Let them eat (raw) cake!

Today I want to share an amazing raw cake with you!

Lime-avocado-fantastico!

Time: 30 min + 3 hour (freezer)
Serves: 8 persons


Cakefilling

• 3 avocado (ready to eat)
• Juice from 2-3 small limes
• 2 bananas
• 3tbs coldpressed coconut oil (melt in a bain-marie/vannbad)

Make the cake (see recipe below). Slice the avocado and remove the stone, take out the green with a spoon. Put avocado, limejuice, bananas and the melted coconut oil in a food blender and blend it to you get a smooth mix. (no lumps!) Pour the mix ontop of the finished cake. Put the cake in the freezer for about 3 hours. Let it defrost about 15 minutes before serving. 

Cake

• 3 dl almonds
• 2 dl dates (without stones)
• 1 tbs cold pressed coconut oil
• 1 ml (krm) salt
• 3 tbs coconut meat (dried/shredded) - to put at the bottom of the pan

Use a pan (about 20-24 cm). The smaller pan, the higher cake.

Blend the almonds in a food blender untill it turns in to a almond "flour". Add the dates, coconut oil and salt and blend until you get a dough just don´t blend too long. The dough should be sticky and become firm when you try to manipulate it. Sprinkle a even layer with shredded coconut in the bottom of the pan and press down the dough to an even layer. (Then add the filling as described above.)

A colleague at work made this cake and brought it backstage for us to nibble on in the interval. It tastes awesome! She didn´teven have a freezer, so somehow it can work without as well, although it will be quite liquid compared to the freezer-prepared one. 

Eating out in Covent Garden

So now I have been on my first audition trip after becoming vegan!

My first advice is to do some research before leaving home. I found a hotel close to the opera house and located the restaurants around it who were vegan friendly. When I arrived I was so tired, that I just ended up going to my local pizzeria. They didn't have a vegan pizza on the menu, but were really friendly and made a pizza especially for my vegan needs. And it tasted fantastic!

My beautiful pizza!

I want to thank Zizzi for making me a very tasty and beautiful meal. (And when I left the restaurant with my take-away pizza I noticed a homeless man sitting outside in a blanket. I asked him if he wanted some of it, and gave him some slices). I had noticed that many shops in London, and my hotel had a system of money donation to charities for the homeless, but somehow I felt some more immediate action was needed). 

Anyway, beautiful, strangely long pizza. I enjoyed it and it was really easy to obtain. It costed me £12 pounds and it was worth it!

For breakfast the day after I asked for some soya milk for my cereal and got it. If I wanted anything on my toast though the pickings where slim. But tomato beans was ok, with margarine on toast. 


Lunch was also really (and for a Norwegian) surprisingly easy to find! First my friend and I went to Food for thought, but as I didn't have any cash and the cash point outside was empty we went a little further and found a wonderful friendly place called Wild Food Cafe. Both places was about 5 minutes walk from Covent Garden tube station.

Wild Food Cafe had several choices for me to choose from. An unusual feeling

Shitake/olive burger! Mmmm...

for me after I became vegan, at least when in Norway.  The staff were very friendly, helpful and took pride in their food. I love it! Bless you, I had a great meal after a stressful but exhilarating day :) 

I had the Olive-Shitake burger on some flat bread made with tomatoes. It was yummy! And again, beautifully presented. Thumbs up!
It costed me £ 11.50, and again worth every penny. (well...or cent...pound ;) 


All in all, my London-vegan-food-experience were a great success and I felt I didn't miss out just because I was a vegan. I saw food possibilities all around me, also with easy "take away" and snack to have in your purse just in case. At least if you are in the Covent Garden area vegan food is easy. But in the end, being vegan in London is SO much easier than being vegan in Norway. It is both sad and scary that take away food is so extremely available and so cheap, while choosing the healthier option (for both you and the planet) you will have to go looking for a while and often pay more . And no, it is not only about costumer demand. But I repeat again, eating vegan at home is much easier and also much cheaper than it used to be!



