When my yoga teacher asked me to make some smoothies for her to serve to people during a yoga detox day I took my chance to introduce the people with a delicious creamy and lush smoothie, showing how delicious healthy vegan food can be, of course! Well I’d like to call this a mission succeeded because not only did I get a voice note saying the smoothies were delicious, Ive also been having this for breakfast the past three days, even my mom enjoyed it!…
Magical Maki Rolls – Food Inspo #2
So this is part recipe and part inspiration, since you can use it as a base to make your own recipe, hence the title “food inspo”. This is the second addition of food inspo, if you want to find out how I turned soup into gluten free flatbread/pancakes you can press this link.
Now this might seem like it’s going to take a whole day to create, but don’t worry whenever I’m feeling extra I make myself some of these rolls in under and hour. And when you prep the rice in advance you’ll be left with a 15 minutes meal.
You can find a whole post explaining the unicorn rice over here, and while you’re at it why not try to make some unicorn noodles? Add some magic to your lives!
How to make the rolls.
- For this recipe I’m using two cups of uncooked rice, so I’m immediately prepping some rice for days ahead. While you’re preparing the cooking water you can start washing the rice. Wash and rinse until the water becomes clear.
- Start by adding about 4 cups of water to a pan and adding a chunk of purple cabbage and turning on the heat to medium/low until the cabbage has turned the water a deep blue colour.
- Remove about 1 1/4 cup of water from the pot and add another little chunk of purple cabbage to the water to create an even deeper and more concentrated colour. Let it simmer until it looks deep purple.
- Now you’ll be left with two different shades of water. Separate the rice over two pots and add the light shade to one pot and the darker to the other pot of rice.
- Turn the heat to the lowest heat possible and let it simmer for about 25 minutes. Using this low heat will ensure the colour doesn’t go from lilac/blue to brown.
- When the rice is done remove it from the pots to let it cool before placing on the nori sheets. Once you’ve placed it on the nori you can squeeze some lime or lemon on the spots you’d like to transform the colour of. Roll the maki, cut it and voila, you’ve become a magician. Note that the rice that got the acid keeps getting brighter so when you cut it you might be surprised to find it became a bit brighter!
Now you can fill these rolls with whatever you like, throughout this post you can find some different variations. You can try adding some sweet potato, or maybe you’re into some savoury strips of tempeh! Regardless of what ingredients I add, I always add avocado!
You could also add colourful veggies inside to create a rainbow roll, there are honestly so many different way’s to have these roll that you’ll never get tired of them. If you’re feeling adventurous you can even add some fruits like mango
Let me know if you like posts like these in the comments below and if you decide to make some magical unicorn rolls don’t forget to tag me in your creations on Instagram cause I’d love to see what you made, or find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Privilege, and what to do with it
Let’s discuss a touchy subject, privilege and most importantly, what to do with it! Look, I’m able to afford decent food, create plant based recipes, got the opportunity to take some years off to undergo intensive therapy, I’m able to practice yoga and even follow a teacher training and I was born in a quite peaceful country. I would consider myself very privileged, which doesn’t take away the fact that we all need food and that without the therapy I probably wouldn’t be alive or that yoga is a great practice. It’s just that not everyone is able to live this way, which honestly shouldn’t even be a thing.
We all deserve a safe and loving environment, healthy and sustainable food and the freedom and opportunity to pursue our dreams, sadly this isn’t the case. The sad fact is, that we live in a world which is in a constant state of war, where people are starving to death, while others throw away their food, and where equality is something we have to almost fight for to achieve.
It’s easy to start feeling guilty for the privilege you might have, I’ve been there as well, and sometimes still am, but honestly it shouldn’t. Being privileged could be an amazing gift to those who aren’t, depending on the way you use it. Only creating delicious recipes with the occasional use of some foreign or elusive and expensive products is not going to add anything for anyone but myself and maybe those fortunate enough to try these recipes. And although I try to stay away from this and mostly share plant-based recipes which are accessible to most this it’s still not taking full advantage of my privilege.
This is one of the reasons I started “beyond the kitchen” as a place where I could spread awareness and share more about important subjects such as mental disease and in this case privilege (I’ll also share some more yoga related posts sometime soon), all of this to spread the things that make my life a little more happy. This is also the reason why I’d love to give free yoga classes in communities where people might not be able to afford it or cook meals for people.
