Vegan

Sepen (Spicy Tibetan Dipping Sauce) and the Nightshade Fairy

Posted on August 25, 2014 by leroy watson

Tibet in a bowl! I have never been to Tibet as such, but I’ve been close on a number of occasions, visiting various Tibetan regions of Northern India. Tibetan culture is alive and well in India (unfortunately the same cannot be said of Tibetan culture in Tibet, but thats a whole different blog. post. See here for more details regarding the present state of affairs in Tibet). Once, on a hike in Himachal Pradesh (North West India) I thought I’d made it across the border when a Indian army fella popped out from behind a boulder with an AK-47 and politely asked me to turn around and don’t look back. Shame, it was the absolute middle of nowhere! Tibet looked like a majestic place, all icy peaks and vistas to take the breath away and inspire sheer awe..

Tibetan Monks, Tawang Monastery - March '14

VEGGIE TIBETAN DELICACIES

The food in Tibet is designed to fuel some of the worlds most hardy folk, many of them nomads. Living at very high altitudes, with extreme temperatures and very little water, most Tibetans are rock solid folk and they need alot of sustenance. Salted yak butter tea is one way of getting fat and energy into the body, but we would definitely not recommend it as a tasty beverage. I normally opt for soemthing like Jasmin tea and Green tea is also common.

Tsampa is normal fare for breakfast, basically roast barley gruel (which grows well up there in the rare airs and windswept plains), sweetened or salty and we like to add banana to it for a luxury version. Tsampa is lovely and reminds me of a very nutritious and fortifying ‘Ready Brek’ (a British brand of thin porridge that most kids were rasied on in the ’80’s). ‘Balep’ is a light, spongy and chewy bread that is excellent dipped in a cup of hot tea on a crisp mountain morn. ‘Tingmo’ is a light, dimsun like bun that is popular as a snack and can sometimes be found by the side of village and town streets, served straight from the steamer. A welcome sight on wet and chilly day (seemingly very common in most of the Tibetan areas in India).

Noodles are an ever present and are made into something resembling what we’d call ‘Chow Mein’, sometimes with a broth, sometimes with bags of oil. Basically different sizes and styles of quite bland noodles. They normally call it Chow Chow, or they did in Arunachal Pradesh anyway. ‘Thentuk’ is like a soft tagiliatelle noodle in broth which I find the most appetising way of noodling in Tibetan parts. ‘Thukpa’ is another shape of noodle. Seasonal vegetables are an ever present in these dishes and you normally get a good amount of greens mixed in. The humble cabbage is well loved and creeps into most dishes. Fermented bamboo shoots are very popular and add a wonderful flavour contrast to meals with a very, very funky smell indeed.

Our handmade noodle dish in Menchuka, Arunachal Pradesh.

We hand made noodles whilst up in Menchuka village, Arunachal Pradesh (the north east corner of India, sandwiched between Bangladesh, Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar). We were staying with a lady named ‘Nana’ and she cooked us local specialities every night. These noodles were made as a second course, eaten after momos. The stock used was the water left after steaming the momos, she added some local vegetables (grown in the garden) and greens to the stock and let it simmer for a while and there it was, a gorgeous bowl of broth-y noodles, one of my favourite foods. Definitely what we’d call a ‘bowlful of soul’. I like the way Nana used the steaming water from the momo cooking, this type of cooking trick makes me very happy, it always seems that more traditional cooking techniques are far less wasteful than modern and the zero waste policy is something that we try and put into practice in the BHK. The beloved family Mithun (a cross between a buffalo and a cow, only found in A.P.) ate the vegetable scraps and seemed very happy with them.

Tibetans love cheese and make many varieties, normally using Yak milk. Dried yak cheese looks alot like parmesan and certainly smells like it. They also make fantastic little pastry parcels (like a British pasty) which I normally avoid as they’re stuffed with meat, like beef, or cheese. They do look delicious though.

Tibetans love a tipple and normally afterwards, a little boogie. Chang (not the terrible Thai lager) is a barley beer drank in most households and distilled grain alcohol, called Ara, is something resembling rocket fuel that gets you there very quickly, especially when huddled around a blazing fire. Falling over and dancing like a happy loon is quite common in Tibet (or maybe that’s just me!)

Being a vegan/ vegetarian couple, we find travelling around Tibetan regions quite easy, there are always plenty of vegetable based options to be had. The ‘usual suspects’ on menu’s (mentioned above) can become a little repetitive, especially when compared to the fabulous diversity of food in the plains of India.

Probably the most ubiquitous of Tibetan foods is the mighty Momo (see here for our post on these bite size pockets of supreme tastiness) and Sepen, or something similar, is the sauce you will find on most Tibetan tables. Momos are normally quite bland and need some jazzing up and this Sepen is the John Coltrane of condiments.

Menchuka high street, Arunachal Pradesh - March '14

This bowl of bright red wonderment is destined to accompany the MOMOS, but it also makes an awesome sauce to stir into noodles and can be used as a spicy little dip when canapes and nibbles are on the horizon. You can use it like any Indian style sauce, stirring it into freshly roasted vegetables is a thing of extreme tastiness. Its a good all rounder and one of our favourite things at the moment (even better than turmeric milk. Yes, that good!)

This is pretty much the exact same sauce as you get in little momo shacks all the way across the Himalayas and to eat it in the Beach House Kitchen (North Wales) is quite a tastebud twister. We have just recently been sorting our way through the local tomato bombardment, no not La Tomatina (that festival in Spain where they all lob tomatoes at each other), no, this is more like massive boxes of local tomatoes landing on our doorstep (twas the nightshade fairy we’re told!!) We have been trying to figure out what on earth to do with the big old tom glut and sauces like this are perfect. Ideal frozen (leave out the fresh coriander until you re-heat) we are amassing little red bags of sauces and chutneys all over our freezer. Of course, Sepen is by far the finest, thats why we’re sharing it with you guys.

The work of the nightshade fairies (aka John and Pippa and their amazing farm in Bethel)

Make a big bowlful:

The Bits

1 tbsp oil
2 tsp
crushed garlic
2 tsp
crushed ginger
¼ tsp
fenugreek seeds
1
dried red chilli (finely chopped) or 1/8 teas chilli flakes – to taste
500g ripe tomatoes
½ cup
fresh coriander (chopped)

Do It

Gently fry the garlic and ginger in the oil over a medium low heat, taking care not to burn. After a couple of minutes add the fenugreek seeds and the chilli and stir until the fenugreek starts to turn a darker shade of gold. Add the chopped tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then blitz up in a food processer with the fresh coriander until smooth.

Serve

You can have this sauce warm or cold, both are very tasty. Like most sauces/ stews, it does get better with age. We’d recommend an evening of chilling in a fridge, to mingle and merge the beautiful flavours.

Foodie Fact

We love our tomatoes and we love our raw food, but the two don’t exactly mix. Tomatoes are one of the only fruits/ vegetables that benefit nutritionally from a little warmth. Cooking tomatoes stimulates the lycopene (a phtyo chemical found in the red pigment of tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables) content, but does reduce the vitamin C content. For example, lycopene content in tomato paste is four times higher than that of raw tomatoes. Its a balancing act, I imagine warm tomatoes are the way forward; not totally raw, not totally roasted.

Lycopene has been shown in tests to reduce the risk of cancer, but like most nutritional research, the evidence is debatable. Tomatoes are good for you, eat them by the barrel-full (if you’re not allergic to nightshades that is!) That’s the B.H.K’s advice.

Categories: Sauces, Travel, Vegan | Tags: arunachal pradesh, cooking, food, healthy, india, mithun, photograph, tibet, tibetan, travel, vegetarian | 9 Comments

Redcurrant and Chia Breakfast Pots

Posted on August 24, 2014 by leroy watson

Redcurrant and Chia Breakfast Pot. Ready for action!

All you need for this easy and gorgeous vegan breakfast is a food processor and a fridge. It’s that super easy, lightning quick and totally nutritious. What a lovely, healthy start to the day.

Chia seeds are one of the healthiest foods known to man and are the nutritious seeds of a plant related to the mint family! Funky grass never tastes this good!! This tiny little seed acts a little like a sponge – becoming slimy and swelling up when soaked in liquid. Because of this, chia is best served mixed into something creamy and delicious…. in this case coconut milk! It can also be sprinkle on things liked salads or smoothies, like little seedy nutritional bombs!

This treat breakfast is also a perfect way to use up all those inevitable fruity autumn leftovers you (hopefully) have lurking in the corners of your fridge. We had some mango bits and some red-currants that worked perfectly, in a very random way. Sweet and sour…..bhom and mmmmmmm!

Any autumn berries would be find here, blackberries and elderberries spring to mind (as I can see them growing outside the window!) We have an awesome little project planned for the next couple of weeks when we make Beach House Garden Jam for the first time. Our plum tree has sought shelter under a dry stone wall, all the protected branches (from the vicious gales we get up here) are flourishing and its looking like a bumper plum crop this year. Add to that a healthy Barsdey apple presence from our new apple tree and the ubiquitous blackberries swathe that is taking over parts of the garden and we’re looking good for tasty, sugarfree jam this year. Does anybody know any good sugar free jam recipes?

For a more local/ accessible sweet fruit, why not go for a plum. Oh, plum and blackberries, now we are talking in a sensation and seasonal fashion.

With bags of redcurrants at this time of year, what better way to use them?!

The Bits – for 4

1 cup of vegan yoghurt
1 small mango (or sweet fruit of your choice)
4 handfuls of seasonal berries (whatever you have in your fridge)
500ml coconut milk
1/2 cup chia seeds
1 date (optional added sweetness)
1/2 cup of linseeds
4 drops vanilla extract

Do It

Blend the yoghurt and mango and pour into the serving glasses.

Make a berry layer on top using half of the berries.

Next blend up the coconut milk with the date (it sweetens the milk a little), pour out into a bowl, and mix in the chia seeds, linseeds, and vanilla extract. Put this in the fridge for 20 minutes to cool and swell (or for as long as you can resist it’s charms for).

When the chia mixture feels thick-ish, pour it on top of the fruit layer in the serving glasses. Finally top with the remainder of the fruit.

Serve

Can be kept in the fridge for a couple of hours but better served straight away – dive straight in!

Foodie Fact

The benefits of Chia seeds are far and wide, with vast quantities of Omega-3 good fats and fibre being particular highlights. Try drinking a large mug of lukewarm water with a chunk of lemon squeezed into it while you are preparing this breakfast, the perfect de-tox first thing in the morning.

Enjoy Xxx Sending you love this happy morning, Jane X

Cor! What a pleasant way to start the day.

Categories: Breakfast, Healthy Eating, Vegan | Tags: breakfast, chia seeds, food, gardening, healthy, omega-3 fats, photography, raw, recipe, vegan, vegetarian | 12 Comments

Inspiring Vegan Quotes (pt 1)

Posted on August 11, 2014 by leroy watson

Hello Lovely Ones,

We normally let the food do the talking, but have been reading into veganism of late and unearthing some real pearls of inspirational wisdom. We thought you might like them too. Here we present a selection of our favorites (part one of a two part series!)

Sometimes a good quote can really focus your mind on an issue, another persons voice, a like minded echo, can cast new light and energy. These assembled quotes will be made into the new B.H.K. page ‘Inspiration Library’ (see above). We hope you find them as challenging and uplifting as we did and that the message of peace to all beings rings true, far and wide.

Lee and JaneXXXXXXX

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

“In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place.”

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

“I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man” Mahatma Gandhi

“One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite another to kill. Do not injure any being, either strong or weak, in the world.” Buddha

“Let food be thy medicine.” Hippocrates

“The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds.” Plato

“Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife – birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes – by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative – and fatal- health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for “Peace on Earth.” – from Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm by C. David Coats

“The torch of love is lit in the kitchen.” Author Unknown

“There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.” Charles Darwin

“Non-injury to all living beings is the only religion.” (first truth of Jainism) “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self, and should therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.” “This is the quintessence of wisdom; not to kill anything. All breathing, existing, living sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable Law. Therefore, cease to injure living things.” “All living things love their life, desire pleasure and do not like pain; they dislike any injury to themselves; everybody is desirous of life and to every being, his life is very dear.”
Yogashastra (Jain Scripture) (c. 500 BCE)”

“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” George Bernard Shaw

“Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet” Marc Bekoff

“150 years ago, they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery. 100 years ago, they would have laughed at you for suggesting that women should have the right to vote. 50 years ago, they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under the law. 25 years ago they would have called you a pervert if you advocated for gay rights. They laugh at us now for suggesting that animal slavery be ended. Some day they won’t be laughing.” Gary Smith

“People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing to the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times” Isaac Bashevis Singer

“Most people would say they love animals, but the reality is, if your using animals for food, clothing, or entertainment, you’re only considering the lives of certain animals, typically those of cats and dogs.” Melisser Elliott

“Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around us in awareness.” James Thurber

“Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws.” Marc Bekoff

“Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission – to be of service to them whenever they require it… If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” St Francis of Assisi

“We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear.” Robert Louis Stevenson

“Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.” Albert Schweitzer

“May our daily choices be a reflection of our deepest values, and may we use our voices to speak for those who need us most, those who have no voice, those who have no choice.” Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

“If you are a feminist and are not a vegan, you are ignoring the exploitation of female nonhumans and the commodification of their reproductive processes, as well as the destruction of their relationship with their babies;

If you are an environmentalist and not a vegan, you are ignoring the undeniable fact that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster;

If you embrace nonviolence but are not a vegan, then words of nonviolence come out of your mouth as the products of torture and death go into it;

If you claim to love animals but you are eating them or products made from them, or otherwise consuming them, you see loving as consistent with harming that which you claim to love.

