Apple Lassies

I apologise for the long break from blogging.  But I’m back and that’s what counts!

On this wintery rainy day, I thought I’d share with you a recipe for a nice warm dessert. I made it with the kids the other day and they just loved it.  I invented it as I was desperately trying to find a healthy dessert option for us to make together.

Have a look! Baked apples with walnut/cinnamon/maple syrup stuffing.  If you could only smell it!

The name

First of all, we called them Apple Lassies.  The ‘Lassies’ comes from our initials L (Laith), A (Alia)  and S (Selma) and then the name evolved to Lassies. Corny, I know, but it stuck!

The method

Making them is so simple!  Have a try yourself and let me know of any variations you add.

1. Preheat the oven to around 250-300F
2. crush some raw walnuts and mix them with cinnamon and organic maple syrup to make a yummy stuffing for the apples
3. Then cut the apples in half (I use a combination of red and green apples, whatever works for you). and core each half deep enough to add the stuffing.
4. Put a tiny amount of butter into each apple half and scoop in a generous amount of the walnut stuffing into it.
5. Put the apples on a baking sheet and pop them into the oven for about half an hour or until you start smelling the wonderful aromas.  I keep them until I see the apples have reduced in size and there’s a good amount of sizzle and smell.
6. Take them out and enjoy!  But be careful, they can be hot!
7. When I serve them, I also give topping options of plain cocoa powder, a sprinkle of dessicated coconut, or more maple syrup.  You can choose your extras!  See the picture above

They make a wonderful wintery dessert and the cinnamon/apple/walnut aroma goes wonderfully with the holidays!

Enjoy and please feel free to give them a different name!

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Happy holidays!

My birthday cake!

It was my birthday yesterday!  As much as I would have liked to keep my age to myself, my kids keep announcing it to everyone they see and they even insisted on adding the number candles to my cake!  Actually, we just used old candles from their previous birthdays (I just love using old candles that others have already made a wish on, it makes them feel ‘antique-ish’ and makes me feel that old and new energies are combining)… ok, I’ll stop now and let you see the cake (below)..

My birthday cake (photographed by my brother Sofyan Almoayed who has a funky camera and a new lens that he's very proud of). The candles are from when each of my kids turned 3

August 2 in history

I bet everyone remembers what they were doing on August 2 1990.  It was the first time that my average birthday became a day in history.  I’m sure you can remember where you were and how you heard that ‘Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait’.

It was my 14th birthday then.  I had been so excited the night before because we were in the South of France on holiday and my father had agreed to take us to a huge water park for the day to celebrate my birthday..  When I woke up in the morning, I saw the gloomy looks on my parents faces and the News was blasting on television.  Oh, no!  Why did he have to do it on my birthday!  To be honest, I didn’t really care that a war loomed or that the whole region was at risk.  I just wanted to go swim!  How lovely it must have been to have no care in the world other than what you will do (or wear) that day…

Anyway, things turned out fine after all… and my father did agree to take us to the water park after all, as he promised.  It must have been tough for him to sit there watching us as he mulled over the day’s horrific news…

Now, every time I tell someone that my birthday is on the 2nd of August, we have a conversation topic!

This year’s birthday

I have a friend (who shall remain nameless) who was complaining that her kids are both born in the summer and that they’ll never be able to enjoy a birthday party with their friends.

Let me tell you, being a ’summer baby’ myself I absolutely loved it!  My birthdays have been celebrated over many summer holidays, in many different countries.  When you’re born in the summer, people will always be in holiday mode on your birthday!  I love that!

The only thing I felt I was missing out on being born in the summer was that as kids, my brothers would get a birthday dedication on Radio Bahrain on our drive to school with my dad.  I thought that was sooo cool that the DJ knew it was their birthday!

In spite of that, I’ve had many beautiful summer birthdays that I can remember clearly. My 23rd was on honeymoon in Bali; my 25th was in London; my 27th was on a beach in Turkey; my 30th was in Disneyland Paris; and last year’s was in Germany’s Black Forest.

This year, I spent my birthday here in sunny Bahrain.  We celebrated this past ‘dusty’ Friday, but it was lovely anyway.  I decided to make my own cake and I really enjoyed it.  It was my gift to myself!

