture and taste are fabulous. I wasn't expecting this.

Cashew cheese is a hit in this house! The Dragon Snaps were a spicy foil for the creamy cultured cheese.The basil oil is luminescent green and fun, even magical, to drizzle on bites and the spicy pine nuts are delicious.

Inspiration for this treat was from RAW by Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein, but there are a several changes (I've never been one to follow a recipe). I hope you try this and come up with your own variation.

For news of Roxanne Klein's latest vegan venture:

http://www.roxannes.com/roxannes_livingfoods.php

http://www.marinij.com//ci_8049307

Decanting the Basil Oil

2010-01-07T11:10:00.001-08:00

Oops! I forgot to decant the basil oil. Put some butter muslin in a strainer and set the strainer in a bowl.

The basil oil drops into the bowl et voila! Bright green basil oil.

Unmolding the Cashew Cheese

2010-01-07T10:44:00.001-08:00

Here is the unmolded cheese, still covered in butter muslin, right out of the press.

Unwrapping the muslin.

It looks like the cheese has a nice texture, but I'm excited to flip it over to the top.

Hooray! Vegan cultured cheese.

Now for the next step...... putting all of the elements together.

Dragon Snaps

2010-01-06T20:25:00.001-08:00

This is the fourth recipe I had to make to get closer to being able to make the food in the picture in RAW. Maybe by tomorrow I can put it all together.

Soak 1 1/2C Golden Flaxseed in 2 1/2C filtered water for 6-8 hours. Combine in high speed blender with:
2 C water (You can vary this amount depending on how thick you want the mixture to be).
2Tbsp. tamari
2Tbsp. maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp. Thai chili powder
1/2tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. bittersweet paprika (you can try several different spices than these last three..whatever you like)
1/2tsp. minced onion
1/2tsp. minced garlic

***The way I do this is to blend all ingredients except the flax first. I cut the soaked flax into strips and feed them through the top of the vitamix gradually. I wouldn't do this if you have a normal blender because it could burn out the motor. If I didn't have a vitamix, I'd grind the flax seeds in a coffee or seed grinder, blend the other ingredients then slowly add the flax seeds.....even adding them by hand in a bowl is fine, but you need to be prepared to stir or whip like crazy so it doesn't lump up.*****

Spread the mixture 1/8th inch thick on teflex drying sheets. Dehydrate at 105 degrees until firm enough to flip the sheets onto the shelves. Cut into 1 1/2 x 3 inch pieces.

Store in an airtight container. Enjoy the crunch!

*****If you don't have a dehydrator, a convection oven set at its lowest temperature will work. I've never tried it in a regular oven.*****

These chips are snappy!

Have fun making variations. This isn't brain surgery or rocket science!

Cultured Cashew Cheese

2010-01-06T20:15:00.001-08:00

This is a cheese press that I normally use for cultured raw goat's cheese. This is the first time I'm using it to press a cultured cashew cheese.

I'm so excited to be making this cultured cheese, because I was sad to think that if I jumped into this raw diet I would have to give up making my coat's cheese. I hadn't considered that one might use a culture with nuts to make a cheese. Roxanne Klein uses rejuvalac, made from wheat. I didn't want to do that. I've used young coconut kefir and it worked beautifully.

Soak 3C of raw cashews for 10-12 hours. Drain.
Add 1/4C. young coconut kefir
1/2tsp. Celtic sea salt
Blend in high speed blender until smooth.
Line a sieve with butter muslin (thicker than cheese cloth). Cover the top with a lettuce leaf, leave to ripen in a warm place for at least 12 hours. Excess liquid will drop out.
Remove the cheese and shape into a log or round or put into a cheese press if you have one. Put it in the refrigerator to firm up. Use within three days. (See if you can actually hoard it away that long). This cheese is delicious!

I've since tried some variations. One was to put the cultured cashew cheese in the blender with red peppers and jalapeno pepper to create a spicy cheese with a zingy red-orange colour.

This is some interesting research: Comparing raw and non raw cashews

"Here's a fascinating insight from Habib Bailey, a leader in the raw food movement when it was in its infancy:- I imagine that many of you raw folks have been told that all cashews are not truly raw, because they've been heated in the shell before being opened. Well, I'm here to give you some news that will be very well received by everyone who loves the rich, creamy consistency that cashews bring to many delicious raw recipes.

A long time ago, I also heard that cashews are heated in the shells. I did find out that it is true. But rather than simply leaving it at that, and never eating them again, I reasoned that whether they were truly raw or not depended on whether or not enough heat made it through the shell, to actually alter the nuts themselves. You see,the reason they are heated, is that there is a caustic substance coating the inside of the shell, that will burn the hands of those who open them for processing. They are briefly heated in order to disperse this natural, caustic agent. I heard that the heating didn't need to be very long, in order to accomplish this. This is what caused me to begin questioning how much heat actually made it through the shell, and whether it was of sufficient duration to actually
alter the nut.

So I devised an experiment:

I began making nut cheeses from all different kinds of nuts I could find, using a very simple recipe I have devised to make a cultured nut cheese. Whenever I tried a particular nut cheese, I would make two versions: one batch I would make from nuts labelled "raw" and the other batch I would make from nuts that were NOT labelled raw. For each kind of nut, I gave it several tries, to see if my results were the same each time. And guess what? My results were ALWAYS the same...

The results....

Nut cheeses made from raw nuts virtually always came out right. They tasted good, and had the kind of "pleasantly sharp" taste you get from the growth of healthful, beneficial bacteria. Similar to the kind that grows in good, live sauerkraut.

On the other hand, the nut cheeses made from nuts which were NOT labelled as raw, ALWAYS ended up spoiling. There was in every single case, a bad smell, and a bad taste. They were full of putrefactive bacteria, and had to be thrown away.

NOW FOR THE CLINCHER: If you make the same conclusion from these results that I did, you would also reason that if a nut cultured properly, then it MUST have been raw....

Well, I will tell you: every single batch of cashew cheese that I have ever made from cashews that were labelled as raw, ALWAYS cultured properly, and came out tasting and smelling very, very good... with no putrefactive odor or taste at all. In fact, whenever I have given samples of this cheese to people who haven't tasted it before, their eyes widen, and they have to have the recipe...

AND just like all the other kinds of nuts tested, every batch of cashew cheese made from cashews NOT labelled as raw, ALWAYS SPOILED.

So the only possibility that makes sense to me, is that although cashews are most definitely heated in the shells, that not enough heat makes it through the shell, and not for a sufficient duration, to detrimentally alter the cashew nut itself.

