Recipe Directory

Drinks and Smoothies
Caramel Green Smoothie
Jayson's Favorite Fruity Brekkie Smoothie
Oreo Milkshake
Spiced Hot Chocolate
Ultimate Get-Me-Through-Dinner Shift Chocolaty Smoothie
Vanilla Pear Smoothie

Snacks and Sides
Beetroot Dip
Buckwheaties
Carrot-Butternut Soup
Creamy Capsicum and Sunflower Dip
Emerald and Ruby Grawnola
Grawnola
Mushroom Dip
Rocket Pesto

Sauerkraut
Savory Green Smoothie Soup
Sweet & Savory Pumpkin, Onion and Coriander Bread
Tamarillo and Pear Salsa
Tamarillo Chutney

Salads and Dressings
Light, Bright Celeriac Remoulade

Maca-Spirulina Salad

Middle Eastern Salad
Quinoa Tabbouli
Red Cabbage Salad with Sweet Sesame Dressing
Salad a la Japonaise
Spiced Rare Tuna and Lotsa Veggies Salad
Spicy Almond Dressing
Sprouted Wheat Salad with Tangy Tamarind Dressing
Tangy Thai Salad
Tropical Cos Wraps
Watercress, Pickled Onion, Fig and Candied Walnut Salad
Wilted Silverbeet Salad with Avocado Dressing

Main Dishes
Amaranth "Saag"
Caulibroc Curry
Chana Masala
Coconut Spinach Rice
Durian with Chocolate Sauce

First of Spring Asparagus with Pink Pasta and Pesto
Golden Canneloni
No-no Nori

Primavera Celebration
Raw Stifado
Stir-Dehydrate
Winter Chili
Zucchini Fettucine With Rocket and Swiss Brown Mushrooms

Desserts
Apple Pie
Banana-Carob Pie
Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake
Buckwheat Raisin Spice Cookies
Carob Carrot Tamarillo Cake
Chocolate Orange Ganache Tart
Coconut Cream Pie

Coconut Lucuma Cake with Mango and Coconut Vanilla Creme Swirl
Fig, Almond and Cream Parfait
Fresh Figs with Pistachio Mousse
Gogi and Blueberry Cheesecake

Hi-Cake
Jess's Oatmeal Cookies
Mini Carrot Cakes
Orange Goji Berry White Chocolate
Orange Icing
Rich Maca Cacao Truffles
Raw Chocolate Delight
Rawreo Pie
Red Fruit Salad with Spiced Floral Syrup

On Process, Nourishment, and an Awesome New Website

There are as many ways of eating raw as there are raw foodists, and I'm not here to praise or condemn any particular diet. I think that each of us has a unique body and mind, and our individual dietary goals should be to connect these two aspects of our being in order to eat in a way that nourishes both. Which begs the question - what nourishes you? Lately I've realized that for me, nourishment means so much more than the nutritional content of the food I eat.

My personal journey through raw has only been a year and half long so far, and I still feel like a beginner at times. As I explore this lifestyle - and I say lifestyle, not diet, because going raw (or even going vegan, for that matter) changes you in so many ways beyond what you eat - I find my culinary inclinations changing. At first I began by adding lots of whole fresh fruit into my diet. Then I added more salads, and experimented with green smoothies. It didn't take long for me to discover the wealth of raw recipe books and internet sites. I'd always loved gourmet cooking, so why not gourmet un-cooking?

My pasta maker was replaced with a mandoline, my toaster with a blender, and my espresso machine with a juicer. The food processor came out of storage and has gotten a steady daily workout every since. My coffee grinder became a flax seed mill, and also made perfect small quantities of dressing and desserts. It's funny how quickly these new techniques became automatic to me. I soon developed a repertoire of standbys, and making zucchini pasta or lettuce tacos became a more natural instinct than poaching an egg.

A year and a half later, and I'm still un-cooking. As I delve deeper into my raw journey, I find myself craving simple foods more and more. Whole fresh fruit, salads, juices - I could almost live on these alone.

