Beautiful Living Food in Vermont

Beautiful Living Food at Grezzo Restaurant!

2009-12-15T21:15:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, we drove down to Boston and met Steph and John at Grezzo Restaurant for dinner. “Grezzo Restaurant is located in the heart of Boston's historic North End. This elegant, upscale restaurant serves food that is a virtual explosion of taste and a feast for the eyes. Set in rustic tones, the 28-seat candlelit restaurant with copper tables and crushed cranberry colored chairs specializes in Organic, Raw Vegan cuisine. “

This is Alissa Cohen’s beautiful raw vegan restaurant where I had a 12 hour chef training class at the end of August. CLICK HERE FOR MY BLOG POST. We had a great night and enjoyed all the fabulous food!

For Starters:

Grezzo sliders - house-made patties on vine-ripened tomato, pommes frites and pickles, creamy "bleu cheese" dressed hydroponic watercress. These were so good! We all loved them!

Appetizer special: Avocados with sour cream and broccoli. These were delicious too! I wish I had written down the full description. These tasty treats seemed to be a take on potato skins with sour cream which worked well. These were very filling!

Dinner entrees:

Land and Sea - locally harvested maitake, yellow oyster, black trumpet, hedgehog and honshimeji mushrooms. Smooth lemon ricotta, dulse and Maine coast kelp. This was my favorite dish from the chef training class so I ordered it for dinner.

Lobster Thermidor - a terrine of tarragon and mustard seed cashew cheese, black grapes and baby spring vegetables. I loved this one as it was very adventurous and super flavorful.

Native Tomato Ravioli - house-made black olive boursin, mint, fennel fronds, flat leaf parsley and truffle. Both Steph and John really loved this dish. I also thought it was amazing when I got to sample it at my class in August. For Italian food lovers, I highly recommend this dish! It’s also a good one for those new to raw foods!

Star Anise Crusted Papaya Steak - creamy dill vermicelli with marinated cucumber and olive salad. This is very good and of course it’s fish-free! It doesn’t taste like salmon, but I love how the spices and sweetness blend so well together. You must love papaya and sweet bold tastes to enjoy this one.

Dessert!

Pumpkin Cheesecake with gelato! Super decadent. We loved it!

Apple pave a' la mode - sweet and tart apples, lucuma caramel, whole clove ice cream. Beautiful and so creative! And of course it tasted wonderful.

Scott and I got down to Boston on noon with a ‘mission’. We tried on some new special running shoes and footwear that cannot be found yet in Vermont. I’ll post about it soon after I run more on this innovative new footwear ;-)

Because we arrived in the big city around lunchtime, we decided to have lunch at Grezzo as well as our dinner later on that night. Grezzo is a 3 hour drive so we wanted to experience as much wonderful raw vegan gourmet food as possible! Plus it was so nice to have someone else ‘uncook’ for us!

Lunch!

Cheese and Cracker plate. This was an amazing appetizer! Even Scott was super impressed with everything. The breadsticks were delicious and crispy. Scott loved these! They were dehydrated for 24 hours. The nut cheeses were also fantastic. Scott even liked the pickled veggies that also came on the plate. I highly recommend this one especially for people new to raw food.

Gnocchi Carbonara - house-made dumplings, creamy rawmesan and fresh English peas with pea shoots and crispy eggplant. This was my lunch which was super delicious! Everything went so well together.

"Free-Range" Chicken-less Salad - zucchini, creamy cumin cashew dressing, apples and grapes. This was Scott’s lunch and he loved it! He ate the whole thing! I had a few bites and thought it was the best mock chicken salad yet! Definitely a winner!

Grezzo is a wonderful restaurant to experience raw vegan gourmet food! We had so much fun and enjoyed everything. I can’t wait to try the new location in Newburyport, MA sometime next spring! And I’m also patiently waiting for the new Grezzo recipe book so I can make all the above dishes at home!!

On Sunday we drove across Massachusetts to visit one of my favorite people of all time!

This is Stella who is almost 95 years old! She’s a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother. She is also one of the most amazing people I have ever known. Besides having a heart of gold, she looks and seems like she’s in her early 70s, not mid 90s! I’ve never met someone her age who is in such great health. Stella grew up on a farm and ate a diet of mostly veggies and fruit. Meat was a very rare delicacy on special occasions such as Easter. She has always eaten a diet of mostly plant-based foods with little meat. I believe her diet has contributed to her amazing health and vitality throughout the years!

Hope everyone’s doing well and getting ready for the winter in this part of the world! Cheers!

A Very Happy and Humane Thanksgiving Holiday!

2009-11-29T20:28:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving Dinner: Marinated Mushrooms, Mashed Root Vegetables, Stuffing, Cranberry, and Brussels Sprouts. Recipes are by Sarma Melngailis and found in her new book, Living Raw Food.

Ever since I purchased Sarma’s new recipe book this past summer, I could not wait to try her full Thanksgiving dinner when the holiday season finally rolled around. So I decided to make her amazing holiday meal this past Saturday and share it with our friends, Mark and Sabrina :-)

Joyce’s Notes: WOW, this is possibly one of the best raw food dinners I have made so far!!!!! Everyone absolutely loved this raw vegan Thanksgiving dinner! Sarma and her talented chefs are amazing for creating these most delicious recipes that go perfectly together! Raw vegan Thanksgiving food is a tricky challenge but Sarma has cracked the code on this one! Even my most awesome husband, Scott loved this dinner. And he’s very picky with raw vegan entrees. I think this was his favorite raw food dinner so far as well. Sabrina loved the textures and I would have to agree. Everything was just delightful together. Both Mark and Scott had second helpings which was great! :-)

The recipes are made to serve 10 to 12 people. I made about 1/3 of the mushrooms but wished I had done about 1/2 or even a bit more. I did half of the mashed root veggies and half of the stuffing. This made a lot for both recipes. I still have a lot of mashed veggies and stuffing leftover (both taste great the next day!). I wished I had made more of the Brussels sprouts but luckily had enough for the dinner. I only bought about several handfuls but next time I would double that amount.

The marinated mushrooms were absolutely amazing! I dehydrated them covered in the marinade for about an hour. Previous to that, I let them sit out and marinate for a good half of the day. This gave them that perfect ‘roasted’ texture. I am becoming a raw mushroom fan thanks to the world of raw vegan food! These mushrooms were Scott’s favorite part of the meal and he finished up the few leftovers on Saturday night. Too bad I didn’t make a bigger batch! Both the portobellos and the king oyster mushrooms were so tasty in the marinade which was so wonderful with the fresh rosemary, sage and thyme. I’m so happy to have found a great raw food recipe that Scott wants me to make again. These would be great for his lunches during the work week. He said he’d love to have the mushrooms and the Brussels sprouts together again. And those were the two easiest recipes of the whole meal :-)

For the Brussel sprouts, I used macadamia nut oil in lieu of the pistachio oil simply because I can’t find it anywhere here in Vermont! But the macadamia nut oil was brilliant with the maple syrup and olive oil. We all loved these! I think these were the best Brussels sprouts I’ve ever had. I didn’t have time to marinate them for the 30 minutes but did place them in the dehydrator for about 30-45 mins to soften. Who knew Brussels sprouts could be so classy and delicious!

For the stuffing and mashed root veggies, I followed the recipes to the T except that I only made half of the recipe amounts. This still made a bit too much but we’re enjoying the leftovers. Both recipes call for a bit of truffle oil which was just lovely. I highly recommend using the best quality truffle oil you can find.

The cranberries also turned out amazing! Even Scott liked them and he is not a fan of these tart berries. Sarma’s recipe is brilliant and uses Irish moss which I love to use in raw food recipes (desserts). I made her recipe 1 1/2 times and this was perfect! I weighed 12 ounces of cranberries on my scale. I also used a bit more Irish moss since I have a good feel for using it. I started with .80 ounces of Irish moss (measurement after being soaked) and then added about .20 more. I also added a bit more agave, lemon juice and orange zest. And a couple small strips of lemon zest were added. The consistency was just perfect. It gelled up so nicely! I couldn’t have been more pleased with it!

Thank you Sarma for creating these wonderful raw vegan Thanksgiving recipes!!!

It turns out that if you live in NYC you could have ordered this meal as take-out from Sarma’s Store, One Lucky Duck. CLICK HERE to see their photo and details. Wow and they did dessert too!

And lastly I want to thank Angela from the Happy Raw Kitchen for posting her photos and experience from making Sarma’s wonderful holiday dinner. She shares some great photos and recipe tips so do check out her blog. It’s always one of my favorites :-)

And for a lovely holiday dessert:

Chocolate Chai Spiced Cheesecake with a Chocolate Cookie Crust! Inspired by Sweet Gratitude.

I love the flavors of chai and chocolate together and decided to make a raw vegan cheesecake based on a recipe in Sweet Gratitude. I made my own crust as I normally do. For the filling I only made half the quantity called for in the book and changed a few things to suite my tastes.

Here’s my modified recipe:

use a 7 inch spring form pan (or double recipe and use a 9 inch)

Chocolate Cookie Crust

one cup of unsoaked almonds
4 med-large fresh dates
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons of agave syrup
2 tablespoons of cacao powder
1 heaping tablespoon of cacao nibs

Process the almonds until they become crumbs in the food processor. Then add the dates, vanilla and agave and process until mixed. Then add the cacao and process again. Finally add the cacao nibs and process just a few seconds. Don’t over process. Press mixture into spring form pan and set in the freezer while making the filling. Try not to eat it all from the food processor :-)

Filling

1 1/2 cups of cashew pieces, soaked for about 3-4 hours
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons of agave syrup
1/3 cup of sweetened almond milk (with agave)
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon of strong chai tea*
1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of cardamom
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1/2 cup (slightly heaping) of extra virgin coconut oil, melted
1 1/2 (or 2/3) tablespoons of soy lecithin, ground fine in the coffee grinder
1 tablespoon of cacao powder

Blend all the above ingredients except the last 3 ingredients until smooth. Taste and adjust spices if necessary. Then add the melted coconut oil and lecithin and blend until well incorporated. Pour about 60% of the filling into the spring form pan. Also set aside a bit for the top swirl. Then add the cacao powder to the remaining filling and blend until well mixed. Pour this on top of the chai spiced filling. Next add the little bit of extra filling on top of the chocolate layer and swirl with a knife or chopstick. Set in the freezer for several hours until frozen solid. Then remove sides of pan and place in the fridge.

* I used 2 pouches of Zhena’s Gypsy King Chai tea in a bit less than 8 ounces of hot boiling water. Let steep for at least 15-20 minutes

One note: although I believe that I used vanilla extract in the filling, I didn’t write it down that day. So I’m not 100% sure I put the vanilla in the filling even though I had planned to do so. I might wait until the very end before adding it when I make this again.

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Joyce’s Notes: This was soooooo good! This is one of my new favorite raw vegan desserts that I’m so excited about! Everyone including Scott, Mark and Sabrina loved this one! And it’s perfect for the holidays!

The chocolate cookie crust was super! And both Scott and I are both picky with raw crusts. Scott raved about this crust! We loved the cacao nibs which made it a bit crunchy. I prefer adding less dates and adding agave syrup to crust recipes. I think they taste much nicer that way.

The filling was amazing! The flavorings and spices were spot on! I loved the chai, spices and chocolate all together. What a lovely combination! I’m so pleased with this one! And you could make variations from this cake: A chai spiced cake without the chocolate or a cake with all chocolate (which has the chai and spices mixed in). I’m so glad we got to share this wonderful dessert with our friends. I’ll definitely make this one again!

On Thanksgiving Day, Scott and I did a hike up the 150 year old Mt Mansfield Toll Road which was a lot of fun. “The 4.5-mile unpaved road begins next to the Inn at the Mountain and climbs to an elevation of 3,850 feet. The road ends at a parking lot next to the Mt. Mansfield Summit Station with stunning views”. This time of year it’s closed to traffic so it was a great option for being in the outdoors. It’s a beautiful hike! We were hoping to ski during the holiday weekend, but our November has been too warm for snow.

Here are a few photos with some nice views of Stowe:

Gotta love the double black diamond trails!

Looking out towards Smugglers Notch (where we ski)

Some attempts at making snow on Spruce Peak (Stowe)

Top of Spruce Peak

And lastly, this is a huge flock of geese! We both felt this was the best part of our hike that day. A truly magnificent site!

Hope Everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend! Thanks for visiting my blog!

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

2009-11-16T14:52:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-11-02T13:44:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-10-26T18:54:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-19T11:27:00.001-04:00

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!

2009-10-12T18:46:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-05T18:22:00.001-04:00

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

2009-09-22T15:00:00.001-04:00

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!

Weekend Alone with Fermented Nut Cheese, Cheesecake, & An Oriental Feast

2009-09-14T19:50:00.001-04:00

Scott was off camping and hiking with his buddies this weekend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire so I had plenty of time to make some beautiful raw and living food!

Macadamia nut cheesecake with real fermented nut cheese. Raspberry sauce and fresh local blackberries. I made this cheesecake from the double batch of fermented nut cheese I did over the last week. (I’ll talk about the cheese later)

Joyce’s notes: This was my first attempt at making a cheesecake using fermented/cultured nut cheese and it turned out very good! I followed a basic recipe that we learned at the Grezzo Chef Training class a couple weeks ago (see last week’s post for more details on the class). Because we are not supposed to be posting the Grezzo recipes we’ll have to wait until their recipe book comes out in 2010. I do plan on creating more of these cheesecakes with different flavors and perfecting them to the perfect ‘cheese taste’. So keep checking back with my progress :-)

For the crust I used mainly cashews, pecans, dried coconut and dried cherries. This I loved! I made a bit too much for the 8 inch springform pan and have some leftover which would make a good cookie or snack!

The filling consisted of my fermented macadamia nut cheese, soaked cashews and macadamia nuts, agave syrup, vanilla beans, lemon juice and coconut oil. I found the filling to taste very nice and cheesy. And while both Scott and I liked this very much I do feel it could be even better. Next time I want to try it with more fermented cheese and less of the soaked nuts.

The sauce was simply fresh raspberries, agave to taste and a bit of lemon juice blended up in the Vitamix. I didn’t bother to strain for the seeds but for a party or guests I would strain it.

More cheese!

Because I made a big batch of rejuvelac for the cheese, I decided to make two batches of fermented cheeses. I was lucky enough to have enough nuts for this. The above cheesecake was made purely with macadamia nuts for one batch. The second batch of cheese had about 1 1/2 cups of macadamia nuts and about 1/2 cups of cashew pieces. When I made this batch of cheese, I decided to experiment and added 3 vegetarian probiotic capsules to the nuts and rejuvelac. This worked nicely as the cheese was slightly more tart or cheese-like.

Macadamia Nut Boursin Cheese with Rustic Carrot crackers and Onion crackers. I actually made this little platter for Scott when he came home from work today. He absolutely loved this cheese and also the onion crackers.

This cheese flavoring was inspired by one of Chad Sarno’s cheese recipes but I altered it a bit to suit our tastes and it worked out so well. I used nutritional yeast, onion powder, fresh chives, shallot and sea salt. This is soooo delicious and simple! One of my best cheeses yet! I’m going to be experimenting with more cheese flavors and coming up with some originals which I hope to use for a special project ;-)

The carrot and onion crackers turned out great. They even got a ‘thumbs up’ from Scott who has never enjoyed a raw cracker or bread recipe very much. He hates any taste of flax meal and these crackers didn’t taste at all like ground flaxseeds were added. I did use a little bit but the flavorings covered up that dreaded flax taste! Although both crackers are really good, they are still a work-in-progress and I hope to use my polished recipes for the ‘special project’…stay tuned :-)

My Oriental Feast!

With Scott camping all weekend I decided to make a few raw food recipes that Scott normally doesn’t fancy. He hates anything that tastes ‘fishy’ or from the sea. And he doesn’t care for eggplant. So I found the perfect recipes to treat myself!

Nori Rolls with Pecan Pâté. Spicy Miso, and Fresh Veggies! Recipe is by Vanessa Sherwood and found HERE on Gliving. Also CLICK HERE to see the recipe posted by Carmella on the RFC website :-)

Joyce’s Notes: This is a great raw vegan ‘sushi’ recipe that’s very easy to prepare and tastes delicious! I highly recommend checking out the link and seeing Vanessa’s photo and recipe. Scott hates sushi and does not like the nori sheets since they do have a strong ‘seaweed’ flavor. But if you’re like me and like the taste of traditional vegetarian sushi or California rolls, you’ll love these! I had my eye on this recipe for a while and finally it was the perfect weekend to try these!

The Pecan Pâté was good on it’s own! It consists of pecans, red onion, parsley, lemon juice, garlic powder, nama shoyu, cold pressed sesame oil blended up in the food processor. Scott actually liked the left over Pecan Pâté and took some to work today with some crackers. It’s a good versatile pâté for many uses. Use it on a sandwich, with crackers or wrapped in collards! Delish!

For veggies I julienned some cucumbers and red peppers. I also sliced up avocados. And finally I added some sunflower sprouts which are always pretty and taste great. (my favorite type of sprouts) I had some wasabi powder which I mixed with hot water from the faucet (we have good well water). The wasabi and the nama shoyu was delicious with the nori rolls!

The nori sheets I use are raw and usually have to be ordered online (I ordered them from Alissa Cohen’s store). They are expensive at $24 but you get about 50 sheets which lasts a while. Usually the ones in the stores are toasted.

I’m embarrassed to say that I ate that whole plate of Nori rolls over the course of a day! I suppose I was really missing my veggie ‘sushi’ rolls as I haven’t made them in ages!

Sweet and Spicy Chinese Eggplant! Original recipe is by Rene Loux and then modified by RawLeah from the RFC website.

I modified this recipe as well, so I’ll post it here with my own changes:

6 small 5-6 inch Chinese eggplants (they are the specialty kind)

Sauce

4 tablespoons of cold pressed sesame oil
1 tablespoon of toasted sesame oil (optional but I recommend it)
1 tablespoon of white/light miso
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
2 tablespoons of agave syrup
1 teaspoon of Ume Plum vinegar
1 large clove of garlic, minced
3 scallions (spring onions), minced loosely
2 or 3 serrano chilies, minced (I used 2 but next time will do 3)
water to thin out just a bit

I whisked all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. I chopped up the eggplant into thirds and then into fourths and marinated them in the sauce for about 30 minutes. Then I put the mixture with most of the sauce onto a teleflex sheet at 105. I kept this in the dehydrator for about 2 1/2 hours.

For serving, I put the mixture plus the leftover sauce into one large Chinese style bowl since I love having a lot of sauce on the eggplant

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Joyce’s notes: This was very tasty! The sauce is a true winner and I would make it again for other things as well. The eggplant itself was good but not super. I found the darkest eggplants were a tiny bit bitter and not as soft. The light purple and white eggplants were the best and I’d only use them next time. The dehydrator worked well to soften up the lighter eggplants a bit and I might leave them in longer next time. Below is a photo of the 6 eggplants I used for this recipe:

And for a delicious seaweed salad:

Japanese Wakame Sea Salad. Inspired by Cafe Gratitude

I love wakame (a sea vegetable) and don’t eat it enough. It’s incredibly nutritious with all the trace minerals and very tasty too! Scott won’t touch this stuff, so I made it this weekend for a treat to myself.

Joyce’s notes: This is a delicious sea salad! I used the dried wakame from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables which can be found in most co-ops and health food stores. I soaked the wakame in warm water for an hour. It’s fun to see how it expands so much and softens up. The salad consists of nama shoyu, agave syrup, lemon juice, toasted sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and jalapeno. I loved this and ate most of it in one sitting! Not good being on my own all weekend! ;-)

A few treats I made for Scott’s Camping Trip:

Caramel Coconut Cookies, Brownie balls and my own ‘Joyce’ bars (better than the Larabars in the store)

These were all appreciated by Scott and his buddies, Chris and Jeff while on their hiking and camping trip this weekend The true hit was the Caramel Coconut Cookie recipe. Check out the link above in green! I found this recipe on the goneraw website. It’s one of the best raw cookies I’ve made so far! The guys ate them up, but brought home a few of the brownie balls and a couple of my own energy bars which I thought were pretty good! Oh well….I probably made too much as usual :-)

My ‘Joyce’ bars are normally leftover nuts, dates and/or dried apricots that are blended up in the food processor and dehydrated overnight. It’s a great way to use up leftover ingredients. The ones I made for the guys were this:

1 2/3 cups of cashew pieces
1 cup of pecans
1/2 to 2/3 cup of dried coconut
1 heaping cup of soaked apricots
about 8 dates
3 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract

Here’s a photo of the Bond Cliffs in New Hampshire where they hiked:

Looks like Vermont!

That’s all for now! Thanks for visiting my blog and come back again!

Blueberry Lavender Gelato, Warm Enchiladas And An Update On My Raw Food Chef Classes!

