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Sweet and Savory Asian Salad with Orange Sesame Dressing

March 17, 2013 by Veronica Grace 14 Comments

Often when I make salads at home I toss whatever I have in the fridge into a bowl and make a homemade dressing for it. This is a giant salad I made one night for dinner and it was so filling I didn’t need anything else! But I kept it lower fat by not adding anymore nuts or avocado to it and added chickpeas instead for calories and protein.

I also like to add apples and dried fruit to salads to give them more flavor and calories as opposed to lots of nuts or seeds. Salads can be much more appetizing when you make a fresh homemade dressing. Store bought dressings often contain a lot of junk and it’s super easy to make your own at home. I usually make my dressing recipes up as I go along and season them to taste. This one is no exception and I think you’ll like it!

Sweet and Savory Salad Ingredients:

6-8 cups of salad greens like spring mix, or baby greens
2 apples, peeled and diced
1 15 oz. can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup of sugar snap peas
1/2 English cucumber, sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced *optional
2 tbsp dried cranberries

Orange Sesame Dressing Ingredients:

4 tbsp tahini (sesame seed butter)
2 tbsp orange vinegar (or other fruit vinegar)
8 dates, pitted and chopped
1/3-1/2 cup water (as needed for consistency)
Dash of salt

Directions:

1. Arrange salad ingredients into a large bowl.
2. Combine dressing ingredients in a blender or VitaMix and blend until smooth.
3. Serve and drizzle with dressing.

Additional Tips:

Use dressing within 3-4 days and store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.

Mix up your dressings by purchasing a few different types of fruit vinegars. Trader Joe’s makes a few varieties and so does Dr. Fuhrman (sold on his website). Having a little variety makes creating different tasting dressings so easy.

What’s your favorite salad dressing recipe?

Raw Vegan Recipe: Rock My Broccoli Salad with Orange Hemp Dressing

March 3, 2013 by Veronica Grace 103 Comments

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*Contest is over! I’ve chosen Tina’s name “Rock My Broccoli Salad” for the title!

Hey everyone. So I kind of need your help.

You see, I made a delicious salad the other day and I absolutely loved it, but because it has so many ingredients I couldn’t really decide on what to call it. So I want hear some suggestions from you.

In fact, I’ll even give a little prize to the person who comes up with the best name for this salad recipe. (I’m going to put it in my next salad recipe ebook you see so it needs a catchy title.)

So please let me know what name you think suits this salad and it’s ingredients that make it sound delicious and appetizing. I’ll announce the winner later this week. And since it’s open to everyone (and some of you may have already purchased one or two of my recipe ebooks) I want to offer the winner a copy of any one of my ebooks they don’t already have. So if you’ve been dying for a particular ebook, please don’t miss out on this chance to enter! Plus it’s a fun way for me to get feedback from you.

I usually stick to all raw ingredients when I make my salads and dressings, but not always. This one however is pretty much all raw and super fresh (depending on the cranberries, but you can use something else instead if you wish.)

Once this salad is tossed together with the orange hemp dressing and the avocado chunks get all broken up and creamy, it’s a super tasty and decadent salad, but it’s jam packed full of vegetables and still light. I never use any oil in my salads and try to keep them zesty and flavorful but lower fat at the same time.

If you’re going to make this salad and not use it all in one meal, it’s best to portion it out and keep the remaining dressing separate so it doesn’t wilt the lettuce. Use the dressing within 3 days as it is fresh.

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Rock My Broccoli Salad

Serves 2 dinner salads or 4 side salads

Salad Ingredients:

1 small head of broccoli cut into small florets
3 cups baby spinach or spring mix
2 cups romaine lettuce
1 8 oz. package sugar snap peas
1 apple peeled and sliced into match sticks
2 small seedless cucumbers (Persian or Iranian), sliced
1 8 oz. package plum tomatoes, sliced
2 small or 1 large avocado, seeded and sliced into chunks
2 green onions, chopped
3 tbsp pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries

Orange Hemp Dressing:

1 cup fresh squeezed clementine or mandarin orange juice (please don’t use store bought it’s too sour)
2 tbsp hemp seeds
2-4 dates, pitted and chopped
dash of kelp flakes *optional
dash of salt
dash of pepper

Directions:

Arrange salad ingredients into a very large salad bowl as desired.
Combine salad dressing ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
Serve salad and top with dressing as desired.