Yet I still feel an urge to create gourmet raw dishes, and I suspect this desire comes more from the satisfaction I gain through the creative process than from the pleasure of eating the end result. Don't get me wrong - I love tasting a new dish - but ultimately my goal in the kitchen is to enjoy the process.

So lately I've spent my garden and kitchen time ruminating on the theme of the spiritual nourishment that one gains through food preparation. As a result, I've written a piece entitled "Mindfulness and Food," which can be found on the amazing new website RawPeople.com. Go ahead and have a read, and when you're done explore some of the other fantastic articles covering topics such as choosing a juicer, hydration (and dehydration!), and dining out at non-raw restaurants. The site is a wealth of information and ideas relevant to the raw food world, with the goal of empowering its readers through knowledge. Pretty amazing!

So whatever foods you choose, remember: this is your journey, and yours alone. Slow down, enjoy the process, and let yourself be nourished.

Dips

Creamy Capsicum and Sunflower Dip

Just like any other cuisine, it's easy to get in a rut with gourmet raw foods. You know the scenario: preparing the same limited repertoire of dishes over and over again until you're bored sick. While I don't think I'll ever get sick of big salads, I do need some variety from time to time as well. So I got to thinking of other ways to make eating raw veggies a little more fun.

The answer? Dips! The beauty of dips as a raw food eater is that not only can you pack lots of veggies and greens into the dip itself, but you can also use different veggies and greens as the dip vehicles, so to speak.

Rocket in my veggie garden

I love celebrating seasonality, so I've developed a few new dips using the best of local summer produce. First is a simple rocket pesto, made from the bounty of my garden. The wild rocket in my garden is ultra peppery, with a much more spicy and juicy flavor than the kind you buy in a shop. I like to balance this with some sweet sundried tomatoes, crunchy pumpkin seeds, and intense local olive oil. It's lovely as a dip with crisp veggies sticks, makes a great condiment for marinated portobello mushrooms, and can be tossed with some zucchini pasta.

The second dip is all about capsicum. As any Italian cook knows, roasting capsicum really intensifies and sweetens the flavor, but it turns out that dehydrating does the same thing! To make a creamy dip similar to the ubiquitous dairy-rich version, I used germinated sunflower seeds. Lots of lemon juice and a generous application of spices creates a symphony of flavors.

Mushroom Dip

Finally, creamy mushroom dip was inspired by these amazing swiss brown beauties that have been grown just down the road at CERES. I've been lucky to play with these lovelies all summer, and this is my favorite dish so far. It tastes even better on the second day, as the mushroom flavor just seems to grow overnight. The texture is creamy - you'd swear there was cheese in there!

I like to serve the dips with a variety of vegetables and greens for dipping. Cucumber rounds are great with the mushroom dip, rocket or spinach leaves compliment the capsicum dip, and any sturdy vegetables match the rocket dip.

Rocket Pesto
2 cups fresh rocket, tightly packed
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, soaked to rehydrate
1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp pumpkin seeds
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp sea/himalayan salt

Combine all ingredients in food processor and pulse until fairly smooth (leave a bit of texture). Voila! Super easy.

Creamy Capsicum and Sunflower Dip
2 large red capsicums (bell peppers), chopped and dehydrated 8 hours
2 cups sprouted sunflower seeds*
1/4 red onion, chopped
juice of one lemon
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
pinch of cayenne
up to 1/2 cup water

Combine all ingredients in food processor and whir until smooth, adding water as necessary to achieve a very smooth texture.

*For info on sprouting, see my post on Sprouted Wheat Salad with Tangy Tamari Dressing. In this case it is sufficient to soak the seeds overnight, but you'll get more nutrition out of them if you leave them a day or two until they have tiny tails.

Mushroom Dip
12 swiss brown button mushrooms
1/2 tsp sea/himalayan salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 leaves fresh sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
3 Tbsp cashew butter, or 1/4 cup really raw cashews, soaked
1 Tbsp tamari

Reserve 2 swiss brown mushrooms; finely chop the remaining 10 and place in a bowl with salt, olive oil, sage and thyme. Let marinate for 1/2 hour or longer. At the same time, cut the remaining 2 mushrooms into thin slices and marinate in the same mixture but in a separate bowl.

