January 6th, 2012
We hope you’ve been having a nice start to the new year. I’ve been hearing much talk of resolutions, many of them for a healthier diet and all kinds of cleanses.
We surely weren’t immune to holiday eating and have been trying to lighten things up, primarily with the help of salads and veggie juices. But even when taking it easy, I have to have some kind of nourishing treat on hand. You know, in case of an emergency.
The other day, I found these lady apples at the market. Tiny, blushed things staring at me from the shelf. Given their size, I figured they would make a nice cookie topping.
Another thing we’ve been enjoying this season – fresh cranberries. I decided to top the cookies with fresh cranberry jam, followed by vanilla honey soaked apples. After the dehydration, the soaked apples turned out so tasty that I thought they would make very nice apple chips.
This time, the cookie itself was made of buckwheat only. I usually mix in other grains like oats, but I really wanted to try this kind of dough.
I love buckwheat and use it all the time. It’s such a versatile, delicious, and wholesome ingredient. And I really enjoy the fact that it isn’t technically a grain, but a fruit or berry, which makes it that much better.
Cranberry Jam
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
3 tablespoons agave syrup, honey, or another sweetener of choice
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup Irish moss gelTo make Irish moss gel, rinse Irish moss thoroughly and soak in hot water for at least 10 minutes. Blend in a high-speed blender with enough purified water to reach a smooth gel-like consistency. Keep refrigerated.
To make the jam, blend all the ingredients together in a high-speed blender until smooth. Keep refrigerated.
Vanilla Honey Soaked Lady Apples
Slice lady apples thinly and place in a dish, drizzle with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Scrape seeds from a vanilla bean and add to the apples. Drizzle with raw honey and stir to cover. Leave to soak for 1-2 hours.
Buckwheat Cookie Dough
2 cups buckwheat flour
1/2 cup maple syrup powder or powdered raw coconut sugar
1/4 cup Irish moss gel
1/4 cup date paste or honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 or more tablespoons purified water
To make buckwheat flour, soak raw buckwheat groats overnight, rinse well, and dehydrate at 115F until completely dry. Grind in a high-speed blender, or in a simple coffee grinder in batches. Keep refrigerated in an air-tight glass container.
To make cookies, sift together the first two ingredients in a large bowl. In a high speed blender, mix the rest of the ingredients until smooth, adding more water if needed. Add the wet mixture into the dry mixture, combining well.
Using a wet spoon, fill about 1/4 of a small silicone or paper cup with the cookie dough. Wet your fingers to even out on top, or use a wet spoon. Continue until all dough is used up.
Top each cookie with the raw cranberry preserve and arrange vanilla honey soaked lady apples in a spiral on top.
Place the cookies in the dehydrator set at 115F for 2-4 hours, until they can be easily removed from silicone cups. Then dehydrate for another 6-8 hours.
Tags: design, raw food, recipe, snack
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October 16th, 2011
We are so excited to finally share this post with you. It has been long in the making, a big dream of ours.
For a while now, my friend Natalie and I have been talking and fantasizing about hosting small gatherings, marrying her expertise in decor, my obsession with cooking, and our general love for entertaining. And recently, we did a test run of 3D – Dinner, Decor, Delight.
We wanted our guests to have an experience, something more dimensional than just sitting down for a meal, hence the 3D title. We came up with the idea of an interactive dining experience, where the guests would be involved in the process of preparing a nourishing and delicious meal for themselves, which would then be enjoyed at a sit down dinner.
To further the 3D concept and tell a visual story, we decided to only use three colours in both decor and food. The colours will always be dictated by nature and seasonality. This time, in early fall, it was green, yellow, and purple. The green came from Calimyrna figs, zucchini, and herbs, yellow – from pears, mango, and chamomile, and purple – from Concord grapes, purple sprouts, and Mission figs.
The narrowing down of colours took a bit of thinking and we had lots of fun brainstorming. The whole experience made us think of early masters, like Vermeer, who had to mix their colours with materials that came from nature. That’s when we decided on three brushstrokes as our main logo.
This first time around, we invited twenty friends to the Tampa Club, where we were given a beautiful space overlooking the whole city. We are endlessly thankful to the club and especially private events director Sandra for providing us with such an amazing venue.
We had two photographers at the event – yours truly and Ziggy Meilus. Ziggy is a visionary, there are not many things he cannot do. Photo, video, music, you name it. We are very lucky to have him on our team.
We wanted to welcome our guests with tasty cocktails, but also aimed to keep them as healthy as possible. We served a purple concoction of freshly squeezed Concord grape juice (all squeezed with love the night before) and organic sake. The drink was light, but also did its job well and overall was quite popular with the crowd.
After the cocktails were served, we got down to cooking. Everyone had their own station at our long working table, equipped with a white apron and cooking equipment. We did some preparation of ingredients ahead of time, things like dicing and portioning, all in the interest of saving time. But our guests did most of the work, while we guided them.
The menu consisted of three courses and a palate cleanser. The first course was zucchini spaghetti with a minty mango sauce, topped with beautiful purple sprouts. Then we had a palate cleanser of chamomile sorbet. I’ve had this one up my sleeve for a while now and it’s about time to share it, it’s so good! Look for the recipe at the bottom of the post. The third course was our favourite dolma. And for dessert – mini tarts made of a pistachio crust, filled with a pear vanilla creme, and topped with fresh figs and lavender-infused honey.
