Wakame salad

In my last post I wrote about my diet dilemma. It seemed like I was gaining weight on a raw food diet (probably due to a combination of high sugar from fruit and high fat from nuts). Following this I've brought some healthy wholegrains back into my diet: quinoa, millet (my fave), amaranth and oats. The improvement is incredible,  I feel so much more energetic and I quickly got back to my ideal weight! What Okriina from Keittiökameleontti (an inspiring blog filled with excellent raw recipes in finnish) said when she commented on my last post really hit home. I believe I was not absorbing protein well from raw nuts. 

Anyway, I digress. Just wanted to post a recipe that gives you guys some idea of what I eat these days. This is a simple raw asian-inspired wakame salad, boosted with toasted sesame seeds (you could use soaked and dehydrated too, if you are on a raw food diet). As lunch, it would work wonderfully on its own. For dinner, I served it along with vinegared millet.

WAKAME SALAD

Salad:
1 small zucchini and/or cucumber
4 medium carrots
1 small apple
1C or more of green peas, preferably snap peas
5 stalks of wakame seaweed
couple tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Dressing:
1,5 tbsp brown rice vinegar
Sweetener of choice, I used a bit of xylitol here
4 tbsp cold pressed sesame oil
Mineral-rich salt (Himalayan, gray sea salt)

Soak wakame for 5 minutes in cold water. Julienne the zucchini, carrots and apple. Chop up the wakame. Mix together the veg. Blend the dressing ingredients, taste and adjust it according to your liking. I use toasted sesame seeds here for flavor, I just love them combined with the sesame oil in the dressing. This would be even better with snap peas, but as you can see from the pic this time I only had regular ones.

VINEGARED MILLET
3/4 C millet + 3C water (or thereabouts)
2 tbsp brown rice vinegar + salt + a little bit of sweetener of choice
2 strips of Kombu seaweed

Cook the millet in water with salt and kombu. Remove from heat, chop up the kombu and mix it in along with vinegar, salt and something sweet to round off the taste.

1st birthday party and double-chocolate apricot cake heaven

Apricot double-chocolate bliss

Dark chocolate cake layer:

2 C almonds

1 C raw pumpkin seeds

1/3 C raw cacao powder (or less)

1/3 C coconut oil (or less)

1 C soaked raisins (or dried sweet fruit of choice)

some dried dates

raisin soak water

vanilla

dash of Himalayan/Celtic sea salt

Process the nuts and seeds into a powder, but avoid separating the oils into a paste. Add the dried fruit, cocoa powder and as much liquid oil+water as necessary to get a uniform ball of dough you can shape in your hands. Add vanilla and pinch of salt. Taste and add more sweetener if desired.

White chocolate layer:

150 g raw cacao butter

70g ground almonds

70g cashews

1 large ripe banana or 2 smaller

Water

Agave syrup, to taste

Vanilla

touch of fine-ground dried orange/lemon peel

(pinch salt)

Melt cacao butter in a warm water bath (105F or 40C). Grind nuts, add banana and liquid cacao butter. Then pour in agave, vanilla and citrus peel. I did not measure ingredients exactly and you don't have to either. You want the consistency of a pudding and a wonderful, sweet rich nutty chocolate flavor.

Apricot preserves:

soaked organic dried unsulfured apricots (not the poisonous yellow ones!)

Agave

little lemon juice

Blend until jam consistency, or use a ready-made organic apricot preserve.

Constructing the cake:

Mold dark chocolate cake layer into 3 separate cake layers, mine were round and about 7-8 inches in diameter. Chill them first until they are firm, and once they are firmed up make the white chocolate filling. I made the dark cake layer the night before and the white chocolate layer first thing in the morning. Then place the first dark layer on a serving plate, layer with apricot preserves and a layer of white chocolate. Add another dark layer, the jam and the white chocolate. The last layer is one with white chocolate, then decorate it with grated mint chocolate and dried pink cranberries. The mint and the cranberries really enhance the experience. Chill in a fridge until ready to serve. Our party lasted for a few hours, and it still kept well in room temp.

Making the food for the party was really a series of unfortunate events. I had ordered the cacao butter well in advance, but due to some problems it did not arrive in time. We figured we could get some from Tampere once we got there, but then there was an accident where a bus caught fire and we were stuck in traffic for 1,5 hours. First we went to Ruohonjuuri, and they had none. Called Punnitse & Säästä, they didn't have it either. We thought Runsaudensarvi was closed, but thankfully they had special Xmas time hours and were still open. And they had it! So cake was still on the menu.. until the night before when our current food processor broke beyond repair. I had to use my mothers small electronic hand-mixer, which somehow got stuck and cut deep into my left index finger. For a moment I thought it was actually cut off, but the cut is "only" down to the bone. Still hurts.

