Whoops, I forgot to add a title the first time I published this.

Hi everyone!

Concerning that raw fancy cake I announced last time.. well, I learned my lessons.

1. In a raw cake, use a bit raw grains or your cake will turn out too dense.

2. If you want to use cashew cream in a cake, use as little water as possible.

3. Keep it simple.

4. Blended cocoa beans will never get as fine as cacao. (Note to self: Order cacao.)

5. Dandelions and Daisies are too wobbly for candying.

So, yeah.. you can guess how that turned out. Not that it wasn’t delicious or anything, but it was just too much on the nutty side, the cashew cream was too runny and the flowers… well, forget about them!

But it’s okay. Next time I’m going to do better.

Last weekend, my mum and I took part in a raw food cooking course, which was originally booked for my mum and dad. Some days before, my dad informed us that he will have to work that weekend (it was an emergency). I didn’t mind to be honest! Since Friday, I eat about 98% raw, exceptions are nut butters (Nothing can separate me from peanut buddah) and dried fruits and nuts which aren’t certified raw. Honestly, who can afford raw cashews? I’m not planning to become completely raw for now. This thought is just too scary and restricting (for now), however I do intent on increasing my raw food intake. Which doesn’t mean I will never eat cooked food anymore. If I really want Quinoa or brown rice, or cake.. if I really want it, I’ll have it. If I don’t have a strong preference for a certain dish, I’ll stick to raw foods. And guess what, the more I get to know about raw food preparation and the more I experiment, the more cravable my creations get. Like this one.

Raw Pasta Primavera

Ingredients (serves 1)

• 1 medium zucchini, spiralized (reserve the parts that can’t be spiralized!)
• 1 small carrot (~40 gr), spiralized
• 1 tbsp pine nuts
• 3 baby chard leaves (optional)
• 2 white asparagus, chopped diagonally (optional)
• bell pepper slices, for garnish (optional)

Sauce

• excess parts from your zucchini
• 1 tbsp orange juice (more, if necessary)
• 2 tsp white almond butter (I don’t see why dark or another nut butter wouldn’t work, the taste will be different)
• A LOT freshly ground black pepper
• 10-15 basil leaves, depending on the size and how much you like basil
• 1/8 tsp salt/Herbamare or to taste
• 2 tsp nutritional yeast (not necessary, but yummy!)
• 3 dried tomatoes

1. In a large bowl, add the spiralized veggies, pine nuts, chard and asparagus.
2. Blend together the sauce ingredients except tomatoes until creamy.
3. Add the tomatoes and pulse until they arrive at a “grainy” consistency, like nuts in pesto. (In case you were wondering, I didn’t have any when I took the photos. The dish was good without them, but I preferred the tomato version.
4. Pour the sauce over “noodles”, toss, garnish with bell pepper slices and serve immediately. (I don’t recommend keeping leftovers because zucchini pasta gets watery very quickly.)
5. Devour!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do!

Love, Lara

The most uncreative title ever

Hello my sweethearts!

To be honest, I did not plan to post today. Rather than that, I have a raw and really fancy cake recipe waiting to be posted. It’s a present for my mom, I made it today and tomorrow we’ll eat it. So I won’t post it before we all tried it and confirmed that it is blog-worthy. I’m so exited!! It has glacéed flowers on it!! Oh my god, I hope those will work out because they haven’t finished dehydrating yet.

However, I guess this should also be the post in which I tell you about my regular evening snack. Well, “regular” isn’t exactly right because it’s always different. In my mind -not in reality because I don’t want to be weird talking german-english all the time- -ok, I do that anyway- I call it Bliss Bowl. Usually it’s a bowl filled with 1-3 pieces fresh or frozen fruit (think an apple+frozen berries, or today: frozen raspberries, 4 slices mango, 1/3 large orange), dried fruit if I feel like it and a healthy fat. It must have the fat. Sometimes it will be one or two pieces of chocolate, a tablespoon of nut butter or whole nuts. Or all. Or a sauce made of nut butter and non-dairy milk.

I pay attention to the fats in it, because I really am an evening snacker and if I want to avoid late-night snack attacks, it’s necessary that I have eaten enough calories. My daily diet contains a whole lot of vegetables and fruit, some protein and not too many carbs (mainly because they make me feel heavy. I have them for breakfast and sometimes lunch, but rarely in the evening.), so sometimes I do not take in enough calories to fuel my active lifestyle. Then I tend to eat too much in the evening and feel like crap afterwards. Some weeks ago, I started eating those Bliss Bowls as a preventive measure of some kind. It works! If I realize that I haven’t eaten enough calories (although I try NOT to count them), I adjust the nut butter and dried fruit amounts to suit my caloric needs.

How do I love my Bliss Bowls! I’m sorry I don’t have a photo to post of one of them, but I may collect some and post them another time. Which is where we come back to the topic again: I didn’t plan to post today, but my bliss bowl today contained something that was SO DELICIOUS that I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.

Coconut Cashew Sauce! Amazed by how delicious the sauce was, I just had to create a super-simple truffle recipe from it. Boy, those are delicious.

Dear Germans and Italians, they are reminiscent of “Raffaelo”. Others, just take my word, those are gooooood. So good I had to snap a few quick photos and write a totally non-prepared post about them. Enough babbling for now, time for truffles!!

Coconut Cashew Bliss

-no-bake, vegan, low-carb, sugar-free, makes 5 truffles or so-

• 2 tbsp (17 g) coconut flour (I use partially de-oiled and can’t vouch for the truffles if you use completely de-oiled coconut flour. Maybe add more cashew butter if they turn out too dry?)
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp (26 g) roasted cashew butter (you can use more if you like or if you think the truffles are not silky enough)
• 1/16 tsp or less salt
• a pinch vanilla powder or extract
• 2 small dates (12 g)
• 3 tbsp non-dairy milk (I used rice-coconut which probably contributed to the yumminess of these truffles. Do NOT use a non-dairy milk that you don’t like. My second choice would be canned coconut milk.)
• only if needed: a pinch stevia, agave or another date

for rolling: 10 g flaked coconut

1. Blend together the truffle ingredients using a hand blender. Don’t blend in your finger. It really hurts. (Not that I ever did that or anything…. :/)
2. Roll into balls.
3. Roll in the flaked coconut.
4. Try not to eat it all up yourself.

I wish you all a wonderful Mother’s Day! Show your mom some love and make truffles for her .

Love, Lara