Smokey BBQ Sauce

I gotta say-I like this BETTER than SAD (Standard American Diet) type BBQ!

240 Ml(1 Cup) Chopped Tomatoes or Cherry tomatoes
9 Sundried Tomatoes
7-8 Dried Pitted Dates
2 Tbsp Sunflower Oil
1 Large Clove Garlic
1/2 Tbsp Water
1/4 Tbsp Agave Nectar
1/4 Tsp Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp Chipotle Powder
1 tsp Mixed Herbs; or Thyme
1 tsp Nutritional Yeast
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cayenne Powder
1/4 tsp Ground Mustard Seed
Pinch of Cumin (optional)
Pinch of Onion Powder/granules (optional)

Everything goes in the blender @ high speed until well mixed. This may take a while. This recipe will be easier if you double it, however I didn't have enough ingredients on hand to make a larger batch.

Cheezy "pasta" sauce

240 Ml(1 Cup) Cashews
150 Ml(5/8 Cup) Sunflower Oil
120 Ml (1/2 Cup) Water
4 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
2 Cloves Garlic
1/4 Tsp Ground Mustardseed
1/4 Tsp Black Pepper
1/4 Tsp Fleur De Sel (or sea salt)
1/8 Tsp Onion Granules

Blend on high speed for a few minutes...
Serve over grated butternut squash as I have done in the photo (which taste like noodles with this sauce) or quinoa with chopped tomatoes & basil.

Garlic Spinach Soup

MORE SOUP!? Yes. Great, unusual way to get your greens...

3 Big Handfuls of Spinach or Baby Spinach
6 Cherry Tomatoes
4 Cloves of Organic (or small cloves of regular) Garlic
1 Cube (vegan, yeast & gluten free, organic) Vegetable Stock
1 3/4 Cups Warm Water
3 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
2 Tbsp Basic Cashew Cheeze
1 Tbsp Sunflower Oil
1 Tsp Black Pepper
1/4 Tsp Onion Granules (or you may use fresh Onion)
A couple squeezes of Fresh Lemon
Pinch of Salt

Blend on high speed until smooth & enjoy!

Make Your Own Mini Green-za's!

NOTE: THIS RECIPE REQUIRES A DEHYDRATOR.

This is just plain old FUN! I like inspiring people to try healthier, raw options, and I know for me that was an issue of convenience for a long time. For a lot of you, an issue is that you have older kids who are not vegan/raw and convincing them to switch to a diet like this might be hard. So you might need some yummy, fun to eat finger-foods for the family. I've got one for you right here! A wonderful, truly green pizza. Now, this takes a while, so you're gonna have to put in some prep work beforehand...

Crust:
480 Ml (2 Cups) Milled Flax Seed
360 Ml (1 1/2 Cups) Ground Almonds
240 Ml +  1 Tsp Water
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Mixed Herbs (Or just equal parts Thyme and Oregano will do)
1 Tbsp Basil
1 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1/2 Tbsp Rosemary
1/4 Tbsp Local, Organic Honey
A Couple Pinches of Salt

Stir all ingredients in a bowl or, better yet, use your hands! Roll out into golf balls, smack in your hands to flatten to a little less than a quarter-inch thick and pop onto the dehydrator trays-dehydrate on 40 degrees C for about 7 hours. This is a lovely GF Italian herb bread and you can use it for anything, sandwiches too, whatever you like.

Green Cheeze (This is for you Ali-an easy Cheezy for my nut-allergic friend!):

240 Ml (1 Cup) Pumpkin Seeds
2 Tbsp Pine Nuts
2 Tbsp Sunflower Oil
1 Tbsp Rejuvelac (I make quinoa rejuvelac because it is gluten free)
1 Clove Garlic
1/4 to 1/2 tsp Fleur De Sel (or sea salt)
Pinch of white or black pepper
Pinch of ground mustardseed (optional)

Soak the Pumpkin Seeds for about 4 hours or so. Drain and put in a food processor or a blender (but the food processor will work much better) and mix with all the other ingredients, stopping and stirring continuously until you have it well blended.

