Juicy Raw Summer Wraps

Heat wave!

It’s been an incredibly hot summer here…every day is another excuse to go to the beach.  Especially when you don’t have air conditioning!

And when it gets hot like this no one wants greasy or heavy food – it only weighs you down and makes you hotter and groggy.

I’ve been makng a lot of these raw wraps lately.  Instead of using a traditional wrap with unecessary amounts of refined carbs and preseravtives, I use a fresh leaf from the garden for a California style wrap.

Doesn’t matter really what kind of leafy green you use, as long as it’s big.  I like using a collard green, beet leaf, or romaine lettuce leaf.  The bigger the leaf you use, the easier it is to wrap up lots of juicy filling.

A bonus of using these leaves is that it makes a lighter wrap, and you can use more nuts and seeds as your filling, while still following proper rules of food combining.  Big dark green leaves are a great source of chlorophyll, protein, vitamin C and vitamin K.  They aid in your body’s anti-inflammatory response, and detox.

Raw Summer Wraps

• 4 collard greens, or any other large leaf such as beet green, turnip green, lettuce, spinach or even broccoli and cauliflower leaf.

Filling:

• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds (yummy substitutes include raw walnuts or almonds)
• juice of one lemon
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp rock or sea salt
• 1 1/2 cups mixed fresh herbs (parsley, dill, basil, chives, cilantro…)
• 1 cup mixed chopped veggies (red onion, tomato, cucumber, radish, sweet pepper…)

Comine all the filling ingredients except the mixed chopped veggies in a food processor, and blend until smooth.

Lay your collard leaves flat, and gently slice off the stalk that sticks out, for easier wrapping.  Fill with the green pate you just blended, about 2 or 3 tbsps on each wrap.  Sprinkle on some chopped vegies and roll up, tucking the sides in or leaving them open.  The filling should be sticky enough that they stay wrapped.

The options for this kind of wrap is endless.  Instead of the pate, wrap your favourite slaw or salad.  Add avocado for creaminess.  Use your favourite combination of pate and veggies, or even just veggies and a thick dressing.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Cinnamon Pudding…More Rainy Day Food

What’s with all this rain?!

Not that I’m complaining.

At least there’s no flooding here… juicy berries are getting a thorough watering.

But I won’t let a dampening day dampen my spirits – not when I can have chocolate pudding for breakfast.

This morning we made the effort to have an outdoor breakfast – despite the downpour.  Something about that fresh clean rainy air was enticing.  All bundled up, we (my daughter and I) sat under the canopy having our chocolate pudding with raspberries.

Does it get any more divine than that?    Watching the rain splatter onto the pool cover, onto the little boys carved into the stone fountain, as the crows swoop majestically to their nests in the spruce trees…

…This rainy day is not so depressing after all.  It’s become poetic, inspiring!  What a good time to practice my photography skills.

I hope you enjoy this healthy chocolate pudding as much as we did.  I guarantee it’s a fantastic way to start the day – both nutirionally and pleasurefully speaking. 

Not only is it super yummy, but super nutritious, chock full of omega fatty acids, amino acids and antioxidants.  It’s also really simple and quick to make, just as easy as pouring a bowl of cereal.  What I call a win-win.

Chocolate Cinnamon Chia Pudding

• 2 tbsp chia seeds (soak these in 1/3 cup pure water overnight)
• 1 tbsp raw cacao powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1-2 tsp raw honey or agave nectar
• (Organic) raspberries for garnish

Let the chia seeds soak overnight in the water.  This chia “gel” doesn’t go bad, so you can make a bigger batch of it to scoop from whenever you want to use it.  I keep mine on the counter, and just keep adding water to moisten it every so often.  The 2 tbsp soaked really expands in size to make a good bowlful.

Mix the rest of the ingredients in and top with raspberries.  Dig in.  Savour the flavour.

Rainy Day Fare – Socca Sandwich and Chocolate “Cupcakes”

April showers bring May flowers…and May showers bring…more flowers?

I don’t mind the rainy weather we’ve been having here too much, our gardens definitely need it, and new greens are sprouting every day, lush and full.  We’ve been lucky here, ther hasn’t been any flooding.  The air smells clean and fresh – that “just-washed” by mother nature smell.

