Better than tuna

Yay! Its FriYAY! Don’t you just love Friday when you could smell the coming of the great weekend. I love it when i can spend more sleeping time with my son and get to enjoyed every bits of life in a slow…. slow….slowest pace. The celebrated news is we are so going to have this simple, quick tuna recipe which is packed of flavor for a lunch staple or as a snack for this hot and hottest ever weather and I can foresee  this recipe will appear quite a few times of next week school holiday!

 So lets us get started on this yummiest “tuna” recipe and eat it with no guilt!

what you’ll need

1. 3 cups fresh beans soaked for more than 8 hours ( I rinsed a few times through this humid weather)
2. 1/2 cup eggless mayonnaise
3. 1 medium size red bell pepper finely chopped
4. 2 celery stalked finely chopped
5. 2 tbsps freshly parsley finely chopped
6. 1 cup walnut chopped
7. 1 tbsp dijon mustard
8. 2 tbsps of finely chopped yellow onion (optional)
9. salt and pepper to taste

make it happen

• Put all chickpeas in the food processor and processed into flaky piece. You could make it chunkier at your preference but i find it is easier to spread on sandwich and small slice of zucchini or japanese cucumber or even your favorite cracker.
• Then add in the rest of the ingredients and mix it well.
• Salt and pepper to tastes.
• If you prefer it to be real fishy, add in flaky dulse or kelp

 

Hi 2015! Jackfruit cherry tomatoes basil bruschetta

Hey everyone, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!  Did you all had a great time over the year end holidays and bringing over those happiness and fun memories to 2015?! I bet you all had your resolutions listed & working on it ya. Excited about it, are you! Are you! Aren’t you!! That is a YES for me!!

Well, 2014 was quite a ride for me.  Scary experience, a stretch of sad, insecure moment, ups and downs, disappointment and some changes of good and bad. And so I learned,  and I grew up alittle and I learned…… to see things far better in a positive manner of what had happened and I handled it much better.  Because I remember what Oprah said “When you know better, you do better!”

And so I had filled my 2015 list with a peace of mind, much much lesser sadness, lotsa love, more organized, more cooking, more posts, overflow of creativity and I  believe I will make something GOOD & BIG happen on 2015!!! Remember? When you know better, you do better!

But to get all these done, first thing first is to focus on the PRESENT. Move on from the past and learn not to be too eager to plan way toooo much for the future. It slows you down when you keep looking back and it drained you out to find out the many who(s) is ahead of you.

so, BE YOURSELF. Run your own race….and run it well.

My New Year was celebrated preparing alot of healthy and nutritious food,  love and good thoughts added in for the people that I loved and this is one of the many that are given the ‘LIKES’ and here to share with all my beautiful readers here. I also wanted to THANK YOU ALL for running this meaningful journey with me. Lets us now cheers with bruschetta!

Jackfruit cherry tomatoes basil bruschetta

what you’ll need

1. 1/2 cup chopped jackfruit
2. 1/2 cup chopped cherry tomatoes
3. 1 tbsp finely chopped red onion
4. 1 to 2 tbsp finely julienne or chopped basil leaves
5. 1 tbsp olive oil
6. some slices of french loaf
7. some balsamic reduction  (scroll down for recipe)

make it happen

• Toast those slices of french loaf until crispy while you prepared the rest of ingredients
• Get a deep bowl and add in all the above ingredients and let it sit for at least 15 mins
• scoop and spread them pretty on the slice of toast and garnished with more basil leaves
• optional to sprinkle some extra fine seasalt and black pepper on top. Never add salt with rest of ingredients as salt is very capable of withdrawing water from the veggies
• Now you can use a fork and drizzle some balsamic reduction on it and served

 

Balsamic Reduction receipe

what you’ll need

1.  2 cups Balsamic vinegar
2. Maple syrup (optional and adjust to your own taste)

make it happen

• Heat a small saucepan over high heat and add balsamic vinegar. Allow vinegar to come to a boil then immediately reduce to a simmer. Simmered and occasional of stirring until vinegar reduces to half cup. Watch it carefully especially when sweetener is add as it burnt real easy. Key is to stir and watch the fire.
• Once cool it will be thicken and can be kept in the fridge for a long long time but mine was gone in the first batch 🙂

