Eat Dance Live

So, if you want to know what has happened to me since those days of yore of daily blogging, I think this explains it quite well: I call it... the PhD This means I've been really antsy because that means more time vegetating studiously writing in front of the computer and less time being creative in the kitchen. On the upside, another hoop jam (as in a hooping party not, a fruit preserve) saved my life this evening. Seriously, best thing ever, try it ! Getting into my dance trance while still being focused enough to spin a hoop is the most wonderful feeling. It's so curative, especially because I've been in such a dance rut recently... Anyway, my kitchen time has been pretty productive. I've made a beautiful love child between Meredith 's and my "grawnola" recipes, which has just about spawned the best thing ever: You know I don't take measurements, but the general idea was replacing Meredith's use of raw pepitas and sunflo...

On most sunday mornings, you can find me in the kitchen stockpiling some of the more complicated raw household goodies I make for the weeks ahead. Funny thing is, I find that as I increasingly adopt a LFRV lifestyle, the less pleasure I take in making and eating these higher-sugar higher-fat gourmet foods. Andrew's not complaining though, that just means 99% of the fancy raw stuff I now make just goes into his belly :) Despite my feelings though, today was no different on the food front. This morning, I was inspired by Meredith and Felicity to try my hand at vegan cheesecake. I kind of followed the general idea of their recipes, but made the proportions of ingredients my own. I started with Meredith's recipe for fermented nut cheese (the priobiotic-based kind), then added about 1 tsp of coconut butter, some raw honey, salt, irish moss, and lots of lemon. The crust was a recent hemp-spelt cookie disaster that I didn't have the heart to throw away, but that I think ...

Oh the successes, I have known this week! There's nothing like a 6 day camping festival surrounded by friends old and new, fire-lit drum circles, pine woods and cool rivers to completely rejuvenate you and make you feel alive. These past few days have been extremely curative for me both physically and mentally, and I feel so grateful for the life I have. But on to my successes: Success #1: Mosquito Prevention As I mentioned in my last post , one of the most successful ways to avoid getting bitten by mosquitos is to avoid potassium foods a few days prior to and during your camping trip. So it's been no bananas, pumpkin seeds, strawberries, whole grains, and brazil nuts for us for almost 10 days now and the mosquito bite tally: 5 over 6 days, while everybody else was massively attacked. I don't know if it's the raw diet or potassium or both but it worked so well that at one point, we were talking to a friend and all the mosquitos were swarming around him while we just sa...

As I mentioned I wanted to make my super mom a super raw dessert for Mother's Day and I figured the best thing to dazzle her with would be an ice cream cake. I also know that my mom likes the following things: berries, french vanilla ice cream, and marzipan. So that's exactly what I did. I made her a marzipan crust vanilla-raspberry ice cream cake. Here was the breakdown (not the best photo, I know, but all I had on hand was my mom's little point and shoot): -1 layer of raw marzipan* -1 layer of vanilla ice cream (a beautiful union between my and Meredith's ice cream recipe) -1 layer of sliced strawberries -1 layer of raspberry sorbet** -1 ring of Heather 's whipped cream (sans lecithin) piped with my snazzy new cake decorator -2 heart shaped strawberry slices *soaked and peeled almonds, agave nectar, almond extract, and salt, Vitamixed **frozen raspberries and a couple frozen bananas, Vitamixed It was wonderful. Even my 90 year old grandmother loved it. She even ...

Have I already touted the benefits of green tea? and more specifically matcha green tea? While I've always been a fan of green tea in general, I was first introduced to matcha the way most Asian people are... through green tea ice cream! Of course now, you can find it all over the place, but I remember when it was just something you could find in our local asian grocery store. Matcha is a higher quality green tea. It's covered before it's picked, making its leaves turn a deeper green than other tea leaves. It also tastes much stronger than other types of tea, so you'll always recognize it once you've had it once. Because of its strong taste, you only need to use a little bit (usually about one teaspoon or so) to get the full range of its taste, colour, and health benefits. According to Dr. Weil , it has the nutritional value and antioxidant content of 10 glasses of 'regular' green tea, and has a much higher antioxidant count that both blueberries and spinach...

And by that, I mean sushi. If I haven't made it clear yet, I have something of a seaweed addiction. I always have a strong desire to incorporate more of it into my life. To celebrate, my day began and ended with seaweed. Breakfast was yet another spirulina strawberry-banana whip. This one was made by simply blending 1 1/2 frozen bananas in the Vitamix (or any high speed blender), then separately blending 3 frozen strawberries, and topping that magnificent mix in a bowl with 1 heaping teaspoon of spirulina. To end a wonderful day, I have just finished polishing off 1 1/2 rolls of my superfood sushi , one of the first recipes I ever blogged about. To make it more raw, this version had sprouted red quinoa instead of steamed quinoa. The rest was the same, though I did use a couple strips of tempeh as the protein and Braggs instead of soy sauce. I do eat tempeh on rare occasions because live/fermented foods are usually a-okay in my book. I also don't have to go into detail to re-e...

