superfood (n)ice cream

° coconut milk, matcha, spirulina, turmeric, coconut blossom sugar

tom yam

Considering everything i had ever seen or read about Thai food, and also having tried some watered-down street food versions of what was labeled as Thai or Vietnamese food in Europe, I concluded that the real food from that part of the world has to be something heavenly. After two months of backpacking and culinary adventures all over Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, learning about food and foodstuffs from the people whose families have been cooking like that for generations and exploring all sorts of local culinary wonders, I can say that my impression of these countries' traditional cuisine gained a whole new dimension, and the perfect combinations of herbs and spices, fresh foodstuffs, flavours and textures, found a special place in my heart. What i used to eat before, in Europe, were indeed just watered-down tries, and I will remember the "real thing" for a long time now because of wonderfully balanced flavours and perfectly processed foodstuffs (or simply something that is just up to my taste).

From a healthy-eating prespective, I can say that these countries' cuisine left me thrilled because of some of its main characteristics: simplicity of food preparation, very short thermic processing of foodstuffs and lots of soup, salad and fresh raw vegetables (and fruits). Those are some principals that I follow in my own diet, not because it's modern or said to be healthy, but because I've loved soups and salads, and disliked overcooked food since I can remember. Of course, it is not the case that Thai and Vietnamese people eat only vegetables and soups... you can find lots of fried and grilled meat and all sorts of local junk food all around. Still, anyone who would like to eat wholesome can do so really easily, on the streets or in one of the garages transformed into something like a restaurant, sitting in tiny plastic chairs around small plastic tables and for very little money (trust me... we could afford that whole trip from our croatian sallaries and humble savings). A big plus for me was that every dish comes with a side of rice or rice noodles. You will rarely see wheat pasta or anything similar to bread, and most of the creamy dishes (which are generally more common in Thailand and Laos than in Vietnam) get their creaminess from coconut milk instead of cow's milk. I totally fell for that, and couldn't imagine a traditional cuisine that suits my taste better. Most of Thai sweets are naturally vegan, and made from only a few ingredients - rice or rice flour, coconut milk, just a little bit of sugar and fruits, sweet potatoes or taro tuber. I could write so much now about each of these cuisines, about their similarities and differences and about things that I liked, loved or disliked about them. But I'll leave it for some other time. Today I wanted to share a really cool recipe with you.

You can call me a traitor to my balkan heritage, but I have to admit that I've never tried a soup that i liked more than thai tom yam soup. You cry a bit because of the amount of chili, you mumble a bit from pleasure, it's been two seconds and you already ate two full plates and are asking yourself where did all the soup go. The main spices that give this soup its unique flavour are chili peppers, lemongrass, lime leaves and fresh young galangal rhizome (it's a tropical plant from the ginger family that tastes similar to ginger). Some coconut blossom sugar is added to balance the taste, and to get a somewhat creamy texture, people traditionally add some milk or coconut milk. I use oat cream or coconut milk for that purpose. Most common type of tom yam is made with shrimps, and veg(etari)an versions commonly include mushrooms and tomatoes. If you adjust the ingredient list a bit, this is completely doable in Europe (again, if I could do it in Croatia...). Instead of galangal you can use ginger, instead of Thai chilies - any chilies will do, you can use lemon leaves if you can't get lime leaves, and lemograss is usually available at least as a dried herb for tea. The only "problem" I encountered when presenting this dish to Croatian people is its spiciness that can be just too much for european taste buds. Even when I made it with less than half the amount of chili, my friends were all red and in tears while trying to say that the flavour is amazing.. I guess that our tolerance to spicy went too high up after two months of eating chili every day. So, to be able to make this dish to my friends without making them cry, I started substituting some of the chili with dried red sweet pepper - that way it still has all the pepper flavour, but much less spiciness. I don't know if you share the excitement, but I can't stop being thrilled about the fact that there are parts of the world where traditional food preparation doesn't include sauteeing, overcooking and (lots of / any) oil, yet the dishes are absolutely flavourful and will satisfy even the more demanding food lovers.