Once your crusts and cheeze are ready, put the cheeze in a bowl and the crusts on a plate. Slice up some organic cherry tomatoes onto another plate and you're ready to serve your make-your-own mini pizzas! These are AWESOME with My Rawkin' Raw Ranch Dip. Pizza + Ranch, and it's all healthy and raw?! I must be joking, right? Nope. Give it a try for yourself. Out of this world, and tons of fun! I finished it off with some raw carob brownies, but those are for another time...

Bold n' Spicy Veggie Soup

I know. ANOTHER SOUP! Sorry. but I love them! They are low-cal, rich in flavour, cheap, easy and PACKED with veggie goodness and, SO flavourful. I'll let you in on a little secret...I...don't even like vegetables on their own! OK, I do, but not so much. It's boring. My taste buds have been ruined by the horrible standard of eating I once had. I long to be this forager who eats single ingredient meals, and just stuff my face full of naked spinach and broccoli, no dressings required day in and day out. However until that day comes, I shall blend my beautiful, precious vegetables into soups, smoothies, and so forth-and get their raw goodness in any form I can get it. I did something a little different for this soup, however, than my "routine"soup base and I am impressed with the results.

2 Large Organic Carrots (Use 2 Small to Regular Size "Normal" Carrots if Organic Absolutely Cannot Be Obtained)
1 Large Organic Parsnip (Or 1 Small to Medium Size "Normal" Parsnip)
2 Organic Celery Stalks
2 Cups Vegetable Stock (You can make your own raw stock by googling how or you can just buy some organic, yeast & gluten free in the store and mix  it with 1 1/2 cups of water like I did. Lazy, I know.)
1 Big ripe Tomato
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 1/2 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
3 Cloves raw garlic
1 Tsp Black Pepper
1/2 Tsp Fleur De Sel (or sea salt)
1/4 Tsp Dill
A few sprigs of fresh basil (optional)
Pinch of ground mustard seed (optional)

Toss everything in the blender and...blend. Garnish with pine nuts if you like-they are delicious and like crutons in a savoury soup. Mm, mm mmm

Good-bye gluten, hello-a Quinoa!

My dear old Daddio reccomended I try this fantastic stuff called quinoa (thanks Dad, this is FAB!) to replace whole-wheat pasta, since that was one of the few things I was cooking and the only thing I was still eating containing gluten, an inflammatory agent found in wheat and other grains. I decided to do a bit of research online and make the quinoa the raw way, and YUM, it is absolutely FANTASTIC stuff. I FAR prefer this to pasta!

I decided to make a salad that's reminiscent of pasta-but I like this much better.

Quinoa Pasta Salad

150g uncooked Quinoa (you can buy this in the health food section at Tesco's, or I'd imagine anywhere else you do your shopping seeing as how Tesco's is a "commercial" grocery store!)
1 Large Aromatic Vine Ripened Tomato
2 Medium Greens Leafs (A large handful of spinach leafs would substitute fine, I'd imagine.)
1 Tbsp Pine Nut Pesto, optional
Ground "Feef" for meatballs
Nutritional yeast
White Pepper

Soak the quinoa in a bowl of water-leave it overnight, for between 12-18 hours. The Quinoa will soak up the water, soften and sprout a bit. Drain the excess water and divide between two bowls. Chop the tomatoes and Greens and divide them, spread them over the bowls....use a half-teaspoon to make mini meatballs to put in (I used 6 meatballs per bowl. spread out a little bit of pesto if you like, and use nutritional yeast in place of parmesan cheese. Nutritional yeast is fantastic because it is loaded with rich B vitamins and is deactivated so you needn't worry about candida. Sprinkle the salad with white pepper to taste and serve. Serves 2, of course, but you can easily double, triple, or quadruple this recipe if you are uncooking for a larger crowd. This is very quick and easy to make-took me less than 10 minutes to throw everything together after the sprouts had been soaked. Easy healthy dinner!