Everyone loves a good sweet and sour dip, especially when there are beautiful summer rolls to accompany it. There’s no marinating or dehydrating time involved in making this party favourite, but you’ve gotta get organised and work systematically. Rice paper wrappers can be tricky to play with and may require some practice at first. They are pretty cheap, so buy extra and remember to have fun practicing. The stunning results are worth the effort!

Here's the step-by-step video on how to make yours! The full recipe is also below...

For the summer rolls:

pack of 12 rice paper wrappers (the ones I use are 22cm/8.5in in diameter)

lettuce leaves

veggies (carrots, cucumbers, red peppers, asparagus, celery and bean sprouts work well)

herbs and flowers (parsley, basil, mint and pansies or other edible flowers)

For the sweet & sour dip:

4 tbsp raw apple cider vinegar

4 tbsp agave nectar

4 sundried tomatoes halves in oil

juice of 1 lemon

1 inch fresh ginger

1 tbsp tamari

100g pineapple, chopped into tiny cubes

-Julienne or slice all the veggies into thin long strips. Set them and the herbs out within easy reach of a clean chopping board. Cover the chopping board with kitchen towel.

-Half fill a bowl big enough to fit the rice papers in with hot water, then dunk one at a time until pliable and lay flat over the kitchen towel.

-Arrange two edible flowers or basil leaves, if using, face down in the middle. Top with veggies which won’t blend with the colours of your herbs (carrots over basil leaves or cucumbers over purple pansies make them pop!), then top with other vegetable strips and a line of parsley, careful not to bunch them up in the middle.

-Bring the bottom edge of the wrapper tightly up over the filling, and fold the sides in over it. Continue to roll up tightly and place on a plate, joint-side down. Cover rolls with lettuce leaves to keep them fresh, while preparing the sauce.

-Blend all the sauce ingredients, except pineapple cubes, in a small travel blender, pour it into a dipping bowl, sprinkle with pineapple and serve along side the spring rolls.

Tanya’s Top Tip: Check out the homemade tea recipe on page 39 of The Uncook Book for ideas on what edible flowers you can use for this recipe.

A little bit excited over here, because while I continue to struggle with building a whole new website on my own, I'm pretty sure you'd agree that I have my priorities straight!...

The page with our available large and small whole cakes is now LIVE!

Not only that, but London delivery has just been confirmed and starts at only £4.50!

Check out this page for all the details: tanyasliving.com/collections

You already know that my cake isn't just ANY cake!

You do, don't you? :-P
 

It's Creamy, Delicious, Organic & made entirely from Plants. 

Cashews give it the creamy texture & because they've been activated (soaked), they are actually good for your gut. Plus since what holds it together is Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (or unrefined Cacao Butter), it makes Dessert good for your Digestion! 

There’s no gluten, dairy, preservatives or refined sugar inside & best of all- there’s no chemicals! Every seed and fruit used is Organic Certified, so it's even gentler on your body, making all the other nutrients & vitamins more readily available, energising & nourishing at the same time.

But you’ll never be able to tell any of that when indulging in the taste!

We have 2 sizes and 5 flavours available.

Pick up, take away, dine in or get it delivered within London, within one hour, any day of the week!


See this page with all the details: tanyasliving.com/collections/whole-large-raw-cheezecake

...and make someone's week already! 
...or their whole Birthday!
...or your own :)

Happy Monday!

xTanya

I'm often asked which non-organic produce is ok to eat and which to avoid at all costs.

Ready to hear the answer?

As you know, we strive to only offer you organic foods at Tanya’s, but the process to become certified is insanely long, so legally we aren’t allowed to go on shouting the word Organic until we have The Soil Association stamp of approval.

At times I feel like giving up. Why bother paying almost double on organic produce if we can’t even say ‘organic’ on our labels yet? 

But I know my own values and it’s simply out of the question to start offering you anything less than pure natural food without anything sneaky. Or worse, anything poisonous.

When you get a Tanya’s 'salad bowl with dressing and nuts’, I want you to feel confident that you aren’t getting a ‘salad bowl with dressing, nuts, pesticides, fungicides, a dash of herbicides and a sprinkling of artificial chemicals’.

Then, there’s the expense of getting certified. 

This makes me wonder how many farmers out there don’t have a spare £850 to spend on maintaining certification every single year…

Perhaps their produce is sold in the conventional produce isles even though they use no chemicals or only natural insect repellents. 

Or perhaps their produce is so attractive to all the insects of the world, that it must be drenched in something to explode the stomachs of those bugs from first lick in order to keep them away.

(Btw, the main difference between our stomachs and the stomachs of those insects is the size. If we continue consuming mostly conventionally grown produce, it is only a matter of time until we too pay with serious consequences.)

THAT is the produce you want to avoid at all costs.

So, how do you know what THAT produce is? 

In the US, there’s a handy list produced annually by The Environmental Working Group (EWG) called The EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™.  

