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.

Roasted Sweet Potato with Rosemary & Orange

Roasting sweet potatoes really brings out their natural sweetness and almost caramelizes them and the addition of orange juice, mandarin slices and fresh rosemary works with the flavor of the sweet potatoes to create a subtle but very tasty dish. It’s great served warm or cold the next day. It’s really filling too, I’ll often have just this and a big salad.

In New Zealand, sweet potatoes are commonly called kumara, and they were brought here by the first settlers, the Maori for whom they were an important staple crop. They come in a variety of different colors, which all have slightly different flavors, but any kind can be used for this recipe.

This is a sweet potato (a.k.a. kumara)

First of all, because there seems to be some confusion between sweet potatoes, kumaras and yams I want to show you what I’m using. These are called kumara in New Zealand, which is the Maori word for sweet potato. And they are, in fact, sweet potatoes, but I’ve never heard them referred to as sweet potatoes here. So, to hopefully avoid any confusion, here’s what a sweet potato (kumara) looks like (there is some variation in color between different varieties, at least in New Zealand.

This is a really easy recipe to adjust for different volumes, depending on how much you want to make. It keeps really well in the fridge, and it’s delicious cold as well, so you might want to make more than you need for one meal. As a rule of thumb, you want to start with about twice as much as you need, because it will cook down to about half the amount.

Ingredients:

4 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1-2 tablespoons organic tamari
1-2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt
2 mandarins, peeled and separated into slices
1 orange or tangelo, juiced
handful of walnut pieces

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 200 C. Add the olive oil to a shallow baking dish and make sure it’s evenly spread around to prevent the sweet potato from sticking.

Cut off the pointy ends of the sweet potatoes and peel. Chop into cubes and put into the baking dish. The bigger the pieces the longer it will take to cook, so I normally cut them into pieces 1cm (3/4 inch) square. I usually put the baking dish into the oven at this point, even if it’s not up to temperature, while I chop and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Strip the rosemary leaves from the stem and chop them as finely as you can. You want about 2 tablespoons of very finely chopped fresh rosemary. Sprinkle on top of the sweet potato.

Everything chopped and ready to go into the oven

Peel 2 cloves of garlic and press through a garlic press or mince and add to the sweet potato mix, along with the cinnamon, sea salt, honey are agave syrup and tamari. Toss everything together so the oil and spices evenly coat all the pieces of sweet potato. If you’re using honey and it’s quite thick it’s easier if you add it after the sweet potato has been in the oven for 15-20 minutes and started to heat up. The heat will liquify the honey and make it easier to mix in.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until sweet potato is soft, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and make sure everything gets cooked evenly. The cooking time may vary depending on how deep your mixture is and how large the pieces of sweet potato are.

When the sweet potato is soft,  add the orange or tangelo juice (use tangelo juice if you can, the flavor is really beautiful) and mix thoroughly. Put the dish back in and turn the grill on high to brown and caramelize the top. Cook another 10-15 minutes, being careful to watch and stir frequently enough that it doesn’t burn.

Remove from oven, toss in mandarin slices and walnut pieces and toss everything a bit to make sure they are evenly distributed. Serve and enjoy!

Roasted Sweet Potato with Rosemary & Orange ready to eat as part of your main meal or as a cold sweet potato salad

If you like that sweet, sticky, caramelized flavor just put it under the grill to brown it after it’s finished roasting. This has such a beautiful, naturally sweet flavor it’s almost like a dessert.

If you like it more caramelized just put it under the grill after it's finished roasting

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.

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

Creamy blueberry coconut smoothie

Today I decided to take a break from my usual green smoothie for breakfast and go with an all-fruit smoothie.

I recently cracked open a couple of fresh coconuts, and I still had some coconut water left, so I decided to use that, as well as some of the coconut flesh. The result was a beautiful, creamy, fruity smoothie with a hint of vanilla.

Blueberries and coconuts are both superfoods. Blueberries are considered one of the best foods for fighting free-radicals and repairing cell damage thanks to the anthocyanins they contain, which also give them their blue color. They also have anti-inflammatory properties, protect against dementia and are great for the eyes and memory, especially as we get older. They also contain resveratrol which protects us against cancer and heart disease. Coconuts contain the most heart-healthy oils of any food. Prunes are good for the digestion, they help nourish the friendly bacteria in your gut. They also contain lots of beta-carotene, and lower cholesterol. Cinnamon helps to even out blood-sugar levels and prevent mood swings. So this smoothie is not only delicious, but awesomely good for you.

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut water
3 cups water
3 bananas, fresh or frozen, peeled
handful of fresh coconut meat
1-1/2 cups blueberries, frozen
3-4 prunes (or 1 tablespoon of honey or agave syrup)
1 teas ground cinnamon
1/2 teas natural vanilla extract

Instructions:

Put about a cup of water and the prunes into the blender and process until the prunes are well blended. The prunes will add sweetness and can be replaced by honey or agave syrup, you can adjust the amount you add to suit your taste.

Pry a handful of fresh coconut meat from the shell. If the coconut meat still has the brown inner shell on one side cut it off. A sharp knife will work but I like to use a vegetable peeler. The fresh coconut can be a bit slippery because of all the beautiful coconut oil it contains, and I feel like the vegetable peeler is a lot safer than using a knife, and it works just as well.

Add the fresh coconut, and all the other ingredients and blend until smooth. Drink immediately.