looking good

Ok this is what I’m talking about! Food that you devour with your eyes first.

This is all thanks to the inspiration and practical coaching of Chef Omid Jaffari.

If you get a chance to be in one of his classes- jump at it!

have a look at his blog ShiitakiBlog and be inspired

Eddie Izzard, you are so right about cake

I was watching the enormously talented Eddie Izzard in his show Stripped the other night, marveling that this lovely and quite insane man ran 43 marathons in 51 days, when he said in regards to cake mix and I quote “they would put it in an oven and it would come out… LESS GOOD.  It was genius before it went in and it came out… eeeeeh”

He is so right! So in his honor I came up with this lovely raw carrot cake recipe and I think Eddie would agree with me that it is better for never having suffered at the hands of an oven.

It is dense and moist which is all I ever ask of a carrot cake and goes perfectly with a scoop of Pina Colada ice cream and as a bonus uses some of that left over pulp from your juicer.

Carrot Cake

ingredients

2 cups of carrot pulp from your juicer or super finely grated carrot

2 cups fine almond meal

1 cup ground flax seed

1 cup dessicated coconut

1/2 cup agave or honey/maple syrup

1/2 cup pineapple juice

1 TBsp coconut butter warmed to liquid state

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

pinch of salt

Method:

mix everything well in a bowl. Press into a spring form cake tin and put in the fridge for 24 hours. Remove cake tin, ice with cashew frosting and serve with ice cream.

Cashew Frosting

ingredients:

1 1/2 cups soaked and drained cashews

1/2 cup agave nectar

1/2 cup warmed coconut butter/oil

Juice of 1 lemon

zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Place the ingredients in a blender and cream to a fine buttery consistancy using a rubber spatula to move the contents around as necessary.

This will firm up in the fridge.

YUM! Raw Power!

Dear Santa, I’ve been a very naughty girl

Actually I’ve been good and  I am well and truly in Christmas mode although I haven’t got the tree up- we always try to do something arty that doesnt involve a dead pine tree and I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

I have been buying and making Christmas gifts though and having a very nice time doing it. One of the gifts that I often give is food, especially homemade chocolate or cookies or even jam as the plums start to ripen on our plum tree beyond our ability to eat them all.  This year I have made many batches of the Bliss Balls, changing the recipe to reflect a more Christmassy feel, and tying them up in little cello bags with ribbons and giving them to friends.

Spending all that time in the kitchen making treats got me thinking, I really do believe there is no reason to put on 2kg over the Christmas/New Year period as apparently most people do.  This is the season to look fabulous not fat and stressed. Plus here in the southern hemisphere we are all about to head off for our summer holidays at the beach and we want to be full of vitality, strong and healthy.

As a hypnotherapist I know that a lot of people battle with their feelings about food at Christmas – they feel they are missing out on treats if they dont have everything on offer. They think  “if I am going to have one then I might as well eat them all” or “eat all of your food, there are children starving in Africa”. You’d be surprised how many adults can’t  “waste” food because they heard that one as a child.

If your feelings about food are beyond “Hungry… need good food- had enough… need to stop” then you might want to gently investigate your relationship to food and how it impacts on your health, body and mind. The end of a year is always an opportune time to take stock of the past year and make plans for the new year.

Perhaps you could start by listing 10 things healthwise that you rocked at this year. Maybe you took up walking or the gym and stuck at it? Or inspired your family by cutting out junk food? Little things count. If you are having trouble thinking of 10 things then you are being too hard on yourself. In a whole year you have made 10 good decisions, I’d put money on it.

Now if you are up to it, 10 things that you didn’t rock at that in retrospect you could learn something POSITIVE from.

The final step is to make goals for the next year and beyond. Generally to write them in positive terms is useful so think about vitality, energy, good health and gorgeousness rather than not fat, not tired, not sick.  FYI Mine involves speaking Spanish and taking up Qi Gong and doing some Salsa.

My only rule: Dont make New Year resolutions- it is just embarrassing when you break them on Jan 3 having made such a song and dance about them. Start now. If you are worth it on Jan 1 you are worth it on Dec 12. If you dont want to ‘miss out’ now then you wont  miraculously want to miss out in the New Year. “Everywhere you go there you are” works for time as well as space.

It’s time to get moving in the right direction. This would be your life, the only one you’ve been given (reincarnation aside)  and it is your right and obligation to fill it with love, happiness and health. Start taking steps now not later. If something isn’t working, change. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got- That’s a no brainer. What are you going to change?

