Filling Veggie Burgers

This post is for you Emily. I made these at a weekend ski trip and Emily asked me for the recipe ages ago, sorry for the delay, here is the recipe. This is a recipe that I keep going back to. The thing I love about them, is that they are fast, cheap, delicious and filling. They are also easy to make a double batch and freeze the patties in between parchment paper, making a fast meal another night. It came from the Moosewood Restaurant cookbook, which is one of the only cookbooks that I actually have used over and over, I love it. The veggie burgers were good, but needed a little kick, so I experimented adding more spices, tobasco sauce, and sauteed peppers. Feel free to experiment with them. They also go really well with sweet potato fries. I will post that recipe next.



1 C chopped onion
1/2 C chopped sweet peppers
4 garlic cloves
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 C peeled and grated carrots
3 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cumin
3 C cooked black beans
3 T dijon mustard
3 T soy sauce
3 T ketchup
Tobasco to taste
1 1/2 c rolled oats (don't substitute instant oats)

Saute the onions, sweet peppers, and garlic in the oil for about 5 minutes, until the onions begin to soften. Add the carrots, chili powder, and cumin, and cook on low heat for 5 minutes. Set aside.
Mash the beans in a large bowl with a potato masher or the back of a spoon. Add the mustard, soy sauce, ketchup, or tomato paste, and the sauteed vegetables. Mix in the oats. Add salt and pepper to taste, and tobasco if you want a kick.
Moisten your hands and form the burger mixture in to 6 3-4 inch patties. Lightly spray or oil a nonstick skillet and cook the burgers on medium low heat for 5 to 8 minutes on each side.

Dairy Free Cinnamon Ice cream

I taught a raw cooking class at my local Bosch store the other day. In the class there was a sweet lady that asked for a dairy free ice cream. She can't have dairy, and has been craving ice cream. This ice cream is so creamy and good you won't miss the dairy in it. The recipe is also a good base for any flavor of ice cream that you want, just omit the cinnamon, and substitute vanilla instead. Some good substitutions are fresh fruit, cocoa powder, almond/peanut butter, really anything you can think of go wild.
I like to freeze the ice cream mixture in ice cube trays. Then when I am craving ice cream, I just put a few of the ice cubes in a blender with a little bit of almond milk, a banana, and a handful of spinach. It tastes like horchata ice cream. It melts quickly though into a thick smoothie, so if you want an ice cream consistency process it in an ice cream maker.



Raw Cinnamon Ice Cream
2 C coconut milk
2 C almond milk
2-3 tsp. ground cinnamon (to taste)
1 C agave
½ tsp. sea salt
Blend all of the ingredients in a high-power blender. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream
maker and follow the ice cream maker’s directions. Or you could also freeze the ice
cream in ice cube trays and when you are craving ice cream, just blend the ice cubes
with a little bit of almond milk! If it is not thick enough, add regular ice cubes.

Green Smoothie

If you haven't tried a green smoothie, you should! Although they sound gross, for the most part you can't taste the greens, especially if you add bananas, and they are the fastest way to get tons of greens, and fruit into your diet. I try to drink one every morning. I notice I have a lot more energy during the day, and overall I feel cleaner. Some of my smoothies turn out better than others. One of my favorite combos is an oarnge, a banana and a half, 5 strawberries, and a 4 of cups of spinach, with a cup of almond milk. I also like to add flax, and chia seeds. SO GOOD.

My green smoothie of the day was, a cup of frozen papaya, a handful of frozen strawberries, a cup coconut water, a frozen banana and a half, and spinach. This is a great green smoothie if you are backed up. Trust me!

Tips for making a green smoothie:

1. Buy ALOT of fruit when it is on sale and in season, freeze it on cookie trays and then transfer to a zip lock bag.
2. Buy the big bags of spinach at Costco and freeze the entire bag, I just pull chunks of spinach out of the bag and they break off beautifully
3. Buy the over ripe bananas on sale, peel and freeze them on a cookie tray
4. Don't be afraid to experiment, in a class I just taught, one of the woman said her favorite green smoothie was pear, mint, and swiss chard



(this smoothie is not green because it has berries in it that change the color, which is a good trick with little kids to get them to eat it, add berries, or tell them it is a shrek smoothie)

Here is a basic template for making a green smoothie

1 bunch of leafy greens (kale, spinach, collards, etc. 50% or more)
Fruit (50%)
Bananas
Optional: flax, chia seeds, kefir, etc.)

Fill the blender with greens, add liquid (Rice Dream, Almond Milk, Water) 1/2 to 1 cup depending on consistency you want for smoothie. Add frozen fruit, bananas, anything optional, and blend until smooth. ENJOY!

Raw Almond Joys

The recipe for almond joys is taken from this book. Although a lot of the recipes in this book are time consuming, and as a mom unpractical. However, I love their desserts, they come together fast, and are SO good. I made these for a raw cooking class I just taught, and everyone loved them.

