Your Own Sesame Tahini

Sesame tahini is one of those simple ingredients that build a new dimension within a dish's flavour. It's used widely in salad dressings, sauces, and desserts. Sesame seeds have an earthy taste and are plump with calcium, manganese and iron. Prepackaged raw food is often costly, so I make my own tahini and nut butters, as they only require a good whiz in the processor and a cool place on your refrigerator shelf.

The official tahini recipe calls for 1/3 cup of olive oil per 2 cups of sesame seeds. I rarely measure, instead using good reason and a variety of oils in addition to the olive. Hemp or any nut oils will bring more character to your tahini. Grind all the ingredients together in a food possessor to achieve a paste-like consistency. You may need to give it a stir or two with a wooden spoon in the process. A favourite recipe, which calls for tahini, is one for our kale chips.
M went to Concord the other weekend and sent me some photos from Hawthorne's backyard. The peaceful, unrefined landscape somehow reminds me of the musky flavour of sesame tahini.

Post by: A

Zucchini Spaghetti with Marinara Sauce

I remember tasting this dish for the first time and wondering why I ever bothered to cook zucchini or marinara. It tasted so shockingly delicious that I wanted to drink all that sauce up by myself. The spaghetti is so tender, yet crunchy, and surprisingly easy to prepare on a spiral slicer. When combined together, you end up with a plate of alive and vibrant food, infused with the aroma of fresh herbs. The dish takes mere minutes to prepare, and works especially well during tomato season, which will start soon in the warmer months of the year. It's also ideal for a first tasting of raw food, as everyone loves it.


My oregano plant. There are many different types of oregano. I have the Cuban variety, according to Google. It's a beautiful plant, easily grown and managed. I love to have it handy for all kinds of dishes, especially those that include tomatoes.
















There are dozens of recipes of fresh marinara on the net. This one is a combination that I like the most:
3 large heirloom tomatoes, or the equivalent of the same amount of cherry tomatoes - cut in chunks
2-3 halves sun-dried tomatoes
1-2 dates - pits removed
1-2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup or more fresh basil leaves
1-2 leaves, or 1 tbsp of fresh oregano (optional)
Handful of flat leaf parsley (optional)
Celtic salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor. Serve over zucchini shaved on a spiral slicer on the spaghetti setting.

P.S. Please vote for Golubka, and much love to everyone who has.
Post by: A

Pears and Cuckoo Tears

Amongst the pear family, Boscs are my favourites. I love them for their elegant shape, manifesting itself in those elongated necks, for their warm honey colour and coarse, speckled skin, and for their slightly crunchy, piquant flesh. They pair perfectly with soft goat cheese, but we recently discovered the lovely combination of raw Gruyere cheese and Bosc pears. Gruyere is a bit too pungent to eat by itself, so the juicy pears do a fine job of flattering the cheese with their unforgettable freshness. Cutting the Gruyere into small cubes brings the salad to a new height. Due to their miniature size, the cubes are able to melt in your mouth, leaving a pleasant crystal-like crunch.






Fresh salad mix
One ripe (but not over ripe) Bosc pear per person - cut into wedges
Raw Gruyere cheese (Switzerland) - cut into small cubes
Walnuts or pecans - raw, untoasted
Some freshly ground black pepper - to taste
Olive oil for drizzling

A curiosity: Those purple flowers have been popping up all over the place recently - oh, spring. In Russia, we call them "the cuckoo's tears."

You can find this kind of Gruyere cheese in Whole Foods stores, like many other raw cheeses.
Apologies to vegan readers, more cheese-less recipes are coming up.

Lastly, we'd like to thank the dear reader Joanna for nominating us for Babble's Best Mom Food Blogger. If you agree with her, we would greatly appreciate your vote. The best way of finding Golubka in the long list is sorting it alphabetically - then you'll find us on page 2. You don't have to register to "Like," so it will only take a second. Merci Beaucoup!
Post by: A

Avocado Truffles

These avocado truffles were once again inspired by Luxirare. The challenge was to use raw ingredients and create some kid appeal. There are lots of ways to involve children in the kitchen. Even as a 20 month old, Paloma is always hanging around when I'm cooking - playing with pots and pans, studying the ingredients, and begging for samples. I can already tell she'll be a good little chef.
When they are able to handle the mess, you can show your kids how to paint pictures with the ingredients, sort all of the components of a dish by colour, or make a game of determining a food blindfolded, just through taste and smell.
Making these avocado truffles could be a great way of getting your little ones to eat healthy and be adventurous. It is, afterall, a colourful and mysterious salad, with a hidden surprise inside.


Ingredients:




Cut an avocado in half, take out the pit. Scoop out some of the flesh, leaving a good amount intact, so that it holds its shape when you take off the skin.


Mash the scooped avocado flesh, adding some squeezed lime juice. Then put the mashed mass back into the two avocado halves - distribute evenly.


There are endless possibilities for the filling. We love the classic combination of mango and avocado, so I made a simple salad of chopped mango, cilantro, black sesame seeds, and lime juice.


Put the filling into the two halves. Assemble them back together and carefully peel off the skin.


Painting pictures with coating ingredients. Paloma enjoyed pointing out the eyes on the sun.