We also had small party favours, which consisted of raw chocolate candies and a recipe card.
Natalie did a beautiful job on the decor, down to the smallest details. The main pieces on the tables were vintage meat grinders, which acted as symbolic vases and told the story of transformation of one form of nature into another life form, without the altering of natural qualities. They also signified a hands on experience.
Natalie intended for a sort of style clash to happen, where the rustic elements would be juxtaposed with more minimal and modern ones, like the Voss water bottles and simple white tableware.
We found this to be a very rewarding experience. We loved the whole process from brainstorming to organizing, from cooking together to handing out party favours at the end of the dinner.
We would love to repeat this experience, to grow from it, and to let it grow into something regular and positive.
We are open to any comments, suggestions and collaborations. Thank you for reading.
Fig Tarts with a Pear-Vanilla Cream and Pistachio Crust
(makes about six 3.5″ tarts)
Pistachios Crust
1 cup raw pistachio nuts
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup golden flax seeds
In a high-speed blender, mix all the ingredients until well combined and until the mixture sticks together when pressed with fingers. You can do it in a food processor as well, but pre-grind your flax seeds in this case. Do not blend the ingredients too much to avoid them becoming too oily.
Place a generous 1/3 cup of the mixture in each tart shell with a removable bottom and press evenly against the bottom and sides of the shell. Place your tarts in the freezer for about an hour before serving, this will make the removing process much smoother.
Pear-Vanilla Cream
1 cup raw cashews
1-2 ripe pears
2-4 tablespoons purified water
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean
Blend all the ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Lavender Infused Honey
(optional)
1 cup raw liquid honey
1/4 cup dry organic lavender flowers
Mix honey and lavender together in a jar. Cover with a lid and leave to infuse for around 3 weeks. Stir 1-2 times a day, or just flip the jar over, making sure that the lid is sealed. Strain honey through a fine mesh screen.
Assembly
Slice figs in any way you like.
Take your tart pans from the freezer and carefully remove the crust from the pan, starting with pressing gently on the removable bottom. Fill the crust with the pear-vanilla cream, arrange figs on top, in layers if you like. Optionally, drizzle with lavender or plain honey. Garnish wtih some concord grapes and/or edible flowers if you like.
Chamomile Sorbet
4 cups purified water
1/4 cup dry organic chamomile flowers
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup raw honey
1/2 cup light agave syrup
Steep chamomile flowers in very hot water for about 30 minutes. Strain the flowers, mix in the rest of the ingredients and chill well. Process through ice-cream machine according to its manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.
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August 14th, 2010
Paloma turned two on Friday, and we can hardly believe how fast time flies. Last year, for her first birthday, we had a big party with lots of guests and even more food. I believe we started cooking a whole week before the date in order to get everything prepared!
This time was very different. We just returned from Chicago (will write about that soon) and simply had no time for putting together a party. We wanted to keep it low key and family only, but a few close friends promised to come over and celebrate anyway, even if we had nothing to feed them.
Being food obsessed as we are, we couldn’t let them leave hungry, so we came up with a few sweet dishes that take little time in preparing, and threw them together as fast as we could. First, we served our favourite Baby Spinach and Strawberry Salad, which is always a winner. A box of ripe mangos was waiting for us when we returned home from traveling, so the wonderful Mango Chili and Coconut sorbet was created. We mixed a separate serving for Paloma, without chili, but after she reached into my plate and tried the spiced sorbet, it was clear that no kids’ version was necessary. She loved the spice! The chocolate truffles are another crowd pleaser. People always enjoy them and can never believe that they contain no cream or butter, as rich as they are.
Paloma was in heaven with all the attention and presents. Perhaps her favourite one was a set of animal nesting dolls that we got at the beautiful P.O.S.H. in Chicago. She played with them all day before the guests arrived.
Lastly, I wanted to share some very exciting news. We were invited by the awesome creative director at G Living to be among their contributing Green Chefs. We’ve always loved the site and were very happy with the invitation. See our introductory post here, and the Fig and Hazelnut Pizza post here.
Mango Chili and Coconut Sorbet
5 mangos – peeled and pitted
1 cup unsweetened dry coconut flakes
juice of 1 1/2 limes
1 1/2 cups purified water
6-8 tablespoons raw agave nectar
3 or less teaspoons chili powder
dash of cayenne pepper
In a high speed blender, combine all the ingredients. Chill well and put into an ice cream maker for 25 minutes or however long your brand of ice cream machine suggests. Freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.
Chocolate Truffles
(Makes 28 small truffles)
15 dates – pitted
1 cup almonds
1 cup unsweetened dry coconut flakes
2/3 cup walnuts
2/3 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons raw cacao powder
2 tablespoons carob powder
1 tablespoon maca powder
1 tablespoon mesquite powder
2 teaspoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
For dusting
ground pistachios
ground almonds
small coconut flakes
cacao powder
In a food processor, thoroughly mix all the ingredients until moldable. Form the truffles. Roll into ground pistachios, ground almonds, small coconut flakes, and raw cacao – many possibilities here. Keep refrigerated.
Tags: children, design, dessert, food, food for tots, paloma, raw food, recipe
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