I have shared the story of my "experiment" and conclusions with many raw food teachers. Usually they are very glad to hear of it, because the cashew is an extremely versatile, tasty nut." by Habib Bailey

I 'm glad I waited on making this cheese until my order from a raw food company arrived. I used cashews that are organic, truly raw and hand cracked, from Indonesia. The batch of cashews I bought before that tasted of salt, even though they were supposed to be raw, and I don't know if they would have cultured very well.

Spicy Pine Nuts

2010-01-06T19:43:00.001-08:00

This is the next ingredient toward creating the dish I have in mind.

Soak 1C. raw pine nuts in filtered water for 8-10 hours. Drain. Place in bowl and add:
1Tbsp. maple sugar ( I used syrup because it's what I had)
1 1/2tsp. Thai chili powder
1/2tsp. Himalayan salt
1tsp. Bittersweet paprika
Mix, spread on drier sheet and put in dehydrator at 105 degrees for 24 hours or until crisp.

Bright Green Basil Oil

2010-01-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

I'm building up to trying a recipe from Charlie Trotter and Rachel Klein's book RAW. I've had the book for awhile. It's full of gorgeous photos. I'd decide: I want to make that! Only to find that it is really 5 recipes in one. So, this gorgeous emerald Basil Oil is in preparation for one of those RAW treats. The oil is very dark green. In the photo, the sun is shining through it, making it look lighter.
1/2C. firmly packed basil leaves
1/2C. firmly packed spinach leaves
1/4C. firmly packed flat leafed parsley leaves
1/4C. organic extra virgin olive oil
1C. grapeseed oil

This part of the finished item isn't actually raw, because first the leaves must be put into boiling water for 45 seconds, then plunged into ice water. This sets the colour. When the leaves are cooled, squeeze out the water. Squeeze again. Rough chop and process in high speed blender with oils for three minutes or until smoothly bright green. Pour into a container with a tight fitting lid and store in the refrigerator for a day.
Next day: strain the oil through a fine mesh sieve or butter muslin, return to the jar and refrigerate for another day. Then use. It's supposed to keep, refrigerated, for a week.
(Tomorrow: spicy pine nuts).

Green Smoothies

2010-01-04T12:33:00.001-08:00

I thought it would be gradual, this moving toward raw food, but we just dove in a few days before January 1 and everything is so delicious we've just kept swimming. So to speak. A whole new world of food.

Here are some of the smoothies we've had since New Year's day. (still logging) Green smoothies are so complete there's not much more that we need to eat. (At least 80-90% of our food is smoothies right now.) Maybe it's because this is the time of year we have the best greens (the greens are thicker and harsher in the summer here) and there are plenty of berries all year.

We began with a Donna Gates B.E.D recipe:

1 granny smith apple, washed, cored but with skin
4-5 stalks celery, ends & tips removed, use leaves
2 cups chopped romaine lettuce
½ of a large Haas avocado
½ bunch cilantro or parsley (depending on your preference) stems removed
3-4 cups filtered water

Chop vegetables into 1 inch pieces for easy blending. (not necessary with vitamix or other power blender) Fill blender with 3-4 cups filtered water (more or less water depending on how thick you desire your shake). Add all ingredients into blender. Puree till smooth or desired consistency.

* You can also add the juice from one half of a lemon or lime and even ¼ tsp sea salt and/or cayenne pepper.

Sometimes apples in a smoothie cause an odd texture. This can be removed by adding ice cubes, but we don't bother. It's just apples!

The rest of the recipes in this list loosely follow Raw Family's "Green Smoothie Revolution" by Victoria Boutenko.

1). mango, micro greens, small amounts of basil and lamb's quarters, ginger, water

2). 2 red peppers, avocado, jalepeno pepper, celery, ground fennel seeds, water
squeeze of lemon and dash of habanero pepper sauce at table.

3). 1 banana, 1 pear, big bunch of kale, about 2 cups of water

4.) again, today, but with a small variation: 1 pear, 1apple, 1banana, Swiss chard, kale, water

5.) 1 1/2 pears, parsley, basil, fennel fronds, ginger, swiss chard, water

6). one bunch spinach, 1 apple, 1pear, 1banana, water

7). B.D.'s spicy salad mix (farmer's market) (B.D is the farmer's name)
box of blackberries, a few smal kale leaves, some sunflower sprouts, water, tiny bit of agave nectar, to taste
This one is intense! (pictured at the beginning of this post before blending)

8). blueberry, apple, banana, beet greens, micro greens, water

9). strawberries, avocado, banana, micro greens, lacinato kale (dinasaur kale), water

10). mango, micro greens, 2 small bananas, romaine lettuce (I've lost six pounds already, in all the right places and I'm feeling terrific).

11). Apple, pear. banana, lamb's quarters, bok choy, romaine lettuce

12). large handful of parsley, apple, 3 dates, lemon juice, ginger, water

13). watercress, small horseradish leaf, half jalapeno, 4 smallish tomatoes, sprouted greens, 2 stalks celery, lemon juice, half avocado, water

14). collard greens, mango, banana, water

15). blueberries, lacinato kale, water cress, banana, celery, lemon juice, water

This was a strange one. Deep, rich chocolate colour. Every flavour seemed equal, so while there was lots of taste, no one taste stood out, which made it seem a little bland. The lemon juice helped.

16). Young beet greens, two small pears, banana, cucumber

17). 1 cucumber, 1 avocado, 2 red bell peppers, 1 jalapeno pepper, small green onion, a few basil leaves, beet greens, spicy greens

18).blueberries, banana, lacinato kale, water

19). Mango, banana, zucchini squash seed centers (we used the outside to peel paper-thin "noodles" to make a "pasta"/pesto dish), beet greens, Russian kale flowers, water

20).Blackberries, apple, bok choi, one huge broccoli leaf

21). Raspberries, banana, lacinato kale

22). Blueberries, banana, cucumber, lacitato kale

23). red peppers, cucumber, lacinato kale, 1/2 apple, 1/2 banana, pinch Thai pepper (this one really needed an avocado but it wasn't ripe enough.

24). mango, pear, lacinato kale, water

25). avocado, pear, spinach, water

26). lettuce, pea sprouts, pear, avocado, water

27). blueberry, spinach, banana, water

28). strawberries, banana, lacinato kale, water

29). strawberries, banana, spinach (twice in a row) We have lots of strawberries.

