Fusing her educational background in graphic design with her passion for raw (and sometimes cooked) food, Callie uses food in it's most natural state, and tailors it with complimentary colors, flavors and styles. Creating dishes that are straight up foxy, she hopes to inspire even the biggest veggie skeptic.
Summer is officially over – And yes, I’m just now getting the memo. Ok, that’s not true, I got the memo when then blogoshpere blew up with pumpkin-everything – however, I just chose to ignore. Why? Because as I get older, I realize the start of fall means one month closer to the beginning of winter – and that, makes me extremely sad.
Celebrating the end of my most beloved favorite season, I was gifted a large bag of basil from a good friend last week. While most of the basil will be used to make pesto for the winter months (it freezes beautifully), the rest I wanted to use in a more special and unique format. After all, I’m sure no one wants to come to my blog and see a recipe for pesto, right? Right. So instead, I came up with this carrot and basil ice cream concoction.
Carrots are beautiful for a few reasons: they’re easily accessible, they’re affordable, and they transition wonderfully between sweet and savory dishes. Moreover, they also have the ability to take on flavor profiles such as pumpkin, which is exemplified in this recipe. I swear, if you close your eyes and take a bite, you’ll think you are eating a pumpkin-based ice cream. And the best part is, you didn’t have to prep a pumpkin — Ohhh, the angst.
So – put the pumpkin down, step away, and instead, give this much-simpler-to-use veggie a try!
Thanks again to Mike and Stephanie for providing me with such wonderfully fresh and tasty basil this summer – I look forward to next year! (you’ve created a monster
A quickie kind of post, for a quickie kind of recipe. However, these are so gosh-darn good, that they really don’t need much of an explanation. I’m addicted. Remember thin mints, the ones you ate as a kid? Well this is my Raw/Vegan version of the Thin Mints. A must try! Continue Reading / Additional Photos / Videos
I’d be totally lying if I said I weren’t a sucker for anything colored pink or purple. Which is why, when I came across these purple hull peas at the market, I couldn’t resist the splurge! The price was high, and I had no clue what I was going to do with them, but that only intrigued me more.
When I got home, I anxiously cracked open a pod, and to my surprise found a bean similar to that of the black eyed pea. ‘Crap’ I thought, I have to cook these! Not because I don’t sometimes eat cooked food, but because my dehydrator’s home is on top of my stove – Basically, cooking (with heat) to me, is so much more work than it’s counterpart. Funny what we get used to…
Any who, I sat in front of my computer, watched two hours of hulu, and shelled all of the beans. Whew, what a job! I knew after all that work, that this would definitely be a one time only purchase!
It was black friday and I hadn’t even left the house, and yet, I still managed to do my fare share of post Thanksgiving shopping. Isn’t the internet fabulous!? All those ya-hoo’s waiting in line at 4am, and yet, I’ve scored my fare share of deals without even having to leave the house… Or my pajama’s, for that matter :)
Any who, shopping aside, for Thanksgiving I drove home to have dinner with the fam (all 7 of us – yes, that includes extended fam, ha), so I thought I’d share with you the dishes I made.
Keeping things nut-free, most dishes were super simple, partially cooked and traveled well. Since the following dishes are rather (or extremely) easy, the recipes aren’t exact, but rather, just general guidelines.
I rushed home tonight to whip up this raw version of the Macro bowl I had from Aux Vivres last week, so I could share the yummy goodness with all ya’ll before the weekend. You can skip the bowl, but I wouldn’t skip the sauce. I said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s ridic.
I have two passions in life: Health and Art (in the sense of being creative and working with my hands). My goal: To eventually figure out how to merge the two together. How the hell I do that, still to be decided. I could write about all the options I’ve considered in my head, but then you’d just see me as a bipolar mess of a child. Literally, it expands from culinary school in France (to learn and embrace the emotional aspect of dinning/eating – which I think is SO important in our over-all health) to furthering my education in Natural Health – Like I said, two opposite ends of the spectrum. Pretty much, if you could jump inside my head, you’d beg to get out – as everyday it’s seems to become more and more a cluster f**k of ideas. Creativity truly is a blessing and a curse
In the meantime though, I’ll stick to the undecided route – i.e. cooking (or, playing) with healthy food!
