Coconut

My family and I, have been on vacation in Thailand for two weeks. We just LOVED IT - it was beautiful nature, warm, amazing and incredibly nice people and among all so much different & good tasting fruits. But there was especially one fruit which was our favorite - coconut. We had at least three a day. When they bring it to you you always get it together wit a straw and spoon. After that you haven drinking up the juice you can scoop out some coconut meat which just tastes amazing.
Here, back home we always drink (bought) coconut water (me and my husband) after Bikramyoga class - it gives us some kind of amazing energy after hard and sweaty class!

I also use coconut in my daily diet (recipes) like coconut water, coconut meat or shredded coconut.

I wanted to have some more information regarding coconut and I found out that this full of nutrition's and miners. I also found some interesting facts on the web page  www.coconutresearchcenter.org. Below you can read some of it!

The scientific name for coconut is Cocos nucifera. Early Spanish explorers called it coco, which means "monkey face" because the three indentations (eyes) on the hairy nut resembles the head and face of a monkey. Nucifera means "nut-bearing."

The coconut provides a nutritious source of meat, juice, milk, and oil that has fed and nourished populations around the world for generations. On many islands coconut is a staple in the diet and provides the majority of the food eaten. Nearly one third of the world's population depends on coconut to some degree for their food and their economy. Among these cultures the coconut has a long and respected history.

Coconut is highly nutritious and rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. It is classified as a "functional food" because it provides many health benefits beyond its nutritional content. Coconut oil is of special interest because it possesses healing properties far beyond that of any other dietary oil and is extensively used in traditional medicine among Asian and Pacific populations. Pacific Islanders consider coconut oil to be the cure for all illness. The coconut palm is so highly valued by them as both a source of food and medicine that it is called "The Tree of Life." Only recently has modern medical science unlocked the secrets to coconut's amazing healing powers.
People from many diverse cultures, languages, religions, and races scattered around the globe have revered the coconut as a valuable source of both food and medicine. Wherever the coconut palm grows the people have learned of its importance as a effective medicine. For thousands of years coconut products have held a respected and valuable place in local folk medicine.

In traditional medicine around the world coconut is used to treat a wide variety of health problems including the following: abscesses, asthma, baldness, bronchitis, bruises, burns, colds, constipation, cough, dropsy, dysentery, earache, fever, flu, gingivitis, gonorrhea, irregular or painful menstruation, jaundice, kidney stones, lice, malnutrition, nausea, rash, scabies, scurvy, skin infections, sore throat, swelling, syphilis, toothache, tuberculosis, tumors, typhoid, ulcers, upset stomach, weakness, and wounds.

I also would like to wish you all A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 with a lots of good, organic GMO free foods full of nutrition's! Also to be happy, be loved and give love to everybody and everyone on this planet! 

ขอขอบคุณคุณ

(Thank you in Thai) 

RAW NUTELLA

There are a lot of different recipes which you can find on Nutella, but I think that this one is the easiest one, and it doesn´t take a long time to prepare it. The big fan of my home made raw Nutella is of course my daughter & me!!!!

It took me some time to learn how to make it smooth. So, don´t give up if you do not succeed the first time.

Raw Nutella

Ingredients:

- 1 cup hazelnuts
- 2 Tbsp cacao powder
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
- 3 Tbsp honey - or more if you like it sweeter (or coconut sugar approximately 1/2 cup)
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup filtered water (as needed) - also use coconut milk

For Nutella to be smooth I recommend a strong and good blender. If you don´t have that, make sure that the nuts are properly ground, flour-like. Add the rest of ingredients and blend until smooth, adding only as much water/coconut milk as needed to create a thick consistence like Nutella cream.

Tip: If you want to have a more delicate taste you can also add zest from an orange!

RAW MARINATED VEGETABLES

I love preparing this dish for two reasons it tastes soooo good and you can choose different side dishes to it. I realized that my daughter loves parsnips so I sometimes give her vegetables with parsnips or with noodles. Her favorite noodles at the moment are mung-bean noodles (not entirely raw) but lately she actually enjoys kelp noodles. But it has to be without any sauce therefor are this marinated vegetables perfect!

