Confessions on raw food

I've been eating for some weeks more and more living, raw food. I travelled for couple weeks, so I ate a little unusually for some time, but am back to basics now. I do eat some cooked foods, but try to maintain mainly raw foods. I'm hoping I could transfer more and more to living foods.

I have noticed, that in the last six months, I have been more often sick than in many years in total. One factor is that I've worked with children, but I just can't put all the blaim in that. I know that emotional and spiritual state has it's meaning, but I've been eating a lot of dairy products, bread and sugary foods. It's almost like a slip back, before I've been quite mainly vegan. But the result is quite noticeable, definitely!! Energy level is lower, I gained some weight (even I wasn't in any ways fat, but it felt like over my ideal weight, and I think you should feel good in your body and come to terms) and felt quite bloated almost all the time. And the feeling of real hunger was rare. I just ate in the rhythm of the work, and felt like I wasn't hungry but had to stuff in food, because it was been offered. And then felt more stuck and bloated. Like there was no time for my metabolism to work, so it just got stuck. And dairy products develop definitely mucus for me.

Now I just have made the promise with myself, to listen to my body and what it would like. I've been struggling with the thought, that if everyone else reads dairy and bread without complaining, then why don't I? But if I don't feel good eating that way, then why should I. I thought that I should just "eat anything and be happy", but noticed that was not working.

So, now I've been changing little by little what I eat. For the first weeks when I shifted, I would feel lot of symptoms of toxins being released. Some days I would feel really fatigue or powerless, having no energy at all. Or then I would feel really cold. I had some headache in the evenings, and then in the day also - but it disappeared, when I did yoga. And for some time my stomach was a bit unsettled and mixed.

But now I'm starting to feel like on the better side, my energy level has started to rise phenomenally, and I feel much lighter and my metabolism works. I sleep less easily, my skin is better, and my breath doesn't feel so smelly in the morning!

I don't feel like I should be all about raw and eat nothing else. I am quite happy to eat cooked foods now and then, but leave dairy products out and eat mostly organic food. I just don't want to stress about food, that is the least thing that you should be obsessed about. It's about feeling good, not being boring and stuck to some opinion.

In the morning I usually make myself orange juice with lots of pulp, and drink some green or ginger tea. I have my breakfast smoothie in noon, when I feel hungry. Now when blueberries can be picked just couple meters away from home, I've been doing blueberry smoothies like below, with a hint of star anis.

Sprouted hummus

Ingredients:

about 2 dl dried chickpeas

2 cloves garlic (or more, less to your taste)

1 tsp tamarind paste / lemon juice

sea salt

virgin olive oil

water

Soak the chick peas over night and sprout for 2-3 days, rinsing with water few times a day. Boil the chickpeas in water for 5-10 minutes, let cool. Put in a blender with seasonings, mix, add gradually some oil and water until makes a fine, creamy paste. Serve as a dip, with salad, bread etc. Store in the fridge.

Sunshine muffins & Raw cake

My updating has been low for many reasons, mainly because I'm switching to raw foods currently, and there's not too much to post about. But I had in stock these vegan muffins.

Sunshine muffins

Ingredients:

1,5 dl soy milk

0,8 dl fresh orange juice

0,8 dl melted margarine

1,5 dl sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

4,5 dl flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp cardamom

1 tbsp grated orange zest

1 dl chopped dried apricots

1 dl chopped nuts

Preheat the oven in 175 degrees. Mix together in a large bowl soy milk, orange juice, grease, sugar and vanilla. Sift in the flour, baking powder and soda and spices. Do not overmix. Fold in the orange zest, apricots and nuts. Pour the batter in small muffin tins and bake for 13-15 minutes.

Raw banana-peach cake

I'm SO excited, this is the first time I actually made a raw cake, that has a solid texture! I bought some agar-agar and it worked well. It's not 100% raw since I added some potato starch to be sure, but I guess this would've been just fine even without.

