Banana coconut chocolate oat cookies

Ok, so these are so so yummy and very quick to make if I weren't out of oats I'd make them again hehe :)

I made these twice and I think I now have a basic recipe :) If I make any changes in the future I will be sure to update the post :)

Oat base:

1 cup gluten free oats
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
 6 dates
1 ripe banana
1 tbs coconut oil
1 tbs almond butter (optional)
1/4 tsp vanilla powder
dash of Himalayan salt

Firstly, add the oats to a food processor and briefly pulse ( I used my vitamix which is ok too as long as you keep it on a low setting and briefly blend).
Then I added the remaining ingredients and pulsed until well combined.
Next, add about a tbs of the mixture to silicone molds and at this point you can either continue with the next step or put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes or so. I found that when I made them the second time and skipped this initial freezer stage the chocolate sunk in to the oat base and found its way down the sides and into the cracks and I kinda liked it :)   

1 ripe banana thinly sliced
Top the base with a few slices of banana.

chocolate topping:
I used my chocolate recipe that you can find HERE but if you don't have any cacao butter you can use coconut oil or coconut butter instead :)

Pour about a tbs of the chocolate sauce over the bananas and base and then pop them back in to the freezer to set. About 30 minutes or so. It was so cold here I actually put them out on the balcony :)

Then keep them in the fridge for a few days...if they last that long ;) This made about 9 servings so we had plenty of time to enjoy them over a couple of days. But trust me they were hard to resist!
We love having them with homemade hot cacao. I used homemade coconut milk, cacao powder, reishi, maca, maple syrup and it is honestly the best hot chocolate I have ever had :D

Enjoy <3

Chocolate loooove

I love chocolate! I actually love my own chocolate more than store bought ones! There are a lot of awesome brands that make yummy raw chocolate but I guess my own creations taste better to me.

The thing is I don't really have a recipe which I realise I will need to post soon so I will get one on here soon :)

Woohooo! I finally have a recipe :D I must admit I forgot the dash of salt as I was talking on the phone to some friends who have just returned from a few months of traveling (any excuse to make chocolate again right?;) ). I will have to try it again with the salt this time but they tasted yummy! However, I do think that when I don't measure things always taste nicer hehe but, I think this recipe is a very good place to start. I would advise to taste it after you put in your sweetener and adjust the sweetness to your preference.

1 1/2 cup cacao butter (before I chopped/shaved it)

1 cup cacao powder 

2-3 tbs of sweetener (either maple syrup/coconut nectar/local raw honey) adjust sweetness to taste

1/2 tsp vanilla powder
Dash of Himalayan Salt

1tbs maca (optional)

A few drops of essential oil (optional).

I usually just chop up the cacao butter melt it in a glass bowl using Bain Marie method. Then add around the cacao powder take it off the heat and add a tablespoon or more of either maple syrup, coconut nectar or raw honey. Once they're nicely incorporated I add 1/4-1/2 tsp of vanilla powder and a dash of Himalayan salt. Recently, I have also been adding 1tbs maca powder too. Then I might also add some reishi powder or a few drops of essential oil (my favorites are orange or peppermint, yum!  .
This year so far I have made chocolates filled with blueberries, raspberries, a raspberry chia mix and my new favorite tahini with mashed banana! Oh boy I can't wait to make these again!

Here are some pictures for you all to see how yummy my creations have looked  :)

Tahini seaweed salad dressing

Oooooo this dressing is so yum! And the added bonus of seaweed makes it even better ;) I made this over a huuuuge bowl of salad consisting of: spiralized courgette and cucumber, rocket, spinach, Batavia lettuce, grated carrots and beets! I could easily have eaten another bowl hehe

The recipe goes a little something like this:

Tahini salad dressing (makes at least 2 servings) 

3tbs tahini

3 tbs nutritional yeast

3 garlic cloves 

1tsp mustard 

Water till required consistency reached start with 1/4 cup

Himalayan salt or sea salt to taste 

1 1/2 lemon 

1tbs hemp oil

Seaweed flakes, as much as you like  (optional) 

I like mine quite thick but still a little runny so my best advice is to add water in gradually till you reach the consistency you like. I really love this with lemon but you could use ACV instead or a mixture of both. This sauce would also go really nice over wheat free pasta too and I can't wait to give that a go! 

