Monthly Archives: June 2014

No bake Avocado Chocolate Torte

29 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Chocolate, Gluten Free, No bake/ Raw, Tart, Vegan

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This is my special occasion dessert. Rich fabulous and extremely more-ish.

torte

NO BAKE AVOCADO CHOCOLATE TORTE*

* note: this takes time but the results are worth it!

Crust

1½ cups of roasted hazelnuts – ground (I use a coffee grinder)
½ cup of organic ground almonds
2 dessertspoons of organic coconut oil
¼ cup of organic maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla powder/ bean paste/ insides of two pods 
1/2 a cup of cocoa powder
2 heaped dessertspoons of cacao powder
Good pinch of Himalayan pink salt or sea salt
dry stuff!

dry stuff!

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

3 extremely mashed organic ripe avocados/ two and a half really big ones
Scant third of a cup of non diary milk
¼ cup of organic date syrup
¼ cup organic dark agave === blend both together
1 dessertspoon natural peanut butter
( I use the fresh ground one from The Hopsack health shop)
1 dessertspoon blanched almond butter or cashew nut butter
1 dsp natural vanilla powder or bean paste or insides of two pods
1 round teaspoon arrowroot powder
¼ cup of Cocoa powder plus a dessertspoon of cacao powder
Pinch of himalayian pink salt or sea salt
70g bar of dark vegan chocolate- chopped up pick a good one. I used a wild harvest one! Fancy.
Optional: 1dsp of chopped Cacao paste liquor, piece I used was size of ping pong ball

 

hmm yummy

hmm yummy

Crust How To

Oil your cake pan or tart pan. If a spring form one- line with paper.
Grind your hazelnuts to a crumbly meal and mix with ground almonds and salt
In a small bowl mix your maple syrup, coconut oil (and vanilla if not using powder)
Mix mash and mix until it becomes one thing.
This is your warm up exercise the real work out is later that involves avocados!
Add syrup oil mix to the dry. With COLD hands rub the ingredients together.
Switch back to a spoon and keep mixing. It should form a ball of dough.
Press this into your pan EVENLY- wow betide the uneven crust!
Cover and put in the freezer to chill.

Chocolate Avocado Mousse How to

If you happen to have a food processor or blender living in your kitchen take it out now!You can do the fancy blendy bit for this part. If you are me, which I am, you get a Perspex bowl and a fork and go to work.
Mash your avocado (and vanilla if not using powder) together for approx 10mins/ until smooth.
Add and mash in the peanut butter, almond butter, date syrup and agave syrup. Possibly with your other arm, flatmate, child, partner or neighbour.
Get your big bowl of green yummy omega rich avocados and mix in the SCANT third of a cup of non diary milk.
Into this SIEVE the ¼ cup of cocoa,cacao,vanilla salt and round tsp of arrowroot
Mix very well- until there is no green!Fold and talk in upbeat tones to it- as you do not want to knock the air out of it.
greeeen!

greeeen!

Next or if a multi tasker while you are finishing the mousse

Put a Perspex bowl over a pot of simmering water.
Put your bar of chopped up chocolate in and with a spatula mix it while it melts. Add the cacao paste and let it melt too. Take off the heat.
Get your bowl of sweet cocoa avocado goodness and gently fold in the melted chocolate until is all one colour!

 

melty goodness
melty goodness

Finally

Remove the crust from the freezer and scoop the mousse on top. Gently smooth out- it should reach the top of an inch deep pan. Cover and put back in the freezer. It needs two hours to set I find licking the bowl in the mean time helps.
It needs to be stored chilled so the mousse stays moussey but as a result it also has lasting power!
slice torte two
I decided to to go over the top with a fork. If you don’t it stays shiny. Let me know if you try it. Xs Aissa

 

Chocolate Chip Shortbread cookies- gluten free

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Biscuits, Chocolate, Cookies, Gluten Free, Vegan

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These hit the spot when no other biscuit will do. Rich, melt in your mouth goodness, with the chocolate nessasary for survival. There is only a hint of sugar and no gluten but no sacrificing flavour.

I generally take pictures of my cookies/ biscuits on plates. Because that is what I eat them off. I thought I would go all experimental; start taking pictures of my biscuits in unusual places, seems to be the trend. 😉

 

Choc chip yumminess in morning sunlight. Shadow looks like a cat!?

Choc chip yumminess in morning sunlight. Shadow looks like a cat!?

 

They have a lovely dark colour due to the raw rapadura sugar.

