FREESTYLE RAW CHOCOLATE BROWNIE

This is a no food processor recipe. I have been experimenting with raw foods since a while and always wanted to try some raw chocolate brownies.

I was meeting up with some people this week and thought that this would be a good reason to finally try making some raw, vegan sweets that also taste nice.

Drool!

Now, my process of cooking often works like this. I get an idea of what I want to make, check the internet to get a vague idea what goes into the recipe, then I get the ingredients and throw them together how it feels right.

I also don’t have a food processor and if you are really into the raw foods you probably need one, but I just have to improvise.
This cake isn’t 100% raw, coz I bought ground almonds and hazelnuts, which are already roasted. If you want truly raw nuts you’ll probably have to do some research and order them over the net, coz I don’t think most regular organic shops sell them. And if they do sell them, they are most likely not ground yet. So yeah, the food processor problem..

Anyways, I got the ingredients and then just eyeballed it.

This is roughly what I used(and btw, this recipe is for about 4 people),

ground almonds 2 cup(about 200gr)
ground hazelnuts 1 cup(about 100gr)
cocoa powder 2 tbsp

1/2 cup banana (no chips, I think they are disgusting, get the chewy kind)
1/2 cup dates
If you have no banana use more dates instead or use raisins or whatever you like, this is just for taste and sweetness.

coconut oil 8 tbsp
thickened apple juice sweetener 6 tbsp (I don’t like agave juice, I think it’s too processed, also apples=more local)
lukewarm water 1/2 cup

Mix the almonds, hazelnut and cocoa powder.

Chop the banana and dates really finely, dump into the mix.

Warm up the coconut oil gently, don’t overheat it to keep the most of its healthy properties, mix it with the lukewarm water and the sweetener, dump into the mix and stir til everything is mixed nicely.
Taste mixture and make sure you like it.

I used a cute, little square dish(that I found in the street sometime) to put the mixture in. It’s about 15cmx15cm.

Put into fridge over night.

Cut into small slices.

Enjoy.

Great texture. And it cuts really well!

Backstory:
The reason I wanted to make something with coconut oil is, that there was a person with dementia at the gathering, so I thought I would make something with extra virgin coconut oil.
Some people swear by the use of coconut oil to treat and prevent Alzheimer and dementia. I know eating it once probably won’t help much, but it can’t hurt, right?!

It’s funny when you meet with people that are a bit conservative and ..somehow set in their ways(most families?) and you tell them “I made some vegan cake and this is the first time I tried it, so I hope you like it!”. I was a bit nervous to be honest.
And after they had a slice you tell them, “By the way, I also didn’t cook it and there is no flour in it!”
And what do they do?! They say they like it and take another slice!!
You know, that’s the feeling of satisfaction.

That was cool. So the cake was a success and I know another healthy, vegan treat I can make for myself when I have cravings for something sweet.

Which raw, vegan treats have you tried making?

VEGAN CHOCOLATE BROWNIES OR MUD CAKE OR SOMETHING

I know, I’ve really been bad with writing lately.. This whole ‘one post a day for a year thing’ apparently didn’t work out. I blame the move..

Anyways, I tried to get a bit more into cooking and baking lately. So I thought, if you want something sweet, “What’s better then chocolate brownies?!”. When I was vegetarian I used to make chocolate brownies every now and then and they were delicious. But that’s kind of easy if you can use 6 eggs or whatever..

So I thought I’d try a vegan version. I’ve had a few vegan cakes now and I thought it’s time to practice making my own.

So I got the following recipe:

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tbs baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups water
4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup over ripe banana mashed well
some olive oil(or another oil of your choice to grease pan)

mix dry ingredient

mix wet ingredients

pour wet into dry ingredients, mix well(if banana not very ripe mash up in blender)

pour batter into pan which you greased with an oil of your choice before

preheat oven to 170 Degrees C and bake for about 15-20 minutes depending on if you want it more gooey or more solid

Well, I think I went a bit overboard with the wet ingredients and the dough turned out quite runny. Next time, gotta cut down on that.
The cake has a very fluffy, kind of sticky texture, it really turned out more like a mud cake.

Also, I’m not quite satisfied with the taste yet, not sweet and chocolatey enough, even if the flavour improved over night, as it always seems to do. In the future I gotta take it easy on the wet ingredients and will replace the water with rice or some other plant based milk for a sweeter, creamier taste and maybe even put more cocoa powder in it. I also replaced the olive oil with coconut oil, but that was just for greasing the tin anyways.