The cake recipe

I have written about this cake before but I want to talk about it some more because I love it so much.  I’ve increased the quantity to make enough for a larger group of people.  My brother got carried away photographing it, but I’ll have to agree that it looked great too and I was very proud of my creation.

My birthday - chocolate decadence - cake with raspberries! Yummy!

You can make it too, it’s sooooo simple:

For your next event, try this cake.  I got the ingredients from a fantastic book called Raw Food Made Easy which is worth every penny.  I’ve adjusted the ingredients slightly and here’s how I made it.  This recipe makes a generous serving for 6-10 adults.

• 6 cups raw walnuts
• 1 1/3 cup unsweetened coco powder
• 80  soft dates
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 8 tsp water
• For decoration: raspberries and coconut powder

Can you believe that’s it!  It’s raw, it’s vegan, and it’s delicious!

Just mix all the ingredients together in a food processor (you may need to mix in 2 batches if your food processor is small).  Put it all in a cheesecake pan.  Press everything down with your hands until the cake is nice and compact.  And voila! It’s ready to eat.

Just before serving, arrange your raspberries on top and then sprinkle with coconut powder to have a ’snowy’ effect.  The dark chocolate taste contrasted with the sour berries is just lovely.

So this is my gift to you – my cake!

Hope you have wonderful parties with it   Let me know what you think!

And don’t forget to sign up on my website for the latest

xx

Sprouty sprouts

Finally, we learnt how to sprout… after many attempts and many sprouts-to-be in the bin.

It turns out, it’s a lot easier than I thought.  All the great amazon books I got on sprouting were way overqualified for a simple job.  As it turns out, you just pick your favourite beans or pulses (e.g. chickpeas, mung beans, or lentils) and soak them fully in drinking water for a few hours (e.g. 6 or more).  Then, drain the water and just put them in a damp cotton cloth and tie loosely; leave them anywhere in the kitchen (not in the fridge).  Everyday, check on them and make sure they are not dry.  If the water has dried up, just sprinkle them with a bit more water to keep them moist.  Before you know it, they’ll start growing roots and they’ll be ready.  Each bean takes a different amount of time.  It could be anywhere from 2-5 days (or thereabouts).

Once you have the lovely sprouts, you can add them to your salads or just about anything. I put them in my veggie maki last week.  They are delicious and are powerhouses of nutrition!  I prefer to use organic beans and pulses for sprouting.  And you can sprout other stuff too like sunflower seeds and quinoa.

There are several methods for sprouting… if you’ve tried any other method, let me know.  I’m sure others will benefit from your experience.  ‘Leave a comment’ below…

Nature Valley’s sprouted bread

Speaking of organic, I met up with Dr. Lamya Shehabee the other day (she runs the healthfood store Nature Valley here in Bahrain); she let me try her brand new sprouted bread!  It’s so great and such a great alternative to regular bread.  It’s called Ezekiel bread.  You’ve gotta try it, it’s yummy.

I read about an idea for a sprout salad where you mix all kinds of sprouts with some chopped greens and use blended mangoes as dressing.  Sounds yummy, huh?  I’ll let you know if it’s any good once I’ve tried it.

Till then, stay healthy!

And don’t forget to sign up on my website for all the juicy info www.AliaAlmoayed.com

Cool and Healthy summer ideas!

I want to have enough time to tell you about 3 different healthy ideas today, so I’ll get right to it.

1 -  Fruit lollies

The most exciting thing for us these days is the ‘fruit lollies’. It’s the most basic concept, but is WOW for both adults and kids.
Basically, we take all our favourite fruits, chuck them in the blender to create a smoothie-like texture, and then pour them into ice lolly trays to make ‘ice cream’. They’re great to eat outside in the garden, at the pool, or just about anywhere (mind the drip). Speaking of drip, I have some ice lolly trays that come with a drip tray that allows you to suck the residue from a straw… they’ve really thought of everything! It’s fantastic! We each have our personal favourites. Selma likes the mixed fruits flavour (usually whatever is in the fridge); Laith (just like his father) loves the mango. He could probably live on mangoes. And my personal favourite these days is sweet melon ice lollies. It’s so refreshing and I even give it to Tameem while we’re in the garden; he’s only 6 1/2 months old but he loves it and he makes the cutest expression when a little icy piece is in his mouth. Ahhh, the simple pleasures of life

So, if you haven’t done so yet, go get ice lolly trays (usually sold at any supermarket or kitchen store, and make your own concoctions. What a great and healthy way to spend the summer months!  I often also sneak in some sunflower seeds or flax seeds into the mix for a boost of nutrients.  I’ve also sometimes added some omega oils and occasionally bee pollen.  It really makes these ice lollies a fantastic snack option, especially for kids (by the way, the kids don’t even notice the taste of the add-ons, so win-win right?).  Try it and leave a comment to let us know what your favourite combinations are.

