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Kristen Helmstetter

(Brisa Starr)

cheezy hemp nacho sauce

Friday’s Raw EATS (food journal) and Adopt A Turkey

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I have a day full of nutritious raw vegan food! But, before I get into that… I’m excited to share with you that Greg and I adopted a Turkey today through Farm Sanctuary. As you know, we’re vegan, so there will be no turkeys slaughtered to feed our bellies! Ever!

Her name is Daphne. :) Isn’t she so cute?!

Have you seen Thanksgiving’s toll on turkeys? It’s just awful.

Okay…. so on to my All-Raw-Organic food for today:



I started my morning with a large purple-ish brown smoothie. It had water, frozen cherries, banana, hemp seeds, hemp protein powder, RAW sunflower lecithin, red leaf lettuce, and probiotic powder.
I made two protein drinks with Sprout Living’s new Vanilla Lucuma protein powder to have throughout the day. It’s very good! It’s the first ever vanilla protein powder that I like. Finally! And… it’s raw, vegan, and certified organic (yay!). I mixed it with water, Greener Grasses, and pumpkin spice. They also sent me their Chocolate Maca flavor to try, as well as their plain flavor. I don’t usually drink this much protein, but my postpartum hair shedding is out of control and I’m hoping some protein will help?! I also added a little extra zinc to my diet and I’m drinking organic nettle tea. (I blogged about some postpartum issues here).
Fall Delight – this is a mixture of shredded apple, pear, and carrot tossed with a handful of raisins, sprinkling of hemp seeds, 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin spice, and a small drizzle of yacon syrup.
Salad – I tossed a large salad of green leaf lettuce with segmented oranges, chopped zucchini, and chopped persimmon. I squeezed a little fresh lemon juice on top. (Persimmons are one of my favorites! Read more about my obsession here.)
Zucchini Pasta with Velvet Wine Sauce – Mmmm soooooo gooooooood. I simply spiralized some zucchini pasta with my favorite raw pasta maker, added halved grape tomatoes, minced raw olives, and Velvet Wine Sauce. Lip smackin’ delicious. I’ve written about my Velvet Wine Sauce here recently, and I shared the recipe in a limited edition of a recent email newsletter (hope you were on the list when I sent it out). If you don’t have it, it’s also available in my latest book EASY Raw Vegan Transition Recipes.
Cheezy Kale Chips from Blue Mountain Organics (I raved about them here where I also taught you how you can make your own). Personally, I can’t get my hands on organic red bell pepper to make my Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce to make my own Cheezy Hemp Nacho Kale Chips. So, in the meantime, I’m enjoying Blue Mountain Organics’ Cheezy Kale Chips.
1 Chocolate Butter Truffle
I’m using a new organic produce delivery service, Nature’s Garden Delivered. It’s my second week trying them (thank you to the commenter in a previous post who turned me on to them). I’m quite happy (I love their access to local organic food). They don’t have as much variety as Boxed Greens, but Nature’s Garden Delivered is less expensive and does a better job with their packaging (they use less plastic). They don’t deliver nationwide, but they’re available in Arizona and Georgia.

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How To Make AWESOME Raw Vegan Kale Chips

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If you look through all of the recipes in all of my books, you’ll notice that not one is for kale chips. Honestly, I have no excuse other than… well… no, I have no excuse. I guess I just didn’t jump on the kale chip bandwagon. I’ve bought some over the years online and at Whole Foods Market, but none of them excited me. They were either too chewy/sweet or crumbled up so much I had to eat them with a spoon or – eeewww! – there was a dehydrated bug in one bag. Eeek!

But. I recently tried some kale chips from another company (blogged about it here), and I fell in love. Blue Mountain Organics, you have forever converted me to a kale-chip-lovin’-chick! Even though I directed you to the other blog post of mine where I’m just short of doing cartwheels because I loved them so much, I’ll say a few words here. THEY ARE AWESOME! Specifically, I’m referring to the Cheezy-flavored kale chips they sell. However, I decided to try their Chocolate Kale Chips the other day, and I’ll be honest, I did not have high expectations – only because I wondered how kale and chocolate would be super good – they’re probably decent, I thought, but I didn’t expect much more. Wrong. They rocked. It was love at first bite.

