Gluten Free Healthy Food

An actual blog update, oh no!

I’ve borrowed this survey from my friend Nicole, who is the wondrous wonderful beacon of inspiring wonderment glowing in the vegan firmament who originally inspired me to throw caution to the wind (and vegan pies into the faces of naysayers) and go veg in the 1st place! All the MoFo-ing (”Vegan Month of Food” blogging) going on in the blogosphere has also inspired me to forgo valuable sleep and answer the following questions!

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1. Favourite non-dairy milk?
… Good grief, just one? Well. I love the heck outta my homemade raw nut milks. Almond & date milk is a classic. Macadamia milk is frothy & perfectly creamy, cashew milk is great in tea & in berry smoothies, & hazelnut milk is simply divine (but pricey!). Shop-bought? I usually go for Vitasoy rice milk or Bonsoy. Or a coconut if they look nice!

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
… Only 3? Another good grief! I’ll just tell you my most immediate plans: 1. For my 6mo daughter, I’m going to try whizzing up a raw mash of sweet potato & zucchini, maybe a dash of flax oil or Udo’s oil, & warm it slightly; 2. Mango sorbet coconut tartlets from Ani Phyo’s dessert book; 3. Sprout & tempeh sang choy bow.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Tamari & nutritional yeast is BRILLIANT on popcorn. Just ask Webly.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
A while back I made a gluten-free orange cake that collapsed near the end of baking & turned to mush in the centre. But it still tasted good! I made many gluten-free test loaves with too much baking soda, yick. & onion in juice… What the hell is up with people drinking that? Yargh.

5. Favourite pickled item?
Radish in sushi.

6. How do you organise your recipes?
Organise? In one big random pile! Or with categories or tags on a blog!

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Compost, baby! We have 2 enormous bins in the garden, & a bokashi bin in the kitchen. There’s a rumour going around that we named them after our favourite characters on True Blood. I think you’ll find that’s an outright lie. Or true. One of those.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
ONLY 3? Wot! Very uncool.

1. Bananas
2. Parsley
3. Sesame seeds

… damn it. I want goji berries & dates, too. & a million other things! Like raw brazil nut carob/cacao cakes! & coconuts. D’oh.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Mushrooms. On the BBQ. I remember I thought they were gross & didn’t want to try them, but then I did & said something like: “Mushrooms are better than chocolate.” Wise words, indeed.

10. Favourite vegan ice cream?
I can’t go past the lime icecream from Ani Phyo’s raw dessert book. It’s like the best fruity gelato & the best creamy icecream ever all at once! So lovely. & FYI: I’ve heard it said that vegan icecream is not real icecream, & that’s very true: it’s unreal icecream. Fucking A.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
Blender! Of course.

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
I’ve grown to love parsley. It’s brilliantly versatile & packed full of nutrients. Good, old parsley! It’s underrated. & quite lovely in the right smoothie or juice.

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
I have an enormous collection… not sure. I think my 1st vegan recipe book was Vegan With A Vengeance.

14. Favorite flavour of jam/jelly?
Raw jam made out of dates & raspberries srsly kicks butt. & I don’t mind some fig jam.

15. Favourite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Ooo… Snackwise, the raw brazil carob & coconut slice kicks even “carob haters” in the arse, so that’s fun! Mains, I find baked vegan shepherd’s pie wins many hearts. Or a salad of raw Asian greens, herbs, avocado, & tomato dressed with a tamari-gingery-sesame seedy-nice oil concoction amazes anyone & everyone. You CAN win friends with salad!

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
I love tempeh the mostest, but don’t eat it often enough. Tofu is easy & nice. I don’t do wheaty seitan usually, but occasionally yum-out on Asian soy faux meat. In this kinda proteiny category, I usually steer more towards nuts & greens.

17. Favourite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
I’m all about breakfast, baby. Smoothies, juices, scrambles, fruit pudding, freshly blended nut milky things, berry-laden raw muesli, scrambled tofu or nuts, leftover pizza or curry, herbs & greens, nut spreads on toast/raw bread, marmite, tomatoes, faux pho, miso, & raw desserts… Breakfast for every meal, k thx!

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
Placemats & kitchen scales &… random stuff.

