This Saturday I treated myself to a Raw Food Feast and Workshop with the lovely Sarah Barber from Pure People. The workshop was run in her homely kitchen in Hove and I was joined by 5 other raw/vegan/health foodie people.

When we arrived all of the ingredients were tantalisingly laid out:

While waiting for everyone to arrive it was great to get a chance to flick through someone else’s raw food cook books. I really liked the look of the ‘Uncook cook book’:

We had been encouraged to arrive hungry as breakfast would be the first thing on the menu. We started with a purple green smoothie – purple from frozen blueberries but still full of green goodness:

The smoothie included sunwarrior vanilla protein powder which I hadn’t come across before:

Apparently adding protein to your smoothies and shakes helps slow down the release of sugar into the bloodstream helping to avoid a sugar rush. Sarah also uses vanilla powder in a lot of her recipes as a calming background flavour.

The smoothie was then swiftly followed by a demonstration of making almond milk:

Which we then enjoyed over some delicious buckwheat granola and grated apple topped with goji berries:

After breakfast, the next obvious step was to move straight onto puddlings! We started with an amazing avocado based chocolate pudding:

This was followed by a demonstration of making a fruit tart with an oat, nut and date crust topped with a creamy pineapple filling:

Next were the main courses with one of my favourite dishes: Olive, Tomato and Pumpkin pate:

This has wonderful strong flavours and looked a treat too:

Sarah then gave us a useful talk about the benefits of eating a raw food diet (apparently providing a great source of enzymes which we need to digest our food and have also been linked to a long life expectancy). She also covered equipment, tips for introducing more raw into your diet and places to buy the more unusual ingredients.

The fun really started when we got to sit down together and share a lunch of the treats that had been made including nori rolls and cabbage wraps which were laid out for us to help ourselves:

All followed by the chocolate pudding which had now set:

Topped with a divine cashew nut cream:

Somewhat full from the day, we were then given a slice of the fruit tart to take home, along with a comprehensive handout with detailed recipes and resources. It was a great workshop and I am now feeling inspired to try some new recipes and ingredients.

It was also great to learn about some of the pop up restaurants that are cropping up locally including: Gourmet Girls Pop up @ Fanny’s of Hanover offering vegan and raw food, and Pure Taste in Haywards Heath offering “gourmet gluten-free and paleo-friendly food (that’s dishes that are free from gluten, dairy, grains, legumes and refined sugar!).”

Thank you Sarah, and if you are tempted to join one of her workshops (which I would highly recommend) you can find out more at: http://www.pure-people.co.uk/workshop-dates.html.