Healthy Days

I was in Portlaois on friday for another installment of the raw food course which was good fun as usual. We all created a dish and practiced our knife skills doing so.. We partnered up and gave each other a case studies to explore and to advise on. There was 16 of us there, some that I hadn't met before. We had another Potluck, this one was even tastier than the last one because we prepared the food fresh... and we prepared some treats to take from home too, I made gogi & orange fudge -balls, spirulina fudge-balls and coconut & cacao nib fudge-balls, and spirulina & onion flax crackers, which all went down a treat.. gosh there was so much food there.. and I forgot the memory card for my camera, so no pics :( but I expect someone else will post some and then I'll post them here..



My healthy weekend continued on saturday as Sabrina & I took care of my friends stand at the farmers market in Cork.. we were there at 8am juicing wheatgrass and packaging sprouts .. that's Sabz on the left, she loved it.



This is for the girls on the raw food course who loved the fudge balls~

The three base ingredients~

2 cups of ground flax seeds
2 cups raisins
1 cup of coconut flakes






Process, in food processor for about 8 minutes
Until it starts to clump together..







Then add the goji's/orange powder/spirulina/cacao nibs/
cacao powder/bee pollen/whatever you fancy

And process for another 3 min
Add the pinch of salt here too..




Roll them by hand
And roll around in whatever takes your fancy
I rolled these ones in coconut flakes, spirulina & orange powder

Colors of Summer

The start of summer is here me thinks.. well judging by the abundance of color around the Mahon Point farmers market today.. only it's a pity the big yellow sun didn't show up.. as it got a bit chilly, funny that word is almost the same as chilli, probably the hottest herb on earth.. I love playing with words and an example of this was this morning at the market a girl said to me, kinda dispairingly ''I don't know what kind of summer were going to get'' and I said ''be happy whatever happens'' thats why those words 'happy' & 'happens' are so similar.. so it was smiles all round then :)


My friend Pat who has a stand there asked me to run it for him onsaturday so that should be fun, I'll have Nicole with me. He sells wheatgrass/juice and lots of different kinds of sprouts, his website is here. If I get time tomorrow eve I'll make some raw foods to sell there too and I'll pop the recipies up here.. so stay juicy, keep a colorful out-look, be happy whatever happens oh and eat more fruit..

Summer Rainbow

Summer is a great time to eat raw foods. As its easy to eat a rainbow of fresh fruit and vegetables. Here is the abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables I'm having a today and lots of juice's and cold soups these days too. This slaw is made with grated carrot, grated cucumber, grated onion, cherry tomatoe halves, broken walnuts and tossed around in olive oil, lemon juice & salt and a splash of apple cider vinegar. It's simple to put together.. just grate everything with the food processor, its best to half the cherry tomatoes by hand and throw them in at the end along with the broken walnut pieces, and garnish with some corriander. Mine isn't quite finished in the pic. You can make saurkraut like this too but omit the walnuts & oils.


This soup is divine on a warm day.. it has celery juice, carrot juice and tomatoes and an avacado blended up with garlic and corriander, and its sprinkled with nori flakes. And there are endless variations to try...




Orange Powder

Keeping with the colorful theme of this post here is a lil tip not to waste; not to waste your orange peels that is! Put them into the dehydrator for 24-36 hours or until they are hard and they 'crack' in half, then put the broken halves into the vitamix and ground them into a powder. You can add a spoonful of it to raw cakes, pies, biscuits and such. It give another dimension of taste, subtle but sweet.

This first


Then this

Smugy Fudgy Summer Tartlets

Here are some cute little tartlets I made today inspired by the raw food course I'm doing... the bottom layer is made from... honey, coconut flakes, orange juice and orange powder, oh and a pinch of salt... the next layer is made from brazil nuts, honey, coconut oil & strawberry juice & another lil pinch of salt. Then sprinkled on top are some coconut flakes, zested & dried orange rind and sliced-still-together strawberry halves...

The process was easy... for the food-processor.! I put in both layers ingredients seperately, the bottom first- processed for a few minutes the pressed it into the bottom of a small heart shaped tart tin. I did the same with the ingredients for the next layer, and then I decorated the top...

I got my neighbour & the local health shop owner to try them..
here were the comments on~

Taste~ sublime & delish.
Texture~ Soft & firm.
Presentation~ very impressive, cheerful & funny.

Alfa-alfa Sprouting & Uses

As part of the course we are to grow alfa-alfa. I usually have it on the go anyway but it was interesting to watch it more closely as it magically grows. I noticed that it grows quicker in this warmer weather.



To the left are the alfa-alfa seeds soaking in water,left overnight.
The next day I drained and rinsed them and left them on the kitchen counter with the lid slightly ajar. Watered and drained them again on the second and third day. By day three they started to sprout little white tails, then I transfered them to tier trays where I watered them once per day.









Where they continued to grow...









And grow..








It's nice in a salad, or sometimes I have a big bowl of it with grated carrot, lemon juice, pressed garlic and creamed avocado all mixed together. I've put it thru the juicer a few times too but only when there was too much and I needed to use it up. I put some into the girls smoothies too, altho they like it as it is. And I blend it into raw soups like this one~









With cucumber, carrot & lemon juice, blended with garlic, avocado, alfa-alfa & salt, yum.

Raw Food Course

The Raw Food Instructor Course started last friday I'm happy to
say. Its on one friday a month until November, all held in Portlaois except the July one will be held in Maynooth and will be a lecture by Brian Clement who is a doctor who runs Hippocrates Health Centre in Florida. The rest of the course consists of reading ebooks and books, watching videos, listening to podcasts, online discussion with other students about litrature and the course, assignments, recipe preparation and review, which I'll serve here ;)

So its fairly full on, but good fun.. we had a potluck on the day.. which is when everyone brings their own dish to share.. but I ran out the door without my spirulina-flax-crackers, and I was so proud of them :( here's the recipe)

500g flax seeds soaked for 30min or so~

mix in a Tbls of spirilina, mix well

then add a finely chopped onion &

some sea salt, dehydrate overnight score them after 4hrs and turn after about 6hrs

Veronica the teacher made that tasty pizza, it was nicer than any real pizza I ever ate :)

Plate of Potluck

Closer look.. yummers..

Happy Spring

...yesterday was the spring-equinox, when the amount of day-light & darkness were equal. So from now on there'll be longer day-light hours. The equinox is an auspiciously ideal time to make goals & set intentions as the fertile energy of spring will support them. So I was chuffed when an open-day for a Raw Food Instructor Course I want to do was on yestersay, I signed up for the course with the force of the equinox behind me:)

It was in the Hayden Hotel in Portlaois about 2.5hr drive, a fab day, Sabrina came with, I kinda dragged her but I went to a Chipmunk concert with her on friday night so I didn't feel bad . The event was mostly raw recipe demo's & some info about the course. It was nice to meet other like minds. The recipes included coconut-milk, coconut-cream, pickled onion, pickled cucumber, cashew mayo, pumpkin seed mayo, waldorf salad, nut burgers, lentil soup & choc-peppermint surprise for dessert, that was my favorite. Sabz loved the choc-mint cake too. I'm still juicing but I couldn't let that sweet yumminess pass me by.. I got some maca & pau d' arco bark there that I'll use for elixiers.

The cherry on top was a visit to the local play-ground for some fun, sun, fresh-air, stretching & play :) & to the health shop of course.. which didn't have a huge selection but it had a funny name at least 'the fruit & nut place':)