Inspirations from The Dalai Lama

When our actions are of a compassionate nature and we make decisions based on a holistic and ethical attitude for the long term future then we will find inner peace as we live as one with the universe.

This was my interpretation of the message His Holiness the Dalai Lama had for his audience when I was fortunate enough to see him live in Perth over the weekend. His graceful presence and his important message of peace were truly inspirational and slightly humorous to the 14000 attendees. Just before his on stage speech, I had a very special privilege with his Holiness. Just as my friend and I were browsing the small array of stalls as we awaited the show to begin, shuffling through the crowds, we spied the Dalai Lama himself, sitting amongst the stalls. Building up the courage, my friend and I stood beside him and he graciously blessed our chosen items of jewelry, holding each item in his hands as he murmured his blessing. I had only the day before purchased a lovely pendant made from rainforest jasper, which I had blessed by the spiritual master himself. This lovely piece of stone now has greater meaning to me and I wear it with gratitude. 

My weekend to Perth also led me to another wonderful experience...The Raw Kitchen Cafe in Fremantle! The nachos were awesome, and truly are the 'best in town'! It was so nice to be able to 'eat out' and not feel like I had compromised on my eating habits. Actually, it was just so nice to eat a raw meal prepared by someone else. Our experience at the Raw Kitchen in Freo was amazing...the huge bowl of delicious side salad, the cheesecake, the minty choc drink, the mint chocolate slice....all of it was utterly delicious. I know where I will be hanging out when I'm next in town.      

Starzi's Raw Salad

I am so pleased to share with you photos of a salad Starzi made entirely independently. She will often help out in the kitchen making meals under my guidance, but just after 2 days of helping me make our regular fresh sprout salad, Starzi made todays dish entirely on her own and wasnt she proud!

Starzi's Sprout Salad:

In a large bowl put in as many freshly cut home grown sprouts as possible - (sunflowers, buckwheat and snow peas sprouts)
next add 1 avocado diced, 1 cut tomato and about 10 home preserved green tables olives.
To make the dressing, squeeze into a bowl the juice of half a home grown lime, a dash of olive oil, 2 cloves of crushed garlic and a pinch of salt. Whisk the dressing until combined and gradually pour over sprouts. Toss, serve and enjoy.

As an accompliment to Starzi's wonderful salad, I made a tasty, simple dish for everyone to enjoy for lunch.

Raw Parsley Pesto Pasta:

Make noodles with 2 peeled parsnips using a spiraliser. Massage with a little olive oil and salt. Set aside.
Chop broccoli into bite size pieces and massage in a little olive oil and garlic granules, then dehydrate for an hour to soften.

Parsley Pesto:


I soaked a cup of pecans in filtered water for 2 hours to leach some of the bitternes before blending in my food processer with a good clump of fresh parsley from the garden, 2 garlic cloves and about 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast. I added this pesto to the parsnip noodles and broccoli pieces. I drizzled a little lime juice over the top and served. This was so tasty and very similar to my pre-raw days of wheat pasta and homemade peccorino cheese parsley pesto dish.

Simple raw recipe ideas from today..

Here are a couple of simple recipes that we made today and were well received.
For breakfast, I made this simple, fresh wholesome dish that was loved by all. Starzi ate an entire huge bowl full and even asked for more a couple of hours later and again this afternoon! She also ate it happily with sesame milk which she would normally turn away from.
As it is the season of apples and we always have a stash in our house, I simply finely grated 3 apples in the food processor and placed it in a bowl. I then proceeded by processing a handful each of activated - sunflower seeds, pepitas and almonds. I then added a pinch of vanilla powder and some cinnamon. This crumble was added to the grated apples. I then added a final touch of some sultanas and shredded coconut. I scooped this mix into bowls and poured some sesame milk over the top.

I had enough left over for seconds and to pack for Micks dinner tonight on night shift.

And here is another simple snack that didnt last longer than 1 hour in our house - literally! and I only ate 1!

My version of raw chocolate crackles....

I started by blending 5 dates with half a cup of coconut oil, a dollop of honey and about 1/2 cup of cacao powder. This was blended until smooth. I then added a handful of buckwheaties (which are soaked and dehydrated buckwheat kernals) with a handful of coconut shavings. I scooped a spoonful of mixture into a patty cake papers and let set in the fridge. Simple, but extremely yummy!

