Monday, March 12, 2012

Not so traditional doughnuts and an iced latte

Made these the night before and somehow I didn't touch a single one, saved them for the morning so I could enjoy them with an iced latte... mmmmm.  They are nothing at all like the doughnuts you're used to, but they have a sweet, unique taste and I really liked them.  Especially the chocolate ones!  If you made these the night before, let them sit at room temperature for a minute before serving.

Adapted from Nouveau Raw

1 cup almonds
1 cup sunflower seeds (she uses pecans, I think that would be better but sunflower works too!)
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup buckwheat flour or oat flour (make your own by processing buckwheat groats or oats until fine) or or all-purpose flour.
8 soft pitted dates
1/4 cup agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt
3 1/2 TBSP cacao or carob powder (optional)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil.

In the food processor, process almonds, sunflower and coconut until fine.  Place in a mixing bowl and set aside.

Make buckwheat flour.  Add dates, agave, vanilla and sea salt and PULSE at first until combined, then process for about 30 seconds.  Add to the mixing bowl and smash with a spoon into the almond-sunflower-coconut mixture until combined.  Use your hands to mix some more until you can form balls that stay together.

Place half of the mixture back in the food processor with 1 tsp water and pulse about 10 times using with short pulses and then process for 20 seconds or until combined.  Roll dough into logs and form donuts, place on foil. Makes about 5.

If you are not using carob powder, go ahead and repeat with the process with the rest of the dough.  If you are using carob powder, place half in the processor, fill halfway with the rest of the dough, add the rest of the carob powder and the rest of the dough on top of that (it mixes easier if placed in the processor in layers).  PULSE with quick, short pulses until combined.  If dough is dry you can add the tiniest bit water or agave.  Roll into logs and form donuts, place on foil.  Makes about 5.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Let cool before frosting.

I used the g-lazy glaze.  Keep stirring to combine the banana and coconut oil fully.. You'll see it getting whiter and thicker.  To make it easier, I held each doughnut over the pan and spooned the glaze over, letting the rest fall back in the pan.  This made just enough for 10 doughnuts.  The glaze was good, but it's not something you'd want to lick off your plate because of the coconut oil.  On the donuts you don't taste it though, but maybe mess around with a couple small batches of different frostings like this or this.

For the iced latte, brew a strong 1/2 cup coffee while you're making almond milk or the night before.  When room temperature, mix with 1/2 cup almond milk and some ice cubes! optional to add vanilla and agave for a sweeter drink, but honestly, ice coffee if the best when you can taste the coffee and it's not overpowered by sweeteners. 



I attempted the chocolate ganache but it didn't go so well.  My chocolate making skills are way off, for some reason all my chocolate turns hard like a dough instead of a melty chocolate.... I'm pretty sure it's the carob powder because all recipes call for cacao or cocoa powder and I've been using carob.  Oh well, still just as good!!  I made these while I was waiting for my doughnuts to bake and I used my hands to cover them with the "ganache" (press it around the balls and roll between your hands to make it smooth).  Check out the rest of the blog by the way, it's amazing!

Currently listening to this.  A dreamy, sort of sad mix but full of amazing songs.



TasteSpotting

Although it's late here and I should be sleeping, I can't get enough of TasteSpotting.  (Type vegan in the search bar or whatever you're looking for.)  I go a tiny bit crazy every time I look at it... All the amazing recipes!!  Too bad it's 1am and my fridge is empty :(

Recipes I'm dying to try;

vegan mushroom & kale lasagna with rosemary cashew sauce
coconut & almond crusted banana pancakes
hummus & grilled vegetable pizza
vegetable & edamame pasta with basil cream sauce
thick & chewy chocolate chip cookies
chili bean mash
carrot coconut cake
fettuccine in creamy garlicky butter bean sauce with sage
pineapple pizzas


OMGGG, I'm starving now...
goodnight!

Friday, March 9, 2012


This is what I see everyday from my street... Mt. Hollywood/Griffith Observatory.  I'm living where millions are dreaming of living and I gotta say....It's not at all like the movies.

Be happy where ever you are... if you can't be happy in your current situation, when you get to the place you've been dreaming of, you will soon become unhappy with that and it's an endless repetitive cycle.  It's great to desire good things and to want change but don't base your happiness on it.  Happiness comes from within and once you realize that, you're free.


STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

3 bell peppers
cashew cheese sauce +6 TBSP nutritional yeast flakes
1 cup broccoli
1 cauliflower
1 cup chopped portabella mushroom
1 cup arugula
 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
a pinch of cumin
olive oil

Make the cashew cheese sauce; follow linked recipe, adding 6 TBSP nutritional yeast flakes plus enough water until the whole sauce is the consistency of water.  Heat mixture on a saucepan over medium high heat until thick.

