Garden Pita with Creamy Avocado & Kale and Cilantro

I wanted to make a healthy lunch for my parents.  I ended up creating something that I will no doubt regularly implement into my own quick and easy meals :)  These garden pitas are delicious, quick and simple to make.  If you want to make a strictly raw vegan meal, skip the pita and enjoy the rest as a fresh yummy salad!! :)

To begin:  I visited my local health food/grocery store and bought Ezekial sprouted grain pitas.  They were frozen at the store, and still a little cold by the time I got home so I put them in the oven for a few minutes.

Next, I threw two handfuls of chopped kale in a big bowl.  Make sure to remove any large stems.  I added:

(serves 2)  INGREDIENTS:
2 pitas (I used Ezekial sprouted grain)
1/2 avocado
1/8 cup olive oil
sea salt to taste
1 handful of cilantro
2 handfuls of kale (chopped and stems removed)
Juice of 1 lemon
any additional herbs or seasoning of your choice...get creative!

I took the pita bread and smoothed 1/4 avocado on the inside, inside each pita, using a total of 1/2 avocado.  I used the avocado as a replacement for mayonnaise.  Next I mixed together the kale, cilantro, salt, olive oil and lemon in a big bowl, breaking down the crunchiness of the kale until it was a bit softer.  I took that and used it to stuff the pitas.  It is a little creamy and tangy with a nice zing as you bite into it :)  Perfect!  My parents were a little hesitant at first, but ended up liking it.

 You can also add things like tomatoes, corn, shredded carrots & beets, onions, etc!!  YUM

 

Simple Raw Vegan Chocolate Desserts (chocolate almond butter cup & chocolate with walnuts and sea salt)

My mom and I (Kc) made these today for my cousin's birthday gift and for a way for my mom to healthfully enjoy chocolate while also incorporating coconut oil into her diet.

These are seriously YUMMY and seriously easy to make.  
What you will need:

 Chocolate:
1 cup of raw cacao powder  (you can also use cocoa!)
6-7 tablespoons of coconut oil...you want it gooey
3 tablespoons of liquid sweetener (maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey*)
cinnamon to taste
sea salt to taste 
Mix together and add cinnamon and sea salt to your liking; I use 5-6 shakes each

Filling:
Dessert #1.  2 tablespoons of almond butter
Dessert #2.  1/4 cup chopped up walnuts

Find two small storage containers (ours holds about 6 oz) and fill up both with a layer of chocolate.   You could also use cupcake liners, but then you will probably end up with 4 desserts.  Which is just fine :)

For the first dessert, scoop 2 tablespoons of almond butter inside, and use a spoon to spread chocolate on top to cover.  For your other dessert, sprinkle chopped walnuts inside and stir together.  Once evenly mixed together, sprinkle more walnuts on top.  

Garnish each dessert with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Place in Freezer for 20 minutes, cut into small pieces, and then place in fridge for storage or eat right away.  ENJOY!! :)

Fresh Dandelion Green Salad with Almond and Sunflower Seeds

My sister and I just walked to the grocery store to get some rocket or spinach for the salad I was planning on making for lunch.  Well, the store was closed because it is a national holiday--Anzac Day!  What to do?  What else, but our favorite...urban herbin'!  I was brainstorming ideas for lunch and then I remembered all the beautiful dandelion greens growing nearby*.  They are a bitter green, so be prepared for that, but taste lovely to me with the right seasoning.  Also, they are packed with nutrition:  http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2441/2

"This food is a good source of Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Manganese."  Who knew...that free 'weed' growing outside our homes is so good for us?  It also has amazing benefits for your liver and kidneys :))

*It is very important that you know for sure the dandelion greens are not sprayed with harsh insecticides or pesticides.   I know the spot that I get mine is free from pollutants and safe to eat. Also, some grocery stores are starting to sell them, such as Whole Foods Market in the USA.

Ingredients:
2 cups of washed dandelion greens, at least chopped in half lengthwise
a small handful of finely chopped up almonds
about 1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Chopped up veggies (I used what we had on hand--carrots, corn, purple cabbabe)
Your favorite seasoning (I liked a small amount of sea salt, ground peppercorns, cayenne, garlic)
Lastly, I sprinkled ground up flax and sunflower seeds on top

Mix together and adjust seasoning to your liking! 

