Raw Vegan Apple Pie with Apricot and Cinnamon

We found some beautiful pink lady apples at the market yesterday.  I love apples, we always have them on hand, but there's something about pink ladies that make me happy; they're crisp and sweet and have such pretty coloring.  We bought a big bag of them and initially just planned on putting them in a bowl and sharing them over the next few days, but we decided to experiment :P

We haven't had apple pie in so long.  I honestly can't remember when I had a piece of apple pie.  Kasey had a book from the library called Gorilla Food, written by Aaron Ash.  He has a recipe, but alas we didn't have the ingredients so we used his as a model and instead created our own, and WOW did it pay off :)  This pie is so good, I wish we had made double.

Raw Vegan Apple Pie (No baking necessary! :)

Crust

2 cups almond meal
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1/4 cup Dates soaked for about 10 minutes
1/4 teaspoon of salt
Dash of cinnamon
9 inch pie pan


Combine all the ingredients in the food processor.  Ours was dense and still a bit sticky but easily manageable.  We pressed it into a glass pie pan and put it into the fridge to chill while we made the filling.

Filling

3-4 Pink Lady Apples, cored and sliced, don't peel them (lots of nutrients in there!)
6 dried Apricots, sliced as thinly as you can manage
1 Banana
1 tablespoon Coconut Oil, warmed to a liquid
Few shakes of Cinnamon
Few shakes of Nutmeg

Once the apples are sliced (we were lazy and used our food processor for this as well, but you can always do this part by hand) and cored, put them in a big bowl.  Add the apricots and the spices.  Combine.  Then, put the banana and the coconut oil in the processor and mix until blended.  Add this to the apples and just stir to combine everything.  (This smells so yum doesn't it?!)

Pull the crust out of the fridge and fill it with the apple mixture.  We had a bit more than we needed when we used 4 apples, you could pile it all on top, but we decided to reserve the extra to add to salads.  Keep the pie in the fridge.  We hope you loved this as much as we did <3

Enjoy!

Vegan Veggie Burgers with Raw Vegan Ketchup and Sweet Potato Fries

This is a vegan version of the veggies burgers they showed on My Kitchen Rules the other night.  My sister and I LOVE this TV show.  As a combiner, Kerrie and Craig used an egg.  To make mine vegan, I used raw oats instead of an egg.  I didn't wait to fry mine so I chose to bake them.  I love raw sprouted chickpeas/garbanzo beans, but I find that I get a tummy ache when I eat too many of them.  I had some left over ones in the fridge marinating today so I decided to bake some veggie burgers!  It literally took me only a few minutes to throw the veggies into our *delightful* new food processor and get them in the oven :)

The raw vegan ketchup is divine.  My sister said she likes it better than regular ketchup!  My sister loved it so much she said she wished we had made a bigger quantity and stored it in the fridge.  I don't know how long it would last, but the raw lemon and salt would help preserve it for a little while.

Sweet potatoes are yummy and loaded with vitamin A.  The sweet potato fries/chips could easily be made raw, if you have a dehydrator.  We don't, so we put them in the oven.  I've done some research and it seems that any time a person combines a starch with oil at high heat it can become unhealthy so I have always eaten mine plain and started to like them better that way.  I personally LOVE them plain!  Yes, the spices and oil do add a nice flavor too :) So my point is, you have options :^) 

As for a bun.....lol....I got lazy and didn't feel like it needed one anyways.  Who knows, maybe I'll try one out next time and update this post. 

Raw Vegan Ketchup

1 cup chopped roma tomatoes (any tomato will do, but we like roma best)
1/3 cup pitted dates (soak for a bit first and drain...this water is yummy--drink some!)
1 cup sundried tomatoes (soak for a bit first and drain)
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1-3 cloves of garlic (man I am loving garlic lately so I always add extra.  Start with one and see how you like it :))
Sea salt to taste

Process or blend all ingredients until smooth.  Store in the fridge until you are ready to serve!

Vegan Chickpea Veggie Burgers

If you want to go a step above and beyond, you can marinate your chickpeas beforehand.  For a marinade I like a pinch of sea salt, tablespoon of macademia nut oil, a squeeze of lemon or vinegar, few shakes of garlic, lots of cumin, and a pinch of ground chili.   

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Ingredients:
2 cups of soaked chickpeas/garbanzo beans.  I soak mine over night, and then sometimes marinate them.
1/4 of a bell pepper/mild capsicum.  Any color!
4 cloves of garlic
5 sprigs of fresh coriander
1/3 cup of raw oats
1 tablespoon of macadamia nut oil.  (It would be interesting to see how coconut oil would taste!  From my research mac oil and coconut oil seem to be the safest to cook with)
1/2 medium jalapeno pepper. Your choice whether to remove the seeds!!  I took out half
1/2 large yellow onion
Throw in some of your favorite spices.  I used cumin, sea salt, chilli flakes and ground coriander.

Put everything in your food processor or high speed blender.   Process until slightly still chunky.  Shape into patties (I had 7) and bake for 30 minutes.  Flip over and rotate if needed.  Bake for an additional 15 minutes or so, checking to see your patties are a nice golden color.