Stop trying to make excuses. There are no good ones to make. Go vegan.” Gary L. Francione

“Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger, but a heart as soft as tofu.” Chinese proverb

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.” Edward Everett Hale

“Society does not want individuals that are alert, keen, revolutionary, because such individuals will not fit into the established social pattern and they may break it up. That is why society seeks to hold your mind in its pattern and why your so called education encourages you to imitate, to follow, to conform” Krishnamurti

“We all love animals. Why do we call some ‘pets’ and others ‘dinner?’” K.D. Lang

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances of survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”

Albert Einstein

“The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?’ Jeremy Bentham

“In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.” Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines

“I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” Abraham Lincoln

”Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” Thomas Edison

“It shouldn’t be the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s cruel and what’s kind, what’s environmentally destructive and what’s sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don’t need the option of buying children’s toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don’t need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.” Jonathan Safran

“My body will not be a tomb for other creatures.” Leonardo Da Vinci

“Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he’s the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.” Mark Twain

Categories: Inspiration, Vegan | Tags: animal cruelty, animal rights, animals, food, inspiration, inspiring, meat, nature, photography, quotes, vegan, veganism, vegetarianism | 16 Comments

Creamy Broccoli, Sunflower and Lemon Dip

Posted on July 22, 2014 by leroy watson

Broccoli, Sunflower and Lemon Dip

Fancy a quick dip! This simple, creamy vegan dip is a great way to get more broccoli into our lives. Which is never a bad thing!

Broccoli is one of the healthiest things sprouting from the earth. Outrageously high in vitamin C and K. Broccoli should not be cut before storing, otherwise the vitamin content decreases and should not be washed before popping in the fridge (a general rule with all fruit and veg) as this speeds up the spoiling process.

The nutrients in vegetables and fruits is directly effected by the soil and methods used in growing. Organic is best, but even modern organic, industrialised practices leads to an depletion in the nutrients in soil and subsequently the things grown in it. In the Beach House, we wholeheartedly recommend befriending local producers/ farmers or even better growing your own.

This went down a treat at lunchtime today, perfect summer dipping fodder with the added benefit of being super healthy and light.

The Bits – Males one bowlful

300g silken tofu

2 handfuls sunflower seeds (soaked overnight = smooth dip, unsoaked = crunchy dip)

1 small head of broccoli (finely chopped)

1 small clove garlic (peeled and crushed)

1/2 lemon (juice and zest)

1/2 handful of fresh dill

1/2 handful of mint leaves

1 tbs good olive oil

Cracked pepper and sea salt (to taste)

Do It

Place all in a food processor and blend for a minute, scraping the sides down if you need to. If you have used unsoaked seeds, expect a nice crunch to your dip, otherwise, make it nice and smooth.

Beach House radishes – ready for dipping action

Serve

With all your favourite crudites, we love to dip oat cakes into ours.

Foodie Fact

By birth, Broccoli is an Italian. A member of the cabbage family and the green sibling of the cauliflower. It is never good soggy, steam for 5 minutes max or serve raw. Broccoli is a meal in itself, use the leaves and stems for different textures.

Broccoli has excellent anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, especially high in vitamin C. We regularly add it to morning juices to gives us a gentle kickstart in the right direction. Broccoli is also outrageously high in fibre, helping fight cholesterol and keeping our digestion ticking over nicely. This green hero also helps our eyes and repairs our skin. Only a handful of broccoli per day will have considerable benefits.

Summer time and dippin’ is easy…..

Categories: Nutrition, Recipes, Side Dish, Vegan | Tags: broccoli, dip, food, nutrition, photography, recipe, silken tofu, summer, vegan, vegetarian | 3 Comments

Raw Food vs Cooked Food and The Power of Enzymes

Posted on July 9, 2014 by leroy watson

Jane and I are very conscious of the power and cleansing attributes of a full-on raw food diet. We have tried it out for the past two years for at least a month (normally stretching to two) and have felt amazing; energy levels through the roof, body and mind happy and content….. Coupled with no alcohol, gluten or caffeine we were incredibly virtuous for a while and (almost) literally floated around in a state of exalted well-being. It was nice. We became converts by going through the process of learning to be more experimental with raw produce and the latent potential of the humble nut. See more of our writing on the topic here Why Raw Food? and more and even a little more (Raw Earth Month – Moving Back to Nature) for good measure.

The raw food movement does seem to attract a certain amount of food extremists, which puts alot of folk off. Its not all about being super skinny and living a veg obsessed, semi monastic existence. Jane and I do not fall into this bracket, we just love to experiment with foods and our bodies and really get a buzz from succulent, vibrant raw food dished. Check it out!

The desserts are something truly heavenly, Raw Chocolate Brownie with Chocolate Icing or Raw Coconut and Lime Cheesecake. Even the inventive way that salads are used is something to get the taste buds whirling, think Sprouted Wheat Grain, Apple and Mustard Salad or how about a Crunchy Thai Salad with Green Coco Dressing? OK, now I’m on a roll, how about a Raw Lasagne with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta? In fact its probably best just to check out our Raw button in the tags section (top right of the page)….

Raw Vegan Lasage with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta

Raw – Vegan Golden Courgette Lasagna with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta

RAW FOOD VS COOKED FOOD

So the food can be inspiring and creative, but what about the health side of things. Most fruits and veggies are best served raw, but those containing lycopene (tomatoes, red pepper and other reddish fruits and veg like watermelons, red guava etc) are best served, from a nutritional point of view, slightly cooked. Lycopene is a very potent antioxidant. When cooked, tomatoes for example, show a boost in lycopene levels. The drawback however, and this goes for most vegetation, is that when cooked for lets say 30 minutes, the Vitamin C levels of tomatoes decreases by 30%. Basically heat increases the rate of degradation of food or ‘oxidisation’, which is bad for foods and bad for our bodies (hence the name ‘anti-oxidants’ which help against it). Boiling foods results in loss of valuable nutrients which leech into the water (more reasons to use it as soup stock!?) The healthiest way to cook food is to gently steam them and not to overcook them. Firm is fine. This will preserve much of their nutritional value.

So its a bit of a balancing act really, gain lycopene and lose Vitamin C. Some people say that Vitamin C is more prevalent in the plant world and we are better served to boost the lycopene levels, which is rarer. ‘Raw food vs Cooked Food’ is a complex comparison and I’d say that mostly raw is best for optimum health (if that’s what you’re driving at). We are still not sure of all of the benefits of raw food, but each year, science is discovering more reasons to get excited about salads and carrot batons!!!!!

Oven Baked Summer Squash filled with Buckwheat, Beetroot and Walnuts

Cooked – Oven Baked Summer Squash filled with Buckwheat, Beetroot and Smoked Tofu

Here is an interesting article I just read about the importance of enzymes to overall health, our bodies cannot thrive without them!

Importance of Enzymes

Enzymes are the sparks that start the essential chemical reactions our bodies need to live. They are necessary for digesting food, for stimulating the brain, for providing cellular energy, and for repairing all tissues, organs, and cells. Humbart Santillo, in his book, Food Enzymes, quotes a Scottish medical journal that says it well: “Each of us, as with all living organisms, could be regarded as an orderly, integrated succession of enzyme reactions.”

There are three types of enzymes: metabolic enzymes, digestive enzymes, and food enzymes.

Metabolic enzymes catalyze, or spark, the reactions within the cells. The body’s organs, tissues, and cells are run by metabolic enzymes. Without them our bodies would not work. Among their chores are helping to turn phosphorus into bone, attaching iron to our red blood cells, healing wounds, thinking, and making a heart beat.

Digestive enzymes break down foods, allowing their nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream and used in body functions. Digestive enzymes ensure that we get the greatest possible nutritional value from foods.

Food enzymes are enzymes supplied to us through the foods we eat. Nature has placed them there to aid in our digestion of foods. This way, we do not use as many of the body’s “in-house” enzymes in the digestive process.

This is important to remember. Dr. Edward Howell, who has written two books on enzymes, theorizes that humans are given a limited supply of enzyme energy at birth, and that it is up to us to replenish our supply of enzymes to ensure that their vital jobs get done. If we don’t replenish our supply, we run the risk of ill health.

In the Enzyme Nutrition axiom, Howell postulates that “The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential.”

In other words, the more food enzymes you get, the longer, and healthier, you live.

The key is to remember that food enzymes are destroyed at temperatures above 118 F. This means that cooked and processed foods contain few, if any enzymes, and that the typical North American diet is enzyme-deficient. When we eat this type of diet, we could well be eating for a shorter and less-than-healthy life.

This points back to the importance of eating raw fruits and vegetables because they are “live foods”; that is, foods in which the enzymes are active. The more enzymes you get, the healthier you are. And the more raw foods you eat, the more enzymes you get.

DETOXIFICATION

One of the roles of enzymes in the body is detoxification — breaking down toxic substances so that they are excreted and cannot build up to possibly cause harm. Although this is done by metabolic enzymes, research shows that enzymes found in the foods we eat — although not food enzymes — may help our bodies do this.

This has such potential that the U.S. Army is looking into it. The U.S. Army Edgewood Research, Development, and Engineering Center has isolated enzymes that neutralize chemical warfare agents. The center’s Dr. Joseph J. DeFrank believes the enzymes can be used to rapidly decontaminate facilities, equipment, and vehicles.

The Frank M. Raushel Research Group is looking at ways to exploit the properties of enzymes for a variety of chemical and medicinal uses. One project is studying enzymes that catalyze the detoxification of organophosphate insecticides.

Other research points in the same direction. Research at the University of California — Davis is showing that green barley extract may accelerate the body’s breakdown of malathion, an organophosphate insecticide used heavily throughout the world.

Six different experiments measured the ability of barley leaf extract to “detoxify” this insecticide. All revealed positive results.

Interestingly enough, one more test was run after subjecting the green barley extract to high heat. This, the researchers believe, denatured and removed the proteins. Detoxification ability was again measured, and this time, did not take place. This indicates that the detoxifying agent in green barley is an enzyme, and when heated, the enzymes are destroyed. It also points out that green barley extract is “alive” — that is, that the enzymes are intact.

This info taken from the AIM International Partners Magazine, July, 1997

If you fancy trying out a raw food diet, you will find loads of recipes on the B.H.K. and if you need any advice, just drop us a line. The more raw food you can incorporate into your diet, the better. With the sun shining on our beautiful little island, I can think of no better time to drop the wok and pick up the grater. Go Raw!!!!!!(mostly) But most of all, have fun and enjoy cooking and eating!

Categories: Detox, Healing foods, Raw Food, Vegan | Tags: enzymes, food, healthy eating, nutrients, raw, vegan, vegetarian, Vitamin C | 9 Comments

Jane’s Easy Seeded Wholemeal Loaf

Posted on July 1, 2014 by leroy watson

Jane on the beach this morning (Dinas Dinlle)

Jane has been running wild with the bread vibe recently, all kinds of doughy goodness has been rising and getting crusty around the BHK. The most impressive is the most simple recipe, which is just the way things should be.

Jane has taken a few steps out of your average bread making venture and the result is a light and crispy loaf, with decent density. It makes a great base for regular bread making and avoidance of all that strange stuff made by big supermarkets etc masquerading as bread (when we really know that some strange practices have happened behind the scenes). When you taste good quality, homemade bread, you will not be hurrying back to buy some ‘fly away’ seeded loaf from a luminous aisle. This is the real deal. You also know what goes into your loaf, there can be some strange things done with wheat, bits taken out then added later, all kinds of additive and preservative action.

Whenever we turn the oven on, we pop a loaf in. It makes sense. Turning the oven on is a real event for us, not only does it heat our kitchen (where we have no heating!!!) it also gets our minds tuned into baked goods. What can we rustle up? Rustling things up is very prevalent in the way we do things over here on Tiger Mountain.

Last year we posted something like a ‘Simple Loaf’ recipe, but this takes things even further in the simplicity stakes. If you know of an easier way to make a decent loaf, please let us know.

Jane and I have both decided that bread is cool. We have tried going off it for lengthy periods, but in moderation, toast is a wonderful thing (especially with loads of Marmite lathered on). I don’t think either of us are gluten intolerant (although we all probably are to one degree or another). I am yet to find a decent gluten free recipe for homemade bread, I’ve tried a few, but many of them contain eggs and there is a limit to the way that silken tofu can substitute the richness and binding properties of an egg. I will keep trying though.

Serving suggestions. You have to love the way that companies incorporate a serving suggestion on most of their processed products. I was looking at a can of beans the other day and it was just a picture of a load of beans, underneath stating ‘serving suggestions’. Serve beans, as beans! Who knew!!!! Serving suggestions here are bowls of soup, try this one, or here’s another beauty or maybe a raw soup would be nice? You can of course go old school and just toast it up and spread on some bramble jelly of even make a little crostini, with chopped tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and fresh basil or oregano.

Have you tried spelt? This is my new favourite loaf and I will be posting a recipe for my ‘Roman Loaf’ very soon. Spelt has an awesome toasty taste and is filled with nutrition and relaxed gluten. Also barley is ridiculously high in fibre, natures highest in fact and makes for a magic crusty lump.

WHOLEWHEAT OR WHOLEMEAL?

When buying flour, try to get whole meal/ wheat. Stoneground seems to the the most traditional way of doing things. Sometimes ‘whole meal’ is not actually ‘whole wheat’ and this can mean a decrease in the nutritional value of your loaf. These terms change from country to country, but we are looking for wheat with all the bran and germ etc intact and certainly not removed. Some brown looking flours can be mixed with other grains, so its worth checking the ingredients. Also look for unbleached white flour, as bleach and food just don’t mix. In fact, bleach and life just don’t mix! You can easily make this loaf 100% whole wheat and experiment with different types of flour (see above). The white flour is only really there to make it lighter and tighter (if you catch my drift). As you all probably know by now, I’m the rough, crusty flapjack side of the ‘Beach House Bakery’ and Jane is the more frilly scone and tinsel approach. This loaf is a compromise of sorts…..

