i made cheese!

yesterday was the beginning of a new course - essentials of raw culinary arts. this series of classes is more hands-on, we get to actually make the stuff that we saw in the fundamentals class. i had to get a chef coat! a nice coursemate offered to sell me her spare coat but she is of a small built so that didnt work out. i eventually bought mine at the marketplace. i chose turquoise, so much like me to be against the norm of wearing a white coat. its cute but as the day went on, it is so hot! i dunno know those conventional chefs can wear their thick chef coat in the hot kitchen. thank goodness we don't deal with hot stoves here!

we started the day early, registration for those who were not here earlier... and breakfast is provided in the form of a very green smoothie called green giant, celery and raw almonds. we had this shot of E3live (http://www.e3live.com/) to me, the most awful tasting dark green algae which i discovered eventually, worked very well for my digestive system!

as i drank the very yummy smoothie, i was thinking i should really do this for breakfast every morning when i go home coz it really is very filling and extremely healthy but then... some people cannot handle green very well (aka the men in my house!) i think i'll have to be more creative with my colours management in serving green giants at home. tell you what, the green giant is so very filling, you literally don't feel hungry at all the whole morning. amazing! i think it must be the wholesome fruity (bananas???) taste that provides the palate a full flavour that satisfy the hunger pangs?

after a long orientation lecture by cherie and we also met her husband who is also her business partner (more involved in the back end administrative work i suppose coz he doesnt teach) we started a full day of hands-on

so today we were divided into groups of 4/5. there's 6 workstations that we work from in teams. each set of 2 workstations provide the equipment and raw ingredients that allows us to transform into what would eventually become our lunch. tell you what, it seems like we eat all day!!!!

first hands-on was making almond cheese. when i attended the raw food class in singapore, we did have a demo on the making of the almond cheese so this was easy for me. it's so easy to make almond cheese, it makes me think its ridiculous how much we pay for it! all you need is to soak the raw nuts for a couple of hours, blend it in the food processor together with the nutritional yeast. make sure its in a nice paste and then transfer it into small berry containers in cheese cloth (i remember when i first learnt how to make this, i had to ring my friend to ask her what is cheese cloth! haha!) and let it sit and ferment! email me if you want the recipe. the only thing that i am concerned about is the weather in singapore and how it will impact the process, the humidity and bacteria etc.... if you do want to try, it seriously taste so yummy!

then we made pizza chips... which is soooo good i could eat it all day! great healthy snack to have around the home. i think this will definitely be something i will make. makes a lovely unique gift, and much better than the junk we get at the supermarket!

sauerkraut - the easiest recipe on earth, so easy its almost too good to be true. and i'm just thinking of the times i paid too much for a bottle of it from nature's glory which ended up not eaten coz its way too sour even if its organic! this recipe we made, all we did was shred the cabbage on the mandoline, put in a huge salad bowl with some himalayan sea salt and massage it preferably with bare hands till it starts shrinking and juicing. pack it off in a bottle and let it ferment for 3-6 days and voila! i think with our extremely hot weather in singapore, 2 days should be more than enough. this is really easy! a course mate recommends that i try using those juicers that juices by mastication. makes more sense to me! trust me, my arm was aching when i finished with massaging the cabbage. (i need a massage myself!) its so funny, the instructor said we should massage the cabbage with love and care when all i am thinking in my mind is, i can't believe i am massaging a bunch of shrivelled cabbage, for a minute the $20- or so i pay for a bottle sounds more palatable...! haha...

then we made brownies! the brownies were too dry and chocolately for me. i dun think it will go down so well at home. but its easy to make though. nuts with cacao or carob (no caffeine - but give me caffeine anytime!!!), dates and blend them together, chill it in the fridge! it's that easy!

next on the list was the garden vegetable soup. its served cold like gazpacho or room temperature. if you think the rest was easy, this was just a matter of dumping everything into the blender, blend at high speed and thats it! great easy to make comfort food and so very yummy.

and this was only the morning session! everything we prepared eventually became our lunch.

the lunch ritual was quite nice. we gather in a circle around the buffet spread holding hands and give thanks in a non denomination prayer.

the buffet spread just looks so great. promise i will take picture today, if i remember!


this was my lunch! it really is amazingly good!







with so much packed in a day, i cannot quite remember when we made the granola bars but i think that is something that is definitely worth the effort, knowing how lazy i am! definitely one of the first i will teach yani. she's gonna be going back home to be a raw food chef by the time i finish training her! it really isn't that expensive to adopt this diet and i think its very doable. it's like playdoh! you mix everything together and mash it up! then we spread it on the tray and put it in the dehydrator to dry. this is another very nice snack to have around the house. the nice thing about this is that its all so natural with no added sugar and preservatives, you can be sure that you are not eating junk food!

after lunch, things got easier. we practised our knife skills with our chef knife. dicing, julienne cuts in preparation for the sushi rolls.

this was my creation ->

one of the girls in my group is allergic to nori so she used salad to wrap instead. both tasted as yummy!



of course the more hardworking and creative ones in class made some nice decorations out of their sushi...











we ended the day with facility management. and what is that you may ask? basically cleaning up lah! boy do i miss yani here! we had to clean the equipment, wash the dishes, cups, put away the rubbish, sweep the floor, etc... i couldnt believe it! apparently this is the norm in all cullinary institutes. you have to clean up! luckily this is a raw food place, waste doesn't smell like it would in a joint that prepares meat i guess! i think i'll die if i have to clean up a fish market! they take recycling so very seriously here, each dumping area has four buckets to collect the different types of rubbish.

food is packed in recycleable packaging made with corn. we should adopt that at home instead of the foam packs which are disgusting!

anyway, time to get ready for another day of fun! i'm enjoying this....