Sweet Potato Fries

These are so simple to make.  The only challenge in my opinion is cutting up the sweet potato.   Rinse, dry and chop up one large sweet potato in half first, then into fry size pieces.  I leave the skin because it is nutritious, tastes nice, and why take the time to peel it away lol?

Now it is time for those options I was explaining above.  I seriously just love the natural sweet potato flavor.  I put them in the oven and bake at 400 degrees on a baking sheet, checking them after 20 minutes.  I keep checking until they are nice and crispy.

A yummy raw vegan version can be followed here:  http://www.rawmazing.com/raw-sweet-potato-fries-w-chipotle-mayo/#more-750

If you like seasoned fries baked with oil:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Perfect-Oven-Sweet-Potato-Fries/

My sister (and everyone at the dinner party we made these for) wanted some flavoring so we set some plain ones aside for me and put the rest in a plastic bag with olive oil, yummy spices like fresh rosemary, sea salt, and pepper.  Shake until evenly coated.

Enjoy!!!!!

Raw Vegan Carrot Cake with a Hint of Apple

 You are going to love this!!

 Bethany and I served this raw vegan carrot cake at our dinner party yesterday.  Oh my gosh is it yummy!   I had some for breakfast this morning too haha :)  We made this carrot cake with a dinosaur blender that barely works, so if you have a food processor or high speed blender it will be much easier for you.  Regardless, it was still simple and fun to make!  This makes about 15 -20 servings. 

INGREDIENTS-Base
2 Cups of shredded carrots (we used a mandolin slicer)  Set the carrots aside for later!
1 medium sized apple peeled and shredded (we used the mandolin for this too)
2-2.5 Cups of Almond meal (you want the dough to be dense, moist, but not sticky)
1.5 cups of raw pitted dates soaked and drained
1 cup raw shredded coconut
3 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 teaspoon of nutmeg 
1 teaspoon of sea salt

Put all ingredients except carrots in a food processor or high speed blender.  Plan B:  you can also mash it up quite nicely and easily by hand if you don't have any fancy equipment :) We attempted to put the ingredients in our blender, at first, but it just growled at us.  haha.

Next, add in shredded carrot.

Next we used a 8inch by 10 inch plastic storage container...we wanted a pan but didn't have the right size.  But actually the plastic storage container had a lid on it so it ended up being the perfect choice since the base is going to go into the freezer anyways :)  We lined the plastic container with foil so it would be easy to lift out.  We spread the base inside, about one inch thick.  Put in freezer to set.





 While your base is in the freezer it is time to whip up some frosting :)  there is our fancy blender, using a fancy plate as our lid.












 



INGREDIENTS
 1.5 cups of raw almond meal
1/2 cup of water 
2/3 cup of raw coconut oil
 4 Tablespoons of liquid sweetener (agave syrup, maple syrup or honey*)
 2 Teaspoons of vanilla extract
Juice of a half lemon
1 teaspoon of sea salt

Blend all ingredients well!  We really wanted a creamy texture, so it was important to blend it for a long time!!  We let it blend for about 4 minutes.  We didn't want it to get hot though, so you might want to give it a minute or two break in the middle of the blending.  Keep checking it though, because all blenders are different.

Grab your base out of the freezer, smooth the cream on top of it, and marvel for a few minutes at the delicious dessert you have just created :))  Freeze for at least 1 hour, preferably 2.  Allow 30 minutes for it to thaw before eating.  ~ENJOY!~

*some people agree that honey is vegan while others say it is not

The wonders of coconut oil and lavender in hair!

I decided to try something new yesterday.  I was a bit skeptical (when I say skeptical I really mean concerned about oil in hair in general, my hair gets oily if I don't wash it at least every two days.  I thought it wouldn't be good for me to be ADDING oil in any capacity.. lol)  but Kasey insisted, she was really keen to see how it turned out for me.  She has been a fan of putting coconut oil in her hair for a while now, and she even made a youtube video about it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlh52ujMO6w

In our previous post, we talked about foraging and we were lucky to find some beautiful, aromatic lavender and we had no real idea what we were going to do with it.  We had about 2-3 tablespoons of coconut oil left in the jar so it clicked, why not try adding the lavender?!  We heated the coconut oil until it was in liquid form and added about 2 teaspoons of lavender flowers.  It smelled amazing and I wasn't so skeptical about putting it in my hair then :)   I just focused on the ends and ran a brush through.  Then I put my hair in a loose bun and went about my day.  Simple as that!

I loved it, absolutely loved it.  Every step I took I could smell the soothing lavender and the yummy coconut, it was divine.

I ended up leaving it in for about 8 hours.  I imagine if you wanted, you could leave it for 1-2 hours just to try it.  I'm thinking since we mixed in the calming lavender, you could put this on your hair before bedtime for sweet dreams :)

We plan on trying to mix the oil with essential oils.  We have some peppermint oil and neroli oil.  Both of which I'm excited about trying!