What's new ??

Dani and I have been so busy getting things ready for all of you to see !!!

I finished writing the 5 day mini e-course. Wow! My first e-course, and I think you will really benefit from the simple, yet powerful principles in it.

Then, there is the Recipe Book!! Yup, you have been asking for months for a recipe book, and I have been working on it in so many ways. This week it is all the recipes went into the book ! Hurray! So it is one step closer to you.

The name of the new book changed a few time, the last two names were : 50 Simple Everyday Raw Recipes and by the end it turned into 55 Simple Everyday Raw Recipes because we kept coming up with ones we thought you would love, and use often. We did not want to leave those out.

Dani has been doing all the technical aspects of the business lately to bring these two new projects to you faster than I could ever do. SO grateful to have her be part of my life.

There are a few MORE new things !

Some little mousse cakes we made !

The name of Nosh In with Chef was so 'right' at the time when I chose it but now, there is SO much more to what I do, AND I have Dani working with me. So it has been changed ! We will launch the new name, website , book and 5 day mini e-course all very soon !

There are a couple of other very exciting things up our sleeves too ! Lots of nights awake spent on the computer, recipe developing, and creating new ways to offer a better way of living in so many ways to you.

Stay tuned for more info ! I wanted to keep you updated on all the excitement around here.

Raw Blackforest Cake

Oh boy.. I had been waiting ALL winter for this time of year! It finally happend!! Cherries, cherries, cherries! What a bumper Crop we have had !!

So, in honour of all that cherry goodness,, I did something I have wanted to do for a LONG time!

I made a Raw Blackforest Cake.

Dani and I are trying some new techniques we are learning through the Sweet Gratitude book. The raw dessert book from the Cafe Gratitude people. Amazing book!

It is so exciting to learn and grow. Seeing the process evolve into something you could only have dreamed of is a thrill that I am happy to say I know well now.

This cake took a long long time to make. It was many stages, and waiting times. Honest, it was a 5 hour process for us this time! Maybe we were tired that day, or maybe there were just a lot of steps and experiments going on. Not sure. But it was worth the effort.

Enjoy the beauty of this splendid cake.. it tasted as good as it looked.

ps. The cherries with the stems were from the neighbourhood. I found the tree on a local walking path.. yum!

Banana Split

Last Thursday we had a class on making Raw Banana Splits at Planet Organic in Victoria BC.

The class was awesome!!

We had many people return from other days, and had some new people who came up to me and said..

 " EJ, we were told to come to these classes because they are SO good!! I Loved your class.. thank you !"

I must admit, I find it spectacular when people get so much good out of my classes, that they want to share them with others!  

Here are some pictures of the LIKENESS of the Banana Split we made! We were so busy teaching and showing that we forgot to take pictures.

The next day, I made this one at home.. we don't happen to have any banana split bowls. So I used what we had. A martini glass!

It was a super hot day here on the Island, and the ice cream started to melt pronto! 

This one is made with 

Strawberry Ice Cream

Fresh Raspberry Coulis

Chocolate Sauce

Chopped Walnuts 

and 

A fresh Cherry

It was sooo good. I did not even finish the photo shoot of it before I started to eat up the chocolate coating, which got all crunchy and yummy! 

Raw Banana Split Class

Tomorrow Is BANANA SPLIT DAY

The plans are all in place
Chef EJ ( ME!) will be teaching this class with my lovely assistant Dani to help out .
Thurs. July 16
6:30 -7:30 pm
Planet Organic
Mckenzie Ave and Quadra St.
Victoria BC

You will learn how to make a scrumptious guilt free... RAW Banana Split
These Recipes will be shown at the class and you will be given the print outs of them too!

Super Fast and Easy Chocolate Ice Cream
Chocolate Sauce
Raspberry Coulis

So tell all your friends, and Join us at this FREE class! YUMMY!!!!

Treasures to be found !!

I have been taking the time to really get to know my neighbourhood by foot the last few weeks.

Since I live in an area where there are many coves, I have been finding the very coolest flowers and places.

These beautiful Lavender I used to make some Lavender Cashew Creme. I did not use very much lavender, but boy! How supremely strong they are in a bit of creme! Especially when just picked.

I took the picture by a cove that I found at the dead end of a street. Getting down the rocks so I could be closer to the water was pretty tricky. As it turned out, there were so many bushes with prickles on them towards the water, ( and a pretty steep drop off) .. .I just decided to stay up where I was! You can see how beautiful it is though.

