How to Eat A Jackfruit

Jackfruit is amaaazing. 

But it does seem like a very intimidating fruit, at least that's how it seemed to me the first time my partner brought a whole one home. They require a bit of prep and a few items to make sure you don't get full of latex.

First off, you'll want to gather a few thing: a good large knife, a non-absorbant surface to place the jackfruit on while you cut and harvest, some coconut oil (or something neutral) and two bowls. One bowl will be for compost and the other for fruit and/or seeds depending if you eat as you go or collect it all for afterwards.

Oil up your hands and the knife before anything.

Let's Start!

Cut the jackfruit in half, as above.

Then, cut off the middle stem part as best you can. This will make getting the fruit out easier.

Now the fun part begins!

Start pulling out the magical pieces of fruit as you can see my partner doing. Take out the seed and the membrane covering it. Eat or place in bowl.

You can keep the seeds and either roast or boil them for a snack.

Someone LOVES jackfruit and was patiently waiting for her share as we went along.

This is what the fruit actually looks like up close. It has an amazing sweet taste and a chewy, juicy texture. Ours didn;t have a ton of fruit this time around. For a 9kg fruit we got a meal's worth of flesh.

The aftermath!

You can find Jackfruit at most Asian grocers. Try to get a whole one! They aren't usually ripe enough when pre-cut and will ripen on your counter if you buy them whole. You can also try out frozen jackfruit if you just want a taste before the big commitment of buying a whole one.

Enjoy!

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Top Ten Exotic Fruit of Costa Rica

Fruit is the best of foods.

Even better are fruits that are not typically found, or really found ripe or goof quality, in most of North America. I mean, don't get me wrong: apples and pears and grapes are great when they're in season but when you start on a healthy diet that include lots of fruit, variety makes it that much sweeter.

So, I dare you to expand your fruity horizons!

A few of these are not necessarily local and indigenous to Costa Rica, but they are amazing, delicious and grow very well in the climates available. Many are available in their imported forms and most definitely worth trying if you can get your hands on them. I suggest trying your local asian grocer or China Town to see what they offer.

1. Biriba

A sweet blissful fruit that tastes like lemon meringue pie. Best if picked ripe, and ready to eat. This is one that is worth the plane ticket since I've never seen them anywhere else.

2. Pineapple

I know, you can get pineapple pretty much anywhere. But nothing beats the taste of a truly ripe pineapple. If they're picked green and left to ripen, they lose most of their magic. Did you know it takes up to 2 years for one pineapple to grow?

3. Sour Sop (Guanabana)

was a massive outburst of information about the Sour Sop not too long ago, boasting about it's cancer fighting abilities. The taste of these is amazing, a sweet/soup juicy bite will lead you to devour the entire thing in one sitting!

4. Mangoes

Yes, again, mangos are available everywhere. Here, they are picked ripe and have a very large selection of varieties. The season starts soon and I expect to live off them for days!

5. Ice Cream Banana

An intriguing variety of banana, it is to be eaten when very soft, and massaged beforehand as well. It has a lemony creamy taste with an ice creamy texture.

6. Jackfruit

The source of the flavor they developed for juicy fruit gum! Jackfruit is a beast of a fruit, it can weigh up to 36 kg or 80 lbs. The insides are interesting and require some work to get out as the fruit has a natural latex that oozes out and gets on everything wh
en cut open. The trick is to oil up your hands a knife and dig in!

7. Granadilla

A large type of passion fruit that is sometimes sweet, with a tang. One of my most favorite fruits, it tastes even better when paired with mango.

8. Sapodilla

A feast that reminds one of brown sugar and cake. This little brown fruit is much more than it appears to be.

9. Maracuya

A super sour passion fruit that is often used here in drinks and juices. Many people like adding a little sweetness, but it reminds me of the sour candies I enjoyed as a kid.

10. Rambutan (Mamón Chino)

An alien looking fruit that tastes similar to the lychee, it is bursting with juicy flavor. Just peel away the colorful skin and pop the white fruit into your mouth, making sure not to chomp down on the pit!

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Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Well it seems like fall has officially come to Toronto. We woke up this morning huddling for body heat, since we usually sleep with the window open because this condo has this weird tendency to be warm. Not so great of an idea last night!

