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Cucumber Cups with Almond Lime Ginger Butter

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Simple and flavourful. Perfect for your next canapé party.

Because you throw those all the time, right?

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These little cucumber cups are wayyyy too easy to make.

If you need to throw something together quickly and impress some taste buds, look no further.

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The crispy, fresh cucumber with the creamy, smooth almond lime ginger butter is a FANTASTIC contrast and a surprise burst of flavour.

The butter is a bit like thai peanut sauce, but has more of a tangy punch.

Crunchy

Creamy

Fresh

Easy

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Benefits:

Cucumbers are super hydrating and packed with vitamins and minerals. Eat the green skin people! The anti-inflammatory flavonol, fisetin, plays an important role in brain health. The antioxidants will combat disease, and the B vitamins will help lower stress.

Miso is a fermented food, which means it will do wonders for your gut bacterial health. Miso (and other fermented foods like kombucha, sauerkraut, and kimchi) will help restore the beneficial probiotics in your intestine, which then will improve mood, digestion, absorption, immunity and reduce risk for many diseases.

Carrots as most of us know are very high in beta-carotene which is then converted to Vitamin A in the liver, which will help your vision. It’s also converted into an antioxidant, which combats disease and helps oxidized cells, therefore, slows down aging and helps the skin. So, eat them up!

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Cucumber Cups with Almond Lime Ginger Butter

Serves: 6-8

Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 2 long english cucumbers
  • 1 large carrot, grated
  • 2 green onions, chopped thinly
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Almond Lime Ginger butter:

  • 2 tbsp tahini
  • 4 tbsp almond butter
  • 1 tbsp + 1 tsp tamari or soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp rice vinegar
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp ginger powder

Directions:

  1. Slice cucumber discs 1/2 inch thick. Then spoon out the middle to create a cucumber cup (don’t scoop all the way through).
  2. Make almond lime ginger butter: Blend all ingredients together (mini food processor works best)
  3. Place a dollop of the ‘butter’ into the cucumber cups
  4. Sprinkle each cucumber cup with grated carrot, sesame seeds and green onion.

**Note: The almond lime butter can be made into a sauce by adding water until desired consistency. This will make an amazing ‘Glory Bowl’ dressing!  Alternatively make it into a dip by adding a bit of water and 1/2 of a zucchini !

Sweet Potato Guacamole Bites

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Talk about a burst of heaven in your mouth.

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Sweet

Savoury

Crunchy

Creamy

These bites have it all.

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Not to mention simplicity.

Some of the best creations are just a few delicious and complementary ingredients.

After some easy steps of roasting, mashing, and assembling, you’ll have a vegan appetizer that will impress even the fanciest cook.

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The warmth and chewiness of the sweet potato along with the creamy guacamole and crunchy mung beans…let’s just say it’s a party in your mouth.

These are a great start to any shindig.

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Benefits:

Mung bean sprouts are high in vitamin K (for healthy bone density), C (immune boosting), and folate (for healthy blood cells). All raw sprouts are total superfoods. Since they have started their growing process, they are an easily digestible, living food with more nutrients per calorie than any other food.

Sweet potatoes have been a staple in the diet of some of the longest living peoples in history (Okinawans). They have more Vitamin A than any other food, they are packed with healthy carbohydrates, antioxidants, and are stars for combatting inflammation and oxidation. Eat em’ up! I always get delicious, organic sweet potatoes from Spud to my door every Tuesday. Man, I love Tuesdays!! Use my code CRVAN-MURJUB for 20$ off your first order.

Avocados are packed with monounsaturated fatty acids. Great for the hair, skin and nails!

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Sweet Potato Guacamole Bites

Serves: 6-8

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 2-3 sweet potatoes, sliced in 1/4 inch thick discs
  • pinch of salt and pepper
  • 2 avocados
  • Juice of 1/2 lime
  • 1 garlic clove
  • As many mung bean sprouts (or sprout of choice) as you like

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
  2. Lay out discs on parchment covered baking sheet. Sprinkle with pepper and salt
  3. Bake sweet potato discs for 25 minutes, flipping once
  4. Meanwhile, prepare the guacamole: mash the avocados with garlic and lime juice.
  5. Assemble the artwork. Place sweet potatoes on a plate with a dollop of guac, and a few sprouts.

Thai Cashew Cream Cheese Endive Boats | Raw Vegan

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These 2-bite boats are a fun and fresh way to start off a dinner party.

