From ruby red raspberries to earthy dumplings with a difference, raw vegan chef Ani Phyo shows small treats can have a big impact. Ani shares two of her favourite recipes with Diary of a Vegan from her new bestseller: Ani’s Raw Food Essentials (see book for full recipe details).
CUSTARD TARTLETS
MAKES ABOUT 6 TARTLETS
To make tartlets, which are traditionally small pastry crusts, divide and press Basic Piecrust into the compartments in a tartlet pan to make individual mini pies. These tiny pies are filled with Whipped Cashew Kream, and topped with a variety of fruits for a beautiful display.
1 recipe Basic Piecrust (page 263), made with almond meal
2 recipes Whipped Cashew Kream (page 266)
Your favorite small fruits for topping each tartlet, such as 1 blackberry, 3 blueberries, 1 raspberry, or cacao nibs
Line the compartments of a tartlet or multiple brioche pan with plastic wrap first, then press the piecrust firmly into the pan. Remove by gently lifting up the plastic wrap.
Next, spoon the whipped kream into each tartlet. Top each tartlet decoratively with one type of fruit or the cacao nibs.
Serve immediately, or keep in the fridge.
Will keep for 2 or 3 days in the fridge.
KOREAN DUMPLINGS
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
Traditionally, to make dumplings, a shredded vegetable filling is enclosed in a circular wrapper that’s folded over the filling. It’s easy to make, but making your filling, then stuffing all your wrappers, can take a bit of time. This is a fun thing to do with friends and kids, as extra sets of hands will speed up your process.
WRAPPERS
1 recipe Tomato Wrappers (page 173), dehydrated as directed, cut into 16 squares about 31⁄2 inches across
FILLING
MAKES ABOUT 2 CUPS
1⁄2 cup Green Cabbage Kimchi (page 131), squeezed dry and sliced finely
(if you don’t have kimchi handy, see note below)
3⁄4 cup finely chopped lettuce, such as iceberg, bok choy, or romaine
11⁄4 cups finely chopped bean sprouts, or your favorite sprout
2 tablespoons finely chopped green onion (about 1 whole green onion)
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, for flavor, or raw if you prefer
Place all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and toss to mix well. Squeeze out all excess liquid completely before using. Make sure the filling is drained well, otherwise your wrapper will get soggy quickly.
Place a wrapper square in the palm of your hand, shiny side up. (The side that dehydrated against the Paraflexx liner needs to be facing upward.) Scoop 1 tablespoon of filling into the center of your wrapper, and fold and seal a pocket in the shape of a triangle. Then fold so that the two far edges of the triangle meet, and pinch together. See Mandu Making, page 238.
Serve with Soy Vinegar Dipping Sauce (page 239).
KIMCHI SUBSTITUTE: If you don’t have kimchi on hand, use . cup of shredded napa cabbage tossed with . teaspoon of Nama Shoyu or Bragg Liquid Aminos, a pinch of cayenne (to taste), 1 teaspoon of minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon of grated ginger. Set aside to marinate and soften for at least 5 minutes before using. Be sure to squeeze out all excess liquid before using.
Mandu Making
TO MAKE YOUR mandu, follow these easy steps:
- Make sure your wrapper is shiny side up. The side that was against the Paraflexx liner should face upward.
- Squeeze all excess liquid from your filling, the drier the better. Any moisture will damage your wrappers.
- Spoon a tablespoon of filling into the center of your square wrapper.
- Fold the wrapper in half to form a triangle, sealing in the filling, and secure the edges closed by pressing firmly.
- Join the corners of your triangle and secure into a ring shape by squeezing together. A drop of water on the corners will help to hold it together if needed.
Alternatively, instead of using dehydrated wrappers, which can tend to get soggy when filled with moist fillings, use very thinly sliced daikon radish. Set out at room temperature for 30 minutes to wilt and soften, then fill and fold over into a stuffed semicircle.
Find out more at www.aniphyo.com. Buy your own copy of Ani’s Raw Food Essentials here.
