Cooking without meat, sugar, oil, diary and eggs?

For many people this probably sounds like a total science fiction because, come on, these are main ingredients in our daily diet for crying out loud!

Nah, I’m not into dieting every January for a better start of the year, you know, New Year resolutions and stuff of that kind. I don’t buy diet books and usually don’t do any dieting at all. I think my diet is balanced and we eat pretty much just healthy food. I cook using fresh ingredients with lots of organic vegetables, whole plant food and fruit every single day. So, there is no need to do any special diet at all (or at least I tought so).

But despite all that I’ve bought my first kind of a diet book. It’s called RAVE DIET & LIFESTYLE. My old friend, who just loves experimenting with healthy dishes of all sorts posted the link of this diet book on Facebook. I clicked on the link and the rest is history

I’m just so utterly impressed how simply this book explains the basic principles of eating. I mean seriously, dead easy! The video with the same name Eating is absolutely fantastic feature of the book. They both detail how to eat to achieve the best possible well-being and get this dream of an illness free body. And just sticking to the diet can solve so many “health issues” without any prescription drugs and doctors.

Ok, what kind of a diet is this?

• it’s a detox diet
• it’s a low-fat diet
• it’s a diet to lower cholesterol
• it’s a heart healthy diet
• it’s a high fiber diet
• it’s a low salt diet and
• it’s a diet to kill off cancer.

The author, Mike Anderson, claims that there is a relationship between diet and common diseases  (well, most of us already know this anyway), but the way he explains all this is truly revolutionary. All his claims are supported with medical references from most prominent doctors in the world and their research. Yes, I was totally impressed with all this but when I started reading recipes (there are almost 200 recipes in the book) my first thought was that there is no way everything will be so simple as he claims. But it is!

The book is very clear that if you want to  achieve the top state of your body you have to cut out all animal foods and refined food because both are high in fat, cholesterol, pesticides/toxins, saturated fat and hormones. Most of your normal ingredients should be replaced with whole plant food which is  full of fiber, low in fat – particularly saturated fat, containing low amounts of pesticides and toxins, with no hormones and very high in fiber and anti-oxidants.

By far the most important question for me was what if all these new dishes aren’t “edible”! Well you know, kind of yucky and stuff.

The only way to find out was to give it a try with one of these recipes. There is a really simple recipe for  Sweet potato fries and it seems a very safe and edible option for a start. Seriously, the result is mind-blowing! Absolutely delicious and something really new, at least to me.

Very soon I was braver and started cooking a bit wackier dishes including desserts. Gosh, how surprised I was and still am! So far everything has tasted really good. And you know what, I keep cooking these dishes until someone in the family says “OK, now that’s enough, give us some stake and proper chocolate cake” Though, all quiet on the western front so far!

The next thing you might ask is what the positive effects of eating this way are.

Hey, I’m not going to pretend and tell you that I’m healthier now, although I might well be but after 2 weeks of eating we all noticed some interesting changes. My digestion has improved  a lot, I’ve lost some weight, I’m feeling more energetic, we spend less money on food, washing the dishes has become much easier because there is no grease, my daughter who used to crave for chocolate has become less dependent on it and after every meal we all feel much lighter and not brain-dead full like we used to. That’s clearly enough for me to continue with all this and yes, I do experiment with recipes and include various other healthy ingredients as well as the original ones.

Here is one of my favorite dessert recipes from this book. You know, you actually don’t need to diet to eat this lovely dessert. It’s so delicious that you will want to eat it whether you’re dieting or not.

Chocolate pudding:

Makes about 2-3 cups

Ingredients:

• - 2 cups of water
• - 1/2 cup maple syrup
• - 4 tbsp cornstarch or cornflour
• - 3 tbsp cocoa
• - 1 tsp vanilla

Combine water, cocoa, maple syrup, cornstarch and vanilla in a saucepan. Whisk until smooth. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until pudding is very thick. Pour into individual serving dishes and chill. Sprinkle with chopped and roasted hazelnuts. I’m telling you, pure heaven.

http://www.ravediet.com/

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

2011 is finally here so now I can look back at the past year, draw the line and sum-up how good it actually was.

2010 was a  year  full of ups and downs. It was definitely marked by a difficult and very stressful pregnancy, though at the end everything went really well. So many worries for nothing but then again how could I possibly not be worried amidst all the warnings I got from the doctors! Worries aside, we are blessed with a lovely little boy who has brought heaps of happiness into our lives. My dear Marusa is no longer a little girl but a responsible “big sister” who wants to help her mum with everything. I was working really hard last year and my business has finally started growing. I can’t described my feelings when I opened the mail receiving my first cheque. I am totally dedicated and in 2011 my business will become a decent “money-maker”, period. It was a difficult year for Milan too. Demanding academic job, writing his first book, helping me with websites, inventing a product that will improve lives of so many people worldwide is  a lot of work for one man. It was also a year when we met new people, made new friendships and as a matter of fact a few old friendships were slipping away too.

