I love cookbooks. Especially the ones with all those pretty pictures. I fall into those beautiful images and then dig into those recipes. If you can snap a pretty picture, you have me.

This recipe was inspired by a beautiful photo and recipe in a new cookbook by Kim Boyce, called “Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole Grain Flours”. I adapted her recipe to be wheat-free and vegan. In other words, “G” approved. These scones are really best eaten the day of baking them. But if you got leftovers, I would recommend toasting them the next day. Either way, yumminess…. :)

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Instructions

1. Place a rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients into a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together milk of choice, lemon juice and applesauce or egg until thoroughly combined.
4. Cut coconut butter into 1/2-inch pieces and add to dry mixture. Rub butter between your fingers, breaking it into smaller bits. Continue rubbing until pieces range from rice grain to flattened pea size.
5. Mix milk mixture into dry mixture and mix until barely combined.
6. Transfer dough to a well-floured surface. If dough is too sticky to handle, add more barley flour. You may need to add up 1 cup. Dust with flour and fold it together a few times. Divide dough into 2 pieces. Flour your hands and pat each piece of dough into a disk about 3/4 inch thick and 7 inches in diameter.
7. Cover disks with jam.
8. Use a sharp knife to slice circle into 8 triangular wedges on baking sheet, leaving a few inches between them. Chill until firm, about 30 minutes.
9. Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Scones are ready when tops are golden brown. Transfer scones to cooling rack by sliding a thin spatula
10. Serve with berries :)

Life has been quite hectic around here lately. I’m sure you know what I mean, we get caught up in the whirlwind of time and soon enough it’s been entirely too long since our last post. I often find myself missing this little nook in the world-wide web and sharing all that’s delicious and healthy with you, Golubka’s lovely readers.

This time it’s a simple savoury meal, one that we find ourselves coming back to this winter due to its satisfying, earthy flavours. Falafel and tabouleh. My love affair with falafel started years ago, when my Middle Eastern cuisine loving husband took me out for a falafel pocket with tabouleh, hot peppers and yogurt sauce. I was, of course, hooked. Since then I’ve made my own falafel the traditional way and, more recently, this much healthier and very delicious version.

As for Paloma, she is often the first one to wipe her plate clean, busily switching between eating with a fork, spoon, and her hands. We often have to remind her to chew her food. She takes after her parents. We’ll be back with more elaborate meals soon, as well as a few stories. But for now, I hope you enjoy this flavourful meal and have a tranquil weekend.

Mix together the mushrooms, carrots, onion, garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Spread on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115F for 1 hour. After dehydration, pulse the mixture in a food processor to achieve small pieces. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

In a food processor, grind the nuts and sunflower seeds to a crumbly texture. Add the ground nuts, parsley, cumin and lemon juice to the mushroom-vegetable mixture and mix thoroughly, seasoning with salt and pepper. Form into spheres, and roll each one in a mix of ground flaxseeds and sesame seeds. Dehydrate on a screen-lined tray for 2 hours before serving.

Whir the cauliflower in a food processor until finely chopped. Take care to not over-chop it to preserve the crunchy texture. Toss with the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Serve on romaine lettuce or baby spinach leaves with the falafel and sauces.

Mix all the ingredients until smooth.

Coat the red pepper in 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and dehydrate for an hour. In a high speed blender, blend the pepper with all the remaining ingredients until smooth.

I wanted to make a whole grain pizza, which by the way, I never have done successfully before. So, I decided to go straight to the source. The man! One of the most popular Italian chefs in the world… Mr. Mario Batali. And of course viola, he hooked me up and oh yeah, it turned out oh so yummy.

I’m giving full props to the man because I just substituted spelt flour for the all purpose he uses. The consistency of your crust will depend on how thick or thin you wanna shape it. The thicker you go the more bread like it will actually be.

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For the pizza toppings, try whatever you like. We made a quick tomato sauce and added olives, mushrooms, onions and some cilantro after we baked it.

Instructions for the Crust
1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar and mix well.
2. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the warm water, wine, and olive oil. Using a wooden spoon, stir the wet ingredients into the dry until the mixture is too stiff to stir, then mix with your hands in the bowl until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Add more flour, if necessary, to reach that consistency.
3. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn the dough out. Knead gently, dusting the work surface lightly with more flour as necessary, for 5 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, elastic, and only slightly sticky.
4. Oil a large clean bowl, add the dough, and turn to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel, set in a warm part of the kitchen, and let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
5. Punch down the dough, and it is ready to use. Roll out to make a pizza shape. Depending on how thin or thick you want it, as well as the crust part. You decided. It’s your pizza!
6. When rolled in shape, sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of a large baking sheet or a pizza stone and place the pizza dough on top and pre-bake in the over for about 5 or 10 minutes, depending on how thick it is.
7. Take out and add toppings and lower oven to 375 and bake for about 20 minutes or until the pizza crust is lightly brown.

It’s still cold here. And I don’t mean kinda cold. I mean freaking cold. Like snow is still in the forecast. It’s almost April?! I don’t think I am the only one having trouble accepting this very out of control weather pattern. So, this (chilly!) afternoon I am gonna do what any full blooded California girl does when it snows….pretend that spring has sprung and make a Spring Sweet (frozen) organic pea soup!! And it worked. Well, that is until I went outside…brrrrrr… :)  

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Instructions:
Heat oil in a medium pot then saute onions, celery and a nice pinch of sea salt. Stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Then add sweet potato and cook, about 5 more minutes. Cover vegetables with boiling filtered water. About 5 cups. Add bay leaf and bring to light boil then turn down heat for about 10 minutes or until potato is soft. Add one bag of frozen peas, saving the other 1/2 bag for later (no need to defrost them before hand!) stir about 2 minutes then turn off heat and let stand for about 5 minutes. Cool a bit before carefully transferring, in batches, to a high speed blender and blend throughly. Pour back into pot and turn heat to simmer. Add the 1/2 bag of peas, 1 tsp sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, 1 cup of almond milk and lemon juice. Stir to combine. Taste and add more salt if necessary.

I think it’s about time we pour something warm down our throats, it’s freakin cold outside. Yes, I know what you RAW folks are sayin’…“you are heating the almond milk and so this ain’t RAW gurrrl!”…well, yes, BUT you are just heating the milk a wee bit in order to infuse the flavors and everything else is raw so…it’s all about balance…right… :)

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Instructions
1. Bring milk, scraped vanilla bean seeds/pod, cinnamon stick and ginger to almost a boil; cover and turn off heat for 20 minutes.
2. Remove cinnamon stick, vanilla pod and ginger.
3. Whisk in cacoa, chocolate, agave, salt and cayenne (if using) until frothy.

During the holidays, especially when it is cold outside, all I want to do is stay in, get cozy and allow my sweet tooth monster to take over. I don’t let it get out of hand though, I make sure I utilize my best and most nutritious resources to create delectable treats that I can indulge in without guilt.

I am usually craving something creamy, soft and decadent. For me, the perfect antidote to this yearning is a rich chocolate pudding. I know there are many variations of chocolate puddings, but this is one of my favourites!

Why you ask, because it is loaded with avocado. Which not only adds a healthy dose of essential fats in the recipe, but it creams up the pudding, perfectly. This makes me feel better about enjoying it in more ways then one. First I can digest it fairly easily and secondly, I know that I am consuming the healthiest version of chocolate puddings that exists!

Because avocados are so rich and nutrient dense, I am forced to only indulge in a “reasonable” amount of pudding at a time. I only need a little bit and it goes such a long way, bite by bite – I enjoy every second of this pudding. It’s creamy velvety texture melts in my mouth and coats me with joy and pleasure.

Of course the addition of chocolate, dates and maple syrup– just makes this dessert that much more enticing. I also love to add a dollop of almond butter or coconut butter; it creates stickiness in the pudding and gives it some depth. The banana is totally optional, but when I have a ripe one lying around, I love to throw it in.

Then I top it delicately with cinnamon, cacao nibs and shredded coconut, which makes the perfect topping to this delightful pudding.

Maybe I will even think about sharing it with others for the holidays, but for now I would go through all this décor even when it is just for me!

Instructions
1. Combine the ingredients in a blender and whirl on high until well blended into a thick creamy pudding.
2. Divide the pudding into two or more servings.
3. Top with cacao nibs, cacao powder or shredded coconut
4. Enjoy!

I just saw this interesting idea over at Metropolis Magazine. It’s called the Copenhagen Wheel and it’s a prototype electric powered wheel for your bike which not only pushes you along it also gathers data about your ride and the environments you ride through. The wheel sends the date to a special iphone app and then onto the web. Creating a layered map of date from all the Copenhagen wheels in your city. Pretty interesting. I think I would buy one. I didn’t find any information about the size of the electric motor or how you charge it or how fast it goes. I also didn’t see any wires, so maybe it’s just an electric assist and not a full electric bike.

The Copenhagen Wheel turns the bike you already own, quickly and easily into an electric bike with regeneration and real-time environmental sensing capabilities. The wheel harvests the energy you input while braking and cycling and stores it for when you need a bit of a boost. At the same time, sensors in the wheel are collecting information about air and noise pollution, congestion and road conditions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Copenhagen Wheel differs from other electric bikes in that all components areelegantly packaged into one hub. There is no external wiring or bulky battery packs, making it retrofittable into any bike. Inside the hub, we have arranged a motor, 3-speed internal hub gear, batteries, a torque sensor, GPRS and a sensor kit that monitors CO, NOx, noise (db), relative humidity and temperature. In the future, you will be able to spec out your wheel according to your riding habits and needs.

Live in San Francisco? Add more battery power.
Interested in real-time applications? Increase the number of sensors.

Lastly, the wheel is controlled through your Smart Phone and becomes a natural extension of your everyday life. Simply place your phone on the handlebars, and its Bluetooth module syncs with the Bluetooth module in the hub of the Copenhagen Wheel.You can then use your phone and our Copenhagen Wheel Application to unlock and lock your bike, change gears, select how much the motor assists you and for viewing relevant real-time information.

Looking back at the demise of something so dear to my heart. I wrote this post last year as the end was blaring out of the TV, but something this big this important should be shouted from the roof tops, so here is my tribute to not just a magazine, but to an old friend, who for reasons beyond belief, is no longer with us.

Why? Why why why…? It was October 5th 2009, about two weeks ago, I was at the gym, on the treadmill. Loud music blasting in my iPod earphones, CNN on the screen in front of me, both meant to distract me from dwelling on the fact that I’m running on a conveyor belt alongside other people running on conveyor belts. Then I saw it. An image on the TV screen of the cover of the latest issue of Gourmet magazine, and the printed headline, “Gourmet magazine closes after 70 years.” WHAT!? No Way! How is that possible? I’m frantically looking around, for… what… ? I think I was expecting others must have seen this headline and also stopped running out of shock and disbelief, like me. I was thinking I’d see people hugging, comforting one another over the news, shaking their heads. But no, I only saw people still running, pedaling, and the usual sea of heads bobbing up and down in the elliptical section.

I couldn’t keep going. I had to know what happened, so I ran home and checked online and yes, indeed, Conde Nast was shutting down Gourmet. Along with 3 other titles: a cookie magazine and two bridal magazines. I don’t get it. Isn’t there another silly magazine they could shut down? How about Golf World or Golf Digest? Does the world really need both? (or either?) Immediately I emailed my Mom, my Stepmom, and chef Neal, among others, like “OMG, did you hear???” They too were saddened. I wanted to call people and talk about it. I wanted to pull out a bottle of good wine and sit on the floor with all my old issues spread out around me, flipping through them and getting drunk and nostalgic.

I wanted to grieve. I wanted to be around people who understood and were similarly bummed out. I felt like there should be a huge and grand memorial service. Ruth Reichl (the editor) would get up and speak, past editors would get up and speak. All the food world would be there, dressed in dark clothes, and easels everywhere with giant cover images. Then everyone would drink really really good wine, and eat lots of beautiful food, and feel the comfort of communal mourning. Maybe there was such a service and I just wasn’t invited.

Anyway. I was reminded of all of this earlier today as I flipped through my copy of Bon Appetit, Conde Nast’s other food publication that was chosen over Gourmet to live on. The close up photos inside looked gory, the bulky font headlines over them cartoonish, and the dishes simple and uninspiring. Even the lighting on the styled photos looked weird and shadowy. The headlines were: “Entertaining Do’s and Don’ts”, “Party Desserts”, “Healthy Holiday Foods”, “68 Recipes to Mix & Match” and “Leftovers Done Right!” with the boring November issue glossy turkey cover, and “Thanksgiving Made Easy!” across the top. Thanksgiving isn’t supposed to be easy! You’re supposed to labor, with love.

Gourmet was beautiful and classy. It was only a few days before the fateful announcement that I read what I would never have suspected was my last issue. I even thought to myself I was going to call and double back up on my subscription like I did years ago. This way, I can tear out pages in one copy, and keep the other untouched, for my collection. Did I mention I have every single issue filed away going back through 1997? That’s 12 years. I used to have a few more years before that but I recall a very painful and reluctant purging of a couple piles a long time ago. One day I’m going to get the covers scanned and copied and will wallpaper a kitchen hallway with them. Or something like that. Every cover was a work of art, with more pages of art inside. Vegan or not, I was particularly struck by the photos on p. 102/103 of pork chops. “Pork chop” just sounds vulgar. But the photo on page 103 is a work of art. If you get obsessed about color like I do, you’d understand. The pink of the inside of the meat, the mossy dark green backdrop, the burgundy wine… I want to go back to all these pages when I’m picking colors for packaging labels, for furniture fabrics, for clothing I want to design, for whatever I’m putting together, in my Martha Stewart-esque creative fantasy land.

Going almost all raw vegan six years ago did nothing to lessen my appreciation for the pages of this magazine. It’s very much a celebration of the art and elegance of food, restaurants, and cooking. But it’s also been more thoughtful than that. In the August 2004 summer issue (with the sexy cover photo of blackberry jam in a glass jar with a wooden spoon) the editor bravely published an article which infuriated many of the magazine’s readers. It was called “Consider the Lobster” written by the famous writer David Foster Wallace (known for novels, short stories, and essays, not food writing, who also, btw, killed himself about a year ago…L). They sent him to report on the 56th annual Maine Lobster Festival (where “something over 25,000 pounds of fresh-caught Maine lobster is consumed’). She published his entire essay without editing a word. It’s really long and full of digressions and lengthy footnotes. But as Ruth Reichl points out in her Editor’s Letter, “it is hilarious, thought-provoking, very uncomfortable—and something you’re not likely to forget anytime soon.”

With all of its funny details, Wallace makes you feel like you’re there with him. His comments on his discomfort with mass tourism (specifically in footnote 6) are particularly sobering given that he took his own life a few years later. Why is introspection such torture? In the spirit of Wallace’s many digressions, I’m totally digressing here to include a link to a thoroughly beautiful speech given on an overlapping and entirely relevant issue by the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. You can see it here. It’s 20 minutes. Well worth it. Believe me, I have no patience for youtube crap, but this is the opposite. From the TED series, I was referred to this talk by my friend, champion, and hero, Seth Godin. Watch it. Especially if you’ve ever felt tormented by the creative process, whether writing, creating art or music, science, or building a business.

Back to lobsters. Where was I. OK, so part way through this incredibly engaging article, Wallace puts forth what seemed to him in this context an unavoidable question:

“Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure? A related set of concerns: Is the previous question irksomely PC or sentimental? What does ‘all right’ even mean in this context? Is it all just a matter of individual choice?”

Gourmet magazine has been around for almost twice as long as I have, so I haven’t read all the issues, but I’m guessing this is the first time this sort of question was raised in its pages. In a corresponding footnote he points out:

“Similar reasoning underlies the practice of what’s termed ‘debeaking’ broiler chickens and brood hens in modern factory farms. Maximum commercial efficiency requires that enormous poultry populations be confined in unnaturally close quarters, under which conditions many birds go crazy and peck one another to death. As a purely observational side-note, be apprised that debeaking is usually an automated process and that the chickens receive no anesthetic. It’s not clear to me whether most Gourmet readers know about debeaking, or about related practices like dehorning cattle in commercial feedlots, cropping swine’s tails in factory hog farms to keep psychotically bored neighbors from chewing them off, and so forth. It so happens that your assigned correspondent knew almost nothing about standard meat-industry operations before starting work on this article.”

The article is so good that it’s really hard not to quote the entire thing. He’s taking you along with him as he learns a bunch of new stuff himself. In another paragraph he points out:

“The more important point here, though, is that the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable. It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing. I should add that it appears to me unlikely that many readers of Gourmet wish to think hard about it, either, or to be queried about the morality of their eating habits in the pages of a culinary monthly. Since, however, the assigned subject of this article is what it was like to attend the 2003 MLF, and thus to spend several days in the midst of a great mass of Americans all eating lobster, and thus to be more or less impelled to think hard about lobster and the experience of buying and eating lobster, it turns out that there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions.”

He goes on investigating these questions incredibly thoroughly and thoughtfully, without judgment. I love that the whole thing is without judgment and very personal. You rarely learn so much about the author in a food magazine article. Anyway. He says,

“I’m not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so. I’m trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and salutation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the Festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF can begin to take on aspects of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.”

And finally, his conclusion isn’t conclusive, just more thoughtful questions:

“Given this article’s venue and my own lack of culinary sophistication, I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgments and discomforts. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused. … Is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?”

I love love love this essay. And I love Ruth Reichl even more than I did before for printing it. Many readers were furious and cancelled their subscriptions after this article appeared. Which I think is ridiculous. He put forth incredibly relevant (an understatement) questions for people to think about. After all, didn’t I just wax on in the above paragraphs about the beautiful photo of pork chops? Admiring the aesthetics of the photo vs. the content—the artfulness of it rather than the reality that it’s a photograph of a slice of a cooked slab of dead pig?

Watching those nature shows on TV where the lioness attacks and kills the gazelle—I can’t help feeling sad for the poor gazelle, the one of the herd that gets caught and taken down. But the gazelle wasn’t trapped, restrained, de-beaked (if it had a beak—you know what I’m getting at), demeaned, injected with hormones and antibiotics, fed a bunch of crap, or forced to walk a plank and watch a bunch of gazelles before it get unceremoniously and thoughtlessly slain before its turn to die. Was the pig in the photo? I don’t know. I could go on and on thinking these things through.

I loved this article when I first read it in 2004 and I love it now. It’s much easier to read, by the way, if you click on the “print” icon and print the whole thing, 11 pages of paper consumed and all. Easier to read the footnotes that way, and then you can pass it along to someone who might not read it online. Like your grandma. While you’re at it, click on the link to the related articles and you’ll find quite a bit on Food Politics, such as “A View to a Kill” which investigates America’s chicken industry and more humane ways to raise and kill chickens. This one doesn’t even compare to the amazingness that is the lobster article, but again I was cheering Gourmet for printing it and others like it—for raising these questions to its readers.

Despite all the questions in my own mind, I still love the photography and overall beauty and spirit of this now defunct food magazine. I just realized if you flip back a few pages from the pork picture I was admiring so much, there’s a beautiful full page photo of the featured chef holding a lamb, but he’s not in a chef coat and he’s not proudly posing with his prey. He’s holding the lamb like you’d hold a kitten and kissing its forehead. And opposite the pork beauty shot is a quarter page black and white of a pig. These are stunning shots, and their inclusion in the magazine acknowledges that the food in the photos come from these beautiful creatures. Which reminds me… if you’ve been to my restaurant Pure Food and Wine, then you’ve probably noticed the three different photographs on one wall of a very spirited looking duck. I found this photo before the restaurant opened in another 2004 issue of Gourmet. What struck me about it was how the duck was looking right into the camera with an almost feisty sort of look in his eye. I was in love with that photograph (and tracked down the photographer to get it). Little did I know that photo would inspire the name of my company a year later.

I will miss this magazine. The pages of Gourmet will always be inspiring to me.

Yogurt is an ancient wonderfood, brimming with beneficial bacteria to keep your gut running good ‘n healthy. But standard yogurt is made with dairy milks – blech – which contain hormones and carcinogens and acids and allergens and irritants. Oh my! But no worries, making your own alt yogurt is *super* easy and totally fun. It also saves a small fortune versus buying prepackaged products (which contain a slew of additives as well).

If you already have a yogurt maker you’re super stoked – and you can still use this recipe, but follow your machine’s directions when it comes time to culture. If you’re interested in making lots of yogurt at home, a yogurt maker may be a good investment for you. They’re really quite cheap – especially if you can find one secondhand (check Craigslist!).

But, a yogurt maker isn’t necessary! I make yogurt in my crock-pot, which is one machine that’s worth the money for all sorts of reasons. (I <3 my crock so much!) But even if you have neither a yogurt maker nor a crock-pot, you can *still* make yogurt at home! Just see the note at the end of this post.

Alright, yogurt time! Here’s what you’ll need:
1. One batch of homemade nut or rice milk (about 4 cups) (you can try subbing store bought – let me know how it goes)
2. Two heaping tablespoons tapioca starch (available at health food stores, specialty shops, or ‘ethnic’ markets)
3. One tablespoon organic evaporated cane juice (or sugar; I’ve tried maple syrup with no luck)
4. Some sort of culture (If this is your first time you have three options: 1 tablespoon store bought non dairy yogurt, One non-dairy probiotic capsule (refrigerated only, as the shelf stable ones are not alive), or a non-dairy yogurt starter.) (Every time you make a batch of yogurt, save some of it to use as a starter for your next batch. this will save you a lot of money!)
5. A small pot
6. A candy thermometer
7. A slow cooker
8. Dish rags/towels and a large blanket

Step One: Pour the entire batch of alt milk into the pot, over medium heat. Whisk in the tapioca starch and the sugar. Allow the milk to heat slowly until it reaches 180º F, whisking frequently. Don’t let it boil!

Step Two: When it’s reached 180º remove it from heat. Give it a good whisk, cover it, and set aside to cool. It will take 1 or 2 hours to cool down completely. You may be tempted to expedite the process by putting it in the fridge but I don’t recommend this. It can lead to tapioca lumps! Stir every so often to help prevent the lumpies.

At this point, place your crock-pot in the center of a blanket or big towel and turn it on to ‘low’. Leave the crock-pot on with the lid off while the alt milk mix is cooling.

Also, remove your starter, whatever it may be, from the fridge. You want it to be room temperature when you add it to the mix. I’ve tried various soy and coconut milk yogurts with equal success. Just make sure that whatever you use is plain, unpasteurized, and explicitly says “live active cultures”. If this is not your first batch of yogurt, you should be using the last few tablespoons of your previous batch!

Step Three: The mix needs to cool to below 110º F, but closer to 90º is better. If it’s too hot it will kill the starter cultures. When it has appropriately cooled, add your starter and whisk thoroughly to combine. Don’t add too much! More does NOT equal better – the bacteria need ‘room’ to grow. A full tablespoon of store bought yogurt or a few tablespoons of leftover homemade yogurt, or a single probiotic pill.

Step Four: Pour the entire mixture into a large glass jar. Cover with the lid but do not tighten it. It needs to be able to ‘breathe’.

Turn off and unplug the crock-pot. Wrap the jar in towels and put it in the crock-pot, put the lid on, and then wrap the whole shebang up tight in the blanket! Now, leave it alone for a good 12-18 hours.

Step Five – Done!: You will know your yogurt has ‘yoged’ if it has a bit of a tang to it. The longer you let it culture, the more sour it gets. Be careful – it can get pretty sour! When it’s done transfer it to the fridge, without stirring or shaking, and let it set up in there for a few hours. It will thicken, but probably not as much as traditional yogurt.

Yay! Enjoy your yogurt! It’s awesome straight up with fresh fruit or nuts, or you can use it to make all sorts of incredible dishes, like . . . dairy-esque dips and dressings, labneh, tzatziki, raita, mango lassi, or frozen yogurt! It’s also delicious in – you guessed it – green smoothies! (Am I predictable or what? Ha!)

So have fun playing with it – it’s just so good for you, you can’t go wrong!

Paloma loves to eat. In that way, we are very fortunate. It’s quite a rarity for her to turn down food, and she’s always eager to try anything I put in front of her. I’ll never forget an impossibly bitter dandelion smoothie that I made. No one could drink it, except for Paloma, who joyfully slurped down a whole glass. I dearly love to cook and feed people, especially family and friends, and her approval makes me one happy mama.

Our days usually start with me cooking breakfast and impatient Paloma sitting at the kitchen table, spoon in hand, narrating my preparations and hurrying me on. It’s quite humorous. She is not the calmest of children (a little tornado to be exact) and becomes very excited when food is in sight.

This is where the idea for the edible puzzle stemmed from. I imagined a game that would occupy Paloma, and, since she puts everything in her mouth, be safe and tasty to eat. I thought about the obvious educational qualities of puzzles such as teaching about shape, colour, size, structure, and included two more – flavour and nutritional value.

I started by making various fruit leathers of different colours. Mango, kiwi, blueberry, strawberry, pineapple, kiwi-spinach and carrot-mango to be exact. Then I decided on five basic shapes (circle, triangle, long rectangle, curved teardrop, and straight teardrop) and cut each one out in three different sizes. The simplicity of the shapes allows for much imagination when building a picture, the possibilities here are never-ending. It seems that room for creativity is one of the most important aspects of a children’s game, it encourages a sort of intellectual freedom and concentration.

Well, it was a hit. Paloma is a little too young to be able to construct her own images, but she liked watching us do it, naming all the animals and things, and loved the fact that all the pretty puzzle pieces could be eaten.