So, when you prepare vegetables the best is if they can get marinated for couple of hours (for example 2-3h). If you would like  to have them "hot" you can always add garlic or some other strong ingredient which you like. Let you imagination flow! ;-)

Raw marinated vegetables

Ingredients:

- Any vegetable you like in the picture I have (broccoli, cauliflower, bell pepper & mushrooms)
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
- 2 to 3 Tbs (or more) olive oil (or sesame oil)
- 1 Tbsp Tamari
- 1 to 2 Tbsp black and white sesame seeds (optional)

Rinse and cut all the vegetables in the peaces of you choice but not too tiny. Put them in the bowl. Pour the rest of ingredients over it and toss it well. Put it a side and after a half of hour make a toss again. Meanwhile rinse the noodles or prepare "parsnip" rice. Enjoy!!!

EASY OVERNIGHT RAW CACAO OATS

This easy breakfast I found on instagram from gmofreegirl. When I made it the first time it was so popular in my family that I had to make this every day for a week. The best of all our 5-year old love this breakfast!

You need to prepare this before on the night maybe before you go to bed. Here is the recipe:

Put this in a mason jar:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tsp chia seeds

Smoothie:
2 cups nut milk
3 Tbsp raw cacao powder
2 bananas
0,5 cup peanut butter (or any other of your chose)
1 Tbsp maca powder

Blend everything together.

Add smoothie mix to the rolled oats but leave about an inch of room at the top.
Place in refrigerator overnight.
In the morning top with any fruit or nuts you like! Enjoy!!

RAW SUSHI MAKI ROLL

I love vegetarian sushi and for two years I have tried to introduce it to our daughter without luck. But, the other day things changed; on the way home from nursery school she asked ME to make her sushi for dinner!!!!!
So, I found and easy and quick recipe & we made it together.
The result: SHE LOVED IT!  I had to do the same dish agin after two days!

The only thing is that she doesn't like avocado so I made without it. But you can feel free and let your imagination flow and put whatever vegetables you like!

RAW SUSHI MAKI ROLL

"Rice":

- 1 or 2 parsnip depending on their size (you can use even cauliflower florets if you like)
- 1 or 2 Tbsp to pine nuts
- 1,5 Tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp black sesame seeds (optional)
- 0,5 tsp himalaya salt

Mix everything together in a food processor until it has a rice consistency. Use this instead of rice when rolling maki roll.

Vegetables:

- Red pepper
- Cucumber
- Carrot
- Avocado
- Sprouts

- 2 to 3 nori sheets

On the nori sheet spread 1/3 cup "rice" evenly be sure to leave a bit of space on top for rolling, continue to assemble with vegetables that you have chosen stacking in center, tuck and roll. (You can use the bamboo mat as I did to roll easier).
Slice into peaces with a really sharp knife and serve with shoyu and wasabi.

RAW MUSHROOM & BROCCOLI WITH PARSNIP "RICE"

This recipe is a perfect alternative if you feel for having some rice with vegetables but in Asian stile. You don´t have to have avocado and sauerkraut if you don´t want to. I took what I had & what I fancied at that moment... Feel free to experiment!

Ingredients:

1 head of small broccoli florets

1 cup of mushrooms

2 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp tamari

Sauce:

1/4 cup tahini

1 tsp yacon syrup or honey

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3 tsp tamari

1/2 garlic clove

1/2 small de-seeded chili

1/2 cm cube of fresh ginger

"Rice":

1,5 cups peeled parsnips

1,5 Tbsp pine nuts

1 Tbsp macadamia nuts

1 Tbsp cold-pressed sesame oil

Broccoli:

1. Mix all ingredients together in al large bowl and massage with your hands until the broccoli becomes softer.

3. Add mushrooms and give it a toss & leave to stand for 10 minutes.

2. Put broccoli to a non-sticky dehydrator tray and dehydrate for about 4 h at 43 degrees.

Sauce:

1. Blend all ingredients in a high-speed blender.

2. Mix with dehydrated broccoli when ready to serve with parsnip "rice"(I used the sauce on the side)

"Rice":

1. Grind all ingredients in a food processor until rice like

This is what my daughter had for dinner!!!

Raw lentil stew

Found this recipe and tried it yesterday it was super delicious! Even our 5 year old daughter loved it!!!   

