Ginger Whiskey Truffles

You can't have a proper Birthday Dinner without a celebratory dessert. I actually picked out the dessert nearly a month ago, and doing so inspired my post on MoFo Ideas That I'd Like to Try. When I saw these Whiskey and Ginger Truffles on Tea and Sympatico, I knew that I had found the perfect dessert for the bourbon-drinker in my life.

The truffles were super easy to make, except for one thing. As an American, I'm not used to measuring things in terms of mass, and I'm really not used to that near-mythological metric system. Luckily, I have a kitchen scale, and was able to measure everything in grams. While doing so, I took the time to figure out what that would mean in cups and tablespoons.

The really cool thing though, is that when I wrote to the author, she gave me permission to repost the recipe with the converted measurements! She informed me that hers is based on a recipe she found at her local food co-op, The Eighth Day.

If you want an alcohol-free version, or just a base version to experiment, check them out here. T&S informed me that she's experimented with variations like chocolate and orange, rum and raisin, and cherry and coconut, which have all turned out great.

I'll probably experiment a lot and then give away tins full as gifts, since they're easy and delicious. I'm thinking a crème de menthe version would be great for the holidays. The ginger whiskey were rich and decadent, and they left me feeling fancy and smug, like that one guy in Mad Men who's always in his scotty dog pajama pants. You know the guy.

If you want to feel that way too, but, like me, you're too American to be bothered by a logical and easy system of weights and measures, just follow the easy recipe below, and have your girl bring you your finest cozy jams.

Ginger Whiskey Truffles
with permission from Tea and Sympatico
Ingredients:
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
2.5 tbsp vegan margarine
1 tbsp whiskey
1 tbsp non-dairy creamer
1/3 cup ground almonds (grind up 1/4 cup of whole almonds)
1.5 cups powdered sugar
5 large pieces of crystallized ginger chopped into tiny pieces
cocoa powder for rolling

Assembly:

• In a pot over low heat, melt the chocolate and margarine together.
• Stir in the cream and whiskey, followed by the rest of the ingredients.
• Chilling in the fridge until the mixture cools, and is firm to the touch.
• Roll the mix into walnut-sized balls and roll them in cocoa.
• Store them in a covered container in the refrigerator.

And that's it! Super easy. These took me less than 10 minutes to mix and cook, and the batter firmed up enough as I left the pot on the stove to cool a bit. The rolling step is fast too. The measurements above are approximate, but I can tell you that none of them are heaping. When in doubt, err on the side of under-measurements, as you can always add more of whatever to mix on the stove.

By the way, they're great with coffee in the morning.

Vegan MoFo 30: MoFo Ideas I Want to Try

I wrote a post for every day of the month, and my post for the 31st is already written! I saw a lot of great ideas over the course of Vegan MoFo, and I added too many cook books to my wish list. Even better, I added a bunch of lovely new blogs to my reading list.

I still want to make an effort to comment on blogs every day. The reading and writing are a lot more fun when they are part of a conversation. I think nearly every comment I made was to exclaim over beautiful things, or to try to win cookbooks, but there were a a lot of entries that made me want to try new things.

There's no way I could write a comprehensive list. In fact, I read only a few blogs regularly because I had to keep it under control somehow. It did occur to me, however, that I should have kept a running list of the things I really wanted to try, but wouldn't get around to during MoFo.

So here's a partial list. If you have suggestion, especially if it's from your own blog, please let me know! I've already thought about how to keep the MoFo spirit going, and this is one way that I can do it.

So here's my make soon list in no particular order. I'm going to print it, and stick it to the fridge so that I don't forget.

National Coming Out Day Treats

Whiskey and Ginger Truffles

Cheese Danish

Black Forest Shakes

Tofu Katsu Musubi

The Beast

Black and White Cookies

Sweet Potato w/ Apple Corn Salsa

A Vegan Meringue Topping/Hot Chocolate with Flax Meringue

Loaded Sweet Potato Fries

Treacle Tart (she uses this as her source)

Pennsylvania Shoo-Fly Pie

Dirt Cake

Cake Balls!