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So simple to put together and really, really delicious.

They have a pop of sweet and tangy flavours with a creamy and crispy textures.

Verrrrry interestingly delicious!

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PLUS you get to learn how EASY it is to make vegan cream cheese (this time with curry and cilantro)!

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Endives make the perfect boat for just about anything when it comes to small bites. There’s something so fancy about holding a canapé in your hand and savouring each bite.
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These guys are great to make ahead of time, and I highly suggest you make enough Thai curry cashew cream cheese to keep in the fridge for that cheese craving later on (amazing in sandwiches, wraps, or with crackers).

Benefits:

Endives have vitamin A, which is great for eyes, plus helps maintain healthy mucus membranes and skin. B vitamins are in there too to help with healthy metabolism of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.

Cashews help lower blood pressure, and helps hair, bones and nerves. Too much of a good thing in this case isn’t ideal though. Cashews are decadent and packed with calories from beneficial fat, so too many of these creamy morsels could lead to some extra pounds. In this recipe, we just use a small dollop on each endive for decadence and thai flavour!

Mango help lower cholesterol, clear skin, alkalinize the body, improve digestion, improve eye health, and combat cancer.

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Thai Cashew Endive Boats

Time: 20 minutes (must soak cashews before hand for a few hours or overnight)

Serves: 20 plus extra cashew ‘cheeze’ is left over for you!

Ingredients:

  • Two heads of endives
  • 2 cups cashews, soaked overnight or for 3 hours in water then drained
  • 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1/4 cup water, or just enough to blend cashews
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp green curry paste
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 3/4 cup cilantro
  • 1 mango, sliced thinly in batonnet cuts
  • 2 green onions, chopped diagonally

Directions:

  1. Make the Thai cashew cream cheese: Blend the soaked cashews, lemon, and water (not too much!) in food processor until cream cheese consistency. Then blend in curry paste, onion powder, and cilantro.
  2. Fill your endives with cashew cheese, mango, green onion. Top with cilantro.
  3. Store your extra cream cheese in the fridge for about a week in a sealed jar.

Simple Green Curry | Oil-Free | Vegan

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Brrrr. It’s cold and time for a fave bowl of Thai comfort and flavour.

This green curry couldn’t get any easier.

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Veggies.

Potatoes.

Coconut milk.

Curry paste.

That’s it, that’s all folks!

Plus, it’s oil-free. Why, you ask?

Well, let me tell ya.

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Oil is a refined and has more calories per teaspoon than any other food group out there, with minimal nutrients. For the same amount of calories in 1 tbsp of oil (120 calories), we can eat 3 cups of kale, or 4 red peppers, or 4 cups of cauliflower, or 1 cup of potatoes. When we consume 1 tbsp of oil, it takes up a tiny amount of room in our stomach, therefore, won’t do the job of telling our brain that we are full and won’t lead to satiation. So, oil makes it’s super easy to dose yourself with high-fat, nutrient-deficient calories (in other words, gain unwanted weight).

We want as many nutrients, and as much bulk per calorie as possible.

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This is great! This means, if we choose the right kinds of foods (whole, un-refined, plant foods), then we can eat in absolute abundance! High fives all-around for that!

You can check out Mic the Vegan’s video all about oil.

Below, you’ll see the way to saute without using oil that gives you a great flavour and caramelization.

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Benefits:

Broccoli is like a broom for your intestines. It goes in there and cleans everything up (especially in it’s raw form, but lightly cooked is amazing too. It’s packed with vitamin C and K. It’s detoxifying and anti-inflammatory. As a cruciferous vegetable it’s packed with phytonutrients and fights off cancer and disease.

Onions and garlic have organosulfur compounds that have huge antioxidant properties to ward off disease, oxidative stress and cancer.

Sprouts are the most nutrient dense things you can consume! The opposite of oil. They’re raw and live, easily digestible and packed with nutrients, vitamins and minerals.  Powerful little morsels.

