Vegan Recipe: Apple, Radish and Avocado Salad

The salad dressing for the recipe is also courtesy my awesome cookbook Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. However, the salad ingredients were all me! I hope you enjoy!

Dressing:

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

½ cup fresh orange juice (1 large orange)

2 Tbsp lime juice (1 lime)

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 Tbsp soy sauce

3 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

Salad:

Roughly 1 ½ grated apples

A bunch of radishes sliced thinly

1 small red onion sliced thinly

1 ripe avocado sliced thinly

Depending on how much salad you want to make you will have to adjust the ingredients. This recipe is enough for approximately 6 people. Make the salad dressing then add everything except the avocado to the bowl and mix. Once it’s mixed well you can add the avocado and mix gently to distribute. It's a versatile salad in that pretty much anything you desire can be added to it. So be creative! I think some salad greens and/or shredded carrots would be delicious in this salad as well.

Vegan Recipe: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I caved people! I just couldn't wait until next week to share my first yummy vegan recipe of 2013. It seems fitting to introduce the first new recipe with the start of a fresh, new, month.

Happy February all!

To (re) jump-start this vegan recipe series we'll start with a ridiculously easy dessert recipe. My last vegan recipe was Chinese inspired noodles with dulse and chia seeds. 

I initially wanted to provide a recipe every Thursday but that didn't exactly work out as the above recipe was posted last year!

However, now that I have my spectacular vegan cookbooks, plus re-newed imagination and creativity, I will be bringing a new recipe every week. 

As you can see the hubby and I are loving our vegan lifestyle. What initially started off as a 6-month vegan challenge became so much more. 

We are 15 months vegan and going strong. We're even trying to incorporate more raw, or live, foods into our diets. This summer we will be starting another challenge of sorts. (More on that later)

As for the vegan recipe series, I don't want to pin myself down to a particular day of the week, because life happens. Simply enjoy the first of this delectable series and watch out for more to come! 

I made another version of these oatmeal cookies awhile back but these are definitely the improved version. I mean delish!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1/3 cup non-dairy milk

2 Tbsp ground flax seeds

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

¾ cup flour

½ tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats

½ cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl mix together the non-dairy milk and flax seeds. Add in the sugar and oil and mix until it resembles caramel, about 2 minutes. Mix in the vanilla. Sift in the flour, spices, and salt, mixing the dry ingredients as they are being added. Fold in the oatmeal and raisins. Drop dough in generous tablespoons onto the baking sheets. Flatten the tops a bit, since they don’t spread much. Bake for 10 minutes for chewy cookies and 12 minutes for crunchy cookies. The recipe makes 2 dozen cookies.

 This recipe is courtesy the fabulous cookbook: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

Things I'm Loving: January 2013 Edition

It has been a MINUTE since the last time I've done a favorites post. Mainly because it's been a minute since I've tried something new and splurged.

However, I finally broke open my vegan cookbooks and I have been cooking up a storm. Instead of posting them all at once I will post a new one every week starting next week. So stay tuned for that!

I had people from my job come over for lunch and the next day everyone was begging me for the recipes! So you know they're good! Maybe I'll start with a dessert...

But first, here's my humble list of yummy food items I've been loving this month:

These are the BEST potato chips I've tasted in my entire life (and I'm not exaggerating!). A little mom and pop style shop makes these fresh right in front of you. As in you walk into the store and you can see them cutting and frying up the potato chips. They are so flavorful. I can't eat normal, packaged chips ever again.

 

These cookies are easily the best store-bought vegan cookies ever. I mean way better than those vegan cats cookies we used to buy at Trader Jo's when we were in the States. These things are dangerous because there aren't many and the hubby and I can definitely gobble up the entire box in one sitting.

 The last item was a nice cold weather treat. You can only drink tea so much before you start craving something more decadent. I love my green teas, my roobois, white and black teas... but no winter is complete without hot chocolate. Even better is that this hot chocolate is organic and fair-trade so there is no way I feel guilty about drinking it!

I'm also loving my crockpot or slow cooker. I remember awhile back it was on my wish list and I finally got one! 

That's the end of my humble list but do stay tuned for some seriously delicious vegan recipes starting next week!

Wish List: Food Items

I know, this is supposed to be another yummy recipe for you all to try and enjoy. But honestly, for the past couple of weeks I haven't made anything remotely interesting. Just a lot of salad, pasta, couscous, crock pot stuff and smoothies. Things that I love but have already shared.

Even though I haven't made anything new it hasn't come from a lack of want, it comes from a lack of time. There are TONS of ingredients and recipes that I really want to try. 

My husband and I were gifted 3 vegan cookbooks this Christmas. So I feel like I have all the tools, yet things still don't get made.

It's been about 3 months since we started the vegan challenge and it's time to get a little more adventurous.

This week I have a list of things I've been thinking about trying. Hopefully, in the coming weeks (and months), I can scratch some of this stuff off the list!

So here goes:

• "Live" Brownies -- I just subscribed to an interesting youtuber who has been vegan for more than 12 years. In 2011 she took a live (or raw) food challenge and it completely intrigued me. While I will NOT be joining her in this endeavor, there are some recipes I'd like to try. Here's the video that inspired me to read up on it if you're interested.

• Kale -- I've heard it's similar to collard greens but have never used it. I'd also like to make kale chips.
• Raw cocoa powder -- This is one of the ingredients needed to make the "live"(or raw) brownies.
• Almond milk -- I want to try to make my own. I don't have a food processor though so this recipe will have to wait until I get one.
• Vegan cheese sauce -- This is another recipe for the food processor. I have a blender, which only really works for mixing liquids and smoothies and such.
• Dressings -- My vegan cookbook has TONS of different recipes for dressings. We always use the same one in our salads (olive oil and vinegar). So I want to branch out and experiment with some new flavors.
• Brown rice flour -- A tasty sounding vegan gravy is used with this flour. Apparently, it lumps a lot less than whole wheat flour making it a breeze to use. I'm sure it has other uses as well.
• Tofu mayonnaise -- I don't even care for mayo but my husband does so I'd try it for his sake.
• Polenta -- There are so many things you can make with this stuff, including pizza, which I miss!
• Desserts -- We need more of these! 

I know these ingredients are haphazardly thrown together but they were the things that caught my eyes as I skimmed my cookbook. I'm hoping this list will push me to get it together! So stay tuned for more recipes.