30). avocado, tomatoes, celery, cucumber, parsley, basil, microgreens, jalepeno pepper, garlic, water. garnished with sunflower sprouts, green onion, microgreens

31). strawberries, tiny bit of ginger, collard greens, arugula, water. Mexican lime juice squeezed in at the table.

32). papaya, blueberries, bok choy, swiss chard, water

33). blueberries, banana, lacinato kale, water

34). strawberries, banana, big bunch of water cress, a little parsley, romaine lettuce

35).I made a really nasty smoothie yesterday. I was half awake and decided to put some aloe vera leaf into the smoothie. I pared off the spikes on the edge, then got distracted by something before I peeled the skin off. When I came back to the job I just chopped the piece in three and tossed it into the smoothie. The skin is extremely bitter! Lesson learned.

36). 2 pears, 1 avocado, lacinato kale, water, a touch of agave nectar, a little lime juice. (delicious!)

37). mango, banana, spinach, water

38).Blueberries, banana, cucumber, a few strawberries, lacinato kale.

39). Pear, blueberries, Swiss chard, water

40). Mango, Swiss chard, water

41). apple, blueberry, lamb's quarters, swiss chard, water

42). Mango, part avocado, a little banana, Swiss chard, water

43). James' green smoothie: spinach, cilantro, 2 apples, slice ginger, 1/2 banana, 2 Tbsp coconut cream, water (delicious!)

44). our home grown bananas (tiny strawberry tasting Brazillian bananas), lamb's quarters, microgreens, kale, blueberries, water

An occasional flax cracker, or some raw granola (below), a salad or piece of fruit completes the picture. Life has become so easy and delicious!
Drink smoothies by themselves.
Drink lots of water between.
We enjoy one meal a day that is not a smoothie. That's often a salad, but it can be whatever we want. The cashew cheese was a real hit for a festive occasion! A shared artichoke, and a couple of times (because we are raw food beginners and we felt like it) a poached egg with dragon crackers.

PS: Now, at the end of the month, we have made the transition to eating in a whole new way. We are healthier, lighter and have a new understanding of food. James' sinus symptoms have disappeared, leading us to believe that healing is taking place.We'll be continuing to drink green smoothies.
One step at a time............

45). mango, home sprouted mixed sprouts, juice of 2 small Mexican limes, mango, water

46). spinach, red pepper, celery, jalapeno pepper, mixed sprouts, cilantro, water

47). lamb's quarters, micro greens, mixed sprouts, avocado, pears, Mexican lime juice, peeled aloe vera, water.

I spent a day at a green smoothie retreat hosted by the Raw Family: Victoria, Sergei and Valya Boutenko. The seven day retreat was housed a beautiful old mansion in Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica. It was interesting and informative to be part of this group for a day.

Raw Family
Body Ecology
Green Smoothie Girl

48). This is one of James' creations: blueberries, pear, kale, tatsoy, lettuce, chard, water. Delicious!

49). organic ripe mango, seed removed, dandelion, small piece ginger, banana, about 4 cups filtered water

50). In the past week we have added borage leaves, chickweed, home grown sprouts and cherimoya to our smoothies. The real art to this is in balancing the tart and the sweet and the greens. As one drinks more of these, one wants less of the sweet fruit and more of the fabulous green flavour.

Sprouted Buckwheat Granola (Festive)

2010-01-04T11:10:00.001-08:00

I was walking around looking at everything the other day, looking at things not as solid objects but as vibrating textures in space. This coincided with finding a raw granola recipe which inspired this edible texture.
It's more of a list than a recipe.
Sprout these:
Buckwheat (more of this)
millet
amaranth
quinoa
pumpkin seeds
sunflower seeds

Soak these ingredients:
sesame seeds
currants or chopped raisins
walnuts

It may seem strange to soak a grain or seed, then dehydrate it. Our bodies work with enzymes, which is why raw foods are useful to the body. Not all raw foods though have usable enzymes. As Roxanne Klein says in "Raw" "Nuts and seeds have enzyme inhibitors that prevent them from growing into a tree. Only after they have been sprouted will these enzyme inhibitors dissolve away. This means that unsprouted nuts and seeds are almost as difficult to digest as cooked ones". So all this sprouting and soaking makes the nutrients more bio-available to our bodies. Once dehydrated, although the taste and feel of this granola is crunchy, after a few chews, the texture becomes creamy and it's more delicious that I was even expecting it to be.

Add:
freeze dried angel hair coconut
blueberries, dehydrated (I used frozen, let the juice drip out then dehydrated)
strawberries fresh..they are in season here...slice then dehydrate
vanilla
sea salt
agave nectar
coconut oil (or oil of choice)

Sprout grains for 2 days.
Soak seeds and nuts for 2 hours.

Dehydrate slices of strawberry and blueberries (I used frozen) separately.

Although not essential, I mixed coconut oil with agave nectar and coated the walnuts in this, dehydrating them separately as well so that the nuts are coated. (Really, this is the star part of the ensemble with the walnut crunch and its delicious coating. The little seeds and grains stick to the coating).

Mix all the rest and dehydrate at 110 degreesF on mesh sheets until crunchy 12-14 hours.
Good with fresh almond milk or just plain.

inspiration for this recipe

Banana Brainwave

2009-12-23T09:38:00.001-08:00

Last week I listened to an audiobook "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. While Elizabeth is in Bali, she meets a woman who heals with food. As an aside, she mentions to Elizabeth that if she want to make her hair beautiful, she should do the following: When a banana plant is cut down (they look like trees, but they aren't trees) after it flowers and produces a bunch of bananas, hollow out the stump like a bowl. The plant will still be pumping up it's sap and this will collect in the bowl. Put this on your hair. That was it. Liz reported it but didn't try it on her hair.

We had just harvested some bananas, so I took a knife out to the stump and began carving.

The cell structure is fascinating in these banana plants.

I put a plate over the opening an left it alone.

It was a bit of a gamble, I thought, because when you prepare the flower of a banana, you must either wear gloves or smear coconut oil on your hands and under your fingernails because there is a substance in the flower that, when it oxidizes, turns black....which is just about the last thing my hair needs. I decided to do a test with some hair from my hairbrush.
I brought the twist of hair to the plant, removed the cover and found the banana bowl almost full of liquid. I set the hair in the bowl, where it sailed around, the breeze using stray hairs as a kind of sail, until I submersed it and replaced the lid.

A couple of days later, I retrieved the hair sample.

