We are currently on vacation. Yay! I’m posting from Ocean Grove, New Jersey on my iPhone thru a Wordpress app. I hope it shows up ok.
Right now Reno and I our sitting on the porch of a rented house enjoying our new favorite smoothie. It simply consists of organic strawberries, organic frozen bananas and some vanilla oat milk. It’s so good! It is also a great way to get extra nutrition into Reno. I wish I had brought some ground flax seeds or some sorta protein powder stuff to add to it for her (and me). She will just have to do with me forcing peanut buttered toast down her throat. She’s just so excited to be on vacation that she doesn’t have time to eat. All she wants to do is stay on the beach. It’s all I want to do too but we have to still eat. I’m thrilled that this house came with a pretty kick ass blender so I can make more of these for us this week. I’m now thinking I might try to track down some cocoa powder in this town to make us some chocolate peanut butter dessert smoothies.
July 20th, 2010
Raw Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl
It’s been hot as balls here the last 2 weeks. Hot. As. Balls. Chocolate is melting, plants and trees are wilting, people are cranky and cooking is just impossible. One Saturday my sister threw a BBQ with a couple of friends and I decided to make dessert but refused to turn on the oven too do so. Then I remembered a dessert my friend Dianne made for a vegan dessert potluck we attended. It was Ani Phyo’s Chocolate Chip Cheezecake Swirl. I had all the ingredients, it’s raw which means the oven didn’t need to be used so it was decided that this is what I was making.
There are 3 parts to this, not including the raw cacao pieces aka..chips: the crust, which is super simple to make. You are just processing medjool dates and nuts and pressing them into a spring form pan.
the cheezecake layer made of cashews, lemon and a few other things well blended
chocolate sauce, which again is just about 3 recipes blended in a blender.
Now I don’t own a Vitamix. It is my ultimate dream product to own. I had to rely on my weak blender to blend up the cheezecake layer. My poor blender was really suffering through the whole process but it managed to do a semi decent job. It wasn’t as smooth as a Vitamix would have made it but it was passable and no one complained about the slight chunkiness of that part of the cake.
Once it’s all assembled you just pop it into the freezer and take it out about 20 minutes before you are going to serve it. If it’s hot as balls out you can take it out 5-10 minutes before serving because it will start to get really soft and melt a a bit. We had about 9 people at the party who ate this and there was still 1/2 a cake left. Its very rich. You can’t eat a huge piece of this which is great if you need too make a dessert for a large group of people. I really can’t wait to make this again!
July 17th, 2010
Reno (almost 3!)
Time flies! Its hard to believe but Reno is going to be 3 at the end of August.
This is my new favorite picture of her on her friend Milla’s tire swing.
July 14th, 2010
BBQ Pinto Bean Burgers
A few weeks ago I had one of those crazy “I must cook something new right this second!” moments. Within 30 minutes of that “moment” I was chowing down on the burger you see above. It was one of those wonderful and crazy cooking experiments that worked out really well. So not only did I eat the burger for lunch but I also ate it again for dinner and then if I remember correctly I ate it again for lunch the next day.
My favorite parts of this recipe are the raw onions and the BBQ sauce that are mixed into the burger. I always like raw onions on top of my veggie burgers but they always either fall off or you eat a huge chunk of the onion with one bite and it just doesn’t get evenly distributed between bites. I figured if I chopped them up and stuck them in the burger that would take care of those 2 problems and it did! Some of the onions got cooked while the burgers were frying in the pan but the majority of them were still raw-ish. You definitely got that raw onion flavor with every bite. For the BBQ sauce, I alway’s knew I was going to put some on top of the burger, when I had the idea to make them, but I then decided to also put some into the burger to get that extra BBQ flavor. It was nice and subtle.
A few weeks after creating this burger I also used this recipe during a vegan cooking class I was teaching with 2 of my friends for our local vegan meet up group. Everyone really liked it and I hope you all like it too!
BBQ Pinto Bean Burgers
makes 4-5 burgers depending on the size you want
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 of a red bell pepper, finely diced
2 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 15oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 small onion, finely diced
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
3 tablespoons of your favorite BBQ Sauce, I use Annies Smokey Maple
1 tablespoon tamari
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons water (only if needed)
1 avocado, sliced
mesclun salad
burger rolls
In a medium or large saute pan, heat your olive oil over medium heat, add your chopped garlic and peppers and saute until soft. About 5 minutes.
In a medium size bowl mash the pinto beans with a potato masher or fork. Mix in the garlic-pepper mixture, onions, vital wheat gluten, BBQ sauce, tamari and salt. Ditch your mixing utensil and with clean hands kneed the burger mixture to help activate the vital wheat gluten (this is what makes the burgers hold their shape.) If the mixture seems too dry add the water 1 tablespoon at a time until your mixture is moist enough to hold it’s shape.
Form into whatever size burgers you want.
In the same pan you cooked the garlic and peppers add 1 tablespoon of oil and reheat the pan over medium heat. Cook the burgers until golden brown, approx. 3-5 minutes each side.
Place on bottom of a burger bun, spoon extra BBQ sauce, add some avocados and some mesclun salad, top the burger with the other bun and EAT!
July 13th, 2010
Cheezy Kale Chips
A few months ago I FINALLY purchased a Excalibur Dehydrator! I’ve been wanting one for years ever since I worked at a raw foods restaurant in NYC. I was missing all the treats I use to eat and make while I was there and saw that Excalibur was having a special sale so I quickly snapped one up. I purchased a black 9 tray model that also comes with a timer. Please choose one with a timer if you decide to buy one. Its so useful, especially if something is done “cooking” while I’m sleeping or out of the house, it can just turn itself off.
One of the first things I made was a recipe that my friend Donna gave me for Cheezy Kale Chips. It is a cashew and red bell pepper based sauce which is well blended and then massaged onto kale and dehydrated for hours and hours. The hours and hours and hours it takes to make these is well worth it. They are so crunchy and cheezy tasting. Peter has become a big fan of these chips so I have too make sure to make a few batches each time. Its really easy to gobble these up in one day. Reno has yet to want to try them although she did eat some sauteed kale for dinner the other night!
Kale from my garden
I made sure I grew a lot of kale in my garden this year so that I can make as many batch of kale chips that I wanted. I’ll most likely be making more today and again at the end of the week to take on vacation with us.
I’m going to have lots of Raw Vegan posts coming your way over the next few weeks to show you what I’ve been making as well as all the usual cooked food I make. 
July 12th, 2010
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