Simple Recipes and Awaiting a Special Visitor!

The sun is shining but there is definitely still a chill in the air! I am getting so excited for the warmer weather, which will bring warmth, and an abundance of fresh local veggies, yum!

I made this very simple vegetable couscous stuffed red bell pepper for lunch the other day, it was nice and light.

I wrote the recipe on a scrap piece of paper and of course now I can't find it:( If it turns up I'll post it.

I have been blending galore! It's so fun to make simple smoothies, they are quick and delicious! I was craving a strawberry milkshake the other day and feeling inspired by the young coconuts that I purchased. Coconut water is one of my all time favourite things on this planet, it's so refreshing, ahhhh. I'm sure that you could always use soaked cashews or macadamia nuts in place of the coconut meat, though I haven't tried it yet. You may also need a little extra coconut water.

Strawberry Milkshake
Serves 1-2
1 1/2 cups coconut water
1 1/2 cups strawberries (frozen or fresh)
1 1/2 cups coconut meat
4-5 medjool dates
1-2 tablespoons of agave (optional)

Blend until smooth and serve!

Another coconut inspired recipe. This cream turned out sooo yummy!

Red & White Parfait
Serves 1-2
White Coconut Cream
1 1/4 cup coconut meat
3/4 cup coconut water
3 tablespoons of hemp seeds
3 tablespoons of agave
1 vanilla bean, scraped
2 tablespoons of finely grated cacao butter

Blend until completely smooth. Refrigerate or freeze until it firms up.

Red Super Syrup
3/4 cup raspberries
2 tablespoons of goji berries, soaked (about 15 min) and drained
3 tablespoons of agave
1 vanilla bean, scraped

Blend until smooth.
Layer coconut cream, then syrup then fresh raspberries, repeat. Top with raspberries, goji berries and hemp seeds. Enjoy!

One thing about my style of creating food is that I am not really a fan of oil, for multiple reasons. I have recently been trying to avoid it or use it minimally. I find many raw gourmet recipes call for heaps of oil, especially in soup, yuk!

B and I seem to be into pasta lately...I think it's the texture of the noodles. I made this marinara sauce with what I had in my raw kitchen. I would have loved to use some fresh herbs but unfortunately there were non in my friggy, plus I can't find organic herbs lately other then parsley and cilantro.

Sexy Pasta with Marinara Sauce

Marinara Sauce
Serves 2
2 cups of chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of sundried tomatoes, packed (soaked for about 15-20 min and drained)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon agave
2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried basil
1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary
1 clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt (I only used pinch because we are cutting back on salt)
good pinch of chili powder

I like to rub the dried herbs between my hands before placing then in the blender...it helps release their natural oils. Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth. If you have a less powerful blender you may need a few teaspoons of the sundried tomato soaking water to help blend the ingredients.
Pour over zucchini noodles and serve.

Guess who's coming to town...nope, it's not Santa Claus!
My mommy is coming for a visit tomorrow, and she is staying over until Monday, yay! We need to get all the quality time in together before our big move out west! She is also coming over Easter Monday for a sleep over and I will plan a special, nontraditional yummy menu. This weekend we will probably keep things simple, but I do want to make a raw dessert for her because she loves them :) Brent, my mom and I are probably going to all just hang out together, talk, watch movies and tour around town. On Monday I will bring my mama to the thrift store in search of some treasures...I LOVE thrift shopping!

In need of a house cleaning!
As I had mentioned I am working on tweaking my diet. I want to include more greens, sprouts, more fruit, more sea vegetables, more fermented foods and algae. I will continue to limit my salt and raw gourmet foods, keeping them for special occasions. I really feel like I need to detox, and a juice fast seems like a perfect fit. The plan is to explore my first mini juice fast mid April. Any suggestions, tips or experience that anyone would be willing to share is greatly appreciated.

Blogger Awards

I received a very wonderful gift from my friend Pam-Cakes over at http://alovefornewrecipes.blogspot.com/ ...check it out! Pam has a fun, variety filled blog and a passion for new recipes. Thank you Pam-Cakes for the nominations, I deeply appreciate it girlie!

A. Beautiful Blogger Award

Instructions for the award:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award
2. Paste the award on your blog
3. Link the person who nominated you for the award
4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself
5. Nominate 7 bloggers or less
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominated

Here are seven things about myself (they may not be that interesting):
1. Brent and I moved in together after just two weeks of knowing one another
2. I LOVE food!
3. I am preparing to relocate across the country
4. I want to live somewhere tropical
5. I am almost always cold (I've always been this way)
6. Animals melt my heart
7. I am like a kid in a candy store when I go to the farmers market

B. A Special Happy Bloggers Love Award
(for your Happy Blogging Pals)

C. Kreativ Blogger Award:

The Kreativ Blogger Award rule:
1. Post the award.
2. Thank and mention the person who gave you the award.
3. Pass the award on to seven blogger's who you think embody the spirit of the Kreativ Blogger Award.
4. Name seven things about yourself that others don't know.
5. Don’t forget to notify the your seven Kreativ Bloggers about their AWARD and post a link to their blog.