Ingredients:

1 dl dried dates

½ dl sunflower seeds

1 dl nuts

½ - 1 dl coconut flakes

1 banana

2 peaches

about 1 dl soy yogurt

1,5 tsp agar-agar flakes

1 dl soy milk

(2 tbsp potato starch)

Soak the dates, sunflower seeds and nuts in water for about 6 hrs. Grind them in a blender and add the coconut flakes. If the mixture seems too dry, add some water. Set the base in a small cake tin, about 22x24.

For the filling, put the banana and peaches in the blender, add soy yogurt, and mix until smooth (add potato starch if wanted). Now heat the agar-agar flakes and soy milk in a kettle and let it boil, mixing all the time, for about 5-10 minutes. Add liquid if it seems to dry too much. Pour the agar-mixture in the filling and mix well. Pour on the base and let it cool for some time, and decorate with some coconut flakes. Put to the fridge for at least 2-3 hrs to settle.

Two ways to use coldsmoke-tofu

Life should be taken lightly at times! Celebrating is an important part of life. Now is the time when people unite to celebrate, ending school, graduating and welcoming the summer holiday (perhaps). If you have age, you will certainly be offered some sparkling wine or maybe even champagne! We had some dry australian rose-sparkling wine, Pink Yellowglen.

Cold smoke-tofu-pie

The base:

2 dl soy flour

100 g margarine

Mix the soy flour and margarine to a dough, preferably by hand. Press on a pietin evenly on bottom and sides. Stick with a fork a bit. Prebake in the oven for 10-15 min, in 175 degrees.

The filling:

150 g coldsmoke-tofu (half of a package)

1 onion

½ yellow paprika

2 dl of coconut milk

1 tsp of jeera

1 dl grated cheese

salt, pepper

Chop the onion, tofu and paprika and spread on the prebaked pie. Whisk jeera and spices in the coconut milk and pour on the filling. Sprinkle on top the grated cheese. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Cold smoke-tofu salad

1 jar of leaf lettuce (I used tammenlehväsalaatti, I have no idea what it's in english)

½ yellow paprika

150 g cold smoke-tofu

1 tomato

1 apple

pumpkin seeds

Dressing:
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp honey
½ dl olive oil
½ lime's juice
salt, pepper

Chop the tofu to cubes, and roast on a pan (no oil) until slightly brown. Let cool. Chop the other ingredients and mix in a bowl, and add the tofu when cool. Mix the ingredients of the dressing and add salt and pepper to your flavor. Pour on the salad and mix. Roast the pumpkin seeds on a pan until they pop, and garnish the salad.

Banana-beetroot bread

I found yet another recipe from Veganomicon I just had to try (I haven't got yet to try the cookie recipes, but I'm anxious to make them!!). I variated the recipe by adding some beetroot and cardamom (once, again). I can't describe the aroma that came from the oven, it was so good. Maybe this is a more of a winterly thing, but why not ? On a rainy day.

Ingredients:

2 large bananas

2 beetroots (or 1 dl of applesauce)

1 dl melted butter (or oil)

1 dl sugar

2 tbsp syrup

5 dl flour (I used spelt-flour about 3 dl, and all-purpose 2 dl)

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmed

1 tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Lightly grease a 20x12 (about) pan. In a large bowl, mash the bananas well. Add sugar, beetroot, butter and syrup, whisk briskly. Sift in the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Use a wooden spoon to mix until the ingredients are just combined. Transfer the batter to the pan and bake for 40-45 minutes. The top should be lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Vegalicious pancakes !

Banana-nut-pancakes

I have started to take us of my new vegan bible. Vegan brunch part 704, these pancakes must have been..best ever! My only addition was replacing nutmeg with freshly ground cardamum. Banana and nuts are my favorites!! Eaten with a new find: coconut jam by Jam It! Suitable for vegans. They also have other exotic jam options, papaya and mango. But now for the recipe (from the book Veganomicon, the measures are translated from cups):

Ingredients:

about 4 dl of soy milk

1 dl of water

2 teaspoons apple honey vinegar

2 bananas

3 tablespoons oil / melted butter

3 tablespoons honey (or maple syrup)

1 teaspoon vanille sugar

about 5,5 dl of flour (3½ dl of spelt flour, 2 dl of all-purpose flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 tsp cardamom (about 3-4 whole cardamoms)

2,5 dl of nuts (chop or fine with a blender)

Preheat the pan. Pour the soy milk, water and vinegar into a cup and set aside.

