Cherry Chocolate Chia Pudding
What could be better than chocolate for breakfast? Offhand, I really can’t think of anything. Especially if it’s a breakfast as power-packed as this cherry chocolate chia pudding. Cacao and chia: its like having two super heroes come to work for you! As fall makes its inevitable drop upon us, I’ve been getting this incredible urge to substitute my normally high-fruit first meal of the day for something a little more hefty. I’ve made many a chia pudding before but this time it was a little different because I felt genuinely inspired. Not to mention the fact that I was really craving chocolate. It was actually verging on lust. The…
Broccoli Salad with Creamy Dressing
A couple of months ago a friend brought a broccoli salad from Costco to a little get together. I remember having it a couple of years back and a similar one from Whole Foods. The problem…both contain bacon and the dressing is dairy. Well, once I perfected the coconut bacon, putting this delicious salad together was a breeze. I make enormous batches of coconut bacon and keep it handy. It enhances just about everything and I throw it into practically everything or just snack on it to satiate savory cravings. Throwing all the ingredients together is quick and easy and you can prepare the dressing in advance. This is a…
Wild Rice and Oat Raw Porridge
Those who live in exotic and tropical locales have it made when it comes to adopting a raw diet. It’s a lot easier when fresh fruit is virtually dripping from trees and the markets are overflowing with all manner of produce. We ‘peons’ of colder climes have never even seen some of that stuff. Ask a New Mexican what a rambutan or durian is and you’ll get a blank face staring back at you. Never heard of it. Consequently, it’s in places like this, where cold creeps in and settles like an unwelcome guest, that we need to get creative. We are beckoned from beyond the fruit bowl. And that’s…
Italian Pignoli Cookies
Pignoli cookies are my dad’s favorite. Not one holiday has passed without these light traditional almond flavored delights in our home. As a family we have all stood in line several times a year to purchase these cookies from our favorite Italian bakery. Sometimes you’re not so lucky. After waiting hours, you can get to the head of the line and find out they’ve been wiped out. So when I figured out how to make these without baking I was thrilled and I can’t wait to share this recipe with my family this upcoming holiday season. The other advantage of making these from scratch is that instead of costing a…
CREAMY MUSHROOM SAFFRON ALFREDO
So this idea was ass backwards. Originally I really wanted to make mushroom raviolis with a creamy Alfredo sauce, but the rice paper was too thin. Then I tried butternut squash, but I couldn’t get it thin enough in the shape I wanted. Every stupid contraption Marie and I purchased didn’t work so we broke down and used the spiralizer to make fettuccini. So even though I made this with the butternut squash, I preferred it with rice noodles. I liked it with the rice paper raviolis too, but the pics were hideous and looked really unappetizing even if it tasted the best. I’ve now had it 4 different ways…
Harvest Time Raw Caramel Apples
So, let’s get it straight: this whole idea emerged as a healthy treat for Halloween. Raw Caramel Apples. We’re always trying to think of ways to make all those old, comfortable, non-raw, non-vegan recipes into something we can eat now. Face it: it’s become our life mission. It’s like, whatever recipe we come across that sounds good, we first ask, “Is it raw?”. If the answer to that question is no -as it most often is – secondly we’ll ask, “Can we make it raw?” Honestly, you can’t imagine how often those questions get asked around here. It’s like a broken record. Ultimately, when it comes to making things raw,…
Blood Orange Cordials
I want to start by saying these are one of the most delicious candies I’ve ever had. The tartness of blood orange oozes from the sweet almond marzipan, covered in a deep, dark chocolate shell. I think this is my new favorite raw-vegan dessert, but…I will never make these damn things again! Okay, that’s not fair, I will make them again. What I won’t do again is give a damn what they look like. Trying to make raw chocolate stick to something is an exercise in insanity. Your choice is either a loose chocolate sauce that will never set, or a seized ball that can only be described as a…
Teriyaki Coconut Bowl
I love teriyaki! So when the craving hit, I opened the fridge and started brainstorming. I had a young coconut, some veggies and rice noodles. My idea hinged on the texture of the coconut meat. It needs to be firm, but still soft, but not too soft (like spoon meat), that you can’t slice it. This coconut was perfect so a recipe was born. I marinated the coconut in a sweet and spicy teriyaki sauce. I could have left it like that, just sitting in the marinade. Instead I put it in the dehydrator to make the texture firmer and to get that marinade deep into the coconut meat. My…
Avocado Chocolate-Coffee Mousse
The trials and tribulations of ripening a perfect avocado in the desert. The struggle is real. One minute it’s almost ready and an hour later it’s overripe. The trick is to be so hyper aware that you look like you’re waiting for an egg to hatch. I love avocados and I eat them a couple of times a week. In my world they go with everything. For 26 years, I was able to get them from local farmers in California or pick them from a neighbors tree. On occasion a friend would call and beg me to take them off their hands. A mature avocado tree can produce up to…
Sweet Potato “Bacon” Fritters
Back in the 80’s Marie and I would go downtown every Saturday for brunch at Elephant and Castle in SoHo, NYC. Whether we were roomies or we lived on opposite ends of Manhattan, this was our go to brunch spot. On the menu they had sweet potato bacon fritters that were served with warm maple syrup. They were so good that no matter what else we chose to eat, we had to get at least one serving to share. In this recipe I chose one Garnet and one Purple sweet potato. I love the flavors and color, the flesh is bright, moist and sweet. More importantly, they tend to be…