I love eating out and especially if what I’m eating is going to contribute to great health! If you’re ever in LA, check out Planet Raw in Santa Monica—one of the best known raw vegan restaurants around. I’ve reviewed it to whet your appetite…
A NATURAL STATE If you hadn’t heard of raw food aficionado Juliano and happened to stumble upon his restaurant in LA’s famed seaside suburb of Santa Monica, you’d be forgiven for wondering where the grills and ovens are. Here, words such as bake, boil, steam and barbeque are left at the door of the nearest fast food joint. At Planet Raw, it’s all about food preparation that keeps nature’s (organic) food in its natural state, with life-giving enzymes kept fully in tact to give you a boost that, quite simply, no other form of food preparation could. Yet, it’s important to know that carrots and beans on a plate it’s not. Food here is prepared with loving care, with many ingredients spending long, lazy hours in food dehydrators before being whipped up into gourmet works of art at the instruction of the “guru” himself, Juliano.
GOOD TIMES While optimal health through good eating is obviously important at Planet Raw, this is one must-visit restaurant that also knows how to have a good time. From organic espressos to the wine and elixir bar, a night (or day) out with Juliano is guaranteed to put a spring in your step.
MENU FAVORITES Whatever your pre-conceived ideas are about raw food, be prepared to leave them at the door. The Planet Raw menu is packed with incredible flavors in a menu that literally has a dish for every taste—from the “bacon” western double burger, with its side of more-ish zucchini fries to the green curry pasta (made from zucchini) dripping with a Thai nut curry kream and topped off with coco-noodles. Dessert (which Juliano suggests you eat at the beginning of your meal for your health’s sake) is also an experience to behold. I say go for the chocolate parfait or the “best ever cheeze cake”.
THE LITTLE EXTRAS Planet Raw is more than just a restaurant with great food and friendly service. Here, you can sign up for Juliano’s raw food classes, his seven-day detox program and stock up on all sorts of healthy goodies from kombucha
(a cold Chinese tea packed with probiotics and natural vitamins) to the God of all food processors, the Vita-Mix
TIP For those who are serious about raw food, inquire about Juliano’s certified raw chef program, which is said to be one of the world’s best.
609 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90405, U.S.A
Phone (310) 576-3180
www.planetraw.net
Juliano’s butternut squash soup pic courtesy: Swellvegan.net
Last night an interesting documentary caught my eye. Half Ton Son, from Britain’s Channel 4, told the story of Billy, a 19 year old boy who was restricted to his bedroom due to his chronic obesity.
His mother helped greatly to fuel his illness (perhaps initally at a sub conscious level) in order to keep her son close and dependent. Through her own lack of education about nutrition, she fed her son on elaborate helpings of burgers, fries and basically anything dead, deep fried and drowned in high fructose corn syrup-laden ketchup.
The doco followed Billy as he was admitted to hospital to undergo surgery to remove some of his fat stores, encouraged to exercise and adopt a healthier way of eating (see preview video below).
After leaving hospital at half his original weight, the first meal Billy’s mum served him up as a reward for his hard work was a hot dog. There’s certainly a lot wrong with this picture, no doubt. But who’s fault is it? Billy for eating in excess? His mother for feeding him toxic food? The education system? Or perhaps the big companies who market their deadly wares without concern for the consumer?
It made me think a lot about what we’re teaching (or not teaching) our kids in school. For years, the food pyramid that was taught to most of us was sponsored by the meat and dairy industries. Of course their products will come highly recommended as healthy and must-additions to the every day diet. But why did our governments allow such outright lies to be printed and promoted? Self-interests perhaps. The millions of dollars involved, quite possibly.
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I love the idea and practice of being your own doctor … listening to your body to understand what works—or doesn’t—to bring you to your personal, ultimate state of well-being.
Looking to a general practitioner for health advice has never felt right. Why, I often wondered, did doctors generally look so unhealthy, yet were offering me pills and prescriptions that were apparently guaranteed to make me healthy? I do still think there are many great GPs out there, doing wonderful work to make a difference to many lives.
However, if I’m looking outside of myself for health and diet advice, I want to know straight away if the person is living by their own book. Ultimately, I believe there’s not a soul on God’s green earth that knows my body better than me. It’s just a matter of listening to what it’s saying.