Thats the “what” and “why”. The “how” bit requires you to make the little steps on a daily basis. Find out what you need to do, how to do it and then- Drumroll please… DO IT! how did you not know it was that easy? I dont know

If you are looking for some inspiration friends of mine at BioGlo in Melbourne have been assisting people in making changes by running healthy cooking classes and filming speakers such as Don Tolman so that you can get the skinny on health and what’s going on out there. They have put together a series of DVDs and ebooks to arm you with the information.  Have a look at www.bioglo.tv and checkout their Xmas offer because it might be just what you wanted in your stocking this year. I’m thinking Qi Gong DVD- Hey Santa… I was kidding about that naughty thing.

If I can make it there…

Well one more thing I can tick off the old “stuff to do before I die” list is run the New York City Marathon. Yes folks, I trained, suffered and trained some more and got myself into the 2009 NYC Marathon with 43 000 other nutcases who think a 42.1 km run is a good time.

In all honesty while I was there the running came second fiddle to eating at gorgeous vegan restaurants, all of which had raw options.

New York is awash with great vegan cafes and restaurants and we went to lots of them.

I tried Candle Cafe and Candle 79 and met the lovely Bernay who has run the NYC marathon 8 times. Both of these restaurants had some raw dishes although Candle 79 had the best selection including a “live” entree , main and dessert as well as the usual salad options.  They sweetly wished me luck for the marathon and followed my time on the athlete tracker.

They also had great cocktails like the Lexington which was delicious and the Red Autumn with its beetroot and sake combination that felt like it was almost good for you.

I also tried Pure Food and Wine which although the food was very nice the place was loud and lacked real personality. It was good food for people who didn’t usually eat raw- “wow, you would never know it’s raw!”

The people at the next table were horrible, drunk and loud and the seating arrangements meant they were impossible to ignore. When part of their dessert came flying our way they half heartedly appolgised but it was pretty hard to enjoy ourselves until they left.

We were looking forward to  trying the Dr cow nut cheese although the portion you get is a tiny sliver and there is no way of knowing which cheese is which once you get your plate of it. We decided we would have to go to Williamsburg and buy the cheese straight from Dr Cow.

They did have a great Thai coconut noodle dish and a lovely dessert selection.  Although we had the opportunity to go back we decided that it was a bit mainstream and we enjoyed the smaller, more personal service of some of the other cafes.

In complete contrast was Rockin Raw in Williamsburg.  Creole raw food in huge homely helpings with recognisable ingredients, fantastic flavours and an obviously local fan base. We had massive sandwiches made with essene bread, super food smoothies, and yummy little biscuits desserts.  They had some great sauces on the side and there was a spiciness that had been missing from my diet thus far.  The food was reasonably priced and left us feeling happy and inspired.  What more could you want from lunch?

Andy’s Pure Food in Rye had some amazing little raw chocolate truffles- I admit it, we had to try them all. Hey I had like 2600 calories to make up from the run. They also had some great basic tasty salads and some really interesting smoothies. They mostly do take out and will also deliver a detox program of food to you for seven days to make things super simple.

Blossom Cafe which is a favorite of many NY vegans has some lovely dishes including raw options and was friendly and pleasant. Nice place to recharge after all that walking around NY so we stuffed ourselve before heading off to see Jude Law playing Hamlet.

We also managed to squeeze into the tiny Quintessence cafe in the East Village where we has some awesome raw food. I had a mexican style pizza and I swear it was one of the yummiest things I ate on my trip. The cafe is really small and cosy and the service is friendly.

I stopped in at Angelica Kitchen for hot apple cider and chai braving their ‘we can’t seat you until your whole party is here’ rule. They seem a bit uptight but the food is nice enough.  Apparently they get insanely busy and are wildly popular with the local vegans and vegetarians.

Last but not least was Caravan Of Dreams which was charming and eclectic with a great selection of vegan and raw vegan food. We had amazing smoothies, salads, raw vegan “meatballs” and desserts. The food was piled high and there was an incredible amount of greens. The salad came with sunflower seed sprouts which I have never had before but now I know what I am going to do with all of last summers left over sunflower seeds.

I left New York inspired and at least a kg heavier than when I arrived-I blame the desserts. It makes me very happy that New Yorkers can so easily access a great range of vegan and raw vegan food that is clearly made with care and attention to detail.

