Making My Own Almond Milk

Hey everyone. I hope you are all doing well. This is going to be a quick post because I am exhausted. This weekend has been exactly the opposite of what I expected and has been very stressful. There is something wrong with TJ and we don't know what. He was fixed about 2 weeks ago and has not been the same since. Along with being lethargic it's like he was never house trained so I've been cleaning pretty much all weekend... and trying to figure out how to get him to go outside again... if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them because I have no clue what to do and I feel so bad for him because he is miserable.

At 9:00 tonight after almost 3 days here I finally got to a project I was meaning to do on Saturday... make my own home made almond milk for the first time. I remembered to get my almonds soaking this morning so I would be ready to blend tonight to make a yummy smoothie for breakfast tomorrow. Here's a few pics from the process...

I soaked 2 cups of almonds in filtered water. After about 5 hours I actually peeled the almonds. The skin was practically hanging off of them and I heard that it is better with peeled almonds so I made the effort and peeled them. I put the peeled almonds in a new container of fresh filtered water and soaked a few more hours.

After the almonds had soaked I drained them and rinsed them with more filtered water. Then I added the drained almonds to the high speed blender with 6 cups of fresh filtered water and blended away. After it was blended I strained out the pulp in a cheese cloth and was left with this beautiful creamy white almond milk. I'm really happy with how my first batch came out! I didn't add any sweetener (I'd probably add dates to it) or any flavorings because I'm going to use it for smoothies and didn't think I'd need it.

I'm also left with this beautiful snowy white almond pulp. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do with it? I don't have my dehydrator with me but would love to hear what kinds of things you make with almond pulp.

That's all for now. It's back to work tomorrow and I'm sure all I'll be thinking about is TJ and his sad face. I'll try to check in later on in the week with more of my raw eats.

What I Ate Wednesday

Hey guys. I only have a few meals to share with you today because I've just been lazy and my appetite has been weird but I figured a few meals are better than none! Things have been crazy lately because of a major change in my work situation so I'm just trying to readjust and get used to my new workload...

Anyway, here are a few meals... very few ;)

Honestly this was probably my favorite meal of the week. A big bowl of strawberries and a banana. The strawberries were so sweet and delicious. I have been craving a lot of fruit lately so this was a perfect meal for me.

Been eating lots of salads. I love this new container because you know I love my compartments. This salad is romaine, grape tomatoes, cucumber and sun dried tomatoes with Isa's Classic Vegan Caesar Dressing. Carrots on the side.

I saw this sign in one of the Bagel Boss locations and was really excited! Not a whole lot of bagel places out on Long Island carry vegan cream cheese so I was glad to see this. 

A week or two after I saw that sign I decided to have a Shen inspired meal! I saw this exact meal on her blog and thought it sounded delicious. I am a plain or pumpernickel bagel with plain cream cheese gal but I thought this combo sounded great so I opted for an everything bagel with tofu scallion cream cheese. It was such a yummy combo but those giant globs of cream cheese in the middle were removed because that is a bit intense.

Since this was a Shen inspired meal I figured I'd photograph it on the gorgeous Vegan Dish that she gifted me. I love the dish so much and it was the perfect vessel to deliver this meal to you :)

Finally, a quick meal on the go of red and green apple slices and Justin's Maple Almond Butter. It was a delicious combo and I had forgotten how much I loved this almond butter. 

That's all I have for today! I should be back tomorrow with another Throwback recipe! I think they are almost all transfered which is good because I think my other domain expires in July! I'll have to make sure I'm on top of that ;)

Hope you are all having a great week!

What I Ate Wednesday!

Hey everyone! I'm back for another What I Ate Wednesday! I've been eating a lot of raw food lately. Allergy season is upon us and I'm already feeling it so I'm trying to be as clean as possible because it's hitting me really hard. I haven't photographed a ton but here's a little bit of what I've been eating lately.

Here's some of my meals!

I made a gorgeous juice! I couldn't get over how pretty the pulp looked so I took a million pictures of it ;) I definitely felt like I was eating (well... drinking) the rainbow. How gorgeous is it?! It's like produce confetti.

And here is the actual juice. It was a really good one. It has pineapple, orange, green apple, carrots, beet and lemon. I have never juiced beets before so I was a little nervous about it but it was good! It had a bit of an earthy flavor even though I peeled it. I may just use a half next time but it was definitely delicious and this was a large glass. I think it was about 24 oz?

