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.

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.