Charlotte Gerson and the Gerson Therapy

A couple of days ago I came across Lalaraw on Facebook. I "liked" her page and yesterday she'd posted a very interesting video named Charlotte Gerson on Cancer and Disease. I would highly recommend that you watch it. It's a real eye-opener about the amazing healing benefits of juicing and raw food.

Today I bought lots of organic fruit and veg. For dinner I made zucchini pasta with tomatoes and basil. I also made Mimi Kirk's delicious spinach and orange salad. I got the juicer out (yes, inspired by Charlotte Gerson) and made a beetroot, orange and ginger juice. It had such a kick to it that I drank it before eating the food. It tasted yummy but it was so strong that anything else would have been tasteless in comparison. Well, I must say that I'm a little bit impressed with myself and my choice of food and drink this Saturday evening. :-)

Slowly but surely getting back into the swing of things

As you probably can tell by the lack of posts in the last few weeks I'm not finding moving over to a raw food diet easy. I have just come back from a week in Sweden where I visited family and friends. Sweden has a great range of locally grown produce but I don't come from a family of vegans :-). In the last couple of weeks before I went on holiday I became less and less disciplined with my diet and it certainly didn't help. Now, however, I'm back in London and it's time to start making an effort. This morning I went for brunch at my local cafe. I had avocado salsa on toast with a superfood smoothie. And yes, there's a skinny latte next to it.

The avocado salsa on toast can be easily modified to the raw food diet by either making your own raw bread or bying it from Pura Vida. Top it with a chopped avocado, some baby tomatoes, red onion and/or chives and add some raw olive oil, salt and pepper to it. It's a super fresh way to start the day!

You've Got To Love the Colours

Wow, I've lived in Pimlico for 16 years and only just found out that there is a Farmers Market on what's locally known as Orange Square (corner of Pimlico Road and Ebury Street to rest of us).

It's a 20-minute walk from where I live and I was really pleased with what I found.

There were several stand holders selling everything from fresh vegetables, berries, eggs, meat, fish and cheese to edible flowers and herbs. All organic, of course.

Look what I found... purple cauliflower, yellow scallopini squash (that's the one looking like a UFO), tomatoes, lettuce, courgette, raspberries, wild garlic, parsley, mint and flower courgettes. You've got to love the colours!

I know that I've seen a recipe somewhere that included flower courgettes. I can't wait to see what I can make of them. Stay tuned, lovely people. Have a nice weekend!

 

Sprouting Premiere

Something that comes up frequently in the raw "uncook" books is sprouting. I have been putting this off for a while because I thought that you would have to be really green fingered to be able to succeed.

Well, not so! I bought a Biosnacky germinator (that's a glass jar to you and me) at the Alara shop when I was there and some sprouting seeds to go with it. My first attempt turned out really well. I went for the Gourmet seed mix, let it soak for 12 hours, then left it to sprout for five days rinsing every morning and evening.

I was delighted to see the seeds turning into sprouts and I was surprised at how spicy they tasted. Now I can't wait to try a different type of seed for my next sprouting mission.

Today I made a salad of kale (which I massaged with raw olive oil and a splash of lemon), grated carrot, purple cabbage and gourmet sprouts. With it I had some Living Raw Onion Bread from Pura Vida. Very colourful and full of flavour. Have a great evening everyone! 

Dinner at Wild Food Cafe

Yesterday I met up with my lovely friend, David, for dinner. He suggested that we'd go to Wild Food Cafe at Neal's Yard in Covent Garden. This is what used to be World Food Cafe but it's under new ownership. In short, the food was amazing! They serve raw food, juices, smoothies, and more.

I had the Living Pizza which was made of raw, dairy free coconut cheese, wild sea purslane and basil pesto, raw cultured tomato marinara, fresh tomatoes, basil and olives on sunfood cracker. It was served with a zucchini salad and spinach.

The meal was an explosion of flavours. It was absolutely gorgeous and I would definitely recommend it. Even though the portion was on the small side I'd still have the Living Pizza again but I will have a Wild Spring Salad on the side next time. Drinks wise I opted for an Orange Fun which was made with carrot, blood orange, ginger and lime. It was a great evening and I felt very light and happy as I was skipping down the street towards the bus stop. :-)

Battling With My Weakness

I have struggled quite a bit with eating raw foods in the last few days. I spent the weekend in Wiltshire walking in the beautiful, rolling green fields that never seemed to end. Amazingly, the weather held up so we could be outside all day both days. We ate at country pubs and had an Indian curry too. I stuck with vegetarian meals throughout the weekend but there were no raw alternatives available.

My main challenge has been to give up coffee. I admit it, I’m weak! Every morning this week I’ve kept on pressing the snooze button on my alarm clock until I’ve had to rush out of bed, have a quick shower and no breakfast. I’m certainly not a morning person and I don’t function before 10am and two cups of coffee. I’ve managed to limit it to one cup a day this week but I haven’t found it easy. If anyone has any ideas on how to curb the craving, please let me know.

I was very pleased to receive a delivery from Amazon of two raw food un-cook books that I’d ordered. They are “Raw Food Real World” by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis, and “Everyday Raw Express” by Matthew Kenney.


This evening I made the Red Grapefruit, Avocado and Fennel Salad for dinner. It tasted so fresh and I liked the different textures of the main ingredients. Click here for the Amazon link where you can “look inside” the book and, voila, there’s the recipe.

Making Raw Chocolate Already - Priorities, Priorities...

A couple of days ago I went to my local café and bought a raw chocolate piece (it was so tiny you can’t even call it a chocolate bar). I read the ingredients on the wrapper and thought to myself “how difficult can it be to make this myself, really”?!

Right. I was on a mission! I headed straight to Planet Organic on Westbourne Grove and found all the ingredients that were listed on the wrapper. I am so very pleased to say that my raw choccies turned out magnificently. They taste absolutely D.I.V.I.N.E!

Since this was my first time making raw chocolate (or any chocolate for that matter) I had to experiment with the measures of the ingredients. This is approximately what I used:


100 gr raw cacao butter
40 ml raw coconut oil (melted)
50 ml raw agave syrup
200 ml raw cacao powder
seeds from one vanilla pod


Melt the cacao butter in a bowl over a pot of warm water. Add all other ingredients and whisk until there are no lumps. No blender necessary.
Pour the mixture into an ice tray. Lick the bowl. J

I decorated half of the chocolates with nuts and dried cranberries, and left the other half plain. Then put it in the fridge to set.

The only “problem” with my chocolates is that they melt quite quickly when you hold them so you must put them in your mouth immediately. Well, I can live with that.