Cheezy Apple Roll-ups

21. Baking with Persimmon

Up until a few weeks ago, I couldn't have picked a persimmon out of a line up. But they started appearing at my market, and I was curious. But like all things new to me, they were frightening. I've learned my lesson when it comes to buying things because I might be able to make something out of them. This goes for everything from food to the fringe you see on old lamps. So I just kept passing them by.

Then I saw this post about using them in baked goods and decided that the best thing to do was exactly what this post said.

So I started by making the Persimmon Cinnacrunch Muffins, a variation on those found in American Vegan Kitchen.

They turned out wonderfully and got rave reviews from the family.



I had plenty of left over pulp, so I decided to make some cookies. I hadn't printed any recipes, and none of my books had one, so I looked up a bunch, then sort of just made it up. It's crazy simple, and turned out really well. Except they're not terribly attractive. I generally prefer to have no dried fruit or nuts in my cookies, but it seems like people do that a lot with persimmons. I might be persuaded to try white chocolate chips though. I was going to frost these, but had lots to do and got lazy. Maybe I'll get inspired when I defrost the batch I froze.

I included the recipe below. They were pretty sweet, so next time I'll probably go to 3/4 a cup of sugar. Here's the recipe - let me know if you have any great ideas for jazzing it up.

Persimmon Cookies

•1/2 cup shortening
•1 cup white sugar
•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•2 cups all-purpose flour
•1/2 teaspoon baking soda
•1/2 teaspoon baking powder
•1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
•1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
•1/4 teaspoon salt
•1 cup persimmon pulp

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease cookie sheets.
2. Cream together the shortening, sugar, and vanilla.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add to the creamed sugar mix.
4. Stir in the persimmon pulp.
5. Drop by the tablespoonful onto cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.

18. Two American Vegan Kitchen Comfort Meals

I've had American Vegan Kitchen since it was released, but it is (was) one of the underused books in my collection. There are two reasons for this, and I'm the first to admit that they aren't very good ones.

First, the book seemed to rely heavily on the use of seitan. I say seemed because I came to that conclusion and never sought to confirm it. I don't have anything against seitan, but the curry dish at Baltimore's The Yabba Pot was so meaty in texture that I got it in my head that I didn't like seitan at all. Though it's not my favorite, I've found that I sometimes enjoy it. More importantly though, there are plenty of seitan-free recipes in AVK!

Second, most of the recipes have very long ingredient lists. This is, hands down, one of the worst reasons to avoid making a recipe. Really, it doesn't add all that much more time on to the prep. Plus, more ingredients can, as in the case of these recipes, lend to a depth of flavor that can't be beat. On a busy night, a five-ingredient dinner is a welcomed blessing, but you also deserve the complex and gratifying meals that can come from long ingredient lists. Besides, as is common, most of the ingredients are herbs and spices, so that's easy.

Now, in my defense, I did make the Cinnacrunch Muffins early on. These are the muffins you serve to coworkers when they give you a hard time about what you eat. They bake up big with a crisp muffin top and soft, sweet interior. These muffins are beautiful, but sadly my photography is not. The pictures I took turned out poorly, but be on the lookout - I intend to make Jen's Persimmon Variation this week.

I also made the Tempeh Stroganoff-Stuffed Potatoes. These were incredible - I almost ruined them by eating too much of the tempeh stuffing with a spoon.

So don't repeat my mistakes. Get this book and make the recipes.

In the past week I've made both the Tuna Free Noodle Casserole and the Cajun Pot Pie. Both had long ingredient lists, and both were worth it!

The Tuna Free Noodle Casserole took some time to put together, but I was watching NCIS at the time, so I probably could have been faster if I wasn't searching in vain for more information on the relationship between Tony and Zhiva. (Is anyone else going crazy over this? It's had me hopping since season 3, and then last season with Paris - oy.)

I had previously made the All-American Spice Blend, so I just had to gather the other ingredients. I'm pretty sure you could make the components one day, then combine and bake them the next.

However you decide to do it, you won't be sorry. This casserole exceeded my expectations and reheated beautifully the next day. It's extremely satisfying and although I've never had a tuna casserole, I don't think anyone would be dissatisfied by this dish.



The other dish I made was the Cajun Pot Pie. And when I say I made it, I mean I made the dough, and put it in the refrigerator, and I defrosted the peas. The actual assembly and cooking was not my doing.