Mash the bananas well, add the soy milk mixture with oil, honey and vanilla. Now add the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and cardamom. Combine with a fork, don't overmix. Fold in the chopped nuts. The batter becomes quite firm.

Now add some butter or oil on the warm pan, and cook the pancakes. Because of the batters' texture I used a spoon to spread it evenly on the pan. Serve with ice cream, jam, fresh strawberries etc..

Salty Goodness

I ordered myself a vegan cookbook from the States, and it arrived on friday! I read a lot of cookbooks, mainly from the library. Even though I rarely cook the recipes on the books, I find reading them very inspiring. Often you get ideas from the books that can be variated as you like. Now I have my first own vegan book, Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I have given it only a quick look, but seems nice! Though it lacks photos it is a good package full of information.

We ate some feta-cheese (tomato, salad, honey melon, fetacheese, yellow paprika, onion) salad and cheese-croissants today. This recipe is good for the croissants, I like that it's not too greasy. Using spelt flour gives a nice taste on them. I added some turmenic, which gave them a fun yellowish color. For the filling you could use some blue cheese, or as I did now, Grana Padana etc. I prefer quite sour cheeses on these, like Emmental and Polar. You needn't add any salt, since the cheeses use to be quite salty.

Cheese-croissants

Ingredients:

4 ½ dl of flour (3 dl of spelt flour + 1 ½ dl of wheat flour)

4 dl of grated cheese + 2 dl for the filling

3 tsp of salt

2 sp of cumin seeds (2 tsp of turmenic)

100 g of room-temperature margarine

1 ½ dl of soy milk / water

Mix the dry ingredients. Add in the butter until the batter becomes crumbly. Add liquid and knead into a firm dough. Heat the oven in 200 degrees.

Share the dough in 3 portions. Roll the portions to a round shape, and divide in eight sections, like a pizza. Now sprinkle some cheese on each part and roll them from the wide end to a tight croissant. Apply some soy milk on the croissants before putting to the oven. Bake for 13-15 minutes.

Spring Brunch

Hola! Summer is coming! Breakfast is def-i-nitely my favorite meals. It doesn't matter if the meal is small, somehow I am a breakfast person. So brunch is the weekend-special, where you can devote more time for cooking and eating (and socializing of course). So here is a quick look on our (May Day) Brunch.

Small bites:

Toasted Nuts

I'm trying my very best to remember, how I seasoned these...! But I'm not totally sure. But you can use your imagination! There is no one-way. Just use
200 g nutmix (cashew-, para-, wal-, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds and almonds)

Roast the nuts in a pan (no oil) with medium heat. When the nuts seem slightly brownish, add seasoning. One option : chiliflakes, cocoa powder, freshly squeezed orange juice and some honey. Roast a bit (don't burn) and pour on a small bowl. Other option: freshly ground cardamom, cinnamon, freshly squeezed orange juice. Let cool.

With fresh rye-bread

Smokesalmon-mousse

I'm thinking you could use smoked-tofu for this! We usually just use salmon. This is a classic in our festive foods.

200 g of smoked salmon

1 onion

1 red paprika
200 g of Philadelphia (plain unripened cheese)
2 spoons of creme fraiche
juice of a half lemon
salt, pepper, fresh chives

Put the salmon, onion and half of the paprika in a blender. Mix in the cheese and creme fraiche and seasonings. Chop finely the other half of the paprika and mix in(don't blend), garnish with chopped chives. Serve with small pieces of rye bread!