This type of puzzle would make for an interesting homemade gift. Or it could be a way for a more finicky eater to learn about the taste, scent, and colour of different fruits and learn to like them through playing a game.

Bunny rabbits, cats, birds, tigers, bears and other animals, snowmen, butterflies, flowers, sailboats, the sun, pine trees, bees, and landscapes.

You name it.

Fruit Leather
You can find many fruit leather recipes on the internet. Here, I just blended the fruit in a food processor. Then sweetened it to taste with raw honey or agave. Spread it quite thickly on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays and dried at 115F until leathery. Peeled off the Teflex, flipped, and dehydrated some more until completely dry. I made hard templates of each shape and used a knife and kitchen scissors to cut out the pieces.

I woke up this crisp September Sunday morning with the feeling of Fall. A slight chill in the air. Mist along the west coast. Mmmmm. I LOVE these morning’s. Especially here in Cali, where the weather of the season’s seem to always blend together. Finally, a change! YAY! Gonna embrace this new day in all it’s glory. Enjoy it while it lasts. Stay cozy for as long as I can. And that means, makin’ one of my most beloved dishes…SOUP! Woooooooo hooooooo. Yes, I am really THAT excited to make some yummy homemade soup! And, yes, I am the type of gal that fantasizes about makin’ it in the last long hot days of summer…just sayin’…

Soooooooo stay in your warm comfy PJ’s, put on some holiday music (I know it’s very early in the season for some holiday cheer but, I ain’t gonna lie, I’ve been know to rock out in the kitchen to those fab festive jams while makin’ me soup as soon as it gets chilly outside…:) ). And be sure to call some friends and invite them over for a delish homemade Sunday Soup Supper! Just ask them to bring a baguette and a bottle of wine and you got a wonderful din din…

Oh and I’m also gonna make a stock. It adds more flavor to your soup and is very easy to do. You can always tailor your homemade stock to enhance the soup you are making. For example, if you’re making a sweet vegetable soup, add sweet potato or squash for extra sweetness to your stock. You can also use your vegetable trimmings, such as leek tops, mushroom caps, squash skins and fennel tops. But avoid spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, collard greens, brussel sprouts, beets, onionskins and wilted vegetables. They will make your stock bitter.

To Make the Vegetable Stock Get a large pot and diced a large onion, throw in about 6 cloves of unpeeled garlic, a few stalks of chopped celery, a couple of carrots, parsnip if you got it, corn cob, a chopped seeded chili pepper, a couple of slices of fresh ginger, bag dried shitake mushrooms or a few fresh ones, a piece of kombu seaweed, handful of fresh parsley, a bay leaf, 1 TB mirin (Japanese rice wine) and a tsp of sea salt. Top it all off with some filtered water to cover, bring to a boil then turn down the heat and simmer for about an hour. Strain and, boom, you got homemade veggie stock. It will last about 5 days in the fridge and 2 months in the freezer.

Instructions For Soup:
1. In large pot heat oil and sauté onions, garlic, carrot, parsnip, celery, shitake mushrooms, chili pepper and 1 tsp sea salt.
2. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion begins to turns golden, about 8 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes and sauté about 5 minutes then add veggie stock to cover vegetable about an inch.
4. Bring to boil then turn down to simmer for about 25 minutes or until carrots and parsnips are soft.
5. Add corn kernels and cooked pasta or grain for a few minutes then add fresh chopped parsley and cilantro.
6. Taste, and then add more Tamari or seas salt if needed.

Instructions For Pistou:
1. Put everything in food processor and chopped until combine.

To serve
Ladle soup into bowl with fresh sliced basil leaves and large TB of pesto (bring pesto to the table so you can add more if desired). Oh and if you can eat dairy serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese or you can always do a vegan option. Toast the  baguette and serve with the soup. Yum Yum!

I am in Cali, where the farmers market is booming with an abundant variety of amazing tomatoes. And, because of that, I always always seem to buy more than I can eat cause they all look so beautiful!!! So, if I don’t eat my luscious ripe tomatoes right away, I put them in the fridge to stay fresh but…ummmm…note to self: don’t forget about them!!! Huh. I know. My beautiful boxes of ripe golden red cherry tomatoes got pushed to the back of the fridge where I couldn’t see them clearly. Oh and I also found a bag of hot red chili’s from the farmer market too…hmmm….what to make…what to make…ohhhh, I know… a spicy Arrabiata Pasta sauce!!!!

Since coming back to the states from my Italian food adventures, I have been completely inspired to cook many incredible Italian dishes I experienced. Ahem…let me be specific…my newfound love for PASTA!!! Whole grain pasta, that is. I made the homemade pasta we learned at The Awaiting Table cooking school but it didn’t come out as perfectly as it did when we made it there, in Italy. Maybe it has something to do the all those wonderful minerals in the water…who knows…hopefully one of these days I will perfect it. It’s not that mine tasted bad, it’s just that it came out a bit thicker and chewier…in the meantime I am joyfully exploring the world of organic dry Italian pasta. Right now, I’m diggin’ Rustichella d’Abruzzo rigate di farro. It’s made from 100% farro flour, which is an unhybridized form of wheat that closely resembles spelt so any of you wheat sensitive peeps should find this ancient grain A-OK.

It’s a glorious end of summer kind of day with that wee bit of crispness of Fall in the gentle breeze, perfecto for an outdoor Italian pasta lunch! Yes, I was thinking the same thing; a special “friend” and some Italian wine is a must too! Either way, enjoy yaself!!! Ciao ciao….

About the photos, I know… I should have taken photos before we started eating. Next time I promise.

Instructions:
1. Make pasta as instructed on box.
2. In a medium sauce on medium heat pan add about 1TB of olive oil.
3. When hot add diced onions, garlic and red chili if using and dash of sea salt. (I like a lot of heat from the chili but if you don’t, by all means, don’t use any chili peppers or if you just want a little, only add a dash of dried red pepper flakes. Your choice.)
4. Sauté until soft, about 5 minutes.
5. Add tomatoes and dried tomatoes and stir until combined.
6. Cover and put on low heat for about 15 to 20 minutes or until tomatoes are fully broken down.
7. In a large bowl add about 4 TB of olive oil, chopped parsley, 1 tsp sea salt and olives.
8. Stir to combine and add your reserved fresh tomatoes.
9. When pasta is down add to the bowl and stir in dulse and combine.
10. Then, when sauce is done add some sauce and combine being sure to add more sauce on top of individual bowls with cheese and pine nut.

The early autumn continues to bring us gorgeous watermelons and heirloom tomatoes in southern California. The perfect ingredients to create a soup that is as tasty as it is healing. Perfect if you’re on a raw food cleanse. It’s very high in cancer preventing lycopene and the flavor is simply fantastic. I taught this at my Brooklyn Kitchen classes and everyone raved about how much they loved it. If you’re cleansing you can skip the sea salt and if you want a richer soup add a tablespoon or two of good quality extra virgin olive oil to the base.

Serves about 6 to 8

Instructions:
1. Place 4 cups of the watermelon in a blender along with the tomato, spearmint, basil, lime juice, vinegar, garlic and sea salt and blend until smooth.
2. Transfer the puree to a large bowl. Add diced tomatoes, watermelon cucumbers and onions and stir to combine.
3. Chill for 1-2 hours before serving.
4. Will last two days in the refrigerator.

Let me start this post with an UPSIDE DOWN smile :( Okay now that I have that out of my system, lets focus on the title of this post: I Bought The $10 Mast Brothers Chocolate Bar, So Why Am I Not in Chocolate Heaven. What the hell is that suppose to mean right? Well, this is what it means. I sooooo badly wanted to LOVE, I mean butterflies in my belly, love this Chocolate Bar. Why why chocolate fairy did you still my joy!

Let me start at the beginning. I was in the big NYC for a little work and a whole lot of Loving (wishful thinking I know) a few weeks ago. I started off the visit by seeing my friend Dan, who has an office just around the corner from the newish Ace Hotel in Manhattan. Yeah, that cool hip salvation army looking hotel chain. The one out of Portland Oregon. It’s an awesome place and they even have a Portland styled espresso bar just off the main lobby of the Hotel. Since we were so close, we decided to make the Ace our morning espresso destination. Wow, it did not disappoint. The entire lobby is a wifi free hang out zone, featuring a completely black 40 foot ceiling with massive roman style white columns holding up the place.

I think I must have passed out. When I woke, there was a large chunk of this dry bitter bar still stuck to my tongue.

We headed into the espresso bar and order up a few soy cappuccinos. As I am paying for our brews, what quirky little thing catches my eye on the counter? The one and only Mast Brothers Chocolate Bars. I couldn’t believe it. I just wrote a post on the Mast Brothers a week or so before heading to NYC. The post included a few amazing videos about the two brothers and their dedication to the old world craft of chocolate making. Their Brooklyn based store in the videos looked like a mini chocolate heaven to me. So, seeing these Willy Wonka type bars right there, on the counter was just too much to resist, I grabbed one and told the barista, add this to my bill. First words out of his mouth were, are you sure, they are $10. The number echoed in my head. $10 Doooollllaaarrrssssss. Time seemed to stop. Everything was in slow motion. I could hear the hiss of the steam escaping the espresso machines, the slurping sound from all the hipsters sucking down their espressos and my own breath rushing out of my lungs… and then these words leaving my lips, of course, no problem, let me have it. And oh did he! $20 or so dollars later Dan and I strolled out with two espresso’s and my new shiny heaven in a bar of Mast Brothers Espresso Dark Chocolate.

Now I didn’t just rip this thing open and start eating it. Hell no, this thing had to be opened with someone special. It had to be the right moment. Maybe after a really nice dinner or something. This thing is like a fine wine, right? You just don’t pop the cork and chug it. You open it, let it breath and nibble it. I even thought to myself, if I bring this back to enjoy with (a certain unnamed hottie), she will be all over me, I mean after tasting this chocolate perfection. I would be like a chocolate toting stud… right? Hmm well it was not to be. I did stick to my plan and opened it after a really nice dinner we shared, but when this thing hit our lips, we didn’t go all dizzy with delight… no, it was more like, can you pass me the water please, quickly!

My perfect chocolate world came crashing down around my head. I think I must have passed out. When I woke, there was a large chunk of this dry bitter bar still stuck to my tongue. Not a pretty sight and no it didn’t win over the girl. In fact after she helped me up off the floor and reached in to clear my airway, pulling the chocolate lump free from my tongue, she actually asked me to leave. I immediately passed out again. She shook me, and said something like, your sweet, but your taste is questionable. Maybe we should slow things down. How about I call you.

Damn You Mast Brothers! Well to be fair, it just might be this particular bar or this flavor or something. Maybe the rest of the bars are pure heaven. I wouldn’t know and at $10 a pop, I don’t think I will be finding out anytime soon.

If you have had a Mast Brothers Chocolate Bar, chime in, leave a comment and let us know about your experiences. Maybe I am just not sophisticated enough to taste craftsmanship while its choking the life out of me.

There are some people who will cook and bake outside of their “diet philosophies” for family and friends. I’m definitely not one of those people. That may sound stubborn, but really it’s not about being difficult. I just figure if I could make the “same” thing AND be able to eat it, too, why not? It’s easy to go buy any full-fat “normal” dessert. It is not always easy to make a gluten-free vegan birthday cake.

My tradition among close friends and family, is to bake a special treat for them. I usually ask what their top 3 favorite desserts are, then I’ll create a unique recipe for them based off their response. Unfortunately for me, that answer is usually chocolate. No, not “chocolate cake” or “brownies,” just “anything chocolate.” Now, I like chocolate, don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate a good brownie or truffle, but it’s definitely not my first choice. I was always the odd one out among my sisters requesting “vanilla” instead of “chocolate.” I remember refusing birthday cake as a young kid because it was chocolate! My indifference is heightened among the many many chocolate lovers I know.

This tart was so delicious, I actually started laughing upon the first bite.

I had almost 4 friend’s birthdays in a weeks span of time. I knew I had to find something everyone would love. This time, I decided to not just go for my Cocoa Carob Brownie Bites, or homemade truffles, but something I could even like. This tart was so delicious, I actually started laughing upon the first bite. It’s rich chocolate and I like it!

I am warning you now, this is quite a decadent dessert. It is rich, creamy and nutty thanks to an amazing buttery almond meal crust. This will surely make someone feel special on any day, chocolate lover or not.

Makes: 6 Mini Tartlettes

Instructions:
1. Whisk together almond meal and sucanat in a stand mixer. Slowly add cubed “butter” and vanilla until mixture starts holding together.
2. Press 2-3 tablespoons of crust mixture into greased tart pans. Add to mini tarts to baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
3. Chill or freeze for 20 minutes or until less fragile. While the crusts chill, add all chocolate into a food processor until very chopped very small. Add to medium sized bowl.
4. When tart crusts are close to done chilling, add coconut milk to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, pour over chocolate and let stand for 3-5 minutes. Add vanilla extract and whisk into ganache.
5. Remove tart crusts from freezer and pour chocolate ganache into each crust. Return to freezer for 20 minutes, and eat chilled.

A simple sweet comforting seasonally spiced corn desert. You gotta trust me on this one. This is just one of those times…

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven 275.
2. In medium saucepan combine milk, molasses, oil, ginger, cinnamon and salt.
3. Bring to boil, remove from heat and whisk in cornmeal.
4. Pour mixture into 8in square baking dish and bake until pudding is firm but still jiggles slightly in the center about 2 to 2 ½ hours. 5. Let cool for about 1 hour and serve with some sort of vanilla ice cream of your choosing.

Some of you may already know that I have a brand new dehydrator at home, which is also the reason for the lack of posts lately. I’m diving into the raw cuisine with the open eyes of a new born baby. Raw crackers, raw desserts, “baked” nuts… I want to try it all and my dehydrator is working 24-7!

There are so many recipes I want to taste that the first moment the Excalibur arrived I got totally lost. I had absolutely no idea what to start with, where to begin and how to do it, although I spent the last 2 weeks preparing myself and reading all there is to read about using the thing. I also had a list with favorite recipes sticked to my desktop… Well, I had a list with recipes and no ingredients at all. Yeah, I know, the joke is on me. Instead of reading all days long I could’ve bought the necessary products, sprouted different things and prepare better.

Anyway, I managed to pull a couple of cracker variations (will share my most favorite one soon) and some desserts. I’m a true believer that you eat with your eyes wide open, so when I see something beautiful I got inspired. This time my inspiration were these cute little raw fruit paper like crepes appetizer from rawmazing.com, I just wanted mine sweet. The best option I could think of for making them sweet was fruit crepes for the bags and raw brownies for the filling. Easy, delicious and so beautiful! Especially if you make different variations, in my case – orange, apples & kiwi ones. Yum!

Instructions For The Fruit Crepes:
1. Peel and cut the Fruits (be sure to remove all the skin from the citrus Fruits).
2. Blend well with the sweetener.
3. Pour the mixtures on a non-sticky parallexx sheets.
4. Dehydrate for 6-8 hours on 110 F
5. Peel and chill in the refrigerator for a night.

Instructions For The Brownie Filling :
1. Blend the nuts leaving some bigger chunks, then add the dates and blend for 30 more seconds.
2. Add the coconut oil, the sweetener, the water and the salt and blend until all starts to stick together.
3. Add the cacao powder and mix by hand.
4. Pour the mixture on a non-stick parallexx sheet and even with a spatula.
5. Dehydrate for 1 hour at 145°F
6. Then for 3 more hours at 110°F
7. Remove from the dehydrator, cut into square bites and chill for a night.

For assembling
1. Cut into 5‚ square the Fruit Crepe, add 2-3 bites of the brownies inside, fold sides up and tight.
2. The brownies are super delicious and eaten on it’s own, so give them a try :)
3. Serve with a cup of raw nuts milk and enjoy!

Time for preparation: 30 minutes. Makes 20 Fruity Crepe bags.

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!

Instructions
1. Blend all ingredients together until smooth. If need be, you may need to add a bit of water to keep contents in blender moving.
2. Paper or silicone mini-baking cups
3. Line a miniature cupcake pan with baking cups.
4. Pour a small amount of chocolate in the bottom of each cup.
5. Next, drop a small amount of the mint mixture on top of the chocolate layer.
6. Cover mint mixture with more chocolate sauce.
7. Once all cups have been poured, place in freezer to firm.

Viola – you’re done! Like I said, I’m addicted – And, I love the contrast of the hard outer shell with the soft and gooey minty inside – Ahhh, so heavenly.

Enjoy!

I need a badass raw Valentine’s Day tart and I need it pronto. I looked around in thee ole cabinets for some nuts and I am sad to say, I was out of luck. Then I remembered, I froze some of the left over almond pulp from the nut milk I made last week. Yeah, thats it, I can defrosted the almond pulp and try it out for the crust.

And now, I am very very happy to report that it worked out perfectly! Of course, if you have some fresh pulp, you can use that or you could sub straight up finely ground nuts too. The only difference you might notice is the consistency of the crust. The pulp is lighter and I would say fluffier than straight raw nuts.

Oh and the filling…. As I said, I didn’t have any nuts but then again I didn’t have hours to spend soaking them either, so I thought, nut butter to the rescue! I wanted a rich, thick pudding in minutes and YUM, I got that and more!

Happy Valentines everyone! I hope your getting your fill of love “bites” on this special day! :)

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Instructions for the Crust
1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until combine.
2. Transfer into desired tart mold and press evenly.
3. Put in freezer for at least 1 hour. Of course, if you can’t wait, you can serve immediately. The consistency will be much softer. Either way, it’s still gonna be delish.

Instructions for the Filling
Blend everything in high speed blender. You may need to add more nut milk if too thick. Pour into tart crust and decorate with fresh organic red raspberries and refrigerate until ready to serve.

I love love love mulberries. They’re one of my top three favorite dried fruits, and are like sweet, chewy candies without the refined sugar. I was fortunate enough to taste fresh mulberries a few summers ago, and wow, what a treat! Mulberries are high in antioxidants and a rich source of vitamin C and iron, so get your snack on! I keep a stash of these dried gems in my purse for emergency snacking purposes, and I particularly enjoy mixing them into dark raw chocolate. They also make a fabulous topping for ice cream – when they’re cold, they’re crunchy! For a great breakfast cereal, toss them with dehydrated buckwheat, cacao nibs, and drizzle it all with cold almond milk. Yum!

Recently I was inspired to turn these goodies into a creamy, luscious mousse! I use irish moss to thicken and “fluff” the mixture. Irish moss is a seaweed rich in minerals, and is high in protein, calcium, iron, magnesium, in addition to other nutrients. It also acts as a skin nourisher and softener, so make extra irish moss gel and wear it as a face mask!

Instructions:
1. Soak the mulberries in the water for 1-2 hours.
2. Blend the berries/soak water along with all other ingredients except the oil, until smooth.
3. Add the oil and blend briefly to incorporate.
4. Chill the mixture.
5. Garnish with dried mulberries and a drizzle of yacon or maple syrup (optional)

*Irish moss gel:
1. Rinse and soak a handful of irish moss in cold water for 8-12 hours.
2. Remove the moss from the water, measure out 2 oz. and chop.
3. Blend the chopped moss with 1 cup of water until smooth and warm.
4. Save remaining gel for other recipes.

I am SO excited about the summer season – TONS of fresh, local and my fav fruits in season. I have this theory that I made up a few years back – EAT tons of local seasonal fruits and veg and you will boost your immune system. The local and seasonal part is the key. I do it with my kids and they seem to be flu and cold-free most of the year {maybe one a year if that – SO FAR}! Roman has yet to be sick and he’s a almost 14 months old.

Anyways…so… I woke up last night dreaming of apricot bars {I definitely don’t eat those anymore}. My girlfriend Kelley Lilien and I used to make them with oats, flour and butter as a crust then topped with apricot preserves {store bought}. They were to die for. So I thought to myself, hmmmm, wonder if I could come up with something comparable? Luckily I had local seasonal apricots on hand.

My recipe makeover turned out AMAZING, but not as firm as I’d liked. So, I am calling it a cobbler! The whole family enjoyed it, together with a scoop of Tomberlies raw vegan ice cream! YUM!

Instructions: To make Preserve:
1. In a Vitamix add first 3 ingredients. Then dissolve the Kuzu in 1/2c water, heat for a few seconds in a pan and it turns to a thick mixture. Add 3 Tbls of mixture to the Vitamix.
2. Blend until smooth with maybe a few chunks. Put in fridge until ready to use.

Instructions: To make dough:
1. In a Cuisinart chop mac nuts, oats, dates, salt until you get a course mixture. In a sauce pan warm cacao butter until it turns to liquid. Add to mixture and blend for about 30 seconds.
2. Press dough into glass pan, reserving about a half cup {as shown below}, pour the preserves over the top and then lay the rest of the dough on the top of the preserves.
3. Dehydrate for 5 hours OR if you don’t have one or care to dehydrate, put in the oven on 170 degrees for 2-3 hours. Let cool.

NOTE: YOU WILL HAVE LEFT OVER APRICOT PRESERVE. USE IT TO MAKE A GREEN DRINK OR WONDERFUL SMOOTHIE! THAT’S WHAT I DID. ;)

Enjoy!

So, this is what happened. I am in Roma right now and, being that I am a foodie, I was taken to a hidden Italian slow food restaurant last night for a 9:30pm dinner. Which meant that we didn’t really eat until 10:30pm, much much later than I normally eat. But I was fine with it. I mean shit. I am in Roma for f-sake!

We started with a salted cod capriccio with black truffles and red onion dressed with lemon and amazing olive oil. Then we went on to have fried zucchini flowers and olives, then we split an order of anchovy, raisin, pine nut homemade tagliatelle pasta and then I ordered an onion flan and he had the rabbit.

Oh yes and washed it all down with a lovely crisp bottle of white wine. Oh and I forgot to mention the traditional Italian aperitivo we started off the evening with, at a bar overlooking the coliseum no less. I forgot what the aperitivio was called but it was a mix of campari, sweet vermouth and sparkling white wine. Bitter and very very strong. Definitely woke my jet-lagged ass right up! Anyway we ate and drank and all was delish and merry. Oh and very salty. A bit too salty but f-it I am in Roma remember.

What is my point at painting the picture of my eating and drinking…well first it’s fun and if you are anything like me I like to have a visual…but my main point is…I went to bed with a full belly and a warm fuzzy wine haze. Which, not only affected my not so sound sleep but I woke up feeling not rested and very salty. Puffy to be exact.

With only 5 ½ hours of sleep I stumbled out of bed and immediately drank some water, then came the green tea, green powder, vitamins, anything and everything to get me out of the way I felt in that moment.

Now, I am not saying that’s bad, to try and balance yourself with supplements that make you feel better, I’m just saying I suddenly became conscious of my behavior and stopped and started to observe myself. My patterns to want to change. To want to control. To feel better. To change may present situation, instead of accepting how I was in that moment. And then it hit me. What if everything was perfect just the way it is. Right now. I mean everything. Not just a few things, I mean the way I feel, look, smell, taste, success, no success, love, no love, good health… yes, I am talking about EVERYTHING.

It’s a simple yet extremely challenging concept to fully be in all the time. Maybe that’s not what it is about anyway. Being in it all the time. The goal is to yes. But the searching and the struggles along the way to being in the present I am now understanding that THAT might just be it. The journey, THIS journey we go through to experience these beautiful bursts of being fully present in the now, is what it’s all about. That’s the lesson. The teaching. The learning. Observing yourself within the moments you’re your own struggle of not being happy with who or what you are and not wanting or needing more. Instead of being at one. Balanced within.

I mean I know it’s been said and written and configured in many many different yet similar ways but for some reason this morning, I got it. The idea of it anyway. Deeply. I felt it penetrating, emanating throughout my body.

What if I was perfect just the way I am right now. Because this really is what it is. Right now. Right now is all I have. Are you with me? Profound, it is, it was, to me anyway…

We have decided to share with everyone, our pilot episode of GreenChefs. This is just a rough idea, what the show would be like. Hope everyone enjoys the show. Feed back is more than welcome and again, anyone out there interested in helping us take the shows to broadcast TV, please reach out and let us hear from you.

Recorded ‘as live’, Green Chefs is a plant-based cooking show like you’ve never seen before. Each 30 min episode features four incredible themed recipes to satisfy the palate and curiosity of any food lover. Set in the high-end designer kitchen of our Venice studios, three cameras cover every angle and each delectable close-up.

Join our G host, Sarah Backhouse, as she introduces us to the top chefs in green cuisine. Together they use the freshest and finest organic ingredients to create truly sumptuous plant-based dishes. With a splash of attitude and good measure rock n’ roll, our slick, glossy on-air look and feel will leave you wanting more. Green Chefs. Eat Green. Be Happy.

Some notes on the pilot:
* In the GreenChefs, Sarah would be joined by co-host and guest GreenChefs
** The show would either be shot in front of a live audience or be pre-recorded to exude a ‘live’ feel

It’s my last night here in Roma before I take to the train. Time just seems to go by smoothly here. There is a flow that has effortlessly slipped into my Roma life. Well, in my life in general but I am here now so…

Tomorrow, I am off to the town of Lecce, to attend, hopefully an amazing week long authentic Italian cooking school. Which happens to be in the Region of Puglia, right along the Adriatic Sea. Damn. I can’t believe this is my life. I have always been envious of those brave people taking trips like this, alone. And then, boom, here I am, doing it. Wow, how quickly your life can change if you choose to change it. Magic starts to sprinkle in and you suddenly find yourself in Italy. In ROMA!

