As someone who LOVES wine (and worked in the wine industry 
for 8 years) I am always looking for alternative drinks that can still give me a nice “buzz” but also pumps my body full of nutrients and vitamins.
Maybe it’s just the high of eating raw foods, but I love this recipe from “Fully Raw Kristina.” I think the wine glass and decanter really make it feel like I’m having the full wine experience (not to mention the intoxicating color of the juice).
Try it and let me know what you think!
This dessert is perfect for the warmer weather. It’s refreshing, fruity and lighter 
than most nut based treats. Plus it’s:
▪ Gluten Free
▪ Dairy Free
▪ Cacao Free
I came up with this recipe whilst trying to create something different to the usual chocolate based healthy dessert for a dinner party.
To be honest anything lemony is good with me!
This recipe makes x 4 tarts.
Ingredients:
Base
▪ 1 1/2 cups of macadamia nuts
▪ 1/2 cup of medjool dates
▪ pinch of sea salt
Blend ingredients until a dough is formed, press into the coconut oil greased tart tins.
Filling
▪ 2 cups of cashews 
▪ 1/2 cup of lemon juice
▪ 1 tbsp of honey
▪ 1/2 cup of melted coconut oil
▪ pinch of vanilla
Blend all ingredients together until a smooth cream. Pour into the tart tins on the base. Place in the freezer for 30 mins to firm.
Topping
▪ 2 cups of strawberries, chopped
▪ 3/4 cup of medjool dates.
Blend into a strawberry jam, pour in the cream filling and place in the freezer to set for about an hour.
These are delicious when totally defrosted or still slightly frozen. I like how when they are frozen you can eat them by hand! They’re like an ice-cream biscuit and oh so yummy!
What are some of your favorite summer vegan treats? Let us know in the comment section below!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats is a weekly column bringing you the best, most 
delicious and easy raw food recipes to help maintain and support a healthy lifestyle. Brought to you by Chakra Center’s own raw food goddess, Sarah Hook.
This juice is delicious, refreshing and cleansing. It’s great for boosting immunity and aiding the liver cleanse.
Ingredients:
Juice all of the ingredients and add coconut water to taste.
Enjoy!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats is a weekly column bringing you the best, most delicious and easy raw food recipes to help maintain and support a healthy lifestyle. Brought to you by Chakra Center’s own raw food goddess, Sarah Hook.
Chocolate & Beetroot Cup Cakes
Yes! Chocolate and beetroot! It’s an amazing combination! Beetroot is an excellent detoxifier and cleanser, helping the liver do its job, and when combined with the taste of raw cacao it makes these cupcakes deliciously healthy. Plus they are grain free, sugar free, and dairy free.
Ingredients
Blend the eggs in a blender, add in xylitol and beetroot. Blend again.
Next add the coconut milk, coconut oil, sea salt, stevia and vanilla. Blend again. Lastly add the coconut flour and cacao powder and blend well until thoroughly mixed.
Spoon mixture into cupcake holders and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 200C.
Enjoy!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats is a weekly column bringing you the best, most delicious and easy raw food recipes to help maintain and support a healthy lifestyle. Brought to you by Chakra Center’s own raw food goddess, Sarah Hook.
Zucchini Rustic Pasta
A beautifully healthy & vibrant springtime dish bursting with flavor & color.
Serves 1 Person
Ingredients:
Recipe by nutritional health coach and raw food chef, Sarah Hook.
Pumpkin & Sunflower Seed Milk
I usually make milk with Almonds, Brazil or even Pecans, as my dairy free milk. However I had lots of seeds left over from when I soaked a whole batch and froze them. Once I had defrosted them I didn’t want the to go to waste, so I decided to make some seed milk!
It was a success so I’ll share what I did and why it makes a nice change…and it’s oh so good for you too!
Ingredients:
▪ 1 cup of soaked pumpkin seeds
▪ 1 cup of soaked sunflower seeds
▪ 1 1/2 litres of filtered water
▪ 3 medjool dates
▪ Pinch of sea salt
Add everything to the blender (I use my trusty Vitamix!).
Blend until smooth and then strain through a nut bag.
