Adopt-A-Turkey, Save a Life and Make Some Live Vegan Food for Thanksgiving!

The Farm Sanctuary has a wonderful program called ADOPT-A-TURKEY. Here’s a excerpt from their webpage I copied below:

“Adopt-A-Turkey Project

seeks to end the misery of commercially-raised turkeys by offering a compassionate alternative for Thanksgiving. Since 1986, Farm Sanctuary has rescued more than 1,000 turkeys, placed hundreds into loving homes through our annual Turkey Express adoption event, educated millions of people about their plight, and provided resources for a cruelty-free holiday. For a one-time $25 donation, anyone can sponsor turkeys residing at Farm Sanctuary. Sponsor a turkey and receive a special adoption certificate in your name – or give sponsorships as gifts for family and friends. Donations are also needed to support our lifesaving efforts to promote a compassionate Thanksgiving and protect all farm animals.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE ADOPTION LIST. We adopted Hawthorn last week and received our adoption certificate in the mail this past Saturday. Scott and I were both so delighted. Scott wanted to have it on display in the kitchen. He thought Hawthorn was adorable and said we should open our own small animal sanctuary someday. He’s truly the best and has a heart of gold! I’m so lucky that he cares about these precious sentient beings as much as myself.

These photos are free to use by the Farm Sanctuary. They are from last year’s Celebration For the Turkeys which we hope to attend possibly next year. I love how the turkeys who reside at the sanctuary get to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving feast. I just love the Farm Sanctuary and all that they do for animals. Please adopt a turkey and start a new family tradition. I truly believe most people will embrace this beautiful and compassionate act of kindness given the choice.

This is Taj the beautiful Turkey from the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary. You can sponsor him too! This was posted on my Facebook news feed by the Ananda Farm Farm Sanctuary. Send them a friend invite if you are a Facebook member! :-)

Now for some Food! ;-)

The last couple weekends I’ve been experimenting with some raw vegan dishes. We are attending an early family Thanksgiving dinner next Saturday down in Western Massachusetts. Luckily our family has agreed to a vegan/vegetarian dinner that day. Having recently seen some very upsetting undercover investigations on turkey farms, I just can’t bear to attend a Thanksgiving dinner with a poor dead turkey on the table. And seriously, it’s not the 1950s! I believe in starting new healthy, humane and compassionate family traditions! We are lucky to have an understanding and considerate family even if they are not vegans or vegetarians. There will be plenty of delicious and festive food options and decadent desserts.

Thanksgiving is about being together with friends and family and appreciating all the good things in life. I’m sure everyone will enjoy the day together and love all the compassionate, delicious food :-)

I’ve decided to bring down a raw vegan ‘stuffing’ that turned out wonderful last weekend! Even Scott liked it a lot and took some to work for lunch. It’s a very clever recipe and I highly recommend trying it. It tastes like traditional stuffing with the flavors of a lovely Thanksgiving meal.

This is called Stuffing Fantasy and was created by raw chef, Elaina Love. You can find the recipe posted on the Raw Freedom Community website. CLICK HERE.

I made some modifications which I thought were very nice. So here is my adapted recipe:

• 1 1/2 cups of soaked almonds (soak overnight)
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large apple. I used a macintosh
• 1/2 of a med-large sweet onion
• 1 large and 1 medium clove of garlic, minced
• 1 medium Portobello mushroom cap, chopped
• 3 tablespoons of flax meal
• 1 tablespoon of flax oil
• 1 tablespoon of nama shoyu or tamari
• 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 teaspoon of Spike (natural veggie seasoning)
• 2 tablespoons of fresh minced sage plus 1 teaspoon of dried
• 1/3 of a bunch of fresh thyme, minced (to taste)
• 1/4 teaspoon of kelp powder
• 1/2 cup of raisons
• 1/3 cup of walnuts, chopped (or a bit more)
• 3-4 tablespoons of additional chopped sweet onion

Follow instructions posted on the Raw Freedom Community.

Savory Squash Crepes With Sage “Cream” Sauce.

This recipe is by Susan Powers and is found on her lovely website called Rawmazing. CLICK HERE TO SEE RECIPE. I enjoyed these crepes but Scott did not fancy them. He did eat half of one. But he’s super picky with raw food and will be the first to admit that. If I were to make these again, I’d use butternut squash as it seems to soften up in the dehydrator a bit better than the acorn and carnival squash. I liked the cranberries inside the wrap! I used organic cranberries sweetened with fruit juice (healthiest option at the co-op)

Here’s what happened to my wraps: I must have pureed my 5 small zucchini too much in the food processor as the one wrap wasn’t drying in dehydrator. So at about 2pm I scraped it off the teleflex sheet and added about a 1/2 cup or so of flax meal to the mixture. I also added a bit of Spike seasoning. Then I placed it back into the dehydrator. By 7pm the wrap was done. And it was really good! I was shocked! Even Scott liked the wrap by itself. I was surprised that the dreaded flax taste wasn’t noticeable. The Spike seasoning made it taste lovely. I’ll have to experiment with these wraps again and then share more precise measurements!

Pumpkin Bread and warm spiced chocolate nut milk with Murphy!

I found this lovely pumpkin bread recipe on the goneraw website. CLICK HERE TO SEE. I was surprised at how the taste, consistency and texture was very similar to baked traditional pumpkin bread. I had some leftover frozen pumpkin that worked well. I thawed the pumpkin in warm water and it got very soft.

Here’s the recipe with my own modifications:

• 3/4 cup of almond pulp leftover from making nut milk
• 1 cup of pumpkin puree*
• 1/2 cup of soft date paste**
• a bit less than 1/4 cup of ground flax meal
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon or more to taste
• pinch of sea salt
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of maple powder (granulated maple sugar ground up in the coffee grinder)

Mix the above ingredients by spoon and then my hand. I made a small loaf a little over 1 inch high and dehydrated it all day and then overnight. It was ready to eat for breakfast :-)

* used frozen pumpkin that was thawed in warm water. I processed it in the food processor until it was a consistent texture. It was still a bit grainy but that’s OK and didn’t hurt the recipe.

** I used a small handful of medjool dates and water and blended them in this tiny mini food processor which worked like a gem. I kept adding water until it was a nice soft and smooth paste

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Next time I might try less flax meal and add a bit of pysllium powder. While this recipe was very good, it wasn’t quite perfect. I’d give mine 4 out of 5 stars.

This past weekend I made a couple simpler veggie dishes that could be taken to a Thanksgiving dinner:

Broccoli in Bliss Sauce. Recipe is in the E-book, Raw Union.

I discovered this lovely recipe from Aimee’s blog, A Bitt of Raw who also loved this dish. (Thanks for sharing Aimee!) You can purchase the E-book by CLICKING HERE. It has some nice looking recipes along with some very decadent desserts. These are the recipes from the recent wedding of Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes, two famous raw foodies.

Joyce’s Notes: This is a very rich, creamy and tasty recipe that Scott and I both thought was excellent. If you are a curry lover, than I highly recommend this one. Our friend Jeff, who stopped over on Saturday night also said it was good after sampling a little bit. With the unique ingredients, it also tasted similar to a nice peanut sauce.