As promised...Sprouting at home

I love fresh sprouts!
I love to eat them, I love to grow them and I love the way they look in my house.
They are so simple and inexpensive to grow and extremely nutritional that I think every kitchen bench needs a sprout garden. Kids love to tend to them and watch them grow as it happens so rapidly and they taste great. Here is a step by step description of how we grow ours.

My favourite seeds to sprout are:

Buckwheat, Wheatgrass,Sunflowers, Snowpeas and Fenugreek



Before planting my seeds, I will soak them in a glass jar of filtered water for about 12 hours to activate the germination process. If I dont do this, I found the seeds, even though were all watered the same, still sprouted at different stages so a tray would be a mixture of mature sprouts and just germinating sprouts, so I highly recommending an initial soaking.

The kids enjoy the sprouting process and are always keen to get involved with the soaking, planting and watering. When they are a part of the growing cycle, they have a greater interest in eating them and are freely able to 'pluck' a sprout at their leisure to enjoy.

I like to use terracotta trays to grow my sprouts in. Not only do they look nice as a living table centre piece and around the house, they are inexpensive and do the job perfectly. I bought mine from the nursery section at the local hardware store. They are sold as trays under planter pots and come in a range of sizes and shapes. I use the round and have a variety of sizes to accomodate for my variety of seeds. They do come in a sealed and unsealed versions, so be sure to ask for the 'unsealed' pot bases as the water needs to soak into the terracotta so you dont end up with mouldy seeds and boggy soil. As for the soil I use, I was just digging up a small patch out of my vegie garden, but as that space is limited and my plants are spreading rapidly, I have chosen to buy a bag of potting mix which will last me almost a months worth of sprouting. I use a certified organic potting mix also from the hardware store.

After I have soaked the seeds and spread a layer of organic soil into each terrocatta tray, I then rinse the seeds and spread them evenly over the soil.I then add a thin sprinkle of soil over the seeds to act as a light mulch to keep the seeds moist and help the germination process otherwise they will dry out quickly and will be slow to sprout.

The kids and I will water our newly planted seeds once a day and place them on a bench in the house that gets a little morning sunlight each day. Within 2 days the sprouts begin to emerge.

 And within 5 days, they will be ready to be eaten. I have enough trays of rotating seeds and seedlings to keep an endless supply of fresh sprouts to add to our daily meals. I love to have a couple of sprouted trays ready to harvest as living, edible table centre pieces while eating to freely add to our everyday meals.

This is such a fun and easy way to enjoy your greens and get the kids to love them to.

   

Raw 'indoor' picnic

Due to the recent cool weather, our planned raw food picnic at the park this morning had to be changed to an indoor picnic at home. Nevertheless, we certainly enjoyed a scrumptious feast!

Preparations:
The kids helped out in the kitchen as we awaited the guests.

The kids love to get involved in the food preparations and I find if they help out, they are more inclined to not only taste the final products but actually eat it all and enjoy it! A little dressing is created and carefully poured over a bed of fresh greens while some fruit is chopped for dessert.

The Raw Feast:

Entree:

Parsnip and chilli soup with essene bread sticks. (recipe for essene bread sticks to come in following blog) Thanks Jess for this warming creation.

 Main Course:
Mixed platter of savoury Pies with side of fresh garden salad.

I made a large batch of empty pie cases and filled each with a mix of fillings to add variety.This is my prefered pie base as it gives a final result similar to regular pastry shells and will stay firm.
Base:
I use an even mix of zucchini and soaked walnuts with enough freshly ground flax seed to bind dough and then press into pie tarts. I left these to dehydrate for 24 hours to ensure they had a crispy, buttery texture. For this recipe I blended the ingredients until smooth to give an even texture and consistancy. These can be handy as they can be 'mass produced' in one morning and then used over a course of a week filling them up with left overs or new creations.

