No goose at all - how I prepare for a vegan feast with the whole family (Boris Lauser)

Boris Lauser | www.borislauser.com

Like every year, it's the festive season that vegans, and especially raw vegans, are particularly keen on. On these days, the temptation to give in to conventional temptations and throw good intentions overboard is particularly high. Although there are more and more vegan alternatives, which at least makes being vegan extremely easy, they are not healthy in most cases and you won't be spending an unrepentant festive season with them either. So how do you prepare properly for a nice and delicious vegan feast with the whole family? Raw Food & Plant Based Chef Boris Lauser has some great tips and recipes for you. Read here how Boris prepares for the festive season.

Above all, you should start preparing healthy sweets and biscuits early on, preferably raw vegan. These also keep for a very long time and help you to stay away from the conventional shop-bought alternatives - provided they are really tasty, such as Boris Florentine Christmas biscuits with chocolate icing. Recipe: Florentine Christmas biscuits with chocolate icing

You can find many more great recipes online and Boris traditionally presents his legendary almond stollen, gingerbread and lucuma biscuits every year during New Year's Eve week at the Naturkost Hotel in the Harz Mountains.

You can also simply get creative yourself here. Almond kernels, pecan nuts, walnuts, cashews and, above all, sprouted oat flakes are suitable as a dough base so that it doesn't become too greasy and heavy. Sprouted and dried buckwheat is also a great ingredient to add lightness and texture. Raw cocoa powder to make a chocolate batter. The creamiest Sukkari dates or Medjool dates can be used for binding, but soaked mangoes or soft figs are also suitable here.
Coconut blossom sugar is suitable for further sweetening so that it is not too fruity. Melted cocoa butter and coconut oil or coconut butter are also ideal for binding.

Then you can get creative with spices. Gingerbread spice, vanilla, tonka bean, ginger etc. are ideal for creating Christmas flavours. The dry ingredients, including coconut blossom sugar, are best processed first in a food processor to a flour-like consistency and then gradually add the dried fruit and, if necessary, coconut oil or cocoa butter until it starts to bind. Then shape into balls or roll out the dough and cut out biscuits. Decorate as desired or glaze with melted raw chocolate. Done.

Of course, the festive season is not just about Christmas biscuits and we also want to conjure up savoury, delicious and festive dishes. For starters, Boris likes to serve his smoked beetroot carpaccio or his pumpkin pancake soup. He also teaches both dishes in his Raw Chef Academy, a 6-day raw food intensive seminar that takes place regularly in Berlin.

More information can be found on his website(www.borislauser.com).

For the beetroot carpaccio, raw beetroot is simply sliced very thinly with a kitchen slicer and then marinated overnight in a marinade of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and, for example, lemon juice and agave syrup. This is then served on the plate with fermented parsnip cashew horseradish (from the Vegan Masterclass and the Raw Chef Academy), as well as miso-marinated and dried hazelnuts and fresh cress. A poem and a wonderful festive starter that will also delight non-vegans. Boris stuffed mushrooms are another great starter.

Traditionally, Boris always served a lot of salads with the classic turkey at Christmas. Carrot and celery salad were always at the top of the list, with a delicious cream and mustard and chive dressing. This can be wonderfully imitated raw and vegan by simply blending cashews in a high-performance blender together with mustard, a fine light balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar, agave syrup, salt, pepper, a little garlic and onion and perhaps some fresh linseed oil with water until creamy and then mixing with grated carrots or celery root and freshly chopped chives. It is best left to stand overnight in the fridge, as this makes it particularly tasty.

Freshly baked baguette or ciabatta with herb butter should never be missing from Boris' Christmas table. Wonderful alternatives can be conjured up here. Great dips and spreads can be made from vegetables, nuts and seeds. The base is always a vegetable, e.g. pepper, courgette, tomato, parsnip, carrot, etc. and a nut kernel or seed, e.g. cashew, macadamia, Brazil nut, pecan, sesame, sunflower seed, etc. Both are processed in a high-performance blender together with other ingredients such as herbs and spices, salt, garlic, onions, olive oil, lemon juice or, why not, truffle oil, to make a fine cream. This can then be served as a dip or spread with raw vegetable crackers and breads, such as Urbrot or olive bread.

Instead of the usual Christmas goose or turkey, there are of course also great alternatives. A great dish would be the sous-vide cooked portobello mushroom with truffled cauliflower puree from Boris Raw Chef Academy Level 2. The portobello mushroom can also be prepared more simply by marinating it a little with olive oil, salt, pepper, tamari, garlic and rosemary and 'stewing' it for a few hours at 45 degrees in the dehydrator, which allows the marinade to soak in nicely and gives the mushroom a wonderful flavour and texture.

Boris has already conjured up another delicious dish for you in the past: a tasty pecan 'roast' with a delicious orange sauce. Recipe: A delicious pecan 'roast' with tasty orange sauce

Even when it comes to dessert, nothing has to go to waste here! An enchantingly light gingerbread mousse is not really rocket science. You can make almond milk from almonds. Together with dates, coconut oil, a little cocoa powder, coconut blossom sugar, gingerbread spice, a dash of amaretto or rum, vanilla and Irish moss (for the consistency), it becomes a fantastically fluffy cream in a high-performance blender.

If you don't have any experience with Irish moss (you also learn this at Boris Raw Chef Academy), then a ripe persimmon or sharon fruit is also ideal, as these also thicken your dessert creams in a very subtle way when blended.

Now nothing stands in the way of your festive meal. Finally, here are a few general tips from Boris on how to stay healthy and fit throughout the entire period:

1. make sure you get daily exercise: Especially now during this time, you should not become sluggish, but continue to do your programme, be it yoga, fitness studio, swimming pool, long walks in the forest, jogging. You should at least keep your body active in some way for 30-60 minutes a day. This promotes digestion, burns calories and stimulates the body and breathing.

2. enjoy a green juice or green smoothie every day or at least every 2nd day. On the one hand, this is a natural way of regulating your mineral intake, and on the other, it reduces your cravings for sweets.

3. do not overdo it: One real feast a day is enough. If you have a great feast ahead of you in the evening, it doesn't have to be a huge lunch or brunch. Here you can make things easier for yourself and have more time for other activities.

4 Don't forget to drink: Drinking water is a magic bullet for controlling your calorie intake. If you drink a large glass of water before a meal, you tend to eat less quickly and in a more controlled way, and probably less overall, because your stomach is already filled with something.

5. stay relaxed: For all the focus on health and raw vegan cuisine, you should still always stay relaxed. Too many demands on yourself and others often lead to resentment and a resulting psychological imbalance, which can very quickly turn negative. An occasional outburst is not a bad thing and it is much nicer to stay socially relaxed and balanced and simply enjoy things as they come and not worry too much in the end. 80% is a good measure, because 20% outliers are quite a lot, and then you stay relaxed and easy-going and end up enjoying everything much more, including yourself.

We sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year 2023.

You can find more information about Boris' work and his courses at www.borislauser.com and on his Instagram channel @borislauser.