It seemed to have kept the colour, although it was a little hard to tell because of the fuzzballs from my hairbrush (I should have washed the sample first) and a few hairs that indicate the possibility that my husband used my hairbrush.

I dipped out the liquid.

I used it as a leave-in rinse (using no conditioner) and truly, my hair has not been shinier or softer for ages.

Thanks Liz Gilbert, both for your wonderful book and for this tip. I'm posting just so you know it works. Please tell your Balinese friend Thanks from me.

Lamb Masala Fusion Tagine

2009-12-12T22:44:00.001-08:00

This lamb dish sits on a bed of tri-colour quinoa cooked with seaweed (kombu) and pumpkin seeds. This can be cooked ahead.

The fun part of this dish is making the masala, but first the lamb
needs to be marinated. I used minced lamb, because that's what I had.
Mix 2-3 Tbsp. yogurt, minced garlic and grated ginger into the lamb to
marinate.

Masala:
2 tsp. coriander seeds*
cinnamon 2 1" sticks (I use ceylon cinnamon because it's sweeter and crumblier)
2tsp. poppy seeds*
4 green cardamon
4 cloves
1tsp. fennel seeds*
coconut half fresh or equivalent
Roast in pan until aroma blooms. cool. Add 2 tsp. Thai chili* powder (could be Kashmiri or red)
1 tsp. turmeric powder
2 green chilis*
handful of peanuts
Grind into a paste using just enough water and coconut milk to facilitate. I need a better mortar and pestle. I used a "smart stick" with a grinder attachment for most of the job.

Heat coconut oil in pan. Saute the onions. Once they are translucent
add some minced garlic, ginger and turmeric while cooking for a minute
more. Add half the cilantro leaves, the masala paste, some coconut
milk, one half chopped preserved lemon and the tomato puree. Simmer while you
brown the lamb balls in another pan to cook the fat out of them.

When the lamb balls have browned, drain on a paper towel then add to the masala sauce. Cover and cook on lowest hear for half an hour for mince to one hour for lamb chunks. Check occasionally to insure there is enough liquid and the bottom is not sticking or burning. Stir.

Just added lamb balls.

To plate, put quinoa in bowl and ladle lamb on top. Garnish with more chopped cilantro. I didn't have any more so I used micro greens. Still good!

I find the preserved lemon keeps the dish from being heavy....I digest it better. (The Moroccan influence).

The peanuts just make the sauce creamier. (The Thai influence).

*means it comes from my garden.I never actually measure anything.

The inspiration for this dish came from here

Banana Flower Curry

2009-12-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Banana Flower Dinner

Our Brazilian Banana was ready to harvest, so we cut down the bunch. At the bottom was the remaining flower. Curious about its taste, I thought I would make a salad with it but it turned into this curry.

After admiring the flower part appropriately, cut each red leaf at the bottom so that it releases. Remove the little banana ovaries and stack the leaves inside each other for fine chopping. Once the undeveloped bananas become even more undeveloped, cut the stamen and pistil end off and keep the bottom part. Put the chopped flower (red leaf and ovary parts) in water with some apple cider vinegar. This is to prevent oxidization, which can happen quickly.
***While working with this either wear thin rubber gloves or cover your hands and fingernails with coconut oil. (I suppose any oil would work). The juice can stain your hands.****

Make a paste: Grind together:

De-seeded and chopped Thai peppers
(or leave a few seeds in)
Minced garlic
A few drops of home made habanero sauce
Palm sugar
Fresh grated ginger
Fresh grated turmeric (or powdered)
Grind peanuts, macadamia nuts, sesame seeds, Add to paste
Sesame oil
Coconut milk
Fish sauce
Lemon juice.
Mash as you go along in the mortar and pestle*
Chop basil and mint together and set aside.
Chop poached chicken and set aside.
Chop red onion.
Heat a pan, adding coconut oil and sesame oil.
Cook red onion,adding a little stock or water so it doesn't burn. Stir in some paste. When half cooked, add chopped chicken and add more paste.
In a separate heated pan, heat oil and add strained banana flower pieces and sauté with paste. When pieces are soft, add the chicken/onion mixture and cook a little more. Adjust flavour by adding more paste or sesame chili oil. Plate and top with the chopped greens.

Dum Aloo (delicious potatos)

2009-12-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Dum Aloo
Ingredients:
10 small potatoes, cut into 4 pieces
2 medium sized red or yellow onions
(I found tiny red, yellow and white onions for this).
3" piece of ginger, peeled
4 cloves of garlic
5 dry red chilis (I used Thai peppers from the garden)
4 Tablespoons of almonds, chopped
3 cloves
4 Green Cardamons
1" stick of cinnamon
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds

1Teaspoon powdered termeric (I use fresh)
3/4 Cup tomato puree
1 Cup coconut milk
1Tablespoon Garam Masala
1 Tablespoon oil (I use coconut oil)
7-8 Tablespoons oil
2 Tablespoons raisins (the sweetness creates the balance with all the spices and the tomato)
chopped cilantro to garnish
Salt

Preparation:

Peel the potatoes and pierce them with a fork. Soak in salt water for 1/2 hour. Bite size or a little bigger. Two bite size is good.

Grind ginger, garlic and dry red peppers into a paste.
(This one little sentence had me doing the craziest things in the kitchen. Suffice to say, sticking it all in the mortar and pestle and pounding does not work, at least not until some vegetable remediation happened. It helped to use different words. Mince the garlic, grate the ginger and chop the peppers finely, then put all in the mortar and pestle to make a paste with the ingredients. I left the seeds in two of the peppers, but that's optional.)

Cut the onions in half and slice thinly in half moons. ( I just cut the tiny onions I had in half). Drain the potatoes and sprinkle them with 1 teaspoon Turmeric. I enjoyed sprinkling turmeric on uncooked potatoes, for some reason.

Heat 1 Tablespoon of oil and fry the potatoes, at medium heat, until they are slightly brown on all sides. ( Go on, add a little butter...you know you want to...it helps them brown.) Scoop them out of the pan until later.

Add the rest of the oil to the pan. Add cinnamon, cloves, ( I totally forgot the cloves, but I added some coriander) and cardamon. When it starts to sizzle, add the cumin seeds. after 30 seconds, add the onions and fry them until they are glazed and slightly brown.

Although the recipe doesn't say to do so, I ground up all of the spices before I put them in.

Add the ginger garlic chili past to it. Stir for about 2 minutes and add the potatoes, turmeric and salt. Fry at medium heat until the oil separates on the sides of the pan. Add the almonds and tomato puree can cook some more until the mixture coats the potatoes and the oil separates.

