Picture It Raw

2011-07-03T06:15:00.002-07:00

2011-07-03T06:15:00.001-07:00

2011-07-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

2011-03-23T06:59:00.001-07:00

2011-02-17T02:11:00.001-08:00

2011-02-17T02:01:00.001-08:00

2011-02-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

2011-01-28T02:31:00.000-08:00

2010-11-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

I know I said bye, but I just want to say I am still checking back here, so if anybody wants to drop a comment, I'll get it. I'm doing SCD still, collecting recipes that make me happy, full, and free to go to work and study.

Bye For Now

2010-09-24T01:27:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here, drinking a glass of Spiced Hazelnut Milk while waiting for my (or Sheila's, as it is) Tea Biscuits to come out of the oven. I have come a long way since I started blogging about my "quest" to eat food that is delicious & nutritious while being gluten, dairy and corn free. Along the way, I've found help in raw food recipes, and inspiration from raw food bloggers. It is still an everyday issue for me to stay motivated to return to the kitchen and make from scratch all the food that I would like to be just buying. I am full of gratitude towards all the people out there: those who do research and blog about science and health not just for their own benefit but for us all; the gourmets who use their imagination and talents to (re)create great recipes and share them; and the ones who are a s clueless in a kitchen as me, and as frustrated at finding themselves chained to their own fridge.

I am going back to studying for a while, with the help of the specific carbohydrate diet, which has been alleviating my tummy issues a little bit. I may still post the odd drawing here, and I will most definitely continue to follow a lot of blogs. Winter is coming, and I welcome all the inspiration I can get to keep making warm, scrummy, cooked and uncooked foods during the cold months. I thank everybody who commented, everybody who read...and everybody who is continuing weekly to put their thoughts and knowledge about food and nutrition and all their glorious kitchen experiments out there for the rest of us to share in.

One Step at the Time

2010-09-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

I have now eased into stage three of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and it's still working out for me. I havent' been converted to fried eggs and beef patties, though, so it's a relief to be able to eat a greater variety of vegetables again. I'm getting back to cooking via the same routes that took me back when I was diagnosed with celiac disease: I'm starting out with sauces, dressings and cookies. Sauces and dressings because they provide some easy positive results and they are so versatile. Cookies because it is such a basic joy to be able to have something sweet and enjoyable with tea or after dinner, and since I am by nature a major kitchen-avoider, it takes something yummy and a couple of succesful endeavours in the kitch to whet my appetite for whipping up more food-like items.

So first up, I tried buying my way out of this taste-less misery of boiled eggs and pureed carrots and I got myself some mustard. Plain mustard should be allowed on the SCD, and I found some with pretty basic ingredients and no sugar. It had some un-identified vinegar, though, but I thought, what are the odds that it's from, say, barley? Or from wine, which is not "allowed" on SCD. Well, it arrested my progress for sure, and I did the smart thing and turned it over to the bf.

Second time around I did something wiser and cracked out some kitchen equipment. I wonder why I agonise over cooking every time when it invariably leads to tintilated tastebuds and a happy tummy? I bookmarked this Cashew-Carrot Curry Spread over at Healthy Exposures a while ago. I have made carrot spreads before, and I have made cashew dressings plenty of times but this. is. a. winner. I had to make just a couple of SCD adjustments - the directions for the diet don't say anything about spices really, but I'm assuming as long as they are pure spices, not mixtures with strange additives, it should be alright. Anyhow, it tasted like sheer bliss and my stomach is a peaceful, sated beast right now. Turmeric, for one, I know should be good for the tummy, I've written about it before, here.

I poured boiling water on the cashews twice, just in case, and soaked them for maybe four hours - obviously I used no mustard, just mustard powder (again, no additives) and in stead of greek yoghurt I used a couple of spoonfuls homemade coconut yoghurt.

Because I like to make more than one thing when I'm finally in the kitchen, I also made the "Sweet Basil Oil Salad Dressing" from The Complete Book of Raw Food, which I borrowed a while back. I'm not impressed with that one, though. Somehow it needs more...basil. And sweetness, or something, but that's okay: a fifty percent rate for the day and one huge success is not bad at all for a start.

Pizza Cuisine

2010-09-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I thought it was incredibly clever that one of my friends was able and allowed to make her own pizza in her parents kitchen. We made it from scratch - well, "scratch" being a pre-mixed pizza-base flour, but still, I thought it was pretty fancy. So I learned how to make that too. I topped my first pizzas with cheap pizzaria-style stuff like canned tuna, tomato purée and pineapple, and my experiments with this provided some of my first culinary failures and successes, enjoyed and endured by parents as well.

Eventually I realised that mixing the ingredients for a pizza dough is really not that much more hassle than putting water in a flour mix, and I moved on. When I moved away from home - and eventually to a place with an oven - I made pizza crusts that were too thin, and crusts that were too spongy, and I finally learned how to make my perfect pizza without even looking at a recipe. The toppings were adjusted to a bolder grown-up palate as boyfriends and visiting parents tasted and commented. I even went so far as to experiment with coarser flours and spelt - loved by some, hated by others.

Then I found out I was a celiac. It took me a while to pluck up the courage to attempt the pizza dough again - something that I had banged together with such ease, with no thought for the day when I would have to shun the main ingredient, wheat. I laboured over gluten free flour mixes, gave up and tried a pre-baked gluten free pizza base to much chagrin, and kneaded and tested until finally, something - a careful mix of many more ingredients than my gluten-containing staple recipe - was acceptable; to me, and to guinea-pig boyfriend and children alike.

Then I found out I couldn't eat corn. The main flour I used for my arsidiously honed new invention, and out the kitchen window went my pizza base with all the bread and rolls on my repertoire hot on its tail. The household went pizza-less for a time while I eyed the buckwheat and the rice flour...then with a little help from online friends and just the general hankering to taste again a piece of crisp, warm bread with my favorite toppings, I tried again. I tried raw pizza, pizza with un-Italian ingredients like flax seeds, and I tried to accept "pizza" was by now just a convenient label for a whole new dish of cracker with baked or un-baked toppings. I wasn't fooling anyone in the household either, but luckily frozen pizzas now come in tasty and even organic versions.

Then I got more ill, and the only thing that has so far been able to stop pain and discomfort has been the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which is not just gluten free but totally grain free. I am now in the SCD stage two, approaching stage three cautiously - no miracle has occurred and it is ups & downs for sure, but the progress has been noticeable and persistent. My stomach pains have subsided. Visiting the bathroom is no longer something to be dreaded most of the time. Eating food, and then feeling the corresponding energy is a very near exhilarating feeling. All this - and starting from scratch with my pizza-baking someday doesn't really seem unfeasible any longer.

Here are a couple of links I have lined up for that day:

SCD Pizza Crust at SparkRecipes

SCD Legal Pizza at Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried

SCD Pizza Crust at Heal ~ Balance ~ Live

Food Makes You Feel Like a Person

2010-09-09T03:16:00.001-07:00

Even though I think calling my banana-carrot smoothie a recipe is a bit of a stretch, it really does make me feel good while doing this SCD-thingy to actually make something that requires the blending of more than one ingredient, and maybe even some vanilla to taste or an adjustment for a nice texture. Cooking, and eating something prepared, just makes me feel more like a real person again. There's nothing wrong with eating a boiled egg or a bowlful of applesauce, but when it's all there is, eating starts feeling less like a culinary experience and more like self-medication. So, for the first stage of SCD I found one more recipe which allowed me to "cook" a little more than just the regular boiled carrots.

Speaking of recipes and apple sauce, it seems that cooking fruit is a science unto itself. I tested dried fruit in applesauce, or in jam like here, but since I am doing only apple or pear sauce at the moment, the most complicated tweak I've attempted was inspired by this recipe over at Family Fresh Cooking. Danish apples are finally in season, so this will be the first year of my life that I don't find myself perpetually OD-ing on apples, pears and plums during the season. The apples are still small and delicate and not that sweet, so I'm using pears. 8-9 peeled and sliced pears boiled with a small cup of very strong green tea, and a small tablespoon of raw organic honey stirred in while they cool. THAT is a recipe for sheer and very, very sweet bliss.

The SCD stage 1 recipe I tried out was meringues. I've honestly never tried meringue before, but I needed a break from egg yolks and I wanted something sweet that wasn't plain apple sauce. The recipes for SCD legal meringue abound, like here, but essentially it's whipped egg whites with honey stirred in. A word of warning, though, is that they won't get crunchy like regular meringues, they are gooey like baked marshmallow, and they won't hold up when you store them, they'll kind of wrinkle up a bit. But I'm not picky, so they lasted me a couple of days.

Banot? Carrona?

2010-08-31T03:53:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Jess over at Healthy Exposures who makes carrot cake breakfast-concoctions with banana slices and grated carrot, I have taken my first baby step back into cooking by inventing a carrot banana smoothie - completely compatible with doing level 1 of the specific carbohydrate diet.

Eating SCD legal was somewhat helpful for me but I kept having severe setbacks every time I got bolder and included more foodstuffs and it seems - from my google-fuelled research - that there is no going on the SCD the same way you will go "raw", i. e. that every little bit of the "right" food can help you feel more energized. So I have now done the intro-diet required to do a "real" SCD, something made a lot easier by the fact that chicken broth and boiled, pureed carrots were the only things that agreed with my stomach for a time and the additional fact that I needed to do 24 hours on liquids before a hospital appointment.

At the moment I am only eating foodstuffs allowed for the stage 1 of the diet - although I admit to being willfully stupid and having a bit of wine the other day (it doesn't say anywhere that you shouldn't! Okay, maybe I could have guessed...) and I was duly punished by my intestines. It is comforting as long as this is the way it goes: that sticking with the diet and very slowly introducing more foods gets good results while eating things that are harsh on the stomach gives me setbacks. It's when there is no connection between the two that I worry: that's when I start feeling like some dog in a sick Pavlovian scheme.

Onwards to my concoction! SCD-food doesn't agree with my tastes much, I never liked fried eggs or boiled veggies, but it's quite difficult to put your own spin on things when the options are so limited. Making this sweet smoothie felt like a real success:

Carrot Banana Smoothie (SCD stage 1, a-ok!)

Ice cubes

1 very ripe, preferably spotty, banana

Sliced carrot "rings" boiled for two hours and cooled, use an amount about equal to the banana

1/2 tsp vanilla powder

A half a glass of water, depending on how runny you want it

Blend!

Regarding the carrot rings: I boil a big batch, as many as I have the patience to peel and slice, then purée some and keep the rest in the fridge. They can be used for this smoothie, or for frying with eggs and/or spinach - the sweetness of the carrots take away some of that "fried" taste of the eggs that I'm not so crazy about.

Slight risk of TMI...

2010-08-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Now this has TRULY become picture it raw, rather than eat it raw. I've had to roll back my food all the way to boiled chicken and cooked, pureed vegetables: I just started gaining and exercising when my middle died on me again. Right now I am picturing all sorts of food, I am telling you: I have been eating only clear liquids since twelve noon yesterday and it is almost dinner-time.

Today I ingested a very tiny spaceship (-ish...), destined to travel through my bowels and return with pictures - well, not excatly return since it is disposable, but the pictures it snaps are received by a bulky piece of equipment strapped around my waist with a velcro belt. At the moment I am just praying for the little control light to stop blinking so I can go throw myself at some boiled chicken and pureed carrots in the fridge, but in the long run I am of course praying that this tiny expedition yields some constructive results.

It is weird being ill this way, because althought I can list a number of things that are wrong with me, none of them are things I would like to say out loud while anyone is listening. I have been on and off ill for so long now that I feel compelled to hide it from everybody I know, not just because it is an unsavoury problem, but because I don't want to be the friend/sister/girlfriend who is always "ill". I am in a terrible mood, and being with people just reminds me a) how little energy I have, and b) that I am not by far able to be the relative or friend that I would like to be.

My culinary successes at the moment are so small I don't even feel like sharing because it's so pathetic. Like who knew that if you boil carrot slices for 3 hours and blend them in their own water the result is ridiculously sweet? (And a big yay for that...) Answer: nobody, because nobody in their right mind would ever boil a carrot for that long. It might be a while, but I am sho' lookin' forward to cooking up something a little more...normal.