These are the days you can’t really play outside or “get much done” (rainy weather just makes you want to cozy up and do nothing, doesn’t it?), but we’ve been enjoying our meals out on the deck when we can, under the wooden canopy, watching for birds and just taking it all in.

So… time for some warm comfort food, that is still light, fresh, and bursting with antioxidant nutrition.  What is socca?  In standard Italian, the dish is called “farinata” ‘made of flour’, in Genoese dialect fainâ. In Nice and the Côte d’Azur, it is called “socca”, and in Tuscany, “cecina” ‘made of chickpeas’. In Argentina Fainá or Faina (wikipedia).

The point is, it’s delicious – I’m sure you will fall in love with it once you try it.  It comes out soft, despite of it’s appearance, and you an use it as a gluten-free sandwich bread, dip it like a pita, or serve it on the side with some soup.

Socca (Chickpea flatbread)

• 1 cup chickpea flour
• 1 cup water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp rock salt

Add the chickpea flour to a bowl, and slowly start adding the water while mixing with a whisk.  You want the consistency to be slightly runny, so that it pours easily like crepe batter.  You might not use all the water.  Add the olive oil and salt and whisk until smooth.

For variations, you can add your favourite herbs to the batter, like rosemary, oregano or some black pepper.

Let stand for 5 or so minutes for the chickpea flour to thicken the batter.  Prepare a pan on the stove (or use a crepe pan), by heating on high.  Using a ladle, scoop some of the batter onto your pan, tilting it in a circular motion so that the batter covers the whole pan.  It should be less than 1 cm thin.  Turn the stove top to medium, and let it cook until golden brown (5 or so minutes), then flip it over with a spatula and cook it through on the other side.  Repeat until you’ve used up all of the batter.

I filled my socca sandwich with wild leek pesto and sprouts, then folded it over.  Blissfully enjoyed under the canopy on my deck, watching the rain fall.

Raw Chocolate “Cupcake”

I don’t know if this is the world’s healthiest cupcake – but it sure comes close.  Divinely decadent.  One little bite and you’ll be buzzing with antioxidants and good energy!

Cupcakes:

• 1 cup hazelnuts (or sliced filberts)
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 2 tbsp hemp seed butter (use almond butter or any other seed or nut butter)
• 2-3 tbsp raw honey or agave nectar
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder

Combine ingredients in a food processor with the “s” blade, blend until smooth or slightly chunky.  I like it with a bit of texture.  If you are using sliced filberts, you can just mix everything by hand.  This mixture should be sticky and “dough-like”, use it to form your cupcakes, adding a bit more shredded coconut or cacao if they are too sticky.

Roll into balls then press down a bit to flatten the bottom to form cupcake shapes.  Now you are ready for the icing.

Dark Chocolate Icing:

• 1 medium avocado
• 7 dates, soaked in water (or 1.5 tbsp raw honey or agave nectar if you prefer)
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder
• 1/4 cup carob powder

Blend until smooth.  Spread onto shaped cupcakes.  Garnish with a hazelnut or sprout (optional).

Strawberry Mango Spring Delight

Spring is in the air!  I can actually smell it.

It’s that time of year here…where there isn’t a patch of snow left on brown lawns, and we don’t know what weather to expect from day to day.

Is it going to be sunny, warm and gorgeous?  Is it going to be grey, damp and drizzly? Or will it be absolutely blustery, like today, with the sun playing hide and seek behind the clouds?

Either way, a strawberry mango smoothie is in order.   Maybe if we act like it’s spring; all floral, pale pink, pretty and warm, it will manifest itself quicker!  Sounds like an idea…

It’s simple, sweet, and makes me think of the warm weather soon to come.  The tangy/sweet/creamy combo might just make this a new favourite.

Strawberry Mango Smoothie

• 1 ripe banana
• 1 mango (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup almond milk (or less, if you like it thicker)
• 1 spoonful raw honey or other sweetener
• 1 tbsp bee pollen (optional)

Blend all ingredients in your blender.  Garnish with pale pink flowers or a straw.  Sit with drink in hand, summer dress and flip flops optional.  Sip away and enjoy!  Simple.

Chickpeas: done two ways

What’s not to like about chickpeas?  They have a cute name and a host of wonderful health benefits.

