Raw Vegan Recipes

80/10/10 Recipe: Kale Apple Celery Green Juice Recipe

March 10, 2012 by Veronica Grace 28 Comments

Mmm… kale apple celery juice with ginger and Meyer lemon. This is a delicious fat free kale juice with a hint of apple and the tang of lemon and a bite of ginger.

You can easily throw in a handful of greens into your morning veggie juice and a little apple to take out the bitterness.

I like to use celery as the base of my juice and then add whatever else I’d like such as carrots, apples, beets, lemon, lime, ginger, greens etc. There are so many different combinations for fresh juice. The juicer I use is a Breville. I like that it comes with this nice large juicing jug that keeps the foam out of my juice when it pours and it’s much easier to clean than my old Jack Lalane power juicer.

We picked up this bag of Meyer lemons and I thought I’d try them out in this juice. They have a much thinner skin, almost like mandarins and are very fragrant. They’re a nice treat over the regular lemons.

Kale Apple Celery Juice With Ginger and Lemon

Serves 2

Ingredients:

3 apples
16-20 stalks of celery
2 handfuls of kale
1 chunk of ginger
1 lemon

Directions:

1. Wash and/or peel all of your ingredients.

2. Pass all of the ingredients through a juicer.

3. Serve immediately and enjoy!

What’s your favourite juice to make?

80/10/10 Recipe: Banana Cherry Pineapple Green Smoothie, Green Smoothie FAQ and How To Make Your Green Smoothie Look More Appetizing

February 28, 2012 by Veronica Grace 22 Comments

Today I thought I’d share another fat free raw vegan smoothie recipe with you (this one includes cherries and pineapples) and go over some questions some of you may have on green smoothies. If you’re looking for the recipe, you can scroll to the bottom of the post.

What is a Green Smoothie?

A green smoothie is basically just a raw fruit smoothie with some raw greens added to it for more nutrition. It can look green, red, purple or even brown coloured depending on what the ingredients are.

Why Would I Want To Add Greens To My Smoothie?

Most of us don’t eat giant raw salads or plates and plates of green vegetables every day and when we do eat greens we often don’t chew them well enough or even that long at all. A green smoothie is a great compromise for those who want to get more fresh greens in their diet with little fuss. It’s also great for those who don’t like the taste of leafy greens or want to eat all their greens raw. Eating heads and heads of leafy greens every day can be tough too.

What Kind Of Greens Should I Put In My Green Smoothie?

If you’re just starting out and not sure what would be a “safe bet” to have your first green smoothie or you’re making one for someone else who is really skeptical, you should try something mild like a cup or two of baby spinach, mâche (lambs lettuce/corn salad) or a few leaves of lettuce.

If you’re already used to green smoothies you can use the above, or also try adding celery stalks, kale, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, turnip greens, beet greens, etc.

If you’re really adventurous and can stand bitter/strong greens like mustard, baby spring mix and collards you can try a little of those to start.

How Do I Make A Green Smoothie Then?

I would recommend to start with ripe bananas, a little bit of water, your favourite frozen fruit (pineapple, mango, peaches, berries etc) and a cup or handful or two of greens. Blend it and then taste test it before deciding if it needs more fruit or greens to your liking.

BTW, these are ripe bananas. Please DO NOT use anything less ripe than these or you could end up with s starchy (dry and pasty) bland smoothie and not enjoy it. Note the one on the right is the ripest and will taste much sweeter than the two on the left.

Your first green smoothie might look like this:

2-3 ripe bananas
1-2 cups baby spinach
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup water

Green Smoothie Troubleshooting FAQ:

My Green Smoothie Tastes Awful/Bad! What Did I Do Wrong?

The first suspect is that you used unripe/sour fruit for the base of it. Unripe bananas, sour peaches, sour nectarines, sour mango etc. Your fruit should be soft and give to the touch. I made a youtube video about How To Tell If Fruit Is Ripe if you want to check it out.

If your smoothie is really bitter/smelly/awful tasting you probably used too strong of a green or too much of it. I would scale back to a handful or two and blend and then taste test before deciding if you want to add more greens to it.

If you did not add unripe fruit or too many greens, you probably added some kind of bitter powder to your smoothie and the taste is overpowering the flavour. Omit or reduce this amount.

My Green Smoothie Is All Gritty And Has A Weird Texture! What Did I Do Wrong?

If your smoothie has a weird texture like you are drinking juice with the fibre put back into it and it’s lumpy and not smooth you used fruit with mostly insoluble fibre.

