Raw food recipes, for free -- Menu 3

Here are a few recipes to tempt you. All recipes are uncooked and therefore provide more nutrients to your body. Love yourself enough to try them!

Easy sushi

Make sushi the easy way, by cutting out the need to use a rolling mat. Of course, if you want to make it the conventional way, you can still use these recipe ideas!

Use black, not green, squares of nori in all these recipes as they are raw. I haven't listed amounts at all as it really doesn't matter, and it also depends on how many wraps you make.

As well as using as a main course, the versatility of easy sushi makes it great for parties, starters, nibbles, packed lunches and side dishes. Serve with thin slices of ginger, wasabi dip, and your favourite side dishes.

Take all suggested ingredients of one of the recipes below, or invent your own. Take several sheets of black nori, and fold them in half. Cut them with scissors along the half line. Cut them again so they're in strips of quarters, then cut them in the opposite direction in half. You should end up with 8 little strips per sheet. Have a glass of water handy for cleaning your scissors or knife.

So here are some suggestions, but do experiment with your own, too!

Pick up one nori strip, and put about a teaspoon of the soft filling along half of the strip. Then add small slices of your other ingredients so they sit in the middle of your soft filling. Arrange them so they poke out of one end, but not the other, as you need a flat base to stand them up on. Then gently hold the fillings in place with one finger, and curl up the sheet. Roll the end with no filling over the filling end and it should all come together and overlap a little. Brush the end with a little water, and firm it down. Place it on a plate, with the newly sealed end on the bottom. Once all your sushi is made, you can turn them up on their bottoms, with all the wonderful middle ingredients sticking out the top.

If you don't feel confident doing all that, you can cheat! Just put the soft ingredient in before rolling the sushi up, and then add the other ingredients once the sushi is standing up. I call these "Sushi trees"!

*Recipes and more easy sushi ideas available in the book, Detox Your World.

Walnut burgers

These are well worth making as they taste great, and provide a link to the type of food you might have left behind so you don't miss it. Makes about 8 burgers.

6 cups of walnuts, soaked for 2 hours
2 cups of carrots, topped and tailed
1 cup of fresh herbs, such as parsley, basil and coriander, tightly packed
1 and a half cups of red onion
2 cups of portabello mushroom
Half a red pepper, deseeded and destalked
6 sundried tomatoes, soaked for 2-6 hours
2 cloves of garlic
1 dessertspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of dried pizza herbs
1 teaspoon of dried parsley

Set aside the fresh herbs, the pepper and half the onions. Finely chop the sundried tomatoes. Blend all other ingredients in a food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and continue blending with a hand blender until you achieve a smooth consistency.

Very finely chop the remaining ingredients by hand (this ensures a good texture), and mix into the burger mix. Divide into 8 or 10 equal portions andform into burger shapes. You can eat it as it is, but we prefer to dehydrate for 4-24 hours for a much more intense flavour.

Here's a serving suggestion: Put 1 burger in a big romaine or batavia leaf, add your choice of Tomato sauce*, cheddary cheeze slices* thinly sliced onion rings, "Fried" mushrooms*, Mango chutney*, Sweetcorn salsa* and mustard cress. Serve with Joe's chip shop chips* and a smile on your face.

*Recipes available in the book, Detox your world.

Kumquat and nutmeg cheezecake

This cake is a dream! I made it for my friends birthday. One other friend made me write down the recipe for him to take home and make, and I even made another one a day later. It's soooo gooood!

3 cups of almonds, dry
2 tablespoons of raw carob powder
1 cup of pecans, dry
2 cups of dates, soaked and stoned
Juice of 1 orange
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 vanilla pod
5 bananas, chopped thinly and frozen for at least 12 hours
4 kumquats
1 large mango

Using a loose based round cake tin, cover the base in cling film, and fit to the tin. Cover the sides in silver foil.

Add the almonds, pecans (reserve 8 for decoration), dates, an inch of the vanilla, a sprinkling of nutmeg, the carob powder and the juice of the orange to a food processor. Process gently to start with, and continue until you get a dough-like consistency, but still chunky. If it's not doughy enough add small quantities of water until you achieve the desired result. Place in the cake tin, and flatten down.

Clean your food processor and add the chopped frozen banana. Halve the kumquats and remove the middles, add the skins to the processor. Slit the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the processor. Slice the cheeks off the mango, and skin them, add those to the food processor. Add most of the rest of the nutmeg. Add a couple of chopped dates if you like, too. Process for several minutes, until the whole mixture turns to white fluff. Don't be tempted to process this for less time, but do stop for a minute if your machine gets hot. It needs to go white and fluffly. Scrape it down every now and then so everything gets processed. Add this to the cake tin, on top of the nut base. Smooth it all down so there's no trapped air, and is level on top. Add the left over pecans in a nice pattern and sprinkle the rest of the nutmeg.

Return it all to the freezer for at least an hour. Once ready to serve, turn out the cake by pushing the loose base out and up. Take the foil off and place on a serving plate.

Check out Menu 1! Check out Menu 2! Check out Menu 4!