October 23rd, 2011
3D: Dinner, Decor, Delight, our new venture. We want to say thank you for your input and support, you are all invited. The interest, that our first gathering generated, brought us to planning several future 3D events. We decided to direct the profit to Jamie Oliver’s Foundation, whose philosophy corresponds with our goal to show just how enjoyable cooking and eating good food can be. We are especially inspired by Mr. Oliver’s commitment to improving school lunches.
Natalie and I are no strangers to the dilemma of keeping kids’ food healthy while still providing the appropriate social environment for them to learn and develop. Starting out, we were fortunate to find a day care run by a very special woman, who was understanding of our dietary requirements for Paloma. She made the transition from eating at home to dining with other children smooth and enjoyable. Since then, Paloma never thought anything much of her food being a little different from the rest. (Thank you Susan, we love and miss you!) Even now, in a big school environment, Paloma is able to drink her green smoothies, while still being part of the crowd. Sasha, being a year younger, caught up to Paloma as soon as his age permitted. Since then, they’ve shared many smoothies together, all shades of green.
The idea to make this video came to Natalie when we were talking about how much enthusiasm and impatience those two show while the blender is going. They both see the smoothie as a treat, something to look forward to. Ziggy Meilus, our videographer, executed it without a plan or scenario, and we are so thankful for his great work. Once the smoothies were made, Sasha and Paloma went into a sort of trance, gobbling up their drinks. Natalie and I were standing at the side, laughing.
There have been so many inspiring food videos popping up in the community, and we are very excited to finally share one of our own. We cannot wait to do more in the future. Thank you for watching!
Tags: 3D, children, drink, food for tots, life, natalie, raw food, video
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December 20th, 2010
First, apologies for being away for a little while. Between finals and some unexpected health problems, we’ve had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the blog.
Now, let me take you back to a warm October day in Tampa. Sasha’s first birthday.
Sasha is my friend N.’s son. N. is a great interior designer and has a deep love for modern design. She wanted to have something healthy and unique as Sasha’s birthday cake. A dessert that echoed the architecture of Glazer Children’s Museum (where we celebrated) with its basic shapes and flat colours.
We decided on individual cakes shaped as the sort of wooden building blocks we had as kids. There was no messy icing, so the children could just grab the cakes and eat them without any utensils and minimal staining.
For the presentation, N. had the idea of a black board and chalk. In Russian schools, it is a custom for the teachers to put down the day’s date on the board at the beginning of each class. We wrote October 9th, 2010.
For the base of the cakes, I used this recipe for chocolate truffles. For wrapping – this one from our Colour Wheel Wraps. I use them quite a lot – the wraps come out sturdy, pretty, and tasty.
Sasha and Paloma spend two days a week together. They are an ideal pair, as they both live to eat and are very fond of second helpings.
Sasha is Paloma’s only younger friend, and although she’s not always gentle with him, she has been learning about being older and acting accordingly.
The celebration was lots of fun. N. did a beautiful job organizing the venue. The birthday boy enjoyed the dessert and seemed prepared to eat most of the blocks.
Chocolate Truffle recipe here
Colour Wrapper recipe here (minus salt and pepper)
I made the different shapes by putting the chocolate mass into molds. The spheres were created by simply rolling between palms. I cut the exact sizes and shapes of the cakes out of the colour wraps and put them onto the blocks. The colour sheets stuck well without any glueing agent.
Tags: children, dessert, food, food for tots, natalie, paloma, raw food, recipe
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October 26th, 2010
This Halloween is not only the first one that Paloma can understand as a holiday, but, in a way, the first one for me. Although I’ve been living in the U.S. for twelve years, not having a young child and growing up without this tradition left me somehow indifferent to all the festivities. This year, everything’s changed.
Paloma is in daycare now, and is very curios about all the Halloween decorations and pumpkins that they’ve acquired. It’s funny how having a little kid can bring back the long gone excitement of the holidays.
I loved the challenge of making these raw cookies, playing with the shapes and colours. As for the flavours, I wanted to evoke true autumn tastes like pumpkin spice, carrot cake, nutmeg and clove, as well as include some new additions like matcha, mango, and black sesame. I was thrilled when everyone who tried the cookies loved the result.
This was a chance for me to experiment with sprouted oat flour, which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I started with making a basic dry mix, and then added different ingredients for various cookie flavours.
Matcha powder (green tea powder) is another ingredient that I just started using. It’s been getting lots of great publicity, as I always see tempting matcha recipes on food blogs and in magazines. Delicious!
The multi-coloured oak leaves are also edible. Made of fresh coconut meat, flax seeds, and various fruits and vegetables – the recipe is coming soon!
These are quite nutritious and work well as breakfast cookies. Paloma was thrilled to have one for breakfast along with the usual green smoothie.
I came up with three types of frosting – chocolate, caramel, and coconut butter. Some cookies were simply glazed, and some – layered similarly to Oreos.
Happy Hallowe’en!
Basic Mix
2 cups almond flour
2 cups sprouted oat flour
1/2 cup ground rolled oats
1 cup maple syrup powder
pinch of salt
Pumpkin Cookies
2 cups basic mix
1/2 cup raw almond butter
1/2 cup freeze dried carrots – ground
1/2 cup date paste
3/4 cup carrot puree (2 carrots, 1/2 cup freshly squeezed carrot juice, 1/2″ piece fresh ginger root – all pureed in a high speed blender)
1/2 cup carrot pulp left from making carrot juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon each clove
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Matcha Cookies
1 cup basic mix
1/4 cup raw almond butter
1/4 cup date paste
1/2 tablespoon matcha powder
Mango Cookies
1 cup basic mix
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup raw almond butter
1/4 cup date paste
1/2 cup mango puree (dried mango slices soaked in water for 2 hours, drained, and blend with water reserved from soaking)
Chocolate Cookies
1 cup basic mix
1/4 cup raw almond butter
1 tablespoon raw chocolate
1 tablespoon carob powder
1/4 cup date paste
Black Sesame Cookies
1 cup sprouted oat flour
1/4 cup maple syrup powder
1/4 cup raw almond butter
1/4 cup date paste
4 tablespoons coarsely ground black sesame seeds
Frosting
raw chocolate
caramel (in the raw chocolate recipe, substitute raw cocoa powder with lucuma powder and leave out mesquite powder)
coconut butter
The cookies can be shaped into simple squares or circles. Shaping them in figure molds takes some more time, but makes for a pretty result. If one of the mixes turns out too sticky and not firm enough, rolling it between a Teflex sheet and a sheet of parchment paper and drying a little in the dehydrator should ease the cutting/shaping process. Once the cookies are shaped, dehydrate them at 115F until they are dry on the outside and slightly moist and chewy on the inside.
Tags: children, dessert, food, food for tots, holiday, paloma, raw food, recipe, snack
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