The Lunch Bunch: Asparagus Nori Rolls

This was part of my delicious lunch today. I keep a packet of nori sheets in the cupboard at work so I can stuff them with whatever greens and veges I bring with me or grab from the supermarket. Sprouts make a great stuffing for nori rolls as they are nice and compact allowing you to roll it up nicely. Almost any vegetable works in a nori roll,  zucchini or cucumber, grated carrot, tomatoes, olives, herbs, the combinations are endless. Asparagus is right in season now and it’s the perfect shape for a nori roll.

Asparagus Nori Rolls

Ingredients

Untoasted Nori
Lettuce
Alfalfa Sprouts
Asparagus
Avocado
Lemon Juice
Tamari

Assembly

Lay your nori sheet flat on a board or a bamboo sushi mat and cover with the lettuce leaves first to prevent the nori getting soggy. Leave about 2cm clear on one side.

Then add your remaining fillings lengthways along the centre of the lettuce.

Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on the fillings and on the clear edge to help it all stick together once you have rolled it up. You could also use water for this.

Now using your sushi mat or just your hands roll up from the opposite side the the clear edge. Press the roll tightly in on itself as you roll it up.

Cut in thirds or in half and use a little tamari & lemon juice as a dipping sauce if you wish. It also tastes great without it.

The Lunch Bunch: Red Cabbage Tacos

Red cabbage is one of my favourite leaves to use as a wrap. It looks amazing, it’s crunchy and you can fit a lot into one leaf. It’s really one of the things we raw foodies use as a bread substitute. The ingredients below are pretty much what I had in the fridge today. You could just as easily use things like cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts or leftover salad. Whatever takes your fancy.

Red Cabbage Tacos

Makes 5

Ingredients

5 smallish red cabbage leaves

2 medium sized carrots

1/4 avocado

1-2 tsp lemon juice

about 8 stalks of fresh chives

Greens of your choice  (I used a mix of spinach, chard and lettuces)

Dulse flakes (Karengo Seaweed) for saltiness

Preparation

Finely grate the carrot. If you have a fine grater like one usually used for parmesean you will get more juicy flavour from the carrot.

Mash in the avocado, lemon juice and finely chopped chives. Add a little himalayan or sea salt if you wish.

Take a red cabbage leaf and fill with a few green leaves of your choice and top with some of the carrot avocado mixture.

Top with some dulse (karengo) and a few chopped chives.

The Lunch Bunch: Salad Flax Wraps

A few people have asked me to post the types of things that I take for lunch. I am fortunate enough to work in an office with a modest kitchen, so I can quite easily assemble salads and things with produce I keep in the work fridge or that I grab from the supermarket over the road. I’m not really into eating a lot of  fats anymore, I’m close to 80/10/10 but I’m not strict about it, I just try to keep it low-fat with lots of fruits and vegetables. So with these wraps I try to keep the amounts of flax seeds quite low and bulk them up with celery and psyllium instead. The amounts are very approximate so use what you have on hand and they’ll probably still turn out fine. I’ll write it down properly with the next batch.

Salad Flax Wraps

Flax Wraps

1 large zucchini

3 large stalks of celery

1 Red Pepper/Capsicum

1/2 cup ground flax seeds

1-2 tsp psyllium husk powder

About 3 cups of water

Blend everything in a high speed blender until smooth. You may want to add the water gradually. The psyllium and flax will absorb the water and make a thick gel like mixture, so you can always add more water if you think it is too thick.

Spread the mixture out into circles about 3-4mm thick on dehydrator mats. Make sure not to have any spots that are too thin.

Dehydrate for about 4 hours. Check as you go that they are not getting too dry. They should still be pliable.

Flip them over and dehydrate another 2-4 hours.

Store in a ziplock bag or container.

Tip: If you over dehydrate and end up with large thin crackers instead, you can take a spray bottle filled with water and finely mist them. Lay them between damp paper or tea towels and they will become bendy again.

Fillings

You can pretty much use anything you would normally have in a salad sandwich. For these I had lettuce, cucumber, tomato and grated carrot with a squeeze of lemon juice and a wee bit of sea salt. A small amount of avocado would go down well in the mix too. I find that grated veges are more juicy so I don’t have the need for a dressing or dip which keeps things nice and simple.

Free Raw Food Talk with Karen Knowler

One of my favourite raw food ladies, Karen Knowler, is holding a free teleconference on October 7th entitled Seven Simple Secrets to Going & Staying Successfully Raw.

I’ve listened to a number of her talks and they are so great, especially for people just starting out on the raw food lifestyle. I can’t recommend these type of resources enough if you are feeling like the only raw foodie out there and need a little motivation. If you don’t know her, Karen is a raw food coach living in the UK. She has a number of how to videos well worth checking out on youtube.

You can sign up to the teleconference and listen online here. If you can’t make it at the given time you can also download an mp3, throw it on your iPod and listen while you go out for a walk.

Lemon & Black Pepper Celeriac Risotto

It’s mid-winter here in New Zealand and the organic supermarket is full of celeriac and fennel, two vegetables that go well together in a kind of rustic French way. Celeriac is one of those underrated but highly versatile vegetables that often gets shunned for it’s rather unelegant apperance. It’s not the root of celery as it’s name suggests but kind of like a cousin, similar in flavour but a little more nutty. With the fennel, lemon and celeriac, this whole dish is very high in vitamin C. Mother Nature sure knows how to look after us by providing produce that’s high in flu-fighting properties during the winter. It’s also pretty high in magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin K. Make sure to use the zest of the lemon as well as the juice to give the risotto that wonderfully fragrant flavour. Yum.