In a food processor, combine marinated mushrooms along with the marinade and juice, nutritional yeast, cashews or cashew butter, and tamari. Whir until very smooth. Place in a bowl and top with the marinated mushroom slices.

Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake

If that title doesn't have you salivating yet, how about this photo?

Yeah, this recipe is a stunner. I'm not going to bother with too much chatter here, because I think it really speaks for itself. Let's just say I had two dinner guests last night, and I served them a main course of salad because I didn't want to detract any attention (or room in their tummies) from these blue babies.

Credit where credit is due: the inspiration for this dish came from Vanessa Sherwood over at G Living. I opted for blueberries in my version because they are absolutely perfect and abundant right now in Victoria. I also cheated a little and used cashew butter instead of whole cashews because I don't have a Vitamix yet (I'm saving up).

So use my version, or use Vanessa's, or come up with your own creative variation. Go forth and make cheesecake!

Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake

Crust
1/2 cup brazil nuts, soaked 4-6 hours and drained
1/2 cup shredded dried coconut
1 heaped Tbsp cacao powder
1/2 vanilla bean, or 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 generous Tbsp raw honey/agave
1 Tbsp cacao nibs

In a food processor, combine brazil nuts, coconut, cacao powder, vanilla and salt. Pulse until you achieve a fine, crumbly consistency.

Add honey or agave and cacao nibs. Continue to pulse until the mixture comes together into a crumbly dough. If necessary, add more honey/agave.

Press the dough into the bottom of either a small (9 inch or smaller) springform cake pan, or six cupcake molds. Put into freezer to chill while you make the filling.

Filling
1 punnet blueberries
2/3 cup cashew butter, or 1 cup soaked cashews
2 Tbsp melted cacao butter
1/4 cup honey or agave
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt

Blend all of the filling ingredients in a vitamix or food processor until smooth. Fill your cake or cupcake molds with the filling, then lick every last yummy morsel (I like to give this last job to my dog - he waits so patiently at my feet throughout the whole process, sweet little thing)!

Place in fridge to set at least one hour. Can be frozen, just take it out 15 minutes before serving.

Embracing the Journey

Sometimes I feel like the whole world is vibrating on my frequency.

Okay, that's a bit of an overstatement. But I can't help but notice that as my raw food journey continues, and my thoughts regarding this process evolve, that people with similar views and ideas just seem to pop into my life. Is this synchronicity, or is it simply a natural instinct within me seeking out the likeminded?

I refer specifically to a recent blog post by the awesome Raw Diva Tera, announcing "The 90-Day Don’t Be So Obsessed About What You Eat Detox." Wow, has she been reading my mind? And on the same day, I discovered the group A.C.E. (Accepting Conscious Eaters) on the bangin' forum Give It To Me Raw. What these guys are suggesting is that maybe there are many ways to eat healthy. And maybe it's more important to relax a bit about what we're eating and put our energy towards various creative endeavors. I, personally, have come to this same conclusion, but would like to take it a step further and suggest that we actually embrace the confusion, the difficulties, the ups-and-downs of the journey as we move along our personal raw (and general life) paths.

Part of my personal raw journey is this insatiable appetite for knowledge. I visit all of the forums, read blogs, check out books, try recipes. I try to keep an open mind, but sometimes this learning can be frustrating. Just as in the non-raw nutrition world, there are so many conflicting ideas out there! Is cacao good or bad? How much? What about supplements? Superfoods, or green smoothies? Avocados and coconut oil, or 80-10-10? And suddenly, instead of loving my food and feeling 100% confident that what I'm eating is good for me, I'm feeling stressed out. A little voice in my head is saying, "Oh no, you're eating too much cacao, too much fat, gotta go on a juice feast." And yet I don't desire to fast at the moment. And I feel unsatisfied without the fats. Am I doing something wrong?

