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).

FLU REMEDY

I've been without a voice the whole week due to having the flu. I think I've never sounded this ridiculous. Or well, I didn't really sound like anything at all.

Honey water for a sore throat is a classic. I heard that the combination of honey and cinnamon makes a good antibacterial-cokctail and and blended those with other flu-classics like heaps of fresh ginger and lemon and, of course, hot water. I've had several liters of this (and so does Dag, in a more diluted version).

It was also pretty nice to let half a glass of this soak over night and then filling the glass up with orange juice from the fridge in the morning.

CHRISTMAS AND ALL THAT

I know it has not really begun yet * although it is just around the corner, and we had the first little hint of snow now, so I did a little cheating and hung up the first Christmas lights at home already! November is so dark anyway, but I did wait with the stars and advent lights so far though. Plus, I have different led-and fairy lights at home all year round so in some ways I sort of have a Christmas all the time (much to the joy of my husband).

*) other than in all the stores, everywhere,  right after Halloween as usual and apparently, as I heard, at Ikea already in October...

Then, because I had some extra banans hanging around (they sometimes tend to do that, become extras that just stay there and turn way too dark all of a sudden) I baked a chocolate-banana cake. Vegan.  It was good. Had it wit the first glögg (mulled wine/glühwein. Altough -yes really- this was the wine free version. More like spiced warm juice  really) of the year to go along. And as I was in the pre-Christmas mood I put some gingerbread spices in the cake too. Muy bueno. We can have a closer look on the how-to some other time.

I have said it before, I really am a Christmas person. The Holidays could last for at least a month and a half for all that I care. Well it usually does, as we seldom manage to get the Christmas tree out before the end of January. Ehrm. But mostly I am a "Christmas person" on the inside - for the past decade I have always been so busy I never manage to do that whole cal-getting-in-the-mood-and-relax-thing, where I have lights and candles and tingling everywhere and bake and make goodies for weeks and make and sew presents to all of my friends and family (one year I actually did, but that was a long time ago). It's more the thought of it I suppose, the same with the thought of autumn where I always wear knits and scarves and go out on walk in colourful crispy cold woods and come back home and drink cocoa. That which I have done perhaps once the last five years. Perhaps.  As with most other things and times and seasons in life, it comes surprisingly fast and is over before you know it. This year will be no different as I have lots of shows to do and classes to teach ahead of me still, and producing no less than two events within two weeks. But then I will try my best to take it easy and bake and prepare and all that and plan, make and shop gifts; I do love to hand out presents!

Speaking of which. This one here is mainly for my readers in Finland; a little hint if you plan to do some, or even some more of your Christmas shopping online, one that I had almost forgotten about myself but that comes in handy this time of year - do so via Ostohyvitys! Sign up and shop. This of course applies to all your purchases all year round as well, as you get various discounts (money refunded to your bank account) at most major online stores, both Finnish and international ones such as Apple Online store & iTunes, asos, cdon, Finnish Design Shop and The Body Shop to name a few, as well as at various smaller speciality stores, when you shop via the site. That, and discounts on many services and on magazine-subscriptions and at several travel companies etc. The system is very smart and it is easy to use - log in and then navigate to the store you want to make a purchase from and receive the discount in euros to your bonus account (and later to your bank account ). Well, as I do very little shopping nowadays I have forgotten to use the service the times I have actually bought something, so this serves as a good reminder for myself as well!

And ahoy! As a reader of my blog you will now get a 10euro gift card to use at any of the S-group stores (S-ryhmä) when you sign up and make your first purchase at any of the stores and services via the site (within 90 days).

Sign up here for more info and in order to receive the gift card: Ostohyvitys / S-ryhmän lahjakortti

Disclaimer: nothing in this post is in any way sponsored or paid for by Ostohyvitys but I am part of their affiliate network and can thus offer you the chance of to receive the gift card.