The Pink Flowers are from the Motherwort Plant. These are the only motherwort I have seen in Victoria. I was talking to a friend at the a raw pot luck recently, and she said she had found some here. Confidently, I told her it was the wrong climate on the west coast for it. She was pretty adamant, and I look silly now! Thanks Dianna,, for setting me straight!Motherwort used to grow like a weed in our garden when we lived in Toronto! Actually , many people think it IS a weed! And my neighbour there suggested I keep the kids away from it, because he was SURE it was stinging nettle. But it has very powerful medicinal properties for helping women before and after childbirth as well as other stages of a woman's life.

You can read more about the amazing benefits of it here

Very Tall and spiky , thistles are either blooming or just about to bloom as you can see in this picture here.

There are a number of varieties of thistle, sow thistle, bull thistle and Milk thistle to name a few. I don't know what this one is exactly, but it was pretty! Please comment and let me know!

The fantastic orange flowers are from the Nasturtium plant. You can eat the petals. My daughter tried them the other day, and very carefully tasted one petal. Her discovery ? Pretty spicy!! They are great to add colour to salads.

I thought the white parts of the leaves looked liked stars!

Have a walk around your neighbourhood, see what you can find!

Then, come and comment on what you have found. Share with the rest of us.

Making Cookbooks....and other goals!

My little 5 year old daughter and I are on a similar path... we are both making our own cookbooks. Hers is awesome. She has stapled a few pages together and is making recipes out and getting us to print them for her on the pages.  Yesterday she made a new recipe and named it 'Magnificent Food of the world!'  How can I beat that ????

It is amazing to me how she has such an innate talent for making food. She knows just the right things to put together to make something taste great. Rarely is the times she has put ingredients together that do not match up. I am so impressed. I learn so much from her about so many things! 

I have taken photos of her making food, and the food she has made. It is all raw, and mostly desserts. It will be so much fun to have it out in the public and show that when it come to creating food, it is an ageless activity. You do not have to be a teenager, adult , middle age or senior to create beautiful food. You can be 3, 4 or 5 even!! My little one started creating at 3. I only feel sad I did not write down what she did then.  But I do have a lot from being 4 and 5. 

My cookbook is equally fun to do!  I love creating, and eating the creations I make. I have such a blast in taking the photos for them, and now playing with them to edit them.. I am sooo lucky! To do what you love is so great!!!

 I was sooo excited about all the great projects I have been working on that I stayed up to 6 am doing some of them last night. ( or this morning) Having so much enthusiasm to create something you love is the best thing ever. I have more projects that I have thought about the last day or so that I have wanted to work on in the last few years, but put them on hold. Today, I started to think more about those too....

I thought I would share with you what they were.. so that I can 'get it out there'.

Ok.. here it goes!!!

1. Make a raw food cookbook
2. Make raw chocolate for sale , to anyone who wants it. Get it on a website, in stores, in markets.  I have made some already and people have loved it so much! 
3. Make a regular newsletter.
4. Make a raw bakery that sells desserts in my city, and maybe even sell them online. I am not sure about that yet. A raw bakery is something I would LOVE to do.. I love Love LOVE making desserts. So maybe a raw Cakery is more like it!! 
5. I have started to design a new website for Inspired Joy Photography. High Vibration photography that uplifts your vibration. Keep these inspiring photographs in your home, wallet, car, pocket, somewhere close to where you can see them always so that you feel joy and love and peace in your life! I am SO very excited about this! Photography is part of my life is such an intimate way, sharing these photos is in this way is as much a gift to me as I put them forth in the intention of which they were made. With love and connection to spirit.  I was inspired by Wayne Dyer on this recently, in his book the power of Intention. A MUST read!!!
6. Creating an online gallery where people can order the photos and have them printed, matted, framed and delivered all at the same place! It is such a great site!!! 
7. I need to find a Canadian Equivalent of this site, so the customers in Canada won't have to go cross border shipping. 
8. Teaching more classes and getting people to know they are available. So many people want to learn more about how to prepare food. Whole foods Vegan and Raw Vegan. There has been a process for me on this.. that there are people who want to learn how to make raw food, and vegan food. There are very few people that want to be 100% raw, but there are so many who want to learn how to introduce more raw foods into their life. So having the option, and teaching both gives people choices. 
9. Creating a community with people of all ages to come together to create art, food, and do something to help the community out. 
10. I have been dreaming of this for years and years. Within the last two weeks it is starting to take a bit more shape as more people want to become involved. I am so excited about this project too.. as it brings vulnerable members of our communities together to create stronger ties to each other and the bigger picture. Youth and Seniors are often left 'out' . Not feeling like they can make much of a difference, it is important to have everyone who wants to create to be involved. From community gardens, to markets, to learning and teaching, art and helping each other out in small and large ways. I think this is going to be so MAGICAL!!!! And so much darn fun too!!
11.  Having edible herb and wild green walks in the area and in the forest closeby. I live by a mountain and near the ocean. I know about wild greens, and love to share. However I think there is more to learn and today I asked a very learned friend in herbs and wild food if she would want to participate in the walks with me, and she said YES!!!
12. Creating loving, musical, artistic community that meets regularly to enjoy company, food and do what they love to do best! This is beginning to unfold too.. as I connect more with musicians and artists all over my city. It is so beautiful. I want it to happen faster, but I think it is happening just at the rate it is supposed to. ( though I am still impatient!!)
13.  The last birth I had was so incredible and so very different than most women have ever experienced or many women could even DREAM to happen, that I felt a true calling to share that such a birth was and IS possible. We often hear and see depicted in media of painful childbirth. It does not have to be that way. ( and I don't mean by drugs!! LOL) . I am not sure how I am going to get this info out there, but I know it will show up somehow.