RAW LENTIL STEW

Ingredients:

- 1 cup green lentils, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained

- 1/2 large sweet onion, diced

- 4 large carrots, diced

- 2 cups mushrooms, diced

- 1/4 cup olive oil

- 2 tablespoons nama shoyu or gluten free soy

- 1Tbsp coconut palm sugar

Sauce:

- 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

- 2 Tbsp olive oil

- 4 dates

- 4 medium ripe tomatoes

- 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

- 2 Tbsp chili powder (more if you like it hot)

- 1 Tbsp coconut palm sugar

- Himalayan salt

- 1 tomato to garnish (if you want)

Preparation:

1. In a large bowl, stir together diced carrots, onions and mushrooms.

2. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, nama shoyu and coconut palm sugar.

3. Pour over carrot mixture and let it sit at least an hour to marinate.

4. To make the sauce, in a high speed blender, blend sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, dates, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, chili powder and coconut palm sugar until smooth.

5. Add lentils to veggie, pour sauce over veggie mixture and stir. Add a dash of Himalayan salt to taste and top with diced tomato, if desired.

Enjoy!!!

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RAW KALE, AVOCADO & KELP SALAD

This dish is very easy to prepare and you don´t need any machines only your hands. I love avocado, kale and kelp noodles so combination of those are just marvelous. I just love this salad!!!

Ingredients:

- 1 large avocado
- bag of kelp noodles
- 3 cups of thinly sliced raw kale
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- Juice of half a lemon (or more if you prefer like me)
- 1 to 2 Tablespoon olive oil
- Himalaya salt and black pepper to taste

Preparation:

Rinse kelp noodles under the water. Slice raw kale and put it into the bowl and pour olive oil over it. "Massage" it with your hands until it gets soft. Mix kale with parsley and kelp thoroughly. Smash the avocado and lemon into the bowl with fork, pour over the kelp mix and use your hands again to "massage" it all together. Add salt and pepper to taste. I even used furikake sprinkles.
Enjoy!!!

Kale chips

This thing about raw-food, as many of my friends know, sometimes it takes time to prepare. For example yesterday evening I started to prepare kale & zucchini chips. So, today when I came home from work, kale chips was ready but not zucchini. It's been dehydrating for 18h!!!!

We could enjoy kale chips this afternoon!!!
Tomorrow, hopefully, we will even enjoy zucchini as well! I´ll will inform you on that one!

I bought kale on farmers market on saturday and for the first time I decided to buy the purple one. I washed it and took away "trunk" the hard part & saved it for juicing. In the bowl I added olive oil and salt and kale. Gave it good massage with hands and made sure that all the lives were covered with oil & were soft. Than I added some smoked paprika and tossed it well before putting all the kale on the dehydrated sheets & in to the dehydrator for approximately 16-18h on 43 degrees. (you can put whatever you wont instead of paprika, onion powder, garlic etc use your imagination)

I made the same procedure for zucchini. To cut zucchini finely I used "mandoline" - food slicer.

Raw Spaghetti Bolognese

After two weeks of vacation in Turkey with no cooking & all days just resting and reading books we are back in everyday life. Busy at work, cleaning home trying to start exercise and so on I realized that there is not much time over for preparing raw food for the family. So I had to find out something besides salad that is easy and quick to prepare.

Below is the recipe of raw spaghetti bolognese, measurements are approximately because I put as much as I feel is enough. But I try my best, here is for 2 portions.

Raw Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti:

1-2 zucchini (depends on how big they are)

1-2 carrots (depends on how big they are)

Tomato Sauce:

2-3 tomatoes

1 dl sun-dried tomatoes (soaked at least for 30 minutes)

2 -3 Tbsp soaked water from tomatoes

one handful of fresh basil

one handful of fresh oregano (or 1 tsp dried)

1 tsp dried sage

pinch of salt

"Meat":

0,5 dl flex meal

1 dl brazil nuts

1 dl walnuts

Preparation:

• spiralize zucchini and carrots (if you don´t have spiralizer you can use potato peeler - it will be more thicker/wider) and put them in the bowl.
• To prepare tomato sauce put everything in mixer or blender and mix all ingredients together, but cut sun-dried tomatoes into small peaces before mixing.
• Grind separately nuts and combine them together afterwards. 
• Pour over "spaghetti" tomato sauce and "meat" and bled everything together and serve right away. (If you are serving it later than keep everything separated because as soon as you combine zucchini with sauce zucchini will become watery)

Enjoy!