Chocolate Chip No Sacrifice Shortbread Cookies

  • Three dessertspoons of organic coconut oil
  • One overflowing (prob 1.5) dessertspoons of a runny tahini
  • A quarter cup of rapadura sugar
  • A quarter cup of xylitol
  • A teaspoon of vanilla powder. (If using extract put it into coconut oil)
  • A generous cup of ground almonds
  • A scant quarter of a cup of fine maize meal
  • Half a teaspoon of aluminium and gluten free baking powder
  • A pinch of Himalayian pink salt or good fine sea salt
  • About 35g of dark chocolate chopped into very small pieces*
  • Maybe: A dessertspoon of non-diary milk

*I use a vegan brand that sweetens with xylitol. It is soya and gluten free. I get the 100g bar and use about a third.

This so sooooo simple, and fast. Fast is important when you want your cookies.

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/ 325F. Prepare a baking tray. This makes sixteen cookies.

Chop your chocolate. if you are living somewhere crazy warm (most of the world south of Ireland) you can pop the chips in the fridge so they don’t melt.

So grab a bowl and put in your coconut oil and tahini. Mix them together well…mix them well together, well together mix…no wait that’s Yoda.

Add in your rapadura sugar and xylitol. Really stir and mash the sugars into the oil and tahini. It should almost get fluffy.

Get another bowl and put in the other dry ingredients (not the chocolate). I get fussy and sieve the baking powder, incase of yucky lumps.

Give the dry stuff a stir so it is evenly mixed.

Add your dry to your wet stuff. At the start you need to mash it a bit. Once it starts to combine, put the spoon down. Add your chopped chocolate chips. With clean hands get in there. Start pressing the dough together. It should all hold together. If this is not happening it might be a little dry, do not be afraid to add a dessertspoon of non-diary milk.

By a rounded teaspoon place them on your baking tray. I press it on the spoon a little. I also press them on the tray and leave an half inch/ 1cm apart. They don’t spread. If they spread there is too much oil or to little dry ingredients!

Teaspoon! Just incase there is confusion...

Teaspoon! Just incase there is confusion…

They take twelve or thirteen minutes in my fan oven. If you have a regular oven, have a peep at twelve. If they are not going golden brown at the edges give them another couple of mins. They made my whole flat smell delicious, they are like aromatherapy biscuits!

Hope you try them out. Especially the wonderful Kathy who I work with! Xs Aissa

 

Peas Please Juice

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in juice, Natural Health, Superfoods, Vegan

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There was something especially refreshing about this juice. Might be because I had an afternoon attempting to dehydrate myself into Aissa Jerky. The peas and lemon and mint made it taste bright and sweet. Give peas a chance…? blush. Had to be said.

sunshine sunday juicy goodness

sunshine sunday juicy goodness

Peas Please Juice 

  • A half inch in diameter bunch of wheatgrass
  • Two inch (5cm) piece of cucumber
  • One unwaxed lemon
  • Two stalks of celery
  • A slice of organic ginger (top of my small baby finger)*
  • One unwaxed green pear
  • About 100g of mange-tout (approx. half a cup if you stood them up in it…)
  • Six mint leaves
  • Six oregano leaves

*I use all organic in my juices but if that is not possible do try and have the ginger organic. Non org can have been irradiated.

Peas please juice in the herbs

Peas please juice in the herbs

This makes a lovely juice. Bright green and chirpy. Perfect for a sunny evening, or a dull cold one really think it would cheer me up in winter too! 🙂 Good for the digestion and immune system. Deliciously healthy. Xs Aissa

 

Video

Energising Yoga for a lazy sunny Sunday

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Natural Health, yoga

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I woke up feeling out of sorts. A little stiff and not really refreshed. So I had my “Not so smooth energy smoothie” for breakfast, a giant mug of organic coffee (that large crashing sound was my health guru myth collapsing ). Still feeling blah decided a get up and go wake up yoga routine is what I needed. I have followed this video before.

This routine is very well thought out. Challenging but never too much. She gives options as to how far to take poses. If something seems too much you don’t have to stop your yoga and just watch whilst feeling inferior. I did watch her do the headstand, it was a good reminder on correct positioning, as I have bad habits! I feel amazing after it, all that blood to my head really woke me up. My limbs are acting like my own again. I ready for the outside world once more 🙂 Hope you guys like it too. have an amazing day! Xs Aissa.

Sunshine, salad, kale and strawberries.