This veggie dish also has cubed zucchini pieces and some young Thai coconut meat along with chopped pistachio nuts. My coconut didn’t have very much meat and was very soft so it’s not visible. I dehydrated both the broccoli and zucchini for about an hour to soften it up which worked like a charm.

I was considering making this for next week’s early Thanksgiving dinner with family but decided on the stuffing instead. Still, I would say this would be a very welcome addition to the Thanksgiving table. Since I am only bringing one dish and one dessert (with a possible salad), I have to make a few decisions on what to bring on the 3 hour drive Saturday morning :-)

In a quest for an Autumn kale salad, I made this on Sunday:

SimplyRaw’s Amazing Curried Kale Salad.

This lovely recipe can be found in Natasha Kyssa’s ebook called, SimplyRaw's Top 20 Recipes. CLICK HERE for details.

Joyce’s Notes: This is one of the best raw curry sauces I’ve made! Even Scott really liked the sauce. He’s not crazy about kale salads but liked the sauce a lot on it’s own. We both liked the cayenne powder which gave it quite a bit of kick! This sauce has potential for other raw dishes as well. Definitely a keeper! Thanks Natasha!

And Lastly:

I was supposed to teach a friend how to make Carmella Soleil’s Dazzling Chocolate Hazelnut Cream Pie which is one of our favorite raw desserts. Unfortunately she became sick along with some other friends of ours. It’s that time of year! I decided to make it anyway this past Saturday since it’s such a wonderful treat. This recipe is found in the e-book, called The Best of Raw Freedom Community which I highly recommend. CLICK HERE for details.

Now this is a wonderful dessert to bring to any Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Your friends and family will love you for this one! I brought this down for a Christmas dinner last year and everyone raved about it. I got emails from family members asking for the recipe! And if you have a good high speed blender and food processor, it’s a very achievable dessert! :-)

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For a great cooked vegan meat substitute for turkey, I highly recommend Field Roast’s Celebration Roast. CLICK HERE for more information. Field Roast is a small company that makes vegan grain meat substitutes. The Celebration Roast is absolutely amazing. I don’t buy it often because it’s hard to stop eating. Yes it’s really that good! I’m bringing down a couple of these roasts next weekend for our family get-together. And I’m confident that even the carnivores will love it too!

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Here’s our other furry toddler, Fergus who loves to nap under blankets:

I decided to enclose some links of the undercover investigations done on turkey farms which are very upsetting. I’ve shared some of these with our family and friends, so they understand my passion for having a cruelty-free and humane Thanksgiving dinner. Click on the links below:

"Butterball's House of Horrors"

Butterball Cruelty Confirmed by the USDA

Investigation Reveals Horrific Cruelty to Turkeys on Aviagen factory farms.

Mercy For Animals undercover investigation takes you behind the closed doors of one of the country's largest poultry slaughterhouses House of Raeford Farms, Inc. in Raeford, North Carolina.

PLEASE STAND UP FOR TURKEYS AND START A NEW HUMANE FAMILY TRADITION

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Please consider adopting a turkey at the Farm Sanctuary or any other sanctuary. It’s a wonderful thing to do!

Have a happy and healthy week!

Happy Halloween with Creamy Sage-Pumpkin Risotto, A Chocolate Hazelnut Pumpkin Cake and a hike up Mt. Ellen!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! What a fun time of year! I’ve enjoyed all the blog and facebook photos of Halloween food, desserts and costumes :-)

It’s usually quiet on our small mountain for Halloween. We normally get about 6-8 kids, but only had 2 this year due to the weather. Halloween was warm and gorgeous during the day and I had the pleasure of running in ‘balmy’ temperatures which reached the high 60s F. What a treat for me! But the rain arrived just in time for trick-or-treating which was unfortunate.

Creamy Sage-Pumpkin “Risotto” with Wild Mushrooms and Amaretti. Recipe is by Matthew Kenney and found in his new book, Entertaining in the Raw on Page 171.

I received permission from Matthew Kenney to post this beautiful autumn recipe onto my blog! Thank you Matthew!! I’m so happy because this is a delicious recipe which is perfect for this time of year. And I love being able to share such recipes on my blog for everyone else to enjoy.

So here it is :-)

“Risotto”

• 4 cups of peeled and roughly chopped jicama
• 1 1/2 cups peeled, chopped and seeded fresh pumpkin (use small ones)
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cups of cashews, soaked for 2 hours (I used cashew pieces)
• 6 tablespoons of water
• 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of raw agave
• 2 tablespoons of fresh sage (I coarsely chopped mine)

Process jicama in a food processor until rice-like consistency is achieved (don’t over process). Press out excess liquid with a cheesecloth or through a sieve (I used a nut bag which worked well); place in a bowl and set aside. Pulse pumpkin in the food processor with olive oil: add to jicama rice. Blend remaining ingredients in a Vitamix until smooth and creamy. Add to jicama-and-pumpkin mixture and combine well. Optional: cover bowl with plastic wrap and warm in dehydrator at 118 F for 1-2 hours. (I did this for 2 hours)

Wild Mushrooms

• 1 1/2 cups of stemmed and roughly chopped (into 1/2 inch pieces) portobello mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups of stemmed and roughly chopped (into 1/2 inch pieces) cremini mushrooms
• 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• black pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped fresh thyme

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. Spread mushroom mixture in a small pan and place at the bottom of the dehydrator at 118 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Amaretti

• 2 cups of coarse almond flour (soaked and dehydrated almonds that are processed and sifted through a fine strainer)
• 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
• 2 tablespoons of date paste
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup powder
• 1/2 cup of coconut oil
• pinch of sea salt

Combine all ingredients well. Spoon tablespoon rounds of the dough onto dehydrator sheets, pressing down slightly. Dehydrate 24 hours until mostly crisp on the outside. Allow to cool.

Assembly:

Divide the risotto among 4-6 plates. Spoon 1/4 cup mushrooms over the risotto on each serving plate. Crumble amaretti over the mushrooms. Garnish with fresh sage if desired.

Serves 4-6 (although I felt it would only serve 3-4 unless the portions were very small)

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Joyce’s Notes: Wow this was another winner by Matthew Kenney! Even Scott who’s not a big pumpkin fan loved this dinner. It was so delicious with the creamy, slightly sweet risotto and savory mushrooms together. Scott really liked the mushrooms with the rosemary and thyme which are traditional New England autumn flavorings. I was never a big mushroom fan but have learned I really enjoy them in raw and living dishes! The texture is better un-cooked and they absorb their flavorings so well! The amaretti ‘cookies’ were very good and also enhanced the dish as a whole. We both enjoyed them with the mushrooms and risotto.

I followed the “risotto” and mushroom recipes closely without any true deviations or modifications. I’d recommend doing the same. The mushroom mixture might seem a tad too salty on it’s own but it works well with the sweeter risotto.

The amaretti was a different story. I didn’t soak and dehydrate the almonds so I modified the recipe and came up with this variation:

• 3/4 cup of unsoaked whole almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
• 2 tablespoons of soft date paste
• 1/4 cup of maple sugar
• small pinch of sea salt

I ground up the almonds and maple sugar in the food processor using the S blade until it was a coarse powder. Then I added the remaining ingredients and processed until well combined. I spooned onto dehydrator sheets and dehydrated my cookies for about 20 hours. They never got crisp on the outside. I might have over processed them which releases the oil. (which is why I didn’t add any additional coconut oil/butter)

Next time I would follow Matthew’s instructions and recipe. Having dry almond flour will make all the difference. My ameretti were still very tasty but just not crisp. They still tasted great on the risotto and mushrooms.

