Vegan Raw Berry Pie with Almond Crust and Coconut Cashew Cream

Lunch Break - Wednesday

COCONUT THAI CURRY / vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, paleo / Delicious leftovers from last night's dinner. I couldn't find a Thai curry paste that met all the restrictions, so I kind of winged it and it turned out great! I'm going to try to recreate it and write down what I do this time so I can share the recipe.

GRILLED CHICKEN / gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, paleo / Just some free-range, organic, local chicken for the ol' husband.

WHITE RICE / soy-free, nut-free, sugar-free / I know brown rice would have been better, but I have a Costco-sized bag of Jasmine rice, so you know...

BERRIES / fresh and raw / Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Lunch Break - Wednesday

This lunch took about 10 minutes to put together. Leftovers, fresh fruit, and crackers for the win!

BUTTERNUT SQUASH RISOTTO // This is actually a pre-packaged mix from Costco. It takes forever to make, but it is tasty. Which is a good thing, because we have about 10 lbs of it.

TUNA AND PICKLES // This is real tuna since it's for my husband, but I just found some vegan "toona" at Whole Foods made from pea protein, that I'm pretty excited to try.

RICE CRACKERS // By the people who brought you wheat thins, the saltier, less addicting cracker. They're great with things though. Such as tuna. Or chickpea tuna.

APPLES // Nothing fancy here, just apples.

Lunch Break - Tuesday

From left to right:

CHICKEN FRIED RICE // Includes broccoli, carrots, peas, Cocnut Aminos, sesame oil, and a teeeeeensy amount of chili garlic sauce. Also some chicken, because my husband eats chicken on occasion and with this diet he's eating whatever he can, but you could easily leave the chicken out for a vegan fried rice. It was decent, but I still need to figure out a better mixture of sauces. Coconut Aminos is good, but it doesn't deliver the same flavor punch as soy sauce.

CHIA SEED YOGURT PUDDING // Unsweetened coconut yogurt, which I sweetened with agave syrup and vanilla extract. This is easily kind of gross if you don't add some sort of flavor to the yogurt. So you must add flavor. You must! Almond extract and maple would also probably be pretty tasty. Chia seeds left to soak overnight making a nice pudding consistency. And blackberries on top.

VEGGIES AND HUMMUS // Grape tomatoes and carrots with homemade hummus. Most store-bought hummus - including our usual favorite, Sabra - add soy ingredients, or sugar, or who knows what else...womp womp.  After some research I've found that to up this to Sabra level, I maybe should have creamed the tahini and lemon separately before adding to the chickpeas. Nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with how this turned out. I event went through the trouble of taking the skins off of every single little chickpea! Despite my inexperience in the art of hummus, this was definitely above average. I will post a recipe later!

Raw Raspberry Cashew Dreamcake

Over a year after I first salivated over this Raw Raspberry Cashew Dreamcake, I finally made it! I am always skeptical of gluten-free, vegan foods, since most taste like cardboard. So I was exceptionally wary of making something that was gluten-free, vegan, AND raw. But Sarah Britton of My New Roots and her beautiful pictures helped me muster up the courage to suppress my apprehension and give it a try, and I must say I was glad I did. The texture of the dreamcake is nice and smooth, it has a great flavor, and perhaps the best part is that it's somewhat healthy since it consists mostly of nuts and fruit and is completely raw, meaning all the nutrients are completely in tact. My only comment is the crust is a bit on the crumbly side. I couldn't find Medjool dates and ended up using Deglet Noor, so perhaps that was my problem (I'm not very well-versed in the differences of dates, so if anyone knows whether Medjool would make my crust less crumbly, please let me know). But if next time I do end up using Deglet Noor again, I think I would try to throw in a few more dates to help the crust stick together better. My other comment (so I guess I actually have two comments) is that since I used a 9" round dish the filling was not as thick as Sarah had pictured. Since a thicker filling looks nicer, I would either multiply the recipe for the filling by 1.5 or would use a smaller dish than the 9" round I used.

Click here for the recipe.

My New Favorite

It's official, my new favorite food blog is My New Roots by Sarah Britton, a nutritionist and vegetarian chef. I haven't tried any of her recipes yet, but I've saved basically every single one I've seen so far to try later, and I've already gone through about ten pages. Some of her recipes are raw (such as a cashew "cheese"cake, which is the first picture below), some are vegan, and all are vegetarian. I'm not going to lie, raw+vegetarian/vegan can often mean gross, but take one look at her blog, or some of the pictures I've posted below and I guarantee it will only be seconds before your mouth starts to water. Not only do her recipes sound amazing and are her photos beautiful, but her posts are entertaining and funny! I think in the food world, Sarah Britton would be considered a triple threat. So if you haven't already, go check out her blog! And stay tuned here, as I plan on trying some of her recipes in the very near future...I really can't wait to try that cashew cake!

All of the following photos are from My New Roots: