Raw carrot cake recipe

Ingredients.

Soak for 1-3 hours...
One cup almonds and 3/4 cup dates stones removed. process into a dough.

Juice...
Enough carrots to give you 1 cup of pulp
Save the juice for the recipe.

In a large bowl, combine....
the carrot pulp
3/4 cup carrot juice
almond/date mixture
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup broken walnuts
1 tablespoon ginger powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange zest

After stirring together, press into individual moulds or into a single cake and chill in fridge.

Cashew cream topping

Soak for 1-3 hours in water...
4 dates
1/2 cup raw cashews

Juice...
1 orange
save part of the zest

In a blender...
The dates
The cashews
The orange juice
juice from !/2 lemon
small piece orange zest
scrapings from 1 vanilla bean

pinch cinnamon.

Chia chocolate brownie/ cupcake/ trifle!

Ingredients.

1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup chia seeds soaked in 1 cup water
6 tablespoons coconut oil melted to liquid
1 cup dates stones removed
1 cup raw cacao powder or carob powder if you prefer.
seeds scraping from 1 vanilla pod
1 pinch salt.

Blend all ingredients and transfer into whatever mould you prefer... cupcakes, a tray for brownies or I thought later could be a trifle glass.

Butterscotch sauce
1 cup dates stones removed
1/2 cup coconut oil melted to liquid
seeds scraped form 1 vanilla pod
1/2 cup cashews soaked for at least 1 hour
pinch of salt

Blend all ingredients to a smooth paste.

Vanilla cream.

1 cup cashews soaked for at least 1 hour
Vanilla seeds
pinch salt
Stevia 6 drops of liquid or sweetener of your own choice.
water

Blend cashews salt and vanilla and stevia and salt and add water until it reached your preferred consistency.

Thai salad recipe.

Ingredients.

1 lime juiced
handful of basil leaves and chopped coriander
2 pinches of cayenne pepper
2 tsp honey or coconut sugar as I used
2 grated carrots
1 finely sliced chinese cabbage
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
Splash of tamari sauce (optional)

Combine all the ingredients and mix well!

Stuffed mexican avocados recipe.

Ingredients.

1 cup Cashews soaked for at least 1 hour

Juice of 1 lemon

1 cloves garlic

1 pinch salt

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons of cold pressed virgin olive oil.

2 teaspoons of spice mix, I used chipotle seasoning.

Handful of coriander or parsley or a mix of both.

1 cup chopped celery

I red pepper chopped

1 small cucumber chopped

1 green onion chopped.

Blend the cashews, lemon, garlic, salt, seasoning and water until smooth. add olive oil and more water if you would like a runnier consistency. Stir the sauce into the chopped vegetables and herbs and fill the avocados.

Raw White Gazpacho soup recipe.

Ingredients.

4 cups of freshly prepared almond milk.
1 cup of seedless white grapes or white grapes with seeds removed.
1 clove garlic.
1 medium cucumber.
Pinch of sea salt.

After preparing the almond milk using a nut milk bag, blend the white grapes and also pass through the bag to separate the skins. Blend the cucumber until smooth with the garlic and salt then return the milk and grape mix back to the blender and process for a few moments. Finally add some ice to the machine to make it super chilled and top with chopped herbs such as dill, chives, parsley and coriander.

Kelp and Kefir..

For a while now I have been using kelp powder in place of the multivitamin I was using before. I am having some great results! Feeling immediate energy boost and reduced water retention even before and during menstruation. I am taking as a powder in a glass of water. This is not for the faint hearted! I have been saying it tastes like I am putting a goldfish in my mouth and giving it a good suck! ;) You can also get it in tablets, I use powder as it is also great for adding to raw vegetables as it tenderises the fibres and creates a fishy flavour for 'mock salmon'. As with all supplements, choose good quality! Please don't go anywhere near your local chemist or Holland and Barrett store, you are wasting time and money and rather than benefiting your body you may even be adding to the toxic load! Good places to source supplements include good independent organic suppliers and once you know a good brand, online through Amazon. If you need help with this please feel free to get in touch. Whats good about Kelp? its a very rich source of Potassium, Iron, iodine, vitamin B6, Riboflavin and fibre. The plant chemicals present in Kelp have also been shown to absorb and eliminate free radicals and heavy metals from our bodies. Also very alkalising due to high levels of Calcium and Magnesium and supports the thyroid in healthy metabolism due to the Iodine content. All sounds good to me and so far it's going well. 
I am also creating my first batch of water kefir here right now. I am beginning this as I want to start making coconut water Kefir but first the probiotic grains need to be fattened up in regular sugar water. Kefir is a probiotic culture which is often found with milk but can be also made with sugar water. It creates a drink which is slightly fizzy once all the sugar has been digested by the culture and gives plenty of vitamin B12, digestive enzymes and probiotic organisms. it's really easy to make too! I got my grains from a site I recommend Happykombucha.com Probiotics are so important to our health. Since it is reported that all disease originates in the gut, taking care of the health of it seems like a decent enough idea! 

http://happykombucha.co.uk/ 

Action plan for the recovering dieter...