Apple skins have insoluble fibre (think hard to digest and sweeps through your digestive tract) and some soluble fibre inside their flesh. Same with pears, pineapple, berries, grapes and greens. If you just make a pear/apple + greens smoothie or a berries + greens smoothie you are going to have a really BAD smoothie. It’s not going to be very nice to drink and the fibre will sink to the bottom.

Fruit that makes smoothies “stick” together (because of higher amounts of soluble fibre) and have a creamy taste are bananas, mangoes, papaya, peaches, nectarines etc. You want to make sure you add at least 1 or 2 large pieces of these fruits for the base of your smoothie to have an even texture.

What Should I Not Add To My Green Smoothie?

Most importantly, please do not add anything like oil (flax oil, olive oil, coconut oil, coconut butter, fish oil etc) to your green smoothie. These are refined products and are 100% fat at 120 calories per tablespoon. If you are trying to lose weight or eat for health you do not need to add a 100% refined product to your otherwise healthy smoothie. If you want some “good fats” you can try a tablespoon or two of ground chia, ground flax seed (linseed) or hemp seed (hearts). Getting your omega 3 essential fatty acids from a whole food and not a processed (and possibly rancid) source like oil is preferred. Also, you would probably enjoy a tablespoon of oil much more over a salad or steamed greens than hidden in a smoothie (if you chose to eat it).

I also don’t recommend adding any raw animal products (like raw eggs) to smoothies because of the potential health hazards. I don’t recommend animal products for health anyways, but it is especially hazardous to eat animal products raw mixed into something as you won’t be able to tell if it was “off” or contaminated.

Other things I find unnecessary in smoothies are: yogurt, sugar, sorbet, ice-cream, artificial sweeteners, pop/soda etc. These foods are not health foods and aren’t necessary for a healthy diet, and they just add more processed food and sugar to your smoothies anyway. In the case of yogurt, I am against dairy for health reasons. Non-dairy yogurts are more of a treat food. Often they contain a lot of sugars, fat, chemicals and preservatives so it’s not something I would recommend to eat daily for health. Probiotics can offer health benefits without excess chemicals or calories as well. If you want to make your own yogurt this is certainly much healthier than store bought too.

Green powders like wheat grass or barley grass are pretty strong. If you add them to your smoothie, it’s going to taste like grass! And Possibly make you gag… (that’s me anyway) And unless you REALLY love the taste of grass in your smoothie, I wouldn’t recommend doing it.

Raw cacao and cocoa should be avoided, or used only occasionally. They have a lot of caffeine are highly addicting. If you are doing so already you might notice that you can’t wait to have your daily chocolate hit and could eat more than just one chocolate smoothie given the chance. I also don’t like using cacao to mask bitter tasting raw powders and protein powders as it tricks you into drinking something you otherwise would not eat and can lead to overeating as well. I found banana cacao smoothies far too addicting and had to cut it out.

Raw vegetables especially ones like carrots or beets, they are really hard and gritty and will not add a nice flavour or texture to your smoothie. Celery I find works ok if it’s 2-3 stalks and you add some bananas to it. This is just personal preference. If you’re a beginner or serving someone else try a few fruit and green smoothies first before adding any veggies. Something that is a little safer would be raw cauliflower, cucumber, celery, zucchini because they are super mild tasting. I don’t recommend blending raw broccoli because it’s so strong tasting.

A smoothie should be a healthy meal, not a witchy concoction of fragmented processed food you would never eat on it’s own. In the sense where you wouldn’t open up a jar of powder or pills and eat it with your meal. A smoothie is for getting healthy food into you easier if you don’t have time to chew, not to be your own “vitamin water” to dump all kinds of junk into.

If you want to add some supplements or powders to your diet, it’s best to know if you need them or not. Get a blood test and test for any deficiencies and then if you add something use one thing at a time, and not half a dozen different things. If one is giving you benefits, another negative reactions and the rest are doing nothing, you won’t really know, you’ll just have wasted a lot of money on supplements. It’s much better to experiment with one thing at a time on your body if you are unsure if it is good or bad for you to include in your diet. (This does not pertain to fruits and vegetables, unless you suspect an allergy towards a specific one)

Other things I don’t add to smoothies are milks or ice. Milks are not really necessary in that I prefer to get most of my calories from whole foods like fruit and I use milks more in dressings or creamy soup recipes, so there’s no need to double up and add them to my smoothies and make them fattier. Ice is also unnecessary as it waters down your smoothie and if you have a cheaper blender it makes it really hard to blend and gives it a gritty texture as well. I prefer to add frozen fruit if I want to cool my smoothie down.

How Do I Make My Green Smoothie Look More Appealing/Appetizing and Not So Ugly?

