This is a book trailer for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials.

Watch as I show you how easy is is to make my Coconut Cake with Nutella Hazelnut Sauce, from page 271.

Watch Video: 4 min, 24 sec

In this video I’ll show you how to make a beautiful, delicious, refreshing ice cream using cashews with folded in pineapple, and shaped into a cake form. This raw food demo was recorded during my workshop at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale in Phuket, Thailand on January 24, 2010.

Pineapple Ice Box Dessert
(fills one loaf pan to make about 8 servings)

Crust

Watch video: 4 min, 41 sec

This is a video shot during my workshop at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale in January. In it, I’ll show you how easy it is to make delicious, nutritious Thai Spring Rolls with an Almond Dipping Sauce. My yummy, super healthy, raw food version of a peanut inspired sauce is made using kaffir lime leaves, chilies, and almonds. The rolls are made by filling collard leaves with julienne zucchini, mung bean sprouts, and fresh herbs like cilantro, mint, and basil.

Thai chilies are spicy hot, so you’ll want to adjust the spice level to suit your tastes. Removing the seeds will help to decrease the spice level. Capsicum is what makes chilies hot, and is the ingredient found in most diet pills for its metabolism boosting properties. Capsicum increases circulation, decreases inflammation, and boost our immune system.

Thai Spring Rolls with Almond Dipping Sauce
(makes 4 servings)

Thai Dipping Sauce

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 Tablespoon Nama Shoyu
• 2 Thai red chilies, to taste
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons  raw almonds
• 1 lemon’s juice
• 1 cup water,  as needed

Fillings

• 1 zucchini, julienne
• 1 cup mung bean sprouts
• 1/2 bunch basil, de-stem
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, de-stem
• 1/4 bunch mint, de-stem
• 1-2 Thai chili, finely chop

Wrapper

• 3 large collard green leaves, de-stem and half

To make dipping sauce, place sauce ingredients into your blender, adding water as needed. Blend smooth.

To wrap, place leaves onto flat surface. Layer with fillings, and roll.

Serve with dipping sauce.

Yesterday, we shot 3 segments for Ani’s Raw Food Essentials for web, TV, and cable:

• Tomato Chili with Taco Nut Meat, pages 145 – 146
• Coconut Cake with Nutella Hazelnut Sauce, page 271
• Water Kefir, page 56

The videos will air one a month starting late May, after the new book is available. Here’s a few photos from the day.

Makeup works wonders, and each time I work with a makeup artist, I learn new ways for applying looks. Martin Christopher does makeup for the Playboy Bunnies, and I loved what he did with me eyes and hair.

To get as much of the counter and ingredients into our shots, I had to stand as low to the counter as possible. That meant standing with my legs straddled for hours…quite the thigh workout.

Skye Van Raalte-Herzog (producer), Todd Stevens (exec producer), and Aaron Lee (camera) were great at giving me feedback and direction. They’ve obviously done these shoots many times before and really knew what would work well on camera. They were an awesome team to work with.

A behind-the-camera perspective photo shot by my assistant Jules Castillo. Jules helped us to set up the kitchen for our shoot, then he helped me prep my ingredients too. Great assistants like Jules are wonderful to have around on shoots and projects.

Everyone enjoyed eating up all the food after the shoot. It’s always fun to watch reactions to my food when folks try it for the first time. Skye enjoys lots of raw foods already, but Todd was blown away at how simple and delicious everything was. Thank goodness he loves nuts, since both dishes used walnuts, almonds, and brazil nuts.

I had a birthday celebration to attend last night after the video shoot. Sweetie Martin made sure my hair and makeup were perfect for my evening out. What did I tell you….Playboy hair! I felt like an LA hottie. That is one of the many things I love about LA. You can never be too over or under dolled up.

Once these videos go live, I’ll make sure to post them here. So check back for the first one late May. I can’t wait to watch them myself!

Part A

Part B

This uncooking episode aired on Supreme Master Television last week to over 4 million views around the world! In it, I show you how to make my Peach & Pistachio Cobbler from my book Ani’s Raw Food Desserts.

Peach & Pistachio Cobbler

CRUST

• ½ cup shelled pistachios
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Medjool dates

FILLING

• 4 cups sliced peaches
• 3 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 vanilla bean