Real Food Friday Feast - Caramel-crunch Chocolate Cake

I've been a little undecided about what to post today! I have to be honest, I've never been one for recipes! I tend to get in the kitchen and just play around until something comes out right. The minute I follow a recipe, things go wrong. Could be something to do with the fact that I dislike taking orders;)

I've decided to put the question to you for the next few Real Food posts. If there is anything you really enjoy eating, but you're avoiding it because it's not organic or real food, and you're not sure what to substitute, where to make it into a healthy meal, please send your recipes on to me and I will play and find the right mix so that your recipe turns into something healthy and organic and I'll post it on a Friday. You can send your ideas to mellowhealth@melanielowe.co.za.

For today, I decided to go with something I made last year for GLM's birthday dinner, chocolate cake! We love chocolate cake and I have really struggled to get the recipe right so that it's a nice healthy, still tasty, cake. Last year we had a dinner party at a little Thai restaurant in Paulshof called Thai Cafe. We highly recommend it! It is a sweet, quiet, unassuming little place and that is why she chose it. GLM's parties have a tendency to turn a bit wild;) It's never intended, but it ALWAYS happens!

Things were nice and calm until they pulled out the karaoke... Then someone pulled out an 80s cd, The Locomotion came on, and things went pear-shaped. Strangers were joining onto the train! We opened a makeshift dance floor and ended up keeping the poor little owners busy until 2am! They LOVED us;) They were dancing WITH us by the end and were sad to see us go. I don't think they've ever had so much business in one night;)

But I digress... I surprised GLM with a chocolate cake early in the evening and it was polished off. The plate was licked clean;) The crazy thing is it was one of the cakes that I had to make in such a huge rush because I didn't want her to know about it, so I just slapped ingredients together, experimented with the icing, cried a few tears of frustration when it went wrong, then experimented some more with the mess up, and ended up with a caramel-crunch chocolate cake somehow! I'm going to see if I can get it all down in this recipe and I hope you also have some success with it!

Caramel-crunch Chocolate Cake

Preparing the flour:

11/2 cups chickpea flour
1/4 cup raw cocoa powder
3/4 cup water
2 Tbs yogurt

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl
Place a dishcloth over the bowl and leave in a corner of the kitchen to soak for 24hrs
(If you're unsure why we do this, read this post and then this post. Cocoa also needs to be fermented which is why I add it to the flour mix)




Cake ingredients:

1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp bicarb
1 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
2 Tbs yogurt (Yogurt is a GREAT egg replacer so I use it instead of eggs but you can also just add 6 eggs instead of yogurt)
1/3 cup butter
1 cup organic sugar OR 1/2 cup raw honey
1 Tbs vanilla extract (optional: I NEVER have it at home so I often just skip it. Dischem sells the REAL one, not the processed one you find at grocery stores)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180°C
• Take your soaked flour mix and add eggs, yogurt, butter and sugar (or honey) and vanilla extract
• Blend until mixed in
• Add all dry ingredients
• Blend again until smooth
• Grease two round baking tins, WELL (this is the part where I  always fall down. No matter how well I grease them it's a mission getting them out intact!)
• Divide mixture up between baking tins. (I always make my bottom cake a little bigger. Not necessary at all though, it's just my thing!)
• Pop in the oven for about 40-45 mins. Poke with a toothpick to check it (time depends on your oven.  My door never closes properly so I have to start watching it from about 40mins)
• Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5mins
• Attempt to remove cakes from tins, GENTLY and leave to cool for an hour. (depending on weather! Due to time constraints I stuck mine in the freezer for 10mins and it worked like a bomb)

Caramel-crunch icing

This was a TOTAL accident!

Ingredients:

1 cup organic sugar
10 Tbs butter
2 Tbs milk
1 slab dark organic chocolate (Woolies sells a delicious one)

Method:

• Place sugar, 4 Tbs butter, milk and 1/2 slab chocolate in a small pot and bring ingredients to boil
• Simmer for about 5-10 minutes (or until the sugar starts to caramelise)
• Remove from heat and place in the freezer for 5 minutes
• In a bowl, place 6 Tbs butter
• Cream butter using a mixer
• Remove caramelised mixture from freezer and mix for a minute
• Add to creamed butter and mix together until creamy (it won't be smooth because the sugar has caramelised but don't worry, that's the point of caramel-crunch!)
• Spread all over cakes once cakes are cooled (Very NB!)
• Grate remaining chocolate and sprinkle all over the top of the cake
• Serve!

Granted, this is full of sugar so probably not as healthy as you'd like, but chickpea flour has far fewer calories than normal flour AND soaking the flour and cocoa makes it far more nutritious. There is also a good amount of protein in the cake from the flour, eggs and yogurt so it won't give you a sugar high. All in all, a really tasty, moist, nutritious chocolate cake. By the way, the candles on the cake are homemade candles made with beeswax to avoid getting anything toxic on the cake from store-bought candles! Yes, I'm THAT crazy;)

Have a super weekend!