For the coat, I used dried mango, black sesame seeds, pistachio, and freeze dried corn, peas, and red bell pepper.


Grind these ingredients together with a mortar and pestle.


Bathe the avocado in the ground coating, carefully turning to pick up the crumbles.


Besides chocolate truffles and truffle mushrooms, the coated avocados reminded us of trimmed cypresses in a jardin à la française, so we went for a linear and symmetrical presentation, involving the main ingredients.








Although they look elaborate, avocado truffles are actually very easy and surprisingly quick to prepare. This dish would no doubt be a hit at a dinner party.


In addition to being pretty, the truffles are also very tasty, combining the subtlety of avocado, sweetness of mango, a touch of citrus, and finishing off with a pleasant crunchiness of the coat.


P.S. Golubka was nominated for Babble's Best Mom Food Bloggers, we would greatly appreciate your vote!
Post by: A

Green Market Salad

If you are ever in need of live food inspiration, turn to Sarma Melngailis' great cookbooks, blog, and restaurant (which will be our first stop next time we're in NYC - we've never been). Her vision combines health and elegance, never echoing the "granola" approach, that is often associated with raw food.
With this Green Market Salad (from Raw Food/Real World), we wanted to bring you the palette of spring, as it slowly transforms the landscape with fragrant blossoms and freshly crowned trees. The salad greens are at the peak of their season in Florida, and there is so much pleasure in bringing these delicate leaves from the market straight onto our table. The dressing is truly this brilliant in real life, if not greener - as if it has been squeezed out of a tube of gouache.
I usually make this salad when friends come over - it's impressively complex in flavour, and the amount of dressing you end up with is enough for quite a few portions.


I like to garnish this salad with marinated mushrooms from another recipe in the same cookbook:
1/2 pound of Shiitake and Crimini mushrooms (or any wild mushrooms) - sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
some fresh herbs (I used basil and cilantro)
some sea salt
garnish with freshly ground black pepper

Combine the ingredients. After 2 to 3 hours of dehydration at 115F, the mushrooms become soft and taste just as if they were sauteed. This is a great way of preparing mushrooms, I use it frequently in other dishes.













I substituted some ingredients in the original recipe with what I had on hand, those alterations are included.

Dressing:
1 avocado - peeled and pitted
1 cup orange juice - freshly squeezed
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons lime juice - freshly squeezed
1 green onion
1 tablespoon chopped yellow onion
1/2 small jalapeno - seeded
handful of cilantro
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil
garnish with freshly ground black pepper

Blend all the ingredients until smooth, gradually adding the olive oil while the blender is still running.

Salad:
Salad greens
Radish - any kind, I used Daikon radish, cut on a spiral slicer
Macadamia nuts - coarsely chopped and mixed with a pinch of sea salt, some ground black pepper, and nut oil (or any other cold-pressed oil)

Pour the dressing over the salad. Garnish with the marinated mushrooms.

Thanks for the great discussion on the previous post. We're currently exploring Waldorf schools.
Post by: A

Bowl of Goodness for Baby

By now, at 19 months, Paloma chews very well and loves to munch away at the original Bowl of Goodness. Still, this baby version remains among her favourite breakfasts.
Ever since becoming interested in raw food, I've been experimenting with making my daughter's ration rich with a variety of different food groups and flavours. Besides the obvious green smoothies, soups, and fruit purees, the amount of raw options for babies and toddlers who cannot chew very well, is quite limited. I haven't been able to find many recipes of the sort, so to turn the situation around, I started coming up with my own.
Most of our breakfasts include grain sprouts, and my intention was to create a similar dish, but one that requires little chewing on Paloma's part. The first logical step was to simply puree freshly sprouted grains together with some fruits. Surprisingly, that doesn't taste too good. When fresh sprouts are broken down completely, their flavour intensifies and becomes quite grassy and unpleasant.
For my next try, I gently dried the sprouts in a dehydrator, and then ground them in a coffee-grinder into a sort of flour.


To specify, I usually mix oat groats, buckwheat, and sunflower seed sprouts, reserved from making chocolate granola. I also thought about incorporating other valuable ingredients, such as chia and flax seeds, hemp hearts, goji berries, and raw pistachios*. These were also ground until flour-like. The ground blends hold up well when refrigerated, which is quite convenient for, say, taking with you on the road, or just having handy at all times.




For the base of this raw cereal, I used a dried apricot and prune puree. You can utilize any kind of fruits to make a base for this cereal, but I especially like the combination of those two (unsulfured) - they become creamy in consistency, not to mention their health benefits.


To prepare, soak the dried fruits in purified water for about an hour. Drain, and blend in a food processor, adding some water to create a smooth and creamy preserve. When Paloma was younger, I froze it in small portions, but now, since she eats more, I keep it all refrigerated in a glass jar.




Next, add some of the flour blend into the puree.




For the final touch, mix in homemade kefir, raw goat milk/yogurt, or nut milk for a vegan version.




A typical baby breakfast still-life at our house:


*If you worry about giving nuts to your child, just exclude pistachios from the list. I like them particularly because they are the only nuts that contain a significant amount of lutein and zeaxanthin - antioxidants that are great for eyesight.

Bon Appétit to your little ones!
Post by: A