So, did we do well?

Yes, we did well and I don’t regret absolutely anything. We were a bit tired and needed a few days off but in the same breadth I can’t wait to continue where we left everything two weeks ago. 2011 will be without any doubt the most important year for our family so far and I’m really excited about all the adventures it will take us through.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2011! Let it be adventurous and successful for all!

Love Dominika, Milan, Marusa, Oliver and Fluffy

Roasted duck for Christmas? Oh yeah!

Christmas is over, we are in 2011 and all has been good. Turkey was out of the question because honestly it doesn’t taste very good anyway so I was preparing myself to surprise the family with a nice little duck instead. The meat is really tasty and you can either make it deliciously crispy or scrumptiously tender so that it simply just melts in your mouth. That’s exactly what I wanted to achieve but I’ve never roasted a duck before. No fear, there are plenty of recipes on the internet and creating your own variety is really easy. A few amendments and you’ve got a completely new recipe, voila. There is one particular element that I love when it comes to roasting chicken or duck or any other bird that is, and that is filling. You can do so much with the filling. It can be a side dish, it enriches the gravy and after all you can use it as an ingredient for some other dishes the day after. Of course the filling also adds a blend of flavours to your meat so if you ask me, it really is indispensable. Here we go, this is what I did and let me tell you something, you can definitely do this, it’s so easy.

First you take some basic ingredients that by themselves water your eyes just by looking. Ah well, yes, onions will do this pretty much anyway but you know what I mean. A nice little round Brambley cooking apple, one small red onion, about 6 or 7 slices of parma ham (i.e. prsuto) and some ciabatta bread (roughly the same size as the apple) will do, and this is just about right for a 2kg duck (roughly 4lb).

Basic ingredients for the roasted duck filling

Next, cut the apple into pieces and sprinkle with about 1 tsp of ground cinnamon. In a separate bowl, break the bread into pieces, add 1/2 cup of cold milk, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of ground parsley (freshly chopped is even better), 1tsp of oregano and 6oz of greek style yoghurt. You may substitute half of the yoghurt with soured cream and experiment with other ingredients as well. It’s pretty much down to your imagination and taste. I have also added 1 tbsp of dark red wine.

Cut the apple into pieces and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Add yoghurt, milk and soured cream to bread pieces to soften them up and create thick paste.

Onion and parma ham added to the paste.

Once all this is done you need to mix apples with the thick paste and stuff this fabulously rich mix into the duck. Many websites advise sewing the duck up but I was honestly too lazy for something so elaborate and used 5 toothpicks instead to prevent the filling to flow out of the duck uncontrollably. Yes, some of it will inevitably come out but that will just enrich the juices in the tray.

The duck itself needs very little preparation. I left it in the fridge overnight to be completely defrosted and then sprinkled with a generous amount of salt and rubbed in 4 cloves of crushed garlic. Once stuffed with the filling, the duck needs to be placed on a wire rack that sits on top of a medium deep tray filled with 1 cup of water and 1/2 a cup of  red wine. Pre-heat the fan oven to 325F (~160 Celsius) and roast your lovely duck for about 1 hour. Take it from the oven and brush it generously with a beer-honey mix (1 cup of beer plus 1 heaped tbsp of honey). Put it back into the oven and roast for another 45 minutes. Take it out again and brush it generously with the remaining beer-honey mix (use it all). Put it back into the oven again and roast for another 15 minutes. The skin will turn dark brown but don’t worry that doesn’t mean you have burnt it, that’s simply the way it should be! You may use a skewer to check whether meat is sufficiently tender but as a general rule 1kg corresponds to 1 hour of roasting so a 2kg duck requires 2 hours of roasting.

Roasted duck just taken from the oven (you can see filling on the right).

At this point I spooned the filling out of the duck and mixed it with the sauce in the tray, added 1/2 cup of red wine and baked all this for another 15 minutes before serving it with the duck and freshly made salad. Some of the filling was then used the day after for tortilla wraps but I will write about this some other time. My girls loved my creation and I was impressed as well. It wasn’t so much about my skills at all. I was genuinely surprised how simple everything is and how much better duck is than turkey! It doesn’t take much time, it’s not rocket science and its meat is so delicious. I am now absolutely convinced roasting a duck is just about for everyone so don’t shy away next Christmas and try this simple recipe yourself. Enjoy!