I have 82 things on my list of things I would like to do... and these above, hmm.. 13 of them that I stopped at, what a great number! These are just ones that are strong and manifesting right now. There are more coming up.. I can feel it! 

I would love to hear how you are manifesting  your dreams, and wishes. What you want to happen in YOUR life. And how it is coming along... I feel so thrilled to see how this all comes to be. 

OH.. there is a HUGE one that I would love to see manifest sooner rather than later. A beautiful home for my kids and I to live in that is affordable, in our geographical area, and is all the things we dreamed of.  I have 4 kids.. this has made affordable housing something I still am looking to manifest. I know it is out there.. I just wish it would turn up somehow .. soon!!! 

10 is a big number....

Today was my daughter's 10th birthday. A day to celebrate and have fun! It was tough for her to decide on what to do, perhaps we have too many options these days. Some suggestions for outings were made, and it seemed that none were the right ones. A day at home, with the family, making crafts, hanging out, reading, a ' do nothing ' day was the right fit for her. How fantastic that after all the possibilities she chose the one that was keeping her most 'present'.

It was great to see her just doing her own thing. Real low key . Then her dad came over with presents... and everything changed!

We had planned the presents together, deciding on what would be the best thing, what she would enjoy the most, how she could get the most of the gifts that she did get. She chose to open the gift from her little sister first. ..... and I have to say, it was a great choice...for the girls.
A couple of weeks ago my girls and their dad and opa went to see High School Musical 3. According to them all 'it was fantastic! What a show!!'. So, based upon this wonderful, exciting and unbiased opinion, I thought it would be great for a music-theatre-loving newly-10- year- old to get the soundtrack. Forgetting, in the interm , that the PARENTS have to listen to the soundtrack. Again.. and again.. and again.. while little people dance, sing and insist on us watching ALL the routines!!

I am grateful for these little joys in life. And after a while of listening to the music, even more grateful for the 'off' button! I think it is payback... for all the times I did the same thing to my parents. At least that is what they tell me ( and warned me all my childhood: 'Just wait until YOU become a parent!).

Of course, some of the most important questions of the day were.."what do you want to eat for our special day ?" Cake. Carrot Cake. Pancakes. More Cake. Oh boy. Oh, and Ice Cream. What is a mom to do? I mean, it IS her birthday. So, I thought about it and said SURE!!! If you want Cake, then its cake you shall have!! ( I did not wind up making any ice cream though)

I was sure glad that over the years I have learned how to make a HEALTHY cake. Even MORE grateful that I have learned how to make Raw cakes as they are super healthy, everyone loves them, and it are easy to make.

So, today, my little darling had a TWO cakes .
The first cake made by her 5 year old sister, who wanted to get cake for breakfast. She made a sunflower seed goji coconut cake. Complete with beeswax candles.

As I was editing the photo for this blog, I remembered something very very special little sister did. She said... we have to do something MORE with this cake.. we have to give it LOVE. She insisted we do this together. So we wrapped our arms around the food processor and gave a group hug and lots of love to this cake. It made it so much more special. I talk often of the power of love. And how we need to put it in our food with intention. It is the magical ingredient that makes everything taste so good.