Add the coconut milk, chopped raisins, garam masala and 3/4 cup water. Cover tightly and simmer at low heat until potatoes are fork tender. If there is more liquid left at this point, uncover and cook at high heat, watching carefully, until there is only enough to coat the potatoes and a bit more.

Sprinkle cilantro leaves over top once you have put all in a bowl or plated the dish. (It's not quite the same, but any kind of parsley works as well).

Lots of complex flavour and the best potato dish I have ever eaten! We ate the whole thing and didn't have anything else. The traditional way would be to serve parathas, kuchas or naan with it but that adds up to way too much carbohydrate.

It took me six months to get around to trying this recipe. It seemed complicated, reading it, but it's just sequential actions that add up.

Cheesy Kale Green Chips

2009-12-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

Cheesy Kale Green Chips

Healthy and crunchy.

(add some tiny red tomatoes as garnish and make it festive!)
1/3 cup cashews, soaked 1-2 hours (optional)
2 Tbsp. lime juice
1 C water: this is to make it the right consistency to massage the mixture on the leaves. (If you like lots of dip on chips, use less water).
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. Celtic Sea Salt
(or any good salt)
¼ cup nutritional yeast
¼ medium shallot or ½ small yellow onion (optional)
½ tsp. chili powder
Pinch cayenne
Pinch turmeric ( I use fresh, and more than a pinch)
4 cloves garlic (we like garlic)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Blend all ingredients well in Vitamix Blender.
Add enough water to make this mixture into a creamed soup texture and pour into low sided bowl.
Dip kale or collard leaves (or Amaranth or Swiss chard, be creative, but the curly kale holds the most sauce) in mixture and massage the mixture onto the leaves. Arrange them on dehydrator sheets. Dry them for
4-6 hours in dehydrator (until crispy). I dehydrate at low temperatures 105-110 degrees so that the enzymes remain intact and this takes up to 8 hours to dry them to a crispy state.

inspiration for these chips from: Robyn Openshaw

These are utterly addictive and completely healthy. Better and tastier than chips and dip.
In a coastal climate you need to add a desiccant to a tightly closed tin to keep them crispy but if they loose their crisp just put them in the dehydrator or oven at the lowest possible temperature to crisp them up again.

Here are some different kale chip recipes from: Vanessa Nowitzky, a student of Victoria Boutenko
I haven't tried them yet, but here is what she says:
"These chips are so fabulous you will never want regular chips again. Dried kale is surprisingly filling-- these nutritious and rich chips are a meal unto themselves. Each of the following recipes uses about 1 head of green curly kale. Ruffles have ridges, therefore curly kale holds the flavor best. Don't use the woody stems. Tear large bite-sized pieces of the leaves into a large bowl and pour a sauce (recipes below) over the kale, massaging with your fingers until the kale is thoroughly saturated. Spread saturated kale pieces onto dehydrator trays with Teflon sheets and dehydrate at 105° for 12- 15 hours. The leaves shrink and should emerge crispy."

(NB..I like to use whole leaves when making these as appetizers. They are fun to nibble, using the central stem as a handle.)

Cheezy Kale Chips
This rich and flavorful chip is sure to please. Saturate kale in Pine Nut Cheeze Sauce:

1/2 cup pine nuts
1 large red or orange bell pepper, cut into pieces
juice of half a lemon
1 - 2 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast

Grind pine nuts in food processor until crumbling into paste. Add bell pepper chunks, lemon juice and yeast, and grind until creamy. A little extra water may be necessary if the nuts don't blend in. Follow directions (above).

Hummus Kale Chips

1/2 cup sprouted pumpkin seeds
optional: 1/4 cup sprouted sesame seeds
1 clove garlic
2 stalks green onion
2 stalks celery
juice of one lemon
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cayenne

Grind seeds well in coffee grinder. Chop all other ingredients and blend together in food processor. Follow directions (above).

Sesame Kale Chips

1 cup sprouted sesame seeds
2 medium plums (pitted, about Â¾ cup chopped)
1 stalk celery
1 clove garlic
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 inch fresh ginger root, minced
Cayenne to taste.

Grind sesame seeds in coffee grinder. Blend all other ingredients in food processor, finally adding ground sesame. Follow directions (above).

Fat Free Kale Chips
In the Vita-Mix, blend the following ingredients well without water (use the tamper):

1 medium small zucchini
1 large red, orange or yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 stalks celery
juice of 1/2 lemon
dash of cayenne pepper or to taste. Follow directions (above).

Italian

This tomato and pesto flavored chip is made with Purple Curly Kale.

1 large Tomato
1 medium small yellow zucchini
approx. 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 large bunch fresh basil
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup chopped onion or leek

I changed this recipe by adding a few tiny tomatoes and some wonderful dehydrated tomato slices, a green zucchini, doubled the garlic, freshly shelled pine nuts, more onion, 1/2 teaspoon of Celtic sea salt, added a jalapeno pepper and nutritional yeast (Making it a "cheezy" Italian, I guess). I also pulled the curly kale into bite size pieces away from the central stem, mostly to save space in the dehydrator but also making the "massaging" of the sauce into the kale easier and faster. Hmmmm.....I guess it's a different recipe now, as I seem to have changed every ingredient.
I like these spicy, tomato flavoured chips. I also like that they are torn into small pieces so they can be eaten like popcorn.....not as formal or beautiful as dipping and dehydrating the whole leaf, but still good. The cheesy kale chips, the first recipe, is still my favourite but variety, after all, is the spice of life.

Walnut Pate Party Boats

2009-03-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Walnut Pate Party Boats

3 Cups Soaked Walnuts
1/4 Cup Nama Shoyu (Or less, depending on taste)
1-2 Pinches Sea Salt
Cumin to taste
1 Handful of Cilantro
2 Scallions
2 Carrots
2 Celery Stalks

Put all in a food processor and pulse for 20-30 seconds. Serve on anything!

Can also add kefir cheese

If you want to get creative, you can add the celery stalks, for the white one, then the carrots and some beets for the orange one, and cilantro, scallions, basil......anything green you like, for the green one. If you feel like it you can add pine nuts. Serve in raw pepper boats or zucchini boats, or wrapped inlettuce or in a wrap or with flax crackers.

Home Made Deodorant

2009-03-19T10:32:00.001-07:00

Quick Stick Deodorant

from: http://www.littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/

In the DIY world of home health and beauty products, deodorant seems to be the the most feared replacement. Stinking is NOT OKAY in our culture, right?

