Raw carrot and apple muffins - Muffin crudisti mela e carota

English
Yeah, muffins! Raw, dairy free, gluten free, soy free, yeast free and with no added sugars whatsoever. And delicious, how awesome is that?!
I have to admit this is a little harder to achieve than other raw recipes but still very simple and easy. You're going to need a dehydrator though.

Ingredients for the dough:
300g of carrots
200g of buckwheat, ground
2 medium sized apples (I used royal galas)
5 medjoul dates, pitted

Ingredients for the frosting:
1 banana, ripe
1 medjoul date, pitted
ground cinnamon to taste

Blend all the dough ingredients until you have a smooth dough, then spread it on a kitchen foil for dehydration. Leave in the dehydrator for approximately 2 to 3 hours at 40°C and make sure that it's not too dry for working it and making it stick together. When ready shape it to make it look like a real muffin or cupcake (you can do better than me, I know eheh) and make the frosting as follows:
blend the banana and the date with ground cinnamon until it looks smooth and creamy then add it on top of the muffins. Put back in the dehydrator for at least 2 hours until the surface of the frosting and of the muffins is dry. You'll have approximately 4 muffins. Serve them as it pleases you.

Italiano
Muffins, siiii! Raw, senza latte, senza glutine, senza soia, senza lievito e senza zuccheri aggiunti di alcun tipo. E deliziosi, non è fantastico?!
Devo dire che questa è una ricetta leggermente più macchinosa di altre ricette raw ma comunque molto semplice. Sarà necessario un essiccatore però.
Ingredienti per l'impasto:
300g di carote
200g di grano saraceno macinato
2 mele di taglia media (ho utilizzato le royal gala)
5 datteri medjoul snocciolati

Ingredienti per la glassa:
1 banana matura
1 dattero medjoul
cannella in polvere q.b.

Frullate tutti gli ingredienti dell'impasto fino a ottenere un impasto omogeneo, poi stendete su un foglio di carta da forno. Mettete a essiccare per 2 o 3 ore a 40°C assicurandovi che non sia troppo secco per poterlo amalgamare di nuovo. Una volta pronto impastatelo dandogli la forma di muffins o cupcake (potete fare meglio di me, lo so eheh) e preparate la glassa come segue:
frullate la banana e il dattero con la cannella fino ad avere una crema uniforme, poi versatela sopra ai muffin. Mettete i muffin a essiccare per altre 2 ore o fino a che sia la glassa che i muffin non risultino asciutti all'esterno. Il risultato saranno circa 4 muffin da servire a proprio gusto.

Ajoblanco Raw with apple cubes and raisins - Ajoblanco Raw con cubetti di mela e uva passa

English
Ok, I've just got back from my vacation in Malaga (Spain) and I wish I was still there so I've decided to prepare a very good recipe I've discovered there: Ajoblanco. The original recipe is not raw because it has bread in it so I've made a little change and added some eggplant to replace it.
Here are the ingredients:
100g of almonds
2 cloves of garlic
500ml of fresh water
150g of eggplant, peeled
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp apple vinegar
Half an apple (or less) diced
A handful of raisins
Salt to taste (optional)
Start mixing the almonds and the garlic together with a spoonful of oil. Add the eggplant and the water. Add the remaining oil and the vinegar. Finally add the salt if you feel the need to and put in the fridge for a few minutes. Add the apple cubes and the raisins when serving. Notes: Two cloves of garlic might be a bit to much for someone unless you're fighting vampires so maybe one would be better but it depends on your taste.

Italiano
Ok, sono appena tornato dalle vacanze a Malaga e vorrei essere ancora lì quindi ho deciso di preparare una ricetta buonissima che ho scoperto lì: Ajoblanco. La ricetta originale prevede il pane, quindi per renderla raw ho fatto una piccola modifica e ho aggiunto un po' di melanzana per sostituirlo.
Ecco gli ingredienti:
100g di mandorle
2 spicchi d'aglio
500ml di acqua fresca
150g di melanzana pelata
3 cucchiai di olio EVO
1 cucchiao di aceto di mele
Mezza mela (o meno) a cubetti
Una manciata di uvetta
Sale Q.B. (opzionale)
Incominciate a frullare insieme le mandorle e l'aglio con un cucchiaio d'olio. Aggiungete la melanzana e l'acqua. Aggiungete l'olio rimasto e l'aceto. Se necessario aggiungete il sale e mettete il preparato in frigorifero per qualche minuto. Aggiungete i cubetti di mela e l'uvetta prima di servire. Note: due spicchi d'aglio potrebbero essere troppi per alcuni a meno che non sia in atto una caccia ai vampiri quindi forse è meglio utilizzarne uno solo, ma dipende sempre dal proprio palato.