It is especially important for vegetarians to consume beans a few times a week - and chickpeas (garbanzo beans) boast benefits like high fiber, antioxidants, folic acid, and minerals (manganese, iron, copper, zinc, magnesium).  A trace mineral molybdenum aids in the body’s detoxification systems.  Use them to add protein to salads, soups, or vegetable dishes, to improve your cholesterol and help regulate blood sugar.

A lot of recipes I’ve seen tend to use canned chickpeas.  The problem with canned beans is that they are not fresh, so they lose a lot of their nutritional value.  They can lose up to half of the nutrients in the manufacturing process, and then another 5-20% while sitting on the shelf.  Canned products are loaded with sodium and harmful preservatives.

To ensure that your beans are fresh, you can get in the habit of cooking them yourself.  It requires some prep, but is still relatively simple.  Dried beans can be purchased very cheaply.  Soak them in a large pot of water overnight.  Drain this water when you are ready to cook them, using fresh water.  The soaking process makes them more tender, and activates the enzymes, activates the “seed”.  From this point they are ready to be either cooked or sprouted.

Cook them covered in at least three times the amount of water, letting them simmer for about 30-60 minutes (depending on the amount).  Poke them with a fork to tell if they are ready – they should become tender all the way through and not lose their shape.  If you are making a soup, you can add the veggies in at this point, and the beans will keep cooking until they form almost a paste.  This makes a nice curry type soup or stew.  Otherwise, you can take them out while they are still firm, rinse them  and store them in a sealed container in the fridge.  This way you can use them in meals throughout the week.

Chickpea salad

• 1 cup spinach
• 1/2 cup chickpeas (cooked or sprouted)
• 1/4-1/2 cup fermented or pickled cabbage (sauerkraut)
• 1 green onion, finely diced
• handful of halved cherry tomatoes

The proportions can be changed depending on how big you want your salad (This one makes a personal sized salad).  Toss all the ingredients and add your favourtie light dressing, or a simple dressing of olive oil, vinegar and a sprinkle of rock salt.

Hummus

• 1 cup (cooked) chickpeas
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp natural rock salt

Add all ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender and blend until smooth.  Garnish with fresh herbs and serve with chopped veggies, whole grain crackers, toasted pitas, or just about anything.  Experiment with different flavors in your hummus by throwing a roasted pepper into the blender, olives, extra garlic, or even spinach.

Hearty Broccoli Soup – with a twist

Still hanging on to old broccoli stems?  We’ve been enjoying lots of steamed broccoli lately, and I’ll confess I’ve been hoarding the broccoli stems.  It’s time to do something productive and delicious with them.

I have my own special recipe for broccoli soup – to make it less blah and more healthy.

First off – there’s no milk and no cheese – but it’s still absolutely creamy.  The wonderful flavour of the broccoli comes out, when you do it right.  Why no dairy?  It’s best to have dairy separate from other foods, and in small quantities.  Your broccoli nutrients are going to be best absorbed in this way – so add almond milk instead for that rich and creamy consistency.

If you can’t find almond milk without sugar, you can go that extra mile and make your own.  I soak a cup of almonds overnight, then blend in the morning with 4 cups of water, and strain through some cheesecoth or a nut-milk bag.  Pour into a bottle an refrigerate!  Simple.

(Photo courtesy of Earth Mama)

If you’re going to make broccoli soup, go full into – as in make it a complete meal.  Add frozen organic edamame beans to cool the hot soup down.     Or get an extra serving of veggies by throwing in fresh chopped celery.  Eat with whole-grain crisps or bread, or add fresh or toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds (this is especially delicious).   Just experiment with whatever other favourite additions.

Don’t forget to make it with love!  For this recipe, you’ll need a blender and a medium-sized pot or steamer.

Hearty Broccoli Soup

• 4-5 thick broccoli stems, with the rough parts chopped off
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp flax seed oil
• Himalayan rock salt to season (about 1 tsp), pepper, or your favourite herbs
• About 1 cup additions, for garnish – organic edamame beans, pumpkin seeds, finely chopped fresh vegetables or broccoli.

1. Cut the broccoli stems into rounds.   Place them in a steamer, or into a medium-sized pot with 1/2 cup of water on the bottom.  Let the water reach a boil, then turn the heat onto low and close the lid.  It should take 5-10 minutes to steam the broccoli stems (depending how small you cut them).