2 – RAW maki

My second suggestion is one that I always thought was too challenging to do. As you may have heard, I ventured into making RAW maki with the kids. I thought I’ll try to make them and if I mess up, no one has to know. So I bought the nori sheets from the supermarket and looked up a very easy recipe that uses RAW ingredients (but not raw fish, the veg option). I ended up taking a few ideas from a book and a website that I will suggest to you in a minute. But I’ll just briefly tell you how I did them just so you see how EASY it was!

Here’s what I used (the quantity of each will totally depend on how much you want to make and how much of each ingredient you prefer in your maki). Basically, get:
Avocado (cut into thin slices)
Cucumber (shredded)
Mung bean sprouts (sprouted in advance)*
sesame seeds

* If you haven’t sprouted before, leave a comment below. I was considering writing about how I sprout (as i only recently learnt myself) so I want to know if you’re interested.

Back to the maki. So you take one nori sheet, put the above ingredients one at a time along the edge of the sheet, sprinkle the sesame seeds and then roll tight and use a little water on your finger tip to stick it every time you roll. I use a sushi board to help me roll, but you can do it without it too.  The first couple of rolls came out sloppy but I soon got the hang of it. Then, you just cut them in maki sizes (as in photo), and serve with soya sauce.
You can basically put whatever you want in there. Shredded carrots, cabbage, or even thin mango slices make yummy additions too. Try it and let me know what you think!

My home-made veggy maki

Great raw suggestions

Here is the name of a raw cookbook that is worth it’s weight in gold. It’s called Raw Food Made Easy
. The recipes are so great and easy to make. And they are delicious. I highly recommend it. I got my maki idea from there, as well as the raw chocolate cake idea that I will mention in a minute.  I always like to add my own touch to the recipes, but they’re great even if you follow them to the letter.

Another good resource is a website called www.therawdivas.com. You can get many recipes and ideas from there.

3 – Heavenly chocolate cake

My last recipe idea is a decadent dessert that I love because it’s totally natural and raw and it really satisfies those chocolaty taste buds. If you’re not used to eating dark chocolate, it may need a bit of adjustment, but I personally love it and so does my whole family, especially the kids!  We end up licking every single crumb!

Here’s how I make it:
1 1/2 cups of raw (unroasted, unsalted) walnuts
20 small, soft dates
1/3 cup coco powder (unsweetened)
2 tsp water
1/2 tsp cinnamon
optional: desiccated coconut for decoration
optional: serve with berries

Basically, you just put all these ingredients (not the coconut and berries) in the food processor and mix them up. Then pour the mixture in a small cake pan and press with your fingers until it’s compacted. Then just sprinkle the desiccated coconut so that it looks like icing sugar. And serve! Yes, it’s that simple!
You can cut it into slices or make  small browny sizes. Bear in mind, it will not be puffy but actually quite thin. The taste will be dense and very satisfying so don’t be fooled by its small size relative to other cakes.

I just love it! Here’s a picture of the one I made last week. This week, I put the coconut and cut them into small squares.  Varying the shapes keeps it interesting

My sumptuous chocolate heaven!

Let me know how you get on….
Leave a comment to let us know what you’ve tried, or if you have any other recipe suggestions

And don’t forget to go to my website and add your name to my email list so you can be the first to know when I post something new!

Enjoy and bon appetit!

Gotta run back to my ‘mommy’ duties!

‘Pinky’ sauce!

This is the name of the spread that I started making recently.  I got the recipe from a little postcard that came with an online order that I made.  It sat on my table for weeks until I finally had the time to try it out.  And since then, it became a family favourite!

