Last Saturday, I was invited to speak at AuLac, my favorite raw restaurant in Fountain Valley, CA. Chef Ito is a good friend who makes the best food ever!

The goal for my new book is to take the mystery out of raw food prep, and to help everyone become their very own home raw food chef. Raw foods prep can be easy, fast, and doesn’t need to cost a ton of money.

I introduce simple, paired down recipes I call basics, then teach the reader how to add on additional  ingredients to mix up the flavors to create endless varieties of recipes. I include tips on setting up the Essential Raw Kitchen, shopping lists, eco green living resources, lists of recipes that travel well, sample menus, importance of probiotics, and how to ferment drinks and vegetables.



Following my talks, I always love to sign books because I get to meet people in person. I enjoy hearing their stories, inspirations, and passions. Sometimes, it’s a sad story of a spouse lost to cancer that puts someone onto the path of raw and live foods. But it’s always a good thing when people start to understand the correlation between health, vitality, happiness, and our diet.



Fountain Valley is an area known as Little Siagon. It’s full of Asian markets, and AuLac serves the best Vietnamese cooked foods. Unfortunately, I’ve never tried any because whenever I’m at AuLac, I’m wishing my tummy was bigger so I could eat up more and more of Chef Ito’s raw foods.



The photos above were taken by the lovely Maria Loewenstein, pictured in green. Pete is on the left, and designs the coolest contemporary eco green kitchens (Artistic Freedom Designs), John Johnson was just awarded a lifetime achievement award for his body piercing work, and Lien Chau Zhang is my beautiful film maker friend passionate to end the suffering of animals. She told me an amazing story about this new chain of vegan Asian style restaurants that has opened up 130 Loving Hut vegan locations globally in the past year!

Wild rice is actually a grass, not a grain. It’s an aquatic seed that’s found mostly in the upper fresh water lakes of Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in North America.  It’s a great source of protein, minerals, B vitamins, folic acid, and carbohydrates. I enjoyed wild rice the other morning to help fuel my cardio workout later that day.

I like to soak wild rice in at least double the amount of water for 2 or more days. Rinse and change soak water at least 2 to 3 times each day. Soaked wild rice will never get as soft as when it’s cooked, but that’s what I love about it. It has a chewy, hearty mouth feel that’s really satisfying, especially when my body’s craving some complex carbs.

This simple, quick, delicious recipe is made with just a handful of ingredients. Personally, I leave out the oil and salt. But it will bump up the flavor profile if you choose to add it in.

Sprouted Wild Rice with Corn and Tomato
Makes 2 servings

• 1 1/2 cup soaked wild rice (started with 1 cup + 2 cups soak water)
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cup corn kernels
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon jalapeno pepper, deseed, dice, to taste
• 3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, optional
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, optional

Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl. Toss to mix well.

Will keep for 3 days in fridge.

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

• 1 1/2 cups cashews
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 2 Tablespoons honey or agave syrup

Filling

• 1 1/2 cups cashews
• 1/3 cup honey or agave syrup
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, liquid
• 2 1/2 cup cored and chopped pineapple

Make crust by processing cashews into small pieces with vanilla. Add honey, and process to mix well. Sprinkle half of the crust mixture into bottom of a loaf pan,

To make filling, in high-speed blender, blend cashews with honey or agave and liquid oil into a smooth cream. Into a mixing bowl, toss cream with pineapple to mix well. Scoop into loaf pan. Top with remaining crust, and gently press down.

Freeze dessert overnight or until frozen.

Here’s a super fast and easy recipe I made the other day when I had very little time to eat, but needed a break from my computer for a few short minutes. I didn’t feel like a green salad, and wanted something a bit more substantial.

Zucchini noodles tossed with diced tomatoes and avocado with a touch of garlic, rosemary, and oregano for an Italian flavor. This is delicious and beautiful.

Simple Rosemary Oregano Noodle Salad
Makes 1 serving

• 1 cup zucchini noodles, from about 1/2 zucchini, spiralized
• 1/2 cup diced tomato
• 1/2 cup diced avocado, peeled and seeded
• 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon rosemary, dry
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano, dry
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl. Toss to mix.

To serve, transfer into bowl. Garnish with 1 tablespoon hemp nut.

Enjoy immediately.

Listen to my conversation with Rhio and Leigh from March 19th, 2010.

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.

Read article on the Phuket Post website

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!

“Ani’s Raw Food Essentials” is now available in soft cover, as of May 1, 2012!

In this book, I break down recipes to the simplest of ingredients. Then, I show you how to build from there to make variations and different flavors. I hope you’ll enjoy my new raw food book! Can’t wait t hear what you think about it.

Two of my recipes are included in the 2009 Food & Wine Cookbook.

I love this recipe for Zucchini Noodles with Raw Tomato Marinara. Super easy to make. Just blend tomatoes and herbs with some lemon to add that tart flavor of cooked tomatoes and a date for added sweetness. Serve marinara over thinly sliced zucchini ‘noodles’ for a wheat free, low calorie, raw food pasta dish that will help you loose weight and feel great too.

This delicious Raw Sweet Corn and Cashew Chowder is made by blending fresh corn with cashews for creaminess, a splash of olive oil for rich smoothness, and fresh cilantro for brightness.