Tag Archives: raw food recipes

Delicious detoxing? I’m teaching raw food recipes on 23rd Jan

2 Jan

I'm teaching a raw food detox class at Books for Cooks on 23rd January

If you are anything like me at the dinner table around Christmas time, you’ll have an extra chin, even more rolls on your stomach (and back…), two large love handles and big bags under your blood shot eyes by now.  Sounds gorgeous doesn’t it?  Um, well, no… However – it just so happens that not only am I about to embark on a serious detox to get rid of those unwanted bits but I’m also teaching a raw food/detox preparation class at the wonderful Books for Cooks, here in London, on 23rd January.

Books for Cooks is Notting Hill’s famous specialist cookbook shop, crammed with thousands of tasty titles and equipped with a squashy sofa for cookbook junkies in need of a long read. Cookbooks are put to the test in their café at the back of the shop, while cookery classes take place in the demonstration kitchen upstairs

The class will be based on an international selection of raw food treats using organic ingredients in season at the moment.  I also throw in some of my extra strong opinions on nutrition and living the good life.

1. a green smoothie 
2. raw spring rolls
3. raw som tam salad
4. raw sushi
5. various raw mexican salads
6. raw cauliflower couscous
7. raw chocolate

Of course the menu may change slightly as we get closer to the 23rd, however, essentially, I can promise I’ll prove that a raw food detox doesn’t have to be dull, worthy and a royal pain in the backside to make and live by.

So – to book, click right here.

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Pre-Christmas detox-retox plan

16 Nov

You may have noticed that my posts have been infrequent if not completely absent… That, my friends, is due to my extensive retoxing programme. As this rainy greyness of Winter has come upon us so has the pouring of red wine into my Ikea wine glass often accompanied by something/anything warm and cooked. The end result is a burgeoning cold, bad skin, irritability and I’m sure I’ve spotted an extra wrinkle or twenty. 

Alfalfa is an essential addition to a silly season retox plan

In light of the happy fact that the silly season is here, combined with my incredibly feeble food willpower – it is unlikely that any ambition to fully detox any time soon will be remotely realised. So I do think I am rather a genius to come up with a programme that enables my hypocritial self to both satisfy the urges to ingest warmth and retox yet also be as healthy, raw and detoxed as possible where possible.  

My detox retox detox raw food plan from now until December 25th is therefore:
1. 24 hours green smoothy fast – including coconut water, chlorella (info to follow), probiotics and spinach
2. green smoothies every morning no matter what
3. large garden size quantities of my home grown alfalfa sprouts for lunch with raw pesto and raw hoummus on raw carrot and cucumber slices
4. steam out the toxins twice a week at the turkish baths with some bone marrow numbing ice bathing and dry skin brushing
5. raise a sweat and get my heart rate up by walking through Hyde Park to work (when it’s not raining ie hopefully once a week)
6. meditate every morning for 20 mins minimum
7. lots of water
8. nuts, sunflower and sesame seeds galore

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ok tasting, hideous looking, seriously good-for-you green smoothies

13 Jul
Looks like nuclear waste but does wonders for your system

Looks like nuclear waste but does wonders for your system

I’ve been back from Thailand for a month and I am proud to say that I’ve been drinking green smoothies for breakfast every day.  Thank you Jennifer! As exciting as this news must be to you, I have to confess that I haven’t quite figured out how to make them taste really, really delicious. I have tried numerous options and I haven’t cracked it. And when I looked at this morning’s concoction, I asked myself  ‘What the hell am I doing drinking that disgusting looking muck?’ 

These browny-green-muddy smoothies may not taste of heaven exactly, but they are definitely drinkable.  I’m sure that’s sold you!  The selling point of these is not flavour (although I will persist) – they give me all the nutrients I need for my day, a full stomach  (I make a litre at a time), and thanks to the enzymes and extra fibre; clear skin, a tougher immune system, a regular digestive system, a positive outlook (thanks B12) and more energy. 

So – I thought I would chill the perfectionist streak in me and release these recipes for your own continued exploration into the world of raw green smoothy health and happiness.

Here are my recipes for ‘ok’ tasting green smoothies:

THE BASIC:
¼ blender full of fruit
¾ blender full of dark green leaves
A plugged-in blender

THE DETAIL:
Locally produced, ripe fruit in season
1/3 bag of baby spinach
1/3 bag of water cress (this can make it spicey so be careful…)
½ a lettuce (not iceberg)
A big stack of sprouts (I go for alfalfa)
1/3 cucumber
1 x glass of water/coconut water
Juice of a lime/lemon.

HOW TO MAKE IT:
Add the fruit first, then the greens and the water and then blend.

As for fruit:
Amongst others, I tried honey dew melon, cantaloupe, strawberries, pear, pineapple and apple.  I particularly recommend a combo of 2 apples and half a punnet of strawberries or 2 apples and 1/3 of a pineapple and the flesh of a passionfruit only added after blending.

