Fabulous Vegan Recipes

I make chia seed pudding alot but this time I made it without any added coconut sugar and some fruit and homemade cashew butter and it was awesome. I'm not usually good at layering everything to look pretty but I must say this is a good picture! Grab some fresh berries and some raw cashews for this recipe and you got yourself a yummy, filling breakfast. Kids will love this breakfast because it's in a cool mason jar and it's sweet and fun.

If you bake regular chocolate box cake and crumble up the cake and put it in a bowl, you will get my raw chocolate cake consistency. These cupcakes are so much like the "real" baked thing that it will be hard to resist them even if you're a non vegan who is opposed to any vegan baked goods. By the way, it drives me nuts when non vegans put their nose up to vegan food simply because they have't tried it, but that is a separate blog post! 

When you are eating raw, the majority of your calories comes from fruit. I bought a ton of fruit, leaning heavily on berries and I also bought my least favorite fruits: apples, pears and oranges. Oranges are a pain in the ass because you have to peel them but apples and pears are just boring. I mean, they are such a snooze. I hate just taking an apple or pear and eating it; it doesn't fill me up and there is nothing exciting about eating either. Maybe I've been eating apples and peanut butter for too many years but...snoooze! So, I decided to make my pears into a dessert and I'm LOVING them now!

It is my 5th day eating fully raw and I'm loving it. I'm not going to say I haven't thought about cooked food but I've been able to stay on track. It's so hot and humid so I'm sure that has something to do with wanting cold fresh fruits and veggies.

I just came back to the city after being home for a week visiting my family and friends in the burbs and I feel rejuvenated! I spent time with my little niece, drove around the burbs, hung out with my friends and enjoyed central air conditioning! The first thing I did when I got back to the city was hit the farmers market in Union Square to get a ton of veggies and fruit so I could start up my fully raw rest of the summer. I've always wanted to go fully raw for a few reasons: the health benefits, the weather and having a ton of in season fruit available to me, weight loss and to see how my body would feel eating completely raw, fresh foods. It's day 1 of being completely raw and I feel great.

Apricots are in season now and I just bought a whole bunch at Trader Joe's. I love munching on them as is but this morning I made a smoothie; sometimes recipes just pop into my head and this one did just that last night. It came to me when I came back from a night out with my BFF, it was a real NYC evening, we walked from the West Village all the way uptown, through the beautiful, lit up streets of this magnificent city. 

This pie is epic!! And it took me all of 10 minutes to make. I did a little bit of preparation the night before but I pretty much woke up, put the ingredients in my Cuisinart and here it is....the best looking and tasting key lime pie I've ever had (if I may say so myself!). Made with whole, natural ingredients and no added sugar, this pie will impress anyone at your table. The only sweetener is from fruit (dates) and I made the crust nut-free to cut down on fat.

So, it has taken me all week to get this right and I'm 99% loving this recipe because I'm a perfectionist. I say 99% because I wasn't able to achieve the exact consistency as my chocolate peanut butter gelato, perhaps because I need to let the gelato freeze more. Anyway, my new Cuisinart blender was doing overtime for this recipe and I do love how the gelato tastes. It's made with super whole ingredients and it's great to make for your family without having to spend alot of money on non dairy ice cream. Also, I'm not loving my photos but the natural light was weak due to the stormy weather. Anyway, this recipe is here and that's all that matters so get to making some fresh, organic, natural ice cream!!

My mom bought me a cuisinart food processor that is much bigger than my old one. I'm in the process of perfecting my gelato recipe and I decided to make a chocolate pie while I was thinking about raw desserts. I used pecans for the crust and I never realized how oily they can be. These were raw pieces of pecans that I purchased yesterday. But the crust is insanely yum so let me just say if raw desserts tempt you to splurge more than you should, place the pie immediately in the freezer after making it. It's got an oooy gooy crust and a chocolate peanut butter bomb taste for the filling. Break this one out for your next party so you can impress the non vegans. I've made this pie before so I wanted to try a different crust but the filling is my chocolate avocado pudding filling that you just can't go wrong with. This recipe requires no bananas unless you want them.

I'm flashing back to two winters ago when I made this banana coconut cream pie because my whole life is all about coconut! I love coconut; I just bought coconut cream and coconut sugar to make my strawberry gelato. And banana coconut cream pie is sooooo a summer dessert that I just need to share this again. I made this pie with canned coconut cream that I bought at Trader joe's because I've never had success refrigerating and using coconut milk; it's always too runny. If you use coconut milk for creamy recipes, use it, you don't HAVE to use canned coconut cream. If you use coconut milk, use BPA free, canned full fat coconut milk. The filling for this pie is two ingredients (bananas and coconut cream) so it's a great I need to bring a dessert to this party but have no time to make anything recipe.

