Today's post is a delicious, easy recipe for green juice because I think many of us could use a bit more dark leafy greens in our diet. Obviously a lot of the people reading this (hey there, sexy) are already very interested and in control of their health. But at the same time, I know many of you are just starting out on a new journey to well-being, or maybe you're like me and have just been plain forgetting to eat/drink your greens lately. I used to LIVE for my green smoothies but lately I've been fruiting it up hard core, and have incidentally left the kale and spinach crying at the sidelines, asking "WHY DOESN'T SHE LOVE US ANYMORE!?" Don't fret, my dear leaves! I still care for you and your chlorophyl deeply. But I got kinda carried away with my fruit smoothies and high carb dinners of rice and sweet potatoes. I hadn't eaten a salad in months, and would only occasionally throw a handful of greens into my blender or stir-frys. Well, things are back on track now. I am again head over heels with salad, and I love the taste and colour of spinach in my smoothies.
This is it. A simple, quick, and easy recipe for the best raw vegan chocolate cake. I whipped this up for my lover's birthday celebration / family dinner and his whole clan loved it! I wasn't planning on posting it but I figured I may as well. I mean: chocolate. cake. Need I say more? I wanna give you guys every opportunity to create healthy and delicious desserts and meals whenever possible.
If you are new to the whole 'raw vegan dessert' thing, then this cake recipe is perfect for you. This is almost as basic as you can get. Although you can add anything else you want to this dark brown creamy bad boy (ex: ginger, cinnamon, berries), I am keepin' it real and leaving ingredients at a minimum so no one gets confused or overwhelmed. Sure, this recipe could be lower fat and blah blah blah, but my mentality when I create food for non-veg folks (Jack's family) is to wow them with flavour and texture, thus I add a little more coconut oil and maple syrup than I normally would. My palate is very different from someone who doesn't usually eat many plants - let alone whole foods - so I wanna give them something even THEIR taste buds will appreciate! That means making this cake a bit richer than if I were making it for just myself. What is healthy is relative. A pure raw foodist would feel sick if they suddenly ate cooked food; I feel weird when I eat too MUCH cooked food or fat-dense food (nuts, etc.) in a day; my mom feels weird if she eats too much meat. Does that mean that cooked food or nuts are unhealthy? No! It just means that my body has acclimatized to a mostly low-fat raw foods diet with a cooked dinner so if I suddenly eat cooked food all day it's gonna be like "WTF!?" (Where's the fruit!?) If you drank nothing but water for 7 days, then gorged on fruit, you'd feel ill. Does that mean FRUIT is unhealthy? No! It's like the healthiest thing... ever. All it implies is that your body has become sensitive to something because of the diet it has grown accustomed to. So to round this back to my first point: I made this recipe a bit more decadent than usual because of the audience it would be catered to. Nuff said (I think?)
Note: if the ingredients look kinda pricey to you, don't worry! You can use oats instead of walnuts, cocoa powder instead of cacao powder, and almonds instead of cashews. Using almonds instead of cashews will make it a bit less creamy, but still delicious.
RAW VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE Crust: 1 cup walnuts 1 1/2 cups dates Cake: 2 cups cashews 2 tablespoons cacao powder 1 cup water Juice from 1 lemon 1 cup dates 1/4 cup coconut oil 2 tablespoons maple syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla extract To make the crust: pulse oats or walnuts into powder in a food processor, then add the dates and keep processing until it all starts to stick together. Press into the bottom of a springform cake pan, or adjustable pan (I used an adjustable pan set to about 7 inches). Put in fridge. To make the cake: blend everything until smooth, thick and creamy! It should be the consistency of yogurt, kinda. If it's watery; add more dates, coconut oil or nuts. If it's too thick; add more water or maple syrup. Pour onto your crust and let it set overnight or for at least 12 hours (this lets it set and develop flavour). Slice and enjoy! I decorated mine with hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds.
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Hey, guys. Today I am sharing a post featuring the video I made yesterday, all about how you can save money whole eating a wholesome vegan diet! Watch the video, and read my main tips below!
- Base your diet/meals around potatoes, rice, beans and bananas. These foods are normally very inexpensive and easy to find. A main component of my dinners is always potatoes, rice and/or beans. Then I round out the meal with other veggies and greens. The main component of my smoothies is always bananas, and I top them off with other ingredients like frozen fruit, mango, berries, super food powders, etc.
- Grow your own food, if it's possible. My family has a big backyard and garden so we are able to grow a lot of what we eat. It is super cheap, not a huge amount of work (depending on what plants you choose to grow), and ends up feeding you the highest quality food around all season long. When I move out in the next few months, I plan on at least growing my own herbs and tomatoes. If you have no space to grow food, find a community garden in your area and sign up to help out and reap the bounty!
- Forage. It's fun, it's easy, it's educational, it saves a ton of cash! Berries are super expensive here right now and yet they are growing all around us, just begging to be picked and eaten for free. Pick all the edible plants you can find (but make sure to do your research so you don't poison yourself), then freeze what you don't eat right away. Add to smoothies and anything else all year long!
- Buy in bulk; buy discounted produce. I eat a huge amount of fruit, especially bananas. So I buy boxes of them at 10% off. I also buy mangoes in bulk and save a few dollars that way. You can also get discounted prices on overly ripe fruits and veggies. Simply freeze that produce and add to smoothies, soups and stir-frys later on! If these options don't seem available at your regular grocery stores, just ask the employees about buying bulk and buying overly ripe produce.