Additional Tips:

Store leftovers in separate containers and consume within 3 days.

Contest Over

Name this salad and get a chance to win a copy of any of my recipe ebooks!

Winner: Tina with “Rock My Broccoli Salad” Congratulations Tina!

Pomegranate Apple Green Salad With Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

December 10, 2012 by Veronica Grace 5 Comments

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The other day I went to a raw food potluck in Calgary and someone made this delicious salad that had a bunch of mixed vegetables and pomegranate seeds and it was quite delicious. So I thought why not make my own pomegranate salad for the holiday season?

To easily peel a pomegranate, you can cut it in half and fill a large bowl or sink full of water. Start peeling off the outer peel. The seeds will sink and the white parts will float so you can scoop them out and discard them. Once you’re done peeling everything apart you can drain the water and you’re left with pomegranate seeds.

(Or you can go to Costco and buy packages of fresh pre peeled pomegranate seeds in the refrigerated produce section if you don’t want to peel one.)

This is a really lovely salad that I designed to be really simple to make yet seem a little fancier. It’s got antioxidants from the pomegranate and the raspberries and omega 3’s from the walnuts (in the dressing).

I prefer to make all of my own salad dressings and not use any oil in them at all. So I used walnut pieces for healthy fats in this dressing. If you don’t have fresh raspberries right now, you can also use frozen. Just let them sit out for a few minutes to defrost a little first.

So let’s check out the recipe:

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Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Green Salad

(With Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette)

Serves 2 side salads or 1 medium/large salad

Salad:

4-6 cups mixed greens
1-2 apples peeled and sliced
1-2 tbsp raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
3 tbsp fresh pomegranate seeds

Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1/4 cup mandarin orange juice (2 oranges)
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp broken walnut pieces
2 large medjool dates, pitted
1 tbsp Trader Joe’s orange muscat champagne vinegar/other fruit vinegar/apple cider vinegar
1/8 tsp Herbamare or salt *optional

Directions:

Arrange the salad ingredients in side salad bowls or a large serving bowl.
Place the salad dressing ingredients into a Vita-Mix or a blender and process until smooth.
Drizzle dressing overtop of salad.
Serve.

Additional Tips:

Feel free to double this recipe if you’re entertaining.

What’s your favorite holiday salad? Have you ever used pomegranates in a recipe?

Vegan Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Baked Apples

November 17, 2012 by Veronica Grace Leave a Comment

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This recipe is from www.SkinnyMs.com, they contacted me about swapping a recipe with me for the holidays so I started perusing their site. This photo grabbed my attention right away. It looks like a great alternative to decadent apple pie and is a much healthier guilt free dessert!

I love baked apples, and this one looks amazing! It uses pumpkin butter, which you can find at some stores, or you can make your own using a recipe from OhSheGlows here.

If you don’t want to use pumpkin butter (or can’t find it), you can probably use apple butter which is more common and sold at many health food stores. Even though it’s called “butter” it doesn’t mean it contains any butter, it’s just spreadable like butter!

This recipe was created by Navika Gangrade of Cooking the Light Way.

You can also double, triple, quadruple this recipe if you like, or just have it as dessert for one!

Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Baked Apple

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 apple
1/4 cup rolled oats, option Gluten Free Oats
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon pumpkin butter, divided (homemade or store-bought)
1 tablespoon almond milk
1 teaspoon raisins
1 teaspoon agave nectar, divided (I think maple syrup would be good too)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
2 tablespoon hot water

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. Core the apple, hollowing out until the edges are 3/4 inch thick

3. Combine the 1/4 cup oats, 1 tablespoon of pumpkin butter, 1 tablespoon fat-free milk, 1 teaspoon raisins, 1/2 teaspoon agave nectar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in a small bowl

4. Stuff this mixture into the apple In a small oven-safe dish, stir together the hot water, 1 teaspoon pumpkin butter, and 1/2 teaspoon agave

5. Place apple into the mixture in the dish Bake in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes

6. Ten minutes before finishing, spoon the syrup under the apple back on top of the apple for a nice glaze

7. Serve

Have you ever had baked apples before? Have you ever tried pumpkin butter before?