Feel free to check out the awesome work that is done to support those starving in Somalia. Something for Somalia.
What is comes down to is that those of us privileged should do the best we can to help those who aren’t. Wether this means joining a black lives matter protest, sending food to Africa or feeding the homeless, try to take advantage of the tools we’ve got because the money hungry and power thirsty world leaders aren’t going to do it for us, and no I’m not going to drop names.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” – African Proverb.
We should Unite, and share our gifts with our brothers and sisters. Of course you need to take good care of yourself first if you even want to be able to help anyone else. But those of us who do life a privileged life, we should share our privilege with all those who need it.
Look I’m not swimming in money, I hardly ever buy anything besides food because it is all I can afford in this moment, but one thing I do have which many others don’t is an opportunity. An opportunity to build something successful for myself and my family and I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t share this! Besides providing for other we might also be privileged by being able to contribute to the health of our environment and society. No matter how big or how small your contribution, let’s focus on what we can share, to improve our society and planet.
Now don’t get me wrong! I’m not telling you that you’re privileged or that you have to give up everything if you are. All I’m saying is that even though you might not be discriminated against, you could still support the black lives matter movement or support women’s rights. Or that even though you might not be homeless or starving you could try and help those who are. Maybe all you can do is occasionally help to make soup for the homeless, or teach a yoga class to those who can’t afford it, it really doesn’t matter what you do, as long as we use our privilege for something worth while.
What is comes down to is taking full advantage of our privileges so we’ll be able to create a world where hunger, war, oppression and constant states of fear are no longer a thing. You could own a castle with 20 rooms, while only using two, why not share the remaining rooms with those without a home?
For those privileged enough, let us make great use of this privilege.
One Love,
A.J.
Spicy Cheese Spread – w/ Raw Option
Cheese, for many one of the most difficult things to give when going completely plant-based. Personally I didn’t have much problem removing meat and eggs from my diet, but cheese was one of the things I missed for quite some time. Rest assured that this craving diet after about a couple of months, which isn’t very surprising because that stuff is addictive. Oh you thought I was joking? Well regardless of this being true or not, I’m staying away from it!
Although my cheese cravings have disappeared there’s always place for a cheesy spread, I even enjoy the occasional vegan cheese! I try to keep processed foods at a minimum so those are a rare treat, but this cheese spread is make using whole, (raw) food. I even tried fermenting it like a proper vegan cheese, but this is totally optional, and to be honest I still need to do some experimenting when it comes to making a proper fermented nut cheese, but know that it’s coming your way sooner or later.
I’ll be making a fully raw fermented cheese when I’ve mastered the fermentation process, but for now you can modify it to make your own fully raw version! you could make this raw by using raw garlic (or not). I’m not sure if pickled jalapeños are considered a raw food, if they’re not you could swap that for lemon juice, it does add a distinct flavour, but it’s totally optional! You could also leave out the smoked paprika to keep it fully raw.
You can eat it just as is, I left it out of the fridge overnight in a dark and warm (but not warm enough) place and it didn’t do too much with the flavour, but then again I still have to experiment further with fermenting nut cheeses. Regardless of what you’ll do the spread will be a flavour explosion.
These go great on some flax crackers or as a dip with some veggies, think cucumber and carrots (which I’m allergic to btw). Well enough blabber, you’ll just have to try them!
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Spicy Cheese Spread - w/ Raw Option
A savoury and cheesy spread great for on a flax cracker or as dip.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 3 tbsp kimchi liquid or sauerkraut
- 1 tsp garlic powder or 1 clove raw garlic
- 3 tbsp jalapeno liquid or lemon juice
- 5 pickled jalapenos (optional)
- 1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
Instructions
- Soak the cashew nuts somewhere between half an hour in warm water to overnight to make them soft. I soaked mine for half an hour.
- Drain the cashews and add them to a blender* (or food processor) Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
- The spread is pretty much done now, put it in a container and store in the fridge. You could to ferment it by storing it in a dark and warm place, which is what I did, but it's by no means necessary, and we'll go more in depth in the fermenting process in the near future! Enjoy!
Notes
- I used a nutri bullet blender jug, no fancy high speed blenders.