Smoothies, fruit, that's all I want lately. It's too hot to cook and I'm so uninspired; I was thinking of making a raw dessert but I need to go shopping and I just don't feel like it. I went to the farmers market this morning, which was rather empty, surprisingly, and I got two quarts of strawberries after walking around all the tables like three times. Only one farm had organic strawberries and they wanted $7 for a little pint so I got 2 quarts for $5 each of minimally sprayed strawberries. The farmer explained the pesticide is not sprayed directly on the berries, instead they spray the roots. You just can't get away from this shit; it's killing the bee population but yet we still use pesticides. I'm sure organic farming is alot more difficult than conventional farming but if you have to cover your mouth when spraying pesticide on food, why would it be ok to eat??!! This is why I hit up Whole Foods during their organic berry sales; I want to buy local

How do you eat tacos without eating a ton of bread? Lettuce! Leaves of fresh, organic romaine lettuce. So yum, so delish and zero calories, zero gluten, etc. My mom visited over the last few days and brought me groceries from Trader Joe's and a new cast iron pot. She also bought me a Cuisinart food processor which I'm obsessed with. We made tacos on Tuesday night with corn tacos and meatless beef and they were just insanely yum. So since I splurged the last two days, I decided to make tacos with a raw shell. For the filling, I steamed collard greens and mixed them with brown rice and tons of lovely spices.

Ahhh sushi, all you can eat, homemade, love it! It got pretty hot pretty quickly here in NYC and the last thing I have felt like doing it cooking. Smoothies and salads are what I'm all about lately and now I'm adding sushi to the summery food mix. For this recipe, instead of making sushi with a few veggies, I made a salad and used that as the filling for the sushi. It was so delish and I know you will love this! Sushi takes a little bit of time and planning, mainly because you need to cook the rice ahead of time but my advice is to make alot of rice at once. You will need to buy sushi rice, which is stickier than regular rice, and buy sushi nori sheets, these are the seaweed wraps used for sushi. I have a sushi mat but you don't need one; instead you can use wax paper. Making sushi at home is SO EASY and it saves you money. You can make the sushi as healthy as you want while being as adventurous in the kitchen as you dare.

My wonderful friend Helena is back with another post about veganism and its impact on the environment! Did you know animal agriculture is responsible for more carbon emissions than all transportation combined?  Helena and I met when we both participated in the vegan pledge/mentor program at the beginning of this year. After Helena's post, I'm flashing back to my sushi recipe from December. 

I'm back in the city after a mini vacation in the Poconos. I went slightly off track with raw till 4 because it was just not my normal routine but for the most part I ate fruit during the day. It was difficult to stick to high carb low fat dinners though. My mom bought me a tofurkey roast so I made that one night...they are so delish! So back to the city and back on track! My 30 days of yoga continues and I'm keeping up with the running though I'm still nursing an injury to my left foot. Injuries are so frustrating!

I haven't been following rawtill4 pretty much all weekend but I'm still consuming a ton of fruits and veggies and avoiding salt and oil.  I bought butternut squash at Trader Joe's the other day and I was super excited to use it in a recipe.  Truth be told though tonight, I wanted to order a pizza but I have a ton of veggies and I couldn't justify spending money on a pizza.  I'm happy I chose to eat clean tonight!

To say I'm loving this rawtill4 eating plan would be an understatement.  I lost another 3 pounds and I feel full at the end of the day.  I'm also keeping up with the yoga, running and weight lifting.  This weekend I'll be changing things up a bit because I'll be on a mini vacation in the Poconos but I plan to be as raw before 4PM as I can; I just need to stock up on lots of fruit before I go.  I won't have my blender though with me so I may take a break from the smoothies and nana ice cream, which is hard!

Nothing says summer like plenty of fruit and a super sweet and vegan banana pudding. I made this with chia seeds and coconut cream. It is high in fat so I would only eat a small serving at once especially if you're doing high carb low fat. But if you need a sweet pick-me-up, this would be perfect.

This weekend was officially my first free weekend without having to go to yoga teacher training; I'll be honest I was worried about it because I wasn't going to have the structure and peer interaction I had over the past six weekends.  I spent so many hours with the same awesome group of people and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle not having that time with them.  But all my worrying was for nothing because I spent alot of time with my yoga friends anyway and just explored this beautiful, vibrant, crazy city!  My favorite area is 59th and 5th right at the park.  It's crowded and crazy and sooooo New York.  I just walked for hours, enjoying the sights and sounds of NYC, meeting up with friends for drinks or sushi or a stroll in the park, it was such a wonderful weekend!

Last night I was thinking of a super duper sweet smoothie that involved coconut, dates and bananas. I threw in the apple at the last minute. And what better spice to go with all of that than cinnamon? I drank this along with my citrus water...I made orange/lemon juice and let it sit overnight. Both were very hydrating and the smoothie really filled me up. Onto the recipe! 5 medjool dates (pitted) 4 bananas chilled in the freezer 1/2 apple Cinnamon (as much as you want) 1 1/2 cups of coconut water A splash of coconut milk You only need to chill the bananas for about 1/2 hour to an hour. The idea is just to get them cold. Put all the ingredients in your blender and blend on high. Pour in your favorite mason jar and enjoy :) It tastes like a beautiful fall day!