my first raw cupcake

I've been a reader of the Rawdorable blog for a while now and was very excited when she finished her ebook of raw cupcake recipes, there's even a recipe for a savory one that is high on my list of ones to try first!  If you're unfamiliar with the queen of raw cupcakes Rawdorable, check out her blog here, where you can purchase your own ecopy of The Little Rawdorable Cupcake Book That Could. 

I wanted to help ShannonMarie out in her quest to get Ellen to try a raw cupcake, you can read about that here.  We all know that Ellen is a lovely vegan herself and I just know that she would love any of these raw cupcakes!  It was hard for me to decide which one to make as my first...I chose the Cream-Filled Lemony Cupcake for the dough recipe.  In the book it resembles the orange cupcakes (Hostess maybe) that you can get in the gas station.  I will admit that I used to love those things, did you know they are made with beef fat??? read the back, you'll see that and a list of other garbagy things.  Garbagy is a word I'm sure of it.  Anyway, Rawdorable's is so yummy looking, cruelty free, and good for you!  I did not however have a couple of the ingredients for the raw whipped icing, so I was going to need to improvise for the filling and frosting parts.

Here's my dough, she says to use a wisk to combine your dough ingredients with the right texture, worked great.  I will note here that I could have just eaten this bowl of dough, so yummy and simple to make (great flavor combo Shannon!) 



Next I made a berry type filling ( I was having a hard time reining in my thoughts on what to include in this cupcake, you'll notice as well with the nut butter coming up next ;)  I mixed together some thawed raspberries, coconut butter, and chia seeds.  It turned out pretty well. 



More improvising in play here since I only have the tiny silicone cupcake holders I used a large biscuit cutter to shape my raw cupcake.  So here's the lemon dough and the berry filling.



I also mixed up raw almond butter, vanilla powder and some turmeric to make a nutty frosting.  I didn't make quite enough and had extra berry mix, so I frosted it half and half.



It was easy to slide right out of the biscuit cutter



topped with a raspberry, raw cashew and more lemon zest





this cupcake was so yummy!  I have non-GMO lecithin on my grocery list so next time I can make the real Cream-Filled Lemony Cupcake, I know I will LOVE it!



I will end with some green smoothie love.  I found this interesting and a wonderful benefit from including more greens in your diet.  I feel like organic greens are really the most important thing for me to eat on a daily basis and have come to really desire and crave them. 



Hope you all have a green leafy kind of day xoxo!

minty love

My main draw to incorporate more raw food in our diets is nutrition and health, but an extra side bonus is that it really can be fast and easy.  Usually when I go for something fast and easy it's food that I have some guilt about (that it's nutritionally deficient), there was none involved eating this quick and easy leftover lunch. 



Lots of greens washing and prepping got done yesterday as well as a fresh batch of raw almond butter.  I filled the FP with a random amount of almonds and got out the only available glass jar.  After processing, the butter amount was exactly the volume of the jar, I just love it when things like that happen =)  I also dig when I happen to grab the needed number of hangers when I'm doing the ironing, it's the little things that make me happy ;)  Tell me you don't relish that too, haha! 

The 'universe aligned almond butter jar'



ok, on so some less goofy chatter...
and dessert first.  Diana of soapandchocolate did a guest post on Choosing Raw this week and showed us how to make her Andes inspired Raw Mint-Chocolate Cream Bars.  As soon as I saw them I knew I had to have them make them.  I love mint, like LOVE it!  If you read her post she talks about using what you have and being creative and being ooen for change when making raw desserts, I listened.  I was not willing to use the rest of my spinach for green tinting ( I was already longing for my next green smoothie), but I did have an avocado I was willing to part with, so I made that swap ( I'm thinking that I made ours extra fat filled...it's all the good kind though, and we're not dessert crazy here so I felt fine doing that)  I also do not have xantham gum for thickening, I do however have chia gel, so I made that swap as well and used about 2 heaping tsp.  Here's my crust.



the minty green layer.  It really is a bit more green than the photo appears, my avocado did it's job =)



and the minty chocolate layer, I also added some raw cacao nibs to this layer. 



dessert time =)





This was my first time making a raw dessert that included layers, I was pretty happy with the results.  We both loved it and gave it 2 thumbs up, dude ;)'  I'm extra cheesebally today.

before dessert, dinner involved a big green salad



and these Nut Butter Crusted Parnip Fries from Oh She Glows. 



Hop on over to her site and read how she raves about how stinkin good these are, because they really are!  I agree I would not have guessed that pasnips and nut butter would taste so yummy like this.  I did change the ratio of nut butters a bit so ours ended up being 1 T peanut butter and about 1.5 T almond butter.  I used two decent sized parsnips and 4 medium carrots ( I thought they'd be tasty too and they were!) and was left with extra coating so I'd go with more veggies next time. 

ready for their nut bath



this is what bars should serve for frys, seriously.




Ok, I'm off to the chiro (whoop whoop) and going to see Gene Baur later today as well.  Hope you have a lovely Friday and as always thanks for reading xoxo

HAPPY HAPPY EARTH DAY everyday!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!  I like to start Earth Day with plant power in the form of a green smoothie.  Here's mine this morning, another decadent one:  banana, thawed frozen strawberries, almond milk, PB, and spinach.  No dates, I forgot them and while it was a little less sweet still totally delicious.



