Fondue is serious

We went to Cocoloco for vegan cashew cheese fondue. It was quite incredible but richly serious. Noah took this photo at the end of dinner of the empty cashew gelato glasses.

Homegrown strawberries from my Mumma

Mumma brought me super fresh strawberries from her garden and some red pears from the orchard a few mms down the road for my birthday. The strawberries were amazing, super juicy and full of rain! Wow

Brambleberries with my grandad

I picked up some brambleberries at the same posh supermarket that sold edible flowers. I shared them with my grandad for the celebration of my birthday (better than cake!).
Grandad told me a story about how before he was married he used to organise the parish ball's in south Melbourne. The first two years they used a caterer and so only broke even. The third year they decided to do the catering themselves. His brother knew someone down on the docks and organised getting a super fresh supply of delicious crabs. At the time pineapple juice was a brand new craze and grandad knew someone that could get it in the city and so they got 60 gallons of amazing pineapple juice. And then there was a lady, another family friend that had a special copper pot for brewing coffee and she made up a big pot of the beautiful coffee. Such a great story I loved it. People working together to dine on food love.

There were six brands of organic tahini on the shelf, unfortunately none of them are technically raw and most made from imported ingredients. I got agar agar too to play with, I might make mango jelly with some of the mangos I got from the markets yesterday.

Prepackaged Edible flowers

I was just in a fancy supermarket and noticed that they sell plastic packages of edible flowers for $6.50. They had yellow pansies and purple violets. Maybe I could be a edible flower farmer. I kinda am one already, maybe I could make little packages of super fresh organic flowers, they don't last long though I usually pick and eat straight away.

Breakfast smoothie

Similar to the midnight smoothie but Value added with greens (without tasting too green!)
--
1 banana
1 mango
1 cup of water
1/2 lemon juiced
small handful of coconut flakes
2 spoons of mesquite (deeper mid range flavour to balance the sour lemon/mango)
few handfuls of cos lettuce and lemon sorrel from garden

A barely ripe new season peach at midnight

Best smoothie ive had in a long time

Just got home from dancing at my housemates gig and a long day of working and health club. I got heaps of fruit at the market today so prepared this little number. So deliciously what I wanted.
--
2 bananas
1/2 a mango
1 and 1/2 cups of water
juice 1/2 lemon
small spoon of honey
handful of coconut flakes
2 tablespoons of mesquite

in noise, in love, in flavour

Morrocan soup bar for dinner with Karl and Tessa

Today I am in love with water

When I filled a glass this morning from my ceramic filter I was suprised at the amazing taste. The most delicious water I have drunk in a long time, yet surely it is the same water everyday? When I was at the gym I filled my glass water bottle from the bubbled and again it was incredibly delicious. I don't know why but I am so in love with water today.

Salty salty floating

I've joined a gym, the south pacific health club, it's in St kilda on the beach, it's like a whole new world, a different planet from the one I have been living on. It's great and really wonderful, they have a free 30 day trial, so I jumped to the opportunity and signed up. So at the very least I willbe a member for 29 days. I have spent the last three days there, 3 or 4 hours at a time. The St kilda sea baths is apart of the complex, it is a salt water pool. It is very very salty and makes you feel buoyantly alive. There is a hydrotherapy pool and a steam room. There are also many Feldenkrais and yoga classes. I haven't reallyventured near the machines yet but have thus far had an amazing time. The pool is really lively and you can look out across the sea, the dirty oily bay that you would never swim in but is still a vast body of water to look out upon and connect with something greater. I love this place, it's like a retreat, I just finished an iyengar yoga class which looked at opening and strengthing the shoulder to support and preserve the lower back. I feel stronger and like my arms have come home.

--
sauce
2 tomatoes
1/2 avocado
1 tablespoon hempseed protein
olive oil
3 parsnips
umeboshi plum

Jar snacks at Tessa and Karl's exhibition

Bus stop cracker

Golden flax crackers

I just bought some Nushie's flax crackers from Fruit Pedallers. They are really good, and made in Melbourne. Bit expensive for me to to eat regulary, maybe I should get a dehydrator.

Nushie’s Natural pays high attention to life force as an ingredient. Our ingredients are all enziomatic active so that it costs the body nothing to fully digest. Unless otherwise stated all our products are made from 100% organic ingredients. We do not cook our foods thereby retaining all the natural nutrients of our ingredients. Our principles stem from Life Food Nutrition. And because our products are all plant based they contain no cholesterol.
Nushie's Natural

Quinoa daikon dolmades

'Only she who attempts the absurd, can attain the impossible"   ~ one smart cookie (unbaked)

Scouting for bounty

A 7am rendevous, it's raining, but warm and feels tropical. We ride our bikes to a nearby parklands,

Rainbow breakfast with friends

High level incredible recipe from The Raw Chef

Chocolate raspberry cake with Ginger chocolate mousse by Raw Chef Russel James. Yep wow.

Beautiful looking recipe

Spiced Peach Cobbler by High Raw Chef Shana Dean
Looks so good! Peachs are nearly in season! Soon!

Simulated raw stir fry

--
Chopped pak or buk choy
Mix through some lemon juice, pink salt and spring onions
-
In a blender combine
Avocado
Roma tomato
White part of spring onions
Small handful soaked raisins
Olive oil
Spoon of miso
and water
Into a delicious sauce, pour over your pak choy

Heidi's raw mango cheesecake

I helped out at the last class in Heidi's Conscious Nutrition series - raw vegan deserts. My job was to plate up a million slices of raw vegan mango cheesecake with fresh strawberries, raw chocolate avocado mousse and fresh mango lime sauce. I had 18 plates balancing on makeshift kitchen benches. It was fun, I enjoyed it, the desert was delicious. And the best thing, well one super amazing thing was Heidi gave me the demo cheesecake she made in the class while I was out the back preparing. I think a tea party is in order! An early birthday celebration and whatever else we would like to celebrate...come eat cake!

Harvesting and spreading edible flower love

Calendula seeds

Today's dish, to celebrate so many things including Phoebe's birthday

Raw dolmas, a tzatkzi style sauce made with really raw cashews, dried red Botija olives from A permaculture farm in Peru, a slice of lemon and a few organic pine nuts.

Making raw dolma's

Inspired by Chad Sarno's recipe for raw dolma's on the SAF restaurant recipe App (which is free and one of the best raw food app's easily by a mile that I have found).
--
'rice'
-
grated parsnips
lemon juice
olive oil
fresh dill
a few raisins finely chopped
ground mountain pepper leaf
some amount of whole pine nuts
-
roll rice in a brined grape leaf. I bought a jar of leaves in brine and just rinsed them a little to take off the salty edge. In the Saf recipe there are instructions for preparing your own grape leaves.
-
'tzatzki
-
handful of really raw cashews with testa soaked for a little while
olive oil and lemon juice
water
tiny amount of nutritional yeast
pink salt
white part of a few spring onions
all blended into some kind of cream
add to a bowl of finely chopped cucumber and green part of spring onions

Really raw cashews

I just bought a packet of really truly raw cashews. They taste nothing like I would have expected. They are incredible. Creamy sweet and more dense and nutritious tasting... Wow, the loving earth ones are from the island of Flores in Indonesia. Fair trade, organic and still have the highly nutritious outer skin or testa on the nut. What we once thought of a 'raw cashew' has actually been boiled or steamed in order to remove the shell and inside skin, which of course destroys the enzymes. They are obviously more expensive but so worth it, these cashews have been shelled by hand!

Chay-Ya