Raw Vegan Icecream

This is one of my first attempts at a raw recipe… You can buy vegan ice creams in most grocery stores now. There are soy, rice, and coconut ones that I have seen here. In the US they have endless flavours and types. Here in Canada, we don’t have so many, but the basic ones are available and they are delicious.

I have heard of easy vegan ice cream recipes before, but most of them are frozen banana in a food processor with a few other ingredients. My boyfriend calls this baby food and while to his face I deny it.. in reality I completely agree. There are not a lot of occasions that I have the urge to eat mashed banana. Maybe if it was with something else, but not on its own! The store bought ice cream is really expensive. Last time I checked, I think I spent $9.00 on a pint of ice cream. A little ridiculous.

I found a recipe in a raw food book for a raw, hard ice cream. It seemed easy enough. Basically nuts, agave and water plus what ever flavor you want to add. Could it really be this easy? I had to try for myself.

I made two types – Straight up vanilla and spicy chocolate.

I think that people overlook how good cinnamon and chocolate are together. They rarely get paired, yet when they do they are so delicious. I have a brownie recipe I hope to try one day that is a similar flavor combo, so I thought this would be an easy place to test things out.

Vegan Ice Cream

* 10 minutes to prepare, 2-4 hours to chill. Makes about 1 1/2 cups

• Nuts (Cashew, Hazelnut, almond etc)
• ¼ cup of agave syrup
• ¼ - 1/2 cup water

Vanilla Ice Cream

• 1 tbsp vanilla or a vanilla bean

Spicy Chocolate

• 2 Tbsp cocoa
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp cayenne

Apple Cinnamon Spice

• substitute apple juice for the water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp apple cinnamon spice
• Optional - stir in diced apple

Easiest instructions ever. Process the nuts until they are finely ground. While the food processor is running, add the agave, water and then flavouring. Check the consistency. Mine came out more like a brownie batter and I should have added more water. You want the consistency to be closer to a cake batter or a very thick cream. Put it in a container and freeze for 2 hours. Remove and stir and then freeze again for 2 more hours or up to overnight.

Processed... looked a lot like brownie batter.... hmmm

So... Results. Well... it is a frozen dessert. I think if I did this again, I would use more water in the recipe. It is almost too rich. Normally I can eat a bowl of ice cream, but I would say about 1 scoop is plenty for me.

That said, for the amount of time it took to make this, it is a pretty cool way to save some money to do your own ice cream.

I think if you had an ice cream maker and followed a more traditional recipe, you would get something that was a little closer to the store bought stuff. It is nice to know though that this raw alternative works. I am considering still attempting a raw diet and one thing I freak out about is lack of treats. I would eat this again for sure.

Kind of looks like ice cream, doesn't it?
Kind of tastes like it too!

I am actually pretty excited to try this again. Hopefully I can post some more pictures and results for you soon!

Swiss Chard Pie and Making Vegan Cheese

I have written about this recipe I think twice now and finally, yesterday, I made it! I have also made some tweaks to the recipe from Colleen Patrick Goudreau now that I have actually tasted it and now I can post it too.

One of the reasons why I wanted to make this recipe so badly and why I had held off for so long was that it involved homemade vegan cheese. I don’t know why it scared me, but it did. In fact over the past couple years, I have been scared off by a lot of vegan ingredients, recipes and techniques. Vegan cheese freaked me out for a few reasons. Before going vegan, I was a self-proclaimed cheese addict. To me, adding cheese was how you could make any recipe better. It added flavor, fat and salt. It was my biggest fear when I went vegan… how do I replace cheese. The first couple months, I actually stayed away from anything I would normally add it to. I basically lived on Asian-themed dishes for a long time.

I attempted a couple times to make a vegan mac and cheese and while I guess it was a success, it never really killed the craving that still lingers inside of me. Also, anytime that I have faltered off the vegan wagon (yes, I have and one day I’ll even share more perhaps), cheese was what I went to.

