Date night dessert

Date night! Yummy! I don't mean awkward candle-lit meal over chinese food, I mean, date as in the fruit! Now that is something to get excited for! Dates are AWESOME for desserts, and I recommend them to anyone who has a serious sweet tooth. They are so sugary it is unbelievable, and taste great with practically all foods.

Last night, I made my delicious date spread to fill some vegan cookie sandwiches! So, I thought I'd share my recipe for an awesome date spread that you can use at breakfast with your oatmeal, as jam, or any with any other recipe that calls for a sweet awakening! It's raw vegan friendly too!

Let's get sugary with....
1 Cup of dates
Water
1/2 medium apple
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

First, soak your dates in a bowl of room temperature water for 4-6 hours. When they feel soft, put them in a blender - without the water- and add the apple. Blend them up adding small amounts of water when your blender begins to struggle; if you don't need to add water, thumbs up to you! Finally, poor the spread into a bowl and stir in the cinnamon. If you want to add more cinnamon, knock yourself out.

I put the spread in-between two vegan sandwich cookies. I got the recipe for the cookies in this awesome vegan cookie book I have. It is a pretty simple recipe and nothing unique (kind of like a short bread, sugar cookie) so I won't post how to make them, unless someone comments and asks for it. I will however put a link to the cookie book I have. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves and misses cookies as a vegan, but I do warn you that vegan or not they are cookies, and are not the best for you. This book was given to me by a very good friend when I became vegan, and I have used it many times since for vegan dinners I have cooked for my family and friends.

So try out the dates! And check out the book!!!!!

Getting sweeter,

Julia
Link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Vegan-Cookie-Connoisseur-Delicious/dp/161608121X

Almond Cheese: Finalizing

Now to continue the cheese! (see earlier post)

So, you have let your cheese ferment for around 12 hours yes? Now it is time to finish it off! Take your cheese, still in the cloth, out of the bowl. Squeeze out as much of the extra liquid that did not drain out into the bowl. You don't want your cheese to be to wet, but moist enough to stick together. Once you think it is drained enough, open up the cloth.

Clump all your cheese together. At this point it is ready to serve. However, if you want to be a little creative and role the cheese in nuts or something of the sort - giving it a decorative outside- go right ahead.

This is my final product. I split the batch into two parts. One is mixed with cinnamon, walnuts, and cranberries (left), and the other with dried parsley, fennel seeds, garlic powder, and sunflower seeds (right). Be creative!!

Through that cheese on fruit,

Julia

Mono Melon

Why melon? I was feeling well...melancholy ;)

What's on the menu for today? A mono day of course! What is a mono day? Well, it means today I am only eating one kind of food, specifically Cantaloupe:) A total of 2 cantaloupe made up my meals today. Why would I do this though? By eating one type of food, especially a high water content food, it allows for your body to detoxify. Fruit is also the easiest food for your body to digest, so it gives your system a break from digesting, and allows it to focus on getting out all those bad toxins. It is really good to do after you have had a day of heavy eating, or you ate to many breads or pastas - in my case nuts that were not soaked- that are clogging up your system and backing everything up.

Give your tummy a break too!

Julia

Almond Cheese: The prep and process

Cheese. A non-vegan friendly spread that I miss fairly often. UNTIL I DISCOVERED THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER. Nut cheeses. Yes that is right, you can make cheese out of nuts! Almonds, cashews, walnuts, pine nuts, even seeds! Today, I thought I'd share with you this awesome vegan cheese that even people who are not vegan will love.

I have made this recipe twice so far with almonds and cashews. Both I served to my parents and friends, and days after my dad kept asking for my NUT cheese, instead of his italian aged cheddar. Thats right, nuts take the win. I am breaking this recipe down into two blogs. This one will contain the prep steps and the processing of the cheese. Tomorrow I will post how to finish the cheese. Please note that this entire process will take you at least a day and a half, maybe more, depending on how you time it. I will also put the link for the video that taught me how to make nut cheeses!

Let's get started with..
1 1/2 cups of almonds - or any nut you desire!
Some water

First, the night before, put your almonds(etc) into a bowl and cover them with water so that they can soak. Nuts are very dehydrated, so you should actually soak your nuts (lol) all the time, so that they are easier for your body to breakdown and digest. The main reason we are soaking them here though is because they will be easier to blend up, and they will me MUCH easier to peel. Even if you are not using almonds, you should soak them so that when you blend them up they become a paste not a powder.

The next morning, drain your almonds and peel them. This is NOT hard! It is super easy, especially if you soaked them for 12 hours over night. Pinch the almonds and they will actually go flying across the room out of the peel- be careful!

Stick your almonds/nuts into a blender and add water so it is just covering the nuts.

Blend them up! You may need to add some more water if your blender gets stuck; don't worry if you do. Your nuts should turn into a nice paste.

Poor the paste onto a cheese cloth. Mine just so happens to be long and rectangular, so I poorer mine lengthwise. If yours is  square, poor it in the middle. Fold up the cloth so the cheese is covered. You will notice a white liquid seeping from the cloth. This is what we want to drain. Place your cheese into a strainer that is sitting in a bowl; make sure the bottom of the strainer is not touching the bottom of the bowl.