But aluminum crammed in your pores cannot be good for you, and it seems in recent years that store-bought deodorant is becoming less and less effective anyway. This deodorant uses a natural moisture absorber (cornstarch), a natural deodorizer (baking soda), and a natural anti-bacteria/fungal oil (tea tree oil) to keep any stink from developing in the first place.

So, here's what I suggest....make this stuff ahead and use it on SATURDAY, or a sick day, or any day you aren't going to see anyone special, so you'll feel secure and not look like a nut obsessively sniffing your underarms all day. Once you get over the stink phobia, let your body get used to it, and you'll never go back.

Homemade Stick Deodorant

1. Put 1/4 cup each of baking soda and cornstarch** in a bowl with 10+ drops tea tree oil. (I like 20 drops, but I'm a tea tree oil nut. I hear lavender oil will work as well.)

2. This deodorant can be used as a powder, but if you want a stick, go to the shortening section of the store and buy this solid-at-room-temperature-awesome stuff:

3. Stir 2+ TBSP in until it's the consistency you like.

4. Smash into empty deodorant container. (Will be a bit sturdier once it sets a day or so.)

When applying this deodorant, use a lighter hand than you would with normal stick deodorant, especially the first couple of days or it'll drop little balls on your bathroom rug.

Used correctly, this stuff is invisible and lasts for ages, as it works with a very light layer. You should not be able to SEE it once applied.

**If you have especially sensitive skin, increase the amount of cornstarch to 6T and decrease the baking soda to 2T.

Dahlia with a unicorn

2009-03-14T19:01:00.001-07:00

Gluten Free Pie Crust

2009-03-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

Gluten Free Pie Crust

This gluten-free crust is for a nine-inch pie plate. (but barely)
Ingredients

* 1/4 Cup Butter
* 3/4 Cup Quinoa flour
* 1/2 Tsp Salt
* 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
* 2 Tbs Water

Pie Crust Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F
2. Put the butter into a pot, and put the heat on low.
3. When the butter is melted, add the quinoa flour, salt and baking powder. You can pre-mix it if you like, but it will get pretty well mixed during the following two steps.
4. Using a large spoon, mix the butter into the gluten-free flour mixture. Keep mixing and pressing in the unmelted butter until the wheat-free flour is evenly mixed with the butter.
5. Add the water. Mix until the water is evenly mixed with the gluten-free flour mixture.
6. Dump the gluten-free pie crust mixture into the pie pan.
7. Using your fingers, press the wheat-free pie crust into an even covering along the bottom of the pan and up the sides.
8. Using a fork, poke holes into the base of the crust. They do not have to penetrate the crust, but it is OK if they do. Place fork-holes about every inch or so around the outer edge of the bottom of the pie pan, and round the middle too.
9. Place the pie crust in the oven. Bake until brown (approximately 20 minutes). Check it every so often to make sure it does not burn!
10. Remove from the oven and add gluten-free pie filling.
11. Bake according to pie filling instructions

Holiday Breakfast Pie

2009-03-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

For special breakfasts, it's sometimes good to be able to get a head start the day before.
1.) Line a pan bottom with puff pastry, then build the sides with puff pastry strips. Poke holes in the bottom of pastry with a fork. Cover bottom with good quality tomato paste and sprinkle very finely cut onion on top. When the onion is half cooked and before the puff pastry is browned, remove from oven.

2.)Mix cream cheese ( I use home made goat's kefir cheese) with grated cheese. I use parmisano-reggiano usually, or whatever's around. Add finely chopped parsley, a few chili flakes, season to taste. Spread on top of tomato topping, keeping away from edges a little. Beat an egg white with a little water and brush on the sides of the puff pastry conainer. You can finely chop zuccini, red pepper or other vegetable to add, but make sure yoyr puff pastry sides are high enough for both this mixture and the eggs you are going to add later. Think about where you want to put your eggs and make little nest places in the cheese mixture to hold the eggs in the next step. Back into the oven it goes. Leave until the cheese is a little melted or cooked looking and the puff pastry is slightly brown.

You can stop after either 1 or 2 and continue in the morning.

3.) Last part: carefully crack eggs on top into the little depressions you made. I crack two eggs for each person. You need to work this out before you begin....how many people, eggs...what size dish. Chop chives or gree onion on top. I usually tent with aluminum foil so that the tops of the eggs don't get rubbery and dried out while baking. This part always takes longer than I think it will, but now's the time to set the table and get the coffee and tea ready. Take the aluminum tent off for the last few minutes to crisp up the edges of the puff pastry if it needs it.

It's very festive looking.

James' Wonderful Non Gluten Waffles

2009-03-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

James makes really great waffles.

This recipe requires that the grains be ground once soaked, so check first, if you don't have a Vitamix or other 2HP blender, to see if your blender will grind soaked grains. (Slow speed until it's mostly ground).
We use an UNO waffle iron now.
The only time I have heard James curse is when we had our first waffle iron.
It always stuck. (Now he sings as he cooks.)

The grain ratio can change, depending upon what you have:
1 cup whole buckwheat kernels
1/4 cup whole teff
1/4 cup whole amaranth
1/4 cup whole millet
1/4 cup whole quinoa
(organic grains)
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 T molasses
3 T butter
1/4 tsp salt

Soak grains overnight in goat kefir, (or for a few days, with the kefir they will begin to culture which means added flavour),
with liquid just covering the grains (add more when they soak it up).
(Soak quinoa separately in water).
Melt butter.

Beat egg YOLKS until smooth. Mix in molasses and vanilla and salt.
Combine cultured grains and baking powder in blender, blend until
smooth.
Mix melted butter into egg mixture, then add blended grains. Mix
until all ingredients are combined.

Beat egg WHITES until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter.
Ladle batter into pre-heated, butter painted, waffle iron and cook
until browned.

We have them with creme fraiche, which I kefir from raw cream, and
blueberries, maple syrup or agave syrup.

I know, it seems fiddley, but it's just part of our routine.
We are now kefiring a large batch of grains. Some is used for the waffles and the rest kefirs a few more days to be used in making a gluten free sour dough ciabatta bread.

Investment and Returns

2009-03-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I sat down to eat a bowl of soup. I looked at it for awhile. Without the sprout and pepper garnish, it could have looked a little like a tetrapack cream soup, maybe, at first glance, even something from a can. This soup, though, had a different history.

