AphraWdisiac Valentine's

Last weekend I was gifted one of these endless blissful moments in the career of a raw food chef and culinary artist: All the vibrations of love in the air of Valentine's weekend culminated in the heart of Berlin and in mine, with 15 excited and lovely angels gliding into my little loft in Mitte.
Melanie from Aphrohdisia.de and myself created 5 culinary pieces of art full of love and devotion to take our shiny lightelves to their heaven of aphrawdisiac tastes, feelings and maybe even experiences (I do not have details on that :-)

Our 5 course candlelight dinner started off with a beautiful infused red hibiscus wine accompanied by a tantalizing walnut saffron paté with a slight note of vanilla served on crunchy chocolate nachos. This explosive combination was already enough to make some "aphrodized" angels fly away in acroyogic positions...

The following heart(beat) rawvioli, filled with fermented creamy cashew "cheeze", in combination with in mint marinated asparagus picked up the stimulation of the hors d'oeuvres and raised the heart beats of all, certainly mine, not even eating them but just feeling the resonance in the air and the eyes of the served.

The earthy flavurs combined with the aphrodisiac qualities of Truffle from Bagnoli, one of Italy's most famous places for this beautiful, precious black gold, combined with the superfood qualities of raw cacao and goji berries, made the main course one of the most unusual and exclusive culinary adventures of the evening. Angel hair pasta with a fruity truffle chocolate pesto literally took all of our tasting angels on a journey. The most aphrodisiac ingredients truffle, chocolate, berries, saffran and chilli all combined on one plate! Do I need to say more...?

Back to more familiar tastes, and strictly following the Italian tradition to have salad after pasta, a lovely arrangement of salad greens, pears, creamy almond ricotta and pine nuts topped with a balsam infused figs vinaigrette and sprinkled with orange pepper gave an uplifting finishing touch to the savory cycle of our love dinner.

There is only one thing that could raise the vibrations and emotions of all even more at this point: the magic ingredient that makes every heart melt: darkest, purest, abundant chocolate. A light, fluffy venus chocolate mousse that melting in your mouth set free aphrodisiac spices and flavors like vanilla, tonka bean and maca, was served with a fiery wild berry coulis and mayan chilli chocolate hearts. Conversations stopped and time stood still except moving tongues to melt this Aphrawdisiac chocolate heaven.

15 happy, shining angels floated away in bliss letting behind two smiling, happy chefs. After truly one of my most magical dinners, my dreams that night were full of love and joy including the beautiful angels we took on our little journey. Thank you all.

b.love - b.chocolate - b.magical!

Curried Cumin Savoy Cabbage

Many of my clients always face the same problem, when it comes to winter time vegetables: How to handle kale, cabbages, brussel sprouts and co. I am a big fan of all those veggies, since they are local, in season and provide the body with the nutrition that it needs during these cold, damp months.
Working with them is a little more challenging than just making a salad and yet, no rocket science. I've always loved savoy cabbage, how my mum used to cook it and stuffed it with some yummy stuffing and let it sit in the oven until it's all soft and wilted and juicy.
The concept in raw is quite the same. Marinate it, give it a good massage and dehydrate it until it's soft and all the flavors are infused.
Here a simple recipe that I whipped up the other night. You can make a whole batch of this and it'll keep in the fridge for days!

Take one big head of savoy, sliced in finger thick stripes and massage with ½ teaspoon of salt. Massage it at least for 3-5 minutes, so that the salt does its job to break up the tough fibre cells.

Add one small red onion, cut into small slices.

Then blend in vitamix:

• 1 cup sprouted sunflower seeds (soaked for about 4 hours)
  
• 2 cups water
• juice of one lemon
• 2 teaspoons curry
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 1 inch piece ginger
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• pinch of chilli
  
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds

It should be a thick and smooth cream, tangy and slightly spicy.
Add to the cabbage and massage altogether for another couple of minutes.
Then mix in another teaspoon of cumin seeds.

This dish so far is completely sugar free and Phase 1 according to Dr. Gabriel Cousens Phase diet. If you like to add a little sweet touch to make it a Phase 2 dish, you can add half a cup of soaked raisins or goji berries (including the soak water) for color and texture.

Put the mixture into a casserole dish and dehydrate at 105 for at least 3 hours or until desired consistency.

You can enjoy this just as it is. To make it a bit more comforting in the winter it is also nice to serve this over some steamed quinoa, which is a nice way to create a hybrid between raw and cooked food.

Enjoy :-)