If you try this recipe I really hope you enjoy it :) 

All the pretty colors :) 

I definitely will be eating lots of this :) 

Wishing you all the best of health and love for 2014!!  

Namaste 

Baked stuffed munchkin pumpkin

I had the pleasure of finding organic munchkin pumpkins back in October. I hadn't really experimented with cooking pumpkins before going high raw vegan and this was about my second or third time cooking with them! I absolutely looooove mushrooms and had some on hand ( I wish I had some kale or spinach too) and thought how very yummy it would be to fill the pumpkins up with some Tamari soaked mushrooms and some kind of nut 'cheese' sauce. I usually make 'cheese' with cashews or macadamia nuts but I was out of both and the only nuts I had were brazil nuts. So, I used them instead and I am glad I did! :) It was so yummy!

This is such an easy meal to make. Simply slice the top off your pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and coat the pumpkin in some coconut oil. Then slice up some mushrooms which you can either soak in tamari for a few hours and then add to your cooked pumpkin or you can just add them straight in with the pumpkin and bake until it's ready.

The Brazil nut 'cheese' sauce is super easy to make.
This makes about 2 servings:
1/2 cup brazil nuts
approx. 1/4 water (start slow till you reach desired consistency)
1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
1 lemon (or 1 tb ACV)
1 tsp thyme or rosemary (dried or fresh) or even oregano (I love anything with oregano)!
Dash of himalyan salt

Blend in a vitamix till nice and creamy. You may need to add a little more water but see how you go.
If you use Cashews instead of brazil nuts you will need to soak them for at least 4 hours beforehand. 

Once your pumpkin is ready (the time will depend on your oven so keep an eye on it after 20 minutes or so) add your mushrooms (if they aren't in there already ;) ) and a little dollop of the brazil nut sauce. Serve with salad (or steamed veggies) and enjoy :)

We heart munchkin pumpkins!

Liana Shanti's website is up!

My wonderful and loving nutritionist Liana Shanti launched her website last month. I am a bit late on posting about this for various reasons. As most of you know, Fredrik and I embarked on a 30 day juice fast at the end of October. It was quite a challenging one for me and I ended up only making it to day 21. Before I even started the fast I had been dealing with a very intense cluster headache. It ended up lasting about 2 weeks! Then as I was detoxing past chemicals and starting to feel better another part of my body started to 'play up'. Turns out I had an abscess forming right by the perianal fistula and after a few days of intense pain and high fever Liana was able to persuade me to seek medical attention.
I ended up in the ER and having surgery to drain the abscess. They have put a seton in place (I now have 2) and I am home and healing.  My sweetheart has been absolutely amazing <3 I really am truly blessed to have such a sweet and caring person in my life. Liana continues to be amazing supporting me and guiding me in my healing <3 I am so grateful for all the amazing people in my life.
Lets get back to Liana's awesome website. You will find free recipes, massive amounts of nutritional and other information and weekly meal plans you can purchase. You will get to read about the lovely Liana and her wonderful team.

 You will also find a page dedicated to the all wonderful, healthful and extremely affordable programs she provides. Like the candida program below :)

There is soooooooo much awesome info on there I know you will love it as much as I do :)
Enjoy!

Love and light <3

30 day juice fast

It has been quite a while since my last post! The good news is that my wonderful guy and I are on day 7 of our 30 day juice fast! Yeay! My body was actually really screaming out for one the last couple of months and I am so grateful we have started. We are also doing an added parasite cleanse but I had already seen some parasites before we started. My body must really be getting nice and alkaline :) If you would like more info on the juice fast and parasite cleanse you can read more here. This is the plan we are following and Liana, as I have mentioned heaps of times before, she is absolutely  amazing, extremely supportive and so loving. We have so much love and gratitude for this lady. I shall be keeping you all updated on how it is going, although, I can already say that it is and will continue to be wonderful. I am doing the best thing I could ever do for my body and soul. I am eternally thankful to Liana for her knowledge and love and to my sweet and loving Fredrik for always supporting me and being part of this journey with me. I am blessed.  