But it was a wonderful sight and smell to come home to from class. It was massive and loomed up out of the pie plate, but there was nothing frightening about it. It was delicious! A perfect warming dish on a cold night. I wanted to eat an entire pie myself while watching True Blood. (I just got into this b/c I found out that the wicked-talented Michael Raymond James plays Rene. He's wonderful in Terriers). And I daresay it's even better reheated the next day.

Unfortunately, it was hard to extract from the pie plate without turning it into a pile, but I'm sure you'll forgive me of that - especially since I have the Tuna Free Noodle Casserole recipe for you here, courtesy of the generous Tamasin Noyes. So put on some NCIS or your crime procedural of choice, whip up this dish, and then order the book, because it's worth having!





Tuna Free Noodle Casserole

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. olive oil
3 tbsp. soy sauce, divided
1 tbsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. All-American Spice Blend or other spice blend
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. salt, divided
1 1/2 cups cooked or 1 - 15 oz. can chick peas, drained & rinsed
2 cups vegetable broth
1 cup raw cashews
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 artichoke hearts, packed in water, drained and chopped
8 oz. vegan ribbon-style noodles
2 tbsp. vegan margarine
1/2 cup chopped leek, white part only
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
5 oz. sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 cup dry sherry or dry white wine
1 tsp. dried tarragon
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cooked peas
Black pepper

Crumb Topping
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Lightly oil a 2 1/2 quart casserole and set aside.

2. In a shallow baking pan, combine the oil, 1 tbsp. of the soy sauce, the vinegar, spice blend, paprika, white pepper, 1/2 tsp. of the salt, and the chick peas. Toss to coat, then roast for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the oven and set aside.

3. In a blender, combine the broth and cashews and blend until smooth, at least 3 minutes. Add the mustard and artichoke hearts, and blend until smooth. Set aside.

4. Cook the noodles in a large pot of salted boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes, until al dente. Drain and set aside.

5. Heat the margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leek, bell pepper, mushrooms, and remaining 1/2 tsp. salt. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms release their liquid. Add the sherry and the remaining 2 tbsp. soy sauce. Cook for 5 minutes, then stir in the tarragon, thyme, and parsley. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetable mixture and stir to coat. Add the reserved cashew mixture, reserved chick pea mixture, peas, and pepper to taste. Stir to mix well and heat through.

6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl combine the noodles, and the reserved chick pea/vegetable mixture. Mix well. Taste and adjust the seasonings and transfer to the prepared casserole dish. Set aside.

7. In a small bowl, combine the topping ingredients and mix well. Spring the crumb mixture over the casserole and cover tightly with foil. Bake 30 minutes, then remove the foil and broil on low until the crumbs are browned and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve hot.


(Recipe from American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes (c) 2010. Used by permission Vegan Heritage Press.)

Cherry Tomato Surplus

Though zucchini has been a common item of overabundance for gardeners and CSA-ers alike, my real problem is cherry tomatoes. As of Tuesday, I had 8 containers of them, staring up from my veggie drawer. Salad isn't my thing and I can only throw so many into a smoothie before it becomes V8.



So I had to figure out how to deal with the little menaces. As far as I'm concerned, tomatoes of larger sizes do their best work as sauce. Can cherry tomatoes be sauce? It turns out that they can!

As I anticipated a load of squash, I decided to make roasted vegetable lasagna, but alas, I ended up with too few to be of use. So the filling was a brick of frozen spinach and silken tofu.

For the sauce, I wanted it to be a little spicy, since the cherry tomatoes are so sweet. But otherwise, I kept it pretty basic.

The sauce was a little too liquid. Next time, I'll reduce the oil and let it simmer for a longer time. I did get a little out of control with the immersion blender, so it was totally liquefied before applied to the lasagna. But I don't like tomato chunks.

It did thicken upon baking and soaked the lasagna noodles (which I left a little al dente) and the tofu mix really well. I think it would do fine as a pasta sauce as well. I'll have to experiment more, and thanks to another gift of cherry tomatoes from Mr. Miller, I don't think that will be an issue.



Here's the recipe with the tweaks I think I need. I used dry and fresh herbs b/c that's what I had, but of course, you can use either. Also, it turned out pretty spicy, so you may want to start with less red pepper.