Over to Jane for the simplicity masterclass:

For one average sized loaf (you know that bread tin shape)

The Bits

500g flour (roughly 300g whole wheat, 200g white)

7g fast action yeast (roughly one sachet)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp brown rice extract or barley malt extract

1 big handful of seeds (sunflower, hemp, pumpkin, poppy…….mixture of these?)

1 1/4 teas salt

Do It

Mix the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl with your hands.

Dissolve the oil and sweetener into 300ml luke warm water. Stir this mixture into the dough.

Bring it together and turn out onto a lightly floured or oiled surface. Knead well for 5 minutes until the dough is mixed, add the seeds now. The dough should not be dry, and should still be sticky to the touch. Roll dough into a fat oval shape.

Pop into a pre-oiled loaf tin and press down into the edges. Leave in a warm place covered with cling film of a kitchen towel. After 1 hour the dough should have doubled in size. Make deep slashed on the top of the loaf with a very sharp knife.

Pre heat oven to 190oC and bake for 30-35 minutes, until dark golden and risen. Loosen the edges with a spatula or pallet knife and turn out onto a wire rack. If it is sticking, leave for a few minutes and have a go after its rested. It will come out! Tap the bottom of the loaf with your fingers, it will sound pretty much hollow when it is ready. If it still feels solid and dough-filled, pop it back in for 5-10 minutes.

Leave to cool for 15 minutes before diving in.

Easy Seeded Loaf

Serve

See the ‘serving suggestions’ above. Bread is of course best munched fresh out of the oven. We tend to slice up old bread for croutons or crostini and freeze them. You can do the same with breadcrumbs, which can come in very handy when making vegan bangers or burgers.

Foodie Fact

Wheat actually originates from South Western Asia and humans have been enjoying it for at least 12,000 years (and counting). We only got it in the West when Columbus came back from his pilfering missions.

When wheat is processed, at least half of the minerals and vitamins are lost. If we are eating pasta, breads, flours etc that are processed, we are normally getting very little of the good stuff that is present in natural whole wheat.

Wheat in its natural state is a very nutritious grain indeed, with bags of minerals like manganese and magnesium and barrel loads of fibre. Sourdough breads are normally a better choice if you feel a gluten intolerant, they also boast better nutrition. Interestingly, even though wheat is one of the fibre powerhouses of nature, raspberries still contain more fibre!!!! How cool is that! Maybe we’ll make a raspberry loaf next time……

And finally…..Buster in a box

Categories: Baking, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: baking, cooking, food, healthy, homemade bread, loaf, nutrition, vegan, vegetarian, wholewheat | 10 Comments

Kala Chana Masala with Beetroot and Bok Choi

Posted on April 3, 2014 by leroy watson

Jane on ‘The Rock’ – Karuna Farm, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu

Finally, we post something!!!! We have loads of half finished bits typed hurriedly in internet cafes, but have yet had the time and drive to actually finish one off!

We’ve been in Indian now for three months and things have been thick with experience and too many foodie experiences to recollect. Expect many Indian themed post soon, packed full of delicious and authentic recipes…….

Kodai Kanal, Tamil Nadu 21st March 2014

Kodai is a little ex-British Hill Station (somewhere where the Raj used to go and cool off during the summer months). Lots of little Anglo Indian stone cottages with lawns and chimneys, tea rooms and a beautiful lake. We are staying on a farm, on a steep slope, with spectacular views over the plains towards Madurai. It thick jungle, full nature and absolutely beautiful and best of all, we have a small kitchen to play in!!!!!

A random little post here, but we are half way up a hill in the middle of nowhere (Southern India). This recipe came together on our first night in Karuna Farm, in the green and verdant Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu. We have been sweating and meditating, sweating and yoga-ing, sweating and chanting our way through the early part of March in the Sivananda Ashram, outside Madurai. The temperatures soared, so it is magical to be up here in the mountains where the night air is crisp and the sunrises come on like an intergalactic firework show.

This is a spectacular little farm and we are witnessing many positive projects in motion. They are building earth ships, from recyclable car tyres and starting a permaculture project to supply the on-farm restaurant with some proper local produce.

On Sunday, Jane and I ventured up to Kodai Kanala (the main town). We walked through little villages, with many smiles greeting us, for 2 hours and then managed to catch a little rickety van the rest of the way to town (we’re quite remote here!).

Kodai is an old British hill station, with many rock built chalets and a large dollop of Christianity. It is now a popular retreat for Indian honeymooners and surprisingly few gringos on the streets.

Haggling at Kodai Market

Sunday is market day and we spent most of it wandering around and ogling the local produce. Non of it organic, but all of it vibrant and full of potential. Our accommodation, a nice little cottage in a banana plantation, actually has a kitchen! The first time we’ve been able to cook, apart from random cooking classes and making spicy tea with the chai wallas. I was so chuffed to be having a bash at the pots and pans again. We filled our backpacks with veggies and fruits and have not looked back since.

Internet in India is tough and I must apologise for the lack of BHK activity in recent times. We have heads full of recipes and new ways of conjuring up tasty nibbles. We can’t wait to share them with you all from HQ (North Wales, which seems like a million and one miles away).

WHAT IS KALA CHANA?

Kala Chana (also Desi Chana or Bengal Gram) are brown chickpeas, unprocessed and packed with fibre. ‘Kala’ actually means black in Hindi and Urdu. They have more of a robust texture than your average chicker. This type of chana has been enjoyed all over the world for millenia, from ancient Rome, Persia and Greece, to Africa and Latin America. It has been used in British cooking since the middle ages.

Chana is so versatile to a veggie cook, we can boil them, sprout them, roast them in the oven, make them into magic puree’s (like hummus) or even make desserts with them.

We love this rough chana, especially in a dish with full flavoured veggies like cabbage and beetroot. A lovely old lady was selling these bok chois, we couldn’t resist them. I have never seen them cooked in India, but you wouldn’t expect us to be traditional now would you??!!

This is a highly spiced dish, similar to chana masala in many ways. The spices are warming including cinnamon and cloves, making it very much north Indian fare. In the South we have been eating mainly coconuts and white rice, the staple down here. Generally lightly spiced bu heavy on the dried chilli.

This dish, served with a massive salad, made a wonderful change and we actually cooked it ourselves! I have to say our bellies have not felt this good in the 2 month India adventure.

Jane washing up sporting socks and sandals, our new look

Grating the veggies for the sauce (called a masala over here) gives the overall dish a smoother texture and helps to thicken things up. Of course, grating things unlocks the flavours of the veggies and means you don’t need to cook them for so long to get maximum flavour.

I will be volunteering on an organic farm and cooking in a vegan kitchen soon, settling down a little. I imagine they will have internet and should catch up a little with the backlog of recipes and posts that have accumulated on my little computer gadget. There are some crackers!
Namaste and Much Love,

Lee and JaneXXXXXXX

The Bits – For 2
2 tbs coconut oil (or cooking oil)
1 large beetroot (scrubbed and diced)
6 large leaves bok choi (plus their fleshly stumps, chopped)
1 large carrot (scrubbed and grated)
1 small potato (scrubbed and diced)
1 big handful cabbage (grated)

Masala
1 onion (peeled and grated)
4-5 cloves garlic (peeled and grated)
1 ½ inch ginger (peeled and grated)
3 tomatoes (grated, skins discarded)
2 teas garam masala (or spice mix of your choice)
6 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 tea cumin seeds
1 teas black mustard seeds
2 tbs curry leaves
½ teas chilli powder
½ teas sea salt
½ teas black pepper

¾ cup chana daal (soaked overnight)

Brown Chana Masala with Beetroot and Bok Choi

Do It
Drain your chickpeas and rinse. Place in a small saucepan and cover with 3 inches of water, bring to a boil and simmer with a lid on for 1 hour (or until nicely tender).

Whilst they’re cooking, get your masala ready. In a frying pan, warm 1 tbs of oil, add the cumin seeds, cloves and cinnamon stick fry for a 30 seconds then add the onions. Fry all on a med high heat for 5 minutes, until golden.

Add the garlic, ginger and beetroot, fry for 3 minutes, then add the carrots and cabbage. Stir well and warm through. Cook for 5 minutes and add the garam masala, chilli powder and tomato. Bring to a boil and cover. After 10 minutes cooking on a steady simmer, add 100ml water and stir, then recover. Cooking for another 10 minutes. The sauce should be nice and thick.

Now add the masala to the chickpea pan, there should be some liquid left in the pan. Stir in and thin out the sauce with more water if needed. Check seasoning, adding salt and pepper. Be heavy on the pepper, chana masala loves pepper!

In a small frying pan, warm 1 tbs oil and add the mustard seeds and curry leaves on medium heat. Let the splutter for 30 seconds and remove pan from the heat.

Once the chickpeas are warm through, stir in the seasoned oil and serve.

No lights in our cabin, but candles are better anyway.

Serve
In these parts we’d be having rice and rice (with a side helping of rice!) but tonight, in our own little cottage, we’re having one of Jane’s bonza raw salads; with grated beetroot, kohlrabi, peanuts, beetroot leaves, carrot, coriander and lots more market fresh bits (when Jane does a salad, the entire veg basket is used!)

Sunrise outside the kitchen window

Foodie Fact
Kala Chana is very high in dietary fibre, one big bowlful of this curry with give women almost half of their daily intake of fibre (men a little less than that). These brown garbanzos are also high in protein and rich in minerals like iron, copper and manganese.

Kala Chana is one of the earliest cultivated legumes, remains have been discovered dating back 7500 years! India is by far the biggest producer of chana in the world, Australia is the second, which I find surprising.

Categories: Curries, Dinner, Recipes, Travel, Vegan | Tags: brown chickpeas, curry, food, healthy eating, kala chana, photography, travel, vegan, vegetarian | 6 Comments

Simple Chickpea & Pumpkin Stew

Posted on December 18, 2013 by leroy watson

Simple Chickpea Stew with load of lovely coriander

In the Beach House we love simple cooking with a smile and this stew definitely makes us beam a bit. We’ve just landed in Spain after a crazy few weeks in the UK for a variety of reasons that we’d prefer not to bore you with. I am super busy on a food based project that I will no doubt tell you about soon, but until then, the posts are going to be few and far between as I type my little fingers to the bone.

Some of you may have read about our winter retreat last year, near the sleepy port town of Mazzaron, up near the hills (you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear). It’s a real country area and the Med sparkles from our terrace every morning and each night sky is filled with incredible maps of stars. All that sun means there are some amazing veggies for sale here in the markets and we have loved having a dabble and a haggle! We pick up ridiculous bargains and then get home and wonder what on earth we are going to do with it all…! We only have a little kitchen and the Beach House Kitchen (Part II) is slightly underequipped compared to the gleaming ‘Thunderbird 1’.

Our favourite new bit of equipment is a wooden handled knife that we picked up off a flamenco-loving-gypsy-with-a-mullet for a euro. It seems to be impervious to bluntness. The Excalibur of onion chopping and potato peeling. It is worth mentioning that we buy lettuce and tomatoes from this fellow’s Mum, who normally wears a pink dressing gown and a has a cigarette hanging from her mouth. The dressing gown is held together by a piece of frayed string and is probably one of the most fashionable statements on display, come market day, in little Puerto Mazarron. We love that market, but this week it was called off due to adverse weather conditions. It rained a little and was a little blowy! We wouldn’t get much done in Wales with these kind of restrictions.

We have just spent a busy week with my Mum doing plenty of café and bar hopping and taking in a few ancient looking little towns along the way. Unfortunately every time we’ve got the camera out, at least one of us has been stuffing our face with tapas, so we are short of pleasant pictures of us lounging around the place. I’m sure you can imagine the scene we enough and I hope we are not rubbing in our good fortune to be here. To balance things out, I have had my normal restaurant experience in Spain, which go a little something like this:

Step 1) I apologise profusely for being a non-ham eater, smile through the imminent baffled glare and disdain, then fully expect the worst…..

Step 2) I am faced with a decision to eat around fish and or meat or go hungry.

Step 3) The next course arrives and I revert to Step 2

Step 4) I end up just eating fruit for dessert

Vibrant veggies in the mix

Having said that, the wine is good and cheap and this carries me through each disappointing dining experience. You’ve got to love the people in our local restaurants though – a brilliant bunch of rogues, fishermen and real characters. Veganism has not reached these parts, but when it does, it will be repelled with sharp sticks and incredulous words. NO HAM! What are you, insane!!!!! I love them all, even if they think I am from the planet Parsnip.

NB Casa Monika’s in Puerto Mazzaron is not included in this generalization, as one of the LOVELY owners Jose is Vegetarian/ Vegan, and the food rocks. Thank YOU.

So……we keep things even simpler in Spain and this was a stew we had for dinner last night and thought you guys would love. The chickpeas here are little works of art, after soaking they swell up like small plums and the spices are very, very potent. The smoked paprika almost takes your breath away and the cumin we can still smell even when its sealed in a jar in a cupboard (at first Jane thought I had some strange musty body odour thing going on).

We use a lot of vegetables here, making full use of our mammoth stash, but you can really pick and choose what ever is handy. The classic combination of warming spices and chickpeas will lend itself to almost any vegetable. As you can see, I like to sweeten it a little with dates, it seems in-keeping with the style of the dish. You can always omit the sweetener, or use some honey or brown sugar. Another idea we have been playing with recently to good effect is adding a little soya milk to stews and soups; it is surprisingly creamy and changes the texture. You may like to throw a cup of soya milk in here and see how it goes (it will go well!!!!) Jane did it by mistake the other day confusing the carton of stock with Soya milk in a pea and mint soup… it was a lucky accident (the less said about her vegetable stock-on-muesli accident the better though)!

The coriander and glug of olive oil at the end sets this dish apart, as with so many stews and soups, that little finishing touch makes all of the difference. Golden olive oil warmed on a stew is something almost to gorgeous to describe in feeble words. I am sure Jane would say ‘It’s ace!’ and I would certainly agree.

I’d love to think that we’ll be posting again soon and we’ll be drinking G and T’s on the terrace on your behalf! It’s a Beach House life, what can we say!!!!!

Lovely salad accompaniment

The Bits – For 4-6

1 inch and a half square ginger (grated), 3 garlic cloves (peeled and grated), ½ tsp cinnamon,1 tsp ground oriander, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1tsp ground cumin

2 tomatoes, 1 tbsp tomato puree (depending on how good your tomatoes are), 1 carrot (finely diced), handful of cabbage leaves (or other greens), 1 onion (finely sliced), 1 cup of pumpkin (medium sized cubes), 1 small courgette (same size as pumpkin), 2 handfuls of spinach leaves.

3 cups of chickpeas (with cooking juices), 4 fresh dates (finely chopped), 1 cup vegetable stock, sea salt and pepper (to taste)

Fresh coriander leaves and stalks (for topping)

Do It

Soak the chickpeas overnight and cook them in fresh water for roughly 45mins- 1 hour (add 1 teas of bicarb of soda to speed up the cooking process).

In a hot pan, brown the onions for 3-4 minutes. Then add the fresh ginger, garlic, pumpkin, carrot and courgette. Fry them off for 5 minutes.

Now add the cabbage leaves, cumin, sweet paprika, ground coriander, cinnamon, and chopped fresh tomatoes (with the tomato puree if you’re using it). Time for the chickpeas with their juice from their cooking and a good old stir.

Add one cup stock if needed (if you haven’t got enough chickpea juice). Bring to the boil and cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the carrots are nice and tender.

Sprinkle in spinach leaves cover and turn off heat. Leave for 5 minutes and give a final stir and serve.

Even more salad reinforcements (we eat alot of salad in Spain!)

We Love It

This is our every day type stew, full of veggies, flavours and goodness. This is the type of winter fuel that sparks us into life! We worship the tasty spicy-ness of this dish.

Foodie Fact

Chickpeas are super high in fibre and are renowned for their ‘filling’ properties. Eat a few, feel full, don’t snack on all those beetroot crisps you’ve got locked away in the cupboards. Chickpeas have been shown to help stabilise insulin and blood sugar, they are also awesome for your digestion and colon. Lovely little chickers!!!!!

Categories: Dinner, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: cheap, cooking, food, photography, recipes, simple chickpea stew, spain, travel, vegan, vegetarian | 2 Comments

A 10 Minute Meal – Hazelnut Tofu and Soba Noodle Broth with Red Pepper and Brussels Sprout

Posted on October 18, 2013 by leroy watson

Hazelnut Tofu and Soba Noodle Broth - On the hob

Hazelnut Tofu and Soba Noodle Broth – Bubblin’ away

Here we have a delicious 10 minute meal. 5 minutes chopping, 5 minutes cooking and it won’t last long in the bowl either. So simple, yet tastes so amazing and dare I say it, complex. You have to love that!

Nothing says British winter more than a bowl of Soba Noodle Broth….or is that just me! I love a noodle broth anytime of the year and this one is wonder, putting the years first brussels sprout to good use. I could eat this by the bucket full, bowls just aren’t big enough.

The first winter chills are definitely visiting the Snowdonia hills at the moment, the winds blows a gale and we’ve kissed goodbye to what was a lovely summer of warmth and light nights. Sitting in the garden at 10pm in the sun is surely a thing all Britons cherish.

A view from the beautiful Nantlle Valley – just behind the Beach House Kitchen, where we walk when not eating like Tokyo-ites

As are brussels sprouts. They’re like little cabbage hand grenades and add a punch to all they grace, we love ’em! So, so, so very wasted on your average Sunday Roast (traditional British Sunday Lunch containing roast meats and unfortunately over cooked vegetables), boiled to death and flaccid. A quick blanch in this broth and they are a revelation of crunchy texture and potent flavour.

This is an ‘Asian’ broth, which I know covers a large chunk of global cuisine. Its a hybrid of flavours that meld and work. Some Japanese, some Chinese, but all super tasty.

In the Beach House we condone slurping in all its forms. Food should be eaten with gusto and vigour, slurping is an essential part of the noodle broth experience. We like to attack a bowl of noodle broth armed with a large spoon and some chopsticks, on occasion we resemble koi carp, such is our commitment to the cause. Jane is a particularly good slurper, we put it down to being raised with a koi carp named bonehead. Bonehead still lives with Jane’s Mum and Dad and is a big fish in a small pond. He can also be stroked like a dog.

Jane, is that you?! Koi carp – like jaws in a pond

This type of broth is best served piping hot, with all ingredients cooked for the minimum length of time. Freshness and crunch is imperative. The gulping and slurping actually helps the noodles cool down on the way to the mouth. At least that’s our excuse! It also happens to be alot of fun.

We’ve added plenty of colour here, essential in these gradually greying months, by using the last of the years red peppers and some brazen red cabbage. This broth is also nice and warming, fresh ginger and Chinese five spice take care of this. For even more of a restorative slurp, I added some wasabi to mine which really got my juices flowing.

SOBA NOODLES

Soba noodles are always a highlight, soba meaning ‘buckwheat’ in Japanese, the noodle choice of most Tokyo-ites. Traditionally in Japan buckwheat can be harvested four times a year, a wonder crop for sure.

Soba Noodles have a lovely bite to them, a hearty noodle ideal for my rapidly diminishing wheat intake as they are made with a large amount of buckwheat (not a wheat even though it is called a wheat!?) This means less gluten all around. For some bizarre reason, soba noodles are normally a tad more expensive than your average joe noodle, but they’re well worth the extra pennies.

Soba Noodles

We use tamari because we prefer the flavour, it contains no wheat and is always made to a certain standard. Meaning no strangeness and dodgy health issues with the soya used.

There are alot of ingredients in the broth here, really, some good stock, ginger and a splash of tamari will suffice, the other ingredients just make it extra special. Most of them can be found in any decent Chinese-style food store.

As can the Hazelnut Tofu. It’s basically tofu mixed with hazelnuts, and a few toasted sesame seeds, pressed back together. It is delicious and has plenty of flavour, unlike normal tofu. It seems to be springing up in some supermarkets, but as with most of these niche veggie/ vegan bits, a health food shop is your best bet.

Makes two massive bowlfuls (or four medium sized):

The Bits
300g soba noodles, 125g hazelnut tofu (chopped into little cubes), 1/4 red cabbage (finely shredded), 1 red pepper (finely chopped), 6 brussel sprouts (finely sliced lengthways)

For the broth – 1 inch fresh ginger (minced), 2 teas chinkiang vinegar (balsamic will do), 2 tbs tamari (soya sauce is a close sub), 1 tbs rice wine (or dry sherry), 1 tbs good stock powder (or fresh if you are brilliant) – to taste, 1/2 teas Chinese five spice, 1.5 ltr boiling water

Taste the stock, make it right for you.

Wasabi stirred in to taste (if you like things spicy)

Topping – 2 spring onions (finely sliced)

Do It

Boil a kettle with enough water.

Chop your vegetables thinly.

Add boiled water to a large, warm sauce pan and get a steady boil going. Bubblin’.

Add all of your stock ingredients in no particular order, give it a stir (no stock powder lumps, they are the enemy).

Now add your cabbage, brussels sprout and peppers, boil for two minutes, then add your tofu and noodles, simmer for a further two-three minutes and prepare to serve.

By the time you’ve got bowls and ladles and all that jazz together, your noodles should be cooked nicely. Overcooking soba noodles is a huge sin.

Serve
Piping hot and topped with a handful of sliced spring onions. If you have a small flask of warm sake available, well done! Have extra tamari, wasabi and vinegar on the table so people can play with the flavouring or their stock.

Hazelnut Tofu and Soba Noodle Broth with Red Pepper and Brussel Sprouts – Camera in one hand, large spoon in another…….

We Love It!

Soul slurping of the highest order and buckwheat noodles to boot. Lucky us. So quick and satisfying, we could eat this for dinner every night! A soulful soup of the highest order.

Foodie Fact

Buckwheat is high in Thiamine and soba noodles were regularly eaten by wealthy Japanese folk to balance their large intake of white rice (very low thaimine) thus avoiding what was called ‘beri beri’.

As we all know by now, buckwheat is a relative of rhubarb! A berry and not a grain, a wonderful gluten-free substitute. Buckwheat is full of flavanoids which are very good for the cardiovascular system. In fact, some folk say that buckwheat is better for you than any fruit or vegetable. Quite a claim!

Categories: Recipes, Soups, Vegan | Tags: brussel sprouts, buckwheat, food, hazelnut tofu, nutrition, recipes, soba noodles, soup, vegetarian | 12 Comments

Giant Courgette Hats Stuffed with Walnuts, Sweetcorn & Red Rice (Vegan)

Posted on September 30, 2013 by leroy watson

Ready for a final roast

In the time of harvest bounty my mind naturally turns to stuffing things! I have no idea why, there are so many massive vegetables everywhere that it seems like the logical thing to do, they look so cool served whole and are far, far more interesting when stuffed with something uber delicious like fresh sweetcorn, toasted walnuts and some nutty red rice.

Most cultures love a good stuffing, I read recently that in the Middle East they actually have machines to carve holes in carrots etc, you can buy pre-hollowed vegetables at the market in bags. Now that’s spoiling all the fun (or is it?!) I am not very good with DIY, the thought of getting the Black and Decker out to carve a carrot sets alarm bells ringing. Do I love stuffed veg that much?

Everything is going a very courgette at the moment! They are everywhere and this is a fine way to use up the wonder glut of this delicate fruit. This particular beast is of the golden/ yellow variety and was over a foot long. (This post was written a month ago when courgettes were really hanging out there, now they have finished their shenanigans for another year. Mores the pity. Bring on the roots!)

In fact, the best thing that can happened to a courgette is a good stuffing. Its not every vegetable you can say that about, but a courgette is at it finest full of filling other than its own, it has to be said, watery, slightly mushy interior. Especially when they’re massive like this. Resembling a marrow really. Here we have upgraded the mush with red camarague rice, walnuts, sweetcorn and many other forms of ultra deliciousness. A stuffing to be proud of!

Mighty Golden Courgette Towers

I also like to cut courgettes thin length ways and salt them for a while, then use them as a base for an endless number of bakes and gratins. You can pack alot of courgettes into one of these dishes and the dense nature of a well baked gratin is a wonderful way to serve this normally gentle and light veg. Having said that, simply fried with garlic and olive oil, there’s another real winner.

Courgettes are allegedly easy to cultivate, but we don’t get the heat up here on the hill. We also get wind, which tends to knock them down or drag our mini green house away. We get extreme weather on tiger hill! We get our courgettes from Trigonos, a small organic farm and retreat centre just over the hill in the next valley, Nantlle. I am very lucky to work there at the moment and play with all the produce from the fertile land near the lake. See here, its a magic place,

Jane is going away a lot recently (attending many interesting workshops) and we are making the very most of our short times together. Today has been a rare early autumnal day, fresh this morning, warm in the day and a beautiful sunset, the perfect day for al fresco dining with some bubbles and twilight all around.

We sat on our bench near the stone circle and wolfed these delicious courgette treats with lashings of Russian chard and beetroot leaves. It is that wonderful time of year when every veggie seems to be coming out to play (on the plate) and we are inundated with beautiful produce. The only problem is, what to do with it all? Our veg basket is brimming over and the freezer is filling nicely, anybody fancy coming over for dinner? We feel like gluttons, but are still smiling.

BERRY NICE

One of my favourite things to do at this time of year is berry picking. How cool is that! All these free berries sprouting from hedgerows and footpaths. Leave the berries near railways alone, they use a weed killer-type train to kill all the plants around the railways meaning these berries will be contaminated. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news (again!)

The elderberries on our hill are nearly ready and we fancy making some wine this time around, I have a recipe up my sleeve. The thought of homemade elderberry wine makes us both whoop, and we haven’t even drank any yet!

Camarague Rice filling on the hob

If you can’t get your hands on giant courgettes, normal size ones are fine, but a little more fiddly. They will also cook quicker, take 5-10 minutes off the final roasting time.

This recipe will make a little too much stuffing, but its great cold as a salad or maybe find another vegetable to stuff. Tomato? How about an apple? Serve with a simple, creamy sauce.

Char those bad boys

The Bits – For 4

1 giant courgette (yellow, green…… or 3 smaller ones)

1 1/2 cup cooked camarague rice (or rice of your choice)

1 handful chopped and toasted walnuts

1/2 handful of sunflower seeds (roasted is best)

1 small onion

1 small carrot

1 medium potato (all three finely diced)

1 corn on the cob (kernels off the cob)

4 cloves garlic (crushed)

8 cherry tomatoes (quatered, or one normal sized tomato)

3 tbs tomato puree

1 teas dried dill

1/2 teas dried mint

1/2 teas dried thyme

1 teas all spice

1/2 cup veg stock

1/2 cup raisins (chopped)

Do It

Cook your rice (as you like or follow packet instructions)

Preheat oven 200oC

Warm a griddle pan (not necessary, but looks pretty).

Start by chopping your courgette into interesting shapes with flat bottoms, so they sit up on the roasting tray, like hats. We have gone for bishops, maybe you’d like a crown, or just a flat top?

Rub them with oil, use your hands and pop them on a griddle pan, presentation side first. Leave to char up for around 5 minutes. Be sure not to move them and you’ll get nicely defined scorch marks. Then into the oven for a 10 minute pre-roast.

Why this is going on, get your prep ready for the filling.

In a large frying pan, warm 1 tbs olive oil on med/ high heat and add the onion, saute for five minutes until going golden, then add your corn and carrot, stir and heat for three minutes then add your potatoes and garlic, saute for a further three minutes then add your herbs and spices. Stir well, so not allow any bottom sticking. Add tomatoes and stock. Add 1 tbs of water if the heat is too high and things are getting stuck to the bottom.