Wild mushroon quiche pie (adapted from- the raw chef)

Filling:
Coat 2 cups of wild mushrooms in a small dash of olive oil and lime juice and salt and leave in the fridge overnight.
Next blend together 1 cup of zuchini with 1/4 cup of water, 1 cup of cashews, 1 tablespoon of brown miso paste, juice of half a lime, 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast and a pinch of salt.
Add this sauce to the marinated mushrooms and a cup of diced cherry tomatoes and 1 cup of baby spinach leaves.
Pour this mix into the hardened pie cases and dehydrate overnight.

Eggplant, pea and tamarind curry topped with parsnip mash pie  (recipe also adapted from the raw chef)
Filling:
First I sprinkled the diced eggplant with some salt to leach the bitterness for an hour. I then rinsed the eggplant and marinated it a dash of lime juice, Nama Shoyu, olive oil and a sprinkle of curry powder overnight in the fridge. I also added a cup of frozen peas to the mix. In the morning I then made a sauce in the blender with 1 red capsicum, 2 garlic bulbs, juice of half a lime, 1 tablespoon of tamarind pulp scraped off the seed, 1/2 cup of fresh coriander, 1 tablespoon of curry powder, 1/2 cup of left over coconut pulp from making coconut milk, 1/4 cup of water and a dash of salt. This was blended until smooth and poured over the marinated eggplant and peas. This mixture was then scooped into the empty hardened pie cases and topped with a parsnip mash.
Parsnip mash:
Blend until whipped 2 fresh parsnips, 1/2 cup of pine nuts, olive oil, garlic and cracked black pepper and salt. I also added a sprinkle of fresh chives.
This pie could be eaten without further dehydrating, but as I was serving them all together, it went in the dehydrator with the others until I was ready.

Cherry tomato and cheese pie.
Filling:
This is a simple pie filling that can be made in moments if you have pre dehydrated pie crusts on hand. Simply dice 2 cups or so of cherry tomatoes and marinate in olive oil, dash of salt and some fresh basil leaves. Pour these into the pie tart and top with dollops of macadamia cheese.
Macadamia cheese:
Blend together 1 cup of macadamias with juice of half a lime, 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast and a dash of salt.

Feasting

Dessert:
Sweet potato pie with fruit salad
Im not sure what was the exact ingredients in this delicious pie but it did have some surprise ingredients like sweet potato, avocado and banana. Thanks Tash for the contribution. 

 Its such a pleasure to share beautiful food with beautiful people that nourishes the soul, mind and earth. Thankyou.

A week in review...

Even though, I have been absent from a computer for the last week, I still managed to take some photos of a few of my creations and their process, so I will do less words and more photos to bring you up to date for the week.

First picture is of my first meal after the 5 day juice detox. I spent the morning nibbling on half a pear and an apple before sitting down to this fresh and delighful salad. I must poudly point out the fact that most of the ingredients are home grown and made. The sprouts, cherry tomatoes and olives are home grown and made, while the dressing is made of home grown limes and home pressed olive oil. The only purchased ingredient was the avocado.    

Speaking of limes, here is a picture of my wonderful young tahitian lime tree bearing lots of fruit. As you can see, they do not look similar to those green limes of the same name sold in the supermarkets.

I have come to the understanding that the limes sold in the supermarkets are actually the immature fruit and have not yet reached their full ripeness. As you can see my limes are ripe and I harvest them from the ground when they fall from the tree, as they are doing right now.
Surprisingly, limes are ripe when yellow. 


And here is a picture of an Asian inspired three course dinner I served up to my wonderful husband which got the thumbs up. Miso soup, cauliflower 'fried' rice and nori rolls with dipping sauce.

As for the raw porridge attempt - it has become a huge success. The process involves soaking the raw rolled oats in a little filtered water, just enough to cover, for 12 and upto 24 hours. Just before going to bed in the evening, I will prepare the raw poridge by gently blending on the low setting the soaked rolled oats and water with a banana, some honey, cinnamon and vanilla. This becomes a consistancy similar to cooked poridge. I then add a handful of sultanas and some diced apple pieces, shredded coconut and chopped almonds. I will leave this in the dehydrator for the night to warm and to greet Michael at 4.30am as a warm hearty raw breakfast in the morning before he sets out to complete his 14 hour day at work. The kids will devour this raw poridge also, just minus the 'chunky bits.'

This week we also celebrated Micks Birthday and our 11th Wedding Aniversary, so I made a special attempt to make a beautiful raw cake.