Two years ago, I made a celery root soup. I cut the gnarly top of the root away and planted it in the ground. It grew a bunch of celery stalks, flowered and produced seeds. I didn't pay a lot of attention beyond cutting stalks once in awhile. The next year, a small forest of celery grew in the area. More than I needed...so, while cleaning up the garden I dug out some roots to make a celery soup. Digging, cleaning and chopping takes awhile, but the stock was being made, so there was time.

I love organic chickens that have the neck, heart and other organs tucked into a little bag inside the chicken cavity, as they make the best beginning to a stock. While the chicken is roasting, all sorts of veggies go into the stock on top of the stove. Carrot tops and pieces of carrot, vegetable ends, like asparagus stalks, swiss chard, garlic, onion, celery stalks and yellow beets. It cooks for awhile, there is a roasted chicken dinner, then the bones and pan drippings (minus the fat) are added, along with the chicken stuffing: bay leaves, ginger, onion, citrus. It simmers some more.

We go out, the stock cools. We return, the stock is strained and used to cook the celery root. Some carrots, hjiki and red onion are added to balance the root flavour. The seaweed has enough saltiness in it. The herbs from cooking the chicken are enough flavour.

The vegetables are cooked in the broth, but are left to cool and blend while we work outside.

There is a pattern here of attention and inattention, but during the times of inattention, change still takes place. At this stage, the flavour deepens.

By the time we are hungry, all that is left to do with the soup is to blend it into a rich, velvety smooth texture, reheat and garnish with a mixture of sprouts. A high powered blender like Vita-mix makes a velvety texture).

This is why I'm sitting looking at the soup. It looks just like a tetrapack soup, but it is so much more. There was a time in my life in which I thought that if I could just take a daily pill for nourishment, I'd be happy. Has this been a waste of time? Could I have accomplished more if I had used the time differently?

What else could have given me such connection with the land, such continuity through the seasons, such sureness about growth and change and reinvention?

Because I had invested in a piece of gnarly root by planting it in the soil instead of throwing it into the garbage, two years later I was eating this soup. An investment, with a quality stock, yielding delicious returns. My stock market is either the farmer's market or my own back yard. No downturn here, only new spring growth.

It's difficult to eat soup and laugh at the same time. This is the best return on an investment.

Exception to the rule Kale

2009-03-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ok...I don't usually eat bacon. This is the exception.
(Turkey bacon is fine, and that's usually what I use).
Chop bacon in to small bits and cook in frypan. When it is almost done, add chopped onion. Let it cook for a bit, then add chicken stock, just enough to steam kale, which is already cut up. If the kale has big stalks, cut them small and add them when you add the onion.
Add kale leaf pieces now. Cover with lid. Stir occasionally. It's finished when the kale is soft. May need a little more chicken stock. Steam slowly, don't fry it. Add a few drops of chili sesame oil. Fabulous with freshly ground Indonesian comet tail pepper, ground in mill.

Delicious, Crunchy Baked Broccoli

2009-03-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Preheat the oven to 425.

Take as much broccoli as you want to eat, cut into florets (but relatively big ones.) Best thing to do is prep the broccoli beforehand so it is not only ready, but dry.

Now, it's easy. Put the broccoli on a cookie sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper (or just have salt and pepper mills at the table). Now add 4 garlic cloves that are peeled and sliced and toss them in too. 3Tbs. pine nuts. Some dried chili flakes.

Roast in the oven 20 to 25 minutes, until "crisp-tender and the tips of some of the florets are browned."

In the middle add lemon juice and stir around. Move the broccoli around a few times during cooking.

When it's done, take it out of the oven sprinkle zest of a lemon over the broccoli, squeeze a little more lemon juice over, add a little more olive oil, and 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Put back in oven so cheese will do its thing. Good Parmesan doesn't exactly melt.

I made it in a cast iron frying pan so I could take it directly from the oven to a trivet at the table. Toss at table. A nice, crunchy, roasty change from steamed broccoli.

Non Gluten sourdough bread with seeds

2009-03-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this down so that I have something that at least approaches a recipe. It has taken a lot of trial and error and thought to get it this far.

Making super nutritious, delicious, non gluten bread

1). Soak these whole grains in kefir:
Buckwheat (1 and a half times more than the rest of the grains)
Amaranth
Teff
Millet
Cover loosely and allow to begin to culture.

2). Soak in water:
Quinoa
Change water once (quinoa can be slightly bitter without that water change)
Cover loosely

3). Soak in water:
Sunflower seed
Sesame seed
Pumpkin seed
Cover loosely. Change water daily to sprout instead of ferment.

(Cover is to keep bugs or dust and light out)
In the last two hours before making the bread, soak flax seeds.

all grains above are raw and organic

Why all this soaking? Grains and seeds contain phytates which are there to stop them from molding or sprouting at inappropriate times. Soaking releases the phytates and makes minerals and vitamins more bio-available to our systems.

Depending on the room temperature, you can let this process go on for 3 to 5 days. (In higher temperatures, it happens faster.)

4). Leave the kefir on the 4 grains (it should have all soaked in anyway), drain any water from the quinoa and put in all the dry carafe for vita mix. Blend on low speeds until you have a batter. (If you don't have a vitamix or other powerful blender, make a small test batch to see if your blender will grind the soaked grains.)

5). Yeast prep:
In small bowl put a little sugar (for the yeast to eat) and some water (90 degreesF or neutral temperature when a drop is put on your inner wrist.) About a quarter cup of water. Put in one package of yeast. If the water is too hot it will kill the yeast. If water is too cold, yeast will take longer to wake up and begin to eat the sugar. It looks a little foamy when it is dining on the sugar.
Add to the batter.

6). Add:
2 eggs
some salt
some good olive oil
xanthan gum..this is because none of the grains have gluten in them, which is what gives bread it's characteristic lightness....little pockets of air that the yeast makes are normally held by the strength of the gluten. Xanthan gum helps with this, although this bread is more dense than a fluffy white bread. Add herbs like fresh rosemary, or anything else you like.

7). Add the sprouted seeds. You can also add hemp seeds, chopped sun dried tomatoes, rosemary, chopped olives or whatever else you like in bread at this time. Lightly blend the seeds, leaving some whole.

