Archive for December, 2006
I’ve not been so creative in the kitchen for a long while. I got home tonight from Five Rhythm dancing and needed a snack, but as I need to be up reasonably early tommorow, I didn’t want to make chocolate. So I made something with cacao butter but no cacao powder.
- 30g cacao butter
- 2 tablespoons raw carob powder
- 1 tablespoon dark agave nectar
- 1 tablespoon ashwagandha powder
- about 5 tablespoons ground sesame seeds
- a little bit of vanilla pod, which I grated, but if I had thought earlier, I would have ground it with the sesame seeds
I think you know the method by now! Melt the cacao butter and add the rest of the ingredients, stiring all the time. Ashwagandha is a calming, relaxing herb - I want to go to sleep soon, my sleep/wake cycle is often a bit random, last night I stayed up till 5am and then took some ayahuasca and I didn’t get up until late, but I want to return to ‘normal’ for tommorow.
On a completly unrelated note, my new favorite music which I’m listening to constantly is Maniko, you can listen to two minute clips from that link, the first track is my favorite, but they are all beautiful.
December 29th, 2006
I just made some raw milk chocolate! It was ok, but I think the recipe needs a little bit more work. Also, I put it into the metal moulds but it didn’t set quite as firmly as the dark chocolate and therefore wouldn’t come out without a spoon! In future, I need to use the paper cases that peal off, it would have worked fine in those. (See my first raw chocolate post for a pic of the paper cases and how to melt the cacao butter if you’ve not done it before.)
Ingredients:
Melt the cacao butter and stir in all the ingredients. I just added a couple of spoonfulls of powder at a time and stir it all in to make sure there are no lumps. Initially, the milk didn’t seem like it would mix, but a bit of stiring was all it needed. I put it into the moulds and put in the fridge to set.
Well, actually, I only put half into the moulds, I kept half back for more experimenting. To continue my sesame theme, I added 3 or 4 tablespoons of ground sesame seeds and another tablespoon of carob and mixed it all together. It became very thick, might be good for a topping for a cake. This tasted good, I think better than the first one.
December 28th, 2006
I’ve been eating a lot of sesame seeds recently, my body must be in need of some nutrients found in them. So I tried making sesame chocolate and it worked really well (well I liked it and there’s none left now!) This chocolate is quite sweet, if you don’t like it too sweet then maybe use a little less of the sweetners (carob, lucuma or agave).
Ingredients:
First I melted the cacao butter (see my previous raw chocolate making post for details) and slowly stired in the ingredients. I added the ground sesame last, not sure if this makes a difference but if added earlier it might make it harder for the other ingredients to mix in well. And that’s about it. I put it into the moulds (more on those soon) and into the fridge to set. It wasn’t as smooth as some of the previous chocolate I’ve made due to the sesame still being quite coarse. It would be interesting to try with tahini, not sure if it work or not.
(I’ll be making raw chocolate as part of my workshop in London on Jan 27th…)
December 27th, 2006
For all my websites I get detailed visitor statistics and one of the things I can see is what search terms people used to find this blog, some of which I found amusing:
recipes for brockley soup
That’s the users miss-spellings of broccoli, which just happens to be a place round the corner from where I live! So no broccoli soup recipes on this site yet, just some photos of the Brockley Nature Reserve!
chocolate bar made with magic mushrooms
Well that one definatly sounds interesting, I haven’t tried it yet, but maybe I should 
what fruit contains the mineral zeolite
I thought I should answer this one. According to Wikipedia “Natural zeolites form where volcanic rocks and ash layers react with alkaline groundwater”, so as far as I know, you won’t find them in fruit.
And finally:
aligator riding
What connection this has with my blog, I really have no idea!!!
December 24th, 2006
As I mentioned in a previous post, a few weeks ago Holly opened Ocean Wave Vibrations, her new online shop. She’s selling all kinds of things to help make us feel better, high vibrational foods, supliments and natural ‘highs’. Bertie and Lizzy are also making their own raw chocolates - Bertie’s Yummy Scrummies and Lizzy’s Baby Chocolate Balls!
Holly sent me some samples to try:
The first thing I tried was the Ashwagandha, according to the website it’s “A perfect antidote for the stresses of modern life, it is a remedy for overwork, lack of sleep or nervous exhaustion, promoting deep, undisturbed sleep” and as I’ve been a bit stressed and lacking sleep due to getting the Funky Raw magazine finished it sounded like what I needed. I made it into a tea, the first thing I noticed was the smell which I really liked and then the taste, again, I liked it and it brought back memories of something from a long time ago which I can’t remember. It’s definalty very relaxing.