As for supplements:
I add spirulina algae (Hawaiian variety), which smells HIDEOUS, but it’s a great way to get B12;
Probiotics in powder form;
1 tbpsn of soaked flax seeds (added after blending), and
When I really don’t feel like the slightly grassy taste, I add 2 BIG tablespoons of raw cacao powder.

THE VITAMINS
A, B1, B6, B12, C, K, folate, iron, calcium and more…

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It’s better to eat Nakd

25 May
My first Nakd all raw fruit bar

My first Nakd all raw fruit bar

Raw food is taking off beyond my kitchen and the proof is in the ever increasing range of raw products in my local Planet Organic. Last week I discovered Nakd bars, a raw fruit and nut bar company made right here in the UK, in Wales.

As you will have noticed, I love to travel but struggle to stay raw when I do it, so a raw food snack bar is absolutely brilliant for me. Especially if it also tastes great. These yummy nakd bars are packed with dates, oats, apples, peanuts, apple juice, walnuts and almonds and have no added artificial ingredients whatsoever. They also come in four flavours; Apple Pie, Cocoa Loco, Banana Bread, and Berry Cheeky. And there’s no wheat, sugar, soya, chemical syrups, or salt in any of them.

Nakd tells us there are these benefits to eating nakd:

1. Rich in phytonutrients from raw plant foods to promote  a healthy immune system and body function;
2. Natural source of essential vitamins and minerals like B-vitamins, vitamin C, potassium, calcium, magnesium and iron to help provide energy, support a strong immune system, strengthen bones, and combat stress and ageing;
3. High fibre to help balance blood sugar levels, control  appetite and aid digestion; and
4. Plant-source protein to help maintain muscle, support metabolism, balance blood sugar, and control appetite.

My apple pie flavoured bar was totally satisfying and a handy snack on the six hour drive to the Welsh Brecons on Bank holiday and a much need brain booster to absorb Pulitzer prize winning Doris Kearns Goodwin’s discussion on The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln at The Hay Festival when we finally arrived.

You can order them direct from here.

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Happy Raw Chocolate Easter with Kate Magic

13 Apr

I’m sure some London-born children must think that, like Parsley, chocolate eggs sprout up from the ground from late Feb to late April. It’s damned well everywhere at Easter time and my willpower can only take so much. So – to help me deal with my chocolate addiction, my nutritionist pal and fellow chocoholic invited me along to the Camden meeting of CFEA (Cooked Food Eaters Anonoymous).

Kate - this is an old pic - she looks ten years younger these days

Kate - this is an old pic - she looks ten years younger these days

OK – there is no such thing as CFEA and it wasn’t really a CFEA addiction meeting. Even though it felt very self-helpish, it was a raw chocolate lecture by Kate Magic, a raw chocolate pioneer, author and guru, mother and raw foody foody for some 16 years! And Kate delivers on her name. She is magical. If she told me she was 172 years old, I would have believed her. She is youthful, glowing and clear eyed with a magnetic, happy energy. And she is for real. Kate’s pink-dyed hair and wholesome, some would say hippy get up, only momentarily distracts from her obvious focussed discipline and ambitious vision for her raw food business called Raw Living.

Kate describes herself and her business partners as ‘long-term, raw futurefood pioneers’.This is a superb description for the ‘raw food movement’, which is fast moving beyond a trend and into the mainstream. Her online shop sells the concept of living raw, alongside the equipment to live the raw life hands on, and a wide range of raw foods; delicious chocolate bars, something scary called high vibrational food, books, DVD’s, natural sweeteners (not sugar) and a range of raw cakes. Either Kate had her publicist planted in the audience or one excited lady could not stop raving about the cakes because they are so good. I’m about to order one.

An important part of the business being these lectures that spread the word and certainly give comfort to those of us who stick to the hypocritical cooked side of life. The topic of tonight’s lecture was ‘raw cacao’, but Kate’s extensive knowledge and experience of living a rewarding raw food life spilled over, almost taking up half the talk. Her advice makes so much sense.

As Kate said; ‘Raw food is a journey. It’s not about going 100% raw, it’s much more helpful to have some basic guidelines and nurture your cravings.’ But Kate, (wishing I asked this at the time) what if your cravings are for a roast pork sandwich?

Besides a tonne of insight about raw cacao (in my next post) – I took three things away with me:

1. The more enzymes in your system – the younger you’ll look. And raw fruit and vegetables are packed with valuable youth promoting enzymes…I like this. A lot.
2. The five most addictive foods are rice, corn, potatoes, wheat and soya. That’s almost my entire diet on a bad day.  I’ll be looking into why all my favourite food groups are no-nos.
3. 1 x Hi-Buzz Bar. This was a delicious raw chocolate bar loaded with bee pollen, and of course, raw cacao.

You can buy Kate’s books from here and her Hi-Buzz bar from here.

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