Banana Maple Walnut Raw Vegan Icecream

Who doesn’t love ice cream? But with all the sugar, and additives and pasteurized milk, it’s not the healthiest of desserts, unless… you make your own non dairy, non soy, raw vegan ice cream. It’s healthy, delicious, and it only takes 10 or 15 minutes to make.

A great way to deal with ripe bananas is to peel them and freeze them. I just put them into freezer bags, about 4 bananas per bag, tie the end shut and put them in the freezer so they lie flat. When I find bananas on sale I buy lots, or I order a whole box from the organic wholesalers. They will always get ripe faster than I can use them, but as they do, it’s easy to freeze them. Then you always have them on hand to use in smoothies or quick non dairy vegan ice cream any time you want.

Ingredients:

4 ripe bananas, frozen
2-3 tablespoons maple syrup or raw agave syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon raw organic vanilla bean powder
1/3 cup walnut pieces

Instructions:

Break each banana up into 3-4 pieces. Put everything except the walnuts into a high-speed blender or food processor. Pulse until it starts getting creamy. You may need to stop and scrap down the sides of the container a couple of times. If you’re using a blender that has a plunger, use the plunger as you’re pulsing or blending to keep the mixture moving.

When the mixture is smooth and creamy, use a spatula to turn it out into a bowl. If you’re not going to eat it all at once, put it into a small freezer safe baking dish with a lid. Add the walnut pieces and mix in with the spatula.

You can eat it right away, or put the lid on and keep it in the freezer. It’s a good idea to stir it every few hours to keep it from getting too icy.

Serves 4

Chef’s Tip:

Try to buy most of your nuts in the shell. Especially the nuts with a high oil content, like walnuts and macadamia nuts. Most of the shelled nuts I see in the store (even the health food store) are rancid to some degree. That means they don’t taste as good as they should, but even more importantly, they contain free radicals that are damaging to our health.

Raw Vegan Carob Mousse

This rich, creamy, raw vegan carob mousse only takes about 10 minutes to make. It’s hard to believe it doesn’t contain sugar. But between the sweetness of the stevia, and the natural sweetness of carob, it’s a totally satisfying dessert.

It’s very easy to make this a raw vegan dessert, you just need to use truly raw carob, but I can show you where to get that at the end of the recipe.

If you’re not familiar with carob, it has a chocolate-like taste, but no caffeine or theobromine, so you don’t get that hyper, jittery feeling that raw cacao (chocolate) can produce.

After finding it at my new local bulk food shop I’ve been using it a lot. You can add it to smoothies, substitute it for raw cacao in all my recipes that call for raw cacao powder, make ‘chocolate’ milk, either with nut milk or dairy milk. I actually prefer it to raw cacao now.

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana
1 ripe avocado
2-1/2 teas carob powder *
1/4 teas stevia powder **
1/4 teas organic vanilla extract

Instructions:

Add all ingredients to a blender. Using the plunger that came with your blender to scrape down the sides and keep the mixture moving. If you don’t have a plunger for your blender, stop occasionally to scrape down the sides with a spatula and push the mixture around a bit so that everything gets blended smoothly. If you need to you can add a teaspoon of water to keep the mixture moving through the blender.

Serves 2 – if you can share

Raw Vegan Carob Mousse - YUM!

* Carob powder is usually roasted. If you want a totally raw vegan Carob Mousse you here’s where you can buy truly raw carob.

** Stevia is an amazing herb. It’s many times sweeter than sugar. It has no calories. Doesn’t feed candida. Doesn’t cause an increase in blood glucose.

You may be able to find stevia powder in your local health food shop, if not it can be purchased online as  stevia liquid extract or stevia powder.

Since seeing how popular my first Raw Sesame Halva recipe has become I have been intending to make a chocolate version. But there’s nothing like a food craving to actually propel me into action. I didn’t have enough sesame seeds on hand to make a worthwhile batch, so I used almonds to make up the difference.

I also added maca powder for even more superfood goodness and a bit of finely ground coffee beans for an extra kick which sent the taste over the top into the heavenly realm. The base of this recipe is quite simple – sesame seeds, almonds and honey. Around that you can be a bit flexible with the ingredients. If you don’t have raw cacao powder (raw chocolate) you can use unsweetened cocoa powder instead. The coffee and maca, or other superfood powder can be left out and it’s still delicious. I’d also like to try this using spirulina as the superfood powder ingredient, though I might start with only a teaspoon to make sure the taste won’t overpower the rest.

