Vegan Brownies

after reading reviews of the fail vegan brownie recipes out there, one user made ingredient recommendations that i somewhat heeded in making mine...
NOTE: this is vegan except for the nutella, which has milk, but i can't resist it, feel free to substitute or omit

1c. flour
1 Tbsp flax seed meal
½ c. cocoa powder
¼ c. brown sugar
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
½ c. raw almonds
½ c. semi sweet chocolate chips
¼ c. safflower oil
¼ c. nutella
¼ c. warm water
1c. apple butter/sauce (1.5 lb apples peeled/cored/chopped / 1c. sugar / ¼ tsp cinnamon, dash ground cloves/salt - put dry ingredients over apples in slow cooker 12 hrs; high 1st hour, low 11 hrs, stir occasionally)

preheat oven to 350°F
2 med bowls: in one, sift together dry ingredients except almonds and chocolate chips
in the other, combine all wet ingredients.
fold dry mix into wet mix, don't over-work
add almonds and chocolate chips
spoon into greased 8x8 pan or 12 ct lined muffin pan
bake until just cakey but still moist (15-20 min - 10-15 for muffin pan)
remove pan and cool covered with towel

Almond or Hazelnut Milk

to make home-made almond/hazelnut milk:

1. soak nuts 5-8 hours, reserve liquid for plant fertilizer
2. blend almonds in 4 cups of water for 2 min
3. add extract (vanilla) and dates, agave, or cane juice to sweeten
4. strain through milk nut bag or cheese cloth - reserve nut pulp, and dehydrate to make nut meal
5. keep milk refrigerated up to 4 days

Smoothie I gotta try

neon-pink-smoothie-juice

• ½ cucumber, peel and chop
• ½ small raw beet, scrub and chop
• 1 apple, core and chop
• ¼ fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
• 4 ice cubes

- in high-speed blender or bullet blender, add cucumber and blend on low.
- add the beet and apple and blend, increasing speed until smooth
- add grapefruit juice and ice cubes, blend on high until smooth

Green 'n' Creamy Pasta

1 ripe avocado
1/2 lemon, juiced
lemon zest
3 cloves garlic
½ tsp salt
fresh basil
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 oz of spinach or gluten-free pasta
fresh cracked black pepper

Fill medium pot with water 3/4 full, bring to boil. Add pasta, and cook to package specifications, or al dente
Pit avocado and scoop out the soft flesh from the skin. Add avocado, lemon juice, garlic, salt and a hand full of basil leaves to food processor and pulse until smooth
Place cooked pasta in a large bowl, add the avocado mixture and toss until pasta is evenly coated
Garnish with lemon zest and black pepper

Vegan Cool Cucumber Soup

1 small cucumber
1 litre plain coconut milk or soy yogurt (for non-vegans, I find plain Kefir the best to use)
¼ c. dates (finely chopped)
¼ c. golden raisins
¼ c. walnuts (chopped)
fresh mint
ice cubes

Slice cucumber in half short and long ways - take each quarter and with a spoon, gently remove watery middle where seeds are
Over medium mixing bowl, grate cucumber with small-gauge grater down to the skin
Mix in yogurt, chopped dates, and raisins
Stir and then chill to let flavors combine for ~ 1 hour
When serving, drop in 1-2 icecubes, and garnish with mint leaves, whole or chopped, and chopped walnuts

Stuffed Figs Dessert

8 fresh mission figs
¼ c. black currant juice (cherry juice as a substitute)
½ tsp coriander
¼ c. walnuts or almonds (raw, unsalted)
1 Tbsp raw sugar

Preheat oven to 300°F
Remove stems and cut X's across tops of figs - to make a tulip-like cup
Gently use a spoon to scrape out seeds and pulp and place in small mixing bowl, keeping cups intact
Combine pulp with currant juice and corriander
In separate bowl, toss raw nuts with sugar - add a drop of safflower or sunflower oil if necessary to get sugar to stick
Place fig cups in ramekins (1-3 depending on size), place 1-2 nuts in each fig and then fill each with pulp mixture
Bake until just tender