THE MAGIC CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

This set here:

You know how you sometimes wish there could be something that's really really good in the yummy sort of fatty sense, but that could still some magical way be healthy? And you know what? There actually are such foods and dishes available -like this raw chocolate mousse! It's an avocado based dessert that has a super luxury chocolate feel to it, and is very easy to make. It's not calorie free, but just full of good calories. But who counts calories these days anyway - it's mostly about the quality of the food nowadays.

For about two persons you will need:

One avocado

5 dried dates, if the bigger kind (medjool). If smaller ones double up.

1,5 dl cocoa powder

2-4 table spoons of agave syrup

1-2 teaspoons of coconut oil (optional, I often leave it out)

Now for the how-to:

Soak the dates until they are soft and moist. Mix the dates with the avocado and agave (and coconut oil if you added it) to a smooth mousse. Today I also added a couple of dark dried apricots to the mix. Sometimes I've tried it with a few soaked raisins in there as well. If you don't have agave you can use honey instead, or perhaps try with maple syrup. (Agave is however available from most bigger stores over here nowadays and it's not totally un-affordable.) Add the cocoa to the mix and stir. Add more agave if the mix is not sweet enough for your taste. Then it's ready to serve!

The mousse is rather heavy; I feel it's best enjoyed with some fresh fruits or berries.

You can try some variations, like adding cocoa nibs or coconut flakes to the mousse, or a dash of cinnamon or chili. I once made this with a little less cocoa powder but some bits of melted raw chocolate instead (cocoa butter + raw cocoa powder).

You can also put this in the freezer for a few hours and it turns into chocolate ice cream, sort of. You need to take it out and stir a couple of times to fluff it up in between.

Note that the avocado batter is hard to get off bowls and such if it dries so make sure to wash your utilties up as soon as you have emptied them.

I know for some the words vegan and raw before something you eat will be an immediate yuck-factor. Or a question mark. But that is only if you are not familiar with such foods (and/or have an attitude). There are lots of things that are vegan, and also raw, that everybody eats, without thinking that much about it. No yucks there then. Also the thought of having avocado in a dessert may freak some people out, but it is actually a very useable fruit due to it's consistence and mild taste. Avocado is a perfect "smoothifier" in smoothies and milkshakes too, as well as (raw) pie fillings.

I cook a lot of vegan and raw recipes, but I also enjoy traditional -vegetarian- cooking (as in warming up my food and having bread, I love bread :) and traditional desserts. Man I love cake. But now as I am aiming to get as close to my pre-pregnancy waist as possible I have been more strict and it's been less cake and lots of raw food in different forms instead. (So far I've lost 15 kilos -or maybe ten, as I guess around five came out with the baby- so I'm getting there. 10 centimeters to go!)

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!

AND THEN IT WAS FRIDAY AGAIN

And so it was Friday again, this time one when I didn't have to drive for xx-hours away to perform. I've had a busy work week -classes, billing, organising and such- and our internet has been bad both in the city (should install a new router) and at the farm (well, no internet at all really since the thunderstorm blew the modem away) which drives me crazy.

As it got warm again (yey!) so we headed back out to the farm for the rest of the week again -
(This is turning into the Country-Life blog soon ;)

-and also since I had some nice flowers at the farm left after a photoshoot earlier in the week that I did not want fading away by themselves.

I took out one bottle of my summer lemonade from the freeze to enjoy in the sun.


Dag played in the sandbox.

I made playlists and choreography's for my classes for next week.

Pekka and Lulu and some issues with something in the appletree.

My father-in-law brought us some mushrooms which found their way on roasted bread with garlic and parsley and some pumpkin soup to go along.


Then it was time to visit Eddi who had come out after work to do some harvesting.

It's the flax being harvested.

 Lulu as usual follows us everywhere.

We also have honey on the farm. The batch for this year is soon here.

And now it's time for that in a cup of tea with a late night lemon muffin,  some mags and blogging -  our wifi is back up!

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.