Day 3: Raw Chipotle "Hummus"?

Day Three Baby!

So after yesterday’s thought of the day, look what popped into my News Feed. Coincidence? More like confirmation!

So let’s not waste another minute and get to Day 3 of Brad’s Raw Challenge! I swear these challenges get me so pumped! :)

Early Morning:

Yep, refreshing lemony water down the hatchet to jump start my metabolism and rehydrate my body!

Breakfast:

Mmmm mmmm! Another wonderful smoothie by Simple Green Smoothies! This time with lots of oranges! I topped my smoothie off with a bit of orange zest for an extra flavor boost. 

Citrus Clementine Punch

By Simple Green Smoothies

Serves 2

• 2 cups spinach, fresh
• 2 cups water
• 6 clementines, peeled
• 1 cup pineapple, frozen
• 1 banana, frozen

Bleeeeend Away!

Lunch:

Remember yesterday in my post I said keep some of that delicious, creamy sun dried tomato cheese sauce aside for the next day!? Well that was because we need it to make a yummy chipotle “hummus” to use in our collard wraps! I have become quite addicted to making collard wraps lately and I have discovered this recipe to be a super favorite of mine. The original recipe is actually not raw and comes from Kathy over at Healthy. Happy. Life. Her pics alone made me drool, but anything with avocado is always a sure win. Looking at the recipe, I knew I could easily rawify it with just a few tweaks and the results, I have to admit, I’m pretty proud of! 

Raw Avocado Summer Collard Wraps

Recipe adapted form Kathy Patalsky at Healthy. Happy. Life. Blog

Modified to make 2 – 3 wraps

• 2-3 collard leaves (depends on size)
• Chipotle “hummus” * see recipe below
• ¼ sweet onion, thinly sliced
• ½ yellow or red tomato, sliced or ¼ cup grape tomatoes, sliced
• 1 Tbsp of raw apple cider vinegar
• ¼ lime, juiced
• ½ Tbsp of favorite oil (olive, coconut, hemp, etc)
• ½ Tbsp raw honey
• Salt and Black Pepper
• ¼ avocado, sliced
• 1-2 carrots, shredded or julienned
• ¼ red bell pepper, sliced
• Sprouts
• Optional: Pumpkin Seeds

*Chipotle “hummus”

• 3 Tbsp of sundried tomato pepper
• 2 heaping teaspoons of tahini
• ½ lemon, juiced
• As much mashed garlic as you want
• Pinch of salt
• 1/8  tsp plus of chipotle powder

1. In a small bowl, whisk all the ingredients together until well blended. Season to taste

To Prep:

1. Make Chipotle “Hummus” then set far far away from wandering dipping fingers. You can thin it out a bit with some lime juice if you prefer.
2. Wash, pat dry and de-stem the collard leaves. Chop the end of the collard leaves off, including the stem, to create a round collard “tortilla”. Using your knife, shave the protruding “top” of the remaining stem until the surface of your collard leaf is smooth and flat. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, whisk together the apple cider vinegar, honey, lime juice and fave oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the onions and tomatoes. Toss to coat the onions and tomatoes with marinade and set aside.

To Assemble:

1. Lay one collard leaf flat onto working surface, If ya got the skills, use two overlapping collard leaves. I’m still working on my collard wrapping skills…they still look messy!
2. Add a thin layer of chipotle "hummus" onto the surface of your collard leaf.
3. Begin layering in the middle of your leaf, sprouts, carrots, avocados, onions, tomatoes, red bell peppers and a sprinkle of pumpkins seeds, if using. Add a dash of pepper.
4. Carefully, wrap your collard leaf, tucking the sides in if possible.
5. Repeat with remaining collard leaves.

This will make three small wraps. 

Enjoy with an extra squeeze of lime juice or some extra “hummus” IF you have any left!

Snacks:

Lots of snacking! First, I made a super refreshing and tangy kiwi strawberry mint with a squeeze of lime vitamin water which I allowed to sit overnight in the fridge.

I then snacked on Gopal’s raw nori wraps in Mexican flavor. So good!