Brigadeiros {raw & vegan}

Gooey,  fudgy, dense  and addictive. Mmmm….These decadent little chocolate fudge balls are so  loved in Brazil. Traditionally, brigadeiros (Brazilian Fudge Balls)  a simple and easy  mixture of sweetened cocoa powder, condensed milk  and butter and some use heavy cream which needed to be cooked to a fudge state and later  formed into little balls and rolled in chocolate sprinkles which are made out of vegetable fats.  But the not so good ingredients here say it all that a simple switched into a healthier version to  raw/vegan luxurious ball is healthy enough to be eaten as a daily treat (Yes, daily. I eat it for breakfast!)

It turns out that all the bad things commonly attributed to non-raw chocolate bars, such as cavities, weight gain and diabetes, are actually caused by the dairy, sugar and others fillers added to the dark chocolate.  Here I used alot of  raw cacao.  Raw Cacao powder to replace the chocolate powder and raw cacao nibs for the coating instead of the chocolate sprinkle (Shown here, toasted dessicated coconut  for another coating option)  Raw Cacao,  a superfood  is known for the benefits of antioxidant,  vitamin C and PEA, the feel good neurotransmitter responsible for the feeling of love! It has the highest whole food source of magnesium, which also happens to be the most deficient mineral in the diet of modern cultures. Magnesium relaxes muscles, improves peristalsis in the bowels and relaxes the heart and cardiovascular system. The dark chocolate antioxidants have been clinically proven to literally dissolve plaque built up in the arteries which helps in reversing heart disease and causes naturally lower blood pressure. Also, various other vitamins and minerals in raw cacao benefits the cardiovascular system.

Eversince I made these little “once you popped, you cant stop” fudgy balls,  it had become a treasure treat in my home and no longer  just in Brazil.

 

What you’ll need

1. 3/4 raw cacao powder
2. 3/4 cup melted cacao butter
3. 2 cups cashews (soaked 4-6 hours for easy blending)
4. 3/4 cup of light agave or maple syrup (you can use honey but certain honey will alter the taste)
5. 1 tsp vanilla extract
6. 1 – 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
7. 1/2 tsp seasalt
8. some cacao nibs or toasted dessicated coconut

 

make it happen

• Blend all ingredients using a high speed blender except for the cacao butter and cacao nibs
•  Add the cacao butter slowly into the blender until it is all well incorporated
• Pour all mixture into a bowl and cover with a cling wrap and place in fridge for about 20 mins to firm up for easy scooping into a ball mould
• I used a small ice cream scoop or you can use a  TBSP/TSP measuring spoon and roll into a ball and coat on your toppings
• keep in fridge for up to 2 weeks but it should be gone within days 🙂

 

Coconut Chips

If you have  noticed most of the  supermarkets and even some health food stores  lately  seem to be carrying an ever increasing variety of snacking chips?   On top of the usual typical potato and corn chips,  I spotted vegetable chips with yam, carrots and sweet potatoes,  black bean chips and even chips made from chickpeas!  Although they are all vegetables and sound healthy but they are rather highly processed from the original produce to  chips,  moreover with unhealthy oils that it had been fried with.  It is really nothing worth munching on!

While having  handful of regular chips occasionally at a party  is fine but the idea of having them in your pantry as a regular snack within a reach is really not encouraging.  And so now, you must be thinking then “what to do”  because those chips that we all grew up with are just so awesome, aren’t they?   There’s just something about that addicting crunch that is so appealing to children and adults and necessity in all social occasion.

For those of you seeking an alternative to high carb, starch based snack chips from the store and yet not having to go thru’ the feeling of deprived and suppressing the crave,  I have a great solution for you here! THE EVER AWESOME COCONUT CHIPS!  A recipe for you and it only takes about 5 minutes to make a batch! And how awesome is that!

what you’ll need

1. 3 cups coconut flakes
2. 2 tbsp sweetner ( i used agave here)
3. 1/4-1/2 tsp seasalt

For more variations, you can add some smoked paprika and more salt for a coconut bacon!