Raw Vegan Antioxidant Rich Apple Celery Carrot Beet Juice

April 26, 2012 by Veronica Grace 11 Comments

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Happy Friday everyone! I hope you’ve enjoyed your week so far. I know I have. I’m still in Kauai for a few more days and have been doing some kayaking, hiking, and snorkelling and taking lots of photos. If you’re curious to see what it’s like on Kauai (the oldest Hawaiian island) check out my Kauai Travel Pics post. It’s the end of their rainy season here so we’ve been getting a little bit of rain but nothing like what they get in the winter time. It’s about 82-84 F (27-29 C) a day here so it’s quite nice!

We’ve been eating a TON of Maui Gold pineapple here along with Hawaiian papayas, bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, salads and veggies. Just keeping things pretty simple as I’m not really making specific recipes while I’m here. The Maui Gold pineapple is really out of this world, it’s so sweet and not acidic at all. I get the mini ones and I eat a whole one for breakfast and it doesn’t bother my tongue. Some of the larger pineapples we’ve got were pale yellow inside and not ripe enough and too acidic to eat, ripe dark yellow (inside) pineapples are really the best. We always smell the bottoms of our pineapples to see if they seem sweet or ripe. If your fresh pineapple smells like nothing chances are it’s been picked too early and isn’t ripe enough and will burn your tongue and taste tart.

Today I wanted to share with you one of my favourite veggie juice recipes. I don’t generally buy juices from juice and smoothie bars because #1 they are far to expensive and small for the price and #2 they are usually super foamy on top, and I can make them better at home. The juicer I have is a Breville and has this nice jug that has a foam blocker in it so when you pour the juice it skims off the top portion of foam before it goes into your glass. So this is nice. Especially for people new to drinking fresh juices (vs. something lie V8) who might be turned off by the natural occurring foam when you juice with a centrifugal juicer.

I love putting apples and beets together in juice the flavour is really rich and energizing. Apple and beets, carrots and beets, carrots and celery, and celery and apples all go great together flavor-wise, so when you combine them all you get a really tasty vitamin and mineral rich juice!

Low Fat Vegan Chef's Raw Vegan Apple Beet Carrot Celery Juice

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Raw Vegan Apple Celery Carrot Beet Juice

Serves 2

Ingredients:

3 medium apples, peeled (unless organic)
1 large beet, peeled and cut if necessary
8 large stalks of celery (leaves removed)
3 medium carrots, peeled (unless organic)

Directions:

Prepare vegetables, peel apples if desired. Cut veggies into chunks if required for your type of juicer. Run everything through a juicer and serve immediately.

Additional Tips:

Feel free to 1/2 the recipe if you’d only like a small juice. I usually make a big one after a work out.

You may enjoy serving this juice over ice. Depending on your tastes you can add more or less apple, carrot or beets. People new to drinking fresh juices may enjoy more of an apple flavour for the base. If you are trying to juice all at once and want to save some juice for later, it should only be stored in a glass airtight mason jar. Fresh juice spoils quite quickly because it is raw and uncooked. It will not keep in the fridge unless it’s completely sealed and airtight. So make sure to use a jar of the appropriate size to ensure it’s filled to the top and sealed.

What do you think of this juice? What’s your favourite fruit+veggie juice recipe?

Also check out my photos of Kauai if you missed them.

Mobic

Low Fat Vegan Apple Strawberry Giant Strudel Pie in Phyllo Pastry

April 1, 2012 by Veronica Grace 17 Comments

Low Fat Vegan Chef's Apple Strawberry Strudel

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Low Fat Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

Now, before you start drooling all over the keyboard on my delicious (lower fat vegan) Apple Strawberry Giant Strudel Pie recipe, I want to make a quick reminder that my new recipe ebook Comfort Soups To Keep You Warm is now available for sale. I am so happy with the response I’ve recieved on this book so far. People are in love with the delicious and filling soup recipes and blown away by my 40+ pages on tips and tricks on exactly how I cook, what you need and how anyone can make soup and even create their own recipes with anything they have in the fridge! It also contains 30 oil free soup recipes and even some additional bonus recipes you won’t want to miss out on. I know you’re family is going to love these soups recipes so much, they won’t even notice they are healthy or vegan!

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Ok, I have a very special recipe for you today… This would be GREAT for a special vegan Easter or holiday dessert.

It was my friend’s birthday a while back and he wanted me to make something yummy for dessert that had apples and cinnamon in it. I started thinking, how could I possibly make an apple pie low fat, but that tastes good? Pie crusts have lots of fat in them from margarine or shortening and raw pie crusts are really fatty from using nuts, so neither were a good solution.