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in juice, Natural Health, Savoury, Superfoods, Vegan, yoga

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O what a glorious few days of sun we have had. Got up into the high twenties (low 80sF). I got home from work, dropped shopping, jumped into shorts and was out the door. Sun, sun, sun sun O how I adore the big glowing ball of radiation! I practiced my yoga outdoors again, curling my toes in the warm grass. I reached up into the solid blue sky in my shoulder stand. I was extremely warm but also the heat increased my flexibility, my happiness to be in the good weather may have helped too! A lovely hour practice- including sun salutes as I mentioned in my last post- as it seemed rude not to 😉

I listened to the radio, read and just lay there for another hour and a half, as if there was nothing else I had to do. You have to take the sun when you can get it here in Ireland. You never know when the clouds will reappear.

I am still doing my healthy juice a day. I wanted something super green! I had eaten a plum and green apple while laying in the grass. I decided that was enough fruit so made a veg based one. It is CRAZY green and REALLY NOT sweet. So much so I had a beautiful ripe strawberry with it to balance it out. Now that I’m typing I’m thinking I could have diluted it… but eh!

kale and strawberry

kale and strawberry

Kale and Stawberries etc.

  • Four leaves and stalks of flat kale (cavolo nero)
  • A bunch of wheatgrass just under one inch in diameter (approx 2cm)
  • Three small carrots (equal to one large)
  • An inch long 1mm(.05inch) thick piece of organic ginger*
  • Half that amount of turmeric root
  • A couple of mint leaves
  • Optional: a quarter teaspoon of magnesium to balance the oxalic acid in the kale
  • Two ripe strawberries- to eat with the juice
  • I recommend diluting it with some water or water kefir

*organic as sometimes non-organic can have been irradiated

I made a salad with organic leaves, sunflower sprouts and miso

Organic salad

Organic salad

 

 

Grass Green Juice, Green Grass Yoga!

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in juice, Natural Health, Superfoods, Vegan, yoga

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Green Grass Juice- pre the juicing!

Green Grass Juice- pre the juicing!

Summer continues to be summer here in Ireland. It is a rare and beautiful thing. Every free moment I have is being spent in sunshine. I am building up vitamin D stores and the pale is going off me too 🙂

After work today I headed to a grassy sunny spot. It was over 25C (about 80F) lovely, sunny a hint of a breeze. I decided to do my yoga routine. My neighbours prob. now think me a little odd…. well odd and flexible! It was great, I have never done yoga outdoors on soft thick grass before. I started with sun salutes, seemed appropriate, headed into Triangle and Warrior one and two. I did a more yin practice after that, open hip positions, Pigeon, Double pigeon, Swan, Mermaid, leg stretches,some back bends and shoulder stands. I ended with some core, Crow and Shavasana Feeling the grass and gripping the uneven surface of the earth with my toes really focused my attention. It was much more calming away from the distractions of my living room. The breeze reminded me to breath, the grass tickling my nose helped me relax. If you get the chance and have your vegan sunscreen I highly recommend it.

I took this image from etnayoga.blogspot.ie I am not familiar with her blog. I had a glance it seems nice, I must go back and have a proper look. I think this simple drawing is very effective.

sun salute

sun salute

I stayed out reading and warming my bones for another hour or so after. When I came back in I was ready for a refreshing anti-oxidant hit.

In honour of the good weather and the outdoors I made Green Grass Juice!

  • Six dark flat kale leaves and stalks (Cavolo Nero)
  • An inch an a half in diameter of wheatgrass
  • One unwaxed golden delicious apple
  • one little carrot
  • One unwaxed lemon
  • A 2mm (.10 of an inch) thick slice of organic ginger
  • Roughly the same amount of organic turmeric root
  • Three stalks inc. leaves of oregano
  • Five mint leaves
  • Optional: A dash of organic apple cider vinegar (one with the mother)
  • Optional: A double shot of water kefir- for the good bacteria and yeasts
  • Optional: A third of a teaspoon of magnesium powder*

*I put in magnesium as I worry about the oxalic acids in the kale, it will bind with the magnesium from what I have read.

This is enough to make two small juices or one big mug of a juice. My partner found it a little sour, prob. due to the giant lemon and apple cider vinegar. I like the sour and intense green taste. If you are new to green juices or wheatgrass, perhaps half the wheatgrass and add another apple. This juice is supports the bodies natural detoxification process. It is alkalising and energising. The ginger and turmeric are good for digestion and have anti-inflammatory compounds. It is packed with vitamin C , the B vitamins and vitamin K and the super lemony-ness was really refreshing after all my time in the sun! It tastes summery.

Grass Green Juice!

Grass Green Juice!

Wishing you all good weather and a good yoga practice. Xs Aissa

Rose Cake Cookies or Turkish Delight Biscuits?!