The thought of making my own cheese seemed a little daunting. It couldn’t be easy to do, could it? Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s recipe is similar to many other cookbook authors. It is a combination of vegan milk, nutritional yeast flakes, something tangy (lemon in this case) and salt. A lot of vegans call this nooch and basically the end result is a cheese-y sauce.

One thing I will say for this recipe is that it definitely is my favourite one so far. Something about it seemed to hit on the underlying craving much better than ones I have attempted in the past. It has a good hit of salt and even though I don’t think it tastes like cheese, it doesn’t taste like an odd vegan concoction either. This recipe even has a modification to make it a slice-able cheese. I am very curious about that one and my next grocery run will have to involve some agar agar so I can try it.

When I made the Swiss Chard, I stuck to the original recipe, but I have now tasted, made notes and have a few changes that I would make to make this dish even better for me. Think of it like a crustless quiche or strata. The egginess comes for tofu and I am not totally sure that is my favourite way to go. You could nix the tofu and use white beans instead. Here is a link to a non-tofu quiche I made once and it have great results.

Swiss Chard Pie

* Serves 6, about 2 hours to make total if the cheese isn’t prepped.

Ingredients:

• 1 Yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 bunch of Swiss Chard (Or spinach)
• 1 block of pressed, firm tofu
• 1 Tbsp Tumeric
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• Pepper to taste
• 1 cup of cheese sauce (Your choice of type)
• 2-3 Tbsp Bread crumbs
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp Basil
• Sundried Tomato

First thing you will need to do, if you haven’t is make cheese sauce. I don’t know if there is a store-bought version out there, but you could use anything that is a cheese-whiz consistency. To make a basic cheese sauce, bring 1 cup of milk, 1 Tbsp of arrow root (or corn starch), ¼ cup nutritional yeast, salt and pepper and a Tbsp of lemon to boil. Simmer it for 10 minutes or so until it becomes thick. While cooking get cashews or another nut and process to a fine grind. Add the liquid to the nuts while it is processing. Once fully combined, chill it for an hour or so.

Cooking the cheese sauce - kind of like making a white sauce

Grinding the cashews - this makes the right consistency

Combine....

and done.. I realize this does nto look like traditional cheese.. but it tastes good.

Now to make the pie – pre-heat the oven to 375 F. In a large pan or wok, sauté onion and garlic in a bit of oil for 5-7 minutes. Add in the greens and cook them until they are wilted down. While this is cooking, put the block of tofu into a food processor and blend until it is a good mash. Add the turmeric, nutmeg and salt pepper and pulse to combine. Add this to a large bowl and stir in the vegetables.

Sauteing the vegetables

Now stir in the cheese sauce and stir until it is well-combined. In a small bowl add the bread crumbs, paprika and more salt and pepper.

Grease a 9” pie pan and add this mixture to the pan. Add the filling mix to the pan and top with the bread crumb mixture. Finally add the basil and the sundried tomato.

Ready to bake! Can pre-make this and keep it in the fridge until you're ready.

Bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until it is golden brown.

This was relatively easy to make when I had the cheese sauce ready to go. It does make for a lot of dirty dishes, but sometimes there is no way to avoid this. I found the original recipe I used was good, but a little bland overall. The bread crumbs and sundried tomato help add some texture that that this recipe really needed.

And.. ready. Serve with veggies

One thing I really did like about this one was that it really didn't need a crust. I thought that would be the ultimate downfall of this recipe, but the bottom and sides of the pie actually crisp up enough that it is pretty tasty. You could definitely use a crust with this too. Store-bought vegan pie crusts are not easy to find in my area. I have made them before, but still working on perfecting that. This is a nice way to have a quiche without the hassle of making pie crust. That I definitely liked!

Clever Rabbit... I love you!