Lastly, I pre-fueled with a Black Current Chia kombucha before working out!

Dinner: 

I think the chia kombucha did me in for the day. I wasn’t too hungry after my workout so I drank lots of water and nibbled on some freshly made raw cinnamon nut butter! 

Yeah to Day 3! 

- Beth 

Day 2: Ooey, Gooey Sundried Tomato Cheese Sauce

 Hello Day 2! 

I was just sitting here thinking about how fast the days, weeks, months and years go by. We never know when our time will end and yet we let every minute slip through our fingers without a second thought. I wonder how many of those minutes are well spent and how many are wasted? I feel like I don’t have enough minutes to do what I want to do – every day is truly a battle between my wants and needs – but then I think maybe that’s because I waste too many minutes on Facebook or daydreaming. I think it may be time to take a new look at life and to start spending my minutes more wisely, enjoying my life for what is as opposed to what I want it to be. It’s time to start living.

And that was your thought for the day :)

Here’s what went into my belly on DAAAAY 2!

Early Morning: 

Yep, more lemon water. When I first wake up I think I don’t need water until I start drinking and realize how dehydrated and thirsty I truly am! Anyone else notice that too?

Breakfast:

Mmm I am in LOOOOOOVE with today’s smoothie! Mango Mandarin Madness was madly mouth-watering and delicious! Half of it was gone before I even walked out the door. Can we say gulpable!?

Mango Mandarin MAAAAADNESS

By Simple Green Smoothies

Serves 2

• 2 cups of spinach, fresh
• 2 cups of coconut water
• 2 cups of mango, frozen
• 3 mandarins, peeled
• 1 banana, frozen

Snack:

I’ve made a commitment to switch up my liquids. I’ve been so consistent on drinking kombucha that I’ve missed out on the benefits of other liquids such as vitamin water and tea. So today I enjoyed a lovely mug of warmed green tea with raw honey. Very good and refreshing!

I’ve also nibbled on raw nut butter throughout the day. Gotta feed the addiction :)

Lunch: 

Ooooh was lunch GOOOOOD!!! I had somewhat of a craving for something super cheesy so when I came across this recipe for sun-dried tomatoe cheese and broccoli I knew I HAD to jump on it! The cheese sauce is amazeballs! I mean gooey, cheesey goodness amazing. I def plan on making it again, and again, and again! 

Sundried Tomato Broccoli, Cheddar Pasta

Recipe adapted from Young and Raw

Modified to serve one small belly

Sundried Tomato Cheese Sauce

• ½ cup raw cashews, soaked overnight and drained
• 2 Tbsp of chopped sundried tomatoes (I had some oil packed ones I had bought from the olive bar at WholeFoods)
• 1 heaping Tbsp of nutritional yeast
• ½ small lemon, juiced
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• 1/3 cup plus of water

1. Add all the ingredients into a small blender (I used my handy, dandy bullet) and blend, adding more water as needed until it blends consistently – in other words, the food doesn’t stop while the blade keeps going - and results in a thick, creamy sauce.
2. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Pasta

• 1 heaping cup of zucchini noodles (about ½ large zucchini. Some use a spiraler, I use a peeler and knife :)
• ½ cup of broccoli florets, cut into smaller than bite size pieces
• 1-2 Tbsp of chopped, sundried tomatoes
• 1 green onion, sliced
• Red pepper flakes (optional)

To assemble:

1. In a large bowl, add the zucchini noodles, broccoli, sundried tomatoes and green onions. Sprinkle with as much red pepper flakes as you like, if using.
2. Add the cheese sauce, adjusting the amount based on personal preference, and toss til well combined and the gooey cheese sauce covers every inch of the pasta and broccoli.
3. Line a serving bowl with mixed greens and/or spinach. Top the greens with the zucchini and broccoli pasta.
4. Garnish with green onions and some delicious broccoli sprouts!

If you can, save a little bit of the sauce for tomorrow’s dish!!

Now take a bite and say, mmm, mmm good!

