I spotted this video posted on We Like It Raw and I just had to make it (or my version of it, I used agave instead of honey) and it was so delicious that I need to share with you all:
This video shows how to make the coconut cream. If you don’t have a juicer, I made it in my Vitamix by grinding the coconut up (dry) and squeezing through a hemp milk bag.
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, we went to Sweden and Lithuania with a day trip to Denmark – I’ll post photos from the rest of the trip soon, but I will start with the Fresh Food Festival, Scandinavia’s first raw food festival.
There’s only one place to start, and that’s the food – it was amazing! As you can see from the photos, it was top quality gourmet raw food – pizza, nori, flax crackers, pates, soup, etc, etc. The day started with yoga, then breakfast of a selection of fruits. Throughout the days there were a selection of talks, given in various languages with an English translation, a wild food walk and some food demos.
Apart from the food, the best part of the festival was connecting with raw fooders from a different part of the world – I know what is happening in the UK and US raw food world but I never really knew about the growing network just across the water!
The coast was about half an hours walk away and we found lots of local wild food including raspberries, red currants, various greens and a new berry for me, the June Berry (Amelanchier lamarckii), which is delicious, I’ll be on the lookout for that here in the UK. I have some photos but they are on Jolita’s camera so I will post them as soon as I can.
While I’m on the subject of festivals, don’t forget the Funky Raw Space of Love Gathering coming up very soon (15 to 18th August)…
There have been rumours going round recently that young Thai coconuts were dipped in formaldehyde before being exported, which many of us hoped was not true. Matt Amsden (of RAWvolution) decided to find out by having a coconut tested, and thankfully for us young coconut lovers, the test came back negative – no trace of formaldehyde in any part of the coconut. Read the full story here. (Edit March 2026: The original website has gone, this is a link to the Web Archive, you have to scroll to near the bottom of the page to read the text.)
I’ve always liked olives, but one day while I was living in Spain, I had a fresh, raw and truly ripe olive. What a revelation! When ripe, they are quite different to the processed olives generally available. Olives quickly became one of my favourite foods. I would spend hours sat under an olive tree eating ripe olives.
I think olives are usually mis-understood. Most olives start off green eventually turning black. People assume that when they are black they are ripe. This is not the case, if you’ve ever picked a black olive off a tree, you will know that they are not ripe, they are still very bitter. Processed olives are picked when they are either green or black and still unripe and then processed with either salt or chemicals to get ride of the bitter flavour and make them edible.
Nature has it’s own way – the black olives fall from the tree and ripen in the sun on the ground. They shrivel up slightly and then they can be eaten without any processing.
So now you can imagine how happy I am to finally have raw ripe olives available in the Funky Raw shop!
Mmm, my favourite honey mangos are back in season, I usually like to eat them just as they are, but I did try a recipe and it was amazing:
Take the flesh of the mangos and blend with the young coconut flesh, and a little of the coconut water (the amount you use will depend on your blender, but you only need a little). Once it’s smooth, add a squirt of agave and the mango powder and blend a little to mix that in.
It does work fine without the agave and mango powder, the agave adds a little sweetness and the mango powder thickens it and gives it a stronger mango flavour.
I’m sure this mango custard has many uses, I’d suggest pouring it over a bowl of freshly chopped local strawberries would work well…
Enjoy, love Rob
Kate Magic Wood’s new book Raw Magic was released a couple of weeks ago. It’s full of amazing superfood recipes like “Sweet and spicy sunshine soup”, “Flaxtastic olive bread”, “Purple Power Pudding”, “Hempilicious Ice Cream”, “Chocolate Crispy Cakes” and loads more. It’s printed in full colour throughout with beautiful photography by Shazzie. Anyway, Kate is having a bit of a launch party tomorrow (Tuesday 29th) at inSpiral Lounge in Camden (London), with a book signing at 7pm followed by a talk at 7.30pm. They have great raw food available at inSpiral, a great selection of salads, raw chocolates and cakes… see you there…
Spring is here, brining with it lots of wild flowers, many of which are edible. Here is a selection I found yesterday. Click on an image to enlarge.
Hawthorn flowers are a good flower to start with, they don’t have a strong flavour. White dead nettles are another easy flower, not too strong and can be quite sweet. They are not related to stinging nettles so they won’t sting you!
Dandelion flowers can be a bit bitter and can take a bit of getting used to, but I like them now. Wild garlic (ramsons) flowers have a delicious sweet garlicky flavour while Jack by the hedge flowers have a stronger flavour – garlic and mustard with a little bitterness.
As always, take care when picking wild food and make sure you are certain about what you are eating.
I made a delicious soup today, based on Holly’s Dream of Wild Garlic Soup recipe. I put the following in the Vitamix:
I blended it well and then added an avocado and blended until smooth. I then added some wild garlic flowers. 100g of wild garlic leaves makes a very strong soup, use less if you are not a big fan of the flavour.
Here are some photos from last years trip to Lithuania. Click on any image to enlarge.
I was sent some samples of a new range of raw chocolates from Pure Flavour and I was very impressed. Soft and creamy, and just the right sweetness, not too sweet. The ingredients are all organic: cacao butter, cacao powder, mesquite, and agave and the fruit and nut version has the addition of hazelnuts and raisins.
Pure Flavour make a range of wheat and dairy free cakes, I think they should also add some raw cakes to their range!
Available from the Pure Flavour website.