Sorry for my absence over the past couple days. We ended up going to my parents place on Friday, which I used as an excuse to watch J amie Oliver's Food Revolution with my parents. I really enjoy that show and the message is great. Jamie himself is such an upbeat positive guy and is EXACTLY what the US needs. However, I wish I'd written about this show last week when I was still 100% positive about it. After this week's episode, he left a really bad taste in my mouth when he made a really obvious plug for Green Giant. It came off as such a sell-out moment. One part of his cooking demo totally gave away that it was a product placement rather than any real desire of his to use frozen veggies. He had to take it as far as to claim that frozen veggies "may even contain more nutrients" than regular veggies... disappointing :( Back to the positive: I also haven't posted for the last two days because I've been obsessed with a couple recipes recently and I've ...

Though I was busing making new batches of raw cheese , and sunflower rye crackers (addicted, I tell you, addicted!), I had the time to whip up another one of Meredith' s winning milkshakes: her vanilla one , by far my favourite. Now this is a milkshake. It had the perfect consistency you expect to find from a good ol' fashion diner milkshake, and I mean that in the best possible way! It was awesome ! We're being hit quite hard by the heat here in DC by temperature we don't usually get until two months from now so this milkshake was the perfect thick yet still liquidy, icy, wonderfully vanilla-tasting remedy for a hot muggy day. To finish up, like I've mentioned recently , I find craking open up coconuts really challenging. Here are two cooking tips for the day, on how NOT to open a coconut: and don't try this either: I think I want to frame a picture of the Swedish Muppet Chef and put him in my kitchen. Happy Cracking!

Wait... doesn't 'perfect parfaits' just mean 'perfect perfects'? Well, they are! And as the weather gets warmer, I'm increasingly craving the mix of fruit and cold ice creams and sorbets over heavier treats. I want tangy, water-dense, citrusy, or tropical fruits, and I find my desire for denser and warming fruits and spices like apples, figs, or cinnamon falling out of synch with the season. I'll save those for next fall and winter! It's funny how ours bodies naturally acclimatize to the seasons, and recognize what is local and in season and what is not. I'm finding that since I've switched to the raw diet those impulses are even stronger. To fulfill my needs, I'm finding that parfaits are the perfect solution to warmer weather. Cool, refreshing, fruity, crea my, zesty, spicy, they can really be whatever you want! With temperatures now in the high 20s °C and low 30s °C (that's in the high 80s °F low 90s °F) , I've recently whipped ...

Another day, another winner. Easter dinner last night was another delicious success: Meredith's ' Yes Please, Pesto Pasta' , and the name says it all! While we rarely eat seconds on a raw diet only because the food is so nutrient dense and filling, we didn't stop until we had two bowls this time, and my old self could have probably gone for more! I put this together by making Meredith's perfect pesto and mixing it with spiralized zucchini, diced red peppers and grape tomatoes, chopped up sun-dried tomatoes, all topped with her amazing nut cheese . What a delight! I used both the nut cheese and the pesto again today when we went for a picnic with my parents along the Washington Tidal Basin amidst our city's gorgeous cherry blossoms. My mom provided a wonderful spring salad, and I provided them with sandwiches. I made my dad a nut cheese, cornichon (the French version of pickles), cucumber, and peppered tofurky in a baguette. I made my mom a raw pesto, tomato, spi...

So if you haven't guessed already, I actually have a very hard time following recipes (and perhaps rules in general). Every time I read a recipe I'm suppose to follow, I always think things like "well that's probably not enough cinnamon" or "1 whole cup of coconut butter, really?" and I always want to mess with the perfect proportions laid out by the wonderful person who took the time to put a cookbook together for me. Working through Meredith's ebook has given me an ethic I have rarely stuck to. Because I wanted to make my reviews of her recipes the most authentic and 'true to the source' as possible, I told myself I would NOT allow myself to mess with her recipes until after I had made them all at least once. While one of her new recipes is currently sleeping in a warm, dry place overnight, I made another attempt at her Chocolate Mousse Pie last night. However, because I had already made it once , I allowed myself to tweak it. I couldn...