This is especially important for those new to green smoothies and children and/or spouses that would probably refuse to drink a smoothie with greens or “vegetables” in it. How dare you try to sneak in healthy veggies into their breakfast right?

It’s fairly easy. Basically start with a base of something white or yellow like bananas, mangoes, peaches etc. and then add your greens and pick a purple, red, or blue fruit or berry to add to your smoothie.

This smoothie below has greens in it, but you would never know. It just looks like a red smoothie and is pretty “normal” looking.

If you add something like black kale and some berries to your smoothie it may end up looking more brown. For yourself you may not mind but for newbies to smoothies prettier always gives a more positive reaction to it.

I used to get teased constantly at my old job for bringing in “monster green concoctions” for breakfast every day and my boss would stop the meetings and ask me what I was drinking it freaked him out so much. As soon as I started putting blueberries in it, people stopped caring! lol

80/10/10: Banana Cherry Pineapple Green Smoothie

Serves 1-2

Approx: 506 calories

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas
2 cups packed baby spinach
1 cup frozen or fresh pineapple
1 cup frozen black cherries (or fresh) (or berries of choice)
1/2-1 cup filtered water (optional to thin or blend)

Directions:

Place ingredients into Vitamix in order listed and blend until smooth. If you have a cheaper blender you may want to add the water and bananas first and blend and then add the other ingredients and blend.

Additional Tips:

I get my black frozen cherries from Costco in Canada. I don’t know if they just started carrying them, but I was pleased as cherry and pineapple go together so well and is one of my favourite combos. If you’re in the USA I know that H-E-B (in Texas) and Dole have black cherries in the frozen fruit department of many grocery stores. You can also use frozen raspberries if you don’t have cherries. It just adds more seeds to the smoothie, so get out your dental floss!

What do you think of this recipe? Did you learn something about green smoothie making today?

80/10/10 Recipe: Fat Free Raw Vegan Banana Crepes

February 23, 2012 by Veronica Grace 39 Comments

80/10/10 Recipe: Fat Free Raw Vegan Banana Crepes or Banana Fruit Roll Ups

One of the things that are really hard to make on a raw vegan diet are brunch type recipes, especially low fat or fat free ones. While this raw banana crepe recipe is not anything like a real cooked crepe, they are easy to make and fun to eat when you stuff them full of fresh fruit. They look great and kids will like them too.

This is a recipe I made when I was first working on Savory Raw Dinner Recipes, and as this is not a dinner recipe, I couldn’t include it. But if you love this simple and fresh recipes, you will LOVE my tasty low fat creations in Savory Raw Dinner Recipes. I think the pictures speak for themselves, but we’ve had resounding positive feedback on just how much everyone loves these recipes.

These raw vegan crepes are so easy to make you don’t even need a recipe, you just want to start with ripe spotted bananas and blend one with a little bit of water if necessary in a blender. Get out your dehydrator tray and put a teflex sheet on it and pour the pureed bananas in little rounds about 6-7 inches across. Don’t let them touch each other. Dehydrate them at 105 or 110 F overnight, or until pliable and dry like a fruit roll up.

Roll them up on a plate and serve with chopped fresh fruit, pureed fruit, cinnamon or maple syrup if desired. I put banana ice-cream on mine, but that was a bad idea. It made the roll up freeze and was brittle and hard to eat, so I don’t recommend it! It looks nice though…

For variation, try blending bananas with other ripe fruits to get different flavours. You can also easily create your own home made raw fruit roll ups for a fun treat for kids. When they are dry you can put them on a piece of plastic wrap and roll up like a taquito, making sure that the plastic wrap keeps everything from sticking.

Also if you are into 80/10/10 style raw food recipes with no seasonings and just using fruits and vegetables, check out Frederic’s Low Fat Raw Vegan Cuisine DVDs

What do you think of this recipe? Have you ever made raw crepes or fruit roll ups?

Raw Vegan Valentines Day 80/10/10 Style: Cherry Mango Love Smoothie

February 13, 2012 by Veronica Grace 10 Comments

Whether or not you have a sweetie on Valentines Day this year, you can make your own 80/10/10 style holiday meal pretty easily. Make a beautiful breakfast smoothie for yourself or your loved one, or slice up some mangoes into heart shaped pieces. There you go, festive and edible!

It’s just starting to become mango season, you will see them available at grocery stores slowly, but they will be in full availability starting in April.

I got these mangoes from Costco and they are starting to ripen up.

How To Cut Mangos Into Heart Shape Pieces

To make heart shaped mango slices, you’re going to need a really sharp preferably thin knife. Slice off the cheeks of the mango (around the inner woody pit) and trace an outline on the skin in a heart shape, or any desired shape. Carefully cut out the mango trying to be as smooth in your cuts as possible. When you’re done you can trim any choppy bits after to make it look more streamlined.

