Meet Yvette, our adopted Gray Goose

Yvette is the lovely goose on the left. She is with her handsome friend, Yates who has since passed away. Scott and I are sponsoring Yvette who lives at the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, Upper State New York. She was found abandoned on a highway August 20, 2003 and will live out her life on the beautiful sanctuary. Yvette has a silly, curious and friendly personality. Her favorite foods are sunflower seeds and grapes. Scott and I are so happy to be sponsoring Yvette. This summer or early fall, we are planning on taking a small vacation out to visit Yvette and all the other wonderful animals who call the Farm Sanctuary home. It is said that the sanctuary residents love to meet new visitors, so we can’t wait! I know in my heart this visit will be a life changing experience.

The Adopt-A-Farm Animal Project is a rescue and shelter program of Farm Sanctuary. By participating in the Adopt-A-Farm Animal Project, you provide the necessary monthly support to shelter and feed a rescued animal. Click here for all the details. Or email Annie Iacobellis, Monthly Giving Coordinator, AIacobellis@farmsanctuary.org or sponsorship@farmsanctuary.org.

Once we signed up and sent in the initial paperwork, we received a beautiful photo of Yvette and an Adoption Certificate. This is a wonderful thing to do. I highly recommend it. We are overjoyed about Yvette. Eventually we’d like to sponsor other animals and maybe someday have enough land to create our own small farm sanctuary :-)

Here is Yvette enjoying life and running freely with friends:

A Compassionate Vegan Easter Dinner with Family

This past Saturday, Scott and I drove down to South Deerfield, Massachusetts for an afternoon Easter dinner. Scott and I are not religious in the conventional sense, but I always love an excuse to see everyone and make festive raw vegan foods.

With my growing passion and love for farm animals, it was most appreciated that the traditional Easter ham dinner was not served. I just love pigs and would have been so sad. I have been enlightened and informed on how these incredibly sweet and intelligent animals suffer so terribly on modern-day factory farms. Horrific pictures, stories and undercover videos have made me a different person than I was a few years ago. So I was overjoyed that a cooked vegan lasagna was served as the main course. (Thanks for making this!!!!) And it was super delicious. I’m not just saying that! It was excellent and I’ll have to make sure I get that recipe. Although I’m a raw foodie, I have no problem with the occasional cooked vegan dish! I’m telling y’all it was very tasty! I should have snapped a photo to show the yummy vegan cheeses that melted so perfectly. Delish!

Above and below was one of my raw vegan food offerings:

Rich Cheddar Sauce over marinated broccoli and red peppers.

I did a “test run” of this cheddar sauce recipe last weekend to see if it was something suitable for a family get-together. And it passed with flying colors! This cheddar sauce recipe and details are on last week’s post. (click on green).

For the pan above, I used about 7-8 small to medium heads of organic broccoli. I used one organic medium red bell pepper as well. On Friday night I got the veggies ready and marinated them in a large container with olive oil, sea salt, and cracked black pepper. I used enough olive oil to coat the broccoli well. I let the veggie mixture marinate over night. The next morning I made the cheddar sauce and stuck the veggies onto a couple teleflex sheets and dehydrated them for 2 hours (105F degrees). This was to soften them up a bit for that authentic “cooked” taste. They still had a bit of crunch but seemed just right after being in the dehydrator. Every one loved this dish! I got compliments on the broccoli as well as the sauce. It was delicious. I only wish we had some leftovers on Sunday!  For the almost 3 hour drive, I kept the veggies and sauce separate and didn’t add the cheddar sauce on top of the broccoli until it was time to eat.

Carmella’s Dill-icious Dressing!

The dill salad dressing and salad above was my second Easter offering that also made the long drive. This is a very flavorful and tasty salad dressing. It’s very bold and quite good. Everyone loved this as well. Several family members had seconds on the salad as it was so good. The original recipe can be found here on the Raw Freedom Community website.

Here’s the recipe with my own minor modifications:

• 1 whole medium soft avocado
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 3/4 cup of cold water
• 1/8 cup + couple drops of apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup + 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 2 small to medium cloves of garlic
• 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of tahini (depending on how strong you like it)
• 1 tablespoon of white/light/mellow miso
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt, or to taste
• 1/2 cup of fresh dill packed

Blend everything up in the Vitamix except dill until smooth. Then pulse in dill. Or you could chop it up and mix it in by hand.

The above photo was taken on Sunday after I made another dill dressing that was more suitable to my taste buds. I liked Carmella’s dill dressing but wanted to try it without the tahini and a few more modifications. So here’s my Dill dressing which I find super tasty:

Creamy Avocado and Dill dressing

• 1 whole medium soft avocado
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 cup of cold water
• 1/8 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 2 small to medium cloves of garlic
• 1 heaping tablespoon of white/light/mellow miso
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of salt, or to taste
• one scallion (green/spring onion)
• 1/2 cup of fresh dill packed

Blend everything up in the Vitamix except dill until smooth. Then pulse in dill. Or you could chop it up and mix it in by hand.

The organic mesculin greens with sunflower sprouts came from Pete’s Greens in Craftsbury, Vermont. It is exciting to be able to purchase these local early season greens from Pete’s green houses. They are the best greens I’ve ever tasted. He grows all kinds of greens and veggies. As it gets warmer, there will be many more of his greens and veggies available for me to buy at the co-ops and local health food stores!

Easter Dessert! My final offering:

Sunny Orange and Vanilla Custard Pie with a nostalgic ‘creamsicle’ taste.

This is my own recipe that I created a couple weeks ago. Click here for the full recipe and notes.

This was the bomb! Everyone loved my ‘creamsicle’ raw vegan cake. And I have to say it was incredible tasting. Definitely a favorite!! Our family could not believe how good it tasted and how much it resembled the old fashioned creamsicles on a stick both in color and taste. This cheerful and colorful dessert was a perfect ending to a great Easter dinner.

I made the cake on Friday night and stuck it in the freezer overnight. I followed my recipe but used an 8.5 inch spring form pan and one 4 inch mini spring form pan. The mini was for us to enjoy on Sunday. The only thing I didn’t do was add turmeric to the filling so it was whiter instead of a more yellow shade like the first cake. When I colored about half the filling to be orange, it was a nicer contrast against the white filling. The white and orange colors were more similar to an old fashioned creamsicle pop.

For the drive down here’s what I did: Just before we were ready to board the car, we took the cake out of the freezer and put it in a soft cooler (see photo) with some cold packs. I kept the cake inside the spring form pan. When we got there almost 3 hours later, it wasn’t as frozen as I had hoped. I took off the sides of the spring form pan but needed a knife to separate the cake from the sides. The cake  was soft and the sides stuck to the pan. So the sides of the cake didn’t look as pretty and were a bit rough. But we were able to smooth out some rough spots. These frozen desserts are far easier to serve at home. Traveling with this one was tricky. But it still tasted great even if the sides were a tad bit messy looking. :-)

Here are a few photos of the mini 4 inch cake we enjoyed so much on Sunday:

Spring is finally starting to visit Vermont. It’s a bright sunny day and the temperatures are in the low 50s F. So before I get outside for a lovely run in the sunshine, I’ll post a few kitty photos of our beloved Murphy and Fergus.

Next week I’ll be experimenting with my very own Maple Cheesecake after recently purchasing 2 gallons of grade A maple syrup from our neighbors down the road! Come back soon! :-)

Happy Spring!