Here are some pictures (and the Wild Food Cafe menu). 
Enjoy!

Healthy and awesome food!

Several choices you day? Oh myy...

Yummy!

My tasty burger! Isn't it beautiful?

Food, glorious food!

I admit, I never thought I would be one of those people who takes pictures of their food and blog about it, but then I again I never thought in a million years I would be vegan. So, hey!

Just want to make a post to you out there who (like me) was a bit scared of fancy-smancy recipes made by perfect chefs, beautiful people with awesome taste in design and mad skills in the art of blogging. Don't get me wrong; I adore these people, I follow your blogs and get inspired by you. But I am not as fantastic. I guess you can say I am on another level. Lower, but still I think my food is healthy and tastes good. (Or maybe it comes down to me being lazy? But I like fast food! Just need it to be healthy & cruelty-free ;)

So maybe you (the reader) feels scared of trying vegan? Maybe you think that you have to make everything from scratch, (that is fun by the way), but you don't have to! But when you do, it can be both fast and truly YUMMY!


So in an attempt to show how easy, tasty and fast making vegan food can be: Here are some examples of my own meals this week. 

TACO

I promise you, nothing is easier than this. And healthy! For this taco dinner I used max 15 minutes to prepare. I made my own basic salsa from a box of crushed tomatoes + coriander & Basel (spices). As cheese, I just sprinkled on some nutritional yeast. The only thing you need to do is to chop vegetables and open a can, warm the taco shells/fajitas/enchiladas wraps, and fry soy "meat" with some taco spices. It is REALLY simple, tastes great and it's cruelty-free!

(Norwegians: I used soy"kjøttdeig" fra Anamma, and bought it in a Rema 1000. You can also buy "dried" chunks of soy in SunKost. Nutritional yeast I got from iHerb.com )

Salad

Yeah, I used to think this was reeeally boring unless it had some meat in it. But after dropping meat I have also become a bit more adventurous. Love it!

For this easy & quickly made salad I used: Spinach, avocado, cherry tomatoes, thinly cut red onion, dried cranberries, pomegranate and some fine rice noodles. (Takes 1-2 min!) If one want to make it a bit more exciting you can add a little dash of balsamic oil (I didn't use this when I still had noodles left in my bowl). 

Sausages & something weird on the side!

Want "fast food"? You can still have sausages! There are several types of vegan sausages out there, so just find your favorite.

Here I wanted to have some vegetables I usually didn't use with sausages. So I choose to fry a whole plantain and fry (Malabar?) spinach and long beans with some garlic and chili. Just before I ate i drizzled some lime and sea salt on my plantains. 

Tasted great. I added to the strange experience by having some ketchup on my sausages. It was an unusual meal, but I enjoyed it even so!

(Norwegians: I bought the rice noodles in Meny, and the spinach, beans and plantain in a Asian shop on Grønland. REALLY cheap. I should have remembered to buy noodles there as well;)


Breakfast


I have eaten gluten-free bread, alpero yogurth and a wide variety of spreads. (I am testing things, see my other post here). Breakfast is the meal I usually looks forward to the most, I don't know why. Therefor I have been fuzzing about it quite some time. But till now I have mainly eaten bread and fruit for breakfast. I tried a smoothie one day, but that isn't enough for me. (Or I haven't found a good recipe yet). 



Snack

My favorite "snack" for the two last weeks have been "Virgin Pina Colada". That is very easy to make. I just take a bit over 1 cup of fresh cut pineapple, 1 cup of coconut milk, 3-4 icecubes and 1 spoon of agave syrup. Use a blender and have yourself two big glasses of pineapple-coconut-bliss!

When I used to say that vegan food must be really boring, dry and uninteresting. Shame on me, I take it back! 


But I had to try it to know it. 


I am still new and would love to get your best (easy) meals, please contact me with pictures and recipes-for-dummies! :)