Raw Food Tested

2010-08-18T03:51:00.000-07:00

I finally tested a "real" recipe from The Raw 50 by Carol Alt - the raw burger. I am not too strict about the degrees, so they didn't turn out stricly raw, though.

Also, I would like to share my favorite food gripe.

I haven't done burgers before, but I liked that the burger bun recipe in Carol's book is half almonds half sunflower seeds: it both lightens and "cheapens" the dish, so easier on the tummy, easier on the budget. I didn't do the entire bun-and-burger-thing, just the patties, and I made them smaller plus turned the oven heat up slightly more than dehydration so they where done in 2-3 hours. Woa! That's a new favorite right there. Crisp, with plenty of celery, no onion for me, just light brown around the edges but otherwise dry almost through and NOT tasting like they were baked. I love it.

On another more sour note, I want to share a food gripe - more sweet baking to follow afterwards.

I just made a sandwich for the bf, and I tend to use things that I would have liked to eat "back when" I could eat anything. So I made a sandwich from dark rye bread, crisp salad, German Emmenthaler cheese and that Spanish sausage with the white, moldy skin on it. And the sausage - it smells soooo good. I buy these types of Spanish and Italian meats for sandwiches and omelets because they taste so. much. better. than ordinary cold meats. I used to buy them because they have a LOT less additives as well. When i got into the label-reading business (I think all celiacs are fine-print experts) and I was looking for cold meats I was astonished at the number of additives, even in what should be quite simple products. I have always been fairly conscious of additives and healthy food, but still, it was an omg. OMG! type of moment. The truly astonishing thing is that most of the cold meats that are widely available here taste like very little, even the cured/smoked/sausage-y type of meats, whereas Spanish and Italian sausages and smoked meats usually taste like a lot even though their ingredient labels often read "meat, salt". I think that has to be my favorite food gripe. Well, I am not eating cold meats at the moment, so not a problem. But I think it goes for all food: the most concentrated tastes are in the salt, the fat, the smoke, the vinegar... and if you use quality goods a little goes a long way and you don't have to overload on the stuff that isn't so good for you.

I have to extend and extra-ordinary thank you to Elana from Elana's Pantry, I am now officially enrolled in the (I have no doubt it's huge) army of bakers that are indebted to her for amazing recipes. I baked Cabernet Cookies again - these are a seriously addictive treat! And I watched anxiously over the oven so as not to burn them like the last time. I turned down the oven drastically - not quite to dehydrator temperatures but almost, since the cookies have no eggs or anything, so I thought that little experiment would be okay - and it sure was! They didn't get crisp really, but I prefer it that way, I want to taste the ingredients, not the brown crust. Last time I forgot to mention it, but in the interest of full disclosure, I swapped the agave for honey to made them fully SCD compatible.

Over-cooked!

2010-08-16T02:41:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that I think I have perfected my first no-bake, gluten free, scd-friendly müesli recipe.

I had the day off and took the opportunity to bake up a gluten free, scd-friendly storm; the coffee-grinder has been working overtime processing all those almonds. My müesli is minimum prep-time, though,

Gluten free, scd-friendly no-bake müesli:

1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped walnuts
0.5 cup shredded, dried coconut
0.5 cup chopped, dried "exotic" fruit (papaya, pineapple, raisins)
1 tsp vanilla powder

Just mix it all, and enjoy over apple sauce, a grated apple, or other fruit, with non-dairy liquid of choice.

Then the baked stuff: I made Elana's cabernet cookies! I actually took the time to blanch all the almonds for the first batch, then proceeded to leave the cookies for too long in the oven so they were completely brown and I had to cut off the bottoms - skinning all the almonds was definitely time well spent. So, yeah, I'm not doing that again. Grape seed flour is a welcome variation on nut and seed flours - I tasted some goodies with grape seed flour while away on holiday, and then splurged and ordered some. I hope to find some cheap way of getting it online from Germany or the UK, but for my first order I just wanted a little bit to try. Think it's a keeper, though - I can't wait to experiment more with it. For the cookies I used less honey, and substituted dried cherries for the chocolate - I definitely see the original version working, too, but I don't eat chocolate and I tend to sprinkle everything i bake on salads.

I baked scd-friendly "cinnamon walnut scones", as well. I admit to not being the scone-connoisseur excatly, but I suspect anyone with the culinary experience of a four-year old could assert that what came out from the oven wasn't worthy of the label "scones". My result was pretty "egg-y" - I'm so glad I omitted the currants to make a more savory version. I blame the extra-over large organic eggs and I may try again using just two eggs.

Lastly a bit of a fail. I baked this gluten free, scd-friendly granola, but it came out too oily and too "baked" to my taste. I mean, it isn't bad, but when I'm going through the trouble of making it myself, why not make it exactly the way I want it. I will have a go at tranforming it into something more to my taste, and dehydrate it in stead.

Although I have had to back-track with the food a bit - I've been eating too much, too soon, and too much raw, I suspect - I'm ready to try some more raw things from the two books I've borrowed. I'm really happy with "ants in a canoe" from The Complete Book of Raw Food (kind of like this, but with apple slices and nut butter - one should think I could have figured that one out without a cookbook) and I'll be trying something a little more bold from The Raw 50 sometime soon.

Borrowed Books and Gooseberries

2010-08-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

In an effort to not spend all my money on cook books I went and took out two raw cook books from the library. "The Complete Book of Raw Food", edited by Julie Rodwell, and "The Raw 50" by Carol Alt. I am not eating all raw, but I am always looking for new ideas on how to use raw vegetables and inspiration for dressings, snacks and desserts.

I'm not too impressed with the raw 50 - I guess I'm spoilt by all the new, glossy books that include a full-page photo for every recipe. Also, many of the recipes don't go with the diet I'm trying (SCD) - no flax seeds, no buckwheat - but there are a few things I would like to try. The Complete Book of Raw Food is just epic, and at first I didn't know where to start, but then I just "read" it cover to cover and ended up bookmarking only six recipes to try - not exactly an impressive score, so good thing I borrowed rather than bought.

It feels like it's my birthday every time something I ordered arrives in the mail; this time it was snacks and also my yoghurt machine, which arrived when I wasn't home, though, so I had to pick it up. I must have been a sight, coming from the store with two big plastic bags, one holding a yoghurt machine as well as groceries, and my backpack full of clothes - I went straight from the gym and it is now a proven fact that I am not too vain to pick up a parcel while wearing my gym pants. The yoghurt machine - which is quite an old-school, small plastic contraption that heats up seven lidded glass jars - is installed, and my test batch is chilling in the pot while the little yoghurt jars are drying from their first wash.

One of the snacks I received is a date "tea", made from dried dates, rasins, coconut, cinnamon and ginger. The spices remind me of christmas and I may just continue drinking my own "Cheat's Date Tea" instead - one tablespoon raisins and one sliced, dried date steeped in boiling water. I even have a use for the leftover soaked fruit: I was making a very small batch of jam the other day while finishing a glass of date tea and adding the plumped-up dates and raisins seemed like the naural thing to do. The jam was made from a small portion of red gooseberries - leftovers from a portion brought by my mom - and two peeled and sliced apples, which I boiled and then sweetened with a bit of honey. I added plenty of vanilla powder and dumped the soft raisin/date leftovers in the mix - the resulting jam is the best thing on breakfast.

Breakfast Shortcuts and Almost Carrot Cake

2010-08-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

I have been lazy about making nutmilks lately, so I have been enjoying a tip from Healthy Exposures, where Jess put coconut water in her overnight oats. I just pour the coconut water on a grated apple or pear an my homemade müesli, and drizzle some coconut oil - the cold liquid makes the oil thicken into little greasy fragments, mmm. The coconut water is a lot more creamy tasting over müesli than I had thought. Since I burned a whole batch of müesli recently I went lazy about the latest batch and made a no-bake mixture ("shake" rather than bake, if you will...) from equal amounts grated dessicated coconut, chopped almonds and chopped walnuts, with a generous helping of vanilla powder and plenty of mixed, dried "exotic" fruit cut into pieces.

After my holidays I thought the first recipe to grace my kitchen counter would be Carrot Cake Larabars, but after getting no less than six Larabars for an absolute bargain (honestly, I think they were price marked wrongly. The expiry date is fine but they cost about a third of regular price - I just went ahead and stuffed the shopping basket, this was a big supermarket, not a health shop) I thought I'd rather repeat a success I tried shortly before leaving on hols to bring as part of my travel stash: basic biscotti from Z's Cup of Tea. I love biscotti - ever since my favorite girlfriend came over one night of tears and sorrow and consolation for both of us and I realised I had some leftover dessert wine and a big box of biscotti - I swear, as food memories go, that is a GOOD one. Good biscotti are not that expensive so being the slouch that I am in the kitchen I never bothered to make them myself. I turned these into cherry biscotti by substituting dried cherries for currants and I made a batch with the honey to have as dessert, and a batch without the honey to eat...in salads. Yes, I swear, almost anything I bake will work in a salad in a pinch.

I have some goodies that I ordered online coming my way soon: a yoghurt maker, and some stuff I found while in Germany that cannot be bought in Denmark. While I was ordering I came across this date tea! I haven't tried it before but since I am having stuff sent all the way from Germany I thought...live dangerously. I couldn't wait to try it, though, so I'm already having my own diy version: I pour boiling water over one tablespoon raisins and one chopped, dried date in a big glass. If you don't stir it the first sips will be like hot water, but the bottom half is surprisingly sweet! Or stir it, and you distribute the goodness.

SCD

2010-08-06T11:03:00.001-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks I've found out that the only thing that allows me to feel okay, and feel like there's some progress in my energy and tummy-wellbeing, is following the specific carbohydrate diet, or SCD. I tried it with some scepticism - I guess it doesn't sound that well founded to me, scientifically, but I was ancious to get results, by voodoo, if necessary. It was a great relief. I tried going back to regular gluten free fodder with really bad and surprisingly swift results. I am not ready to say SCD is going to be how I roll forever, I still have some tests at the hospital during August and September.

SCD plus eating raw and vegan is a really tricky combo it seems. I've googled it, and it looks like it is going to take some practice to limit the amount of animal I'm consuming. Right now I will do whatever feels best and consider it a transition diet, not knowing if it's a transition into SCD, into gluten free, or into no-holds-barred. So I'm back with plenty of eggs, some meat, fish - and honey instead of all the alternative sweeteners I've been using. It's not what I would prefer, but it's what works at the moment so SCD compatible food is what I will be posting about for a while.

Now that the tummy is better I can have a big, raw salad again! Which is a huge relief, as that is definitely my comfort food number one. I have been feeling very sorry for myself, going on the SC Diet and having to cook even MORE - or at least ditching some of my old staples and looking for new ones. But I've realised: cooking healthy food takes time! No matter what the state of my health, I am not going to settle for pre-cooked dinners and fast food snacks. My choices would be less limited, but really, I would still have to spend that dreaded time in the kitchen. So I do what I have always done and will probably continue doing regardless of my hospital results this next month and a half: I try to cook as delicious, as nutritious and as quickly and conveniently as possible, shaking up the routines by trying something new once in a while.

2010-08-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

2010-08-03T04:44:00.000-07:00

2010-08-03T01:43:00.001-07:00

Peel an Apple find a Cake

2010-07-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

A healthy snack has eluded me for years. I thought it was a little bare-looking and ascetic when i first saw it on a blog somewhere, but because of my mysterious tummy-troubles I have been eating a lot of boiled eggs, boiled chicken and a lot of cooked apple sauce, and in an attempt to get some freshness and crispness and generally non-boiled-ness back into my diet I gave raw apple slices with cinnamon a try. It has been hitting the snacking spot for me again and again these days - peeling the apple first makes all the difference for a sore tummy and strangely I have been slathering the slices in more and more cinnamon without issue. By now, crisp veggies and salads are back on my menu so I'm one happy foodie.