I started thinking of apple crumble, but then you still need margarine to make the crumble crispy and delicious too. (Oil free oat crumble turns out like little muffin bits and rises because of the lack of oil, I’ve already tried it.) So I thought, hey I bet a few layers of phyllo (film or fillo) pastry would do the trick and make the apple strudel delicious without being too heavy. I was inspired by Susan’s recipe for Apple cranberry strudel pie.

But most people’s recipes want you to layer on the margarine or butter in between the phyllo and add lots of nuts.

Well PFFFT to them! Because you don’t even have to do that. The trick to getting a crispy phyllo pastry, is well, just baking it and let is crisp up in the heat. It doesn’t even need oil or butter to get crispy and flaky. I’ll show you how!

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Low Fat Apple Strawberry Strudel Pie

So the key to working with phyllo pastry is to make sure ALL of your fillings and baking dish are ready to go. Phyllo dries out very very quickly and you have to work fast or it can tear and fall apart. I had some phyllo in the freezer that I bought months ago (as I had no idea what I would use it for and it became a little warped and ugly). Make sure you let the phyllo rest for a bit and come up to room temperature if you defrost it overnight in the fridge because it is inflexible when it’s so cold. Even though I ripped some of it… I managed to make it work anyway, even though I had never used phyllo before. See? Just fake it til you make it and you can make this apple strawberry strudel too… Even if you rip the phyllo and make a big mess, as long as you get some layers of phyllo sheets in there it will still taste good.

As always I wanted to pack in some more fruit into it, so I decided to use 2 different kinds of apples and some strawberries as they looked pretty fresh at the store. Who doesn’t love fresh summer strawberries? Anyone? I didn’t think so… I also think this would work well if you had frozen cherries, or really sweet peaches, or pears. I’m going to try an apple-pear combo next.

Although I made a bottom crust and a top for this, I decided that the crust (bottom layers) aren’t necessary to make this strudel tasty. They don’t really crisp up and they all stay flat anyway, and the most important part of the strudel is really the top crust. So next time I make it I’m going to skip the bottom crust.

Also the nuts aren’t really that necessary either, the reason we add a little crumbled “something in between” the layers it to keep them separate so hot air can get to them and crisp up the phyllo sheets. You can easily just use rolled oats and skip the nuts to make the recipe even lower in fat.

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(Low Fat) Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

Serves 8

Ingredients:

12 (or 6 if you use no bottom crust) 9 x 14″ sheets of phyllo pastry dough (thaw overnight in refrigerator or 5 hours on the counter)
2 tbsp. almonds or other nuts (optional)
2 tbsp. rolled oats (the big flat type oats)
4 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (I used Granny Smith and Golden Delicious)
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (raw cane sugar) or other coarse sugar (not white sugar or powdered sugar)
2 teaspoons all purpose white flour, unbleached or cornstarch
2 teaspoons maple syrup, honey, agave or brown rice syrup (any liquid sweetener)
1 tbsp. ceylon cinnamon (my favourite available here) or 1/2 tbsp reg. cassia cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 cups diced strawberries
2-3 second spray of canola oil or non-stick spray

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping:
1/4 teaspoon ceylon cinnamon
2 teaspoons regular sugar/white sugar

Directions:

Step #1. Preheat oven to 350 F /177 C. Use a rectangular (not square) baking dish and spritz the bottom with non stick spray (only if making a bottom crust, if not omit). Get the box of phyllo out of the fridge and let it warm up before using so it’s more flexible. Don’t take it out of the plastic package until you are ready to use it.

Step #2: Use a food processor or Vitamix to process the nuts and rolled oats until they are coarsely ground. (You can also just use rolled oats and skip the nuts if desired.)

Step #3: In a large sized bowl, toss the apples, turbinado (raw) sugar, flour, liquid sweetener, ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg and strawberries together gently. In a separate small bowl, mix the ceylon cinnamon and sugar together for the cinnamon-sugar topping.

*If you don’t want a bottom crust, you can skip this next part and go to Step #6.