Spicy Sweet Cherry Tomato Sauce
2 T olive oil
1 small onion
3 large cloves garlic, minced
8 cups cherry tomatoes
2 tsp red pepper flakes
3 T dried basil
4 tsp dried oregano
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

Sauté onion in oil until soft. Add garlic and cook for about a minute. Add cherry tomatoes and herbs. Allow to simmer until desired thickness is achieved. If you want smooth sauce, go to town with an immersion blender, or allow sauce to cool to room temperature and run it through a blender or food processor in batches.



After using 8 cups of cherry tomatoes, I still had plenty. In fact, 8 cups was only half of my supply.

Again, I wanted to make sauce. So I turned to the internet and found Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce. I liked the idea, so I set about veganizing it. I haven't eaten cheese in years, so I can't even fathom what the cheeses mentioned should taste like, but their presence signals Nutritional Yeast to me.

Baked Cherry Tomato Sauce
2 to 3 T extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
4 slices bread toasted and processed into crumbs
1-3 gloves garlic minced
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup almond meal
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 13-by-9-inch baking dish.

Place the tomatoes cut side up in the dish.

Combine the bread crumbs, nutritional yeast, almond meal, garlic, salt, and pepper with your hands. Sprinkle the bread-crumb mixture over the tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes or until brown on top.

I ate this mixed with vegetable bow tie noodles and was really happy with how it turned out. My next task is to deal with the cucumbers!

I'm becoming a real live cook!

I'm pretty proud of last night's dinner! I had planned on using all of the yellow summer squash and the green patty pan squash collected from CSAs and friendly coworkers (as I'd finished off the zucchini and yellow patty pans the night previous -and promptly had the zucchinis replenished). I also determined that I need to use up the many, many cherry tomatoes I'd acquired.


So good they're emitting light!

As I was looking over my grains, millet fresh on my mind, quinoa protested by the household, tired of the rice, out of barley, not feeling the bulgur, I spied my long-neglected jar of corn meal. I've had the first Savvy Abby post I'd read on my mind for some time and dinner immediately came together:

Cumin Chili Squash over Corn Bread topped with Fresh Gazpacho Salsa Dressing!

The above post was about hot water cornbread. I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that this is essentially cornmeal and hot water mixed, formed into cakes, and fried.

For mine, I used two cups of cornmeal, 3 diced jalapenos, a big pinch of sugar (will probably go for more next time), some granulated garlic, and enough water, added slowly, to form a paste.



Before I fried those up, I sautéed the squash in oil, waiting until they were tender to add cumin, chili powder, and salt. Once they were removed from the cast iron skillet, I added more oil and fried the corn cakes without washing. Cross-contamination can be your friend.

The Fresh Gazpacho Salsa Dressing is one of my favorite recipes, but sadly it is not my own. It comes from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan!. The only adaptation I made was replacing the chopped tomatoes with halved cherry tomatoes. This Gazpacho is a cool, and refreshing all-purpose topping and I'm glad I own the book for it. (However, it's not my favorite from Viva Vegan! - my heart belongs to Yuca with Cuban Garlic-Lime-Mojo Sauce).

There is one more component that I left out of my already uncreative title: black beans and corn. I lazily tossed them with lime juice before assembling my meal.



All in all, an easy meal to make and lots of complimentary flavors and textures to enjoy. It's also perfect as lunch the next day! I'm proud because it used up a lot of ingredients I had around that needed using, it's delicious, it's filling, and I didn't have to think very hard to do it. It was a very intuitive cooking session. This leads me to believe that my recent experiments are helping me to become the kind of cook I want to be!

Oven Night!

Oven Night is a product of my love of efficiency and environmental efforts. Sadly, ovens are inefficient little beasts and so consequently, part of my meal planning involves oven use. When I choose my meals and desserts, I try to double up on anything that's going to be using the oven. This means my oven only has to heat up once, my air conditioning only has to battle it for one evening, during which I adjust it to a higher temp, and I don't have to work in a hot kitchen for more than one night.

