Hey friends, we are writing this from an apartment in Barcelona. It will only be a short post today since we are on our way to the Gràcia neighborhood and we can hardly wait to get out the door.

Before we left, we shot this Italian potato salad for our friend Damaris’ blog Kitchen Corners. It’s 31 days of salads over there and we have definitely found a couple of new favorites, so check it out. We spent some time with Damaris and her family in Santa Cruz, when we were traveling in California last year. Since then, she and her family has moved to Brazil and we are so jealous of their beach life!

This salad is truly an old favorite of ours. Sometimes we add a dash of white wine vinegar to intensify the flavor, or some black beans to add some protein. It has this super fresh lemony taste and is a nice alternative to pasta salad for the spring picnics. Oh listen to us, it’s not even February and we are already talking about spring. It must be the Barcelona sun messing with us. And thinking about that, we really need to leave now. We’ll try posting some Gràcia photos on facebook, twitter and instagram. Ciao!

I have no idea how we have managed to keep this dish from you guys for so long. I have been using the same recipe for years and it is one of those dishes that always whispers in my ear: “Hey, why don’t we see each other more often?”. It’s a rich, warm and comforting dish, similar to a stew or a hot pot. It’s sweet, yet a little spicy. It has a scent of cinnamon and sweet raisins with a twist of lemon and cilantro. Not to mention, it’s perfect for a cold winter day.

Let me quickly explain the tagine (or tajine). It is similar to a large clay pot with a conical lid. I am not a scientist, but as far as I understand the moist and flavors that evaporates from the food stays within the lid and – thanks to its shape – drips down back into the food. So the food is steamed in it’s own vapors and cooked/baked at the same time, isn’t that just groovy!? The result is incredibly tender vegetables filled with flavors.

With all this explained, we have to admit that we actually didn’t cook this version in a tagine (we have made it in a tagine before though). This time we used a regular clay pot. It doesn’t give the exact same result, but with a couple of tricks you will get pretty close.

A few simple secrets to a successful tagine.

1. Always balance the sweet (apricots, raisins and cinnamon) with the spicy (harissa or chili).

2. Think big. No need for fine chopping, use large chunks of vegetables. Looks better, tastes better.

3. Don’t stress it. Let the vegetables sweat for a long time on low heat under a lid.

4. No peeking. If you lift the lid the steam will vanish. If you however have to lift the lid, make sure that the vapor under it drips back into the pot.

5. Stir carefully. After a while the vegetables will be very tender and you don’t want to crush them.

Moroccan Vegetable Tagine
Serves 4 people 

You can use almost any kind of vegetables in this stew, it’s perfect for emptying the fridge.

3 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch fresh ginger, minced (or 1 tsp grounded)
1-2 tbsp grounded cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
salt
2-3 tsp harissa paste (or dried harissa)
2 cups canned chopped tomatoes
1 lemon, juice and zest
a handful fresh cilantro
1 small pumpkin, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 zucchini, cut into 2-inch pieces
10 dried apricots
1/2 cup chickpeas/garbanzo beans, pre boiled
a handful raisins

Serve with: white quinoa or couscous, roasted almonds, fresh cilantro and fresh mint

In a clay pot: Heat olive oil in a large clay pot and sauté the onion for a few minutes until it softens. Add garlic, ginger and the spices and stir around before adding harissa, tomatoes, lemon juice and fresh cilantro, Bring the tomato sauce to a boil and then lower the heat.
Add pumpkin, carrots, sweet potato, zucchini and apricots. Stir around, make sure that all vegetables are somewhat covered in tomato sauce. Put the lid on and simmer for about an hour. Stir carefully once or twice, otherwise leave the lid on.

In a tagine: Prepare the tomato sauce according to the instructions above. Transfer it to the tagine. Add the vegetables, attach the lid and put in the oven on low temperature for at least an hour. When the vegetables feel tender, add chickpeas and raisins and let everything simmer for 5 minutes before removing it from the oven.

Serve the tagine in bowls together with cooked quinoa. Sprinkle with almonds, lemon zest and fresh spices.