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Serves: 6

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

  • large sweet onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2cm ginger thumb, minced
  • 2 heads of broccoli, chopped
  • 2 red peppers, chopped
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1 jar green curry paste (112 grams)
  • 3-4 potatoes, cubed (could replace with 2 cups brown rice, cooked)
  • 1 cup green peas
  • sprouts for topping (mung bean, peashoots or sunflower sprouts)
  • cilantro, chopped, for topping
  • cashews, chopped, for topping (optional)

Directions:

  1. Steam potatoes until your fork can pierce through them (about 15 minutes). On the other hand, cook up some rice if you like rice more!
  2. Oil-free saute: Heat up a large, deep pan to medium. You know when it’s hot enough be doing the water test (sprinkle pan with water, and if a mercury ball forms, you’re good to go). Add onions to the heated pan. Stir frequently, until the pan is browned (about 5 minutes). Add enough water to de-glaze the pan (the onions should look brown and caramelized).
  3.  Add garlic and ginger. Saute 1 minute.
  4.  Add peppers and broccoli. Saute 1 minute.
  5.  Add half of the coconut milk with the whole jar of green curry. Mix these liquids together with the veggies until the curry is all mixed in. Then add the rest of the coconut milk.
  6. Let simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add in the potatoes and green peas for the last 2 minutes.
  7. Serve it up in your favourite big bowl and top it with sprouts, cilantro and cashews.

Spinach Gomae | Vegan | Oil-Free

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Sometimes I just look at a bag of greens and am overcome with the feeling of ‘get in ma belly’!

Don’t we all have that feeling after the Holidays?

img_3244By the way, HAPPY 2017!

It always feels like this is the time to detox and cleanse the temple with a mountain of greens. But, how to get them all in?

There’s so many ways… juice them, blend them, mega-salad them, stir-fry them, steam them…

Gomae-ing them is one of my favourite ways to get through a massive bag of pop-eye’s secret weapon.

Just the other day I found the biggest bag of spinach I’ve ever seen at our neighbourhood grocery store. It just sat there saying “gomae it to me!”, so I did.

Then, I called up some friends to come help roll up some vegan sushi with avocado, cucumber, yam fries, green onion, sprouts and mango.

This gomae is great to make ahead of time, because it’s yummy cold!

Boil

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Cool

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Strain

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Squeeze

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Mix in sauce and voila!

The key to gomae is to make sure the liquid from blanching the spinach is outta there. A liquid-y gomae is nobody’s friend.

After a few simple steps of boiling water, blanching spinach, draining and pressing it with a cloth or paper towel, you will have the spinach every gomae loves.

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Benefits:

~ Spinach is actually packed with plant protein. Greens have a lot more protein that everyone thinks. We can easily get all the protein we need (which is only about 10% of our daily diet), from a vegan diet without even thinking about it! Because of the meat and dairy industries bombarding us with protein myths, we have a huge misconception and fear of becoming protein-deficient. The only way this would happen is if we were starving ourselves. And on the other end of the spectrum, too much protein is stored in fat cells, contributes to the onset of a variety of diseases, like cancer, osteoporosis, heart disease and impaired kidney function. So, stop worrying about protein, and start asking yourself about the nutrient quality and amount of fibre in each of your meals:)

~Miso is fermented! Yay! Eating a fermented food should be a part of each day. Fermented foods are packed to the brim with probiotics. This means your intestinal flora (in your gut), otherwise known as your second brain, will be healthy and happy. This will boost your immunity, improve your digestion and help balance out your good intestinal bacteria.

~ Sesame seeds are packed with copper (helps with rheumatoid arthritis), magnesium (for respiratory health), calcium (to prevent osteoperosis) and zinc (immunity boosting). 15385417_375964736077400_2515599090399789729_o

Serves: 4-6

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

  • Large bag of spinach
  • 2 tbsp sesame seeds (black or golden) for garnish

Sauce:

  • 1 tbsp miso paste
  • 1/2 cup tahini
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tsp mirin (or organic cane sugar)
  • A bit of water to thin the sauce out

Directions:

  1. Blanch spinach: bring large pot of water to a boil. Fill up your sink with cold water. When water comes to a boil, put a handful of spinach in there until soft (30 seconds to a minute). Scoop out spinach with a scoop colander, and put it into the cold water sink. Do this until all of your spinach is blanched. Then remove the spinach with the colander and squeeze out liquid. It helps to do this with a tea towel or paper towel.
  2. Make sauce: add all sauce ingredients to a food processor and blend (alternatively add miso paste with a bit of water to a bowl and mix with whisk into liquid-y paste, then mix in the rest of the sauce ingredients to form the sauce)
  3. Toast sesame seeds: heat pan to low-medium, then add in the sesame seeds. Toast for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently.
  4. Mix spinach with sauce, then top with toasted sesame seeds.15492396_10209845985459844_2862320625715324248_n