2. When they are ready and cooled off a bit, pour them out into your blender, with a little bit of the steam water.  Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy (start slow then speed up – about 1 min).

3.  Pour into serving bowls (serves 3 or more).  Mix in your choice of garnish and enjoy!

You’re not throwing out all those broccoli stems?

Recently I’ve been thinking about my compost.  Hmm…an enlightening topic, I know.

It’s lovely when you have your own compost bin that you dump into your garden or backyard.  But most of us just have a municipal “green bin” and there’s been talk that much compost just goes to landfills, not to be used for anything productive.

So just like I’m aware of the size of my garbage, I’m now trying to cut back on the size of my compost, until the summertime when I know that my own compost is going to enrich my own soil out back.

I’m inspired by my frugal Russian grandmother.  In her kitchen, every tiny piece of every vegetable, fruit and scrap it used in the cooking.  In her tiny kitchen, a little container of compost sits on a shelf, with tiny stems, seeds, bones – the real inedible stuff…

It inspires a serious respect and gratitude towards the vegetable or food that you are eating, when you utilize all parts.  Gratitude, I’ve discovered, is a little vital something that’s missing from much of modern day food consumption.

So if you’ve been hoarding all those broccoli stems, like me, here is a delicious slaw-soup.  Once you carefully cut off the coarse parts, you will be delighted to see the fresh

It looked so rustic I could only photograph it on a pile of wood

and juicy insides of the stem.  It is crunchy, yes, but it is also full of nutrients that are an essential part of the whole broccoli.

Broccoli Slaw Soup

• 3-4 broccoli stems, rough parts carefully removed
• 4-5 kale stems (optional)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp olive or flaxseed oil
• 1/3 cup milk or substitute (I used almond milk)
• Himalayan rock salt to taste

Process everything in a food processor.  Add more milk until it’s the consistency that you want.  This raw soup can be warmed, or it can be eaten as a chunkier slaw with some crackers or last weeks onion bread.

The Great Health Debate …and two life-giving recipes!

Sunday night was the opening night of the Great Health Debate.

Kevin Gianni has gathered top experts in diet for an intriguing and educational event like no other.

The first to open it up were Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Gabriel Cousens.  Dr Mercola is an Osteopathic physician, an educator of the dangers of modern medicine, and the creator the most popular natural health website.  Read more about him here.

Gabriel Cousens founded the Tree of Life healing center in Arizona.  He is a healer, to put it shortly, advocating live-food nutrition, natural healing techniques blended with spiritual awareness, in the healing of body, mind and spirit.  His books include Conscious Eating, Depression-Free for Life, Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet.

Both experts were very respectful in this debate, agreeing on many points.  When it comes to diet, each person is unique and individual in their needs.  The goal is to be able to listen to your bodies natural desires, but be cleansed and aware enough to do so.  Both Cousens and Mercola agreed on most important variables:

• Good quality organic and natural food, from a local source
• Getting most of the nutrition from the food, but supplementing might be necessary
• Everyone should eat more vegetables, especially leafy greens
• Raw foods are important, as well as raw water that comes from a natural spring.

A good diet is low-glycemic, containing little to no grains (keep in mind quinoa, amaranth, millet and buckwheat are seeds, not grains), high in minerals, mostly plant-based, contain no plastic, and contain love!

I love raw foods!  They leave me energized, without any “heavy” feeling.  Sometimes the recipes take a bit of preparing in advance – but so worth it!  This weeks menu is a simple gourmet sandwich (with soft raw seed bread) and decadent raw chocolate brownie balls.

Flax-Sunflower Sandwich

Onion Flat-Bread (make the night before, in advance):

• 3/4 cup ground flax
• 3/4 cup ground sunflower seeds
• 1 medium onion – chopped
• 2 tbsp miso (fermented rice, barley or soybean paste)
• 1/3 cup water

Grind the flax and sunflower seeds in a spice mill or coffee grinder (a Vitamix will do it too).  Combine with the other ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Add more water if you need to, it should be almost doughy, but still spreadable.  Spread this onto dehydrator sheets, as thin as you want.  Dehydrate for 4-8 hours at a low temperature (115 F), then cut into bread squares.

