Archive for February, 2006
Just got back this evening, we did a raw food preparation workshop in Manchester which went really well and then poped over to York to see my parents.
I was missing my chocolate puddings so made a nice desert based on the chocolate pudding recipe:
Hemp milk
- 300g hemp seeds, soaked overnight
- 2 oranges
- soak water from dried figs and apricots
The pudding
Make hemp milk by blending the hemp seeds up with the oranges and soak water. Strain through a musiln bag then put the hemp milk back into the blender with the other ingredients and blend.
February 28th, 2006
First, make hemp milk:
- 200g hemp seeds, soaked for 4 hours or more
- 1 orange
- soak water from dried figs and apricots (see next part)
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until all the hemp seeds have been broken down. Strain through a muslin bag (or tea towel or old t-shirt).
Next:
Place these ingredients in the blender along with the hemp milk and blend. Mmmm delicious.
February 24th, 2006
A friend of mine, Tony Wright, who I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is doing a live online sleep deprivation experiment. He’s starting with 100 hours of not sleeping which is only a practise run for a world record breaking attempt of about 11 days.
You can log on to the Mind Spirit Network and see Tony, hopefully awake, and ask him questions.
There is more info on Tony’s theories, including the first 7 chapters of his manuscript, on his website www.kaleidos.org.uk
February 23rd, 2006
No posts for a while as I’ve been away, although unfortunatly not to Thailand - I’ve only been as far as London and Brighton. In London I headed straight for China Town where I know of a few shops which sell tropical fruit. I tried mangosteen for the first time and they are amazing, quite unlike any other fruit I’ve had before. I also had some longan which were also delicious, they were very similar to lychees but with a different outer shell. Got a couple of durians, they are not quite ripe yet, looking forward to having them very soon.
Had a great time in Brighton, a continuation of our “Staying Awake Club”. It’s based on research by Tony Wright on how the brian works and how we might be able to enable much more brian function. On the Saturday night we had a bit of party, Kate invited a few other friends and we had lots of raw cake with superfoods and then later we took some ayahuasca. We made it with a different ingredient and I found it very difficult to drink, so I ended up not drinking too much and not having a very big experience, but it was still good.
You can read a bit more about the weekend on Jess’ blog.
A quick recipe for you. While in China Town I found some very cheap sheets of kelp so I made the following:
- 2 avocaods
- about 4 sheets of kelp, soaked for 30 mins
- bit of chili
Everything went in the Vitamix, including the soak water and it was delicious (but then I do love seaweed).
Got a lot of work to catch up with now so I’m going to stop writing. I really must get on with the next issue of Funky Raw if it is going to come out anytime near the due date and at the weekend me and Holly are doing a raw food prep workshop in Manchester.
February 22nd, 2006
Had to post a chocolate recipe today!
Put everything in a food processor and process until a nice consistency. Roll into balls or whatever shape you want.
February 14th, 2006
So, 90% of my recipes contain avocado, I hope you like them as much as me!
Ingredients
- 1 orange
- 3 tablespoons seaweed flakes
- 1 1/2 sun dried tomatoes, soaked
- 2 avocados
- 1 red pepper
- 1/4 tsp maca
- 1/4 tsp hemp leaf powder
Squeeze the orange and soak the seaweed in the juice for about 1/2 an hour. Put everything, including the orange juice with the seaweed and some of the tomaoto soak water, into the Vitamix and blend.
February 14th, 2006
Wow, what a weekend. We had 4 people come to the experience, plus Tish came up from Cornwall (and Gavin helped out a bit in the evening).
We started the day by putting the Ayahuasca on to brew and then eating Chocolate Pudding. We did various things throughout the day including a walk to pick wild greens, meditation and lots of talking about consciousness and the workings of the brain, including lots about new ideas about why our brain is as it is right now, but I’m not really going to talk about all that right now, I’m going to get right on to the evening.
Ok, I’ll mention one more thing before getting on to the Ayahuasca - Holly made the most delicios pie, Golden Cherry Cream Pie. At about 11pm the brew was ready to drink. I drank about half of what we gave to the guests, so in theory I would be there if anyone needed help.