It's also our last few days here. Prepping for a move back to Ottawa for a few months, I haven't had plenty of time to cook meals more complex than potatoes and hummus. Or even think much about new ideas. So it's been back to comfort staples, which I really don't mind, since eating simply is what I love best!

It's pretty obvious how much produce we eat around here, when all the boxes that we've used to pack have been from the fruit that we've eaten over the last while. Banana boxes are my favorite to pack with since they seem to be the perfect size for basically anything, are super strong and have handles. Not to mention they stack perfectly. Just another benefit of eating tons of fruit.

Now to the ice cream.

Even though I am not so happy about the cold, it definitely did not stop me from indulging in this treat. After having made pumpkin puree from the awesome local sugar pumpkins my partner got me, I didn't really want to just make the usual pumpkin pie and soup. Also, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make the pie yet, since I don't use flours of any kind, it's going to be a bit of a challenge unless I make a raw crust.

So this lovely dish came to life. A fat-free, whole food, no-processed-sugar delicacy that everyone can enjoy! It's loaded with sticky good for you ingredients that make this not only a decadent treat, but a healthy one too.

 Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Ingredients:

- 6 large bananas, peeled, cut and frozen.

- 3/4 cup pumpkin puree

- 10-14 dates, soaked,

- 1/2 cup coconut sugar

- 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I made my own, below)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. 

You can serve immediately which will be more of a soft serve, or you can put into a freezer safe glass container and freeze it for a few hours to scoop it like I did. 

Pumpkin Pie Spice:

- 2 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp ginger (I actually used fresh)

- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

- 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Enjoy!

Vegan MoFo 2013: Thirsty Thursday's presents The Green Smoothie

So I totally went MIA and all. I caught what they call the MoFo flu, or at least that's what I'm calling it! I was too busy with too little organization and just derailed a little on the postings. I also had a week of clean super simple to the basics eating where nothing that involved more than a blender or boiling water was used.

But hey, the blender got good use for smoothies, which I tend to have everyday lately. My usually combo is bananas, greens and some coconut sugar, but today we had some awesome ripe pineapple that I just had to use, well really this one is mostly my partner's making but I did have some input.

I like to get in as many tender leafy greens as possible, it makes such a difference in how I feel and in my training regiment. on a day to day basis, I try to get in at least a pound of greens, up to two. This may seem like a lot, but really all it takes is a large smoothie and a decent sized salad and I attain my goal easily. Plus, greens go well with any starch, especially baby spinach.

The blast of nutrients you get from consuming greens will make your body hum with happiness. Seriously. I used to be really picky with them, until I started making green smoothies, where you don't really taste them at all if that's a block. Then came the awesome salads, once I went 80/10/10 I discovered how to make awesome dressing and combos that worked for me without added a ton of fat or oils to my daily diet. AND then I started making green juices, which are next level, although I haven't made much of them in the past few months after doing a green juice cleanse in the spring.

All this to say, eat your greens, it's not that hard and you'll feel awesome.

Pineapple Green Madness

Ingredients:

(Serves 1)

- 1 pineapple, cut in pieces.

- 2-3 bananas

- 1/2 cup organic coconut sugar

- 1 cup of water

- 2 large handfuls of spinach or half a bunch of kale.

Put all ingredients in blender, blend until smooth.

Drink it up!

Enjoy.

Vegan MoFo 2013: Fruity Friday AND Rawkin Saturday Combo Post: What I eat.

Since my planned recipe for yesterday didn't work out, I figured I'd do a combo post that showcases what it is exactly that I eat, what defines my food philosophy and also defines what this blog is all about.

I became plant based as on January 1st 2010, starting off with a slightly pescatarian diet and quickly progressing to vegetarian to vegan to high raw in a matter of about 7 months. Since then my diet has varied a bit, but has fundamentally followed certain guidelines. I've had a ton of success on it and have regained my health as well as shed 70 pounds (so far). But that's a whole story for another post!

These days, my ideal day starts off with a liter of water, sometimes with lemon. Then I have a breakfast consisting of fruit, sometimes a smoothie, sometimes just a generous quantity of whole ripe fresh awesomeness. When I say generous, I mean 7-10 bananas blended with strawberries, or 2 liters of fresh pressed orange juice. I prefer to stick with what's in season, but bananas are always a staple since they are easy to find, consistent and affordable. For lunch, it's usually also fruit, but sometimes a large salad with tons of greens (my faves being romaine, spinach and baby lettuces). If I feel like a snack it's again fruit, or veggies but sometimes rice crackers, or a bowl of rice. Dinners are by far my most complex meal, which is what most of the recipes here consist of.