Dinner:

My naughty self decided tonight was dessert-for-dinner night. If you follow our blog, you may know that by the time the evening hits, I’m just not hungry. I eat something light, if anything at all!  So tonight I figured a small slice of raw strawberry cheesecake was considered light enough. 

The recipe I used came from the awesome Rawmazing! I absolutely ADORE her site and drool daily on her creations. I split her recipe into thirds to accommodate my mini 4.5 X 1.5 springform pan. It surprisingly worked! My mini pan was filled to the top! 

I tried this recipe both frozen and thawed in the fridge. I found the thawed soft version to be more appealing in both taste and texture. I find the flavors to be more pronounced in the refrigerated version and the texture more appealing. It was easier to eat too! It’s still really good frozen, but def let it thaw out a bit before serving. 

What I loved most about this recipe was that although it was made with mainly coconut, the coconut flavor in the cheesecake was not overpowering and only lightly sweetened giving it a more realistic cheesecake taste. After all, cheesecake is a combo of sweet and savory and this recipe is just that. I loved how Susan allowed the strawberries and the chocolate sauce to really shine in this recipe. The strawberries provide a change in texture while the chocolate sauce rounds off the flavor perfectly! I will admit though, I could have totally gone for more than just a drizzle! It’s the best chocolate sauce recipe I have found so far! Sweet, but not too sweet and perfectly thick and saucy. I also topped my cheesecake slices with cacao nibs for a texture boost!

 

All in all, a well rounded raw cheesecake in both taste and texture. Dare we say it’s nearly perfect!?

I didn’t make any adjustments to the recipe minus dividing it in thirds. For me, making raw pies and cheesecakes is like baking regular cheesecake or cupcakes – unless you know what you are doing, which in this case, I still am learning, DON’T MESS WITH THE RECIPE or suffer disaster! So for now, I’m leaving raw cake makin’ to the experts. 

Here’s Rawmazin’s amazing Strawberry Chocolate Cheesecake. ENJOY and try not to eat it all in one sitting. Trust me it’s REALLY hard to do!

Happy Earth Day and Hello to Day 1 of Brad's 7 Day Raw Challenge for April!

Photo courtesy of Earth Day Santa Cruz

Happy Earth Day and HELLO to Day 1 of Brad’s Raw Challenge!! I hope I have a few people joining me this week! To add, it’s also US Vegweek which means tons of cool things happening all over the nation! Free cupcakes, vegan friendly menus, vegfests…yep, a ton of things going on this month and it is eeexccitting!!! With that means LOTS of stuff going on with our blog and Facebook page, so stay tuned!!

Here we go Day 1!!

Early Morning: 

Oh you guessed it! Gulped that cup of lemon water before getting ready! Why!? 

Photo courtesy of RawForBeauty.com

Breakfast:

I have been following Simple Green Smoothie's and Young and Raw’s smoothie challenges for the entire month of April, having one for breakfast and sometimes, one post-workout for dinner. We’re on Day 22 and I have fallen madly, deeply in love with some seriously, insanely delicious smoothies! This week’s challenge is “add some citrus” so don’t be surprised if you see a ton of orange recipes. :)

If you’re ever looking for more recipes, please feel free to follow my Smooc-ies and Jui-thies pinterest board until we can get them all transferred over to The Split Plate’s Pinterest page which you can also find great recipes at as well. There are so many, I have no doubts you will always find a new one to try!!

Kale Blood Orange Cooler

By Simple Green Smoothies

Serves 2

• 2 cups kale, fresh
• 2 cups water
• 2 blood oranges, peeled
• 2 cups pineapple
• 1 banana

Blend and go!! I always add some aloe leaf and turmeric for a nutrition boost, but feel free to add whatever superfood you would like such as flax, chia or even hemp seeds!

Snacks: 

I drank a ton of locally produced, MTO kombucha in both lemon ginger and grapefruit flavor to combat some digestive upsets. I’m feeling much better now. THANK YOU PROBIOTICS and the wonderful benefits of fermentation!!!