A typical day in the home of a real foodist

I often get asked about our routines in our house in terms of everything from food to drink to cleaning products to beauty products to recycling and composting and everything in between too;) It's part of the reason I started this blog. I figured if everyone who asked, had somewhere permanent to refer to whenever they had a question, it'd make their lives, and my life, easier;)

If you've read any of my blog posts you should have a pretty good idea of what we DON'T eat, drink and use in our daily lives. We are completely organic and free-range in terms of the food we eat, and completely chemical free in terms of beauty AND household products. We recycle ALL of our plastic, glass, aluminium and paper and we compost ALL of our kitchen waste that IS compostable.

I decided to break it down for you so that you can start to get an idea of what life is like in the household of organic, chemical-free, real foodists and I thought I'd start with food and drinks.

This is how my morning usually goes: (if I don't have anywhere to be!)

• Wake up (usually around 7am or whenever GLM's alarm is set for.)
• Head to the kitchen, greeting all of our 6 (hungry) cats along the way;)
• Put the kettle on
• Grab a reaspoon of coconut oil and pop it in my mouth and start swishing
• The next 20 minutes is spent feeding all our cats and swishing oil around my mouth and communicating via hand signals;)
• Fill teapot with whatever tea is necessary for the day (this will depend on whether I'm feeling a bit under the weather or if I've overindulged the night before or if I just feel like I need a pick-me-up! If none of these apply, I skip the tea)
• Pour boiled water into teapot and cover with lid
• Fill any empty glass bottles with boiled water from the kettle and place in fridge
• Grab mug and add quarter teaspoon of sea salt, quarter fill it with boiled water, stir, top it up with cold water and stir again
• Spit out coconut oil after 20mins has passed
• Immediately rinse mouth with salt water thoroughly to get rid of remnants of coconut oil
• Grab 2 more mugs and half fill with boiled water
• Add a teaspoon of honey to each mug and mix until dissolved, sprinkle some cinnamon in the water and top up with cold water and stir. Finally, add 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to each mug.
• I take one mug through to GLM and I drink the other while I make her lunch for the day
• I pack 2 healthy meals for GLM (usually consists of left over dinner like homemade chicken curry and brown rice with a fruit for something raw. The other meal is always homemade plain yogurt with banana)
• Make our breakfast smoothie
• Place 2 glasses on a tray and divide smoothie between them and add a tablespoon of chia seeds to each glass
• Place 2 coffee mugs on tray (if I've made tea) and add ±10 goji berries (more to come on this) to each mug
• Fill mugs with tea 
• Add a teaspoon of honey, a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to each mug of tea and stir
• That is our breakfast routine taken care of

I've added links to the parts that I have info on in case you have no idea why, or how, I do some of the things I do! If there are no links it's because I haven't blogged about it yet and it'll be coming soon! You are always welcome to post comments asking questions and I will answer them either in a new blog or in a comment back to you:)

We decided a long time ago, that my wife would take a packed lunch to work every day for several reasons. She wanted to lose some weight and start eating healthier and her work cafeteria, while convenient, wasn't ideal for that. Sometimes she was just too busy to get to the cafeteria and she would have to go hungry and that just didn't sit well with me at all. She also had a thyroid problem and her cafeteria wasn't too interested in chemical-free, organic cooking methods and finally, it's just more frugal. I don't see the point in her spending money on unhealthy food at work, if we have all the good stuff we need at home. In the past we would end up with containers filled with leftovers in the fridge and we weren't eating them fast enough so we were wasting food. Now everything we cook gets eaten or used, even the leftover bones which I use to make bone broth.

You find, when you stick to organic and free-range, that the food IS pricier, so you end up treasuring every last morsel, and food NEVER gets thrown out. It's also far tastier so you don't WANT to waste;) I don't mind using my time in the morning to make her lunch because I know she's eating real, healthy food and it is my mission in life to keep my wife on earth for as long as is humanly possible by keeping her healthy;)

As far as my meals go, I also eat whatever is left over in the fridge but I tend to eat a lot of salads instead of starchy foods because of my IBS. I drink around 2 to 3 litres of water and I also drink a lot of rooibos tea throughout the day because it's another great way to keep hydrated. It's also good for you on so many other levels and I just LOVE the taste of it:) I never drink normal tea or coffee. They dehydrate your body and that's just counterproductive I think.

I usually decide on dinner the night before in case I decide to use my slow cooker. It's handy for when I know I won't have time to cook a meal. It means that I can leave it cooking for the day and go about my business and, by the evening, dinner will be ready to go. These two recipes are my favourite slow cooker recipes: Whole chicken in a slow cooker and Chicken curry in a slow cooker. My wife is amazing at pretty much everything she does, but one thing GLM DOESN'T do, is cook. It's never been her strong point. We joke about the disasters that happen whenever she's in the kitchen;) She tries to help, bless her, but invariably something will go wrong! She has never felt comfortable in a kitchen, just as I have never felt comfortable with spread sheets. For that reason, the kitchen is my domain and she helps clean when she can. In return, she handles all the finances and I love her for that. It's an arrangement that works really well for us. That being said, she makes the best scrambled eggs I've ever tasted so THAT will always be her job!