2009-09-08T21:56:00.003-04:00

Blueberry Lavender Gelato over a Pecan Blueberry Cookie. I learned to make this gelato recipe during my chef training class at Grezzo Restaurant in Boston on August 31st. So this past Saturday I was very excited to make this at home! The above photo is my very successful result!

Joyce’s Notes: This is fabulous! I was very happy with the consistency and texture. This was my first time using lavender and I thought it tasted very sophisticated with the blueberries. We are not supposed to be posting any Grezzo recipes online that we learned in class. However, a Grezzo recipe book is expected to be released in the beginning of next near. That’s very exciting!

I can tell you what went into the Gelato. It wasn’t anything super unusual or different from the usual raw vegan ice cream recipes posted online and in other recipe books. This gelato consists of young Thai coconut meat, cashews, a few fresh lavender leaves, coconut water and agave. Plus I mashed up fresh blueberries and added them into the ice cream maker after the gelato.

Here’s a photo of myself making the gelato in my Vitamix at home. I learned this mixing technique at the Grezzo class which kept this large amount fully blended:

The Pecan Blueberry Cookie is my own recipe as I wanted to have a base for the gelato. Here’s the recipe:

1 1/2 cups of pecans, dehydrated overnight and most of the following day
1/2 cashew pieces, dehydrated overnight and most of the following day
3/4 cup of dried wild Maine blueberries (found with other dried fruit at City Market Co-op)
2-3 tablespoons of agave syrup

Blend all ingredients up in the food processor using the S blade. Form into cookie shapes and place on teleflex sheets. Dehydrate for a few hours (about 4-5), flipping after a couple hours.

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We both really liked these cookies! The dried wild Maine blueberries were so good in this mixture. You could make your own dried blueberries in the dehydrator, but I just happened to find them already dried in our co-op. I had one of these cookies as a snack today and totally enjoyed every bite!

My husband went to Healthy Living Market to look for lavender last Friday. A kind woman picked some leaves from a plant hanging outside, free of charge. Finding fresh lavender leaves was not easy and my usual shopping places didn’t have any. I did buy dried lavender flowers at City Market which you can see sprinkled about for decoration :-)

Warm Veggie Enchiladas with Guacamole and Corn Salsa. The Enchilada is one of the recipes we learned to make in Alissa Cohen’s Level Two Class on Saturday August 29th. The recipe is in Alissa’s book, Living on Live Foods, which is a must-have for those starting out on a raw vegan diet.

Joyce’s Notes: This was really good! My super awesome husband loved this one! Scott actually said it was wonderful! The one I had at Alissa’s class was even better and the tortilla almost had a cheesy taste. And her filling tasted more like black beans, probably due to having more mushrooms. Mine was still very tasty but just different than Alissa’s. She says that the recipe needs to use frozen corn so perhaps different types of corn freeze differently?

I followed her recipe to the T. The tortilla calls for frozen organic corn, ground flax seeds, garlic, orange juice and sea salt. Alissa used brown flax seeds and I used the golden ones. The veggie mixture was simply diced up veggies: red pepper, spinach, mushrooms and zucchini. These veggies were marinated in olive oil, sea salt, a tiny bit of cumin and chili powder. Next time I might use more cumin and chili powder for a more Mexican flavor. We found that sprinkling a bit of sea salt onto our finished product enhanced the lovely mild taste of the veggies. I also liked it with my guacamole.

Here are some shots I took as I was making the enchiladas. Hopefully this will be helpful:

Here’s the tortilla above before going into the dehydrator

Here’s the tortilla after being dehydrated and cut down the middle with a pizza cutter

Half the marinated veggie mixture gets put down the middle of each

Then both are rolled up and placed back into the dehydrator for another couple hours.

So pretty!

The Corn Salsa was my own simple and tasty recipe:

2 cups of fresh or frozen corn (thawed)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 or 5 tomatillos, chopped
handful of cilantro, roughly chopped
juice of half a lime, or more to taste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of cumin
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt or more to taste

Combine everything in a bowl

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Photos from my Alissa Cohen & Grezzo Restaurant Classes, August 28 – 31, 2009

I had a wonderful time at these classes and met some lovely people who also share a passion for raw and living food preparation. It was amazing to meet so many like minded people who traveled far and wide to learn about raw foods and the lifestyle.

From Friday to Sunday, we had classes at Alissa Cohen’s Bed and Breakfast in Kittery Maine: Living on Live Food Teacher Certification:

Alissa’s lovely Bed and Breakfast where we had class

Alissa is cutting up her AMAZING calzone! Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to make this one! It was incredible!

Calzones fresh out of the dehydrator! They were warm and unbelievable! This would be so good for a Thanksgiving dinner!

Pizza and Chili!

Lunch!

When the power went out on Saturday afternoon due to a storm, Alissa kept her cool and finished the class by candle light.

Grezzo Chef Training Class in Boston, MA on Monday, August 31, 2009.

Grezzo is in the famous Italian section of Boston, the North End

A beautiful crepe made of bananas, agave and rosemary. I believe the inside was a coconut meringue. This was our delicious breakfast!

Here’s Grezzo’s Chef Leah Dubois showing us how to make the gelato!

These brownies were made for us to take home (we all ordered a bunch of take-out from Grezzo.)

Check out this dehydrator. Grezzo has several of these!

Making Apple Lucuma cheesecake!

Lunch! This was the best salad ever with Grezzo’s homemade fermented nut cheese, homemade croutons and pickles! Delish!

Leah is showing us how to make those incredible croutons

We all just loved Leah. She is fantastic!

Butternut squash ravioli

Tomato ravioli

Lobster Mushroom Fettuccine

Land and Sea - locally harvested maitake, yellow oyster, black trumpet, hedgehog and honshimeji mushrooms. Smooth lemon ricotta, dulse and Maine coast kelp. This was one of my favorites!! So good!!

Star Anise Crusted Papaya Steak. (fish free!)

The final feast and celebration!

Mocha Mousse and raspberry gelato. I loved the mousse!

The cheesecake is to live for! They use their own house made fermented cheese! I can’t wait to make my own!

Alissa is so pretty! She has the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. She’s 42 and looks like she’s in her twenties! No exaggeration! Raw food rocks!

The Grezzo class was amazing and we learned so much in one long 12 hour day. Leah Dubois is a brilliant and super creative raw food chef. I think she’s a genius with raw gourmet foods. I feel so lucky to have spent a day in her kitchen learning how to prepare such beautiful living foods! Thanks Alissa, Leah, Sam, Stacie, Janet, and all my lovely classmates for such an epic life experience! I enjoyed meeting everyone and feel so grateful!

This weekend I am on my own as Scott will be off camping and hiking with his buddies. So I will have all day Saturday to create more of my own beautiful raw food. I’m hoping to have some fermented cheese to work with. Currently I’m sprouting rye and wheat berries for the rejuvelac……..stay tuned ;-)

Thanks for visiting and check back again soon! Hugs to everyone, especially to my new raw food friends I met in class!

Rustic Pizzetta, Wild Blackberries, Vanilla Cardamom Cream Sauce and a Blueberry Pie!

2009-08-24T15:09:00.001-04:00

Last week I was inspired by Carmella Soleil’s raw vegan Tuscan Pizza that she created for a catering job. CLICK HERE to see her post and photos on the RFC website. She also created another superb raw fermented cashew cheese recipe which I made for my pizzetta. I knew this would be another great experiment for the weekend as my dear husband Scott loves raw vegan fermented cheese made from cashews. And I was so delighted that everything I made this weekend received a thumbs up from Scott! Now that’s something! ;-)

Joyce’s Notes: My pizzetta turned out excellent! (thank goodness!) Scott was loving these! Even the crusts were well received which I will talk about soon. Scott preferred his pizzetta with more cheese, no pesto and topped with tomatoes. I loved my pesto so much and found it totally delicious on the pizzetta with a bit less cheese.

For the crust I decided to make something similar to a tart crust using very little ground flaxseed and no buckwheat which are both common in raw pizza crusts. Scott doesn’t like the flax or buckwheat tastes so I had to do something different! My result tasted really good, but this is a rather delicate crust. Scott & I both didn’t mind at all that the crust was fragile. We ate it with forks and also used our hands.

Here’s my crust recipe:

Delicate Italian Herb Crust

2 cups of cashew pieces, not soaked
1/2 cup of macadamia nuts, not soaked
1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of ground flaxseed (use coffee grinder)
2 medium crushed cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup of water
1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
3/4 teaspoon of dried Italian seasonings
1 teaspoon of dried basil or more to taste

Blend all ingredients in the food processor using the S-Blade until well combined. Mine was a tad course for a more rustic effect.

I spooned out 4 small crusts on one teleflex sheet and then did the fifth one on another sheet a bit thinner just to experiment. I dehydrated these for a total of 9 hours, flipping over after about 4-5 hours.

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Here are my crusts before putting them into the dehydrator:

The Basil Garlic Cashew Cheese is an amazing recipe by Carmella! I’ve made raw cheese using rejuvelac but it’s extra work and I’m not sure that rejuvelac agrees with my tummy. Or possibly I’m just not used to it. So I made my cheese with probiotic capsules. Here’s my how I made my cheese:

Thursday morning I soaked 2 cups of cashew pieces
Later that night (around 10pm) I ground up the drained cashew pieces with enough water to turn over in the Vitamix. I also added 3 probiotic capsules to the Vitamix.
I had to use the plunger to get the mixture to turnover
When totally smooth, I spooned the mixture into a strainer lined with cheesecloth and also covered it with the cheesecloth.
I left this to ferment on my countertop for almost 24 hours which by then it was ready to use on Friday evening.

Check out my St Patty’s day post for more photos of my last fermented cheese project towards the end. CLICK HERE :-)

For probiotic capsules I went to the City Market Co-op and purchased this vegetarian brand (100 capsules for about $18):

Bluebonnet Milk-Free Acidophilus plus FOS

These worked like a charm! After almost 24 hours, my cashew cheese smelled like it was supposed to: a slight, subtle sour cream scent. Here’s a photo from from March when I made fermented cheese. It was taken before the 24 hour fermentation.

Once the cheese was done fermenting on Friday night, I used Carmella’s Basil Garlic recipe. Here it is with my very slight modifications. I also doubled the recipe as I had about 2 cups or so of cheese.

2 teaspoons of minced garlic (I used one big and one small clove)
2 teaspoons of minced chives or more taste (1/2 teaspoon)
2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
2 teaspoons of onion powder
2 1/2 packed tablespoons of chopped basil or more to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowel with the fermented cashew cheese and mix gently. Then place in the fridge overnight or until ready to spread onto the pizzetta the next day.

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Because I used cashew pieces instead of the whole nuts, my cheese was very soft and easily spreadable on my pizzetta. This cheese rocks! It’s actually very simple to make. I am so pleased with the probiotics and plan to make more cheese this way! Raw fermented vegan cheese is sooooo amazing! I urge everyone to make this and show their friends and family just how awesome raw food is!

I make a very simple yet delicious raw vegan pesto recipe. Traditional pesto calls for parmesan cheese. My version tastes like the real deal surprisingly but without dairy! How cool is that! :-)

I bought a huge bag of fresh basil from the Richmond Farmer’s Market on Friday. So here’s my Pesto recipe. In the winter I cut this in half as basil is a very expensive produce item!

1 cup of cashew pieces, soaked for 15-25 minutes
6 cups of basil, medium packed
your best cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
sea salt

Using the food processor with the S-Blade, I grind up the basil and drained cashew pieces first until well broken down. Then I add olive oil and sea salt a little bit at a time until taste and consistency are right for me.

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Pizzetta with a Red Pepper Flatbread!

I’m trying to find successful raw bread or cracker recipes that don’t contain ground flax and buckwheat since Scott just doesn’t like the tastes. So I found a recipe on the goneraw website called Crazy Bread Crackers which doesn’t have the above ingredients! Here’s the recipe with my slight modifications and notes:

1/2 cup of cashew pieces, not soaked
1 medium sized red pepper (or try a yellow one)
1/4 cup of sundried tomatoes, soaked for an hour or so
1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
2/3 of jalapeno pepper or more to taste
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon of onion powder
1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
juice of half a lemon

Blend all ingredients in a Vitamix until smooth. Pour onto a telefex sheet. I made one medium sized square that was not too thick. I also scoured the square into 4 sections using the spatula. I made this on Friday night and dehydrated it over night. I flipped it over the next morning and dehydrated it for most of Saturday.

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Joyce’s Notes: This is soooo good! Wow, I was surprised at how it stayed together so well. It didn’t get crispy but was more like a flatbread. And this was not delicate like my crusts above! It has a nice strong red pepper flavor and could be used to accompany raw Mexican dishes as well. This is a very versatile recipe! I would double it the next time and perhaps try a yellow pepper for a lighter color.

Now for some Sweets!

Wild Blackberries with a Vanilla Cardamom Cream Sauce!

Blackberry season is also upon us here in Vermont! Scott and I picked some wild blackberries along our mountain road. These are so sweet and luscious! I wish the season lasted longer!

I had one last young Thai coconut to use so I decided to make a cream sauce for the berries and also for a blueberry pie. I remember Heathy Pace had made some recipes using the spice, cardamom so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I was going to make one of her recipes using cardamom but didn’t feel like digging up the recipes. So I just threw some stuff together which worked great!

Here’s what I did:

First I blended about 1/3 cup of shredded coconut with about 3/4 cup of water in the Vitamix. To this mixture I added:

1/2 cup or so from one medium young Thai coconut
1/3 cup of dry cashew pieces
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons of agave syrup
2 tablespoons of coconut oil, soft but not melted
1/4 cup of coconut water
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 + 1/16 teaspoon of cardamom (start off with less first)

Blend until completely smooth and refrigerate.

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Joyce’s Notes: This was surprisingly wonderful! Next time I would definitely double the recipe as it went rather quickly! It was my first time using cardamom in a dessert and I can’t wait to use it again. It gave the cream a very exotic, almost Indian flavor. This would also make a great ice cream I believe. Next time I might double the recipe and run it through the ice cream maker! Delish!

Blueberry Pie! Recipe is by Alissa Cohen and found in her book, Living on Live Food. You can also find the recipe posted on the Purely Delicious website. Just CLICK HERE! Anna from Purely Delicious Magazine has a lovely photo as well. This is a very simple and super easy pie which is perfect for blueberry season!

Joyce’s Notes: This is a winner! Both Scott and myself love this pie! I love simple recipes with few ingredients that actually turn out so delicious! Blueberries have a natural pectin that keep this pie filling firm without using coconut oil or Irish moss. It’s a brilliant recipe!

The filling is made of fresh blueberries, bananas and honey or agave syrup. That’s it! I used one cup of wild Maine blueberries that got mixed into the filling since they are nice and tiny. The crust is made up of almonds, dates and a pinch of sea salt. I also added a couple dashes of cinnamon which gave the crust a graham cracker flavor which I liked!

The only problem with the crust is that it is a bit gooey and stuck to the pie plate. Alissa instructs you to soak the dates. Next time I might not soak them. I might also use a different crust with different nuts. Eva from the Raw Freedom Community experimented with Alissa’s recipe and came up with a similar one. She uses pecans! Next time I might try her crust recipe! CLICK HERE to see Eva’s full recipe. Also I might freeze the crust first as the filling does seep into the crust a bit while in the fridge. But this is just a minor flaw.

Overall, this is a great summer-time pie! It’s delicious, easy and doesn’t take all morning to make! ;-)

Alissa Cohen & Grezzo Restaurant Classes!

This Friday morning I’m heading to Kittery, Maine to take classes with Alissa at her B&B! The first three days are in Kittery and called: The Living on Live Food Teacher Certification. On Monday we will all drive down to Boston for a 12 hour chef training class at Grezzo Restaurant! I cannot wait for Monday’s class as I’m most interested in learning how Grezzo creates it’s gorgeous 5 star raw vegan cuisine. I’ll be curious to see how they make their fermented nut cheeses!

This is Fergus, our big Maine Coon Cat who naps while I blog. Life is good! :-)

So please check back in a couple weeks for a full update! I’ll have photos of the classes and amazing gourmet raw vegan food from Grezzo Restaurant!! Enjoy the end of August and do come back again!

White Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake, Vegetable Fu Young, & Hot Summer Days!

2009-08-17T18:39:00.001-04:00

White Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake with a Rich Chocolate Sauce! Blueberries are in season here in Vermont! What better time to make a blueberry style raw vegan cheesecake and celebrate the abundance of these delicious berries!

I morphed and tweaked a couple recipes together to come up with this cake. The crust is a variation of one of Heathy Pace’s crusts. The filling is a variation of the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake in Sweet Gratitude. However, next time I might do things a bit differently. I wasn’t sure about posting the ingredients I used since it’s not yet perfect, but I’ll list them anyways since this is a very good tasting dessert. When I someday have a masterpiece, I’ll post a new recipe. For now this cake is still a Work-In Progress.

I used an 8 inch springform pan

Crust

1 1/2 cups of macadamia nuts
1/2 cup of cashew pieces
1/4 cup of dried shredded coconut
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon of agave syrup
1 teaspoon of coconut oil
pinch of sea salt
handful of blueberries, enough to layer on top of the crust

I used some leftover wild Maine blueberries I found at the co-op earlier in the week. They are nice and small and worked well with the cake.

Filling

1 1/2 cup of soaked cashews pieces (approx 1 1/4 cup of dried pieces)
1 cup of sweetened almond milk (with agave and vanilla extract)
1/3 cup plus 1-2 tablespoons of agave syrup
2 tablespoons of lemon juice (one for each color)
1/8 cup of vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons of soy lecithin
1/3 cup of cacao butter, melted
3 to 3.5 ounces of fresh blueberries

Joyce’s notes: This cake is indeed very good. I’m a white chocolate lover so I am really enjoying this sweet, rich cake. Scott likes it too. The cake does hold up OK in the fridge without melting. However, we are having a bit of a heat wave, so the cake gets rather soft when out of the fridge. We had temps in the high 80s F today on our mountain. That’s pretty warm for us Northerners! (I think some areas out of the mountains reached 92F today in Vermont!).

While I do really like the taste of the cake, the white chocolate does overpower the berries a bit. Only 3 ounces or so of blueberries were used which is not a lot. Next time I might make more of the blueberry filling and less of the white chocolate filling. And I would add more blueberries in the blueberry filling.

The crust was good but not quite perfect. Although I do feel it’s better than a lot of raw crusts out there. It was a bit thick so next time I’d cut back on the recipe as we prefer thinner crusts.

The filling would have been a good quantity for a 7 inch springform pan. If I were to make this again using an 8 inch springform pan, I’d do the recipe one and a half times as I like a taller cheesecake. I might even add a small bit of coconut oil or coconut butter (the Artisana brand with whole coconut meat) in addition to the cacao butter to get it even firmer.

The rich chocolate sauce was a super success! We both loved this with the blueberry cheesecake. I had a young Thai coconut that needed to be used so I whipped this up in my sauce recipe. I love it when I just throw things together and they turn out well! This is a good recipe for using a squirt bottle and making pretty designs on your plates :-)

Rich Chocolate Sauce

1/2 to 2/3 cup of young Thai coconut meat from a small/medium coconut
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons of agave syrup
1/4 cup of sweetened almond milk
2 teaspoons of coconut oil
1/4 cup of shredded/chopped cacao butter, not melted

Blend all ingredients in the Vitamix until smooth.

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Saturday we went blueberry picking at Owl’s Head Blueberry Farm in Richmond, Vermont which is about 15 minutes from our house. It was a hot day but we still had fun! It’s a beautiful farm that’s having a great season! If you live nearby, definitely stop by and pick some berries. They have live local music on Tuesday and Thursday nights! We keep meaning to do that after work one evening since it’s been a while. The last time we went it was so lovely! People brought picnics, enjoyed the music and of course picked blueberries!

Vegetable Fu Young with Sweet Curried Bell Pepper Sauce. Recipe is by Chad Sarno and found in his book, Vital Creations.

Joyce’s Notes: Wow, this is another new favorite of ours! I just sent an email to Chad Sarno asking permission to post this amazing recipe set! If I am able to post it, I’ll certainly do so as a revision to this post! This is such a beautiful recipe that it should be shared with everyone embarking on a raw food journey. Recipes like this one that make me wonder why I would ever need to eat traditional cooked food!

I am not sure if I’ve ever had authentic Chinese Fu Young but the recipe ingredients looked so good. Simple and classy! The veggie patties consisted of pine nuts, soaked almonds, garlic, ginger, sea salt, lemon juice, olive oil, shredded carrot, bell peppers, zucchini, parsley, green onion (I used scallions), and Asian bean sprouts (I used mung bean sprouts). The nuts and ingredients up to the olive oil were blended in the food processor. Alone this would have made a very tasty pate or nut cheese! Then it was mixed with all the other ingredients. I made patties of 2 sizes since the directions didn’t specify. Both sizes were fine. Here’s a photo before going into the dehydrator for 8 hours.

One quick note: for those that don’t have a dehydrator, this would probably make an excellent pâté or filling in nori rolls!

