All-purpouse Ground "Feef"

Admission; MY guilty pleasure, the thing keeping me from going vegan for a time was ground beef. I love love love the taste. I've been missing it for a long time. So I had to recreate it. I think I've done a pretty decent job, because this really hits the spot.

Raw Feef (Fake Ground Beef):
3 Organic Carrots
480 ml/2 cups Walnut halves/chopped Walnuts
24 Sundried tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Sesame Seeds
3 Cloves Garlic (remove the green bits in the middle if raw garlic tends to give you indigestion)
1 tsp Ground Black Pepper
1/3 tsp Fleur De Sel
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Pinch of ground mustardseed (optional)
Pinch of basil (optional)

Pulse, stir, pulse stir ect until you have a gritty, paste-y texture. You can make meatballs(as I have done in the photo above by scooping with a tablespoon!), form burgers (which are great on a bun of greens with mustard), use as taco meat, ect. Pile on some Basic Cashew Cheeze to a meatball and this is out of this world. Yum!

Butternut Soup and...Nutterbutt Ice Cream!

Creamy Winter Squash Soup:

About 240 ml/1 cup Butternut Squash, peeled and chopped
1 Small carrot
1/2 to one whole small leek leaf, depending how you want it to taste
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tbsp ground Black Pepper
2 tbsp Sunflower oil
2 tbsp Basic Cashew Cheeze
1 Tbsp Pine Nuts
1 Clove Garlic
1 tsp Fleur de Sel (which you can read about here, it is so good and loaded with minerals-I highly reccomend ditching your white salt and opting for this instead!)
240 ml/1 cup warm Water
Dash of Allspice, optional.

...You know the drill...toss it in the blender and mix on high speed until creamy and smooth. Serves 2.

Carob Nut Ice Cream

The bottom (round plump part) half of a Winter/Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded and chopped (I left about half of the mulch/pulp inside, but not the seeds.)
1 large handful of dried, pitted/stoned Dates
2 handfuls of nuts (I used 1 ea of Walnuts and a "Mixed Nuts" blend that contained Almonds, Peanuts and Walnuts)
3 Tbsp Maple Syrup
3 1/2 tsp Raw Carob Powder
1/3 tsp Allspice (I know, I use this stuff in everything...but it's so damn good!)
1 Tbsp Rice, Almond, Coconut or Breastmilk (for this particular batch I used Provamel's Rice Milk, which is one of the nicer milks I think)

It is important to note that this is not one of my easier recipes, so, I apologise in advance (but HEY, give me some credit, most of my things are pretty cheap and easy). This might not be the case however if you have a really good food processor, but if you are like me and are working with a cheap blender, be prepared to put in a bit of elbow grease.

Now. Chop up that squash into small pieces because otherwise you will do what I did and be stuck blending the darn thing a bit longer than you will like to. I put in very large pieces and was blending for ages. Toss the squash in with the liquid ingredients and pulse, stir, pulse, stir until you've got it into a chunky mush. Now add the dates and nuts and continue doing that pulse and stir thing until you have a consistency you are happy with, it should be like runny home-made ice cream with small chunks (I like chunks in my ice cream, don't you?) now add the powdered ingredients, pulse and stir a couple more times, and you can put this into a couple of plastic tubs and freeze it. I used two large hummous pots and managed to fill them to the brink, so in other words this will easily serve 4, or could just as easily serve only 2 if you keep it on hand in your freezer for those occasions, you know, when a friend needs you to come over pronto with a tub of ice cream...keep this on hand for just such occasions. What a favour you'll be doing them, bringing something so delicious AND giving their body to a raw treat... :) This has a very carob-y, nutty, ice-cream esque taste and consistancy and is just. YUM.

Apple Walnut Pie With Caramel Crust

More sweet, un-sugary, un-baked goodness for the harvest season. Yummy yummy!!

First, I made the caramel crust:

240 ml/1 cup Dried, Stoned/Pitted Dates
About 180 ml(3/4 cup) Nuts (I got a bag of mixed nuts at Tesco's for .50p that had Almonds, Peanuts and Walnuts and that is what I used here. Bargain!)
1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp carob powder

Mix all ingredients in the blender/food processor on high-speed-pulse, stir, pulse, stir, repeat until the dough is gritty and well mixed. scoop into a bowl and refrigerate while you prepare the apples.

Apple-walnut filling:

3 organic apples, peeled and diced
120 ml(1/2 cup) chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp allspice

Stir together the walnuts and apples in a large bowl. In a small bowl, stir together the maple, water and allspice. Add into the apple-nut blend and stir continuously until they are evenly glazed.

Pull the 'crust' out of the refrigerator and press as evenly as you can into a small round cake or pie pan. Spoon the apple-walnut blend on top of it and spread it out. Serves 3-4 (or less if you're feeling gluttonous...warning, this is very hard to put down!)

NOTE: This is quite sticky and a bit hard to serve (though surprisingly easy to clean out of the dish) so unless you are like me and eating this with someone you don't mind eating straight out of the pan with I recommend halving or quartering the dough beforehand onto separate dishes to make individual pies. :)