I finally remembered to take a photo of our cute little composter during daylight.  My trips out there seem to always be in the dark.  Our tumbler is still breaking down our food scraps and yard waste while we're adding to this one we're figuring that we'll need another so that while one is being actively added to the other can be completing into compost for our yard and garden.  That was one long run on sentence!  So we've been composting for about 6 months now and it has DRAMATICALLY decreased our trash.  Most of our garbage was made up of food scraps.  We (2 people 2 cat) household end up producing garbage to put out on trash day about every 2-3 weeks on a normal basis now with the composter (it will basically be a kitchen trash bag, 1-2 small bathroom bags, and a lovely bag of kitty waste).  So I guess what I'm saying is that if your municipality does composting, take part, or if you're thinking of composting, I say do it.  You will lighten your load on this planet a bit more. 



We recycle everything that we're aware we can and that also helps with less trash.  Most of it we can do curbside and some requires an occasional drop off, but I am happy to do it.  We use this pail to collect our recycling in the dining room before it gets taken to the garage.  I used to just pile it on the counter and take it down each morning, but it wasn't so pretty, so we like this solution.  This pail was a gift, but I believe it came from Homer Depot or Lowes. 



a couple of random compost photos, you'll see broccoli stems in there.  I have since learned to shred and eat them. 





our compost bowl pretty much consists of tea bags, coffee filters and grounds, vegetable ends, fruit peels and pits. 

We bought a slide out for our cabinet that holds a trash and a paper recycling bin in the kitchen.  Isn't it cute?  I love it. 





I thought it would be an appropriate day to talk about recycling, but now on to some food.  Dinner last night was the raw zucchini pasta marinara that was demonstrated at Vegfest from Living on Live Food.  I love, love, love this!

zucchini pasta



the marinara ingredients pre processing.  It was great to have fresh tomatoes too, that is something that I don't like to purchase through the winter months here, these tasted amazing.



delicious raw marinara



dinner with parma! and a few (non raw) olives.  We don't usually eat all raw for dinner so I was feeling pretty good about this meal, and making raw food is a good energy conserver being that dinner was made powered only by me and the spin in the food processor.



I picked up some celtic sea salt yesterday to use in our marinara, nutritious and delicious.



a treat from Vegfest that was pretty tasty.  It reminds me a lot of Bora Bora bars that we used to eat devour.  When we lived in Nevada our Costco would have big boxes of Bora Bora bars that we loved.



I'm pretty excited about this recent co-op buy.  15 pounds of organic chia seed!  You get a great price if you buy in bulk and chias are good for doing just that because of their high antioxidants giving them a long shelf life.  ( I am queen of the run on sentences today) Once I rearrange the freezer I'm going to get these guys bottled up and stored away, oh how I love chia!



Earth day tip:  turn the water off in the shower when you shave.
I love all the attention that environmentalism gets today, but please make an affirmation that each day is really Earth Day, do your part, and love your momma, all of them =)

"The most fundamental message is for people to remember that the environment is not just something that they visit on weekends or during their summer vacation – that the environment is all around us, that it is in us and we are in it, and that it profoundly influences our health," Dr. Phillip Landrigan

Anyone store their salts in a salt box, any suggestions???

Citizen Cope!

another decadant green smoothie to start the day:
fresh pineapple, dates, almond milk, spinach, and a lil peanut butter, holy yum!





I love these glasses.  They were on our wedding registry at Greenfeet.com and we were blessed to have them gifted to us =)  I don't see them on the site anymore, but here's a link to some of their offerings now.  Ok, I found them (similar) on Uncommon goods.  I had to get off that site, some cute glasses!  We also have a set of the protect our earth ones but they are a different kind of recycled bottle, a frosty glass with the dimple in the bottom.







they really are durable glasses like they say.

I think these are adorable as well on Etsy.  This spoken glass bottle is on my wish list too, isn't it lovely.  I saw an interesting experiment in What the Bleep do we (K)now!? about how our feeling and thoughts toward water can affect the molecules, so I think showing our water some love would be healthy.  Ok, so I already told you that I have a thing for glass, right?  Well, now it's affirmed =)

morning green glass loving courtesy of Glass Dharma



The flax crackers that I won at Vegfest are so yummy, I've been enjoying them solo and with some homemade guacamole. 



this would be an 'empty the fridge' lunch



a recent dinner was big salads of spinach, massaged kale, and bok choy, green onion, pumpkin seeds, and raisins topped with Creamy Pesto Almond Dressing.  (July/Aug 05 issue)

the dressing with lots of fresh basil





a cute little sampler bag from Vegfest of our favorite vegan cheese Parma!  sprinkled on top.



and some guacamole with dippers



We didn't eat at home last night, we went to a show by one of our favorite musicians Citizen Cope!  Gin Wigmore opened.  She was real cute and has very unique vocals, we enjoyed her set. 

a few photos from the show:







we were able to hear our wedding song performed live for the third time <3<3<3



LOVE Cope.



so this morning I was parched from all the singing, a big jar of warm lemon water was just the ticket.



we of course are going to be at this show!  Love to hear if you're going too =)  Any music suggestions that you want to share that you're crazy for?



“Music is one of the ways we can achieve a kind of shorthand to understand each other.” ~ Yo-Yo Ma