Serve your mango pieces on top of a fresh fruit salad or smoothie. You can use any leftover scraps in a delicious smoothie as well. I saved mine for the smoothie below.

Raw Vegan Valentines Day Smoothie: Cherry Mango Love

Serves 1

Ingredients:

2-3 ripe bananas (spotted all over)
2 ripe mangoes (very soft and wrinkly all over)
1-2 cups frozen black cherries (Dole, H-E-B and Costco all have these available. Costco in Canada)

Directions:

Place mangoes in the bottom of your Vitamix or blender, then bananas and then frozen cherries on top. If you need to you can add a little water to make it blend easier, but I like my smoothies thick. Blend until smooth.

Serve and garnish if desired.

Additional Tips:

If you don’t have frozen black cherries, you can use frozen raspberries. Strawberries are a possibility, just make sure they are sweet.

You can easily make this a green smoothie by adding some spinach to it. The cherries will mask the green colour and make it look more purplish.

What do you think of this recipe? Are you doing anything special for a raw vegan Valentines Day?

Raw Vegan No Fat Sweet Onion Salad Dressing Recipe And Why Fast Food Salads Are Bad For Your Health

February 6, 2012 by Veronica Grace 38 Comments

This is an oil free and fat free bonus recipe that comes in my Savory Raw Dinner Recipes book and ebook (not shown in the dvd) that I’m going to share with you today. If you are looking for some amazingly delicious and healthy raw food recipes, please check it out. I’ve gotten so much positive feedback on my spin on oil free raw vegan dinner recipes. (Scroll down for the recipe.)

Travel update: We are back home now in Vancouver, BC this week after spending 2 months in Corpus Christi, Texas and enjoying the sun down there (and avoiding the dark clouds and rain here). It’s nice to be back home, but it feels a little surreal. I have to get used to my kitchen again and finding all of my seasonings and kitchen gadgets. So I’m going to ease back into making recipes, as I’ve totally broken my groove from traveling and moving back in and unpacking everything.

Sweet onion dressing was one of my favourite dressings I used to buy from a bottle (because it’s low fat), but it’s filled with high fructose corn syrup, so I decided to make my own and it tastes pretty similar and is much healthier.

Why Do I Make And Prefer Fat Free Raw or Vegan Salad Dressings?

Well because salad is supposed to be healthy and full of nutrients, and not be a fat bomb of a meal. When I was at the Houston, TX airport we grabbed a bite to eat at Wendy’s and I was just curiously looking around me at what other families were getting. I noticed the woman beside me was eating what she thought was a really healthy meal, because there were no burgers or fries in sight: a BLT Cobb Chicken Salad, a cup of chili and a large soda.

Now I don’t know if you know this, but all restaurants and fast food companies market their salads to women, especially mothers and older women who are trying to eat healthier, watch their weight (or lose weight) as their children and husbands love ordering a burger and fries regularly. Everyone generally thinks burgers and fries are less healthy and salads are on the top of the list of healthy meals so this can be misleading when it comes down to the details.

The woman who ordered this was also probably 35-45 lbs over her ideal weight. I don’t say this to be critical, just to give you an idea of who buys these fast food salads and how they are being seriously deceived. The thing that shocked me the most was that she squeezed every last drop of dressing out of her packet and then proceeded to suck on the packet just to double check! Gross! I thought people knew these dressings were very fatty and to only use half the packet or less. I guess not in Texas…

Why Wendy’s and Fast Food Salads Are

NOT Healthy and Actually Bad For You.

Let’s take a look at her “healthy” Wendy’s meal. <- Go here for the nutritional info.

BLT Cobb salad, chicken, bacon, feta cheese, tortilla strips, dressing

Let’s add up her totals here just to get an idea of how “healthy” this meal is. I’ll pretend she only got a small soda, as Wendy’s doesn’t want to acknowledge people drink more than this… yeah right!

Menu Item	Calories	Fat	Sat Fat	Cholest	Sodium	Fiber
Wendy’s BLT Cobb Salad	450	25g	11g	270mg	1610mg	3g
Thousand Island Dressing	160	15g	2.5g	15mg	290mg	0g
Large Chili	310	9g	3.5g	60mg	1330mg	10g
Small Cola Or Sprite	160	0g	0g	0g	0mg	0g
Total:	1080	49g	17g	345mg	3230mg	13g
Rec. D. Allowance:	2000	65g	20g	300mg	1500mg	25g

Thousand Island Dressing is the highest calorie dressing they offer. Avoid it at all costs!

