Posts Tagged With: photo

Raw Fruity Cereal

Posted on June 12, 2012 by leroy watson

Sprouting Breakfast Salad

This mornings breakfast was very good looking (and tasting), I felt it deserved to be shared with the world.

Adding wheat sprouts to meals is great for us as it gives that sugary wheaty boast that we normally get from our muesli. The wheat sprouts are very easy to grow and have a nice soft, chewy texture.

Wheat has addictive qualities and the bread at work last night smelled amazing. This is probably why I opted for a sprouting breakfast.

I dislike using out of season produce, but it seems unavoidable at the moment. Jane and I are always up for a bargain and visiting the shops, found some amazing berries from Spain on sale. We love Spain, so we snaffled them up. They were .30p a punnet! Of course, they lack flavour and the magic of a seasonal berry (preferably ate straight off the bush), but we are not an island blessed with abundant fruit reserves. I also thought that somewhere in the world, you may live in a land where the sun shines and fruit is always on the menu. You may have a mango tree in your back garden! (We have a hawthorn and a couple of gnarled crab apple trees).

Raisins add a lovely sweet surprise to this awesome morning bowlful of happiness, you could used diced dates or figs. Try soaking your raisins overnight, they become nice and plump and give off a nice raisin drink for slurping or using in cooking.

Wheat sprouts

The Bits

Enough for two decent sized bowls.

1 apple, 1 pear, 1 carrot, 1 kiwi, 1 large handful of wheat sprouts, 1 handful of blueberries, 1 handful of blackberries, 1 handful of raisins, soya milk.

Do It

Slice apple, pear, carrot and kiwi, we don’t peel anything (except kiwi). Just wash or scrub them. Use your creative flair and mix all nicely in your fanciest bowl. Mix some sprouts and raisins into the salad.

Serve

Use the rest of the sprouts for topping with the berries and some nice chilled soya milk (add as much as you would with your favourite cereal). If I was having this for lunch and not watching my food combinations, I’d have some seeds with this. Pumpkin and sunflower would be my choice.

Buster and I busy gardening

We Love It!

Its fruity cereal! It is bursting with vitality and crunch and not as stodgy as our average muesli counterpart. It also contains no fats, so the good nutrients can get straight into your system and get some morning work done.

Foodie Fact

Don’t throw the water away when you sprout wheat, it has many restorative powers. You can even mix it with ground seeds and leave it for a day to make a sort of cheese. It can also be used to make the drink Rejuvelac, which was created by Anne Wigmore of the Hippocrates Health Institute.

This mornings Beach House tune is by Panda Bear ‘Alsatian Darn’:

Categories: Breakfast, Healthy Eating, Music, Raw Food, Recipes, Salads, Snacks and Inbetweens, Vegan | Tags: anne wigmore, blackberries, blueberries, breakfast, cats, cereal, chewy texture, crab apple trees, food, food combinations, fruit, healthy breakfast, healthy eating, hippocrates health institute, low carb, low fat, music, no fat, panda bear, photo, photography, raw breakfast, raw food, raw recipes, raw vegan, recipes, rejuvelac, spain, sprouting, sprouting wheat, vegan, vegetarian, wheat, wheat sprouts | Leave a comment

Raw Green Thai Soup

Posted on June 10, 2012 by leroy watson

Thai soup – in the mix

Here is a classic Thai soup, only this time served cold. This is without doubt the finest chilled soup I have ever tasted. You just have to look at what goes into it to realise that it is going to be a taste sensation! Coconut, lemon grass, chilli, lime and ginger. That’s the taste of food heaven.

If there is any food which mirrors a country, it is Thai. Vibrant, colourful and unique. The combination of ingredients and fresh, fresh flavours make my mouth water.

Jane and I met not far from Thailand (well the Philippines, but close enough!) We both love Asia for many reasons, but the people and food really stand out. Thailand cannot be beaten for food. A bold statement, but anyone who has visited and trawled the street food and markets will agree. Great food made simply but with super fresh ingredients. The soups alone are almost alchemical, their vapours can revive the soul and the flavours dance in your mouth like a dragon.

Thai’s love food. In a way that us Europeans cannot comprehend. For example, my friend Toum took me to a local market in a suburb of north Bangkok and I have never seen such care taken in the selection of produce. I was reprimanded for holding some green leaves the wrong way round, and soon realised that I had much to learn in the respect and handling of food… we carried our vegetables home as if they were newly born babies.

You can see the real identity of countries and cultures coming through in what they eat. Most Thais eat very well, regardless of social standing. In fact, they seem to eat the same things, in the same places. Namely the street. There is a movement towards a more westernised capitalist culture in the upper and middle classes, but it’s all done in a very Thai way. I can never see the big mac taking over from the pad thai.

This will be very refreshing come summer (it is coming I hope), the flavours are as intense and fragrant as you would expect from things Thai.

Bangkok Street Food

The Bits

There’s lots of bits in this one, but that’s what makes it so very tasty!

6 mushrooms, 6 tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, 1 cm fresh ginger (or 1cm galangal if you can), 1 lemon grass stick, 1 red chilli, 4 dates, 6 lime leaves, juice of 2 limes, bunch of coriander, 120g fresh coconut chopped, 125g spinach, 1 apple, 2 tbsp tamari

Do It

Blend all of the ingredients together in a blender and keep your finger on the button until all the herbs have been blitzed.

Serve

In a big bowl with a few sprouts and coriander leaves on top, a whole heap of love, and the biggest spoons you have!

We Love It!

It is such a taste explosion and takes us back to happy memories of a wonderful land (just one spoonful of this and we now want to go back!). This is authentic thai, without the jars of paste.

Thai Lotus Flower

Foodie Fact

So essential to Thai cookery, coriander (celantro to some) is actually native to the Mediterranean and is rich in anti-oxidants that help against heart conditions. It also contains high levels of vitamin C and many different minerals. It is one of the richest sources of vitamin K and has a very high vitamin A content. Quite a herb!

Categories: Healthy Eating, Raw Food, Recipes, Soups, Vegan | Tags: asia, bangkok, celantro, celiac, cold soup, coriander, countries and cultures, culture, dairy dree, food, fragrant, fresh, gluten-free, healthy living, lemon grass, low carb, low fat diet, market, photo, photography, raw, raw vegan, recipes, restaurants, soup, street food, summer soup, taste sensation, thai food, thai soup, thailand, travel, vegan, vegetables, vegetarian recipes | 10 Comments

The Big Four Raw No-no’s

Posted on June 5, 2012 by leroy watson

On a rope bridge in Panama

For me an introduction to raw food came quite unexpectedly while I was working and staying with a friend out in Panama; home of some fantastic and enormous fruit and veg. Kami prepared delicious salad after salad; we ate little and often, with the right combinations of foods and two weeks later I was veritably zinging.

We thought it would be a good idea to share Kami’s words of wisdom; after all one of the biggest reasons for going raw is to help the body with its mineral and vitamin absorption and efficient digestion. After some extra research I realised it is easy to get bogged down in this subject. So I squeezed it down into a few main points.

The Big Four Raw no-no’s

1. Fat and carbohydrate: Avoid having sweet fruit like bananas, nuts, seeds, avocados etc together in the same meal. If you do eat them together the fats and proteins (which are slower-digesting foods) will cause the sugary fruit to ferment in your stomach. This cannot be good. You can eat the fats or proteins four hours before, or a couple of hours after the sweet fruit instead – because the sweet nutrients will have had time to dance through your digestive system by then.

2. Carbohydrate food and acid food: Like with fats, acid foods need longer to digest. If they are eaten with sweet fruits they can also cause fermentation in the stomach.

3. Acid food and proteins/fats: Citrus fruit, pineapple, strawberries and other acid fruits should not be eaten with nuts or avocados; otherwise the protein will not digest properly. Acid fruits inhibit the flow of gastric juice whereas digestion of protein requires an unhampered flow of juice.

4. Keep the amount of fat to a minimum: Fat has an inhibiting influence on digestive secretion and also slows down digestion of other foods. It is generally a good idea to reduce fat intake; it is surprising how little of it we need. Delicious but notoriously fatty avocados are best eaten with a green salad but never with nuts sweet fruit, especially melons.

We feel the trick to this diet is to keep it simple. After all we just want to help our bodies digest this lovely fresh food. Tips like sticking to one type of protein in meals (some raw foodies even stick to just one type of nut or seed). By not eating a huge variety of food types in one meal will help to stop our bodies having to work too hard and will avoid most of the no-no’s too.

We’re just looking forward to getting sensitive with our own bodies; listening to how it feels after eating different combinations of food, and how we feel after these small easy to digest portions.

We want to live in the best possible way for our whole lives so that we can be the healthiest and best we can be for ourselves and for other people! Apart from the eating (which has a huge impact) we also want to focus more on sleeping, exercising, relaxing, being creative, being in nature, having fun so we can shine together brighter from the inside out – yay!!

Have fun trying out our recipes and join us in Raw June!

Love Jane xxxxx