Easy!
I store mine in a mason jar in the fridge and it last for at least 4-5 days.
It’s important to soak the seeds first for at least 12 hrs; this makes the seeds more nutrient dense and also easier to digest. The digestion is your powerhouse!
To soak or not to soak..:
Soak! The reason for this is that nuts, seeds, legumes and grains, while rich in nutrients and enzymes, also contain phytic acid which inhibits the absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc, they also contain enzyme inhibitors that work to block the absorption of minerals. In nature, phytic acid exists so that the seed or nut can protect itself until the proper conditions are met for it to sprout, grow and reproduce.
In addition to blocking key minerals from being absorbed into the body, phytic acid can be a great strain on the human digestive system. Traditional people have soaked and sprouted seeds, nuts, legumes, and grains for millennia in order to get the optimal nutritional benefits from these foods. Once soaked, the phytic acid is deactivated and released into the water and the enzymes and minerals in the food are more readily available for absorption into our bodies.
Why Pumpkin & Sunflower Seeds are so good for you:
Sunflower Seeds
Raw sunflower seeds are a rich source of vitamin E, a valuable antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and a source of vital minerals such as magnesium and selenium as well as linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid. The seeds contain lots of iron, which can combat anemia, and lots of chlorophyll, which helps detoxify the liver and the blood. Amazing Stuff!
Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkin seeds are rich dietary source of magnesium, zinc, phosphorus, manganese, iron and copper. So many people are deficient in important minerals like magnesium and zinc. The seeds are a good source of tryptophan, the amino acid that converts to the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is important for coping with stress and deficiencies can lead to depression and insomnia.
Pumpkin seeds are also a fairly good source of certain B vitamins, which help regulate mood. Combine this with the tryptophan mentioned above and pumpkin seeds look like a great food to eat when stressed or tired.
Give this seed milk a go and let me know what you think…
And you can make this smoothie:
I like to have a play and get all my super-foods out and play at alchemy!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats is a weekly column bringing you the best, most delicious and easy raw food recipes to help maintain and support a healthy lifestyle. Brought to you byChakra Center’s own raw food goddess, Sarah Hook.
OMG! These taste like Ferrero Rocher and Nutella rolled into one. Delicious chocolate!
Dairy free, gluten free, and no processed sugars.
Hazelnut & Chocolate Bites
Ingredients
These are great for kids, and a perfect chocolate fix for everyone.
Enjoy!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats is brought to you by holistic health coach, Sarah Hook.
Chocolate Raisin Fudge
Add cashews to blender and blend to a powder, then add sea salt, vanilla, and cacao powder and mix again. Add in the medjool dates and raisin and blend, then finally add the coconut oil and blend to a dough.
Spoon out and put into a rectangular dish and pop in the freezer for 30 minutes until firm.
Enjoy!
Recipe by nutritional health coach and raw food chef, Sarah Hook.
Tuscany, Italy — October 4th – 11th 2013:
Get ready to lavish in luxury, learn about wine from the experts, experience traditional Tuscan cuisine prepared by 
Italians (raw and vegan style), steep in the magic of aromatherapy, healing massage, and energy work, connect with like minds, and experience your internal world through complete indulgence in your senses. This will be an exclusive,once-in-a-lifetime, full immersion retreat in the heart of Tuscany.
So often in the “spiritual community” we are taught to deny our selves. We make a conscious effort to fully activate and engage our upper chakras through meditation, prayer, out of body experiences, and fasting, but we neglect our 
lower chakras – we discount the purpose and power of our physical experiences.
We came into life in this physical dimension to experience it, learn from it, and expand. Denying the importance and role of our physical expression cuts off a major aspect of our purpose here, and rather than “setting us free” it often leads to repressed and blocked energy in the body.
It’s all about balance. We don’t want to over-indulge the physical, but often we need to create moments and experiences where we can fully allow our lower chakras a place to take center stage. When we activate and allow our lower chakras to do what they were designed to do, we can create bliss that is unparallel in any other dimension – we experience the merging of the physical and non-physical aspects of ourselves which – when fully charged – can allow the flow of energy through our bodies to cause a kundalini experience throughout our entire energetic and physical fields.