This is also my first night without plans and I am hungry. A familiar loneliness crept in to my mind but thankfully quickly left. Aria, I said to myself, you are in Roma, get over yourself. No time to get depressed. No need to wallow. Get your ass up and out and explore the streets. Stumble upon a cute little café for dinner and embrace life. This moment. As is it is. Cause, remember the last post? I am here now. And it is perfect. And if it wasn’t, well, then, it would be different, right?

So I go walking, feeling the gentle warm breeze guiding me along the cobblestone street and the fresh Roman blisters on the bottom of my feet growing with each stride. It’s already 8:30pm and I seem to be falling right into the late dinner schedule here perfectly too. What do I want…hmmmm…a nice big crisp salad. Greens. Dark. Bitter greens. Simply, that is all I want.

For lunch I went to a classic Italian deli and got a side of sheep feta, black olives, sun dried tomatoes, artichokes and a slice of focaccia bread that was heavily sprinkled with olive oil. It was salty and oily and the only thing I really LOVED was the black olives. They were the only things not too salty if you could believe that. And I am happy and proud to announce to you all that I am now a black olive lover. I know. I am as shocked as you are, believe me… :)

My point for mentioning lunch was that this is why I am craving the greens based on my not so satisfyingly salty and oily lunch. Salads are hard to come by in Roma, it seems. Veggie salads that is. They all pretty much are meat and cheese and seafood based. But I’m on a mission. And I won’t stop until I get what I want, until I am satisfied.

I walk down many different lovely streets over looking the Coliseum. Everything is pasta and pizza and meat and fish…and everyone was watching the world cup so very crowded with loud Italians and tourists crowded around the outdoor TVs.

But then, in the corner of my eye a tiny little place winks at me. Divin wine bar. I walk by. The outdoor patio is packed so I peek my head inside and Billie Holiday is playing. I know. Perfecto. And it’s adorable. Seven Tables lit by candlelight. I sit down and the only waitress brings me a menu. I look at it and, of course, find SALAD! YEAH! I ordered 2 different ones and another classic Italian aperitivo called a Spritz. It’s Apperol (which is a milder version of Campari), Prosseco, sparkling water, on the rocks with a slice of orange. Wow. Delicious! Slightly bitter, extremely refreshing and not that strong. Just leaving you with an ever so slight swavy feeling.

A Nina Simone song that I have been listening to over this past month comes on. The opening lyrics: “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me and I’m feelin’ good.” I mean…this is getting kinda ridiculous, right!

My first salad arrives. A delightful bitter mix of chicory, radicchio and endive with cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and shaved parmesan. It was fresh, crisp, bitter, sweet from the tomatoes and tangy from the cheese. Lovely. My only problem was that the mushrooms were raw and I hoped for them to be roasted or sautéed or something. But it was fine. I got over my self quickly. Oh and in Italy you dress your own salad so they bring you an incredible bottle of olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and balsamico. You choose what and how much and do your thang. I am an old school olive oil and sea salt kinda gal. Lemon if they got it. But not an Italian thing so oil and salt it is.

Forgot to mention that the bread basket was staring at me. Hmm, do I or don’t I. Since I had some for lunch and since I really don’t like eating a lot of white flour cause there is no nutritional value and it’s like glue in your intestines and my goal is not to grow my ass anymore than…. well…. maybe just the crust…that part’s not that bad…right? F-it. I am in Roma. That’s gonna be my answer for everything I have a feeling on this trip. Mmmmm …tasty.

A Chet Baker song plays as my second Salad comes. (This is quickly becoming my new fav place!) This salad was made special for me. All veggies. Rocket (which is what they call Arugula in Italian), sweet corn, avocado, grapefruit., cherry tomatoes, artichokes, black olives (I know too much in one day but f-it…!) The salad sounds like an odd combo and it’s certainly not food combining friendly but it goes down wonderfully and it was made with a lot of love. As was this café and that’s what it’s really all about. Eating and living and enjoying life with a heck of a lot of love…and that, my friends, is exactly what I am a doin’ over here alone in Italia…and I’m lovin’ it!

Ciao

Previous Post in this series: What If Everything Is Perfect Just The Way It Is | Aria Alperts, Italian Journals

“This was certainly a new concept for me. A sweet tropical kind of “sushi”. Rice made out of macadamia nuts, and topped with delicious fresh fruits and a fruit dipping sauce. No nori, no soy sauce, no real rice and certainly nothing fishy here. It was a refreshing twist on sushi though with cute little chop sticks and dipping it in a zesty raspberry puree. I really enjoyed it. It was a bit on the higher fat side with the macadamias and quite filling, but also very healthy. It was like a fun naughty desert.” – Indulge

Fruit Sushi
(by rawchef Melissa Davison)

Step 1: Process all ingredients until rice like.

Step 2: Press into sushi molds. You can get these at Asian markets for a few dollars.

Step 3: Place in the freezer to set and firm up while making the dipping sauce and fruit topping.

Blend until smooth and pour into decorated saucers for dipping the sushi.

Garnishing Options: Pomegranates, raspberries or blackberries look fantastic on the tray next to the sushi pieces. Remove the “rice” pieces from the freezer, and top them with thinly sliced fruit such as strawberries, mango, blueberries halved, and mint leaves. Be fun and creative!

Fish farming – aquaculture – has taken hold as a major new industry in the world , and in this period of an ever-expanding global market, it promises to continue growing. But there are some important issues to consider when we buy farmed fish for consumption. The foremost question on my mind is “Is this a sustainable industry? Do the inputs (feed, habitat set aside for farms, etc.) equal the outputs (the amount of fish that eventually goes to market)? A second question is “Is farmed fish as healthy as wild-caught fish?” Finally, “What is the cost to the environment?”

Time magazine recently weighed in on some of these issues and uncovered the following facts:

Nearly 40% of all fish consumed worldwide comes from aquaculture.
The industry has grown 9% per year since 1975 and demand for species such as salmon, tuna and shrimp has doubled since then.
To produce 1 kilogram of high-protein fish food that is fed to ocean-bred, farmed fish, it takes 4.5 kilograms of smaller fish.

The main problem, according to Time, is that the fish being bred for aquaculture are those at the top of the oceanic food chain (salmon, tuna, cod, and shrimp) and require a tremendous input of wild fish to feed the captive fish. Estimates from FactoryFarm.org show that it takes up to 5 pounds of wild fish to create one pound of farmed salmon. Salmon feed must be dyed to give the characteristic pink color, and the industry even has a fan of dye colors to simulate different types of salmon.

But that’s not the only problem. There are several environmental and health costs associated with industrial aquaculture.

Large pens of fish attract larger predators such as sharks, whales, seals, sea lions, and birds of prey. These animals must either be killed or discouraged with underwater sound devices that have been shown to have harmful effects on ocean mammals that use sonar for navigation.

There is also a problem with waste. Fish poop. According to SectionZ, an open-net farm the size of a small home produces the sewage equivalent to a town of 65,000. And this sewage passes right in to the water untreated – often in pristine coastal areas of British Columbia and Norway.

The concentration of fish in these pens is also a problem. The average 2-foot, farmed salmon gets the equivalent space of swimming a lifetime in a bathtub. The concentration and lack of motion attracts sea lice, barnacles, and epidemic disease – all of which must be treated with pesticides, algaecides, and antibiotics. These chemicals then enter the food chain in both the ocean and on land.

Finally, PCB levels in farmed fish are found at up to 10 times the levels in wild fish, although these limits are still well below FDA standards, according to Time. The greater risk is perhaps the effect of dyes, pesticides, and antibiotics – especially for children and pregnant women. Farmed fish are fattier due to less room to roam. Chemicals build up in these fats and are then passed on higher up the food chain where the effects of these chemicals are either unknown or hard to decipher.

So, is aquaculture worth the risks? There are pros and cons to every argument. I see a similarity between the growth in industrial aquaculture and the growth of terrestrial, industrial agriculture – turning a once sun-driven industry into a fossil fuel industry. The difference here is that the land animals we cultivate are herbivores, requiring arguably less input than cultivating carnivorous fish. It seems to me that humans are again interrupting the natural cycle of growth and predation, which then forces us to inject extra resources for nominal outcomes. In terms of aquaculture, the payoff seems to come at too high of a price.

For a counterpoint to this argument from a business perspective, click here.

For other resources on aquaculture, I suggest starting here or here.

Want to get active? Pew Charitable Trust’s Oceans Commission funds research on aquaculture. So does the Goldman Fund. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy studies the pros and cons of all agricultural enterprises.

It’s time to put down that can opener and start making your own fresh batch of beans. It is so simple and quicker than you might think. I know, opening a can is quicker, but definitely not healthier. For those of you who have never made a homemade pot of beans, here is your opportunity. Try this recipe. It’s really tasty and really freaking easy. Serve with green salad, sauteed greens, cooked grains, in a bowl with fresh chopped avocado and cilantro and a side of corn chips, anyway you wanna eat ‘em…explore….

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Instructions
1. Drain soaked beans and rinse.
2. Add the soaked beans, the dried chili and 4 cups fresh filtered water to a medium pot. Bring to boil. Skim off any white foam that forms from the water.
3. Lower heat to simmer and add kombu, garlic, paprika, sage and bay leaf.
4. Cook about 1 ½ hours or until beans are soft, adding extra water if the beans become to dry.
5. Discard chili and bay leaf. Stir in salt and lemon juice.

May be now is the time to make a confession - I hate cooking the same old stuff over and over again. And mainly because of that I spend years of rebelling against myself and convincing everybody around me that I hate cooking. My husband was the only one who didn’t give up on me. He kept on saying everything I made was delicious and I kept on disagreeing.

Only when I started paying attention to what’s healthy, my view changed. I figured out that it’s a whole new world out there with tons of interesting and amazing recipes. With numerous challenges on using the right kinds of ingredients to create a healthy recipe. My kitchen became the most adorable spot in the house and I became addicted to preparing new meals every day. The possibilities turned out to be endless – raw desserts, vegan treats, healthy dishes… All new, all challenging… my boredom with food was finally over.

The idea behind the colorful trio puree came to me while I was thinking of potato puree. How could I come up with a version of the potato puree, say using broccoli, cauliflower or even carrots without over complicating the ingredients. I ended up with three purees made with the simplest ingredients, just the vegetable, coconut oil, lime and salt. The challenge this time will be on you – to make your own twists by adding different herbs, spices, cheeses or whatever :) Or leave them as they are, the choice is yours.

Instructions:
1. Steam the vegetables for exactly 5 minutes each, just enough time to soften them. If your steamer is big enough place them all at once, if not – steam one by one.
2. Put the carrots in the food processor while hot, add 1 teaspoon coconut oil, 1/3 of the lime juice and salt. Blend using the S knife for 30-60 seconds.
3. Clean the processor and blend the cauliflower with 1 teaspoon coconut oil, 1/3 of the lime juice and salt.
4. Clean it again and blend the broccoli using the rest of the coconut oil, lime and dash of salt.
5. Make small balls using your hands and serve hot.

Time for preparation: 15-30 minutes. Serves 4-6.

This is a basic stock that can be used with pretty much any soup or stew.  You can always tailor your homemade stock to enhance the soup you are making. For example, if you’re making a sweet vegetable soup, add sweet potato or squash for extra sweetness. Also use your vegetable trimmings, such as leek tops, mushroom caps, squash skins and fennel tops. But avoid spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, brussel sprouts, beets, onion skins and wilted vegetables. They will make your stock bitter. The stock will last about 5 days in the fridge and 2 months in the freezer.

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Instructions
Put everything in a soup pot. Bring to boil. Skim off any foam that forms. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 1 hour. Strain vegetables and voila, you have made your very own homemade stock.

Two lil’ Pumpkin Muffins sittin’ on a plate. One got devoured, and then there was one. One lil’ Pumpkin Muffin sittin’ on a plate. He got gobbled up, and then there were none!..None until you make more that is.

Fall in love with my two cozy recipes for vegan pumpkin muffins: Cream-Topped Pumpkin Muffins and Spiced Up Pumpkin Muffins. These muffins bake up fluffy, velvety and moist. Bake them this weekend! When I made u p this patch, it was a drizzly, gray-skyed, melancholy morning here in NYC. Too gloomy to venture outside in, but perfect weather for pumpkin muffin baking. There is nothing better than warming up your home with the smell of baking muffins.

One goal I had with the spicy muffin was that I wanted to create a muffin that rivaled Le Pain Quotidien’s Pumpkin Muffin

Lets start with the Spiced Up. In this muffin I add a hint of cayenne, an extra dose of orange zest and pumpkin seeds. These are my muffins of choice in the mornings, not too sweet and perfect slightly warmed. Goes perfect with a warm cup of organic espresso. For extra spice, try adding in 1/2 tsp of grated fresh ginger.

Now from my Cream-Topped. The cream-topped muffins have a silky layer of sweet vegan cream cheese/vanilla yogurt blend drizzling over top, as well as in the center of the muffin. Yes, oozing sweetness. I enjoyed both varieties and will definitely be making these again this fall!

One goal I had with the spicy muffin was that I wanted to create a muffin that rivaled Le Pain Quotidien’s Pumpkin Muffin (which is not vegan – most of their delicious muffins are vegan). And if you’ve ever seen Le Pain’s Pumpkin Muffin, I think I did a pretty good job replicating it. This is one of those cozy weekend activities, which really pay off. Your family and friends will love you, trust me, give it a whirl…

This Recipe Makes 12 Muffins

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add all the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl. Blend together.
2. Add in all remaining ingredients, fold well by hand. Stir until batter becomes smooth. This pumpkin-y batter has a dense body to it.
3. Add in or prep your toppings for whatever variety of muffin you are making (directions above recipe).
4. Line 12 muffin tins with paper or lightly grease the inside of each tin.
5. Pour batter to almost fill each muffin tin. If you are making the cream-topped muffins, pour batter in layers: spoonful of batter, a drizzle of cream in the center, then more batter on top, then a final dollop of cream.
6. Bake muffins for 25 minutes at 375 degrees.
7. Allow to cool a few minutes before devouring.

I am feeling it’s that time again. Yes, new music time. It’s been a while since I have highlighted a new group I am in love with and I thought, hmmm should I share a band I am semi in love with? Sure, go ahead, it’s a cool band. Two fellow North Americans (Canadians) Ethan Kath and Alice Glass, redefining electronic music with the almost seemingly exclusive use of game sounds for their first album.

The band is called Crystal Castles and they seem to on the rise and if you haven’t heard of them before, it’s about time you did. According to the Wiki in the sky, Crystal Castles musical style has been described as “ferocious, asphyxiating sheets of warped two-dimensional Gameboy glitches and bruising drum bombast that pierces your skull with their sheer shrill force, burrowing deep into the brain like a fever.

The reason I am featuring the band today is because of this free remix which has been released with the lead singer of The Cure, Robert Smith. Come on, everyone remembers The Cure right? Please say yes. Well, if you know who Robert is or not, I think you will enjoy this track.

Crystal Castles – ‘Not In Love’ (feat. Robert Smith)

I have included three Crystal Castles videos after the jump, so dig in.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It no longer cuts it just to have beautiful looking home bedding. Not since Montreal designer Janna Notkin set the bar at such dizzying ethical heights. Her exquisite range of cushions and blankets — the result of five years of research and development — are made from the finest sustainable fibers on the planet and — get this — will biodegrade in a composter in one year.

In a search effort that would put American Idol to shame, Notkin spent two years scouring the globe before deciding upon “Climatex Lifecycle yarns and felt from Switzerland (free of toxic chemicals and hazardous by-products), organic cotton and Kapok, a fibre from the Rainforest in Malaysia.” Development of the chemical-free dyes took another five, but it was well worth it for a designer who believes “good design must incorporate sustainability”. The truly beautifully and utterly unique knitted cushions come in an array of eye catching designs, while the waffle-weave blankets offer a great excuse to stay in bed all weekend.

It’s no wonder Looolo Textiles have been featured in “fashion-forward magazines like Lucky, Domino and Elle.”

And then there’s the name. Those of you skilled at cracking codes may have already deciphered that Looolo is a typographical representation of 100 percent — symbolizing their commitment to wholly organic design with a minimal environmental footprint. Although Looolo’s home wares boast biodegrade properties, you’d have to be 100 percent nuts to throw these cozy items away.

This is one of my favorite times of year in New York. For me, everything right now has to be creamy, warm and filled with ginger. That doesn’t mean I don’t still drink green smoothies and kale salads, but when it comes to dessert, it has to be fruit-filled and warm.

I became obsessed with all the mini pears I saw around the greenmarkets. Anyone who reads this knows I have an affinity for anything miniature or especially tiny in size. This may be because I relate to them, being barely 5’1 myself. The little guys have to be recognized sometimes, so I thought I’d treat these little pears just as if they were big ones, and poach them. It resulted in a creamy, sweet and Autumn dessert with just enough of a napoleon complex to be big & bold in flavor.

Cook time: 30 minutes, Serves: 2-4

Instructions:
1. Combine the water, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds and pod in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Peel the pear skin and slice off the bottom each pear to create a flat base.
3. Reduce heat to keep poaching liquid at a bare simmer and add the pears, laying them on their sides so they are completely covered.
4. Once pears are tender (you stick a fork in easily), let them cool in the poaching liquid.
5. In the meantime, in a blender or food processor, combine macadamia nuts, more lemon zest, maple syrup and coconut cream. Blend until smooth. Depending on your preferred consistency, add more coconut cream for a thinner sauce.
6. Serve pears warm, drizzled in maple syrup and macadamia cream. Garnish with more lemon and ginger zest, and chopped walnuts.

You will never make hummus again. Well, maybe you will but I promise you will make this recipe more! It’s one of my all time favorites. So full of flavor and so satisfying. Toast some whole grain bread or pita and you’ve got a wonderful appetizer for your holiday dinner parties.

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Instructions
1. Heat 4 TB olive oil in sauce pan over medium heat.
2. Add onion and cook until soft, about 8 minutes.
3. Add garlic and cook about 2 minutes.
4. Add chickpeas and cook 3 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and cool about 15 minutes.
6. Add chickpea mixture, mint, parsley, lemon juice and salt to food processor, season with fresh ground black pepper and puree. With the machine running add the remaining of olive oil, slow and steady.
7. Transfer to bowl and add more olive oil if desired. Serve with warm pita or crackers.

The first time I tried macarons was at the Macaron Café in Midtown, Manhattan. I had seen many photos of them prior to that and always wondered if they were as tasty as they were pretty. And were they ever. Those macarons melted in my mouth and made my eyes close with pleasure. Even today, whenever I am in the area, I indulge and buy a box of six.

Since preparing healthier alternatives to old favourites is what I love, I decided it was time to conquer the macarons. And what better time to do it than the winter holidays? They are sweet, colourful, and overall cheerful – a wonderful treat and a nice gift. For the flavours, I went with seasonal fruits like persimmon and pomegranate and two powders I had on hand – matcha and blueberry. Each created a beautiful colour, no artificial dye required.

We decorated our tree yesterday. It’s a beauty and fills the home with the smell of pine. Paloma was thrilled when she came home from day care and found the tree all lit up in our living room. She couldn’t stop singing this song, which is a traditional Russian jingle about the New Year’s tree.

The macarons were a success, everyone in the family enjoyed them with a hot cup of tea or two. The persimmon kind were voted the popular favourite.

Our blog will soon turn one, sometime in January. We’d like to thank all of Golubka’s dear readers for the overwhelming support and wonderful feedback each one of you has given, either by commenting or simply stopping by and reading. Every one of your visits and comments is greatly appreciated. Thank you so very much!!!

Happy holidays! Stay happy and healthy!

Instructions For Persimmon Macarons:

In a blender, blend 2-3 ripe persimmons to the consistency of a smooth puree. Take 1/2 cup of it, reserving the rest for later use in macaron cream. In a food processor, combine the puree with the rest of the ingredients until thoroughly mixed. Spread evenly on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays. Using a cookie cutter or shot glass, cut circular shapes out of the “dough”. If the dough is too moist and sticky to cut, place the tray in the freezer for 10 minutes or dehydrate for 30 minutes prior to cutting. Dehydrate at 115F for around 8 hours or more, until dry on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside.

Instructions For Pomegranate Macarons:

To make pomegranate puree, combine 1 cup of dried black mission figs (soaked for 2-3 hours) with 2 cups of fresh pomegranate juice in a high-speed blender to reach a smooth consistency. Take 1/2 cup, reserving the rest for later use in pomegranate cream. In a food processor, combine the puree with the rest of the ingredients until mixed thoroughly. Spread evenly on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays. Using a cookie cutter or shot glass, cut circular shapes out of the “dough”. If the dough is too moist and sticky to cut, place the tray in the freezer for 10 minutes or dehydrate for 30 minutes prior to cutting. Dehydrate at 115F for around 8 hours or more, until dry on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside.

Instructions For Matcha Macarons:

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor until mixed thoroughly. Spread evenly on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays. Using a small cup or shot glass, cut circular shapes out of the “dough”. The dough may be a little crumbly for the task, but it will stick together nicely after dehydration. Dehydrate at 115F for around 8 hours or less, until dry on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside.

Instructions For Blueberry Macarons:

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor until mixed thoroughly. Spread evenly on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays. Using a small cup or shot glass, cut circular shapes out of the “dough”. If using the blueberry powder, the dough may be a little crumbly for the task, but it will stick together nicely after dehydration. Dehydrate at 115F for around 8 hours or less, until dry on the outside and moist and chewy on the inside.

Instructions For Macaron Cream:

We used Artisana coconut butter for the base of the cream. Place the butter jar into warm water to soften the butter up. In separate bowls, mix the butter with the reserved persimmon, and pomegranate purees, matcha, and blueberry powder to achieve desired colors. Add raw agave syrup or other preferred sweetener to taste.

This recipe is from the San Francisco restaurant Gather, created by their chef, Sean Baker. His recipe was featured in Food and Wine Magazine last month as one of the best restaurant dishes of 2010. It was the only vegan recipe so, of course, I had to try it. YUM! I added walnuts when he called for pecans cause I didn’t have any on hand as well as no miso and still it was rich, flavorful and delish.

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Instructions
1. Put the walnuts or pecans in a bowl and cover with cold water. Let stand for 1 hour.
2. Meanwhile, in a small heatproof bowl, cover the porcini with the boiling water and let stand until softened, about 15 minutes.
3. Rub the porcini to remove grit; transfer them to a small bowl. Reserve the soaking liquid.
4. If your using Portobello mushrooms cut the mushroom caps in half and with a sharp paring knife, trim off the dark gills on the underside of each one. Slice the caps into 1/4-inch-thick pieces.
5. In a bowl, whisk together the tamari, olive oil, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, rosemary and miso.
6. Add the sliced portobellos and toss to coat thoroughly. Let stand for 15 minutes, tossing occasionally.
7. Drain the nuts and transfer them to a food processor. With a slotted spoon, transfer the marinated portobellos, porcini and tomatoes to the processor; puree to a coarse paste, adding about 1/4 cup of the porcini cooking liquid.
8. Add a little more of the porcini liquid if the mixture is too thick. Season lightly with sea salt.
9. Transfer the pâté to a crock and serve with toasted baguette rounds.
10. The pâté can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Serve lightly chilled or at room temperature.

Eating black eye peas on New Year’s Day is thought to bring prosperity for the new year so… eat this yummy stuff UP and have a very very happy successful delicious new year!! And don’t forget your greens!

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Instructions
1. Drain soaked beans and rinse.
2. In a soup pot over medium heat add olive oil and sauté onion, garlic and celery about 10 minutes.
3. Add black eye peas, filtered water, salt, red pepper and all herbs except parsley.
4. Simmer partially covered for about 2 hours or until peas are tender.
5. Add more water if needed and possibly more salt.
6. Drizzle with some good quality olive oil.

Serving Possibilities:
This salad is great when added to some fresh greens, such as Arugula, Kale or other hearty winter greens. If you want to go completely the cooked route, you can always sauté up the greens.

Now, here’s a cooking mystery that I’ve been trying to solve. The original fig bar recipe calls for coconut oil in the “dough” part instead of the almond butter that I used in my adapted version. I’ve tried to use coconut oil, but it immediately went rancid in the dehydrator. I didn’t give up easily and tried to use different brands of coconut oil, but the result was always the same – rancid. I’m puzzled – it never happens when I use coconut oil in other recipes that require dehydration. If you happen to know the reason, please let me know. I’m truly curious.

The recipe is adapted from Living Raw Food recipe book by Sarma Melngailis Her Official Site / Sarma’s G Living Section

Instructions
For The Dough: In a large bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients. Add the almond butter and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, mix the date paste, vanilla extract, and water. Add to the dry mixture and combine well.

For The Filling: To make fig paste, soak any kind of dried figs for 8 hours. Then blend in a food processor, adding the soaking water as needed to achieve a smooth consistency. Keep refrigerated in an air tight container.

Assembly
In order to form the bars, you will need two trays that fit in the bottom of your dehydrator. We use half-sheet pans that can be found at any restaurant supply store.
Line the two pans with parchment paper. Divide the dough equally between them and press into the pans to achieve a uniform thickness. Using a knife, cut the dough in one of the pans into 4 even parts. Place that pan into the freezer for about 10 minutes, so that it becomes more firm for easier handling.
Meanwhile, mix the fig paste with the 1/2 cup of agave, and evenly spread this mixture on top of the uncut dough in the second pan. Remove the first pan from the freezer and carefully place each quadrant on top of the fig paste layer.
Place the sheet pan in the bottom of the dehydrator and dehydrate at 115F for about 6 hours. Remove from the dehydrator, cover with parchment paper and invert your second empty pan on top of it. Carefully flip over, holding both pans together and remove the upper pan. Peel away the parchment paper and place back into the dehydrator for another 6 hours. Once removed from the dehydrator, cut through all the layers to form bars of any size you like. I cut each quadrant in half lengthwise, then across into 8 sections to make 64 bars. Transfer the bars onto screen-covered dehydrator trays and dehydrate for another 10 hours.