Lemon & Black Pepper Celeriac Risotto

Serves one

Ingredients

1 medium celeriac root
juice and zest of 1 small lemon
1 tbsp finely chopped celery leaves
1/2 cup finely shaved fennel bulb
1 tsp unpasteurised miso
1/4 cup soaked sunflower seeds
1/4 cup pure water
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1/4  tsp sea salt

Preparation

Trim off the outer layer of the celeriac root to remove all the dirt filled crevices, dice into cubes and pulse in a high speed blender or food processor with the lemon juice until fine. It should be about the size of rice or a little smaller in order to release more of the flavoursome juices. Adding the lemon juice at this point prevents the celeriac from discolouring as it oxidises.

Set the celeriac aside and process the sunflower seeds, miso paste and water until fairly smooth but still with a little texture.

Combine the sunflower mixture with the celeriac and the remaining ingredients.

Season with extra black pepper, sea salt and a little cold pressed olive oil if desired.

Serve in a bowl garnished with chopped celery leaves and lemon zest,  scoop up with flax crackers or even wrap in romaine leaves with some fresh alfalfa sprouts and your favourite greens.

Get the facts on Nutrition Data

Ginger Mushrooms & Wilted Asian Greens

This is so like a cooked stirfry you could easily fool your cooked foodie friends. The mushrooms you need to do in advance, but you could get away with not dehydrating the greens if you let the dish sit and marinade for a half hour or so, or just eat them crunchy.

Ginger Mushrooms & Asian Greens

The Ginger Mushrooms
About 20 Button Mushrooms
1 Tsp Minced Ginger
1 Tsp Minced Garlic
1 Tbsp Tamari
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1 Tbsp Cold Pressed Oil (flax, olive, sesame or similar)

Wash and slice the mushrooms about 5mm thick.
Throw all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix with your hands until the mushrooms are well coated.
Place onto mesh dehydrator trays and dehydrate for about 6 hours.

The Wilted Asian Greens
About 4 Cups of Chopped Bok Choy or Similar Asian Greens

Place on mesh dehydrator trays and dehydrate for 1 hour

The Sauce
1 Tbsp Tamari
2 Tbsp Cold Pressed Sesame or Olive Oil
1cm Piece of Ginger
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
2 Tbsp Water

Place in a blender and blend until well combined.
Strain to remove any large chunks of ginger.

Putting It All Together
The Ginger Mushrooms
The Wilted Asian Greens
The Sauce
3 Tbsp Sesame Seeds
1-2 Cups Mung Bean Sprouts

Combine all everything in a bowl and toss to combine.

Double Dip

These are a couple of Turkish inspired dips that you can use with almost anything. Perfect with celery sticks, cucumber slices or flax crackers, delicious with salad stuffed into a large leaf of romaine and great on their own as a soup if you add a little extra water.

Zucchini & Avocado Dip

The flavour of this dip reminds me of Mucver (pronounced MOOSH-vair), the zucchini fritters often served in a mixed vegetarian kebab or as an entree in Turkish restaurants.

1 Large Zucchini

1 Medium Avocado

1 Tsp Sea Salt or Himalayan Salt

Juice of 1/2 a Lemon

1 Tsp Cumin

1 Tsp Tumeric

1/2 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 Large Clove Garlic

Chop up the zucchini, avocado and garlic into smaller pieces.
Add with the remaining ingredients to your food processor or high speed blender and blend until smooth.
You can add a little water if the dip seems too thick.

Beetroot Dip

This was once a favourite of mine in vege kebabs. The traditional version sometimes has yoghurt which I have substituted here with brazil nuts although you could easily use cashews or macadamias or omit them all together if you are looking for a nut free version.

1 large beetroot

20 soaked brazil nuts

Juice of 1 Lemon

1 Large Clove Garlic

1 Tsp Sea Salt or Himalayan Salt

Chop up the beetroot and garlic into smaller pieces.
Add with the remaining ingredients to your food processor or high speed blender and blend until smooth.
You can add a little water if the dip seems too thick.

Both of these dips should keep for a week in an airtight container in the fridge.

Feijoa & Manuka Honey Icecream

Feijoa & Manuka Honey Icecream

This recipe combines two iconic New Zealand ingredients. Feijoas and Manuka Honey. Feijoas, also known as the pineapple guava, are in abundance at this time of year and are one of my all time favourite fruits. This icecream has a delicate clean flavour, a slight sweetness and it’s not too rich or heavy. Very cleansing on the palette. You could play around with the quantities to make it sweeter or substitue the honey for agave if you prefer.

2 Cups  Soaked Raw Cashews

6-8 Feijoas

1/4 Cup Raw Manuka Honey

1 Tbsp Soy Lecithin Granules (optional, for extra creaminess)

About 12 Large Ice Cubes

1 Cup Pure Water

Make sure your icecream maker bowl is sufficiently frozen. It will most likely need to have been in the freezer 18-22 hours.

Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender until smooth and creamy.

Pour the mixture into your icecream maker immediately and process according your your machines instructions.

Note: If you don’t have an icecream maker you can pour the mixture into a bowl and place it in the freezer. Then whisk with a fork every 30 minutes. Or you can freeze the mixture in icecube trays and once frozen, blend in a food processor.

What is a Feijoa?

Although originally from South America, some might say the feijoa is now even more kiwi than the kiwifruit. They come around once a year in the autumnal months and people tend to go a little crazy for them when they are about. Besides being overly delicious, feijoas are a good source of vitamin C, folate and fibre. and they are so low maintenance that at least one house on every block is likely to have a tree.