This is when a little voice in my head starts to tell me to relax. Anxiety over food choices is causing all this stress, which is about the most harmful thing I can do for my health! So here's my answer:

Enjoy the journey.

The thing about transitioning to raw foods is that it involves undoing not only my own lifetime of less-than-ideal eating patterns, but also those imprinted in me by my parents, their parents, and 4 or 5 more generations who grew up eating largely processed diets. This is going to take time! It's unrealistic to expect that after just over a year of raw eating, I'm going to feel perfectly healthy and satisfied living off of greens and fruits. Yeah, in an ideal world, I'd eat like a chimp. But chimps didn't grow up eating mashed potatoes, pasta, and -gasp- hamburgers. So, a bit of patience as my body catches up to my high-minded ideals, please.

This doesn't mean I'm going back to cooked foods. But it does mean that I'm giving myself time - as much time as it takes. Probably a number of years, though I'm not putting a number on it because I just don't know how my journey is going to progress. What I have decided is to stick to an entirely vegan diet (except for honey, which I have particular reasons for eating, more on that in the future), because I feel that the stress on my body of the occasional meat, fish or dairy is too great. I have also noticed that in general, my body naturally prefers raw food. Even eating out at a vegan restaurant, I feel heavy and sluggish the next day after consuming rice and tofu. I don't really WANT to eat cooked meals, but I also don't want to put pressure on myself in social situations. So, for now, a few cooked vegan dishes here and there is a decision that I can feel comfortable with.

The next decision is to be okay with my relatively high fat diet. Long term, yeah, I want to cut back. But I just don't feel ready. What I can do, though, is make sure the fats I'm eating are lovely raw fats, like avocados (miracle food), coconuts, olives, flaxseed oil, etc. I wonder if, in time, I will begin to desire fewer fats. I have already noticed that I crave greens like crazy, and I eat salads and green smoothies or juices every day. So perhaps the abatement of my love for fats is something that will happen naturally as well.

About that juice feast - this is something I do highly desire to accomplish within the next year. But again, it doesn't feel like the right time. Sometime soon it will be. No rush.

Realizing that transitioning from a cooked, omnivorous diet to a raw one is a long process is a huge relief to me. I am, by nature, a perfectionist, and this realization allows me to see that what I'm eating now is exactly perfect for where I am now! Everything I consume is intended to nourish me on some level, and therefore it does. What a wonderful gift to give myself. And to whatever forces in the universe or within myself brought these great people with similar ideas into my life at precisely the crucial moment, thank you!

Sprouted Wheat Salad with Tangy Tamarind Dressing

Ayurvedic beauty: a balance of flavors and nutritional elements

I've been playing around with soaking and sprouting a lot lately, and I am tickled pink with the results. Here's the deal: nuts, seeds and grains are fantastically rich sources of nutrients, particularly for those of the raw and/or vegan persuasion, but all of their goodness is locked away in dried up little packages. Luckily, the key to releasing all that nutritional bounty is one that, for most of the lucky folks who are able to read this blog, is readily available and even free! I'm talking about water, basic H2O. To turn a dry little nut, seed or grain into a yummy source of living nutrition, all you have to do is soak it (preferably in filtered water, please!).

Why bother sprouting? Well, I'll give you a little perspective from one of my raw food heroes. In her book 12 Steps to Raw Foods, raw foods pioneer and educator Victoria Boutenko relates an anecdote about her family's quirky preparation for the Y2K scare. While her neighbors were busy hoarding canned goods, Victoria went to a health food store and bought only thing: a giant bag of wheat grains. This may seem like an odd purchase for a raw family. Dry, hard wheat grains (also known as wheat berries) are not very appetizing or easily digested, and she surely wasn't going to pound the grains into flour by hand and bake bread. So what on earth was she planning to do with a massive bagful of inedible grains that would allow her family to survive a potential global crisis?