To finish this meal off, I had an awesome chocolate cake that I bought at Clever Rabbit. It was the first time I had seen a cake there, so I really could not pass it up. Have to say, it was delicious. I am so appreciative of having somewhere I can buy a treat once in a while. If it wasn't for the Clever Rabbit, I would have been baking an entire cake at home… resulting in me eating an entire cake at home. I have no will power when it comes to these things. 

Blogging Saturday Night

Yes, yes I must!

This weekend had so much hope. I was planning to cook, get ahead on the blogging, relax and sleep in and maybe even do some laundry and clean my apartment. As usual, I have done none of these things. I have still not even made the meal I was going to blog about on Thursday!

I was lying on the couch feeling sorry for myself and my sister called. She was blogging over at a coffee shop by her place, Wild Earth. I figured, why not. It's Saturday already, so I might as well try to accomplish something more than couch time.

So here I am spending Saturday night blogging with Laura and drinking chai and trying to figure out what I am going to write about tonight!

Cozy... and quiet. Perfect place for chair and blogging!

First, I am going to give a shout out to Wild Earth. It is so nice to go somewhere cozy and quiet where I can write and drink tea in peace. Wild Earth has a couple locations and one of them happens to be in my sister's neighbourhood. They are a really nice little coffee shop with some fabulous baked goods. They don't have a lot of vegan options, but there is almost always muffins, granola bars or vegan rolls (Think vegan sausage rolls) They also have a few vegan salads like quinoa and vegan bean. One thing that I really like about this place is that they have almond and soy milk for coffee. I don't mind soy, but honestly think that almond is better.. by far. Especially in chai tea. When they first opened I had chatted to the own briefly about the possibility of them using one of my cookie recipes on the menu. I never really followed through with it and honestly I regret. It would be so cool to have another spot in Edmonton that made some vegan desserts and even cooler if they used or adapted one of my recipes! I really have to talk to them again about that one.

Anyways if you are ever in the west end, give this place a try. They have vegan, non-vegan, and gluten free options and their lattes are pretty awesome.

My Almond Chai, so good.

So, I know I haven't actually made this recipe, but I can give you my game plan for it. Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll be able to follow this post up with a review of it.

This week I have really been on a fall food kick. Slow cookers, soups, apples and cinnamon, and roasting vegetables. I found this pie recipe in my Color Me Vegan Cookbook and I really had the urge to make it. It's a crust-less pie with a homemade vegan cheese in it. Normally I get scared off by recipes within recipes, but it seems like a really yummy and slightly healthier way to have some heart warming food.

Its main ingredient is Swiss chard. A lot of people think I weird for loving greens like this one so much. Honestly, before I went vegan I never thought much about vegetable. I didn't love or hate them, just didn't care. I definitely never craved them! This recipe kind of reminds me of a vegan quiche. I have made a quiche before, but I stayed away from ones with tofu in them. This one uses a block of tofu, but the idea of having a homemade cheese made it seem a little better than other recipes I have seen before.

The recipe is simple, saute up some chard (or other green) while doing this, use a blender to combine spices with tofu and the homemade cheese and put it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes or so. My plan is to change the recipe up a little bit in the spices. It is pretty mild with just some turmeric, nutmeg basil and cayenne... I am thinking maybe changing it to sage and thyme with basil and turmeric. It may wreck it, but hopefully it will make for a nice Sunday brunch tomorrow.

Blogging with my sis

The biggest trick to getting this done is to avoid contact with everyone tomorrow morning. I don't know why, but I am always feeling pressed for time. I don't work crazy hours, I don't have kids and I don't have much going on for hobbies yet I never seem to have enough alone time. Maybe I am just greedy with my alone time and want more than the normal amount, but for me. Doing chores and laundry and cooking is not alone time. Alone is having nothing in the world to do and no where to be. No schedule and no phone calls. Today was hopeful, but didn't work out. Tomorrow I am going to try for it again. I have swimming in the morning, but I think maybe the phone will be turned off after this point and I can just have a for real me day. If I can make it happen, it will be amazing!!