Baked Curry Sweet Potato Fries
This is one of those foods that almost anyone enjoys, I mean who doesn’t like fries? As much as I love fries, they don’t love me back, they’ll leave me feeling sluggish and heavy, I don’t actually like eating that much oil myself. But there’s a healthier alternative, baked fries, I’m pretty sure by now everyone’s familiar with these healthy fries, they’re just so good!
These sweet potato fries are quite simple to make and very satisfying to eat, but don’t worry, if you hate sweet potato you can easily sub them for regular potatoes, works just as well, they’ll even get a bit crisper. You could coat them with some corn starch to make them more crisp, but I don’t find that necessary when making these for myself. Also feel free to play around with the spices, you may or may not like the curry powder, swap it out for some smoked paprika or Italian herbs, the options are endless!
You can have these plain as is with some sauce (hmm sriracha) or you can go all the way and be extra like me by making cheesy sweet potato fries. All you need to do is wait till the fries are done and make a little pile, now cover this with your favorite vegan cheese and melt it in the oven. Now scoop them up and place them on a platter top with some pickled jalapeños and top it with something green which in my case turned out to be cress to make you feel like you’re eating something really healthy.
Now let’s show all those skeptical people vegans don’t only eat lettuce and carrots, which are both equally tasty by the way. Let’s get baking!
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Curry Sweet Potato Fries
Simple yet tasty oven baked sweet potato curry fries.
Ingredients
- 1 big sweet potato or three small/medium ones
- 2 tsp curry masala powder
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- drizzle extra virgin olive oil
- to taste sa;t
Instructions
- Start by cutting the sweet potato into sticks. Soak them in a bowl with water to remove some of the starch for about 30 minutes to a couple of hours if you're having them later on the day.
- Preheat the oven to 220 celcius or 430 farenheit. Rinse the potatoes and place them on clean kitchen or paper towels to completely dry.
- Now place the dry sweet potato in a bowl and toss them with the spices and drizzle it with some extra virgin olive oil. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and place the fries on top making sure there is space between each fry.
- After about 15 minutes you can remove the tray and flip the fries, now add them back to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes or until you get slightly burnt edges. Enjoy!
Tomato Bean Stew
You can never have enough bean stew recipes right? They’re not only delicious and combined with rice a perfect protein, but they are also very nice to prep for days ahead! This batch gave me about three big meals, so perfect for those evening when you’re just a bit to tired to cook. Beans and rice are also quite cost-effective meals, just add whatever veggies you prefer and you’ve got yourself a perfect dish!
These type of meals are also great for those people who stress about proteins, just eat some rice and beans.
You can play with this recipe to make it your own, for this batch I used carrots to add a bit of sweetness, but why not try adding (sweet) potatoes, peas, or corn? Maybe you don’t have kidney or black beans on hand, no problem, you can use whatever bean you have on hand or prefer! Cilantro might taste like soup to you, don’t worry you can add whatever herb you like, try adding some parsley or basil. Well you catch the drift right, just have fun with it!
You can use this bowl as a little inspo for how to have to serve this dish, but just adding it over rice (find recipe for unicorn rice here) and maybe some spinach will be good enough for me. You could also eat it with some flatbread or stuff them inside some potatoes if you’re feeling adventurous!
You could even use it as a spread on some hearty flax crackers, there are no rules when it comes to how you have your food, right!?
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Tomato Bean Stew
A hearty and spicy tomato and bean stew.
Ingredients
- 1 can kidney beans
- 1 can black beans
- 7 cloves garlic
- 1 red onion
- 1 big carrot
- 1 small knob ginger grated
- 2 cups tomato pureé
- 1 chili pepper
- 2 cups water
- 1 tbsp curry masala powder
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 handful cilantro
Instructions
- Start by sauteing the onion and garlic for about 5 minutes over low/medium heat. After this you can add the carrots and cook for another 2 minutes before adding the remaining ingredients.
- Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for about 30 minutes to an hour. Enjoy over rice or with some flatbread.
Simple Hearty Flax Crackers w/ raw option
It’s been two weeks of zero alcohol which means it’s time for the second fase of my body reboot! We’re getting rid of gluten!! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not allergic, but intolerant, or at least that’s what my body has been telling me. The main reason I’m removing gluten is because I want to get rid of my eczema and gluten is a common trigger, I refuse to take any pharmaceutical creams, so we’re going holistic. Two weeks from now I’ll also remove processed sugars and I’m doing these little steps of two because I came up with this theory that it’ll make this whole transition more easy, especially since last time failed!