Tonight I tried the Lion’s Mane Mushroom powder, sprinkled on my salad, it added a delicious flavour.
I’ve also been adding a little Purple Corn to my chocolate pudding, it’s high in antioxidants and one of the few blue/purple foods in nature. I’m only using 1/8 of a teaspoon (that’s what the instructions say) so it doesn’t impart much of a flavour but I’m sure it’s good for me!
December 24th, 2006
Made a delicious salad last night so I thought I’d share:
- 1 avocado, chopped
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 1/2 yellow pepper, grated
- 1/2 carrot, grated
- parmesan cheese, grated
- wild greens including wild garlic, chopped
- 30g sea spaghetti, soaked for 20 mins
- 2 tablespoons of flax oil
- 3 tablespoons sesame seeds
So, I mixed the first group of ingredients together. Then I ground the sesame seeds in the seed mill on my blender and mixed with the sea spaghetti, flax oil and some of the soak water from the sea spaghetti and then stired this into the salad.
I was really in the mood for sesame seeds last night and had more in my desert. I attempted a halva recipe, I ground up 6 tablespoons of sesame seeds and mixed in a couple of tablespoons of dark raw agave nectar. It tasted ok, but it wasn’t halva! I’ve just started using agave and it’s amazing, sweet and syrupy, like nothing I’ve had raw before! I like to just spread it on banans, I’ll have to be careful how quickly I’m getting through it.
If you have raw tahini, that would probably work better than the ground sesame in both recipes, I just don’t have any.
December 24th, 2006
Today my chocolate pudding was particularly good, very creamy, so I thought I’d share what went in it:
I’m not going to type out the method again, just look at one of my previous chocolate pudding posts, the only thing I did differently was that I ground up the cacao nibs, sesame seeds and walnuts on their own first (in my L’Equip belnder) before adding everything else.
December 16th, 2006
I was out on one of my walks around the area (looking for more places to find wild food!) when I came across a shop called “The Organically Minded Grocer”. I was mildly excited “will this be the closest organic shop to where I live?” was the question on my mind. Well, my excitement didn’t last long, as I looked through the fresh fruit and veg I didn’t find a single organic item! On further inspection I found some organic herbal tea and a tin of organic something or other, but nothing to satisfy this raw food eater.
I can just imagine the following conversation:
“Yeah, I’m organically minded too.”
“That’s great. Can you recomend somewhere local I can get some organic produce?”
“Ah, you misunderstand, I don’t actually eat organic, I just think about it.”
December 16th, 2006
Ok, if you know me, you will know that I ignore the news - in general I don’t watch TV, read newspapers, listen to the radio, etc. This week I’ve been listening to the radio because Lifescape magazine is doing a thing where they have challenged a DJ (James O’Brian) on LBC radio to go vegetarian for two weeks. We sent in some raw goodies for him to try so I’ve been listening to see if he comments on them.
Anyway, this means that I’ve been exposed to the news for the last week and can’t help having a rant about a couple of things I head. Firstly, Gordon Brown’s pre-budget aniouncement - he’s suddenly become environmentaly aware and is going to give a “green” budget, one of the measures he is going to put in place is a tax on budget flights, (which I think is a great idea). But then a couple of days later, I hear that the government has approved plans for a new runway at Heathrow airport, which will allow up to 500 extra flights per day. Is it just me or do those two stories contradict each other massivly? If they are going to allow more flights, charging a “green tax” does not mean that they will pollute less! I’ve never believed that the government was working for our best interest anyway, and this obviously proves that they are lying all the time, but why does no-one seem to care?
December 9th, 2006
I just went to a screening of a film about Ayahuasca, called The Man Who Drank the Universe. It followed the story of Alistair Appleton the first time he drank ayahuasca at a ‘seminar’ in Brazil. I really enjoyed it, he managed to get across a lot of the experience, which is difficult for something like ayahuasca. He talked to some of the other participants, some who were trying to heal themselves of serious health problems. Somehow it managed to be a lighthearted film whilst covering a deep subject in a respectful way.
Acording to Alistair’s website, the film will be available to purchase on DVD soon through the website. If you have never experienced Ayahuasca, it’s a good introduction.
December 6th, 2006
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