Here are seven more things about me:
1. I have a weakness for fresh medjool dates
2. I often sleep in fetal position
3. I am too hard on myself
4. I would love to meet some other raw foodies and share raw kitchen parties
5. Travelling is something I have always wanted to do
6. I can't sleep without B!
7. I am slightly obssessed with young coconut water and meat

D. Honest Scrap Award

Here are the blogs that I would like to pass these awards onto (I only have five):

http://thesunnyrawkitchen.blogspot.com/
http://ottawaraw.wordpress.com/
http://therawchef.com/therawchefblog/
http://sweetjuicyfreelee.com/
http://kristensraw.blogspot.com/

Once again, thank you Pam-Cakes! Much luv :)

Life is Sweeter with Fruit!

I haven't been around here much...life's been quite busy.

I have recently tweaked my diet; eating WAY more fresh fruit, keeping raw gourmet foods to a minimum, drastically trying to reduce my salt intake, limiting dried fruits, reducing daily intake of fats, etc. I'm doing this experiment in an attempt to cater to my bodies needs as it continues to evolve nutritionally. I would like to work on adding more sprouts, sea vegetables, algae, and greens into my diet because they are yummy and make me feel good. My favourite foods currently are; papaya, mango, young coconut, coconut water, fresh dates and greens.

I have been making tons of delicious fruit smoothies that Brent and I have been enjoying...they are so hydrating! I will start writing down my smoothie recipes so I can share them with you all, but until then I have this yummy low fat smoothie recipe you may enjoy.


Sunshine Smoothie
1/4 cup of goji berries (soaked in 1/2 cup water for at least 15 minutes)
3 cups pineapple
2-3 medjool dates
1/2 cup mango

Add all ingredients including soaking water and blend until smooth.

I will soon have to start practicing some recipes for the Farmers Market that I will be apart of this summer. I tried out a new grawnola recipe for a friend who put an order in for some raw goodies and it turned out awesome! Being a lover of granola most of my life, I have tried many variations and this is my favourite to date. I will use this recipe to create multiple grawnola flavours and as a base for a my grawnola bar experimentation marathon in search for the perfect recipe, possibly for my ebook. I'm really looking forward to selling my raw goodies to people and having them experience tasty food that's full of life! For me sharing this lifestyle is important because it's given me a new, healthy life full of sunshine.
The Farmers Market is going to be so much fun...I can't wait!

Hope everyone is having an excellent weekend. It's supposed to be double digits here next week...now that's exciting :)

Happy March Everyone!

The weather here has been gorgeous the last couple of days. Such a nice treat to have the golden sun drape over us, melting away the snow, ahhh. It feels like spring, which is just around the corner!

Lately all I want to eat is fruit, especially mangoes, persimmons and papaya, delish! I have been drinking lots of green smoothies, my favourite currently consisting of mango and spinach, sometimes adding spirulina, yum yum.


For lunch today we had a yummy salad made of spinach, romaine, parsley, cilantro, apple, avocado, carrot, leek and walnuts. I didn't feel like having a heavy dressing on the salad, so I opted for more of a salad juice, consisting of orange juice, lemon juice, rosemary, cinnamon, stevia, salt and evoo.

Yesterday for lunch we enjoyed a Velvety Mushroom Walnut Soup. I'm sure my mom is sticking her nose up as she reads this, she absolutely despises mushrooms...actually my whole family does. True at one time I followed the herd, but then discovered the unique flavour mushrooms offer. This recipe is for the mushroom lovers out there. The soup is quite rich, mushroom-y, flavourful and filling.

Attention Jesseline: You must try this my mushroom loving friend ;)

Velvety Mushroom & Walnut Soup
2 cups of mushrooms (I used white)
1 cup celery
3/4 cup water
1/2 walnuts (soaked)
1 tablespoon of Braggs
1/2 clove garlic
1/4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Blend until smooth.

The other day I made some really yummy spinach enchiladas for our dinner...

...accompanied by sour cream & cilantro stuffed avocados.