Bluecheese-pear-salad

100 g of blue cheese (Aura Gold)
1 pear chopped
1 mango chopped
salad
fresh basil and mint leaves
lime juice, salt, pepper, olive oil

Drink some bubbly

Sparkling wine

This was just normal dry sparkling wine, but pureed frozen raspberries gave it a pink look! Cheers for spring! I can recommend a good organic sparkling wine: Can Vendrell cava, Albet i noya. Spanish wine, and I loved it, organic is somehow always better... Not the cheapest bottle, cost was about 12 euros, but definitely worth the price. IF you wish to invest on quality instead of quantity...!!

For Sweet dessert
Fruit salad & Flourless chocolat cake

For the fruit salad I chopped some fruits, banana, apple, mango, orange, dates. Add some fresh mint leaves and desiccated coconut and sprinkle on some lime juice. I have the recipe for the cake over here: Chocolat cake. You can do it without the dried fruits and season with cardamom, cinnamon, chili, coconut, or whatever you wish!

Non-vegan easter delights

American cheese-cake

We have family visiting, and mom wanted me to bake this cake. It's not vegan, and the recipe was in "Yhteishyvä"'s food-magazine. The recipe is also found in the internet. In finnish.

Ingredients:

The Base:

1oo g of room-temperature margarine

1 dl sugar

1 egg

3 dl flour

1 tsp baking powder

Use a casserole about 24x24 cm size. Prefer a tin with a removable bottom. I didn't have one with the right size, so I made it in a normal tin. Grease the tin thoroughly. Foam the margarine and sugar, whisk in the egg and flours with baking powder ( I added some soy milk in this stage, since the dough was quite crumbly). Lay the dough in the tin, on the bottom and sides. Put in the fridge while making the filling.

Filling:

500 g of milk quark

200 g of unripened cheese (Philadelphia)

zest of 1 lemon

juice of a half lemon

2 ½ dl of sugar

2 tbsp of vanille sugar

1 dl of potato flour

5 eggs

Mix in a bowl the milk quark, cheese, lemon zest and juice, half of the sugar, vanille sugar, potato flour and the egg yolks. Whisk the egg whites and rest of the sugar separately to a firm, hard foam (it took from me about 10 minutes with the mixer). Add carefully the foam in the dough. Pour in the tin. If you wish, you can add some mango- or peachslices on top. Bake in a 175 degree oven, in lower part for an hour. The filling rises quite boldly. Let the cake cool totally before removing the tin.

Indian flat-bread

Potato rotis & coconut-yogurt chutney

I can't get enough of indian food! We have so much potatoes that we're eating it in every form. Boiled and smashed potatoes make fine indian rotis, flat breads baked without raising the dough and roasted on a hot pan. They have something similar with the finnish traditional rieska. Rotis are usually roasted without oil. Rotis and the chutney are well on their own as a small snack, or as an accompany for some spicy indian curry. The rotis and yogurt cool the heat of the food. If it was summer, I'd chop fresh mint leaves in the chutney!

Ingredients:

8-10 boiled potatoes, smashed

1 tsp of chili sauce

1 tsp of chili flakes

1 tsp of turmenic

1 tsp of jeera (roman cumin)

salt

½ dl oil

2-3 dl of flour

Mix the spices and oil with the potatoes. Knead in the flour little by little to get a soft dough. Heat a pan and take a ball of the dough and roll it to a round flat bread on a floured table. Roast on a hot pan until slightly brown, flip over to roast the other side. Serve hot, with a cooling yogurt chutney and some curry.

Only some left any more

Yogurt chutney:

Ingredients:

2-3 dl of desiccated coconut

1 dl of soy yogurt

1 tsp of tamarind paste (or lemon juice)

2 grated garlic cloves

salt

Soak the coconut flakes in warm water for half an hour. Sift the extra water out. Mix the coconut with yogurt and spices.

Vegan brownies

Orange-chocolate brownies

Orange and chocolate are a fine combinement. I recommend you squish the orange juice by yourself, it's a lot better! I also left some of the fruit's pulp in the batter. I'm so glad we had soy yogurt in the fridge, vegan baked tastes so much better, and it's so true. But instead I ran out of good real dark cocoa powder, I found like only one spoonful and I had to use the lighter cocoa powder that has sugar mixed in it.