I'm back

It's been so long since the last time I wrote here and a lot of things happened. My health is always better and I seem to be getting onto what might be my path into food and drinking. I'm not a true fruitarian yet but I'm getting closer and closer to it. My belly is finally not sore anymore but still a bit fatty, still better though. What I'm learning here is that this is a long process and it takes a lot of patience (I'm really not the right person to talk about patience) but if you'll endure you'll be rewarded. Most people quit way before time and that's a real shame because they miss the opportunities that come with this choice. They only pay a very dear price and go home with nothing but complaints and excuses like "this is not my thing" or worse: "don't do it, it's all bulls**t". Again, my suggestion here is to give it a lot of time, maybe a couple of years, start slowly and gradually move to raw.
Back to my experience I'm almost done with my country house and I might be able to move in by the end of the month. It took me longer than I expected (again!!) but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as I move in I will be more free and able to get back to what I like most like playing, singing and running. I'm also going to start a raw food recipe book on this or another blog, I still haven't figured that out. I only have a few recipes and I can't wait to share them all with the world. That's all for now. Have a nice (raw) day!

Raw is good, fruit is better

One year! It's been one year of raw food and it's been a hard year, I'm not gonna lie about it. When you leave your traditional diet behind and you change it so dramatically it's hard to stay strong and go on. And I had a lot of doubts in the process and a lot of times I have gon back to just vegan. But in the end I overcame all the problems and I feel better every day. My suggestion, if you want to try this too, is to go slowly and take your time to give up all the cooked/processed foods. Start taking off from your diet the most poisonous elements like sugars, coffee and salt and then move slowly towards vegan and raw foodist. I didn't do it and I felt very bad for the first 3 months, slightly better the 3 months after that and then it was all ok. All but one little problem: sore belly. I started worrying about it and tried everything to make it go away. The problem is that I stressed my body (and mind) a lot with fasting or semi-fasting and I fell into bulimic instincts to overcompensate. I ended up eating tons of dates and almonds (or any other dried fruits and nuts) but my belly started growing a fat layer and so I felt bad about it and tried to fix it with more fasting. This led me into a spiral and I was really worried about it. I went back to vegan for a couple of weeks but it didn't help, it only made things worse so I started looking for answers on the web and finally I found out that my sore belly is probably due to addiction to cereal and it will take some times to get rid of it so I'll try and be patient for a few months. My bulimic instincts, as I said before were overcompensations due to food deprivation. The solution proposed was eating as much fruit as I want. Yeah, seriously, just that simple! Now I've been doing this for a week and I feel so good, like never before! I'm fixing my problems in the guts and everything looks better. I even feel better mentally because I don't have to worry about food and hunger and overcompensations. It's all easier now. So I guess I'm going to be a fruitarian rather than just raw foodist. I find it an easier solution, more natural and it makes me feel better so why not? The only exception is with potatoes which I like to cook in a conservative way but I might as well get rid of them in a few months. The only problem is when I'm going out with friends to have a beer... I will probably choose wine (for the cereal issue). This is very hard for most people because our society looks badly at people who do "extreme" choices like this one but I guess the real extreme choice is to eat unnatural, cooked, refined food which is unhealthy and makes you tired and unmotivated. I know everyone is used to it now but this doesn't change the fact that our body is not made for that. We poison ourselves with drugs everyday and when they tell us to get rid of them we say that we like them and since everybody does the same there is no need to worry. As far as I'm concerned the idea of being addicted to something makes me feel sad because I want to be as free as possible, it's not just about health and energy, which of course are important to me. However I think that everyone should find their own path in this life and this includes food choice. But there must be a choice, you can't keep doing things just because you were tought so or because everyone else is doing the same. I guess we need to question things in order to find what's good for us. Otherwise we're just robots doing what they're told. I don't wanna be this, I wanna question everything, including myself, with all the consequences that come with it. Yes, because if you start questioning everything, in the beginning, you'll be weaker, doubtful and insecure, but in the long run you'll find out what is true about yourself and no one will be able to change your mind. No one but you, of course. So come on, give yourself a chance to choose!

Back from Barcelona

Yeah, I'm back but I wish I wasn't. Barcelona was beautiful and I had a great time there. I wish I was still travelling, not stuck in Barcelona but on the road. Now it feels a bit dull to be back home but let me tell you about my trip. First thing we noticed was that the sun never seems to rise over there. 8 a.m. and it was still dark, I gueess that's why they wake up later in Spain. But Barcelona is beautiful both in the morning and in the night. As soon as we got there I saw plenty of fruit stores. I was already watering eheh. The fruit there was awesome and I had a lot of great food. I also had some rice at the Wok to Walk on the Ramblas. I know it's not raw food but it was an acceptable exception considering it was vegan. Plus I had some of the best fruits and smoothies and a lot, really a lot, of olives. I love olives and I love them better in Spain! So here are a few pics I took there:

On the last day, before leaving, I woke up early and went runnin from my hostel to the Ramblas. It was a 5km run and it was fun because I could see a lot of things that I missed the days before. Here's a picture of the city at 8 a.m. As you can see it's still dark and the sun isn't up yet.

