You're in for a big treat!  

I just made this for a birthday dessert. It was my first time coming up with a crust like this and I'd claim success.  :) 

Almond Pretzel Crust
(serves 8-10)

1 cup dates
1/2 cup raw almonds
1 cup thin pretzel sticks
1 tsp coconut oil 

Add dates and almonds to a food processor and process until somewhat fine. Then add pretzels and coconut oil and process until crumbly. The mixture should stick together when you pinch it.

Push crust into desired dish (small torte or pie pan, or individual pie shaped dishes as pictured) and desired thickness- not too thin. When finished, place in the fridge while you make the filling. 

Chocolate Mousse Filling
(adapted from Post Punk Kitchen)

1 package extra firm silken tofu (I use Mori-Nu, a popular non GMO brand)
1 standard package semi-sweet (vegan) chocolate chips
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract 

In a blender puree tofu, maple syrup and vanilla. 
Next, over a double boiler, melt chocolate chips
Add chocolate to the tofu mixture in the blender. 
Blend together until smooth and creamy. 
With a spatula, pour the chocolate-tofu mixture into the crust and return to the fridge for 3-12 hours, covered. 

Let me know if you try it out and how it works by leaving a comment!
Enjoy! 

Personal growth is writing down a recipe as I make it. 

Okay, so I could probably aim a little higher in my personal growth but this is a new development for me and will surely lead to many more tried and tested recipes to come!

I've made this dressing many times and use it for kale salad, romaine salad, and kale chips. It would also be great as a sandwich spread or a zesty dressing in a wrap. Once you have your ingredients together, this dressing takes no time to make. It yields about 1/2 a cup when mixed together.


Nutritional Yeast-Tahini Dressing

1/2 cup nutritional yeast (from organic/natural food section at your grocery store)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp water 
2 Tbsp tahini
1 Tbsp light miso
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
black pepper  

Mix and enjoy right away or refrigerate and use within a couple of weeks.

Today I used all of this dressing for one bunch of washed, and chopped kale. I massaged the dressing into the kale for a couple of minutes. I ate half the kale and put the other half in the fridge. Kale softens with the dressing so it becomes even better the second day.  

I've done it again. Another friend's birthday, another vegan birthday cake made. This time, veering away from the double chocolate cakes I've been making, I went with something a little more spring-ish - vanilla, with chocolate mousse and raspberries. Beautiful. 

The cake recipe was originally taken from CDKitchen which has many variation on the same basic cake recipe. Here you can find vanilla, chocolate, spice cake, banana and more. The mousse was originally from Isa Chandra's Post Punk Kitchen site for a chocolate cupcake mousse. With just a couple modifications.. voila! My cake creation. :)


My system for making these cakes are to 1) prepare the chocolate mousse which has to be left to become firm in the fridge for a few hours. 2) prepare the cake and bake it. 3) let the cakes cool. 4) assemble cake and mousse. 5) return to fridge, covered, until ready to eat. 

Vanilla Cake
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly grease two 9" round cake pans. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and in a smaller bowl mix the liquid. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry, quickly mix with a wooden spoon or whisk, then divide mixture equally between the two pans. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick come out of the middle dry. 

Dry Mixture:
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt 

Wet Mixture:
2 cups cold water (minus 3 Tbsp)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp (rice, white, or apple cider) vinegar 
2 tsp vanilla extract 

Chocolate Mousse
Into a blender, add- 
1 package of extra firm silken tofu (usually found in a tetra-pack box, not refrigerated)
3 tbsp almond or soy milk
3 tbsp maple syrup 
1 tsp vanilla  

Blend until smooth. 
Meanwhile, over a double boiler, add one regular sized package of dark chocolate chips and melt. 
With a spatula, scrape the chocolate into the blender, and blend the tofu and chocolate together until silky and combined. You may need to scrape down the sides or add another tbsp of almond milk to get it to blend together well. 