Activating bliss through our five senses is a total allowance of our physical and spiritual selves to come together in complete harmony in this 3rd dimension – to give us permission to create and experience beauty; the bliss of such moments is often called “orgasmic” for a reason. It’s the closest we come to experiencing the fullness of our WHOLE selves in this dimension, and it is through our physical senses that these moments of creative and sensual pleasure are made possible.
Italy is a country where beauty reigns. It’s a place where culturally time is arranged to experience the poetry and magic of “la vita bella.” It’s an experience you don’t just live; you enter directly into the music of life. You allow the beauty of the physical world to seep into every cell of your body. It’s about indulgence. It’s about creation. It’s about experiencing the bounty and harvest of our energetic and spiritual work that has been transmuted into physical attributes: Wine, chocolate, living organic foods, music, aromatherapy, massage, and all things blissful. Italy is truly an immersion in the aesthetics of creation.
This retreat provides an experience, an opportunity to allow yourself to let go and fully surrender to the beauty within and
around you, filling your senses, your body, and your spirit with the majesty and magic of what it means to truly live, love, and luxuriate in bliss of being in a body of flesh and blood. It’s about losing yourself in present moment awareness and fully experiencing the gift of our physical world.
Here’s a lil’ taste of the magic we’re weaving together for you:
Tuscany’s most well-respected, bio-diverse organic wineries.
house and custom blended for this exclusive retreat by certified, intuitive aroma therapist, Athena Ziegler.
by Vito Cortese using the freshest and most local ingredients birthed from the rustic soil of Tuscany.Join us for an entire week full of world-class wine, living/organic Tuscan foods and luxurious self-pampering woven-in the intricate and alchemical magic of aromatherapy, energy healing, love, and unapologetic bliss. Our intention is to create a five-star experience of magic and pleasure that is deeply grounded in and experienced through your physical senses. It will be an otherworldly creation. Your only job is to show-up and surrender to the beauty. We’ll take care of the rest.
Pricing and registration will open Thursday, Jan. 31st. As this is the only exclusive, alchemical, luxury, five star retreat of its kind, registration is likely to go fast. Space is extremely limited. First come, first serve. If you are planning to come with a partner or spouse, or if you wish to have your own room, there is a limited number suites available with a queen size bed. All other rooms will be shared with single beds, so register soon to receive your preference.
We can’t wait to create magic and sip wine with you under the Tuscan sun!
Ci vediamo!
Chocolate Cashew Cookies
First thing to know: You don’t need a dehydrator for these! (I prefer them gooey anyway).
All you will need is:
Blend the cashew and almonds in a blender until you have flour-like mix.
Add the dates, honey, sea salt and vanilla, blend until you have cookie dough, add the cacao powder and blend again.
You can then roll these into balls and serve, or flatten like cookies! Place in a fridge or freezer to firm and then enjoy!
Quick, Easy, Delicious and Healthy!!
Recipe by nutritional health coach and raw food chef, Sarah Hook.
Raspberry Vanilla Ice cream Heart
I love cold creamy deserts and this one is a hit with everyone. It tastes like vanilla ice cream but this one is without the Sugar or Dairy!
The raspberry top goes brilliantly giving it a refreshing sweet taste with the creamy base.
Plus, they look so pretty and it’s a great recipe to make for your loved one on Valentines Day, or a special anniversary…or just any day to say you love them.
Now for the important part the Recipe: (makes 9 hearts)
Topping :
Soak the cashew nuts for at least 4 – 6 hrs. Rinse and drain them. Gently melt the cacao butter and coconut oil together (either in a dehydrator or over a bowl of hot water).
Add all the base ingredients in a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Put the mixture into the heart molds and smooth over the tops. Place these in a freezer while you make the topping.
Blend all the ingredients for the topping in a high-speed blender until smooth. Strain the mixture into a bowl through a sieve to remove the raspberry seeds.
Bring the hearts out of the freezer when set, this make take an hour. Using a knife loosen the hearts from the mold and tap onto a plate. Spoon the topping onto the hearts and serve!
