Coconut Cashew Cream

Funny enough, as the universe would have it, I ended up actually having strawberries and cream last night (check out my Strawberries-and-Greens Smoothie from yesterday). Cashew cream, that is. Eff Cool Whip, this cream is worlds better. The healthy fats from cashews and coconut milk will fill you right up, and perfectly compliments fresh fruit. We drizzled ours with melted chocolate too.

Coconut Cashew Cream

1 cup cashews, soaked in water for at least two hours

1/4 cup full fat coconut milk

2 tbsp water

1/2 tsp vanilla

1-2 tbsp maple syrup, honey, brown rice syrup, or clear raw agave

Pinch of sea salt

Directions

1. Place soaked cashews in food processor or high-powered blender with coconut milk. Blend until smooth, adding water as needed.
2. Add in vanilla, sweetener, and salt to taste.

Use as a topping on fruit, pancakes, waffles, or to thicken smoothies and pudding… or be creative and use it anywhere you want

Strawberry Shortkale Smoothie

Okay, so get ready for puns. I was craving a strawberries and cream type flavour this morning, but wanted to throw some greens in there too. The result? A strawberries and greens flavour! I was going to take a picture, but if I’m being honest the colour was not so appetizing. Green and red equals a muddy brownish colour, but tastes delicious and refreshing!

Strawberry Shortkale Smoothie 

(See what I did there? Like strawberry shortcake? But with kale?)

2 handfuls of frozen strawberries

1/2 frozen banana

1 large handful of spinach

2 stalks kale

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 cup coconut water

1 tbsp hemp seeds

1 scoop vanilla Sunwarrior protein powder

 

Blend up all that sheeeit and driiiiiiink it!

Gluten Free Vegan French Toast

You know when you just can’t get a certain food off your mind? My breakfasts normally look like the same rotation of green smoothies, chocolate-green smoothies, and breakfast bowls. But then there are times that I crave meals like French toast, and I sit in my room pondering how to make this my reality.

And then I get in the kitchen and just fucking do it.

So here’s my take on vegan French toast. Enjoy.

Ingredients

¾ cup almond milk (or any non-dairy beverage)

2 tbsp brown rice flour or vanilla Sunwarrior protein powder

2 tbsp ground flax (or chia)

2 tbsp orange juice

1.5 tsp Xyla xylitol (or sucanat, coconut sugar)

Hearty dash of cinnamon

1 tbsp coconut oil

5 slices gluten-free bread (I used Food For Life brown rice slices)

Toppings: coconut butter, powdered stevia, cinnamon, maple syrup

Directions

1. Mix together all ingredients (except bread and oil) and let sit for 5ish minutes (to allow the flax to gelatinize and thicken the mixture).
2. Heat pan on medium level, add oil.
3. Soak each slice in cinnamon mixture and cook each side until golden brown.
4. Top with extra cinnamon, powdered stevia, coconut butter and maple.  Serve with a side of oranges and John Mayer.

Sweet Potato Workout Cake

I think sweet potato has got to be one of my all-time favourite slow burning carbohydrates. Not only because it’s delicious and can be used in both sweet and savoury recipes, it also has a minimal impact on your blood sugar levels (depending on how you prepare it, that is. A baked sweet potato has a higher glycemic index than a boiled or steamed sweet potato). What better way to spend a rainy long weekend than playing in the kitchen? This single-serve cake is a perfect pre-workout or afternoon snack, breakfast, or dessert. It provides hours of fuel and loads of deliciousness!

Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and steamed

1/4 cup brown rice or quinoa flour (or even protein powder could work)

1 tbsp coconut oil, plus extra for greasing

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp baking soda

Pinch sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a ramekin or small dish with coconut oil.
2. Steam sweet potatoes and mash by hand or toss ‘em in the food processor.
3. Add flour and mix or process with the sweet potato. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix.
4. Scoop mixture into your ramekin and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and enjoy. Bonus: stick a square of dark chocolate into the middle of the cake when you pull it out and let it melt. Yummm. 

