Thick & Creamy Vegan Vanilla Shake

I wasn’t sure whether to call this a shake or a smoothie, because it reminded me so much of a vanilla milkshake so I opted for calling it both. This is one of the best smoothie (shake) recipes I’ve come up with so far. I was actually going to call this a breakfast smoothie until I decided to have it for dinner too because I enjoyed it so much.

This is one of those quick and easy smoothie recipes that is just so delicious and nutritious that there’s no excuse not to make it any time you need a quick meal or pick-me-up.

Vanilla, honey, maca and lucuma are all superfoods. Sesame seeds have more protein than any other seed or nut, are loaded with calcium, iron, and magnesium. Plus they contain lignans that can help burn fat. Flaxseed (also called linseed), is high in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and fiber. Oats are the king of the grains, they help lower blood cholesterol, are a good source of magnesium, zinc and vitamin E and are also very high in fiber. And the humble banana… contains potassium and vitamin B6, which the body needs to make serotonin the brain-chemical which makes you feel good. Bananas also have plenty of fiber, and it’s a particular type of fiber that aids bowel health, and has been found to lower the incidence of bowel cancer. Whew! And if you need any more convincing, just taste it.

Ingredients:

4 cups water
4 ripe bananas, peeled (fresh or frozen)
1 cup oats *
4 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp flaxseed (linseed)
2-3 tbsp honey or agave nectar (to taste)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 teas natural vanilla extract
dash of Himalayan sea salt
1 tbsp maca-root powder or lucuma powder (optional)

Instructions:

Grind the sesame seeds and flaxseed to a fine meal. A coffee grinder works beautifully for this, otherwise use a high-powered blender (make sure the inside of the blender jug is dry). Grind the oats to a fine meal in a coffee grinder or a high-powered blender.

Add all the ingredients to the blender. Blend well until, rich and creamy.

Makes 5 cups.

* Oats are almost always cooked, even when you find them as oat groats. It’s very rare to find truly raw oats, but if you want a 100% raw shake and can’t find raw oats you can substitute buckwheat groats instead. Just soak and sprout them for a day or two, but make sure to use them before the tails get longer than the buckwheat seeds. You can dehydrate the sprouted buckwheat and grind it, or just add the fresh sprouted buckwheat to the blender. The result is not as creamy in texture, but it’s still really nice and super healthy.

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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 ground organic raw cacao nibs
1/2 tsp natural vanilla (extract or vanilla bean)
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

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Red Cabbage Braised with Olive Oil

Red cabbage is a superfood, and this has to be one of the simplest, yet tastiest ways to eat lots of it. I love cabbage, maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I can make a meal of this. Properly cooked cabbage has a slightly sweet taste which is complemented by the garlic. If you don’t like cabbage, you’ve probably never had it cooked properly. I’ve met many a person who thought they didn’t like cabbage until they tried one of my cabbage dishes. They’ve always asked for more. So if you imagine over-cooked, mushy cabbage with rotten-egg smell permeating the house give this recipe a try and see if cabbage doesn’t become one of your favorite vegetables too.

Cabbage contains phytochemicals called indoles which are thought to be responsible for reducing the risk of cancer. It’s also high in fiber, and contains a good amount of vitamins C, K, beta-carotene and the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin which promote good eye health as well as calcium, magnesium, and potassium. And it’s one of the lowest calorie foods in existence.

Red cabbage (also called purple cabbage) gets it color from a substance known as anthocyanins, the same thing that makes blueberries blue, and gives them their super-antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Anthocyanins’ powerful antioxidant properties allow them to fight damaging free radicals, protect us from the damage of toxins, and fight cardiovascular disease.

Ingredients:

red cabbage
olive oil
garlic, minced
Himalayan sea salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Pull of any tough outer leaves on the cabbage and discard. Rinse and shake the cabbage to get off most of the water. Cut cabbage into quarters, then trim off the core and discard it. Cut the quarters into wedges or slices about 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick. If you want it to cook faster, cut it into thinner slices.