Now add your seeds, nuts and cooked rice. Bring to a boil, add a glug of good olive oil, give it a final stir and pop a lid on it. Turn heat off and leave to settle for ten minutes.

Your courgettes should now be ready. Grab them out of the oven and set aside for a moment to cool just a little.

Get a reasonable spoon (dessert) and begin to spoon your hot mixture into to courgettes, packing it down as you go, filling every possible space with tasty filling.

Now pop them back into the oven for a fifteen minute blast and after that the courgette should be softened and the filling piping hot and ready to devour.

Serve

We sprinkled ours with chopped toasted walnuts, a few twists of black pepper, some wilted chard, beetroot leaves and good olive oil.

We would also recommend a nice tangy tomato based sauce or chutney, a creamy sauce is also lovely. These densely packed courgettes are meals in themselves and need little else on the plate to satisfy.

We Love It!

A real decadent dinner treat here, fit for special occasions and Tuesday nights after work. It does take little preparation but the combinations of textures and flavours are worth the modest toil. Get golden courgettes if you can, if they aren’t in the shops, hit your local veg farm and flutter your eyelids a little (always works for me).

Foodie Fact

Technically courgettes are an immature fruit (which sounds a lot like a good friend of ours) and can grow to over a metre long.

Golden/ Yellow courgettes are not only very cool to look at they are also have a higher carotene content than your average green courgettes, they are also good for vitamin C and A with plenty of potassium to boot.

Brit disclaimer – What we repeatedly refer to as a courgette in this post may be known to some of you as a zucchini. We at the Beach House Kitchen mean no offense in the flagrant use of our British-ness and actually prefer the name Zucchini, it sounds like fun and has a ‘Z’ in it, which is always very cool in our world. Maybe we can all just call them Zuch-ettes and bridge our islands vocab gap. Just to add greater confusion to the mix in South Africa they call these beauts ‘baby marrow’.

Categories: Autumn, Dinner, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: camarague rice, courgette, courgettes, gluten-free, healthy, recipes, seasonal, stuffed, vegetarian, zucchini | 10 Comments

Rainbow Chard & Red Lentil Harira

Posted on September 23, 2013 by leroy watson

Harira on the hob

We regularly have an identity crisis with dishes, turning traditional fare on its head, ‘Beach House-ing’ things you could say. We don’t mean it, no offence to the original recipes and food heritage in question, its just we like to play in the kitchen. Here’s another traditional recipe we have messed about with, thankfully the results were rather delicious.

The best harira I have ever had was for breakfast (regularly) in the village of Chefchaeoun, known to many a traveller for its exceptional soup, jalaba (hooded cloak garment worn by most Moroccans) production and wonderful mountain location. Its small winding streets hide many a wonderful eating experience, rows of blue houses (yes blue!) make this one of the most distinctive and stunning villages in that vast old land.

I moved there for a while, took up residence in a room situated on the walls of the Hamam (the communal bath), the warmest room in town. You see its high up there and you wake chilled to the bone and needing a serious bowl of spicy sustenance. Abdullah provided.

He was a wonderful cook, in nothing more than a space between two buildings, a few squat tables and two gas burners with huge steel pots, Abdullah created the authentic Moroccan dining experience for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was like a French Bistro without the pretense and price tag. My kind of joint for sure.

For a few pennies, Abdullah would dish you up an epic bowl of full-on morning ammunition, sometimes with a tooth-less smile that shifted the early morning fug. This hearty soup fuelled me on many a hike around the Rif Mountains and also on days spent lounging around playing card games with other punks holed up there. It came with a wedge of steaming flat bread, fruity olive oil and a small bowl of freshly ground cumin to use liberally. I sat wearing my Jalaba (the over enthusiastic tourist that I am) eating with the local men in silence, canteen style. No women. In Morocco cafes and restaurants seem to be a male only thing.

Chefchaouen

I like cooking soups, its a soulful pursuit. You don’t have to be to precious, there are rules, but not many, a little like Morocco itself. This is the situation where I feel nice and comfortable.

Recipe Notes

Add just 2 cups of water to make this a hearty stew.

As with all soups/ stews, depending on the quality of your veggies, you many need to add some vegetable stock if the flavour is thin on the ground.

Here’s to you Abdullah. Peace be with you. Hamdullah!

Rainbow Chard and Red Lentil Harira

The Bits – For 4 bowls

1 1/2 cup dried chickpeas (soaked and cooked)

750ml fresh water (or vegetable stock)

1 tbs olive oil

1 1/2 inch fresh ginger (finely diced)

3 cloves garlic (minced)

1 large onion (finely diced)

1 yellow pepper (diced)

3 ripe tomatoes (with flavour)

3 cups chopped rainbow chard (stems separated from the leaves)

1 teas ground turmeric

1 1/2 teas smoked paprika

1/2 teas ground cinnamon

2 teas cumin seeds

3 tbs tomato paste

1 lemon (cut into wedges)

2 tbs gram flour (or flour of your choice)

1 handful fresh coriander leaves (leaves picked, stems chopped)

1 cup red lentils

3 dates (finely chopped)

1 teas fresh ground pepper

2 teas sea salt

Harira bubblin’ away

Do It

Soak your chickpeas overnight in a saucepan. Drain and refresh with new water, well covered. Add 1/4 teas bicarb of soda (this makes them soft and cook quicker), bring to a boil and lower heat. Vigorously simmer for 20 minutes or until chickpeas are tender.

Warm the oil in a thick bottomed sauce pan, add your onions and cumin seeds and saute the onions for a few minutes until glassy, add garlic, pepper and ginger, stir for a couple of minutes and then add all chard stems (add earlier if they are a little tough), flour and spices, stir and warm through for a minute and now add your tomatoes, dates, lentils, tomato paste, warm through for a minute then add your water/ chickpea juice. Bring to a rolling boil and turn down heat to the lowest setting, add your chickpeas and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

When ready to serve, bring back to just about boiling, add your chard leaves and coriander stems. Re-cover and allow to cook for a few minutes. Check seasoning.

Serve

A lemon wedge, topped with coriander leaves and a good glug of good olive oil. Add green olives and brown rice to the table if you’d like to make this dinner.

For a special touch, we have it sprinkled with roasted and chopped almonds.

We Love It!

With winter lurking up the hill, we are getting back to our hearty soups. Harira is definately one of our fav’s and it is very cool when you have pleasant memories attached to a dish. Food has amazing transporting properties, the sights and tastes so evocative and alive in memories.

Foodie Fact

Spices are much more than just incredible tasting, the vast majority boast some quite brilliant health properties (as long as we don’t burn them in the pan).

Turmeric is a root similar to ginger and in its raw state has very potent flavour, its wonderful stuff. Dried is the best we can normally do on this island. It is peppery and sweet, warm and bitter and has even been likened to orange peel (if very fresh indeed).

Now the nitty gritty and real magic. Turmeric is anti-microbial, anti-flatulent and strongly anti-bacterial. POW!

Heavy plate version with rice, olives, fresh coriander and lashings of olive oil

Categories: Autumn, Recipes, Soups, Vegan | Tags: chickpea, harira, healthy, nutritious, rainbow chard, recipe, soup, travel, vegan, vegetarian | 12 Comments

Brazil Nut and Cacao Pancakes with Papaya Sauce and Berries

Posted on September 20, 2013 by leroy watson

A truly awesome start to any day, this just happened to be a Sunday. This is a low-rise cake, with aspirations to one day be a pancake.

Brazil nuts, berries, papaya, this is a decadent affair. Its the kind of thing you’d imagine the old Maharajas to be munching on in palaces on the Gangetic Plains. What Im trying to say is that this is decadent in the extreme and packed full of nutrition. I find normal fat pancakes, american style, a little on the heavy side. These Brazil Nut beauties have all the flavour without the post breakfast sag.

They can be made raw with a dehydrator, but we forgot to put ours on the night before, so we baked them like a cake in the oven and they turned out very well indeed.

The papaya is a real treat, making quite a change to all the apples and blackberries we have been eating at this time of year. What can I say, I am weak when it comes to papaya. They are one of my favourite things for breakfast. Even though the papayas that take the long flight over here are a little jaded and solid, I never tire of that unique flavour. I also love the seeds, they look like frog spawn.

THE BEAUTY OF BRAZILS!

Brazil nuts (or cream nuts) are always handled with great care in our kitchen. They seem impossibly hard to harvest and grow, so when I get hold of some, I reserve them for the best occasions and finest of company. When blended, they are so fatty, they resemble butter. Brazil Nut butter is the only thing that can compare with ‘real’ butter for creaminess and outrageous fattiness, only the fat here is not all saturated and of course, all plant based.

Brazil nut trees are mighty things, some of the highest and oldest trees in the Amazon region, growing to nearly 50 metres tall! Imagine climbing that to get to the nuts! Each one of these massive trees will only yield around 300 brazil nut pods per year and take at least 14 months to mature.

I am a little dodgy with gluten it seems, it makes my eczema go wild. Ground brazil nuts, like almonds, make a perfect substitute for flour and are much more nutritious. Brazil nut oil is also a wonder thing, great for massages and cooking. As if that wasn’t enough goodness for one nut, see the nutritional content in the Foodie Fact below.

The Beach House Kitchen has been as busy as ever, but you’d never guess it by the number of posts of late. Below are some of our cacao/ chocolate-style creations for the month. We’ve had friends and family visiting, so cakes have definitely been on the agenda. We really should type more, we’re just too busy cooking and eating!

Pancake time!

The Bits

Pancakes – 2 bananas, 1 1/2 cup brazil nuts, 1/2 cup raw cacao powder (or normal cocoa if you like), 1 cup flax seed meal, 2 teas cinnamon, 1/2 teas bicarb of soda, 1 cup water

Sauce – 1 small papaya, 1 small orange, 1 tbsp sweetener of choice (maple syrup, rice syrup etc)

Finish with chopped bananas and berries (we used raspberries and blueberries) and a few chopped brazil nuts (we used almonds bizarrely).

Do It

Preheat an oven to 200oC

In a food processor, add your brazil nut and pulse them until broken down, but still a little chunky. Almost to the texture of ground almonds, but not quite.

Add the rest of the ingredients, except the water, blend together and add the water a little a time. You are looking for a thick, double cream like texture, a little thicker than a normal pancake.

Pour into a well oiled, circular spring form pan and pop in the oven for 15 minutes. It will rise nicely into a low-rise cake of sorts, but still in the realm of pancake.

Whilst this is occuring, wipe out your FP and place all sauce ingredients in. Blend until smooth. Thats that.

Chop up and wash your toppings ready for action.

Serve

In slices, drizzled with the sauce and festooned with topping galore. What a treat for those weary Sunday mornings when the loss of Saturday just seems too much.

If you are hungry and feeling extravagant (even more so!) then you can stack these pancakes into some form of wonder tower, layered with the toppings and sauce.

We Love It!

Dessert for breakfast is something we wholeheartedly condone in these parts. ‘Nuff said.

Foodie Fact

Brazil nuts are such a gift. Individually wrapped, hanging from a beautiful fruit. Originally a delicious source of protein for the people of the Amazon, now enjoyed by us all, they are fatty, rich and packed full of nutrients.

Being so buttery, Brazil nuts are high in calories and fats. The great news is that a large portion of these fats are mono-unsaturated, making them good for the heart and preventing strokes.

Brazil nuts also boast great levels of Vitamin E (good for the cells) and Selenium (they are the highest natural source of this mineral). Selenium works with anti-oxidant enzymes to keep cancer, coronary disease and cirrhosis at bay.

Brazil nuts are also good for the vitamin B’s and are full of minerals like copper and magnesium.

Here’s what else has been hitting the ovens recently:

Baked Blueberry and Dark Chocolate Cheesecake with Hazelnut Base

Kiwi and Tahini Custard Tart with Cacao and Cashew Base

Jane’s Double Chocolate Cake filled with Dark Cherry Jam

If you’d like any of these recipes, just let us know.

Categories: Breakfast, gluten-free, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: brazil but, cacao, dairy free, gluten-free, healthy, nutrition, pancakes, raw, recipe, vegan | 8 Comments

Chestnut Mushroom and Sage Farrotto with Balsamic Figs and Tofu Feta (Vegan)

Posted on September 5, 2013 by leroy watson

I’m too sexy for my figs

You cannot say that we aren’t good to you, here are two recipes on one plate! It also has to be said that we are quite good to ourselves, this is our Thursday night treat dinner (or ‘tea’ as Jane calls it). A farrotto with the lovely nuttiness of spelt and gorgeously sweet glazed figs topped off with some citrus tofu feta.

Every Thursday, I’m normally off work and Jane gets back early, we head off to the big smoke (Bangor – which is a small town with a big Cathedral) and we pick up our veg box from a wonderful little farm in Bethel and then head to a cafe and maybe pick up some fruit. Today these beautifully plump figs caught my eye, I haven’t had the pleasure of figs for an age and love them with a little balsamic glaze.

FARROTTO?

Farrotto is an Italian dish made with ‘faro’ which can be translated as spelt. Whenever I cook with spelt, it seems timeless. An ancient grain that has been used for centuries in these parts. We normally keep spelt for sprouting purposes and love the chew of the stuff in a salad, it’s always a hearty customer.

This farrotto is simply cooked like a risotto, only for longer. We used some local chestnut mushrooms, fresh garden herbs and giant organic spinach for a classic Italian combo. We also had a little secret ingredient in our umami powder, a mixture of fine sea salt, seaweed and powdered shiitake mushrooms. Add to that bags of garlic and a small pile of onion and we are talking Italy on a plate using Welsh produce. Definitely how we like to do it in the BHK, world food, local bits.

Tofu Feta – looks similar, tastes different

FETA TOFU, TOFU FETA, ARE YOU MAD?

As a a vegan, you must eat tofu. It’s one of the vegan commandments. If you don’t go tofu, you’re sent to work in Mcdonalds by the vegan police. It’s not pretty. Eat tofu!