Importance of Vegetables

I would generally consider myself the last person on earth to advocate eating a large percentage of vegetables... I don't subscribe to vegan or vegetarian lifestyles -- bacon doesn't grow on trees -- but from what I've learned on my own about food, my own personal trial and error, and the basics of how food affects your mental and physical state that I was taught growing up, I have a lot to say when it comes to the eating of vegetables.
There are a few things that need to be said first about 'Vegetables'

1. corn is not a vegetable - it is a grain, a grass, and from what I've seen in myself and animals, causes a whole lot of avoidable digestive problems (if you've noticed it often comes out whole... this is not a good thing) because as a seed it contains toxins that are designed to keep you from digesting it
2. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant, avocados, etc are also not vegetables. They are very good fruits, but are not to be confused with what vegetables really are
3. Legumes and lentils are additionally not really vegetables, but I'll have a separate blog on them later, cuz they're complicated in the guise of the types of toxins they produce (seeds). For my purpose here, I will concede that the pod is veggie, and unquestionable if ingested before the seeds develop (I have a life-long hatred of legumes, as well as the filthy dirt-legumes known as peanuts)
4. Vegetables are the leaves, roots, stems, and maybe even buds of plants - the following are only a few of oh, so many
• spinach, chard, arugula, cabbage, lettuce, dandelion, water cress, sprouts, herbs
• yams, tubers, carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots
• rhubarb, celery, asparagus, bamboo
• broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, capers, brussels sprouts

Veggie need-to-knows:

• 50-80% of a human daily diet should be a RAW form of fruit and vegetable -- these contain micro-nutrients that a human body needs in order to repair and defend itself, and generally be healthy

• the more ripe the fruit/vegetable the higher the glycemic index (more sugars) and the lower the nutrient and enzyme content

• simply adding dark green vegetables to any diet (eating habit) can go a long way to improving health, metabolism and weight loss - and i don't mean a little... i mean like a cup of broccoli every meal...

• pasteurizing, though a saver of many lives in the pre-refrigeration age, kills necessary enzymes and breaks down nutrients

• most grocery store (aka non-organic, commercial farm-grown) vegetables are grown with fertilizers containing mostly only potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen... at the very least you should be getting calcium, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc - not to mention the 30+ other nutrients a human body needs

• any vegetable is better than none - if you have to cook it, steam it, bake it, frappé it, juice it, and all you have is the corner grocery: take it and run with it. Getting used to eating veggies is the first hurdle, experimentation is the second

• if you can keep the temp under 120°F or better yet 105°F, that's generally considered to be raw enough to not break down vital nutrients... but it's enough to warm up a raw veggie-frappé soup

• heat destroys vitamin C -- C is one of the vitamins that do so many things to support health in the body, but is also on of the most easily deficient... IT IS READILY AVAILABLE IN RAW FRUITS & VEGGIES... GET IT IN YOU! they say too much causes kidney stones, but there is not a single medical study that proves it does; it was used extensively in studies in the early 1900's to cure viral illnesses, and is currently being used outside of English-speaking countries as a part of nutritional therapy to let the body heal itself of cancer and other ailments -- with no side-effects

 ** I am not a medical doctor, nor am I stating that vitamin C cures cancer**
*** image above obtained from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%A9gumes_01.jpg***

Raw Veggies II : Zucchini

1-2 of your favorite kind of zucchini, sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil

Throw it all in a bowl and toss
stays fresh in the fridge, covered, for a week


Zucchini Rolls

1 zucchini
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic (or other aromatic)
fresh basil
fresh arrugula

Slice zucc lengthwise into strips, soak in lemon juice/oil/garlic.... [they say dehydrate, I think it's overrated]... just roll with basil and arugula and serve al fresco

Raw Veggies I

raw veggie dip

3 raw Brussels sprouts

3 green onions

1/2 avocado

2 garlic cloves

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp grape seed oil

1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

salt

steak seasoning



put all ingredients into food processor

[to prep avocado: slice in half around pit, twist the two halves, use spoon to remove flesh from skin]

season to taste

eat with naan, rice crackers, or celery

or leave corsely processed and serve as a slaw