The 'main' cake that she wanted and talked about for days, weeks and months before her big day was a carrot cake. So I made her a suped up version. A Raw Carrot Cheezecake Layered with Whipped Cashew Cream. I made the recipe up as we went along, and it turned out fanastic!
Here is a photo of how it looked! ( and there is one at the top too). I piped some whipped cashew cream on the edges for flowers and the number 10 in the middle.


I made a batch of Goji Berry Pecan Fudge as a birthday gift. Knowing she would love it. She has never had the sugar loaded version that you can buy in stores or craft fairs. This was a HUGE treat. She was speechless when she tried it! How much better can you get than that???

I did make a dinner of non-cake first, before having the main course of cake.. lol. We had this amazing salad with greens, avocado, wakame, cucumber and red pepper, sprinkled with hemp seeds. I actually made two salads, one with wakame and one without. Turned out that everyone wanted the wakame in it , so I put the extra left from soaking into the other salad. It was so tasty, everyone had two servings before cake.

To top off the day, we went to see Madagascar 2. Boy, I don't remember laughing so hard at a movie EVER. It was great!! Better than the first one. There were only 6 people in the theater, including the 4 of us who went. I think we made up for the lack of audience size by laughing hard enough to fill the entire theater!

Foraging for Wild Greens

Today my new friend Shine and I went for a walk on the wild side.  We went to find some wild greens to add to our smoothies. He said he was interested in going for a walk with me to learn more about foraging for wild things. I am so happy to share this passion of mine with people and extra excited when someone actually ASKS me! 

I may be too enthusiastic about wild greens... or weeds,to some people.

 I get all fired up about how great they are ! They are fantastic source of nutrition,  full of minerals and vitamins, non gmo, non- hybridized, and  they have MORE nutrition than any green leafy vegetable you can find in the market, even organic ones!  Wild greens are hearty plants, they grow anywhere and will withstand conditions that cultivated plants will wilt and even die , under.  Best of all.. ( if all those fantastic above mentioned items are not enough) they are FREE!!!  At this point, some people's eyes glaze over and don't want to hear anymore about the weeds  as very often they are trying to eradicate them  from their yards and have no knowledge of the immense value they have. Though once educated, many people love the free food they now have access to.

 The only investment you make is time and learning what plants are safe to eat.   

 There are great resources online here is one that has a great list.. but does not have pictures readily available with the list. They give terrific information about each one. If you look up wild edibles on a search engine you will find many sites. 

When I go to look for plants to eat in the wild, I take a book along with me, I find this far simpler than trying to bring a computer. Books are more portable, I can add my 'finds'( which is a leaf of the plant) in between pages so I know that I have found them once before. This has helped me tremendously . Sometimes I think I don't know what a plant is and then I look in my book and discover that I have picked some in the past. It helps jog my memory. 

My very first book on wild edibles was called  Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants by Bradford Angier. I took this book everywhere with me for years. I lost my copy a few years ago, and this summer found one secondhand ! When I opened the book and started to read through it, I remembered why it was such an important part of my learning. It has so much great information. Pictures, different names to the same plant, what to do with the plant and where to find them are all included in each individual plant section. 

When I moved to BC I bought a copy of Guide to Common Edible Plants of British Colombia from the Royal BC Museum downtown.  This has been  a wonderful resource here as it is specific for where I live now. It is now full of leaves and scribbles about the plants.  

Today we found some chickweed , dandelions, clover , stinging nettle, and as a bonus ( but not green) some Rose hips. 

Rosehips are very high in Vit. C.  You can make a tea out of them, or dry them and grind them up to a powder in a coffee grinder and use as a vit. c supplement. You can also put them in your smoothie. Rosehips are the seeds that are on the rosebush after the rosepetals fall off. They get more nutritious after a hard frost.  Only pick ones that have not been sprayed. 

Only pick greens that you know for certain have not been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. 

There is so much more about Wild Greens I can say, but I will keep posting about them in the future, as not to overwhelm you now. ( are your eyes glazing over yet??? )

So you may be asking now what am I going to do with all these greens that I found? 

Make a smoothie of course!!! 