The Sweet Curried Bell Pepper Sauce was absolutely the best raw vegan curry sauce I’ve made so far!!! I was scraping the Vitamix clean and eating every last drop before washing the Vitamix. Yes, it was really that good! It consists of a red bell pepper (a small or most of a large one), olive oil, lemon juice, curry powder, garlic, lemon grass, sea salt, and black pepper. This is so simple and easy to make, and incredibly tasty! I get organic lemon grass at City Market Co-op in Burlington, VT.

For the lovely salad you see on the plate, I made a simple Miso Herb Dressing from Chad Sarno’s Vital Creations. This was also delicious and I would make this again and again! It consists of freshly squeezed orange juice, olive oil and white miso. I didn’t have quite enough orange juice. I squeezed out almost 1/2 cup and then topped off the 1/2 cup with lemon juice to reach the full quantity. I also added a squirt of the dark raw agave syrup to the Vitamix. This worked quite well and made a pretty yellow colored dressing (not shown in the photos). I found that adding drops of the curry sauce with the salad and Miso Herb Dressing was also very tasty! (Chad gives you options of using different herbs and spices for several variations)

This is a not-so-good photo of Chad Sarno’s must-have recipe book! Again, you can purchase it on his website by CLICKING HERE. I was lucky enough to pick it up at a talk by Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes, this past Tuesday in Montpelier, Vermont (details below). This is a 70 page book that’s bound by spiral rings. It doesn’t have photos and may not look impressive. HOWERVER, the recipes are lovely, simple, elegant, classy and very creative. They also focus on many different ethnic dishes which I love. Chad has a great chart that shows which spices compliment different ethnic foods such as Thai, Mexican, Japanese, Indian etc, etc… I can’t wait to try more of his recipes. I have my eye on quite a few things that look delicious!

I thought I’d also share with everyone a recent book we’ve read and found to be excellent and very informative: The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier. Brendan is a raw vegan professional Ironman triathlete which is very exciting for us! I copied this review from Brendan’s website:

“Brendan’s knowledge is second to none. I read Thrive and was enthralled that after reading so many books and meeting with so many experts, Brendan was able to explain his thoughts on nutrition in such a clear and insightful way. My Thrive copy rests alone in the kitchen, tattered pages stained with beet juice and hemp oil. I only hope my competition doesn’t read this book until after I’m done competing.”

— SIMON WHITFIELD, Olympic gold medalist (triathlon, Sydney 2000)

Running in the Raw! This past Sunday, Scott and I did another long run: 11 miles for me and 10 miles for Scott. This is my longest run yet and my “new raw vegan knees” are doing so well!! This is so exciting!!

We decided to make Brendan Brazier’s Energy Pudding on page 125 which was a great pre-exercise food before our run. It ended up working out very well as we both had a great run, even in the hot and humid temperatures! I was almost shocked at how I was enjoying myself on this long run in the hot mid-morning sun. This pudding consists of bananas, dates, ground flaxseed, raw carob powder, coconut oil, lemon juice and sea salt. This all gets blended in the food processor. It even tasted good! Here’s a photo. It’s nothing fancy or pretty, but it sure gets the job done!

After our run we went home and made a Recovery Pudding also by Brendan Brazier on page 126. Since this pudding wasn’t much prettier, I decided to leave out the photos. However, it tasted good and had all the right ingredients for a speedy recovery! It consists of bananas, blueberries, soaked almonds, ground flaxseed, hemp protein, raw carob powder, ground up rooibos tea, lemon juice & sea salt.

We love running on Duxbury Road which goes along the Winooski River. It’s located at the bottom of our mountain so it’s been great for longer runs. It’s relatively flat with a few rollers and very scenic! We love this road! (We start in Jonesville) Here are a few photos we took on Sunday after our run which was along Duxbury Road:

We were tempted to jump right in after our run! But it’s best to have a recovery snack no more than 45 minutes after your long run. Next time we should pack a recovery drink/snack in the car and then take a dip!

As I mentioned above Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes came to Montpelier last Tuesday and gave talks about their raw journeys. Since my post is already long I’m going to send you to Linda Wooliever’s blog where she gives a lovely account of this super evening! CLICK HERE! for all the details and awesome photos!! I’ll just say that both Scott and I had a great time and really enjoyed hearing both of them speak. They are a super inspiring couple and have so much to share. Do go see them if you can! I highly recommend it!!

Well that’s all for now!

Stay cool and thanks for visiting my blog

Live Mexican Food, Raspberry Lemon Pie & Meeting Natasha Kyssa

2009-08-10T15:04:00.001-04:00

Chile Rellenos, monta-raw jack “cheese”, cacao mole and red pepper sauce. Recipe is by Matthew Kenney and found in this beautiful new book, Entertaining in the Raw, page 188.

Scott and I were craving Mexican food this past week and this recipe looked absolutely divine! We lived in Encinitas, California from 1998 to 2000 which is in San Diego’s coastal North County. We always loved the authentic Mexican food that was so plentiful. Sometimes we still miss it! So this is the perfect answer for folks eating a raw vegan diet or just looking for healthy and delicious alternatives.

Joyce’s Notes: OH MY GOSH!!! THIS IS AMAZING!! Scott and I could not believe how good this was all together with both sauces! This is one of the best raw vegan entrees I’ve made in a long time. Even Scott was saying the meal was wonderful. Yes, he really did say that. The chile rellenos alone was so good with the cheese and filling but the sauces brought everything to a new level. It was an amazing combination of flavors. Matthew and his team should get an award for this brilliant dish as it truly raises the bar once again for gourmet raw vegan food.

This recipe has four parts: The filling, “cheese”, mole sauce and the red pepper sauce. It’s not a complicated recipe at all, but there are a lot of ingredients to buy and prep. I spent about $67 between City Market and Natural Provisions which seems like a lot. But we still have leftovers (recipe makes 3 meals for 2 people plus enough for salads). I am including a photo of the chile rellenos before we stuck them in the dehydrator for 3 hours. The recipe calls for a sheet pan and covering everything with plastic. We had these tin pans which worked well.

The rellenos filling was mostly chopped up fresh produce which was nice. It consisted of corn, zucchini, red bell pepper, tomato, red onion, jalapeno, fresh cilantro, lime juice, cumin, cayenne, chili powder and black pepper. This all was very good by itself!

The monta-raw jack cheese was so delicious! I loved this! It consisted of macadamia nuts, olive oil, shallot, garlic, lemon juice, sea salt, nutritional yeast, chili powder and cayenne. I cut back on the salt. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon which seems like a lot. I used 2 teaspoons which was just fine. I kept eating it right out of the food processor! I love raw nut cheese with shallots!

The cacao mole sauce was the bomb! Oh my goodness this is sooooo incredible. It’s a nice thick rich chocolate sauce with a very spicy kick. The dried chipotle chilies give it that hot flavor! Scott and myself weren’t sure how this would taste with everything and even considered not making it. I’m so glad we did make this! There are a lot of ingredients but most of the stuff I already had on hand. The mole consists of 2 dried chipotles, red onion, garlic, sunflower seeds, almond butter, raisons, olive oil, water, agave syrup, cacao powder, cumin, coriander, sea salt, cayenne & black pepper. This sounds like a crazy mix of ingredients! Yet everything works out so well after the magic Vitamix does it’s job of blending everything up into a smooth creamy mole! I was eating this stuff straight with a spoon! Chocolate lovers will be in heaven with this cacao mole!

And the red pepper sauce is excellent too! It’s a rather sweet sauce which compliments everything so well. We loved drizzling it all over the chile rellenos and then adding the mole on top. The pepper sauce consists of red bell peppers, a red chile pepper (I used half of this long red hot pepper), cashews, water, lime juice, agave syrup and sea salt. Don’t skip this as it’s so delicious with everything!

I used 6 poblano peppers for this. They are not very hot and are a good size for stuffing. The only thing that I would do differently is dehydrate them a bit with olive oil first to get them to soften. I didn’t mind the crisp peppers for the summer but in winter I’d prefer them softer. Scott noted this too about the crisp peppers. However, he still loved this wonderful dinner!

Overall I highly recommend making this raw vegan Mexican style dish for a special occasion, a celebration, or just an intimate dinner for two. It’s a definite winner! Thank you Matthew and your talented chefs. I also want to add that Matthew has a note saying that this dish would be his favorite to enjoy with a glass of good wine, hence the lovely Spanish wine we tried that night!

At this stage in my raw journey, I really love being able to make delicious gourmet raw foods on the weekends. (I have only been on a high raw diet for about 2 years now.) It’s something I look forward to all during the workweek as I find it so much fun and enjoyable. By making gourmet raw and living foods most weekends, I’ve been able to stay high raw and maintain great health and pain-free knees for running longer distances and all my other outdoor adventures!

Here’s what we brought to Sunday’s Raw Vegan Potluck:

Raspberry Lemon Pie! Recipe is by Heathy Pace and is found in her E-book, Just Desserts.

This was the first time I tried this brilliant summer recipe. I had my eye on this for a while as I love raspberry and lemon flavors. With raspberry season finally here in Vermont I had to make this! I picked up some beautiful fresh organic raspberries from our local Farmers Market in Richmond on Friday, so this dessert was extra special!

Joyce’s Notes: Wow, this is a fantastic recipe! Everyone at the potluck loved this and asked about the ingredients. One person jokingly said that he was wondering if it was really raw! I split a slice with Scott at the potluck and was so pleased with how good it came out. Raspberries and lemon go so well together!

I did the recipe one and a half times so we could have a small 4 inch mini pie for ourselves. This worked fine. Here’s my mini below:

The crust was really good and was actually the closest thing I’ve made to tasting like real pie dough. It consists of macadamia nuts, shredded coconut, agave syrup, and lemon zest (I forgot the pinch of sea salt but it was still great). This gets combined in the food processor until nice and moist. It’s a brilliant crust recipe!

The filling was just divine! It consists of cashews, agave syrup, fresh lemon juice, fresh raspberries, lemon zest, coconut oil and lecithin. Heathy doesn’t usually soak her cashews so I ground them up in the food processor first which is easier when blending everything together in the Vitamix. I normally buy cashew pieces as they are less expensive. But I discovered that Natural Provisions in Williston, VT has whole organic raw cashews at a decent price (around $8/pound).

Saving the Best for Last: Meeting Natasha Kyssa this weekend at a book signing and raw food potluck!

Natasha Kyssa is the Author of The SimplyRaw Living Foods Detox Manual and the founder of SimlyRaw in Ottawa. Natasha has been living a raw vegan lifestyle for almost 20 years and has helped people all over the world with natural cleansing programs. www.Simplyraw.ca

Scott and I met Natasha for the first time at her book signing on Saturday at Healthy Living Natural Food Store here in Vermont. I have to say that Natasha is one of the most healthy and beautiful women I have ever seen! She radiates with perfect health and her skin just glows. And she’s super nice too! We also had the pleasure of hanging out with Natasha and her lovely husband Mark at the potluck on Sunday. They both love the outdoors and do all kinds of cool sports. Perhaps we might have the pleasure of skiing with them this winter! :-)

The above is Natasha’s new book! I am reading it now and loving it! I am finding it very user friendly with a wealth of information and knowledge. In November I am thinking of doing her 28 day detox program as it seems very gentle, feasible and very realistic for myself as well as most people. Even though I eat a high raw diet, I know that there are areas for improvement. Doing a program like Natasha’s will bring me to a new level of health and well being. I highly recommend this book for everyone who is interested in their own health and well being. I think this book would make excellent Christmas presents for a few of our family members! ;-)

Here’s a photo from last night’s potluck of myself, Natasha, and Linda of Vermont Fiddle Heads :

Lastly, I want to thank Geniel Fife, Joshua Pfeil, and everyone for hosting the awesome potluck last night. There were great people as well as amazingly delicious raw vegan food! So many great dishes and lovely desserts. I still need to get that recipe for the sage croquettes! And thanks to Fern for that delicious pesto recipe made with fennel tops from her garden. Scott and I are going to try harder and get to more of these potlucks at Geniel’s lovely home in South Burlington, VT. So nice to make new friends with common values and to try new wonderful living foods.

Have a wonderful week and enjoy the warm summer weather!

Home Sweet Home with Brownies, Chinese Food, Gelato & Raspberry Granola

2009-08-03T18:59:00.004-04:00

Hemp Brownies! Recipe by Aimee (known as Bitt on goneraw.com). You can find original recipe on goneraw.com. Just CLICK HERE. Aimee has a cool blog called A Bitt of Raw that I enjoy following.

Aimee gave me permission to post the recipe. Since these brownies got such rave reviews on goneraw.com, I decided to double the recipe. Here’s the recipe which is doubled and has my very slight variations:

2/3 cup of Hemp seeds (same as hemp nuts)
19 small to medium fresh dates (I had mostly small ones)
2/3 cup of walnuts (plus a few more)
slightly less than 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2/3 cup of cacao powder
2 small pinches of sea salt

Preparation:

1. Pit dates
2. Process dates in food processor to a paste
3. Add walnuts, hemp seeds, and pumpkin seeds. Puree until well processed.
4. Add cacao powder, salt. Process until well-mixed.
5. Add vanilla and blend a bit more. Taste to add more of anything!
6. Mold into small balls or little truffle-type things. Press goji berries or coconut shreds on top if desired. OR more hemp seeds if you want them to look like the store-bought ones.
7. EAT!

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Joyce’s Notes: This is a fantastic tasting raw vegan brownie!! Even Scott loved these and he can be picky with raw brownies and truffles! I made the brownies earlier in the work week and Scott took some to his office everyday. He said he liked them better than the raw chocolate truffles we brought home from Montreal. He liked the smooth chocolate texture. I also found these to be a very rich chocolate treat as well. I took a couple to work and found that I had a blast of energy afterwards without crashing like I would with typical American junk food. This recipe looks rather healthy but it tastes so naughty and sinful! That’s what I love about this lifestyle!!

Hemp seeds are actually one of the most complete sources of protein and luckily they taste good! They are also packed with a balanced ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6! And of course they have 0.00% THC levels…hehe ;-) I buy mine at Natural Provisions Health Food Store in Williston, VT.

For the photos, I rolled the brownie balls in lucuma powder, mesquite powder and maca powder. I topped 2 of the brownies with hemp seeds and berries. The other ones I topped with shredded coconut and dried banana chips. For a quick and easy chocolate dessert, give this one a try!

Chinese Broccoli in Hoisini Sauce with Parsnip “Rice”. This is another successful recipe created by Russell James. This recipe was published in Russell’s “News from the Kitchen eZine, Issue #21”. It was actually emailed to me since I singed up for his newsletters. To obtain this recipe and future recipes, go to his website: www.therawchef.com . OR you can simply find it HERE on the Raw Freedom Community website. Thanks to Carmella for posting it :-)

Joyce’s Notes: I’m not a huge fan of typical Chinese fast-food found here in the States. But Scott and I both found this to be a delicious and tasty recipe. We totally enjoyed this one on Saturday evening after a nice hike. Thanks to Angela’s post and glowing review from the Happy Raw Kitchen blog, I decided this would be another good one to try. In fact I doubled the recipe so we could have leftovers on Sunday! And I wanted to use my new Chinese plates I picked up in Montreal’s China town last weekend. So this worked out great!

The broccoli was dehydrated with olive oil, lemon juice and tamari for 4 hours. This worked well for an authentic cooked texture. Next time I might use less lemon and more olive oil. Keep the broccoli large enough as it will shrink and you don’t want it crispy.

I loved the parsnip ‘rice’!! I’ve made variations of this in the past and this was another tasty version. The parsnips are processed in the food processor with pine nuts, macadamia nuts, light/white miso, and cold-pressed sesame oil. Chopped scallions (spring onions) are mixed in at the end. You must like parsnips to enjoy this ‘rice’ as the flavorings won’t disguise the unique taste of this root vegetable. That being said, this ‘rice’ did pass the picky-husband test so I’d say give the ‘rice’ a try!

The Hoisini Sauce was indeed very good! This consisted of raw tahini, lemon juice, yacon syrup, apple cinder vinegar, tamari, garlic, fresh jalapeno, and fresh ginger. I found this sauce to be very thick so I added a bit of water which worked well. If you don’t have access to yacon syrup, agave will be just fine. I used about 3/4 of a large jalapeno.

Overall, I’d say give this one a try if you are craving a nice hearty, filling and rich tasting Chinese style dinner! Russell did well with his recipe!

More Sweets!!

Raspberry Vanilla-Almond Granola over Almond Gelato! Both recipes are by Matthew Kenney and found in his book, Everyday Raw. I highly recommend trying these together as they compliment each other perfectly with flavorings!

Joyce’s Notes: The Almond Gelato was super sweet and sinful! We both liked it a lot! And it worked well in my ice cream maker! This gelato consists of cashews, macadamia nuts, young Thai coconut meat, agave syrup, water, vanilla extract, almond extract, sea salt and coconut oil. There are no almonds in this recipe but the almond extract gives it a very sweet almond flavor which we both loved. (I use the organic Frontier brand). Next time I might use more cashews and less macadamia nuts as they are rather distinct in flavor. I’m a sweet tooth so the sweetness factor was fine for myself and Scott. I also want to say that the texture while being in the freezer was perfect. It wasn’t too hard to scoop the next day.

The Raspberry Vanilla-Almond Granola was excellent as well! Thanks to Aimee’s blog, A Bitt of Raw (mentioned above), I decided to try this granola especially since raspberries are in season now! She gave this recipe a wonderful review as well!

Scott and I both are still enjoying this granola which was my first attempt at a raw vegan version! Scott even enjoyed some this morning for breakfast with soy milk (sorry, forgot to make some raw almond mylk). It’s also great as a healthy, filling, tasty snack!

Matthew’s recipe is truly delicious. If you have the book, definitely try it! I cut the recipe in half and it still made 2 decent sized squares on 2 dehydrator screens. The recipe calls for fresh raspberries, sunflower seeds, pecans, almonds, maple syrup, dates, pears, vanilla, almond extract, sea salt, ginger juice, and lime zest. The lime zest, ginger juice and maple syrup taste brilliant together. (I found my ginger juice this past winter at either Healthy Living or City Market). One thing to note is that before it gets dehydrated the mixture will taste super sweet. But it will tone down quite a bit after being dehydrated for 24-48 hours!

Here’s a photo after being dehydrated and picked at a bunch. It’s hard to stop sneaking bits and pieces out of the dehydrator!!

Although Scott and I had a wonderful time in Montreal last weekend, it was so good to be home all weekend! I enjoyed my Saturday to leisurely make raw food and later enjoy the woods and trails near our house. On Saturday after most of my food prep was done, we did a short but beautiful hike that started almost across the street from our house. We are lucky live next to 426 acres of conservation land that belongs to the Vermont Land Trust. Some lovely hiking trails have been cut and marked including one that reaches the top of Libby’s Lookout! This is a breathtaking summit that’s so close to our house! A truly special place! Here are some photos of the trails and Libby’s Lookout:

Scott looking out at a beaver pond along the trail.

Parts of the trail are muddy with all the rain this summer!

Hazy views from Libby’s Lookout. Camel’s Hump is on the left in the distance.

Scott enjoying the summit views

Another shot from Libby’s Lookout

Our house is somewhere out there :-)

I’m always happy out in the woods!

Backside of Preston Pond which is on the trail back home. So pretty!

Almost back to our house!

Some Running Notes: Scott and I have less than 2 months until our first half marathon which happens on October 4 in Waterbury, Vermont. The Leaf Peepers Half Marathon is a big goal for myself since I’ve suffered from chronic knee problems and injuries for close to 20 years. Going raw vegan as given me the gift of ‘new’ knees within the last 9-10 months!

I’ve been slowly increasing my mileage and training for this half marathon. Although I am only loosely training, it’s still a big deal to be thinking about such a long race (13 miles). Over 10 years ago I went through 2 unsuccessful knee surgeries and gave up my passion for road bike racing. I wish I had known about the healing effects of raw and living foods back then!!!

Yesterday I did my first 10 mile run while Scott did 8. This was the longest I’ve ever been able to run. Now with my raw vegan body, I seem to be aging in reverse! It’s like I truly have a new body and new pair of knees! Stay tuned for more information on running raw and what to eat in my upcoming posts! I hope other injured athletes and all athletes can find my posts helpful.

Thanks for visiting my blog! Have a fun and healthy week!

Montréal in the Raw and a Happy Birthday for Scott!

2009-07-27T21:14:00.001-04:00

This year Scott’s birthday fell on a Friday so we took the day off and headed north to Montréal. It’s a shame we don’t make this short trip up to Canada more often as it’s an easy drive and so much fun! From our house it’s about 110 miles to the city of Montréal (from Burlington it’s under 100 miles!)