Another great thing about these bars – you can always order them online through One Lucky Duck, or pick one up at their takeaway in NYC.

It’s challenging to find fresh organic fruit in the dead of winter. This, of course depends on where you are located in the world. As for me, all the organic berries I find in the markets of New York, are not only extremely expensive but they all seem to be coming from far away places. And so, I decided to go with a couple of bags of frozen organic berries. Those berries were my inspiration for this gluten free berry crisp dessert. It just goes to show you, you never know from where or from what something delicious will be born!

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven 400 degrees.
2. Make filling: Mix together the berries, tapioca, sweetener of choice, vanilla extract, lemon juice and pinch of salt in the baking dish you are using.
3. Mix until combine.
4. Make topping: In a medium bowl stir together flakes, flours, cinnamon, salt and baking powder.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil and sweetener of choice then slowly drizzle over the flour mixture, mixing with a fork. Should look like clumps of wet sand.
6. Sprinkle topping evenly over filling. Bake for 15 minutes then turn oven down to 350 and cook for another 25 minutes or until topping is golden brown.

Serve with warm with a scoop of ice cream of your choice. Mmmmmmmm

The oven at my BF house sucks. I think I have expressed this unfortunately dilemma before. So when it comes to baking, I cross my fingers and hope it comes out alright due to the uneven heat distribution. That said, these cookies came out of the oven completely flat…blended all together like one big pancake. I almost tossed them…that is until I tasted them…Mmmm. So if the same thing should happen to you, don’t fret. They are still very tasty and the pics came out so good I may have accidentally created the new flat square cookie craze… :)

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment.
2. Whisk first 6 ingredients in medium bowl.
3. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and coconut butter in large bowl until fluffy.
4. Beat in molasses, applesauce or egg and fresh ginger. Then add the dry ingredients.
5. Stir in crystallized ginger.
6. Using moist hands, shape 1 TB of dough into ball. Place on prepared sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing cookies 2 inches apart.
7. Bake cookies until golden and dry-looking, about 15 minutes. Cool on sheets.

Napa and savoy cabbage are a softer and sweeter variety than your regular green cabbage, so choose either for this recipe. This is a wonderful accompaniment to serve with one of your favorite winter soups. Adds a refreshing crispiness to your meal.

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Instructions
1. For the dressing: In a bowl, whisk everything together until combine.
2. For the slaw: Mix everything, except the sesame seeds, in a large bowl. Then toss in dressing.
3. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes or up to 4 hours ahead of time to allow cabbage to absorb flavors.
4. Taste and season with a dash of sea salt if necessary.
5. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

This maybe a simple salad, but believe me it pacts a flavorful punch. The sweet carrots mixed with Moroccan spices and fresh herbs are a heavenly combination and a refreshing colorful addition to any of your winter meals. Warning, you may wanna eat the whole bowl all by yourself…

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Instructions
1. In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients.
2. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to marry.
3. Taste. You might need to add a dash more sea salt and/or lemon juice before serving. You can serve salad chilled or at room temperature.

A perfect way to use your very soft ripe avocados, not to mention a deliciously spicy way to eat them! Pour this raw dressing over just about anything you like really. You will be very happy you did… Perfect for salads, steamed vegetables, grains, seaweed, baked potatoes, beans…Mmmm Mmmm

Oh and if you happen to be one of those people who hate cilantro (I cry at even the thought of hating cilantro. I am a huge lover of the herb) use a combo of mostly parsley some basil, and a few leaves of mint.

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Instructions
1. Add everything into blender except the olive oil.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. With the blender running, slowly add the olive oil until well emulsified.
4. Lasts about 4 days in the fridge.

This is one of my favorite comforting gluten free winter desserts. Your house will smell divinely festive too! Any firm apple works well here: Gala, Fuji, Jonagold, Rome, Winesap, Mutsu. If you use soft apples such as Macintosh or Red delicious you will get more of an apple sauce texture. Hey, could be good too! Try it all I say!! Oh and I like to leave the apple skins on, being that much of the nutrients are in the skin, but if you prefer them without, by all means peel away. Also any seasonal fruit works wonderfully so have fun experimenting with your favorites. You can make this with or without nuts, use any dried fruit, substitute rolled oats for the quinoa flakes and another all purpose whole grain flour for the quinoa flour. Serve warm with a scoop of Nutmeg Ice Cream. Mmmm Mmmmm

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Instructions For The Crumble

Preheat oven 400.

1. To make topping: in a medium bowl mix together quinoa flakes, quinoa and tapioca flour, sugar, walnuts and salt.
2. Drizzle in oil one TB at a time, mix with wooden spoon.
3. It should look crumbly, with clumps and wet sand.
4. Refrigerate for at least an hour or until chilled. (the topping could be made one day in advance. Just refrigerate until use)

Instructions For The Filling
1. Toss everything into an 8×8 inch glass baking dish.
2. Mix everything to combine. 
3. Sprinkle reserved topping evenly over apples.
4. Bake in the middle rack of oven for 15 minutes at 400.
5. Then reduce heat to 350 and bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are soft.
6. Remove from oven and let cool a bit.

I love making vegetable soups. They can be very nourishing and are for the most part very easy to create. And since we got such a wonderful response for my Cauliflower soup, I figured I’d share my Broccoli Leek soup with you all. See which one you like betta…

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Instructions
1. In a large pot, over high heat, melt coconut butter or oil.
2. Add the leeks, potatoes and a nice pinch of sea salt. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
3. Add chopped broccoli florets and the stock or water, bay leaf and thyme sprigs; cover and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderate heat until all the vegetables are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Stir in 1 tsp sea salt and 1TB of fresh lemon juice.
5. Working in batches, puree the soup until very smooth.
6. Return the puree to the pot and add reserved Broccoli small florets. Cook another 5 minutes.
7. Stir in the milk of choice and the Season with salt and white pepper. Keep warm.

This is a decadently delicious wheat free cake. The chestnut flour adds a divine depth and a touch of nuttiness and has quickly become on of my favorite gluten free flours to bake with. Serve this cake alone, with cashew cream or some homemade Ice Cream and you and your guest will never think this is vegan. Oh and your chocolate fix will be…ummmm…fixed.

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven 350.
2. Oil a 9 inch springform pan – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springform_pan
3. Sift or mix flours, baking powder and baking soda in bowl.
4. In a small saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the cocoa or cacao powder and cinnamon in the milk, stirring continuously. When it begins to bubble, remove from heat and pour into another bowl.
5. Add remaining liquid ingredients and salt to the cocoa and whisk until combined.
6. Pour the mixture into the dry and whisk until batter is smooth.
7. Pour batter into the oiled springform pan and bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes or until cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean.

This recipe was inspired by pastry chef extraordinaire, Will Goldfarb. I read this in Bon Appetit magazine a few years ago and then altered and adapted it to become gluten and dairy free. Sometimes adaptions work and sometimes they are a bust. This time, I am extremely happy to report, it is f***ing brilliant. Yes, I am tooting my own horn. And so will you after you make this incredible dessert. It’s that good.

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Instructions for the Kabocha Squash Puree
1. Combine squash and milk in heavy saucepan.
2. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean, add to saucepan.
3. Bring to simmer over medium heat, partially cover, reduce heat to low and cook until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.
4. Note: don’t walk too far away from the stove, the liquid could boil over and get messy. Take it from someone who knows ;)
5. Remove vanilla bean. Cool.
6. Place mixture in food processor and blend until smooth.
* Can be made 1 day ahead. cover and refrigerate.

Instructions for the Cakes
1. Preheat oven 375.
2. Lightly oil six 1 cup ramekins.
3. Place 1 cup squash puree in large bowl. (reserve remaining for another use).
4. Add maple, agave, oil, beer and egg to the bowl with squash puree.
5. Blend until combine.
6. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt into bowl. Blend.
7. Divide batter among prepared ramekins.
8. Place ramekins on baking sheet. And put into oven.

Bake until cakes are firm, about 20 to 25 minutes. (might need to bake longer). I served them right in the ramekins. Make sure you wait a little for the cakes to cool down before serving. Top with a dollop of Ginger Cashew Cream (recipe below) and some crystallized ginger and you will be in heaven.

Instructions for the Ginger Cashew Cream
1. Drain cashews, discarding the liquid, and add cashews to high speed blender with remaining ingredients.
2. Add a few TB of fresh filtered water and blend on high until smooth. Use more water if too thick.
3. Taste and add more agave if needed.

Perched atop the bluffs of LA’s exclusive Pacific Palisades, the Vicino House is more than just a home; it’s an experience. Designer Timothy McCarthy of the Forma Design Group and Owner / Developer Michael Gottlieb made it their mission to create a home that would evoke the feeling of being in a high-end spa. They succeeded. Visiting the Vicino House, I almost expected to be handed a white fluffy robe and some cucumber water.

The epitome of sustainable living and luxury design, the Vicino House was recently awarded LEED Platinum certification. A modern marvel of steel, glass and wood — one of the homes most striking features is the 180-degree view of the Pacific Ocean — which can be enjoyed from almost every room in the house and many of the sun soaked outdoor decks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Light streams in from huge windows, skylights, expansive folding glass panels and floor to ceiling sliding glass doors. FSC certified wood floors and accents juxtapose the cool clean lines and deliver warmth. Interior Designer Kelby Bryant peppered the home with unique features like a kitchen island countertop comprised of a single slab of recycled glass underlit with LEDs, and a Kohler ceiling mounted tub filler in the master bath. The exterior also boasts cool touches like an uber stylish outdoor fireplace.

Equally as impressive is the myriad of largely invisible green systems: a well sealed exterior envelope; radiant floor heating; solar thermal panels; photo voltaics; low flow fixtures; low to no VOC paints and sealants; and bio lime plaster.

But the best part of the Vicino House isn’t just the ocean views or the spacious, modern outlook, it’s the fact that the home was designed to be a healthy one. LEED Platinum certification is more than just a badge of honor, it says: “I care about the environment and I’m doing something about it.”

Now, where’s that masseuse?

When I was in Italy over the summer I had lemon pasta for the first time and was in heaven. You see, lemons are one of my most favorite fruits. I use them probably everyday, but I never had it in a pasta before! YUM! A lovely brightness to add to your winter meal…

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Instructions
1. Cook the linguine as per instruction on the package in generously salted boiling water. When done, drain pasta and return to the saucepan.
2. Meanwhile, beat the lemon juice and zest with the olive oil. Taste and add more sea salt lemon juice if needed.
3. Add the lemon sauce to the linguine and shake the pan to coat each strand of pasta with the sauce.
4. Finish by stirring in the nutritional yeast, chopped basil, the arugula and red pepper flakes if using.

The newest addition to my pantry is my trio of NUDE BEE HONEY’s. This line came out in Toronto by two local boys. I love it. What is sexier then two men starting a honey line?

This brand in particular has some fine packaging, with a slick black label. It is a long tall jar, which is thin and elegant. I would take this honey out for a taste any day of the week. I would even love to just spread it, pour it and blend it into anything I create. It would make for a sweet addition that is smooth balanced and rich. That’s my kind of honey!

I should also mention that is honey, is untouched, raw in it’s own virgin state. What can be better than that. It hasn’t lost anything; it’s got everything it needs to give me what I need. Nutrients, enzymes, minerals and an unparalleled flavour.

It is also organic, coming from the purest of sources, no chemicals or strong or smelly aftertastes. It was created to be enjoyed… from bottom to top.

Now don’t get too picky, there are three fine honey’s to choose from:

Star Thistle – Works well with all natural of teas and can dress or top any dessert. This superstar possesses after notes of vanilla and lemon.

Honey Dew – This is a darker richer honey, which means it contains more vitamins and minerals. It is rich and fragrant so get your hands on some and add it to some fruit for a warming compote or natural jam.

Wild – The most versatile of the bunch, blending different local nectar’s. This honey goes both ways, and lends itself well to both raw and cooked recipes.

You can’t go wrong really – they all share similar qualities with subtle differences. I think you will be satisfied, no matter which way you go!

Take your honey a little further and use it to your benefit and create something magical together…. a recipe! Feel free to pour your honey all over anything and everything that you are eating!

Instructions
1. Oil and flour a 9x 5 inch loaf pan. Set aside.
2. Stir together spelt flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt poppy seeds and lemon zest. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, honey with rice milk. Add to the dry ingredients in mixing bowl.
4. Add grapeseed oil, vanilla and water to dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients together thoroughly.
5. Pour the batter into loaf pan.
6. Bake for 1 hour at 350F or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Much to my surprise, some of my family members have recently become vegan. This holiday season, lots of traditions had to be adapted for the new dietary habits that aren’t just mine anymore. I took on the challenge of re-creating our Christmas morning treat of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. I always figure, if i’m going to adapt a recipe for whatever reason, I might as well make it gluten-free, too. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I baked something with normal flour–it has been years.

I did a little research to see what recipes already existed for such a thing like vegan and gluten-free cinnamon rolls, when I found a blog called Cooking with Dia. She makes amazing comfort food, and cooks mostly (if not all) gluten-free and vegan. I took a look at her recipe, and the wonderful photos, and I barely adapted a thing. The recipe was amazing as is, and my family loved it, too.

To make the dough:
1. Mix together the yeast with 1 cup warm water and the 1tsp unrefined sugar.
2. Set aside.
3. In another bowl mix together the oat and corn flour, baking soda, baking powder and xanthan gum.
4. By then the yeast should be foaming.
5. Tip this in to the flour and mix.
6. Add in the 1 cup oat milk and salt.
7. Mix thoroughly until dough begins to form.
8. Knead the dough for 30 minutes, or stick inside your stand mixer with the dough hook for 10 minutes.
9. Once dough has been kneaded, place on a floured surface and cover with a warm towel for 1 hour.
10. After the dough has risen, roll out to approximately 16×20″ rectangle.

To make the filling:
1. Mix the brown sugar and sucanat together with the cinnamon.
2. Sprinkle evenly over the rolled out rectangle. Next pour the vegan spread on top of the dough.
3. Roll the dough up slowly, while trying not to push any of the filling out.
4. Once rolled slice into 12 pieces.

For the pan sauce:
1. Pour in the melted vegan spread into a rectangular casserole dish.
2. Next pour in the sucanat and then finally spread the maple syrup evenly around.
3. Place each of the 12 pieces inside this dish.
4. Bake inside oven for 45 minutes or until the cinnamon buns look golden brown.

For the frosting:
1. Place the icing sugar and milk into a tiny bowl, mix thoroughly.
2. Pour on top of cinnamon bun of choice.

One of my favourite warming drinks this time of year is a Masala Chai Tea Latte. Not just any chai latte but my own home brew. Since I am not a fan of tea bags – as staples and strings make things so complicated and messy, and I can’t tolerate black tea (the caffeine gets to me) –this leaves me to create my own original herbal blend.

I’d like to consider myself an alchemist at times like these, playing in my kitchen coming up with different concoctions that I can infuse in some hot water and know it will always taste great! This holds truth especially when it comes to my favourite Chai blend! For starters, I use Nourish Tea’s Rooibos instead of black ceylon tea which is commonly used in most chai tea’s.  Red tea (rooibos) is from Africa – it is super high in antioxidants and caffeine free! I then put in delicious warming spices that make up the taste that is uniquely chai (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, anise peppercorns, fennel…).

Making this brew is actually really simple, especially if you have all of these spices on hand – which I typically do. Not only do I love making my own Indian spiced recipes with a selection of these spices– but they are also useful for everyday nourishment and balance. They are warming, sweet, and aid with digestion. To make the tea complete I finish it off by pouring in a non-dairy based milk, either rice or almond milk with a touch of sweetness from either honey, coconut nectar or maple syrup.

Once it’s done I pour this liquid goodness into the biggest mug I can find in my cupboard, sit with a big blanket – all warm and cozy and sip it slowly – ideally in front of a fire (sadly this is not always the case). Unfortunately one cup is never enough, so I make sure to make enough for at least 2 or 3 servings!

I bet you can’t wait to find out my secret chai latte recipe (I guess it won’t be a secret any more!)

Traditional Chai tea is heated over an open fire – I don’t make mine on an open fire– unless a gas stove counts? However it still tastes amazing…so find out for yourself!

Instructions
1. Simmer all spices in 1 cup of pure water in a covered pot for 30 minutes.
1. Add the “milk” and bring to a soft boil.
1. Reduce the heat and simmer for additional 5 minutes.
1. Remove from heat, cool slightly to comfortable drinking temperature and strain through a small mesh sieve and serve in a Bodum Glass Cup or mug with your sweetener of choice.

The last couple of days were absolutely amazing. I spent the holidays with friends up in the mountain and the weather was perfect – snowy & sunny. White, wood and green were merely the only colors to be seen and my main inspiration for the white asparagus dish I prepared today.

The vacation was also filled with first moments for Deni, a son of friends of ours. His first ski lessons with a professional instructor…

The only problem with the trip was actually the food. It was a disaster. There was nothing delicious at all, not to mention vegan or vegetarian. The New Year’s eve menu was so poor, that the only thing I could eat were baked potatoes and a salad, and even they tasted awful. Thanks for the good friends, the wine and the cheerful mood which compensated it all.

So, coming home and cooking something delicious turned out to be a main priority for the last couple of days and I tried to do my best satisfying the palate. The white asparagus roasted with cashew cheese and served with lemons and garlic is super tasty and easy to prepare. A personal recommendation for a dinner party, where you are supposed to waw your guests with a vegan dish. It’s my third time making this cashew cheese and I have to admit it’s delicious even on it’s own, but combined with asparagus, white or green, it’s a total blast. My husband prefers the green one, but the white looks better, right? :)

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven at 180 C.
2. Line the asparagus in a baking pan and smear with the coconut oil.
3. Pour the cashew cheese on top.
4. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the upper coils on and bake for another 15 minutes.
5. Serve with raw garlic and lemons.

Time for preparation: 35 minutes. Serves 4.

BON APPÉTIT!

Lately I’ve been gaga over mulberries and wanted to find a recipe I could incorporate them into. What better way to use them than in a sweet and nutty high protein granola. Mulberries are kind of new to the superfood scene but have been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine as a tonic herb for the blood, liver and kidneys. They’re high in vitamin C and contain resveratrol, the same cancer fighting antioxidant found in grapes and red wine. They have been used to help relieve fatigue, weakness, constipation, anemia and in reversing gray hair. If you can’t find mulberries in your area feel free to substitute with your favorite dried fruit like raisins, cranberries or goldenberries. I also included some other superfoods like goji berries, chia seeds, and hemp seeds along with some high protein buckwheat and rolled oats.

Superpower Pecan Granola
Makes about 10 1/2 cups

Soaking time: 4 hours
Prep time: 20 minutes
Dehydrator time: 20-22 hours

Instruction:
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and divide among 3 dehydrator trays lined with non stick sheets.
2. Dehydrate at 110 for 12 hours.
3. Flip granola onto mesh screens and continue drying for another 8-10 hours or until crispy.
4. Store in an airtight container for one month.
5. If it gets soft, dehydrate again until crisp.

I LOVE finding new foodie things at shee shee gourmet food shops. I immediately pop the item into my basket, full of excited inspiration and quickly get my ass into the kitchen to start experimenting! This time, I found a box of gluten free Sweet Potato Flour. I had never seen this kind of flour before. Wow! Not to mention sweet potatoes happen to be one of my favorite foods. The bread came out moist and delicious with the subtly sweetness that only sweet potatoes naturally ensue. My BF used it to make a savory sandwich with kale, black olives, tomatoes, sea salt and olive oil. I poo pooed his creation at first, thinking the flavors wouldn’t work together. But boy oh boy was I wrong!

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Soak dates in hot filtered water, about 10 minutes.
3. In a small bowl add walnuts, cinnamon and maple syrup. Mix to coat.
4. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together applesauce (or eggs), oil, milk and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and stir until almost fully combined.
5. Drain dates and stir into mixture.
6. Pour into oiled baking dish and sprinkle the top with walnuts.
7. Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean from the center when tested.
8. Cool on a wire rack before slicing.

The brownie universe isn’t exactly full of surprises. The combination of sugar, butter, flour, chocolate, eggs, a few extraneous ingredients, plus a little oven time, inevitably leads to some form of brownie action. Of course, the resulting degree of deliciousness is all in the details — just talk to the adamant nut-adders, the chocolate chip enthusiasts, or the “fudgy” versus “cakey” people that can seemingly never agree. Yet, by and large, the language of brownies is pretty much the same: delicious chocolate squares that just about everyone loves. Including me.

But I have a secret. With the exception of chocolate (which can be profoundly beneficial in its unprocessed form), I don’t use any of the “conventional” ingredients in my homemade brownies. In fact, I don’t even bake them. (I know — what a rebel.) Instead, by using exclusively natural, whole foods, the inherently gorgeous flavor of each healthy ingredient does all the sweet singing — without needing the crutch of sugar or butter. Undercover health benefits like antioxidants, good omega fats, potassium, magnesium (and more) nutritionally rank this dessert as more of an energy bar than an “extra 20 minutes on the treadmill indulgence.” Best of all, five ingredients plus five minutes is all it takes to go from zero to brownie.

Photographer: Julie Morris

Makes about 2 dozen small squares.

Instructions:
Mix: Place walnuts in a food processor and grind for a couple seconds to form a coarse flour. While machine is running, add pitted dates, cacao powder and salt, processing until a moist, crumb-like dough has formed.

Form: Spread into an 8×8 inch pan, sprinkle with cacao nibs, and press firmly into a solid brownie layer. Cut into bite-size squares and serve. Alternately, press and roll brownie dough into small balls to make brownie bites.

Yes, it’s that time again. Time to head out with your love ones and buy all that new Christmas stuff. New LED christmas lights, a fake or real Christmas tree, stockings, fake snow and so on. It is exhausting to even think about.

I was unlucky enough to be at Target, a place I never go to. If that wasn’t bad enough, I found myself in the middle of a Christmas explosion. Christmas everything, they had Chinese cheap o stringed lights for $4, fake trees, ornaments, stockings, fake snow, fake snowflake sparkly ornaments and on and on, you get the picture. As it happens, I wasn’t alone either, I was with my very beautiful and sophisticated girlfriend, who upon laying her eyes on this mega find of Christmas bonanza, transformed into a 5 year old girl, touching and wanting nearly everything. Lucky we made it out of there without buying one of those fake trees, because, this decal idea is looking pretty good. No need to have a decaying fire hazard sitting in the living room, when you can have something as stylish as a vinyl wall tree decal… right?

All the rage in… tiny apartments everywhere, Christmas Tree Wall Decals. The decals are made from self stick vinyl and they come in all kinds of cool modern design. Way cooler than the same old live tree thing everyone does. This is original, fun and yes can be peeled off and used again next year.

Tree’s go for between $12 to $24 plus shipping. No tools need, just a blank wall. Have fun and take photos… you can checkout some of the trees on Subhuit etsy shop.

The other day, we were taking a walk on the beach and recollecting our many summers spent on the Black Sea shore. Sochi (where the 2014 winter Olympics will be held) was where we usually stayed with family, in a charming old house. Whole days were spent on the beach, bathing in the gentle water and soaking up the sun, completely content. Summer in Sochi is truly magical, with warm windless days, chilly evenings, fireflies, and water temperatures that are refreshing yet welcoming. And that is where we got our yearly dose of figs. In our hometown, figs were a rarity – expensive and shipped from afar. But Sochi was a different story. Come the “velvet season”, at the end of August, and the many fig trees in the streets and backyards exhibited the plump fruit. For some unknown reason, the locals did not care for them. So we became fruit thieves in neighbor’s yards, justified by the fact that the figs would go to waste without our rescue. It’s a known fact that the less the time between harvesting and eating, the better the flavour. And freshly picked, those figs tasted like honey, and their sweetness lingered on our lips all season long.

The other true jewel of those times in Sochi was hazelnut. Hazelnut trees were abundant and beautiful with their trios of ready to pick nuts hidden in green cocoons. We would take bags of freshly harvested hazelnuts to the beach and crack the nuts with smooth sea rocks. They made for an unforgettably tasty snack. Folk medicine is rich with tales of the nut’s healing powers. In fact, one such remedy calls for the mixture of figs and hazelnuts to be taken at the end of the meal to aid digestion.
Now that figs have come into season, we decided to build this pizza around them with the addition of hazelnuts, caramelized onion, and basil sauce.

Instructions for the Pizza Crust:
1. In a food processor, combine the vegetables, date, orange juice and nama shoyu until well mixed.
2. Add the sprouts in batches and blend thoroughly.
3. Lastly, add the with flax seeds and mix until smooth.
4. Spread thickly on Teflex sheets and dehydrate at 115F.
5. After 2 hours, cut into desired crust shapes.
6. Dehydrate for another 12 hours, then remove the crusts from teflex sheets, flip, and dehydrate for another 4 hours or until dry.
7. Keep refrigerated until ready to use in airtight glass containers.

Instructions for the Balsamic Glaze:
1. Puree all ingredients in a food processor or high speed blender.