Steps on the journey to falling in love with the food you eat...

Here are some of the steps I have taken in my journey from absolute fear of food to the transformation into where I stand today... loving it all!!! I'd suggest, pick the step which feels the lightest to you first, the one which appeals to you the most, perhaps you feel a little spring of excitement inside at the thought... then after the raging success of applying that one... pick the one which is least appealing, try that... make a game of it... have fun... explore.

Don't put your happiness in your plate - food doesn't make you happy, no matter how much some part of you is telling you that you will 'feel better' if you just eat that massive bar of chocolate... you probably know that, but you'll do it anyway... Next time you hear yourself saying 'I need this because I feel bad, I need this to feel better', Write down 3 pages of how you are feeling... write free hand, don't think about what you write... whatever sense or nonsense resides in your head... write it down... keep writing until you fill the 3 pages. Then see how you feel after. This is magical.

Be kind to yourself - Life is precious, the most important thing is to be happy. Being kind to yourself really helps everything. Just because you ate 20 chocolate bars today doesn't make you a failure or a bad person. Drink more water, eat more greens, squeeze lemon juice on everything for the rest of that day... your wonderful body knows how to take care of the rest. Notice when you go into negative self talk, giving yourself a hard time for the choices you made... when you notice that thinking, replace the thought with something more positive. For example - 'You are so weak... you ate half a packet of digestive biscuits, you were supposed to start your diet again today, you are always going to be fat', can easily be changed to; 'Wow, how strong I am for not eating that whole packet, even though I was hoping to eat more healthily today, all is not lost, I really enjoyed what I just ate, I am going to drink more water and carry on' or even something funnier, something that feels nice to you and your body... feeling good is a really important step.

Stop I'll be happy when-ing - If you hear yourself saying, 'I'll be happy when I have lost 2 stone', STOP! Trust me, if you are not happy now, you wont be happy when you have lost weight. And even if you do get a temporary boost... it won't last. Happiness is not an event or a result of arriving at a certain destination. Happiness is a result of the habits you apply everyday of you life. Write down at least 10 things you love to do and do at least one of them everyday. keep adding to the list, keep doing this one forever! Trust me on this!

Experimentation - Try something new each week. We don't change until our habits change. Try at least one new ingredient or recipe every week. Even if it's something you have always disliked! Surprise yourself. Our palates change so much. This one step can create big shifts. Have fun with experimentation.

Stress less - Stress will kill you/ make you fat/ give you a disease way faster than eating any particular food will. Eat it and work on being less stressed in general. Try some meditation, get more fresh air, find a form of exercise you LOVE to do, there will be one I guarantee and exercise REALLY helps on the stress levels, natures anti-depressant... chill out!

Research - Do your own research. Stop reading or learn to be skeptical of the things you read in the media. There is no one absolute food truth, everybody is different. Take the information you receive with a pinch of salt. Only believe and use what is useful and empowering to you. There are plenty of movies about food to watch. take a look, become informed about the food you are eating, this led me towards WANTING to make changes rather than forcing change upon myself, a powerful position to be in.

Aim for 10 - this 5 a' day is a bit of a joke. Every other country in the world has completely different advice on what you should aim to eat per day in terms of fruit and vegetables. Some places in the world the figure is 10 portions per day. Aim for 10 without changing anything else. Burger and chips for lunch? fine... make sure you eat a huge salad with many different colours in there too. Full english breakfast? Eat spinach, mushrooms, avocado, grilled tomato, fresh herbs on the side. It's easy once you start... after a while doing this, the vegetables became my main ally. Easy! This is great ESPECIALLY if the first voice in your head says 'thats impossible'. Show yourself what you can do!

Give them a go and please let me know your experience! I will continue to add to this list myself as things come to me, it has and continues to be a many layered process. Following these steps you can begin to transform your relationship with food, drastically increasing your confidence and happiness levels... Watch out world!