The result was delicious, and I think I actually prefer this half almond, half sesame variant over the original. Try it and let me know what you think.

3 Tablespoons sesame seeds
3 Tablespoons almonds
1 Tablespoon raw cacao powder
1 Tablespoon superfood powder (e.g. maca, mesquite, lucuma, optional)
1 Tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon finely ground coffee (optional)
pinch of Himalayan sea salt
pinch of allspice (optional)

Grind the sesame seeds and almonds to a fine meal. I used a coffee grinder on the fine/espresso setting and it did a beautiful job. But you could also use a high-speed blender or food processor instead.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl with fingers, fork, or wooden spatula/spoon. The honey will bind everything together. So keep mixing until all the dry ingredients have been blended into the honey making a stiff dough. Break off small pieces of this ‘dough’ and roll into balls between the palms of your hands. Rolling into balls will bring out the oil in the sesame seeds, and that’s why these are so shiny in the photos. No oil was added, it’s all from what the sesame seeds naturally contain.

Eat immediately or refrigerate to make them a bit firmer.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse

If you love desserts, and chocolate desserts especially, but were afraid you’d have to give them up in order to eat healthier, rejoice! It turns out that in the uber-healthy world of raw food, desserts are some of the easiest and most delicious dishes to make. And if you have a special relationship with chocolate, you’ll be delighted to know that organic raw chocolate is not just good for you. It’s a superfood! It’s that good for you!

Organic raw chocolate, also known as raw cacao, is higher in magnesium than any other food on the planet. Magnesium is the number one mineral deficiency in the world. Raw cacao is also the #1 source of antioxidants, iron and chromium. So if you’re a chocolate lover just trade the commercial, processed chocolate for raw organic cacao. Then trade in the guilt for the satisfaction and joy of knowing you’re eating one of the healthiest foods on the planet. Yes, there is a god!Okay, so if you’re new to raw cacao it comes in a few different forms. There are whole beans, broken bits of bean called nibs, cacao powder, and cacao licqor (no it’s not alcoholic) which is made from beans that have been ground into a paste which hardens into something like a block of chocolate. They are all good for you. The cacao powder is convenient, but it has the cacao butter removed, so you are losing that healthy fat. The nibs, beans and licqor (if grated or cut into small pieces) can all be ground down into a powder in a coffee grinder, so I usually buy the nibs or licqor.

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
1 ripe banana, peeled (can use a frozen banana if you want a chilled version)
2 tbsp sweeter (honey, agave syrup, soaked pitted medjool dates)
5 tbsp raw organic cacao powder or ground organic raw cacao nibs
1/2 tsp natural vanilla (extract or vanilla bean powder)
1 tsp maca powder (optional)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
dash of Himalayan sea salt

Instructions:

Add all the ingredients to your blender and blend until smooth and creamy. You can add a little water, if necessary to keep the ingredients moving so they blend thoroughly. If you used soaked dates as your sweetener, add the soak water.

Serve immediately.

Makes 2 servings… if you can share

Raw Vegan Blueberry Ice Cream

Blueberries are a superfruit. They are extremely high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties which combat oxidative stress and inflammation that many experts believe are involved in all the major killer diseases as well as age-related conditions like arthritis and memory loss. In fact, blueberries are considered the ultimate memory food. Bananas contain potassium and fiber. Avocados are high in good heart-healthy fats, and lutein, an antioxidant that’s great for your eyes and skin.

All tremendously healthy foods to eat. Blend them together and you’ve got one of the most delicious and satisfying desserts ever. Well I think so anyway. I ate the whole lot of this myself for dinner. Isn’t it every child’s dream to eat dessert for dinner? As adults we can do whatever we want, but usually don’t because we know it’s not healthy for us. Well, go ahead, now you can live the dream and know you’re still eating healthy!

Ingredients:

2 cups frozen blueberries
1 frozen banana
1/2 avocado
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp honey
dash Himalayan sea salt
water

Instructions:

Add honey, lemon juice, flesh of the avocado and dash of salt to blender. Blend well until creamy, add a bit of water as needed to keep it blending. If you add the honey after the frozen fruit it will harden and be harder to blend in.

Add remaining ingredients and blend well until creamy. Add water, a little at a time, as needed to keep the mixture blending and get the consistency you like.

Serve and eat immediately. Serves 2, or 1 if you are like me!