Overall, I was so delighted with this recipe for our Halloween Weekend. It was delicious gourmet raw vegan food, fit for a king! It’s a super classy recipe for impressing your friends and family! And it would surely be a lovely Thanksgiving dish as well. Thanks again Matthew! You’re an inspiration!

Scott carved me a cute Jack-O-Lantern! Love the teeth!

Next up: My Halloween Cake Adventure!

My own Halloween Chocolate Hazelnut Pumpkin Cake! (with Murphy enjoying the photo shoot)

I wanted to create a fun dessert with a Halloween theme using nice bright colors. I searched the internet for traditional Halloween recipes and desserts. Sometimes you can find creative ideas and inspiration from cakes and sweets that are non vegan.

Here’s a traditional chocolate cake with bright orange frosting I found on the internet:

I love to find traditional recipe ideas and ‘rawify’ them into healthy, nutritious living foods. So the above photo was the inspiration for my own raw and vegan cake. While that baked cake above looks great, you might not feel so well after eating it! ;-)

Here’s mine!

Joyce’s Notes: This is a super rich, decadent dessert that both Scott and myself love. Wow! I am so excited about this one! I wasn’t sure how it would all turn out together. I have never eaten a cake with both chocolate and pumpkin flavors. However, these combinations are truly divine, especially with chocolate and hazelnut together! A seasonal classic that will help keep you healthy and happy!

I don’t mean to be a tease, but this recipe is going to be part of a collection of recipes that will be for sale online, benefitting the Farm Sanctuary. I do hope to get the website up soon so everyone can have access to them.

The chocolate hazelnut cake batter was made with my version of almond flour, hazelnut flour, dried coconut flakes, cacao powder, date paste, agave syrup, coconut oil, and a few other wholesome ingredients. I don’t like almond pulp in raw cakes, so both nut flours were made with whole ground nuts. This turned out to be a nice soft and moist texture which worked great with the pumpkin layer. The hazelnut flavoring was lovely and made the cake very gourmet tasting.

The pumpkin layer was my own ‘pumpkin cream cheese frosting’. On Thursday night I whipped up a batch of crème fraîche inspired by Russell James. This was basically a mild cultured nut sour cream made with probiotic capsules. I used less cashews in the pumpkin layer and added some of the crème fraîche for a ‘cream cheese’ flavoring which turned out to be subtle but lovely. The pumpkin layer also consisted of agave syrup, coconut oil, soy lecithin, carrot juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. This was delicious and tasted similar to the pumpkin cheesecake I made a couple weekends ago.

This was our first time trying this ‘spider web’ design! I made a chocolate syrup for this. (cacao powder, young Thai coconut meat, agave, almond milk, coconut oil, and cacao butter). Then I put it in a plastic squirt bottle right from the Vitamix. (I did let it cool a bit in the fridge for a few minutes as it got warm in the Vitamix)

For this design, you draw concentric circles on top of the cake using the squirt bottle. Scott did this for me since he has a very steady hand. It’s a bit tricky. Next use a tooth pick to draw lines out from the inside circle to the outside of the springform pan. I was able to do this with ease. I then drew the spider using the squirt bottle as well.

To see another great Halloween cake with the spider web design, visit the Happy Raw Kitchen. Angela did a whole Halloween blog series with a wealth of creative raw vegan Halloween recipes and ideas.

Hiking Mt Ellen!!

Here are some photos of our beautiful hike up Mt Ellen yesterday. Mt Ellen is part of Sugarbush Ski Resort, also known as Sugarbush North (near Waitsfield, VT) We hiked up a long work road to the summit which was an amazing scenic route. And then we hiked down some of the ski trails. It was a gorgeous first day of November. I loved the sun and clouds against the mountain vistas! Enjoy!

The above shot is just the beginning of our hike before it gets steep!

This was taken after we hiked over halfway up the mountain!

Almost at at the summit!

It was 30F degrees on top according to a thermometer attached to the lift operator’s booth. At the the base lodge it was 52F degrees!

The summit views are incredible up there! Scott is excited to ski soon!

On the other side of the summit we could see Lake Champlain and the NY Adirondacks. So pretty!

Camel’s Hump is in the background on the left. (looking north!)

Hiking back down a ski trail. Can’t wait to ski that one soon!

Although we already have our bash badges at Smugglers Notch this year, we do hope to ski Mt Ellen a few times this year! It’s a gorgeous mountain with epic trails!

So that was our fun Halloween Weekend! Making wonderful raw vegan food and hiking up a big ski mountain!

Hope Everyone had a fun and festive Halloween! Have a lovely week!

Cranberry Orange Cheesecake, Beet Ravioli, Sage Croquettes, and PETA’s Cow Mascot in Vermont!

This weekend I wanted to create my own cranberry orange cheesecake for the upcoming holidays. This is the time of year fresh organic cranberries are abundant in the co-ops and health food stores. The cranberries we buy in Vermont are native to Eastern Massachusetts where they grow in bogs. They are harvested in October so it’s a great time to be eating them. To learn more about them, CLICK HERE. Cranberries are also great in smoothies with oranges! I even make delicious green smoothies with cranberry and orange combinations! A super autumn breakfast!

My own Cranberry Orange Cheesecake

This recipe is part of my small but growing collection. These new recipes will be for sale online when we build our website. Half the proceeds will be going to the Farm Sanctuary to help rescued farm animals. I’ll have awesome detailed instructions and photos for each recipe as well as photos of the animals that will be benefitting from my project. Please keep checking back for our progress updates :-)

Joyce’s Notes: This turned out to be delicious! There is no cultured nut cheese but it’s still quite flavorful. I used cacao butter (raw unsweetened white chocolate) and a bit of coconut oil to get it firm. I was hoping for a more ‘white chocolate’ flavor but the tanginess of the oranges and cranberries were dominant over the cacao butter. That’s OK as it still tasted very rich and decadent. We also liked the crust a lot which was made with dried cranberries.

 

Almond Beet Ravioli with Boursin Macadamia cheese and a Moroccan Carrot Orange Sauce over kelp noodles.

This is also the time of year for an abundance of beets in Vermont. So you may see a few more beet ravioli recipes in the upcoming months on my blog. We just love them! :-)

I got this idea from a really great blog called “What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyways”. However I did change it up a bit. The almond flavorings and boursin macadamia nut cheese are my own ideas and I used kelp noodles instead of zucchini noodles. 

For the beets I used red and golden beets that were sliced on my mandoline and cut into squares. I marinated them in almond oil and a little sea salt for about half the day to soften.

I used fermented/cultured macadamia nut cheese as the ravioli filling. To see details on making fermented nut cheese you can view my St Patty’s day post. CLICK HERE. (it’s towards the end). I flavored about one cup of the macadamia nut cheese with:

• 3/4 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
• sea salt to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

The Moroccan carrot orange sauce was adapted from Gabriel Cousen’s book, Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine.