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Berries, carob sauce/raw icing (frosting), tempeh

20. What’s on your grocery list?
Right now? Tomatoes & garlic. Running low!

21. Favourite grocery store?
Don’t really have one… I prefer outdoor produce markets, & they vary week to week… Asian grocery shops that stock crazy “pure vegetarian” foods are always fun. I like the one at Q-store shopping complex on the Gold Coast. They always have fresh coriander, which is more than I can say for the bloody awful chain stupormarkets around here! Fie.

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
A proper crème brûlée. I’ve been meaning to for aaages. People always make them custardy instead of really creamy. I reckon it would be easiest replicated using gourmet raw foodie techniques rather than with cooked stuff. Macadamia nuts &/or cashews are probably a good place to start. & I shall start. As soon as I have time & develop a hankering for an insanely rich dessert.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Way to embarrass me, survey. I haven’t been keeping up with any blog regularly since bubs arrived! Sorry, blogosphere.

24. Favourite vegan candy/chocolate?
Swami’s Rawganic chocolate bars. No contest. She’s a brilliant cook/uncook.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
I don’t really do extravagant..? Perhaps hemp oil… oh, wait. That’s not officially recognised as a foodstuff in Australia yet! Way to be behind the times, Australia. Also hemp flour, since you can’t buy hemp seeds. & hemp flour is only supposed to be used animal feed, apparently. Gee, lucky humans are animals, then! But. Ok. So I’d better just feed it to my cats because our backwards-arse government regulatory body says no. Yep. Yessir.

26. Ingredients you are scared to work with?
Anything vegan ist gut, ja! Except maybe that Mexican gourmet moldy corn stuff? Pass. I don’t digest regular corn too well anyway. Also, O_o & vegan haggis. I mean srsly. WHY.

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Fun! I hope y’all out there are enjoying Vegan MoFo! Xoxo

I haven’t blogged for a while, it seems! Pregnancy keeps one a little busier than one expects. Of course, if you’ve been following me on Twitter, you’ll know that my husband & I are also in the process of completing renovations on our unit & buying a house… So it hasn’t all been extra snacking & growing a baby! There are plenty of other Time Vampires at work in our lives right now… I’m coming up to 36 weeks. Not long to go now…

But! I’ve finally thrown some info together on the Raw Food page of this site.

I’ve also recently read Evie’s Kitchen – a book about mostly-raw vegan nutrition & living for kids (& their parents!). There’s plenty of fascinating up-to-date info in there that you won’t find anywhere else, & it’s packed with brilliant recipe ideas. Combined with reading & rereading a stack of other books lately, including Skinny Bitch: Bun In The Oven & Raising Vegan Children in a Non-Vegan World, I doubt there’s a vegan nutrition element that’s been left out of my literary diet these last few months. Yum!

ETA: I’ve added another page: Raw Vegan FAQ

In the house where I grew up we had a passionfruit vine growing along the fence for some years. I recently rediscovered my passion for passionfruit thanks to some cheap summer produce & created this delicious & simple smoothie.

2 large bananas, chopped
6 passionfruit, halved
2 cups water
¾ cup almonds (soaked is best)
⅓ cup dates
1 tsp vanilla extract or ½ bean

Blend bananas, water, almonds, dates, & vanilla until smooth. Scoop out passionfruit seeds & flesh, add to blender, & whiz until well combined & seeds are broken up (into pieces around the size of black sesame seeds). Serves 4.

Don’t over-blend this one or it will froth up! If you want to make your smoothie extra-icy, add ½-1 cup of ice & blend for 10 seconds.

&here’s a bonus blurry pic of my most excellent raw pizza lunch & green juice:

&for people who are counting: 11 weeks to go…

Raw bread = yum! And so easy to make. This is the only bread I’ve been eating at home lately.

You’ll need a temperature-adjustable dehydrator or a very-low-heat-capable oven for this one! I find a spice/coffee mill to be another good tool for making this bread as well – freshly ground seeds make a much better flavour and texture. Old flaxmeal develops a bitter taste as the plant oils begin to break down. Keep your flaxmeal in the freezer and your flaxseeds in the fridge so you don’t miss out on a better flavour and those valuable omega oils!

3 cups ground flax seeds (linseeds)
4 cups water
1 tsp sea salt
1 cup seeds – your favourites! I use a mix of pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, & poppy
1 tbsp dried herbs – I usually go for Italian herbs like oregano and thyme, & a bit of crushed garlic is nice occasionally, too.