Place the red cabbage wedges into a glass casserole dish with a lid, layering them on top of each other until you fill the dish. After each layer of cabbage, drizzle enough olive oil to coat the cabbage wedges, sprinkle on some sea salt to taste, and sprinkle a little of the minced garlic (saving most of it for the top layer). Lay down the next layer of cabbage slices on top and do the same until you fill the dish. Add the remaining minced garlic, a final drizzle of olive oil and sea salt.

Layer the cabbage slices in the casserole dish

Put the lid on and place in the oven. Cooking time is usually about 45 minutes, but check occasionally to see if it’s ready and turn the dish so all sides cook evenly. The cabbage is done when it’s tender (no longer crunchy), but not mushy. The color will change, and lighten, but it should still be quite vibrant. At the point where it becomes tender, it loses the characteristic pungent taste of raw cabbage and takes on a nice sweet taste and that’s exactly when it’s ready to eat. Serve immediately.

Enjoy your Anthocyanins!

Variations:

• Pour a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar over the top for a richer, sweeter flavor.
• Add some chopped apple as you’re packing the layers. The taste of baked apple and cabbage compliment each other nicely.
• Pour a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil over the top to add an earthy, nutty flavor.

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Barley bread

This dense, rustic flat bread has a satisfying nutty taste and crunchy texture around the edges. It’s great served with soups and stews, or salads. It’s also nice on it’s own, spread with honey or avocado as a snack or light meal. Best served warm, right from the oven.

Because it’s wheat-free, this bread doesn’t contain the amount of gluten that a wheat-based loaf would, so therefore it doesn’t puff up and create a light, airy bread like wheat-based loaves. It’s more a cross between a flat-bread and a cracker, crunchy around the edges. But I love the texture, it feels much more substantial than a typical airy loaf. It’s chewy in the middle, crunchy around the edges and much more flavorful than wheat flour. Oh, and it’s vegan as well.

This is one of the easiest and quickest bread recipes I’ve ever used. No bread maker or mixer required, it’s easy enough to do it all manually. You don’t need to wait until the dough rises (proofs), so it’s a great option for whipping up some bread at the last minute to go with your meal.

Ingredients:

2 cups barley flour
2 tsp wheat-free baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp flaxseed (linseed)
2 tbsp sunflower seed

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 200 C/400 F. Lightly oil a baking sheet. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. You can use a fine-mesh strainer instead of a sifter. Just use a spoon to tap the sides of the strainer to sift the dry ingredients through the mesh. You can also use the spoon to ‘stir’ the flour if you prefer, make sure the spoon is touching the bottom of the strainer and stir in a circular motion just inside the rim of the strainer.

Once all the dry ingredients are sifted, blend the water, olive oil, flaxseed and sunflower seeds in a high-powered blender until liquefied. The non-vegan version calls for cream and milk, so you’re creating a seed milk substitute. Fold this seed milk into the flour and mix until it forms a dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and using your hands shape it into a flat round shape about 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick.

Slide the loaf onto the baking sheet and use a knife to score the top of the loaf to form the slices. Then using the prongs of a fork, make indentations all over the top of the loaf.

Bake until pale golden in color, about 15-20 minutes. Cut or break into wedges along the score lines and serve warm.

Barley Bread Slice, ready to eat

Makes 1 small loaf.

Variations:

• Add a handful of sunflower seeds to the sifted flour just before adding the liquid ingredients.
• Add 2 tbsp citrus zest (lemon, lime or orange) to the flour mixture just before adding the liquids.

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Raw Garden Vegetable Soup

Since I haven’t gotten around to making any raw soups yet, I thought I’d go in search of a video recipe, and I found a good one. Garden Vegetable Soup, by Jennifer Cornbleet. It looks and sounds delicious. I actually have enough of the ingredients to try one myself tomorrow. They are not so different than a green smoothie, except in the seasonings. Jennifer talks about the 6 basic components of a raw soup in the video, I love the way she breaks it down so simply, it gives me a much better foundation to work from when I create my own. I’m really good at creating delicious cooked soups, but raw soups seemed a bit daunting. Not any more

So here’s a rough transcript of the video, which is further down the page:

Garden Vegetable Soups are a great way to get more greens and vegetables in your diet. Lots of great soup recipes in her book, Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People .