Now with this little backstory you might not be surprised with the fact that I’ll be sharing a recipe for flax seed crackers, right!? I may be avoiding wheat crackers, but trust me I’ll not give up on these crunchy vehicles for delicious toppings and spreads, instead I’ll go for a more healthy option. Besides being super crunchy and delicious they are also very simple, and cost effective to make.
This recipes is super easy, what it comes down to is throwing everything into a bowl, placing it on a baking tray and removing all the moisture to create crisp and hearty crackers. These can even be made raw by adding them in the dehydrator for a couple of hours, until they’re completely dry.
Stay tuned for some delicious (raw) vegan spread recipes coming your way so we can all have our own flax cracker party! Now let’s get baking, we want to bake these with love so they’ll take a little longer, so we better get started sooner than later!
For the time being you can try to eat them with this black hummus.
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Hearty Flax Crackers
A great gluten free alternative for deliciously crisp and healthy hearty crackers.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup ground flax seeds
- 1/2 cup whole flax seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 cup water
Instructions
Oven Baked
- Preheat your oven to 125 celcius or 250 farenheit. I started with one cup of flax seeds and ground half of those in my blender (but feel free to use just ground or just whole seeds). Add these to a bowl with the the remaining dry ingredients and mix well. Now add the water and let it sit for about 15 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed, mix it well.
- Now add the mixture to a parchment paper lined baking tray making sure its spread fairly thin, the thinner the crisper, just make sure it's not too thin, you shouldn't be able to see pieces of parchment paper. now bake it for about 30 minutes (or until semi dry), now take them out and score them with a knife or spatula to create the cracker shape, now put them back in the oven.
- Once they've become fairly dry you can try to flip them so the bottom can become dry as well. It's very important that the crackers are super dry, this will make them very crunchy and makes them keep for about a month (if stored in an air tight container). Once completely dry remove them from the oven and let them cool completely before storing. The cooking time for this greatly depends on your oven, moisture and climate, so think of somewhere between an hour and a half to 2 hours.
Raw
- You can even make these raw by adding them to a food dehydrator, just let them dehydrate for a couple of hours, until all the moisture is gone.
Let’s try #6: Sweet Potato Blondies By Lisa Goes Vegan
If you thought I’d only be trying out vegan products guess again! Since I’m a huge foodie and love trying new recipes I would be selfish to keep these gems all to myself, right!? Let’s kick this off with one of my latest obsessions, sweet potato blondies. The recipe comes from lisa goes vegan, I’m pretty sure my dutch readers are well aware of her gorgeous blog!
Lisa is a dutch blogger who writes about the many aspects of veganism, she shares delicious recipes, vegan hot spots, thought on certain topics and did I mention she just published her first book! Yup this is a real power woman. If you don’t read dutch I encourage you to try and translate this recipe, It’s worth the effort, think of it as a scavenger hunt!
I came in contact with Lisa a while back during a vegan breakfast taste test and later at a vegan brunch by the two amazing sister from go with the glow, which is where the picture below of me and Lisa was shot. You’ve probably already seen it in a older post. I told you I love food, look at me stuffing my face.
Besides being an awesome blogger I found Lisa to be an awesome human being, really passionate about spreading a more loving and less cruel lifestyle.
Me and my mom fell in love with this recipe, and I had to quickly put them aside so we could save some for my grandparent as they make a perfect snack for them. They’re free from processed sugars, oil, gluten free and of course vegan! You can’t have only one, which is the exact same reason I had to hid them.
I hoped you enjoyed this post, the recipe was too good not to share, I’ll be sure to share more recipes by some of my favorite bloggers from around this world.
One Love,
A.J.
Creamy Sweet Potato Curry Soup
Soup, I can have it no matter the season, I’m a person who mostly craves warming and hot foods, so soups are almost always on the menu, and today I’ll be sharing one I simply adore. It’s so simple yet packed with so much flavour! Whenever I make this soup it ends up being a meal prep because one of the things I love about soups is that the flavours somehow get better with time, well until it starts smelling, then you should toss it, but it never comes to that!
It’s also freezer friendly, just throw a batch in the freezer and forget all about it!
Another reason why I love soup and especially this one in general is that every time I make it, it tastes different, in a good way of course. You can also add additional spices live cumin, or garam masala, maybe some herbs if you prefer. Just like many of my other recipes I highly encourage you to experiment, how much fun is that!? But don’t feel pressed to do so, the soup as it is works just perfectly.