Sodas: Wendy’s CONVENIENTLY only lists the amounts for a SMALL cup of every beverage in their nutritional info. This is insanity. Combo meals come with a medium or large drink! This is total deception.

This salad meal with chili is over half the recommended daily calories for an athletic adult women or an inactive man. Most woman in their 40-60’s only need 1600-1800 calories if they are fairly sedentary. So the RDA of 2000 calories is obviously too high for her. It blows the RDA for cholesterol and sodium out of the water, and is almost maxing out the fat and sat fat for the entire day.

Let’s compare this to a typical combo meal at Wendy’s, just to see how it stacks up as a “healthy choice” for woman.

Menu Item	Calories	Fat	Sat Fat	Cholest	Sodium	Fiber
Single 1/4 pounder	580	33g	14g	105mg	1240mg	3g
Med. Fries	420	21g	4g	0mg	450mg	6g
Small Cola or Sprite	160	0g	0g	0g	0g	0g
Total:	1160	54g	18g	105mg	1690mg	9g
Diff Between Salad Meal and Burger Combo	-80	-5g	-1g	+240mg	+1540mg	-3g

There isn’t any real health benefit in going for a salad with chicken, bacon, feta cheese, creamy dressing, croutons/tortilla strips, and ground beef chili instead of a burger and fries. You save a little bit of calories, but let’s face it, if you’re a woman you blew your calorie budget for almost 2 meals on one meal, and you killed your cholesterol and sodium recommendations for the day. This is bad news for your heart, arteries, blood pressure, and waistline ladies. Don’t be fooled that restaurant and fast food salads are in ANY way shape or form healthy, low in fat, or low in calories. If you want a salad, the best bet is to bring your own fat free dressing (store bought or homemade) and get a large green garden salad. No croutons, no cheese, no bacon, no meat, no fried noodles, no tortilla strips etc. You can also bring or order a fruit plate, fruit cup, piece of fruit (if available). Or try going somewhere that can do steamed vegetables and plain rice, that’s a healthy meal as well.

Now, are you curious what we got instead at Wendy’s? Bet you had no idea you could eat Low Fat Vegan at Wendy’s!

We got a side salad and a plain baked potato each with a small packet of Italian dressing (they didn’t have light so we made do).

(DO NOT eat the fried croutons this can come with the garden salad!)

Menu Item:	Calories	Fat	Sat Fat	Cholest	Sodium	Fiber
Wendy’s Garden Side Salad	25	0g	0g	0g	30mg	2g
Wendy’s Plain Baked Potato	270	0g	0g	0g	25mg	7g
Italian Vinaigrette (Low Fat)	70	6g	1g	0g	180mg	0g
Total:	365	6g	1g	0g	235mg	9g

This is your best option at Wendy’s for a low fat, filling, nutrient and fiber rich meal. You can even get an extra baked potato for a more filling meal.

If you want to know more about why oils, nuts and seeds are NOT good for your health check out this great dvd by vegan RD and Nutritionist Jeff Novick From Oil To Nut s. It will dispel every half truth and myth you’ve ever heard about oils and nuts being “heart healthy”, “good for weightloss” “super foods” and more. I’ve shown it to all of my friends and they were just shocked. They are much more conscientious about their food choices now and have lost weight and lowered their cholesterol and risk for heart disease and cancer.

Wow, what a difference it makes just ordering vegan sides (that are not deep fried and free of creamy dressings/butter/margarine) compared to the regular fast food fare. You can get a large snack or a mini meal, for about $3.50 or less. If you want a larger meal, just order 2 baked potatoes. We always skip the butter, margarine, sour cream and fatty dressings. You can use ketchup or a vinaigrette to season it, or better yet bring a little packet or container of salsa, or barbecue sauce etc if you’re planning ahead.

It is actually NOT that hard to eat vegan and relatively low fat when traveling. Of course it’s not 100% unrefined and ideal, but it’s a heck of a lot better than just saying oh well and getting that pack of fries or fatty oil and cheese salad like many vegans and vegetarians do.

Our first option of course when in airports is always to scope out the Asian food and look for steamed veggies, rice, vegan sushi rolls, rice paper wraps, or stir fries. Keep that in mind next time, if you are new to eating vegan or low fat vegan and worry about eating on the go.

Now on to my recipe oil free vegan salad dressing recipe.

This is a really easy no oil, fat free vegan salad dressing recipe that you can make with ingredients you probably already have on hand. I know I had all of these already, so it was simple enough. I put mine into an empty condiment style bottle so it could be squirted easily on the salad in small amounts.