Coz the man sourced the recipe, he forgot to put the chocolate chips on the shopping list, so I used a vegan chocolate spread as icing instead.

As I said I’m still experimenting. I will keep you updated on how the cake goes with the alterations. If you have any more suggestions on how to improve this recipe or have any favourite vegan (baked) treats let us know in the comments!

OLD FRIENDS NEW WAYS

I have been back in Berlin for almost 5 weeks now. I LOVE it! It’s funny coming back, I really feel like Berlin is my (adopted) hometown. It just fits. I feel really comfortable here. But then, I’m not working already, once you work in a place it’s a whole nother story. At the moment it’s kind of like a holiday. An adventure.

I thought I would be blogging basically straight away, but it took me quite a while to settle. Not in a way to feel at home, as I said that was no problem, more in a way to get back into a routine.

Routines are funny, the exciting part of moving somewhere different and starting something new is that you don’t have a routine or that you change it, but I like routines in some way. It’s a funny one.

For example, before we left I was eating really healthy, mostly raw vegan food. When we got here I was like “OH MY FUCKING GOD!! Organic shops here are awesome!!! I wanna try EVERYTHING!!!” So we ate a lot of organic, vegan, but nevertheless much more processed food. And the vegan restaurants!!

I had a couple of slip ups, were I ate some vegetarian, non vegan sweets. I made this whole list in my head ages ago of all the things I wanted to eat coming back and it’s difficult to get things out of my head once they found a way in there, so yeah, I’m trying to be more undogmatic, but still straight edge, if that makes any sense?!

But now I’m basically back to my old ways.

Breakfast! I try to have something like this every day.

Also, no internet.

Some minimalists seem to go for the ‘no internet at home option’. In our shared flat we can only pick up the signal of a free internet every couple of days and then it’s really shit. So mostly we go to the library now, they give you codes for 2 hours of free internet. I’m sure you could use the internet there the whole day, but I kind of like the 2 hour limit, it keeps my internet addiction contained. It’s amazing how quickly 2 hours pass on the net. Frightening!!!

I met some of my old friends again. It’s funny how you can  basically pick up were you left with some people, even if you might not have seen them for 5 or more years. One of my friends, I’m pretty sure she’s a witch, she’s got a black cat, is a feminist and collects herbs, 3 reasons she basically would have been burned at the stake for a couple of 100 years ago, is gonna go on a herb forage with me next week and I’m super excited!

We gonna look for elderberries, linden flowers and some ramson maybe, which is like a wild garlic.

I’m also going to another forage walk tomorrow.

Here is a cool music clip, by Sticky Antlers. A band I found while watching a documentary about Punk in Africa.

Here is the crazy long trailer.

I nearly passed out watching this movie, the cinema was so overcrowded and the show was really delayed. As with the trailer, the movie would have benefited from some better editing, but nevertheless it was very interesting.

Also cinemas are so much better in Berlin!!! Oh my god! I’ve got so much catching up to do! I love art house, independent, foreign movies. I hate that regular cinemas nowadays just show this regurgitated boring hollywood crap that just insults my fucking intelligence with it’s cliches and stories that have been done 1000 times before.

I’m trying to get into blogging again more regularly, see how it goes!

Have you tried something new lately?

Eating Raw

So I thought now that I’m eating vegan anyway, I might as well try to eat as many fruit and vegetables raw or just very lightly cooked.

What I sometimes do is cut up some vegetables and stir them into pasta or couscous after I turned the heat off. I eat a fruit salad with a toast for breakfast and then maybe another one or some more toast for second breakfast/lunch.

Because it’s so fucking exhausting to get organic fresh produce in Melbourne we skipped the shopping last weekend and were eating more breads and pasta.

And of curz just a few days later I got a pretty bad stomach bug. Now, I might have gotten that from work, some guys apparently just don’t know how wash their hands after using the toilet. Wtf?! Apparently the statistics for men not washing their hands after using the toilet are pretty high. Most men are just gross! Anyways, so, not sure if someones been spreading their germs or what was going on, but I got sick!

I have been feeling so much better since I changed my diet to more fresh raw plant stuffs. It took me a while to notice the effects, about 2 months, but I generally feel much more energetic, happier and balanced. I’m also less tired and as I’ve heard lots of vegan athletes say, I recover better.