The filling was Green Chile, Lime, Cilantro Sun Seed Pate, a recipe from Cafe Gratitude's, I Am Grateful. I subbed the sunflower seeds for pumpkin seeds, replaced the jalapeno with red chili, used lemon juice instead of lime, and made a few other mods. I was making the spinach wraps from the I Am Grateful book, but they just were not working out for me, so I played around and came up with a yummy spinach and zucchini wrapper. I don't have the exact measurements yet, but I will share it with you when I make it again. I stuffed the wrappers with marinated spinach, the seed pate, whipped up a sour cream topping, served with a side of salsa, and stuffed avocado, yum.

Raw Basics Workshop
I'm excited for my workshop on Saturday, though I made need to change the date. Many of the people that came to my "Introduction To Raw Class" have communicated to me that they would love to attend the workshop and are interested in future ones, but it seems that March is a busy month for many. Three of the people will away, one is not well, and another will be out of town for a concert. I will make a decision later on in the week to whether the date should be postponed.

Raw at the Farmers Market
I'm looking forward to Sunday, which is when I will be meeting up with Sarah who runs the farmers market here in town. When the market starts this May I would love to have a table set up and sell my raw goodies on Saturdays. Brent said he would help me setup and run my little business, plus we get to spend time together :) He loves my food, and thinks that the market is a great way to share my passion, tasty food and health with others. I'm very grateful to have Brent's support, he is my best friend. Today I made a list of what I would like to sell at my table; brownies, cookies, crackers, single slices of cheesecake, pie, cake, torte, tarts, prepared salads, sprouts, and freshly made smoothies. I want people to know that I will also be taking orders for whole pies, cakes, etc. I'm really excited for this opportunity and what a great way to spend the remaining months in Ontario before our move out west doing what I love most, making raw goodies!

Desserts on my Mind
I have so many ideas running through my mind for my future ebook, I can barely sleep at night. I know that currently I do not have the resources to develop all of the recipes for my ebook, and that it will time to put this project together. If I did have the resources to create all of the raw dessert recipes for my project, I don't think I would get much sleep because I would be playing in the kitchen...and that would be just fine with me! This reminds me of the time when Brent came down to the kitchen....it must have been around 3:00am. I couldn't sleep and I was making a tart, lol. He looked at me, his eyes barely open and said; "what are you doing?", trying not to smile. I started to laugh and said; "I think there is something wrong with me, I can't sleep and I feel like making dessert". I love that about living with no rules, we can do as we please...like make raw dessert at 3:00am, even if you have no intentions of eating it :) I would never have been allowed to tinker around in the kitchen in the early hours of the morning when I lived at home...my mom hears EVERYTHING ;) For me making raw desserts is a way to express myself creatively, and when the creative bug hits me I just roll with it!

Now that we are on the topic of desserts again, I would like to know...
What's your favourite raw dessert? What was your favourite SAD dessert?

Recipe Request for Classic Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

You asked for it!

Hi all *waving*

I have decided to share one of the recipes for my future ebook, as some of you have requested it...and I don't want to leave you hanging. Sharing is fun and something I love to do as much as I love making raw goodies ;) In return I hope you would be so kind as to leave me some feedback (through a comment or send me an email )that way I can revamp the cookie if needed.

Classic Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Makes 15-16 hearty cookies

Chocolate Chunks
3/4 cup cacao powder
*1/4 cup cashew flour
**1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons of coconut oil, melted (in hot water bath)
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt

*Grind cashews, coconut, and oats in a coffee grinder until flour consistency is achieved. **Hot water bath: Place coconut oil in a bowl, then place that bowl into a larger bowl filled with a little hot water. (Careful not to put too much hot water in the bowl or it will overflow into the coconut oil and you don't want that)

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Do not over blend or the oil will begin to separate from the mixture. Take a plate and cover with a sheet of parchment paper. Pour chocolate on top of parchment paper, about 1/4" thick. Work quickly before the mixture begins to harden.
Place in freezer until hard. Approximately half hour or so.

Cookie Dough
*2 cups cashew flour
*1/4 cup coconut flour
*1/4 cup oat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup of cashew nuts
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla or 1/2 of a vanilla bean, scraped

*Grind cashews, coconut, and oats in a coffee grinder until flour consistency is achieved.

In a large bowl mix cashew flour, coconut flour, oat flour, salt, cinnamon, mix and set aside.

Next in a food processor add cashew nuts and coconut oil. Process until a creamy 'butter' consistency is achieved. Next add in vanilla and maple syrup until smooth. Pour this mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix (I used my hands - put some extra love into it) until well combined.

Take out chocolate from the freezer and and remove from parchment paper. Cut or break chocolate into chunks. Work quickly so that the chocolate doesn't melt. Reserve 1/3 cup of chocolate chunks and fold remaining chunks into batter. Save the extra chunks as an ice cream topping or melt and add to a smoothie or use as a quick chocolate sauce OR just snack on them.