Tomorrow I am leaving on holiday for a week, so I have been baking up a batch of crackers to bring along. I've learned about eating out that it is important to bring something filling so I avoid getting super hungry - that's when I am liable to take a stupid chance by ordering meals with meat or nuts or something filling without being 100 percent sure they are without stuff my tummy can't handle. In addition to crackers I might buy a bag of nuts when I get there to carry around, but I thought I'd like something a little more "prepared" than just raw nuts to sprinkle on green salads. I decided on trying these Pepita Protein Bites from Zomtbakes, but I removed the chick peas and gluten by using almond flour in stead of besan flour and wheat germ. I also omitted the treacle, skimped on the honey and plunked in some nutmeg and a bit of salt to make a savoury/spicy version. Of course they didn't stick together properly. So in a way it's a fail - but I think the big chunks of spicy pumpkin seeds are going to be a big win when sprinkled on salads.

I am also bringing a handful of Cashew Cookie Larabars because they can double (triple?) as a sweet snack, dessert, and to amp up the energy content of meals if the only options that are safe to eat are also lacking in the refuelling department. And by all means, cashew cookie is a great variety of Larabar, but I am planning something for when I come back. Carrot Cake Larabars - apparently they are all the rage, and I have seen them mentioned - or rather raved about - in several places by now, here at the latest, at Healthy Exposures. Usually I will suppress my envy of the Larabar options available to the lucky people overseas (chocolate chip cookie dough Larabar? Cherry pie Larabar?) but I am craving a taste of this one like mad. So the intrepid blogger googles - and finds. I have bookmarked this Carrot Cake Larabar recipe. Trying it out is going to have to wait until I'm back from holiday, but it's certain to be one of the first things happening in the kitchen by then.

Sugar Doll

2010-07-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

Seeing as it is that Averie has bestowed the Sugar Doll Award upon all of us - callling for ten random facts - I am taking that opportunity to blog a little without recipes. Cooking has been running it's own unpredictable course. From Protein Muffins in May to baked cookies and raw mylk in June, to horrible Chicken Muffins (I won't link...probably this is to somebody's taste but not mine) over Mayo Experiment to feeling so bleh in July I've been throwing everything raw overboard, I am currently eating Whatever Works. I want to find a rut, or a groove, again and fill up my freezer, but I am biding my time with the cooking...which has a lot to do with number 10, so here goes, my 10 Facts + plus a short story about growing up.

1) Shortly after I moved away from home I left the dishes in my sink for so long the contents rotted. I only did that once.

2) I doubt that I will ever see the purpose of keeping non-edible plants.

3) On my nineteenth birthday I was far away from everyone I knew, drinking a piña colada out of a pineapple with a girl I just met in Costa Rica.

4) My first ever yoga class was a blast – the second was a huge disappointment. If the second had been my first I would have never done yoga again, now I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing yoga for life.

5) I really miss riding horses. If there's a cowboy, an elf, or a knight in shining armour in the movie, chances are I'm looking at the horse.

6) The first time I rode a motorcycle I fell. Just toppled over with the bike at really slow speed. I don’t think the driving instructor had ever seen that before and I don’t think it’s generally something anyone does.

7) I started blogging because I saw a baked apple cake. It reminded me that if I ever want to indulge in fresh, tasty food again I will have to learn how to cook better*.

8) I love to whistle. When I met the bf – who is very into music – I told him it was going to be a matter of (short) time before he got sick of my whistling and told me to zip it. He said it would never happen and it hasn’t yet.

9) I am not addicted to handbags – with me it’s hydration/running backpacks. I currently have three that are functional and I’m always looking for more.

10) Tomorrow I had an appointment at the hospital - TODAY they went and moved it to the beginning of August - where they hope to find out more about the interesting ways in which my stomach is not digesting food. I am going to be out cold for the very short procedure so nothing grueling.

* I have no idea why this epiphany was prompted by a cake, but I literally remember the place and the cake. I have never been very fond of cakes, so when I found out the only way to stay gut-healthy and sane would be living without gluten for the rest of my life I didn't worry about cakes. When I tried gluten free, store bought cakes and found out they have more features in common with cardboard than cake, I did not despair. But it was never the less when I looked at a beautiful, fresh, baked apple cake in a cafe that I thought about how food is not just energy - food is about being curious, adventurous, experimental, it is about trying new things and flavours, and I am not willingly parting with that for the rest of my life. That was when I realised I have to learn how to cook flavourful, seasonal, spicy, sweet food myself - the reason why that lead to blogging is because I simply cannot do that on my own. I am tired of cooking before I even begin.

I never liked cooking, and growing up I always imagined never really having to cook. I thought I would get by without it, maybe someday find a man who would cook for me and otherwise just figure out how to get the most of meals cooked in less than fifteen minutes and using only one pot, pan or oven dish. Until I was diagnosed a couple of years ago I wasn't really planning on deviating from that plan - changing my mind and diving into cooking has been an easier decision because of one particular rolemodel.

One of my mother’s best friends was also kind of my replacement-grandmom when I was little. My own grandmother lived quite far away, and when I was ill or needed somewhere to be for a couple of hours, my “second” grandmother would sometimes step in. She had this great attic full of old things from her own daughters, she had an aquarium, and she had lots of time. Some of her most distinguishing features for me were always that she was great at sewing things and an amazing cook – she worked in a kitchen and she made me a new costume (a cat, a butterfly, a fairy…) almost every year, exactly to my demands and after what I suspect must have been pretty flimsy directions.

When I was a lot older I got curious and I asked her how she became interested in cooking. “Oh, I never liked cooking” she said, “but then I got married: my husband couldn’t cook and we had three kids, so I learned how to cook”. It turned out she didn’t like to sew, either, she just learned because it saved on money for clothes for three kids while they were small and she and her husband where starting up a business. As she got better at both things of course, she began doing it for her own sake, experimenting with food and sewing for friends. I remember how astonished I was - but I can totally see that happen. Cooking. It's getting better.

Still Cookin'

2010-07-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

I'm still cooking my food due to tummy-issues. This is quite weird for me - gluten free plus dairy free is one thing, but I really start feeling deprived when I can't have a big, daily dose of fresh fruit and vegetables. Well, so be it.

It doesn't mean no treats, though! So here are two new "tried" things to eat if you're grain, soy and dairy free.

First off, I've tried Apple Muffins, which I found at this website that has a lot of recipes that are excellent if you really need to restrict the intake of...I was going to say everything, but it's obviously not. They are mainly apple sauce, apple pieces, two eggs, oil and a bit of honey. I was prepared for muffin disaster when I baked them, especially afraid they where going to be "egg-y", but they really are just sweet, freshly apple-tasting and perfect!

At first I thought there was no way I was going to get 16(!) muffins out of the amount of batter and sure enough it got me only 8 normal-sized ones, but I ended up cutting them in half afterwards, they are really - I wouldn't say filling, just satisfying. I didn't tweak the recipe except I only used two small tbsp honey, and it's sweet enough for me - next time I might see if I can bring down the amount of oil a bit too, as they are fairly oily. I froze them immediately and since my freezer is not that cold, I can eat them straight from the freezer, good for the summer heat!

Secondly I tried Cashew Butter Muffins, which can be found in this recipe section. The recipe calls for

1 cup cashew butter
2 small bananas
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Again, for me that's a really quirky recipe for muffins. I cringe at using that much cashew butter in just one batch of muffins because that stuff is bloody expensive, but I had some old-ish almond butter so I used about half a cup almond butter and a quarter cup of tahini (no salt in either). I blended bananas and nut butters, added the eggs and blended, added the baking soda and blended, and finally mixed in the vinegar and about 4 tbsp almond pulp and a handful of soaked, chopped almonds to make up for my penny-pinching ways with the nut butters.

I love it how the original recipe says, "These muffins even had little air pockets in them like regular ones." Yep, it's the small things that count. Mine came out fragrant, light, and fluffy - watch out with the oven though, they really were done in a cinch. I reckon they would be sweeter with the cashew butter - my almond-tahini subbed ones are quite earthy, and very subtly banana-tasting. I never bother calculating statistics on my food, but I'm wagering these are pretty high in protein because of the eggs and the nuts - nice.

It has been warm here for two days now, way up in the range of stupid warm, wanna-shower-three-times-a-day-but-cannot-get-cold-water-from-the-faucet-anymore kinda warm. So about the last thing I've been wanting to do is crank up the oven to make muffins, or heat up the stove to simmer the life out veggies for veggie stock or turn crisp apples into mush for a batch of apple sauce. Good thing is, once it's done, and things have cooled of on the counter and spent the night in the fridge, there's cold apple sauce and chilled veggie broth for breakfast. Works wonders for a sore tummy!

A Sweet Prize

2010-07-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Eating for the last week to ten days has been a real challenge. I don't know why, but I'm hoping to find out. It leaves me with nothing positive to say about food and no new experiments to report - aside from the mayo, which is what I have been using to get steamed veggies and boiled chicken down the hatch. What better way to wait for better days than by entering a prize draw for a raw dessert book?

At from nelly...with love... there is an amazing prize draw. Nelly is giving away "Sweet Gratitude - a new world of raw desserts", which is definitely a book that I've seen mentioned many times around the blogosphere. It's no surprise that it looks like competition for this prize will be fierce! Just look at the picture Nelly has posted of one of the desserts that she has done herself. The deadline for entering is Friday July 23.

My Mayo

2010-07-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Mayonnaise has never featured in my meals - seriously, I don't remember ever eating it - but I remember the taste, so there must have been a dab of mayo on a tuna or an egg sandwich back there sometime. I never thought of it as anything I really like or dislike, it's just there, and I've never bought it. However, with all the food restrictions I've been experiencing, experimenting with making some mayo began to sound pretty good - so many things it can be used for apparently, like this tomato sandwich, or it can be amped up like this Marcona Almond Vegan Mayonnaise at Elanas Pantry - yum!

I knew I wanted vegan - I used my food processor to grind some raw chicken the other day, and raw animal product in my kitchen equipment is an icky experience that I will henceforth be trying to avoid - I scrubbed and I scrubbed afterwards...*gag*. I know I'm probably being a little over sensitive, but it's my kitchen so I can be as sensitive as I want. Plus, it's really hot and summery and food is going bad on me all the time, and I'd much rather have to smell something plant based gone bad than some yellow egg-paste gone bad. So no egg.

I don't trust my blender with Elana's marcona almond recipe so I'm saving that for when I'm feeling more adventurous. On the other hand, the mayo for the tomato sandwich is a little bit too much like the dressing I always make and not really like trying something new, so I googled vegan mayonnaise and found myself a compromise, Homemade Vegan Mayonnaise from ezhealthydiet - not a place that I have visited before, I just went there by google. It's not as vegan as the name would have it though, there's honey in the recipe, but I'm thinking that could easily be substituted.

½ cup soaked almonds (soak almonds for 8 hours)
½ cup purified water
Juice ½ lemon
3/4 tablespoon honey
½ tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ to 2/3 cup olive oil

The recipe couldn't be easier (original here): it's just blend everything except oil thoroughly, then add the olive oil in a drizzle with the blender running on slow or medium.

I'm no wizard with the blender but it definitely went fine, and it made me feel like quite the gourmet to be making my own mayo. I didn't have any soaked almonds on hand so I went with cashews thinking they'd be softer. Also, honestly, I just used normal, boiled water (why boiled? I don't know. Seemed fancier than tap) and lime rather than lemon. I only added the half a cup of oil, and I used sunflower - my mayo got a bit runny, but it has thickened up to a gorgeous slop in a jar in the fridge. It probabaly doesn't count for much as I wasn't really a mayo-lover - or even a mayo-eater - before, but I really like it. It goes with everything - I swear I even considered having some with my breakfast.

Simple Yoghurt

2010-07-04T04:08:00.000-07:00

Yoghurt is really good tummy-food, and if you love it, well, like me, you'll miss it when going dairy free because there's really nothing else like it - unless you can handle soy yoghurt, I guess. I found a simple way of making something delicious that I'll call yoghurt from now on. But I would like to just air a couple of thoughts first.

I came across an exciting - or confusing? - article on women and protein in NYT here. I'm hardly working out on the elite level, but the science behind sports always interests me: if I'm going to spend time exercising I want to know that I'm not getting too little protein or carbs to get stronger or faster from it, so just an addition to the whole "carbing up" and "getting your protein" issue, for women! Then I went on to read the regular section of NYT on the web and came across this. An American soldier who has lost his limbs (yes, all four) and is now training to use prosthetics. His attitude is inspirational to say the least, and I am now thoroughly embarrassed about each and every time I have felt sorry for myself for any reason really, but especially my health. No matter what, it is just a matter of making the choice to get up and move on, or not. If it's "move on", well, then, no point in crying about it. That was an ***kicking read/photo slide show.