I will definitely be making some new Raw Recipes inspired by the Big Apple- stay tuned

Stress

Stress… sometimes it is really obvious that we are feeling the effects of stress. We feel tired, we seem to get sick all the time, we don’t sleep well and we feel irritated or overwhelmed. Sometime the effects of stress are less obvious. We put on weight, we cant seem to get as much out of our workout, we cant even think about working out. At times like these we often turn to coffee, chocolate and food in general to stimulate us, pick us up and get us going. Sadly that’s just what we don’t need. We don’t need to pick our selves up for an hour or so only to crash again. We need deep down at the foundations of our energy an overhaul.

Today I was in a beautiful clothes shop where both the sales assistant and a customer were bemoaning their weight gain.   In a very insightful moment the customer said “it’s stress isn’t it. How can you help over eating when you are stressed?”  I was at the time listening to Brendan Brazier on my ipod talking about stress and what it does to your body. Needless to say I took it as a sign so here I am writing a post on it.

Stress is caused by many things, external and internal, from our thoughts to our environment to our diet- it can all cause stress. Exercise causes stress. Food can cause stress.

Quite simply if we eat food that is heavily processed we cause our body stress. If we eat fresh raw minimally processed food we support our bodies and gradually we out weigh the stress with great nutrition.

I could go into a bunch of scientific proof about what your body does when you eat cooked refined foods and adrenal stress but to me it is a no brainer.  Pizza, burgers, chips, bread, pasta… it is all junk. Yes it might taste good, why wouldn’t it but that doesn’t mean anything in terms of being good for you.  I used to coach people with addictions- there is a lot of stuff that feels good that most people will point out are just outright bad for you, body and soul.

So what is good for you? Think long term, deep foundations. Raw food every day even if it is simple salad will nourish you in a way that the Standard American/Australian Diet of heavily processed and cooked food does not.

Could you have a salad with red, green, yellow, and purple vegetables?  Could you have a green smoothie once a day? Could your salad dressing be made by you instead of out of a bottle? Could you enjoy a simple fruit salad?

What if you did just one thing every day? Swapped a few key things or just decided not to eat any more refined wheat or sugar? Do you think that in a month or two you would notice the difference. That after some time your body would have more energy since it isn’t fighting a battle with processed food.

Maybe then you would have the energy to find that exercise that made you feel great. Whats yours? Yoga? Running? Netball? Do you want the fun of a team, the camaraderie of a couple of close friends or the time to yourself to think?

Is it a little everyday or a couple of times a week?

Would you feel better? Would you look younger? Don’t underestimate how badly stress ages you prematurely. There is nothing like good living to put a glow in your skin that you just can’t get over the counter.

So what do you say? Are you worth it?

Ready to stop stressing your body out and do something positive, one step at a time?

What’s for breakfast?

What’s for breakfast?

This is one of the recipes you get when you sign up for a weekly newsletter and it got so much good feedback I thought I better put it up for everyone.

This breakfast will keep you going until lunch time and tastes sweet and delicious. You can adjust your sweetener for the type that is best for your body ie agave is fructose so very easy to digest, honey is sucrose and raw honey has nutrients, Stevia has no calories/carbs and will help you moderate your blood sugar and maple syrup is yummy and probably good for you- google it!

It is also the perfect carb/ protein breakfast for an athlete, especially if you use agave.

The porridge will keep for 3 days in the fridge and you can add different toppings every day for a new taste sensation every morning.

Buckwheat should be raw not toasted and soaked overnight.

Porridge

2 cups buckwheat

4 cups water

1 grated apple

1/2 cup dried fruit

1 tsp cinnamon

tiny pinch of salt

Method

Soak buckwheat in water overnight and rinse really really well in the morning. Get all the soapy residue off it

Place in food processor with approximately  ½ cup agave/honey or sweetener of choice,

add 1 tsp cinnamon and blend until creamy.

Done!

You can make chocolate porridge with a teaspoon of raw cacao too.

Put one serving in a bowl and add grated fresh apple. Top with dried fruit like dried apple, currents, raisins, dried cranberries, fresh blueberries and raspberries and perhaps sprinkle of LSA.

If you like nut milk or chocolate nutmilk then add this

On a cold morning you could warm the porridge and nut milk gently to 48C so you retain all the nutrients.

Optional: try using Chai spices for a very warming and aromatic porridge: Cinnamon, ginger, cardamon, clove and star anise, all ground finely.