(Oil Free) No Fat Raw Vegan Sweet Onion Salad Dressing

Makes about 1 1/2 cups of dressing

Ingredients:

5-6 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
1 cup peeled cucumber, chopped
1 clove of garlic
1 cup of sweet vidalia onion, diced (about 1/2 large onion) (Walla Walla is another variety you can use too)
8 small dates, pitted
1/4 tsp salt
pepper to taste
2+ tbsp water (to blend or thin as necessary)

Directions:

1. Place ingredients into a Vitamix or food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Taste test and adjust seasonings if desired.
3. Serve over green salad and refrigerate any leftovers.

Tip:

To make the onion flavour more mild, you can chop the onion in advance and let it sit out or in the fridge and oxidize so that some of the strong oils dissipate and it won’t be as intense.

This is a dressing I would use in smaller quantities because of the bite. I wouldn’t make an entire family sized salad with it, and eat it myself. It might sting your tongue a little if you eat the whole recipe in one meal. Side salads or a medium sized salad would be best with this recipe.

For more information on Savory Raw Dinner Recipes click here

What do you think of this recipe? What was your favourite salad dressing you now make vegan or raw?

How To Make Raw Vegan Veggie Stuffed Collard Wraps

January 24, 2012 by Veronica Grace 21 Comments

How To Make Raw Vegan Veggie Collard Wrap Sandwich

Raw Collard Wraps With Veggies, Sprouts and Guacamole

Are you looking for a quick and healthy wrap that’s maybe low in calories and more whole foods based? Or maybe you’re looking for a gluten or wheat free sandwich option. Well check out my raw veggie collard wraps!

So… I totally forgot to add these delicious collard wraps to my recipe program Savory Raw Dinner Recipes because they were so easy to make I did not write the recipe down! LOL. When I compiled the recipe book I did not have it on my computer and I forgot about it. So I’m posting it here for you instead. These raw collard wraps are really easy to make if you have access to large size flat collard green leaves and are really impressive to non raw foodies.

If you haven’t checked out Savory Raw Dinner Recipes, I highly recommend you do. I created the recipes and did all the photography myself. These are possibly the sexiest lower fat gourmet recipes you’ve ever seen. Even if you just enjoy some healthy food porn photos, you should check it out!

If you live in the south you can find collard greens at most grocery stores or Walmart, but if you live in the north or in Canada you’ll have to go to Whole Foods or your local community health food store.

In the South it’s about 88 cents (USD) for a bunch of collards. In Canada, it costs us about $2.99 (CAD) for a large bunch. Overall, it’s a pretty cheap wrapper to make a raw burrito or sandwich, just make sure you select a bunch of collards that have lots of large flat leaves, not bent, crushed or small leaves as you’ll more likely end up having to make tiny raw vegan tacos instead because you can’t wrap the collards like a burrito.

If you DON’T have collard greens, it won’t really turn out the same. The key to this wrap is the collard green’s very large, strong and pliable leaf. You can try using other greens, but what you’ll get instead is more of an open face sandwich/taco/boat that you sprinkle toppings in and eat kind of like a hot dog! Probably tastes the same, but will look different. You can try both style of raw wrap.

This is what a collard leaf looks like whole. You will see it’s flat and not curly like kale.

Raw Collard Wraps With Veggies, Sprouts and Guacamole

How To Make Raw Vegan Collard Wraps

Serves 2

For this recipe you’re going to need:

2 large collard green leaves, washed
1/2 ripe avocado (should give to your thumb when pressed)
julienned or spiralized carrot and/or beets
julienned cucumber
julienned pepper
julienned zucchini
A few sprouts (If you have, I used alfalfa, you can use sunflower, pea shoots etc)
Seasonings if desired: lime/lemon, salt, pepper, olives

Tools:

A sharp knife
Flat surface

Step 1: Lay your collard leaf out flat on a cutting board stem side facing UP. Next take your sharp knife (it needs to be sharp, and not a serrated one, I cut myself once sawing into my finger) and angle it down and into the stem of the leaf. Shave the stem from the leaf horizontally and away from you. You want to do this so you can roll and fold your collard leaf without it cracking and splitting. Keep shaving down the stem a bit at a time, until it is flush with the leaf and then cut the edge off the stem end so it is straight at the bottom. Test your collard leaf now to see if it will roll easily into a small burrito. If it does, you’ve got your collard stem thin enough. Once you do this once, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Step 2: Spread 1/4 of a ripe avocado (half of your 1/2 avocado) onto you collard leaf leaving an inch or two from the bottom end of the stem. Spread it in the middle area only, not all the way out to the sides and top. Season if desired over the avocado for flavour.

Step 3: Lay your veggies and sprouts nicely in the bottom portion to middle of your collard leaf, still leaving and inch or two at the bottom part of the stem. Keep everything in the middle and far away from the top and sides, just like you would fill a burrito.