Instructions for the Caramelized Onions:
1. Cover the onions with warm water mixed with the lemon juice for 30 minutes.
2. Rinse well and drain.
3. Combine the rest of ingredients except the hazelnuts in a blender and add to the onions.
4. Let it sit for about 30 minutes, drain the excess liquid, and dehydrate at 115F for 15 hours or until crisp.
5. In a food processor, pulse the hazelnuts into small pieces.
6. Reserve about 1/4 cup for assembly.
7. Add the onions to the processor and combine well.
8. Add 2 tablespoons of the balsamic glaze and blend to reach a grainy consistency.

Instructions for the Creamy Basil Sauce:
1. In a blender, combine all ingredients except olive oil. Slowly add the oil with the blender still running.

Instructions for Assembling the Pizza:
1. Slice the figs and glaze with the balsamic. Dehydrate for 1-2 hours (optional).
1. Spread the basil sauce on the crust, and arrange the watercress leaves, caramelized onions, and glazed figs on top.
1. Sprinkle with sunflower sprouts and ground hazelnuts.

Golubka (“dove” from Russian) is a mother-daughter collaboration telling a story about a life revolving around fresh and delicious food. We started a blog to share our love for mindful cooking and eating, photography, and storytelling. The kitchen is the heart of our household, where all our days begin and end, with much laughing and experimenting.

A., the mom and mastermind behind many recipes on Golubka, found her way to raw foods through postpartum health problems that occurred after the birth of second daughter Paloma, now a two year old green smoothie fiend. After regaining her health, A. became fascinated with the idea of taking raw food preparation to an artistic level. With the help of M., the older daughter, Golubka was created.

We enjoy traveling and experiencing different cuisines. Our fondness for adventurous flavours is often reflected in our own cooking, with fearless combination of fresh ingredients.

Our day jobs have nothing to do with food preparation or styling, but we’d very much like that to change, and Golubka is a first step towards our dream.

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!

So after that beautiful mess, I then sat perplexed wondering just what the heck I was going to do with these. After a few thousand google searches, I realized that a traditional pairing includes purple hull peas and cornbread. However, I didn’t want to just serve plain peas, so I channeled a back-in-the-day recipe and decided to serve the cornbread with a modified Texas caviar.

But first, I had to cook the peas – which actually, ended up being a lot quicker than I had imagined. I guess I was thinking it would be like cooking those bagged beans at the store – insert – takes forever! Instead, I had perfectly cooked peas in well under an hour… Maybe I’ll make these more often. That is, if I can sweet talk someone into hulling them for me… Any takers?

Instructions For Cornbread:
1. Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
2. On a non-stick dehydrator sheet, spread mixture evenly.
3. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for about 8 hours, flipping halfway.

Instructions For Purple Pea Caviar:
1. Mix all ingredients together, and let sit for an hour or two to marinate.

And that’s it – food I actually had to work for.

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.

Mess ‘O Greens

Since I’m not a huge fan of raw onions and garlic (I know, gasp), I decided to keep the greens raw, but saute the onions and garlic, with a quick flash pickeling.

Instructions For Mess ‘O Greens:
1. Stem collard greens and roll lengthwise.
2. Thinly slice collards on the horizontal and set aside.
3. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil.
4. Once golden in color, add a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar and saute for about 60 more seconds.
5. Take off heat and pour over collards.
6. Add an additional tablespoon or two of olive oil and red wine vinegar to collards.
7. Massage vigorously with hands for about 5 minutes.
8. Season with sea salt and top with coconut bacon.

Ferminted Holiday Sauerkraut

I’ll keep this extremely general, as explaining this process would be a post in itself. Don’t worry though, I plan on having a post up this week on fermented foods.

Instructions For Ferminted Holiday Sauerkraut:
1. Follow basic fermentation process.
2. Pack in jars and store for at least one week.

Cranberry Cherry Sauce

This recipe reminded me of two things: 1) how awesome food savers are! 2) how awesome it is to have a mom who juices expensive things such as cherries :) (and then foodsaves/freezes the juice for you). This didn’t end up as thick as my cranapple plum dressing, but it tasted out of this world! Then again, I just love cherries!

Instructions For Cranberry Cherry Sauce:
1. Combine all ingredient in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth.
2. Pour in a glass jar and store in refrigerator.
3. This morning for breakfast, I combined a few tablespoons of this with a few tablespoons of the holiday sauerkraut and topped it with fresh pear slices – it was delish.

Roasted Acorn Squash

Easy peasy!

Instructions ForRoasted Acorn Squash:
1. Slice acorn in half and remove seeds.
2. Cut acorn into .75″ strips on the horizontal.
3. In a large plastic bag, combine all ingredients and shake well.
4. Lay slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees.

Besides the above dishes, I also made my Tomatini Spaghetti Squash and a raw/vegan Chocolate Mint Tarte – which, I’m loving! It was supposed to be a persimmon cheesecake, but my persimmons weren’t ripe enough (they take forever), so I made a quick/last minute alteration. The tarte wasn’t ready in time to photograph, but I promise I’ll make it again, so I can put it up on the blog.

Moreover, my mom also made a raw slaw and a vegan succotash – both were awesome! I can’t wait to remake the slaw when I get home.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday! Time to go partake in a bit more retail therapy

I have been waiting and waiting for a real electric motor bike to hit the market. Now finally an Oregon based company called Brammo is coming out with a bike called the Empulse, that goes over 100 mph and can go 100+ miles before needing to recharge. Sounds perfect, now what will this thing cost right? Well, its up there but so are most super bikes. There will be three models coming out in 2011, ranging in price from $10k to $14k. Not bad, since you never need gas and maintenance will be next to nothing. Would you buy one?

Lots of photos after the jump.

The title should give you a clue to what I am about to rant about and if it doesn’t maybe the I HATE TEMPEH Tattoo on my arm will. I really do hate Tempeh. I mean, I don’t have a hate thing going just because it is Tempeh, I am not like that. I hate it because every time I order Tempeh at a restaurant (like Real Food Daily in Santa Monica) it just taste like cardboard. I am not joking, a fedex box would be better. The waiter serving it even says to me, and who ordered the cardboard. Okay he didn’t say that, but he really should have. People ordering this stuff must really be into the possible health benefits, because come on, really who could like the taste of this stuff. Reminds me of those diet dried rice cakes, I remember people sucking down in the 80′s to lose weight. Dull boring cardboard cakes, MMMMM not!

So, the other day, I am hanging out with Aria and I think she asked me if I liked Tempeh (I guess she didn’t see my tat) and of course that set me off on a rant like the one above. No, I do not like Tempeh, I do not like Tempeh in a salad, I do not like Tempeh on a sandwich, I do not like Tempeh Loafs, I do not like Tempeh while sitting with a goat, or while wearing a coat, I just do not like Tempeh. Well, Aria didn’t like that at all. She gave me a look that could kill a child. Her face turned red and she said, you just don’t know what your talking about. Tempeh is a wonderful food. It’s a whole food don’t you know. It has amazing health benefits (oh here we go) for sickly looking Vegans (hint hint), such as natural cultures to help digestion, protein to pump up those muscles and vitamins like B, calcium, and even essential fatty acids. Yeah yeah yeah, as I roll my eyes, but it taste like cardboard, I said. And I am sure Cardboard has great fiber, but I am not about to sit down and suck down an amazon.com box anytime soon. This just got her fuming… (i am joking, she is actually very calm and when she hit me with the Tempeh package, it didn’t really hurt). Then she said, okay we are going to have a challenge, which I can’t remember exactly what it was, but basically she would make Tempeh I would actually find it impossible to not say, WOW, this is good. Hmmm not likely was my response. She wasn’t phased, she just started cooking and I eased my way out of the kitchen to eat some of my cashew spicy cheesy kale chips.. mmmm. Now those are good… just saying!

What did she make? Hmmm I will give you a hint, I named the recipe in the title. She made a Sweet and yet Spicy Baked Tempeh which was not only good, it was really really good and yes I couldn’t resist… I said Wow, but not in front of her of course. There wasn’t a single hint of the dreaded cardboardishness of all the other Tempeh’s on the planet. What made this tempeh different, then lets say Real Food Daily’s tempeh, it was all in the sauce. When those words came out of my mouth, Aria just rolled her eyes and said, of course it’s the sauce, you thick Monkie. Tempeh doesn’t have a flavor of it’s own. You have to marinate it, to allow it to soak up all the yummy spices. But my point was that it’s the sauce oozing over the tempeh, giving it a nice moist feeling, like a nice BBQ rib or something, which made it so…yummy. No, I don’t eat ribs or any animal anything, but I have in my lifetime so I know what I am talking about. She did the impossible, she made cardboard taste good, hmmmm, maybe she can tackle the rest of Real Food Daily’s menu next. I will keep you posted.

Yes, Aria won again and so can you. Just say no to Cardboard and try this recipe!

Tempeh is a high protein soybean cake that has a meaty texture and absorbs flavors like a sponge. It is also considered the best way to consume soy products because it is the least processed of the soy foods making it one of the most digestible forms.

Recipe by GreenChef Aria Alpert

Instructions:
1. Slice tempeh into desired shape.
2. Whisk apple juice, tamari, vinegar, agave, oils, mirin, red pepper flakes and garlic in bowl.
3. Pour over tempeh in shallow baking dish in singe layer and marinate at least a few hours, over night is best.
4. Preheat oven 350.
5. Sprinkle chopped cilantro on top of Tempeh and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until most of the marinate has been absorbed and tempeh is golden.

V Blak Notes
Aria’s recipe was the first Tempeh I actually liked and for me it was all about the sauce. Keep this in mind and save all the extra sauce to use on the dish after you serve it. Also, the Tempeh will in my opinion soaks up all the sauce and is not as good the next day. So again, pull out the extra sauce you saved, heat it up and pour it on the tempeh. This will make everyone happy. The recipe above makes double the sauce you will need to cover the Tempeh for baking. Giving you plenty to smoother it in sauce later. MMMMMM

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.

Instructions for the Raw Macro Bowl:
1. In a large bowl, lay down zucchini noodles in the center.
2. Around the edges, stack remaining ingredients.
3. Drizzle with the Knock-Off Dragon Sauce

Instructions for the Knock-off Dragon Sauce:
1. In blender, blend all ingredients.
2. Store in refrigerator in a glass jar – keeps about 4-5 days.

Some foods have a distinct seasonal disposition. Ice cream for summertime, apple pie in the autumn, hot soup during winter, and roasted artichoke in the spring. Well, I have a feeling that this soup surpasses seasons. It’s both light and hearty and is just as delicious chilled as it is warm.

I often daydream about food and make up different recipes while doing things unrelated to cooking. Well recently, in the middle of a daydream, I got an idea for making a soup that would have nut milk for its base. I imagined a bowl full of soup that is “blond” and creamy, and became excited about the possibilities of the milk’s earthy flavour.

It took quite a bit of experimentation until I was able to minimize the ingredients to two simple companions to almond milk – apple and fennel. Combined with the milk’s nutty taste, the two bring a sweet and fresh presence to the bowl. The spice of chili and coriander deepens the flavour and ties the whole thing together with a slight kick. The use of nut milk instead of whole nuts makes for a much lighter soup.

Well recently, in the middle of a daydream, I got an idea for making a soup that would have nut milk for its base.

Pumpkinseed cheese is a fairly recent discovery. The first time I made it, I could not believe what a wonderful result I got with so few ingredients. It’s a bit like a cracker. A cheesy, healthy, and delicious one. I’ve made it very frequently over the past couple of months. It’s simple, and works as a wonderful snack or part of a meal. I like to serve the soup with this “cheese,” but it’s very possible to pair it with any crackers of your choice.

Garnishthe reserved 1/4 of apple – cut in small cubes pumpkin seeds – optionally soaked and dehydrated for extra crunch drizzle of chili olive oil (optional) – olive oil mixed with chili powder fresh mint or cilantro leaves

Instructions For Almond Milk:
1. In a high speed blender, thoroughly combine all the ingredients.
2. Strain through a nut bag or double lined cheesecloth, carefully squeezing all the liquid out.
3. Use 2 cups of the milk for soup, and if you have some left over, enjoy it with your breakfast or cookies.
4. You can make these cookies out of the left-over almond pulp.

Instructions For Creamy Apple-Anise Soup:
1. In a high speed blender, combine all the ingredients until smooth.
2. Adjust the salt and spices.
3. Garnish with the cubed apple, pumpkin seeds, and a drizzle of chili olive oil.
4. Before serving, heat up in the dehydrator or serve chilled.

Instructions For Pumpkinseed Cheese:
1. In a food processor, blend all the ingredients until smooth.
2. Thinly spread onto Teflex sheets and dehydrate at 115F for 6 hours.
3. Flip and remove the Teflex.
4. Break into pieces and dehydrate for another 2 hours.

I wish I had a brownie for every time I’ve been informed that eating naturally is simply too hard. While making fancy shmancy meals can be a fun project, uber delicious healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated. Some of my favorite “recipes” are not recipes at all. Take, for example, a fig. Bite into it and . . . whoa! All those little seeds and colors and textures are like whole universe of magnificent complexity tucked inside a shriveled-looking edible fruit package. Imagine if the fig didn’t exist, and some company “invented” the recipe for one: would the fig not be the most amazing “product?” So much of our food experience comes down to mindset.

There’s a style of Japanese brush painting called shodo – a form of calligraphy with an abstract offshoot that attempts to capture energy and kinetics through a few simple brush strokes. Whereas most styles of painting take days, months, even years to complete, shodo takes just a few calculated moments. A swish. A swash. Maybe one last accoutremental zing . . . and then, the decision to end. And within this philosophy of “less is more,” the biggest challenge becomes when to step away and recognize perfection in “just enough.” It’s an empowering judgment call – a kind of discipline in a way – embracing simplicity in this funny world of ours that is obsessed with faster, newer, hotter, and anything that begins with “now with more.”

I find natural foods can take us back to a Tao-like state — appreciating beauty in simplicity.

Poor ol’ “less.”

In the realm of food — for the most part — modern cuisine teaches “just enough” is never enough. Our perfectly lovely foods are processed, packaged, mixed, mingled, extracted, added and bastardized until they’re pretty much unrecognizable. Then we process them again, add healthyish-looking colorings, artificial vitamins and preservatives, and reshape the result into forms that pass for food-like. I don’t think most people would be too impressed if I took a beautiful shodo painting, sprayed graffiti all over it until it turned grey, covered it in white-out to get to a white page again, and then drew a couple of lines mimicking the original painting in magic marker.

I find natural foods can take us back to a Tao-like state — appreciating beauty in simplicity. Take the humble parsnip: a wonderfully useful root vastly overshadowed by its more rotund cousin, the potato. While usually just reserved for an occasional hodgepodge-style stew or roasted medley of sorts, the parsnip offers a complex flavor functioning as a gorgeous balance between a potato, a carrot, and fennel . . . all rolled into one (aka a “recipe”). And it even contains more vitamins and minerals than many of its other root friends (especially potassium). What a guy.

Homemade parsnip fries utilize this idea of “ingredient economy.” Slow roasting them allows for a caramelization of their inherent sweetness, and a little coconut oil keeps them crisp on the outside and soft within. There are a billion ways to make this recipe fancier, but in pulling them out of the oven, I’m personally hard-pressed myself to add a thing. There’s simply no need. I find these parsnips perfect: Just. The way. They are.

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Peel the parsnips and trim the ends.
3. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice into sticks – about 1/2 inch thick.
4. Spread out onto a large baking pan and toss with oil, salt and pepper.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown, tossing parsnips once or twice during baking to ensure even cooking.

I’ve decided that it’s time for a few recipes. I’ve been sitting on these for a while now. In fact, I made the pudding in the summer, as you’ll see by the green plants in the background of the picture – the ground is now covered in snow. The second recipe is a wintery ice cream. It’s very different from the ice creams I’m used to making, and more in keeping in line with my latest dietary needs. In both cases I’ve used young coconut as a base. I love its versatility!

Mint and vanilla are one of my favorite flavor combinations. They don’t necessarily appear to be a match, but there is just something about these ingredients that works well together. It’s my favorite Moonie Pie flavor too – you’ll see that the mint filling is actually filled with both vanilla and mint.

Speaking of moonie pies, a funny thing happened today. Philip is in England right now and while he was dining at Saf Restaurant, he saw a moonie pie on their dessert menu (he even snapped a pic of it written on the menu, for me, hehe). He never tried it or saw the actual dessert, but we found it interesting. I’ll take it as a compliment.

This recipe is fairly low glycemic, with coconut and stevia as the sweeteners. I like to use both fresh mint and it’s essential oil to balance the flavors and make them come to life. If you don’t have the essential oil use a natural extract, but the oil is superior in quality and taste. Like the mint, I use two kinds of vanilla (the seeds of the fresh bean, and a natural extract) to achieve a more multi dimensional taste.

Vanilly Mint Pudding

Instructions: For the Pudding
1. Blend all but the coconut oil, until smooth.
2. Add the oil and blend to incorporate.
3. Chill the pudding for a few hours before eating.

*Irish Moss Gel
2 oz soaked irish moss
1 cup water

Instructions: For the Moss Gel
1. Rinse a handful of irish moss in cold water until any bits of debris have been removed. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear.
2. Allow the moss to soak in cold water for 6-12 hours.
3. Chop the moss and blend it with water until it warms up and turns into a gel.
4. Chill the gel in the fridge for 5-7 days, or use immediately.

Pumpkin Ginger Ice Cream

Like I said above, this is much different from the cashew based and very sweet ice creams that I’m accustomed to making. I decided to use fresh cooked creamy pumpkin in place of the nuts and coconut oil. As a result it’s not quite as creamy, since it has a much lower fat content, but it’s a good option if you want to try something different and are pulling away from nuts like I am. I think this could work as a good base to play around with, perhaps adding some coconut oil to raise the creamy, fatty factor. It works well as a pudding too, using a bit less liquid and allowing the mixture to chill and thicken slightly.

I was fortunate enough to have some fresh pumpkins given to me from a friend’s garden, so I baked them up for this recipe (and for my pumpkin mousse pie which I hope you’ll try because it’s soooo delish, especially with the coconut whipped cream). If you don’t have the time to bake your own pumpkins, try the canned kind.

I enjoyed it topped with coconut flakes and goji berries!

Instructions: For the Pumpkin Ginger Ice Cream
1. Blend all ingredients until completely smooth and creamy.
2. Chill the mixture for a few hours.
3. Process through an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.

Everyone knows space in Tokyo Japan is a rare thing and when you find a little, you don’t dare waste any of it. Space was obviously one of the inspirations for Architect Klein Dytham when he designed his Undercover Lab. A floating black box which seems to hover over the back alleys of Tokyo.

Undercover Lab is a building, which is undercover. Not only is it tucked away in the back streets of Harajuku but the site is also very deceiving. A 10m long narrow driveway leads to a 12m x 12m site at the rear.

The building houses a studio, press showroom, and office. A 20m long hanger rail to show the entire collection of one season was required. This is housed in a black tube running along the only 20m straight line on the site, which extends out over the entrance driveway. This cantilevered tube extends the building’s influence to the main street in a strong but stealth way.

The tube was made to look as anonymous as possible, almost like a shipping container where you have no idea of its contents. The tube also conjures up images of telescopes etc, which give the building a mysterious feel _ nobody knowing what quite is going on inside. So much so that some people may feel intimidated just walking under the tube if they are unannounced.

Today I’ve got a tasty ice cream dessert recipe to share, which has the added benefit of the medicial chaga mushroom (although it’s optional). I did a post on chaga last year and included a Chaga Maple Frosty recipe in addition to mentioning some of it’s benefits. I’m fortunate to live in an area where chaga grows in abundance all year around.

I made this ice cream last week, since a friend was over for dinner and I wanted to do a little something special. What to do with a few young coconuts, some ripe mushy persimmons, fresh ginger, and a bunch of soaked irish moss?! Here’s what I came up with. It would also be great with a chocolate sauce, or orange segments in place in place of the persimmon jelly.

Instructions for the Cinnamon Ice Cream:
1. Blend all but the coconut oil until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the oil and blend to incorporate.
3. Chill the mixture in the fridge, about 4-6 hours, or up to over night.
4. Process the liquid mixture through an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.

Instructions for the Orange Ginger Crunch:
1. Toss all ingredients together, adding the oil last.
2. Spread the mixture out on a plate and chill in the fridge or freezer until it firms up.
3. Break up the chunks.
4. Serve over the ice cream

Persimmon Jelly
You will need: 2 ripe persimmons
1. Remove the pulp from the persimmons.
2. Finely chop.

*Irish Moss Gel
You will need: 3/4 cup chaga tea, reishi tea or water and 2 oz soaked irish moss

1. Rinse a handful of irish moss in cold water until any bits of debris have been removed. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear.
2. Allow the moss to soak in cold water for 6-12 hours.
3. Chop the moss and blend it with the tea or water until it warms up and turns into a gel.
4. Chill the gel in the fridge for 5-7 days, or use immediately.

Why spend a bunch of money at the store on granola when you can easily make it cheaper and way more delicious yourself at home! I have also included a raw alternative in the instructions at the bottom for all you RAW folks out there who wanna try making this in the dehydrator. Also, feel free to play around with the spices, nuts and dried fruits, tailoring it to your liking or whatever you have in your kitchen.

Oh, and this makes a wonderful homemade gift filled to the brim in a lovely glass airtight container… just sayin’… :)

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
3. Mix the first 7 ingredients in large bowl.
4. Mix together melted coconut oil and agave or maple syrup and pour over oat mixture; toss to coat. Spread on prepared sheet.
5. Bake until golden, stirring every 10 minutes, about 40 minutes.
6. Place sheet on rack. Stir granola; cool.
7. Mix in dried fruit.
8. Store in airtight container.

RAW version:
Spread granola on a Teflex sheet. The mesh and dehydrator screen should be placed underneath the Teflex before spreading. Dehydrate at 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit for about 5 hours, then flip granola onto bare mesh screen and peel off Teflex sheet. Dehydrate for another 10-12 hours, or until the granola is crunchy.

Store in airtight container.

This six seed spelt soda bread is almost like a corn bread in its sweetness and density. It’s also just as easy to make. Try this one out for your next party, guest will love it with a little olive oil and sea salt sprinkled on top.

Feel free to experiment with other combinations of seeds you prefer or what you have on hand. If a wheat allergy isn’t a problem with you, you can also make this with whole-wheat flour in place of the whole spelt flour and unbleached all-purpose flour in place of the white spelt flour.

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Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 400F.
2. Place a rack in the center of the oven.
3. In a small bowl combine all the seeds and set aside.
4. Sift the flours, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl.
5. Stir in all but 2 tablespoons of the seeds.
6. Mix the lemon juice with the milk in separate bowl.
7. Make a well in the flour, pour in the lemon juice milk mixture, and stir until the dough just comes together. If you need to add an extra splash of milk because the dough is too dry, you can.
8. Place the dough on a lightly floured baking sheet and mark it with a deep cross across the top, cutting two-thirds of the way through the loaf with a serrated knife.
9. Brush with milk and sprinkle with the remaining seeds, making sure plenty of seeds make it down into the cracks.
10. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until the bread is golden crusted on top and bottom (you may want to move the oven rack up for the last 15 minute if you need more color on the top of the loaf).
11. Cool on a wire rack.
12. Makes a single loaf.

I don’t know when it happened, but ever since Autumn began I have had an obsession with chili. I started ordering it from Curly’s Lunch, and became shamelessly addicted to the very cheap and hearty meal. Feeling intimidated to re-create one of my favorite cold weather meals, I knew I had to throw in some special flavors. The white corn kernels, as time consuming as they are, and the nutmeg make this stew really special. In the winter months, like most, I crave warm, filling one-pot meals that I can make on a Sunday and eat throughout the week. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how long this batch will last!

Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minute | Serves: 6

Cook Time: 25 minute | Serves: 6

Instructions For The Winter Spiced Chili
1. Cook 1.5 cups dried white corn kernels in 4-5 cups water, simmer for 2 hours.
2. Strain and set aside. Add garlic, onion and olive oil to a large saucepan until browned. Add both cans of tomatoes.
3. Stew tomatoes with chopped carrot and zucchini for 20 minutes. Add pinto beans, kidney beans, and white corn kernels.
4. Add all spices and mix well. Simmer mixture for 20-30 minutes, or until all ingredients are tender.

Instructions For The White Peppercorn Biscuits
1. Sift all dry ingredients together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
2. Cut in chilled earth balance with non-dairy milk. Mix well until it becomes a sticky dough.
3. Either shape into biscuits, or use greased pastry cutters to hold the dough in place. Top with freshly ground white and brown peppercorn, and bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

I am not one to use canned beans or vegetables. I most always cook with fresh seasonal produce. But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do and use what you got. Like when you are stuck inside cause there is a snow storm and you forgot to go to the market so you got slim pickin’s to work with to make dinner. I open the pantry and my eyes fall upon a can of fire-roasted organic tomatoes. Hmmmmm…my mind is a flutter… I’m gonna make us some soup and a loaf of six-seed spelt bread.

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Instructions
In a medium pot, heat olive oil. Add onions and 1/2 tsp sea salt and stir until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic cloves, carrots and red pepper flakes, lower the heat, cover and cook until vegetables are soft, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stirring occasionally so the vegetables don’t burn.

Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, for a few minutes. Add fire-roasted tomatoes with their juice, the stock or water, orange zest and rosemary. Turn up heat and bring to a boil, stirring. Then reduce heat to simmer for about 15 minutes.

