Raw Food Adventures!

It's been quite a while since my last post, but that's because I have been very busy! The end of June brought my first wedding delivery of 90 cupcakes and a small tiered cake that was 6" and 4". It went very well and the bride and groom were most pleased!

I've recently had about 3 weeks off because my boss was in Spain. Having the time off was really great for relaxing, reflecting, and general taking care of myself. I've been incorporating more raw food into my diet. For the last few weeks I've made pretty much all of my breakfasts raw. I used to like alternating between an egg breakfast and a cereal breakfast, but I've since found much better alternatives!

For my "cereal" I puree steamed or soaked buckwheat (I know purists will say that steaming is not "raw" but I'm sure it's not all bad) with a frozen and ripe banana (I have SO many in my fridge) with some peanut butter. Right now I'm still using grocery store Kraft chunky but I'm hoping to get some natural peanut butter soon. It's so hot here in Ottawa these days that a nice cold breakfast really hits the spot! No picture as it's not the prettiest dish.

Now, for my "egg" dish I found this wonderful video by Ani Phyo - Spanish Scramble, or a variation on I Love the Chicks pate. The first time I made it I added tomatoes and basil, but this morning I made it with ground coriander and mushrooms. So delicious and filling - I felt great for almost 5 hours!

Months ago I made raw tacos - still working on the presentation as the Boston lettuce leaves weren't really doing it for me. They also bring back bad memories as when I was making the guacamole I was trying to take out the pit with a small knife and it slipped and went into my hand instead D:. I have a bruised nerve, which is not really fun, but for the most part I don't notice it - the side of my left index finger feels like it's "asleep" but that's the extent of the damage.

The walnut "meat" was really delicious! They're not very filling though, especially when presented in those small leaves, so I'm going to try and find a bigger leaf so that this can be more of a meal than an appetizer.

Around that same time I also made a walnut chocolate cake from Ani Phyo's dessert book. It was so filling! I put strawberries in the middle which ended up cutting its shelf life in half as they went bad pretty quickly. Still delicious though. I sometimes find that all that cacao powder leaves a very powdery taste, but if you wait a couple of days it disappears. Anyone else notice this?

In the middle of June there was Ottawa's annual Raw Fest. There were a lot of neat stalls and I bought some delicious fruit, raw chocolate bars by Olivia Chocolat, and seed bars and snow balls from Rawsome Food. I also had my first taste of coconut water and I'm also a big fan of that. I unfortunately let it sit for too long in the fridge so when I went to crack it open to get the meat it was all soggy.

Because the weather is extremely warm right now I thought I'd make nature my own personal dehydrator. I attempted to make raw burgers - the bun was made out of soaked buckwheat (I tried to sprout, but failed), ground flax, sesame seeds, garlic, salt, pepper, water, and dates. The burgers were made out of walnuts (soaked and dried), wheat germ as "bread crumbs" to help it dry out faster, spices, onion, and chilis from our balcony garden. Here are a few thing that I've learned from DIY dehydrating:

1) NEVER put paper towel on top of the food in attempts to keep bugs off. You end up ripping the entire top layer of the bun off to get rid of the bits of towel. Yum? Bleh.

2) It takes forever. I had them out for about 5 hours and the insides were still goopy. You can't just whip up a raw meal sometimes, you have to plan ahead.

3) I really REALLY need a proper dehydrator!

I eventually got impatient and baked them at a high temperature so that they were edible before the next day :P. Not so pure according to raw standards, but still healthy nonetheless! I topped it with spring mix, sprouts, mushrooms, and chipotle mayo (kind of raw?). Ryan wasn't as into the buns but he really liked the burger portion, as did I! I had a few buns left over so I use them in my lunches. The garlic has really mellowed over the days making it for a much subtler tasting bun.

I also want to share with you my favourite new snack - raw popcorn. I found this video courtesy of Renegade Health. Here are the ingredients:

Here are the instructions:

1) Chop up and crumble a head of cauliflower so that it resembles "kernels". Place in plastic bag.

2) Liberally add nutritional yeast, then a pinch of cayenne (or two if you're like me and like it spicy!), and a pinch of sea salt (I like Maldon)

3) Close bag and "massage" all the ingredients together!

4) Inhale the deliciousness

Hmmm, so why do I like it? It's crunchy, it's a little salty, a little spicy, and it tastes cheesy! You can dehydrate this but I don't like waiting and I love how crunchy and fresh raw cauliflower is. I find that, because of the water content, it soaks everything up very fast and gets a little soggy, but if you add more nutritional yeast you can bring some life back to it. I wouldn't let it sit for more than 4 days though. But really, how can you not devour the whole bag in one sitting? I actually like this more than real popcorn!