I once wrote about this sauce as something that I had for breakfast when I wrote the ‘wanna see what I eat’ post.  A lot of you wanted to have the recipe, so here it is.  It works amazingly well with wholegrain crackers or rice cakes; or even with vegetable sticks.  And it makes a FANTASTIC alternative to cheese.  If you haven’t yet stopped eating cheese, now is a good time to do it.  Your life will improve so much without it!  Don’t believe me?  Try it out for yourself.

But I’m not gonna go in the cheese direction right now… if you wanna know more about why I think you should stop cheese and all dairy products now, leave a comment below….

Back to the ‘pinky’ sauce….

I improvised slightly on the original recipe and was then stuck for a name to give it, so I asked the kids.  It has a slighly ‘pink’ colour because of the tomatoes, so they wanted to call it ‘pinky’ sauce.  But for all the macho men out there, don’t worry, it is still a great option for you too   And the best part?  It’s totally raw!

‘Pinky’ sauce recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups almonds (previously soaked for at least 2 hours)
• 2/3 cup tahina sauce
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 1 medium tomato
• 10 thin slices of sundried tomatoes (soaked in water at least 2 hours before making)
• 100g stoned olives (I like to use the large green ones)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt (preferably sea salt)
• 1/2 tsp zaatar (optional)

Just take all of these ingredients and mix them in the food processor until you get a mushy paste that is kind of like mushy hummus.  You can play around with the taste as you wish by adding or reducing the olives or any of the other ingredients.  Or if you want to soften the texture, you can use more olive oil or even better, I like to use the olive oil that comes with the sundried tomatoes.

Store the mixture in a sealed jar in the fridge.  It is quite a generous amount so it’s more than enough for the whole family.  I’m not sure how long it keeps because when I make it it just disappears the same day!  but I would imagine that it would keep well in an air-tight jar for about 5 days.

If you have any questions, leave a comment below and I’ll try to update the post with answers to your questions.

For more health tips and recipe ideas, log onto my website to get onto my exclusive email list.  This is my website, click on it now: www.AliaAlmoayed.com

Enjoy the ‘pinky’ sauce!

Oh, almost forgot. Here’s a picture so you can imagine what it will look like

My raw 'pinky' sauce - great as a spread or a dip!

Want more healthy recipe ideas? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Finally, the almond milk recipe!

I got loads of replies to my ‘Wanna see what I eat?’ post from last week saying that you want to have the home-made almond milk recipe.  And I’m really glad about that because it’s absolutely delicious, easy to make, and raw!

You won’t believe how simple it is….

All you have to do is take one and a half cups of raw unroasted unsalted almonds and soak them in mineral water for at least 4 hours.  I usually soak the almonds in the morning and make the milk before I go to bed.

Put the soaked almonds in the blender and add to them 3 cups of mineral water.  And blend.

You can sweeten the almond milk to your liking while in the blender.  I like to put two tsp. of natural honey.  Or you can add 4-5 soft dates.  Or you can also add some vanilla extract or cinnamon if you like.

Blend the mixture very well.  Then sift it in a cheese cloth (or any cotton cloth) into a jug and put it in the fridge to chill.

That’s it!  Can you believe it?!

I love to have the almond milk on my muesli in the morning.  Or you can add it to any recipe that requires regular milk as a great substitute.  I even made a beautiful hot chocolate for my kids once with almond milk and pure organic cocoa powder; it was luscious!

You can control the ‘creaminess’ by increasing or reducing the water you add.  Of course, it goes without saying that you’ll get more of the benefits of the almonds and their oils if you drink it unheated.

Leave your comment below and let me know what you think!

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Here are answers to some of your questions from the comments below:

- The water you use is new water, not the water that the almonds have been soaked in.

- You can leave the skin on the almonds or remove them as you wish.  I usually leave them on.

- How much of the almond milk you can drink will depend on your diet and health in general.  I cannot tell you how much you should drink but I will tell you that it contains fats that are better than those found in milk, and it is also suitable for children.

- For all the other questions, I can only say that almond milk is what I personally have and would recommend.  If you have a specific health condition, then you must seek professional advice that pertains to you.

- I am planning on holding a nutrition crash course soon, so if you’re interested in attending make sure you are on my mailing list so you’ll be the first to hear when I announce it.  I will take a limited amount of people.  To put your name on my email list, simply go to my website and fill in the form.  It will take 3 seconds of your time.