So last night's menu was:
Green Mashed Potatoes
Stuffed Acorn Squash
Chocolate Chip Cookies (double batch)

I had planned on Lavender Tea Cookies as well, but the dough did not firm up in time, so it's stowed in the freezer until the next Oven Night.

Moving on, last night's haul from the CSA was oddly bereft of greens. All that I got was one bug-nibbled bunch of ... something. I don't actually know what this is:



But it, along with a bunch of kale, fulfilled its destiny in the Green Mashed Potatos I mentioned awhile back.

The shopping ban has been lifted, by the way, but I still haven't done a big shopping trip. I picked a few staples at MOM when I picked up my box, and already obtained potatoes from the Farmer's Market.

In addition to the mystery green, I got another bunch of carrots, some Japanese eggplants, and a variety of squash.



Last week also brought a tiny bunch of carrots, but they were quite limp by the time I got to using them. They perked right up after a short soak in a bowl of ice water, however.



In addition to all of this fun, there was still an acorn squash from Mr. Miller's garden that needed cooking. The first one I did simply by roasting it after coating the inside with Earth Balance, brown sugar and maple syrup, but I wanted to stuff this one.

For this task I turned to Coleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegan Table. This seasonal cookbook suggested a harvest-stuffed acorn squash, assuming fall availability, and used many ingredients I did not have, but I knew that going in and was ready to improvise.

First of all, I had scored two purple peppers at the Farmer's Market and wanted them to be a part of it. I had also pre-soaked and cooked some black-eyed peas, so they were part of the mix.



When it came time to measure out the spices, I realized I did not want the sweetish mix of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg going over my peppers. I love that mix, but this called for a different combination.

Consulting The Flavor Bible. I settled on Basil and Coriander. This is when I realized that my recipe was similar to Goudreau's only in baking directions, and even then, I might go a little less the next time around.



The final result was stellar. I made way too much filling for one squash, but I ended up eating a lot of it out of the bowl anyway and then for lunch today. I'll probably tweak it a bit in the future, but I've included my recipe below anyway.

And I've obviously switched from iPhone to real camera for the most part, but I'm still learning what makes a good photo, so bear with me!

I still don't know what this is.

Easy Summer Eating

These days, easy is where it's at. Appropriately, two new easy treats have worked their respective ways into my eating routine.

Chia pudding is a perfect pre-workout snack. Well it is for me at least. It's light and hydrating, but I feel satiated without feeling bogged down. As I've recently taken up running and biking, I'm getting more exercise than I thought was possible. The issue here is that I really like to come home from work and eat cookies, cupcakes, or whatever treat I've baked for the week.

Those are a less perfect pre-workout snack, but they are a perfect dessert. Enter National Hemp History Week and the easiest chocolate chia pudding ever. The week kicked off on May 17th, and of course, hemp products were doing promotional sales. I snagged some chocolate hemp milk and the rest is pretty obvious.

This isn't even a recipe, it's just three things in a dish:

2 tbsp Chia Seeds
1/2 cup Chocolate Hemp Milk
As many sliced strawberries as you can stand

Let soak 30 mins or over night, top with strawberries in the morning (or et them soak too) and you'll have some of the best chocolate chia dessert workout pudding ever. Of course, the variations with fruit and nut butters are endless.



My other new fascination is Overnight Oats. I've read about them and was honestly a little grossed out. However, I went camping on a very hot weekend, and decided they weren't a bad option for easy camping food. I've since determined it's an excellent and filling quick breakfast.

I first encountered the idea at Oh She Glows!, and I used a hybrid of her recipe and her inspiration recipe. I've since found this list of recipes for them. I won't reprint them here, as I don't have permission, but once I come up with my own ideas, I'll follow up.

So far, I really like the hot cereal mix I have around the house, vanilla coconut yogurt, almond milk, cinnamon, chia, a mashed banana, and peanut butter in the morning. I'm thinking of adding wheat germ in the future too.

A few tips:
-Make a half serving the first time. Seriously, it's a pretty big serving and I'm struggling to finish mine this morning. Plus, if you hate it, it's less to waste.
-You don't need the chia seeds. In fact all you really need is liquid and cereal grains, so don't hesitate to make omissions and substitutions.
-You can use whatever hot cereal mix you have on hand.
-The texture is weird to me right out of the fridge, but once it gets to room temperature, I'm happy.
-Peanut butter is a great topping.
-Experiment and have fun!