Step 4: Roll the bottom stem end of your collard leaf up and away from you and make a full roll. Tuck in the sides of the leaf and continue rolling and tucking in as you go. Keep your roll tight so when you cut it your filling doesn’t fall out.

Step 5: Hold your wrap tightly and then carefully slice it in half. If desired you can skewer it with a toothpick to hold it together and set it on a plate.

Step 6: Repeat for the other wrap.

I would recommend sticking with a thick creamy filling like avocado, guacamole or my Lower Fat Hemp Hummus (from Savory Raw Dinner Recipes) instead of using a fruit or vinegar based dressing, as the taste of collards is quite strong and with just a vinegar or lemon base it won’t really be that delicious. Unless you’re like a hard core raw foodist, in which case you probably eat raw kale by the bunchfuls… every day… Just kidding! Rock on! 🙂

Serve this wrap with a raw soup, green salad or fruit salad. This is not a low fat recipe, technically because the veggies and wrap have so little calories. This is why I did not use an entire avocado for the recipe, otherwise it would be very fatty. I want to emphasize that on it’s own this is a very LOW CALORIE wrap, pretty much a snack. Since we don’t want to load up on nuts, seeds and oil on a low fat raw vegan or 80/10/10 diet, this should be part of a meal. We enjoyed this with a fat free soup recipe from Savory Raw Dinner Recipes and lots veggie sticks with my raw hummus. You just can’t see it from the photo, but the soup was present!

I have seen some restaurants steam the collard leaves as well for those who prefer a milder taste (sort of like steamed cabbage in a cabbage roll) so that’s always an option if you’re looking for a softer texture in your wrap!

What do you think of these wraps? What did you fill yours with?

Low Fat Raw Vegan Green Smoothie with Grapes, Celery and Spinach

January 22, 2012 by Veronica Grace 17 Comments

Here’s an easy and tasty fat free raw vegan (80/10/10 style) green smoothie recipe you can make for on the go or taking to work. I used to take this to the office (where I used to work) because my boss kept teasing me about my creepy alien green concoctions lol.

Check it out!

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What’s your favourite green smoothie recipe?

Fat Free Raw Vegan Cabbage Slaw – Costa Rican Style

January 20, 2012 by Veronica Grace 23 Comments

Fat Free Oil Free Raw Vegan Costa Rican Cabbage Slaw Salad

Raw Vegan Cabbage Slaw Costa Rican Style

This is a really easy and fast recipe that happens to be oil free, fat free and raw vegan. When we lived in Costa Rica we would eat this salad a lot and it’s a staple dish because cabbage is so abundant there. Most of the tender lettuces don’t last very long in the humidity down there even in the fridge, but cabbage never had a problem. So we ate a lot of cabbage while we were there. The Costa Ricans use VERY SIMPLE seasonings to flavour their dishes, this one only has a balance of lime juice and salt. You don’t have to add the salt, but it’s used to help wilt the cabbage and to cut the acidity of the lime and make it tangy. The tomato adds some juiciness to the recipe as well, so make sure you use a good tomato.

If you get store bought coleslaw mix you can have this salad ready in minutes and then put it in the fridge while you prep your main dish.

I’ve served this to raw foodies and non raw eaters and both love it as a tangy topping to latin style dishes. Typically this Costa Rican cabbage salad would be eaten with seasoned rice and black beans which is also called gallo pinto.

Cabbage has a very nice flavour and does not require any oil. Please don’t drown your healthy cabbage in olive oil or creamy dressing! Oil free coleslaw recipes are delicious.

Fat Free Raw Vegan Cabbage Slaw Costa Rican Style

Serves 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

5 cups green cabbage, sliced (or slaw mix)
1 medium ripe tomato, diced
1/3 cup white onion, diced
1 -1 1/2 large limes, juiced
1/2 tsp herbamare or salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper or to taste

Directions:

1. Place cabbage or slaw mix into a bowl. Add tomatoes and onions and seasonings. Roughly squeeze and massage the cabbage to wilt it and make the tomatoes release their juices.

2. Taste test and add more lime or salt if desired.

3. Let sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to soften before serving.

4. Serve with raw entrees or as a topping for vegan tacos or rice and beans.

Variations:

You can also add some chopped raw cilantro (coriander) or parsley if desired. Julienned carrot or celery, red cabbage, or jicama can be used to mix it up as well for more raw salad creations.

What do you think of this recipe? What did you serve it with?

80/10/10 Recipe: Grapefruit Soup With Step By Step Pictures!

