Papaya Boat with Coconut, Tahini, Banana Chia Cream

Isn't it a little odd how I can get my hands on such juicy tropical fruit, smack bang in the middle of Melbournian winter?  I'm always taking a whole container filled with melons and mangoes and paw paws to school. It's a little funny how our fridge is literally overflowing with bargains that we hunted down at the local fruit and veggie shop. Dragon fruits, mangoes, persimmons, papayas, watermelon, star fruit, every fruit you can find on a tropical island is bound to be in our fridge at some point in the week. The trick is to really get you know your fruit and veggie shop properly. What time do they close? That's usually when they put the prices down. Do they have a discount trolley? Many people think that discount trolleys are mainly filled with rotten stuff that no-one wants to buy. However mum and I have realised that the fruits and veggies that you find in the discount box, or in the discount trolley are quite perfect. Buying fruit and veggies from the local green grocers is also a whole lot cheaper that buying from your average supermarket. Take my word.

Today I made a mini coconut, tahini chia cream, papaya boat topped with goji berries and pepitas. I was inspired by a papaya coconut tahini smoothie that my friend made for me, but I just love eating papayas straight from their skin and I also wanted to make a vegan reprise. The papaya tends to lose it's flavour when you put it in a smoothie, unless of course you add a heap of sugar to it, which I definitely didn't want to do. 

The coconut milk, dates and tahini actually go really well together, the banana brings it all together and the chia seeds simply added texture.

Ingredients:

3 tbs coconut milk

3 tsp chia seeds

3 tbs water

3 tablespoons shredded coconut

1/2 a small small banana

1 medjool date

1 tbs organic tahini

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Methods

1. place chia seeds in the water, and let rest for 10 minutes

2. place the rest of the ingredients in a blender and blend until the mixture becomes smooth

3. add in the chia seeds and pulse until combined

4. spoon the seeds out of the papaya and spoon the cream into the crevice 

5. top with whatever you want and enjoy! 

Meal In a Jar

This week I went raw! Even though I am so proud of myself, I felt that the entire week was surprisingly easy and super  fun. I didn't feel like I was doing anything out of the way or extraordinarily different. It was so easy to just come home, mash up a whole heap of veggies in our high speed blender, and then spoon it on to some swiss chard leaves for a raw veggie green wrap. No cooking, no chopping board, hardly any washing and best of all, it was soo tastey and really healthy!

I will add some more recipes as to what I ate this whole week but I am hoping to continue raw food for a very long time. I have to warn you that there is a misconception that when doing the raw food diet one has to be 100% fully raw.  Most people actually eat around 50-50 raw to cooked or 75-25 raw to cooked or anything other ration they want really as long as they are incorporating as many raw green living foods as possible into their diet. 

I encourage all of you do do some research, and if you think it's your thing, give it a go.  I look up to raw foodists like Fully Raw Kiristina and get most of my inspiration from her. Thanks Kiristina!

Today I whipped up something of my own, which I think is quite clever seeing as I recently had my braces tightened and can't really chew anything remotely chewable. I'm not really sure what to call it so I've dubbed it "meal in a jar" because it is packed full of nutrients, fibre, iron, magnesium, potassium, protein, calcium... oh well the list goes on. It simply consists of layers of carrot banana fig smoothie and grounded flax seeds, sunflower seeds, chia sees, coconut flakes, pumpkin seeds and a few dried goji berries within a jar.

Ingredients:
Smoothie:
1 fig
1 carrot
1 banana
1/2 cup water
1 tbls hemp protien
cinamon to your taste
1 inch ginger

grinde:
flaxseeds 2 tsp
chia seeds 2 tsp
goji berries 1tsp
1 tsp sunflower seeds
1 tsp pepitas
2 tsp shredded coconut

 method:
1. blend all the ingredients for the smoothie together in a high speed blender and transfer into a bowl
2. pulse all the ingredients for the grinde and stop when it becomes a fine crumble
3. layer it in a jar as shown above or simply eat together in a bowl