Since I'm not training to use prosthetics, merely "training" to eat, I'll move on to today's step up the ladder, the easy yoghurt. The way to make this "yoghurt" is not so much a recipe as it is just a method. I was inspired by several different recipes and how-to videos so there's really no one place that I can reference. I thought I'd just give it a go and to heck if it didn't work, so I threw some coconut water - about 1 or 1,5 cup - and a good handful of soaked almonds in the blender, gave it long, good whirl, added some probiotic powder and gave it another slow whirl, then left it in a covered but not closed glass jar overnight. The probiotics don't like metal, so don't stir or anything with a metal spoon. Okay, I just realised the blender blades are metal, so either it's not vital, or mixing the probiotics in with a plastic or wooden spoon after blending will get you better results, I don't know.

The next morning it had that perfect, sour yoghurt-y smell and it was perfect with granola - it's not going to cut it if your alternative is a creamy bowl of greek yoghurt, but if you haven't had yoghurt in a while like me, it's heaven. I even prefer it to coconut kefir because it is less sweet, and the lower price and easier access to ingredients (for my circumstances at least) also makes it less of a heartbreak if you have to throw out a batch that goes bad. I put in in the fridge and the next day it had of course separated, but I shook it up and it tasted even better. One more day and it went bad, so I'd definitely make a small batch anytime - but my fridge isn't the most efficient in the summertime I've noticed.

Drizzle and Crunch

2010-06-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

There are all of four things in this post: something thought-up (was going to say invented, but that seems a bit rich), something tried, something copied and something failed. To get the "fail" off my chest first I tried winging a coconut ice cream that didn't go so well. I was inspired by an ice cream purchase for the bf, three flavours of ice cream made with organic cream: banana chocolate, ricca mocca, and the one that inspired failure, coconut cocoa. I tried making just a straight up creamy coconut flavour, but it was too grainy, too heavy, and not sweet enough. Luckily I made a small batch - I think I'll break it up in chunks and put it to use in smoothies.

The try-out is Averies crackers. They succeeded with absolutely no complications and I am glad that they are gluten-, corn- and dairy free straight from the start. Sweet crackers are not one of my cravings but I thought I'd give it a go to honour the original recipe and perhaps discover something new. However, I used only 1 tbsp maple sugar and 1 tbsp agave syrup, and couldn't resist adding plenty of fresh ground black pepper and 3 tbsp pine nuts. I left out vanilla and allspice all together. They were absolutely yummy - I'm glad I went with a bit of sweetener for a change, but I'm also glad I added my own pepper-pinenut tweak.

The drizzle I've thought up for my salads is surely old hat to everyone else, but it's really quite nifty, I came up with it on my own, and it's one of those things that I have the ingredients for even when the fridge is near empty. I'm oftentimes using ground cashew nuts for a creamy, delicious dressing, but cashews are one of those things that I tend to run out of because it is so good for everything and so darn expensive I keep postponing to buy it. So what works instead is 2 tbsp ground golden flax, 1 tbsp nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar to taste - I use a couple of tsp - maybe some spice like nutmeg or curry or even spirulina, and water to reach the desired consistency. It should be poured on the salad and eaten right away, though, because the flax thickens into a goo quite quickly.

I'm saving the best for last, so here's what I succesfully copied: raw buckwheaties, that I bought from a store and fell in love with as superb convenience-food. I re-created a recipe based on the ingredient list, and they turned out almost exactly like the original. I'm calling mine Coconut Protein Buckwheaties cause I added a couple of tbsps of hemp protein for good measure, and I've eaten them in salads, as granola, and as a snack with or without a dab of coconut oil - they are sturdy enough to be put in a plastic bag or box to bring along. I probably won't recreate them exactly again, but I'll tweak them next time, I'll soak the buckwheat longer and add figs instead of dates, maybe some goji berries...

Anyway this is what I used:

2/3 cup buckwheat groats - soaked

4 tbsp date paste + 2 tbsp date paste (for sweet version) or 1 flax egg (less sweet version)

1/3 cup sunflower seeds - soaked

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup protein powder, I used hemp

1/8 cup shredded dried coconut

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds - soaked

1/4 cup golden flax, either lightly ground or half ground/half whole

2 tsp cinnamon

Nutmeg, cardamom

Stir everything together - but save the raisins for last so they dont get all shredded. The "dough" should be very grainy, but glued together so you can make tsp-size lumps. I stirred for a long time and added a bit of water to get everything to stick together - more flax egg or date paste will help, but these are buckwheaties, not cakes, so coarse texture is fine. The lumps can be baked or dehydrated, I use an oven but prefer as low heat as possible, to keep everything - especially the raisins! - from getting "baked". I suspect they will become very hard on the teeth if proper baked as well, so probably just dehydrate until they feel solid. Then flip them over - the backside should be done as well or they will turn soft when you store them.

Soft is Served.

2010-06-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

Mmm. MMMmmmm!

I am right now eating my first ever softserve. It is a post-yoga snack-turned-quite-a-meal, and it is bang-smack-wow delish. I made a double batch and if it wasn't so filling I'd be pulling the next half from the freezer right away: I dumped 1 pack of silken tofu, three tbsp rice protein, 1 small tbsp maca powder and about 2,5 bananas frozen in chunks into the blender and gave it the "ice crushing" programme - essentially top speed in short intervals - which left plenty of big, gooey banana chunks. I have never been one of the many fans of softice or melted ice cream, but the texture is definitely the only thing keeping me from becoming big time addicted to this.

Jam and Parmesan

2010-06-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

While running today I did something as devoid of dignity as trip in my own shoelaces. Nothing happened though, except I donated some skin off my hands and elbow. If asked beforehand I would have argued that I was in fact using that skin at the time and warn't in any mood to shed it, but I'm sure the pavement would beg to differ.

I'm still extremely happy with the pumpkin seed mylk I made recently, it is now definitely officially a keeper. There's less pulp from this than from my almond milk, so less storage space taken up in the freezer by boxes and bags of almond pulp - with a small freezer it turns into a game of "tetris" quite quickly: just when you think you've figured it out and built a winning structure in there, another block pops down from the sky that just doesn't fit the plan at all.

Pumpkin seed pulp looks like cement, but works both in granola and crackers. Wait - I made mylk, granola and crackers all in two days? I got a new cookbook, Raw Food Real World, and I'm lovin' it up. In fact I made a raw jam too, from dried apricots and defrosted strawberries, and though I didn't grow up with the pb&j tradition, breakfast - whether it be a bowl of granola or a muffin - takes on a whole new dimension with a dollop of jam and a plop of almond butter. I'll say.

Ive made a non-dairy parmesan as well - actually, no need to call it parmesan, it should be something like "nut-flakes" - that's been spicing up my salads. There are two very similar recipes to what I've been making right here. The blog looks extinct but in all fairness I'd rather post a link to something that's already out than copy what's in the cook books. I didn't have rejuvelac for the "parmesan" but that isn't used in the cook book either, the citrus version works fine. I can only begin to imagine all the possible jam-ingredient combinations...but I'll add that when made with dried apricots, agave wasn't necessary. And vanilla will stand in for cinnamon there any time.

Cookies Times Two... and Mylk.

2010-06-12T13:29:00.001-07:00

For some time I've been wanting to bake some cookies for the bf - good cookies are so expensive I think, and really I'm thinking they should be easy to bake. I wanted to bake them with oatmeal and without too much flour as I am using the same rice-/buckwheat flour as I do for my own cookies - after baking with wheat flour for other people and realising just how impossible it is to contain, I am not willingly using gluten flours in my kitchen again.

A couple of recipes I tried weren't as perfect as I'd hoped, but it's nice sometimes to bake for other people rather than just me so I'm not letting up. At Peas and Thank You I found Soft-Baked Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I don't have margarine so I used coconut oil, but besides from that and the flour replacement I followed it pretty much to the letter and they were well received. I halved the recipe and got maybe seven nice cookies.

Well, it's a joy to bake for others but that pleasure only goes so far, so I baked up a batch for myself at the same time. No oatmeal for me so I didn't dare go with the same recipe - I tried overnight oats too a couple of times and I have to admit buckwheat flakes just don't always cut it for me. Buckwheat is fine - for some things. The basis for my cookies was Banana Apricot Spelt Oatmeal Cookies from Angela at Oh She Glows, which would now be Banana Goji Berry Rice Buckwheat Cookies. I know from all the comments I've read for oatmeal cookies that I'm not the only one looking for alternatives: this recipe works with buckwheat flakes for oats, and rice flour and almond pulp or rice protein for flour. I used the flax egg rather than egg, and goji berries in stead of apricot and plenty - plenty! - of cinnamon. The first ones I had straight from the oven then I freeze them - it stops them from getting dry and I can thaw them slightly in the microwave which makes them nicely warm.

Since cookies and milk go so well together I'll mention right away that I just tried making pumpkin seed mylk. I was a little bit sceptical that it might come out as green as the seeds but Gena's gorgeous and unmistakeably milk-like photos at Choosing Raw convinced me . This is a really good idea. It is nutty, smooth and delish, perhaps even a new favourite - my usual is almond milk. I used only one date an no stevia - ugh, I shudder at the mere word... - as I use my mylk for granola and don't like it too sweet. Also, I had to strain it as my blender takes only three cups of water and the following morning after sitting in the fridge it came out in big ketchup-y burps. However, before I strained it I used one cup as substitute for yoghurt in a recipe which was absolutely perfect.

More Raw

2010-06-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

I bought my second raw food cookbook. It's Raw Food Real World, and I'm loving it. I have it decked out with little post-its at all the recipes I want to make. First. Then later I have no doubt I'll make all.

I did the "buckwheat crunchies" and these are an absolute winner with me. Anything new to do with buckwheat and I'm keen. Not so much sharing to be done there though, you'll have to get the book. Something else raw I discovered though, not from that book and I feel like I can share just because it's not really a recipe: cashew nut salad dressing. This is my new go-to dinner when there's nothing filling to pop in the salad besides the obvious olive oil: a small handful of cashews tossed in the coffee grinder, seasoned with spices to taste, a tablespoon apple cider vinegar and mixed with water until desired consistency. My favorite combination of spices right now is plenty of turmeric, slightly less ground cumin and a bit of nutmeg. Turmeric is so good, and healthy to boot - just look at all the good reasons to eat turmeric here.

Having already assigned the oven to hours on end at a low heat for the crunchies I thought I'd make some granola while I was at it and made Raw Maple Flax Granola from sweet beet and green bean. This recipe is exceedingly simple and as it turns out - really delicious. I ended up mixing the two for breakfast - I'll add berries for more fruity sweetness when I want. I used buckwheat flakes in stead of oats, and yelllow flax because I think they have a milder taste than the brown ones. Oh, and I completely ruined the concept by using a drizzle of agave rather than maple syrup - is it another case of me living in Denmark or is that stuff mind-numbingly expensive everywhere?

Green Cookies. Tofu Muffins. Improv Ice Cream.

2010-06-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

When I started baking muffins, apparently I was opening up a big ol' Pandora's Box of Baking. I've baked green cookies, and tofu muffins - and I improvised some ice cream which I realise has nothing to do with baking.

I didn't even break out any heavy machinery for the ice cream, just mixed something based on the recipes I use regularly.

1 heaped cup cashews, ground finely in coffee grinder
1 small cup almond milk
large dash vanilla powder
2 tbsp dessicated coconut
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 tsp lime juice

long glug of agave syrup

2 tbsp chopped almonds

2 heaped tbsp frozen blueberries

Mix by hand and fold in almonds and blueberries last, pour in suitable container and freeze. I just realised why I came up with that variation: I saw Coconut Lime Larabars for the first time today. Scratch that, I saw the empty slot in the Larabar stand where they would have been had they not all been bought.