Of course the main motivation for choosing this lovely French speaking city was the new Raw Vegan Restaurant that recently opened!!! Crudessence is the name of this fantastic organic and living foods restaurant! Here is the information:

105, rue Rachel Ouest.
Phone 514-510-9299
Open 10am to 10pm everyday
www.crudessence.com

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn on rue Sherbrooke right in the City Centre which was a nice hotel with zero problems and no complaints. From the hotel we walked to Crudessence which took about 30 minutes following St Laurent and making a left onto Rachel. Piece of cake and a nice walk! Here’s what we had for a late lunch on Friday afternoon. Everything was delicious and we were absolutely stuffed afterwards!

For Starters:

Fleurs de macadam. Endives stuffed with mango chutney, red peppers, cucumbers, jalapenos and topped with macadamia nut sour cream.

This was my appetizer and I loved it. The macadamia nut sour cream was delicious and went so well with the lovely combination of fresh veggies.

Miso Soupe. Traditional Japanese broth made of miso, mushrooms, shallots, and seaweed.

Scott loved this Miso soup! “Oh my god you have to try this” was what I remembered him exclaiming after his first taste. It was truly divine and I’d highly recommend this one! I'm not a mushroom fan and Scott is not a seaweed lover but we both loved everything that was in this miso soup. Well done!!

Here’s the birthday boy just as our main course arrived!

La Super possee (Lasagna et salade). Slices of zucchini, sundried tomato sauce, basil and macadamia nut ricotta, all of which is layered and topped with Brazil nut parmesan. Accompanied with mixed greens and sprouts, daily salad and crackers.

It was such a treat to have someone else make me a luscious raw vegan lasagna. I really liked the brazil nut parmesan and need to learn how to make this! Overall everything was a lovely and filling meal.

Om Burger. A burger made of mushrooms, sundried tomato, flax and various vegetables served on a chapati. Garnished with fresh tomatoes, red onion, lettuce, home-made ketchup and mustard and their famous caper based aioli sauce. Served with greens.

Before Scott became a vegetarian and vegan he did eat traditional burgers so he decided to try this. While it’s quite different than your typical pub fare, we found the whole plate quite good. Scott is still a bit fussy when it comes to raw vegan burgers. So I admit I loved this burger more than Scott. The aioli sauce was delicious!

Here’s the nice lady who took care of us on Friday. Everyone was very friendly and happy to learn that I also have a passion for creating raw and living foods.

I should mention that we also ordered an apple ginger juice concoction and a raspberry smoothie in addition to our appetizers and main meal. So we didn’t have any room left for dessert! Later that night we did manage to get back to Crudessence before they closed at 10pm. I had this generous piece of chocolate mouse and chocolate-banana layer cake. Wow, that was very good! Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos since it was late and we had been enjoying some brews previously ;-)

Breakfast at Crudessence the Next Morning:

Les Crepes Sucrees / Sweet Ones. Thin pancakes made of brazil nuts and bananas with hazelnuts and chocolate sauce.

This was amazing! We were both very impressed with Scott’s breakfast! The waitress said that the crepe was also made with flax meal. It was so good and didn’t have a flax aftertaste. I’d love to learn how to make these crepes!

Le Saint-Graal. Cup of layered fresh fruits, crunchy living granola and cashew yogurt.

I used to love traditional yogurt with baked granola and fruit when traveling (before I became a vegan). I have to say that this raw and living breakfast was just wonderful and better than dairy and baked granola! We were both impressed with the cashew yogurt. It was very cutting edge and tasted like real cultured yogurt!

Crudessence also sells many raw food supplies, nuts, books, etc, etc!

Back again for a late lunch on Saturday before returning home:

Scott was enjoying a delicious, sweet and refreshing Kale smoothie: Vert Doux. This consisted of kale, banana, mint, cayenne and almond milk. We had these for breakfast as well as lunch since it’s the best smoothie we’ve ever had. After walking around in the old section of Montreal in the hot sun, this kale smoothie was most welcomed!

Les Crepes Salees / Salty Ones. Thin pancake made of nuts, avocado, chia and flax. Stuffed with macadamia ricotta, avocado, tomato and green onion.

This was Scott’s super tasty lunch! Since the breakfast crepe was such a big hit, he decided to try the savory version. Wow, this was fantastic! We both really loved the macadamia nut ricotta! Scott found this to be very filling and didn’t have room for dessert.

Pizzuchi. Choice of pizza on an olive crust accompanied with zucchini pasta. Pizza au pesto: cilantro pesto, cashew cheese, various vegetables and brazil nut parmesan.

Now this was a lovely plate which I enjoyed so much! The pizza crust was nice and thin. The cilantro pesto was heavenly with the cheeses and veggies! I also loved the zucchini pasta which had a very nice sundried tomato sauce (and I’m fussy with sundried tomato sauces!). Even the salad dressing was so good and flavorful. I highly recommend this dish! So beautiful! :-)

The finale: My dessert!

Cheesecake!!

Wow this was absolutely amazing! It actually tasted like a traditional cheesecake. I’m wondering if they used probiotics or rejuvalac. This was a very cutting edge raw and living dessert. My cheesecakes are good but they don’t have that ‘cheese’ taste yet! I must learn how to do this like Crudessence :-)

Truffles made by Crudessence for us to take home:

Before leaving Crudessence I picked out two 4-packs of very tasty truffles from their grab-and-go cooler. Both flavors were excellent!

Zouzou Choco-Noisette boule d’energie: Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, dates, agave, raw cacao, raw carob, cayenne, maca and mesquite.

Zouzou Aux Epices boule d’energie: Sunflower seeds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, chia, raisons, dates, figs, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Overall, I highly recommend trying Crudessence! This was our first experience eating at a raw vegan restaurant and we had a wonderful experience both days. It was a huge treat to have someone else create this gorgeous living food for us! And the incredible fresh organic food made us both feel so good, physically and even spiritually! You could tell the food was made with love!

The dining area is small but cheerful and cozy. The wait staff is very friendly and also seems passionate about this vibrant food and lifestyle which was truly refreshing. We noticed that most patrons as well as the kitchen workers and wait staff had a special healthy glow. I enjoyed seeing serious looking cyclists stopping in for smoothies. It was quite a busy little place!

There was one beautiful couple sitting across from us on Friday who looked like the gods of youth. After chatting with them, we learned that they work at the Tree of Life in Arizona (which is the world’s leading spiritual, vegan raw and live food retreat center). We both couldn’t stop staring at them as they had the most perfect, youthful and glowing skin! And they were super nice! Raw and living foods are truly the fountain of youth. And it was wonderful to see so many healthy, fit and energetic people coming and going from Crudessence! It was a very inspiring experience for me! I truly feel that raw and living foods are my path………

How about a few random photos of Montréal:

Here are two other places of interest that we also highly recommend:

Aux Vivres: vegan cuisine • juice bar • takeout. For a late dinner on Friday night we ate at this incredible 100% vegan restaurant on rue St Laurent. Our food was absolutely delicious! The service was good and the restaurant was so warm and inviting. We ate outside which was lovely on a warm summer evening. There were fresh veggies growing right next to our table. This is a truly special place, especially if you’re like us and long for vegan food and friendly vegan people :-)

Dieu du ciel brewpub! Scott and I love fresh beer that is brewed right on the premises! Dieu du ciel was down at the Vermont Brewers Festival the previous weekend and we enjoyed sampling their amazing and creative beers. So we just had to pay them a visit while in Montréal. I can’t even begin to tell you what a great time we had at this place!! But since this is a living food blog, I’ll keep my notes brief ;-) If you love beer, this is a must! Some of the best brewed beer we’ve had in a long time! (The beer we enjoy is always vegan)

Here’s one of my favorite China Town photos in Montréal:

Au revoir!

Two Simple Delicious Summer Recipes For An Annual Tradition

2009-07-20T12:49:00.002-04:00

Vine Ripened Tomatoes in a Fresh Basil Crust. Recipe is by Cherie Soria and found on her website: Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE. I just got permission from Cherie this afternoon to post her recipes onto my blog. Thank you Cherie and the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute for your recipe. I hope to go there someday and take classes!

Crust
2 cups macadamia nuts, ground to flour
2 cups packed fresh basil, leaves only
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt
2 tablespoons coconut oil

Tomato Topping
6 large heirloom tomatoes, sliced 1/8" thick
1/4 cup capers, packed in olive oil
1/4 teaspoon Himalayan Crystal salt

To make the crust, put the macadamia nuts
into a food processor outfitted with the "S"
blade, and process to a fine powder.

Add the salt, basil, and coconut and continue
grinding until the mixture becomes sticky. Do
not over process or the natural oils will
separate from the fiber.

Press the crust mixture firmly into a tart pan.

Place tomatoes attractively over the crust,
and sprinkle with salt and capers.

Serve immediately.

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The middle of July marks an annual tradition here in Vermont: The Vermont Brewer’s Festival. My husband of many talents loves to brew his own beer and has a very good homemade Hefeweizen on tap right now. We’ve always been lovers of fresh local beer from small breweries and brew pubs. Beer is definitely not raw but the fresh local brews we enjoy are vegan and some are even organic!

Steph and John drove up from the Boston area Friday night as it’s become a tradition for us to sample the different beers and have a most enjoyable day down on the Burlington Waterfront Park where the festival takes place. And Lake Champlain is always the most beautiful backdrop for this fun-filled festival celebrating craft brews. For for information on the festival, click on the green link above.

For Friday night I made a couple recipes that were light, simple, and perfect for a summer evening. Since John and Steph arrived around 10pm, this tomato in basil crust was perfect as a filling snack. It was also rather elegant too. I should add that John and Scott (who’s on the right) were enjoying Scott’s Hefeweizen in the photo above :-)

Joyce’s Notes: Now this was a super tasty recipe that we all enjoyed very much. Steph and John eat a normal standard American diet that includes meat and animal products. So I was slightly nervous about preparing a raw vegan light meal that night. But Cherie Soria’s recipe was a true hit. This is so delicious and yet so simple and easy to prepare!

The crust was the star! It tasted just like a pesto sauce! In fact my next raw pesto recipe will be a variation of this basil crust. I used my 4 1/2 inch tart shells with removable bottoms (mine were from Bed Bath and Beyond). My crusts turned out a bit greener than expected but it was still delicious and pretty to photograph. We used Steph’s new fancy camera to take a few shots. (we hope to get a camera like that someday!)

The tomatoes were simply sliced and placed over the basil crusts. Then capers mixed in olive oil were sprinkled on top of the tomatoes. I filled up a measuring cup of capers and added the olive oil into the measuring cup. It was that simple and easy.

Anna from Purely Delicious Magazine has also posted this recipe on her website with a lovely photo. I like how her crusts are a combination of white and green. CLICK HERE FOR HER PHOTO and her recipe.

And for the second simple and lovely recipe on Friday night:

Kale Coleslaw! Another fabulous recipe by Cherie Soria from the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute . CLICK HERE FOR HER RECIPE. Cherie also gave me permission to post this lovely recipe as well. Thanks again! (I doubled her recipe below)

DRESSING
1/8 cup almonds, soaked for 8 hours
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon light miso
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 soft date, pitted
1 teaspoons onion powder
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1/8 teaspoon Himalayan Crystal Salt

SALAD
1/2 bunch kale, de-stemmed
1/4 head cabbage, shredded (I used red cabbage)
1 tomato, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1/2 cup leek or green onion, thinly sliced (I used scallions)

1. Combine ingredients for DRESSING in a blender and puree, using a small amount of water as necessary to achieve the consistency of a thin mayonnaise.
2. Chiffonade the kale into thin strips and massage to soften.
3. Toss with remaining ingredients and serve.

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John’s mother is from Portugal and makes a famous kale soup that John grew up on here in America. So John is a lover of kale. He always loves the kale salads I bring down for holidays. Since all four of us love big kale salads, I thought I’d try Cherie’s recipe.

Joyce’s Notes: This is another delicious kale salad that is sure to please everyone. I highly recommend this one! It’s a true winner and we all loved it. Even Scott who’s often picky with greens and salads enjoyed this one. I recommend doubling this one (which I did) if there are four of more people eating this as it’s really good and will go fast.

I used 2 bunches of flat leafed kale, red cabbage, 2 tomatoes (one big and one medium), 2 jalapeno peppers, and scallions. I used the food processor to chop up the cabbage as I was pressed for time and this worked well. (you could use a mandoline too) I really liked the minced jalapeno peppers in this salad!

The dressing is the bomb! Wow it’s sooooo good and could be used for other dishes as well. I loved the tangy zing the mustard powder added. This dressing tastes very gourmet and sophisticated. I should also add that it tastes the best when added to the salad and eaten immediately.

By the way, the decorative veggies on the outside are purple cauliflower we picked up at the Richmond Farmers Market on Friday afternoon. These were so fresh and delicious!

My final notes: John and everyone thought the Kale Coleslaw and Tomatoes in the Basil Crust went very well together. Even Scott was saying the same thing! So try them together. I was very happy when John and Steph were making sure they had copies of these two recipes before they left as they wanted to make them in the near future! Maybe someday they will be eating and preparing a lot of lovely raw vegan food like us. I hope to share more recipes with them! Our health is our only true wealth……..

Encore For Dessert!

Steph loves strawberry desserts so I thought it would be perfect to make my Strawberry Crumble Cake recipe again. This is our favorite and Steph loved it too! CLICK HERE FOR MY PREVIOUS POST AND RECIPE DETAILS :-)

Beer Goggles!

This is Steph and myself (I’m on the right) before heading out to the Vermont Brewers Festival on Saturday. Needless to say that John and Scott are not fans of our ‘beer goggles’ but they are fun to sport for this one day out of the year. We all had a great weekend and the weather seemed to cooperate on Saturday with just a short passing shower to cools things off. It was also fun to hang out with Joy, Jeff, Lucy and her husband at the festival. We hope to keep up this tradition so please join us next year!

Enjoy the sunshine while it lasts! Cheers!

Chocolate, Cherries And Ice Cream Plus A Fancy Summertime Salad

2009-07-13T19:24:00.002-04:00

After purchasing our new ice cream maker over the 4th of July weekend, we couldn’t resist another weekend of experimentation. Wow! We had a lot of fun with these two ice creams! The cherry mango ice cream and crusts are a recipe from Russell James (details below). The chocolate cherry ice cream is my own recipe. I am excited to share my recipe as it was a huge hit with my wonderful husband Scott!

My own Decadent Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream recipe:

1 cup of cashew pieces. (soak them for 4 or 5 hours)
1/4 cup of packed, pitted dates cut in half. (soak for 30 minutes )
1/2 cup of reserve water from soaking the dates
1 1/4 cups of pitted and coarsely chopped fresh cherries
1 cup of firm young Thai coconut meat (I used one large coconut)
1 cup of coconut water
1/2 cup and 1 tablespoon of agave syrup
1 scraped vanilla bean
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (or 2 vanilla beans)
2 pinches of sea salt
1 tablespoon of coconut oil
1 capful of cherry extract (Boyajian brand)
2-3 tablespoons of raw cacao powder

Add all the ingredients into the Vitamix and blend until smooth. Pour into a container and chill in the fridge until nice and cold (several hours or overnight).

Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker (according to the manufacturer’s directions). It takes about 30 minutes to reach a nice soft serve consistency. Stick ice cream into the freezer for a couple hours for a firmer texture that you can scoop with an ice cream scooper.

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Joyce’s Notes: Scott absolutely loved this ice cream!!!! I believe this one might have topped the strawberry crumble cake for him. (I had some beginners luck here!) He was very excited about this luscious ice cream especially since cherries are his favorite! It didn’t last long at all. He finished this ice cream for breakfast this morning! I thought it was really good too. It tasted sinfully rich and definitely NOT healthy :-) Yet this stuff is incredibly nourishing. This could even stand up to all that gelato we ate in Italy last year! No kidding! Let’s say it out loud, raw food is awesome!!! :-)

One quick note: Definitely try and find some of the cherry extract. The Boyajian brand I use is from Natural Provisions health food store in Williston, Vermont. It’s strong and a little goes a long way. I thought this made the ice cream really delicious with the fresh cherries. It’s probably not raw but I am happier not being a purist ;-)

Here is a photo taken right after the ice cream was done in the ice cream maker. It was like that of soft serve ice cream. We enjoyed a small bowl and stuck the rest of the ice cream into the freezer.

Cherry Mango Ice Cream Cup. Recipe is by the famous raw food chef, Russell James and found on his blog. CLICK HERE for the recipe and Russell’s own photo.

Joyce’s Notes: This is another good recipe and creative dessert by Russell James. The crusts were very good and complimented the cherry mango ice cream. They also worked well with my chocolate cherry ice cream recipe. Scott and I both liked the cherry mango ice cream. It’s very good but not as sweet, rich and decadent as the chocolate cherry ice cream. You don’t need an ice cream maker for this, but you do have the option to use it. This recipe also didn’t have young Thai coconuts which makes it feasible for those who can’t find these coconuts easily.

The mango cherry ice cream consists of cashews, coconut oil, lemon juice, vanilla extract, sea salt, agave, water, fresh cherries and fresh mango. (I doubled this recipe) This all gets blended up in the Vitamix. I did grind up the unsoaked cashews in the food processor first. I also melted the coconut oil in the dehydrator. These two steps made it easier on my Vitamix. Because there are no young Thai coconuts, this recipe calls for a bit more coconut oil which is fine. However, next time I might add a bit more agave, some Thai coconut meat and much less coconut oil.

The crusts were very good. They consist of cashews, agave, vanilla extract, sea salt, lemon juice and dried coconut flakes. (I doubled this recipe also) Everything gets ground up in the food processor. I used four 3 1/2 inch tartlet molds. The crusts got dehydrated for most of the day. They were a bit soft and sticky but Scott liked them that way. I would have left them in longer to get more dry and crispy.

How about a delicious salad that is just gorgeous for a July evening!

Tomato, Fennel and Avocado Pressed Salad with Caper Dressing, Pistachio and Mint. Recipe is by Sarma Melngailis and found in her new book, Living Raw Food.

Joyce’s Notes: Now this is a very lovely salad that was enjoyed by both myself and Scott! We felt this one deserved a white tablecloth and nice cloth napkins. It turned out to be really pretty and fun to photograph. And it tasted as good as it looks! I love big filling salads in the summer months. This was perfect and hit the spot!

The salad consists of sliced fresh fennel bulbs, vine ripened tomatoes, shallots, pistachio nuts, fresh mint, fresh basil, lemon juice, macadamia nut oil, avocados, sea salt and black pepper. Sarma uses heirloom tomatoes but they are hard to find here in Vermont. I doubled the pistachio nuts which was 1/2 cup. Next time I’d add even more. Sarma uses pistachio nut oil but gives the option of macadamia or olive oil. I couldn’t find pistachio nut oil but Natural Provisions is going to try and order some for next time! (they are great folks)

The caper dressing was really good and very flavorful! It consists of olive oil, crushed up capers (not raw), lemon zest, fresh chives, and black pepper. I thought it looked so good drizzled around the salad.

To get the nice shapes, I used a glass storage container that was 4 1/2 inches wide. A ring mold or sides of a small springform pan would have worked too. I pressed the salad into the container, placed a plate on top and carefully flipped it all over. Then I removed the container which came off very easily.

Overall I highly recommend this salad from Sarma’s new beautiful book. It’s a perfect summertime recipe. Even though there are a lot of fresh ingredients to prep, it’s worth the time and effort. The one good thing to point out is that you don’t need a Vitamix or food processor or any special kitchen tools for this recipe which is a nice change of pace.

A couple Vermont summertime scenes since we did see a bit of sun this weekend:

Thanks for visiting my blog and have a lovely week! Let’s hope we’ll see more sunshine and less rain this week!

A Happy 4th With A Blueberry Crumble Cake, Ice Cream And A Crazy-Good Coleslaw!

2009-07-06T16:54:00.001-04:00

In the USA we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. The long weekend with Friday off from work is very welcomed this time of year! Above is my red, white and blue tribute for the weekend! We decided that it was time to treat ourselves to a fully automatic ice cream maker so we can dive into the exciting world of raw vegan ice creams, gelatos, sorbets, etc…I forgot to take a photo of ours but here’s the model which I copied and pasted from Amazon. We have the Cuisinart 2 Quart stainless steel model:

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO IN THE CUISINART WEBSITE.

Scott and I are both delighted with how easy it is it use and how good the ice cream turned out! The texture and consistency was just perfect for our first try on Saturday.

Vanilla Ice Cream with Cherry-Framboise Syrup! Both Recipes are by Sarma Melngailis and found in her new book, Living Raw Food. The ice cream recipe is also in her previous book, Raw Food Real World, co-authored with Matthew Kenney.

Joyce’s Notes: Wow! Ice cream is a novelty for us! I avoid the traditional ice creams with white sugar and dairy as it does bad things to my body! (I’ll spare you the gory details!) But raw vegan ice cream is wonderful in taste and texture! And it’s super healthy too! The vanilla ice cream consists of young Thai coconut meat, cashews, water, agave syrup, vanilla extract, vanilla beans, sea salt and coconut oil. Blend it up in the vitamix and then stick it in the fridge until chilled. Once the mixture is cold enough, start up the ice cream maker and slowly pour it into the rotating bowl. It only takes about 30 to 35 minutes which is great! One thing to note is that the bowl has to stay in the freezer overnight to freeze solid. So we had to wait until Saturday to make the ice cream.