The bread sponge is too wet at this point, so get out containers of flour: amaranth, millet, quinoa, garbanzo/fava, (whatever no gluten flour you have) and slowly add while turning and kneading until it has the texture and feel of a regular bread dough.
You can also use some coconut flour, but because it is somewhat antibacterial it will slow the rising a little. Don't use only coconut flour for that reason.
Make dough into a ball, set in bowl, cover surface with good olive oil (so it doesn't get a "skin" of partially dried dough). Wet a clean tea towel, fold in half and clip over top of bowl (6 clips will hold it flat like a drum skin on the rim of the bowl) to provide humidity.
Put in oven and put the oven light on (for heat to make yeasts grow and dough to rise). Leave for a few hours or over night.
It should double in size.

8). Cut risen dough into several pieces to make small loaves. I make small, single serving size flat focaccia-type loaves and put them on a non stick cookie sheet. You can also sprinkle corn meal on the sheet before putting the loaves down. (I'm beginning to make larger loaves now, as each batch of bread is better and lighter.)

9). Separate an egg. Add a little water to the whites, beat, and with a pastry brush, brush the tops of the loaves. Sprinkle whatever interests you with bread on the top: small rock salt pieces, chopped rosemary, fennel, ground coriander, tiny pieces of dried citrus, herbs de provence, or some other kind of mixture of herbs.

10). Put back in oven with light on to let rise again to about double height. (They don't get a much larger footprint).

11). Bake at 375 degrees until done.....slightly brown. They don't take as long as a regular loaf because they are smaller, and with all the soaking and culturing, they are already partially "cooked" anyway.

12). Remove and let cook on rack. When room temperature, put into waxed paper bags and into a bread box. Do not refrigerate...you will loose the complex taste. This is real food, it will last at room temperature, unless you have made too big a batch. If you have, freeze the loaves and thaw as necessary.

The first time you make it, it seems to take forever. Then, you realize it's only a few minutes time every once in awhile.....less time, all added up, than going to the store and back. So much more nutritious too. Where I live, non gluten breads with few ingredients are $6.50 a loaf and it is often moldy or is dry and crumbly within a day or two of purchase.

This bread is high in food value, so one of these little loaves (big cookie size) with a piece of cheese is a meal. A really filling and nutritious meal.

We like these small loaves best, but with each batch I make some larger ones as well, for sandwiches.

pi pie

2009-03-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Yam and Roasted Cashew Soup

2009-03-14T00:08:00.000-07:00

Yam and Roasted Cashew Soup

500g (1 lb) yams, peeled and sliced
4 cups vegetable stock
2 Tbsps olive oil
1 tsp red chilies
1 Tbsp chopped ginger
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
3 medium carrots, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
1/4 cup flour (I never seem to need a thickening agent like this)
3 t soy sauce
1 tin (6 oz) light coconut milk
Few sprigs coriander (cilantro) plus extra for garnish
Salt and pepper
1 cup cashew nuts

1. In a large pot, boil yams in vegetable stock fifteen minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in large fry pan and add chilies, ginger, garlic, carrots, onion and saute until soft.
3. Mix in flour with a wooden spoon.
4. Pour in the stock and yams.
5. Blend all in a food processor until smooth.
6. Return to large pot and simmer fifteen minutes, add all the coconut milk.
7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, pour soy sauce over cashew nuts, toss to cover, and bake ten minutes, turning several times to brown evenly. This can be done in skillet on stovetop.
8. Add the few sprigs of coriander and seasoning to the soup.
9. Serve the soup and garnish with coriander leaves and cashews.

Non Gluten Banana Bread

2009-03-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

Non Gluten Banana Bread

2C flour: buckwheat, amaranth, teff, quinoa, millet or a mixture
2T xanthan gum
2t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/2t salt
1/2C sweet or cultured butter
some sugar ( I've seen recipes calling for one cup, but I just put a little evaporated cane sugar in....maybe 1/4 C
2 eggs
4 really ripe bananas
1/3C kefir
1C walnuts (who measures?)
1C shredded raw, unsweetened coconut
1C blueberries (can be frozen, thaw first) add an extra handful if you want to put some on top.
1T vanilla

Whisk together flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a larger bowl bowl cream together butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy. Incorporate eggs, slowly. Still in slow mode, add the dry ingredients, alternating with kefir. Start and end with dry ingredients.

Stir in mashed bananas, coconut, vanilla, blueberries and walnuts.

lightly grease (or line with parchment) two loaf pans (8X4). Fill both pans with batter. If you want, put some blueberries and a little sugar on top.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 55 minutes. Rack to cool.

2009-03-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Finger Foods

The puff pastry cups contain home made goat's cheese and a variety of things like anchovies, red pepper, zucchini bits, sun dried tomatoes, etc.
Stir a little water into an egg white and paint the outside edges of the pastry.
When baked (425 degrees F until puffed and golden brown) these are tasty cups to hold chipoltle guacamole (mashed avocados with chipotle salsa) or some of the other tasty bits on the plate, like the sprouts or salmon.

The salmon was cooked with a little coconut oil. Put in oven while you cook the shrimp, or be brave and cook both at once in their own skillets.

For the shrimp, cut tiny pieces of ginger, onion, red pepper, zucchini and saute in butter.
Squeeze in garlic and once the vegetables are almost cooked, add the shrimp.

Serve salmon on beds of sprouts and sprinkle a little tamari on the salmon. The shrimp is served in beds of the sauted vegetables, with some for garnish on top. Pile on the puff cups and add chipotle guacamole and tiny loaves of wheat free multi-grain bread, sliced thin. (see non gluten bread recipe or make your own recipe).

More filling than it looks and a great finger licking way to begin the weekend.

cinnamon and honey medicine

2009-03-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.indoindians.com/health/honey.htm
This page talks about various folk cures using cinnamon and honey both internally and externally

oatmeal pancakes

2009-03-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Oatmeal Pancakes

makes 16 pancakes

Ingredients

* 2 cups Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, or other quick-cooking oatmeal (actually, I'm going to thermos cook whole oat groats, with a small amount of seaweed)
* 2 cups buttermilk (I'm using goat's milk kefir)
* 2 large eggs
* 1 tablespoon honey
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (coconut oil)
* 1/2 cup flour (amaranth, millet, quinoa or buckwheat)
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (the soft, ceylon bark)
* 2 tablespoons sugar (probably not)
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Add oats and buttermilk to a mixing bowl. Stir to combine and cover with wet T towel. Let sit for awhile.over night is fine so the grain begins to culture (this gives the pancakes their distinctive texture). Add eggs, honey and oil. Stir to combine. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together.

Lightly oil a non-stick pan or griddle. Pour batter in 1/4 cup increments. Watch for the tops to bubble. Turn pancakes and cook until golden on the second side.