Ingredients:

3 dl of flour

1 ½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp of vanilla sugar

3 tbsp of cocoa

1 ½ dl of sugar

zest of one orange

2 dl of soy yogurt

½ dl of soy milk

½ dl of orange juice

Icing :

juice of a half orange

25 g margarine, melted

1 tsp of orange zest

2-3 dl of confectioner's sugar

Heat the oven in 175 degrees. Melt the margarine. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and mix separately the wet ingredients (soy yogurt, milk, orange juice and margarine). Whisk all together, do not stir too much. Pour the batter in a large tin and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Once you've taken out the cake, let it cool while making the icing. Melt the margarine in a small kettle. Mix in the squeezed orange juice and zest. Whisk in the confectioner's sugar until the mixture is nicely firm. Lay it on the cooled pie and let settle for a while.

Best NAN bread ever!

We had an indian food-night with girls, I got to show my skills learned from India! I made dishes I learned in our cooking classes. I have done some of these before, and they were so goood, the whole meal was a success! So the recipe for the nan is from Shaila, our teacher, and it's the best I've tried. It's made without yeast (even better). This Indian Thali consisted of these dishes: nan-bread, dhal fry, palak paneer, jeera rice, peanut chutney. For dessert we had masala chai and a western twist, pancake! I'm only putting out some of the recipes, because I don't have proper pictures to offer from all of them. I'll try again next time I'm making these dishes!

Nan-bread

Ingredients:

1 big bowl of wheat flour (about 8 dl)

1 tsp of salt

2 tsp of sugar

1 tbsp of baking powder

2-3 dl of soy yogurt (I added also some milk)

1 tbsp of oil

butter

Mix the baking powder in the flour, add salt and sugar. Add the soy yogurt and knead into a ball. Add oil. Leave the dough aside for 5-6 hours for fermentation.

For making the nan you need a hot (not too hot so they won't burn) pan and butter. Take a small ball from the dough and roll with some flour into a circular shape. When the pan is hot, add the bread. Roast for 2-3 minutes and flip over. When ready, smear butter and serve hot!

Palak paneer

Ingredients:

150 g Frozen spinach (palak)

2 diced onions

200 g of tomatocrush

some fresh ginger

2-3 garlic cloves

oil

cinnamon

clove

peanuts

dried chili

200 g feta-cheese (or the vegan choice, tofu or potatoes)

Take the frozen spinach to room temperature. Dice the cheese (or tofu/potatoes). Warm a pan with 2 spoons of oil, add onions and fry until slightly brown. Add ginger, garlic, chilies, cinnamon, cloves and peanuts and fry until slightl brown. Add the tomato crush and fry for a minute. Take off the heat, and when cool, put in a blender with 1-2 dl of water and make a fine paste.

Take a saucepan, add oil. When hot, add the paste and the spinach. Let the spinach melt, add salt to taste. Add the feta to the pan, bring to boil and remove from the heat. Serve with nan bread.

Peanut chutney

Ingredients:

1 large cup of peanuts

100 g Desiccated coconut

red chilies (can also be replaced with dried chili flakes)

2-3 garlic cloves (optional)

1 tsp of tamarind paste(if you don't have any, replace with a tbsp of lemon juice)

salt to taste

Soak the desiccated coconut in water/or soy milk for 30 minutes. Roast the peanuts on a pan until slightly brown. Heat the red chilies in oil for 2-3 minutes until crispy, add garlic. Grind all the ingredients in a blender. Add the seasoning:

oil

mustard seed

Take a pan with a cover, add oil, and when hot add mustard seeds. Put the cover on and let pop under it. Put this seasoning in the coconut chutney. Delicious!

(Pancake ;)

Sparkling mind

I am a great fan of sparkling wine! Yesterday, for the honor of friday, we had some farely-priced sparkling wine, Törley Sec, very dry. I really can't stand anything else than dry wines, I'm avoiding the sweeter ones always. This wine was definitely sparkly and enthusiastic!