You can keep these in the freezer for frozen ice crème treats, or in the fridge for a softer mousse like dessert.
Sarah Hook is a Holistic health coach, Raw Food Chef, and Creator of Juice Rehab – The Juice Detox in the UK. She loves Yoga, being outside in nature, being barefoot, meditating, and being creative in every area of life. You can check-out her services here.
Another one of my favorite sweet treats!
Mix everything together and pour into a mold of your choice. (I like ice cube trays). Place in the freezer for 20 minutes and serve!
So easy! And the cinnamon is brilliant for blood sugar and an anti inflammatory — such a great combination with Cacao
Enjoy!
Sarah Hook is a Holistic health coach, Raw Food Chef, and Creator of Juice Rehab – The Juice Detox in the UK. She loves Yoga, being outside in nature, being barefoot, meditating, and being creative in every area of life.
Kale Crisps
These are my favorite savory snack ever! And they’re made from 
Kale. Kale is super good for you, loaded with vitamins, minerals and my favorite green superfood.
Even better, these cheesy garlic kale crisps/chips are the perfect replacement for potato chips, because they taste naughty and they are especially good for you. Kids love them too!
Ingredients:
Blend all of the ingredients together, until creamy. Put kale into a large bowl and pour on the mixture, massage gently into kale until covered.
Place the kale onto dehydrator sheets, pop into the dehydrator at 105 F for 10-12 hrs until crunchy.
(If you don’t have a dehydrator you could put them in your oven on the very lowest setting.. and keep a close eye on them until they are crisp )
Enjoy!
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats are brought to you by Chakra Center’s raw food extraordinaire, Sarah Hook (see our staff-and-contributors page for details on Sarah and other contributors at Chakra Center).
Chocolate chip Honey Banana Popsicle: – The easiest, simplest Raw Vegan snack Ever!!
All you need:
Spread the Raw honey on one side of the frozen banana. Top with Cacao Nibs and Bee pollen. Eat.
A great snack or dessert, if you’re in need for something sweet, or for a pre or post gym work out snack, or if you’re feeling a little stressed out…
Here’s the low down on the benefits.
Raw Honey:
Honey is more digestible than any other sweetener, natural or artificial. It is because it is not only predigested, but it also contains enzymes to help it along. It is easier on the body because of its chemical structure and does not cause a huge insulin rush the same as sugar does.
Cacao Nibs:
Antioxidants: Cacao has more antioxidant flavonoids than any food tested so far, including blueberries, red wine, and black and green teas. In fact, it has up to four times the quantity of antioxidants found in green tea. Health benefits of these antioxidants include:
Important note- to fully benefit from chocolate’s wide array of nutrients, eat chocolate that is as close to its natural state as possible. Whole cacao beans and nibs are best. You lose many of the health benefits when you eat commercially produced chocolate.
Bananas:
Bananas can act as mood enhancers or mild sedatives: Bananas contain tryptophan (although it’s not one of the major sources, a medium still contains about 10.6 mg of tryptophan). Tryptophan is one of the 20 amino acids, which are building blocks of proteins (btw, an incredible number of articles on the internet call tryptophan as a “mood-enhancing protein” and that is technically not correct). Tryptophan helps the body to produce serotonin – which has a calming effect on the brain (creates a stable mood) and acts as a mild sedative. It should be noted that the only way our body gets it’s dose of tryptophan is through our diet – it does not produce tryptophan naturally; bananas is one of the easiest ways to get it.
Bee Pollen:
Taking bee pollen, whether the granules or another form, helps to lower stress levels and enables people to better cope with stress.
This is one of the important health benefits of bee pollen, since controlling stress can impact many other aspects of health. Important vitamins, fatty acids, and amino acids are included in bee pollen that aid with mood regulation, which means that stress can be lowered and better controlled when adding these supplements to your life.
Enjoy pleasure seekers xxx
Tuesday’s Tasty Treats are brought to you by ChakraCenter’s raw food extraordinaire, Sarah Hook (see our staff-and-contributors page for details on Sarah and other contributors at Chakra Center).
Chakra Center 