Aka Dirty Dozen and Clean 15.  

The guide ranks pesticide contamination on 48 popular fruits and vegetables and is based on results of more than 35,200 samples tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

The top 15 foods with the least pesticides are called the Clean 15, while the 12 foods with the most pesticides are called the Dirty Dozen. 

CLEAN FIFTEEN (ok to buy if non-organic)

Sweet Corn*

Avocado

Pineapple

Cabbage

Onions

Sweet peas frozen

Papaya•

Asparagus

Mango

Eggplant (aubergine)

Honeydew Melon

Kiwi

Cantaloupe

Cauliflower

Grapefruit

DIRTY DOZEN (only buy these if organic)

Strawberries

Spinach

Nectarines

Apples

Peaches

Pears

Cherries

Grapes

Celery

Tomato

Sweet bell peppers

Potato

*A small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically modified seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically modified produce.

In the UK, The Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues in Food (PRiF) survey the pesticide residues in food every quarter.

Not all produce is tested every time, so I’ve taken the summary from (a rather outdated 2005 report by) the Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN) and pulled the data together myself from 2015 and 2016 files for the most current list -

aka The Clean and Mean 18.

PRiF monitors popular home-produced and imported food to check for any pesticide residues.  This is done in order to check that:

-No unexpected residues are occurring in crops (this backs up the statutory approvals process for pesticides)

-Residues do not exceed the statutory Maximum Residue Level (MRL)

-Human dietary intakes of residues in foods are within acceptable levels

The top 18 foods with the least pesticides are called the Clean 18, while the 18 foods with the most pesticides are called the Mean 18. 

CLEAN 18 (ok to buy if non-organic)

Apples*

Aubergine (eggplant)

Banana

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Celery

Courgette

Kiwis

Leak

Mango

Nectarine

Onion

Pears

Peas without pods

Plantain

Potato

Radish

Sweetcorn

MEAN 18 (only buy these if organic)

Bean Sprouts

Beans with pods

Berries: Blueberries

Berries: Blackberries

Berries: Strawberries

Chilli peppers

Citrus: oranges, grapefruit and lemon if peel is consumed

Cucumber

Exotic fruit

Ginger

Grapes

Lettuce

Melon

Okra

Peppers

Pineapple

Prepared fresh fruit

Tomatoes

*This varies due to season significantly so personally I will always stick to organic.

These lists are super handy to take with you on your shopping trips or while travelling to know when to buy organic and when it’s ok to buy conventional.

I hope that in the future, Organic Certification will be Government funded and that the poisons used to grow our crops will need to be listed in the ingredients list of every label by law.

What do you think?

x Tanya

Please note that these lists are updates all the time, so keep an eye on the below resource links for the latest findings:

https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/#.WYHGQ62ZP-Y

http://www.pan-uk.org/reports-manuals-guides/#_pesticides_and_food

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/546947/expert-committee-pesticide-residues-food-annual-report-2015.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/pesticide-residues-in-food-results-of-monitoring-programme

David Wolfe Returns to London for the Best Ever You all-day Masterclass.

Thank you soooo much for coming out to support us during the opening of the brand new Tanya's store! Tennis fans will appreciate this picture of one of our guests: [caption id="attachment_2499" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Novak Djokovic at Tanya's[/caption]   Not gonna lie and tell you the feedback has aaaall been jolly good, as a few of you really miss the 'restaurant service' (as you know - we are now a store WITH a restaurant, not the other way around), but overall, it's been super well received and I'm so happy you're happy that your favourites are on the menu again! Today I'm posting what I planned to post when Lake was ACTUALLY 16 months (she is almost 18 months now)... The new video "Healthy toddler diaries- What I feed my 16 months old in a day" is LIVE at last! Weeeeeee! I kept trying to edit it so many times but something (like opening a new store haha) would always stand in my way. For. Six. Weeks. Straight! Then a few days ago it hit me- there's more to the reason why I had so many obstacles...I simply didn't know how you would take the fact that MY child is not vegan. Not that I ever tried to hide it, I simply never stated that Lake is being brought up without animal food, but there are so many of you praising her vegan upbringing online, that naturally I thought I'd be letting you down. I hope not! Please watch to see what her day of eating as a 16 months old looks like and why I've made these choices for my greatest little love. In this video you will discover: -What Lake has for breakfast, lunch, dinner and as snacks -Why I don’t cook fruit -What vegetable mylk (yep not nut or seed) has all the minerals for strong teeth and bones -Why she’s not vegan and what animal food I choose for her -Which probiotics have my pick -Which is the best oil to cook with -Why tomatoes are better cooked than raw -Why it’s best to avoid egg white -The behind-the-scenes of Tanya’s retail space just before we opened on 19th June! If the video doesn't play, watch it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gCvyNJ9YYoE Feel free to comment and ask questions x