BLUEBERRY BARS

I've been experiencing a lot trying to come up with the perfect raw-bar.

If you are wondering what the hell a raw bar is, it is a snack that is made according to raw food principles; all un cooked natural ingredients. I got hooked on chocolate raw bars when I was pregnant and since they are pretty much the perfect snack (or sweets) I consume quite a lot of them still. And since they are rather expensive to buy I have been trying out variations of my own. Although all raw sweets are ridiculously expensive to make at home too, all those fancy nuts and super food ingredients… Most that are grown on the other side of the world. Sometimes I even get annoyd at maca this and lucuma that. Not that I don't think that those so called "super foods" wouldn't be good for you - but do I really need a root from Peru in my snack bar? We can get true superfoods over here too; the berries that grow in our woods!

So, this is a how-to  for healthy snack bars with blue berries. (And some stuff from the other side of the world too.) Being able to make the perfect raw bar in setup and consistence is not easy and I get different results every time, sometimes they turn out too mud cake like (nothing wrong with that, but I don't always want them to feel like candy), sometimes too nutty, sometimes too moist. I usually always use raw cocoa or raw chocolate, but in this version I'm just going for a purple berry bar, chocolate free.

Use about one part dates and one part nuts.  And some seeds of your choice.

I took mostly cashews, plus some almonds and hazel- and para nuts (next time I'll go for this without the para nuts though) and linen seeds (from our farm, keeping up the local theme). Put the seeds and nuts in water to soak for a little while, about ten minutes is enough.

If  the dates are fresh you don't need to soak them, but as I used very dry ones I had them in water over night.

Then you'll need this: blueberry powder, as in dried and ground blueberries!  I've also done this with dried blueberries which turns out great, even better perhaps, but then again you'll need a lot and that is really not to be considered everyday luxury as the price per kilo is quite scary for such.

I have a small  blending bullet for this which fits about half a handful at the time, and for such an amount of dates and nuts I put one tea spoon of blueberry powder.

So, then you mash it all in your blender/mixer/bullet and put the mix in a bowl. You can sweeten it with honey or agave if you like, but for me the dates makes it sweet enough. Add some cold pressed coconut oil. I also put in some hemp seeds as they taste great . 

Flatten the paste out in a mold and put in the fridge for at least a few hours before eating. If the mix feels very moist you can dry it in the oven on very low heat for a while before storing cold. 

Cut into bars and store them in a plastic box in the fridge. They will stay fresh about up to 4-5 days. I out half of mine in the fridge.

These  make a perfect breakfast or light lunch -which for me nowadays most often  are the same thing- together with a smoothie (and some nice magazines).

FIRST WORLD JAM

I made jam of apples and rowan berries form the garden!
Although often keen on it, I've never used rowan berries in cooking or jam before. Not that I've actually ever made that much jam myself before either. I've often felt bad about the fruit and berries just going to waste, but I've never had the time to do anything about it. This year, as you may notice, I've finally managed to get a lot of cooking done - jams, mash, juice. Actually turns out it was also rather easy to do once getting started.

But. The thing is that I don't normally even eat that much jam, as I try to avoid sneaky sugars (you know, if I am about to consume a lot of sugar it may as well just be all Boom! at once in the form of a cake or so).

The other thing is once I now have these jams I'm not really sure when to even consume them. You know, not wanting to just make them and eat them all up at once, but rather just enjoy having the fridge full of them. Getting greedy. Hello first world issues!

But then again all lifestyle &  fashion blogs and such pretty much have one big First World label on them anyways.

So, maybe it's good to remember not everyone has their fridges full of luxury jam or chill and do ebay vintage finds at nigh, very few do in the end:  The annual Operation Hunger Day(s) is organized September 13-15, when you can see the familiar Red Cross boxes around town collecting money for charity. This year the Finnish Red Cross has a tool to help bloggers and sites be part of the fundraising. I set up my Piggy Bank here. You can also see a benner for it in my sidebar.  Otherwise you can donate straight to the Red Cross catastrophe fund by bank; Finns also by telephone or SMS; info can be found HERE. You can participate with as little or much as you want; a few cents already gets one portion of vaccine or water for example, five euros a blanket. I just spent 170 euros on my son's name cake (bakery cakes aren't cheap), that gives half a ton of millets, or ten mother-care packages. Something to think about.
Good night!

FRESH APPLE CAKE WITH CINNAMON

Then apple season came and went by. We picked apples and I made apple mash and apple marmalade and apple cakes... and then decided I wanted to try out something different and new - which turned into a raw food apple cake!