Sprout them, of course. Sprouts are a miracle of the raw food diet, and would actually be a highly beneficial addition to any type of diet. Through sprouting, a hard, dry kernel becomes a tiny living plant the delivers a powerful punch of nutrients. Just think about it: a grain, nut or seed is a blueprint for a grown-up plant. All of the nutrition that the plant needs to grow is stored inside a tight, tidy little package. And it will keep indefinately, just waiting for the right conditions to germinate and grow.

People attempting a raw or vegan lifestyle in cold climates often have a really hard time accessing fresh, organic greens. In fact, unless you happen to live on your own organic property (lucky you!), buying fresh organic produce can be difficult and expensive. Sprouting is a such a simple way to get fresh greens into your diet on a daily basis for very little cost. The beauty of sprouting is that it can be done easily in a home kitchen, in any climate, at any time of year, for minimal cost. With the tiniest bit of effort, anyone can have fresh, organic sprouts year-round.

It really is essential to germinate your nuts, seeds and grains, because this process releases enzyme inhibitors and allows the body to access the plant's nutrition. Sprouts are one of the best sources of raw vegan protein around, too - in fact, they are a much easier protein for your body to absorb than ANY animal protein. In fact, I would go so far as to call sprouts superfoods! So go ahead and give it a try - they are really so addictive once you get started. You can crunch a handful as a snack, sprinkle them over a green salad, or make them into a main dish, as I've done here.

Sprouting 101

First off, you gotta soak your grains, nuts and seeds. Give them a good rinse in filtered water, then place them in a nice big glass jar and cover them with plenty of the same. If you're worried about bugs or dust etc. entering your sprouts, cover the top with cheesecloth or screen and secure it with a rubber band.

Wheat berries after soaking overnight and 1 day of sprouting - see the cute little tails?

In Carol Alt's book The Raw 50, she's included a really useful chart on germinating and sprouting times which I have bookmarked and refer to constantly. Find such a chart on the internet, buy her book, or write one yourself, but I guarantee you it will be useful thing to have in your kitchen.

Once you've soaked your babies for the required amount of time - for the wheat berries in the recipe below I just soaked them overnight, but according to Carol they need 7 hours soaking to germinate - drain the water and rinse them again. Place the jar upside down so that air can still flow through the jar - what I do is actually stand the jar upside down ontop of a fine mesh strainer suspended over a bowl. There are lots of ways to rig this up, so again have a good look on the internet/books and I'm sure you'll find one that will work for your kitchen and with materials you have on hand.

Your nuts, seeds or grains are germinated now and ready to eat. But for many things, they are tastier and more nutritious if you give them time to sprout. For example, the wheat in the following recipe was sprouted for two days. I rinsed them twice a day, then left the suspended jar sitting around. That's it. By the third day, I had gorgeous long tails on my sprouts, so I stored them in a tupperware container in the fridge. The wheat sprouts taste lovely and sweet on their own, and I'll admit I crunched a few handfuls before I got around to making this salad.

Tada - wheat sprouts!

The salad I've created with my sprouted wheat is all about balance. Not only have I included a variety of nutritional elements, but I've also given a lot of thought to flavors and textures that will complement and challenge each other. I started with the sweet wheat sprouts, then added raisins to play up the sweet note even more and cashews for creamy crunch. Tamarind and lemon in the dressing add tartness and a bit of astringency, while coconut oil and a full palette of spices conjure up Indian imagery. A fresh burst of coriander and a hint of celery's salty crunch finish the dish. I couldn't resist a bit more green goodness on my plate, hence the cos and avocado (what can I say, I'm green-food obsessed). Harmony and dissonance in every bite - an ayervedic symphony.

Sprouted Wheat Salad with Tangy Tamarind Dressing

Salad:
1 cup sprouted wheat
1 stalk celery
1/4 cup fresh coriander/cilantro
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup cashews
6 cos lettuce leaves or 2 small handfuls of mixed greens
1/2 avocado

Dressing:
1 Tbsp coconut oil, softened
1 Tbsp tamarind puree
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp dried thyme
juice of 1/2 lemon

For the salad: Thinly slice celery stalk on the diagonal and roughly chop the coriander. Combine sprouted wheat, sliced celery, chopped coriander, raisins and cashews in a bowl.