The last raw thing I made was chocolate bark, which I made yesterday. I occasionally get huge chocolate cravings around that time of the month, and after devouring huge amounts of non-raw chocolate last week and feeling gross afterwards, I figured I should try and make a better alternative. I again consulted Ani Phyo's dessert book and made her liquid chocolate recipe and mixed in pumpkin seeds, almonds, and goji berries. I spread it out over a silpat and froze it for about 10 minutes. It had a strong flavour! Sometimes my body has trouble digesting pure fats so eating all that coconut oil was a bit of an adjustment. However, today seems to be better. The cocoa (I didn't have enough pure cacao so I used my Cocoa Barry powder instead) was intense so a little went a long way and it definitely satiated the chocolate craving! I even had some in my yoghurt this morning, haha.

I haven't felt this good in a long time! I know the time off has really helped, but my insides have just been so much happier since I've been incorporating more raw food into my diet. My energy levels have also been great, something I seem to always struggle with. My skin has been fantastic and all around I'm really benefiting from eating this way. I've also staring doing yoga and I went for a run for the first time in 3 years and although I have a ways to go the endorphins made me feel great.

More and more I'm moving away from my traditional way of cooking and baking in favour of raw. If it weren't for my family and Ryan wanting to still eat cooked food (and a lot of meat!) I would be raw I'd say about 80%-90%. I will admit that when I go out if I see a delicious sounding meat dish I will get it, but for the last few months I've really been treating meat as a special occasion treat and I try to eat only well fed and well cared for meat. For example, there is a butcher near my parent's cottage that sells Belgium Blue meat. They graze through a huge field and all of them are tagged, meaning that you can trace your steak all the way back to that cow! Also it means that only one cow (and only the best parts) are used in sausages. I know a lot of restaurants are moving towards using local and well cared for meat so I don't feel as bad eating out.

Today I became the proud owner of a Nikon D5000, and I am also going to be taking a 2 day food photography course which I am SO excited for. Hopefully this means my blog will take on a new and more professional look!

Crazy Mad Hatter tea party bridal shower cake!

Wow, what a mouthful of a title! This cake was done about a month ago, and is my first proper tiered fondant cake. I spent a long time planning it out and made sure that I was organized enough to execute all my ideas properly (something I had struggled with in the past). It's funny though, sometimes you will be faced with a challenge and a totally different solution will present itself and you'll realize that it is much better! What I mean by this is originally I wanted to create a few large fondant roses to go on top of the cake, but I was having trouble creating them as my mind saw them. Instead I made a stack of small roses and leaves to give the illusion of a full potted plant, if that makes sense! I hoped to make it taller, but I have ideas as to how I can do that for next time. Every cake is a learning curve!

I'm quite surprised that I'm so pleased with this cake. As a "tortured artist" I'm never quite satisfied with my work, whether it be a cake, drawing, or a musical piece I'm composing. It's a really great feeling knowing that you accomplished what you set out to do and executed it well.

Playing catch-up!

Warning: this is a very photo-heavy post! Those with dial-up beware!

I'm going to be playing food catch-up with this post. The last couple of months have been very hectic and despite the best of intentions I still haven't achieved my goal of posting more regularly. I feel as though once I get over this one big food blogging hump then we're smooth sailing!

But first, something totally unrelated to food - I cut off all of my hair.

Before:

After:

I really wanted a change, and my hair was completely fried having dyed it blonde for 9 months straight. I got great feelings of instant gratification but now I desperately miss my ponytail! I can now pull it back into the tiniest of stubs but it will be a few months before I can fully pull it back. I will never cut my hair again! Which is a lie, as I'll probably want to do the exact same thing two years from now. Vicious cycle.

Back now to food! Ryan and I have been attempting to eat more healthy. In addition to adding raw food to our diet, we also are obsessed with rice paper wraps! So easy and so versatile.

I discovered a recipe from Happy Little Bento, and while my own version didn't turn out nearly as cute as the photo, nor did I have all of the proper ingredients amounts, it was still one of the most surprisingly delightful dishes I've ever eaten! Despite it's slop-like appearance, of course.

As some of you may have read, awhile ago I e-mailed a food stylist/specialist in Ottawa and we met and hit it off right away. I did some part-time work with her before being offered a more full-time position, and one of my projects was to pick some recipes from her website and to make them and take photos of each step. Later these will be on her blog (when I get around to doing that... oh dear...). For now though the final product pictures are here!

Egg-free and Gluten-free chicken fingers. Dipped in a honey-dijon mixture and rolled in spelt crumbs.

Tuna and asparagus salad with avocado.

Peanut butter energy balls.

I also had one week where I made a lot of cakes!

Double chocolate cheesecake

Chocolate brownie cake with caramel buttercream and pecans

Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache

Vanilla cake with chocolate icing (this felt like such a grocery store cake!)

Chocolate almond dacquoise with strawberry cream and caramel

Lastly, Ryan and I had a dinner party a few weeks back for some friends from cooking school. We felt slightly rushed to get everything prepared but it turned out to be a roaring success.

Dinner party attire!

Stuffed sea trout. Recipe found at The Delicious Miss Dahl.

Vegan chocolate cake with not-so-vegan chocolate caramel ganache

More photos and stories to come! Here a teaser list for you - raw tacos, tales from the ER, homemade pizza, raw cakes, and more!

