Thursday, November 15th, 2012

Quickie Raw Vegan Coconut Yogurt Recipe – 3 Ingredients

by Kristen in coconut, organic, probiotic, raw food, raw vegan food, recipe, vegan

I make my own homemade raw vegan coconut yogurt all the time. And, every time I make it, I tweet or post about it on facebook. And, every time I do that, someone asks me how I make it. Although I have a recipe with video here, I’m going to write a quickie recipe post that makes the recipe, well, a bit quicker (by way of the number of ingredients).

A creamy bowl of nourishing raw vegan coconut yogurt topped with raw cacao nibs.

Buying these products (found in the freezer section of Whole Foods Market) makes for making easy raw vegan coconut yogurt. Just thaw and use. No need to crack open any coconuts. Plus, they’re organic.

Set to culture for about 12 hours.

Quickie Raw Vegan Coconut Yogurt

Yield approximately 3 cups

Ingredients

3/4 to 1 cup raw young thai coconut water
16 ounces raw young thai coconut meat
Probiotic powder (2 capsules worth)

Instructions

Blend the coconut water and coconut meat until smooth.
Add the probiotic powder (simply open the capsules and dump the contents into the blender), and blend briefly.
Pour into a bowl (or jar) big enough to allow a bit of room to expand. Gently place a lid on top and set your coconut yogurt to culture on your counter for 8-16 hours. The longer it cultures, the more yogurt-y it becomes in taste.
When you’re ready to eat it, feel free to sweeten it and/or add extracts like vanilla, strawberry, etc. You can use this wonderful yogurt in many ways: smoothies, dressings, stirred into chia pudding, used as a dessert with raw chocolate, enjoyed as is with fruit and/or granola added, etc. You can even use it to make frozen yogurt-scicles. I’m a fan of stirring it into my super popular Longevity Chia Porridge (recipe here). *Stored in the refrigerator, Quickie Raw Vegan Coconut Yogurt should stay fresh for at least a week, but mine is usually gone by then.

Carrot Apple “Halloween” Soup (Raw Vegan)

by Kristen in apple, carrots, ginger, Halloween, holidays, Motherhood, raw food, raw vegan food, raw vegan recipe, soup, tahini

The weather is ripe for enjoying warm raw soups. My inspiration today was from fall ingredients and the Halloween holiday. I whipped up this delightful and flavorful, raw vegan soup, garnished with black sesame seeds (a wonderful “jing” food – more on jing foods for future posts), and it screamed Halloween! It’s mega easy and only has 8 simple ingredients. Check it out…

Carrot and apple make this a perfect fall season soup.

Raw Vegan Travel – Austin, TX

by Kristen in austin, daily juice, organic, raw vegan food, texas durian, whole foods market

Austin, TX is such a cool town. We arrived Wednesday morning and I was filled with excitement because I knew I was about to embark on a delicious Raw vegan culinary adventure (I heard there are 3 Raw vegan restaurants in town, plus the Raw bar at Whole Foods). The Whole Foods Market headquarters are here with their flagship store. Whooweee!!!!! Talk about FUN! One of my MOST favorite things to do is shop for healthy foods, natural beauty products, organic clothes… all that kind of stuff. My husband and I walked in and he said, “Honey, you just take your time.” I took a deep breath and ventured up and down the aisles, looking for things that I don’t normally find in other locations. And, of course, I found some stuff. They had a nice organic baby clothes section. Here are my scores for Monkey. (Speaking of Monkey… I had another blood test today to check my hormone levels and I’m continuing to do wonderfully! My pregnancy hormone is growing perfectly and the doctor is very pleased. My next round of blood work will be October 14).

But… we didn’t eat at Whole Foods. I saw their Raw vegan bar, and although the stuff looked pretty good and I think it is very cool that they have it there… we opted to have two of our meals today at Daily Juice. For one, the food was awesome (details in a moment) and for another reason, when given the choice between a chain like Whole Foods versus an independent establishment, I like to spend my money on the latter.

Daily Juice was super awesome. I have to say that it is quite possibly my favorite spot ever for organic Raw vegan food. The food was superb. The service was impeccable. The decor and atmosphere were fresh, with an energy that was slightly seductive. I LOVED IT!

For lunch, I had a wonderful green juice made of greens and young Thai coconut water – heavenly! And, for the first time, I tried fresh durian. At that tasting, I decided I would fall into the camp of “not being partial to durian.” It tasted like onions to me, and I’m not a fan of onions. My husband thought it was cool though. I was told that it’s better in a smoothie so my husband decided to try that at dinner time, and I admit, that upon tasting it in a smoothie, I liked it (although I couldn’t really tell it was in there because it was masked by so many wonderful flavors).

We each had a Raw enchilada (the flavors were outstanding), and for dessert, I had a vanilla chocolate cookie-type thing and a cup of vanilla pudding made from young Thai coconuts. As you can probably guess, the desserts were as equally awesome as the green juice and enchiladas.

I simply had to go back there for dinner. They had an avocado sandwich which looked so intriguing, but when we arrived, sadly, it was unavailable (we’re going back there tomorrow though… I hope I can try it then). I started the meal with another large fresh organic green juice while my husband started his meal with the smoothie containing durian. For our main meal we each had two tacos. Again… nothing short of pure deliciousness and rich, fantastic flavors. My husband also had a shot of marine phytoplankton (check out this cool page of theirs detailing benefits of some super Raw foods). After having both durian and marine phytoplankton, he was feeling pretty darn good. For dessert, I polished off another one of their cookie-type things (this one had goji berries in it, too) and another pudding like I had at lunch. I was feeling super duper awesomely vibrant after such an amazing day of organic Raw vegan foods.