There is a special place in Stockholm where we go when we want to get closer to nature, and it is incredibly beautiful this time of the year. Rosendals trädgård is an organic garden on the island Djurgården in central Stockholm. They sell fresh seasonal vegetables, fruits and flowers. There is a cute café inside one of the greenhouses, a bakery, a gardening shop, a deli shop and a giant apple orchard. Unfortunatly we are not the only persons in Stockholm who visits Rosendahl, quite the opposite actually. On a sunny weekend it is often very very crowded, but once you are sitting there with your lunch under the apple trees everything else fades away and it feels like you are all alone.

A few Saturdays ago we decided to take the boat to Rosendals Trädgård to have lunch, play with Elsa under the apple trees, buy some fresh kale and pick a bouquet of organic autumn flowers for a cake idea that we had been talking about. Here are some pictures from our day, and if you scroll down we also share the recipe for the insanely delicious raw and vegan Flower Power Cake.

This cake started out with a conversation that me and David had about our lifestyle. We don’t eat meat. We drink plant milk. We love greens, herbs and seeds and we use flowers in our cooking and as food decoration. If we would have lived during the 1960′s there is no doubt that we would have been hippies. As we started talking about it, we admitted that we actually feel like hippies even today. Hippies of the 21st century ✌.  If you like and read our blog we are guessing that you probably are as well, right?

So in the name of peace, love and understanding we made this raw and vegan cake, packed with superfoods and decorated with a whole bouquet of flowers. It was just something we did for fun. Like a celebration. Little did we know that it would turn out to be one of the best cake we had ever tried. Crunchy, lemony, fruity and sweet. It’s not an exaggeration, this cake is crazy good. Make it tonight.

Flower Power Cake
The cashew filling is inspired and adapted from these cakes from My New Roots and Roost, the crust is inspired by our Frozen Pink Cheesecake. It is completely volontary to eat the flowers. We used them mainly because they are pretty. 

Crust
1 1/2 cups (225 g) almonds,
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp hemp seeds
12 fresh dates (medjool), pitted
2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
1 tsp sea salt

Filling
1 ½ cups raw cashews, soaked for at least 2 hours, longer if you have the time
2 organic lemons, juice & zest
1 tsp grounded vanilla powder or 1/2 vanilla pod
1/3 cup (0,8 dl) coconut oil, melted
1/3 cup (0,8 dl) honey or agave nectar
1 tbsp rosehip powder (optional)

Topping
2 medium size pomegranate, seeds
1/3 cup (0,8 dl) frozen raspberries
1/2 lime, juice

Decoration
Organic & edible fresh flowers

Making the crust: Grind nuts and seeds in a blender or a food processor for about a minute. Add dates, coconut oil and sea salt and run the processor until it all comes together. Flatten it out on the bottom of an 8-inch non-stick spring form. Store in the fridge while you make the filling. Clean blender or food processor well.

Making the filling: Warm coconut oil and honey in a small saucepan on low heat until liquid. Whisk to combine. Place soaked cashews, lemon juice and zest, vanilla, coconut oil, honey and rosehip in blender or food processor and blend on high until very smooth (this make take a couple minutes so be patient). Pour the filling over the crust and place in the freezer for 30 minutes or until set. Clean blender or food processor well.

Making the topping: Place pomegranate seeds, raspberries and lime juice in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pour the topping on top of the cashew filling, place the cake back in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Serving the cake: Remove from freezer 30 minutes before eating. Decorate the cake with fresh organic flowers. Run a smooth, sharp knife under hot water and cut into slices.

Edible flowers: Viola-type flowers, Calendula, Roses, Rosehip, Dandelions, Carnations, Lavender, Cornflowers, Pea flowers, Day Lilies, Chamomile and many more.

☮

Ps. If you look in the top right corner you will find a new link to a site about our upcoming iPad. We will have photos, previews and an instruction video there soon. But right now you can leave your email there if you want to be in on the latest. Hopefully it will reach the app-store within the next couple of weeks.

Are we the only ones fantasizing about crazy ice cream combinations with only natural ingredients? We know that there is a whole world of healthier ice cream recipes out there just waiting to be revealed, and with our brand new ice cream maker (thank you uncle Sven, we love it!) we are going to start exploring it. This was actually our first try with the machine and we stumbled upon an interesting combo right away.