For this dinner I didn't have a raw meal but I did eat my veggies :) This is Eggplant Salad (puree of roasted eggplant with olive oil, vinegar and garlic) and it is served with veggie garnishes and delicious, fresh pita. It came from a place called Greek Corner. Truthfully I'm not a huge fan of most of their food (their hummus and falafel are not my favorite at all) but my mom ordered this one night and let me try it and it was delicious! I usually don't order from there but I will definitely order this again. It's super garlicky too.

I'm sorry about the horrible picture and tablecloth. After I finished my dinner I chopped up some tomato and cucumber and made an Israeli style salad (basically you just chop your veggies nice and small) and topped it with the leftover eggplant dip. I brought this to work with me the next day for lunch. I basically mixed it up into a delicious mess and put it in a pita. Good thing I was alone that day because the garlic is intense ;)

I had this beautiful salad! It had mixed greens, grape tomatoes, almonds, cranberries and candied walnuts (which I didn't eat because I didn't realize they were candied until after I got it and I didn't know what the ingredients were). I used some balsamic vinaigrette and it was delicious!

Sorry this isn't a ton of meals but I'm trying, I promise! Hopefully next week I'll have more meals to show you. I'm just so excited about visiting the mansions and photographing other things that I've been neglecting my meals. Like I say every Wednesday, I'll try for more next week ;)

Hope the rest of your week goes well!

Throwback Thursday: Snack Time!

Hey everyone! Soooo I missed yesterday but I'm going to make it up tomorrow! I even have the pictures ready to go! I ended up meeting a friend for breakfast and spent three hours catching up so I was out from about 9:15 am until 9:15 pm.  Needless to say I was exhausted so the post didn't happen but it will, I promise!

I'm here today with another Throwback Thursday post with two fun snack recipes. First is my favorite... VaVaBars!!

Orange Coconut Larabars (aka VaVaBars)

2 cups dates

1 cup raw almonds

1 cup dried shredded coconut

1 tsp vanilla extract (I used alcohol free)

zest from 1 orange

juice from 1/2 orange

Directions:

1. Add almonds to food processor and chop into small pieces.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and process until well combined and forms a sticky dough. Texture is up to your discretion, I like mine a little smooth but you can leave yours chunky!

3. Take dough from food processor and transfer into a loaf pan lined with plastic wrap.

4. Press dough down until packed very tight. Cover top with plastic wrap overhang.

5. Refrigerate for an hour until it firms up a bit.

6. Remove from loaf pan, uncover and cut into bars. Wrap each bar and store in fridge or freezer.

7. Enjoy!

Next up, Apple Cinnamon Chips!

Raw Cinnamon Apple Chips

Ingredients:

2 large apples (I used organic gala apples)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

cinnamon to taste

Directions:

1. Slice the apples as thin as possible. I used a mandolin but you can slice by hand. It may take longer to dehydrate depending on the thickness if you slice by hand.

2. Toss sliced apples with the lemon juice to prevent browning.

3. Place apple slices on your dehydrator trays and sprinkle with cinnamon.*

4. Dehydrate at 104 degrees for 12-16 hours until completely dry. Enjoy!

*The lemon can leave a bit of a tart taste so if you are inclined to you can sprinkle some raw sugar on top as well to bump up the sweetness. I didn’t use sugar and I thought they were fine but it all depends on your taste!

There you have it, two tasty throwback snack recipes! I hope your week has been going well so far and I'll see you tomorrow with some delicious meals I've had this past week! Have a good night!

Throwback Tuesdays - Uncooking with Pecans!

Hey everyone! I hope all of my fellow Northeastern friends are doing ok in this shitstorm snowstorm. I left work at 3:00 today and my 7 minute commute took me a half hour. It was like a giant slip and slide outside, it was pretty scary actually. Even worse when my windshield froze over directly in front of my face. Very awesome.

Now I'm cozy at home and here to post another Throwback recipe! The post I chose today is actually a 3-in-1 recipe for my raw pecan pie truffles, dip and cereal puffs. I'm actually going to just copy and paste the entire post over here because you'll get Isobelle's recipe for raw cocoa puffs as a bonus! We must keep that recipe active as well since it's so yummy!

OK, here it is!