In a large bowl, mix together the ground flax seeds, water, and salt until well combined. If you let the mix sit a few minutes while you get out the rest of the ingredients it will begin to thicken.

Stir through your favourite seeds and mixed herbs. Spread the batter evenly on to dehydrator trays – in an Excalibur dehydrator you’ll use 3 trays, and in a smaller circular dehydrator you’ll use around 5 trays (don’t forget to line the trays with parchment/baking paper if you don’t have other tray inserts to use on top of the mesh!). Use the back of a spoon to smooth the mixture out.

Dry at 40ºC/104ºF to 45ºC/113ºF for approximately 4 hours. Flip the bread over and score it into slices – approx. 9 square slices on each Excalibur dehydrator tray, and 6-8 wedge slices on the round trays – the lines will make it easy to break the bread into slices. Continue to dehydrate until desired texture/dryness is reached – for at least another hour.

Store the yummy seedy flax flatbread in the fridge. When fully dry, it can last 6-8 weeks at least! If you are going to use the bread immediately or within a week or two, under-dehydrate it a little and serve it warm straight out of the dehydrator – retaining a little extra moisture makes the bread more flexible.

Coming up soon: easy instructions on how to make your own Excalibur-sized dehydrator for around $50! As soon as my handy engineer-type husband gets around to putting it all together…

Makes around 6 large or 12 small biscuits/cookies.

1 cup raw almonds
¾ cup dates, pitted
pinch sea salt
½ cup raw carob powder*
⅓ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup buckwheat crispies (whole hulled groats soaked & dehydrated) (optional)

Put almonds (air-dried or towel-dried if pre-soaked) & salt into food processor. Process until chopped into tiny pieces. Add dates slowly, processing until well-combined. Add carob powder & process until combined. Add coconut, pulse until mixed through. Tip mixture into another bowl & stir through the buckwheat. Grabbing about a tablespoon of mixture at a time – roll into a ball & squash flat into a cookie/biscuit shape (if you don’t use soaked almonds, you might need to add a little water to get the mixture to stick together). Repeat until all mixture is used up. Refrigerate (or dehydrate until desired texture is reached).

Other options:
+ Press a piece of dried fruit, dried berry, a nut (eg. pistachio, macadamia, or chopped walnut pieces), or another “topping” into the centre of each biscuit for decoration & extra tastiness.
+ Roll the cookies in extra coconut to coat them – extra coconut yum!
+ Instead of buckwheat, you could also stir through chopped raw walnuts or another favourite nut or seed.
+ To make raw buckwheat crispies rather than buy/order them from a raw shop: To make raw buckwheat groats edible & crispy you have a couple of options: (1) Soak hulled buckwheat for 8 hours or overnight, rinse very well (get all that lovely “slime” off!), then dehydrate until dry; or (2) Soak hulled buckwheat for 15 minutes, sprout for 12-24 hours in a jar or sprout bag, then dehydrate until dry. The 1st option creates a crunchier, sweeter texture, & the 2nd option an earthier, less crunchy flavour that’s a bit healthier (& a bit easier to digest if you have digestive problems).
+ Add a teaspoon of cinnamon for a richer, earthier flavour.
+ You might want to reduce the amount of dates to about half a cup if you use a particularly sweet date like medjool.

*For a truly superb flavour, get a good quality untoasted carob powder – organic is usually a good bet. Carob oxidises rather quickly & loses its rich flavour, so the best place to get it is usually from a healthfood shop or organic supermarket with a high stock turnover. If you can’t get decent carob, try using a bit more &/or adding some spice like cinnamon. Additionally: these cookies harden up after being stored in the fridge for a while. I rarely bother dehydrating these sorts of foods – I prefer more water in my food for better hydration!

And increase longevity! With vegan and living foods.

Free lecture found on Google videos:

FREE GARY NULL LECTURE – CHANGE YOUR LIFE
60 min – Jan 4, 2007

Watch Gary Null’s Latest Incredible Lecture. This Extraordinary Presentation Was Filmed LIVE before thousands of people in Dallas, Texas. Enjoy!

Worth a watch. Good science, other good ideas, and good references. Quite a funny presentation in places (and even includes information on improving rat diets & health, too!).

Also, I’ve changed the header on this site to stacks of colourful fresh produce. Looks prettier! The old header was gluten-free baked bread… and I don’t bake cooked bread these days as I prefer raw flaxbread, so it didn’t seem appropriate any longer.