I've begun preparations for bike commuting to work and I have all kinds of opinions on why it's an important endeavor to me as a vegan. Also, I have several weeks of CSA to post about (thanks to Vegan Burnout for reminding me and inspiring me for greens), so stay tuned!

No Chia Pet Puns Here

Last week I tried chia seed pudding for the first time ever. It's one of those rare foods that falls nicely into the delicious, but kind of gross category. Texture is usually the make or break quality for me and chia seeds came dangerously close to the breaking point. Chia seeds absorb a ridiculous amount (I've heard between 9 and 30 times their weight/volume) of liquid when soaked. They then become a gel. It's kind of strange/awful looking. I immediately thought of frog's eggs.

But don't let that put you off. I really enjoyed the pudding I made, even though there was so much of it, it took me a good 3 hours to eat. The texture was a lot like tapioca, something I detest, but it was still tasty enough to enjoy. It left me satiated, but not full-feeling. It's probably ace as far as pre-workout snacks go.

I saw a lot of recipes out there, but I just followed the basic formula (1 cup liquid + 1/4 cup chia seeds) and added what I thought might taste good. I guess this is a good stepping stone to recipe creation. Chia pudding made for a light and refreshing breakfast and it has endless possibilities in terms of fruit, liquid, and flavors to try. I think it will be a nice option to alternate with my green smoothie breakfasts.



Here are a variations I came up with:

Basic Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, vanilla, banana, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth.

Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy, or stick it in the fridge over night (which is what I did). Garnish with fruit, cinnamon, other spices, whatever.

This made for an excellent breakfast that took me the better part of the morning to eat. I felt satiated, but never full. This is probably a good option if you don't like to eat first thing in the morning, but need the energy.

Strawberry Banana Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
2 tablespoons Vanilla Coconut Creamer
1-1/2 cups Strawberries, chopped
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, creamer, fruit, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth. Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy.

This was fantastic and probably my favorite. All of the fruit did a lot to lessen the gelly texture of the chia.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon Chocolate Extract
1 table spoon Cacao Powder
2 tablespoons Natural Peanut Butter
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, extracts, cacao, peanut butter, banana, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth. Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy

This would be a fantastic dessert.

A few general notes:
I like dates for sweetening purposes. A lot of the recipes I looked at suggested agave and stevia, but dates are the way to go. I chopped the dates until they were nearly a paste, and then soaked them in the almond milk for about half an hour before blending. In the future, I'd like to soak them even longer. They become super soft and it's easier on my little processor.

The recipes above make enough for two big servings, especially when you're adding in a lot of extras. I ate chia pudding up until lunch on the first day. I don't know how well it keeps, so half everything if there's no one around to eat half.

Inspiration, Raw and Otherwise

I had an amazing five-course raw dinner last night at a local restaurant. Visiting the restaurant meant visiting the next-door organic market and coming away with some fun stuff. My dining companions had excellent ideas about food as well. I feel inspired and so there are four creative challenges I hope to overcome as a result of my night out.

Chili-Lime Vinaigrette
The standout of the evening was definitely the Kale Salad with English Peas and Chili-Lime Vinaigrette. I eat kale pretty much everyday as part of my Green Smoothie, and I occasionally enjoy it steamed when I'm looking for a quick side dish, but this leafy green deserves more time as the main event.

Raw Wednesday is creeping up on me, so I may as well give it a go. I'm going to make some changes to the salad itself, but some of the ideas I have (golden raisins) aren't exactly raw. Maybe I'll do two versions.

The real item of interest though was the Chili-Lime Vinaigrette dressing. It reminded me of the Sesame Dressing from The Garden of Vegan. But it had a little kick and was limier (seems so obvious).

So my first challenge is to make my own version of this perfect dressing.

Chia Seeds
I've read all about them, I've eaten them, now I need to do something with them. They were on sale at the market and I've never been able to find them near me, so I seized the opportunity and the green bag and brought home some chia seeds. I'll have to figure out what to do with them and then do it tomorrow. Sounds easy enough.

