Cashew Cheese Delight

Best.Cashew.Cheese.Ever

A friend made this in a raw lasagna for us.. and WOW! I changed the recipe a bit, since I'm not a big onion fan. But add more if you like!

For lunch, I served a heaping wooden-spoonful of the cheese with 1 fajita-sized wheat tortilla, toasted and 4 large stalks of organic celery, sliced. And I devoured ALL of it. (I can probably get 3 servings of the raw cheese out of one batch.)




INGREDIENTS

1 cup raw cashews (soaked up to 5-7 hours)
1, 4-oz jar of pimentos OR ¼ to ½ red bell pepper
Squeeze of 1/2 juicy lemon
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t garlic powder or 1 clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
*optional: water

Blend all ingredients except water. Then, add a little water to desired consistency. For spreads, add a little more water. For dips or cheese balls, add less water - and refrigerate until firm.

If you don't have a very powerful blender, you'll want to soak the cashews. However, I've read that soaking more than 5-7 hours makes them bitter. So, just soak a little ahead of time and you'll get a wonderful raw cheese! Trust me, it's to die for.


Options:

Roll in chopped, raw nuts for a cheese ball. Great for dipping chips and veggies!

Use on sandwiches or raw veggies.

Grilled Avo Sammy

This sandwich is easy to personalize. Love avocado? You'll love this sandwich.. and its infinite possibilities.



INGREDIENTS

Sliced, ripe avocado
Sliced tomato
Nutritional Yeast

Options:
Spinach leaves
Vegan mayo
Kalamata Olives (or black)

This sandwich is so easy, you'll wonder why you don't make it all the time. Slice your avocado and tomato very thin.

This is where you personalize the meal. Add a few spinach leaves, some kalamata olives and sprinkle the avocado with nutritional yeast (to add a cheesy flavor). You can even mix the nutritional yeast with some vegan mayo, if you prefer mayonnaise on your sandwiches. Talk about yum!

I am not a huge fan of garlic. But if you like it, go ahead and sprinkle it on the avocado before grilling!

Pour a little olive oil in your cast iron skillet and grill on both sides until crunchy. WOW!

Use any bread you like or have on hand. This is an easy way to make a seemingly-fancy sandwich when guests arrive unexpectedly.

Yummy Roasted Asparagus and Potatoes

You won't believe how easy - and awesome - this recipe is. Enjoy!

Do you want me to experiment with your favorite veggie? Post it here and I'll give it a try!





INGREDIENTS

About 6 red potatoes
1 bunch asparagus
Olive oil
Spices: garlic, basil, thyme, rosemary and salt


DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven 425 degrees.

Dice red potatoes small. Stir in with 3 T olive oil, 1-2 t garlic (to taste), 2 t rosemary, 2 t basil and 1 t thyme.

Bake potatoes, covered with foil, for 25 minutes.

Now, slice asparagus and mix with 1 T olive oil and 1 t basil.

Add asparagus to potatoes. Bake 15 minutes, covered with foil.

Remove foil and bake at 425 or 450 for a few minutes, about 10. Watch so you don't burn!

**I don't like to add salt when I cook. You use less and taste more if you only add it once your food is on your place. So, add your sea salt or pink salt (my favorite) and enjoy!**

Sweetest Carrots

Do you want a sweet carrot side dish, but not all the fat and processed sugars that most recipes call for? Try this!

You can adapt this recipe to feed one, two or twenty people.

INGREDIENTS

Orange juice
Raw sugar
Sliced, organic, fresh carrots

DIRECTIONS

This is so easy, anybody can do it! Basically, your goal is to cook the carrots to suit your taste - so they may be soft enough in 25 minutes or it could be 35 or more. Just keep a fork handy to test how soft your carrots become and you'll know when you're done.

Slice carrots into similarly-sized discs. Now, boil them in a covered pot for 20-25 minutes. You want them to be sort-of al dente at this point.

Now, I switched my carrots into my trusty cast iron skillet so that the carrot discs don't overlap, but form one layer in the skillet.

Add orange juice just to under the rim of the carrots. Add a little water so the liquid goes over the carrots. Sprinkle 1-3 T raw sugar on top.

Boil 5-15 minutes, depending on your taste and how long it takes for the liquid to evaporate and soak into the carrots. Stir as often as you like.

Voila!

You can cook 2 carrots or 2 bags of carrots. Just follow the instructions and add 1-3 T raw sugar per every 3 carrots. Of course, I recommend starting with 1 T and working your way up. You can always add a little at the end if it's not sweet enough - but you can't take it away.

These are melt-in-your-mouth-fantastic!

Awesome Soyrizo n Chreese Casserole

Delicious!



INGREDIENTS

2 cups dried pasta
Steam 1 head broccoli, chopped small (at least 1 cup, preferably 2)
Cook 1/2 package soyrizo per package directions
Bread crumbs

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350.

Get the chreesy sauce recipe with pasta and broccoli here. Cook pasta, steam broccoli and make chreese sauce according to this page.