 The result was fabulous. Layers of chocolate fudge and sweet shredded coconut topped with a smooth layer of chocolate icing and berries. This was a winner with everyone. Not too heavy, nor sweetly sick because of the addition of light fluffy coconut centre layers. I prefered to enjoy my slice of cake after a few minutes in the dehydrator to melt the icing and warm the berries. Yum!

Happy Birthday!

Here are some more pictures of another one of our families simple dinners.

Raw pizza with 'the lot' topping and a side salad of fresh sprouts

 .

 Mouths full of fresh living greens is a site I love to see at our dinner table!

Well that is a brief overview of the week that has been and a glimpse of a few of our meals that I hope will entice your appetite on the raw side. I have a progressive blog to post on my home sprouts which I just cant get enough of and my experience with essene bread.....

I am also looking forward to hosting a raw food picnic at home here tommorrow and will have some great photos on my mixed savoury pies that I will share and what ever else may find its way on the table tommorrow. Ooops, its almost 1am so I really need to venture off to bed.

 

Back online.....

Much to my frustration last week, my computer died. I spent the first half of the day entirely annoyed by this fact, wondering how I could continue to conduct my everyday life without it. Transfering money, updating this blog, emails, movies.....it seemed we were going to be in for a bad week as we waited for a replacement. Even Michael was anxious as he wanted to get back on facebook. I didnt realise until then how much the computer dominated our lives, and I didnt like it. I want the computer to be a part of our lives, but don’t want to think that everything is suddenly impossible and complicated if it was unavailable for a week. I want to be able to 'willingly' turn off the computer for a week and enjoy it.

Eventually by the end of the first day, I came to accept the fact that the computer was unavailable and just 'got on with it'. It has turned out to be the best week in a long time in regard to the kids behaviour and the time Michael has spent with them. In our house we dont have a television because we dont agree with the content most times and think children should be watching life, not television, but I have now come to realise just how much the computer has replaced that addiction and become like a television. Its not like we use it all day, but it is used everyday and movies have become an easy 'keep em quiet' stratagy on the kids while I try to get a few things done, especially as the weather is cold and wet and we are destined to spend a few weeks indoors. After being forced to not be able to use a movie as an instant time passer and occupier for the children, I have notices how much their behaviour had improved.

They spent the entire week indoors, inventing games, creating artworks and playing so incredibly well together and being very tollerant of each other. It was a delight to watch. In the evenings when Michael got home from work, instead of settling in front of the computer for an hour or so, while I tried to hurry them off to bed so I could do the usual emails and internet recipe searching, while they demanded our attention with tantrums and refusals to go, we found ourselves spending quality time with them and they blossomed from it. I was in no rush to get them off to bed to get my ‘uninterupted’ computer time, instead they stayed awake, role playing games while I did a few household catchup chores and read them stories, until they were truley ready for bed and went without a fuss.
Having a week without the computer has been a real awakening. I will not be using u-tube movies as a boredom buster and will try to rely less on the role of a computer in my daily life, and welcome the next week I experience without one. I may have to introduce a monthly computer detox while I do my juice fasting....

Day 5 last day of Detox......

It’s the last day of my detox and I am still on a juice high. It’s truly a regenerating feeling for your mind and body to detox regularly. I value the feeling of emptiness and contentment in my body as I allow it time to perform routine maintenance without being clogging down with the constant supply of food. I also value the increase in energy that I have felt over the past five days. I enjoyed a good hour and a half yoga session at the YMCA tonight and felt a deeper connection with the breathing exercises because my stomach was entirely empty.  I also extremely value the break I had from constantly preparing meals for all the family for almost a week. It’s not only a detox for the body, but also a detox from the labour and endless preparation of food. The long absence from food for this week has slowly renewed my appetite and interest again and I am definitely looking forward to chewing into one of my juicy organic pears in the morning, and maybe followed by a crisp organic pink lady apple. I am also keen to tuck into a fresh bowl of my sprouts topped with a creamy avocado… The simple pleasures of eating have been revived!

Day 4 of detox....

Another day in detox land and I feel fantastic. Energy levels are high and hunger pains are absent. I feel lighter and clearer in mind and body.


