Better un-baked oatmeal cookies

Have your oats, dates, freshly ground cinnamon, agave nectar and optional chocolate chips and/or cocoa nibs ready.



(The oats in the photos are NOT raw.. but a friend bought them and left them here, so I'm using them.)

Measurements are approximate as you'll determine how much agave nectar to add based on how dry your batter is. But start with this:

1/2 c oats
1 c oats
1 c dates + 3 dates
4 T agave nectar
2 t freshly ground cinnamon
OPTIONAL: cocoa nibs or chocolate chips

In a food processor, grind your first 1/2 c oats into a mostly-fine powder.

Now add your dates. Grind for a while. It doesn't need to be perfect. In fact, you can leave a few of your squishiest dates out to mix by hand.

Now add the remaining ingredients - except the cocoa nibs or chocolate.

Blend in a food processor until you form a dough. If it's too sweet or wet, add some oats. If it's too dry and not sticky, add some dates or agave nectar.

Raw cookie dough:



I separated the batter into 3 piles - one for plain oatmeal cookies, one to be mixed with chocolate chips and the other to mix with cocoa nibs.

Form into cookies. You can see I hand mixed in some additional oats to the chocolate chip and plain cookies. When I'm introducing people to raw cookies I make them sweeter so I use less oats to dates. But if someone is more of a raw foodie or has less of a sweet tooth, you can add more oats to taste.

Voila!

Eat your subway!

This is great on road-trips or just any time you want a fast, yummy lunch. Bring a ripe avocado with you and share it with someone. (Or eat the whole thing yourself.)

Get lots of veggies and smear 1/2 an avocado onto your sandwich. Enjoy with a little oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. I could seriously eat this everyday if Tyler would let me.

Share a bag of chips.. and don't forget to bring your own water bottle!

Best. Lunch. Ever.

Tahini dressing with chickpea and boca salad

I added a boca chik'n patty to each of our salads, mostly because we were running low on lettuce and I was trying to bulk it up a little. But it was a great combination!

INGREDIENTS
Roasted chickpeas
Boca patties (one per person)
Salad: organic lettuces, lots of tomato and cucumbers
On the side: cornbread (see previous post for best cornbread ever!)
Tahini dressing


TAHINI DRESSING INGREDIENTS
1-2 t tahini
2-4 T olive oil
up to 1/4 c water (more water for thinner dressing, less for thicker)
squeeze 1/2 lime
dash nama shoyu or soy sauce
garlic powder
onion powder

You can mix this dressing by hand:



It turned out GREAT! Just taste it before you pour it onto your salad. That way if you don't like something about it you can adjust it to your own taste.

Enjoy!

Cornbread with actual, fresh corn

I used the postpunkkitchen's corn bread recipe - but changed a few things. I halved the recipe because it fit perfectly into my medium/small iron skillet.

INGREDIENTS
1 c corn meal
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/6 c olive oil
1 c soymilk
3 T maple syrup
1 t apple cider vinegar

Get your ingredients together:



Make your buttermilk first by mixing soymilk + apple cider vinegar. Whisk and set aside.

Mix flours + baking powder + salt in a separate bowl.

Now, add oil + maple syrup to the buttermilk mixture.

Add wet to dry ingredients. Whisk well.



Be sure to shave an entire ear of corn into your batter!



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour batter into med/small cast iron skillet. Bake up to 30-35 minutes. Watch until it's done to your preference.

This is the BEST CORN BREAD ever!

Observations

I'm beginning to think that raw foodies are right!

Cooking is hot. It's harder than making raw dishes, too. You have to time everything so it's all cooked and hot at the same time. You have to make sure you have enough space - on the stove or in the oven - to cook it all.

Plus... it's HOT in here!

Roasted chickpea snack and salad topping

When you make your own hummus, you will end up with extra chickpeas that you didn't mix into your hummus. What do you do with them? Add them directly to salads. Sure. Mix them with other beans into a soup. Yep.

Why not make a crunchy chickpea snack to mix it up a little?

DIRECTIONS

Drain the chickpeas.

Roast at 400 degrees. Set to check the chickpeas every 8 minutes or so. Keep turning until they're crunchy and roasted, which could be anywhere from 30-50 minutes.

There was a little oil left on my pan, so there's already a little oil added to my chickpeas. So, when they're done I'm just going to sprinkle with spices to go with my meal: salt, pepper, paprika and garlic. I'm serving on a salad with a boca chicken patty and cornbread on the side.

Why not re-use those stupid plastic containers that organic lettuces come in? (They aren't recyclable in our area anyway.. so I'm glad the farmer's markets are back so we don't have to get these containers anymore!)