Tofu feta is a vegan staple and nothing like proper feta but is damn fine and tasty non-the-less. It is a little tiresome with so much vegan food sharing names with the original cheese/ meat produce. Its something we’ll all have to live with, but when trying vegan sausages/ burgers/ cheese etc please do not expect something remotely similar. Approach with an open mind and preferably an open mouth!

As you’d expect from a tofu dish, this is full of powerful plant protein and is superbly lean (no fat in fact). Always opt for whole bean tofu and you cannot go wrong, tofu is amazingly versatile and we even use it in desserts, check it out – strawberry tofu ice cream cake).

Firm tofu will crumble like a nice feta and if you pop this recipe in a blender you have what could be called tofu ricotta. We don’t make the names, just the tasty food.

AUTUMN HARVEST TIME

It is that time of the year when the slight chill of winter is in the morning air and the trees and bushes are ladened with fruits and berries. We had a surprise apple tree spring up a few weeks ago. We thought it was just a little bush and wham! Big green apples all over the place. Result!

We will soon be harvest our potatoes and beetroots, blackberries are everywhere (which is great for walks, no need for a packed lunch!), we will be making rowan syrup soon and bramble jelly. We are also trying to eat as much rainbow chard as possible, it’s irrepressible, which is wonderful news. We are really thankful for a great summer weather wise and the bounty of autumn is a fine time of year to be a cook, I’ve never roasted so many tomatoes. It’s the time of year when spare jam jars become a rare commodity.

We love the British seasons but will be cheating again this year and heading to Spain for a large part of it, we then have plans to go further afield. Eastward. Hoorah! I plan on making a pit stop in the Southern Med for a couple of weeks of eating my way around various countries (Jane is heading to Delhi), then waddling around some fascinating historical sights. I promise to come back inspired with notebooks full of new recipes to try out and a belly full of hummus.

Herb garden raided – My king of bouquet (edible)

The Bits

Serves 2 hungry sorts

Farrotto

2 cups spelt grain, 3 cloves garlic (minced), 1 small onion (chopped finely), 4 cups large spinach leaves and stems (sliced), 1 cup dried chestnut mushrooms (soaked) or 2 cups fresh, 1 teas umami powder or salt, 1 teas cracked black pepper, 5 large leaves fresh sage (chopped finely, 1 teas dried), 2 teas fresh rosemary (chopped, 1/2 teas dried), 1 teas fresh oregano (good pinch dried), 1 cup mushroom soaking liquor, 4 cups good veg stock (kept warm – jug with a plate on top will do, or a covered pan on low temp), 2 tbs good olive oil

Balsamic Figs

2 plump figs (halved from stem down), 1 tbs balsamic vinegar, 1 teas brown rice syrup (or other sweetener), scant pinch of salt and pepper

Tofu Feta

1/2 pack firm tofu (150g crumbled with fingers), juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 teas sea salt, 1-2 cloves garlic minced (depending on how much you love garlic), a few basil leaves (optional – left whole in the feta when marinading)

A couple of handfuls of sharp salad leaves, rocket is perfect.

Some of the bit and the not-so-secret ingredient

Do It

In a medium sized saucepan, warm on medium heat 1 tbs olive oil, add your onions and saute for 4-5 minutes. When softened, add garlic and faro to toast a little, saute for 3 minutes further, then add your umami (salt), pepper and mushrooms followed quickly by the liquor all this whilst stirring well! Intense. You’ll get a nice hiss now, add your herbs and continue to stir well. It’s all in the stir this dish.

When the liquor has reduced down, ladle in some warm stock, one ladle at a time as the farrotto becomes thicker and reducing, intensifying the flavours. Wow, what a thing! Keep stirring gently. Cook on a steady heat for around 40 minutes in total, the faro should still have a little bite to it and the consistency of a loose porridge. Finish with 1 tbs olive oil stirred in just before serving.

The tofu is best made the night before serving to marinade nicely. Crumble the tofu in a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and mix well with a spoon. Serve at room temperature, like most things, straight out of the fridge is just not cool. It’s a flavour killer.

In a small frying pan, get it hot, add you balsamic and sweetener then your figs straight after, there will be smoke here. Exciting. Move the figs around the pan to get well coated in the glaze, cook for two minutes on high heat then remove from pan. The figs should have a lovely shiny charred look to them.

Figs mid-glaze

Serve

On one half of a dinner plate, pop a handful of leaves sprinkled with some tofu feta (add walnuts or other nuts here for a super special twist) a couple of fig halves, few twists of black pepper.

On the other half (remember this is two meals in one here!) spoon your lovely thick and gooey farrotto, a sprinkle of herbs and drizzle the whole plate with some fine olive oil.

Chestnut Mushroom and Sage Farrotto with Balsamic Figs and Tofu Feta (as you can see, we are not shy with portions in the BHK, no finger food in our kitchen!)

We Love It!

Like eating in our favourite Italian restaurant in the Beach House. Who needs to go out for dinner when the food is this good in the casa and you get your starter and main course on the same plate. Unconventional, but we like it. Great for sharing.

The citrus tofu and sweet figs work well and the farrotto is our new favourite risotto (if you catch our drift),

Foodie Fact

Spelt is a cousin/ neighbour of wheat, but is lower in gluten making it acceptable to some folk who suffer from wheat allergies. Generally its better for the belly than wheat and makes a wonderfully nutty loaf in flour state.

Spelt is said to originate from Iran and is 7000 years old (how do they know these things). Spelt has always been highly regarded and was offered to pagan gods of agriculture to encourage a fine harvest and fertility.

Spelt has a better range of nutrients than the vast majority of wheats, its full of minerals which our body loves. It is a whole grain meaning it has a good level of dietary fibre, remember that grains are not the only soure of fibre, many fruits are full of it. Take raspberries for example which have a comparatively higher level of fibre than oats and brown rice put together!

Categories: Autumn, Dinner, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: balsamic, faro, farrotto, figs, healthy, recipe, spelt, tofu feta, vegan, vegetarian | 7 Comments

Morcilla De Verano – Spanish-Style Aubergines

Posted on August 23, 2013 by leroy watson

Morcilla De Verano

A traditional vegan classic from the south of Spain, originally cooked to replicate Morcilla (black pudding basically). You regularly see it served around Murcia, especially on tapas bar counters. Its a great option for me in the land of jamon. All Murcians know the dish and are rightly proud of it. We’ve added some tempeh to the traditional recipe making it more of main event. I love cooking aubergines right down with sweet onions and the addition of proper Spanish herbs and spices really pack a punch flavour wise.

Even though its called a ‘summer’ dish, we think this is great all year around. Due to its slightly meat like texture, this is a dish to sate all. We’re always trying to find dishes that will appeal to meat eaters aka most of our family and friends. This is exactly what this dish was created for, people couldn’t afford meat and were looking for a delicious substitute.

You know, I love Spanish food and this dish really taps into the rustic heart of their magical range of cuisine. Spanish food speaks of the land and culture. It is the perfect expression of such a diverse land and for me, the cuisine of the South perfectly matches the arid plains and craggy red mountains. Its rugged, its got bags of soul and it can take your breath away.

As some of you will know, my parents have a little place over in Murcia, Jane and I are regular visitors chasing the sun and the peaceful Med life. This dish is based on a recipe passed to us from wonderful friends over that way, Fey and Jose. It is actually Jose’s brother Andres recipe and he created it in an attempt to eat less meat (he’s a real maverick in the area, only 0.3% of Spain’s population are veggies after all). I still have the little scrap of paper that he wrote it down on one night, for me that is real soul cooking. This recipe is connected with so many memories of wonderful people and places, we can’t help but love it. We have of course made our usual Beach House alterations, but this does not stray too far from Andres Murcian delight. Gracias HombresX

Recipe Notes

Don’t be shy with the oil here, remember it is Spanish after all! The dish should be slightly on the oily side which of course makes it very rich and satisfying. After eating this for dinner Jane exclaimed “I feel like I’ve just eaten meat and two veg” rubbing her belly. Always a good sign.

We decided that this is a star dish and very versatile. It could be used to stuff a vegetable, a courgette or potato sounds perfect. Of course, its great for tapas and picnics and is lovely even when served cold.

Buen Provecho!

The Bits

2 small aubergines

1 courgette

1 small onion (all three finely diced and kept seperate)

2 garlic cloves (crushed)

2 teas fresh rosemary (finely chopped)

2 teas sherry vinegar

2 teas sweet paprika

1/2 teas cinnamon

1/2 teas all spice

2 teas fresh oregano (finely chopped) or 1 teas dried

200g tempeh (or tofu)

1-2 teas sea salt

1 1/2 teas cracked black pepper

Olive oil (for frying)

Topping

2 tbs toasted pine nuts or almonds

Do It

This is a three part saute/ pan frying routine, meaning a number of stages until your meaty morcilla is just right. The trick is to get everything nicely caramelised, bringing out maximum flavours.

First saute, courgettes and aubergine

Start with your aubergine and courgette. Add 2 tbs of the oil and warm on a medium heat in a heavy based frying pan. Add the aubergine and saute for 8-10 minutes, until nice and golden and releasing some of their liquid, then add the courgettes and continue to saute for another 5 minutes. This is the real flavourful aspect of the dish, the aubergines should be nicely browned and gorgeously sweet by this stage. Set aside.

Next, your tempeh needs sorting. Chop it up finely, it will resemble dried scramble egg. Add 1/2 tbs of oil and saute for 5-7 minutes, until it is beginning to get brown around the edges. Set aside with the aubergine mix.

Now, add 1 tbs oil, fry the onions in the same pan (wipe out if necessary). Lower the heat if things are getting a little hot. Stir, the onions should take 6-8 minutes to become golden, we don’t want to rush them and risk burning them. Once they are golden, add the garlic and cook for 3 minutes, pop your vinegar in to a big hiss. Now it’s time to spice things up.

Add your paprika, all spice and cinnamon, saute for a minute, stirring all the time and not allowing the mix to stick. Then add your herbs and the aubergine/tempeh mix to the pan. Stir well and warm through for a couple of minutes. Your ready for the plate.

Warm through and enjoy the awesome aromas

Serve

In a warm serving dish, topped with some pine nuts and a sprinkling of paprika.

We served our morcilla with some steamed green vegetables (broad beans, runner beans and broccoli) with some pan fried lemon cabbage.

Morcilla de Verano – looking good!

We Love It!

Really satisfying rustic style Spanish fare. I imagine this is pretty close to Morcilla itself and cannot wait to try it out on some meat eaters. Dads coming soon, one of our favourite guinea pigs.

Foodie Fact

Pine nuts are just incredible little things. Now so expensive, but worth every penny as a treat item. They can make a real difference to a dish, especially when roasted a little to bring out the flavour.

Pine nuts are full of vitamin A, so you’ll be able to see in the dark. They have good levels of vitamin D, for the bones and are also rich in vitamin C and iron. They are quite fatty, which is obvious when you enjoy them, but its mono-unsaturated fats. Pine nuts are also packed full of energy, great on cereal for a morning buzz and fizz.

Served with some blanched summer greens – Not bad for Thursday!

Categories: Dinner, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: aubergine, food, healthy, morcilla de verano, murcia, recipe, spain, spanish, tapas, vegan, vegetarian | 12 Comments

Strawberry Tofu Ice Cream Cake with Fig and Poppy Base (Raw/Vegan/Gluten-Free) + The Best Way To Wash Your Veggies

Posted on August 22, 2013 by leroy watson

Strawberry Tofu Cheesecake with Fig and Poppy Seed Base (Raw/ Vegan/ Gluten Free)

Please don’t be put off by the sound of tofu in a dessert, it is a truly wonderful addition. Vegans wouldn’t get very far without it!!!! Tofu has a bad rep, this cake will change it all…..Tofu is a real hero and if bought organic, is a nutritional wonder to boot with a smooth as silk texture.

It really is amazing what you can do with a blender. This is a light, refreshing take on a cheesecake, only frozen and with the added interest of being made with tofu. It takes minutes to prepare and sits happily in the freezer. This has to be one of the healthiest desserts we’ve made at the BHK with bags of strawberries and only a small amount of figs in the base.

Raw desserts are amazing, but some hide huge quantities of sugar, normally in the form of dried fruits (primarily dates). It is natural sugar, but it is still sugar. This dessert is lower in sugar than most, the strawberries go a long way to sweetening the cake. Raw desserts are not always healthier than other desserts, its worth bearing in mind.

Silken tofu is a vegan staple for dessert, baking and all sort of textural fun. Tofu is high in protein and is a wonderful vehicle for flavours, of course by itself it is bland, its like a blank canvas for a creative cook. We have used it in cakes to substitute eggs and it does an admirable job.

The base of this cake goes all seedy. We have found that going raw can cost alot more, a main contributor is nuts. You can get through alot of them, especially when making desserts. Instead of flour, you use cashews. In fact, many of our staples ie rice, cous cous, pasta etc go out of the window on raw and are replaced by fruit and veg. Certainly not a bad thing for the body, but it can hit you in the wallet/ purse/ piggy bank. Seeds are the answer and almost equally as flavourful. For a crunch base like this, they are perfect. We have also been making butters with them and they are just as tasty as their nutty compadres. Go seed!

8 REASONS TO LOVE STRAWBERRIES (EVEN MORE)

– Big C, very big C. Super packed with Vitamin C (8 strawbs =150% rda)

– High in fibre (meaning that even though they are beautifully sweet, they have a low GI index)

– Member of the rose family (how romantic!)

– Virtually fat free (for those who think that matters. Fat doesn’t make you fat, to be covered in a later post. Fat is actually very cool.)

– Full of manganese=great for bones and growth.

– They fight the big C (Cancer) with something called anthocyanin.

– Some scientists have said that strawberries are actually anti-aging.

