Cashew Hot Chocolate

My 10 year old and I were invited to a get together where hot chocolate was going to be served.  Since we try to eat as healthy as possible, avoiding all dairy, sugar, and processed foods, I’m not into giving him traditional hot chocolate…  I still wanted to go, and I was thrilled when I found this recipe!  I made a batch and brought it with us so he wouldn't feel like he was missing out on the treat.   It was a huge hit, and if you like hot chocolate you MUST give it a try!!


I found the recipe on Our Fresh Kitchen.  Check out their site, I'm sure they have plenty of other healthy recipes to try!  http://www.ourfreshkitchen.com/snacks/cashew-hot-chocolate/

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
4 pitted dates
3 cups of hot water
2 tsp. cocoa powder
1 cup of raw cashews

Instructions:

Boil the water, put everything in the blender and blend until very smooth.  That's it!

Cashews, Dates, Coco powder, and water.

The Taste Test...

They love it!!

Cara's Apple Strudel

This apple strudel is from the Eat to Live Cookbook by Dr. Joel Fuhrman on p. 285.  It is a great dessert and a real crowd pleaser!  I don't have pictures of it after we cooked it because we ate it up too fast!

Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes (a little longer if  you don't have an apple peeler)
Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vanilla almond, soy or hemp milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 apples, cored, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup ground raw walnuts
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix the milk, vanilla, and cinnamon until combined.  Stir in the chopped apples, raisins, oats, ground walnuts and flax seeds.
Pour into an 8×8 inch baking dish. Bake uncovered for 1 hour.


I made the recipe recently for a communion party and quadrupled the recipe.  Below are the pictures of the strudel before I put it in the oven:



On my friend Jenn's recommendation I bought an apple pealer from Amazon specifically for this recipe and it makes it so much easier!  Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Apple-Potato-Peeler/dp/B0000DE2SS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1383157903&sr=8-2&keywords=apple+peeler+corer+slicer\



I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! 

Avocado Banana Pudding

Serves: 2
Prep Time: 5 min
Blend Time: 2 min

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 banana
2 dates, chopped
1/4 cup coco powder (I will use a little less next time)
1/4 cup almond, coconut, hemp, or other non-dairy milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
fruit to garnish (optional)


Instructions:
Put everything in the vita mix and blend it up!  That's all there is to it!  It's super easy, and the kids liked it a lot.  I added sliced bananas as you can see in the picture.  The next time I'll put less coco powder, and maybe a tiny bit more nut milk, because it was a little rich for my taste.

 

Best. Birthday cake. Ever.

I'll be honest with you, I was a little nervous when Evan told me he wanted to have a healthy birthday cake at his birthday party this year. I was very proud of him for making that choice, but yes, nervous. We have made kids cry before with our healthy desserts. Multiple kids cry. Luckily they were part of our immediate family so they got over it quickly. But now we are talking about Evan's classmates and they are big kids. Not three or four year olds. They might quickly resort to violence before crying if they didn't like the cake!

Luckily, none of that happened and I must say overall the healthy cake that Anthony made was a success!! Some of the kids chose not to even try it. Unfortunately, Evan was so excited about the cake he started reciting the ingredients before the kids took a bite. The second they heard beets and zucchini, they pushed their plates away. But, every kid who tried the cake really liked it!! So I'm counting that a success!!

Dr. Fuhrman has outdone himself with this one!

We found the recipe here:
http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=3911&catId=11

Serves: 12
Prep Time: 45 min
Cook Time: 60 min+

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1-2/3 cups whole wheat flour


1 teaspoon baking powder


3 teaspoons baking soda


3-1/2 cups pitted dates, divided


1 cup drained pineapple chunks


1 banana


1 cup unsweetened applesauce


1 cup shredded beets


3/4 cup shredded carrots


1/2 cup shredded zucchini


3 tablespoons cocoa powder


1/2 cup currants


1 cup chopped walnuts


1 1/2 cups water


2 teaspoons vanilla

For the icing:

1 cup raw macadamia nuts or raw cashews, unsalted


1 cup vanilla nondairy milk


2/3 cup pitted dates


1/3 cup brazil nuts or hazelnuts


2 tablespoons natural non-alkalized cocoa powder


1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In a small bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

In blender or food processor, purée 3 cups of dates, pineapple, banana, and applesauce. 


Slice remaining 1/2 cup dates into 1/2-inch thick pieces.

In large bowl, mix sliced dates, shredded beets, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, cocoa powder, currants, walnuts, water, vanilla, and flour mixture. 


Add the blended date mixture and mix well.

Spread in a 9 1/2 x 13 1/2-inch nonstick baking pan. 
Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.  

-OR-

I have the best results making this as cupcakes.  Regular sized or mini.  I line cupcake pans with paper wrappers, fill just below the top and bake for about 1 hour.  Note, I've never actually gotten the toothpick to come out clean... 

Using a blender or food processor, combine all icing ingredients until smooth and creamy. Place a dollop of icing over warm cake and serve, or spread icing on cooled cake.

Note:

I have had the best results baking it a day ahead of time.  It lets the cake "set up" a little more, and it's much easier to remove the cupcake wrappers.  

Totally delicious!!

The finished product:




Sliced up and ready to go. Looks like a regular cake, doesn't it??




Henry chowing down:





Here's to trying to change the world one birthday cake at a time!

No Guilt Ice Cream!

Take a look at the "ice cream" Anthony made last week. Okay, it's not really ice cream (did you see my quotes?), but this stuff is sooo good! We used to eat a lot of Ben and Jerry's in my house, but this stuff is sooo much better for you and won't add on the extra pounds. It really satisfies my after dinner sweet craving and it is made of just fruit!


To make the ice cream, we start out by taking a bunch of really ripe bananas (the more ripe the better), break each banana into about three pieces and freeze a whole bunch in a ziploc bag. When they are frozen we put them in our high power juicer along with other frozen fruit depending on what flavor we are making. (Thanks to Matt at the Rainbow Garden for the idea to use the juicer!) We used to use our high power blender, but the juicer makes it much lighter and fluffier.

You can concoct any flavor you want, but this time we made strawberry (just frozen strawberries and frozen bananas), cinnamon raisin (frozen bananas with cinnamon and raisins mixed in), and my favorite chocolate (frozen bananas and unsweetened cocoa). Yum!! I might need to make some tonight....

Anyway, this is a great thing to make for dessert if you are having trouble breaking that dessert habit at night!