Remove pot from heat and discard the rosemary and orange zest. Let cool before carefully blending the soup, in batches, in a high speed blender until smooth. Season with a nice pinch of sea salt. Transfer back to the pot and reheat to serve hot.

My CSA keeps getting better and better. A few weeks ago, we have received watermelon, several types of fresh herbs and bountiful amounts of different greens. No offense, but I was getting so sick of summer squash and cucumbers. I finally got over my summer squash boredom, but there is only so much I can take!

As I mentioned, we finally started getting some sassy greens in the mix. This week I got arugula, spicy greens mix and mesclun greens. They are currently taking over my refrigerator. I love nothing more than feeling like I’m drowning in a fridge full of produce, let me tell you. I am the worst food shopper ever, and by that I mean I never ever get necessities. I am always browsing my local store, and farmer’s markets just to find anything fun and inspiring to cook with. Therefore, I always have too much food on hand. It is literally a race to finish it all.

Today we are going to make, Brown Rice Cakes with Calimyrna Figs, Arugula And A Thyme-Infused Balsamic Reduction. Now doesn’t that sound good?

I mentioned before that I have a hard time eating figs. It isn’t that I dislike them, I just find I’m always eating them plain. I also always tend to eat them with sweet things (like tarts) , and this time I decided to do something a little more savory.

Makes: 6 Medium-sized cakes

Instructions:
1. Combine water, brown rice and olive oil in a large saucepan.
2. Heat until boiling, then simmer for 45 minutes.
3. While rice is cooking, slice figs and wash arugula.
4. When rice is finished and still hot, pack into small ramekins and flip onto plate or baking sheet making small cakes.
5. Chill for 20 minutes or until cool.
6. While cakes are cooling, Add 1 cup balsamic vinegar and thyme to large skillet.
7. Bring to boil and then simmer until vinegar reduces and becomes syrupy.
8. Depending on your taste, add earth balance and/or agave nectar.
9. Top cakes with sliced figs, arugula, and drizzle with hot balsamic reduction.
10. Add sea salt and fresh pepper to taste.

Before I launch or should I say, explode into todays topic, lets take a collective pause. Now this pause isn’t for me, it’s for you. Take a breath, calm your mind, get rid of any images which you might have in your head. Push away any food you may have in front of you. And if your unfortunately eating something which involves chocolate, lick your fingers and swallow that shit before we move.

Okay, so your all zenning out now, right? Feeling comfortable? Your mind is clear and open to new subjects? Good, because the topic for today has got to be my favorite subject in the entire world. I mean we are all the proud parents of this stuff multiple times a day (if your healthy that is). So I say why not sing about it, or in my case, trap some friends at the dinner table or post about it on G Living, right! Okay kids, strap in, here we go…

I am the type of gal who loves to talk about poop. I love it. I just do. My poop, my friend’s poop, my family’s poop, stranger’s poop. When someone’s got a poop question, I am the one they call. I have an enthralling curiosity by, not only what goes into the body, but also what comes out. Yes, my friends, I am here to express and hopefully inspire the importance of embracing your POOP! Well, not literally. I’m talking about inspecting that porcelain throne of yours with scientific excitement. It could teach you a thing or two about what is going on with your internal health. Bring insight to why you are feeling a certain way, how you’re digesting or not digesting foods and most importantly when it’s time for you to do a little Colon Cleanse. Your colon works hard for you each day, so why not take some time and clean that old sh*t outta there!!

I also was feeling a wee bit puffy, bloated, my energy levels were dropping and I wasn’t pooping as good anymore :(

I know, I know I am very discreet. I asked a friend of mine if he finally used the colon cleanse I gave him to do just that and his response was,” Is there a more delicate flower under the sun than you, more precious?” What can I say, I love to talk sh*t…

Well, my exciting poop exploration is exactly what happened to yours truly and what has inspired this post. As some of you know, a few months ago I returned from my fabulous Italian food and wine adventure with gusto and glee. And since getting back, I have continued my Italian eating and drinking vino roll that I adapted to oh so well in Italia. I was enjoying myself and not thinking about what I was eating or how much wine I was drinking. The Italian foodie way smoothly became a part of my lifestyle and my diet consisted of more and more acidic foods I never really ate before I left for Italia. (see chart below for acidic food reference) For awhile I thought, “Damn, how am I not feeling or looking like crap eating and drinking this way?” And then, of course, the inevitable hit me…or, I shall say, the craters hit me…don don donanna…the pimples, yes I said plural, started a comin’!!! I was in high school all over again. Ahhhhhh. I also was feeling a wee bit puffy, bloated, my energy levels were dropping and I wasn’t pooping as good anymore. Huh.

SO, after inspecting that porcelain throne of mine I thought, “Yep, it’s definitely time for a cleanse!” And let’s be honest, I was long over due for one. I needed a brake from my F-it Italian gluttonous food and wine habits. And so, I started. Stopped drinking wine :) , switched to eating a more alkaline rich diet, began a colon cleanse and got a few colonics. It’s been about 3 weeks now and I am still doing it. Not the cleanse part, but the diet and no vino part. Why, you ask? Because my skin is clear, I feel amazing, have abundant energy, look vibrant and am pooping like a champion.

I am a strong believer in doing colon cleanses. I try to do them 4 times a year. Around the change of the seasons or if I’m feeling a little sluggish or ate something funky. Doing these seasonal cleanses, along with colonics, have completely healed my digestion, parasites, candida, stomach issues and food allergies, which I had suffered for many years. I have tried many of them but none have compared to Dr. Schulze products. Intestinal Formula #1 and #2 has been my staple and one that I have used many times though out the years, highly recommend and give as presents. It’s definitely a stronger, roto rooter style cleanse. Like, sometimes, get thee to a toilet asap! All his products are wonderful. He has a wealth of knowledge on the website about health and why it is important to clean your colon!! The Intestinal Formula #1 and #2 products are under digestion & elimination.

There is also Arise and Shine cleanse, which is much milder than Schulze. It also incorporates probiotics (helps replenish healthy bacteria in the gut) and herbs along with the colon cleanse so it’s more of a package deal. Many people I have spoken to love it. Check them both out and see what feels right for you. You can not go wrong with either.

Alrighty friends, it time. It’s time to give it a try. Why not. Embrace yourself. A little internal body tune up. And if that doesn’t entice you, you will probably lose weight in the process, which is always a nice bonus. So, clean up your diet, try to avoid processed foods, gluten, fried foods, alcohol, red meat, dairy, sugar and excess salt. Drink filtered water with a squeeze of lemon, fresh raw green vegetable juices and eat as many raw foods as possible. A few days into it you will probably want to eat lighter anyway cause you are getting rid of a lot of crap (literally!) and you will probably feel better and better and clearer and cleaner with each passing day. Also an enema or colonic are very important while cleansing so don’t skimp on that step. They are very helpful to relive any sort of detox symptoms, such as: gas, bloating, headaches, stomach discomfort, bad breath, skin disorders, etc.

Here is a breakdown of my basic daily meals:

Breakfast – fresh fruit, fresh pressed raw green juice or fruit smoothie with your choice of a green superfood powder. (I use bio-greens or Schulze superfood)

Lunch – fresh green salad with some or all of the following: avocado, any raw vegetables except tomatoes, seaweed, dulse (a type of seaweed), sprouts, sprouted mung, lentils or aduki beans, sprouted and/or soaked pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds or sesame seed. Sometimes I get a little crazy and add raw black olives or some cooked quinoa. Dressing is normally fresh lemon, raw apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, dash of cayenne and a touch sea salt.

Dinner – steamed green vegetable such as: kale, collard greens, escarole, savoy cabbage, chard or mustard greens. I lightly steam it with leeks, onion, jalapeños, garlic and/or ginger and dressing is just fresh herbs, lemon, extra virgin olive oil/coconut oil or flaxseed and a touch sea salt. I serve it with cooked quinoa or millet or a baked regular or sweet potato. I also make a lot of miso and pureed vegetable soups too.

Snacks – Sprouted or soaked almonds or pumpkin seeds, lydia’s organics sprouted crackers (I like the ginger nori and luna), fresh fruit, fresh raw vegetable juices, unsulphured dried figs are very cleansing and help clean the colon, herbal or green tea.

Below is a list of foods to avoid and enjoy while cleansing. Have fun. It’s an adventure. Do what you can. I still drink my green tea. Don’t be takin’ that away from me. Oh no… :(

* Eat foods from this group no more than 3 times per week as they significantly slow the cleansing process. If you experience cleansing reactions, you may wish to consume more of these foods, or if you wish to speed up the cleansing process (not recommended for inexperienced cleansers), eat less of these foods.

*Remember, the best is always organic and locally grown produce. And eating mostly raw, sprouted, unprocessed foods increases the probability that you will receive more of the nutrients your body needs from the foods you are consuming as well as naturally occurring enzymes which aid in digestion.

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

Instructions:
1. In a high-speed blender, blend all ingredients, except basil, until smooth.
2. Once smooth, add in basil and pulse until herbs are fine, but still some-what noticeable.
3. Chill in freezer (or refrigerator) for about 30-60 minutes.
4. Once chilled, process according to manufacturer instructions in an ice cream machine.
5. Scoop into bowls and enjoy!

Here at G Living we get books and other stuff sent to us all the time, which is great, but most of it isn’t worth posting about. It’s either dull stuff or just isn’t that “G”. And if it’s not “G” or just plain dull, we either don’t post about it at all or if we do, it’s not always pretty because we tell it as we see it. But with that said, out of the last 40 books or so that have come our way in the past year, this one is definitely a stand out. It’s called American Horticultural Society New Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques. Yeah I know, could they make the title any longer? Anyways, it’s amazing and I am addicted to carrying this 4 pound thing around with me right now. Well, maybe it’s not 4 pounds, but it is pretty hefty, in a good way if you know what I mean.

I’ll admit, am completely new to gardening at the ripe old age of 42. Yes, I have waited 42 years to start figuring out just how plants grow and what the heck they actually need to stay alive. I have killed many many plants in my time I am or was completely clueless how to even start a garden. I didn’t really even know how to plant seeds. Do I put them in those little green house starter trays? Can I just drop them in the ground? How do I plant trees, what plants grow where, how much water do they need, why didn’t my seed germinate and so on. Like any newbie I have a million questions and that is exactly what this book is all about. It’s like the google of gardening but in a book form with detailed illustrations. I love it.

I can see my grandparents shaking their heads at me right now, saying something like duh…. its an encyclopedia, you daft Monkie!

This is not one of those re-hashed gardening books filled with old photos ripped out of gardening magazines from the 80′s or worse the 70′s.

You can’t go wrong with this book. This is an up to date modern book with a fresh feel to it. This is not one of those re-hashed gardening books filled with old photos ripped out of gardening magazines from the 80′s or worse the 70′s. You know the books I am talking about. They are billed high in the discount section of Barns and Nobles. Those books are a desperate attempt to re-use old stuff and passing it off as new. Those books bore me. This is one feels like it was create especially for the modern urban gardener, which I am guessing is probably someone like you and it’s definitely me.

I took some photos of the books layout for everyone. You can see them after the jump.

The pumpkin pictured below, Is that not the purtiest, most perfect pumpkin you’ve ever laid your eyes on?! Now I’m not normally one to brag, but I growed that big beauty up there and man, I am proud! It’s my first successful squash, my garden’s inaugural gourd. The primary pumpkin! And apparently when I get excited, I alliterate!

I was so enamored of this precious pumpkin. I knew I had to do it justice, to create something really special. Lucky for me, a pumpkin goes a long way! I spent the whole weekend carving, chopping, blending, juicing, and otherwise altering the darling orb into all manner of delightful delicacies. But first things first, the prep work:

The heavy melon was washed and halved, the innards removed. The seeds were cleaned and set aside for roasty toasty. From there, it’s a blank canvas . . .

Photographer: Sayward Rebhal

Recipe Number One: The Raw Pumpkin Pie

Instructions:
1. Combine all crust ingredients in a food processor and pulse to blend. You’ll have to keep scraping down the sides to get it good and mixed. It should be pretty smooth.
2. Press it into a pie pan that’s been greased with coconut oil. (see above) There will be extra. EAT IT! It is divine, I think it tastes like buttery cinnamon toast from when I was a kid.
3. Put the crust in the freezer and allow it to ‘set up’ for at least an hour.

Recipe Number Two: The Best Damn Pumpkin Breakfast Smoothie

Juice your pumpkin (rind and all!) I used a little over a quarter of the pumpkin to get a cup of juice. Save the pulp!!! If you don’t have a fancy juicer don’t fret. Just blend it all up in your food processor or blender (you may need to add the tiniest bit of water) and then pour it through a nut milk bag, cheesecloth, or mesh strainer. Voila! Juice! (You can do this with anything, fyi. You don’t need a fancy juicer to drink fresh veggie juice!)

Combine all filling ingredients in a food processor and blend thoroughly, pausing every so often to scrape down the sides. You want it as smooth as possible.

Remove the crust from the freezer and gently pry it loose from the pan. (this is not necessary, but I think it makes a prettier presentation) Pour in the filling and refreeze a minimum of 2 hours before serving. After initial freeze the pie can be stored in the refrigerator. There will probably be extra filling. EAT IT! It is autumn on a spoon and conjures all the nostalgia of the season.

Enjoy! Seriously guys, this pie is SO GOOD. Even Damian, a raw skeptic, was totally sold. He couldn’t believe it was raw. It tastes *just like* ‘real’ pumpkin pie!

Remember how I told you to save the juicer pulp? (and this goes for all your juicer pulp, always) It’s a super fibrous, flavorful ingredient that can act as a base for endless dishes, like crackers, muffins, and sauces. Me? I made mine into a smooth and spicy potato pumpkin soup. Sorry, no recipe for this one, I was cooking-by-taste and just for fun. It sure was scrumptious though. And purty:

With half a pumpkin remaining and my head still spinning with inspiration, I cleaned up the kitchen, made my necessary preparations, and hit the sack to dream sweet dreams of orange-fleshed feasts. In the morning I woke with renewed excitement. It was pumpkin-for-breakfast time! And to a girl like me breakfast usually means one thing: smoothie!

Instructions For Pumpkin Smoothie:
1. Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend blend blend until very smooth. Makes 2 ‘drinks’ or 1 ‘meal’.

I may or may not have followed this up with pie . . .

Four days later and I’m *still* working my way through this first pumpkin! Tonights dinner is Indian-inspired pumpkin curry. I can’t wait! I can’t get enough! And what about you guys? What are your favorite ways to use autumn’s glorious orange globe?

Here’s a handy project to keep you busy during the cold months. I first read about ollas (pronounced oh-yah) over at Little Homestead in the City. Basically it’s an ancient irrigation method that uses unglazed, porous clay pots buried within the root zones of plants. Water poured into the exposed necks of the pots (or pitchers) naturally seeps into the soil, providing a continuous supply of water to the plants.

I’m intrigued by any method of watering that reduces consumption and is more natural. Ollas seem like the perfect answer, but premade ones can be expensive if you’re using them to irrigate everything. Then I found a gardener named Matt who posted an excellent how-to for making your own ollas using nothing more than inexpensive terra cotta pots. Matt’s site is closertothedirt.com. I followed Matt’s tutorial, and here’s how it went:

I am going to break down this project kind of like a recipe. First you need a few ingredients. Two unglazed clay pots for each Olla you plan to make. A tube of water proof glue or silicone and a piece of 2×2 tile for each Olla.

Step One: Acquiring Inexpensive Pots. In August they’re easy to find, and I bought these 15-inch pots for $1 each at Job Lot. You may be challenged to come by these in the winter if you don’t already have them hanging around.

Step Two: Sealing One End Of The Olla. You don’t want water flowing out of the bottom of your finished product. Before gluing and stacking the pots, I sealed one drain hole using a 2×2 inch tile left over from a remodeling project.

I should mention here that my adhesive of choice was Gorilla Glue. I debated buying silicone, but wanted to keep the experiment cheap, so I used what I already had. According to their Web site, Gorilla Glue is waterproof.

Step Three: Glue the edges of the post and stick them together. It really couldn’t have been easier. The pots are stable in the center. With Gorilla Glue you have to put pressure on the adhesive while it cures. The best I could do was tape and rocks. It worked.

As you can see, the glue expands when it dries, creating a water-tight seal.

Step Four: Digging your holes for your new Olla. I chose to place this one near my young pumpkins. If the plants weren’t established, I would have planted seeds closer to the olla. However, digging around these delicate young plants was precarious, so I kept my distance.

Step Five: This one is a no brainer. Cover them up with dirt… a.k.a. burying the Ollas.

Step Six: Visit your rain barrel and get a bucket of water. These ollas will hold approximately 3/4 of a gallon, so fill ‘em up!

Step Seven: Add a rock for extra beauty. You’ll need to keep something over the hole to prevent insects, rodents, and debris from getting inside. If you live in the Northeast, you probably have a handy rock collection.

That’s it! It took me 24-hours to make five ollas, with most of the time spent letting the glue cure overnight. Here are a few notes and considerations: In climates with deep freezes, ollas probably won’t survive the winter. It’s best to remove them in the fall. I’m still experimenting with placement and numbers. I will monitor the moisture in the soil to see how far it penetrates. Just because the olla is empty doesn’t mean it needs to be refilled. Again, monitor the moisture of the soil.

If your a treehugging hemp wearing greeny, you should be cave shopping right now. Forget about living in the typical stick built boxes, all the drones call home. The greenest houses on the planet are caves, ask any bat. No insulation needed, earth quake proof, extremely low energy bills, and oh so quite. But, no one but a nut wants to actually live in a cave, right. I mean you would have to be just a little off, like one of those people who actually think doing their business in a bucket is progressive. For us Monkies, we love the bonus sides of cave living and hate the down sides. The no style, no light, drippy ceilings, no right angles and bat guano. But if you could combine the cave DNA with modern architecture, we monkies would be all over it. That is exactly what the architecture firm Productora has done with their House in Chihuahua.

By Productora: The House in Chihuahua is part of a golf club community in the desert like northern region of Mexico. The dwelling was designed to accommodate the special climatic circumstances of the area, since the differences between day time and night time temperatures can vary by as much as twenty degrees. To balance these extreme temperature differences, we partially buried the house into the mountain slope to take advantage of the soil’s thermal mass.

Since the plot is situated in a traditional style allotment, one of the community rules stated that at least 80% of the roofs had to be inclined, so people wouldn’t build’ ‘modern’ architecture. We reinterpreted that rule and made the complete roof as one continuous surface with different inclinations. From the street side the building is only perceived as a single height volume, but upon entering this seemingly simple volume, the circulation spirals down and spaces become more complex in their shape and conformation.

The interiors are organized around a series of patios and roof openings that provide light and ventilation and allow spectacular views towards the surrounding landscape. The rooms and terraces of the dwelling are sculptured according to their specific needs and placement in the house: from deep rectangular patios to amorphous shaped terraces all the spaces find their place beneath the giant sloped roof which acts as a new artificial topography in the rough landscape.

T’was a yummy morning. T’was. The dawn a breakin’, the bird’s a flyin’, the dog a wagin’, the fire a crackin’, the very ripe bananas a smellin’…love was in the air…All the elements were in place for the inspiration and creation of this recipe. A recipe I would never make if I were not visiting a special someone. A special someone, who happens to love his bananas. Me, I can’t stand em’. I know. I am in the minority. But I never liked them. As a kid maybe. My mom, who never cooked anything except her occasional overly steamed vegetables, baked potatoes and chicken soup when I was sick (Sorry Ma!), would make me mashed bananas with sour cream and honey. I know. Sounds nasty but as I kid I would crave it. Haven’t touched it since though. Not sure if I could stomach it now. No idea why I liked that mush so much. But at the time, it was Eureka. Now, I am just not a banana gal. Well, not until this morning.

About 15 minutes after I popped this thang in the oven the house started smelling and feeling like a warm, cozy embrace…of, well, bananas.

I found myself and my taste buds unexpectedly excited to taste it. Unfortunately, his oven sucks and the temperature doesn’t ever stay consistent so the bread got burned along the edges and the bottom a wee bit charred. That is why I cut it up into these cute little individual bite size pieces. A handy trick I learned from the Queen Bee Martha Stewart. Cause let me tell you honey — this moist, delicious banana bread tastes divine. Wouldn’t wanna throw it away cause it didn’t come out perfect. Yep. Another reminder of how there is no such thing as perfection and how imperfection can be perfect…

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to 350°. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-by-3-inch loaf pan with butter, then dust with flour.
2. In a bowl, sift together the 1 3⁄4 cups flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. In another bowl mash the bananas with the lemon juice.
3. In a blender, mix the coconut butter, agave, applesauce and vanilla. Add a third of the dry ingredients and half of the soymilk; mix. Repeat until all of the dry ingredients and soymilk are incorporated, then beat in the banana mixture.
4. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan and sprinkle the walnuts on top. Bake in the middle of the oven for about one hour, or until the top of the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and let it cool completely.

I have posted about Carl Sagan a few times here on G Living. I never seem to get tired of looking back at his life and the knowledge he left behind. He seemed to have instinctively known the way to excite the next generation in science, exploration and knowledge, is to light up their imaginations with visuals and dramatic stories. He did just that with his Cosmos Tv series. Before CGI, before Star Wars and Battle Star Galactica, Carl created a TV series, which took us into space, not to kill fictional Klingons, but to learn about the actual universe we live within.

Yes, the graphics are a bit dated, it was filmed in the late 70′s but it still blows me away. Watch the entire series on Hulu.com for free. Posted below is the first show in the series. Open your mind and enjoy.

Merry merry jolly jolly to you all! Almost time to celebrate. The tree trimming, the lights sparkling, the festive decorations hanging, the fireplaces crackling, the soups simmering, the stews slowly brewing, the spiced apple cider steaming, the rich hot chocolate warming, the bread baking…mmmmmm I could go on and on….love the holiday season. Always have. And I especially love love love to bake, to brew, to stew and to create something new everyday in my warm toasty kitchen.

When I was a vegan (yes, I said ‘was’) I decided to take the 6 month chef’s training program at the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in NYC to learn how to cook vegan style. The focus was on cooking with whole foods and how important it is, especially if you are vegetarian, vegan or RAW to learn about how to eat a balanced diet. For example, when I was RAW for over a year I felt great for awhile but then I became totally imbalanced, tired and even lost my period. I was eating a tremendous amount of dried and fresh fruits or raw desserts to try and gain energy. I later learned it was a sign my body was craving protein. It took me a bit to get over my militant RAW food obsessions and transition out of that diet but when I did, I immediately felt better. I just did. I didn’t want to admit that eating a little organic animal protein balanced me out but it did. And it still does. So now, I like to call myself a Flexatarian — which is roughly translated to mostly vegan sprinkled with raw goat dairy, some organic meats and eggs. But I am getting off on a tangent now, so back to the holiday meal! Jeeezzzzzzz….. :)

One of my teachers at the Natural Gourmet was chef and cookbook author Myra Kornfeld. She wrote one of my favorite vegan cookbooks “The Voluptuous Vegan” A cookbook I always seem to go back to time and time again. I bring Myra and her book up because truth be told, this recipe is heavily inspired by a recipe of hers, which I have made many times over the years, for my family and friends. Not only does it look beautiful but it tastes incredible.

All of your guests (vegan or not) will be unbelievably nourished and satisfied. I am not a fan of serving up a veggie meal ladened with all those fake processed vegan meats. Tempeh is a whole food yes, but tofu is not and who the heck knows what’s in those vegan sausages and that damn Tofurky, right? If ya ask me, it’s a bunch of man made crap that will cause much unfortunate digestive upset… ;)

So….try this recipe out for a delicious whole food holiday meal alternative. Believe me, your vegan, vegetarian, and yes, even carnivore friends will be feeling the delicious holiday spirit and will leave your table very jolly!

Instructions For Stuffed Sweet Dumpling Squash
Sweet dumpling squashes vary in size, so pick accordingly to appetites of you and your guests.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place whole squashes on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the squash is a bit soft to the touch. Take then out and allow them to cook enough to handle then, carefully slice the top part of the squash off with a sharp knife keeping the “hat” in tacked and scoop out and discard the seeds. Lightly rub the entire squash with oil, rubbing with it with your hands. Place the squash, cut side down in a baking dish with ½ inch of water and bake about 30 minutes or until squashes are tender. Set aside.
3. Place chestnuts in a small pot with 4 cups filtered water. Bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer, partially cover for about an hour or until chestnuts are soft. Make sure the chestnuts are covered with liquid; you may need to add more water if necessary. Drain the liquid, reserving for the red bean gravy. Break the chestnuts into quarters. Set aside.
4. Boil a pot of water with a nice dash of sea salt and add brussel sprouts, blanching them for about 2 minutes. Drain and set aside.
5. Warm the TB of olive oil in a medium skillet. Add the onions and dash of sea salt and sauté over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent. Add mushrooms and sauté for another 5 minutes then add garlic, dried thyme, smoked paprika, carrots, jalapeño, celery, brussel sprouts and cook about 10 minutes, or until vegetable are softened.
6. Stir in the chestnuts, dried thyme, dried sage, the TB tamari and a dash of cayenne pepper. Taste and add more salt if necessary.
7. Tightly pack the cooked squash with the vegetable sauté, mounding it slightly in each.
8. Place the stuffed squashes in the baking dish with a little water, cover with a lid or aluminum foil and place in the oven for about 10 minutes. Turn on the broiler and take off the cover or foil and broil for 5 minutes, or until slightly browned on top.