Here’s my version:

• 2 cups of carrots chopped
• 2 tomatoes (medium sized)
• 1 medium orange
• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of allspice
• 1 1/4 teaspoon of cumin (or more to taste)
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Blend in the Vitamix until smooth.

I topped the dish with almond slices mixed with almond oil and a little sea salt. Note: almond oil is not raw but I only used small amounts as seasoning for this dish.

Joyce’s Notes: This was a delicious dinner on Saturday night. Scott really loved the beet ravioli marinated in almond oil and the cheese filling together. He also really liked the almond slices on top. I wasn’t sure how this was all going to turn out. So I was delighted when my very fussy raw food Husband was calling this one a winner! :-)

The Moroccan carrot orange sauce was good but not a five-star recipe. With a little tweaking it could be excellent. I still think it went nicely with the dish as it was subtle and didn’t over power or clash with any of the other flavors. It was actually a nice compliment to the highly flavorful macadamia nut cheese. I used the leftover sauce on Sunday for a delicious kale salad.

Next time I might just leave out the kelp noodles since the dish didn’t need them. (they are neutral in flavor). I didn’t mind eating them mixed in the sauce but Scott gave me his ;-)

 

An experiment for the upcoming Holidays:

Savory Sage Croquettes. Recipe is Adapted by Gabriel Cousins and found in his book, Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine.

Back in August, someone brought a very similar batch of sage croquettes to the local potluck and I thought they were extremely tasty! I could have eaten a whole bunch! I never did get the recipe but found out that something very similar was in one of my books! So I had to try it out for the upcoming holidays.

Here’s my adapted recipe based on Gabriel’s:

• 1 cup of almonds, soaked overnight
• 1 cup of brazil nuts, unsoaked
• 1/2 cup of pine nuts
• 1/8 cup of lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 2 tablespoons of fresh sage, minced
• 1 tablespoon of fresh oregano, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried sage
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of minced leek
• cracked pepper to taste

Process the almonds, brazils and pine nuts until very well incorporated in the food processor using the S blade. This should take a few minutes to get it homogenized. Then add the rest of the ingredients and process until well incorporated.

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Joyce’s Notes: I thought these were soooo tasty and flavorful! Scott wasn’t thrilled with them but thought they were OK. I thought they tasted just like traditional stuffing with the leeks, sage and oregano. And I love stuffing!!

Gabriel’s original recipe called for olive oil which I did use. However they did turn out to be a little too oily. Scott didn’t like that aspect but I was fine with it. I’m going to make these again without the oil as the ground pine nuts will still release some oil keeping them moist. I might also roll them in almond flour next time.

Give these a try if you love authentic holiday stuffing (or dressing as they call it overseas in some countries). Make it first before you bring it to a Thanksgiving dinner to make sure it’s not too oily for you. I think it’s always best to ‘test run’ raw vegan recipes before bringing them to important family dinners :-)

Here’s a photo of the croquettes before going into the dehydrator. This recipe should have made 12 but I kept eating bites right from the food processor as it was soooo good :-)

 

PETA’s “Dairy Dump” in Burlington, Vermont this past Friday!

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) members were on the corner of Church and Main Street to enlighten people about the inhumane treatment of cows on dairy farms.

A new PETA undercover investigation inside a Land O'Lakes supplier facility in Pennsylvania has revealed routine neglect and cruelty to cows who are milked for the company's products. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE DETAILS. This is very sad but unfortunately it’s a very grim reality for almost all dairy cows on factory farms.

The lovely woman above is Virginia Fort who is a Campaign Coordinator for PETA. It was a pleasure meeting and talking with her this past Friday. She had a small video screen attached to her which was showing footage of the Land O’Lakes undercover investigation which you can see on the link I enclosed above.

I’m so thankful for PETA and all that they do for animals. Keep up the great work!

Thank you Virginia for coming to Burlington!

 

And here are a few late October Vermont scenes. The leaves are almost off the trees but there are still a few colors left. I love the clouds and lighting this time of year in New England. Winter is on its way!

The above shots are views of Richmond, Vermont  

The above is Camel’s Hump taken off of Libby’s Lookout this weekend. Sunday was a gorgeous day to be outside in the woods!

Well that’s all for now! Have a happy and healthy week and do come back again!

Chocolate Pecan Pie And A Couple Curried Dishes with Autumn Vegetables

A few weeks ago Jennifer Cornbleet’s publisher sent me a reviewer’s copy of her new book, Raw For Dessert.  She had seen my blog and wrote me an email. How very cool!

This is a lovely new dessert book with all kinds of delicious looking treats. Whether you are just starting out on the raw journey or you are an experienced raw pastry chef, this book has something for everyone. Raw desserts are my favorite part of living a raw vegan lifestyle! So I am delighted to have a copy of this raw dessert recipe book filled with cakes, pies, ice creams, cookies and other luscious sweets. Plus I like how most of her ice cream recipes don’t use any young Thai coconuts (which have been scarce lately or poor quality). Even though it’s not ice cream weather, we have our eye on her Pistachio Ice Cream recipe! Scott has also requested her raspberry squares :-)

My first dessert from Jennifer’s new book was the Chocolate Pecan Pie which is perfect for the cooler fall weather and also for the upcoming holidays.

Chocolate Pecan Pie!

Jennifer’s publisher gave me permission to post a recipe from her new book. Please do check out her webpage and the book details by CLICKING HERE.

This recipe includes a few components so I’m going to list them in the order that I made them:

1 Cup of Date Paste (here’s what I used since I cut the recipe almost in half)

• 20 pitted medjool dates
• 1 1/2 cups of water (and a couple teaspoons extra)

Soak dates in the water for 20 minutes, massaging them with your hands for a minute. Drain dates but reserve the soaking water.

Place dates in food processor along with a bit over 1/4 cup of soak water and blend until smooth.

Almond Pecan Crust

• 3/4 cup of unsoaked almonds
• 3/4 cup of unsoaked pecans (recipe calls for 1/2 cup)
• 8 pitted medjool dates
• 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt

Place almonds and sea salt in the food processor and process until coarsely ground. Add the pecans and process until both nuts are finely ground. Add the dates and process until mixture begins to stick together. Don’t overprocess. Form a pie crust in a 9 inch pie plate or tart pan. I used a pie plate.

3/4 cup of Chocolate Ganache

• 3/4 cup of dark agave syrup or maple syrup (I used mostly dark agave with a bit of maple syrup)
• 3/4 cup of cacao powder
• 1/3 cup of virgin coconut oil, melted (in dehydrator)
• 1/8 teaspoon plus pinch of sea salt

Blend everything in the Vitamix until smooth. Add most of it on top of the crust. Scatter 3/4 cups of pecans on top of the ganache. Press down with your hand. Put in the fridge while making the filling.

Filling

• 3/4 cup of water
• 1/2 teaspoon of agar flakes
• 1 cup of date paste from above
• 1 tablespoon of dark agave or maple syrup (I used maple syrup since I live in Vermont)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt

Place the water and agar flakes in a small saucepan on the stove and let soak for 5-10 minutes. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 5 minutes, whisking occasionally. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.

Place the date paste, maple syrup or agave, vanilla extract, and sea salt in the food processor and process until smooth. Add the agar mixture and process until blended.