All of this excitement made me take a stab at making my own organic raw vegan kale chips and save a little money. After all, I have a super awesome cheese sauce (you all know the one I’m talking about right?). Well, if you’re new to my blog, it’s my Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce (recipe and video demo for the sauce here). It kicks ass! I figured it would be the perfect sauce for kale chips. I sent Greg to Whole Foods to buy some kale while I stayed home and made the sauce.

Here they are:

They are awesome. Seriously – you’ve gotta make these. We all went nutso for them!

Here is how you can make your own Cheezy Hemp Nacho Kale Chips…

Basically, you make the Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce I linked to above. Then, take one bunch of kale and wash it. Tear it into pieces (you can use curly kale or dinosaur kale – they both work great – and I usually leave the stem in but you can take it out). Put the torn kale in a large bowl and pour the Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce on top. Stir it all up with a big spoon, or your hands, until the kale is as covered with sauce as you can get it. Place the saucy kale on a dehydrator tray lined with a Paraflexx sheet (or parchment paper if you’re not using an Excalibur dehydrator). Dehydrate for an hour at 130-140 degrees F. Reduce the temperature to 105-110 degrees F and dehydrate another 7-9 hours. Transfer the kale chips to a new dehydrator tray without a Paraflexx sheet and finish dehydrating until you reach your desired texture of kale chips (maybe another 7-10 hours).

They’re so delicious! I couldn’t stop there though. I started thinking about all the different cool sauces I could use to make kale chips, and the next one I tried was my Velvet Wine Sauce (see picture below; the recipe for the sauce is from my newest book Kristen Suzanne’s EASY Raw Vegan Transition Recipes – I also shared this recipe in a recent limited edition email newsletter). Basically, follow the same directions as you do with the Cheezy Hemp Nacho Kale Chips, but use the Velvet Wine Sauce instead. These were so friggin’ delicious that I sent Greg to Whole Foods for more kale. I had to make another batch.

This batch has the Velvet Wine Sauce
and it’s just about to go into the dehydrator.

As you can see, we’ve been enjoying a lot of kale chips in this house the past few weeks. They’re so satisfying, flavorful, and nutritious.

If you don’t have a dehydrator, or you simply don’t like making your own stuff, then I highly recommend heading over to Blue Mountain Organics and loading up on their Cheezy Kale Chips and Chocolate Kale Chips.

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Food Journal – Sunday

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With all of my fresh organic produce, we’re having an amazing weekend full of delicious and healthy food!

Here is Sunday’s Food Plan

Green Juice (cucumber, celery, carrot)

Salad (romaine, olives, heirloom tomatoes, Herbamere, pepper, meyer lemon juice) and Sandwich (sprouted toast, hummus, heirloom tomato, lettuce)
Coconut yogurt (not raw)

Super Big Apple
Sun Warrior Protein Shake

Salad and Sandwich (same as earlier, but this salad also had orange bell pepper)

Veggies and Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce!!!! (Learn how to make this awesome recipe here)

And… I’ll whip up a batch of Holiday Chia Pudding! (see recipe here)

And… here is Kamea hugging her organic dolly that Lauren and Ginger bought her!

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Back To Raw In My First Trimester

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Whew! This week marks my 9th week being pregnant!!!! I’m in the final stretch of the first trimester and my body is visibly changing with this little life growing inside me. I’ve been sick as a dog (all-day-morning-sickness) but happy as hell about it. However, there were many days over the past 2 weeks that I didn’t want any food… not Raw, not even cooked vegan… not bread… nothing! And, this coming from a woman who used to eat even with an upset tummy. However, even though I didn’t want to eat the past couple of weeks, I forced myself to eat. I had to. I was able to manage some fresh fruit, as well as a green smoothie here and there, but most of it was cooked vegan.