Step #4: Get out a large piece of parchment paper and unroll the phyllo pastry over it (have a damp towel ready to cover the rest) and take out two sheets at a time and place them into the bottom of the baking dish. (Cover the remaining pieces with the damp towel to prevent them from drying out and cracking.) The sheets will probably be too big for your dish, but you can try and lean them on the side like I did. Also you can use scissors and trim any large ends that stick out.

Step #5: Sprinkle a tablespoon of the nut/oats (or just oats) over the phyllo pastry, layer another two sheets, sprinkle 1 tbsp again, and layer another 2 sheets. You will have 6 sheets total for the bottom of your pastry, in 3 layers.

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As you can see my dish is a little small for the size of the pastry sheets. Feel free to trim.

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This is a very delicious and healthy, but decadent stuffing recipe you can use for Thanksgiving or Christmas! It contains no butter, margarine or earth balance, and you won’t even notice! It’s full of flavour and very moist and tasty with so many colours and textures to enjoy.

We ate it along with my Baked Maple Yam Pecan Casserole and Decadent Vegan Pecan Pie. Make sure to book mark this!

This photo above was my first time making it and it turned out very well and since then it has become the stuffing recipe that I use from now on. I wanted something with cranberry and pecan in it, and then threw in mushrooms, celery, apple and apple juice as well. In fact my family DEMANDS that I make this savory stuffing recipe each year and no one minds not having turkey flavoured stuffing at all!

This recipe makes a large casserole pan full, so definitely only do the full recipe if feeding a family. If you’re a small family or a single you could half the recipe if you’d like to make less. It definitely won’t disappoint and everyone will rave about how tasty this home made vegan stuffing is.

Fat Free Vegan Cranberry Apple Pecan Stuffing

Ingredients:

15 cups large cubes of bread
1 large onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
2 cups mushrooms, diced
1 cup cranberries
2 apples, diced
3 1/2 cups apple juice
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2/3 cup pecans
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 1/2 tsp crushed dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried margoram
1/2 tsp dried savory

Directions:

1. Toast bread crumbs at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until dry. Check after 10 minutes to prevent burning. Alternatively you can spread on a cookie sheet and dry out overnight.

2. Slice pecans halves in half. (This makes them spread farther and keeps the recipe lower in fat) Toast pecans at 350 for 5 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent burning.

3. Soak dried cranberries in 3 cups of apple juice for 30 minutes.

4. Saute onions, celery and mushrooms in vegetable broth over medium heat for 8-10 minutes until soft.

5. Saute diced apples in 1/2 cup apple juice, brown sugar and cinnamon until soft.

6. In a large bowl combine ingredients and mix thoroughly until all the herbs are spread out and the bread is moist. If your bread is still a little dry you can pour a little extra apple juice in the bottom of the roasting pan to prevent burning and drying out.

7. Spread out in a large lasagna size roasting pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until heated through.

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Sweet and Savory Asian Salad with Orange Sesame Dressing

Sweet and Savory Salad Ingredients:

Orange Sesame Dressing Ingredients:

Raw Vegan Recipe: Rock My Broccoli Salad with Orange Hemp Dressing

Rock My Broccoli Salad

Contest Over

Pomegranate Apple Green Salad With Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

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Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Green Salad

(With Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette)

Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

Vegan Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Baked Apples

Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Baked Apple

Raw Vegan Antioxidant Rich Apple Celery Carrot Beet Juice

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Raw Vegan Apple Celery Carrot Beet Juice

Low Fat Vegan Apple Strawberry Giant Strudel Pie in Phyllo Pastry

(Low Fat) Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

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

Kale Apple Celery Juice With Ginger and Lemon

Oil Free Low Fat Vegan Cranberry Apple Pecan Stuffing

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Fat Free Vegan Cranberry Apple Pecan Stuffing

What do you think? What’s your favourite type of stuffing?

How To Enjoy Eating A Lot Of Apples or How To Have an Apple Happy Meal!

80/10/10 Recipe: Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Grape Juice

Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Grape Juice

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Sweet and Savory Salad Ingredients:

Orange Sesame Dressing Ingredients:

Rock My Broccoli Salad

**Contest Over**

Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Green Salad

(With Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette)

Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette

Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Baked Apple

Raw Vegan Apple Celery Carrot Beet Juice

(Low Fat) Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

Kale Apple Celery Juice With Ginger and Lemon

Fat Free Vegan Cranberry Apple Pecan Stuffing

What do you think? What’s your favourite type of stuffing?

Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Grape Juice

Contest Over