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Biscuits, Cookies, Vegan

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At times I want a biscuit that is crunchy, gives a lovely snap as you take a bite. This time I wanted a cake textured one. Something a bit different too. I went through my batter splattered recipe book and discovered rose biscuits I had made up last year. They had ground almonds and rose, which is such a great combination and a lovely Turkish Delight flavour. I thought with the addition of some apple puree they could gain a soft texture- perfect for what I fancied!

Rose flavoured in blue light of the evening.

Rose flavoured in blue light of the evening- that gave a soft fuzzy effect evidently!

I am not too sure what to call these. Hence the clumsily named post 🙂 Might come back when my head is in a space where I can make a decision and commit on a title.

Rose Cake Cookies vs Turkish Delight Biscuits

  • Two dessertspoons of apple puree at room temperature
  • One generous dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
  • One dessertspoon of blanched almond butter.*
  • Four drops of a food grade rose oil or one dessertspoon of rose water
  • Half a teaspoon of vanilla powder or one teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • Third of a teaspoon of almond extract- just enough to give a hint of flavour
  • Three dessertspoons of dark agave
  • One dessertspoon of coconut blossom sugar ( if unavailable you can use rapadura sugar )
  • Half a cup of ground almonds
  • Half a cup of wholemeal spelt flour
  • One teaspoon of aluminium free baking powder
  • A small pinch of Himalayan pink salt or good sea salt (eighth to quarter of a tsp )

*You could use cashew nut butter if you do not have this. Do not substitute normal roasted almond butter it has a very different flavour. Blanched almond butter is a pale sweet wonder of a nut butter with a light creamy flavour. Closer to cashew nut butter than a whole skin almond butter.

Preheat the oven to 150C/ 300F. Prepare a baking tray. This recipe makes roughly 12- 14 biscuits / cookies.

These are super easy to make. One caution though- make sure the apple puree is room temperature or your coconut oil will go all solid and not mix properly. I was impatient. I had to stick the perspex bowl in the preheating oven for a few mins so everything would melt together!

Get two bowls. In one add your coconut oil and blanched almond butter and mash them together. Add your almond extract and mash again.

If using rose oil add this now. If using rose water add this after the apple puree.

Add your agave and coconut sugar and really go to work on the ingredients. With energy combine the sweeteners with the fats until it is almost fluffy. Add the apple puree and mix again.

Wet ingredients- that I impatiently melted together this time!

Wet ingredients- that I impatiently melted together this time!

In your other bowl get ready to add the dry stuff. Add your ground almonds and press out any lumps. Add the spelt flour and vanilla powder (if using vanilla extract then go back and mix it into the wet ingredients!)

Now get a sieve and sieve in the baking powder and salt. Lumpy baking powder bits are a horrid thing to come across in a biccie. 😦

Dry ingredients- on my windowsill.

Dry ingredients- on my windowsill.

You will notice the dough texture is rather wet. More like a cake batter in fact! This is gooood, all is going according to plan! Maniacal laughter of making nice things to share Narhaahahha ha! Ahem.. yes the recipe.

By the teaspoon plop the dough/ batter on to your baking tray and give them a press down so they are a few mm thick ( approx. .10 of an inch). They will only spread a tiny bit, but just incase do leave a cm (under half an inch) gap between them.

I had a peek at nine minutes and took the opportunity to turn my tray around. They were done at twelve minutes. Leave them completely cool before eating. This is because they will continue to cook on the tray for a few minutes. Also if you eat them straight away the rose flavour is predominant. When they have cooled the rose calms down and the other flavours come out.

Turkish Delight will always remind me of my Nana. When I visited her she often had a round tin in the dresser. As an extra treat my sister and I would be offered some. She was an excellent baker and as you will know from other posts has inspired me. She taught my Mum how to bake and I grew up having the most excellent chocolate cake every birthday. Now I want cake! Vegan chocolate cake recipe coming soon!!

Hope you try them out. Xs Aissa

 

 

 

Colourful Juice

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Colours….

Colours….

Green juices have been all the rage for a while now. There are other lovely colours in our fruit and veg. I believe we should be eating and drinking as many different ones as possible! Therefor any colourful juice is great! Those colours indicate different antioxidants and nutrients all having their benefits. Not dissing the green! Green is fantabulous, chlorophyll rich, helps deliver oxygen, boosting energy. I always have a green goody in there like wheatgrass. Beetroot has vascular dilation effects and helps lower blood pressure. Great if you are about to do some exercise. The herbs I’ve added are good for your digestion and oregano leaf is a fantastic anti-microbial. With the a dash of water kefir it will do extra good things for your gut 🙂

Here is the uber juicy palette for my Colourful Juice

  • An bunch of wheatgrass an inch in diameter
  • Half a head of green oak leaf lettuce
  • A red beetroot
  • Two small carrots
  • A stalk of celery
  • A half cup of celery leaves
  • One green pear
  • Half a small cucumber- 3inch/9cm piece
  • A slice of ginger
  • A quarter inch / 5mm piece of turmeric
  • Three mint leaves
  • Three oregano leaves
  • Three sprigs of curly parsley
  • Optional: A double shot glass of water kefir.
Colourful Juice

Colourful Juice

Xs Aissa

 

Functional Sweet Treats with reishi!

