Third Time's A Primavera

Ok so it's not spring (primavera), but it sure felt like it today. Maybe it was borderline November, but I like spring better, and the vegetables right now are more liken to spring. I think the bears are still starving, I saw one at the market today busking for berries but his rendition of Hamlet was closer to Edward Scissor Hands so he wasn't making much coin. Yes - I'm complaining about the weather on my food blog.

Despite the cold rain, the market was once again super awesome and it inspired me to make a raw pasta primavera for dinner. Check it out cold cats:

As usual, the measurements are anyone's guess... mostly my guess.
White Sauce:
1.5 cups truly raw cashews, soaked for an hour or so to soften
the juice from a few stalks of celery (run some celery through a juicer, use about 1/4 cup of the juice)
a splash or 2 of chardy, or any white wine you might be drinking to warm up
one very small shallot (about a tablespoon finely chopped worth)
a dash of fresh lemon juice and a wide thumbnail sized piece of lemon rind
lots of himalayan sea salt to taste
a dash of fresh ground pepper

Blend all these things in a high speed blender with some of the cashew soaking water until it is creamy, medium thickness. I made mine a bit thinner than I normally would have but it worked out nicely - the dish was fresh and summe- er.. springy.

The Rest:
one gigantic yellow zucchini (check the size of this, bigger than my forearm!) shaved with a veg peeler or made into your fave style of noodle if you have a spiral slicer (personally, I give up on my spiral slicer, it kind of sucks). don't use the middle with the seeds, it doesn't make very sturdy noodles.



Place the shaved zucchini in a colander, sprinkle with plenty of sea salt and toss. Let sit for half of an hour. Squeeze the moisture out of the zucchini noodles by grabbing a handful and, well, squeezing.

Thinly slice some white onion, bell pepper and halve some grape tomatoes. Toss with olive oil and sea salt and place on a dehydrator screen for about an hour at 115 or so. If you go higher in temperature for an hour (about 145 degrees), apparently it won't heat the food up but will dry it faster so go nuts. Doesn't this photo look like a bad 80's photo from a sandwich counter in a food court?


The Assembly:
oh I forgot, shuck some fresh peas that you just bought at the market. A few handfuls will do.
place the squeezed noodles, peas and some of the cashew cream sauce in a bowl and toss well to coat. Put it onto some plates and add the rest of the 'wilted' dehydrator vegetables. Garnish with something nice like an oregano leaf, or kale chips, or both.
Don't forget more fresh pepper.

If you have truffle oil, this would probably be a good time to use it - just thought of that - post meal of course. I love truffle oil.

If you have other nice fresh veg on hand like asparagus add it to your wilted veg pile.

Yum!


As for the market, I turned to my friend and said 'you know, I could be happy just designing chocolate labels forever' - and I was serious. I was up till 4am because I forgot that my 2 new white chocolate flavours (lavender peach & wintergreen vanilla) needed labels. I wonder if I wasn't so delirious at 4am if I would have thought of such great titles. If you are wondering, the 'clean' in the 'peachy clean' comes from lavender being often referred to as something people would use in the shower, not in the kitchen - just in case my 4am wit outsmarted anyone. Does anyone know the inspiration for 'A Midwinter's White Cream'?






I will post the Peaches & Cream Pie recipe soon, it sold out today, first time I've ever made it - stoked!

Also, if you need to email me: julie@lookcreative.ca

Fin.

Sweet Seconds

Sweet Seconds fo sho! Number two farmer's market was truly a raw success. I sold out of wraps, crackers and fruit rolls by about 1pm!
You know... it really makes me happy to feed people and make them happy... is that lame? I'm glad I can introduce raw food to people who eat a standard american diet and they don't turn their nose up and say "ugh why would I want to eat that", they say "wow, I'll take another one of those".

I'm not trying to convert people, just trying to make people realize that real food can be some of the best stuff ever. I'm not crazy for eating the way I do, I swear (%$^&).

So many friends, after trying my food have said "you know, when I think about what you eat I think you must have the most bland food on the planet, but now that I've tried your food, it's awesome!" - and I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, that would be weird, maybe I'm just happy that I'm not actually crazy, and I don't have defective taste buds.

A couple of cool things happened this week at the market. A 'chocolate fanatic' lady who was hesitant to buy my dark chocolate last week because it is $6/bar broke down and got one. This week she came back and said "I lost 10 mins of my life last week because I was in heaven, that is the best chocolate I've ever had in my life!" How awesome is that?!
The second thing is a couple of raw food eaters from Canmore came and bought some wraps, crackers, fruit rolls and chocolate and went off into the park. They came back about a half hour later and bought the rest of my wraps, fruit rolls and some more crackers and chocolate! They were so nice and I'm glad I could feed them.

I'm in full production mode right now, making lots more so hopefully I don't sell out mid-day next week.

Let me tell you a little about my food this week:
The fruit rolls were banana cinnamon w/ B.C. hazelnut and raw cocoa filling, apple strawberry orange w/ raw almond vanilla nut butter and B.C. cherry and cantaloupe w/ the same almond vanilla butter. Deadly good.

The wraps were the same and I also made my fave BBQ tomato & onion crackers. In an effort not to waste any of my pre-printed labels I ended up having the same graphics on the wraps label and the crackers label, how embarrassing haha, I changed the colours slightly but didn't have time to draw a new label for the mango onion wraps. Are you sleeping yet? Picture time.