There’s 6 basic components that go into any great tasting blended raw vegetable soup

1. Some kind of watery vegetables and/or greens. For example tomato, zucchini, celery, spinach, red bell pepper, Romaine lettuce, chard, kale. Try not to mix together too much red and green or the color won’t be so great. One tomato in an otherwise green soup will be fine, but try to keep it either mostly red or green.
2. Water to thin out the soup a little bit.
3. Some kind of citrus juice, lemon, lime or orange to perk up the flavor.
4. Salty seasoning. Natural sea salt or miso (fermented soybean paste) gives it a nice deep flavor similar to what you would get from vegetable stock or bouillon.
5. Pungent seasonings such as fresh herbs and spices, garlic, onion, a bit of curry powder.
6. Some kind of fat to make the soup creamy. You can use avocado, olive oil or soaked nuts and seeds.

Instructions:

Use a blender to get a nice creamy consistency.

Coarsely chop zucchini (no need to peel it because you get a lot of nutrients in the peel), chop celery. Cut a tomato roughly, no need to remove the seeds since it’s a blended soup. Add some spinach, Swiss chard or kale. Add basil (pungent herb), use quite a bit so it’s both a pungent flavor and another green. Add some water (looks like about 2 cups).

Seasonings: lemon juice, natural sea salt and miso (mellow white miso) – about a tablespoon. Pungent seasonings: crushed garlic, green onions, a little bit of cayenne pepper.

Blend all the ingredients and add the fat (avocado) afterward. Blend until the soup has liquefied.

Cut avocado in half, twist to separate. Scoop half the avocado right into the blender. You can remove the avocado stone by pressing your knife into it just a bit and twisting the avocado while holding the blade of the knife still.

Blend again, just enough to blend the avocado in. If you over-blend avocados it can ruin the flavor and color.

You can serve in a bowl, or put it into a jar with a tight-fitting lid to take with you.

Raw food author and chef Jennifer Cornbleet shows you how to quickly make a delicious raw Garden Vegetable Soup. From her DVD, Raw Food Made Easy .
Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People

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Raw Vegan Marinated Portobello Mushrooms

I absolutely love mushrooms cooked, but can’t stand them raw. So when I decided to start eating more raw food, I was missing my mushrooms! Or having to eat them cooked. I’ve tried a few different raw vegan recipes featuring mushrooms, like stuffed mushrooms, and while it was better than eating them plain (yuck), I still didn’t really love them. I figured my best chance for creating a raw mushroom dish that I loved was to use my dehydrator.

If you want to eat a raw vegan diet, but you still love the taste of cooked food, a dehydrator will save you. Keep the temperature setting at 115 degrees F or below, and you won’t destroy any of the important enzymes in raw food, but the warmth is enough to change the texture and taste of the food, similar to cooking at higher temperatures. In the case of mushrooms, these are every bit as delicious as sauteed mushrooms.

Ingredients:

200g portobello mushrooms
5 tbsp (100ml) virgin cold-pressed olive oil
1 small clove garlic
1 small lemon
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp rosemary (fresh if possible)
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp Himalayan sea salt (more or less to taste)

Instructions:

Brush any debris off the mushrooms and cut into slices about 1 cm (1/4 inch) thick. If you have a Pyrex baking dish that will fit in the tray slots of your dehydrator that works best, otherwise the teflex sheets will be fine, you just may need to add a bit more olive oil. Put the mushroom slices in the baking dish if you have one, otherwise put them into a bowl.

Crush or mince the garlic as fine as possible. Add to the bowl with mushrooms. Strip the rosemary leaves off if using fresh rosemary and chop as fine as possible. Add to the bowl with mushrooms, along with all the olive oil and other spices.

Using your fingers toss the mushroom slices in the oil and spices until the mushroom slices are  evenly coated. The portobello will absorb the olive oil, you may need to add more if you still have any ‘dry’ patches.

If you are using a baking dish, spread the mushrooms evenly over the bottom of the dish and insert it into the tray slots of your dehydrator. Otherwise, spread the mushrooms evenly over a teflex sheet and insert the tray into the dehydrator.