Instructions For Red Bean Gravy
After you ladle the gravy onto the plates to serve the squash, make sure you put the extra in a bowl and pass around at the table.

1. Warm oil in a medium saucepan. Sauté onions over medium-low flame for about 10 minutes or until the onions are just starting to brown. Add red pepper flakes, cumin and chipotle and sauté a few more minutes more.
2. Add the beans, 3 cups water, chestnut cooking liquid, garlic, bay leaf and fresh herbs. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 1 hour or until the beans are tender. Check the cooking liquid level and you may need to add more water to keep the beans from drying out.
3. Stir in 1 tsp sea salt. Remove the bay leaf and herbs. Puree the beans in the blender, adding more water if necessary to achieve gravy like consistency.
4. Put pureed beans back into the saucepan and simmer on low heat, adding the lemon juice and more salt if necessary.
5. Turn off heat and cover until use.

Instructions For Amaranth-Studded Cornbread
This is one of my favorite cornbread recipes. The moist cornbread also makes a wonderful accompaniment to soups and stews and is very tasty toasted with jam. The bread will keep for awhile so you can make this a few days in advance of your holiday dinner.

1. Preheat oven 350. Oil a 9 X 11inch glass baking dish.
2. Place amaranth in a skillet over medium heat. Stir constantly, toast just until the grains start to pop, about 2 minutes.
3. Immediately transfer to bowl and add cornmeal, flours, baking powder and baking soda. Mix well.
4. In another bowl, whisk the oil, syrup, soy milk, apple juice and sea salt, until blended.
5. Pour wet ingredients into the dry, stirring just until the dry ingredients are completely moistened. Pour batter in to the prepared baking dish and bake in the middle of the rack of the oven for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the cornbread is firm to touch and a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.
6. Let cool before slicing.

Serving Instructions: Stuffed Squashes

Ladle some gravy onto each plate, then place the stuffed squash in the center of the gravy. I like to cut up the cornbread into bite size pieces, then toast them like croutons and during plating, placing them around the squash. But you can serve it in thick toasted slices. Either way it’s gonna be delish…

After you finished dressing your plate, gently lean the squash top on the plate, leaning up against the side of your stuffed squash. (see photos)

Sprinkle fresh chopped parsley, pumpkin seeds and pomegranate seeds all around the plate. Serve along side a nice big crisp green salad and some cranberry sauce.

Manicotti

with Macadamia Ricotta Filling and Cherry Tomato Marinara (raw)

If you don’t have a juice capable of homogenizing nuts, you could try using store bought raw Cashew-Macadamia nut butter. It has to be thick though, otherwise the ricotta mixture will be too runny and will leak out of the manicotti rolls.

I tend to use cherry or grape tomatoes in all of my recipes, except during heirloom tomato season. They taste the best and don’t have that mealy texture that most tomatoes have (even the organic ones) especially in winter.

Serves about 4

For this Recipe, you will need a juicer capable of homogenizing nuts, like a Green Star, to make the macadamia nut butter. You can use store bought raw macadamia nut butter if you can find it, as long as it’s not too runny.

Homogenize the Macadamia Nuts. Measure out 1 cup of the resulting nut butter and place it in a food processor along with the water, miso, garlic, basil, oregano, onion powder, and salt. Process until smooth. Transfer the ‘ricotta’ mixture to a bowl and stir in the spinach.

Using a mandoline, slice the zucchini into paper-thin strips about 6 inches long. Take 3 strips of the zucchini and overlap them making a wider sheet to work with. It should be approx. 3×6 inches. Make as many as you can until you use up the zucchini. Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the ricotta mixture onto the zucchini slices and roll them up.

To make the Marinara, place all of the ingredients into a food processor and process until smooth.

To serve: Spread some marinara sauce on a plate and top with 2 of the manicottis.

Garden Lasagna
(Pine Nut Ricotta, Olive Relish, Wild Mushroom, Sweet Pepper Coulis)

Serves 6-8

To assemble:

Layer individual ‘lasagnas’ right before serving, by layering in the following order:

Sliced zucchini, ricotta, sliced tomato, marinated mushrooms, zucchini, olive relish, sliced tomato, finish the top layer with a small spoonful of ricotta. Garnish plate with pepper puree and diced tomatoes.

Step 1: In food processor, process all ingredients except the chives and sage until smooth.

Step 2: Hand-mix in the minced chives and sage. Serve as a layer in lasagna, or top crostini with this as a spread.

For best consistency, course chop all ingredients by hand. Finish by drizzling truffle oil, tossing mixture well.

Serve as layer with lasagna, or with leftovers serve with crostini, or chips.

In high speed blender, blend all ingredients until smooth, put through fine strainer for optimum consistency.

Our friend Brendan Brazier, the vegan tri-athlete, author and formulator of the Vega food products, stopped by to show Sarah and Boise how to make a raw energy bar. This is one of the first products Brendan created during his early days of training.

When I finally decided to buy an electric bike to replace my car, I knew I would need some powerful LED lights to keep me safe at night. I started with the basics, the tail light. Most of the time, when your on a bike here in Los Angeles, you have cars whizzing right past you just a few feet away and coming at you from the rear. That means the most important light is that rear tail light so it better get the quickly approaching drivers attention.

When I started looking around, most of the tail lights where all the same. Under powered and not that eye catching. Yes, they where LED lights, they where red, some flashed, but none of them screamed, look out. That was until I found the SuperFlash Stealth by Planet Bike. This light was different, it had a 1/2 watt Blaze LED light with a shaped lens and 2 Extreme LEDs with a visibility of up to a mile. When this thing is on, people can’t take their eyes off it. From the rear, it’s near blinding and from the side, it looks like a fireworks show. So, I bought two. One for the rear of my A2B Electric bike and one for the Wike Bike Trailer. The other cool thing about the light, is that its clear when off. It doesn’t standout or look ugly on the bike.

You can buy the light on the Planetbike.com website for $29.99 or on Amazon.com for $22.99.

Here is my light in action

Click here to view the embedded video.

Creative and Clever Ways to Throw a Smashing Eco-Chic Party Entertaining is a theatrical experience that should dazzle the senses. The experience should be clever and well thought out, no matter what your budget. Here are a few sustainable tips to get your next shin dig off the ground. Go one step further and send out a digital invite instead – eliminating paper all together.

Get off on the right foot - First thing’s first: the invites. Make sure you use invites made from recycled paper. Contrary to ecologically-challenged perceptions, recycled paper can look and feel just like high grade paper, but minus the guilty conscience. If ordering them from a professional, ask whether they use recycled paper.

Centerpieces – Gone are the days of deplorable fake flowers you could spot a mile away – usually collecting dust in some over-crowded knick-knack filled nook and cranny in your grandmother’s house. These days, if you know where to look, fake flowers can pass for the real thing.

Aside from standard silk flowers (which are still using silk worms), there’s the option of clay flowers. Deco Clay flowers are absolutely gorgeous and look just like the real thing – except that they cost a fraction of the price, are environmentally safe, and last forever.

The even better upside is they’re reusable so you’ll save money in the long run, plus you’re not contributing to flower butchery nor the very unsustainable flower industry, which has to shower flowers with pesticides – a factor that’s damaging to both you and the environment.

However, if faux is not your thing, then get flowers from the local farmers market. You can even get great arrangements and settings out of potted plants and flowers. A personal favorite is the clever use of moss as decorative center pieces. Moss is not only cheap, sustainable, and uber chic, but it can also be planted afterwards with next to no effort.

Lighting and Décor – One big aspect of party planning is how the party will look. You want your guests to be dazzled, “oohs and ahhs” should be pouring out, compliments gushing.

When done right, the atmosphere that lighting and decorations can create will provoke that response. But rather than choosing blazing electric lights to illuminate the event, try choose more environmentally friendly lighting. Candles are the perfect choice, as they are both lovely and economical – not to mention they don’t require any energy to run.

As for the décor, you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars when home made paper goods will be far cheaper and far more interesting. Consider making paper mobiles, such as the popular origami crane mobiles. You can hang them lined up on a string, as a collective, or individually from just about anywhere. You can even use left over ones as decoration pieces on the dinner table – plus making them out of scrap paper makes good use out of something that was just going in the bin anyway.

Eco-Friendly Wine - Because it’s not just about what you’re using, but what you’re consuming, try switching out your wine for one that is more Earth friendly. There are three categories of eco-friendly wines: sustainable, organic, and biodynamic.

“Sustainable” means that grapes were grown with few to no chemical, fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. This method nurtures the soil naturally, whereas “organic” wines are grown in organically certified vineyards and are made without added sulfites.

On the other hand, “biodynamic” winemaking goes way beyond organics. With biodynamics, the farm is viewed as a living system. The soil is treated with complex compost preparations (of course without chemicals or pesticides), including quartz, yarrow flowers, stinging nettle, and more.

Biodynamic winemakers claim to have noted stronger, clearer, more vibrant tastes in their wines, as taste test conducted by Fortune confirmed. Now all you have to do switch out bulky refrigerators for portable wine coolers, an energy efficient way to chill your wine. And instead of a chilled wine paired cheesy, try hosting an organic chocolate platter instead.

Sustainable Serving - If you consider the glasses, dishes, knives, forks, bowls, and all the other little items used to create a smash hit setting, you quickly start to realize how much goes into entertaining.

In order to host not only your guests, but a more eco-friendly lifestyle, consider purchasing tableware made out of recycled materials. You don’t even have to trade in your luxe taste. In a green-conscious corporate world, companies across the board are offering unique yet refined dining options, including dishes made out of recycled glass.

Target, for example, has recycled glass goblets great for a Sunday brunch; whereas Macy’s cobalt blue stemless wineglasses offer an element of sophistication. These stunning little gems, made with 30% recycled glass, are a striking visual for an evening dinner.

However, if you’re opting for something even more sustainable, try compostable cornware tableware, biodegradable sugarcane plates, or even biodegradable bambooware. These serving alternatives are not only green but far cheaper than buying 50 sets of “real” dishes to accommodate larger gatherings. On the other hand, if you insist on using “real dishes”, then I suggest using what you have rather than buying more. If done right, mixing and matching dishes (and even seating) can offer an eccentric look that’s sure to catch your guests’ eyes.

The image below is a pretty good example of how a table with natural (moss + flowers) centerpieces and natural lighting can look. However, they took upon the exhausting effort of matching the dining-ware (probably because it was a wedding). If you took that same setting and swapped out the the pretentious-ware with mix and match finds from your gran’s cupboard or vintage finds from second-hand stores, you’d be guaranteed a sustainable eye-catching table.

Set the Stage – The real drama at any party is at the dinner table. The visual centerpiece of the evening should reflect the mood you want to create. Whatever your choice, make sure that you set your table using eco-friendly items. In addition to naturally available plants and flowers, as well as sustainable dishes, you can get organic table cloths, runners, and napkins; you can even make sure the lamp shades and curtains are eco-wary items as well. Some of my absolute favorites are eccentric chandeliers made out of (otherwise thrown away) oyster shells, recycled glass, or even used light bulbs cascading down, which do a brilliant job of catching any light in the room. The possibilities are simply endless. Setting the stage doesn’t have to be limited to just the table – your whole environment can reflect your eco-chic taste.

Ice Goes Eco - There’s no point in wasting time, gas, paper and plastic by going to the store to purchase ice for your party. Rather, a sleek compact portable ice maker will quickly plunk down cube upon cube to keep drinks nice and cool. Plus, nothing kills a party like someone announcing “We’re out of ice.”

Leave Them Wide-Eyed and Wondered – One of the most important elements of any party, large or small, is how your guests feel when they leave. Out of the many ways to send your guests off, the most beautiful and memorable has to be a sky lantern send off.

Lanterns (lights) are very popular in South Asian and Asian cultures, where lights represent both spirituality and hope. It’s a spirited feeling to stand there gathered with friends, lighting and releasing lanterns that ascend as golden orbs set against a dark night’s sky.

Made out of recycled paper and bamboo, sky lanterns are also eco-friendly. For added measure, have your guests write messages on each lantern before sending them off.

Hostess Gifts - And any chic eco-hostess knows to lead by example even when attending other parties. When attending another bash, swap out your normal hostess gift for one that is earth-friendly. The same goes for others who obey the rule of “do not go empty handed” – simply swap out the routine bouquet of flowers or dessert with something eco-chic that shows of your cleverness and commitment to the environment.

There are a ton of options for sustainable gifts. There’s even a growing trend of green toys if it’s a child’s birthday you happen to be attending. But more importantly, there’s no reason to give green gifts just as a hostess gift; swap out Christmas and birthday presents for the same.

But above all, here’s the simplest rule for eco-entertaining: “Use what you have, and borrow what you don’t”, and remember that at the end of the day, a great party is about who you’re with and not what you have.

For Canadian thanksgiving, I made mini vegan pumpkin pies. For years I’ve made raw pumpkin pies, trying sweet potatoes, pumpkin, squash, carrot juice/nut combo – but I have to say, I prefer this cooked style. Enjoy it with a big dollop of the coconut whipped cream that I featured in my previous recipe post.

What’s so great about this pie? First, there are no nuts in the filling, making it far easier for me to digest (and good digestion is the name of the game for me these days more than ever). Instead I’ve used the natural creaminess of the cooked pumpkin along with healthy raw ingredients to create a delicious pie.

Secondly, this is a low glycemic dessert, using a small amount of coconut sugar in conjunction with stevia to sweeten it.

What makes it a “mousse” pie? I’ve suped it up with irish moss and coconut oil to give it a light, fluffy moussey texture. In fact, I’ve made this a few times already, that’s how much I like it, and it holds well as a cheesecake and as a simple mousse/pudding too! Whatever you choose, I’m fairly certain you’ll enjoy :)

Pumpkin Mousse Pie Cooked Vegan

Instructions: For the Crust
1. In a food processor, grind the macadamia nuts into crumbs.
2. Add all the other ingredients except the butter and grind briefly to combine.
3. Add the butter and pulse to combine.
4. Press the mixture into a pie plate, or small tart plates.
5. Freeze the crust while making the filling.

Instructions: For the Filling
1. Blend all but the coconut oil, until completely smooth and creamy in a blender or food processor.
2. Add the oil and blend to incorporate.
3. Spread the filling into the pie crust and chill.

**To bake the pumpkin: quarter a small baking pumpkin. Place it on a baking sheet and cook for about 40 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 375F (or until it is soft when pierced with a fork).

*Irish Moss Gel
2 oz soaked irish moss
1 cup water

1. Rinse a handful of irish moss in cold water until any bits of debris have been removed. Keep rinsing until the water runs clear.
2. Allow the moss to soak in cold water for 6-12 hours.
3. Chop the moss and blend it with water until it warms up and turns into a gel.
4. Chill the gel in the fridge for 5-7 days, or use immediately.

Short on time? Here are some shortcuts!
1. Make a simple, two ingredient nut/date crust (2 cups nuts/ 3/4 cup medjool dates), or try my coconut macadamia crust.
2. If you don’t feel like pulling out all the various spices, use pumpkin pie spice, to taste.
3. If you don’t have time to bake the fresh pumpkin, try it with canned pumpkin.

Coconut Whipped Cream Raw

I’ve gone really light on the nuts here, and kept it high in coconut. A few drops of stevia allow for less sweetener. Add a few pinches of ground ginger or fresh ginger juice, and cinnamon for a nice kick! To speed up the firming of the cream, chill it in a large metal bowl. 

Instructions: For the Whipped Cream
1. Blend all but the coconut oil, until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the oil and blend to combine.
3. Chill the mixture for at least 6 hours or until it firms.

Red Kuri, Buttercup, Kabocha or Delicata are my favorites squash’s to use for this simple and delish recipe. This is a beautiful festive compliment to any meal; mix it into a mixed winter green salad, put it over cooked grains, sautéed greens, sprinkle some toasted pumpkins seeds over it…basically anyway you wanna serve this, you gotta wonderful sweet seasonal treat… :)

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. In a large roasting pan add squash with the syrup, garlic, ginger, chili, spices, sea salt and coconut butter.
3. Cover with lid or foil and bake for about 40 minutes, or until squash is tender.
4. Increase temperature to 450 and uncover the pan.
5. Mix the squash around with a spoon and move pan to top shelf and roast for 15 minutes or until squash is caramelized.

Day 1: I always say that the secret of success to healthy eating is being prepared. So I’m kicking myself right now. For months, I’ve known that this would be the week I did a juice fast. Clearly, I had ample time to prepare. And I did, to some degree. I spent the week prior eating exceptionally well. I drank a ton of water. I carefully plotted what I would eat so that my house would be nearly barren when day one arrived. What I neglected to do: get a juicer. And buy fruits and vegetables to juice. Duh. I had arranged with my neighbor to borrow his juicer.

But when I called to get it today, he was busy, so he said he’d drop it off later while I was at the gym. (We have keys to each other’s apartment.) So I went to the gym, had a great workout. Started talking to this cute guy. And before I knew it, it was like three o’clock, and I’d yet to have anything but water. The cute guy offered to buy me a juice (and to take me out to dinner). They had fresh squeezed orange and carrot juices on the menu. But they were out of oranges and carrots! Now, I was in trouble. I knew that by the time I walked home, got my car and went to Whole Foods, and got back with all my fruits and veggies, it would be at least an hour. Fuck! So not prepared. After grilling the poor juice girl, I settled on a smoothie. It was made with frozen mango and pineapple and water. It tasted good, but frozen fruit smoothies weren’t exactly what I was after when I decided to do my fast. I was a little disappointed in myself, but remembered this juice fast wasn’t about being perfect. But I vowed that from that point on, I’d be prepared.

Went to Whole Foods. Told every single person there that I was starting a weeklong juice fast. I was so excited and proud. Spent about fifty bucks on oranges, apples, celery, carrots, parsley, beets, kale, cucumbers, and spinach—all organic, of course. Got halfway home and realized I forgot to buy garlic. Shit. Only had one clove at home. And garlic is supposed to be excellent for detoxing. Oh well. Got home and as I was putting away my last bag of carrots, my neighbor came over with the juicer. (It was just an average, run of the mill juicer. Probably an eighty-dollar job. An Oster. Just like the Juiceman I used to have. Perfect for my fast.)

I made orange juice. And I nearly wept; it was so satisfying and lovely. My juice fast had begun. Later that night, when I was hungry, I made an apple/pear juice. It was exquisite. And a while after that, I made a veggie blend with carrots, spinach, kale, cucumber, beet, celery, parsley, and my one clove of garlic. Sheer ecstasy. I thought about how much I loved fresh juices, and that this fast would be pretty easy.

Realized I agreed to dinner plans on Thursday with cute gym guy but that I wasn’t eating. Whoops. E-mailed him to reschedule.

Day 2: Woke up and felt physically fine, but was really tired, having gotten only four or five hours of sleep. Had a hard time falling asleep the night before. I definitely felt the effects of having an entire clove of garlic in my stomach. Couldn’t decide if it was because I was detoxing, or because it might not be a good idea to ingest a whole, raw clove of garlic. Felt a teeny bit cranky as a result of being tired and decided not to go to the gym. Also decided not to buy garlic on my next trip at Whole Foods. My day was pretty unremarkable. Had my orange juice. Managed to avoid getting work done on my two books that I have deadlines for. Drank an apple/pear blend. Felt the mental desire to eat food. And wound up having conversations with ten friends about a cooking club, potluck dinners, and every dish I ever liked. I started to feel a little panicked, like, What the hell was I thinking? I don’t want give up food for seven days! It’s my greatest joy. I don’t need this fast. I’m healthy. To make matters worse, weeks prior, I committed to volunteering at Landmark. So I left my house at 4:30pm, knowing I wouldn’t get home until at least 11:30pm. Was totally nervous about being away from my juicer that long. So even though I wasn’t hungry for it yet, I drank a veggie blend before I left my house. (I brought an additional veggie blend with me.)

So driving to Landmark in rush hour traffic, this was my mindset: I want to eat, but I can’t. Fasting sucks. I didn’t get any work done today on my two books. Writing sucks. I didn’t go to the gym today. That totally sucks. And now I’m going to be out all fucking night. Landmark sucks. Needless to say, when I got to Landmark, I was a maniac. I was hateful, anxious, and weepy.

When I got home, I e-mailed my friends to cancel our plans for the next day. I knew if I didn’t stay home and get work done, I would be overwrought with anxiety. And that I might even be bitchy and hateful again.

Later that night, I realized that it wasn’t just work stuff stressing me out. I realized that I was detoxing negative emotional junk. Good riddance.

Day 3: Had trouble falling asleep again. (Couldn’t stop thinking about all the food I was going to eat when my fast was over. Literally. These thoughts kept me up all night. Pig.) But was determined to go to the gym and have a productive day working. And I did both. Everything went great until about 5pm. I was going to visit a friend. And she asked me to stop at this fast-food place on the way to pick up food for her: a veggie burger, a veggie chicken sandwich, and onion rings. It was hell. I was trapped in my car with all this fucking food!!! I tried to tell myself how fried and unhealthy it was. And for a second, I actually had a moment of clarity where I thought, When my fast is over, I don’t want to eat this shit. It’s just not good for you. But the thought was fleeting. And it was replaced by a new thought of, When my fast is over, I’m coming back here. I then proceeded to make a mental list of all the places I would eat at when my fast ended.

After enduring the hell of watching her eat the onion rings and veggie burger, I left. (She assured me the food wasn’t that good, but it didn’t help. I wanted to taste and chew food.) I was meeting another friend out, but needed to stop and grab a juice first. So I went to M Café. Big mistake. As I waited for my juice to be made, I stared longingly at all the vegan pastries and baked goods they sell. And I wanted to break a glass bottle over my own head. I wasn’t physically hungry at all, but the mental desire to eat was painful. Picked up my friend and enjoyed her company. But when we got where we were going, I just couldn’t get into anyone. I’m normally really social, but I just felt resistant to talk to people and I had no desire to be around them or their food.

Felt good that I had finished day three, and that I was almost halfway home. Was so proud of myself and knew that I would absolutely see this thing through to the end.

Day 4: Had another fucking sleepless night! Just totally wired in bed. Wondering if I’m drinking my juice too close to bedtime. Goddamn it. I had carefully mapped out how I wanted my day to go, but felt too tired to go to the gym first thing. Went to the chiro first. Went well. But I wound up staying there until 3pm. (Had only had an orange juice before I left my house.) But surprisingly enough, I didn’t feel hungry at all. On my way to Whole Foods, I started thinking about how my friend’s sister, and how she did the Master Cleanse for forty-five days! When I first heard that, I couldn’t wrap my mind around that and how it was possible. But I started to feel this connection to my body, like, I don’t need all that food I usually eat. I could really subsist and thrive on a juice diet. Now, I have no idea if that’s a healthy possibility or not, but I did have that thought.

Got to Whole Foods and stocked up on more produce. (Another fifty bucks, if you’re keeping track.) I also got a wheatgrass shot, which I struggled through. (Wheatgrass is supposed to be excellent for a million different body functions. But it’s so potent, you can sometimes feel sick when you drink it because it detoxes your system so rapidly.) It took me the entire ten-minute car ride home to finish the one-ounce shot. When I got home, I still wasn’t hungry. But in order to get rid of that wheatgrassy taste, I made an apple/pear juice. About fifteen minutes later, I was on the phone with a friend, and I had this heady sensation. I can’t really describe it, but it kinda felt like when you eat pot brownies—the very beginning part. Like a slight head and body high. I wondered if it was a combination of the chiropractic adjustments and the wheatgrass. But in hindsight, I’m thinking it was the wheatgrass.

I’m nothing short of euphoric that I’ve finished day four.

Day 5: I’m on top of the world. I went to a Vegan Toastmaster’s meeting and felt so happy to be a part of such a great community. One guy’s speech inspired me to consider getting rid of my cable and just keeping my TV for movies. (Understand: This thought would never have occurred to me had I not been fasting. I don’t watch it every day, but I Tivo a ton of shows and I love getting on my couch at night and unwinding in front of the TV.) I started thinking about how much I avoid working on my books and my company, and how getting rid of my TV would kick my ass into being more productive.

Went to the gym and felt happy to be alive and fit and able-bodied. Saw cute gym guy and we firmed up our dinner date for next week.

Baked a loaf of homemade bread in my bread machine. Not for me! For a vegan dinner party I was going to that night. The smell tortured me for sure. And all the beautiful food at the party was agonizing. But I made it through the night and was exhilarated that I was getting so close to being done with my fast.

Day 6: Fell asleep pretty well last night and woke up at noon. Felt a little anxiety, laying thereso much work to do on my books. Decided to get out of bed and start my day, instead of freaking myself out. Thought of an observation I had about myself and about other people throughout the week. So much of what we say to one another is steeped in the need to be right. Whether it’s something trivial or something meaningful, it’s a real challenge to allow others to have their own viewpoints. The desire to impose our own opinions on others is so powerful and almost irresistible. Last night, on the way to the dinner party, I had this conversation with my friend. And the conversation was in the spirit of, I’m going to try and let others feel and think whatever they want without needing to impose my thoughts and beliefs on them. Literally minutes later, I was having a heated debate with a guy about scientific evidence, being the exact opposite of who I wanted to be. It was like a scene from a movie. I couldn’t last ten minutes being accepting. Soon after, I apologized to the guy and told him about my phone conversation. He apologized too, blamed himself for being so bullheaded and said that I had actually been right. We had a good laugh about our personalities. Maybe thirty minutes later: new topic, same outcome. Heated debate. Wanting to be right. I laughingly apologized minutes later that I did it again. He apologized, blamed himself, and again said I had been right. Not sure why being right feels so important in those moments, but I am resolved to work on it and allow people to be themselves without bearing my judgment.