I love food. I love experimenting with new meals and interesting things like lacto-fermented foods so, if I have some free time, it'll be spent filling some jars with veggies to ferment, making homemade yogurt, or baking some banana bread because we do love our healthy dessert after dinner:) There's usually something brewing in my kitchen. The hardest part is finding the time to actually get it going but it doesn't usually take long and I can do most of it in between other stuff, so it's not really that hard. Once it's prepared, I don't have to think about it until it's ready.

For example, making yogurt involves about 10 minutes of my time to prepare and then, for the next 24 hours, I don't have to think about it while it brews in my oven. At the moment I have some cucumbers lacto-fermenting in jars. It took about 10 minutes of preparation and they have been sitting on the counter ever since. All the good bacteria does all the really hard work! I've currently got two jars of kombucha brewing on top of my fridge which also took me about 10 minutes to prepare and now I just need to leave them covered for 2 weeks while the bacteria works hard to make me some lovely kombucha. I WILL blog about this soon because I think kombucha is amazing for your body.

Being a real foodist may involve a bit more preparation time in terms of cooking, but I CAN say that there something so rewarding about making everything from scratch. There is a real sense of accomplishment when you make your own yogurt and you KNOW it's just so good for you and your family and YOU made it. Eventually, you reach a point where you are making EVERYTHING from scratch just because you know you can and you are saving so much money and you are doing the best thing for you and your family AND for the environment. You no longer need to rely on grocery stores that don't really care about your health needs, but only your convenience needs.

That is pretty much our food and drinks covered. In my next post I'll go into household and beauty products that we use and what I make and what I buy and where I get it all from.

Until then, keep it real!

Should we believe everything a doctor tells us?

I happened to catch an interview on 702 some time ago, when they were talking about Alzheimer's, and a doctor was being interviewed about it. The interviewer asked if diet played a role in whether or not someone gets Alzheimer's. I was about to walk out of the room but I held back to hear the answer and I was shocked to hear the doctor responding with a no! Unequivocally, no, he says it makes no difference...

Really?! When people are finally, slooooowly, waking up to the fact that, what they eat, determines what they are, this doctor arrogantly, simply shuts that down with a no. As far as I'm aware, doctors don't study food and the power of food. They focus on the body and how to fix it via medication and surgery but, unless they take an interest in alternative healing, they don't focus on food as a medication. There are, however, plenty scientists who DO take an interest in the healing power of food, and, as it turns out, research has proven that diet DOES affect your chances of getting Alzheimer's.

I honestly think it's crazy to simply turn around and say, "No. Diet doesn't affect your health," without having the knowledge to back it up. Doctors have their areas of expertise, and alternative healers have theirs. When I go and see my homeopath, she knows at which point to say, "I think we may need to involve a doctor." She knows when she's out of her comfort zone. Why are some doctors so arrogant as to think that they have all the answers when they clearly don't? I have yet to find a doctor who DIDN'T want to write me a script for antibiotics and a whole range of other medications, no matter how much I protest that I don't take medication. That is ALL they know and that's fine. But it's not good enough when they refuse to admit it and simply give bad advice instead.

This blog post is a complete rant as you have probably noticed;) I was in two minds about the topic for today and then this sealed the deal. I just get so frustrated with this kind of situation because it is SO hard to convince people that what they are eating is poisoning their bodies. It takes a long time to really, fully grasp all of this stuff, and then you get ONE doctor who sets us all back several months, or years, with one arrogant comment. It sets us back because doctors are given an almost godlike status. People believe that they can fix everything and that they have the answers to everything and the doctors end up buying into it themselves. So, when a doctor says something, people listen. I can guarantee there are quite a few people out there now who heard that interview and are thinking, "Oh well, guess I'll just keep taking pills then!"

It frustrates me. We are brought up to think that doctors have all the answers and it's hard to get out of that mindset. I was no different when I was a child. But I guess I have too much of a questioning mind. Some would call me cynical and skeptical. I definitely am! I take most things with a pinch of salt. So, when people say, "This is how it is," I say, "Ok," and then I go and do the research for myself and, if it makes sense to me, then I will agree with them;) If it doesn't make sense to me, then I simply smile and move on.

I hope more and more people start to do that, because I really think that there is an awful lot of sheep-like behaviour in the world and it's not a good thing. It's actually extremely harmful, especially when it comes to diet and beauty products etc etc. The so-called "experts" are slowly but surely making people sicker and sicker, while they try to convince us that there is nothing all wrong with a few little chemicals in our water and our food and our body creams and soaps. Something is inherently wrong when people think that is normal and I find it scary that we have put all of our faith into medicine and science, and forgotten the simple, important things in life.

That's it, rant over. If you have only JUST stumbled onto this blog and have no clue what I'm talking about, please feel free to start at the beginning and work your way through. It's really made me question, and I hope it does the same for you.

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