Chocolate Chili
As we shopped, my mom told me about this chocolate chili recipe she veganized, and then we happened to stumble upon some Taza Chocolate Mexicano. In their latest issue, VegNews raved about it, so it was clearly fate for me to find it that evening. I bought the Vanilla and Chile varieties (all they had) and am looking forward to getting creative, but I think that I will first tackle this chocolate chili thing. It sounds totally revolting. But my palette has come to accept culinary adventures. This might have to wait a bit. I just ordered Viva Vegan!, so I'll have plenty of Latin side dishes to accompany the chili.

Chocolate/Cacao Smoothie
This challenge isn't a direct result of my night out, but it is a result of my growing awareness and knowledge of raw foods. So while I've made many chocolate shakes and smoothies in my life, I want to make one that I'll call raw-inspired. I want to use cacao nibs in it. I'll figure out the other ingredients later, but my focus is to get friendly with cacao. For some reason, it's a bit intimidating, possibly due to some failed attempts at Chocolate Avocado pudding, but I am confident that I can master this ingredient!

In my less immediate future, I'd like to do something cool with kelp noodles too. They were part of the dinner and weird, but good. I also need to use the mochi I bought.

I'll report back on how it all goes!

The First Raw Wednesday

First off, I can't find batteries for my camera, so pictures are courtesy of my phone. So sad. But I will make sure I have some batteries next time so that my terrible photography is not blamed on the electronics.

Here is the first Raw Wednesday menu!

Green Smoothie: kale, banana, mango, raspberries, blueberries, flax oil, cashew butter.
I've been drinking Green Smoothies (fruit smoothies with spinach or kale in them) for the past year every morning for breakfast. This morning was no different, except that I totally botched it. I didn't blend long enough, so it was not as smooth as I normally like. Oh well, it was still good enough to consume.

Salad: spinach, walnuts, apple, strawberries, red pepper, broccoli, carrots, sprouts, cucumber
That seems a little anti-climactic. I'm not normally big on salads, but I was pressed for time last night and thought, what's more classically raw than a salad? Besides I wanted to try out Gena's Zucchini Dressing (scroll down). Awesome. I wolfed down my salad and felt content all day.

Chocolate Pudding
It turns out that avocado + cacao powder + sweetener = pudding! I've seen a lot of recipes for this, but I just sort of improvised. I used both dates and agave as sweetener, because I'm low on dates and need them for later. I soaked the dates first for a little to soften them, then used the soaking water in the pudding. Here's my recipe, but it'll probably need some tweaking:

Chocolate Pudding
2 Avocados
3 Tbsp Cacao Powder
3 Medjool Dates, soaked 1 hour
1/4 cup soaking water
1 Tbsp Agave

Blend in the food processor until smooth.


It's not terribly sweet, so add more sweetener if you like. I topped it with strawberries, but remembering that I needed coconut milk for my cupcakes, I decided to use up the excess. After measuring and setting aside the cupcake quantity, I took what remained and added a little vanilla, then whipped it up and poured it over the pudding and strawberries. Most definitely a winning combination. Too bad I started eating before I got any good pictures. You'll have to cope with what I did get on my phone.

What's For Dinner Loaf
This is from The Complete Book of Raw Food. Super easy to put together and really flavorful! I used a shallot and some green onions because both the organic market and I were out of red onions. Oh well, delicious and very filling nonetheless. I had more salad to go with it.

Vanilla Cookie Cupcakes
I bought Shannon Marie's cupcake e-book last week, but this was my first attempt at using it. I went for the classic Vanilla Cookie Cupcakes and I Am Grateful Frosting. They were easy to put together and taste amazing! I won't go so far as to call them healthy, but if you're trying to cut out the refined flours and sugars and have a serious sweet-tooth, these could be a lifesaver.

I don't have the adorable silicone cups, so mine had to go into ramekins. They look a lot less sweet and fresh, but they have lids, so I can take one for lunch at work tomorrow. Besides, they're smaller and I was able to form four cupcakes instead of two. I halved the frosting amount, and still have plenty of extra, so it'll hang out in the freezer until next time.

I was afraid I wouldn't be full enough today eating raw, but I was fine. I brought carrots, broccoli, and celery to munch on throughout the day, but didn't need all I brought. Overall I'm really happy with the way it went and already have a long list of recipes for upcoming weeks.