 

make it happen

• Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius while you prepare the rest of ingredients
• Combined the coconut and salt in a deep bowl and mix evenly
• Pour the sweetener over the coconut mixture and keep stirring until is evenly coated
• Spread the mixture out on a baking sheet and bake it for 5-7 mins and stirred to make sure all are evenly baked. Please note that everyone oven don’t really worked exactly the same. Sugar burnt stuff easily so please checked every few mins. I off my oven after the first stirred with the door closed, the high heat will still continued to baked it further in a safer way. Continued to heat a couple mins if you think is not browned enough
• Cool it totally and it will be perfectly crispy

Raspberries Raw Cacao Bar

Before I dived in deeply to tell you how finger licking good is this bitter sweet thing, I must confessed I am a truly a chocoholic and if there is ever a Chocolate rehab, i would probably be the first that needed to work on.

This opened secret addiction is all started when i was a barely a teenager,  I would sprinkled my favorite Milo powder on Jacob biscuits that is doubled  dipped with condensed milk and crunching it away pieces after pieces  with a winning grin and then i  had it all  flushed down with a thick glass of  ice milo, of course heavily loaded  with extra powder on top.  Though this maniac chocolate behavior brought me alot of childhood sweet memories but I am glad it had all ended and I never since looked back with  those long nasty ingredients.

I had never once felt deprived of not able to satisfy or not able  finding back my familiar taste  since I was a vegetarian and almost a vegan/raw foodist now. Mother nature is so wonderful and I thanked her for that  and I always do.  Those amazing  plant based ingredients are such a great help on recreating  my once lost and found food like magic! Like this raspberries raw cacao bar,  friends couldn’t believe with just a few ingredients and no dairy involved that spiked with refined sugar, it taste even better than those from the famous store out there.  This was especially  adorned by ladies when every bite is much lesser calories and yet fully  satisfied every taste bud of yours. One of the mom actually told me this is definitely a keeper and something to indulge in the middle of the night (without guilt) when it it her ME TIME !

what you’ll need

1. 20 grams of cacao butter
2. 4 tbsp of raw cacao powder (you can add 1/2-1 tbsp more if you like it bitter)
3. 1 tbsp of  light agave
4. 1 tbsp of coconut oil
5. Topping of your choice (cayenne flakes, finely mince chilli, goji berries, any nuts & fresh or dried fruits)
6. some lemon zest (optional but nice to get a teeny bite of  the refreshing taste)

 

make it happen

• Prepare your chocolate bar mold or muffin liners
• Melt your cacao butter in a hot bath using a ceramic or glass bowl and simmer on top of a pot of warm water. Stirring helps
• Once is melted, pour in your coconut oil and mix it well and add in agave and stirred it evenly
• Add in your cacao power and any minced chilli or cayenne flakes here if you are using any
• Next,  pour in the chocolate quickly (before it get thicken & tricky to handle it) into your mold or muffin liners and deco it with any of your toppings here and pop it into freezer until is hard
• Enjoy the chocolate moment!

 

Silky Coconut Pumpkin Soup

I know….I know….lately I am so obsessed with coconut. But you can’t deny coconut simply makes everything smelled so wonderfully good and this is something i couldn’t leave without in my fridge.  I had coconut smoothie daily in the morning with assorted of whatever greens and berries and bananas that is in season in our supermarket. I drink the water and eat the flesh and sometimes i will thinly sliced the flesh into “noodles” and add them into my salad and drizzle with spicy peanut dressing!  We should give a BIG credit to coconut flesh, it helps to thicken everything up. From cake filling to popsicle and yes in today recipe too!

The thick white flesh of coconut is a great helping to create a rich and creamy texture of this pumpkin soup and the fragrant of the fresh coconut flesh….ahhh….divine! And I urge you make this,  especially when you are seeking comfort on a wet day that will be year end very soon.

yield about 2 soup bowls

what you’ll need

1. 2 cups of chopped pumpkin
2. 2 cups of coconut flesh (you can reduced if you like it lighter)
3. some garlic powder (you can use fresh garlic if you like it stronger taste)
4. some onion power (optional for fresh ones)
5. salt and sugar for taste
6. olive oil
7. grounded black pepper (optional)
8. cayenne flakes (optional)
9. chia seeds (optional but encouraged 🙂 )
10. sesame seeds (optional & toasted will be nice)
11. parsely for garnishing

 

make it happen

• you can either steam, boil or roast your pumpkin. Roasted pumpkin will give u a nice nutty smell and thicker texture too but over here I opt for the boiled. It is easier to blend and i yield more as i didnt discard the water here.
• I add the boiled pumpkin into a high speed blender with the coconut flesh and blend until u get a creamy consistency. Add more pumpkin water if it is alittle too dry and add more if you wanted a lighter version here.
• once is up to your consistency, you can add the rest of ingredients into blender except the ‘optional’ ingredients which i personally feltl it is better for toppings and garnishing purposes and drizzle more olive oil
• Happy tummy and a Happy Halloween!