After drinking, we did eye connection meditation. We rotated so everyone got 2 minutes of deeply looking into each persons eyes. This seemed to bring on the experience very quickly. I could feel myself slowly begining to loose control of my body, I managed to move to go to the loo at the start as I knew that very soon I would no longer be capable!
I started off in the ‘quiet’ room but then I heard the most becautuful music coming from the other room. I didn’t think I still had the capability to move rooms, but I found that I actually did, so I found a nice space to sit and listed to the music. Playing was a CD by Nigel Shaw, which was beautiful natural music, rivers, birds, flutes. It instantly took me on a journey. The music became the music of a film playing in my head which was perfectly coreographed - the visual images in my head were completly following the music.
I also had an intense feeling of love for everyone in the room, I can’t remember if this was before, after or during the ‘film’ experience described above. It’s interesting to note that two other people who were in the same room at the time also reported the same feeling of love. The whole experience was one of complete bliss.
I think I was sat down (and fairly unable to move) for about an hour, after this I got up and was able to move about and interact with other people again, although I was still feeling the effects of the Ayahuasca.
It seems everyone who came really enjoyed it so I think there is a good chance we will do another one at some point.
February 13th, 2006
I made this for lunch. It filled me up so much, didn’t eat another thing until salad in the evening and even then I stuggled with that!
As ever, all measurements are approximate. Soaked ingredients were soaked for about 3 hours, a bit longer than this is probably good. There quantities were just for myself (although it might serve 2 if you’re not quite as greedy as me!)
Soaked ingredients:
- 150g hemp seeds
- 50g sesame seeds
- 20g pumpkin seeds
- 20g hazelnuts
- 3 dried figs
- 3 dried apricots
- handful currants
Fresh/dry ingredients
Put everything, including the soak water from the dried fruit into a blender and blend. I might have added a bit of water, I can’t remember. I didn’t make it completly smooth, it was crunchy and I liked it like that. I think to make it smooth would need a fair bit of water.
Now, on the surface it might look a bit like the chocolate pudding recipe, but the main difference is that you don’t make hemp milk, the whole hemp seeds go into the blend and this is what makes it particularly filling.
Hope you like it! Rob
February 6th, 2006
I’ve mentioned ayahuasca a couple of times, I thought it was time to do a full post on it. If you don’t know, ayahuasca is a shamanic brew made from various ingredients, we’ve been using Banisteriopsis Caapi and Psychotria viridis. We boil it up for about 10 hours with some satsumas (or oranges), here’s Holly’s complete description of how we make it.
If you take a large enough dose, it will take you on a “trip”. My first time was in Spain with the Santo Diame. It was a full on experience and at times I was very scared and I didn’t think I was ever going to come back! Although other parts of it were very enjoyable.
I drank ayahuasca again under very different circumstances, at a friends house in Cornwall and had a much more enjoyable experience. From this I now drink a small amout of ayahuasca on a daily basis, between 5 and 10ml, it doesn’t cause any obvious major effects but I’m sure it helps. Research suggests that the brain used to produce a lot more DMT and due to things not working like they should anymore, this isn’t happening. So the ayahuasca is basically a nutritional suppliment.
So, if anyone living in Devon is interesting in experience ayahuasca for them selves, we are doing an “Ayahuasca Experience” on Saturday, at our house near Totnes. More info and booking over at Funky Raw.
The ingredients for ayahuasca can be bought from Deva Ethnobotanicals although if you’re going to try it I reccomend you read up more about it and do it with a good friend.
February 6th, 2006
The dressing I made for tonights salad was quite similar to one I’ve posted before but we both thought it was particularly good and it’s fairly simple so here goes:
- 1 avocado
- 1 red pepper
- 1 1/2 sun dried tomatoes, soaked
- handful of seaweed flakes
- 1/2 tsp hemp leaf powder
- 1/2 tsp maca
- bit of chili
Put everything in the Vitamix, including the soak water, and blend. Delicious.
February 5th, 2006
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