Now when it comes to serving this soup I sometimes like to go a little bit overboard. Pictured below you can see I topped it with some of my raw vegan purple “sriracha” hot sauce, chopped cilantro, peanuts, nigella seeds and purple cabbage sprouts for some additional nutrients. Of course feel free to keep it plain and simple, this way I often enjoy it myself. Or simple topped with some nuts or seeds for some added texture.
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Creamy Sweet Potato Curry Soup
Ingredients
- 1 kilo sweet potatoes diced
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- 2 medium carrots diced
- 1 onion
- 1 bulb garlic or less
- 3 tbsp curry masala powder
- 1 tbsp cayenne powder or whatever pepper (powder) preferred
- 1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
- 1/3 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
Instructions
- Start by (water) sautéing your onion and garlic, after this add the remaining ingredients and top with enough water too cover all the ingredients. Now add two cups extra and a can of coconut milk.
- Bring the pot to a boil and let it simmer on low until the potatoes get soft. Blend with an hand mixer (immersion blender) or in a regular blender in batches, just make sure when blending hot soup the blender it isn't airtight or it can explode, we don't want that! Enjoy!
Purple “Sriracha” Hot Sauce – Raw Vegan
“Raw vegan sriracha?”, “And what’s up with the colour?” Are some of the questions I’m come to mind to some of you, well let me answer those! First of all I love cooked sauces, I adore them, but since my body is giving me signs (eczema) that something’s off I am trying to eat as “clean” as possible. To be honest I don’t even know what that means anymore, to eat “clean”, but one thing that comes to mind are raw foods, so even though I won’t be going fully raw or raw for a month, I will be implementing more raw foods into my diet, which is why this is a fun play on sriracha, but them raw. And if you’ve been following me for a while you might know I have a thing for colour, so that’s why it’s purple!
For many of us sriracha has become a staple, sorry ketchup you’re just ain’t spicy enough, or at all! The thing with sriracha though is that even though I’ll still be using it occasionally I believe that making your own (whatever it is) is always the healthier option.
This sauce can be made as hot as you please, I like mine extremely hot, but know not everyone will enjoy this kind of heat, so I used rawit peppers (aka bird’s eye chili) instead of adjuma peppers in this one, even though adjuma is my fave. The rawit peppers are a bit milder in heat (I still added 4 though) but feel free to add however much you can tolerate, maybe try using chili peppers, which are traditionally used in sriracha. You can also chose to skip the purple cabbage if you don’t care for colour, I mean the cabbage definitely doesn’t add to the taste. Having said that I don’t find it an unpleasant taste, and it does add some nutritional value, and that colour, I love it!
As you can see I used it as a topping for one of my rainbowl, which by the way are a staple in my diet, if you haven’t noticed yet. Since I don’t want to get bored with eating them I create a different (raw) sauce to go along it almost every week, click on these links for the miso/beet sauce or peanut sauce. There will be many more where these came from! There’s something so fulfilling about eating a vibrant and colourful food, yup these kind of meals are good for body, mind and soul!
Don’t get intimidated by the noodles you can find a super easy recipe for those noodles, over here and whatever else to add, that I leave up to you. Let your imagination run wild!
Let me know if you liked the recipe in the comments below and if you decide to recreate this dish feel free to tag me on Instagram as I’d love to see your creations, and find me on Facebook!
One Love,
A.J.
Purple Sriracha - Raw Vegan
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw cashew nuts
- 2 cloves garlic
- 4 rawit peppers or whatever, however much pepper you prefer
- 1/4 cup purple cabbage roughly diced (kinda optional)
- 1 date or two small dates
- 1/2 lime juice
- 1/4 tsp nigella
- hot water
- to taste salt
Instructions
- Start by soaking the cashew nuts, I forget to soak them ahead of time so always do a quick soak by adding the cashew nuts to my bullet blender, adding just enough hot water to cover the nuts, letting them soak for 15 minutes. In the meanwhile you can do the dishes or something else.
- After the 15 minutes I add the remaining ingredients and blend it until smooth. I also add about 3 small splashes of hot water, one splash at the time until I reached my desired consistency. Keep it in your fridge, It should stay good for at least a week. Enjoy!