Raw Vegan Anzac Day Biscuits

First, I just wanna say THANKS everyone who is trying out our recipes on this blog!  My sister and I are very excited to share what we learn in the kitchen and connect with others who are also passionate about food, holistic health & creativity :)

Happy Anzac Day!!  Okay, well, Happy Inner Peace, LOVE and Acceptance Day too!  In the spirit of celebrating, my sister and I got creative and made some raw vegan Anzac Day Biscuits (cookies for all our mates in America)!  Seriously, these are perfect and I am told they taste very traditional :-)

Ingredients

3/4 cup of rolled oats
1/3 cup of shredded coconut
1/3 cup of sesame seeds
1/2 cup of almond meal
1/3 cup of vegan liquid sweetener--maple syrup or agave syrup or honey*
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
sea salt to taste

In a food processor, combine almond meal, coconut, sesame seeds, and oats until chopped finely.  Add in the salt, liquid sweetener and vanilla extract.  When the texture starts to clump up you are done processing.  The 'dough' mixture was difficult for us to roll into cookies by hand so we placed it firmly into a storage container.  We lined the bottom of the container with baking paper.  We placed the mixture inside and pressed down firmly until it was level in height.  We used baking paper on top as well since the doughy mixture was so sticky and hard to work with.  After that we cut the dough into bite size squares.  Place in the fridge for an hour and enjoy!

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

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 Tomato and Pepper Oat Crackers

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius
Ingredients
1 stalk of celery
1/4 of green bell pepper (any color is fine)
3 roma tomatoes
1 cup of orange juice
1/2 lemon juiced
1/4 yellow onion
1 handful of fresh parsely
1 handful of fresh rosemary
1-2 teaspoons of dried oregano
6 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon cumin
Sea salt and pepper to taste
4-6 cups of rolled oats

These are the rolled oats we used :-)  We bought these organic whole grain oats at the health food store in Bondi.  They were very cheap!  We got a big bag and these yummy crackers are the end product! 

Combine all ingredients except oats in a food processor, or high power blender.

Add oats to the food processor, but be warned, that oats are sometimes used as an egg substitute because they are a binder!  They start getting sticky and thick very quickly.  Work quickly when adding the oats.  We ended up using about 5 cups of oats.

Spread gloopy mixture on baking sheets.  We used three pans and put them into the oven.  Half way through the baking process we flipped them over and rotated them from outside to the inside. 

Enjoy!  We eat our crackers with salsa.  We also use them as croutons.

Quinoa and Vegetable Vegan Stew!

I'm freezing.  Winter is coming.  Kasey and I hosted a dinner party last weekend and we puzzled over what we could make.  No vegans were attending BUT we can't resist preparing a beautiful vegan menu.  It's such a nice feeling when people that expect vegan food to be bland and tasteless and boring are proven wrong :P We decided on a stew because what's better when you're cold and want something warm and hearty.  This stew was so fun to make, and simple.  The chopping took a while but if you have a good knife or a food processor that would help a lot.

We started with making the stock.  I think making a stock can seem a bit intimidating if you've never done it before.  It creates the base of the stew and that's where your base flavor starts.  I'll break this recipe into two parts to simplify.  Keep in mind, that if you are low on time it is perfectly okay to buy a pre-made vegan stock at the store, but we found it fun and delicious to make our own.

Vegetable Stock

1 Brown Onion, cut into quarters

2 Stalks of Celery, chopped in half

4 Carrots, medium size, cut in half

8 cloves of Garlic, cut in half

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon Cumin

Handful of fresh Parsley

Handful of fresh Rosemary

Salt and Whole Peppercorns, we didn't really measure, just added as we went

6 Cups Spring Water

*We included mushrooms in our stock, but removed them after about 10 minutes when we realized they could be overpowering.  

Throw all of it in a big pot with a lid.  Heat on high until boiling.  Then turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for about 2.5-3 hours.  We ended up letting it cool over night just for extra flavor development.  Strain completely (you might be able to find another use for the leftover vegetable, Kasey happily ate the carrots on their own they were so good :D).  You'll need about 2 cups of stock liquid for your stew.

Quinoa and Vegetable Vegan Stew

1 Brown Onion, chopped 

2 Carrot, chopped

1.5 cups Quinoa

2 tablespoons of Macadamia Oil

1 tablespoon Cumin

2-4 cloves Garlic, finely minced

Salt and Ground Pepper to taste

Handful of Rosemary

Handful of Basil

5 Medium Tomatoes, chopped

2-3 cups of red and green cabbage, shredded

2 Cups Kale

1 Sweet Potato/Kumera, chopped

2 Cups of the above prepared stock

2-3 Cups Spring Water

Add the chopped carrot and onion and garlic to your pot, with the macadamia oil.  Cook it off just a bit then add the quinoa.  

 Now add the stock, water, and the tomatoes.  Simmer on medium heat for about 10 minutes.  Finally, add in the cabbage and the kale and the sweet potato.  Put in the spices, the cumin, the rosemary, the basil, and your salt and pepper.  We taste as we cook and season accordingly, so our measurements might not be exact, but remember that you can always add more if you think it needs it.

Turn the heat down and continue to cook for 15-20 more minutes.  We checked on it constantly just to make sure the flavors were right.  It smelled so nice :)  Basically it's done when the sweet potato is cooked.  Enjoy!

We hope you love it as much as we did!  We had about 12 servings but everyone wanted seconds so it was hard to tell.  It was perfect for our chilly evening dinner party.  It was a big hit, for vegans and non-vegans alike :P