Pour mixture into a container, covered, and put into the fridge to become firm for 2-3 hours. 

When the cakes are cooled, and the mousse is firm, assemble cake however you like! Have fun and enjoy! 

*Here's a picture of the last double chocolate cake I made for another friend's birthday. Yum! 

Are you afraid of fat?? You should be! Unless you're talking about whole foods, plant based fats of course. ;)

Although fat is a high calorie nutrient, it is an extremely important one as a nutrient. The kind of fats you should be afraid of are ones that are nutritionally void, clog your arteries and lead to weight gain; those found in fast food, deep fried, and highly processed food, or animal products. Nuts, avocados and seeds are staples in my diet and provide me with healthy fats that keep me full, lower cholesterol, control my weight and balance my moods.  So am I afraid of fat? Not at all! 

I often prepare cashew based creams and sauces and this maple cashew cream is one that will add a satisfying sweetness on top of berries, over granola, to have on a dessert, or even on top of peanut butter, as pictured. 

Maple Cashew Cream 

1 cup blanched cashews (Soak them in water for 2 hours prior to using them in this recipe. This will soften them, and activate living enzymes and nutrients so they are easier to digest and offer more nutrition.)
1 or 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup non dairy milk (more or less, just enough to get your blender to pureed the nuts)

Add soaked and drained cashews to a high speed blender along with maple syrup, vanilla and non dairy milk. Blend until silky smooth. You can store this in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

In the last year I've acquired some great kitchen tools- the essentials of a vegan kitchen. There's the food processor, the blender, and then there's the juicer. Perhaps not the most essential of all essentials, however, the juicer holds its ground well in my kitchen, getting used consistently once or twice a week.  

The benefits of juicing are mainly in the direct absorption and quantity of concentrated nutrients, vitamins, phytonutrients and living enzymes  directly into the blood and cells with little effort of the body. Although eating this food would also give you similar benefits, it is the quantity of nutrients which is the magic of juicing. While I wouldn't sit down and eat a head of romaine lettuce, a head of celery, a lemon, ginger, beets, carrots and an apple, I can easily drink it and absorb all the goodness without making my jaw tired, or my stomach too full. 

Juicing is used by many leading natural healing therapies, specifically the Gerson Therapy,  
(http://gerson.org/gerpress/the-gerson-therapy/)  where patients take in 15-20 lbs of organic produce daily to create an environment within their bodies to promote healing. It should be noted that the nutritional value of our non organic, conventionally grown fruits and vegetable are severely depleted these days (another reason to juice!). Ideally juicing will be done with only fresh organic produce in order to promote health and vitality in the body. 

On a personal level, after juicing I feel light, fresh and energized. A few hours after juicing I notice that my skin tone is healthier with a bit of a glow to my face. The taste alone is enough to keep you coming back for more, but knowing that you're ingesting high quality nutrients that will nurture and feed your cells and organs while creating an alkaline environment in your body is a great feeling that connects you with your body and the fruits of the earth.

Here's a good site with lots of recipes and tips to get you started.  http://myjuicecleanse.com/ And remember, if you're in the market for a juicer, a good juicer is any juicer that will be used! Pick one out, buy some organic fruit and veg, and start experimenting. 

So, cheers! To delicious health!

This ain't no recipe, but it's a damn good idea!

Ahem. 
You will need: a banana, a nut butter, dried fruit and seeds.

Here you see homemade almond butter, goji berries and chia seeds.
Might I suggest peanut butter, raisins, and flax? Almond butter, apricots and pumpkin seeds? I'm sure you get the idea.

Make this for a quick nutritious bite heading out the door, or sit down and enjoy some tea and some more food on the side.  Eat well!  

How does everyone like their chocolate cake? Moist? Chocolatey? Not too sweet? With a fudge layer? And almonds? I thought so.