Here is a recipe for a green smoothie . You can put any kind of greens in it you like. The fruit takes the 'greeny' flavour away that many people don't like. A good rule of thumb to start off with when you are just beginning to drink these powerhouses of nutrition.. is 60% fruit and 40 % greens. As you get used to it, and develop a love of all things green, you can add more greens to your smoothie. 

Wild Green Smoothie

2 cups  wild greens ( stinging nettle, clover, chickweed, plantain etc.)

1 banana (frozen makes it creamier) cut up 

2 apples cut up

2 cups water

ice if wanted colder

Put all the ingredients in a blender . Blend on high until smooth.

 

And to finish this post off.. one cannot talk about green smoothies with a mention to Victoria Boutenko and the Raw Family. They have made such contributions to the Raw Food Community. Check out Victoria's Book Green For Life. I refer to it all the time! 

I have learned so much from reading her books and going to her talks. 

 

Avocado, Sunflower Sprout and Pepper Salad

Yesterday there was the start of a sale on one of my favourite foods.. avocados!!! Lucky for me they were the really big ones at 4 for $5.oo, so I bought 8 of them. Today I decided to make a scrumptious salad out of 1 of them,, and then there were 7... then my daughter 'found ' one somewhere in by the fireplace, and claimed it. Now there are 6... this is beginning to sound like a math lesson!
I have been wondering HOW it wound up by the fireplace, and how exactly she found it there. Some will forever be a mystery to me.

My girls and I decided to go on an adventure to the library, we walked the 3 km one way and took the bus back home. It took us three hours ! We did get some great books and in one little market I found some Sunflower Sprouts, so I made some lunch when we got back. Just when I was about to serve it, their dad showed up and scooted them away on another adventure. I was not worried about them being hungry, they had been eating lots of fruits and veggies while we were out.
Since the girls went out with their dad, and I got to enjoy the entire dish on my own! yummy!!

Here is what makes this salad so healthy for us...

Sunflower Sprouts: Rich in Chlorophyll, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, protiens and amino acids!

Peppers: Red, Orange and Yellow peppers

The sunniest tones yield the highest concentration of antioxidant carotenoids. One small red, yellow or orange pepper provides three times the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C—way ahead of citrus. Red peppers stand out as one of the few foods that contain lycopene, a carotenoid which lowers the risk of various cancers, including prostate and cervical cancer. These crimson packages are also packed with beta-carotene, converted to vitamin A in the body and essential for night vision. Nature’s best source of zeaxanthin, a compound known to protect against cataracts and macular degeneration, can be found in orange peppers. * from the website www.thefoodpaper.com

Wakame: A seaweed. All seaweeds are rich in minerals, and can be a very valuable part of our diet.

Avacoado: Rich in B vitamins in addition to Vit. E and Vit. K . Avocados have more potassium than bananas. As well as the highest fibre content of any fruit.

Avocado Sunflower Sprout Wakame Salad

1 Avocado
1/2 Orange Pepper
1/4 cup dry wakame seaweed
2 cups Sunflower Sprouts

1. Soak the dry wakame in 1 cup of water. Let sit for 5 min. ( until you finish preparing rest of salad). Drain and rinse the wakame. Squeeze dry. * if the wakame is in long strips to start, crush it into small peices so it is bite sized in the salad.
2. Slice the avocado in half. Remove the Pit. With one half, slice the peices in long strips, set aside. With the other half, cut into cubes.
3. Dice the Orange Pepper
4. Rinse and dry the Sprouts.
5. To put together. Place the sprouts, pepper, wakame and cubed Avocado in a bowl. Toss gently.
6. Split the Salad into two bowls, and garnish the salads with slices of Avocado.
Serve and Enjoy.



You can also dress this salad with a simple dressing. My favourite all time dressing is this simple Hemp Oil,Lemon Juice and Garlic .

We used to make this dressing with Flax Oil for years and years. We never seemed to tire of it. Then we discovered the beneficial properties of Hemp Seed Oil, and started using that instead. We order it online by the 4 litre size and split it with friends. It is a great value that way. It is better to order it more often, and keep a fresh supply, as this is a cold process oil and has a shorter shelf life than most oils.


Hemp Oil, Lemon Juice and Garlic Dressing

1/2 cup lemon juice sqeezed from fresh lemons ( about 4 lemons)
1/2 cup cold pressed Hemp Oil ( or flax oil or cold pressed extra virgin Olive Oil)
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced in garlic press.

Add all ingredients to a jar with a lid. Shake together. Serve.