 

Nutty Coconut Butter Cups

Ever since I had made a tub of coconut butter (click link for recipe) I had busy experimenting in my kitchen for any dessert that i could possibly used this guilt free creamy good white thing up. It was really therapeutic when you loved to play with food while  other the hand it moisturizing  my skin when  I am working on it. NICE! 

When you took your first bite  on these these heavenly good little white cups, it simply melt in your mouth and brings out the rich and dense texture of  the “perfect marriage” filling. You really cant wait for the second bite. Totally mind blowing for me!

 
yield:  around 6

Make it happen

 

1. 1/4 cup coconut butter
2. 2 tbsp peanut butter
3. 1 tbsp almond butter
4. 3 soaked dates
5. 2 tbsp agave
   
6. 3 tsp raw cacoa
7. Some vanilla or vanilla extract and salt  to taste 

• Melt approximately 1/3 of the coconut butter in the hot water bath and using a teaspoon to pour a very small amount into the bottom of  cupcake mold to about half a cm unless u prefer it thick
  
• Put these in the freezer for a very short while. It actually harden rather quickly!
  
• Next, blend all the other ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth. Steal a bite here and you will say…ah… heaven! You can adjust any  ingredient here to your own liking
  
• When the coconut butter had hardened in the molds, drop a scoop of the cacao nut mixture into each mold.  Not too much and not touching the side of the mold and have them back into the freezer
  
• Once it had harden a little, use a teaspoon to pour the rest of the melted coconut butter over each mold (you may have to melt it again if your country temp is lower). The melted coconut butter should just be on right top of  the cacao nut mixture.
• Put right back in the fridge (if you can hold your drool) or freezer (if you cant wait any longer 🙂 ) and let them hardened up until they turned opaque white. Once hardened (finally!)  removed out of their molds and ready to appreciate every delicious bite of it while it softened your lips and nourished your skin, hair and increase your metabolism!
  

Do you know…..Coconut water is almost identical to blood plasma and during emergency it could actually used as a drip!   It  is simply not true that eating any coconut products will make you gained weight. On the contrary,  it will probably help you lose weight; THESE fats found in coconut have no cholesterol, and they have anti-viral, anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties. They also have a crazy amount of anti-oxidants which fight cancer; cholesterol-lowering properties; and skin-moisturizing abilities (Wolfe, 2009)

So love your big nuts today!

Laksa Pesto

Laksa Laska Laksa! You won’t believe I am having this twice a day and for three good days! And you must be thinking it is simply crazy to have this hot & spicy soup in this hot and humid  weather ( i know i said this many times!) and yes plus the recent haze is back again.

But no, this is not the usual soupy kind of laksa that had immensely brought joy and lots of Mmmm to my tummy. It is the incredibly delicious dry laksa pesto generously tossed on my favorite raw noodles which not gonna leave you tired after each meal but on the contrary,  it keep you light and gives you all the needed energy with live enzymes and vitamins and loaded with proteins which we all need daily. Not short of anything here though.

I prepared this for my folks for the first time and I was pretty worried initially on much would they accept it when i told them it is laksa noodle for lunch and I served it in a plate . My worried is so unnecessary, they LOVE it! My dad keep nodding his head when he had his second bite and he given me the thumbs up and my mum’s plate was all cleaned!