UK snowfall disruptions – oh, come on!

I woke up on Saturday and immediately realised playing basketball to the full after a year of inactivity leaves some sore muscles but just a quick glimpse through the window cheered me up only to start thinking whether we’ve done our shopping yet and worrying how on earth are we going to drive in these arctic conditions. Well, excuse me Milan, wake up!!! For crying out loud, you come from Slovenia where two feet of snow is a matter of winter fairy tale not misery and worries! What has happened to you to become such a softy?

Well, it all started when we moved to the UK where people just love talking about weather. It’s not that others wouldn’t do that too but Brits just cannot help themselves but slag off their weather regardless of the conditions. Just a few simple examples will be more than enough to tell you what I mean: “It’s sunny today.” will be turned into “It will be raining for the rest of the week!”, “It’s nice to see rain after a period of dry spell!” will be turned into “Another miserable summer ahead of us!”, or perhaps “We finally get a proper winter.” becomes “It’s so cold and miserable, and there will be severe disruptions again.”.

Oh, come on people! In my personal opinion Britain has got one of the best climates ever. It’s never too cold, it is never too hot and you get a bit of everything throughout the year. Could you possibly ask for more? I mean, it’s ideal!

As for the snow, the national obsession with the weather becomes something of a Bruce Willis style Hollywood movie. “Severe weather warning”, “arctic conditions” and “big freeze” are just some of the juiciest headlines the media use. Yes, media are the first to be blamed for the hysteria surrounding winter conditions. They make an inch of snow look like Siberia and a foot edges on Armageddon. The end of the world is nigh kind of behaviour… Another winter like this and I wouldn’t be surprised if there won’t be some talk about global freezing.

People themselves are the second in the row. Sometimes I even get a feeling bad conditions are taken as a good excuse to skive… First of all, you just have to adjust to snow and people shouldn’t blatantly expect that it will be business as usual. Trains will be delayed, traffic will be slower and even walking will be more difficult but that shouldn’t bring the country to a standstill, it’s just about adapting to different conditions, nothing else. Wake up earlier, leave earlier, drive slowly, be patient and smile. These are the phrases of the day but there will always be some disruption, just don’t make such a fuss about it.

There is also one more condition for trouble-free winter journeys. Be prepared! If you travel frequently during winter months and regularly face snow and ice then investing in a set of softer winter tyres with a deeper thread is a must. They enable far superior grip on snow but you will need chains or something similar for icy conditions. In general I suggest that you always have a folding shovel, chains, car door locks deicer, a small broom, a blanket and use windscreen washer with antifreeze during winter months.

What about public transport then? Ah well, it is pretty much the usual. Main roads should be gritted and snow ploughs should be used if there is more than 4 inches of snow on the roads. Buses normally cope quite well in winter because their engines and driving axles are in the back which makes driving in snow far easier in comparison to front-wheel front-engine cars. Trains on the other hand should not feel any disruptions up to about a feet of snow. However, I noticed that in Britain trains are not equipped with front plough attachments so they need a special train ploughs or even heated tracks as tremendously expensive alternatives. OK, super fast trains do need heated tracks but how many such trains do we have here? Eurostar is the only one that I am aware of. Supermarkets should hire ploughs to clean the parking, and everyone should take a shovel and clean the front of their houses (a bit of free exercise!). Airports on the other hand should have heated runways and plenty of deicers (for deicing aircraft wings and fuselage).

Here you go, some investment for airports and train operators, a small change for everyone else and even if only 10% of people would respond as I explained above, we wouldn’t face nowhere near as much disruption as we do now. You think this is expensive? Thinks again! I mean, how much have the winter disruptions cost Britain in the past 3 years? Everyone of us should do a little bit, that’s all there is. Oh yes, and I need to start playing basketball every week from now on to avoid walking around like Herr Flick!

Enjoy the winter folks!

Not so ordinary Birthday party

On Saturday I went to a party! It was a reptile party with like lizards and iguanas and well …….

SNAKES! Is it just me or did I have a snake around my neck ?!! I love snakes but my mum doesn’t like them!  Oh and I forgot ( silly me) there were also a hermit crab and a scorpion. I liked the hermit crabs shell, it was pretty ! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10o  sorry, I think I was counting sheep hee hee hee! Here is a song: one snake is in a struggle another tied a not, the 3rd one is so springy hippy hop! Wow that’s a good song I made it up!