Raw Chocolate Orange Cheezecake

Oh, right, back to food! I was on Cloud Nine for a bit meeting one of my food idols, Chef Michael Smith. After that a lot of work drama occurred, and I've since resigned and will be starting my new job in about two weeks. I'm going to be doing a lot things such as recipe developing, food styling, food blogging, tweeting... the list goes on! I'm really excited about these upcoming projects. I'm also going to be able to have a semi-relaxed Summer which is much needed to help me feel grounded and generally normal again!

I made this cake about a month ago, and I got the recipe from RawMazing, which is a fantastic site that you all should check out! I don't have a dehydrator (yet... if I can find a suitable place to store it my boyfriend will give me the OK) so I've been making recipes that don't require one, such as this cheesecake.

One of the things that I noticed about it is how many cashews it required! Wow, it was a lot of nuts. And for some silly reason I felt cheated because the ingredients only yielded enough for a 6" round. Well, I should have guessed how rich it was just from the cashew content alone! Wow, one tiny sliver made me full and kept my sweet tooth satisfied. I sometimes found it too coconut-ey, because of the coconut butter, and I really just wanted to taste the cacao and orange sometimes. Perhaps next time I'll try cashew butter instead, or maybe just slightly refined coconut oil (is that still considered raw? Maybe someone could chime in with more information!) in order to reduce the coconut taste.

Being silly with my raw creation!

This may be a slightly strange observation and fascination, but I really was glad when, after having it in the fridge for awhile, that it grew mold. I always get suspicious of things that don't grow mold after being opened, so it was nice knowing that I was consuming something that was riddled with preservatives.

I had a little bit of leftover topping leftover, so I put it on my yoghurt one morning - delicious! This crust would make a lovely "granola" topping for breakfast, there's nothing bad in it.

One thing with raw desserts, especially a "cheezecake", is that you're never going to be able to replicate the texture of the original entirely, and you try all you want, but I'm fairly convinced that this is just not something that can be done. It is a dense cake (so. many. nuts), and while it has the looks of a cheesecake, it's definitely not soft, nor squishy like a regular cheesecake is. This is ok though, because the density of it makes you want to consume less, which is good, because I really believe that everything, even good things, should be eaten in moderation :). The texture was very smooth, but next time I'm going to process it more so that I can fully liquify any little bits of nut that hang around. That, or I might try straining it. All in all this was a fantastic recipe and next I'm going to try making a raw tart! Mmm.

Things to do: Meet Chef Michael Smith. CHECK!

I have so many food creations that I did over the last month that I want to blog about, but that is going to be put aside for the moment so that I can instead tell you about one of the most exciting days of my life!

I have been working with a food specialist/stylist for the last few weeks and in addition to working on recipes I got to see the media side to her job. We arrived at the A Channel for 6:30am and I helped set up for two segments, both for Dairy Farmers Canada. I set up a cheese plate and helped with last minute prep things. I had to sit in the audience during the filming, but if you happened to catch it you do see me lurking in the background! Anyway, that was loads of fun. I decided then that I love tv.

Our next journey was to Rogers TV, where Chef Michael Smith of Chef At Home Food Network fame was doing a segment on seafood and talking about the P.E.I appreciation that is happening in a lot of Ottawa restaurants. I didn't do any of the set up for that, but I did get to meet him! And I got to meet the hosts of Rogers TV, Derick and Terrilynn (I'm so sure that I'm spelling her name wrong...). I watched the taping and got to take pictures during it. Michael Smith is the most down to earth man ever. So calm, so gracious - a fantastic and inspiring man. I wish I could have had the chance to talk to him, but everything was happening so fast that I blinked and it was over!

I lovelovelove tv studios. I love cameras, I love film crews. Perhaps someday I'll pursue a career in tv or film, but for now this food styling thing is really quite neat. The woman who did the set up has such an eye for elegant simplicity.

Michael Smith and I. To give you an indication of his tallness I am 5'6, and he is slouching down a bit.

P.E.I. potato vodka. Smelled divine but unfortunately I didn't get to try any.

Oyster dressing - pickled red onions and dill. So simple and delicious.

The shucker was made specially for him.

A very VERY large oyster was unveiled here.

I got to eat this oyster after ;). They're my favourite.

I have so many more photos from this day so these are just the highlights. I was on such a high for the rest of the day. Even though I ended up passing out at 9pm (I had been up since 5am) it was such an overwhelming but fantastic day.

The coming months are going to be very transitional for me, job wise, and I'm doing my best to just go along for the ride and not continually second guess myself. I know that by not having to bake every single day I will begin to appreciate it again. Hopefully I'll also be able to get more sleep and rid myself of these awful sugar cravings and skin problems that I've been having. I'm also hoping that I will have more time to pursue my other interests and develop those more - music, art, and sewing. I'd really like to have an Etsy shop set up by the end of the summer, and I also need to produce another piece of music. I'm aiming for another string quartet, just to get the ball rolling again. I also need to practice more art so that I push forward and finally get to painting, but charcoal is hard!

Anyway, I'm digressing! Next post will have raw cheesecakes (yes, I did it!), lots of chocolate cakes, and new recipe lemons that get turned into lemonade!