The green cookies are green from tea. They are Green Tea Sweetheart Cookies from askgeorgie.com. I halved the portion, and obviously I didn't use oats, whole wheat flour, yoghurt or butter. In stead I used buckwheat flakes, buckwheat and brown rice flour, almond milk and coconut butter. I don't have splenda so I'm using a natural sweetener - looks like sugar. And no whey for me. It's sitting in the back of my cupboard since the one and only time I used it and I still can't imagine the scenario where this makes an encore. Rice protein it is.
Freezing these for storage is a good idea, because they dry out pretty fast, at least in my gluten free version.

I found the Carrot Almond Spice Muffins with tofu here at Healthy Happy Life. I haven't eaten tofu in a long while but I couldn't resist trying silken tofu baked into a muffin. I halved this recipe too, and omitted most of the sweet things to make them a dinner roll kind of thing. That worked fine: as with the other recipe I used buckwheat flakes for oats, but because I don't like using as much rice and buckwheat flour as this recipe calls for I added a good deal of almond pulp and some coconut in stead. I'm guessing I'm not the only one in need of somewhere to put my massive amounts of almond pulp leftovers, so I thought I'd tip you off to that - it worked out fine.

2010-05-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

After resting lazily on the laurels of my self-awarded food prize I bottomed out a bit today. As it happens, every once in a while it just gets to me - food restrictions. Trying two new recipes once is fun while putting allergy friendly food on the table three times a day very quickly feels like making the same boring stuff over and over again. I never wanted to spend a lot of time on food, but it seems there is just no other way to make it roll. I realise I am fortunate: illness could be about so many much worse things than having to spend time in the kitchen, and I am so lucky to be in a place and a position where that is even possible.

I did try some new recipes after all. I made Miss Best's Crackers, posted by Miss Best at Gone Raw. First time I made these I didn't have tomatoes and substituted with a bit of water and they got a bit heavy. Second time around I couldn't be bothered to sprout the buckwheat and I tried some almond pulp and buckwheat flakes in stead. Not the same. NOT the same. Which kind of drives the nails in the coffin of laziness in the kitch: sometimes you gotta spend the time to sprout to have the convenience of the bread. Amen. I'm sprouting the damn buckwheat and making a mental note to get tomatoes.

I have finally ventured into the world of chia puddings as well and I'm not a fan. Considering the two recipes I tried I am actually quite surprised by that: Holiday Chia Pudding by Kristen, and Breakfast Chia Pudding from the Healthy Green Kitchen. Don't they look great? I was positively salivating just digging up the links for those two. I might just have another go.

Earning My Wings

2010-05-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

Coming up on my fiftieth post I want to award myself a pair of initial foodie-wings for winging it successfully through two of my staples: granola and crackers. I successfully combined some of the recipes I regularly use to make improvised versions of both things - I ended up with a vanilla, coconut and walnut granola reminiscent of both vanilla crunch granola from Sweetly Raw and this gluten free granola recipe from Elanas Pantry. My crackers ended up as a kind of combination of my new fave the lucky hemp bread from Choosing Raw, and pumpkin seed crackers from Rawmazing, which is as close as it gets to a golden oldie when it comes to my raw cooking. I'm flying in da kitchen!

The Cinnamonster.

2010-05-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

In school or at work, my problem is often finding a snack that packs light, goes straight from the fridge and into the bag and which is satisfying and - preferably - reasonably tasty. My meals are often salads so I like my snacks to be filling. Rice cakes get me nowhere. I mentioned before that I've just tried making Janethas protein muffins - bringing a slice of bread or something baked hasn't been a favorite option of mine before, I think gluten free breads are often to light and sugary, and always dry as paper a couple of days after they are baked. I've been bringing store-bought protein bars at times when I was really pressed for time, but if you feel socially akward about eating a gluten free diet already, having nothing but protein bars for snacks is going to take that to a whole new level.

So I just baked the muffins second time around and I went overboard with the cinnamon - adding the cinnamon reminded me of oatmeal at a friend's house when I was a kid, where we were allowed to make our own oatmeal and we had a kind of upping-the-cinnamon-dosage pseudo experiment going on, and while I thought of that I just kind of kept on going. I guess now that I tweaked the recipe they are rice-protein-muffins more than anything else, but if rice and buckwheat are your only grain options, this works. Adding some raisins would make them really breakfast-y I guess, but I like leaving them plain and dressing them in nut butter. By the way, I just tried making Averies homemade protein bars and ended up having to eat the crumbly result with a spoon. Obviously I need to pay a bit more attention to measurements next time I attempt that recipe.

Here are the ingredients from the original recipe for chia seed protein muffins - which is found here, at Meals and Moves. I have written in parentheses what I used for a substitute - some things i subbed to make it gluten and dairy free, some things because I didn't have the stuff it calls for. Also I don't have anything that can measure 15 g. or a scoop, so I´ve written my substitute quantities.

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (1/2 cup rice and buckwheat flour)

2/3 cup old fashioned oats (2/3 cup buckwheat flakes)

2 scoops EAS vanilla premium protein powder (5 tbsp rice protein + 2tsp vanilla powder)

2 tsp baking powder (same, but make sure it's gluten free)

1/2 tsp salt (same)

15g chia seeds (3 tbsp chia seeds)

1/4 cup chopped almonds (same)

2 tsp nunaturals baking blend or the equivalent with another sweetener (1 heaping tbsp psyllium husks, 1 small-ish tbsp low-gi sweetener)

1 cup fat free greek yogurt (3/4 cup almond milk + 1 heaping tbsp coconut oil + 1 heaping tbsp ground yellow flax seeds)

3 egg whites (same)

1 egg (same)

1-2 tsp almond extract (2 tbsp cardamom, or cinnamon)

12 whole almonds (same, but I only got 10 muffins)

B & C

2010-05-16T03:40:00.001-07:00

I have to bow down again to the altar of whatever person it was that first invented blueberries combined with cardamom. And I have to thank Heather at Sweetly Raw again for posting a recipe for blueberry cardamom ice cream - I know I already did one post on this but it is that good, plus the address for the site has just changed and the link in my old post is shot.

I know Heather has a more recent post about this ice cream, but i couldn't find it. In the link above, it's used as filling for a cake, but I just did the ice cream. I halved all ingredients except the blueberries, and in stead of water I used almond milk, which is how it was written - I think? - in the more recent post of Heather's.

Second Green Recipe!

2010-05-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Hm, okay, so I fell right off the grid there for a couple of days. There was something important I had to write and I kept dragging it out and postponing - refusing to blog before I had it finished or I would just have let blogging be my excuse.

I have been sadly deprived of green monster breakfast cookies for a while but I finally received a new bag of spirulina from my favorite UK health food dealer Funkyraw, and production is up and running once more. Green breakfast cookies have definitely warmed me to unexpectedly green-tinged foodstuffs so maybe that's why I'd tucked away the recipe for this Lucky Hemp Bread from Choosing Raw which is nice an' green! The recipe came to mind yesterday when I was again staring at the space taken up in my tiny box of a freezer by two bags of spinach, wondering what to do with it. I remembered why I never get around to making green bread: whenever I have fresh spinach around I eat it. I thought I had a real super idea when I bought some frozen spinach a while ago - great for smoothies, no icecubes needed? - but it turned out to be not so brilliant, as it doesn't taste like fresh spinach at all. So I defrosted a cup of chunks for this recipe and it worked beautifully.

I did some tweaking. It's a "hemp bread" and I didn't have hemp, so I used chia seeds, but I think I might try and sub some of it with sunflower seeds to cut the price next time around. Also I kind of overdosed on flax lately because of huge success with baking flax crackers, so I sub'ed some of the flax for - this is where I realise I might as well write "my" ingredients:

3/4 cup chia seeds

1/4 cup ground flax

1/2 cup buckwheat flakes

1 tsp seasalt

1 heaping tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tbsp cocnut oil

1 cup thawed frozen spinach

I mixed the first three well in a food processor, then added the rest with enough water to make a soft dough. I spread it on baking paper, and since I'm using the oven to dehydrate I gave it a couple of hours at the lowest setting and left it in the warm, turned-off oven with the door ajar overnight. Perfect, soft bread! And just to be clear, this is NOT my recipe. The original is here.

Perfect ten!

2010-05-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long time since I've baked anything that I'd completely forgotten how it feels when the oven starts smelling good and you open and there's something hot and freshly baked...I eat almost only raw for a combination of reasons, and gluten free baking is just not really my thing at all - I'm always disappointed by the taste anyway, or I will eat something baked to blend in socially and then end up throwing the rest away after a while. And I obviously hate throwing out food for a magnitude of reasons as well.

Not this time! They may not be perfect, but ten muffins just came out of the oven and I can tell this is a keeper. Definitely not something I'll make often, but just to stir things up food-wise once in a while...I can tell they will be the perfect mid-morning snack for work next week. The original recipe is Almond Chiaseed Protein Muffins from Meals and Moves, which I came across via Averie's blog. I am gluten free as well as free from just about anything but rice and buckwheat, so I tweaked the recipe - plus, I have an old scale and I have no idea how much 15 g or "2 scoops" is. I'll post my version next time a round - it still needs some adjustment to really work.

2010-05-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, what I tried to draw was a dried date filled with my new seed butter fave, black tahini, but I realised in the process that it's quite difficult to make it come out looking like food - it doesn't look too delectable in real life either, is my only defense. Like I've said, the black tahini probably isn't to everyone's liking, but I love it, so maybe worth a try. According to this cracker-recipe post at Rawmazing, black sesame seeds are even quite healthy for you. The taste is not as black-sesame-specific in the cracker recipe, though.

I just made the best mix-whatever-I've-got granola and it is marvellous, and I did not write down ingredients and quantities! I am not making that mistake again. Well, I probably am, but every morning when I'm having this mysterious granola I'm thinking, darn it... I will try to recreate it - I'm not that experienced with experimenting yet, so making something on the fly and having it come out edible is really still quite the victory for me.

So far my granola go-to recipes have been gRAWnola, from I Am Gluten Free, and a walnut/mulberry granola from Elanas Pantry - I blogged about both here.

2010-05-01T00:44:00.000-07:00

Two more recipes tried and tested: I made another ice cream, and crackers.

I made a Blueberry Cardamom Ice Cream from Sweetly Raw and it is every bit as good as it sounds. BF says it's the best dessert he ever had. I made it pretty much by the book, but I about halved the portion and I used mostly cashews with a bit of brazil nuts in stead of the macadamias. As usual I popped the nuts in the coffee grinder before food process-ing, because my food processor is not on the strong side.

The cracker recipe is the easiest I've tried yet: Raw Sesame and Flax Holiday Crackers from Rawmazing. I didn't even get the food processor out, just mixed them by hand. The only things I tweaked about this recipe were I used buckwheat flour in stead of oat flour, and I only used half the amount because buckwheat tastes kind of dusty compared to the sweetness of oats, I think. I guess I could have used rice for the other half, but I thought it would be nice with really flax-y crackers. I didn't have dehydrated onion flakes, so I used nutritional yeast. Easy Peasy. Only thing is, I think I really need those teflex/non-stick sheets...I'm still using the oven so only got baking paper - but it wasn't total disaster, just a bit messy.

I am on an ice cream roll here, and the timing couldn't be more perfect: Averie just posted a soft-serve recipe and asked everybody to comment and tell their fave ice cream. The comments are an ice cream idea cornucopia! Plus, at the Sweetly Raw blog, where I got the blueberry recipe, Heather is having an ice cream cake contest and she is selling an ultimate raw ice cream recipe book! I never was a fan of ice cream as a grown-up but this is a whole new world opening up babeee...

Getting Over Gluten

2010-04-30T23:55:00.001-07:00

I'm recycling a couple of old pics that I found. Like I said here, I got glutened the other day and I just want to mention the little bit that I have so far found out about "getting glutened". I have no first hand knowledge of how celiacs react to gluten in general, since the only celiac I know is *me* - and I have no medical knowledge, I'm just the regular avid googler.

