Raw Coconut Cream Pie!

Keeping things short and sweet my friends : this Raw Coconut Cream Pie rules.

It’s obviously something special because I never post twice in the same day! But since today is #rawwednesday on twitter, I thought I share this for any of my tweet-pals who wanted to give it a go. There’s no soaking required, and it takes all of 5 or maybe 7 minutes!

I feel like some kind of raw foodist super-hero chica extraordinaire (which I am *so* not!) because it’s really that good. I obviously can’t take credit for fruits and nuts being so delicious, but I can be thankful I took a risk and tried to create something I was craving! So easy, so quick, you’ve no excuses not to make one yourself!

Raw Coconut Cream Pie

• 3 small or 2 large Very Ripe Bananas
• 1.5 cups coconut, shredded
• pinch Celtic Sea Salt (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoons each of nutmeg and cinnamon
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped.

Toss everything into your food processor and blend to desired consistency, stopping to scrape down the sides. Place in a bowl and let chill in freezer while you make the crust…

Raw Coconut Cream Pie Crust

• 1/2 cup almonds (unsoaked)
• 1/2 cup to 1 cup walnuts (unsoaked)
• 3 or 4 of your favourite dates (soaked in water for about 30 mins if they aren’t moisty-sticky
• pinch Celtic Sea Salt
• 1/4 (or more) cinnamon
• perhaps a bit of water

Toss everything into the food processor (no, you don’t need to wash or rinse it, save the water, kids!), adding a little water if you need to. If you feel it needs a little more walnut goodness than add in another 1/2 cup. Pat pie crust into a 17cm/7in custard dish (or even on a plate, whatever’s clever!) and top with chilled Coconut Cream Filling. It’ll taste better if you let the whole thing chill for a little while, but it’s ok if you can’t wait – I couldn’t.

Makes aprox. 4 servings

W.I.P. Wednesday : Fun with painting (please don’t laugh).

My two months of summer holiday are nearly over, and my list of projects/ideas has been about as neglected as my tan line this year. My big list for 2009 needs tending to, especially because there are only a few months left this year!

One of my desires for 2009 was to begin painting, meaning to start learning how to paint. I was able to purchase a few supplies, and soon-to-be-mamma Maria Rose (who blogs at Little Things Are Big) created two painting lessons for me (Lesson Number 1 is HERE and Lesson Number 2 is HERE.) I was so excited, motivated to begin…but stuff kept getting in the way.

The other day Guppy asked to paint after her nap, which she often does, so I broke out her ganache and watercolour paints for her, as I often do. She started painting, and I began the dishes.

And it hit me that something was really wrong with this picture.

The dishes aren’t going anywhere, and I don’t care if they stack up, really. I mean, who freaking cares!?!

So I sat down next to Guppy, and decided to paint. But paint what?

How about this :

Three Sunflowers in a Vase, Vincent Van Gogh

We have many Van Gogh prints hanging about the apartment, and this one is right over the kitchen table (where we were set up), so I decided to use it as my model. Being a good student, I recalled Maria Rose’s lessons and knew I needed to first sketch the painting, which I did rather quickly onto a piece of paper.

I set to work, and here is what I have to show for an hour of drawing & painting :

Please don’t judge me too harshly – I’ve never, ever painted anything before. Except fences, houses and a few bedrooms.

My painting is obviously pretty different, but I knew it would have to be from the get-go. Since my decision was so spontaneous I didn’t fetch my materials, and decided to just share with Guppy (or she shared with me, whatever) who had a very limited supply of ganache in primary colours : nearly no yellow at all, almost no white…you get the point. I just decided to be inspired by the original, did my best to sketch it, and decided to make the background blue and the flowers more orangy because necessity is the mother of invention.

So there you go. My first painting.

Ta da!

Now I’m going to try and re-watch my painting lessons and hopefully not wait so long until I give this another go! It was really relaxing, and it really helped me be in the present moment – I couldn’t do anything but be in the now, to concentrate on where I was and what I was doing, which is as it should be.

Don’t forget to stop by WIPster central to see what everyone is up to, and be inspired by all the creativity found on the W.I.P. Wednesday Flickr Pool. There are new members joining every week – welcome!