Psychedelic Juice days :)

Vibrant juices all day every day :)

Power Garlic Soup! Recipe by Liana Shanti!

Mmmmmm this soup is soooo yummy and sooooo good for you!! Helps get rid of the sniffles in no time :) yeah!
Thank you Liana for another amazing recipe! <3

Mmm roasted garlic :)

Portobello mushroom burgers and avocado burger sauce

I looooove mushrooms and I love saucy foods too! I came across this idea of making raw vegan burgers using portobello mushrooms as the buns and adding different veggies on the inside whilst on one of my many internet searches for raw vegan inspiration. I was so excited and so I started experimenting with this idea! Since we always have shredded beets and carrots in our salads everyday I thought this would be a perfect thing to fill the space in between the mushrooms. Then I added some greens like spinach and even tomatoes (but for Fredrik as I am avoiding nightshades). Then I added some mashed avocados, a few rings of red onion and pickles (I love pickles!!! So I only eat them with this meal and always organic).  Our new favorite meal! I then came up with a better way to incorporate some of the ingredients in to a sauce. I put the avocados, onion, and pickles together and it made the most amazing burger sauce EVER!! I don't usually measure anything that I come up with so I am going to try and guess what went in it.

Burger sauce ingredients:

2 avocados 

1 red onion

6 pickles (I had the small ones in dill which gave great taste so a I recommend adding some dill to this if your pickles are without) 

2 teaspoons of mustard 

1 tbs tamari 

2 tbs apple cider vinegar 

3 tbs water 

Dash of cayenne, Himalayan salt and pepper 

Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse.

For the portobello mushrooms:

If you want to go fully raw with this I just let them marinate in a bit of tamari for a few hours or overnight (or even in direct sunlight!). Sometimes I like them a little warm so I pop them in the oven for a little while on low heat.

To assemble the burgers:

Take one mushroom and top with some avocado burger sauce, then add some shredded beetroot and carrots, few leaves of spinach or other veggies or greens and then more avocado burger sauce. Finally, top with the second mushroom and sprinkle with some sesame seeds :) 

Enjoy with a huuuuuge salad :) 

(Sorry for the bad photos)

This is what the sauce and burger looks like! I didn't sprinkle any sesame seeds on as I was out.

My first attempt :)

Close of the first attempt..mmmmm :)

Juicer art and Sushi with almond dipping sauce

We are back in London and I am very happy to be reunited with my juicer!!  And today my juicer created art not only in the form of healing, loving and amazingly tasty juice, as it always does, but in the form of a juice piggy (thanks to the lovely Nina of Veggie Wedgie for pointing the piggy resemblance out :) ).

Here he is guzzling my juice and looking pretty :D 

I also made some yummy raw vegan sushi with almond dipping sauce for lunch. Oh boy was it tasty!

The almond dipping sauce is so easy to make. All you need is some raw almond butter, tamari, apple cider vinegar and a dash of cayenne whisked together with a fork! So simple and super tasty. I have recently been having trouble stomaching nori but the almond sauce actually made the taste heaps better and I found it more of a pleasure to eat. If only I had made more sushi! Hehehe 

Trip to Gotland :)

My sweetheart and I visited the beautiful Swedish island of Gotland at the end of July. Gotland is about 90 km off the Swedish coast and located in the Baltic sea. Fredrik grew up on the island and it was so awesome to see his old childhood home and the schools he went to. Visby, Gotlands capital, is a great medieval town graced with cobbled lanes, ruins and cathedrals, it has such a great vibe!  They have a small juice bar and a few health food shops and the supermarkets that had a pretty decent range of organic produce (although I'm sure if I had more time there I would have found a local farmer to supply us with our veggies). We were very fortunate to stay at Fredriks fathers and step mums home right outside the main wall (the inner town in surrounded by a very old ring wall). So we were able to prepare yummy breakfasts and lunch and dinners every day :) We did eat out twice though! One evening at Surfers who were kind enough to not deep fry the tofu and adjust dishes so they were gluten free and vegan :) and another evening at a another local restaurant where we asked for lightly grilled veggies and salad :) For our breakfasts we had our green vibrance powder followed by yummy organic fruits! Delicious goodiness!