Sometimes I forget how it feels to ingest gluten. It's been a long while since it happened last, and there's always a point when I start feeling like all my food-restrictions are a fantasy. I look at the food that other people eat and I'm thinking, how can that slice of bread or that pasta dish possibly equal poison for me - the knowledge that I cannot eat gluten starts to feel like one of those things you are not sure if you have dreamt or actually experienced. After being diagnosed and after I started getting a handle on what to eat and not to eat, I would always get careless after a while of not getting glutened. Carelessness gets me glutened, and gluten makes me ill, and after swinging back and forth in health every so often for a year or so, I've learned that I have to stick with the gluten free diet even when I feel healthy.

The effect of gluten always lasts a couple of days - after the initial discomfort and loss of appetite I always get ravenous, but my stomach cannot handle too much food. I get cravings for things I never otherwise eat, and it's easy when you're tired to slip and feel like you haven't got the energy to prepare anything but rice cakes. I've found that what works best is that if I eat, it's a small quantity and as nutritious as possible. Nothing that irritates the stomach - if wine, very little, if I eat fresh or dried fruits I mix them with other food stuffs. No coffee, but I very rarely have that anyway - still I think it's a good thing to "drink" calories to get a handle on the cravings without putting (more) strain on digestion. This is what works for me - well, "works" is really an overstatement because it lasts a couple of days no matter what, so gets me by in the best possible way is more accurate.

Somewhere I read it recommended that you drink water with a spoonful of apple cider vinegar and a spoonful of honey - I'm not sure about this. I've tried and it doesn't seem like it's bad for you (me). I think drinking water is a good idea and after gluten I always get nauseated and loose my taste for water, so if a honey/apple cider vinegar solution gets a couple glasses water in me it's probably fine. This site is one of many mentioning apple cider vinegar and it seems fairly scientific and rational - but it would seem it's all just a bunch of theories, anyway. It says under apple cider vinegar as a remedy for acid reflux that it is not recommended because it may damage the protective coating of the stomach and intestines - which would make it a really bad idea after glutening, one should think.

Another thing I would love to try but have no experince with is Glutenease - I'm guessing having these would alleviate some of the worrying over accidental glutening when travelling or eating out. It says the pills have no fillers so I'm guessing they're safe for intolerance to corn as well, I wrote the company and asked about that as well as Danish retailers but there was no answer. I'm dragging my feet about buying it - the product in itself is fairly expensive and there's a whopper of a shipping fee to boot.

All in all, this experience tells me that glutening does get "easier". It's not as debilitating as when it happened during the first year, and it doesn't wipe out my digestion for weeks. It's more like having a bad headache or a stubborn cold - it's a mixture of symptoms that I just have to "sit out".

I remember reading about other celiacs right after getting diagnosed - I don't know if this post is helpful to anyone or not, but I guess it's about giving back in some small way, contributing to the karma of the great blogosphere out there...

Mighty Raw Cupcake!

2010-04-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Continued from this post: Ellen is in Raw Cupcake Heaven! Okay, in all fairness I only (un)baked one raw cupcake, but since I have the chance to draw as many as I like I doubled the amount - also, I don't have fancy polka-dotted cups for the cakes, I invented those too. I didn't use icing this time - was inspired by Hayden's cupcake and went for a Larabar base with raw cashew ice cream om top. For more pics of raw goodies check out Shannon Marie's birthday post.

Something in The Middle of Something

2010-04-25T03:44:00.000-07:00

I was making a post about some raw chocolate chip cookies and chocolate ice cream (double chocolate, yeah!) when I realised I forgot to note where I got the recipe for the cookies and wasn't able to backtrack to the place again...I know where I got the ice cream recipe, but that's my first and only raw food recipe book, so I can't even post that - guess the purpose of that post kind of petered out. I'm all fired up about the ice cream though, so there's definitely a post-worthy topic for later...

And Dark Matter? Black tahini. I've been ladling my no-salt tahini into medjool dates and couldn't seem to find anything but salted tahini once I ran out - which works in dates too, by the way, of course I tried - so when I came across Black Tahini at The Daily Raw Cafe, I had to try it. I found black sesame seeds in a Chinese shop, used a bit of rice bran oil to get the food processor going, and it does really get you completely black tahini. It looks a lot like black caviar but obviously tastes a lot different - kind of earthy, smoky, and maybe not something everybody likes. It works great for me in or beside a salad, in raw cracker sandwiches and - of course :-) - in dates.

All in the middle of that I got glutened and in my anguish I thought I had to share so I started a new post on getting glutened. Really, the lowdown is that I changed brand of buckwheat flakes for my breakfast cookies. Not safe - the brand is Danish, so if anyone is interested in gluten-safe shopping in Denmark, write me and I'll share :-).

Now something ELSE popped up. I'm realising that Shannon Marie's birthday is coming up tomorrow - still can't get the hang of the time zones, is her birthday already over? And I'm shoving things aside to try and make another cupcake (my third - judging by the two first their beauty increases exponentially so I can't wait). Shannon's recipes are great and I love being able to support her quest to get a raw cupcake to Ellen Degeneres - plus, can't really think of anything I'd rather draw than cupcakes?

stEVI(L)a, one splurge and two (three) granolas.

2010-04-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

Of course I could have made the connection stevia/evil when I bought it...but a lot of bloggers out there use it as a sweetener and I am always up for trying new things. I bought some from Funkyraw, where I order all things that I can buy and have shipped over from the UK while still paying about half of what it costs here (sigh - why is that?). By the way, the huge benefit of Funkyraw as opposed to a lot of other UK webshops is that they actually charge a shipment fee according to the weight of what's in your parcel - a lot of places charge a flat rate of maybe 18£ for just sending anything at all. Eighteen! But regarding The Evils of Stevia... - I guess my question is how can anybody eat that? I tried it first in a smoothie, took two sips and promptly dumped it in the sink. Next up some protein bars, but I just cannot, cannot eat that - I threw out the whole batch, and I swear I only used the teensiest, tinyest amount of stevia. The taste is okay - at first - but then it turns evil and my stomach just doubles up on me afterwards. I threw the stevia out in my righteous cooking-anger as well, eliminating the risk that I'll leave it in the back of my cupboard, forget about it for a couple of months and - God forbid! - pollute a batch of cookies.

I ran out of coconut granola by now. I made the biggest batch ever, so I stored some in the fridge, some in the freezer. I have two more granola recipes up my sleeve that I like. One is from Elanas Pantry, and based on walnuts, mulberries and dried dates and apricots - soaking walnuts really makes them amazingly big and juicy! Why didn't anybody tell me this before? I didn't tweak this recipe at all the first time, so by now I'm getting frisky and thinking of adding some soaked and sprouted buckwheat groats. The other recipe has buckwheat groats already, and lots of seeds - the only thing I changed is that I used pre-dried apple in stead of fresh because I am using my oven to dehydrate and it is not as "drying" as a dehydrator would be, so I always try to put as little wet stuff as possible in there to begin with. The recipe is gRAWnola, by Ellen Allard from I Am Gluten Free. There is also an "ordinary" Gluten Free Granola recipe at her site, but I cannot eat oats and quinoa so I haven't tried that.

However, I've been busy the last couple of days of this week and there's been nothing like granola-making on my schedule, so when I came across raw, gluten free granola in the local health store on my way to work yesterday - yes, I worked on a saturday, maybe that helped me rationalise a bit of indulgence - I jumped at the chance. Well no, I squirmed over the price, then I jumped...It's a ridiculously small bag of granola, from Renée Voltaire, for far too much money. When I think about the gorgeous, luxurious gluten containing granolas I can get at that price...but I guess that's why I make my own granola. Most store bought gluten free granolas contain corn in some form, which I can't eat, and most of them are airy and tasteless, three times the price of any regular supermarket-granola and maybe not even half the crunch, satisfaction and pleasure. Raw granolas are often heavier, crunchier, tastier - but not always corn and gluten free. The brand is something new to me (even though it doesn't sound very Swedish it apparently is), and I haven't seen it here before - on the website there's a shopping option in English with a raw food section. I've seen Southern Alps, which has a line of granola that includes an awesome-looking gluten free version, but it has corn in it so again, I haven't tried. I wanted to draw a picture of my last scoop of homemade granola this time around but it would appear that I've eaten it without remembering to snap a photo first...

One last thing: I still haven't figured out if there's a difference between granola and muesli, but in honour of all things muesli: please visit this post from Green and Crunchy for some seriously mouthwatering superfood breakfast inspiration.

Cupcake II

2010-04-20T04:06:00.001-07:00

The above is of course a cupcake, produced by yours truly! - since I wasn't happy with the first one I consider this my very first raw cupcake, ahhh. I decided to cheat, though...got the idea from this post at Shannon Marie's blog - which is of course also where I got myself an e-book of raw cupcake recipes. I botched my first cupcake attempt byt trying to tweak the recipe before mastering the original, which has to be a chef's foremost faux-pas. So, I decided to use Shannons's little shortcut and break out a Larabar and focus in stead on learning how to get the icing right. I have a very soft spot for the Peanut Butter larabars right now, but went with the cashew cookie for the cupcake - and then went strictly step-by-step with the icing. I topped it off with extra large frozen blueberries - absolute yum!

Oh, and Ellen? Shannon has blogged about it again today. I'd say it's about time Ellen sets her eyes on/teeth in those raw cupcakes, yes sir. That's why I made it look like she's...almost...eating the cake. Yay to Shannon Marie for going after her goals...

No tea, no cuppycakes...

2010-04-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

I tried baking a raw cupcake to contribute to Shannon Marie's quest to bring her cupcakes to the attention Ellen Degeneres (plus, these cakes look sooo delish I just have to able to make them so I can EAT them), and I miserably failed. Absolutely nothing to do with the inventive and instructive recipes in Shannon Marie's e-book - I was simply a little over-confident and got a little too bold and...botched it. Good thing about raw recipes, even when they turn out looking like - well, something not-edible - they can still taste great. I have a trick that I gleaned from Shannon's blog as well that might help me next time...

I finished my favorite tea, a blueberry-power tea. That's misery for ya. Anyone thinking about buying great tea in Denmark should consider visiting Teadrops - I am not in any way a tea "gourmand" and I won't turn up my nose at Lipton fruit teas or any standard earl grey, but I mostly drink herbal or green teas at home. Sometimes I like to splurge and get something really tasty - as a treat and to remind myself why I love tea. I have found out that drinking tea with fruit oils/aromas/flavourings upsets my stomach and I've had to give away a lot of very nice tea on that account, so before ordering, I wrote Teadrops to ask about their teas - especially the ones that aren't straight up green/white/black teas - and their tea has no fruit oils, no natural extracts, plus, they answered my mail straight away and were very nice. If you are a celiac and have to write or call companies sometimes to ask about ingredients you'll know this last thing isn't something you can take for granted. My favorite tea is this: Økologisk Blå Power - "organic blue power".

Bread & Crackers

2010-04-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

After musing over the beauty of Danish, wholegrain rye bread and stating that these days, I would much rather be baking and enjoying some raw bread and crackers with the help of all the grrreat recipes out there, I think I ought to mention a couple of those recipes I am making most often right now.

Bread-wise, today is a special day for me: I successfully made up my own recipe and dried myself a beautiful, unbaked bread in the oven. I admit I had some heavy inspiration: reading this post had me wanting to make Ani Phyo's Amazing Raw Toast, and I just couldn't wait until the day when I inevitably purchase her book, so I had to re-construct something on the basis of the hints for the recipe. I will write what I did at the end of this post, and since I'm already feeling guilty I'll say that in all fairness, I am going to purchase Ani Phyo's latest book first chance I get.

I have two current faves: one is an Ani Phyo Raw Pine Nut Sunflower Bread that I found on This Vegan Life. I looked for the recipe on Ani's homepage too - can't find it, but the site had a webpage-makeover not long ago, so I hope it was public before. I'm gonna have to buy TWO Ani Phyo books after this... My other fave is Pumpkin Seed Crackers from Rawmazing - and this is raw-mazing, and do soak the pumpkin seeds: if you like them before soaking you are going to love them after.

