April 15th, 2012
This post is also available in: French
Today’s guest post features new and exciting talent. Noelle and David run The Rose Journals, and from the moment we first visited their page, we fell for their style, food, and amazing photography. Head over to their blog and be prepared to be in love. Please give Noelle and David a warm welcome and enjoy this beautiful spring tea party.
The Rose Journals blossomed from a great affinity of simplicity and creating. Noelle (foodie, yogi, and writer of the blog) and I (foodie, filmmaker, and photographer of the blog) met when she hired me as a barista at a coffee shop in Appleton, WI that she was managing at the time. We immediately bonded over our love for basic, natural, food. Interwoven between our long days and hard work, we would share our philosophies, recipes, jokes, and lunches. We came to be great friends. When I finally put two and two together, and proposed the idea of putting our passion of eating, writing, and photographing together to form a blog, both our eyes lit with enthusiasm.
We are here to share our ideas, discover new recipes, and to develop a community…but mostly to eat.
Cheers! We clank our tea mugs together and bask in the warm April sun; we talk of red cardinals, spiders, the origins of clichés, taxes, and love; we share, we laugh, we eat, we drink. We nurture our bodies and spirits as we rejoice over spring. At the center of this gathering is a plate full of cookies. I sink in my seat, sip my tea, and smile at the three hours spent preparing for this party. Food—it is often the centerpiece of celebrations, connecting us to those we love, to the earth, and to the nurturer within. This week we share an assortment of cookie recipes—a few crafted by our fellow foodies, and one inspired by the island of Maui.
Haiku Cookies (Makes one dozen)
I spent a month in Maui getting certified in yoga. My friend, Steve, happened to be working on an organic farm in the village of Haiku, which was less than ten minutes from the studio—I touched my first cashew tree on that farm. We would walk around eating herbs that made our tongues tingle. One morning we watched the sun rise from the top of Mt. Haleakala and proceeded to bike back to town, passing a lavender farm along the way—the soothingly sweet aroma managed to make its way through my Martian size bike helmet. We split coconuts open with machetes and drank the water, we swam at the tops of waterfalls and gathered lilikoi for smoothies, we lounged in the grass under the stars and listened to natives tell stories of the island. For a month I was surrounded by an abundance of natural beauty and people that revered the land. This recipe is a culmination of those experiences. It is simple, raw, organic, and has a lemony zest that is perfect for a spring tea party!
1 cup Cashews – unsoaked
1 cup Coconut
Juice of one lemon
1 tablespoon Agave
½ teaspoon Sea Salt
½ cup Pistachios
1 teaspoon Lavender
Pulse the cashews, coconut, pistachios, and sea salt in a food processors until coarse. Add the lemon juice, agave, and lavender. Pulse until all ingredients resemble a sticky mixture.
Form into one inch balls and flatten with your hands. Dehydrate for 8 hours.
Almond Butter and Jam Sandwich Cookies
(From the blog My New Roots)
4 tablespoons Coconut Oil
4 tablespoons Almond Butter
½ cup Coconut Sugar
2 tablespoons Chia Seeds
4 tablespoons water + 2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 ½ cup Oat Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
Jam of your choice (we used Raspberry)
In a small bowl add chia seeds to water and maple syrup. Set aside for fifteen minutes. Blend oats, baking soda, and salt together.
Whisk coconut oil and almond butter until creamy. Add sugar, vanilla, and chia gel. Whisk to combine. Add dry flour mixture in thirds. The dough will become rather stiff. You may need to mix with your hands. This is a delicious technique that I strongly recommend. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Form dough into one inch balls. Press dough into rounds. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until the bottoms begin to brown. Fill with jam when cooled completely!
Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies (From Living Raw Food by Sarma)
4 cups Oat Flour
1 cup Maple Syrup Powder
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
1/2 cup Coconut Oil
1/2 cup Date Paste
2 tablespoons Vanilla Extract
3 tablespoons Filtered Water
1 1/2 cup Raisins (plumped in warm water for 30 minutes and drained)
In a large bowl, sift together the oat flour, maple powder, and salt. Add the coconut oil and mix thoroughly.