Have you tasted fig ice cream before? You probably have. We actually hadn’t tried it, but considering our love for this sweet and juicy fruit we imagined it would make a buon gelato. We used coconut milk instead of cow milk or cream, which was one of the ideas that we have fantasized about. It was exactly as good as we imagined it, and since we made it without eggs it is also vegan!

This is somewhat of an ice cream for grown ups (even though we hate that expression). The flavors are pretty fruity and complex, not at all like a standard sugar and cream recipe. Make sure to use ripe figs (preferably mission figs), they taste sweeter.

Have you got any favorite ice cream recipes of your own, without heaps of sugar? Leave a comment, we would love to know what it is.

Fig, Coconut & Blackberry Ice Cream
Makes around 4 cups (1 liter)

This recipe is not super sweet, that is how we like it. Taste it while it cooks and add more honey if you prefer.

10 fresh ripe figs
6 tbsp water
lemon zest, from 1 lemon
1/3 cup dried shredded coconut, unsweetened
fresh ginger, 1 inch (2,5 cm), minced (optional)
1/2 cup (1,2 dl) honey (vegans use agave nectar)
2 cups (5 dl) coconut milk
lemon juice, from 1/2 lemon
2/3 cup (1,6 dl) fresh blackberries
lemon balm

Start by removing the ends from the figs. Cut each fig into 8 pieces. Put them in a saucepan, add water, lemon zest, coconut flakes and ginger. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until the figs are tender. Add honey and around 10 blackberries. Continue to cook for about 15-20 minutes (you might want to lower the heat a bit) until it reaches a jam-like consistency. When it’s done, remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Use an immersion blender or food processor to quickly mix it together with the coconut milk and lemon juice. Don’t mix too hard, it’s nice with some fruit pieces here and there. Chill well in the fridge (otherwise you will have yourself a fig milkshake, we have tried that…) before you put the mixture in an ice cream maker for about 25 minutes or however long your brand of ice cream machine suggests. Serve with fresh blackberries and a few leaves of fresh lemon balm.

Vegetarians don’t have hot dogs to turn to when they crave fast food. We have falafel in bread. Deep fried chickpea balls served with vegetables, tomato salsa, hummus and a yogurt sauce. During my years as a vegetarian I have probably tried every single falafel restaurant in Stockholm, many in other parts of Sweden, and a few on other places around the world. But strangely enough I have only made them myself a handful of times. So we thought it was about time that we made our own version of falafel in bread.

When we first started talking about this, we quickly agreed on some ground rules:
1. To skip the bread and wrap them in big green leaves instead. We learned to do this on our trip in Vietnam. Cabbage leaves are perfect in size and have a great crisp taste. You could also try big lettuce leaves.
2. To bake them instead of frying them. The whole deep frying thing doesn’t rhyme well with us. Also, it is not necessary at all. As long as you bake them on a high temperature they will be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
3. To make them green. We once tried these really nice tasting falafels that were completely green on the inside. We can’t remember what they were made on, but in our version we used pistachio, parsley and mint to achieve the green look. Apart from looking nice, these ingredients also makes them taste divine and oh so flavorful.
4. To make them vegan. Even though we eat egg and some dairy products, we try to keep some of our recipes vegan. This time we made the yogurt dressing on soy-yogurt (look for it in health stores). Since we used buckwheat flour we also managed to keep them gluten free.

Baked Herb & Pistachio Falafel
Serves 4-6 (about 24 falafels)

We used mint and parsley to flavor and color the falafels, but feel free to try it with whatever fresh herbs you have growing in your garden at the moment.

8 sprigs of fresh mint
8 sprigs of fresh parsley
200 g pistachio nuts
2 cups garbanzo beans/chickpeas (we used canned)
2 cloves garlic
½ small onion
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp flour (we used buckwheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder

Start by blending the herbs in a mixer for about 30 seconds. Add pistachio nuts and pulse until well combined. Rinse the garbanzo beans. Add them and the rest of the ingredients into the mixer and blend for about a minute. Youmight have to stir around with a spoon occasionally. Try to keep the texture of the falafel dough a little rough. Make 24 small round falafels, place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and bake for about 15 minutes on 375°F/200°C, turn every 5 minutes to get an even brown color.

Cashew Nut Dressing
6 tbsp cashew butter (look for it in health stores or make it yourself)
6 tbsp canola or rapeseed oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
a pinch of salt

Whisk all the ingredients in a small bowl until they are combined.