And a future favorite perhaps: today I found this post at The Raw Project, and the recipe for Lucky Hemp Bread was an instant addition to my list of things to try in the near future - after making a cupcake in support (yeah, it's quite the sacrifice I know, guess I'll have to eat it, too) of Shannon Marie's quest to have Ellen Degeneres feast on a raw cupcake. Got the book, am meaning to (un)bake. In Christine's Hemp Bread post there's a cute/gross - depending on how you see it, I guess - detail about finding a worm in an organic walnut which made me laugh, so I just have to share my organic produce-story: I too once found a larvae nesting in a little web in my bag of organic dates but another little incident took the cake - and though I'm not at all grossed out by bugs (if you eat organic veg you probably ate your share, after all) but I'm glad it happened to me and not someone I invited for dinner :-O. After eating a nice big salad we sat and talked for a while at the table and I realised that (what I thought was) the little shred of salad still stuck on my plate was moving... I looked closer, and it was a rainworm-looking creature as big as the teeth on my fork, turning and twisting - wondering where all the food went, I suppose. Hmm, hope that one didn't have too many brothers and sisters in there...

Here's what I mixed together for my re-constructed, Ani Phyo-esque, toast-ish recipe which turned out both readily spreadable, perfectly texturized, a bit heavy on the buckwheat but with a nice hint of sweetness. I don't really consider it an entirely new recipe, but it still feels like I have somehow graduated a course in "raw cracker-making":

1 cup almond pulp (on this occasion my almond pulp had little bits of rooibosh tea in it)

1 cup sprouted buckwheat groats

1/2 cup ground, golden flax seeds

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1/2 cup goji berries and dried, diced apricots

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

1 tbsp poppy seeds

Groats and almond pulp got a coupl'a whirls in the food processor before I added the rest - except about half the gojis and apricots, which I added last to keep them whole. While processing, I started out by adding a couple of tbsps coconut butter with a half a cup of water but ended up adding a lot more - my food processor needs a little help. I spread it like the other crackers and breads and dehydrated and voila!

One foot... and then the other.

2010-04-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, I went for a run today. In all fairness, a "run" is a bit of a euphemism there, I jogged at a leasurely pace for fifteen minutes...but considering that for the last year or thereabouts I have done only yoga and no cardio what so ever, just tying my running shoes was a bit of a leap for me. Don't get me wrong I see absolutely no problem in doing "just" yoga: even though I am a novice I have progressed far enough to know that practicing yoga can be constantly challenging and physically hard - and that's why I love it. I am not about to give up on ever folding myself into a gracefully balancing crane.

I completely quit running and climbing when I was trying to get into the climbing groove again and sprained my ankle for what felt like the umpteenth but must have been about the sixth time in two years. It happened by stepping down from the wall and onto a mat. Seriously, just stepping down. Running was long since abandoned by then, and I gave up waiting to be able to fit my swollen foot into a climbing shoe again and threw myself at yoga. No shoes, yay! However, I like my yoga sweaty and focused, but not fast, so I never really get my heart rate up. I'm pretty sure I got the idea to get back to running in part because of all the running bloggers out there. I've "always" been running so it might have popped up anyway, but hey, if Averie can take on the challenge of a figure competition after a long yoga "career", I can get back to running. If Shannon Marie can set her sights on getting Ellen Degeneres to taste her raw cupcakes I can mend my broken little feetlings! And besides, all the post-run snacking and writing going on out there in blogland is inspiring - at Oh She Glows, Angela just posted about running and *thinking*.

But it may just be a spring fever issue and pass. I've found myself some exercises, though, to get my ankle back to normal, and in the meantime I'm taping it up as best I can, I found some great instructions on the web for that, too.

Apart from that, I have been trying to find out, what is lecithin really? It seems to be (when it's from soy, of course) a by-product when soybeans are processed into oil and such, but is it- and I'm not even exaggerating the standpoints out there - a useless and maybe even harmful waste from industrial soy production that we (some of us) are duped into buying by unscrupulous soy moguls (e. g. "From sludge to profit") or is it so important for the functioning of brain cells that upping your intake can cure mental illness? The last standpoint I found in an article from 2005 in this Danish magazine/leaflet - "Health News" - with a bunch of references and links to further information. Recently there's been a debate over the goods and evils of agave syrup (this post at Rawmazing comes to mind) but lecithin looks as if it might be something that divides people out there even more.

I'm thinking about this because I have come across a couple of cake recipes that call for lecithin and I chose to try it because my "research" didn't really come up with indications that it is actually bad for you. Now I have this lecithin, it's mainly tasteless, and blends in just fine sprinkled on breakfast or cake with some bee pollen (oops, lecithin is not raw and there goes the vegan certification as well...) but is it bogus? I have no essential changes in my brain function to report. . .

Oats, Dark Rye Bread...and something new!

2010-04-11T02:10:00.000-07:00

When I lose my drive to keep cooking up new things and keep eating a variety of things I start eating lazy, shabby things. I lose my energy, and what happens is I fall back on trying to emulate the things I was eating before I knew I had celiac disease, and I invariably fail. That's when I know I need new inspiration to get to that place where I don't see all the restrictions, but all the possibilities.

Real oats and heavy, dark rye bread full of grains are about the two only things that can still spark some serious food envy in me when I look at what the "normies" are eating. Probably it's no use trying to convince non-Danes who didn't grow up with the rye bread phenomenon that it's any good, but hey, Oprah was here and it's said out there on the web that she was converted and brought some back to the states. Sorry, tried to google for some links on that, but I just fell in to a long and useless joyride through different versions of rye bread recipes... I've tried making rye bread since going glutenfree of course. I've made a recipe from Thorbjørg Haffsteinsdottir (in Danish), whom I've mentioned before, and it hits the spot and looks like bread when I want to blend in on a social occasion, but that's about the only times I make that kind of bread these days. Also, it's not raw, and I wouldn't dream of trying out for a raw version! I found a recipe with prunes and psyllium seed shells that works fairly well too, and I have one more (in Danish again) noted down that I haven't tried yet, but I've faced the fact that none of these will ever taste like "real" rye bread (for starters, there's no rye in there). When I want bread these days I'll much rather turn to some of my favorite raw bread or cracker recipes - and when I see how many more exiting recipes are out there I forget all about the few things I can not eat anymore.

Those alluring horizons of yet un-tried recipes! I felt a bit daunted when I discovered kefir, but overcame my fear of yeasty, chemical processes in the kitchen to welcome more good bacteria into my diet and my tummy. To begin with, I was intrigued by the photos and the deeelish photos here at Green and Crunchy, but Averies step by step (and like she says, "ridiculously easy"!) breakdown of coconut milk kefir really spoke to me so I've tried that. Now I'm almost sorry that I did - :-) well, of course I'm not, but as it turns out it's both sooo good AND rather expensive. Terrible combo... I'm trying almond milk kefir but I'm dreading it'll lack the sweet coconutty taste. Well, I'll have to make coconut kefir one of those indulgences for special occasions like Sundays. And Mondays. And maybe Wednesdays...

By the way, expensive foodstuffs happens a lot here in Denmark: a non-scientific but never the less fairly thorough survey carried out by journalists posted all over the world for a Danish newspaper recently revealed (article in Danish) that we have the world's most expensive caffe latte!

For those thinking of shopping in Denmark: I got my coconut water from a health store but I'm thinking of getting my next batch from an internet shop maybe here or here, to save a few kroner. The kefir starter I got from this place, they had nice service, shipped it the next day and the starter works beautifully.

Green MONSTER!

2010-04-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

Please try and make the recipe from this post over at Vegan Strong if you need a little extra protein and are fairly open-minded about food textures and about mixing at-first-glance-weird-sounding ingredients or if you need a quick filling breakfast option or indeed all of the above. I realise that protein is probably not something that any of us actually lack and I have never obsessed about it, but I like to add it sometimes for a nice filling feeling. I am not a vegan, but the debate about protein-intake and a vegan diet seems to be ongoing as witnessed by this post, with lots of links to articles and resources, at Love Veggies and Yoga. I am easily convinced of the logic that we don't need animal protein to grow muscle. It's probably true that most monkeys = super strong = plant eaters?

Something else I have to mention about this recipe and I don't know which was there first - I'm guessing the term "green monster" is not exactly patentable - but this recipe should not be confused with the Green Monster Movement started by Angela from Oh She Glows to promote green smoothies. These are green monster breakfast cookies.

I like my version of the breakfast cookies super-smooth and I can't eat oats, so I made mine like so: I put everything into the foodprocessor, wet stuff first but only three tbsp liquid sweetener, then I melted the coconut butter with about three tbsp hot water to make up for it. I added and processed the grated carrots, buckwheat flakes (in stead of oats) and dates - a bit of a splurge, but I don't like raisins (I use about 3 large medjool dates, or 1/2 cup smaller, chopped ones). On the other hand I saved by omitting cacao nibs and by using rice protein - cheepest option, but it works fine for me.

Sweet but with the breakfast-flake, bread-like taste as well, and I can only imagine even better with "real" (slurp!) oats. Additional info: these give you absolutely green Hulk-worthy, pasty, green hands when you shape the cookies! Also, I don't want these everyday, so I pop some in the fridge, some in the freezer, and they are just as scrumptous thawed or even when still cold and half-way frozen.

Oooh! Where can I get these?

2010-04-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

I have just been reading this post over at Rawdorable and I went straight from being fine and happy with the health food choices around here to feeling downright deprived!

We haven't HALF the variety of Larabars where I live. I'm pining for info if anyone has it: do these interesting varieties (and the pack with the minis!!!) ship from anywhere in Europe, maybe some UK internet shop? Or is it US only? As if it didn't enduce enough shopping envy when Averie posts her "wall of..." pics, like the wall of nutbutters in this post. Sigh. I guess I'll manage ;-).

Double Chocolate Delight

2010-04-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have not been able to eat regular types of chocolate since going glutenfree, but chocolate remains a girl's next-best friend (I mean, if you are having trouble getting your hands on some diamonds) so I have of course been experimenting with raw cacao, raw chocolate bars and cacao nibs. All are delicious! But I get quite the sugar rush from eating them, to me they're as addictive as coffee and - like coffee - give me a headache when I stop eating them. Problem. Ok, not exactly a vital one, but still.

Averie over at love veggies and yoga is having a Cuisinart Food Processor give-away and one of her conditions for entering the contest prompted me to look at an "old" post of hers about recipes with oats. I can't eat oats, not even the GF ones, but I spent a couple of minutes drooling over the recipes anyway - after all, recipes are born to be tweaked. I noticed that Averie uses a leftover chocolate bar instead of cacao nibs or -chips in one of her recipes and I remembered having seen a chocolate bar with 99% cacao content somewhere. It's an ordinary, fairly inexpensive "Lindt" chocolate bar from Magasin (for those resident in Denmark curious about where to get it) and I bought one today. I admit it's a taste experience that takes getting used to (on the bar it says that they recommend working your way "up" through the 60, 75, and 85% bars, "refining your palate" before you daringly attempt the 99%) but it's an instant hit with me and I detected hardly any sugar rush at all - maybe it's the cacao butter content? I'm not sure. Could be something I'm imagining ;-). But it is definitely time to try some new recipes with this yummy, new (for me) ingredient.

Coconut Cookies & Coconut Granola

2010-04-03T04:48:00.001-07:00

IS there such a thing as too much vanilla? I've been (un)baking - well, it includes my old oven and it sure smells good so I guess it's okay to say I'm baking - some Lemon Coconut Cookies and Coconut Vanilla Granola today. I bought two mature coconuts and they've been sitting around just waiting for me to decide on a recipe. I ended up using only one for the two recipes, and I tossed in some of the water to replace some of the sweetener in the granola. Pure, tropical bliss in the kitchen. I did not have any vanilla essence, only a bag of vanilla powder, so I think may have overdosed more than a little. I'm wondering if vanilla has any nutritional significance, good or bad? I've read that nutmeg is unhealthy in large doses, and I'm a huge fan of turmeric not least because Meghan says it is super-healthy, but I have no clue about vanilla.

Here's how I tweaked the two recipes: for the vanilla crunch granola I did NOT use a whole cup of agave syrup, more like just a good long squirt. All the coconut makes it sweet enough for me. I kind of wish I tweaked it by halving the amounts, though, it turned out to be the absolutely hugest amount of homemade granola I've ever seen (how did I not foresee that?). Guess I'll be eating it for a while. And I accidently swapped the measurements for almonds and sunflower seeds, but the taste is still fine, only it's cheaper. For the cookies I halved the recipe - which got me around 15-18 cookies, I think, and I used half cashews/half some almond pulp left over from nut-milking. For both recipes I used fresh, not dried, coconut and I also used a bit of coconut water in both to cut down on the agave.