Mushrooms tossed in olive oil and spices before dehydrating

Turn on the dehydrator and set the temperature at 115 F (45C). Check on them occasionally, to mix and add more olive oil if they are getting too dried out.  In about 2-4 hours your mushrooms will be done and ready to eat. You’ll have to do some taste testing to see when they are right for you. When they are getting close to done, squeeze some fresh lemon juice over them.

Leftovers will keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

Serves 2-3

Sunflower Walnut Pate (TuNo) on a bed of sprouts

I love this pate, it’s so tasty, nutritious and versatile. It can be used in sandwiches and wraps, as a spread or dip or simply drop a scoop on top of a green salad. It’s also called TuNo because it tastes and looks very similar to tuna salad, but it’s vegan, in fact it’s a super-healthy raw vegan dish. Now if you’re one of those vegetarians or vegans who hates the taste and smell of tuna, you’ll still love this no fishy taste or smell. I suspect what most people really love about tuna salad is more to do with the added ingredients than with the tuna itself. But the tuna provides a vehicle and texture that holds it all together and gives you that high-protein full feeling. Well, the walnuts and sunflower seeds do the same in this case, and the taste really comes from the spices and other added ingredients.

Great dish to serve to your non-vegan friends – see how many of them can guess that it’s not actually tuna.

Ingredients:

1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked
1 cup walnuts, broken into pieces, soaked
1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup sauerkraut, finely chopped and juice to taste (can substitute pickles instead)
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teas kelp or wakame flakes
2 tbsp tamari
1 teas apple cider vinegar (ACV) or kombucha vinegar
2 teas ground cumin
1 teas paprika

Instructions:

Soak the sunflower seeds and walnuts for 4-8 hours. Drain and throw away the soak water. The soaking neutralizes the natural enzyme inhibitors in nuts and seeds making them more nutritious and easily digestible.

Add the sunflower seeds, walnuts, lemon juice, garlic, kelp, tamari, cumin, paprika and apple cider vinegar to the blender. Blend until smooth. If you have trouble blending it, add some of the sauerkraut or pickle juice. You don’t want it too runny, aim for the consistency of tuna salad.

Transfer to a bowl and mix in the chopped celery, parsley and sauerkraut (or pickle) by hand.

This will keep for several days in the fridge stored in an airtight container.

Sunflower Walnut Pate on flax crackers with sprouts and arugula

Serving suggestions:

• Eat by the spoonful
• Add a scoop to top off a salad
• Use as a dip with crudites
• Eat with flax crackers and sprouts
• Use in place of the rice, and add other raw vegetables for raw sushi
• Serve a as a spread on bread, in a pita pocket, or wrap with lots of salad vegetables

Let me know how you like it, and what other creative ways you invent to serve it.

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Fruity Chia Pudding

This healthy, filling, yummy dessert is quick to make as long as you remember to start the chia seeds soaking in advance. If you start the chia seeds soaking in the morning you can have your pudding for dinner.

The bee pollen and camu camu powder give an extra nutritional boost to this pudding. I’ll often eat this as a meal on it’s own. It’s great to have for breakfast because I find it really lasts me through the day without being too heavy and filling.

Chia is very sustaining and great for endurance. So this is my favorite breakfast if I have a lot of physical work to do in the garden or if I’m going on a bushwalk for the day.

Ingredients:

1 cup chia seeds, soaked in 3 cups water for 4-6 hours
2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup
1 tablespoon tahini
1 teaspoon camu camu powder
1-2 tablespoons of bee pollen
dash of Himalayan or Celtic sea salt
Fresh fruit in season (juicy fruit works best, especially berries, pineapple, mandarin, grapes)

Instructions:

Soak the chia seeds in 3 cups of water ahead of time. You can start soaking them in the morning, mix everything together around lunchtime, pop it in the fridge and it will be ready to eat for dinner.

Add the honey or agave syrup, tahini, camu camu powder, and sea salt to the soaked chia and mix thoroughly. Then add the fruit and mix just so that it’s evenly spread throughout. Spoon the mix into a pie dish or jelly mould. Glass pie dishes or silicon jelly moulds work great.

Sprinkle the bee pollen on top and pop it into the fridge. You can also eat it straight away if you want too. This recipe usually makes a bit more than my glass pie dish can easily hold, so I usually have a small bowl immediately and pop the rest in the fridge.