I’m really grateful to have that huge insight, but I’m disappointed to not feel any big physical changes at this point. Although, I should probably be happy, because more than likely, the better you feel during a fast, the cleaner your body was to begin with. And surely all the anxiety and crankiness that have been coming up are emotional detoxes. Just as important as the physical.

I have yet to get rid of my addiction to food, since all I can think about is what I’m going to eat when I’m done. I’m sure if I was on a deserted island for a few months, and I had no access to anything but juice, I’d develop a new relationship to food. But I live in L.A., a mecca for beautiful, vegan food. So unless I go on Survivor, I’m happily doomed to be a pig forever.

Day 7: Woke up ecstatic: Tomorrow, I can eat! Unfortunately, that’s not the best mindset to have during a fast. I’ve been a little disappointed in myself that I’ve approached this fast with the attitude of, How many days until I can eat? I don’t intend to beat myself up over it, though, because I did the best I could and I did get a lot out of it.

For starters, the men seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Got asked out by another guy at the gym (I said no), accepted a lunch date with another guy who, last week, I was sure just wasn’t that into me, and got a message from a cute vegan from the dinner party on Day 5. This juice fast has been fantastic for my love life!

Physically, today, I felt the biggest difference. My insides feel emptier and lighter, even though I’ve barely pooped all this time. (I only lost about three pounds, which I’m relieved about. I didn’t want to get emaciated.) I felt a little, teeny-tiny light-headed at times throughout the day. But I also felt happy and energized and had a great gym workout.

I actually had a vision last night of getting rid of all my possessions and finding a green community house to live in. And that’s so not like me! I’m so possessive of my peace, privacy, and alone time. I should probably give all my shit away tonight and give my landlord notice, because that feeling will probably disappear as soon as I take my first bite.

I could summarize this whole experience with some really philosophical observations about myself and life and our culture. And I really did learn a ton about all those things. But I’d rather just talk about food. (I’ll follow up on the life-changing stuff in my next post.)

Tomorrow, to break the fast (and probably the next day, also, to go easy on my body), I’m gonna have some fresh fruit for breakfasprobably an orange, a pear, and a banana. (Not all in one sitting, obv.) For lunch, a beautiful green salad with tons of stunning veggies. (I’ll be eating slowly, and not overeating, thank you very much.) Maybe a miso soup later to tide me over until dinner. For dinner (oh my God), a small serving of steamed broccoli, red cabbage, carrots, kale, and cauliflower.

What Rory on The Real G! (View Show)

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To learn more about fasting, read “Fasting and Eating for Health” by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
Don’t be e-mailing me asking all sorts of questions. I’ll be too busy eating to respond.

Here in Florida, we are blessed to be at the height of our Farmers Market season. My Saturday ritual involves getting up as early as possible (but never early enough) and heading downtown to visit my favorite organic farmers. Every week I vow to arrive earlier when I hear that I missed out on the strawberries or the last of the Lacinato kale. But come Saturday, sleep always wins. When I finally make it to my favorite booth, I’m always on the hunt for something exotic. Sometimes I can find rare tropical fruits (more often in the summer) and unique citrus varieties. Last week I scored the last of the pink tangelos and WOW–what a treat.

This week I was late. Kale, a major staple for me–gone. So I fumbled around trying to figure out what else to get. I’m a total list maker. I have to be, while shopping for me, my hubby and a handful of clients. Though, in keeping with fresh and seasonal ingredients, my favorite list entry is often “stuff for salad”. Walking around the booth, it was impossible to miss the gorgeous display of Romanesco (a broccoli & cauliflower relative). This is seriously the most beautiful food I have ever seen. It’s bright, lime green and full of spiraling florets. Even better, as much as I love broccoli and cauliflower, Romanesco is a bit more subtle in flavor. I grabbed a perfect looking piece, a ton of fresh herbs and knew I was in for a treat this week. This salad is so light, delicious and absolutely full of fresh herby flavor. If you can’t get your hands on Romanesco, feel free to substitute broccoli or cauliflower.

Instructions
This is a salad, so it’s pretty basic. Toss all ingredients in a large bowl. Done! Now for the dressing: Mix everything in a bowl with a fork. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well. Serve and enjoy the freshness.

Now, I am not really a hard alcohol drinker, I would say I am more of a lover of wines. But when I was reading my Bon Appetit magazine a few years ago, I came across this recipe and couldn’t pass it up. I mean, chocolate liqueur. Damn. Yum! And it also makes a wonderful gift. Just be sure to make it about a month ahead of time so the flavors will have time to infuse.

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Instructions
1. Pour rum into large bottle; add vanilla bean halves and cocoa nibs.
2. Close bottle; set aside for 3 weeks, shaking bottle every day to mix ingredients.
3. Strain liqueur into another bottle.

This sparkling jewel of a drink was the perfect finishing touch for our dinner the other night. The combination of chilled Prosecco and raspberries was so good. Try this recipe next time you have someone special over. It’s very…mmmm.

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Instructions
1. Add raspberries to a chilled martini glass.
2. If you like your bubbly on the sweet side, add 1 TB agave syrup to the berries.
3. Then mash with muddler or handle of wooden spoon.
4. Add lemon slice and gently mash to release flavor.
5. Fill glass with Prosecco, Cava or Sparkling Water.

What can I say, we just moved into our new Brooklyn Hood and I needed a quick welcome to our new place desert. Which is easier said then done, when everything you own is packed tight in moving boxes.

But not to fear… the cute corner health food / deli had everything I needed. Organic chocolate bars, maple sugar and some fresh mint.

Remember this one is raw and is a bit on the delicate side. It doesn’t like warm rooms, so pull this out of the freezer just before serving.

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Instructions
1. In a small pot, melt chocolate, butter, sugar and milk over low heat. Stir. When chocolate is melted and smooth, turn off heat.
2. Gently stir in fresh peppermint leaves. (The peppermint must be completely dry when you drop it into the chocolate.)
3. Let cool for about 10 minutes.
4. Pour the mix into a 9-by-9-inch baking pan and place the pan in the freezer until set, about an hour.
5. Using a sharp knife, carefully cut the fudge into squares. (You may wish to rinse the knife under hot running water several times.)

This recipe was sprung out of one of my many Martha Stewart inspired moments.
She called for straight up butter, of course, and so I wanted to see if I could use coconut butter instead. The batter was a little dry so I added nut milk and used chestnut flour instead of hazelnuts cause that’s what I had on hand and wow! They came out crunchy, delicately sweet and the perfect biscuit to serve along side some warm beverages.

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Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, leaving a 2-inch overhang on 2 sides.
2. Cream coconut butter, vanilla seeds, and sugar with a mixer until fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add flour, hazelnuts or chestnut flour, and salt.
3. Press into pan; freeze until firm, about 30 minutes. Score shortbread into 18 pieces; bake until gold, about 45 minutes.
4. Let cool for 15 minutes in pan. Then using the parchment paper to transfer, take out of baking pan and cool on a wire rack. Following the score lines, use sharp knife and cut into pieces.
5. Shortbread will keep, covered, for up to 3 days.

If your following Bite This, you know recently we escaped the frigid cold of the East Coast and spent some weeks soaking up a little California sun. We spent our nights in a cabin right on the Pacific Coastline, enjoying many outdoor picnics, while we stared out at the beautiful ocean. This recipe came to life as I was preparing one of those outdoor late Sunday lunches. I was determined to find as many ways as possible to use the overflow of tangerines and lemons hanging from the trees around our cabin. I think I did good with this one. Well, the Monkie thought so.

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Instructions

Pour juice and sliced citrus into nice glass pitcher. Slowly mix in cider and top with frozen cranberries. Serve chilled.

I must admit. I have never done this before. Making my own Vanilla Extract that is. It’s also only been 3 weeks since it started marinating in its beautiful glass jar. I am not sure how it’s gonna turn out BUT it looks so beautiful we decided we had to share this recipe with everyone. Life is all about the journey…right… :) Jump in and let us know how yours turns out.

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Instructions
1. Put the vanilla beans in a tall bottle or jar and cover with the vodka.
2. Add up to 1/2 cup more vodka to completely submerge the vanilla beans.
3. Close the bottle or jar and let stand in a cool, dark place for at least 6 weeks before using.
4. The extract is done when it’s dark and fragrant.

My uncle and I were talking the other day, he’s not a raw foodist by any means but he’s a health NUT and he owns a supplement company. He drinks green smoothies, makes everything fresh, eats only organic meat, goes on radical cleanses and so on as we do from time to time about health and food.

Our topic on this particular day was COFFEE! Yes, coffee, which I indulge in from time to time. The reason I brought up coffee was because I had read something that REALLY freaked me out. I mean, deep down I know that coffee is far from a healthy beverage. It’s a Fake-Out and a stimulant and bad for the kidneys and nervous system to some degree, it stimulates the bowls, and so on and so forth. Then you hear on the news sometimes that small amounts are actually “healthy for us”! Come on! I don’t believe that {although I listen in hopes that I hear something new and interesting as to why I should drink that espresso}. I mean, MAYBE the good {it’s a great pick-me-up when you are tired} outways the BAD sometimes and won’t really HARM us in a permanent way. Now that I can see!

But again, as with most things, we are always looking for an excuse to drink it or eat it! Right? We like to justify it. I mean come on, there are WORSE things, right?

Back to my story: the blurb I had just read that day was out of Sarma and Matthew’s Raw Food Real World. I had received the book as a gift about 5 years ago when it first came out and hadn’t really read much of it. Of course one of the first pages I turned to was the page on COFFEE and how bad it is for us.

I’ve already heard all the negative things so what NEW information could this page possibly contain. I almost just turned the turned the page…

But I didn’t! I read their perspectives on the matter and I was surprised by what I had read.

They reference a book called Caffeine Blues by Stephen Cherniske because in that book, Stephen calls coffee a “biological poison used by plants as a pesticide,” noting that “caffeine gives leaves and seeds a bitter taste, which discourages their consumption by insects and animals. If predators insist on eating a caffeine-containing plant, the caffeine can cause central nervous system disruptions and even lethal side effects. Most pests soon learn to leave the plant alone.”

“the so-called ‘stimulating’ effect of caffeine is merely our body stepping up the system to flush the poison out as quickly as possible. In fact, coffee beans were first employed as a drug to ‘detoxify’ the sick.

“it’s also damaging to the liver, which has to detoxify the caffeine in it. Decaf is NOT an okay replacement…it contains a variety of damaging chemical, including those cancer-causing agents found in barbecued foods.”

And the book goes on and on. Yeah. Not fun to read. But it’s the biological and scientific “stories” {truths} like this that keep my mind working. I love this stuff. I mean, I HATE to hear it, but that to me makes total sense.

Ugh! So, I asked my uncle what he thought about coffee. His take: “if it comes from nature and is minimally processed, I’m not against it!” {hmmm, do cocaine and crack fit that bill because that doesn’t seem right}. But I get his take on it. What I guess he means is that he drinks wine from time to time, eats chocolate, drinks coffee and tea, and eats meat too. But he avoids all the manmade chemicals and preservatives and colorings and dies and pesticies.

But…what about the natural ones? I’m still torn.

I would definitely NOT recommend pregnant women drink decaf as a drink of choice during pregnancy. Kind of like {if you read my blog} I don’t recommend diet coke as an alcohol replacement. But again, do what you gotta do to get through your pregnancy.

That’s all I have to say today on the subject of caffeine. I wonder what all you guys think!

The idea behind this post is quite simple. During my childhood back home, street vendors sold all kinds of snacks in small paper cones – toasted sunflower seeds, berries, nuts, candy, and other homemade treats. The food varied depending on the season and the part of the country. The cone is an inexpensive, simple container that was usually rolled and filled right on the spot.

During recess at school, we would often run across the street to a small market and buy whichever snacks were sold that day. Then we would proceed to sit in the schoolyard with our paper cones, gossiping and munching away.

Inspired by those memories, we had the idea to serve salad in an edible cone, just like ice-cream. We wanted to create a cone that would reflect the colours and flavours of the salad and add a nice crunch to the overall effect.

We imagined a cone that would work just as well with savouries as it would with sweets. Mango is a wonderful fruit for such situations, so we used it as a base for our cones. There are a few exceptions to the no-local-summer-produce rule in Florida, and Florida mango is one of them. Because they are grown locally, the fruits are never treated with hot water, unlike the mangoes that are imported from Mexico. We’ve been lucky enough to get some very fresh, large and sweet ones that worked perfectly for the project.

For the filling, we used a mango and green papaya salad with a chili dressing and candied Brazil nuts. Green papaya is famous for its healing powers and numerous therapeutic effects, as it contains a significant amount of proteolytic enzymes. Its health benefits are too many to be mentioned in this context, but I’m especially interested in facial application of green papaya paste. It’s said to have a magical effect on your skin, and I’m going to try it soon. Back to the cones, since then we’ve tried filling them with a simple green salad and with homemade ice cream. Both ways presented delicious results. The cones proved to be multi-purpose.

This way of serving, where the container is to be eaten together with the food it holds, could be wonderful for a party. You’d need one less set of plates, and your guests would have a great time with this unusual and tasty presentation.

Instructions for the Mango Cones:
1. In a food processor, puree the mango, coconut and almonds.
2. Add the flax seeds and blend until smooth.
3. Spread the mixture on Teflex-lined dehydrator trays and sprinkle with the chopped chili peppers and small Thai basil leaves.
4. With wet hands, pat them lightly to embed the chili and basil into the mass.
5. Dehydrate at 115F for 3-4 hours, or until the surface becomes dry and the underside can be easily separated from the Teflex sheet.
6. Flip the cracker and peel the Teflex sheet away. Providing that your tray is 15″x 15″, cut the cracker two times horizontally and once vertically to make six equal rectangular parts.
7. Place the sheets into the dehydrator without the Teflex for another 30 minutes, or until dry but still pliable.
8. Roll each sheet into a cone, using a little bit of water to “glue” it together.
9. Line each cone with parchment paper and place them inside one another, forming 4-5 cone stacks. We made a cone out of hard bristol paper and put it into each stack to ensure that the cones hold their shape.
10. Put the stacks on the bottom of the dehydrator, and dehydrate until completely dry and crispy.
11. Keep refrigerated in air-tight containers.

Instructions for the Mango-Chili Salad:
1. In a mixing bowl, toss the julienned green papaya or mango with salt.
2. Let sit for 30 minutes.
3. Mix in the 3 striped mangoes and basil.
4. To make the dressing, blend the flesh of the 1 roughly chopped mango with the red chili and lime juice in a high-speed blender. Season with salt to taste.

One more item, Candied Brazil Nuts
1 cup Brazil or other nuts – soaked for 1 hour and sliced agave nectar – just enough to cover the nuts pinch of salt

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Spread the nuts on a Teflex-lined dehydrator tray, and dehydrate at 115F for 24-48 hours. Keep refrigerated. Sprinkle on the salad when serving.

Oh my goodness, it is time to breathe. I spent the last 6 weeks working 15 hours a day without a taking a single day off and completed the greatest accomplishment of my life thus far…my book. Pure Pleasures: Luscious Live Food Recipes from the Glowing Temple Kitchen (link http://www.glowingtemple.com/purepleasures.php) is published! Wow, that feels good.

So now I’m trying to get back into some sort of “normal” rhythm, whatever that means. There’s actual dinners rather than downing a quick smoothie and yes, I’ve taken a few hours off here and there for time at the beach and visits with friends. Though, I’m having trouble not working because I guess I really created some pretty deep habits. It’s amazing how quickly something truly begins to feel natural. So I’m still up until midnight every night, but now it’s more with promotion rather than production and there’s a lot less pressure if I feel I need to put something off until tomorrow.

These last 6 weeks focused on design, writing and editing, so I’ve really been missing being able to get in the kitchen and create. Like really create. You know, something delicious, beautiful and gourmet, not just tossing together a salad. Now that I’m back to breathing, it’s time to play a little and here’s my first post-book creation that I wanted to share.

Serves about 6

Instructions Beauty Beets:
1. In a large bowl, toss the beets with the olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper to season.
2. Make sure all of the beets are evenly coated.
3. Set aside.

Instructions Parsley Pesto:
1. Place the garlic in your food processor and process to finely chop.
2. Add all remaining ingredients and process until well combined.
3. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides a few times to keep things moving.
4. Scrape into a bowl.

Instructions weet Pepper-Fennel Cream:
1. Place the bell pepper, carrot, olive oil, garlic and salt in a blender.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. Add the fennel seed and blend lightly until just combined.
4. Pour into a bowl.

To assemble:
For each Beauty Beet stack, begin with one slice of beet. Top with 2 teaspoons of parsley pesto. Top with another slice of beet. Top that with 2 more teaspoons of pesto and then a third slice of beet. Place a small spoonful of the sweet pepper-fennel cream on top of the third beet. The process will go much faster if you make several stacks at a time. Continue until you have used all of your beets and pesto, but make sure you’ve saved some of the sweet pepper-fennel cream. Before placing the stacks on a plate, place a spoonful of sweet pepper-fennel cream on the plate for each stack you’ll be serving. Place the Beauty Beet stacks on top of the sweet pepper-fennel cream, garnish with chopped parsley and serve. Enjoy slowly, breathing with great pleasure.

I was never into science. I definitely have a “creative mind” in that way, and remember nothing of the biology classes I had to take during school. One of the more peculiar, scientific things I am aware of is the sensitivity coconut oil has to temperature. If you notice, it can be liquid like oil or as thick as butter (and sometimes thicker!) It is such a fascinating obsession of mine, beyond it’s sometimes scientific characteristics.

Needless to say, there is nothing scientific about this dessert beyond the art direction and coconut capabilities. This is the simplest and most delicious snack, dessert or otherwise. You know that “chocolate shell” you’d get as a kid around ice cream? This is like that, but so much better and can easily be made raw. Coconut oil hardens into a shell around the banana literally INSTANTLY. It is a scientific experiment I’ll never understand, but is amazing nonetheless.

If you don’t like mint, experiment with other extracts! Try adding carob powder, macadamia nuts, or any topping you like. This recipe has infinite options and will be wonderful any way you prepare it, I promise. Enjoy this frozen treat for our last few days of summer, or if you’re like me, anytime around the year.

Instructions:
1. Slice each banana in half and skewer one end with wooden stick or toothpick. Freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2. Warm coconut oil just enough to liquefy it completely. Whisk in cocoa or cacao powder, sweetener, and peppermint extract.
3. Create an assembly line of bananas, chocolate sauce and chopped walnuts. Dip banana in chocolate and very quickly coat in walnuts (the shell will form immediately, so if you’re not fast enough you won’t get any walnuts). Repeat for each banana.
4. Eat immediately or re-freeze.

What do you think, time for a follow up to my Double Down Spicy Cashew Cheese post. I know, I am a one recipe skipping record kind of guy. This time, its Juli Novotny’s (kookie karma) famous spicy cheese kale chips. I made them the sameday I made the first patch of cheese, but I never got around to posting the photos or the how to instructions for the kale chips, so today is your lucky day or maybe not.

If you have never had a Kale Chip and think the whole idea of turning a green leafy lettuce into a chip is a bit odd, I am right there with you. The first time I heard about Kale Chips, I thought… what come on. A dried up leaf? But when I got my first bag of Juli’s chips, I was sold. WOW… I mean.. they were just great, but maybe they shouldn’t be called Chips. They are nothing like a corn or potato chip. They are more like a dried leaf or if you don’t fully dry them, they have a texture of a light jerky. Anyways… they are great in their own way. I would eat them any day over potato chips. Especially the cheesy version.

They are more like a dried leaf or if you don’t fully dry them, they have a texture of a light jerky

Now lets get into the how to make them part. The batch I made was enough for 8 people at a party or one hungry Monkie. The hungry monkie being me. I didn’t share any of them. In fact I ate them all within a day I think. I know… what a piggy monkie. But that is okay, it was my first batch and I earned the right to suck them all down and hey I live alone, so who am I going to share them with anyways? Basil the dog? I don’t think Cheese Kale Chips are something that should be on a dogs menu anyways. Carrots, definitely, heavy cashew cheese… hell no.

For this recipe you will need to make the Double Down Spicy Cashew Cheese before you start on the Kale. Follow the link to the recipe. Then follow the instructions below. Plus you will need a dehydrator or a really hot sunny location outside to sun dry thee chips. I am using a dehydrator by Excalibur. Oh and I have added step by step photos to the instructions after the jump, for all you Flesh Monkies out there who are completely new to this thing called Raw Foods. Lets get started… so exciting, right?

To begin with, don’t be a dirty monkie like me. Wash that kale in the sink or in some spring water. I am famous for just eating anything that comes from the farmers market, straight out of the bag and it never fails, everyone around me says… what a dirty monkie.. wash that stuff. Like a little dirt is going to hurt anyone. Anyways… if your sharing, wash it, trust me, it is not worth the grief you will get. I can still hear those words echoing in my head… “dirty monkie, bad dirty monkie”!

Then in a small bowl, pour in a little olive oil ( about a table spoon ) and a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt. If your looking at the photos above you can see I am a bit heavy with the salt. I use more like a fist of salt.

We are using the oil and salt as the first flavor coating for the chips. The idea is to give it a bit of salty chip flavoring before we move on to the cheese. Also, if you want to skip the cheese part, you could just oil and salt them and call it a day.

To cover the kale in the oil and salt, break the leafs up in to bit size chunks. The size of a large corn chip. Then take each piece and dip it into the oil / salt. Lightly coating it. Then place the newly oiled kale leaf on to the dehydrator tray.

Keep repeating the above steps. You will run out of oil and salt after 6 of so chunks of leaf that you dip in the bowl, so keep repeating the oil / salt steps. Pour in a little more oil and another dash of salt. Continue dipping leaves.

Now that all the leaves are oiled and salted, take your Cashew Cheese and lightly pour it over the leaves on the trays. I also poured some cheese in my hand and scrunched each leaf, making sure the cheese went deep into the leaf. What can I say, I love the cheese and wanted to make sure there was going to be a lot of cheese in each bite. Yes, I washed my hands, I am not that dirty of a monkie. Well, not all of the time.

Now place all your trays in the dehydrator for about 6 to 8 hours at 115 degrees. The timing will vary based on thickness of the cheese and the humidity. The best practice is to just keep checking them and doing a small taste test every few hours the first time you make them. When they are dry enough and taste great… stop the dehydrator and place all the chips in some zip lock bags or a glass storage containers. Or even better, just place them all in a huge bowl and take them out to the dinning room and dig in. I obviously chose the last option.

Remember, if you dry them too long, they will become very brittle and almost burnt like. So don’t over dry them and don’t turn up the heat too high. I would even say under dry them a little so they still have some flex to them. I like them that way. More jerky like than dried leaf like. The cheese will take longer to dry than the kale.

When they are dry, they should look like the beautiful bowl of Kale Chips below. Look at all those cheey chunks mmmmmm… Okay, I am feeling the itch now, I have to head to the kitchen and make another batch, damn you kale chips! I am so addicted. Chat with you guys later, after my fix! :)

Beneath the Williamsburg Bridge, just off the East River, multitudes of microbes are silently ripening a viscous concoction formulated by two Argentinean transplants. The contents of this mixture, and of the modest kitchen itself, are poised to transform the face of one of the most impassioned and rapidly-growing foodie cultures: vegans.

Legend has it that thousands of years ago, in the deserts of Arabia, a nomad carrying milk in a sack made from sheep intestine produced the accidental first batch of cheese curds. Her movements agitated the amalgam of milk and intestinal enzymes and, under the hot sun, produced what we call cheese. Rennet (or Rennin), an enzyme that is a product of calf stomachs and sheep intestines is a key ingredient in typical cheeses – not only making most cheese undesirable for vegans, but also for vegetarians – many of whom imagine that cheese is somehow produced without harming animals. Some veal with your cheese?

They are pioneering a new cheese, and there is no reason that any food lover shouldn’t take them seriously

The world of vegan cheese-like-imitations usually consists of heavily processed soy products simply made to look like cheese at first glance – and never followed through by taste or texture. Some Vegan cheese-esque products are notorious among the adventurous, and tend to elicit the response “well it tastes ok if you cook it in something and add a ton of nutritional yeast, but never on its own”. Placing a block of vegan ‘cheese’ on a board among fruit and crackers would be considered heretical among cheese connoisseurs and self-aware vegans alike. “It Melts!” is usually the selling point for these rubbery replicas and even the long awaited ‘Scheese’, imported from Scotland is a yucky disappointment after months of anticipation by American dairy-abstainers. The only tolerable soy-based cheese is ‘Follow Your Heart’ Monterey Jack. Even still, none of these so-called cheeses even deserve the title ‘cheese’.

Enter Veronica and Pablo of Dr. Cow, a small company that got its start making granola. They use raw, organic tree nuts like cashews and macadamias as the base of their cheese products. They apply different cultures and molds, and age it like any udder cheese. The final products are irresistible, delicious, and obsession-worthy artisan cheeses that are not only amazingly savory and versatile, but they are 100% raw, vegan, and full of probiotics, enzymes, protein, healthy fats, and omega fatty acids. While conventional cow’s milk-based cheeses are laden with cholesterol, chemicals, hormones and a host of other objectionable attributes – not to mention the ethical and environmental concerns of animal agriculture and dairy-collection, Dr. Cow’s cheeses are an anomaly; Healthy and deviantly indulgent.