Archive | February, 2009

Raw Valentine Smoothy

16 Feb

Make every day Valentine’s day (at least for your own body) with this raw smoothie packed with delicious and natural aphrodisiacs.

Love strawberries and strawberries will love you back

Love strawberries and strawberries will love you back

1 cup of Coconut water
1 Banana
1 cup Strawberries
1 cup of Raspberries
½ cup of grated 100% raw cacao

Blend, pour into a glass, sip and see what happens…

 

Why are these ingredients aphrodisiacs?

Bananas, the good mood food, are very high in potassium, which helps the production of sex hormones and boosts energy.  They’re also high in Vitamin B, essential for nervous system and red blood cell production.

Strawberries and raspberries are very high in vitamin C, which helps with the production of anti-stress hormones, sex hormones and neurotransmitters.    

Raw cacao is the ultimate Valentine’s booster.  It contains anandamide (a euphoric substance), arginine (a natural aphrodisiac), neurotransmitters, anti-ageing antioxidants and lots of magnesium, essential for helping the heart to pump blood efficiently, and lowering blood pressure.

Coconut water is a natural isotonic drink filled with electrolytes.  It helps circulation, keeps your energy levels up and makes sure your body is well and truly hydrated.

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Mis Amigos Mexicanos Raw Food Fiesta

12 Feb

When I told my wonderful Mexican friends Cesar and Brenda, that they looked great, I have to admit I expected (hoped for) a typical British response along the lines of; ‘No- I don’t – you however look fantastic.’ I was a tad stunned therefore, when they separately replied; ‘Yes I know. I’m hot.’

mucho gusto yummo pico

mucho gusto yummo pico de gallo

Despite feeling slightly ripped off, I realised that they really are ‘hot’, but not just because they are physically gorgeous. They both have a vibrant energy and warmth about them that makes them a lot of fun to be around. Obviously not every Mexican is ‘hot’ and ‘fun’, but I do attribute some of their very positive attitude to their bodies and life to their traditional Mexican diet, which is amazingly, pretty much 70% raw fruit and vegetables. (We’ll conveniently ignore the fact the remaining 30% of a Mexican diet is made up corn chips and tequila…)

Brenda, in between Micheladas (non-raw beer, Tabasco, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce and salt), showed me how to make this absolutely, incredibly delicious Mexican raw feast.

Pico de Gallo
4 big vine tomatoes
½ cup of fresh coriander
1 red onion
1 small green chilli
Juice of one lime
1 pinch salt
1 clove garlic

Chop everything as finely as possible, put into a bowl and serve.

Guacamole
See recipes below.

Lime radish salad
1 bunch radishes
Juice of one lime
Salt

Chop radishes into quarters, add lime and salt to taste and serve.

Lemon cucumber salad
A cucumber
Juice of one lemon
Salt

Slice cucumber, add lemon and salt to taste and serve.

We ate this with carrot and celery. And yes, we also enjoyed some well and truly deep fried cooked to hell and back corn chips!

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World’s Best Guacamole Recipe

4 Feb

World's best guacamole recipe

World's best guacamole recipe

Having decided to make guacamole for dinner, I started with Google. With 512,000 results, I realised I had to refine my search, so tried ‘best guacamole recipe in the world’. This resulted in 275,000 hits.

Not having sixteen years up my sleeve I scanned a larger than normally acceptable number of websites to dig out the best raw version I could find. That means, anything with cheese, yoghurt, sour cream, meat, corn chips, tequila(!!) was immediately noted but sadly ignored. I looked at recipes from everything including vegan and raw food websites, to celebrity chefs, universities, Mexican government and avocado specialist websites. I finally whittled the results down to the top five.

I firstly noted that the most common raw guacamole follows this basic recipe:

3 ripe avocados (Hass variety)
2 chopped medium tomatoes
1 finely diced white onion
½ cup of finely chopped coriander
1 lime juice
2 x small green chilli finely chopped
Salt to taste

And I noted that to add a twist, you can add anything from pomegranate seeds to cayenne pepper, jalapeño chillis, diced cucumber, celery, cracked pepper, white pepper, red onion, spring onion, parsley and even capers.

THE TOP FIVE

1. The world’s best guacamole recipe
I went for the obvious search result here and was very pleasantly surprised. I think it really truly might be the world’s best guacamole recipe. I did, however, replace the texas champagne cayenne pepper sauce (not raw) with straight cayenne pepper (raw). I put the success of this recipe to the sugar…

2. Eva Longoria
You can watch the clever desperate housewife use lemon juice instead of lime and a larger proportion of avos. It’s a lovely fresh flavour and annoyingly, not bad at all.

3. Avocado Organisation
The avocado experts follow an authentic basic recipe, adding cumin for extra flavour.

4. The Hairy Bikers
Their recipe is very authentic and follows the basic recipe. The difference is that they add water and lots of chilli and blend everything to a paste first.

5. Harvard
This recipe is apparently courtesy of The Culinary Institute of America. Again, it’s the basic recipe and a bit boring. Hence it’s in last place.

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