Yesterday’s playtime included squash (told ya you’d be seeing a lot of this) and cookie cutters… Which I heart, because cookie cutters equal perfect shapes and perfect shapes make this perfectionist, perfectly happy.
At first I thought, “ravioli!” Which was then immediately followed by, “boring!” So instead, I went for a mix between lasagna and ravioli – A ravioli stack. Easy, but elegant. What more could a girl want!?
Let it be known, I am that lady who will one day make origami animals out of my children’s sandwiches.
After spending eons of time obsessing over cake pops, I finally had the opportunity to make them for a holiday party that my mom and I hosted wednesday night. What I thought would be an easy feat, ended up consuming three whole days of free time. I kid you knot, it made gourmet raw food, seem easy! It’s one thing to dehydrate for 24 hours, but it’s a whole other thing, to actually be doing something for 24 hours! Let’s just say, I questioned my sanity far too many times than I’m comfortable with in those three days.
Work aside though, the final result was nothing short of complete gratification. And although I told mom I’d never make these again, I’ve already started to plan cake pops for Valentines Day – What can I say, It’s hard to deny my genetic makeup…
So with that, here is the vegan friendly, oh-so-not-healthy, cake pop recipe:
Over the holidays, I did quite a bit of cooking. And yes, by cooking, I mean the kind that involves heat.
Something I’ve never made before, but have had bookmarked for ages – are candied citrus peels. Now, most recipes and/or ideas I bookmark are usually craving driven, but these, were presentation driven. I didn’t so much care about the food part, I just cared about the process and the final outcome. However, I have to say that I did end up really enjoying them taste wise, and, so did Polo! Sure, they aren’t much more than sugar + more sugar, but I guess if you’re going to eat candy, it might as well be organic, preservative/dye free, and homemade.
For most, this recipe would be nothing short of a punishment given the detail that goes into cutting the peels. For a detailed oriented person like myself though, I found it extremely relaxing. Then again, I’m the person who will scribble the same word over and over for hours on end to calm my nerves… Think I’m kidding? Just look at my desk – I actually think it’s borderline disordered.
Any who, with that being said, it’s obviously not the quickest recipe. But if it’s any consolation, the aromatic qualities from start to finish (peeling, cutting and boiling of the orange rinds) will surely help calm any tension it may bring.
As a side note, the original recipe called for 1 cup of sugar to every 1 cup of water. However, I couldn’t bring myself to use that much sugar. So instead, I used 1/2 Cup of sugar for every 1 Cup of water. In the end, it worked great – leaving absolutely no reason to use the original 1-to-1 ratio!
With a real name like Callalily, most people assume I was born in a tree house and raised on tofu. Wrong. Instead, it was more like “bling bling, every time I come around yo city, bling bling, pink ring worth about fifty…” Yeah, you get the point. Saving the earth, not a priority.
That is, until I grew up and started thinking for myself.
My journey began with my health. Like quite a few health enthusiast, I was always battling something; hypothyroidism, anxiety, disordered eating, IBS, etc… Fed up with annoying doctors and expensive prescriptions, I decided to take a more holistic approach and alter my diet. Overtime, I slowly learned I was able to manage these things through food alone – and that, fascinated me. Screw self-medication, food was the answer to feeling great.
Lately, I’ve had quite a few flops in the kitchen. Which is why, I was super stoked when I came up with this dish and it actually tasted as good as I hoped.
Since I have issues with purchasing more corn than I (or a family of 5) needs, I wanted to find a way, other than corn relish, to make good use of it. For some reason, corn cakes immediately popped into my head and I decided to roll with it. I had most of the ingredients on hand, so to the kitchen I went…
I was in love with all the colors in the corn cakes… Isn’t raw food pretty!? Enjoy!
Photographer: Callie England 
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