The Chocolatiest Breakfast Bowl That Ever Was

I have always been a chocoholic. Nine times out of ten, I will choose chocolate over any other flavour. While some people crave savoury flavours for breakfast, I use it as another opportunity to eat chocolate. And you know what? I don’t see anything wrong with it. It makes me really happy. A few weeks ago I found I had an abundance of chocolate-flavoured items in my house and decided to make the chocolatiest breakfast bowl that ever was.

The Chocolatiest Breakfast Bowl Ever

1/2 cup chocolate almond milk

1/2 cup chocolate (or regular) coconut water

1 serving chocolate Sunwarrior Warrior Blend protein powder

1 serving chocolate Amazing Grass greens powder or 1 large handful of spinach

1/2 frozen banana

Optional optimizers: 1 tsp maca powder, 1 tbsp coconut oil

Optional toppings: 1 handful chocolate Kaia raw granola (or regular granola), goji berries, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds

Directions

Blend all ingredients (except toppings) and pour into a bowl. Top with your, erm, toppings, and enjoy! Smoothies in a bowl taste better. Especially ones of the chocolate variety. Happy weekend! XO

 

Infuse Some Love into Your Mornings

I just have a short post for tonight! I wanted to share how happy little things make me, a realization I’ve been reminded of recently. The last couple of weeks I’ve been using a heart-shaped ice cube tray to freeze leftover Americano and other liquid goodies. Each time I pop out a little cube, I feel a little burst of rainbows explode inside of me. It’s magical! It also reminds me that summer is coming, because that’s one of the biggest associations I have with iced espresso. Anyways, I love remembering how happy I get from such small changes in my everyday routine. It’s inspired me take some cool pictures and write up new recipes. Here’s my latest:

Sweetheart Espresso Floats

1 cup of almond milk

5-6 drops of English toffee stevia

8 ounces of frozen heart-shaped Americano

Mix milk and stevia together and drop in the heart cubes. Allow the cubes to melt a little bit and sip away. Optional: warm the milk and stevia first make melting a bit easier.

Homemade Mocha Iced Capps

I can smell spring in the air when I step outside. Nothing quite says summertime like a good ol’ iced cappuccino. I remember the milk-and-sugar-laden concoction from Tim Hortons well. The whipped cream on top with sweet sugary frozen caffeinated goodness underneath. The almost flavourless ice left at the bottom every time.

The bloating and the blood sugar crashes. Good times.

Needless to say when I woke up to a particularly balmy morning here in Vancouver, I immediately went to my freezer to pull out some frozen Americano cubes. Enter, vegan mocha iced capps.

Ingredients

8 ounces of frozen Americano

½ cup almond milk

1-2 teaspoons cacao or cocoa powder

8 drops English toffee stevia

½ tsp maca powder (optional)

Directions

Add all ingredients into the blender and slurp away! Sun, warmth, and tan not included.

No leaves in my salad please!

No leaves in my salad please!

You know those days when you look in your fridge and see so many great ingredients, but no clue what to do with them? I realized that all you have to do is toss them in a bowl together and drizzle them with dressing. Cool, eh? Lately I’ve been into super simple “chunky salads”. These salads are fully forkable, with no leaves in sight (I’ve preferred to drink my spinach and kale leaves these days).

Creamy Citrus Chunky Summer Salad

Serves one, multiply to your hearts content!

Ingredients

½ avocado

½ cucumber

½-1 orange

Small handful of parsley

¼ lemon

1 tbsp oil

pinch sea salt

¼ tsp dill

Directions

1. Chop up the ‘cado, cuc, orange and parsley into chunks.
2. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

Cool Black Bean Cucumber Chunk Salad

Serves one, multiply to your hearts content!

Ingredients

½ cup black beans (Eden Organic canned and washed, or homemade)

1/3 cucumber

½ pear

1 tsp honey

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Pinch sea salt

Directions

1. Chop up cucumber and pear and toss in a bowl with black beans
2. Whisk together ingredients and pour over the salad. Toss and serve.