Mint Yoghurt
1 cup soy yoghurt (or regular if you prefer)
4 sprigs of fresh mint (chopped)
1 lime, juice and zest 

Add yoghurt, mint and lime in a bowl and stir around until combined. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to get an intense mint flavor.

Tomato Chili Salsa
3 tomatoes, chopped into small dices
1/2 red chili, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
fresh oregano
salt & pepper

Chop the ingredients and add everything to a serving bowl. Stir around. Add salt and pepper according to taste. Serve immediately or put in the fridge for 30 minutes to get more intense flavors.

Assembling the falafel
1 head white cabbage (or any lettuce with big leaves)
1 red romaine lettuce
falafels (recipe above)
cashew nut dressing  (recipe above)
mint yoghurt (recipe above)
tomato salsa (recipe above)
fresh herbs
pistachio
raisins

Separate the leaves by turning the lettuce and cabbage upside down and removing the stem or cone with a knife.
Put it under running water and gently separate the leaves one by one. Pat dry.

Hold one cabbage leaf in your hand, place a lettuce leaf inside of it, add 2 or 3 falafels, a spoonful of cashew nut dressing, mint yoghurt, tomato salsa and top with some fresh herbs, chopped pistachio and a couple of raisins. Fold it gently. Enjoy!

If I say pesto you say … broccoli?! No, I didn’t think so. Like most people we are normally pretty conservative when we make pesto. For us, it might have something to do with the fact that it is one of Luise’s favorite things to eat. Why change a winning concept? A few days ago we felt like having yet another pesto dinner, but since none of us had the energy to go to the store, we ended up using what we had in the house; a big broccoli, some roasted chickpeas instead of nuts, fresh sage, garlic, lemon, oil, salt & pepper. Luise looked suspiciously at the broccoli-mixture, before giving it a try. We finished the whole bowl in one night. We have made this recipe two times more since then, experimenting with the ingredients. We have tried both basil and sage, they both taste good in their own way, choose whatever is easiest to find. Roasted chickpeas are fun to try in a pesto, but quite honestly, the hazelnuts give a better punch to the taste.

Raw broccoli might sound repulsive to some of you, but it is in fact very good in salads. We often make a super tasty raw broccoli salad with mayo, onion, raisins, sunfl … wait a minute, let’s save this recipe for another post ;-) Here is how you do the pesto.

Broccoli Pesto
2 cups of pesto
We left out cheese to keep it vegan. If you are not a vegan, a few slices of pecorino works great here.

1 large broccoli (around 2 cups)
A couple of stems fresh basil or sage
1/2 lemon, juice
1/2 cup hazelnuts (roasted chickpeas if you’re allergic)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp water
salt & pepper

Throw all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Pulse for about a minute. Taste it. Add more olive oil or water if it feels too dry, and salt & pepper according to taste.
Serve with pasta, in a salad, on a sandwich or in a wrap.

Luckily Elsa loves vegetables (she always makes her ahmmmm sound whenever we pass the vegetable department), but if you are having problems getting your child to eat greens, pesto is a good trick.

Have you met the Jerusalem artichoke (also known as sunchoke or sunroot) before? It may look like a small dirty potato to you, but it is in fact a delicious little root, who despite its name not is related with Jerusalem nor with the Artichoke – but with the Sunflower. It is actually kind of a funny story:

As I mentioned, the Jerusalem artichoke is a root. Its flowers look kind of similar to sunflowers, which isn’t strange since they actually come from the same family. The Italian word for sunflower is Girasole, which literally means turn to the sun. And here comes the funny part. Somewhere along the line the name Girasole got misinterpreted for Jerusalem (when you come to think about it, they actually sound kind of similar). And to make things even more confusing, a French explorer that sent some samples back home, noted that its taste was similar to artichokes. And somehow, 400 years later, this root is still called Jerusalem Artichoke, a name that has little to do with its origin. The ironic thing is that the Native Americans – who first discovered this root – called it sunroot. The perfect name for a root from the sunflower family. So, what do you say, shouldn’t we do as the Native Americans and just call it Sunroot?