The Cherry Framboise Syrup was very good! We both liked it on the ice cream. It’s made with dried Bing cherries, water and Chambord (raspberry liquor). Sarma uses Bonny Doon Framboise or raspberry wine. The Chambord was the best option for us since we couldn’t find raspberry wine or Framboise in our local store.

My Blueberry Crumble Cake!

Since last week’s Strawberry Crumble Cake was such a winner, I decided to try the same cake with fresh blueberries instead. I followed my recipe exactly (except for the berries).

Use an 8 inch spring form pan

Crumble bottom and & topping

2 cups of pecans, not soaked
1 cup of dates, not soaked
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt or a bit less

Use a food processor with the S blade to process the pecans and sea salt until broken down into a very rough flour. Then add the dates and process until the mixture becomes crumbly. Don’t over process it.

“Grease” the pan lightly with coconut oil. Then add about 50 to 60% of the crumble mixture into the bottom of the pan. Set aside while you make the cake.

Cake

1 cup of young Thai coconut meat (I had mostly firm meat)
1 cup of unsoaked cashew pieces
1/2 cup (heaping) of fresh whole blueberries
1/2 cup of thick coconut milk (blend meat and water from one small young Thai coconut with firm meat)
6 good sized dates, soaked for 20 minutes
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
1 1/2 scraped vanilla beans
2 teaspoons of psyllium powder
1 tablespoon and 1 1/4 teaspoons of agave syrup
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of coconut oil
2 cups of fresh whole blueberries (I had big ones)

Use a food processor with the S blade to blend all the above ingredients except for the 2 cups of blueberries. Blend until well combined but not completely pureed. Transfer cake mixture to a big bowl and stir in the 2 cups of blueberries.

Add the cake mixture to the pan. With the crumble left, add about 1/2 of it onto the top of cake and press gently. Take a handful of blueberries and place on top of crumble. Sprinkle the final bit of crumble on top, still letting the blueberries peak through.

Freeze cake until frozen solid. (the blueberry cake took a while to freeze, most of the day and overnight). Then take cake out of freezer and remove sides of the spring pan. Put cake into the fridge and eat when thawed. This cake also takes a while to thaw. It’s totally worth the wait!

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A slice of cake with the Vanilla Ice Cream!

Joyce’s Notes: This is another delicious dessert especially if you love blueberries. It’s not quite as stellar as the strawberry version last weekend, but I do think it’s a winner. One thing that was a bit annoying was that it took a very long time to freeze. I tried taking the sides of the pan off too soon and it started to crack (like an earthquake). So I stuck it back into the freezer overnight. The next morning, the sides came off just fine leaving the cake looking very pretty! It also took a while to thaw out in the fridge!

We both tried eating the cake too soon after taking the photos and you can see that the blueberries in the cake body are still light colored in the middle. This does change after the cake has had time to thaw and soften. So the photos aren’t ideal. Today the blueberries are nice and dark and the cake looks much prettier. I’m learning a lot with these raw desserts :-)

I want to add that we still ate the slices with ice cream even though the cake wasn’t completely thawed. Scott wasn’t impressed and didn’t like it still frozen. Today he had a slice at work and liked it a lot. I had a slice for breakfast and found it to be divine! Absolutely delicious!! There is less than half left and I know it will be gone tomorrow! It just takes time for the cake to thaw and taste that good!!! Oh and the ice cream goes extremely well with the cake!

UPDATE: Here’s a photo of the last piece of cake below: You can see that the blueberries turned a nice dark color. Once thawed this was a luscious, moist, blueberry dessert where the berries were soft and juicy inside the cake! Delish!

So this is my newest favorite raw food recipe book!! It came in the mail last Wednesday. I pre-ordered the book from Amazon and it was just released on June 30th! I highly recommend Living Raw Food for some more gorgeous recipes and photos! Most of these recipes are from her famous NYC restaurant, Pure Food and Wine. I look forward to going someday!

I didn’t make a full dinner from the book but did try this gem:

Coleslaw with Lemon and Dill “Mayonnaise”

Joyce’s Notes: I never thought I’d get excited about coleslaw but this is absolutely amazing and delicious! No exaggeration I promise! Scott and I both loved this super flavorful salad! And this is going to be the perfect summer party raw vegan dish!! It’s perfect for a summer raw potluck too! In the book, the coleslaw actually goes with veggies on skewers with BBQ sauce and veggie chips. I hope to make this entire “fun and casual summertime” dinner soon! But alone it was quite filling. Do make the entire amount as it’s so good and will go quickly. Ours was gone on Sunday!

The ‘Mayo’ is truly divine! It’s better than any traditional mayo or coleslaw dressing I’ve ever had! It consists of soaked macadamia nuts, water, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, a small shallot, sea salt and fresh dill blended up in the vitamix. It’s bursting with flavor especially if you love the flavors of lemon, dill and shallots. I did cut the salt in half. When eating the coleslaw we did add a bit of sea salt to taste.

The veggies consisted of red and green cabbage, julienned carrots and daikon as well as scallions (green/spring onions). I used my mandoline to shred the cabbage. This worked very well but was quite a messy job! I used the julienne blade for the carrots and daikon which worked like a charm! Using the mandoline for all the veggie prep did save quite a bit of time. This kitchen gadget is certainly worth it!

For some other creative 4th of July raw vegan dessert ideas, check out these blogs:

Joanna Steven’s blog: Promoting the Raw Food Diet While Debunking the Myths. Joanna made a beautiful “4th of July Pie” and shares her recipe on her blog. CLICK HERE

Evergreen’s blog: The Happy Raw Kitchen. Evergreen made some gorgeous patriotic desserts and shared some lovely photos! Do check these out! CLICK HERE

We didn’t get down to the local parade this year but did go last year. Here are a few fun photos of a small town 4th of July parade in beautiful Vermont:

Hope Everyone had a lovely weekend! Thanks for visiting my blog!

A Tasty Greek Style Dinner And My Strawberry Crumble Cake!

2009-06-29T16:36:00.001-04:00

Starting with dessert first!!!

My Strawberry Crumble Cake with fresh local Vermont strawberries!!

This was actually inspired from 3 different raw vegan recipes I’ve made in the past and our love for fresh strawberry desserts. This is the time of year we are finally able to enjoy an abundance of local organic berries! Strawberries are ready in late June and early July. Here’s my recipe:

Use an 8 inch spring form pan

Crumble bottom and & topping

2 cups of pecans, not soaked
1 cup of dates, not soaked
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt or a bit less

“Grease” the pan lightly with coconut oil. Then add about 50 to 60% of the crumble mixture into the bottom of the pan. Set aside while you make the cake.

Cake

1 cup of young Thai coconut meat (I had mostly firm meat)
1 cup of unsoaked cashew pieces
1/2 cup of strawberries, chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup of thick coconut milk (blend meat and water from one small young Thai coconut with firm meat)
6 good sized dates, soaked for 20 minutes
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
1 1/2 scraped vanilla beans
2 teaspoons of psyllium powder
1 tablespoon and 1 1/4 teaspoons of agave syrup
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of coconut oil
2 cups of strawberries, chopped into small pieces

Use a food processor with the S blade to blend all the above ingredients except for the 2 cups of strawberries. Blend until well combined but not completely pureed. Transfer cake mixture to a big bowl and stir in the 2 cups of strawberries.

Add the cake mixture to the pan. With the crumble left, add about 1/2 of it onto the top of cake and press gently. Cut up a few more strawberries and place on top of crumble. Sprinkle the final bit of crumble on top, still letting the strawberries peak through.

Freeze cake until frozen solid. (about 6 hours or so). Then take cake out of freezer and remove sides of the spring pan. Put cake into the fridge and eat when thawed.

Strawberry sauce

leftover coconut milk from above
big handful of fresh strawberries or more
agave syrup to taste

Blend everything up in the Vitamix until smooth.

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Joyce’s Notes: Wow, this is now my husband Scott’s favorite raw vegan cake of all time! He loved this one!! It’s really delicious and I’m very happy with the results. The only problem is that there is just a small bit left! This one goes quickly!

My crumble is very similar to the how raw vegan pastry chef’s make apple cobbler toppings or fruit crisp toppings. The pecans, dates and sea salt give it a surprisingly authentic baked crumble taste. This is soooooo good and it’s hard to stop eating it right out the food processor! :-)

The cake turned out much better than expected! It doesn’t taste like coconuts were added to it which was another pleasant surprise. The taste reminded me more of a summertime strawberry shortcake flavor! The psyllium powder made it stay firm in the fridge and gave it a much different texture than the smooth raw vegan cheesecakes I make. Scott really liked the flavor and texture! He said he prefers a cake like this to my cheesecakes (which are delicious too).

I hate wasting food so I took the leftover coconut milk and blended it with more strawberries and agave to make a nice sauce. This was very good as well. The strawberries overpowered the coconut flavor. The coconut milk made the sauce a bit thicker and a lovely dark pink shade.

Everything in this recipe can be purchased at our local Co-op, City Market in Burlington Vermont. Psyllium powder is in the bulk spice section. Young Thai coconuts are available most of the time in the refrigerated conventional produce section. (This is the only item in my recipe that is not organic. Organic Thai coconuts are not available anywhere here in VT. You can find them online but they will cost over $8/coconut plus an exorbitant shipping fee.) So for now I make best with what’s available and affordable.

Now for some Greek style raw vegan food made this weekend:

Stuffed Grape Leaves with Mint Cashew Aioli! Recipe is by Russell James and found on his amazing blog. CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE and another photo!

Scott and I love authentic Greek food! Scott’s grandmother Clara is part Greek and used to take him to Greek food festivals as a kid when visiting her in New Jersey. I’m not Greek but adore the food just as much! We both miss that Greek food festival out in Southern California when we lived in San Diego’s North Shore 10 years ago.

Joyce’s Notes: This is another stellar recipe by the great raw food chef, Russell James that was enjoyed by both of us! My mouth waters just thinking about cooked vegetarian stuffed grape leaves with rice! If you read Russell’s recipe, you see that he also loves the original cooked version. So he came up with an incredibly flavorful raw version. Russell believes that anything cooked can be made better raw. Well, maybe not anything, but I’m being won over by Russell as I keep making his ingenious recipes. This was so good!!!

I found pickled grape leaves from Greece in a jar at Healthy Living Market in South Burlington, Vermont. The brand is Gaea. This jar provides A LOT of grape leaves so you only need to buy one jar! Here are the ingredients: early season grape leaves, water, salt, citric acid (which is lemon juice). These aren’t organic and probably not raw but close enough. They tasted fine with the recipe.

The filling is incredibly good. It explodes with flavor and certainly doesn’t taste raw! I could have eaten it by itself as a meal. This was another recipe that was hard for me to stop eating. The ‘rice’ is actually cauliflower processed up in the food processor. The sauce for the cauliflower ‘rice’ consists of olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, lemon zest, cinnamon, lemon juice, sea salt and scallions (spring/green onions). Everything gets blended up in the Vitamix until smooth and then mixed with the ‘rice’. Chopped sun-dried tomatoes (soaked), fresh mint and chopped raisons also get mixed into ‘rice’. This is just so tasty and creative! My only modification was that I used about 1 1/2 cups of packed fresh mint leaves instead of 2 cups. (Scott didn’t want the mint to overpower). My small change worked well for us.

The Mint Cashew Aioli is very good as well and tasted even better with the stuffed grape leaves! This consists of cashews, lemon juice, sea salt, agave syrup, lemon zest, garlic (I only used 4 cloves of garlic instead of 5), water and mint. This all gets blended in the Vitamix until smooth. Russell actually instructs you to blend everything but the mint leaves and then pulse them in at the end. I forgot this step so mine was a bit green. It still tasted lovely.

And how about some delicious Tabbouleh!

Quinoa Tabbouleh! Recipe by Matthew Kenney and found in his book, Everyday Raw.

Tabbouleh (it’s spelled tabouli as well) is another favorite Greek and Mediterranean style salad of mine. The cooked version uses wheat bulgur and Matthew’s uses soaked and sprouted quinoa. This was my first time using uncooked soaked and sprouted quinoa.

Joyce’s Notes: We both liked this as well but it was especially delicious for me! Scott hasn’t eaten a lot of tabouli in the past so I wasn’t sure what he would think of this one.

Here’s how I handled the quinoa as I read several different instructions for soaking and sprouting the stuff. I purchased one cup of dry quinoa in the bulk food section on Friday during lunch. I brought a water bottle to work and started soaking the quinoa at about 2pm. When I got home, I rinsed the quinoa and soaked them over night. The next morning, I drained them and let them sit and sprout for most of Saturday. They already had little sprouted tails in the morning! I kept rinsing them every 2 hours or so since I read this is important for the quinoa to taste and smell OK.

I began the tabouli at about 4pm on Saturday. I let the drained quinoa marinate with olive oil, sea salt and fresh lemon juice for an hour. Then I mixed in the rest of the ingredients. Matthew’s recipe is very good and has very traditional flavorings. He uses diced cucumber, seeded and diced tomatoes, red onion and parsley. Simple and gorgeous tasting! The quinoa is a bit more crunchy than the traditional cooked wheat bulgur but that wasn’t a problem at all for me. Scott commented about the crunchiness but still liked the taste.

Overall, I was delighted with my raw food results and creating Greek style foods this weekend! The leftovers went quickly on Sunday!!

Some Kitty ‘Raw Food’:

I call this stuff ‘Kitty Wheatgrass’. We get this from our small locally owned pet food specialty store. I know it’s probably silly not to grow this grass, but maybe someday!

Hope everyone’s enjoying the summer. Stay dry if you’re in Vermont! Stop by again soon!

A Weekend of Running Raw with Spinach Masala and Apricot ‘Yogurt’ Cake.

2009-06-22T16:16:00.001-04:00

Spinach Masala with Spiced Jicama ‘Rice’. The Spinach Masala recipe is by Raw Chef, Russell James. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL RECIPE. You can also find this recipe posted on the Raw Freedom Community by Carmella Soleil. She also made this recipe and loved it. CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE AND HER PHOTO.

Joyce’s Notes: WOW, this is another winner!!!!! Scott and I both love authentic cooked Indian food. I think it’s one of the most flavorful and exciting types of cuisine in the world!! This raw masala recipe is amazing and tastes so authentic! The sauce is creamy, rich and wonderful. It certainly doesn’t taste raw! Russell should get an award for this one! Even Scott liked it a lot and he’s so fussy with raw food entrees!

Another reason this recipe is such a winner is that it’s very easy to prepare and didn’t take a lot of time. All the ingredients are easily accessible in your local co-op or health food store.

A half pound or so of spinach gets massaged and marinated in lemon juice, sea salt and macadamia nut oil until soft and creamy(City Market in Burlington has this delicious cold pressed organic oil). I used local baby spinach and weighed about 275 grams on my little kitchen scale The next ingredients that get added to the spinach are chopped up mango, raisons, mustard seeds, a bit of chopped up onion and cilantro (fresh coriander). While these ingredients marinate with the spinach, the sauce gets prepared. The creamy sauce consists of unsoaked cashews, garlic, water, fresh ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, agave syrup and nama shoyu. Everything gets blended up in the Vitamix.

The final step (optional) is to dehydrate the sauce for a couple hours in the dehydrator at 115F. This works well and warms up the masala! Here is a photo of the sauce after being warmed up:

The jicama rice was my own concoction. I’ve made jicama couscous in the past and have seen other rice and couscous recipes using this crunchy root vegetable from Mexico. City Market always seems to have jicama. I didn’t measure out everything as I was going by taste, but here’s my best account:

One medium sized jicama, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup of pine nuts, processed up in a coffee grinder
a few generous spoonfuls of white miso
a couple small spoonfuls of garam masala
2-3 small spoonfuls of cumin
2-3 small spoonfuls of coriander

I used the S blade to process the jicama in the food processor. Then I strained it to get out as much starch and liquid as I could. I then dried it using paper towels to get out more moisture. Then I ground up the pine nuts into a paste. It wasn’t easy but can be done! Then I mixed up the pine nut paste, miso and spices with the jicama. I did everything by taste.

The jicama rice was good but a bit crunchy which is fine for the summer. I thought it tasted nice and went very well with the spinach masala. Scott thought the rice was OK and definitely edible but wasn’t crazy about it. I thought it tasted great all mixed up with the masala. For cooler fall and winter weather, I’d used cauliflower or a combo of cauliflower and parsnips. Carmella used her ginger rice recipe which is a combo of cauliflower and parsnips. I’ll have to wait until fall for parsnips!

Overall, I highly recommend giving the Spinach Masala recipe a try, especially with spinach being in season and plentiful at the farmers markets and co-ops! To get the flavors perfect I would try and find the macadamia nut oil. Make sure you also use fresh cilantro as I feel it really makes the recipe delicious. I followed the recipe pretty closely. I did cut back a bit on the garam masala and only used 2 teaspoons. I also added an extra 1/8 cup of water to the sauce. My 2 teaspoons of chopped ginger were a bit small. For garlic I used one small and one large clove. For the chopped onion, I used a bit more than 1/8 cup.

Apricot ‘Yogurt’ Cake with Sweet Cream and Anise Syrup. Recipe is by Matthew Kenney and found in his new book, Entertaining in the Raw.

Joyce’s Notes: This is another beautiful and creative recipe by Matthew Kenney that was loved by Scott, myself and our next door neighbors, Stu and Renée (who are the best neighbors in the world!!). The only problem with the cake was that it didn’t stay firm in the refrigerator. In fact it melted pretty quickly once it was taken out of the fridge. We found it challenging to slice the cake and get decent photos before it got too soft! So we kept it in the freezer and called it a summer ice cream cake! To keep this cake firm, I believe more coconut oil and/or coconut butter should be used.

The cake consists of soaked cashews, young Thai coconut meat, dried apricots, fresh apricots, agave syrup, coconut oil, vanilla extract, vanilla bean, juice of 1/2 a lime, and a teaspoon of garam masala. I used an 8 inch springform pan.

VITAMIX SCARE!!! My vitamix had a difficult time blending the above ingredients. In fact it got so heated up it stopped while I was blending. I thought I had burnt out my vitamix and almost panicked!! However, it turned out that my trusty vitamix just needed to cool down and then it was fine. (what a huge relief!!!) The above ingredients fill up the container and there is no liquid added except the agave. I didn’t melt the coconut oil so that probably didn’t help either. In the future, I would use the food processor first and then transfer the mixture to the Vitamix.

The sweet cream was very good as well. I couldn’t stop eating it when I was done making it! It consists of soaked cashews, fresh young Thai coconut meat, vanilla extract, sea salt and agave syrup. I cut back on the salt and only used 1/4 teaspoon. After all the drama with my Vitamix, I used the food processor first and then the Vitamix to get the cream nice and smooth. This worked great!

The syrup was also delicious. It consists of agave syrup, cinnamon, and ground up anise. The directions say to use a Vitamix. I cut the recipe in half and just whisked it all together which worked fine. If I were to make this again, I’d use the full recipe amount as the sauce goes quickly!

Running Raw!!

On Saturday morning I did a 10K charity run called Run For Empowerment. Women Helping Battered Women. Here is the website for more details: www.whbw.org

This local event raised over $7,000 to support their emergency shelter and children’s program. I love being able to support good causes like this one!

I had a lot of fun doing this run. Everyone was so nice and supportive. There were many different abilities. I certainly wasn’t one of the fastest runners but I was far from being the slowest. I did the 10K (6.67 miles) in 49 minutes and 25 seconds. This was my first 10K race aside from the couple relays I’ve done in the past. So I was happy with my run. Here are a few more photos taken by my husband Scott:

The race started at the Burlington Waterfront Park and continued on the beautiful bike path that goes along Lake Champlain. Some of the views of the lake are just so gorgeous!

My Raw Breakfast before the run:

Friday night I whipped up a small mango cheesecake filling without a crust. I always run well on raw cheesecakes so I thought a quick and simple mixture would be perfect. Here’s what I threw into the Vitamix:

about 1 1/2 cups of fresh mango (1 1/2 of the yellow mangoes)
1 cup of dry cashew pieces
1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon of agave
2 tablespoons of unmelted coconut oil
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
1/4 cup of water
1 teaspoon of soy lecithin
dash of cinnamon

This was very good and sweet! The mixture filled up one small 4.5 inch spring form pan. I ate about half of this for breakfast (at around 5.30am since the race was at 9am) plus a small green smoothie and a banana right before the run. This little cake stayed firm in the fridge so it might be another good recipe for a larger cheesecake. (it’s very sweet so I might use less agave for a big cake)

Well that’s all for now! Wishing everyone health, happiness and a great week!