We leave Austin Thursday and head to Dallas, then to Oklahoma City, OK, where I think we’ll stop by 105 degrees. It’s a brand new raw vegan culinary institute by Matthew Kenney, which also has a cafe that I’m excited to try. After that, we’ll head to Santa Fe, NM (I heard there is a Raw vegan place there) and then we’ll be going home to Scottsdale, AZ.

Recipe (Raw Vegan): Strawberry Sweet Bread

by Kristen in Bread, easy raw vegan recipe, navitas naturals, raw vegan food, Strawberry

I have a delicious recipe for you. Navitas Naturals was super cool and they sent me some products to try. Here is one of the recipes I made using their raw cashews, Twister Sprouted Omega Blend, and stevia. This recipe is totally fun and it’s especially perfect for the summer, when strawberries are in season. Strawberry Sweet Bread is loaded with nutrients… just look at those ingredients – so many goodies!!!! It’s great served with a nut/seed butter and fruit (as shown) for a wonderfully satisfying Raw vegan snack or lunch. And, it’s so EASY to make. When it’s time to send those kiddos to school, give them a super nutritious lunch by including this. You can put the chopped fruit in a little container and the nut/seed butter in another little container. Include a little spreading spoon and they can build their own little sandwich. Oh… and…. My husband LOVES this. I mean, like, REALLY REALLY LOVES IT! It’s great for the whole family. Enjoy!

Strawberry Sweet Bread

Recipe by Kristen Suzanne of KristensRaw.com

Yield: 6-9 pieces

1 cup raw cashews

1 cup Twister Sprouted Omega Blend

3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

2 cups strawberries, chopped

2 cups zucchini, chopped

2 teaspoons ginger powder

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon orange peel powder (optional, but yummy!)*

1/2 teaspoon Himalayan crystal salt

1/4 teaspoon stevia powder (optional, but yummy!)

*Available at MountainRoseHerbs.com

Grind the cashews to a fine grind using a blender or food processor (fitted with the “S” blade). Transfer to a large bowl. Add the Twister powder to the bowl and stir to mix the ingredients. Blend the remaining ingredients together using a blender. Transfer the blended mixture to the bowl with the cashew/Twister ingredients, and stir thoroughly to mix. Loosely cover the bowl with a piece of paper towel (or cloth towel), and let it sit on your counter for 2 hours.

Spread all of the bread dough on a dehydrator tray lined with a non-stick Paraflexx sheet (from Excalibur). It should be about 10″ x 10″ with a height (or thickness) of about 1/2″.

Dehydrate at 135 degrees for one hour. Reduce the temperature to 105-110 degrees and continue dehydrating another 8-10 hours.

Flip the bread onto a tray that is not lined with a Paraflexx sheet. Gently peel off the current sheet of Paraflexx being used. Continue dehydrating 10-12 hours. Cut the bread into desired size pieces and continue dehydrating another 1-4 hours, or more, depending on desired dryness. The goal is not to dry the bread completely if you want it like a soft bread. Strawberry Sweet Bread will stay fresh when stored in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up 5 days.

Serving suggestion:

I love serving this with a nut or seed butter (Manitoba Harvest’s hemp seed butter is shown in the picture) along with some diced fruit such as berries, orange, or banana.

Today’s Food Intake

by Kristen in Amazing Grass, cheezy hemp nacho sauce, groovy kale salad, raspberry leaf, raw vegan food

I’m writing this a tad after midnight (Thursday) to show what I ate on Wednesday, which was a day full of delicious Raw vegan food that made me feel like I was at the top of my game all day. :)

Mug of organic raspberry leaf tea (Mountain Rose Herbs)
It was so nice starting my day off with some warm herbal tea. I drank it on my porch with the sun shining brightly.

Golden Plant Blood (about 1 quart)
3 carrots, 3 stalks broccoli, 1 head broccoli florets, 1-inch ginger, pineapple (including core) This was a very pretty juice and it really got my day going with a bang!

Carrots and celery with Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce
I told ya… I just can’t seem to get enough of this sauce. I absolutely love it! I’m going to my mom’s tomorrow and she asked me to please bring her and my step-dad some. (Note to self: buy more organic bell peppers tomorrow so I can make more.)

Groovy Kale Salad (big bowl, so it was about 2 servings)
This was so good, so fresh, so filled with vibrant colors, nutrition, and energy that seemed to be jumping right out of the big bowl I was eating! I’ll be giving you the recipe for Groovy Kale Salad in March’s email newsletter. If you haven’t signed up, you can do so here.

Amazing Grass’ Whole Food Energy Bar
This organic bar really hits the spot when I’m needing a solid snack. I like these and Vega bars (although I prefer the taste and texture of Amazing Grass more).

Raw granola cereal with hemp milk and diced strawberries
I was in the mood for breakfast at dinner tonight, so my husband and I opted for a big bowl each of raw granola with hemp milk. It was yummy, especially with the fresh organic strawberries in it.

Teeccino
Although not Raw, I still enjoy a cup of this from time to time.

Raw corn chips with Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce
What can I say? It’s late and I’m hungry. I’m going to have it with raw corn chips this time.

Now that it’s a new month, you know what time it is… Kristen’s Raw Awesome Giveaway! (Details for last month’s awesome giveaway are here.) Be sure to check back soon for details.