Spread the date mixture evenly over the ganache and pecans with an offset spatula. Scatter the remaining 1/2 to 1 cup of pecans on top, pressing them down slightly. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.

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Joyce’s Notes: Wow this is a very rich and decadent dessert! Both my husband Scott and I love this one! It’s sinfully good with the chocolate ganache layer! Thank you Jennifer for this clever recipe.

The crust works well as I added a bit more pecans. I always change up crust recipes to suit our preferences.

The chocolate ganache is so simple yet amazing! Scott loved this part the most. We were both scraping every last drop out of the Vitamix. It was that good! You could do a lot with this recipe for other desserts. Chocolate lovers must try this!

The date paste was really nice and I thought the filling mixture was very good with the date paste and maple syrup. This was my first time using agar flakes. I used Eden brand Agar Agar Sea Vegetable Flakes. This is a vegetable gelatin made with a variety of sea vegetables with thickening properties. I found these at City Market Co-op.

The filling did get a bit thicker after being in the fridge but not as firm as using Irish moss. The consistency was OK for this particular dessert. I’d like to experiment more using Agar flakes in the future since it’s a more neutral taste than Irish moss. I’m not worried about Agar being cooked since you use a very small amount. Plus Irish moss gets very hot when blending in the Vitamix so even Irish moss isn’t truly raw in desserts.

Overall I highly recommend Jennifer’s new book and trying this super naughty-tasting dessert. It has a few steps but the end result is worth the effort. In fact I’m about to take a break and cut myself a small piece as it’s not going to last long! ;-)

For people that are looking for a more traditional raw vegan pecan pie recipe without the chocolate, I highly recommend trying Alissa Cohen’s recipe in her book, Living on Live Food. I brought that one to a Thanksgiving dinner a couple years ago and it was a huge hit!

 

Autumn Curried Carrot Salad. Recipe was found on goneraw.com. CLICK HERE to see original recipe.

This past Friday, our favorite neighbors, Stu and Renée left some carrots, purple cabbage, and other veggies in a basket for us to enjoy. Thanks so much you two! This was just perfect because I had my eye on the this curried carrot salad recently posted on goneraw.com that also called for purple cabbage. 

Here is  the recipe with my own modifications:

Ingredients:

Salad base:

• 5 to 6 cups of shredded and grated carrots using the food processor
• 1/2 of a small head of purple cabbage, chopped in the food processor
• 1/2 cup of unsoaked sunflower seeds
• 1/2 heaping cup of raisins, soaked for 20 minutes
• 1/2 cup of dried shredded coconut
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup of minced red onion
• big handful of cilantro or more to taste, minced

Combine and mix in a nice big bowl

Dressing

• 1/2 cup plus a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 – 2 small/medium Macintosh apples (I used one and 2/3 of a second apple)
• 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped ginger (I used a bit under 1 tablespoon)
• 2 teaspoons of curry powder
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of garam masala (start off with 1/2 tsp)
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• sea salt to taste
• enough water for the mixture to turn over in Vitamix
• dash of cinnamon

Blend everything in the Vitamix until smooth and creamy. Add more water if necessary.  Mix with salad base.

Add a few more cilantro leaves when eating. This is my personal preference as I love cilantro.

(Original dressing recipe calls for juice of one lemon which I forgot to add)

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Joyce’s Notes: This is a lovely salad that both my husband and I enjoyed very much. My result was not a ‘taste explosion’ as expressed on goneraw.com. But it was still very good and satisfying. I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars. Perhaps next time I would make sure I didn’t forget the lemon juice in the dressing. Also I might use a bit fewer carrots. Overall it was still delicious and Scott was happy to take some leftovers to work today as a nice lunch.

 

A Work in Progress and a fun experiment:

Curry Butternut Squash Cream Sauce over Ravioli stuffed with Cashew Cheese with Cranberries.

This was my own experiment this weekend. The recipe needs to be tweaked a bit, but it has a lot of potential. I thought I’d share the photos anyway and talk a little about it.

I bought a butternut squash for the weekend to experiment with softening it up up in the dehydrator. I peeled and cut it up into small cubes. I then soaked it overnight in the fridge in cold salted water. The next day I coated the squash in olive oil and dehydrated the cubes all day on telefex sheets. They got soft enough to use but not quite as soft as baked squash. I was still very pleased with the results (and I can be fussy too). So I might try Susan Power’s

Savory Squash Crepes With Sage “Cream” Sauce

recipe on Rawmazing. CLICK HERE to check it out. Looks lovely with the dehydrated squash!!

Back to my experiment :-) I made a cream sauce with soaked cashews, pine nuts, the soft dehydrated squash, olive oil and a bunch of other ingredients for flavoring including curry powder.

The filling was a fermented cashew cheese with lemon zest, and other flavorings. I did use a tad too much lemon zest so next time I need to be mindful of how strong the zest can be. Live and learn!

The wrappers were made of turnips that I soaked in grape seed oil which is a very nice neutral oil, easily found at most co-ops and health food stores. I soaked some dried cranberries for garnish which made the dish look pretty.

Once I get this recipe or a ‘cousin’ of this dish perfected I’ll share more details. Hopefully this will be a future recipe I can sell on my ‘special project’ which will benefit farm animals ;-)

So I had a fun time in the kitchen as usual this past weekend. But we did manage to get outside for some lovely autumn running and exploring. (I’m feeling very strong and in good shape after our half marathon a few weekends ago)

Here are a couple photos we took out in the Waitsfield, Vermont area this past weekend:

 

Oh I just have to include this one with Murphy:

He loves to be a part of everything! :-)

Well, it’s a perfect day with clear blue skies! It’s almost a crime to be inside now. So I’m off for a run!

Cheers and have a lovely week! Sending warm wishes from Vermont. xo

Pumpkin Cheesecake, A Potluck and lots of Fall Foliage!

 

Pumpkin Cheesecake! Recipe is adapted from Matthew Kenney. You can find a very similar cheesecake recipe in his book, Everyday Raw. I highly recommend this book if you don’t already have it. It’s a good one we like to use!

Joyce’s Notes: This is probably one of my favorite desserts of all time (raw and traditional!) Matthew Kenney is a genius for coming up with this pumpkin cheesecake filling! Scott and I love this one so much. Matthew’s recipe was originally part of a Thanksgiving E-book collection of raw recipes from 2007. There were a bunch of raw chefs who contributed to the E-book. So I was lucky enough to be making Matthew’s pumpkin cheesecake for the past two Thanksgivings and ‘wowing’ friends and family. But now the recipe is available in his book! The quantities are smaller since it’s for a tart pan. He does use maple syrup in the book. I use all agave and it turns out amazing. Oh! his recipe in the book calls for fresh thyme. If you’re super adventurous and live on the edge, go for it. I leave it out :-)

What makes this pumpkin cheesecake so clever is that it doesn’t have any pumpkin or fermented nut cheese in the recipe. Matthew uses carrot juice, nutmeg and cinnamon to create a very authentic pumpkin pie taste and texture. Real pumpkin and squash are a bit grainy uncooked, but this cake is super smooth from the carrot juice. This is why raw food can be so much fun!