Lunch:

I have become quite addicted to salads and avocados. Actually, I crave them! I guess I can’t really complain about that... This salad has become a new favorite of mine over the last couple of weeks, for a couple of reasons. First, if you know me by now, you know I love “kitchen sink” - “trash can” - “refrigerator leftover” recipes…in other words, recipes that throw every ingredient you have all into one dish! This salad clearly passed my “kitchen sink” approval with romaine, spinach, beets, carrots, mushrooms, and so many more veggies all nicely arranged to create a salad loaded with different textures and flavors. Win!

Now, I will admit, I was a bit skeptical about the dressing. I’m not a huge sweet dressing fan…at all. I prefer my savory, salty, creamy dressings, but I decided to give it a try and shockingly enough, I actually liked it. Sprinkled with a bit of salt, it provides a really great combination of sweet, salty and savory. What I love most about this dressing is that it is very versatile. It is a great base to use to create new creamy dressing. For example, add a pinch of mashed garlic and all of a sudden, you have something more asian inspired!  It’s definitely a keeper.

Abundant Garden Salad with Sweet Tahini Dressing

Adapted from Young and Raw

Adjusted to serve one

Abundant Garden Salad

• 6 romaine leaves, cut into bite size pieces (about 3 cups)
•  A small handful of mixed greens or spinach
• 1 large carrot, shredded (about ½ cup)
• ½ small beet, shredded (about ½ cup)
•  ¼ cucumber, peeled and sliced
•  2 small button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
•  ¼ cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
•  ¼ avocado, sliced
•  1 green onion, sliced
• 1 Tbsp of raw, sprouted pepitas (aka green pumpkin seeds)
•  Small handful of sprouts

1. Arrange your salad any way that you like! Layer it on a plate or toss it all together!

Sweet Tahini Dressing

• 2 heaping Tbsp of tahini
•   ½ small navel orange, juiced
•  ½ small lemon, juiced
• ½ teaspoon of grated ginger (I freeze my ginger, then grate it into my dressing for no chunks and a milder flavor)
•  Pinch of salt

1. In a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until well combined. Add some water/coconut water until desired consistency is reached.  
2. Pour over salad and devour!

Dinner:

As I stated, I wasn’t feeling too hot to trot so I had a light snack of raw, nut butter stuffed strawberries, drizzled with raw honey, cacao nibs and coconut! So sweet and satisfying! 

The nut butter is a blend of almonds (3/4 cup), cashews (1/2 cup) and brazil nuts (1/4 cup) with some salt. Best blend yet! You can make it ina  food processors or high speed blender. I have found sprouted almonds to be my favorite almond to use because it provides a nice crunchy texture that you just cannot resist!

And Day 1 is done! Crazy how fast these days go by, huh!?

So what was on your plate or maybe even IN your cup today!?

- Beth

My Love for Boston

I decided to that after taking a hiatus my first new post would be about my trip to Boston in January.  I feel that it is appropriate this week to show my love for the city during this time of tragedy.  Boston really is an awesome city.  I have only been there times but I can tell you that I would love to go back again and again.

The first two trips to Boston I was not able to do very much as for both times I was on tightly scheduled business trips.  I went in the spring and then summer of 2012 when the weather was nice.  This trip was in the middle of winter - January 2013.  Let's just that my days in Boston were some of the coldest days I have ever experienced.

I went to Boston once again for a company paid business trip.  You have to love those!  My boyfriend, who used to work for Delta, flew up to stay with me on a Thursday and we hit up a few interesting restaurants in the evening and on Friday.  We extended the trip for an extra day to do some sightseeing in the city on Saturday.

On Thursday I dragged Bill to a vegan diner in the Cambridge area.  We initially were going to go to Peace O' Pie in the Allston neighborhood, however, they were closed due to maintenance issues.  I was so disappointed!  During my 2nd trip to Boston (alone) I stumbled upon Peace O' Pie - an all vegan pizzeria.  In fact, the entire neighborhood of Allston is vegan friendly as the restaurant next to Peace O' Pie is vegetarian Asian cuisine, and just two doors in the opposite direction is a vegan ice cream shop.  It was too cold in January for ice cream but they had cookies as well!