It is nice to have some simple recipes for food you can prepare ahead of time to make the morning meals nutritious, quick and easy. Below is a list of some good things about Buckwheat which is neither a wheat nor a grain.

Peace

Vidi

Buckwheat is actually gluten and wheat free and not a grain at all. It is a complete sources of protein, containing all eight essential amino acids. It wont spike your bloodsugar levels. It is also known to lower high blood pressure. Sprouted buckwheat is also known as a colon cleanser. In it’s raw state it alkalizes the body.

Buckwheat is full of rutin, which is a compound that is known as a powerful capillary wall strengthener. It is helpful in avoiding varicose veins.
Itis also rich in lecithin, making it a cholesterol balancer because lecithin soaks up “bad” cholesterol and prevents it from being absorbed. Lecithin neutralizes toxins and purifies the lymphatic system, taking some of the load off of the liver.

Buckwheat is high in iron,  boron, bioflavonoids, flavonols and co-enzyme Q10. It contains all of the B vitamins, magnesium, manganese, and selenium and calcium .

Cool huh?

I can haz dessert?

I feel like Ice Cream. So do the little peeps.

Luckily for me I had some frozen bananas in the freezer- as I often do. Now to add avocado, raw Cacao, cinamon and agave. Blend and blend and blend. You can stick it back it the freezer for 30 min if you like or just eat it as is.

Put it in a champagne glass with some finely shaved lime just because you can.

I swear that if the kids could have somehow licked the bottom of the glass they would have. A great healthy kids snack is one they can’t get enough of- never knowing how good it is for them.

Takes a moment, tastes delicious. Try it out

Thrive in 30 Days

Well here I am again and I thought I might get things on track with some help from a guy I have a lot of respect for. I just signed up for “Thrive in 30 days” on Brendan Braziers website so that I could get his pearls of wisdom on a regular basis. Nothing like being reminded every few days or even once a week that eating right is important to you and relatively easy.

Brendan is a professional ironman so not only walks his talk- he swims, runs and bikes it.

I trust his take on the vegan and vegetarian diet as he has nutritional needs that are extraordinary and he not only copes, he performs and recovers better than most. I feel rather blessed to have such a great role model and someone to point to every time someone says you cant build a great body on vegetable protein. He has plenty of sound, scientifically based advice and recipes that are simply delicious. It may be a whole new way of eating for some people or it may just be adding some superfoods to an already fabulous diet. Whatever it is for you it is worth checking Brendan out.

The basics are

“Eat your fruits and vegetables.” This is one of the most tried and true recommendations for a healthy diet. Plant-based foods are rich in antioxidants, essential vitamins and minerals, enzymes, fiber and phytonutrients and countless studies support their many health benefits.

Give me convenience, I know, lame. But I am used to just chucking a couple of spoonfuls of powder in the blender with some water after a 30km run and knowing that I am replacing all the stuff I’ve just striped from my poor body

Enter Vega- this is the product line that is packed with plant-based nutrition, Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer provides protein, fibre, antioxidants and more. Click here to go to their website
A powdered meal replacement that has:

26g of Broad Spectrum Protein

6g of Essential Fatty Acids

17g of Quality Carbohydrates

15g of Fabulous Fiber

Full Serving of ChlorEssence (High CGF Chlorella)

Full Serving of MacaSure (Organic Gelatinized Maca)

Mixed Berry Complex (ORAC 800 blend)

Probiotics (Dairy-free)

Digestive Enzymes

100% Recommended Daily Intake of Vitamins & Minerals

I like the 100% of vitamins and minerals because there are a bunch of them sitting in my bathroom that I just got sick of taking so now I wont feel like I am missing out. With just 220 calories and 2g of net carbs per serving (natural flavor), Vega is an excellent choice for those on a calorie-reduced diet. High in fiber, protein and essential fats, Vega is naturally filling and satisfying, helping to suppress appetite and cravings.

Brendan’s Vega products are currently only available in USA and soon Canada- I know, I know. Waaaahhhhh.  I am hanging out to get mine while in New York later this year for the Marathon.

I am also thinking of being tricky and getting them sent to my friends in NY and having them post them over Mwwaaaah aahh aahh a cunning plan.

And in other news-Vega make snack bars, the holy grail of the athlete on the run… like literally on the run- so you can ditch processed, sugary energy bars. The Vega Energy Bar. Raw and alkaline, each bar is packed with 10g of plant-based protein. Click here to check them out
I don’t know about you but I love to see really healthy convenience food and when I checked out the website there was a respect for the need for products and companies to be environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. YAY! and on that note I am packing up my gear for a long run tomorrow and we’ll talk later.