Breakfast Bowls: Layers of Morning Goodness

Recently I have started a new breakfast phase which I have dubbed breakfast bowls.  They are comprised of three parts…

Base: some sort of protein-packed pudding/porridge mixture

Chia seeds in Sunwarrior protein almond milk with Kaia granola, goji berries, cacao nibs, and banana

Middle layer: granola

Toppings: cacao nibs, goji berries, bananas… depends on my mood and what’s available

The base layer can be any slurpy mixture you like.  Recently I’ve used the new VegaOne chocolate whole food supplement, chia seeds with almond milk, vanilla Sunwarrior blended up with almond milk and frozen banana, or some Coconut Breeze Boring Porridge.  All of these are just bursting with healthy fats, proteins and deliciousness!

For granola, if you don’t have your own homemade granola on hand, I highly recommend getting some Kaia raw chocolate buckwheat granola – I eat the stuff by the handful.  It reminds me oddly of Clodhoppers (which I also used to eat by the hand).  Otherwise look for a naturally sweetened whole food organic granola (are labels confusing for you? Shoot me an email, let’s talk).

Toppings can be any kind of magical sprinklings you like.  Sometimes I go without, depends on the base of my breakfast bowl.   Be creative! There are no limits or boundaries, kids.

Abby’s VegaOne Chocolate Breakfast Bowl

Blend…

½ cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 scoop chocolate VegaOne powder

1 teaspoon cacao powder

½ frozen banana

2 ice cubes

Pour into a bowl and let it sit for a few minutes.  All that nutritious, omega-3 rich flax will thicken up as it stands.  Top with granola, and sprinkle with love and cacao nibs. Enjoy and eat slowly with a spoon.

Sweet and Savoury Peanut Butter Recipes

Happy National Peanut Butter Day! (Do these “national days” count in Canada? I don’t know… but this one does)

I’m going to skip all the reasons why I love peanut butter, and I’m also going to skip the aflatoxin fungus speech.  Sometimes a girl’s just gotta have some peanut butter.  I love almond butter, but considering how much of it I consume it’s high time for almond butters’ more traditional cousin peanut butter to make its debut.  So long as it’s organic and non-GMO, I’m game!

Recipe numero uno:

Ginger Pumpkin Rice Noodles with Peanut Butter Ginger Sauce

1 package of King Soba Ginger Pumpkin Rice Soba Noodles (or regular brown rice noodles, quinoa noodles, spelt noodles)

1 zucchini

2 stalks kale

1 small sweet potato

1 tbsp coconut/grapeseed oil

Pinch sea salt

2/3 cup black beans

Sauce:

¼ cup peanut butter

1/3 cup veggie stock

2-3 tablespoons tamari

¼ lemon, juiced

½ inch piece ginger, peeled and minced

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

Pinch paprika

½ teaspoon tapioca flour

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Peel and chop sweet potato into small chunks and toss with oil and salt.  Bake for 35-45 minutes.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add noodles, bring to a boil and cook for about 8 minutes.  Drain and rinse with cold water, set aside.
3. Mix together sauce ingredients (except flour) in a small saucepan.  Heat over medium-low setting.
4. Rinse and chop zucchini and kale.  Add to noodles along with sweet potato and beans.
5. Add flour to the sauce and whisk together quickly as the sauce thickens.  Taste and add salt as needed.
6. Pour sauce over noodles and veggies and serve warm.

My cookie recipe was inspired by CCK’s.  Originally I was just going to post a link to her recipe but ended up changing measurements and ingredients to make my own.  Here’s hers if you wanna check it out: click here.  Oh, and for any of you that got my peanut butter cookies for Christmas two years ago, these ones are even better.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Follow me on Instagram: achristens

½ cup peanut butter

¼ cup + 1 tablespoon spelt flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup Xyla (what’s Xyla, you ask? Find out here)

3 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tablespoon ground flax + 3 tablespoons water (mixed and set for 5 minutes)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix together flour, baking soda, Xyla and sea salt.
2. Add peanut butter, maple syrup, flax egg and vanilla.  Mix together well and refrigerate for 30-90 minutes.
3. Remove from fridge and roll into balls, flatten with a fork.  I made 22 cookies, but the recipe probably could have made 25 if I hadn’t “tested” the dough so much.

Cook for 8-10 minutes and let cool for 5-10 before removing from the cookie sheet.  As Katie says, they will look under cooked but they’re good to go!  I suggest immediately freezing some, otherwise they’ll somehow disappear quite quickly.