Just mix and serve! Eat plain or on a salad. They're delicious.

Try other combinations:

1) salt and garam masala

2) cayenne, pepper and salt

All you need is a little oil on the chickpeas and you can sprinkle any spice combination to match your meal!

Enjoy

Lemon garlic hummus

Hummus is SO easy!



As before, soak your chickpeas. Rinse. Boil for an hour or so. Drain and rinse again.

INGREDIENTS
2 c cooked chickpeas
juice of 1.5-2 lemons
3/4 c oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t salt

Blend in food processor or blender. Enjoy with veggies, on sandwiches or wherever you like!

YUMMY!

Roasted red-pepper hummus

Soak your own chickpeas. You heard me. It's easy!

Buy super cheap dry beans and soak about 1.5-2 cups of them for up to 12 hours. Rinse. Remove any oddly shaped beans. Boil for 1-1.5 hours, however long it takes.

While they're cooking you'll want to wash and slice your red bell peppers. Douse them in olive oil. Really, smother them. Now broil - but watch so they don't burn! Roast them as long as you can.

Put your cooked chick peas in your food processor (or blender if you want a smooth hummus). Add water. Add some oil. Add lots of oil if you want! Add your bell peppers. Then add fresh minced garlic and salt to taste. BLEND!

It's that easy.

Give up soda forever!

There's just something about a cold, carbonated bottle of soda. It's fizzy and yummy and, well, cold.

But it's full of artificial sweeteners and lots and lots of processed sugars.

If you follow this blog then you know that processed sugars, salts and foods are the enemy. BAD! Processed white sugars are BAD!

So, give them up! We used to buy 2-liter bottles (and recycle them) of carbonated plain water. Yummy, right? Then we'd add our own flavors - usually fresh, squeezed lemon and raw agave nectar. You can even buy root beer and cola flavors. Now we carbonate our own water, but unless you want to get a tank to carbonate your own you can just rely on plain carbonated water. It's cheap - and easy to make, too.

By making your own you can completely avoid the over-sugared, process-sugared sodas!

Yum, yum, fizzy carbonation.

Yummy, nutty bread

All I did was alter the 'outrageously easy big bread' recipe from vegweb.com.

It really IS easy!

INGREDIENTS
2 packets of yeast
1/4 c warm water
2 c hot water
3 t sugar
1 t salt
5 c flour
1/3 c oil
1/2 c millet
1/4 c raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c raw pumpkin seeds

DIRECTIONS
Put warm water and yeast in bowl. Do not stir.

Now mix hot water, sugar and salt in large bowl. Stir until dissolved. Then add 5 cups of flour, seeds and millet. Add oil and yeast/water mixture to this and mix well.

Dough should be sticky.

Place dough in bowl and cover with warm, damp cloth. Let rise for 45+ minutes.

After you've let your dough rise for 45+ minutes, divide the dough.



Knead the dough.



Then place the dough onto the cooking pan and let rise for another 45+ minutes.



Preheat over at 375 degrees. Cook 23 minutes exactly.

YUM!

Spicy seitan salad

YUM!

We used PETA's vegetarian starter kit recipe for the breading. Get yours here: http://www.petaliterature.com/VEG297.pdf

RECIPE
You'll need a 1lb package of seitan.

Breading:
1 t salt
1/2 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 c wheat flour
4 T nutritional yeast (optional)
3 T yellow mustard
1/2 c water
2 T baking powder

Hot sauce:
Olive oil or margarine
Louisiana hot sauce
Dash salt

Goddess dressing:
1/4 c cold-pressed olive oil
juice of one juicy lime (or lemon, if you prefer)
about 1/4 c parsley (just break off a handful, rinse and throw into the blender)
1-2 t garlic
1-2 t onion powder (it calls for chives but I don't have any.. I bet they'd be good, though)
1-2 t nama shoyu

Put your breading ingredients together. Thaw and pat-dry your seitan just to remove excess water.

Dip seitan into your breading mixture.

Fry! (We all know how to do this, right?)

Place on towel to remove excess oil. Then, dip into your homemade hot sauce. Smother it. It's goooooood.

Make your salad with whatever ingredients you have around the house and top with seitan!

We also used our homemade goddess dressing. But you can use a store bought variety if you want.

You'll LOVE this!

Cooking again

I know, I know.. there were no posts in April. I had to take a break from all this blogging!

And honestly, we just kept making the same dishes we've already made (and posted) so there was nothing new to tell.

Well, there has been a development: while we love raw foods and will still eat lots of raw desserts, dressing and nut meats.. we're going back to making homemade breads from scratch and even fried up some seitan this weekend. (Yes, I'll post that one next.)

I hope you enjoy a little variety!