I used almonds and sunflower seeds for the crust but you can make this with just either one, or hazelnuts and walnuts for example. I used one of this dried pressed packs of dates (250g) that I soaked in water; 2/3 for the crust and 1/3 for the filling.


For the curst:
4dl almonds
2 dl sunflower seeds
200g  dates
a handful (about 0,5dl) dried apple bits, soaked

Filling:
2 dl cahsews
3-4tsp cinnamon
1tbs melted cocoa butter or 2-3tbs coconut oil
100g dates
7 small apples

The apples on our trees over here are rather small so 2-3 equals one store bought regular sized one.


Mix the nuts and add the dates and the apple bits. Press the curst out in a cake mold (I put baking paper underneath to get it out easily), then proceed to make the filling.


Mix the cashews smooth. You can add a few drops of the water you soaked the dates or dried apple in, (or some apple juice) after a while for easier mixing. Then, add the cinnamon and the dates in small portions. Pour in the cocoa butter (or coconut oil; you won't taste the coconut); this will firm the filling once you let it cool afterwards. Chop the apples (peeled or unpeeled, your choice) and add the bits to the mixer. Pour the filling in the crust, smooth out and let the cake cool for an hour or two before serving.

Enjoy with a cup of fruity tea or coffee. Or some apple lemonade!

RAW CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE

I had the idea to use the "magic chocolate mousse" for a cake for a long time, and this summer I got around making one first version of it!

The cake did not turn out super-perfect,  but it was one step int he right direction, and was highly approved by the ones sharing it. A bunch of kids also had this and they were totally fooled, thinking they were eating “conventional” chocolate cake. Ta-da!

I make a lot of raw food cakes and bars and goodies. I do bake a lot of sweets in the oven too, somewhat healthy and then not so healthy, vegan and non-vegan as well. With raw food I like the fact that you can make something taste totally chunkadelic while it is still basically full of only healthy ingredients. (Raw food cakes are of course not light in calories, with lots of nuts and seeds and dried fruit, but you also tend to eat less of those as they are rather heavy. And, for most people they still don’t make you feel as stuffed as after having ‘normal’ cake). Sometimes healthier versions of the "real thing" mostly taste good only because you tell yourself it does, but with raw sweets I don't think that is the case; they taste just as good, sometimes in their own way, sometimes in the same way as with butter and sugar.

Most of the time when I cook and bake I add things a little so-so, making it up as I go along or working from memory. I think it works well especially for raw food sweets, as it is the texture that counts, and dried fruit may vary in consistence. But lately I’ve been trying to write down amounts as many don’t like to play around with measurements the way I do. Here’s how this version turned out and what it consumed:

I made a crust using nuts, seeds and dried prunes(plums).

3 dl of sunflower seeds and 70g of nuts (I had walnuts) and 12 plums.

I like walnuts in the crust for raw food pies, they make a good base.)

Sunflower seeds give a full, kind of butter-like feel to the dough. I have made raw brownies using only sunflower seeds as I was serving it to a person with nut-allergies. it works very well.

Most raw food sweets contains dates in different form. If you grow tired of them you can try using other dried fruit instead, plums, figs or apricots etc. I love dates, but sometimes change them, mostly just for variation in recipes. These plumes were not very sweet so I added a spoon of coconut sugar.

Then in with 1,5dl of coconut oil and 2dl of cocoa powder. -personally I think regular powder works as well as raw - and a little hint of good salt.

I personally think this recipe will work better with cashews tor almonds han walnuts, as cashews are more mild. So I will opt for such in the version to come. The cocoa together with the walnuts made it rather bitter;  I came to the conclusion that  walnuts works better in a crust without cocoa. I will also try to make the next version with dates anyway, or a mix of dates and plums for more sweetness. But many will prefer a less sweet version, so stick with the plums and walnuts then. 

Press out the crust in a non-stick cake mold (or place a baking paper underneath).

Put it in the fridge to firm up while you make the fillings.

The first filling will be the instant marmalade. I made mine of raspberries, red wineberries and dates. About 1,5 dl of berries and 3 dates.

Mash and mix it together and spread it over the cake.

The second fill/ topping is a variation on the magic chocolate mousse, the whole idea of the cake. I have started to add half a banana to it, as sometimes the avocado tastes trough and makes the mousse taste too “green”. For an even smoother mousse I also add creamed coconut.

Here’s what goes in it:

1 ripe avocado

1 ripe banana

20 dates

8 tbs cocoa

1-1,5dl creamed coconut

Creamed coconut is not the same as coconut cream; it is firm as a paste.

Spread the topping out on the cake and put the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Raw cakes are said to not, like many other cakes, not get ay better by waiting over night or so, but in this case I still felt the cake tasted better the second day!