Stick something heavy on the cloth (I use jars) so that it speeds up the process. Stick it in a cupboard for 12 hours or more, so that the nut cheese can ferment and strain.

Read tomorrows blog for what happens next!

Always cheesy,
Julia

Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5t-ln_bDI&feature=related

Parent belly satisfier

My mom is always coming home later than my dad. This means that despite what the time may be, or how late my mom is, my dad will wait for her. Now this could mean hours, since my mom has no sense of time what so ever. Me being the chef for the week, is left to create appetizers that my dad can munch on until the lady herself arrives. I thought I'd share my appetizer ideas with you all as a way of making me feel like all this extra food I have to make because of my mother's tardiness is for an actual, good reason. Here is one of them for now.

oh, one more thing...Vegan friendly!

Pear crackers; Cashew cheese with walnuts; Cucumber, raison, and mango mini-kabobs 

Cooking to the Beat of Ratatouille

So this week I have been cooking dinner for my parents, and tonight I thought I'd be a little fancy and make them something new! Ratatouille- which I guess is not that fancy when you think about its origin, but hell, it's a pretty dish to look at if you ask me. I found a fairly simple version of it and than made it my own. I have this thing for never really following a recipe, but instead just looking at it and getting an idea of how it looks and the basic ingredients. I'll put the link at the bottom for those who are curious to see where I got my recipe from.

Ingredients:
1 fairly long green zucchini
1 fairly long yellow zucchini
1 red pepper
2 short eggplant
1/3 can of tomatoes - already chopped (you can use fresh to!)
1/3 of a sweet onion
1 garlic clove
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Sage

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F

First things first, chop your eggplant into slices (circular, like potato chips). Than, stick them in a strainer, put a little bit of salt on them, cover them with a cloth, and place something heavy on them. BUT WHY you might ask? Well, eggplant can be VERY acidic! And by placing something heavy on them and putting pressure on them, you can get rid of some of the acidity. You should give them at least 45 minutes to sit.

Next, get an oval baking dish (or any other shape you little hearts desire) and poor the tomatoes in. Chop up your garlic and onion and add them as well, spreading them evenly around so it is just a thin layer.

Chop up the rest of the vegetables just like you did with the eggplant. The pepper you can cut the same way, just be sure to take off the top and clean out the inside carefully so you do not break the pepper. Now, you layer them going around the dish so each vegetable is showing just a little; make a pattern with them.

Drizzle some olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. Put a couple of sage leaves on the top, and cover with parchment paper that has been cut so it fits the oval baking dish and can just rest on top of it. Cook for 45 minutes - more or less depends on you! Serve and enjoy!

I served mine on top of cous cous that I just tossed with some green onion and lemon juice, topped with some greek yogurt (my parents were eating it not me; if your vegan too, just ignore the yogurt!). YUM!!

Always cooking up a song,

Julia

Link: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/

Cooking to the beat of Zucchini Pasta !

Spirolized zucchini with basil tomato sauce!

Time for my first vegan cooking blog! This is a recipe I made myself, although, I am sure I am not the first to do this. It is 100% vegan, gluten free, and can be raw vegan as well, depending on how you go about it! Anyhow, read away, cook, eat, and enjoy!

You will need...

1 medium zucchini

2 medium tomatoes

A handful of basil

1/4 cup water

Seasonings (salt and pepper)

1 clove of garlic

1/3 cup of sun dried tomatoes 

First, spirolize your zucchini. BUT WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Well, if you don't know what it means, than I am going to assume you don't own a spirolizer...BUT no worries, because you can just make the zucchini into fettuccine strips by using a peeler and just peeling the zucchini until you get down to the core, so you make it into thick strips. However, I highly recommend you buy a spirolizer, so below,  I have two links that will help you out! Moving on though.....So, when spirolizing, if you choose to peel your zucchini, you will end up with all white pasta, but if you do not peel it, no worries it is still edible, you'll just have some green pasta strands, but no big deal. Once you are done spirolizing, put your zucchini in a bowl and leave it aside.

Next, chop up the garlic and tomatoes and put them in a blender. If your blender is having trouble, add the water, but not too much because you do not want a watery sauce. Than, add your sun dried tomatoes, which you may or may not have to chop depending on the strength of your blender. You can also add some seasonings at this point, and blend it up.

Take your sauce and pour it into a pan, NO OIL ADDED. Add in as much basil as you desire and cook on a medium-high heat until your basil is cooked and the sauce has absorber the flavour of the basil (about 5 - 6 minutes). Your tomato sauce should be at a boil, and if it is watery, let it cook for longer until some of the water boils off. Than, turn off the heat, and while the pan is still hot, add in the zucchini and mix it until they are covered in sauce. At this point, they should be warm, and ready to serve!

NOW..if you are a raw vegan, all you have to change is instead of cooking the basil in with the sauce in a pan, just add it to the blender and mix it in that way. Than, you just pour the sauce on top of the zucchini directly from the blender, and nothing will be cooked. 

It is better warm than cold...but both taste great! Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

Listening to way to much Leonard Cohen,

Julia

Links: http://juicers4life.com/spirooli-vegetable-slicers-and-spiral-slicers/    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WFHqKTI9Lo