Regardless, everything turned out great and all 12 guests enjoyed themselves. Everyone besides me and my husband were strangers to raw cuisine, but they still loved the cake. The complete menu was:

The Birthday cake

Raw lingonberry brownies

Raw Tzatziki dip with dipping size pieces of celery, yellow carrot, zucchini and broccoli

Organic yeast-free 100% rye bread with all natural butter (which we didn't eat, but others enjoyed)

Green shrimp garbanzo bean salad (shrimp stir-fried in garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil, with fresh cucumber, dill, mixture of green salads, boiled garbanzo beans, dressing: olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper)

Everyone ate and people were intrigued. Mission accomplished :) Unfortunately we had so much fun and our hands full with a certain little toddler that there are only a few pics. We might get some more later from friends.

Greek orange fennel salad

Greek orange fennel salad:

small handful of sun dried tomatoes

cold pressed olive oil

1 small red onion

1 small bulb fennel

5 small oranges

Himalayan salt, freshly ground black pepper

Fresh parsley

Chop up dried tomatoes, place in olive oil to rehydrate them. Grate the peel of all 5 oranges into the olive oil. Add salt and pepper. Thinly slice the red onion and fennel into rings. Pour marinade over onion and fennel, add chopped parsley. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. Allow to marinate for at least an hour. If you like, you could add some fresh finely chopped chili or sliced greek olives.

This salad is a combination of extremely nutritious foods: good quality olive oil, raw fennel, parsley and onion. Especially the fennel and parsley are packed with vitamins, antioxidants and phytochemicals. You remember my last post about fennel? I mentioned just a few of the numerous health benefits of consuming fennel, especially raw. I myself don't care too much for a strong anis taste, so I'm trying to find ways to mask that and enjoy live dishes made with fennel. This marinade definitely did the trick, the salad was extremely yummy. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Creamy tomato soup, dressed up simple salad, coconut-chive steamed salmon

Yesterday night we had a simple but flavorful meal. The soup was improvised on spot, and I was amazed how delicious and creamy it was without any dairy, nuts or avocados. Here's what went into my blender:

Creamy tomato soup for 3
½ Zucchini + some cucumber (depending on how thick you like your soup)
4-5dl raw tomato juice (buy or make your own)
5-6 sundried tomatoes (at least)
1 small red onion
1-3 cloves of garlic (I put all three, my husband loves garlic)
few heaping tablespoonfuls of raw tahini
couple tablespoons of cold pressed olive oil
1-2 tsp raw & unfiltered apple cider vinegar
a fair bit of fresh basil
Himalayan salt & pepper

You may want to cut up the zucchini, onions and cucumber before they go into the blender. The tahini is what makes this soup so delectably creamy. I made my tahini myself, I'm not even sure I could find raw organic tahini anywhere in Finland. Or how much it would cost if it was sold somewhere.

Raw Tahini:
1C raw, unsoaked, unhulled sesame seeds
Himalayan salt to taste
1-2 tsp raw honey
juice of ½ lemon
cold pressed oil (sesame or vegetable) until desired consistency is reached

First blend the sesame seeds alone until they become like a powder. A coffee grinder may also do the trick. Then blend in honey and lemon juice. Finally while the blender is running add oil one drop at a time and stop when the sesame seed butter has reached desired texture.

Simple Salad:
Iceberg
Tomato
Orange
Cucumber
Dark leafy green such as lollo rosso

Lemon poppyseed dressing
1-2 tbsp poppy seeds
juice of ½ lemon
cold pressed vegetable oil
Himalayan salt & pepper

It's amazing how a tasty dressing can work magic even with the most basic salad.

This salmon recipe is of course not raw, but if you are like me and are concerned about your intake of B12 this is a way to add it to your dieth in a healthy way. Needless to say, the flavor of well-prepared salmon... it just happens to be one of my favorites.

Steamed coconut-chive salmon:
As fresh, wildcaught pure salmon you can get
Cold pressed, organic coconut oil
Chives
Himalayan salt & pepper

The idea is to first quickly steam the salmon (don't overcook, leave it juicy!), and then combine with some coconut oil, chopped chives and season it the way you like it. I buy my salmon fresh and whole, chop it up and stick it in the freezer. The head and bones I use to make my own fish broth.

Again, to emphasize what I wrote in the first post: this blog is about eating healthy and balanced, not necessarily 100% raw. My goal is to eat a versatile enough diet that there is no need for supplements.