what/
80 g shiitake mushrooms
100 g cherry tomatoes
1 bigger spring onion
60 g silken or semi-hard tofu
1-2 bigger chilies
3-4 home-grown lemon leaves
1 heaping tbsp chopped lemongrass (a bit less if it's dried)
A piece of fresh ginger rhizome, up to your taste
1 tsp ground sweet pepper
1 tsp coconut blossom sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
300 ml water
60 ml oat cream or full-fat coconut milk
1/2 fresh lime
1 handful fresh cilantro (coriander leaves)

how/
Put the chili peppers, ginger, lemongrass and lemon leaves in water and cook for a couple of minutes. If you are using dried spices, you can cook them for up to ten minutes in a closed pot, to release more aroma. Add sliced vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, soy sauce and coconut sugar (and some more water if needed). Let it cook for for a minute or two, add oat cream or coconut milk, stir and remove from the heat. Let the soup sit for a few more minutes in a covered pot; serve it with plain white rice or rice vermicelli noodles on the side. Add fresh cilantro to the soup, squeeze some fresh lime juice to add some extra sourness (up to your taste) and some more soy sauce if needed.
Bon appétit!

chickpeas snack

Summer 2014, a hitchhike from Istanbul to Samsun, really nice new acquaintances and a Turkish trail mix with nuts, raisins and baked chickpeas. That was the first time i ate dry baked chickpeas as a snack and, like with everything else we ate in Turkey, I more or less fell in love at first bite. I mean, what can you dislike about a crunchy chickpea? It's even oil-free, so it's actually not bad for you body at all, it's nutritious and is so fulfilling in those moments when you just need a lazy (movie night) snack. These homemade ones might never turn out like real Turkish leblebi, but that doesn't matter - they sure will be tasty and fulfilling in their own way. So, here is how to make them!

what/
1 cup dried chickpeas
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/3 tsp Himalayan salt
1/3 tsp black pepper

how/
Soak the chickpeas in water for 12 hours, drain and cook in clean water for around 40 minutes, or until soft. Drain the water (you can save it and use as aquafaba; let me know if you want a post about that) and let the chickpeas dry a bit. Put them in a bowl, add all the spices and mix well. Spread the seasoned chickpeas on a baking tray and bake on 180 °C for around 30 minutes, until they are crispy from the outside.
Enjoy!

sticky rice balls with peanuts

Since we got back from our two-month long culinary journey through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, we've been making and eating meals inspired by (southeast) asian cuisine more often than ever. Also, they now taste more authentic than ever before because we learned a lot about ingredients and food preparation from the local people (and there is plenty more to be learned!). Yesterday, after having vegan version of tom yam soup for the main course, it was only natural to have fried sticky rice balls for the dessert, right? Ok, ok, these actually very much resemble "jian dui", a traditional chinese dessert, but we ate a lot of this type of desserts in Thailand, so I still connect them with thai cuisine. Although I am not a fan of fried food at all, and would skip it probably 99,4 % of the time, there are some dishes where I can justify frying for the sake of brilliant taste and texture. Sticky rice balls are definitely one of those cases.

what/
1 cup glutinous rice flour
2/5 - 1/2 cup water*
3-4 tbsp coconut sugar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/3 cup natural peanut butter

*the more water you add, the softer the rice balls will be; softer dough will also be more difficult to handle because of the stickiness. These ones on the pictures were made with 1/2 cup water and I loved the texture and feel (crispy from the outside and slightly gooey from the inside), but next time I will make them thicker, more like the ones we ate as street food in Thailand.