Kelp Noodles with raw pesto

Here is one quick recipe that is easy to make if you feel hungry and would like to eat something A.S.A.P.
I just love Kelp Noodles and this recipe reminds me of pasta with pesto which I used to eat but it tastes much better and has so much more benefits than pasta. It´s full of all kinds of nutrients like: A, B1, B2, C, D and E as well as minerals including zinc, iodine, magnesium, iron potassium, copper and calcium. It contains the high concentration of calcium - 10 times more than milk!

Did you know that Kelp are large seaweeds belonging to the brown algae in the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Kelp grows in underwater "forests"in shallow oceans, and thought to have appeared in Micone, 23 to 5 million years ago!!!

Kelp Noodles with raw pesto:

• One bag of Kelp Noodles 
• 1 dl pine nuts
• 2 handful of fresh basil
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 lemon - juice 
• 1 avocado
• pinch of salt (or more) 

Preparation:

1. Rinse noodles well under the water (or according to the instructions)

2. In the blender or food processor mix pine nuts, basil, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, until it gets a nice consistency

3. Put avocado and pulse until it combines well and looks nice and creamy. Taste it with some salt. 

4. Put Kelp Noodles in the big bowl and pour pesto over it. Mix it all together well, a few minutes, until all Kelp Noodles are covered in pesto sauce. If you are not too hungry let them sit aside for a while or until you make a salad.

RAW STICKS WITH WHITE SAUCE

Nowadays, when I am introducing more and more raw-food to our daughter I want to make some dish which she likes or at leas it reminds her of the dish she is used to eat. One of the dishes she liked to eat was fish sticks! A few weeks ago, a friend of mine, told me about internet-site with amazing raw recipes. So I found this "fish sticks" there...

This raw sticks taste much better than the real fish sticks and our daughter loved them but she didn´t like the sauce. (She is actually not so into sauces at all). Me and my husband loved the sauce - it makes sticks taste even better!!!

I made some adjustments to our taste and below you have the recipe. It makes about 20 sticks.

 Ingredients:

• 1 cup raw almonds - soaked
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds - soaked 
• 1/2 cup celery, minced
• 1/2 cup red onion, minced
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 tsp Tamari 
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp dried dill weed, or 1 Tbsp fresh dill weed
• 1/2 cup water
• (ca 1/8 cup ground flax seeds, if the "dough" is not so easy to work with)

"Breading":

• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp himalaya salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper 
• 1 tsp nutritional yeast 

Ingredients for the sauce:

• 1 cup macadamia nuts
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp pickle juice
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup minced sweet pickle (or more I love pickle!)

Preparation:

1. After soaking the almonds and sunflower seeds, drain and rinse them.   Place them in the food processor, fitted with the “S” blade.  Process until they break down to a paste.
2. Add the celery, onion, lime juice, Tamari, salt and dill. Process until blended together.  Scrape the sides down occasionally.
3. While the food processor is running, drizzle in the water – adding only enough to make the paste nice and moist.   Transfer to a bowl.  (If it does not stick together good enough add some ground flax seeds).
4. To make the breading, grind the macadamia in the food processor to a small crumb size.  Don’t over process, as this will start to release the oils.
5. Add the ground flax seeds, paprika, salt, pepper and yeast.  Pulse together and pour into a rectangular container for dredging.
6. Measure out 2 Tbsp of dough and shape into a stick.  Then coat with the breading and place on the mesh sheet that comes with your dehydrator.   Continue until all the dough is used.
7. Dehydrate at 145 degrees for 1 hour then reduce heat to 115 degrees and continue drying for 4 -6 hours.  Don’t dry these too much that they get hard… fish sticks are moist.
8. Store leftovers in the fridge for up to 5 days.  You can reheat them by placing them back in the dehydrator for a while.

Sauce preparation:

1. Put macadamia nuts in the blender and grind them into powder.
2. Add the water, vinegar, pickle juice, garlic powder and salt.  Blend until smooth.  Depending on your blender this can take 1-5 minutes.  Transfer into a bowl.
3. Add the minced pickled and stir together.
4. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.