I made a new body scrub with vanilla beans and spearmint + peppermint essential oils, I was really stoked on the package for this one. I drew a mint leaf, duplicated it and then drew a vanilla bean. I stuck the vanilla bean in the middle and blam, I had an unintentional butterfly. How girly. I love it.


The same blueberry rooibos 'blue suede brew' white chocolate was there and the 'some like it hot' chipotle cinnamon dark chocolate made an appearance.



I made pretty signs to draw more attention to the items on the table and to educate peeps about my stuff...



Ok so no recipe this week but next week I'll have some new things and will post a recipe. I can't give all my secrets away! Very exciting news though: I found a source for frozen ORGANIC young coconut meat in Vancouver and they do overnight shipping! I'm getting some shipped Monday- holy crap if you could see the smile on my face right now. Imagine all the possibilities...

Thanks for your support Banff & beyond, you're awesome!

Marketed

Hey Banff & Beyond,
I'm here to write about my super fun first day at the Banff Farmer's Market yesterday.

Remember I was complaining about the heavens trying everything in their power to make sure this is a bumpy ride? Well they did continue along that path (so like the heavens to stick to a path). I didn't get my cocoa butter and other ingredients until Monday night and packaging and nuts until Tuesday night! However, it turns out that if you politely tell the heavens that their path is a crappy path they will back down and things will work out. I think they were just happy to hear the dehydrator buzz die down.

After countless hours of designing labels, dehydrating, blending, mixing and singing along with Joel Plaskett I managed to get everthing done. Here are the results of my heavenly defiance.

3 fruit roll-ups with wild jungle peanut butter in the middle.


Banana Cinnamon Rolls
a whole bunch of bananas
vanilla bean powder/fresh vanilla beans
true cinnamon
blend all in food processor and spread on teflex, not too think but not too thin and dehydrate at 105 until dry and still plyable.
cut into 4-5 strips and cut those strips in half width wise.

Strawberry Apple Orange Rolls
Do the same as above, with 5 apples and 1lb of strawberries, 2 tbsp of ground chia seeds, vanilla bean and the zest of one orange.

Raspberry Pear Rolls
6 Pears, 1 pint of raspberries, 2 tbsp of chia seeds, vanilla bean, 2 drops of liquid stevia and lemon zest.
Do the same as the the previous 2 with dehydrating.

Jungle Peanut Butter
a couple cups of jungle peanuts, ground in a food processor till fine. Put them in a high speed blender with a touch of sea salt, agave nectar and melted coconut oil as needed to help it become smooth. If the butter starts to get too warm then stop blending and put it in a bowl in the freezer and try again when it has cooled. You don't want to heat the nut butter above raw!


When the fruit is finished dehydrating and you've cut it into strips then place some peanut butter on one side, spread out with a knife and make sure to keep most of it away from the edges. Roll fairly tightly and it will self-seal with the nut butter on the end.

I also made:
Orange Coffee Dark Chocolate + Wild Canadian Blueberry Rooibos White Chocolate

The checkered wrappers were supposed to be plain neutral but they were out of stock and I needed them ASAP. I think it looks kind of fun though. It will have to do because I have 2000 sheets of the stuff.



Grainy + Honey Mustards - so spicy



Onion + Mango Vegetable Wraps (w. Glen's Fruit Truck organic patty pan zucchini squash). These were the star of the show, they sold out! Looks like I'll be making more for next week.


Ylang-Ylang Essential Oil Body Scrub



Pumpkin-Less Pudding (seen on the right)



Overall I think the market was a success (in your face heavenly forces).

FYI all of my packaging is biodegradable and compostable! (minus the tape to attach them)

See you next week. I plan on having different flavours of chocolate and fruit rolls and some new goodies!

xo
Julie

Market Me

Hey fellow food eaters!
It is finally summer here in Banff and I'm getting really excited for the farmer's market that I will be a part of. Too bad the town, the health board and the cosmos are doing everything in their power to ensure it is a bumpy ride.
The market isn't a 'certified farmer's market' just yet so all food has to be made in a commercial kitchen, and if you want to give samples of your food you have to spend tons of money on containers that have lids and you need a hand washing station... so much for a simple market. Reminds me of life these days... helmet wearing laws for bikes and skateboards - our impossibly bubble-wrapped society. C'mon people, live a little, eat some food that has been created in your neighbors kitchen! If we lived in Cuba all we would have to do to get the flies off and sanitize would be to splash a little rum on the food. Then again the Cubans are just getting into cell phones so what do they know...

All bitching aside, I am looking forward to this. I have a bunch of things I want to make but am open to suggestions as well. Eventually I will be making my own stone-ground nut butters + raw nutella-type spreads, chocolate, mustards, coconut butters, etc., but the stone grinder I just bought and brought back from San Francisco this week broke on the plane so I have to wait for the airline to replace it. Luckily I'm really extra smart and know how to make chocolate and mustard sans stone grinder.


I think I will also make my favorite BBQ crackers

perhaps some 'green chips'

maybe some seasoned raw nuts like sour cream and onion almondspumpkin pudding/pie and maybe simple things like fruit leathers. Any suggestions?

I won't be selling glowfood at this upcoming week's market (July 6th) but I will be at the following one.

See you soon!