– Super high in the vitamin B’s, which help metabolism.

Beauty Strawbssss!

CLEANING YOUR FRUIT AND VEG

We’d always recommend that you give strawberries a good wash. They can attract all sorts of wonderful creep crawlies and dusty dirt. Here are some top tips for cleaning fruit and vegetables, especially those bought in supermarkets (i.e. not particularly fresh and probably covered with chemicals and pesticides) This makes a HUGE difference:

This cake is not made with an ice cream maker, so expect a few ice crystals if eaten frozen. We find it best semi-thawed. Take it out the freezer an hour before serving and it should soften up nicely.

Makes one large tart, enough for six slices.

The Bits

Topping: 1 punnet strawberries, 1 box silken tofu (350g), 2 tablespoons of sweetener of choice (we used a cane sugar syrup), 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ cup of soaked cashews

Base: 1 cup of dried figs (soaked), ½ cup ground flaxseeds, ½ cup sunflower seeds, ¼ cup of pumpkin seeds, 2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Fresh from the freezer

Do It

Easy as pie (cake)!

Put all the filling bits in a blender and blend so that you get a thick double cream texture.

Put all the base ingredients into a blender and blend so you get a sticky clumpy mixture that can be rolled into balls. This will take a few goes, make sure you scrape down the side to incorporate the chunks.

Press the base into a 9” dish circular tart dish lined with cling film. Pour in the filling and pop in the freezer. We decided to make two small fat ones, so we could eat one who cake between the two of us. Some call this greed, we call this the good life!!!!!

Strawberry Tofu Ice Cream Cake

Serve

Take it out of the freezer before service and it will have a soft scoop ice cream feel with a nice crunchy base. You will no doubt have some strawberries or other berries lurking around your fruit bowl, this cake is great with them.

We Love It!

The closest we’ve come to a really healthy dessert that doesn’t taste healthy (you know what we mean here). This is the perfect summer cooler and has a nice richness even though dairy has not entered the building.

Foodie Fact

(Yawn) Where do you get your protein in a vegan diet? (Yawn again) The question on the tip of most carnivores tongue could be simply answered with TOFU. Tofu is an amazing plant based source of protein and is now readily available in most parts of the world. It has no cholesterol, is low in fat and contains a similar amount of protein to dairy and meat. Firm tofu is also high in calcium. As I mentioned above, just make sure it’s organic and not GMO.

Categories: Cakes, Desserts, gluten-free, Raw Food, Recipes, Vegan | Tags: cake, dairy free, gluten-free, healthy, ice cream, raw, recipe, strawberry, vegan | 6 Comments

Raw Vegan Lasagne with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta (Gluten-free)

Posted on August 15, 2013 by leroy watson

Raw Lasagne with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta (Vegan/ Gluten Free)

Raw Vegan Lasagne with Avocado Lemon Ricotta, Red Bean and Walnut with Tomato and Basil Sauce (Vegan/ Gluten Free)

This is one of those dishes that really stands out. A dish that just makes perfect sense and falls into place perfectly on the plate and palate. All those yummy layers, one on top of another.

Meat eaters beware! This is a ‘converter’, one fork-full and you’ll join the lighter side. A dish that dis spells the ludicrous myths that vegetarians are merely ‘rabbit food’ munchers.

We have found vegan raw food presents a simple equation:

Raw Vegan Food = Shiny and Zinging Life of the Highest Order + Awesome, Creative New Flavours and Combinations

Granted its not the simplest of equations, but its a fine one non-the-less! This dish is full, full, full of delicious flavour, nutrition and vegetarian protein power (see top 5 veggie sources of protein here).

Jane was typing whilst I made this and here is what I said about it, hot off the press:

“So good for you and tasty, I can see this stuff really catching on! I see this as the future of food. Its a simple as that. Pasta without the carbs, supercharged full of colour and nutrition, all the flavours of Italy. Fascinating combination of flavours only ever seen in vegan cooking, using all whole foods, nothing jarred – this is what we are going for in the BHK.”

Reading this back again, I completely agree with what my former self uttered. This is the future of cooking (and non-cooking). We all want the best for ourselves and raw vegan food gives us just that. This is a trend that is actually positive for mind and body. Can you imagine how much the National Health Service would save if we all decided to eat vegan raw food, or incorporate more of it into our diets. We’d all live to 150 and hardly ever darken the door of a hospital or doctor. We believe that nutrition and the food we eat is that important. Call it preventative medicine if you will, but taking care of yourself and eating amazing food doesn’t sound like too bad a deal. No compromise on taste either, just look at this wonder plate!

Semi-rant over for now, back to the recipe. Its not totally raw this one, but could be very easily. Because Raw Earth Month has now officially ended (yes we are using the odd light at night and the occasional square of chocolate is disappearing from the cupboard) cooked beans have re-entered our diets. How I missed them. I love a bean. Without even thinking, I added red kidney beans to the ‘meat’ layer of our lasagne. They are perfect colour wise and they add a great texture. I also love them with walnuts, no idea why?

We are lucky to have a raft of inspirational friends and the original idea for this lasagne comes from the sparkling Sava over at Travel Butterfly. Sava is a constant source of inspiration on many levels for us at the Beach House and some of her vegan/ raw recipes really hit the wonder mark.

This lasagne, and lasagne in general, has a few components to sort, it takes a little time. Its well worth it though and would definitely be classed as a special occasion dish. This dish has the whiff of wow factor about it, one that looks almost as good as it tastes (after all, food that looks better than it tastes is such a let down). I am always interested to find that most people who don’t cook much still know how to make a decent lasagne. Its quite a tricky and time consuming thing to get together, especially the art of a non-lumpy bechamel. I generally think people are alot better at cooking than they claim to be!

Raw Vegan Lasagne

Good tomatoes here are essential. We had some in our veg box this week and they blew us away, when I tried the sauce, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t added a sweetener to it. That’s it reaction you need! Gorgeous tomatoes are hard to find. Some tomatoes just need a little love, leave them in a bowl, ripen them just like a fruit and sometimes they come good, at the very least, they will get better. A chilled tomato is just no good. There is a soup we made a little like this, found here.

If you are completely raw, we’d probably substitute the beans with more seeds and nuts. Maybe a little dried apricot to bind things together. I am sure you have your own ideas, as being a raw vegan really pushes your creativity to the limits. We know how it is.

We use amino acids of tamari here because most soya sauce is just no good. Soya is a funny thing and unless processed properly, can be of detriment to the body. Tamari and something like Braggs Liquid Amino Acids are perfect replacements and tamari especially, even tastes finer.

We top this all off with some Nutritional Yeast Flakes. I know we all don’t have them in the cupboard, but they are brilliant little flakes to add an almost cheesiness to dishes. They have a unique savoury taste that must be tried to appreciate and are a vegan lifesaver. For me, they are little like a vegan parmesan. That intense!

A few other raw recipes that may tickle your tastebuds:

Black Prince Tomato and Coriander Soup

Crunchy Thai Salad with Green Coco Dressing

Raw Coconut and Lime Cheesecake

Hazelnut and Lentil Hummus

Now, lets non-cook!

The Bits

Tomato and Basil Sauce
3 cups plum cherry toms, 1 cup soaked sundried toms (finely chopped) with ¼ cup of oil from the jar), 1 cup fresh basil leaves, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, 1 clove crushed garlic (crushed)

Bean and Walnut Layer
250g red kidney beans (cooked) or 1 tin-ish, 1 cup of walnuts, ½ cup of pumpkin seeds (add bite), 2 x teaspoon Braggs Liquid Aminos (or tamari), Pinch of salt and pepper

Pasta Layers
1 gold courgette, 1 green courgette (or two green is fine)
Cut in half width-ways and finely sliced into layers

Avocado and Lemon Ricotta
1 ripe avocado (must be ripe), 250g firm tofu (drained well, save a few thin slices for the topping), 2 tbls olive oil, ¼ cup nutritional yeast flakes, 1 small clove garlic (crushed), ½ lemon juice and zest, pinch of salt

Topping
Thinly sliced tofu, olives (finely chopped), sprinkled with Nutritional Yeast Flakes

Do It

This raw game is an easy one. Just whack it in the food processor and voila! Gorgeous Lasagne.

Tomato and Basil Sauce – Pop all in a FP and whizz until smooth. Set aside and clean blender.

Bean Walnut Layer – Pop all in a FP and blitz until smooth but with lots of chunks (similar to mince I guess). Set aside and clean blender.

Avocado and Lemon Ricotta – Pop all in a FP, blend until smooth. Set aside.

Pop all in the fridge for an hour to chill and thicken up a little before the layering.

Raw Lasgane ready for stacking

Make sure that you slice you courgette/ zucchini carefully. You want them to be almost as thin as pasta sheets. A mandolin is perfect for this, but a big beware here! They love to slice fingers also.

Now to layer the beast.

On your chosen serving plate (a square one would be perfect), lay out your first layer of courgette. Depending on your chopping skills, you may need to put two layers of courgette (if wafer thin style). Carefully spread on your bean and walnut layer and a thin layer of the tomato and basil sauce.

Next, add another layer of courgette, slightly smaller in diameter than the first, pressing down gently to make the layer stick. This is mainly a presentation thing, you can see the layers better when they are not overhanging each other. Once the layer is neatly placed, spread on your vegan ricotta.

First layer underway

The final layer, once more press down gently and arrange a nicely overlapping mosaic of your wonderfully sliced courgette, top with a layer of tofu (which can’t help but look a little like mozzarella), a good layer of tomato and basil sauce, sprinkle on your chopped olives and a good sprinkle of yeast flakes. Top with some basil that you will no doubt have hanging around your glorious kitchen.

That’s it! As simple or as difficult as you make it! We think its medium in the ‘fiddle scale’.

Raw Vegan Lasagne with Avocado and Lemon Ricotta – A taste explosion waiting to happen.

Serve

Immediately. The salt will gradually release liquids in the lasagne, which are very tasty, but don’t look the best. This lasagne can be sliced as usual and the layers will stay intact and look amazing.

We Love It!

A dish in the locker that will impress friends and family for many years and make us look very clever indeed when actually its leisurely walk in the park.

The flavours mingle and merge in some form of Italian perfection and you will be amazed at the reaction from meat-eaters. Try it! They love it too!

Foodie Fact

Courgette (zucchini to some) is a summer squash, they are said to have originated in Mexico and come in all shapes and sizes. Courgettes are very low in calories and have no cholesterol or fat, the peel is full of dietary fibre and it is also a good source of vitamin A and has high levels of heart friendly potassium.

Jane's been making dollies out of wheat again. This is Trevor.

Jane’s been making dollies out of wheat again. This is Wild Johnny.

Categories: Healthy Eating, Raw Food, Recipes, Special Occasion, Vegan | Tags: avocado, food, gluten-free, healthy, lasagne, nutritional yeast flakes, ricotta, vegan, vegetarian, vegetarian protein | 7 Comments

Avocado, Coconut and Apple Breakfast Pudding + THE Best Way to Start the Day

Posted on July 13, 2013 by leroy watson

(Sorry guys, we had problems with the photos for this one and they now seem to be lost. Recipe is still delicious though!)

This makes for a sweet and super nutritious start to the day. Who says pudding is just for later in the day anyway! We like to mix things up over here on the hill and this is dessert first thing, what a way to start the day!

A serious combination of goodness this avocado and coconut, to some a pair of fat filled fiends, but to those of us in the nutritious know, two full blown detox powerhouses of legendary proportions. Am I exaggerating, very probably!!!! But seriously, don’t be put off by all that fat talk, good fats doesn’t even make you fat anyway! It’s all that refined sugar aka bad carbs, aka breakfast cereals……. We haven’t even got started on how these actually taste, a mixture made in heaven for certain.

THE BEST WAY TO START THE DAY

The coco water here is a brilliant re-hydrator due to its high quantity of electrolytes, beats any ‘sports drink’ hands down, and we all need a good dose of hydration in the morning. This is a dense pudding so get the body fully woken up before you attempt to spoon it down. We’d always recommend starting the day with a pint of warm water with a squeeze of lemon or a tbs of apple cider vinger (avec mother) in it at least 20 mins before having your breakfast/ pud. This is the best way to start the day with plenty of good clean fluids which will get the system well oiled, hydrated and sparkling early on. A pint of water can only help at anytime, especially in the morning when our body has being shriveling up whilst we sleep.

This ‘pudding’ is utterly guilt free!!!!! It has a firm kick of greens, with some wonder green powder, spinach (or kale, or cabbage leaves, whatever you have handy) and the wonderfully gelatinous linseeds. This is what gives the coco pudding its super thick texture and pudding-ness.

Naturally sweet and creamy, this could probably be frozen and made into a splendid summer ice cream. We haven’t tried this though. Has anyone frozen an avocado?

Good Mornin’s and BHOM!

The Bits

1 avocado, ½ fresh coconut plus coco water (chopped in chunks), 2 sweet apples (halved and seeded), 1 tbs ground linseeds/ flax seeds (soaked for 20 minutes in 3tbs water), 1 cup creamy coconut milk, ½ lime (zest and juice), 1 handful spinach leaves, 1 tbs barley powder/ wheatgrass/ spirulina

Do It

Blend it, all of it, until thick and creamy.

Serve

Sprinkle things on top if you like, but its great just as it is and as always, not too cold please, set the flavours free!

We Love It!

What a way to get things going in the morn! Its fair to say that Jane and I are not natural morning birds, we tend to blossom later in the day, especially when we’re feed some AM dessert! Hoorah! What a concept, this could be the next big thing (way bigger than the last big thing, which was just medium/large in comparison.)

Foodie Fact

Coconuts are one of the most nutritious fruits on earth. It contains a load of lauric acid, which is known for antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial properties and also boost the immune system.

Coconut water (the stuff in the nut) has a huge amount of electrolytes, making it an ace in preventing dehydration. In some parts of the world they use it intravenously to hydrate critically ill patients.