I might try this with a pale crust (dates and walnuts), no berry filling and fresh fruit on top instead the next time. And then I am sort of dreaming of making a triple chocolate version with a dark crust, this chocolate mousse filling but sans the coconut cream, saving that for the third topping; he coconut-chocolate one I used for my raw muffins.  But we’ll get back to those once the experiments have been conducted!

INSTANT STRAWBERRY MARMALADE

Here's a very quick and easy sort-of-marmalade /jam/fruit mash that works with most berries (frozen or fresh; raspberries works especially well for example).

 Take some berries - I hade a some bstrawerries over from a bunch of fresh organic ones which I refrigerated and cooked jam on.

 
And some dates, the more the sweeter (of course). Here I am using fresh dates but I actually think that those drier stickier ones work best for this - if they are very dry they need to soak in some water first though. (If you are tired of dates in everything you can try it with other dry, very sweet fruit, like I did with the raw apricot-coconut cookies, using apricots for the marmalade.)

Mash them together with a mixer or a hand mixer.
And that's it!

Serve on pancakes, scones, your peanut butter sandwich or as cake filling (like here with the raw chocolate pastries filling) or anything else you want to jam up.

BANANA-PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

 Here are some quick soft cookies I've made a couple of rounds of the past weeks! They're a somewhat healthy option to serve along other cakes at a party but also functions well as an afternoon snack or to put in the picnic basket.

 You will need:
2 very ripe bananas
2dl dark sugar of your choice (for example coconut- or muscovado sugar)
1,5- 2dl peanut butter
2 dl rolled oats
4dl spelt flour (or flour of your own preference)
a hint of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mash the bananas and add in the sugar (I use coconut sugar which actually isn't sugar but dried nectar from the coconut flower. It sounds very pretentious I know.).

 Then add peanut butter and the rest of the ingredients.  The dough is pretty thick.

I've used both store bought peanut butter (organic, with peanuts plus hint of salt only, no extras) for these, and self made*.

Scoop out the dough with a spoon on baking paper and flatten with a moist spoon or moist hands.


Bake in a 225C oven for about 8-12 minutes until the cookies have risen a bit and got a slightly darker colour. Let cool a little while (or a lot) before eating.

I am pretty sure these would work without the baking soda as well - they will most likely turn out a little more compact - so I will try that the next time!


*) You can make your own peanut butter by mixing peanuts in a mixer forever. Either of raw peanuts or roasted; I mini-roasted mine for a few minutes in the oven when I was preheating it for baking at around 200C until they let some oil out. You can mix them when warm but not while they are hot. Mix for a minute or two at the time and take a break in between so that your machine does not over heat. The peanuts will first turn into flour and then slowly start forming a paste after about ten minutes of mixing. Add a little oil -peanut oil if you have, I used coconut oil. No it will not make the peanut butter taste like coconut oil - while mixing and some good salt, perhaps something sweet too if you prefer (I put about a teaspoon of coconut sugar). Or cocoa if you want chocolate peanut butter! Mix for a few minutes more and your butter is done!  Store cool in an air tight jar. How much you use  of each ingredient is up to you; I pour out peanuts to cover about 3/4 of a regular oven tray and for such an amount I added around 2 tbs of the oil.

LEMONDE, SYRUPS, JUICE AND ALL THAT

 I picked most of the rhubarb before midsummer already; jammed, juiced, pied and froze in. Now I made a last batch of syrup of what was left of it in the garden. At the same time I did a set of summer lemonade, the one with black currant leaves.

 Dag was very eager to help picking the rhubarb. It's fun now that he is so big he can almost really be of help. Well he did pull all of the staves out from the bucket afterwards, but kindly out them back after I told him to. He probably would have repeated the procedure over and over again wold I not ave been finished with the gathering after that.

 Earlier I made syrup the plain way by boiling the fruit (or, herb or vegetable or what it was now again that rhubarb was classified as) and then filtering it and heating it up again with sugar. This time I made the other version of just pouring boiled water on a mix of rhubarb, lemon and some tartaric acid and let it stay for three days, after which I added sugar and set it to boil, the same with the black currant leaves.

 On the last day of letting it soak I put in some mint from the garden too.

I fill up a few bottles to drink at once but put the rest in the freezer, to enjoy later. It's also good to pack along for a picnic or a longer trip away - a bottle of frozen syrup or lemonade in the picnic or grocery bag doubles as a cooler as well.

DAG'S CAKE - A QUICK ALMOND AND FRUIT CAKE

Here's a quick cake I made for Dag', not for his birthday actually but for his name's day some time ago.