On Thursday evening the vegan pizzeria was closed so we ended up at the vegan diner in Cambridge called Veggie Galaxy.  I would say that the food was OK and my boyfriend would say that it was not very good.  Our favorite item on the menu was the Boston cream pie that we shared for desert.  Check out this picture of the delicious vegan Boston cream pie.

On Friday I had a meeting in NH but by the afternoon we were back in Boston.  I talked my boyfriend into going to the Samuel Adams Brewery and we had a great time.  I say that I talked him into it because he hardly drinks.  Samuel Adams does a really good job providing tours and the best part about the tour is that visitors can pay a donation amount of their choice.  The donation actually goes to local charities.  A tour guide will walk you through the process of how their beers are created, the ingredients used, and visitors are even provided with a sampling of their beers.  What I really had to talk my boyfriend into doing was to go to the local Irish bar down the road.  The reason for going to Doyle's Cafe was because not only was it the first bar to serve Samuel Adams in 1985, but because it was also the famous bar featured in Mystic River, My Best Friend's Girl, and a few other Hollywood films.  Doyle's Cafe also gave us a free Samuel Adams glass!  Although, the glass in the picture below is from the tasting at the brewery.

On Friday evening I knew that I needed to find a restaurant for dinner that served meat.  Bill was not happy with Veggie Galaxy and I owed it to him to find a good restaurant!  We were staying in the financial district so when I used my Happy Cow app I found a restaurant only 10 minutes away in Little Italy that had a vegan ravioli on the menu.  This was probably one of the best restaurants I have ever been to.

Gennaro's serves up traditional Italian food in a small, cozy restaurant.  We were seated by a window overlooking the North Square.  The entire neighborhood is very historical and the roads are cobblestone.  In fact, the Paul Revere house was only down the road. I mentioned to the wait staff that I was vegan and they made sure to let me know that I could eat the bread, they made a vegan salad for me, and of course I ordered the vegan ravioli.  The dish didn't have any faux meats or cheese in it and because of that I thought it was delicious!  My boyfriend said that the chicken marsala was perfect and we both agreed that they waitstaff was excellent.  If you are Italian and/or you are vegan traveling to Boston then you must check out this restaurant!

On Saturday we spent the rest of our time driving around the city and freezing at the Paul Revere House.  We drove around to sightsee because it was a high of 25 that day.  I had gloves on while walking around outside and I still could not feel my hands.   Below is a picture of us in front of one of his bells and a picture of the house.

I love Boston with it's Irish bar on every street corner, awesome neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Allston, and of course the Cambridge area.  I did not want to create this to be an extremely long post as I didn't mention that throughout our visit to the city we met multiple people and we struck up great conversations with all of them.  Boston is full of your typical northerners, but they of course hold a distinct accent (that I love) and, the residents are a little more welcoming when you show love for their city.  There is still a large part of Boston that I have yet to explore but from what I know of so far it is a city full of "tough" people and these people, although temporarily damaged, will not be fully broken by this tragedy.  I may not ever go to the Boston Marathon (or any marathon now), but I will go back to visit for more vegan food... hopefully soon!

-Kerry

From DC to FL

Hi!  My name is Kerry.  I hope that you remember me!  :)  It has been a while since I have posted as I have moved and started a new job all within the last few months.  I have relocated all the way down from DC to FL for a new job, which has resulted in long days of job training, unpacking, and hosting out of town guests who are excited to have me back in my home state.

Some of you may or may not know but I am originally from Florida.  I decided that I needed to find a new job and move closer to my family.  South Florida is not one of the top metropolitan areas to live for a vegan (I seriously almost didn't want to move back to FL because of this) but I can't complain about my new "back yard."

One of my favorite vegan restaurants (if not my favorite) called Sublime is 10 minutes away from me in Fort Lauderdale.  I can't really complain about that.  I am sad to have moved away from my Split Plate partner-in-crime Beth, but we will still continue to blog together!  Beth, will of course blog about her mostly raw food diet and I will continue to enjoy my cooked, vegan foods.  :)  I can't wait to start finding and blogging about vegan friendly restaurants and stores in South Florida!