April 6th, 2010
After a holiday feast, all that I desire is a glass of this – smooth, sweet, and green. It’s so simple, I often wonder why I didn’t think of the drink myself.
Take some familiar greens, or better yet, be adventurous and pick the brightest leaves with the strangest name. A bunch usually serves about three people. Add a banana per person, the riper the better. Stop here for a classic combination, or go on to add some kiwi, apple, grapes, mango, or berries for a more fruity flavour. Add about 1/2 cup of water per person and blend well until smooth and bubbly. Generally, this kind of smoothie tastes like fruit, but some greens overpower the sweetness. Those include collard greens, Swiss chard, and, the mightiest of all, arugula – nothing can mask its presence. But after drinking them for a while, you will get used to the taste of the leaves and learn to enjoy their freshness.
The fact is, green leafy vegetables are very good for you, being the most concentrated source of nutrition of any food and all. Another fact is, it’s difficult to eat enough. Make a sizable salad, chew it for an hour, and you will still not get as many greens as in a smoothie (nothing against salads here). I cannot imagine a morning without this beverage, it is my only coffee.
All of the friends who drink them feel same way, green smoothies are energizing and it’s catchy how clear-headed they make you feel. Paloma has one twice a day, for breakfast and dinner.
To further advocate, here is a little anecdote – one of my friends insists on drinking the smoothies exclusively out of a wine glass, as she believes they deserve nothing less.
Tags: a, baby, drink, food, food for tots, m, raw food, recipe, salad, staple
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April 3rd, 2010
We aren’t religious, we celebrate Easter more as a tradition and part of our culture. This year, both the Orthodox and Catholic Easters have aligned, which makes this post more universal, which we’re happy about. We decided to go a little crazy this time, inspired by the ever-amazing creations of Luxirare. We took the egg as the dominant symbol of Easter and made a likeness of it in delicious dessert form. The challenge was to work from scratch, using only raw ingredients. This undertaking turned out to be more demanding than was expected.
The raw cacao butter is much more fickle than regular chocolate.
It is either too runny and ends up dripping to the bottom of the egg mold, or too thick and unruly when mixed with different powders. It was tough to achieve the right colour, so we experimented with mixing in different raw ingredients, such as maca, lucuma, dried bananas, etc., until attaining just the right shade of white chocolate. The cacao butter was gently heated on a double broiler.
The true breakthrough was the adding of fresh vanilla bean into the chocolate. Almost immediately, the mass resembled the colouring of a quail egg, which we were going for.
We had two different sized egg molds, one was true to the dimensions of a hen’s egg, the other – a quail egg. The chocolate mixture was brushed onto the molds, frozen, and brushed again until a sturdy shell thickness was achieved.
We wanted to make the filling resemble the insides of an actual egg. For the egg white, the meat and water of a young Thai coconut was blended with raw coconut butter, fresh vanilla, and a bit of agave syrup.
For the yolk, we used fresh and dried mango, which was blended with a small amount of agave syrup.
We glued the shell halves together by adding more of the same melted chocolate around the edges and freezing to create a whole egg.
The seal was carefully shaved off.
Since we were going for the appearance of quail eggs, we had to find a way to create characteristic spots. Here, it was logical to use raw dark chocolate.
Just to add some variety, we experimented with filling options. The recipe of this particular chocolate filling is from Sarma Melngailis’s book Raw Food, Real World. (Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart) We also used macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, and berries.
Coconut mixture that went along with the berry filling: meat and water of a young coconut, agave syrup and fresh vanilla whirled together.
The bigger eggs:
Coconut feathers:
The tiny eggs:
At the end, we thought it would be fun to blend our two main filling ingredients together to make this delightful drink. Young coconut meat and water + one fresh mango:
We also made some hollow eggs and melted straw openings though their shells with a hot needle. Filled with the above smoothie:
We just had some friends over for an egg tasting and no one could pick a definite favourite. Once frozen, the mango and coconut fillings taste like ice cream. The berry filling, however, is at its best when fresh, as it bleeds and combines with the coconut mixture. Overall, we loved it more than we ever thought we would.
Happy Easter!
Tags: a, dessert, food, m, raw food, special food
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February 14th, 2010
Raw Chocolate Candy
1 cup cacao butter, shaved (that’s what you see in the first picture)
1/2 cup raw cacao powder
1/4 cup mesquite powder
2 tablespoons maca powder
2 tablespoons raw agave syrup
Melt the cacao butter, add the powders and syrup (I recommend adding the powders through a strainer, so as to not end up with a chunky mass), stir well. Pour the mass into molds, place in the freezer and let harden. You do not have to refrigerate these candies, but we like to eat them chilled. The filling can be anything you like, we add goji berries, nuts, almond butter, and my favourite – raisins.
Tags: dessert, food, m, raw food, recipe
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