The original recipe uses apples and marzipan (or, actually almond mass, which is almost the same) but I made my own by mixing almonds and sugar; then you can choose how sweet you want it, and added nectarines and strawberries.  I used so called Indian Sugar which is a little bit healthier than regular, white sugar. (I would have done this with coconut sugar but didn't have any at home). The cake is basically just marzipan and eggs. So it's gluten free for those who can't have it. We buy our eggs directly from an organic farm.

You will need:
3 eggs
300 grams of marzipan store bought/home made
2 nectarines
Fresh strawberries

Mix the almonds with the eggs in a kitchen mixer or by hand, using a fork at first and then a wooden spoon.

Pour the mix in a cake mold and decorate with thin slices of nectarine.

Bake in a 200C oven for 10-15 minutes.

 Let cool and decorate with fresh, chopped strawberries.
(See the small impatient hands in the background, waiting to grab the cake. Aaaw.)

Serve with something white with vanilla - I mixed some real vanilla with thick Turkish yoghurt.

And enjoy!

I'm thinking a version with our sugar, with an almond-date mix instead could work too.
I would also like to make a vegan version out of this, perhaps with some soy yoghurt instead of the eggs. Let's see what I come up with!

'CAULIRICE' AND VEGETABLE CURRY

I'm going to show you an awesome side dish that Jamie Olivier taught me -not in person tough, but once by accident while appearing on a tv screen infront of me when I was climbing some sweat machine at the gym - cauliflower "rice"!  It's not really rice at all, just ground steamed cauliflower that tastes so much better than I ever expected. And I even like cauliflower in the first place!

This time here I made it with a quick and affordable curry to go along. Caulirice as I call it is a great way to get even more vegetables in your meal! It is also a low-carb substitute for rice.

To this I have to add that I'm not much of trying to avoid carbs. I am no nutritionist, but I read a lot on the subject of food and diets back when I got into vegan foods in 2004 (I followed a vegan diet only for a couple of years back then). The selection of foods was different here at that time (and compared to the nineties it's a whole different universe by now) with a lot less foods to choose from and more to think about. In everything I read was talk about complete protein, where the carbs and proteins complete each other in order get the most out of what you consumed. For example combos like lentils and rice, peanut butter and whole grain bread etc. So while it surely is true that many of us out there should cut down on carbs -white bread, sugar etc, which I very seldom have myself anyway - I personally have no issues with the fuel that keeps us going, carbs.  But I think due to the trend I too eat less grains and more alternative such now than before. But I still love pastas and sandwiches. And cake! Living la vida lo carb is not for me. Balance is key. I 'm actually bit freaked out when reading young girls' health and fitness blogs for example, where they put protein powder in absolutely everything they make, from their breakfast cottage cheese "porridge" to their some sort of cake substitutes to salads. And so on.  But anyway, this has nothing to do with anything really. So back to the actual food! Apart from the fact that some variation and new options are welcome it is sometimes also nice with a lighter version of things, one that make you very full but not stuffed. Like this one here -

 So, you nee some cauliflower and a micro wave oven or a pot/ steamer pot and a strainer with very small holes to steam it in.

 I use about this much for one person.

Then I chop it all in my food processor. I don't have one in the city and there I've just grated the cauliflower. On a side note, you can use finely grated cauliflower like this in salads as well,  raw; it's a great filling (like I did for my raw Valentine's day dinner this year).

Well, when everything is in small and tiny bits you put it in a bowl and cover with a lid or plastic film and microwave it for 5-7 minutes (the more you have the longer the time). Or put it in the strainer in your steaming pan and cover with a lid.

Fluff it with a fork when done and serve with something that has a lot of sauce - caulirice really absorbs liquid and taste a lot!

A good little extra about this one is it requires less dishes - you can just rinse you mixer and pots and bowls with water right after you've used them. Btw did you know it is the same when you make smoothies that only contain fruit and greens too -water is enough for the blender if you rinse right away.

 I put together a quick and affordable curry that turned out very good; with tandoori paste an a bag of good ol' herne-maissi-paprika (a frozen mix of peas corn and bell pepper) that I think many in my generation sincerely hate as that damn mixture was everywhere when we were kid and also something I had a lot when studying because it also rather cheap. I use corn and peas a lot and have now noticed that little yellow-green-red bag ain't all that bad.

Well, again, back to the recipe:
I fried some onion with the veggies and added tandoori paste, cooked red lentils, coconut cream and water to a quite runny sauce and let it thicken for some 20mins on the stove.
Added a fresh chopped tomato and served with the caulirice, put peanuts and raisins on top!

Any leftover of both cauliflower and curry can be mixed together and kept in the fridge. It tastes super good and chunky still a day or two later!