Flourless chocolate brownies

To accompany the drink I made this heavenly chocolate cake. It is not vegan, but use organic eggs and be happy. This flourless cake was quite spongy, not too heavy though I thought it would be. This is a really festive dessert and delight, and definitely easy to make.

Ingredients:

225 g of dark chocolate (use as dark as you can!)
225 g of margarine
1 dl of sugar
1 tsp of vanille sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 dl of raisins and dried fruits, chopped

Heat oven in 175 degrees. Melt the chocolate and grease with low heat. Take off heat and mix in the sugar and vanille. Let it cool for a while, and add then the beaten eggs and dried fruits. Pour the batter in a tin (about 25x25 cm) and bake in the oven for 25-30 min. Let cool. SERVE WITH VANILLA ICE CREAM!!

Savoury pie!

Our fridge seems to look quite plain nowadays, but dad brought some mushrooms and a huge sack of potatoes from his parents. So now it means, we are eating potato for the rest of the spring. I had to "get rid" of the mushrooms before they were spoiled, so I came up with this pie. Since we had no soy cream or milk or pretty much anything, I thought about making a bit different pie dough than our usual, something that doesn't have so much margarine as they normally do. This consists of potato- and carrotmash and has a top crust.

Mushroom pie with potato-carrot crust

Ingredients:

FOR THE PIE-DOUGH

3-4 large potatoes

2 carrots

25 g margarine

salt, pepper

1 tsp of chili

4 dl of flour (and some more for rolling)

Boil the potatoes and carrots. Then squash into a puree, add the margarine and spices. Let it cool for a while. Heat the oven in 200 degrees. Add the flour, until it has made to a nicely firm dough, not too hard. Take it on the table, and divide into to portions, other one a bit bigger. You might need more flour, since the dough can be quite sticky. Take the bigger piece and lay it on the pie mold (about 27 cm). Stick with a fork and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

THE FILLING

1 onion

1 big garlic clove (or two small)

200 gr of mushrooms

1 big potato, margarine

salt, pepper

Chop the onion and mushrooms. Mash the potato, add some soy milk (I used water since we had none, but I'd prefer soy milk, or cream) and mix in the grated garlic and spices. Pour on the pie, and lay on the onions and mushrooms. Now take the other piece of the dough, and roll it for the top-crust. Put on the filling and press nicely, stick with a fork some holes. If you wish, lay some oil on the top-crust. Bake for 45 minutes in 175 degrees.

Sweet tangy tooth

IN ACTION! Our kitty is one of a kind, wild one. She likes to crawl under the tablecloth.. especially when you're drinking tea, ready to spill everything.
I am so full! I didn't really eat any real food today, and made myself a banana-blackcurrant-kiwi-smoothie for dinner. And...made this. Today I knew I had to bake something sweet, and I found a recipe for this from "Frantsilan yrttitilan kasviskeittokirja"-book. Although the recipe was for making pastries, I instead turned it into a pie. And the jam is made by myself. I think you can use any jam, something like apples and cinnamon, or any berries.. but self-made is best. We had some really tangy mandarines, so this is how made their hard core sweeten a bit and put them to use! No waste.

Oat-black currant&mandarinejam pie

I'm feeling pity for this pie since it looks so burned :,) And I can tell you, this pie tasted like a vegan pie, I don't is it just my baking but usually it tastes. But I just love it.
Ingredients:
3 dl of oat flakes
3 dl flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of vanille sugar
3 tbsp of jaggery (or sugar, or honey if you prefer)
250 gr of melted butter
2 dl of soy milk (or cream as in the book)

2 dl of jam, blackcurrant-mandarine or any you like/have!
To make the jam, put in a kettle some blackcurrants and peeled mandarines with sugar to your taste. Boil in a low heat covered for some time. When the berries seem broken enough and the texture is satisfying you, pour in a glass can or some other.. ;)

Heat the oven in 200 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and whisk in the cooled butter and soy milk. Pour the batter in a greased (or as I did, oiled) cake tin (about 24x24 cm) and spoon on the jam evenly. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Perfect with vanilla ice cream (or custard)!!