In a seperate bowl, whisk together the date paste, vanilla, and water, until thoroghly combined. Add this liquid and the raisins to the oat mixture and combine well.
Form balls of dough into shape (about 1 1/4 inches across) and place on mesh-lined dehydrator trays. Dehydrate for 8 hours, or until dry but still soft on the inside.
Tags: cookies, dessert, guest post, raw, recipe, snack, vegan
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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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November 8th, 2011
I spent the other weekend visiting Paloma’s big sister in New England. I was looking forward to seeing beautiful foliage, which we lack here in Florida. We got a snowstorm instead. Sunday morning surprised us with fresh snow laying on the yet green lawns, and sparkling in the bright sun. We were the lucky ones who didn’t loose power. It was very exciting to be able to catch a little bit of two seasons in one short trip, especially because we hardly experience them in Florida.
As for being back home, we opened the windows and turned off the air conditioner this weekend. The air is finally crisp and even chilly enough to get us thinking of building a fire in our fire place. (Yes, ironically, we have a fire place!) The next thought, of course, is of comfort food.
At this time of year it has to be something rich, nourishing, earthy. Bread.
I’ve been looking forward to sharing this recipe very much, only because it is really good. Raw bread is tricky. I’ve made a few varieties before this one, but none tasted quite right. There is always a certain strange note, which gives away the fact that the bread hasn’t been baked.
Well, the caramelized onions change everything. They make the bread flavourful, wholesome, and entirely bread-like.
This bread does not need much in terms of toppings. It can easily be enjoyed on its own, eaten like an onion pie. But there can never be enough olives, as far as I’m concerned. We always have a jar of whole olives in the fridge. Paloma eats them as a snack in daycare, and they are great in all kinds of salads. This tapenade is incredibly quick and easy to make, and wonderful on any breads or crackers of choice.
Cozy up and enjoy the season.
Caramelized Onions
5 large onions – sliced thinly
juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup dates – pitted
3 tablespoons nama shoyu
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup brown rice vinegar
1/4 cup water or more for thinning
Cover the onions with warm water mixed with the lemon juice for 30 minutes. Rinse well and drain. Combine the rest of ingredients in a blender and add to the onions. Let sit for about 30 minutes. Drain the excess liquid. Dehydrate at 115F for 15 hours or until crisp.
In a food processor, add 1/2 cup of soaked and dehydrated pecans or walnuts, and pulse together with the caramelized onions into medium sized pieces – this step is optional. Set aside.
Onion Bread
(adapted from Immer Wachsen)
1 cup raw, sproutable, gluten-free oats – soaked and dehydrated
1 cup raw sunflower seeds – soaked and dehydrated
1 cup psyllium husks
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup hemp seeds
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups purified water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Irish moss gel
1 tablespoon raw honey
juice of 1 lemon
Combine all the dry ingredients in a high-speed blender, grinding into flour. You may need to do it in two batches. Alternatively, use a coffee grinder to grind the grains and seeds. Pour the flour into a food processor.
Combine the rest of the ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth. Add the liquid to the flour mixture in a food processor and mix together. Transfer the mixture into a medium bowl, add the caramelized onions and combine well.
Shape the bread into a desired form, using your hands (wetted) or a spoon. Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with sunflower/sesame/poppy seeds and sprouted quinoa.
Dehydrate at 115F for about 8 hours, then slice into pieces and dehydrate further until dry enough, or to you liking.
Green Olive Tapenade
1 1/2 cups green olives such as Castelvetrano or Green Cerignola – pitted
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 handful fresh dill or parsley
freshly ground black pepper
Chop the olives and herbs into small pieces and mix in the rest of the ingredients. Or combine everything but the herbs in a food processor, adding the herbs at the end to combine.
Tags: raw food, recipe, savoury, snack
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