I made a 7 inch and an 8 inch cheesecake and brought one to the potluck last night. Everyone loved it and wanted the recipe.  It was a huge hit! And you can be sure we’ll be taking this down to a family gathering in November! Seriously, I think this is one of the best raw dessert recipes of all time! Get the book if you don’t already have it: Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney (I don’t make a commission. I just think it’s a great book with achievable recipes for all raw foodies or raw-curious folks!)

A quick shot of Preston Pond across the street from our house. This is part of 400 acres of conservation land. A true gem!

A beaver pond up the trail from Preston pond on the way to Libby’s Lookout.

 

A perfect Autumn Salad:

 

Kale and Tahini Salad. Recipe by Russell James and found in his E-book, No Dehydrator Needed.

Russell released this E-book last week along with a Chocolate E-book which I also purchased as well. Both have all kinds of delicious looking recipes that I look forward to trying.

Joyce’s Notes: This is a lovely rich and filling kale salad. I love kale salads and make them on a regular basis during the weekdays. Fresh local kale is very plentiful right now so it was a perfect time to enjoy this. It consists of fresh kale, baby tomatoes, raw tahini (I use Artisana brand available at Healthy Living Market), lemon juice, sea salt, olive oil, sprouted buckwheat, agave syrup and cayenne.

I love sprouted buckwheat in salads and this was just great! It adds a crunchy texture plus a wealth of easily digestible protein. Russell adds the option of also using hemp protein powder but I decided to omit it this time. I love hemp protein powder but wasn’t sure about it in this salad. If I was doing a long running event or workout the next day I just might give the hemp protein powder a go in this recipe.

 

Taken from Libby’s Lookout which is a beautiful short hike that starts across the street from our house in the conservation land. Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks are in the background (waving back at Angela!)

Burlington Alive Potluck this past Sunday!

Last night we had a lovely time at the Burlington Alive Potluck at Geniel and Lynn Fife’s house. Thank you Geniel, Lynn, Joshua and Carrie Anne for making this all happen! There were a several people who were not able to make it this month but I hope to see them at the next one :-)  Here are a few photos:

 

 

 

Now for some more fall foliage shots taken in beautiful Vermont!

Taken from our front door before a storm.

 

 

 

 

Today was a gorgeous day so I hiked up Camel’s Hump via the Burrows Trail starting in Huntington, VT which is about 15 miles from our house.  Here are some shots I took today:

Camels Hump Road

Snow and frost on the west side of the summit. The trail became very icy and treacherous at the top (last .3 mile of the hike)

 

Mt Mansfield is in the background.

A nice guy took my photo. It was cold on the summit but gorgeous!

Lake Champlain and the NY Adirondacks are in the background (waving to Angela!)

And lastly, our pretty mountain road

Hope everyone visiting Vermont enjoyed the leaves! Stop back soon!

 

Porcini Ravioli, Two Autumn Cakes and a Leaf Peepers Half Marathon

Peak foliage in Vermont is upon us now and it’s so beautiful outside. This is our favorite time of year in New England. I made some lovely seasonal recipes that are perfect for this time of year when apples and root vegetables are plentiful and the weather is a bit cooler.

Saturday night we had a lovely and delicious candle lit dinner before our first half marathon on late Sunday morning (details later).

 

Porcini Ravioli in a Cream Sauce. Recipe is by Sabina Nicholson (also know as Snowdrop) and can be found on her blog, the Adirondack Raw Food Connection.  This was a wonderful recipe that both my husband and I enjoyed so much! Sabina gave me permission to post the recipe on my blog. But you can also find it on her blog with her own photo as well. Do check out her blog!

Here’s Sabina’s recipe:

Makes approx. 12 ravioli serves 2

If you cannot find dried porcini mushrooms, use a grocery store dried mushroom medley.

Wrapper:
Ingredients:
1-2 turnips
Directions:

Peel the turnips if you wish, or just scrub them well. Slice the turnips into very thin slices, by using a spiral slicer, mandolin or other vegetable slicer to make thin round disks. These will be used as the wrapper, which would normally be the pasta dough.

Porcini filling:
Ingredients:
1/2 oz Dried Porcini Mushrooms (or a medley: porcini, shitake, oyster, bolet) looks like about 1/2 cup dry in volume.

Flavored Soaking liquid:
1/4 cup Spring Water
1 tablespoon Nama Shoyu or Raw Tamari
1 tablespoon White Wine
1/8 teaspoon Liquid Smoke

Veggie puree:
1 Parsnip
1 tablespoon Onion, minced
1 small clove Garlic
1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt

Directions:
1. Rinse the dried mushrooms, discarding the rinse water, drain.
2. Soak mushrooms in flavored soaking liquid let stand an hour, stirring a few times until softened.
3. Drain mushrooms lightly, saving any leftover liquid for later.
4. Chop drained mushrooms in food processor until a fine chop achieved.
5. In a small bowl add chopped mushrooms.
6. Process parsnip, garlic, and onion in food processor until fine puree is achieved, put in a separate small bowl.
7. Add 1 teaspoon of the cream sauce to the puree, stirring to make it stick together a little.
Directions for assembling the ravioli:
1. Remove a single turnip slice from the batch.
2. Place about a half teaspoon of parsnip puree filling in one side of the turnip slice.
3. Then add a half teaspoon of the mushroom mixture on top of the puree.
4. Brush the other side with the soaking liquid and fold the turnip over until all the sides meet. Squeeze the edges together. If you don't have enough filling in them they will not stick together.
5. Place them in a single layer on a teflex sheet.
6. Dehydrate set to 105 degrees until warmed through and softened.

Cream Sauce:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Cashews, soaked 2 hours, rinsed, and drained
1/2 cup Spring Water
1 tablespoons Lemon Juice
1/2 teaspoon Agave Nectar
1 teaspoon Nutritional Yeast
1 teaspoon light Miso
1/2 teaspoon Onion powder
1/4 teaspoon Garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt, to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground Nutmeg
Pinch of White Pepper

Directions:
1. Blend and blend until smooth. If you need to -thin it with a few drops of water until the perfect sauce consistency is achieved.
2. To serve: Puddle the cream sauce on the plate, gently lay ravioli on top and garnish with tiny parsley mincing around the edge of the plate.

Serving suggestion: A bowl of deep green spinach salad polka dotted with black sundry olives and dehydrator "roasted" red pepper strips.

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Joyce’s Notes: Like I said above both Scott and I really enjoyed this dish! Scott really liked it a lot which is great because he’s a bit more picky with raw vegan dinners. It was very rich with the porcini mushrooms and the top-notch cream sauce. The cream sauce was indeed delicious and could be used for other recipes and raw vegan dishes. One of my favorite raw sauces so far!!

I liked using turnips for the ravioli wrapper and parsnips for the inside. Both root vegetables are very much in season here in Vermont. I was able to buy fresh local organic turnips and parsnips in the co-op.