Today the kids and I went 'foraging' on our bikes. Kalgoorlie has the perfect climate to grow an abundance of citrus fruit and almost every second house in the town has one growing. Some of the back lanes have overhanging branches loaded with orange, mandarin or lemons just rotting. Today we gathered a wonderful supply of old fashioned lemons and a few madarins. Often we will also just knock on the front door and ask to pick the fruit if the tree is not accessible from the outside. Most people respond with a 'help yourself, they are just wasting away'. With all of this home grown local produce going to waste, I began to envision a yearly Kalgoorlie event - 'The great citrus pick'. A day when volunteers go around picking the unwanted fruit in all the backyard trees of donating locals to be sold at St Barbara's Square in the centre of town with all money raised going to charity, or even just freely given away to anyone who wanted a bag. It seems like such a waste, and the weirdest thing is, people are buying these same fruit in the local supermarkets eveveryday, yet they are rotting at the base of trees in their own town, even possibly their neighbours tree!    


Anyway, back on my detox...a lot of people shy away from fasting and detoxing because they think they couldn't survive without food for a day, but that is far from the truth. The benefits are amazing. I actually look forward to my regular fasting periods and enjoy the benefits long after. I will usually base the timing around the new moon, as it is waning, because this is the time of the moon cycle when our bodies are naturally detoxifying and cleansing. Its a time to slow down and look within. Fasting is exactly that. As for the time I will spend on a fast depends on my body and a lot on my family life. Now that Michael is back to eating meals and I have a couple of raw food social engagements next week, to make life easier, I will enjoy one more day of juicing tomorrow, before slowly introducing whole fruit and then salads the following days.
I have began to get 'organised' for my return to the land of the eating, by soaking a collection of seeds for sprouting, which I intend to document in the following blogs, and some kamut and spelt grain to try my hand at my first batch of Essene Bread. I am also intending on trialling some raw oat and buckwheat porridge recipes to make a comforting breakfast for the early worker in our house that gets up at 4.30am. I will post the results to those experiments in the comming days. Stay tuned......

Day 3 of Detox.....

Yes, it is day three when you really come alive and know why you decided to take on the fast.
I woke this morning feeling very refreshed even though I didn't sleep very well. Other than staying up until after midnight doing the usual things, I found myself at 1am in the morning, balancing on a tower of chairs and stools, outside with a headlamp on, clearing the mandarins off the neighbours tree that overhangs into our yard. And when I did finally convince myself I should be sleeping, found it hard anyway with the kids all over the bed, sleeping sideways and upside down, feet in the back, snoring in the ear... Anyway, I woke to a beautiful fresh glass of mandarin juice. I felt very energetic, so I enticed the kids for a long bike ride down town and then to the park for a play.
It was today I got to experience that incredible feeling you get while fasting, to have an empty stomach, yet not feel hungry. I feel clear inside, energetic and contented.
Michael arrived home from another 14 hour day at work, drinking juice alone. He said he would continue the juice fasting for longer, and then I caught him searching the fridge and pantry. He finally succumb to a fat bowl of kale and avocado salad with pepitas and lemon juice dressing. Its not often a hard working grown man will come home from a full day of work requesting just a bowl of salad. I think it is one of the wonderful benefits of fasting. Its great to just take the focus for a day or even more off food and give your body a rest and to gain new appreciation for food. We take food for granted, its in our lives everyday, we are surrounded by it and we can access it any time of any day. we loose respect for it, even if it is healthy food or purely raw food. We start to look past the simple foods and look for more gourmet meals. I started to feel like that previous to my fast this week. I had indulged my self so much in food over the past 2 weeks, because I held two raw food workshops at home in a space of one week that I was either eating it or thinking about it. I basically had lost my appetite - which is healthy and happens to align with the moon cycles as we wind down to the new moon this week. I now have detoxed my body and my mind of food for three days and I see myself looking at a simple piece of fruit differently. Not just looking at an avocado and thinking what I could turn it into with some spices and a blender, but looking at the avocado for what it is and respecting it in its whole form as a food. Fasting to me is like resetting the mind, bringing it back to the basics and respecting the simple things for what they are. It also reconnects me with my stomach and tunes me into being contented. When we eat constantly through out the day, everyday, that feeling is rarely achieved.