Summer Birthday Party Food! A Couple Recipes That Travel Well And Are Sure To Impress:

2009-06-15T17:51:00.003-04:00

Scott and attended a family birthday party which entailed a 3 hour drive to Massachusetts this past Sunday. With summer upon us, I didn’t dare try and transport on of my more fancy raw vegan cheesecakes or frosted cakes. With a little research for a delicious dessert that would ‘Wow’ everyone, I found this gem:

Caramel Dream Bar Brownies! The original recipe is posted on Goneraw.com by Rawleen (Colleen). CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE! These are SUPER GOOD!!!!!

Here is the recipe with my extra notes, small modifications and my own instructions:

Use an 8” x 8” glass pan

Chocolate Crust:

2 cups of almonds, soak overnight or 8 hours
1 cup of chopped up dates, packed (chopped up each date into about 3 or 4 pieces)
1/4 cup of cacao powder
couple small dashes of sea salt

Caramel Layer:

1/2 cup of raw unpasteurized organic almond butter (Once Again Nut Butter Inc is the brand I use)
1/2 cup of coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup of coconut butter by Artisana, melted until soft
1/2 cup of Agave syrup
1 tablespoon of vanilla extra
dash of sea salt

Topping:

cacao nibs, about a good handful
dried coconut flakes, about 2 decent handfuls

For Crust – Use food processor with the S blade to combine all ingredients. Process for a while until a ball forms in the food processor. Press crust into pan evenly

Caramel Layer – Before making the crust I scoop out the coconut oil and coconut butter into small bowls and place in the dehydrator to melt. By the time I’m done with the crust and ready for the caramel ingredients, the butter is soft and the oil is a little over half way melted and that is fine. Combine all the caramel ingredients into a (cleaned) food processor with the S Blade and process until completely smooth. This happens quickly. Add the Caramel topping onto the chocolate crust layer.

For the topping- immediately add the dried coconut and cacao nibs onto the caramel layer. Then press the coconut and nibs into the caramel layer.

Freeze this dessert for a couple hours and then place into the fridge. The coconut oil and butter will need to firm up. Take this out of the fridge an hour or so before serving.

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Joyce’s Notes: This was another big winner with Scott and everyone at the party! On Saturday I made 2 batches of these brownies. One for the party and one for ourselves as a test. I wanted to make sure they were as good as all the hype and positive feedback on the Goneraw.com website. I needed a dessert that tasted luscious and sinful! Well this recipe lived up to all the excitement online! Everyone at the party wanted to know what was in the brownies and couldn’t believe how good they were. It was rumored that Stephen had 4 pieces! ;-)

I was a bit worried that the soaked almonds for the crust might taste a bit ‘healthy’. By itself it wasn’t my favorite crust. But do not fear! With the topping and caramel layer, it all works out in the end. I did have to process the crust for a while to get the almonds broken down.

The caramel layer is what truly makes this dessert. There is a very very slight hint of the almond butter, but the coconut oil, coconut butter, vanilla and agave really do make it seem more like a caramel flavor. Not totally authentic, but certainly very delicious! The dried coconut and cacao nibs on top are also crucial in making this brownie so good.

An extra note and update from Scott: He brought a nice big slice into work with intentions of sharing it with his work buddies. However he thought it was so good that he didn’t want to share which is a first! He left the container with the slice in his cubicle and didn’t refrigerate it. It’s actually better when left out of the fridge for a while. And this was the case at the party where it sat on a table for a few hours (I transported it in a cooler for the 3 hour drive).

So leave it sit out for a while until it becomes almost room temperature and this brownie will taste heavenly. However, If the temps where you live get above 85F degrees then you might not want to leave it out very long. It was only in the mid to upper 70s at the party.

An Encore of the Rich Cheddar Sauce over marinated & dehydrated broccoli and red bell peppers!

This is such a great dish to bring to a party! I brought this down to an Easter dinner and again this past Sunday! Everyone loves this! This raw vegan ‘cheddar’ sauce is incredible and one of the best recipes in the raw food world for cheese sauces! CLICK HERE to see the notes and details from my Easter post. Here is the recipe once again with my modifications. It’s posted all over the internet but originated from “Rejuvenate Your Life” by Serene Allison. For parties, I doubled this below:

1/2 large red bell pepper
1/4 cup of water
1 cup of cashews soaked for at least 4 hours
1 tablespoon of tahini (really raw by Artisana)
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt (start with just 1)
one slice of fresh yellow onion or sweet onion the size of a finger (and another tiny slice) chopped
1 medium clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
pinch or two of turmeric for coloring

Blend everything up in the Vitamix until smooth.

The only modification this Sunday was I only used 2 teaspoons of sea salt (1 teaspoon for above recipe) as opposed to 2 1/2 teaspoons last Easter.

And here’s a photo of how I transported this for the 3 hour drive:

A humid June day in Vermont:

Here’s a quick and easy recipe that is quite tasty and definitely worth blogging about. I made this again for Scott and myself on Saturday afternoon. With a party on Sunday, we just wanted something simple and practical, yet tasty and filling!

Cashew “Mock Chicken” Salad. Recipe is from Purelydelicious.net. CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL RECIPE. This is really good and will probably become a good staple for mid week lunches. I don’t like the taste of chicken or chicken salad, but I really love this recipe! The recipe states that the Cashew Salad is especially good stuffed in a tomato. So for simplicity sake, I just served it over tomato slices which tasted lovely.

Here the recipe with my own modifications:

1/4 cup of sunflower seeds, unsoaked
1 cup of cashew pieces, unsoaked
1 cup of pecans, unsoaked
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks
2 scallions (spring/green onions), chopped up (I use most of the green part as well as all of the white part)
1/2 sweet apple
1 1/2 teaspoons of dried dill
3/4 to 1 teaspoon of curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor with the S blade. Process until well combined.

The original recipe calls for lemon juice but I forgot about it accidentally and thought it tasted great without it. I omitted the celery from the original recipe as we are not fans of it. I also increased the dill and curry and added sea salt.

This is another good recipe for those with a fussy spouse or significant other! Scott likes this recipe and even had it once on a sandwich! I had some last night when we got home from our very long day. I ate it with a few tomato slices wrapped up in collards! Delicious!!

Perfect timing! It’s been raining most of the day with a few small thunderstorms and now the sun is starting to come out! Time to go for a run and get some fresh air!

Have a lovely week and thanks for stopping by!

Black Forest Cherry Cake and Cornbread Bruschetta with white truffle ‘sour cream’ and spiced tomatoes.

2009-06-08T12:31:00.001-04:00

Scott took the above photo yesterday from the top of Vista Peak at Bolton Valley Ski area. We had a lovely hike and took some nice shots. We were supposed to hike Camel’s hump which is highest peak (top left) in this photo. With rain in the forecast for the afternoon we decided a morning hike at our local mountain would be perfect. This was a good decision as the afternoon was rather soggy!

Black Forest Cherry Cake! Recipe is by Carmella Soleil and posted on the Raw Freedom Community Website. CLICK HERE for the full recipe!

Scott loves cherries and cherry desserts! City Market Co-op had piles of fresh organic cherries this week so I couldn’t resist buying a generous bag for Scott. This dessert was another smash hit. Scott and I both loved this one! The only problem is that there is only a tiny piece left today which probably won’t make it through the day!

Joyce’s Notes: This recipe is delicious! Chocolate and cherry lovers will certainly enjoy this creation by Carmella Soleil. The recipe calls for a 7 inch springform pan which makes a cute little cake.

Carmella has 2 different cake recipes for this. I used her Cake Variation 1. This consisted of dates, lemon juice, vanilla, carob, cacao powder, leftover almond pulp, dried coconut, cashews and almond extract. I thought this cake batter tasted really good!

This cake consists of a cherry jam made from dates and fresh cherries as well as chopped up fresh cherries. I had Scott pit and chop 2+ cups of cherries for me which was super helpful. He’s such a good sport ;-)

The layered whipped cream was also lovely. Carmella uses this very clever recipe for several of her cake recipes. It’s quite easy and practical to make and very versatile. It consists of cashews, coconut milk (blended up dried coconut with 3 equal parts of water), agave nectar, lemon juice, vanilla, pinch of sea salt, lecithin and melted coconut oil. I like mine sweet so I use the full amount of agave.

There are only a couple modifications I’d do for the next time: I’d make the cake layers a bit thinner and the whipped cream layers a bit thicker. I’d also use a little more cherry jam and cherries. This might mean adding some coconut oil to the jam.

Overall, this was another winner with Scott. We had this for breakfast on Sunday morning which provided great fuel for our hike! Another super healthy raw vegan cake that nourishes and satisfies at the same time. Raw vegan desserts are the best!!!

The Vista Quad at Bolton Valley!

Cobrass Trail. We call it ‘Cold Brews’ as it’s our favorite last run before going into the James More Tavern for some nice local beer!

Cornbread bruschetta with white truffle “sour cream” and spiced tomatoes! Recipe is by Matthew Kenney and found in his new book, Entertaining in the Raw.

I was very excited to try this one. Overall I thought this was delicious but found the bruschetta not quite perfect due to the ground flax seeds. Scott liked everything but wasn’t too thrilled with the bruschetta either. Raw vegan ‘breads’ are tough You can’t really mimic the real deal. We both are foodies who love authentic Italian cooked food….so I’m still on the quest to find a decent raw bread/crust….

Joyce’s Notes: I felt that the bruschetta was OK, but not quite right. We didn’t care for the flax taste at the end. Scott thought it had an aftertaste. Besides the flax meal it consisted of dried oregano, fresh corn from the cob, soaked walnuts, olive oil, shallot, nutritional yeast, agave nectar, lemon juice, jalapeno and chile powder. If I could find a good substitute for flax meal, this would be really good I believe. It sure smelled lovely while it dehydrated for almost 24 hours. (I made it on Friday night to be ready on Saturday night). Planning is always key with raw food preparation!

The sour cream with truffle oil was very good. I liked this a lot. It consisted of soaked cashews, water, olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and white truffle oil. Make sure you use a good brand. It’s expensive but worth it. We both love truffle oil. It was heavenly when we were in Italy last year.

The spiced tomatoes were wonderful! We both loved these!!!!!! The chopped tomatoes were mixed with fresh cilantro, nama shoyu, olive oil, shallots, soaked chipotle pepper and fresh basil.

I had these as leftovers on Sunday after our hike. I put the bruschetta into the dehydrator to warm it up. When I put the sour cream and tomatoes on top, I discovered I loved this even more than the previous night. It was delicious as a leftover!!! I could really appreciate the sophistication of Matthew’s recipe. The tomatoes with the white truffle flavored sour cream is brilliant. And I didn’t mind the bruschetta or notice the flax taste as much the next day. Maybe I was just starving after our hike! Either way, the leftovers were wonderful and most appreciated!

A few more photos of at the top of Bolton Valley (Vista peak):

Cheers from the Green Mountains!

Simple Yet Delicious Recipes This Weekend: A Pineapple Dessert And Two Mexican Flavored Pâtés (raw & vegan of course!)

2009-06-01T13:53:00.001-04:00

Vermont is so gorgeous and green this time of year, especially with all the rain we had last week! I took the above photo which shows Mad River Glen Ski Area in the background near Waitsfield, Vermont, a lovely ski town. With the weather becoming nicer, I’m hoping to find more simple raw vegan recipes that take less time in the kitchen so we can get out and play!

Pineapple Icebox Dessert! Recipe in Ani Phyo’s new book, Ani’s Raw Food Desserts.

This is a lovely raw vegan dessert book with some simple yet delicious looking recipes. Many recipes seem perfect for the summer and I hope to try out a bunch more and report back.

The Pineapple Icebox Dessert was wonderful!! It was a true winner with myself, Scott and our neighbors! Scott especially loved this one. We both had 2 small slices for breakfast on Sunday. We even considered having a third slice! This was a nice change from the very rich and complex cheesecakes I’ve made recently.

Joyce’s Notes: This lovely little cake filled a 7 inch springform pan perfectly. (The recipes says to use a loaf pan but I don’t own one) It was so nice to find a recipe that tasted great and took under 2 hours. I didn’t time myself since I’m always slow in the kitchen and have a lot of distractions, but I bet an experienced raw foodie could do this in under an hour or 45 minutes!

The crust and topping are made up of soaked cashews (I always use the raw, organic cashew pieces at City Market Co-op), seeds from a vanilla bean, and agave syrup. This gets processed with the S blade in the food Processor. Half goes on the bottom and the other half gets sprinkled on top of the filling. That’s it! Very easy!

The filling is made up of more soaked cashews, agave syrup, melted coconut oil, and water. This gets blended up in the Vitamix (or any high speed blender) until completely smooth. Since I’m such a sweet tooth, I added about 1/2 to 3/4 tablespoon of additional agave and an additional 1 teaspoon of unmelted coconut oil. This made it perfect for my taste buds. Then I mixed fresh, chopped up pineapple in a bowl with the filling. After I finished putting the topping on the filling, I stuck the springform pan in the freezer for about 5 hours. Then I took the sides of the pan off and put the cake in the fridge where it held it’s shape just fine.

This whole cake has shopping list of 5 ingredients that can be found at most health food stores and co-ops. I highly recommend trying this one out! It’s easy, delicious and perfect for the summer! And it’s also a great ‘first time’ raw vegan food dessert to make in your kitchen ;-)

Here’s a photo of a pretty little pond along my running loop (on Leary Road). With Scott working most of the weekend for a big client, we didn’t get out to hike and explore, but I was out running both days in the rain and sun!

Green Chile, Lime and Cilantro Sun Seed Pâté and Mango Sun Seed Pâté. Recipes in the book, I Am Grateful, from Cafe Gratitude in Northern California.

Joyce’s Notes: While these may not look impressive, the two Pâtés shown above were super tasty and very flavorful. Scott is not a fan of cilantro so he ate the Mango Sun Seed Pâté and liked it a lot. I also thought it was wonderful with the fresh mango!!! I was so happy to find another easy raw vegan recipe that Scott willingly ate and enjoyed :-) Most of the ingredients are show in the photo! Both pâtés are very simple and easy to prepare.

The Green Chile, Lime and Cilantro Sun Seed Pâté consisted of soaked sunflower seeds, a fresh jalapeno pepper, garlic, lime juice, a scallion (green/spring onion), fresh cilantro and sea salt. Everything got processed in the food processor with the S blade! Very easy! The Mango Sun Seed Pâté consisted of soaked sunflower seeds, some fresh jalapeno, red organic miso, lime juice, and sea salt. This also got processed with the S blade. Then it was mixed in a bowl with freshly chopped mango and a scallion. Again, super easy!

Here’s how we ate both Pâtés:

I spread the pates evenly on collard leaves (de-stemmed and cut in half). I added some salsa verde and cashew sour cream on top that I made after the Pâtés which were both easy and simple as well. This might look too healthy, but trust me, it’s totally delicious wrapped up in the collard leaf. Here’s what the plates looked like just before we ate the ‘collard wraps’:

Collards stuffed with pâtés and other delicious ingredients are certainly a very handy meal in a raw food house, especially when a simple dinner is needed. I too was skeptical the first time I saw a stuffed collard wrap like these. But it’s quite a taste explosion I promise. The pâtés both dominate while the collard leaf is subtle.

The salsa verde is very good and is found on page 50. I simply blended up the following ingredients in my Vitamix: avocados, fresh jalapeno, fresh cilantro, lime juice, scallions, garlic, sea salt, cumin, black pepper, oregano, and water. It comes out better with ripe avocados. The cashew sour cream was also made in the Vitamix with soaked cashews, lemon juice, water and sea salt. This recipe also in I Am Grateful (page 48) is OK and works fine with the pâtés and salsa verde. For a more sophisticated and authentic raw vegan sour cream recipe, see my post on April 6 2009 regarding raw vegan tacos!

What the Heck!………Would you believe we started up the woodstove last Wednesday and Thursday evening?! It was cold, rainy and damp with temps in the low 50Fs both days! Sometimes the weather can be tough here in Northern New England! But today it’s sunny and gorgeous! Time to get outside for a run before the clouds and rain arrive!

Quick update of last week’s Pecan Turtle Cheesecake: Both Scott and I brought slices of the leftover cake to work and shared it with co-workers. We also had our neighbors try a couple slices. Everyone loved it, especially our neighbors. It got rave reviews. One of Scott’s work buddies thought I should sell this……We were feeling a bit burnt out with cheesecakes so we needed fresh taste buds in order to get some true opinions. One word of warning though: don’t eat this dessert right before going to bed if you’re sensitive to caffeine and or cacao (raw chocolate). It may keep you up and busy for most of the night as reported! :-)

Thanks for stopping by and come back soon! xo

Pecan Turtle Cheesecake, Pizza & a Running Relay! Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

2009-05-25T20:51:00.001-04:00

The famous Pecan Turtle Cheesecake! Recipe is found in Sweet Gratitude, my favorite raw vegan dessert book!

I had been meaning to try this beautiful cheesecake for a while after seeing some beautiful photos on other blogs of this very decadent and fancy recipe :-) Finally it seemed perfect for this weekend where I ran a relay race which was part of the Key Bank City Marathon (more details about the race below). These luscious raw vegan cheesecakes seem to provide great fuel for running! So this was my breakfast early Sunday morning along with a few bananas!

Joyce’s Notes: Wow! this is a very rich tasting raw cheesecake with an impressive, dominant chocolate swirl inside! Scott and I thought it was very good! We’ve been on a roll with raw cheesecakes so the novelty of this one wasn’t quite as exciting as it should have been. Perhaps we need a small break from the cheesecakes….But it’s a wonderful recipe that would be perfect on special occasions and holidays. This would certainly blow the mind of someone who’s being introduced to raw and vegan foods! ;-)

I modified the chocolate pecan crust which greatly improved it. Scott and I both loved how it tasted like chocolate brownies! Here’s the brownie crust recipe with my modifications:

1 1/2 cups of pecans
1 oz of cacao powder (I cut this down quite a bit!)
1/3 cup of cacao nibs
5 ounces of date paste (I increased the date paste)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of agave syrup (I added this)
2 teaspoons of unmelted coconut oil (I added this)

I processed everything together in the food processor except the last two ingredients. Then I added them and processed everything some more. This was lovely and moist like a brownie. I kept eating the crust right out of the food processor.

The main filling had two parts. First I made the caramel part (the lighter color). This consisted of soaked cashews, agave syrup, almond milk, lemon juice, sea salt, vanilla extract, yacon syrup, soy lecithin, and coconut oil. The chocolate part had cacao powder and more vanilla extract added to the caramel part. Both fillings were very good when tasting the batters out of the Vitamix. The directions say to not worry about swirling the top since a different caramel topping gets added later. But I decided to swirl the top just for practice and it came out lovely.

The caramel topping needed to be tweaked. This top layer consisted of unsoaked macadamia nuts, agave syrup, vanilla extract, almond milk, yacon syrup and cacao butter. After I followed the recipe to the T, we found it to be bitter with a strong aftertaste due to the yacon syrup, macadamia nuts and vanilla extract. So I poured out a good amount, added more almond milk, coconut oil and a bit of agave syrup. After I kept adding those three ingredients, I finally had something decent and edible to pour on top of the cheesecake after the main filling had set in the freezer.

Overall, this is delicious dessert. I liked the caramel part of the filling but didn’t think it tasted like actual caramel. It was sweet and tasty but not reminiscent of a traditional caramel flavor. The chocolate filling was very deep and rich. Dark chocolate lovers will enjoy it for sure! The chopped pecans on the sides are also good. Give this one a try. It’s an impressive one for sure!

One more note: This was my first time using yacon syrup which is a raw and very rich tasting sweetener. Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is a distant relative of the sunflower with edible tubers and leaves. It is commonly grown and consumed throughout the Andean region in South America. It reminds me of molasses and gingerbread flavoring. It’s very tasty, but be sure to use it in small doses as it’s very strong. I ordered mine from Linda Wooliever who sells raw products right here in Vermont. You can find it other places online as well.

Each week it gets greener in Vermont! I took this photo last Monday in Tunbridge, Vermont which is a very lovely and rural town.

Tomato, Basil and Ricotta Pizza! Recipe is found in Matthew Kenney’s book, Everyday Raw.

Raw vegan pizza is an area where I don’t have a lot of experience yet! My dear husband Scott is so picky with raw food and hasn’t liked raw pizza crusts in the past which use buckwheat (a popular ingredient in raw crusts). So I decided to search for a recipe sans the buckwheat! This recipe looked very good and met the criteria for Scott.

Joyce’s Notes: This raw vegan pizza was very good and I thought it tasted very rich and flavorful! Scott liked it and ate it on Saturday night with me. He said it was good but thought the crust could have been thinner. He didn’t absolutely love this raw pizza but thought it was a decent recipe and could appreciate the flavorings and work that went into this. I liked this pizza a lot. The crust was tasty but I agree that it could have been thinner and maybe a bit subtler in flavorings. My favorite part of this pizza was the spinach and tomatoes on top. This made the pizza very good.