Now, of curz that’s propbably also due to some other lifestyle changes, but diet is a big part of it. Anyways, after I got sick I jumped right back onto the wagon and went to the supermarket to buy all sorts of fruits and nuts and vegetables and now I’m feeling better again!

Here is a cute link about the advantages of eating raw.

And here is a video of a 30-day raw food challenge

I didn’t know Woody Harrelson was a raw vegan.

And I’m just posting this coz it’s trashy! It’s a real laugh and kinda cool you should watch it.

Eating raw is simple!

I can’t stop staring at this guys beard and he’s got see through vegetables too, how trippy!

I like checking out peoples raw food videos or blogs, but I hate it when they try to sell you shit in every fucking video. Their books, their products, subscribe.. whatever.. it get’s annoying. Fair enough they mention it, but do they have to go on about it?! It’s seems to be kind of epidemic, but I haven’t checked out too many videos yet.

Anyways, I love watching videos, some of them are very entertaining and I love learning new things.

Starting To Eat Vegetarian

Starting to eat vegetarian can be quite confusing and maybe a bit daunting. First, if you don’t do it already, read your labels. You should do that anyways, it’s surprising to see what is in some foods. If a tomato sauce for example has more then ten ingredients, I won’t eat it. Lots of foods contain all sorts of weird numbers and sugars and all sorts of crap. I wanna impose a new rule for myself “If I don’t know what it is, I won’t eat it!” It’s really difficult! I couldn’t do it right now, it’s stressful enough sourcing vegan, organic whole foods!

So anyways, if you want to ease into the vegetarian diet and/0r generally eat more healthy maybe try the following.

•Check out the health foods stores and have a good look around, that can be not only the healthier option, but also more interesting then just getting the regular products from the normal supermarket.

•Go to the farmer’s market. This is so great I can’t believe I just started doing this a couple of weeks ago. You get food that is locally produced, is fresh and organic and unprocessed and get to support small businesses! What’s not to love!!?

•Experiment, try something new, maybe it won’t be great, maybe it will be. If you are worried about wasting money, write down some foods and research them at home.

•Try out some milk alternative, I quite like coconut milk and I have rice milk for my dandelion coffee. Nice!

•Try some of the meat and sausage alternatives, most supermarkets carry at least some and you will find them in whole food stores also. I recommend smoked tofu, I know some people say soy isn’t great for you, but I still gotta look into that. Soy, vegetable burgers and tempeh can be great. Some brands are better then others, you gotta try them to see what you like.

•Follow facebook pages on vegetarian eating and recipes, find websites and talk to your friends that are vegetarian.

•I’d recommend making vegetarian spreads, like pates, yourself. I haven’t tried making them yet, you can also get them in the whole foods stores, they are delicious and great for sandwiches.

•Also great on sandwiches are nut butters, I love macademia nut butter or vegan pestos, which you also can make yourself. Because this shit can be expensive.

•Most likely you want to eat more healthy too, so I’d recommend to not over cook vegetables or just have them raw. Stir them into your hot food for example after taking it off the heat. Or start the day with a fruit salad. I do that and it’s awesome!

•We don’t use butter in our house and we also stopped eating margarine a while ago. I actually don’t miss is at all! I never thought it would be so easy! I normally just eat spreads straight on my toast, if it’s too dry I just use just use more. I have also tried using nut butters, tahini or jam on top of coconut oil. And I gotta say it’s delicious!

•Eating out can be a problem, depending on where you live. Give a vegan or vegetarian restaurant a try next time. There are some cheap indian and Hare Krishna places in Melbourne I like go go to. And it gives you some inspiration and you don’t need to cook!

•Get yourself some vegetarian books from the library or book shop

•Check out some websites to get some inspirations.

You can also check out these websites for some more meal ideas.

taste.com.au

vegetarian.about.com

instructables.com/vegan

veganeasy.org

To name just a few. And here is one I found that has some cool kids recipes, like zucchini potato fritters, stuffed mushrooms and pasties.

kidspot.com.au

I normally don’t cook with recipes, but I gotta check out some of these websites for inspirations for the future. Some of the stuff they got on there looks quite delicious.

Those are some tips I come up with right now. There must be heaps of others. Remember, when you are just starting to change your diet, don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t be afraid to try something wild and new and most importantly Have Fun!!