 

One thing I might try in the future is using one of my own fermented nut cheeses inside as the filling in lieu of the parsnip filling for something different. I love parsnips and thought the filling was very good, but you must like parsnips if you are going to do this recipe with the parsnip mixture. We found that the cream sauce and porcini mushrooms hid the turnip taste. So if you don’t fancy the taste of turnips, this recipe will be OK as the turnips soak up all the other flavors. (I do like the taste of turnips and most root veggies)

One thing to note is that I doubled the recipe and this worked out great. I only used one large turnip for the wrappers which were enough for the filling and sauce. We had a nice meal on Saturday as well as Sunday evening. The leftovers after our half marathon last night were so welcomed and appreciated. I warmed up the ravioli and sauce in the dehydrator and it was perfect and so tasty!

Overall, I highly recommend this recipe for an elegant romantic meal for this colorful time of year. Thanks so much Sabina for sharing such a great recipe!

 

My Own Apple Caramel Cheesecake with Fermented Macadamia Nut Cheese.

Apples are in season here in Vermont and the co-ops and stores are loaded with local apples. I was so happy to purchase some local organic macintosh apples at City Market Co-op last week. Organic apples are a bit tougher to grow here in Vermont so they aren’t as available as the conventional or IPM apples. But I do my best to seek out and support the organic varieties and farmers who do make the effort to grow organically.

At my Grezzo Chef training class in August, we learned how to make cheesecakes with fermented nut cheeses. Grezzo’s head chef Leah showed us how she made her Apple Lucuma Cheesecake. My apple cheesecake is a bit different than Leah’s. I didn’t use any young Thai coconuts and I used more cheese and less soaked nuts. This made my cake a tad bit more ‘cheesy’ tasting. I made a raw ‘caramel’ sauce with some delicious really raw cashew butter.

This recipe will be available when I get my ‘special project’ underway. However I just wanted to share it since it was another success.

Joyce’s notes: This is one of my best cheesecakes yet using fermented nut cheese. It tasted great and it was firm enough. I added some of the caramel sauce in between the filling which you can see in the above photo. Our neighbors came over to sample some cake last night and also said this was my best cheesecake so far. It’s nice when non-raw friends really enjoy my desserts as I know these healthy wonderful treats can be for everyone! My goodness, there’s nothing ‘bad’ or harmful in these desserts! How awesome is that!

One thing I did differently was make the macadamia nut cheese using quinoa rejuvelac instead of wheat or rye berries. I will definitely use quinoa again for rejuvelac as it seems to taste and smell the best.

 

My rainy day cake experiment from the previous Sunday!

My own Orange Pistachio Cake!

I love orange and pistachio flavors and saw this orange jello-like traditional dessert with chopped up pistachios in it. I was combing through a traditional dessert book during my lunch break and thought that I should come up with my own cake using the combination of oranges and pistachios. My dessert is completely different from what I saw in the book but the flavors were inspired from it. Sometimes it’s great to look at regular cookbooks for inspiration!

I’m really proud of this dessert! It’s original and like nothing I’ve tasted in the raw vegan world so far. Again, this will be available soon when my project gets underway. My new desserts will be for sale but half of the proceeds will be going to a very wonderful cause. More details on that when my husband starts building the actual website! I really do want to help animals one cake at at time!! ;-)

Joyce’s Notes: Both my husband and I really liked this a lot. I actually loved it and so did some of Scott’s co-workers who got to sample some of the cake! Raw cakes have been tricky with us since a lot of raw recipes use leftover almond pulp from making almond milk. Scott doesn’t fancy the almond pulp in recipes so I thought I’d do something different. I found a good and simple way to make almond and pistachio flour without soaking or dehydrating or making any types of nut milk. I’ll share this soon. The result was so much better! It was moist and flavorful.

The orange layer is made using Irish moss and fresh oranges. The Irish moss worked out extremely well and the texture was amazingly perfect! I’m so glad I wrote everything down! At Natural Provisions Health Food Store in Williston, I found these organic Cara Cara oranges from South Africa. They had a nice pinkish color which gave my orange layer a very dramatic orange.

 

Here’s a quick and super easy recipe that’s bursting with flavor!!

Pumpkin Seed-Macadamia-Pine Nut Cheese! Recipe is by by Diana Allen, MS, CNS of Eat2Evolve.blogspot.com.

A week ago, Scott and I had to drive out of state for the day and brought with us this awesome snack! This is a super flavorful nut cheese that’s so easy and quick to make. There’s no fermentation. The only thing you need to do ahead of time is soak the pumpkin seeds for 2-4 hours.  We ate this nut cheese wrapped up in collard leaves which was just delicious and so convenient for traveling!

Diana kindly gave me permission to post the recipe on my blog to share with everyone. Here’s the recipe with my variations (click on the the link to above to see Diana’s original recipe)

• 2 cups of pumpkin seeds, soaked 2-4 hours (I did 2 hours)
• 1/2 cup of unsoaked pine nuts
• 1/2 cup of macadamia nuts
• juice of 2 lemons plus 1/2 tablespoon
• 1/3 cup plus 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 drizzles of white truffle oil (or to taste)
• 2 1/4 teaspoons of sea salt (start out with just one tsp)
• 1 medium to large garlic clove, minced
• 6 small scallions, chopped finely

Directions: Put soaked seeds and nuts in food processor and pulse/process to fine meal texture. Add lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and process until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides with spatula as needed. Add truffle oil and 1 teaspoon of salt, and continue to process for a while (up to 10 minutes altogether). If it's not coming together, add a little water to obtain desired texture - it should be very thick yet creamy. Taste and adjust salt if you want. When cheese seems done, add in scallions and process briefly to break down and blend well. Keeps in fridge five days.

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Diana states that her recipe is based on another one called Cheese with Spring onions, posted by Zoe on goneraw.com. CLICK HERE to see this recipe! This is also a delicious recipe that’s super easy to whip up. I’ve made it several times and always loved it as a snack or quick meal. These are very versatile nut cheese recipes where you can easily change the flavorings and even the seeds and nuts. The basic skeleton is 2 cups of seeds (pumpkin or sunflower) and 1 cup of nuts with olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt. And all you need is a food processer. A great mid-mid week staple!

 

Our First Half Marathon!

This past Sunday, Scott and I did our first half marathon called the Leaf Peepers in Waterbury, Vermont which the next town over from us! A half marathon is 13.1 miles. This was my first big endurance event in over 11 years! I’ve suffered from chronic knee pain and knee problems for most of my adult life. After going raw vegan and cutting out the dairy, my knees healed themselves and have become pain-free. It’s like I have a new pair of knees! I can now run more than 3-5 miles without pain and having to rest in between running days. So this half marathon meant a lot to me. It was a big milestone in my life of living a raw food lifestyle. Raw vegan food is truly miraculous!

Saturday I made sure I ate plenty of good raw vegan food that would provide me with energy. I’m the type of person that does better when I’ve eaten hardy food the day before. That’s how it always was during my bike racing days in the 1990s.

For lunch I made a nice big kale salad with a delicious Chia Mustard dressing that was thick and creamy.

The Chia Mustard Dressing was soooo good and even Scott liked it and had it on his kale salad. The recipe was created by Carmella Soleil and can be found on the Raw Freedom Community website. CLICK HERE for the recipe!

I have found that I run well on chia seeds so I wanted to have them incorporated into my meals the day before the event as well as on the morning of the race. In Vermont I buy them at Healthy Living or Natural Provisions. They are a superfood packed with omega fatty acids and easily digestible protein. They were eaten by the ancient Aztecs for strength and endurance. I have read that other raw food runners also have great results eating them for longer events.