December 14, 2011 by Veronica Grace 5 Comments

Grapefruit soup is an easy 1 ingredient (mono) meal you can have for a breakfast or a snack. It’s 80/10/10 friendly and fat free. They key is to use very sweet juicy grapefruits. My favourite are red grapefruits. Right now we’re in Texas for Christmas, so we are using the Texas Star Grapefruits here. They’re quite good. I wouldn’t suggest using this recipe for more sour white grapefruits.

My friend made this for me and I photographed him doing so, so you can easily see how to get an easy to eat grapefruit meal with no seeds or excess peel or skins.

For this recipe I used 3 grapefruits. 2 to cut into chunks and 1 to juice over the chunks.

(Fat Free Raw Vegan) Grapefruit Soup

Using a sharp knife, cut off both ends of the grapefruit so you can see the flesh inside. Cut away enough that you don’t have any white pith or peel left.

Flip the grapefruit onto one of the cut ends and start cutting off the sides of the peel and pith all the way around.

Now cut the grapefruit into 3 slices and remove any seeds you see.

Continue cutting into slices.

Stand up the centre piece and cut around the middle, like you would the core of an apple. Discard this piece.

Line up your slices and now cut into bite sized chunks.

Your first grapefruit is done. Continue the same process with the second grapefruit and place the pieces into a bowl.

Slice the 3rd grapefruit in half. Remove the seeds.

Using a knife or a citrus reamer squeeze the grapefruit and turn to release the juice. Alternatively you can use a citrus juicer.

Continue juicing the other side of the grapefruit.

Serve!

What do you think of this simple recipe? You can also do this with sweet oranges or pineapple. The key is to use sweet ripe fruit. Makes sure to eat this right away as the fresh juice will oxidize and go sour if you leave it out or in the fridge for a few days.

Creamy Raw Vegan Mexican Cilantro Corn Soup

November 24, 2011 by Veronica Grace 13 Comments

FTC Notice: This post contains affiliate links which go towards supporting the blog. This recipe is featured in my BRAND NEW 2 part Savory Raw Dinner Recipes DVD set. It is super easy and very delicious!

When I was thinking up raw soups to make, that would look great and I would enjoy eating, I got the idea of packing in more and more veg into it instead of having it be all heavy from nuts or lots of avocados. The solution was to add some fresh yellow bell pepper, for flavour, bulk, and colour. It really adds to this simple combination of corn and avocado and took it to a whole new level. Whenever I show people pictures of this soup, they can’t believe it’s raw and think it looks so great. Well, it tastes even better too. You can also get very creative with the garnishing. I went for a very simple look to display the solid soup ingredients and garnishes. Of course, if you make the recipe you can add as much as you like. You can also make this a little spicier by adding more chili powder.

The beauty of raw soups is that they are quite fast to make (aside from cutting fresh corn off a cobb, you can use frozen if you must) and you can blend them until they are the temperature you want in the Vitamix. So they can be room temperature, warm or quite warm. Just blend for 30-60 seconds for room temperature 1-2 minutes for warm, and then once you get past 2 minutes you are essentially really heating the soup and can cook it a little. So keep this in mind, depending on whether you want a room temperature raw soup, or a transitional warm “raw” soup. This recipe will please even the most skeptical people of raw soups. Just blend it a little longer so it’s warm and not cold if you’re using corn and bell peppers straight from the fridge. Please let me know what you think! I love your feedback. For more delicious recipes check out my Savory Raw Dinner Recipes

Creamy Raw Vegan Mexican Cilantro Corn Soup

from my recipe program: Savory Raw Dinner Recipes

Ingredients:

3 cobs of corn 2 yellow peppers, cut into chunks
1 small onion, cut into chunks 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small avocado or 1/2 large
1/2 cup cilantro diced
2 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp Herbamere or sea salt
1 1/2 large limes juiced
1/2 red pepper, diced
diced chili peppers or chili pepper powder to garnish green onions to garnish

Directions:
1. Cut the corn off the cob. (Make sure you have a sharp knife, a bowl or plate to catch the corn, and a towel. It’s messy!)
2. Put half of the corn, both yellow peppers, avocado, onion, garlic, half of the cilantro, cumin, lime, and salt into the Vitamix or food processor. 3. Use the Vitamix tamper to push ingredients down into the blade and blend until creamy. (If you don’t have a Vitamix and need to add a little water to make it blend, do so)
4. Pour into 2 bowls. Add remaining corn and red peppers. If you like it spicy add diced chili peppers.
5. Garnish with cilantro, red pepper, green onions and a sprinkle of chili pepper powder. Serve!

How did you like this soup? Did you know you can use the base of this as a raw salad dressing too?