What is so great with sunroots is that they are very nutritious. They are a good source of iron and they don’t contain regular starch, like potatoes for example do. They dissolve easily when boiled and have a sweet and a nutty taste, which makes them the perfect soup vegetables. A lot of sunroot soup recipes call for heavy cream, we left it out to make it lighter, and also because the vegetables alone are enough to make this soup creamy.

What is not so great with the sunroots is that they often are pretty small and come in very strange shapes, which makes it a hassle peeling them. But believe me, they are worth it.

Green Tea Infused Sunroot Soup
Serves 4-6

We used green tea instead of broth in this soup. The flavors from the tea really works good together with the sunroot. Tea infusion is a fun way to experiment with new flavors in your standard soups. If you are in to it, you could also add some white wine to this recipe.

2 pounds (around 1 kg) sunroots, sunchoke or jerusalem artichoke
olive oil
1 leek, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 cups of steeped green tea (we used sencha tea)
1 large lemon, juice
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
salt & pepper
1/2 fennel bulb, thinly sliced

Start by peeling the sunroots (or bribe someone to peal them for you). As soon as they are peeled, put them in a large bowl with cold water (and a squeeze of lemon in it), this prevents them to turn dark. Pick up the peeled sunroots from the water and chop them into 1-inch pieces. Put a big pot on medium heat on the stove. Saute the leek, garlic and the sunroots for a couple of minutes. Add the lemon juice, the chopped rosemary, salt and pepper and about two thirds of the green tea. As soon as it starts boiling, turn down the heat to low, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. Take the soup off the stove and blend it. If the soup feels too thick, add the rest of the green tea and let it simmer for two minutes more. Taste it, add more spices and lemon juice if needed. Serve with a dash of olive oil, fresh rosemary and some thin slices of fennel. Enjoy!

Photos by: Johanna Frenkel

On our way to Asia we stopped a couple of days in Sweden to visit my family. Elsa is the first grand child in the family and everyone was super excited to see her. During our stay she has been played with, danced with, fed, sung for and – of course – been given Christmas gifts. This meant that Luise and I could focus on eating Christmas food, taking walks in the snow and trying out a new recipe for Swedish Pepparkakor, my all time favorite Christmas cookie.

Pepparkakor or Swedish Gingerbread Cookies are very thin, crunchy, sweet and full of flavor. The traditional recipe calls for spices, sugar, butter, flour, molasses and sometimes even cream. Since we try to avoid most of those ingredients on this blog we decided to make our own version. It wasn’t all easy making a new recipe for pepparkakor since I have a life-long cake crush on the traditional recipe. Luise might kill me for writing this (since she doesn’t agree) but quite frankly, no oil in the world can fully replace the taste of butter in a cookie. We decided to try it anyway. And after a couple of not very good batches we came up with this recipe which not only got a similar texture and taste, but also adds some extra flavor and crunchiness to them. They are vegan, uses a more wholesome flour and less refined sweeteners. A not so traditional Pepparkaka with an almost traditional taste.

As you can see on the following pictures Sweden was drowned in snow and the contrast from sunny California could not have been bigger. It felt unreal walking around in this cold climate, knowing that we would be in a steaming hot Asia a couple of days later.

We are actually already in Beijing, China when we post this, but more on that in our next post. China has blocked facebook, twitter and youtube, so we won’t be able to tweet until we arrive in Thailand.

Swedish Pepparkakor / Vegan Gingerbread Cookies
Makes 20-40 depending on the size of the cookie cutters

1 cup almonds
15 dates
1/2 cup coconut oil, olive oil or canola oil
2 tbsp agave syrup or honey
2 tsp ginger, grounded
1 tsp cloves, grounded
2 tsp cinnamon, grounded
1-1,5 cup whole wheat flour or spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

Grind the almonds into a flour in a blender or a food processor. Add dates, oil, agave syrup and the spices and pulse until everything is mixed into a sticky dough. Sift together flour and baking soda and start kneading the flour into the dough, little by little. When you can form the dough into a round moist ball without getting sticky, the dough is ready. Put it in the fridge over the night or at least for three hours.

Set the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper. Roll out the dough roughly 1/8-inch thick between two sheets of plastic wrap, it keeps the dough from sticking on the baking pin. Cut it with cookie cutters and transfer it to the parchment paper. This dough is a little bit more brittle than normal gingerbread dough, so you need to be careful when transferring it to the parchment paper.

Bake for 7-12 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of the cookies. Keep an eye on the oven and make sure not to over bake them. Since they contain almonds they will burn easily.

Photos by David & Johanna Frenkel

And so we have left San Francisco. What a great time we have had in this city. Everyone has been friendly to us and we have found ourselves having long conversations with complete strangers on the streets and in food stores numerous times (which never happens in Sweden). We have constantly been eating good food and we even met a couple of new friends. And when we thought that the city couldn’t be sunnier or happier, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series in Baseball. Such a perfect ending.

Now we have rented a car and started driving down south. Highway 1 is beyond beautiful and we have made our first stop is Santa Cruz, but we’ll tell you more about that in our next post.

Before we left, we made this chocolate cake filled and topped with blackberries. Actually it’s not very difficult to make a normal chocolate cake, you can probably find 5 zillion good recipes on google and at least 70 on Martha Stewart. But our cake is made without eggs, butter, sugar and flour, which made everything a little bit more challenging. We tried three different versions of this cake before finding the right balance between fruit vs chocolate, sticky vs dry and sweet vs dark and rich.

In the end it feels like we nailed it. This cake is sticky on the inside, has got a quite fruity taste and a rich chocolate spread. It’s gluten free and it’s vegan. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s healthy, but it is definitely more nutritious than your regular Martha Stewart cake.

Chocolate & Blackberry Cake

1 1/2 cup walnuts
15 fresh dates
5 tbsp cacao powder (unsweetened)
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp coconut oil or olive oil
4 tbsp apple sauce (unsweetened)
2 cups blackberries (use 1 cup in the cake and the rest on top of it)

Chocolate frosting:
150 g dark chocolate (dairy free or regular)
1/2 avocado
1 tbsp agave syrup
a pinch of salt

Place the walnuts in a food processor and mix them until they get the consistency of a crunchy flour, add the dates and pulse for a minute so that they get mixed with the walnuts. Add cacao, cinnamon, oil, apple sauce and pulse everything for a couple of minutes. Add the blackberries and mix them shortly (you want them in pieces but not completely dissolved). Pour the mixture into an 8-inch non-stick spring pan and bake it for 40 – 50 minutes at 325° F / 175° C.

Let the cake cool off after it is baked. Meanwhile you can prepare the chocolate frosting. Melt the chocolate, pour it in a blender and mix with avocado, agave and a pinch of salt. Spread the frosting on top of the cooled chocolate cake. Decorate with the blackberries before serving. Enjoy!

Remember what we wrote about our gazpacho obsession this summer? Here is another favorite. This version has a completely different taste than all the other gazpachos that we’ve tried. The grapes, lemon and cucumber makes it very light, citrusy and fresh, while the almonds add richness to it. You can make it in five minutes (well almost), you only need a few ingredients, it’s raw, it’s vegan and it’s the perfect food to fight the heat with.

On another note. We have finally pulled ourselves together and started to work on our about us page. It’s aaaalmost done, so check back on sunday and we promise that you will learn a couple of new things about us. Maybe not the most yummy stuff, like David’s most embarrassing moment or who Luise kissed in third grade, but we still think that it will be worth reading.

White Gazpacho
Serves 4

If you want this gazpacho to be completely white you need to blanch the almonds, we haven’t since we’re kind of lazy during the summer and want our gazpacho to be quick. Most white gazpacho recipes also call for a dash of white wine vinegar but we wanted to keep our soup raw so we left it out, and if you use good grapes you really don’t need it.

1 cup almonds
1 tbsp canola oil
2 cups green grapes, pitted
1 cucumber (300 g), peeled and chopped
1 white bell pepper, chopped
1/2 lemon
1 cup water
6 ice cubes
salt & pepper

1 handfull sprouts
fresh lemon balm

Pour the almonds in a blender. Blend for about a minute, you want the almond pieces to be as small/smooth as possible. Add canola oil, grapes, cucumber, bell pepper and lemon. Blend for another couple of minutes until smooth. Add half of the water, ice cubes, salt & pepper. Blend it and then taste it, if you want a thinner soup add the rest of the water and more salt and pepper if needed. Serve with sprouts and a couple of lemon balm leaves.