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.

Green Goddess Dressing/Dip

This smooth, creamy dressing is great on salads. It comes out quite thick also works beautifully as a dip with vegetable sticks, broccoli and cauliflower florets, or crackers, or as a spread in sandwiches.

The kefir, avocado and apple cider vinegar are the basis of the recipe and around that you have a lot of latitude to add the herbs and spices that you like.

This is a great way to add the fermented foods kefir and apple cider vinegar into your diet.

Ingredients:

1 cup kefir
1 ripe avocado
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon each of ground ginger, dill leaf, kelp, herb salt (such as Herbamare), turmeric
pinch of cayenne to taste (optional)

Instructions:
Add all ingredients to the blender and blend well. You may need to use the blender’s plunger or a spatula to scrape down the sides and keep the mixture moving until everything is thoroughly blended.

Serve on a green salad or use a as a dip.

Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

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!

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