I also made some stuffed tomatoes with some leftover ingredients. When I perfect these, I’ll do a proper post about them :-)

The crust was made of ground flax seeds, dried basil & oregano, yellow squash, soaked walnuts, sea salt, olive oil, shallot, nutritional yeast, agave, lemon juice and black pepper. It doesn’t make a very big pizza as you can see from my photos. Again, I’d make it a bit thinner for the next time. Below is the crust just before going into the dehydrator. I made it on Friday night since it got dehydrated for 24 hours. It does shrink quite bit.

The recipe’s cheese is called Macadamia Mozzarella which consists of macadamia nuts, lemon zest, shallot, garlic, nutritional yeast, sea salt and a pinch of cayenne. The recipe calls for a half cup of nutritional yeast which I thought was too much! So I only used 1/4 cup which was more than enough. I wondered if the 1/2 cup was a misprint or mistake. The cheese was OK by itself. I didn’t really fancy it alone but it’s fine on the pizza with the tomatoes and spinach on top.

I have a hard time liking raw tomato sauces so I tweaked Matthew’s recipe. I also dehydrated several tomatoes (cut into slices) overnight to make my own sundried tomatoes. I don’t fancy too many store bought sundried tomatoes in raw red sauces. I found the original recipe used too much fresh oregano for my taste buds so I had to add more tomatoes and agave. As a result my sauce was too thin. So I added some psyllium powder which thickened it up. That worked fine. I didn’t add a lot of sauce to my pizza.

The best part of the pizza for me was the spinach and tomatoes on top! The spinach sat for a while coated in olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Next time, I’d cut the spinach in half as it was too much for the small pizza even after I added extra. The tomatoes were coated in the same ingredients and dehydrated for a couple hours to become soft. I actually piled more tomatoes and spinach onto my slices after taking photos. I found this pizza to be very tasty as a leftover. I took the last slice, topped it with more tomatoes and spinach and dehydrated it for about 30-40 minutes. Delish!

Running on Raw!! That’s me after finishing up my portion of the relay race. Of course it stopped raining when I was done! Memorial Day weekend in Burlington, Vermont is famous for the Key Bank Vermont City Marathon and Marathon Relay. Due to past knee injuries and two unsuccessful knee surgeries over a decade ago, I’ve never been able to run super long distances. So the relay portion of this race works out well. This is my second time doing the relay. This year my leg of the race was 5.6 miles. I ran well in spite of the rain and completed the leg in 45 minutes which turns out to be 8 minute miles. I run all the time even in the winter, but I don’t train for races. So I was pleased with my run.

The good news is that my knees feel like they have healed in the last 6-9 months of my raw vegan journey. It seems that my knees are totally fine now. I can run as much as I want. I just need to start gradually increasing my mileage. I believe that eating a vegan diet with about 90% of it being raw has helped transformed my knees. Being mindful and present is another huge key ingredient that has also changed my knees (a great topic for another time!) After my run on Sunday, I feel that I would like to try my first half marathon this coming fall. I am going to buy a book on how to train for these long distance races! Who knows, I may even do the entire marathon next year in Burlington. That would be a dream come true. Raw vegan food is truly miraculous!

Ah yes, Murphy and Fergus have the right idea! Rest and relaxation is always done right in our house! :-)

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Lovely Chai Spice-Orange Cake and a Vermont vineyard!

2009-05-18T20:36:00.001-04:00

This is the time of year apple blossoms are in full bloom! I took this photo of a big apple tree in the back yard. Notice the bird feeder is empty! I made the mistake of filling it up a few weeks ago which brought a 2 year old black bear to the backyard. We have families of bears which is normal in our woods and the surrounding forests. But because of their incredible sense of smell, the young, bold bear discovered the sunflower seeds in our feeder that night!

The photo above was taken a few years ago through the window screen when another young bear demolished our bird feeder.

Chai Spice-Orange Cake! Recipe found in my favorite raw dessert book, Sweet Gratitude.

I had about 5 cups of leftover almond pulp in my freezer from making almond milk used in my previous raw vegan cheesecakes. So I decided it was time to make a layer cake from Sweet Gratitude since their cake batters are predominantly made of almond pulp. This worked so well as I didn’t have to waste any of the almond pulp (almond meat) from making the almond milk.

Joyce’s Notes: This is a very lovely and unique cake with the orange and chai spice combination. It wasn’t as sweet as my previous raw desserts and I found it to be very light. Scott and I both enjoyed this cake. It wasn’t quite as good as Heathy Pace’s Chocolate Orange layer cake (from my Feb 23, 2009 post). But it was still a very nice tasting cake.

Sweet Gratitude’s cakes are super big! So I cut the recipe in half! If I didn’t do this, I would have needed 9 cups of almond pulp! Now that’s a lot of cake! I was planning on using my new 7 inch spring form pan but found it better to use my 8 inch spring form pan. We like the cake layers to be a bit thinner so this worked out perfectly!

The chai spice cake was made up of almond pulp, date paste (made from 18 fresh chopped up dates), coconut oil, vanilla, almond milk, strong chai tea, sea salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. I loved the way it tasted and had to make sure I didn’t eat too much batter as I was making the cake! Sweet Gratitude instructs you to use a big expensive Kitchen Aid mixer which I don’t have. However, it’s still very feasible to make the cake without one! I processed up the date paste, almond milk, chai tea, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in the food processor until very smooth. I then added it to a big bowel with the almond pulp and mixed everything together with my hands. I then added the melted coconut oil and continued mixing very well with my hands. This works just great! I have photos of this process when I made Sweet Gratitude’s Tiramisu cake for my birthday. Click here for my March 23, 2009 post. (page down past the skiing & gnocchi photos).

I only had decaf chai tea handy so I used four tea bags in an 8 ounce cup. This made the tea strong enough. Even with the strong chai tea and the spices, the chai flavoring in the cake was very mild, subtle and delicate. I actually would have preferred a stronger chai tea flavor. Next time, I might even add more cinnamon and nutmeg.

The orange frosting was also very subtle and light tasting. It consisted of cashews, fresh squeezed orange juice, lemon juice, agave syrup, sea salt, vanilla, turmeric (for color), soy lecithin, and coconut oil. Being a sweet tooth, I thought it could have been a little sweeter. Although it did work well with the subtleness of the chai spice cake when all said and done. If I was to enhance the chai spice cake in the future, then I would also modify the orange frosting to make it sweeter and a bit more rich tasting.

The overall texture and consistency of this cake was just perfect! The cake held up very well in the fridge. It wasn’t too firm or too soft. The frosting was also a winner in that regard. Not too thin or too thick! Slicing was easy and each piece of cake stood upright on the plate without a bit of trouble while we ate it bite by bite. With a few minor modifications to make it sweeter and spicier, this could be another true winner! I’m so glad we gave this cake recipe a try!

The crab apple trees are also pretty this time of year!

A Trial and Tribulation….

Matthew Kenney’s South American style ‘Potato Salad’ . Recipe found in Everyday Raw. I’ve had my eye on this warm weather recipe for a while now. Who doesn’t love a tasty cooked potato salad at a summer picnic! I was so eager to find a good raw version for a few upcoming events….. However, this is not the answer but it’s a good start!

Joyce’s Notes: This recipe wasn’t a true success or a complete failure for us. Matthew uses jicama in lieu of cooked potatoes. A jicama is a mild and sweet root vegetable grown in Mexico and other warm climates. Because of it’s neutral flavor, it’s a great idea for taking on other flavors. However, jicama is crunchy when it’s raw! So this was a very crunchy raw potato salad. This was the main aspect that didn’t work well for myself and Scott. We found the flavorings to be good, but didn’t like the crunchiness and crispness of the jicama for this particular recipe.

I do have to say that my ‘potato salad’ did look like Matthew Kenney’s photo in the book! The salad consisted of diced jicama, diced yellow pepper, fresh rosemary, green olives, mashed avocado, and red onion. I used ripe green olives which tasted like black olives. This was fine but I would have preferred the tarter/more sour tasting regular green olives. I ended up doubling the amount of avocado and green olives which we both preferred. I didn’t use celery which was also called for since it’s not a favorite of ours!

The dressing was rather unusual. It consisted of tahini (I use the really raw brand, Artisana), cumin, lemon juice, fresh parsley, nama shoyu, sea salt and chili powder. When done blending, I found it rather bland but mixed it with the veggies anyways. Once everything was mixed I found it needed a bit of extra sea salt and ground black pepper. I also added about 1/4 teaspoon of extra nama shoyu. Normally I cut back on salt and nama shoyu, but in this recipe I felt it needed the extra saltiness. And this made it taste OK.

In summary, I would definitely want to figure out a way to soften up the jicama or find another substitute for soft cooked potatoes. The flavorings were unusual but certainly edible. I found it interesting and do believe it could be modified to be even more tasty. So this is a work-in-progress recipe for us! :-)

I might take my leftover jicama and see if I can get it to soften up in the dehydrator as an experiment. What do you think? Any suggestions?

Scott and I absolutely love wine!!! It’s no secret. It’s raw and it’s wonderful. So we decided to plant some grape vines and grow our own grapes with hopes of making our own wines someday (it takes 3-5 years for the vines to produce grapes). So this weekend we bought some grape vines that can withstand temps of –30F degrees. We found these at a nursery on South Hero Island on Lake Champlain. Since we drove 45 minutes to the islands, we decided to do a wine tasting and visit the vineyards at Snow Farm Winery which is also on South Hero Island. Here are more photos of the Snow Farm vineyards:

That’s me. It was a chilly day with temp in the mid 50’s F.

Lake Champlain in the background. Such a lovely place!

Lake Champlain with the New York Adirondacks on the other side.

And lastly, here’s Scott working on our mini vineyard at home!

Cheers to perfect health and a great week!

Russell to the Rescue for a Happy Mothers Day!

2009-05-11T14:52:00.001-04:00

This Sunday we had family visiting from Connecticut. The big challenge was that I had to come up with a raw vegan gourmet meal that didn’t involve garlic, olives or red peppers. The dish also couldn’t be spicy, exotic or ethnic such as Thai, Indian or Mexican. Everything that I made and posted on my blog this past winter and spring was off limits. So I combed my raw recipe books, binders, raw food websites and raw food blogs for a suitable recipe during the week. Even in staff meetings at work, I found myself racking my brain for ideas…… I discovered that Russell James’ Spinach and Mushroom Quiche recipe looked safe and flavorful at the same time. I didn’t have time to give it a test run, but the reviews on several raw food websites were outstanding. Most folks who tried this recipe loved it. Carmella Soleil and Heathy Pace gave it a thumbs up, so I decided to take a leap of faith and go for it! Here’s a close up photo:

Spinach & Wild Mushroom Quiche by Russell James!

Click here (Russell’s blog) to view this recipe. You can also view this recipe posted here on the Raw Freedom Community. Back in December of 2007, there was a ‘group project’ on the Raw Freedom Community website where several members made the quiche and reported back with their results. Click here for all the info! :-)

Joyce’s Notes: OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!! This was outstanding!!!!!! Everyone loved the quiche including my husband who’s the greatest guy, but a bit picky with raw vegan food. I was quite relieved and overjoyed at the same time. Our family thought it tasted very gourmet and they were very impressed by this luscious fancy quiche. Everyone cleaned their plates! I thought it tasted so rich and creamy and super flavorful. The combination of flavorings were just right. I savored every bite. What a winner! Thanks so much Russell for coming to the rescue!!!

The crust was delicious! The ingredients included cashews, macadamia nuts, ground up flax seeds (in the coffee grinder), nutritional yeast, olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice. The recipe also included garlic but I omitted this ingredient since it was off limits. And it tasted great without the garlic! The recipe is supposed to make four 11cm (~4 inch) mini tarts. I did the recipe one and a half times hoping to make six tarts. However I was only able to make four tarts. Russell must make his crusts a lot thinner than mine. I liked mine as they were so next time I might double the recipe for six tarts especially since there is plenty of filling for six. The crusts take 2 hours to dehydrate before removing them from the mini tart pans and then an additional 6 hours before you add the filling. Then you can dehydrate the quiche tarts up to 24 hours. I dehydrated mine for about 20 to 21 hours and they were perfect. I got them into the dehydrator at 6pm on Saturday evening and let them dehydrate overnight and during the day. By late morning I turned my dehydrator down to 95F degrees from 115F.

The filling was also delicious! The reason I hadn’t tried this recipe before was due to the mushrooms. I have never fancied mushrooms, but I find that in some raw recipes, they are fine. I used crimini mushrooms (baby portobellos which are very common) and used a bit less than the 2 cups called for in the recipe. I chopped them into small pieces which worked well. They got marinated in lemon juice and sea salt while I made the filling.

The main part of the filling got blended up in the Vitamix: zucchini, cashews, white miso, lemon juice, sea salt, white onion (I used a sweet onion: about a bit less than 1/2 of a med one), and nutritional yeast. I read that some people cut back on the white miso & salt but I didn’t. I followed the recipe as stated. When tasting it, I found it salty. But that was before all the other ingredients were added to the filling. So it’s safe not to modify the filling recipe for miso and sea salt. It will be fine once everything is combined. Also, I want to stress the importance of using a nice white/light miso.

Two cups of spinach are called for and I used 2 heaping, packed cups of baby spinach which was fine. Scallions (spring onions), chopped up fresh tomato (one large one) and fresh basil were also mixed into the filling with the mushrooms and spinach. All this evens out the saltiness. I really liked the basil and used a bit more than 1 tablespoon. I also didn’t seed the tomatoes. I chopped them up and tried not to put too much liquid from the tomatoes into the filling.

Overall, I highly recommend making this recipe for special occasions, holidays, and family gatherings where some folks may not be accustomed to raw vegan food. Do check out the recipe on Russell’s blog and the Raw Freedom community where I posted the links above. I enjoyed reading about everyone’s results.

PS – The asparagus was marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and black pepper for a couple hours or so. Then it was dehydrated for about 30 to 45 minutes. Everyone loved the asparagus as well! A perfect accompaniment to the quiche!

Strawberry Cheesecake for Dessert!!

This strawberry cheesecake is a recipe from my favorite raw dessert recipe book, Sweet Gratitude. (page 92) Murphy won’t touch anything vegan but loves to check out these colorful desserts. I wanted to make a super tasty, yet less complicated dessert for our family (since the quiche was quite involved).

Joyce’s Notes: This was another winner on Sunday! Everyone loved it including myself and Scott. This is a super rich and tasty dessert for strawberry lovers! The only drawback was that this cheesecake did not stay very firm in the refrigerator. It doesn’t completely melt or loose it’s shape but it’s rather delicate when slicing. The recipe calls for 1 cup of coconut oil which I used. Next time I might try using coconut butter by Artisana instead which stays firmer at room temperature. (I buy mine at Healthy Living on Dorset Street in South Burlington, VT.)

The swirl effect was my own addition to make it pretty. After filling the spring form pan with the filling, I didn’t clean out the Vitamix. With the little bit of leftover filling on the bottom, I added about 1 1/2 cups of chopped strawberries, agave syrup and a bit coconut oil (about 1/2 tablespoon or more) to the Vitamix and blended everything together. I drizzled just a bit on top. Then I used a chopstick to make small swirls along the big swirl. It was rather fun and easy. Scott and I were pleased with the colors and design. I filled up a squeeze bottle with the extra sauce and used it to decorate the dessert dishes when serving the cheesecake.

The crust was delicious and went perfectly with the strawberry cheesecake. I think it was one of the best one’s yet. I don’t always like raw pie crust recipes but this was excellent. I modified Sweet Gratitude’s almond crust recipe (adding agave & coconut oil and adding more dates & vanilla):

2 cups of dry almonds
4 ounces of date paste (chopped up fresh dates)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons of agave syrup
1/3 to 1/2 tablespoon of unmelted coconut oil

I used the food processor to blend everything up except the agave and coconut oil, adding the dates a bit at a time. I processed the mixture for a while. When I later added the agave, and then the coconut oil, it had the texture and taste I was seeking. Scott really liked this crust too and he’s even harder to please with raw crusts.

The filling was very rich and creamy. I thought it was delicious with the fresh strawberries. Here is what makes up this lovely filling: cashews, 18 ounces of fresh chopped up strawberries, almond milk (which I sweetened with agave), lemon juice, vanilla, soy lecithin, and coconut oil. This almost filled my entire Vitamix container! And I can’t imagine using anything else other than my super-powerful, high-speed Vitamix for these big cheesecakes. A regular blender could not handle these volumes.

One thing to note: The cheesecake recipes in Sweet Gratitude make 10 inch cheesecakes. I decided to use my 9 inch spring form pan instead which worked out fine. I like a nice big, thick cheesecake that involves fresh fruit in the filling (my personal preference)!

Overall, this cheesecake was loved by everyone. One family member even had a slice for breakfast in addition to oatmeal and Matthew Kenney’s raw vegan Scrambled Tofu which was another success! Click the green to see my blog posting back in March on this amazing faux tofu recipe. It’s brilliant and super tasty!

Murphy and Fergus had a visitor this past Friday! This beautiful black kitty is named Alvin. Our neighbors adopted him from the Humane Society just recently. This little guy is such a love and so friendly. He came to the door to meet our two curious kitties. Fergus wasn’t too thrilled but Murphy was eager to make a new friend! (Alvin checked out both door entrances to see if he could get inside!!)

Have a lovely week and please stop by again!

Spring, Samosas, and Mango Madness in Vermont!

2009-05-04T14:44:00.001-04:00

Vermont is so lovely this time of year when it finally warms up. I took these photos a week ago. This is the backside of Mt Mansfield with a small family farm somewhere between Cambridge and Jeffersonville, Vermont.

I also took this photo of Smugglers Notch ski resort on the same day with some cornfields in the foreground. This is one of the main mountains where Scott and I ski during the winter months. Thanks to man-made snow, the season only closed a few weeks ago.

A couple weeks ago, an event happened that effected both Scott and myself so we were not able to make any gourmet raw food the last weekend in April like I had planned. And Scott had to curtail his 30 day raw food challenge. We hope to try again in the future with Scott going completely raw for 30 days. For now, he’s doing a combo of raw food along with his favorite tasty cooked vegan meat substitutes, tofu pups (he loves those!), smoked tempeh, and veggie burgers (Sunshine burgers are his new favorite and they rock!!)

Gorgeous, Raw Vegan Samosas on Saturday!!

Cauliflower Samosas with mango chutney, banana tamarind sauce, and mint. Recipe is found in Raw Food Real World, by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. (These photos were taken by Scott and myself)

I’ve had my eye in this recipe for a while now. Initially I was a bit intimidated by making the samosa wrappers out of blended up young Thai coconut meat and coconut water. After working with young Thai coconuts this past winter and having a bit more experience under my belt, I decided to give this wonderful recipe a try. And I’m so glad I did! It was a fantastic dinner which both Scott and myself enjoyed so much. Both of us have a love for authentic Indian food, so this was a lovely treat for our Saturday night!

Sarma Melngailis has posted this recipe online on the Gliving website. (check out her photos) It can also be found posted on the Raw Freedom Community, the Sunny Raw Kitchen, and other spots on the internet. So I’ll just copy the recipe onto my blog for convenience in case anyone would love to try this recipe:

For the samosa wraps:
2 cups young coconut meat (4 coconuts)
1 ½ cups coconut water (or more)
½ teaspoon cayenne (I used 1/4 teaspoon)
½ teaspoon sea salt

In a Vita-Mix or high-speed blender, puree the coconut with the coconut water, cayenne, and salt until completely smooth. Using an offset spatula, spread the coconut very thin on Teleflex-lined dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 115 F for 2 to 4 hours, or until the surface is dry. Carefully flip over and peel away the Teleflex sheets. Dehydrate further on the screen only, just to dry the underside, 15 to 30 minutes longer. The wraps should be very thin, almost transparent, and very pliable.

Carefully slide the wraps onto a flat cutting surface and cut into large rectangles, about 3 by 7 inches, and set aside.

For the filling:
1 large head cauliflower, florets only
½ cup raw macadamia nuts
1 cup filtered water
1 tablespoon garam masala
2 teaspoons Chunky Chat masala
1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup fresh peas or thawed frozen peas (I used frozen sweet peas)
1 handful julienned cilantro

Place the cauliflower florets in a food processor and pulse a few times to chop into small pieces. It’s okay if they are not entirely uniform in size - they add texture.

In a high-speed blender, add the nuts, water, garam masala, Chunky Chat, and ginger and puree at high speed for 2 minutes until completely smooth. It should be the consistency of heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the cauliflower, peas, and macadamia cream to a shallow glass bowl or pan and stir to combine. Place the bowl in the dehydrator and dehydrate at 115 F for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower becomes somewhat tender and the cream thickens a bit.

Toss the cilantro in with the cauliflower mixture just before filling the wraps.