Spoon out about 2 tablespoons of cookie dough and drop onto a plate, gently shaping them.
Try not to handle these cookies to much and work quickly or else the chocolate chunks will start to bleed into the dough mixture. They will still taste yummy, but they won't be as pretty.

Refrigerate of freeze until firm. They should be ready to eat after 15 minutes in the freezer.

I hope you love these as much as we do. From my heart to you!

Celebrate a Mexican Stay-cation...with Ice Cream!

I'll start with the best part.....dessert, because there are no rules ;)

So, the weather outside is frightful and I'm dreaming of a warm vacation, but...it's just not going to happen. How about celebrating a stay-cation with a typical summer dessert that has a warming spice? Sign me up! I just have to share this recipe with you peeps...it is sooo yummy *licking lips*. It is the best chocolate ice cream that I have ever had. I was making some almond milk today and then I had this brilliant idea to make ice cream...in the winter, so perhaps what I really wanted was a summertime dessert to celebrate a stay-cation, yay! Chocolate seemed like a good choice because, well, it's chocolate! Plus a little extra richness is perfect for the colder season. Would it be possible to have an ice cream that was not only delicious and cool BUT could warm me up...ABSOLUTELY! I just have to share this recipe with you all. I hope you like it as much as B and I do...did ;)

WARNING! Not for the chocolate faint of heart!!!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Crunch Ice Cream

Almond Milk Base
2 cups of soaked almonds
2 cups of water

Put almonds and water in the blender and blend until smooth. Pour Almond Milk Base into a nut milk bag or the panty hoe stocking (it's what I use).
Reserve pulp for raw unbaking, add it to your porridge or compost, but it's not welcome in the ice cream ;)
Pour the Almond Milk Base back into the blender.

To the blender containing the Almond Milk Base add;
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 soft medjool dates
1/2 cup cacao powder
1 tablespoon of vanilla or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of salt (this really is essential)
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne powder (leave out for regular chocolate ice cream)

Blend until smooth.

Next add;
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
1 tablespoon of lecithin

Blend until completely smooth.

Stir in
3/4 cup of cacao nibs

Poor into an ice cream maker (and follow manual instructions) or if your like me and do not have an ice cream maker, do it old school (you will need to be home for a few hours). Pour ice cream into a shallow container and freeze. Every one to two hours stir the ice cream. When the ice cream is frozen you are ready to eat!

A little bit of love in every bite.

Note: If you have children that will be eating this ice cream or if you are sensitive to caffeine you can definitely replace half of the cacao with carob. I am certain it would be just as yummy.

If you guys decide to make this, I would love to know what you think.

For lunch I whipped up a quicky soup. It looks so pretty and it's green...my fav food hue!

It was a combo of coconut milk, cilantro, lime juice, cucumber, carrot, curry, garlic, ginger, chili, and salt. Since it was a quicky I don't have exact measurements. It was quite tasty. I just love raw soup, so nourishing and simple to digest.

Have a great weekend and thanks for popping by!

Cookie Monsters Love...Cookies!

Cookie Recipe Kitchie Experiment

I hope everyone is having a great week. When arriving at my blog today I was so happy to find new followers AND comments, woot woot!

Since I have been stuck in the house, and not so active in the kitchie, I was feeling a little empty from lack of creative expression. Brenty-Boo went to the store to pick up a few ingredients for me to play with.

He has been requesting cookies, but not just any cookie, specifically the famous chocolate chip cookie. I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone likes chocolate chip cookies, right? I have made some really good cookies both raw and previously in my days of cooking. Cookies have always been one of my favourite snacky foods (you can call me the Cookie Monster) so I would like to think that I know a good cookie when I taste one ;) With Brent's desired request I took on the challenge for my darling....he deserves a cookie or two ;) I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try another recipe for my future ebook. I prefer soft and gooey cookies that I can eat shortly after preparing ;) They are one of those foods that I make when I want a sweet snack now! I love the dehydrator, but I don't have the patience to use it for everything. While a dehydrator is necessary for some recipes like crackers, I think many cookies can be made without dehydration, unless you want a crunchier texture. Although I have enjoyed many raw chocolate chip cookies, I have found some to be too sweet, too rich, or too oily. I put a lot of thought into these cookies because I knew exactly what I wanted the outcome to be; chewy, chunky...and just like raw cookie dough without the being overly rich. I think I accomplished my goal. My take on an old cookie recipe, revamped.

Classic Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Brent was very happy with the cookies.

I want to know, what's your favourite cookie?