Here's a recipe for basic chocolate cake. It's so super easy that I've memorized it and I think you may too. I often make it a double layer cake, but I've even gone so far as making a grand 3-layer one. I caution that. ;)  

All you need here is one big bowl to mix the dry ingredients, and a smaller bowl for the wet. Combine the wet into the dry, mix, and put in a 9" (ish) cake pan. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Ta-da! 




Vegan Chocolate Cake
(Makes one cake layer- double recipe for two layers, and divide in two cake pans)

Dry: 
1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup coco powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Wet:
1 cup cold water
1/4 cup oil 
1 tbsp white/rice/apple cider vinegar 
1 tsp almond extract 

Fudge: 
For this I've always been pretty loose and gone without a recipe. However, next time I make it I'll be sure to write out some measurements. As a fudge layer in the middle I combine dark chocolate (no milk products in it), chopped almonds, some icing sugar, a little coconut oil, a few drops of almond extract and about 1/2C well-pureed chickpeas. Melt it all over a double boiler until it's a good consistency and taste, and then spread it between cooled cake layers- about 1cm thick. 

Icing: 
(Also without a recipe- sorry!) Over a double boiler melt together dark chocolate, icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla and 1tbsp coconut oil. Add more chocolate and icing sugar until you get a good consistency. It will harden once cooled in a fridge. You could also add any left over fudge layer to the icing and make a bit of a thicker icing. Your call!

PS. Vegan chocolate cake is ALWAYS a hit. 

Yesterday I did something for the first time ever- I made lasagna! And not just any lasagna, but a wonderfully delicious and nutritious vegan lasagna. The great thing about lasagna is that I don't really see how you can go wrong. The not so great thing is that preparing all of the different layers can seem like a lot of work... but I'd say that the pay off is worth it. I'm still so thrilled with how this one turned out!

Instead of a recipe, I'll have to simply give you the basics of each layer. I think anyone could perfect this in any way, shape or form, but for some inspiration I'll give you the ingredient lists.

Here's a look at the layers I used.

1: Butternut Squash: Roast de-seeded halves of butternut squash face down on a pan with some oil in the oven at 400 for about 45 min. Cool, remove skin, puree with salt and pepper, oregano and I used a little coconut oil (optional).

2: Cashew Cream: Soak unroasted cashews for at least an hour. Next, blend until smooth with salt and pepper, some of their soaking water, and lemon juice. I also added green onion. 

3: Pumpkin Seed Tofu Mixture: In a food processor I added half a block of firm organic tofu, about a cup of raw pumpkin seeds, salt and pepper and a couple big handfuls of parsley. Blend until mixed but not creamy.

4: Sauteed kale: Saute a couple onions until browned, then add lots of garlic. Next, add washed and chopped kale with a little water and salt and pepper and let steam for a few minutes with the lid on until kale is soft. 

5: Tomato Sauce: I used one large can of organic diced tomatoes added to a pot and simmered for about 45 min until thick. I added salt and pepper, oregano and a teaspoon of cumin during the cooking, and a splash of vinegar at the end. 

Layer all these ingredients in any order that feels right between the lasagna noodles. For this I used kamut noodles cooked and then left in cold water until I was ready to use them. When assembled, put baking dish in an oven at 350 for about 30 minutes and then serve! Yummy!

That's all folks! Easy as pie (lasagna). 

My weekly vegan meal delivery service has just finished its 5th week. Cooking 4 meals for a large group is much more time consuming than I would have thought! However, when I'm organized and in a good rhythm it hardly feels like work. Today I finished off two salads and the lentil pasta dish for this week. I even had enough time to sit down and eat the extra bean salad, and what a treat that was! I snapped a quick photo, which lead to a recipe request, so here it is. 






White Bean and Parsley Salad
(serves 4- side dish)

4 cups cooked white beans
2 cups parsley, chopped
1 cup cubed zucchini
1/2 purple onion, minced

Dressing:
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
4 cloves finely minced garlic
salt and pepper  

Combine all ingredients. Prepare dressing, add and stir. 
Feel free to adjust to your taste!