Sorry no picture of the almond joys, they weren't any leftover from my cooking class. This is one of my favorite treats, they are BETTER than almond joys and aren't full of a whole bunch of ingredients that you can't pronounce. As an added bonus coconut oil, is so good for you, it actually helps you burn fat, and gives you energy, hows that for a dessert!
I usually store these in the freezer after I make them. I also use a cookie scoop and scoop them out, or I use a little silicone muffin mold, and put the vanilla mixture in, and then put them in the freezer. While they are in the freezer I make the chocolate sauce. I then pull the almond joys out of the freezer put an almond in the center and top it with chocolate sauce. I put them back in the freezer to set up. OUT OF THIS WORLD.
I prefer the vanilla almond joys with chocolate sauce as opposed to the ones made with cocoa powder instead of almond meal. The chocolate ones are a little bit bitter, kind of like a dark almond joy.


This recipe is taken from Raw Food Real World, which has really good raw desserts
(note: the chocolate sauce is not from the book, and needs a little bit of tweaking to get it the right consistency, play around with it)

3 C shredded coconut, unsweetened
1 1/2 C cocoa powder
1 C maple syrup
1/3 C coconut oil
1 T vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients and stir well, or use a standing mixer with a paddle attachment. Scoop out the dough onto parchment paper with an ice cream scoop.

For a vanilla almond joy

3 C shredded coconut
1 1/2 C almond meal
1 C maple syrup
1/3 C coconut oil
1 T vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt

Combine all of the ingredients and stir until combined. Scoop out the dough with a cookie scoop.

I like to drizzle a chocolate sauce over these.

Chocolate Sauce

3/4 C coconut oil
1/2 C cocoa powder
1 T vanilla
1/4 C agave

Soften the coconut oil, add the cocoa powder, vanilla, and agave mix together.

NOTE: this recipe is rough estimates, play around with the coconut oil and cocoa powder to get the right consistency.

Fresh Corn Chowder

1 C cashews
2 C water
2 T raisins
1/4 C olive oil, or flax
2-3 stalks celery
1 jalapeno, seeds removed
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp cumin
12 oz bag frozen corn(thaw first or 2 c. fresh)

Puree first three ingredients in a high powered blender until warm, then add everything else but corn to the blender, blend until smooth. Then add corn and pulse until corn is partly broken down but soup is chunky.

What I Have Learned

I recently have been making batches upon batches of banana bread. If you think that I am lying ask the checker at Smiths, who rung me up with a CART LOAD of bananas, 30 bucks worth on sale to be exact. Anyway, case in point is that I have made the same recipe over and over again, to have it come out completely under cooked even if I leave it in until it is char black on the outside. What I have discovered is that if you add too much banana, it will be mushy in the middle even though you cook it till the cows come home. Another thing that I discovered, is that seltzer water does wonders to lighten a heavy bread. Especially gluten free breads, because they are so dense to begin with without gluten to leaven them. Here is a recipe that I just adpated from vegweb to be gluten free. It is really light and tasty, but needs something more, maybe a cinnamon walnut crumbly topping. I will post the recipe and my updates on how it is going. I am trying to make the perfect gluten free banana bread, just the right balance of sweetness, banana, and lightness.

When it is perfected I will post the recipe, it is almost there!

Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

I made this recipe up because I was sick of buying expensive power bars, that were full of high fructose corn syrup, and a lot of other additives. It really is simple to change and add things to it. For this picture I made them for the holidays and rolled them in coconut. Other times I have added dry fruit to them, you could do mini chocolate chips, and press them into a pan and cut them up like a bar. I take them when I go on a long bike ride, they pack really well, or just for a snack, but take caution they are addictive and before you know it you might just eat the whole bowl, not that I have ever done that.

1 C peanut butter
1/2 C honey
1/4 C brown rice syrup, or more honey
2 1/2-3 C cereal, I used a brown rice cereal from Good Earth that is like rice krispies
1 C puffed millet cereal, also found at the health food store, again any puffed grain cereal would do, or you could do 1/2 C of oats
2 T chia seeds, or flax, or both

Mix all of the ingredients together and scoop out with a mini ice cream scoop, or you can press the mix into a baking pan to make bars, they will soften as they sit. After lettting them soften for 1-2 hours cut into bars.

Feel free to add coconut, wheat germ, dried fruit, mini chocolate chips, really whatever your heart desires. You can also make them with almond butter instead of peanut butter.


Chia seeds are SO good for you, they have more omega threes than salmon. Chia has fifteen times more magnesium than broccoli, three times more iron than spinach, six times more calcium than milk, and two times more pottasium than bananas. 2 oz of chia seeds gives you 560 mg of vitamin c! Chia seeds soak up to 10 times its weight in water, this helps you to stay hydrated longer (which helps with endurance).
The greatest part about chia seeds is that they are tasteless, so you can add them to salads, smoothies, power bars, muffins, cookies, ext. ext.
To get the most nutrition out of them put a 1/4 C in a jar and fill it with water. The chia seeds will soak up the liquid in the jar, making it like gel. You can then add this gel to your smoothies. Don't let them sit too long or they start to get really thick, because chia seeds can also be used to thicken things.
Chia seeds are very filling, and some people use them as a weight loss aid. They make you feel full, and so you can take a 1/4 cup of the gel before meals to help curb your apetite, and still get all of the nutrition that you need.

I buy my chia seeds at grainmix.com they are only 5 dollars a pound, which is an incredible deal.