One of the most popular dishes, and one that I got asked for the recipe for many times at our recent London Dinner Party was the Tomato & Macadamia Mozzarella Linguine.  It’s a really simple dish that only takes 20 minutes (unless you’re making it for 30 people!) to make and it is also great to take to work as it will keep in a lunch box really well.  I’m particularly pleased with this recipe as it’s tastes like it should be more complicated than it is!

Read on for the recipe…

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The noise of cutlery on plates, the excited hum of conversation and the satisfying, "mmmmmmmm" of people enjoying my food – it was worth all the effort to hear those restaurant sounds last Sunday night at our Raw Dinner Party.

For those of you that I’ve met or are regular readers to this blog, you may know that my ultimate goal is open a raw restaurant and last Sunday I got a glimpse of my dream.  I also got an idea of how much work is involved, but the good news is that it hasn’t put me off! :-)  I was so blown away by the comments and compliments I received that night, I really would like to thank everyone for being there and also for your positive feedback.  A few people mentioned that they would have like to spoken to me about the food and what I am up to so I will endeavor to make that happen next month.  Actually it was my intention to come and chat to you all but being the first event, I was a little bit busy!  Here’s a selection of the feedback we had…

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Had a meeting with a very nice guy from Trading Standards yesterday.  I wanted to go through exactly what laws I need to comply with to be able to make and sell my own products.  I have to say that even though I expected it to be difficult, I wasn’t prepared for the amount of detail there is to think about!  Hasn’t put me off though, I just see it as a process that includes some hurdles.  Some of those hurdles will be small and some will be large so I just need to take each one as it comes up, should be a fun journey!

I had to smile when we got on to the subject of what I’m allowed to call my food products.  Apparently if you’re making a claim about the healthy aspects of a product then it has to be provable or ‘common knowledge’.  What about uncommon knowledge, where’s the allowance for things we haven’t found out about yet?  And what about supermarkets that call their bacon ‘healthy eating’, is it common knowledge that bacon is healthy just because it’s got less rind?  I’ve also seen chocolate eclairs marked in the same way…healthy eclairs!!!  Could I bring out a product with that much refined sugar in it and call ‘healthy’ just because it’s got less fat than a ‘normal’ eclair?

It’s no wonder our supermarket shelves are dominated by big name companies’ products.  The legislation that has to be worked through is enough to put anyone off that doesn’t have a team of lawyers working for them.

This is going to call for guerrilla warfare tactics :-)…exploit the things that you think put you at a disadvantage and turn them into your biggest advantage!

I’m off to assemble the troops…

Tallyho!

Close your eyes (clearly you’re going to have to read the rest of this first!).  Imagine an 80 year old man or woman (depending on what sex you are) in front of you.  What does she look like?  Does he have grey hair?  Is her skin wrinkled and marked?  Does he look 100 rather than 80?  Is she bent over in an awkward hunch or standing up straight?  Does he speak slowly with a laboured thought process or does he speak freely and easily?  Is she using a walking stick, is she incapable of walking altogether?!!

Stop reading and do this simple exercise before reading on.

Done?  OK, read on… 

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Phew! What a busy time I’ve been having.  Most of last weekend was taken up with preparing for and demoing at The Fresh Network Open Day.  It felt a little bit different as it was on a Sunday instead of the usual Saturday, I mean, we were eating raw chocolate when most people would have eating roast spuds and then falling asleep in front of the TV!  There was a great crowd of people, it’s really nice to be around like-minded people.  It always reconnects me to my reasons for being raw and also wanting to create raw food for others – it strengthens my ‘why’ as Karen would say.

Anway, on to my reason for this post.  As I have already said, I was demoing raw chocolate at the Open Day, in the form of Raw Easter Eggs.  Everyone loved the chocolate and was amazed when I popped the egg out of the mould so I wanted to share the recipe and method with you all.  This is a great one for parents as you now don’t have to compromise or feel that your kids are missing out…read on….

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So I’ve been in Cambridgeshire nearly 2 months now and I’m feeling a little ‘ungrounded’.  By that I mean I’ve been feeling that there aren’t many things around me that are permanent, I feel ‘in limbo’.  There’s a number of reasons for this, firstly it’s the terrain..it’s so open, flat and a little disconcerting if I’m honest.  It’s very different from the suburbia that I’m used to in Sussex.  Where I came from is very built up, with major cities like Brighton and Portsmouth very near, you really don’t have to travel far until your in the next town.  Of course, Cambridge is only 20 minutes away, but it seems like further sometimes.  I’m not used to not being able to pop out to the local retail park for stationary or DIY stuff, the funny thing is, I never really did that very often but now I haven’t got the option to, it seems to really matter.

Then there’s the sea…I miss the sea.  But again, I didn’t really go to the seafront very often and when I would drive past it several times a day I didn’t really appreciate it.  Add this to the fact that the village I’m living in is very different to what I had expected, if you’re going to live out in the country you expect it to be quiet!

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