For the dressing: In a small bowl, combine softened coconut oil, tamarind puree, spices and lemon juice. Mix vigorously to form a thick dressing.

Assembly: Pour dressing over salad and toss well to achieve uniform coating. Prepare two serving bowls or plates, each with either three cos lettuce leaves torn in half or with a small handful of mixed greens. Top each plate with half the salad mixture. Thinly slice the avocado half on the diagonal, and garnish each plate with 1/4 of the avocado.

Variations:
-Replace half or all of the raisins with goji berries or chopped dried apricots.
-Replace the sprouted wheat with sprouted brown rice or any other grain of your choice.
-Replace cashews with sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds.

Durian Appreciation 101

The durian is a bit of an enigma. Just look at the thing. Weighing in at 2-4 kg and covered with precarious spikes, it's not exactly screaming "eat me!" Yet here I am, eagerly watching as Sufiyo breaks into the precious commodity. All I can think is, how did I get here?

Peaches and apricots adopt lovely orange and pink hues to encourage consumption, leading one to rightly assume that the flesh will be soft and sweet. Berries shine in the sun and tempt with obvious juiciness, while mangoes and other tropicals emit tantalizing aromas. But the durian plays no such tricks. Its color is a dull brown, the countless spikes are actually quite sharp, and a fresh one smells like old gym socks (I kid you not). Why on earth does anyone eat this thing?

The fact is, the durian is a sort of raw food holy grail. If you like durian, you're a true raw foodie. Now I was having my first taste with veteran raw foodies and durian obsessees, so I must admit I felt a lot of pressure to actually enjoy this strange fruit. And strange it was. Ours had been frozen, which is, unfortunately, the only way they are available in Melbourne. So it didn't give off much of its infamous odor, which was probably a good thing for my first time. As I listened to Sufiyo explain how to choose a good durian (make sure it gives only slightly to touch, peel away the spikes a bit while the shop owner isn't looking and inspect the texture of the flesh), I felt a mixture of excitement and revulsion. But when she cracked the thing, I thought that the large, custard-colored pods looked rather inviting. So I went for it.

The taste is really something indescribable, but since I'm a writer, I'll give it a shot. My first observation was texture - creamy, smooth, custard-like. The initial flavor impression that I got was mildly sweet, sort of vanilla with a hint of almond, but slowly something that didn't seem to belong crept up. I can only describe it as fried onions. Not offensive, but really strange and hard to get used to.

"It tastes...strange."

Between four of us we polished off about 1 1/2 durians. I don't know if I could have eaten as much if it hadn't been for Sufiyo's amazing cacao sauce. She actually used Loving Earth's coconut cacao butter as a base, adding some agave and melting it in warm water, but it would be easy to make a homemade version with coconut oil, cacao powder, and agave. Dipping the durian flesh in the cacao sauce was like heaven, and took some of the oniony edge off of the fruit's flavor.

Durian + cacao = tryptophan heaven

About ten minutes into gorging ourselves I started to feel really giddy, giggly and silly. This was followed by waves of calmness. I can only attribute this to the high tryptophan content of the fruit (tryptophan is a seratonin precursor, as well as an essential amino acid). In fact, cacao is also relatively rich in tryptophan. So not only does this stuff taste good (well, interesting, at the very least), it also makes you feel good. Raw food is amazing.

So was it worth it? Well, I'm glad that I went with my animal instinct and had a chomp of this forbidding fruit. My experience was closest to that of the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who described the fruit in 1856 as, "A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds...but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes," but I must admit I do understand why chef Andrew Zimmern thinks it tastes like "completely rotten, mushy onions." I'm not rushing out to buy anothe durian tomorrow, but I am eager to taste one fresh off the tree next time I can make it to tropical paradise. In the meantime, I'll let myself be lured by the fruits that flaunt their flavor. Excuse me while I go have a mango.