Of all the reasons not to have posted yesterday, I have a very valid one! After classes last night, we went over to my sister's place to watch the best movie of 2009, aka. the Princess and the Frog. I have to admit, despite all of my more alternative lifestyle choices, I am a child of Disney, and princess stories just make my world a happier place. After the first preview we ever saw for this, my sister and I squealed in our theater seats like little girls. I was so psyched to know Disney would be making both a princess movie and use good old fashion hand-drawn animation. I really thought this movie brought all the magic of Disney back to life from their golden days of Sleeping Beauty, the Little Mermaid, etc. From the catchy songs, the gorgeous animation, the fun-loving characters (including what might just be the coolest Disney villain of all time), the Princess and the Frog has it all! It recreated all of the enchantment of a classic Disney princess movie with New Orleans flair...

My magically mysterious recipe of the day was Meredith's Cucumber Dill Dressing served over a lovely salad. Actually, that's a lie. I made this over the weekend but was saving it as collateral for a day I would be sans new recipe. While I did make another one of Meredith's recipes today, it's still in the works (aka. the freezer) so I had nothing concrete to report, thus you get a salad pic instead. Cucumber and dill go wonderfully together, they leave such a refreshing taste in your mouth. There's a reason why the combination is so popular. The first thing I think of when I hear 'cucumber dill' are those cute little tea sandwiches that you'd imagine eating with lace gloves during High Tea with the Queen of England... or is that just me? I also made Alissa Cohen's 'Almost Tuna' recipe from her book, Living on Live Foods . Though we took pictures of it, it photographed just like tuna; by that I mean, it turned out looking like a grey-ish goo...

... ain't nobody happy!" Love that quote, because it's so true. I thought of it because I'll be the first person to admit that I used to hate caraway. And man was I an unhappy princess when I ate some by mistake. I always thought it had this strange full-bodied after taste that took over my entire palate like a strange icky mentos. It's hard to describe, but I used to literally be unable to swallow something if it had caraway in it... now, I'm a convert. Thank you, Meredith. You've achieved something no one has ever been able to do before! I am Chantal. I come to you reborn, as one who loves caraway! Of course, the result of this was yet another one of Meredith's recipes , specifically her Sunflower Rye Bread, which was just about the tastiest and lightest raw bread ever. Finding a bread without nuts is a blessing! For me, it makes it considerably more digestible. But when I was first making it and saw '3 tbsp of caraway seeds', my first thought...

... And by that I mean Meredith 's yummy raw chocolate milkshake, of course! For the very little amount of work it takes to put this together, it certainly was a nice treat. For my own personal tastes, I think I would use about half the sweetener, but other than that it was super tasty! I'm excited to try the vanilla one now, since it's usually the taste I prefer if asked to answer the age old vanilla or chocolate question. Again, the great thing about the raw diet is how you can enjoy pure, living and raw foods that you know are good for your body, spirit, and for the environment without having to give them a second them. While everyone in the mainstream world is freaking out about what is actually in one of those 'chocolate-y' candy bars and chocolate percentages and what not, we can enjoy the optimal health benefits of cacao without question. Did you know that cacao is one of the foods with the highest magnesium levels? It helps our body bind calcium to built str...

Ever since I saw a picture of raw 'chicken nuggets' on the Raw Seed aeons ago, I knew I had to have the secret to that recipe. I was thrilled to see they made it into Meredith's ebook! Thus, today's recipe was her chik-un nuggets and bbq dipping sauce. Now I've got to admit I used to have an obsession thing in my early teen years for chicken nuggets. Not the healthiest choice I know, but unhealthy foods tend to be addictive, and, unfortunately, when I was growing up, I had one particularly unskilled baby-sitter who pretty much knew how to make little else but chicken nuggets and white rice... thus, the beginning of my love affair with chicken nuggets. This recipe brought back all the best parts of why I loved chicken nuggets minus all the not so great things about them. They actually tasted battered and fried, had the same texture and saltiness... They were awesome!!! Don't they look authentic?? When I serve food, I also like to do it well. If I'm going to...

I have one simple statement to make today: Meredith 's Chocolate Mousse Pie is chocolate orgasm on a plate. I wanted to blog about it while it's still fresh in my mind, but words to describe food usually don't capture them at all. "This taste good/this taste amazing, etc." doesn't give away what you a truly experiencing. The taste of this cake is absolutely amazing, the texture is divine. It has the perfect resilience, not too mousse-y and not too hard. It's juuust right! Andrew's and my favourite hang-out when we lived in Kingston was a place called the Sleepless Goat . It had the most amazing cakes (both vegan and non-) that you could ever imagine. Once we left there, I never thought we'd be able to recapture those experiences, but this cake brought them all back. Right after my first bite, I thought "Wow, this is just like Goat cake" (no, you never do stop giggling, no matter how many times you say that). On a scale from one to yum, th...