how/
Mix glutinous rice flour with coconut sugar and bicarbonate soda. Bring water to a boil and pour it into the bowl with flour mixture. Mix it with a spoon until it has cooled down enough to be handled with hands. Knead the dough for some time and let it sit for and hour wraped or closed to retain moisture. In the meantime, roll the peanut butter into small balls. Mine were around 1,3 cm in diameter, and I used a jar of natural peanut butter in which oil had separated on top, so after cooling it down in the fridge, the hard part under the oil layer was perfect for shaping with hands. If your peanut butter is perfectly stirred, you can put it in the freezer for an hour before rolling the balls. Cut the dough into equal parts (I had enough of everything for 20 balls, but you can make them bigger or smaller if you prefer), flatten each little dough part and wrap them around the peanut balls. Roll them in sesame seeds and set aside while you prepare the oil. Pour the oil in a cooking pot, at least 3 cm of depth so that the rice balls can float and fry evenly. Heat it to a more or less constant temperature at lower to medium heat; if you use too high heat, the balls will fry too quickly from the outside and stay raw on the inside. Put the rice balls inside and fry for around 3 minutes. You will see them expand and turn brown (that colour is not form over-frying, but from the coconut sugar inside). When the sesame starts to get slightly, barely visibly golden, you can take the rice balls out and put them on a cloth to absorb any excess oil. And that's it, you have your supertasty fried sticky rice balls. Bon appétit!

pot stickers

° spelt flour dough with spirulina - 1 cup spelt flour, 1/3 cup boiling water
° mix of cooked red rice, green peas and shredded carrot for the filling
° oil the bottom of the pan (just a little bit, to cover it), turn on the fire and put the dumplings inside
° mix 2 tsp tapioca starch with 1/2 cup water and pour it into the pan
° close the lid, and cook for 5 minutes
° for the dip, add chopped spring onions and chili peppers to tamari and stir

some thoughts + dietary habits update

Something has been on my mind lately. I haven't written anything about my current dietary habits in a while, and I figured, since I do write about food and health, some of you might be interested in what I eat now and how my diet has changed since I started writing this blog. As some of you know, this blog was first dedicated almost only to raw food, because that was something that brought me back to health and I wanted as many people as possible to know that you can achieve optimal health through consuming only whole plant foods. After raw food, I slowly transitioned to low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet that included lots of raw, but also cooked foods. Over time, I widened it even more and included more fatty plant foods and sometimes even something that was prepared with a little bit of oil, spelt flour or coconut sugar. This is more or less how I eat today and it works really nicely for me (still, have in mind that I slowly and gradually came to this way of eating after a few years of eating really clean and letting my body repair itself without hedonistic meal moments). Still, there is one thing that is new for me, and I wasn't even sure if I should share it, mostly because it didn't become a rule or a habit, but people can sometimes be rude and judging and can't wait to shout "Ha! Caught you!" or "See? Told you so!". Over last year and a half I tried eating some wild fish and other sea animals, as well as eggs from our neughbours in the village. I know that most of you won't even care or see this as something that is important enough to dedicate a whole blog post to it, because I know that the majority of my readers are not vegan, but are rather following this blog to find some healthier recipes and inspiration. Nevertheless, I decided to share it and to be transparent because of my vegan audience and those of you who are trying to live fully vegan. Most of my friends said "that's great, you are finally a normal human being" when I told them that I tried fish and eggs. Although I think it's cute and supportive, I also think that no-one should try to be "a normal human being" only because that way they would feel closer to other people. You do what feels right to you, regardless of what other people, even your friends, think of it. Plant-based food is still something I strongly believe in, and eating some fish didn't change it. It did bring me closer to other people in a way, but I don't care about that and I don't mind being the only weirdo if I know that I'm doing what I feel is right. So, does it still make sense to write this blog? Absolutely yes, it makes all the sense in the world! Whole plant foods are an amazingly powerful tool that can lead you to physical, mental and all other forms of health and improve the quailty of your life to a huge extent. With this blog I want to inspire you to take responsibility for your health and well-being, not only through food but also through other everyday practices.