Fredrik celebrated his 33rd birthday while we were out there and I made him his favourite raw vegan chocolate orange cheesecake. I got the recipe from RAWMAZING

It's so yummy and for that reason I have vowed to only make it once a year hehe it is very high in (good) fats and not something I want to be eating regularly. I also made Liana Shanti's yummy raw blackberry stawberry summer crumble and used organic blueberries and strawberries. We both really, really love this dessert! Thank you Liana <3

I hope that in the future we get to back and spend a little longer on the island so we can see and do a lot more!

Here are a few of the many photos I took :)

Not another Natto post...

Yup I'm afraid so ;) but this time I made it!! Yeaaaay! Found some natto at the Japanese Food and Kitchen shop here in Stockholm so of course I couldn't wait to make what I had eaten in Amsterdam! And here is my version:

I basically just mixed together some chopped spring onion, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. Drizzled on a sauce made of ACV, mustard and tamari then put it all on a bed of baby spinach and brown rice! Was so delicious! 

Ideally, I would like to make my own natto purely because the ones I bought do not say non-gmo and also they came in styrofoam packaging which I definitely am not a fan of. I know that in London they sell the same kind of thing so I guess I better get cooking or should I say fermenting!! hehe
If you would like to find out why Natto is so good for you check out this awesomely informative post by the wonderful Liana Shanti HERE :)

A more recent photo of my yummy natto dish :) yum!

Juicer info :)

I am very blessed to own a Green Star Elite juicer! It is an amaaaazing juicer and I just love it! It may be on the pricey end of the scale compared to other juicers out there but really it works out to be the best investment in the long run. I got mine from UKJUICERS. If you are going to be doing regular juice fasts or adding more juices to your diet I highly recommend this juicer. You will end up saving so much money on produce!
Liana Shanti has posted some great info on the different types of juicers on her FACEBOOK page take a read HERE and decide for yourself :)

Here are some videos to watch too :)

Summer tiiiiime!!

It has been very warm in London for over a week now with temperatures around 24-30 degrees Celsius which is really warm for a city like London, well I think it is :)  So, to cool down, I have been making lots of fresh juice ice lollies with my newly acquired rocket moulds! They are so quick and easy to make and are a great treat! I've made some with watermelon-lime-mint juice, orange juice and raspberries, grapefruit juice and blueberries, apple and ginger and one where I used leftover smoothie and sliced strawberries! Soooo gooood and the possibilities are endless! :)

Yumminess!!

Awesomely yummy and super quick snack! I don't often measure things so I'm not sure exactly how much of everything I put in:

Frozen bananas, spinach, vanilla hemp protein powder and a date (which for my tastes buds made it too sweet but Fredrik loved it!) Then I just topped with some yummy fruits and a chocolate sauce I made out raw cacao powder and maple syrup :) Ah I love all the colors! :D

Natto love!!

My lovely boyfriend and I just got back from spending the weekend in beautiful Amsterdam visiting a close friend. I love Amsterdam and am so grateful we got the chance to visit. This was Fredriks first time there and we will definitely be going back again in the future. Naturally, before we left for Amsterdam, I googled where to find vegan restaurants and where we could buy organic fruits and veggies to prepare meals at home. I found a few places and on Saturday we went to one of the restaurants I found online called TerraZen. TerraZen is a lovely family run restaurant serving Japanese-Carribean food really close to Amsterdam Centraal.  I was super excited to see that on their menu they had something I had been wanting to try for some time...NATTO and oh my was it yummy!! I could have easily eaten seconds :) Natto is super good for you! The lovely RawganicVegan has posted heaps about the awesome health benefits of Natto and I must admit I will definitely be adding it to my diet from now on. You can read up on the amazingness of Natto HERE :)

Avocado Natto yumminess.

Vegan boyfriend yumminess outside TerraZen :)