Coconut, although being high in fat, actually helps you loose weight! Its good for the heart, rejuvenates the skin (keeping wrinkles away), increases metabolism and actually lowers cholesterol.

Only downside is, they don’t grow in Wales!!!!!

Yesterdays breakfast - eaten in the garden!!!!!

Yesterdays breakfast – Blueberry and Mango Salad with a Banana Tahini Sauce eaten in the garden with the sun!!!!!

Categories: Breakfast, Raw Food, Recipes, Summer, Vegan | Tags: breakfast, coconut, food, pudding, raw, recipe, the best way to start the day, vegan, weight loss | 10 Comments

Cool Cucumber, Basil and Cashew Soup (Raw)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by leroy watson

Cucumber, Basil and Cashew Soup (Raw)

This soup is a real summer cooler, not something you can regularly say about a soup. Its creamy (without cream) and hearty (without potatoes and butter), all down to our raw friends the cashew nut. What a wonderful thing they are. They make great cheese, milk and add wonderful richness to all things they grace.

Raw soups can be very hearty actually, adding sprouted grains helps and a few nuts or seeds go along way to building a full texture, bags of veggies also make a big difference. It always impresses me how much goodness you can squeeze into a soup/ smoothie/ juice. My juice this morning had around 10 different fruits and vegetables (beetroot, carrot, orange, lemon, parsley, basil, spinach, apple, ginger, sweet potato YUM!) I have to say, afterwards, I was feeling quite high on the stuff. High on food! Juice on an empty belly is a magical thing and gets the ZING going in the AM.

This mornings super juice

This soup has so many good flavours in there (we love the horseradish especially) as well as being superbly nutritious. We have been using olives a lot this month instead of adding more salt, they add a natural saltiness to dishes. So this is a salt-less soup.

COOL AS A CUCUMBER

Cucumber in anything is cooling, it has that lovely quality which is perfect for a sweltering summers day. I am a hot blooded creature and therefore the British summertime is a little tepid, but yesterday did seem quite steamy. This soup made for a perfect dinner.

The cooling effect of cucumber is put down to cucurbitin and fatty oils found in the seeds that has a soothing effect on the body. Cucumber is great for sunburn and can also have a cooling effect when made into a juice. So drinking cucumber juice is just like putting coolant into a car!

THAT ‘RAW FOOD’ FEELING

Now that we have been eating raw food for over two weeks, our appetite has generally decreased, more accurately our cravings for sugar have decreased. I find myself better balanced and not snacking hardly at all, certainly not craving coffee or alcohol or sweet things. I forgot how powerful the raw diet is and how it impacts much more than just what you eat, you feel very different also. Its like your charged with loads of clean energy and your brain is working at its optimum level and your body is thanking you all the time for being some damn good to it. Its a pleasant place to be.

RAW FOOD EQUIPMENT

The only thing about getting started with a raw food diet is that you need the equipment. We’ve gathered ours over a period of two years and are still short of a few bits and pieces. We have added a dehydrator recently, which we have been enjoying. A juicer is fairly essential and a food processor is important for all those soups and smoothies. You could be raw without these gadgets, that is probably the next step for us! Eating things that fall from trees and gathering berries from hedgerows. That would be a really natural existence! Without this equipment, I’d imagine it would be difficult, especially in Britain, to get a decent variety of textures and keep things interesting. Munching on a raw carrot does have its limits.

Raw food equipment

Having said that, one of the best bits of equipment that we use is a humble peeler. Known as a French peeler, it is vital in sorting out all these fruits and vegetables quickly and makes almost perfect ribbons of produce that can then be popped into salads or made into a raw pasta-style dish.

French Peeler – The Best!

Makes two big bowlfuls:

The Bits

1 1/2 cucumbers, 2 garlic cloves, 2 small green apples (cored and chopped), 1 lime (juice), 1 cup cashews (soaked for 2 hours or longer in filtered water), 1 cup green olives, 1 cup parsley, 1/2 cup basil, 1 tbs horseradish, 2 tbs nutritional yeast flakes, 2 cups filtered water (more if needed)

Do It

In a food processor, blend your cashews first, until a thin paste is formed (add soaking water a little at a time), add the rest of the ingredients and a cup full of water. Blend for 30 seconds and check consistency, it should still be a little chunky in places, add more water and blend again if required.

Serve

With a splash of brilliant, fruity olive oil and a pinch of cracked black pepper.

Foodie Fact

Cucumber has many beneficial properties, it is anti inflammatory and moisture regulating, as mentioned above, it also has cooling properties. These are the reasons that cucumber is used in beauty products and the like, it smooths the skin and gets rid of dead skin cells.

Cucumber is also full of dietary fibre and is great for people suffering from heartburn, ulcers,acidity etc, for this reason it also helps with constipation. It’s good for the joints, the kidneys and helps in the digestion of proteins.

Cucumber also has plenty of vitamin C and folates and like the vast majority of veggies, it contains a vast amount of other nutrients. Overall, cucumber is a serious superfood!

Homemade Cucumber Pickles

Categories: Raw Food, Soups, Vegan | Tags: chilled, cold, cooling effects, cucumber, equipment, low salt, raw food, recipe, soup, summer, vegan | 3 Comments

Sprouted Buckwheat, Onion and Miso Crackers (Raw)

Posted on July 6, 2013 by leroy watson

Sprouted Buckwheat, Onion and Miso Crackers (Raw)

What a thing! What a wonderful thing! RAW CRACKERS have arrived with a crunch at the BHK! We managed to pick up a dehydrator for half price which has inspired us to play with many ingredients in new ways, generally making them all crispy.

This crispiness is something you can miss when you go full-on raw (I believe it is known as mouth feel in some circles, but that sounds too technical for a humble cracker), the odd bit of toast, bread, crackers, oat cakes, you know the drill. You fancy something to balance the crunch and zest of all the magic veggies and fruits you’re eating. This is where the raw cracker comes into its own and this one boast not only dried onions (massive flavour here) but also brown miso for a cracker that tastes as stunning and moreish as anything dusted with chemicals and the like.

These buckwheat crackers were a real surprise, we had no idea they’d taste so dang good! The only issue is not eating them all at once and they do take a good 12 hours to dehydrate. Dehydrating is a great lesson in being prepared and most importantly patient. You can’t rush the process, but the end result is normally more than worth the wait. It’s best to dehydrate over night and then you just forget about whats going on until you wander down in the morning and find some crispy wonders awaiting you.

The dehydrator also makes soothing buzzing noise and warms a room quite nicely, just a couple of add- on benefits. It actually sounds like your on a plane when you sit beside it, that gently humming and whistling, you can close your eyes and imagine your off to somewhere exotic to behave in wonderful ways.

Buckwheat is one of those things that we don’t eat enough of, we have to go to the health shop to get our hands on it. When we have it around we love having a play with it using it as a substitute for grains in salads and stews.

Buckwheat is actually a berry (along the lines of quinoa) and has nothing to do with wheat etc, so its gluten free and great for the body/ digestion. Buckwheat flour is also perfect for a full flavoured, dense pancake or flatbread. We love wheat, but it generally doesn’t love us. When you start giving things up on a raw diet, you really get to know your digestive system in a new way (promise not to get too graphic here!). You also realise how much strain you have been putting it under and wheat/ gluten for us is a real drag on the belly and below. Still, the smell of toast is something quite special and we’ll always nibble our way through a couple of slices. It’s a pleasure-pain thing and the pleasure is well worth the gurgling insides.

There is something about miso that is quite special also, it’s got that healthy bacteria thing going on and just feels very, very right. It is high in sodium, but it is used by the body in a different way to plain old salt. Japanese people eat alot of it and Japanese people live for a long, long time and have significantly less disease than us Western varieties. It could be the miso!?

We used slightly oiled baking parchment to dry these babies out, it works quite well, but in proper dehydrating circles, you’d use a special non-stick tray. If you are gentle with a spatula, you should be able to get them off in one piece-ish.

Makes eight medium sized crackers.

The Bits

300g sprouted buckwheat, 1 1/2 tbsp brown miso (use more if you are using white or yellow miso), 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp fresh parsley (we didn’t have any), 1/4 onion (finely sliced), 2 tbsp boiling water, 1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes, 1 tbsp sunflower/ pumpkin seeds (optional)

Do It

Blend all together to a thick, spreadable paste. You’ve got to love this raw food prep, its a blend-fest, but oh so simple.

Just add……avocado?

Serve

We like ours with a crunchy salad, the contrast of textures is something to behold and its raw, and all the nutrients are there AND its superbly healthy. How about lathered in avocado!!!!! Its one of those raw/ vegan food no lose situations that we coming to love in the BHK.

We Love It!

Full of nutrition and raw crunch, we can’t wait to get started on a new batch. Flax and sprouted oat next up….

Foodie Fact

Buckwheat is a berry related to rhubarb and sorrel, it helps to slow down the absorption of glucose after a meal making it good for diabetics. It contains all of your amino acids, not produced by the body and also contains lysine and many minerals which are great for the immune system.

Categories: Raw Food, Recipes, Snacks and Inbetweens, Vegan | Tags: buckwheat, crackers, dehydrating, dehydrator, food, healthy, miso, raw, vegan, vegetarian | 2 Comments

Crunchy Thai Salad with Green Coco Dressing (Raw)

Posted on June 28, 2013 by leroy watson

Crunchy Thai Salad with Green Coco Dressing

So here we go again! Raw Earth Month at the Beach House Kitchen will see a huge influx of tasty salads and juices, its inevitable and we love ’em all!

An amazing friend of the BHK (Dodee over in Hawaii – see magical ‘Sacred Backyard Blog‘ here) said of raw food, ‘I’ve made the decision to feel good all the time!’ and how true that is. Jane and I are buzzing around feeling ace, it’s day five I think and we are fully over our ailments brought on by a fairly intense ‘treat’ time in Dublin(Guiness-fest), lots of birthdays in a row (wine and cake-fest) and meals out (plenty of great rich food). Our bodies are thanking us now and our energy levels are through the roof. We are also enjoying the naturally slower life, with no lights and electrical appliances at nighttime.

Jane enjoying the slower life – Glynllifon Estate, Caernarfon

I had some fairly strong caffeine withdrawal symptoms on day 2, pounding headache and no energy whatsoever. After a good sleep, this passed. Its amazing how the body adapts so quickly to things, good or bad and how sensitive you become when eating this wonderful raw stuff! Happy days indeed.

Salad wise, we had some left over thai curry paste hanging around the fridge that demanded a dish. This salad has all the flavours of Thailand and more, when we’re raw we really like to make a fuss over our salads.

Jane and I love Thailand and on rainy afternoons in Wales we sometimes wonder how Bangkok is and our favourite little coast towns; how are those street food stalls doing without us!? How is a our favourite juice guy near Kaosan Road? How is the coconut curry man in Prachuap Kiri Khan? At times like this, the tastebuds are going mental and they need something with the incredibly pungent and fragrant aromas of THAI. Its unmistakable and I’d almost consider going back just for the food alone, but there are at least a 101 other countries I’d like to visit before I start re-tracing my steps in the global sand.

Nutritionally, this is a beast of a dish; with sweet potato, sesame seeds, peanuts, avocado, spinach, etc etc etc, the list goes on and with a punchy/ creamy dressing to finish things off, its a real main event salad. When you decide to eat raw vegan, there is very little you can eat that will do you any harm, that’s one of the beautiful things about the lifestyle, pile it on a plate and know that its all good. No baddies included.

This salad boasts quite a list of ingredients and was mainly dictated by what we had in, but you can very happily have a play with this one; veggies can be chopped and changed and any nut will do here!

Talking of chopping, if you can get them into thin, baton-like shapes, they work best here. The dressing clings to them and they look the part also.

ความสงบสุข

khwām sngb sukh (peacex)

Makes one large salad bowl full, enough for four hungry munchers.

The Bits

Salad – 1 carrot, 1 stick celery, 1/2 cucumber, 1 red pepper1/2 sweet potato (all chopped into thin batons), 1 cup rocket (arugula to some), 2 spring onions (finely chopped),1 red chilli (finely chopped), 2 cups spinach (finely chopped), 1 cup cherry tomatoes (halved), 1 cup beansprouts (we used homesprouted mungers aka mung beans), 1 cup basil leaves, 1/2 avocado (scooped out with teaspoon), 1 lime (zest and juice), 1 tbs black sesame seeds, 1/2 cup raw peanuts

Dressing – 2 cup organic coconut cream (the creamier the better), 2 tbs green thai curry paste, 1/2 lime (zest and juice), 2 teas white wine vinegar, 1 handful basil leaves, 1 teas sea salt

Do It

Chop all hard veggie ingredients into long, thin batons leaving the avocado, nuts and basil leaves to the side for topping purposes. Add all the rest of the ingredient and the hard veggies to a large salad bowl, mix in half of the dressing, combine well and sprinkle over the topping ingredients.

For the dressing, simply blend all together in a food processor. The texture should be thick and ‘cling-y’ to get sticky all over on the salad.

Serve

Not chilled, but not quite room temperature, this is a good gauge for our salad temps. To cold and you don’t get the flavour, to warm and you have wilting issues. We always have a nice surplus of salad dressing in a bowl on standby.

CRUNCH! and ZING!

We Love It!

Getting back into raw vegan ways is a serious blessing for body, mind and soul. We are so lucky to both want to lead this type of lifetsyle, if one of us wanted chips everynight it just wouldn’t be the same! This salad is a far from chips as you can get in the food world. It’s a proper zinger!

Foodie Fact

Sesame seeds are outrageously healthy, some say they are the healthiest food in the world. These wonder seeds have been with us for many thousands of years and are thought to originate in India, having been mentioned in ancient Hindu texts.

They are very rich in minerals, especially copper, iron, calcium and zinc. So ‘open sesame’ and pop some in your diet soonXXXXXXX