Let me clarify why I don't feel bad or guilty for trying animal foods (except for the most obvious reason, which is that no-one should ever talk you into feeling guilty about your path just because their philosophy is different than yours). About a year and a half ago, when I first visited my partner's home village, I encountered a lifestyle that was completely different from what I was used to. It is a small fishermen village with two little grocery stores where you can buy only basic stuff; no ATM, post office, newsstand, farmers' market, cultural life or anything else that you would consider a sign of civilisation (or to be more precise, none of what city life has spoiled us with). Still, people live their lives normally, because they indeed have all they need. More or less everyone here is a neighbour, a friend or a relative. People here grow swiss chard and other vegetables in their gardens, and catch seafood or buy it freshly caught from local fishermen. As my love also goes fishing on his little boat and is known to be a really good and skilful mediterranean chef, it came to me naturally to accept and try some of the freshly caught fish that he made on "gradilje", a traditional dalmatian fish barbecue. Yes, I did mean naturally and yes, I was aware that the fish had to die to end up on our plate. I thanked the fish and the nature and ate it - not feeling guilty, but rather grateful. This event (a rather unusual one for me) didn't mean that I would continue regularly eating animal foods from now on; I still strongly believed in power of plant based lifestyle, as I still do, but it opened my eyes to a new field in my existence, where I could allow myself to consciously do something that is outside the fictional borders that I had set for myself. There should be no borders. Setting yourself borders can limit your self-growth and hinder your thinking freely and doing what your gut tells you. For some years, veganism was my truth (although I would never call it veganism, or call myself vegan), but I felt it was healthy to allow myself to question it and try something different. Nevertheless, it took me some time to be able to talk about it in front of people, probably because I felt that now I was not a hunderd percent "walking the talk". Which is, i think, foolish, because I was never even trying to talk anyone into going vegan, nor was there a talk to be walked. This blog was always more of a talk about the walks.

Last year, while I worked as a vegan chef, some of our lovely guests who wanted to meet me to tell me how much they loved the food, also asked me if I was vegan "in real life". At that time, I thought that it should be natural that i WAS vegan and didn't feel completely comfortable admitting that i had tried some fish some months earlier. I told them exactly how it was, even though I felt as if i should be ashamed or disappointed by myself. Talking to them actually widened my perspective and made me feel more comfortable with my choices, more secure in just being human, wanting to explore how I perceive old habits as a new me every day and not feeling guilty or in need to justify myself in front of other people. Over last year or so, I ate fish or other sea animals (shrimps, mussles) on more occasions, almost all of them in my partner's village; consciously and with gratitude. I still strongly advocate eating whole plant foods and I still find that it is something that works best for me (and I believe for many other people). The power of healing your body with plant foods is amazing. When living in a city, I can't find a logical reason to eat animals (but again, that is just me). There are options in bigger towns and cities for eating animal foods in a more healthy and conscious way (buying animals that were not raised in factory farming but had a healthy life, eating fresh wild fish, raw organic milk and eggs from small family farms), and before changing my diet and lifestyle to only  plant-based foods, I used to live like that. Still, I haven't felt any connection with that way of consuming for many years now; it still doesn't feel natural to me for many reasons, one of them being the lack of connection between a consumer and where this food came from. That is why I still eat plant-based and live this lifestyle that resonates with me everywhere except (sometimes) in my boyfriend's village. There, I won't always refuse a piece of freshly caught fish or mussles because there I feel more in connection with those beings and some form of cycle of life and energy.

Why can I still promote a plant-based lifestyle? Because I live it about 96.7 % of the time and I believe that consuming fish on rare occasions doesn't affect my body to an extent where it could be assumed that I'm healthy because of the animal foods in my diet and that plant-based diet doesn't work after all. I still consider myself a healthy example of what human body is capable of doing on a wholesome plant-based diet. Also, me eating some animal products at this point of life and exploring how it affects my body and mind doesn't mean that I will continue doing it on a regular basis. This is a thing that I relate only to life in this little village and is probably temporary. I don't want to restrain myself and live in a lie that I serve to myself every day. Of course, I will still continue cooking only plant-based food, developing plant-based recipes and promoting this lifestyle that I believe is right and that I know will lead many people to optimal health. So maybe, all this blather was not even necessary, but I really wanted to share my thoughts. Also, I intentionally left out the whole talk about hurting sentient beings and the ethical aspect of living a plant-based lifestyle; i think it can be a whole new topic that I will cover on another occasion. For now, I just want to say that everybody should listen to their gut and follow their own path that will lead to self-love and self-respect, and eventually to loving and respecting all living beings. It is really important to start from ourselves and get ourselves in order first (it is an ever-lasting journey and there is always some work to be done), because then we can see more clearly and do good to other people and beings.