Toppings:

• Sliced avocado (the perfect balance of protein and good fat)
• Sprouts (sunflower go well)
• Thinly sliced tomato, cucumber, or preffered topping
• Himalayan salt and pepper (optional)

Assemble the toppings on the bread and top with a slice.  Have fun eating deliciousness!

Chocolate Brownie Balls

These are so simple and fun to make, especially if you like working the mixture with your hands like playdough (kids will enjoy this too).  It’s amazing how something so life-giving can taste sooo good.

• 3/4 cup sliced filberts (hazelnuts)
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder
• 2 tbsp hemp seed butter (other raw nut or seed butter would be good too)
• 3 tbsp raw honey or agave syrup
• pinch of Himalayan salt
• 1/2 tsp natural vanilla

Combine everything except honey and hemp seed butter in a bowl, mixing well.  Now add the honey and butter with a spoon and knead with your hands, and form balls or shapes.

Raw chocolate is good for weight loss.  Honey is antiomicrobial.  Hemp is bountiful in essential fatty acids.  This rich chocolate dessert is not going to leave you wanting more…satisfaction at last!

See more raw chocolate recipes.

We don’t make enough carrot salad

An antioxidant-rich diet is all about putting color onto your plate.  Gabriel Cousens gets it right in Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine.  The title says it all.

Today, we’re getting extra beta-carotene – vitamin A – with carrots.  Dill weed packs an extra cancer-fighting punch with antioxidants like eugenol and limonene.  Cranberry (yum – polyphenols) and lemon (mmm…flavonoids) are bursting at the seems with antioxidants.  Eat em up!

This salad takes a good it of manual labor…and it is very rewarding. (Really though, it’s simple )

Normally a salad like this serves two or three people, or even more as just a side salad.  I think I just might polish it off by myself – it’s a carrot kind of day.

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots
• 1/2 cup dill weed
• 1/2 cup sliced or whole filberts (hazelnuts)
• Handful of dried or fresh whole cranberries
• Splash of fresh squeezed lemon juice or vinegar
• Splash of olive oil
• Himalayan rock salt to taste

Procedure:

• Grate the two carrots (this is the hard manual labour part).
• Add the cranberries and a splash of lemon juice.

• 
• Chop the dill weed.

• Add this and the hazelnuts to the salad, drizzling with olive oil and sprinkiing with salt.
• Now stir your beautiful creation and serve.

And for dessert…

(Tip: I like to have my dessert first.  If it’s fruit – it sits in my tummy better.)

Fresh Homemade Apple Sauce

• Chopped and cored apples (use whatever quanitity you desire)
• Unpaseurized honey or agave nectar (again, use to taste)
• A good dash of cinammon (I like mine extra cinammon-y)

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until you get a good smooth consistency.  Spoon into bowls and enjoy!  I garnished mine with some fresh cranberries and a slice of lemon.

Check out more healthy recipes on This Mama Cooks! Healthy Food Blog Carnival

Sweet n’ Crunchy Cabbage Salad

It’s great to eat local when you can – and that means eating what’s in season.   Red cabbage is winter food staple – and unusually high in antioxidants.

Consider red cabbage a super food, and delicious.  It contains anthocyanins, more phytonutrients, and 6-8 times more vitamin C than green cabbage!   Red cabbage help you detoxify, so it’s on the must eat list if you’re doing a New Year’s cleanse.

Fresh lunch for a winter day

Cabbage contains sulforaphane, which stimulates the production of glutathione, the body’s most important internally produced antioxidant.

Bottom line: include more cabbage in your diet to stay healthy, disease-free, and live longer.  Try to eat it raw when you can, or even drink raw cabbage juice to solve any stomach problems.  On to the Cabbage Salad Recipe…

Sweet n’ Crunchy Cabbage Salad

• 1 cup grated red cabbage
• Large handful of baby carrots, chopped into rounds
• 1/2 yellow pepper, chopped
• Sunflower sprouts (or soaked, hulled sunflower seeds)

Sweet Carrot Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tbsp raw honey
• 2 tbsp miso or 1 tsp salt
• 1 inch chunk peeled ginger
• 1 large carrot, grated or chopped

Blend all the dressing ingredients in a high-powered blender.  Mix the vegetables with some of the dressing in a large bowl.  Store the leftover dressing in a jar in the fridge (will last for about a week).  Garnish with a celery top and serve!