This is a great sign as my mum is great cook herself and quite a food critic too.  I am sure this will be a “conversational recipe”  as well when you bring it to any occasion so let’s started with the recipe now and WOW them over!

what you’ll need:-

1. 2 cups packed of laksa leaves (roughly chopped) and leave a few behind for garnishing on your noodles
2. 1 cup of soaked raw cashew nut (for good 8 hours)
3. 1 cup of soaked pine nut (4 hours is soft enough)
4. seasalt to your own taste
5. 2 tbsp raw sugar (more if you are adding more water here)
6. 4 tbsp canola oil (or other mild flavor oil that wont interfere with the taste)
7. some freshly chopped garlic (adjust to your own taste)
8. dash of lemon juice
9. 1/4 cup of water (to get blender moving and prefer it to be in thicker paste)

make it happen:-

• Using a high speed blender to blend the soaked cashew nuts and pine nuts  into a fine smooth consistency texture
• pour in laksa leaves until is all well incoprated

• Add in salt, sugar and garlic and blend further

• slowly drizzle the canola oil in while it is still blending, this method will ensure it is evenly blend and it will turn out to be a smoother texture rather than add in earlier with rest of ingredients
• add in lemon juice last and followed by a quick whizz.
• toss it with spiralized zucchini, carrots, beetroot, celeriac or kelp noodles and sprinkled it with lightly toasted sesame seeds or pine nuts and garnish with thinly sliced laksa leaves or parsley here

You can make it thicker and eat it as a dip with cut up vegetables stick for alternative serving. Cooking is fun!

Coconut Butter

WOW and OMG! That is all I wanna describe for this rich and creamy heavenly smell recipe. It is so simple that should  I  even called this a recipe? 🙂
When i opened up the cover of my blender,  it straight away brings me to the ever mouth-watering picture of everyone favorite, NASI LEMAK!  

Before i had a food blog, i always got confused and misunderstood when a recipe called for a coconut oil, solid coconut oil and coconut butter? Are you equally confused by now?

Ok, to simplify things here. Just think of peanut butter and peanut oil here. One is in a paste form and one is in liquid from. So coconut butter simply means it is in a thick and creamy form that is being created from dried coconut flesh.

I am using BOB’S RED MILLS unsweetened coconut flakes here and it only takes me about 10 mins in a high speed blender rather than i had to pay  14 bucks for about a cup of coconut butter that gives me the same thing! And if you do not owned a high speed blender, a food processor will do the work too but just take about double the time. Let it stop and rest a min in between though.

what you’ll need

1. a packet of unsweetened coconut flakes
2. a little of coconut oil (if needed to get it going)
3. a high speed blender/ food processor

make it happen

• pour the whole packet of coconut flakes into your high speed blender or food processor and blend at medium speed for a start. Using a tamper helps a lot here. Add a little of coconut oil if needed for better blending.
• blend until it is creamy enough and spread on your favorite biscuit and bread and you can even drop a teaspoon into your smoothie for all the goodness! Then lick the rest from the blender!
  

Strawberry Chia Jam

Jam on bread is a luxury for us back then during my childhood days, it thrilled me when my mum bought it for us once in a blue moon. My brother and I will secretly opened the fridge and licked it off cleanly (and very quickly) off our spoon and the sweet  feeling is as good as licking off from popsicle.

Now,  this strawberry chia jam is way better off  than the commercial ones. They are commonly loaded with white sugar, colouring and preservatives with xanthan gum as a thickener that makes you thinking the jam is value for good money

Thanks to this ancient seeds! Do you know chia seeds are greatly used as thickener (it expand 3 times in “sticky” form)  in healthy puddings, jams that call in for a jelly/gel like consistency. It is often a great substitute for egg replacement in vegan recipes as well. It is full packed of essential amino acids and complete protein and it can be kept for a long time without going rancid too!

This 5 mins preparation (really!) strawberry chia jam is so super easy and the toughest thing is to wait for it to thicken in the fridge. I was just too impatient to wait for it and stealing scoops in between. But but but,  if you could it is all worth waiting for!

So stop drooling over it and get started now!

what you’ll need:

1 1/2 cups of fresh strawberries
2 tbsp chia seeds
4 tbsp of sweetener (agave, maple syrup or honey)
1/2 tbsp of lemon juice (less if you prefer not so sour)

 make it happen:

Processed strawberries in a food processor and briefly processed it if you prefer it to be chunky and more if you intend to feed the young kids

add in rest of ingredients and with a quick blitz and ta-dah you just made your very own strawberry chia jam!