After Barcelona we went to see Dalì's house in Cadaques. Unfortunately we couldn't get in because we should have booked a visit but the landscape was awesome. If you happen to be nearby and have a chance make sure you go there. Here are a few pics of Cadaques and Portlligat:

Now I am on a 4-day fasting (I've been fasting for about 36 hours now). I have done this before and now it really seems to be easier, I guess it's because I'm detoxing less and less (because most of the toxins have gone already, so I'm "cleaner") and  so I guess I might find it easier to go on without food in the next few months. Why fasting? Because it helps the body get rid of all the junk that you put in it mainly. It's a simple explanation, if you're curious about it I'm sure the web can help you understand it. That or Herbert Shelton's books. Anyway it's helping me feeling better because every time I do this I feel stronger and  healthier, not to mention the cleanliness of my mind. Just be careful if you've never done it before because it can be dangerous if you took a lot of drugs, meds or had a bad diet, if you're overweight and so on. Gather a lot of info about it before you actually do it. Again, Herbert Shelton's books are great for that, Arnold Ehret's ones too.
As I was writing this blog I received my bansuri flute from this site: http://www.ananddhotre.com/
if you need a bansuri this is definitely a good place to buy. Great instrument, great service and super fast delivery! This made my day. Here's my beauty:

Anise sprouts and pizza

Today I spent a very relaxed day and I made pizza. It wasn't 100 percent raw because I'm still waiting for a food dehydrator I bought online so I did something acceptable for my standards which was a very thin pizza with whole wheat flour, cooked for a few minutes at 120ºC. After the base was ready I put a layer of raw tomato sauce and over that sliced eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, olives and herbs all raw and fresh. The result was this:

I found it better than ordinary pizza but my taste has changed dramatically in the last few months so I can only suggest you try it for yourself, I can post the whole recipe upon request. Then I went to visit my grandparents and when I got back home I saw that the anise seeds are finally sprouting after 3 days. I went there to throw them out because I thought they would be rancid and with great surprise and pleasure I noticed the first sprouts so I gave them water to encourage growth. I hope they taste good but here is how they look in the jar:

First off

This is my first post on this blog. I haven't had a blog for ages but now I feel this need to write and share so here we are!

I've uploaded a picture of what I see in front of me while I'm sitting on my chair in my house in Massaua. I won't be spending much more time in this place because I have become a raw food-ist and I wanna grow some fruits and veggies which thing is impossible in here because there is no garden, balconies or anything, just walls and windows, and it's not enough for me anymore.

Why this horrible picture? Because I'm extremely lazy at the moment and it's because I had a giga raw dinner. Vegan raw if you're asking, I stopped eating animals and their milk or eggs in July and began eating raw in September for my health mainly. I was healthy already, but I thought I could be healthier and prevent many diseases with this for me new way of eating. What I didn't know is the suffering that comes with it. Let me be clear: I don't miss meat at all, nor milk or pasta, even if I did in the very first weeks. Fact is when you eat junk food, dairies, meat,  drink milk, coffee, use sugars, salt,  meds and most of your food is cooked,  and when you do all of this for 26 years, your body stores a lot of junk which intoxicate it. When you stop the wrong habits all of a sudden and all at the same time your body is finally free to take the garbage out, but,  in order to do it, it needs to let all the toxins go through the blood stream first and that's where the pain begins. With all those toxins in the blood it's like being poisoned and it takes a while before you're clean again. In the mean time you're weak, ugly, stinky and depressed, or at least that's what I've gone through for the first 6 weeks. 6 weeks can be a lot of time when even singing is too much to handle, especially if you're a singer. But it was worth it because now I can afford to sleep less being stronger all the time, I can clean my skin and hair with water only and both my skin and hair feel better and look better. And smell better! I don't need any perfume, nothing! I know it sounds weird and I can assure you I had to take a shower every day and shampoo my hair every two days, I was a very clean person, and still am. It's just now I don't need any chemical to clean myself, just water! Not to mention my health: every fall I got a very heavy cold with fever. And this happened every year until this year. Now I can breathe normally like in summer even if it's freezing outside and this morning I took a long walk in the woods with a bare chest, no t shirt or anything! Everyone was wearing storm jackets downtown and I was only wearing my trousers in the countryside. If you want to understand better what I'm talking about read Arnold Ehret and Shelton. Raw food and fasting can help you heal from any disease even cancer and diabetes!