With a lot of rainy days lately, we were so happy to wake up on Sunday morning with this scene right from our bedroom window. Perfect fall weather for a running race!

For breakfast on Sunday morning before the big run, I made a green smoothie with two tablespoons of chia seeds, an apple, grapes and collard greens. I also made a nice big bowl of Brendan Brazier’s energy pudding which consisted of bananas, dates, ground flaxseed, raw carob powder, extra virgin cold pressed coconut oil, lemon juice and sea salt. This all gets blended in the food processor. It even tasted good! The recipe is from his book, The Thrive Diet which I highly recommend for everyone, not just athletes. I wrote more on Brendan’s book in an earlier blog post with photos of the pudding. CLICK HERE to see (page down to end of post) This all worked out well because the race didn’t start until 11.10am so there was plenty of time for the food to digest. And all the above ingredients do get digested quickly so you are not slowed down when running.

Before the race :-)

I had a great run and was so pleased since it was my first half marathon. Running races are as hard as bike races but very different. With running, it’s more of an individual thing. Most people are trying to run their race within a certain time frame and/or meet a certain goal. My goal was to run it in about 2 hours since that was my first time even running 13 miles (we had done a few 12 and 11 mile runs for training). I did it in 1 hour, 49 minutes and 20 some seconds. (still waiting for the official results to be posted). I wasn’t the fastest person out there but far from being the slowest! I really enjoyed the run and discovered that I would like to do more running events. I’m hoping to try a full marathon sometime next year.

Overall I felt great and kept a good pace throughout the 13.1 miles. I’ve always preferred longer endurance bike races so I felt the best between mile 5 and beyond. By mile 10 my legs were becoming fatigued but aerobically I was able to soldier on at a good pace. By mile 12 I felt elated because I knew I was going to break 2 hours. So I gave the last couple miles everything I had. Getting to the finish line was such a great feeling! I did it and had a great time!

Scott’s race was very different than mine unfortunately. He finished the race but had a tough time due to a severe shin splint that developed two weeks ago. So for those last two weeks before the race, he didn’t run at all. I am so proud of Scott for doing the race and finishing it. He’s my champ!

Saturday between making food we did get outside to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage. The weather wasn’t the best, but the clouds provided some pretty photos. These were taken in our lovely town of Bolton.

 

 

 

Once we’ve recovered from our half marathon, we plan on doing some hiking and leaf peeping this week! Let’s hope for some nice weather on Thursday and Friday since we took time off from work to enjoy the leaf season! Check back soon for some hiking photos!

This coming Sunday, Oct 11 we are going to attend the Burlington Alive Potluck which takes place 5pm at Geniel Fife’s home in S. Burlington. I plan on making my favorite pumpkin cheesecake recipe. It’s to live for and I can’t wait to share it! If you live in the area, please join us. Everyone is welcome. It’s a lovely potluck with great people and delicious raw vegan food! CLICK HERE for details! If anyone wants to do a hike with us before the potluck, shoot me an email or facebook message :-)

Well that’s all for now!

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy week! Come to Vermont and enjoy the leaves!

End of Summer Peach Cheesecake and Sweet Potato Gnocchi with a Basil Coconut Alfredo Sauce

This past weekend was our 12 year wedding anniversary and I wanted to make some late summer raw vegan creations. We love this time of year in Vermont. It’s still warm enough outside and yet the leaves are just barely starting to change color. Even the air has a nice crisp smell when walking in the woods during late September.

My own “End of Summer” Peach Cheesecake!  This is my own creation and the final recipe will be available soon! This time of year there are still plenty of fresh peaches available at the co-ops. I used 4 nice ones for this cake!

Joyce’s Notes: I experimented with another cheesecake using cultured/fermented nut cheese I made during the week using cashews. This was very delicious and both Scott and I loved the taste of this cheesecake. The only minor adjustment to make is getting it firmer. Once thawed in the fridge we found it very soft. A bit firmer would have made it a super classy dessert. So I still need to try this one again with a few modifications in mind to achieve the desired consistency.

The crust was just fine and I’d use it again! It consisted of pecans, dried shredded coconut, dried apricots, agave and coconut oil.

The filling was really good. I used young Thai coconut meat, cashews, macadamia nuts, lemon juice, coconut water, agave, coconut oil, peaches and my fermented cashew cheese.  I believe that changing the quantities of some of these ingredients might help achieve that firmer texture that we prefer. Also I might try some organic soy lecithin which is used a lot in Sweet Gratitude’s cheesecake recipes. However, the cake is fine the way it is. You can still slice it without making any kind of mess. It looks great, just very soft when eating it. Some people may prefer this.

The sauce was pretty simple. I left a tad bit of cheesecake filling in the vitamix. Then I added chopped up peaches, agave and coconut oil. I blended everything in the vitamix. I used a squirt bottle for the designs. I do have to say the sauce tasted great and I will make it again for a peach cheesecake.

 

My own Sweet Potato Gnocchi with a Basil Coconut Alfredo Sauce and Green Beans. I believe I have cracked the raw vegan code for sweet potato gnocchi!! This is my own recipe and will be available for a project that I hope to be working on soon! :-)

Scott and I absolutely love Italian gnocchi! During our holiday in Italy last year, we ate many different gnocchi dishes.

Joyce’s notes: This was a lovely dish and I’m very proud to have come up with a great tasting and pretty ‘real’ tasting sweet potato gnocchi! Sweet potato can be grainy when used in raw foods but I figured out a way to get it nice and smooth! One of the things that Alissa and Leah stressed in our raw food chef training is that texture is extremely important when making raw vegan food. Getting the texture correctly is an important and vital aspect of gourmet raw vegan food.

Here are the gnocchi just before going into the dehydrator:

 

The Basil Coconut Alfredo Sauce was very good and tasty as well and went nicely with the sweet potato gnocchi. This recipe will also be included with the gnocchi. I used young Thai coconut meat, coconut water, pine nuts, garlic, lemon juice, agave, nutritional yeast and fresh chopped basil. I thought this would have been great on kelp noodles as well or on a salad. It’s hard to see the sauce on the photos, but it’s there beneath the gnocchi.

One of the owners of Natural Provisions health food store in Williston, VT suggested we try the fresh local green beans. These were indeed delicious! I marinated them with olive oil, sea salt and pepper and then dehydrated the mixture for about 3-4 hours. I liked the green beans this way, but thought they didn’t go that well with the gnocchi. They look pretty in the photo but next time I might use another veggie or none at all.

Misc…

Scott and our neighbor Stu planted some grapevines in the middle of our properties with the hopes of making wine someday. Here are some grapes! Not bad for the first year….although we wish more of the other plants had yielded this many grapes. Just thought I’d share this since I posted a photo of Scott planting the vines back in May.

And lastly beautiful Vermont:

 

A few shots above in Moscow, Vermont (just outside of Stowe) where we hung out this weekend. Notice how the leaves are just barely starting to turn. We are heading into our favorite time of year! Once our 1/2 marathon is over on Oct 4th, we’ll be doing much more hiking! And I plan on posting more lovely Vermont photos for the peak foliage season!

Enjoy the week and I hope to catch up with you soon!