Making life easier

Tonight I made dinner for everyone in about 10 minutes. Half of it was raw and all of it was vegan.  More gratifyingly every bit was eaten and was loved.

This post falls into one of those top tips for eating well and staying healthy whilst still having a life.

I really am amazed at how many people seem to resent spending anytime in the kitchen preparing food or those that think that raw food is time consuming and difficult in comparison to cooking.

The key to doing anything well and efficiently is preparation and flexibility. Oh and you have to care. If you don’t care then it is really hard to motivate yourself to do anything. If you do care, if you are into eating yummy things and feeling great then it is really easy to take a few steps towards making raw food fast food.

Our dinner was Roast Vegetable soup with Raw Pizza bread.

Now clearly the roast vegetable soup was cooked, in fact it was cooked weeks ago. The roast veges were planned leftovers from a huge vegetarian roast that included fennel and loads of sweet potatoes and pumpkin. They went straight from the table to the blender, were joined by a bunch of fragrant basil and then into the freezer.Done. Ready to be a meal in a minute.

The raw pizza bread was assembled in 5 minutes from standard staples I have in my fridge.

I keep a thick raw marinara sauce in the fridge always- I cant imagine not always having some on hand. It takes 10 minutes to make in the blender and you can use it in vegetable pasta, lasagne, as a dip, dressing or spread or as a base for soup.  It is easy to tweak flavours with chilli or other spices.

I also always have a raw basil pesto and a nut cheese. They keep well, they take no time at all to make in the blender and you can eat them with anything.

Tonights pizza base was Kamut essene bread and although it wasnt exactly like junk food pizza none of us expect it to be like that. Given that junk food pizza bears no relation to proper Italian pizza or real food for that matter I hardly think it is something I want to emulate anyway. We buy our essene bread from the local healthfood shop and try to buy different grains each week or two.

I smothered the essene bread in marinara sauce, basil pesto, tiny pieces of tomato and onion and a finely pureed nut cheese.

I grilled them just to warm them as it is the middle of winter here and served them on the side of the fennel and roast vegetable soup.

The whole thing was a 10 minute job of assembling and warming and completely delicious.

Things you care about are easy to prioritise, things you value you will find time for. If you say you would love to (fill in the blank) but there isn’t enough time then you really dont value it. Everything you ARE doing, ARE finding time for mean more to you.  That can be challenging for some people to hear- they will protest that they really do want to exercise/ eat good food/ meditate/ what ever it is,  but the truth is it just doesnt mean enough. Until it does. Your life depends on it.

things that make me happy

There are a list of things as long as my arm that make me happy… none of them are to do with consumer items and most are to do with Truth and Beauty.

I am re-reading Brave New World and it is scaring me all over again.  It had a profound influence on me in my teens and again it is reminding me again that the things that drive us and determine our world should be examined on a regular basis.

I am not interested in instant convenience at the price of my health. Not for me, not for my kids.

I am passionately interested in thinking for myself, defining my own reality and questioning the current wisdom around everything, especially food. Why are we fatter and sicker than we used to be? Why does cancer hit 1 in 3 people? Why the obesity epidemic?

My youngest girl and I went to a Chef supply store to check out their vegetable spiraliser.  What I left with, as well as a spiraliser was a renewed enthusiasm for taking time over food.

My daughter chose a couple of things- a ravioli maker was amongst them so that necessated the purchase of a few ingredients and she made her sister and herself ravioli for dinner.  Her sister remarked “isn’t that a lot of effort for one dinner”? Fair comment but the reply came quickly that it was fun. She is 6 and wants to be a chocolatier when she grows up.  I just love that she is making food from scratch and not watching the tv.  This is one of the little things that makes me happy. She said to me “can you hear the sound the cutter makes on the board when it goes right through the pasta”? These are the distinctions that excite me.  When you start noticing the little things, the sounds and smells, the textures and colours… god is in the detail.

Can you bring your child-like delight in the process to your food making. Can you marvel over how amazing carrot is if you turn it into a thousand long thin Angel Hair noodles? Can you be bothered to cut a radish into a rose because someone, even if it is only you will realise that time, effort and love went into dinner and somehow it actually makes the world… your world, a better more loving place.

Truth and beauty my friend… truth and beauty

Next Page »