The chia are so filling and sustaining that I can’t eat a lot at one sitting. It will keep well in the fridge for several days.

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Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

I was having a sweet craving this evening… actually it was going on all day and I was trying to come up with something I could make with what I had on hand. Finally, the idea for this hit me. And oh did it hit the spot… the tahini adds an extra smoothness to this so it’s even more like real ice cream than most frozen banana-based non-dairy ice creams. The vanilla extract and rapadura go so nicely together, creating that sweet, vanilla flavor.

Even if you eat dairy, it’s worth trying this for it’s own sake. Totally guilt-free desserts, I love ‘em! Try some of my other raw vegan ice cream recipe too.

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana
3 frozen bananas
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp rapadura sugar (or sweetener of your choice)
1 tbsp water
1 teas organic vanilla extract (or vanilla pod if you have it)

Instructions:
Peel the ripe banana and break it into pieces into blender. Add the tahini, rapadura, water and vanilla extract. Blend until smooth. Add the frozen bananas and blend again until smooth and creamy.

If you want this to be an all-raw dessert, be sure to use raw tahini. Often the ready made tahini is made from lightly toasted sesame seeds. I’ve had trouble finding raw tahini in New Zealand, but you can buy grinders and juicers with attachments that allow you to create your own. I love tahini so much, and it’s such a small part of most of my recipes that I just use the best organic tahini I can find, even though I’m trying to eat a mostly raw and living food diet.

Eat immediately!

Serves 2.

Kitchen tips: To cleanup I added about half a cup of water to the blender jug (no soap, just water) and blended on high until most of the remains had been ‘water blasted’ off the sides of the jug.

Zoe loves Vegan Vanilla Ice Cream

I poured this ‘vanilla banana milk’ into a bowl for my dogs and Zoe loved it! She lapped up every last drop and came to see if there was more of this yummy stuff left.

Zoe works hard, her day-job is in excavation. It’s hot, thirsty work. A cool, thirst-quenching treat like this is just the thing after a hard day’s work.

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Espresso Non-Dairy Ice Cream

My very favorite ice cream is coffee ice cream, and nothing else even comes close. Not only is it very difficult (read: impossible) to find good coffee ice cream in the shops here in New Zealand, but now that I’m not eating dairy, ice cream is off the menu… or is it? NO! Because there is a healthy, delicious, non-dairy, non-soy alternative. And it takes about as long to make as it takes to get a tub of ice cream from the freezer and serve it up. But the best part is, it’s so healthy, it’s virtually guilt-free.

I love this non-dairy ice cream, in all it’s variations, so much I don’t think I’d be satisfied going back to eating ice cream made from dairy.

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana
3 frozen bananas
1/4 cup brewed & cooled espresso
1 tablespoon coffee chicory essence
1 tablespoon honey or agave syrup
1/2 teas vanilla extract (optional)

Instructions:
Break bananas into pieces and add to blender. Add all other ingredients and blend on low until until the banana starts becoming smooth, then turn the speed up until thoroughly blended.

If you brew the espresso earlier in the day, or save some from your morning coffee you can make this delicious treat in about 5 minutes for dinner or lunch. In fact, it’s you can still make a nice cold dessert even if the espresso is still warm.

Many health experts argue that coffee is actually healthy because of the high level of antioxidants it contains. As much as I’d like to believe that I know from my own experience that coffee is addictive and too much is definitely not good, for my body at least. But I love it all the same.

If you don’t like coffee, or are trying to give up, you could use a healthy coffee substitute instead. Roasted chicory is one option, but I’ve also seen, though not yet tried, roasted maca root. Raw maca has a sweet, rich, malty flavor which I imagine is enhanced by the roasting, so I’d certainly love to try some! Both chicory and maca are very nutritious and healthy in their raw state. Roasting, like all forms of cooking will destroy some of the nutrients, including vital enzymes. But it’s a trade-off if you feel coffee is not good for you. The caffeine in coffee can certainly have a detrimental effect if you tend towards insomnia.

This is a great raw vegan ice cream recipe to use as a starter and just play around with the ingredients to create a delicious concoction of your own. What variations have you come up with? Leave a comment and let me know.

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