08 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by in Chocolate, Gluten Free, Natural Health, No bake/ Raw, Superfoods, Sweets, Vegan

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Functional Sweet Treats

Functional Sweet Treats

These are packed with good stuff! They taste pretty amazing too, if I don’t say so myself. Tomorrow I am helping to give a demonstration to nutrition students, it is on how to use medicinal mushrooms ( I did this morning, it went well 🙂 ). I am bringing along sweet goodies made with reishi mushroom powder. Reishi has been used for thousands of years. It is one of if not the first medicinal food to be written about, in China roughly 2,000 years ago!Paul Stamets is a good name to look up if you want know more about these natural powerhouses, his Ted talks are a good intro.

Savoury is generally they way we go when it comes to mushrooms but why not with cacao? Or blueberries? Think of the antioxidant levels! Picture the immune boosting! Discover their adaptogenic properties!! Imagine the tastiness!

Here we go Functional Sweet Treats

    • Two dessertspoons of goji berries. Soaked over night in just enough water to cover them. I used water kefir.*
    • Half a ripe avocado- should a bit of give to it when pressed and be going a dark sap green colour.
    • Two big dessertspoons of blueberries
    • A flat dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
    • Two generous dessertspoons of raw dark agave/ date syrup / maple syrup. Whichever you prefer.
    • A generous cup plus two dessertspoons of ground almonds
    • Two generous teaspoons of raw cacao powder
    • A sachet of reishi powder which includes mint, licorice, star anise and stevia. Great for those adrenals. *
    • Optional: Half a teaspoon of pre-gelatised maca powder
    • A half teaspoon of vanilla powder or the scraped inside of one vanilla bean.
    • A quarter of a teaspoon of good quality sea salt or himalayian pink salt.
    • A third of a cup of organic desiccated/shredded coconut. For sprinkling on top or rolling in.

*This is about double the goji needed. I do more incase some stay a bit hard and eat the left overs. Yum.

*If you are using reishi capsules make sure there are not tons bulking agents, these could change the flavour. One capsules may do, go by taste.

Grab your soaked goji berries. It really is up to you what you would prefer. I don’t want goji lumps on my cacao reishi fantasticalness so I cut or shred my softened gogis. If you like big hits of the gogi then just chop them in two. Put them to one side for use as a topping later.

Mash your avocado and coconut oil together. Add your one dessertspoon of the blueberries and mash again. Should be a creamy paste.

Add the liquid sweetener and Mash MASH mash… again. Add the other spoon of blueberries and mix through. I press this less, as I like having more whole pieces of blueberries too.

Colourful even in the orange light of my kitchen diner.

Colourful even in the orange light of my kitchen-diner.

In another bowl combine all the dry ingredients (except for the coconut, that is for on top). Make sure there are no lumps of ground almonds or cacao. Sprinkle the salt in so it is evenly dispersed.

Dry goodies

Dry goodies

Add the dry things to the omega rich, mct containing, antioxidant abundant….stuff. Mix, stir, combine and merge the ingredients. Pressing the mixture to make sure the fats are taken up well.

Here is the one I used

Here is the one I used

My preferred Option A: You can roll them into teaspoon size balls. Prepare a plate with your gojis and one with coconut. Roll the balls in goji and then roll them in the coconut. Pop them on a dish and stick them in the fridge to set. They need to live in the fridge (and die in your tummy) as they will go squidgy when left unchilled.

Option B: Get a 7.5 inch cake tin/ tart dish and spread the mix a one centimetre deep. Ah the mixed measurements! That is 20cm cake tin and a quarter inch thick! 😉 You can the sprinkle and press the goji and coconut on top. Pop in the fridge for fifteen minutes. Take out and cut into one inch (2.5cm) squares. Put in the freezer to set. It is happier in there all the time really. It gets shy and melty at room temperature.

Hope you like these!Xs Aissa

P.S. There is a wealth of info on line but here are a few of links about reishi!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stamets/reishi-mushrooms_b_2200808.html

http://www.alive.com/articles/view/17705/reishi_mushroom

And for a bit more of the nitty gritty science bit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/