Vegan Smash Cake :)

My little baby turned 1! It was an exciting and fun celebration for us.  It was also a little crazy on my end because I wanted him to have the smash cake experience but I didn't want him to have any of the cake!

I contemplated doing just a vegetable or fruit, such as an apple.  I researched raw desserts like crazy but, as raw desserts always have nuts as a base, I didn't want to take the chance of some sort of nut reaction.  Now, my baby up until about 1 month ago, has been exclusively breastfed.  He hasn't shown much interest in food until recently and so now we have introduced foods that we can give him that are as much in their raw natural state as possible - specifically fruits.  Out of curiosity we let him try something (now I can't remember what it was) other than fruit or veggie and he didn't care for it.  So with that in mind, I decided to make him a cake because I didn't think he would have any interest in putting any in his mouth anyway.

I actually did two different recipes.  One for his 1 year pictures and one for his birthday party.

I ended up going with a vegan carrot cake recipes that didn't have any sugar in it.  

In this picture, I used the 'Single Lady Cupcake' recipes called Five Minute Carrot Cake from Chocolate Covered Katie.  Her desserts look delish and I thought this carrot cake would have a super cute look paired with my kiddos outfit.  As expected, he didn't care to eat it, he only cared to swirl the stuff on the ground with the candle :)   I used Coconut Milk frosting instead of some vegan soy crap.  I had to do a bit of experimenting with that one, too and I'll have another post on that.

For his big birthday bash I made him a big smash cake.  Although in hind sight I kind of wish I wouldn't have worried about the cake itself since I already knew he wouldn't eat it and just worried about what was on top.  Instead I worried about both.  

For this cake, I used a recipe found on this blog.  I made a little variation and used the rest of my spelt flour instead of wheat flour and I made it into a cake using a round cake pan instead of going with the cupcakes.  I  wasn't too impressed with the taste though (I stole a bite after the smashing was done - hence why I wish I wouldn't have worried about having actual cake under that frosting - it ended up being a waste).  I was, however, super happy with my raw chocolate icing found on one of my favorite raw dessert websites, The Rawtarian.  You can find this particular recipe here and I liked it a lot because it was so simple and made with ingredients I already had on hand. It's creamy and has a dark chocolate taste which normally I wouldn't care for but Husband and I wanted to keep on licking. It also spread incredibly easy. 

Again, my baby wasn't too into smashing.  He was a little curious but I think he has a thing about getting super dirty!  He had to have help from some kiddos to get a little dirtier :)  I thought he would actually like eating this frosting because I let him lick a little off the spatula when I made it and he was really into it.  However, when I helped him out and put some in his mouth, he gagged.  Not the first time he'd done that but   I promise it wasn't because the recipe sucked cuz it didn't..or doesn't!

Hopefully someone else finds this information a little useful.  :)

Marinated Vegetable Salad.

MMMmmmmm!  I want to try this!!

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Marinated-Vegetable-Salad

Simple Salad

Salads don't have to be difficult. Sure, it's great when you can add plenty of powerful veggies, nuts/seeds, sprouted legumes and so forth. But the other day I wasn't in the mood to cut up a hundred different vegetables and just wanted something light and easy.

This is what I came up with:

Fresh mozzarella and roma tomato, sliced on top of a bed of sweet baby lettuce mix and drizzled with a light balsamic vinagraitte (no the dressing wasn't homemade but I intend to try that out soon!). It was delish!

Make Your Own Almond Milk!

I love Almond Milk.

Besides the fact that Almond Milk is silky and nummy, I very strongly believe the cow's milk, especially the processed homogenized, pasteurized, hormone-filled milk that fills America's refrigerators, is incredibly dentrimental and hazardous to our health. I have witnessed it several times and done my research and there is nothing 'healthy' about store-bought milk contrary to what the Milk ads constantly throw in your face. That's all propaganda, folks, intent on one thing: sales.

But I digress. Let's move on to the recipe. One of the benefits of making your own almond milk is that it's really very simple, you know exactly what's going in it, and as the words organic and 100% natural become more of a trend, you need to be aware of companies who falsely label their products (yes, it happens) to bring you these items filled with things that are anything but organic and natural so that they can make a quick buck.

Almond Milk

4-5 cups spring or filtered water

1 cup almonds, soaked overnight

1 tsp vanilla extract (for flavor)

a few dates or 1/4 cup Agave, for sweetness

*you don't have to add the dates or the agave. Also, there have been times when I have just sprinkled in a small amount of Stevia and Cinnamon and shook it up into the milk later. Makes it super sweet ;)

** you will also need a fine strainer or sieve, a large-ish bowl, and a glass container to store your milk.This recipe is actually very quick and simple once your almonds have had a good soak. Takes me about ten mintues is all :)

This is what soaked almonds look like. See how plump they are?

Look at the difference between soaked almonds and regular almonds (right):

I always throw a few extra nuts into the soak because I can't resist nibbling on them when I open the refrigerator. Soaked almonds are actually very good for you!

Take your cup of soaked almonds and throw them in a blender or food processor along with all the other ingredients. Blend until smooth. I don't have a stellar blender and so I use my food processor. However, my food processor will leak a lot of liquids so I usually start out with all the ingredients and only 1 cup of water until everything is chopped to fine bits and then I gradually add a cup at time and then 'pulse' for a few seconds to blend it all together.

It should look like this when your done:

Doesn't that frothy goodness make you want to go make some right now?


Then you need to take a fine sieve or strainer and a large bowl to strain the milk:

Pour your milk into the strainer over your bowl:

And then you will end up with 'almond meal'. I like to press down on the meal to extract as much water as possible and then I save the almond meal to go on top of salads or yogurt.

Then pour your the milk from the bowl into a glass container that you can store your milk in. It will keep for about 5 to 6 days and is delicious over oatmeal, buckwheat cereal and the likes:

See? Easy-peasy! Now go make some of your own and be proud of how 'natural' you can be :)