Remove the stems and seeds from the bell peppers.

Place mushrooms in a bowl with garlic powder, black pepper and cumin, toss and rub seasonings into the mushrooms.  Add cauliflower and broccoli to bowl, drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.  Bake at 425 degrees until tender.

Fill bottom of each pepper with 3 teaspoons of the cheese sauce
fill halfway with veggies
top with cheese
let bake at 425 degrees until pepper is soft
dont worry about stuffing it all, you can put the leftover cheese or broccoli/ mushrooms on side and its still delicious
garnish with lightly fried arugula.



Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Sh*t Persian Moms Say


If you are persian (most likely you are because only my family reads this blog), you will absolutely die laughing.  Oh my god, funniest thing I've ever seen and so true!!



Hahaha, this is awesome!

Good morning!


Almond Cashew milk.  So rich and creamy!  Soak 1 cup almonds and 1 cup cashews overnight in 4 cups water.   Blend in the morning with the soak water and strain!


Almond butter is sooo simple to make and amazing fresh so I usually make a cup in the morning to eat with apples and banana.

Simply blend 2 cups raw almonds, or if your processor is tiny like mine, fill it with almonds until just above the last blade (mine has two blades-about 1 1/2 cups almonds)

Almost there!  You'll need to scrape down the sides every 30 seconds or so for a couple minutes so everything can process, your blender will most likely tell you when it's time to scrape down... mine will stop processing all together and sound like the tops going to fly off, haha!  I use a plastic chopstick to move everything around.  After 6 or 7 times of scraping the sides (stick with it!), it will start to magically blend by itself and you can watch it spin around, getting creamy and delicious!  Let it blend for a couple minutes, check for creamy-ness (careful, the blender heats up and the almond butter will be extremely hot!) and transfer to a glass jar.  Let cool before storing in the fridge.  This will keep for a long time but in my house, it's never lasted more than 2 days!

10 minutes, a mess and a cup of coffee later.....




Quiche turned casserole!


Well, this is what happens when you don't read the full recipe before you start.  So I wrote in the last post that I was going to make this mini-quiche.  I never had a quiche or much less, even know what one is so I figured I'd try this out.

So I soak cashews and start chopping everything, I don't have any tart cases or any small dishes for the oven, so I made a foil bowl thinking this was going to be a small quiche (I should have known, I can never limit myself with ingredients and always make too much of everything...).  I didn't have what the recipe called for so I lined the bottom of the foil bowl with sliced tomatoes, lots of parsley, cilantro, spinach and arugula, a sliced portabella mushroom (have you noticed yet that I'm obsessed with these?), broccoli and white onion.  I eliminated any spices the recipe called for because the base has lots of flavor.

I made the cashew base only changing the flax oil for olive oil (you can eliminate the miso but since I had some in the fridge, I used it-and it made a difference.  If you don't have any you could just add more nutritional yeast for a more cheesy flavor.)

I poured the base over the veggies (I made mine one layer, unlike the recipe which is many layers of alternating veggies and base) and topped it with sliced everything and lots of arugula!

Ready to bake!  Blah, blah, blah, "dehydrate for 24-45 hours..."  WHAT?
I'm all for dehydrating, if only I had a dehydrator...

When recipes are to be dehydrated for a couple hours, I usually get away with pretend dehydrating, which is just putting the oven on the lowest temperature (mines 200 degrees) and keeping the door open a little while the foods cooking (you have to keep an eye on it because it will cook faster than the recipe because your temperature is higher).  But keeping my oven on for 24 hours is not really an option, plus I was starving.... So I cooked this baby at 350 degrees for an hour, turned down the temperature to 200 degrees and let it sit another hour and a half with the door ajar.  The top started to get nice and quiche-like, but the middle was nowhere near.  Realizing this was going to take forever, I turned up the temperature to 450 degrees, baked for 30 minutes and ate it like a casserole.  It was actually really good and I'm sure I could have just baked it at 450 for an hour or so instead of all that.  (Although, if you want the tomatoes on top dried out a little and the arugula to be crisp, you need to fake dehydrate on 200 degrees for at least 1 hour... it's worth it, just saying..)  Also, if you have small tart cases, it would bake a whole lot faster than one huge casserole.

When I get a dehydrator though, I'll definitely make the recipe as-is because I'm sure it's amazing!  But with my love (obsession) with casseroles, this didn't disappoint!