But, something has changed. Even though I’m still feeling nauseous (Monday and Tuesday were particularly bad), I have been wanting Raw food! I’ll still have some lentils sometimes (quinoa, beans, etc) for extra protein and such, but my body wants lots of fresh, organic Raw foods. I’m not in the mood for Raw pastas or things like that (although a piece of my Raw lasagna does sound yummy! I just don’t feel like making it. If only I could wiggle my nose and blink my eyes and magically my husband could make it!). I am craving big salads, fresh fruit, fresh veggies and dip, green juices, green smoothies… things like that. In fact, the other day, I made my famous Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce recipe and loved it up with organic Romaine hearts, carrots, and celery for three days in a row. YUM! (I also had it as a sauce on my organic cooked veggie burger —>>> DOUBLE YUM!)


I’m eagerly anticipating my CSA box on Saturday. This week in the my organic CSA, I selected:
Romaine
Red Bell Peppers
Swiss Chard
Oranges
Lemons
Garlic
Carrots
Broccoli
Celery
Apples (3 kinds)



THEN… I ordered from Boxed Greens (blogged about them in the last post):


Sunflower sprouts
Pea sprouts
Kale
Avocados
Cucumbers
Raspberries
Bananas
Kiwi
Pineapple
Feijoa (never had this!)
Grape Tomatoes
More Romaine

I’m going to be in Raw food heaven!!!!

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How to Make Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce – Raw Vegan Recipe Video

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This sauce is AMAZING!

Here is a video showing you how I make one of my favorite Raw Vegan recipes, Cheezy Hemp Nacho Sauce (recipe available here) that is from my book, Kristen Suzanne’s Ultimate Raw Vegan Hemp Recipes.

I get so many compliments on this recipe – I stopped keeping count. Enjoy!

Oh, and PS… A great thing about the Benriner turning slicer I show in the video is that the Raw veggie noodles that this tool makes are noodles that stay fresh for 2-3 days, unlike the Saladacco or other spiralizer like the Saladacco (where the inside of the produce is used), and you need to serve the noodles right away or at least the same day. With the Benriner Turning Slicer (and there are a couple of other models that are similar to the one I feature), the noodles can be made 1-2 days in advance and still taste as fresh as the day you made them. That’s awesome!
This recipe can be used in many different ways:
  • Use this for dipping fresh veggies (my favorite way) or corn chips (Raw or not – it’s up to you!)
  • For those eating cooked vegan foods, this is an awesome sauce on top of veggie burgers
  • This also makes a delicious Raw vegan dressing on a hearty salad with romaine lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and cucumbers. You could even sprinkle on some Raw vegan taco meat and raw dehydrated corn chips for a tortilla type salad.
  • Here’s a super fun way to have it… dehydrated like a slice of nacho flavored cheese… simply spread the mixture on to a dehydrator tray (Excalibur Dehydrators are, by far, the best) fitted with one of their Paraflexx sheets. Let it dehydrate (105-110 degrees) over night (or longer!), and try flipping it on to a regular mesh tray the following day, peel off the Paraflexx sheet and continue dehydrating until you reach a “dry-type” texture. Either try cutting into squares to put on your next sandwich or crumble it up and use it as a fun and yummy topping for salad. Or, if you’re like my sweet husband, he eats it straight out of the dehydrator bite by bite… plain, all by its delicious self!

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7 Free Awesome Raw Vegan Recipes – Must Make!

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Here are a handful of my favorite blog recipes. Enjoy! (And, yes, I’m still in NY)



Tuscan Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto (click here, scroll down to Aug 23 post)
This stuff is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I love showing it off at parties. People are always asking for the recipe.




I get email after email from people telling me how much they love this simple soup. My husband’s and my favorite way is to prepare it with the pumpkin pie spice. Yum!






I always make a double batch of this heavenly scrumptious pudding and it’s devoured in a couple of days. I love it. My husband loves it. My step-dad loves it. My mom loves it. Need I say more?









Ummm…. I don’t really have anything to say but… MAKE THESE!







My regular followers know I’m addicted to this sauce. I love dipping carrots and celery into it. I love dipping organic blue corn chips into it. I love dipping flax crackers into it. I love using it as a sauce on cooked or raw veggie burgers. I simply LOVE it! *Note: my favorite chili powder for this recipe is by Simply Organic.


This recipe is EASY PEASY! It’s extra delicious and is packed with uber healthy ingredients. Worried about garlic breath? No problem. Just make sure you serve some of this to people you’re going to be around. ;)







Refreshing, delicious, healthy, and awesome. And… it’s summer!

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