“The first thing is to realise one’s limitations. It should be obvious that the moment one transgresses those limits, one falls ill. Thus a balanced diet, eaten in accordance with needs, gives one freedom from disease. How is one to know what is the proper diet for one? The purpose of all this is that everyone should be his own doctor and find out his limitations.” —Mahatma Gandhi
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool.”—Hippocrates
“Medicine is the most distinguished of all the arts, but through the ignorance of those who practice it, and of those who casually judge such practitioners, it is now of all the arts by far the least esteemed.”—Hippocrates
I recently blogged about how important it is to cleanse between the full and new moons, so that’s what I did this month: armed with the how-to from Andreas Moritz’s The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush. Without going into too much detail, the six days of drinking a litre of organic apple juice a day, before the the seventh day of the flush, were well worth the time invested.
I consider myself to be a very healthy gal, although my carefree 20s likely contributed to some of the toxins released during this all-important health-boosting cleanse. Also being around household cleaning chemicals, hairspray, dousing myself with the latest hip fragrance and eating animal products would have definitely added to my toxicity.
A day after the flush and I feel light, positive and have a mental clarity that wasn’t quite there before.
According to many religions and spiritual cultures, particularly Native Americans, Shamanism and Wicca, the New Moon represents new beginnings and is a great time to perform rituals and cleanses.
See my original post here.
Speaking of new moons, the actress who’s replacing Rachelle Lefevre (who played Victoria in the first two Twilight installments) is Bryce Dallas Howard (below). Bryce had been a vegan before switching to vegetarianism during pregnancy. She went vegan after watching the Joaquin Phoenix-narrated documentary, Earthlings.
A lot of big business has benefited from the rise of diseases such as cancer and diabetes (think pharmaceutical companies, multi-billion dollar charities etc). I love (note sarcasm) how some brands of margarine are marketed as having the ability to lower cholesterol. Who regulates this stuff? It’s just another reason why it’s so important to never believe marketing hype on any product. Ever.
Okay, whinge over.
The purpose of my post is to highlight a documentary I highly recommend to anyone who’s suffering from any type of diabetes, or any dis-ease for that matter. Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days is a movie featuring some of my favourite people in-the-know: Woody Harrelson, Tony Robbins, David Wolfe and Dr. Gabriel Cousens.
It’s an independent doco (see trailer below) that chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet of vegan, organic, uncooked food to reverse disease without pharmaceutical medication. The six are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and cooked food for 30 days. The results are inspiring and undoubtedly would give hope to people who want to be disease-free.
Imagine seeing an end to the likes of “World Diabetes Day” (which was yesterday) and products emblazoned with pink ribbons. Enough of big businesses making money from illnesses and multi-gazillion dollar research that only offers a band-aid “solution”. If we all become our own doctors and refuse to put anything into our bodies that’s not as nature intended, the problem, I sincerely believe, will be a problem no more.
Here are some great quotes from the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
“Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
“It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has”
“Walking is man’s best medicine”
“Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things – to help, or at least, to do no harm.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
So GMO non-organic soy is out. What to pour over your oats now? Well, the answer is simple—and so much more delicious and nutritious than any supermarket packaged non-dairy milks that are often laden with preservatives and goodness knows what else.
Making your own almond milk at home takes a small amount of preparation, and not only leaves you with great tasting milk, but also the peace of mind knowing exactly where it came from.
As with any recipe, you can change this around to suit your specific taste. Even add some raw cacao for a chocolate drink like no other. Here is the basic recipe I use to make my very own fresh almond milk. Enjoy!
Raw Almond Milk
1 cup of soaked raw almonds
Spring water for soaking
3 cups of spring water (for actual milk)
3 to 6 pitted dates
• Almonds are best soaked overnight in a refrigerator, but if you’re in a rush, soak for a couple of hours and you’ll still be on your way to making a fabulous milk. Be sure to rinse them before using.
• I usually soak the dates in spring water for half an hour or so, but this isn’t always necessary if you’re using soft dates.
Blend the soaked almonds with the spring water until smooth. Then strain that mix through a strainer or cheesecloth (I find a strainer much easier to use). You can also save the left over pulp to sprinkle over cereal or use in baking recipes. Waste not, want not!
Place the almond milk back into your blender, throw in the dates and blend until smooth.
And, voila, there you have it, fresh almond milk. If you prefer a thinner or thicker milk, simply add or take away water as desired. Your milk will last in the refrigerator for about three days. Be sure to shake before using.
To make vanilla almond milk
Add the seeds from 1 vanilla bean or a natural sweetener such as stevia.
One last tip: You can also add your almond milk to a green smoothie recipe to make it that much more delicious.
Pics courtesy of www.thehealthyeatingsite.com