I like to keep my cooked meal on the whole food plant based side of things. My meals are generally high carb and low fat, although I do deviate from that. My goal is more to keep an average of 80% carbs, 10% protein and fats. I feel my best when I stick to it and have found so many other that have as well, including people that I've coached. I also love being gluten-free and oil-free, low salt and low processed anything. I do occasionally deviate from this, generally when I go out to restaurants I am a bit more lenient but still keep it vegan and gluten free.

So dinner is often also very simple, like baked potatoes with salsa, or rice with steamed veggies.

Seasonality means that I try to stick to what's in season at all times, preferably local but since the winters here don;t have much to offer, I keep in mind what is in season around the world at that time.  I love peaches, berries and melons in the summer; dates, apples and pomegranates in the fall; citrus of all kinds, papayas and persimmons in the winter, as well as mangoes; and last but not least mangos, pineapple and the last of the oranges in the spring. Of course my diet varies much more than that, but since those are the best quality fruits at that time, they usually consist of my main sources of calories at that time along with bananas.

There are days where I will eat completely raw, and others when I might only have one meal of fruit, rarely does it happen that I have a day without raw foods.

My goals for the day food wise also include drinking 3 liters of water and eating over 2500 calories a day. It may seem like a lot to many people who are so used to calorie restricting, which I am far too familiar with, but the reality is that low calorie meals do not work long term. They are unsustainable and honestly who wants to live on will power alone?

I want to live an abundant life, a healthy life and a life filled with adventure and projects. In order to have the energy to do so, you have to eat. Plain and simple. The whole calories in, calories out rubbish has been debunked. I've never felt better or had so little issues losing excess weight than when I chose to eat more of the right foods instead of less of everything.

So rejoice and fill yourself with the delicacies of nature!

Banana Ice Cream.

I had this for breakfast at least 5 times in the past week and a half. Yes, that's right, breakfast.

I laugh so much when people have those bewildered looks on their face when they find out I'm not only vegan, I stick to a whole food, high raw diet. I know they have images of endless salads popping up in their heads and while I love me a good salad, it's definitely not the bulk of my diet.

In my book, healthy still means delicious. Actually, when I started being more conscious of my food choices, the variety and quality of my food went way up. When you start exploring real food, there is no comparison to the richness and the amazing taste of what nature gives us.

Back to ice cream.

I discovered this amazingly simple and oh-so-decadent treat a few years ago when I started looking into raw foods. Having always been an ice cream lover, and it really not loving me back, eating a version that I could feel amazing about in so many ways made me jump for joy (literally. I even have a happy dance just for this).

On top f all the healthy benefits and amazing taste, this stuff won't actually spike blood sugar for those who are concerned about it. Coconut sugar (the topping) has a very low glycemic index. Tastes like caramel molasses with a hint of maple and has an abundance of nutrients. If you are looking for an alternative sweetener, this really is the beat available. It's actually all-natural and not full of chemicals, which beats the competition with ease.

It tastes like the "real deal", actually no, it's better! More like soft serve or frozen yogurt, it's melty, rich, healthy and well ,just make it. When you read the recipe, you won't believe me until you make it and eat it... Then make more so make sure to prepare extra ingredients from the start. I'm putting in enough ingredients for a batch that usually feeds 2 of us with hearty appetites, so feel free to adjust it to your needs.

Banana Ice Cream

- 12-14 ripe bananas.

(make sure they are spotty-ripe so that they are very sweet)

Toppings:

Choose as many as you like! These are my faves.

- Coconut sugar

- Strawberries

- Date sauce/bits

- Carob/Cacao

- Jam

- Maple Syrup

- Anything your heart desires. 

Peel and cut the bananas into fours and put into a freezer bag or glass tupperware container. Freeze it overnight or for at least 6 hours. 

Put the bananas in either a high powered blender, food processor or juicer with a blank insert and process with little to no added liquid. I prefer the food processor as my blender does sometimes overheat while making this. If all you have is a regular blender, defrost the bananas slightly to soften them. You might have to add liquid as well. 

Once it's all smooth, add toppings and enjoy!