After the great response I got from the Raw Cocoa Puffs that I made using Isobelle’s recipe, I decided to contact her to see if she would mind if I just posted the recipe here for you. She said yes of course because she is a total sweetheart and also that she misses everyone  She also suggested that I try playing with the flavors to create new puffed cereal flavor combos and I IMMEDIATELY thought of one flavor – maple pecan AKA pecan pie!! More on that later.

First, here is Isobelle’s amazing Raw Cocoa Puff Recipe:

Raw Cocoa Puffs (Isobelle’s Recipe in her words):

(Serves 2)

 1/2 cup almonds, ground

4 dried plums (or dates, but I recently discovered I’m allergic)

3 tbsp. cacao/cocoa

1 tbsp. pure maple syrup

1 tbsp. softened coconut oil

1/8 tsp. sea salt

 Grind the almonds, sea salt and cacao in a blender or food processor until a fine meal forms. Add in the dried plums/dates, maple syrup and coconut oil – blend again until everything begins to stick together.

The ingredients should form a ball of dough in your food processor.

 (This part takes a long time – but it’s so worth it!)

Take a small piece of the dough and roll it into a ball in your palms. Now, repeat 30, 40, 50 times maybe. It depends on how big or small you make your cocoa puffs. This is a great exercise for practicing patience.

 Dehyrating Method:

Place the balls on your dehydrator tray and dehydrate for 3.5-4 hours. If they aren’t crunchy enough for you by the end of that time, increase to 5 hours.

Sounds amazing right?! Well I decided to take Isobelle’s advice to try and come up with new flavors and combined two of my favorite flavors: maple and pecan. The result tasted EXACTLY like pecan pie!! The dates and maple syrup combine and create an amazing caramel like taste. So delicious!

I’m going to give you the recipe for the “dough” and three ways to use it. Because I love you all that much  I call it mostly raw because from what I understand maple syrup isn’t totally raw? I’m totally over that and fine with it 

(Mostly) Raw Pecan Pie “Dough”

1 1/2 cups chopped raw pecans

4 pitted medjool dates

Scant 1/4 cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch salt

Grind pecans, cinnamon and sea salt in your food processor until it forms a very fine meal. You can leave it a little chunky if you prefer though. Add dates and maple syrup and process until it forms a ball of dough. Your dough will be sticky but should be fully combined.

So here is where we get creative. This recipe is really simple and really versatile and I’m going to show you a trio of preparations. Up first is the puff cereal form inspired by Isobelle!

Pecan Pie Puffs

All you do for the Pecan Pie Puffs is follow the directions in Isobelle’s recipe for rolling out little puffs. It will be tedious work but the resulting cereal will be totally worth it! I dehydrate mine at 104 degrees and it has taken way longer than 5 hours probably because the dough is so sticky. Mine has been going for almost 7 hours already and I’m going to leave it overnight to dry and crisp up. Hopefully it’s not over dried! I tried one half dehydrated puff and it was amazing!

Pecan Pie Dip/Spread

The second “preparation” is to leave the dough as is! This stuff is an amazing dip for apples, graham crackers, ginger snaps, bananas, pretzels… you get the point. Yum!

Pecan Pie Truffles!!

Yeah I did it. FINALLY. I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to make Pecan Pie Truffles and it finally came together without me even realizing it! I took some of the dough and refrigerated it for about an hour and a half so it would stiffen up a bit. I simply rolled it into a ball and then rolled the truffle in chopped pecans. This makes it look pretty and also helps you hold the truffle without getting very sticky. I store these in the fridge to keep them firm but they are equally yummy at room temp (and it mimics the gooeyness of pecan pie!).

Isn’t it pretty?! You can get away with making these truffles small too because they are sweet and decadent. But guess what! No guilt!! It doesn’t get any better than that!

Thank you so much Isobelle for allowing me to share your amazing recipe and for inspiring me to get back into the kitchen and create a recipe! You are awesome 

So there you have it. A (mostly) raw, healthier version of a pecan pie. It is so silly that I’m so proud of a recipe that has 5 ingredients but I just love how it came out.

******

Ok my friends, so that was my Throwback recipe for today! I hope you try it because it is really really delicious! Everyone that is being screwed over by the snow and cold please stay warm, dry and safe.  We already have several inches on the ground and the worst is supposed to happen overnight. Stay safe my friends!