- Shop around; compare prices in stores and between stores. Sometimes different places have different prices, and sometimes there is a huge difference between organic and non-organic (often organic is double the price here, so I have to decide what is most important to get organic, and what I will compromise on). Check out this list to see what is best bought organic.
- Keep updated with your local grocery stores on sales, customer appreciation days, and discounts. I get email flyers that let me know when my fave food stores are having sales, and what specific produce is on sale every month.
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I was in the garden with my mom today a few weeks ago and we were looking at all the edibles we have growing. She noticed the arugula should be picked so my fate was sealed: lunch was to be arugula salad. I also picked some basil, cilantro, and cherry tomatoes. I cannot really take much credit for all this wonderful food we have blooming in our yard - momma Nancy does it all, and I reap the bounty. Hehe. The night before, I was making my dinner which was a bowl of red beans and sweet corn, when my partner and I decided we were gonna go OUT for dinner (at this cool veg place called Tera V Burger). So I threw my food in the fridge - figuratively - and headed off. Thus the following day I had that to add to my greens and tomatoes! It was perfect. I sprinkled on some lemon juice, antioxidant omega oil blend, agave syrup, salt, cumin, coriander, sunflower seeds, and love. The result was pure deliciousness. I wish I had made more but I was going for vegan tacos with my friends later that night so we could all laugh hysterically together and slap each other before I went away for 3 weeks.
Note: I do not eat out every night, but it's summer and hey - I'm a wild child (sarcasm). Usually I prefer to be a frugal ferret and only go out once a month or so. Save money yay! I will have to be even more of a thrifty homo sapien once I move in with Jack since Vancouver is LITERALLY the most expensive city in the world to live in. Great.
Back to the recipe! Honestly, this salad is so simple and so tasty. It made me remember why I love salad so much. It makes you feel nourished and connected to the earth, especially when you pick most of it from your own backyard. I haven't been eating enough greens lately and this was the yummiest wake up call I could have received. Eat your greens! Eat this salad!
ARUGULA BASIL SALAD with SWEET CORN, RED BEANS, LEMON + SPICES Salad: 2 cups arugula 1/2 cup basil 1/2 cup cilantro 2 tablespoon sunflower seeds 1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes 1 cup red beans 1 cup sweet corn
Dressing: 1 teaspoon maple syrup 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon antioxidant omega oil blend Pinch of Himalayan salt 1/2 teaspoon cumin 1/2 teaspoon coriander Throw it all together, let it sit for a few minutes so the flavours develop and the leaves soften, then chomp! Note: you can really use whatever you have lying around to make the dressing (and salad too, for that matter). All you need is a sweet component, a creamy component, and a tangy component.
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I was really excited last week when my mom returned from the farmers market and proceeded to tell me about a new vendor who was selling freshly made nut milks with simple ingredients just like we make them at home; raw, organic, fair-trade ingredients like nuts, cacao, and filtered water. I visited the farmers market yesterday to buy some heirloom tomatoes and apples and then saw the stand for the milk people! After walking over we - Jack and I - met a lovely young woman who seemed just as enthusiastic about milking nuts as I am (thank goodness there's more than one of us). We sampled a plain almond milk and it honestly tasted exactly like what my mom and I whip up in the kitchen. She kindly gave me a couple bottles to try - date almond and cacao hazelnut - and we enjoyed them on their own as well as in a smoothie (recipe below). It's great to see a company doing this right now because as the market demand for dairy-free milks is rising steadily, the brands you find in the grocery aisles often have ingredients I don't particularly want to consume even if they are vegan; added sugar, stabilizers, "natural flavours"... although they probably aren't harmful, they certainly aren't healthful! And if they don't need to be in there then I'd prefer they weren't. At the same time, making your own nut milk is becoming a fun trend in itself. Whether this is because other people aren't stoked about the extra ingredients in mainstream grocery store non-dairy milks, or they just want to try out what homemade nut milk tastes like, I think it's awesome.
I also think that is where Nuez nut milks come in. Their mission is to "create the best tasting, purest, raw, organic and fair trade nut milk". Their recipes are just what you make in your own house, so I think they are an excellent choice if you want to try out this kind of whole food, non-dairy milk instead of the conventional brands. If it's in your budget, go ahead and add these to your grocery list every week! If you'd prefer to eventually get into the habit of making your own, I still think this is a great place to start.
They make their nut milks in Delta, BC and sell them in Vancouver area farmers markets. They sell 1 litre jars of nut milk for around $8.00. You can find them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and their beautiful main website. If you're not in Vancouver - and I know most of you aren't - try researching and exploring your own area for farmers markets and vendors that sell freshly made, organic nut milks with whole food ingredients. You might be surprised at what you find. Often I receive emails from people asking how to become or stay vegan in their small town, and wondering how and where they should eat out. I always type in the name of their region to Happy Cow and usually find there is at least one vegan or vegetarian restaurant there! At sometimes an organic grocery store or market as well.
BLUEBERRY SMOOTHIE 1/2 cup frozen blueberries 3 bananas 2 cups Nuez date almond milk Blend. Mmm. Serves one.
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