Nut milks and Raw Food book

2010-04-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

Just to round off Meghan's prize draw, she was super-kind enough to reward everybody who participated (incl. moi!) with a download version of her most recent guide, the 5 days healing with everyday superfoods tutorial. It is not really a five-day challenge in the spirit of her low-glycemic or smoothie cleanse challenges, it is more like a guide to superfoods, and how to incorporate them into tasty meals on an everyday basis without breaking the bank.

So, I got all that new info to read, plus I picked up a present I got from a family member - actually what I got was a gift certificate when we celebrated my birthday and I made okay/not so great tasting but very festive looking cupcakes - a book in Danish on Raw Food, called..."Raw Food". Although I have a large and growing collection of recipes from all the raw/gluten free ressources on the internet I thought it would be great to have an actual book to leaf through and to inspire me to try new things and I was right: I feel at least one small revolution in my kitchen day-to-day basics coming on already and I have literally just browsed through the book once.... However, I have just had my food-blogger's etiquette refreshed by this debate over at Averie's, so I am of course going to sit tight and not blurt out any secret sauces from the book. Visiting the book's website has to be a must do for those who read Danish since it has not only some of the great pictures to gawk at but also a selection of recipes for convenient PDF download. That's generous! In that spirit I think I can give a hint as to what will be the first recipe from the book that I incorporate into my cooking:

I have been making nutmilks for a little while now and I have been trying out different nuts and mixtures of nuts, and for me it's just all good. Yum. I tried blending the nuts with vanilla too and really liked it, but it kind of limits the use for the pulp afterwards - I'm not making dried tomato flax crackers with vanilla-flavoured almond pulp. And I don't like drinking Rooibosh tea, which they say is really good for you, so there's a minor problem too. Both solved! Soaked nuts + rooibosh tea, that's all I'm saying cause I don't want to reveal any recipes here. Okay, so it's actually really basic, I just wouldn't have thought of it myself that's all. I shopped for some rooibosh, and I'm looking forward to lightbrown, rooibosh-flavoured nutmilk on my cereal.

I bought the book here, all the recipes look and sound delish and they seem to range from totally uncomplicated to slightly challenging. This is my first raw food book, so that level is fine by me - what I want is some inspiration, some everyday basics and a bit of fancier stuff for special occasions, and it seems to have all that AND of course the fancy pictures and great layout which is always a plus by me.

More balls for me, please.

2010-04-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

Speaking of smart, strong women like Meghan and Averie: I have another of my favorite ball recipes from this Danish site belonging to Thorbjørg Haffsteinsdottir. If you read Danish, try the "sweet and sugarfree carob balls" - or donut holes, whatever you choose to call them - from the "snacks" section, or if you're not raw, try the glutenfree pizza crust, which is positively the best gluten free pizza solution I've encountered. Thorbjørg has a website too - where there's an "English" option but it doesn't have as much info as the Danish version - and a blog with health and nutrition news in Danish. I mean to try her recipe for "Delicious Liquorice-Chai Tea" next :-)

Meghan!

2010-03-31T02:39:00.000-07:00

In my last post I linked to Meghan Telpners blog and homepage, and it seems now I have a chance to do it again and win one of Mehan's great e-tutorials! I already purchased a bundle of her e-tutorials, namely the green smoothie cleanse, the adrenaline lunch tutorial and the 5 days low glycemic eating, all available in Meghan's shop. During 5-day tutorials or challenges Meghan talks participants through health benefits, pitfalls and effects of your tutorial on her blog, which you can of course read anyway, but you get more fun and more info out of buying the e-tutorial as well - which is easy. If don't win a freebie I will definitely get the tutorial anyway - check out the recipe for superfood bon bons - who doesn't need more recipes like this?

So here goes, Meghan says to include this link for the new tutorial in my post to participate, and it is hereby done. If you are AT ALL interested in nutrition, superfoods, improving your health or healing yourself by eating right, please go and check out all about Meghan, her story and the group challenges that she runs on her blog. This page is all about the new 60+ pages tutorial available for sale on first of April.

First strawberries - and the last.

2010-03-31T00:51:00.001-07:00

I have been browsing through the pictures of every recipe at foodgawker tagged "raw". It took me a couple of days, seriously. Only a fraction are actually raw recipes, but oh, my, the eye candy. I felt goofy spending hours peeking at other people's food, but I realise, this website wasn't made for me. It was made for me AND all the other people out there who will sit around gawking at pictures of food if unsupervised, so I guess I'm not – at all – alone. However – and I'm sure there's a good explanation for this – an unreasonable number of the recipes use fresh strawberries. Massive craving ensued. I picked up the – for me – first batch of strawberries of the season. 500 g of fresh, imported, Spanish strawberries, not organic or eco friendly in the least. I ate every last one - big, red and really sweet. I snapped a picture of the last one which became the drawing above. Mmmm.

Raw asparagus, and buying Tempeh in Copenhagen

2010-03-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

I made a bloomin' brilliant - and easy! - raw asaparagus soup last night from this beatiful recipe - I added a half an avocado to the mix because we had a mis-communication the other day about who was buying avocados and we got ourselves pretty well over-stocked up on those things. Also, I toasted some almonds without skins in a sip of olive oil and some turmeric, which turned out to be just the thing to drizzle on top with finely diced red onion. Boyfriend looked queasy when he first tasted it, but claimed he liked it after a couple of spoonfuls. I adored it. The recipe is from Jasmine's Recipe Box - which doesn't get updated any more I think but the recipes there are very neatly labeled with a "yes" or "no" for lots of food intolerances. Bliss.

Another site with the same level of service towards special-diet recipe readers but without the raw food twist is this one, by Susan Jane Murray, where there is both a recipe index and a blog. There's two recent - okay, maybe not so recent, the posts are rare, but interesting! - posts on Susan's blog that I like: one about the massive amount of food additives that are in conventional food ("Food Piracy") and another about dealing with a food intolerance diagnosis by looking at what you CAN eat, rather than what you can't ("Site goes live!").

I often had soy youghurt when I had not yet a had a reaction to corn. What is corn doing in soy youghurt anyway I'm thinking - but I haven't found it with just the soy and lovely bacteria. Soy youghurt is easy to find in most bigger grocery shops like Irma or Brugsen here in Denmark and if you're not squeamish about the sugar content there's even different varieties like fruits and vanilla.
For a period I was also in the vegan/vegetarian-trap of replacing everything with tofu. It is very difficult to find gluten and corn free sausages and cold meats for sandwiches for example. But I'm trying to limit my soy-intake so I have moved on to tempeh. Good thing about tempeh is, it actually has a taste. Not like tofu which is more like an every-taste kind of thing, tempeh has a taste like a cross between soy bean, blue cheese and mushroom - which I guess is easy to explain when you see what it is made from. Tempeh is not raw since the soy beans are cooked, but I've seen that some consider it a "raw" food because it contains live bacteria cultures. Should anyone else be afflicted with the tempeh-looove and find themselves permanently or temporarily in Denmark, here are my tips. Tempeh can be found in some of the larger health food stores in central Copenhagen and even in Lyngby outside Copenhagen, but it is dishearteningly expensive and not always in stock. There's a Chinese store near Nørreport Station which carries not only tempeh but also things like nuts, seeds, fresh okra and sea vegetables. Again, tempeh is not always in stock but the price is - it seems from my quick calculation - less than half of that in a health food store. Also, I found a Danish online shop here which also has cheaper tempeh - haven't tried it though because tempeh is practically the only thing I would be ordering from there. Fingers crossed they expand their line of goods. If you live near Nørrebro it should be a great option because you can save on postage by picking up your order rather than having it sent.

Another gorgeous woman has a wauv-wauv blog with recipes where I found this recipe - not raw, but it took care of a big block of tempeh on its last legs that I got cheap at the Chinese. The article is also a brilliant introduction to Meghan Telpner's fun, healthy food blogging :-).

This Is Not (Really) a Cupcake

2010-03-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

I made gluten free cupcakes for a family birthday party the other day and dressed them up really good in not-so-gluten-free icing and sugar hearts and other decorations (except mine, of course). Several grown-ups said they liked the cakes okay but they didn't taste like the "real" thing, and some of the kids actually didn't like them - I mean, I wasn't holding back in the sugar and oil and vanilla and good things when I made them so that's not very satisfactory feedback. The thing is, I think it's a question of the tastebuds being in the habit of tasting wheat. I doubt bread made from wheat would taste "right" if I ate it now? But I bet it's a problem a lot of celiacs have when baking for non-celiacs.

My only tip is to avoid the glutenfree flour as much as possible because that is what gives you the "strange" taste. Find yourself a cake recipe that is really heavy on chocolate or almonds or something like this great "sticky double ginger cake" from the recipes at the Jamie Oliver webpage. Believe me this is YUM, the ginger balances out the "stickiness", and I made it for dessert for my boyfriend's birthday which worked out superbly. It even ended up looking almost exactly like the picture, something I find is a rarity when you take a "normal" recipe and substitute wheat flour with a combination of buckwheat, rice and potato flour like I do.

On that note of things tasting "funny" and in the light of my latest post extolling the wonders of Mesquite Vanilla Balls, I have to say that the first time I received, opened and smelled a bag of mesquite meal I couldn't help but imagining that there might just be a bunch of business-savvy Peruvians chopping down local trees, bagging the sawdust and shipping it to Europe, laughing all the way to the bank: it just smells stale with a hint of sweetness and it costs a small fortune. However, by now I don't have to believe any of the hype about it, as long as it isn't harmful I will definitely keep eating it. Fingers crossed that it is actually as good as it says on the bag. I bought my mesquite here, at the Funky Raw Shop, which actually ships for a fair price to Denmark, and at their webpage it says that mesquite is mineral rich, high in protein and calcium, and also low glycemic.

Ball recipe and gratitude shout-out

2010-03-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

This is a raw ball - a recent staple on my menu. I have celiac disease and I have known about it for about two years, so some time ago when I first encountered the "raw food" idea I wasn't really hooked - I was a little too bogged up in dietary concerns already to consider any more alterations. But a sit turns out now, raw food is s a huge inspiration.

Averie here is an absolute ball-expert, and I read her blog often, as it is a kind of triple whammy of most things I'm interested in: she does yoga, and (un)cooks raw food, shares her recipes generously and avoids dairy and gluten. Yay! The ball of the day, however, is from a recipe posted by "jenergy" at rawpleasure.com.au. It is vanilla-laden, sweet, and just the thing if your stomach cannot handle gluten and corn and there is nowhere to turn when you feel peckish for something sweet. I found the recipe while browsing for a recipe to use my newly purchased mesquite meal some time ago - I think the taste of mesquite, and maca is well, is a bit of an acquired taste, perhaps mostly appealing to those who are barred other types of sweets? I am the kind of person who will eat mostly anything if told that it will be good for my health and my tummy, but I find that many of the things that were setting my nose out of joint when I started experimenting with things like tempeh and incan berries are now those that I enjoy most - it seems like a taste-bud-process kind of like what happens when you drink wine or eat blue cheese. Anyway, the little vanilla mesquite fellas go like this, the recipe calls for macadamia nuts but I used altenatives like almonds, or a combo of sunflower seeds and brazil nuts with success. I also halve the recipe because like Averie, I find that there are so many recipes out there I want to try so I never make a huge batch of anything. The other day I accidently cooked up far too many cookies that it turned out I didn't even like. Ouch, since many of the ingredients are not exactly cheap.

I am not saying I would never have gotten into raw food if I had not been diagnosed with celiac disease, I think I might have given it a shot anyway, but I don't think I would ever have been so dedicated as to really change what I eat for most meals of the day. So here is a huge THANK YOU to all you people out there who are gourmets, health conscious, open-minded and curious enough to develop and share all the raw food recipes out there and blog about your raw life styles, its an inspiration and if not literally a life-saver, then at least a real life-changer. I've always been fairly healthy so I eating my vegetables hasn't been an epiphany for me, but looking at all the great recipes you are putting out there has given me back the joy of cooking.

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