Cook the soyrizo. All I did was cook it in a cast iron skillet until crispy. Easy!

Then, just add the pasta, broccoli and chreese to the soyrizo. Stir well.

Place this mixture in your large cast iron skillet and bake for 15 minutes.

Now, add bread crumbs and broil for just a few minutes. Watch it! Or it'll burn (like mine in the photo.) Surprisingly, it was still amazingly tasty. I wish I had found the soyrizo before. That stuff is amazing.

The meat-eaters in your house will love it!

Not another bean burger

Tired of veggie burgers always being made mostly of beans? Try this one! It has a great flavor that your whole family will love.



This batch makes 22 burgers! So enjoy a few fresh and freeze the rest. Simply throw in your cast iron skillet to re-heat when you want some more. Keeps well in the fridge for weeks, probably months.


INGREDIENTS

2 c oats
1 c dry quinoa, cooked
3 cans black beans
2 jalapenos
2 carrots
3 stalks celery
spices: paprika, garlic, salt
optional: 2 T flax (or, if you don’t have flax, use up to ¼ c bread crumbs if necessary)


To begin, measure quinoa (1 cup dry quinoa, 2 cups water) and bring to boil. Lower to simmer and cover.

Open and rinse beans. Measure oats.

Put jalapenos, carrots, celery into food processor. Grind into small bits.

When quinoa is cooked (about 15 minutes) put beans and veggie bits into same bowl and squish with a big spoon.

This is when you add your spices. I chose about 2 T paprika, garlic and salt.

Also, to add some stickiness and nutrition to the burgers, add flax and a little water.

There is no added fat in there, so cook them in your favorite oil. We used organic cold-pressed olive oil. Yum!



Enjoy right away. Save the rest for later. You will want to keep these (or our other veggie burgers) on hand all the time. They make quick, easy, homemade meals.

Apple-Berry Pie

This pie is even better than the Perry Pie! And just as easy...

INGREDIENTS

1 bag frozen raspberries
1/2 bag frozen cherries
1/4-1/2 c agave nectar
3/4 c dry oats, ground
3 apples, your choice
Premade pie crusts

I used Red Delicious, because they're not as sweet as other apples to me. But mix it up and try different flavors!

DIRECTIONS

Let raspberries, cherries and sweetener thaw in a bowl.. or heat on low on the stove. Meanwhile, slice your apples. Do not peel!

Layer apple slices in the crust.

Grind oats in blender and add to cherry/raspberry mixture. This will soak up most of the extra juice and turn the berries into a gooey blob-like substance. Pour this directly over your apples.

Layer sliced pie crust on top.

Follow directions on package. Or, bake 30 minutes with foil on top. Then 25-30 minutes without foil.

Voila!

OPTIONS: My husband likes those bad-for-you, sugary pies you get at the grocery store, so he thinks this pie could use more sugar. But if you're like me and you love fruit, you don't need to add any extra sugar! In fact, I use 1/4 c sweetener. But most people would probably prefer 1/2 c sweetener, especially if you're making this pie for people who aren't used to fruity (not sugary) pies. You can always ween them off the sweeteners over time.

Perry Pie

What's a perry pie? Pear-cherry pie, of course! And it's pretty amazing.



I love, love fruit. My husband loves, loves pie.

But my problem with most pies and pie recipes is that they taste just like sugar and never the fruit that is supposed to be in them! So, I tried to make a healthy, yummy, actually-fruity pie.. and it worked!

I know you'll be shocked to hear that many of my experiments fail. < wink > So, when this one worked, I was ecstatic.

INGREDIENTS

1 c oats, ground in food processor
1 bag sweet cherries (if frozen, thawed)
3 pears, ripe and sliced
1/4 c real maple syrup
2 frozen pie crusts (for top and bottom)

Follow directions on pie crust. Thaw top crust, slice. Mine was pretty broken up from being moved in the freezer that I sliced it and just put the tiny bits all over the tip, as you can see in the photo. Don't worry, it still tastes great!

I used frozen cherries so I actually heated them on low in a pot. I added the 1/4 cup maple syrup to the cherries. There will be watery cherry juice in the pot now. This is where the oats come in!

I blended the oats in the food processor until they were not quite flour but were pretty close. Add this to the cherry and juices. Mix well. This should soak up most, if not all, of the cherry juice.

Slice the ripe pears thinly. Layer two pears in the pie crust. Now you'll have a layer of the cherry/oat. Spread around the entire pie. Now layer the last pear on the top.

Add your pie crust on top. Cook 30 minutes at 375. If brown enough, cover with foil and cook another 20-25.

Voila!

This pie is incredibly fruity and just sweet enough.

Alternative:

If you're feeding people used to sugar-rific store-bought or canned pies, try adding more sugar or maple syrup to the pie at first. The more you make them, the less sugar you can use. But I absolutely love it with just the 1/4 cup of maple syrup added. Even Tyler, who loves cherry pie filling in a can, loved this pie.

Enjoy!