For serving:
Place a heaping tbs of cauliflower filling at one end of a coconut wrapper. Fold one corner over diagonally to meet the other side, to form a triangle. Fold the samosa over and continue folding like a flag. Wet the end of the wrapper slightly to seal.
Sarma then suggests to serve these with the following sauces:

For the tamarind sauce:
1 cup soaked and strained tamarind pulp
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon nama shoyu
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Pinch of sea salt

Place the tamarind pulp, maple syrup, nama shoyu, and olive oil in a blender and puree until smooth. Taste for seasoning and add a pinch of salt if necessary. Place in a separate bowl and set aside. This sauce may be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 2 days. It can also be frozen if you have leftovers or want to make it in advance.

For the banana tamarind sauce:
1 cup Tamarind Sauce (from above recipe)
1 small banana
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 small red chili pepper, seeded
Pinch of sea salt

Puree the sauce ingredients in a blender until completely smooth. Transfer to a separate container and set aside.
For the Mango Chutney (I made half of the recipe):

4 cups diced ripe mango
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons minced ginger
2 green onions, white and 1 inch of green, diced
½ small jalapeno, cored and seeded, diced
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 small handful cilantro leaves

In a food processor, add all of the ingredients and pulse to combine well, but keep it chunky. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 to 3 days. (Makes about 4 Cups and is a nice accompaniment to other dishes or on it’s own as well.)

For serving:
1 cup Mango Chutney
1 small handful mint leaves, finely julienned

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Joyce’s notes: As I said above, this is a very tasty recipe! It’s a bit involved with the many different components. I found the Thai coconut wrappers to be the trickiest part of the recipe. I used 4 coconuts to yield 2 cups of coconut meat. Always buy an extra coconut or two since some have more meat than others. I cut back on the cayenne pepper to 1/4 teaspoon and it was still hot and spicy. And it gave my samosas a light pink/orange hew. So a 1/2 teaspoon would have been very hot and even darker in color.

The recipe and directions don’t specify how many teleflex sheets/trays to use for the dehydrator. I did 3 sheets and then a smaller circle on a fourth sheet to see if a thicker wrapper might be better. So in the future, I’d spread the coconut batter over 4 teleflex sheets. It is very important to spread the batter thinly and very evenly which is tricky. Spend extra time getting this as evenly as possible. Here’s my best sheet that was also my thinnest and most even one:

The recipe calls for 20 wrappers and I was able to get 14 plus some scraps which would have been enough for a couple more had I been a bit more experienced with these. For folding the wrappers with the filling, Carmella has a nice demo with photos on her Sunny Raw Kitchen blog. Click here to see!

The cauliflower filling was easy to make and very tasty by itself. I’d make this again and use it in salads for my week day lunches. I’d also use the sauce as a salad dressing (using cashews in lieu of the macadamia nuts) The key ingredient in the sauce that makes it so delicious is the chunky chat masala seasoning. I found this seasoning at a local Indian specialty food store on Williston Road, South Burlington, VT (next to Marcos Pizza). You can also find it online to order. I highly recommend finding the chunky chat masala. I wouldn’t make the samosas without this key ingredient! Here is a photo of my filling. I put it into a pie plate which fit nicely in the dehydrator for the couple hours or warming.

The mango chutney was lovely and Scott and I both found it a refreshing combination with the finished samosas. Here’s a close up photo of my chutney:

The banana tamarind sauce was a ‘thumbs down’ for Scott. He found it too sour/tart tasting. I liked it and thought it was very tasty with the samosas and mango chutney. However, the samosas and mango chutney alone would have been perfectly fine. The tamarind recipe calls for 1 cup of soaked and strained tamarind pulp. I used a half cup of tamarind paste which is found at City Market Co-op and the local Indian store. I don’t have much knowledge or experience with tamarind so I believe mine was too heavy using the thick paste/concentrate. As you can see from the photo mine is very dark. The photos on Gliving show a light brown sauce. But even though mine was very heavy, rich and sour, I still liked the taste of the sweetness and banana.

Overall, we just loved this dinner and found ourselves eating all 14 samosas that night (only 10 shown in photo). We were very hungry when we sat down to eat, so it wasn’t hard devouring them all up. After that we were quite full. The spicy coconut wrappers were wonderful with the filling and sauces!

There was a good amount of filling left over as well as the sauces and a few scraps of the wrappers. So I enjoyed this as a lunch on Sunday. This is one of those recipes to make on a day where you have plenty of time. It’s a lot of work and calls for many ingredients but it’s worth it especially if you have a love for Indian food. Imagine tasty and super healthy Indian food! Raw food is awesome!!! And Sarma and Kenny have taken raw and living foods to new heights with classy and sophisticated recipes like this one. Thank you so much Sarma and Matthew!!

My Mango Cheesecake with a Mango parfait crème!

City Market Co-op in Burlington, Vermont had a nice shipment of organic mangoes which were ripe and very sweet tasting. So I couldn’t resist buying a bunch for this weekend. Although I made a few cheesecakes recently, I had to try my own mango version. My filling is inspired from Cheflandria’s mango cheesecake. I also used my favorite raw dessert book, Sweet Gratitude as a reference for the basic skeleton of my cheesecake filling. (sorry, they don’t have a mango cheesecake in their book to avoid confusion)

So here’s my recipe!

Rich Mango Cheesecake

Use a 9 inch spring form pan

Crust

1 1/2 cup of soaked cashews (a bit more than 1 1/4 cup of dry cashew pieces)
1 cup of dried coconut flakes
1/2 cup of macadamia nuts
2 oz of date paste (about 2-3 dates)
zest of one small orange
1-2 tablespoons of agave syrup
3/4 to 1 tablespoon of coconut oil (not melted)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Use a Food Processor with the S blade to combine everything to make a soft crust. I like to add everything except the dates and then add them a bit at at time while everything is being processed.

Lightly grease your spring form pan with coconut oil. Press crust into pan and set in freezer or fridge while you make the filling.

Filling

3 cups of soaked cashews (about 2 1/2 cups of dry cashew pieces)
2 heaping cups of fresh chopped mango (about 2 med to large mangoes)
1 cup of homemade almond milk sweetened with maple syrup or agave
3/4 cup of agave syrup
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
3 tablespoons of organic soy lecithin
1/3 cup of coconut butter, melted (Artisana brand which is coconut meat)
2/3 cup of coconut oil, melted

Blend all ingredients in a Vitamix until smooth except for the lecithin, coconut butter and oil. Add the lecithin, coconut butter and oil and blend again until smooth and thoroughly blended.

One additional chopped up fresh mango

Add the chopped mango pieces to the filling by hand (don’t blend). Then pour filling onto the crust and freeze overnight or for several hours until frozen solid. Then take cheesecake out of freezer and remove sides of the spring form pan. The sides will be nice and smooth and neat this way. Then place into the fridge to soften up. You can also leave out for an hour before sticking it back into the fridge (for faster results).

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Joyce’s notes: This is a very rich and sweet tasting mango cheesecake that turned out well. It’s a mango lover and sweet tooth’s delight! Scott and I both enjoyed eating this for breakfast on Sunday and again this morning! I have to say that when I did my run on Sunday mid-day, I felt the best ever this year! With only the cheesecake and mango parfait crème for fuel, I felt amazingly fit compared to the last few months! So later today with only this cheesecake, the parfait and a mango green smoothie, I might attempt to do my longest run of the year. I’m hoping the cheesecake will continue it’s magical effect!

I used the same crust as my Orange creamsicle cake which I think is a very tasty crust. However with this cheesecake I might omit the coconut flake for something different next time. Scott wasn’t too keen on the crust with this cheesecake either. But it is still very good.

We both like the filling as it is very rich and sweetly flavored with the fresh mango. It is very decadent tasting and rather heavy I must add. One slice with the mango parfait crème will fill you right up! And I also enjoyed having the mango pieces mixed into the filling. However, some of the pieces were a little stringy so I would be very mindful of this issue for the next time. Make sure you only use pieces that aren’t so stringy. It’s not noticeable in the photos, only when you eat a slice. It certainly didn’t ruin the dessert, but I wouldn’t serve this with the stringy mango pieces in a fancy restaurant :-)

I also used a couple more fresh mangos to make the mango parfait crème you seen in my photos. I basically modified Sweet Gratitude’s recipe for Strawberry parfait on page 187 to make a mango version. I had some leftover Irish moss to use up. And with some leftover almond milk and plenty of fresh mangoes, this was the perfect recipe to go along side my mango cheesecake.

Here’s the recipe

Mango Parfait Crème

one ounce of Irish moss (weight after soaking)
one cup of sweetened almond milk with maple syrup
12 ounces of fresh chopped mangoes (about 2-3)
1/2 cup of agave syrup
2 tablespoons of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt
2 tablespoons of organic soy lecithin
1/2 cup of melted coconut oil

Coarsely chop up the Irish moss after weighing and toss into Vitamix. Add the almond milk to the Vitamix and blend until the Irish moss is completely broken down. (can be a few minutes). Then add the mangoes, agave, vanilla, lemon juice and sea salt. Blend until creamy and smooth. Then add the lecithin and coconut oil and blend again until smooth and thoroughly blended. Pour into a glass container and stick in the fridge for a few hours. I used a shallow glass container.

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Here’s a photo of the mango parfait crème:

Joyce’s notes: This is incredibly delicious! Wow, this is amazing I thought! I like this much more than the mango cheesecake! It is that good! It was firm enough to scoop out on the plate thanks to the Irish moss. The combo of vanilla extract and lemon juice made this very classy tasting. And this crème also went very well with the cheesecake. It really enhanced the whole mango dessert experience.

I’d like to make turn this parfait recipe into a mango pie someday. With more coconut oil and lecithin and perhaps more Irish moss, this could be a nice and firm pie filling.

A simple, tasty no-nonsense recipe:

A couple weeks ago I made Scott a Raw Deviled Egg-less "Egg" Spread. This recipe came from Raw Food Right Now’s Thanksgiving E-book and it’s posted here on the Raw Freedom Community.

Here’s my photo:

Joyce’s notes: I have never fancied eggs in any shape or form (yuck!!!). Even as a kid, I just didn’t like the smell or taste of them. Scott was always an egg lover, but has given them up for health and ethical reasons. This raw vegan, eggless recipe tasted very good to both of us! I don’t know what deviled eggs are supposed to taste like but I liked the flavor combinations. This recipe calls for dry cashews, garlic, lemon juice, dry mustard powder, apple cider vinegar, turmeric, and water blended up in a Vitamix . It was very smooth and creamy and perfect with the carrots. This recipe has gotten a lot of rave reviews on the Raw Freedom Community website and now I understand why. It’s very tasty indeed! Check out the website for the recipe and give it a try. It’s simple, filling and only takes a few minutes to make!

I’m going be incorporating some more simple recipes like the one above into my repertoire since I normally focus on very complex recipes. Some of these might not be as glamorous or ‘sexy’ but they should be very tasty, practical and easy to make. I’m hoping to create raw foods that Scott can bring to work (possibly make himself) and enjoy mid week! Rome wasn’t built in a day so it will take time, research and experimentation. But don’t worry, I still plan on making those beautiful and inspiring recipes that bring raw and living foods to new heights. I totally enjoy making gourmet raw food! However, one week at a time for now. Summer (which is short here in VT) will be calling us soon! We might just decide to ride our bikes or hike on the Long Trail instead of being in the kitchen all day during the summer :-)

Next weekend we have family visiting from Connecticut so I’ll be planning a raw lunch and dinner menu. It’s going to be tough as these folks cannot eat anything spicy, ethnic or exotic. Garlic, olives and red pepper are also off limits! So this is going to be a challenge! If anyone has any suggestions, I’m totally open ;-)

Until next week, take care and enjoy the warm sunny weather!

Early Spring in Vermont brings Maple Sugar Season and a few flowers

2009-04-20T19:35:00.001-04:00

A couple weeks ago, I purchased 2 gallons of grade A maple syrup from a sugar house a half mile down the road. Vermont is famous for it’s maple syrup and we love living so close to these maple sugar houses which are very busy in March. Maple syrup is not raw but I like using it since it’s a local product made by our neighbors. Plus it’s a very pure and wholesome sweetener. All Vermont maple syrup is essentially organic, made by boiling the sap of maple trees, with nothing added. I found a cool website that gives you all the information you ever wanted to know about Vermont maple syrup. Check this out (click here).

Saturday’s Dessert featuring luscious Vermont Maple Syrup!

Maple Coffee Ice Cream Cake with Candied Pecans, Maple Cream and Whipped Cream!

This is as decadent and sweet tasting as it sounds! The photo above is pure heaven for a true sweet tooth like myself who loves maple syrup. I had a bit of fun coming up with this maple cake on Saturday morning. I was aiming for a maple flavored cheesecake or a cake that tasted like local maple fudge. However, when we tried the cake on Saturday night, we discovered that it tasted more like a very sweet, yet mild tasting coffee ice cream. Remember eating coffee ice cream as a kid? I used to love that stuff. So although my cake didn’t achieve the main goal in mind, I was left with a pleasant surprise! This cake does not have a dominant coffee or espresso taste like the Cappuccino pie I made this past winter. My new creation has another nostalgic taste of something lovely and sweet. And yet there is no coffee or coffee flavoring added to my cake!

So here’s my very own cake recipe below:

Maple Coffee Ice Cream Cake with Candied Pecans

Use a 9 inch spring form pan

Candied Pecan Crust

2 1/2 cups of pecans
1/2 cup of dates, chopped and soaked for 20-30 minutes
1 1/2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of maple syrup extract (I use Frontier brand)
2 dashes of cinnamon
1 heaping tablespoon of coconut oil (not melted)

Process the pecans in the food processor until they have formed crumbs. Add the remaining ingredients and process until well incorporated. This should make a nice moist and sweet crust.

Lightly grease the spring form pan with coconut oil. Then press the crust into the pan. Place crust in freezer while making the filling.

I like to start melting the cacao butter used in the filling while I make the crust. Using the dehydrator works like a charm!

Filling

3 cups of soaked cashew pieces (a little more than 2 1/2 cups dry)
2 cups of homemade almond milk, lightly sweetened with maple syrup
1 cup of pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 1/2 teaspoons of maple syrup extract
3 1/2 teaspoons of granulated maple sugar
3 tablespoons of organic soy lecithin
3/4 cup of melted cacao butter

Using a Vitamix, blend all the ingredients except the lecithin and melted cacao butter until smooth. Then add the lecithin and melted cacao butter and blend again until smooth. Pour on top of the crust and place in freezer for 6-7 hours. The batter is very thin and will need time to set up in the freezer. After 3+ hours, place the candied pecans on top of cake in a decorative manner. Once completely frozen, take the cake out of the freezer and remove the sides of the spring form pan. Place cake in the fridge

Candied pecans

about 24 pecan pieces (pick out the best looking ones)
1/2 cup of maple syrup
2-3 teaspoons of granulated maple sugar
couple dashes of cinnamon

In a small bowl, mix up everything except the pecans. Coat the pecans with the mixture and place on teleflex sheets. Dehydrate over night. In the morning, turn pecans over and dehydrate a few more hours. Use them to decorate the cake when it’s firm enough.

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Joyce’s notes: Wow! This is a very sweet tasting dessert! As I said above, it tastes very much like a mild version of coffee ice cream (without adding any coffee or coffee flavoring!) And the filling goes nicely with the candied pecan crust. I was worried this cake might have to be kept in the freezer since the filling was very thin. However, it does stay firm in the fridge. It will start to melt if left out of the fridge for too long. So I place the cake right back in the fridge after cutting slices to eat. The texture is lovely and light. Not too dense or thick. I believe the cacao butter helps make the texture really lovely. And the candied pecans on top are very sweet and tasty. My husband Scott loved these! I should have made more for him as a snack. Do make extras as they are very good!

Maple Cream!

For an extra maple treat, I made the Maple Cream recipe in Raw Food Real World, page 267. This was excellent! It tasted like maple cinnamon. The recipe called for cashews, coconut meat (young Thai), maple syrup, coconut butter, vanilla extract and cinnamon. This was so smooth and creamy. I served it on the side of my cake which worked out great (the 2 drops of cream in the photos) . My cake and this cream tasted lovely together. I think this maple cream could be an inspiration for a maple cinnamon cheesecake!! This could be next week’s experiment, but I haven’t completely decided yet :-)

Carmella’s Whipped Cream!

I also decided to make a whipped cream recipe to balance out the sweet flavors of the cake and maple cream. Click here for Carmella’s recipe posted on the Raw Freedom Community. This is a lovely recipe for whipped cream that both Scott and I enjoyed. Carmella uses cashews, coconut milk (she blends dry coconut flakes with water), agave syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, lecithin, and coconut oil. This firms up very well after sitting in the fridge for a few hours. You can sweeten it depending on your sweet tooth. I added 1/8 cup of agave plus a couple squirts which didn’t make it super sweet. This went perfectly with the sweet maple cream and my cake. If I do make a maple cinnamon cheesecake, I might make a variation of this whipped cream for a topping or thin layer on top of the maple filling.

Murphy won’t touch any of my vegan food! (I was trying to take photos of the maple cream yet Murphy wanted the attention!)

Saturday Night’s Raw Food Extravaganza: Mediterranean Tarts with Hummus, Cherry Tomatoes and Green Olive Tapenade!

This recipe is by Matthew Kenney and is found in his new book, Entertaining in the Raw.

Joyce’s Notes: This is a most delicious recipe! Scott and I both found these tarts to be amazingly flavorful. ‘Wow’ and ‘Oh my gosh’ were things said while eating this dinner. Scott thinks it’s one of the best raw food dinners I’ve made so far! The recipe is on page 199 and is called Mediterranean Mini Tartlets. They are supposed to be served as hors d’oeuvres. However Matthew does state that many of these recipes can be made successfully into larger portions. So I used my 4 inch mini tart pans with removable bottoms. This gave us four tarts in total. They are very filling so one per meal was just fine. And with a few salad greens on the side, we were both very satisfied.

The crust is one of the tastiest crusts I’ve made so far! (I might modify them a bit for making raw quiches in the future.)The crust uses almonds in crumb form, cashew flour, sea salt, nutritional yeast, olive oil and cumin. I found the nutritional yeast and cumin very flavorful together. I did cut back on the salt. Matthew calls for 1/2 tablespoon of salt. I believe I used a bit less than 1 teaspoon. Scott thought that I could have used a bit less salt. So do mind the salt for next time! I made the crusts on Friday night as they need to stay in the dehydrator all night. The next morning, they got taken out of the tart pans and got dehydrated a few more hours until crisp. Here are the crusts before I placed them into the dehydrator:

The hummus is nice and mild tasting, yet flavorful. We both loved this hummus! The recipe calls for cashews, macadamia nuts, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini and garlic. When assembling the tarts, some chopped up cucumber gets mixed into the hummus. This addition is very good and works well with the whole tart.

The cherry tomatoes get sliced up and mixed with olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Then they get dehydrated for about 30 minutes. I actually dehydrated them at 145F degrees since I preferred them a bit warmer and softer.

The tapenade is excellent! Scott really loved this! It’s a very simple recipe using green olives, olive oil, lemon juice and parsley. It went perfectly with all the other components.

I highly recommend making this incredible Mediterranean tart recipe! It’s so delicious and satisfying. We were both delighted with the results. This is definitely something we want to make again soon! Thank you Matthew Kenny!!

Scott’s 30 Day Raw Food Challenge!!!

Scott is now a vegan but doesn’t eat a high raw diet like myself. He does eat all my raw food experiments on the weekends. It’s during the week days where he likes to have cooked vegan meat substitutes in various forms (I must say most are very delicious) He also eats baked bread which I don’t think is doing him any favors. Because he wants to loose a few pounds and try to help his gall bladder issues, he’s decided to try a 30 day raw challenge. We don’t want to have his gall bladder removed and are hoping that an improved diet could alleviate some gall bladder pain.

I’m going to post his results on a weekly basis. He started yesterday so I’ll give a run down of what he ate for raw vegan foods. I hope this might help others trying to embark on a 30 day challenge or simply those who want to try a raw vegan diet. During the week days I’m going to make some simple recipes, simple raw snacks, green smoothies and big salads for Scott. Then on the weekends, I’ll be making my more complicated raw foods and raw desserts. So lets get started!

Day one, April 19:

green smoothie with a banana, orange, dates, flaxseeds and baby spinach
slice of my maple coffee ice cream cake
one Mediterranean tart
one mango
almonds for a snack

Here are some snacks I made for Scott’s lunches this week:

We call these ‘Joyce bars’ as a spoof on Larabars. I simple throw various leftover nuts, dates or dried apricots into the food processor and then dehydrate. For the above I used cashews, dried coconut, dried apricots (soaked for an hour), and a bit of maple syrup. These are a great snack for the office!

For the almonds above, I soaked them for a couple hours (longer would be better, preferably 8 hours). Then I tossed them in a mixture of curry, cumin and sea salt. They got dehydrated overnight and were very tasty this morning! Scott loves roasted and flavored nuts so we thought this would be a good raw substitute.

Next week I hope to be posting 6 more successful days of Scott’s raw challenge. Stay tuned! :-)

Fergus says cheers! Catcha next week!!