Category Archives: Desserts

Meatless Monday: Vegan Coconut Rice Pudding!

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Meatless Monday Mania is sweeping the nation! Even Mario Batali is doing it!!

In case you haven’t heard, “Meatless Monday” is an international non-profit initiative in association with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to reduce meat consumption by 15% to improve personal health and the health of our planet.

And while I personally believe that not just Monday but EVERY day should be meatless,
and not just for personal and planetary health reasons,
I joined the Meatless Monday movement and you can too!

Just go to the Meatless Monday website and sign up. You’ll get delicious meatless recipes sent to you each Meatless Monday.

I know it’s VERY challenging to go meatless when you are not used to it. So to help out I’m offering a vegan dessert recipe today that is, well meatless sort of by definition (“dessert!”) and happens to be dairy-free too! So it’s Meatless and Dairly-Less Monday here at Eat. Run. Do Yoga!

Vegan Coconut Rice Pudding

Ingredients

  • 1 cup rice
  • 2 cups water
  • salt
  • 2 cups coconut milk
  • cinnamon
  • agave nectar
  • vanilla extract
  • optional: coconut extract, almond extract, orange essence, lemon or lime rind, nuts, dried fruit, other spices like ginger or nutmeg.

Method

  1. In a medium sized sauce pan, bring the water to boil. Add the rice and a dash of salt and simmer on low until the rice is starting to get tender – about 10 minutes or so.
  2. Add in the coconut milk. Stir frequently until the rice gets soft.
  3. Add in the cinnamon and any other spices you are using, along with agave nectar. I started with just a bit of agave and then kept adding until I got the sweetness I wanted. Continue to cook on low and stir for about 5 more minutes until you get the consistency you want.
  4. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract, and / or any other extract you are using, along with the dried fruits or nuts if using.
  5. Enjoy hot or cold!

Adapted  from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

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Loaded Mashed Sweet Potatoes

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Sweet potato, an indigenous tuber found in Nat...

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Tami over at Vegan Appetite hosts “Food Network Friday” – a call to cooks everywhere to “veganize” the chosen Food Network recipe. I was excited that I got to pick this week’s recipe: Loaded Mashed Potatoes by Paula Deen. Paul Deen, as you probably know, is the Queen of Cream…and Bacon and Cheese. So modifying her recipe for Loaded Mashed Potatoes, which was loaded with cream, bacon, and cheese, was lots of fun.

Paula Deen’s recipe uses Idaho potatoes. I decided to go a different route and use sweet potatoes as my base. My mom used to make that sweet potato casserole – you know the one with the mini marshmallows – and I had that in mind as I put this together.

loaded sweet potatoes(I learned it’s not easy to photograph mashed potatoes and have them look as good as they really are!)

Loaded Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients
Serves 6

  • 4 medium sized sweet potatoes, cut into quarters
  • 1/2 C So Delicious Coconut Beverage (OR you can use soy milk)
  • 1/4 C Earth Balance natural buttery spread
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1 t freshly ground nutmeg
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1.25 t salt
  • 6 T packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 C unsweetened coconut
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

  1. In a large stockpot, cook potatoes in enough  water to cover for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender.
  2. Drain potatoes and return to stockpot. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth; adding all other ingredients except the pecans. With a spatula stir in the pecans if you are using them. Add more salt or other spices, if necessary. Serve immediately.

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Tomato Salad + Brown Rice Crispy Treats

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I love long weekends!!

Run

I had a lovely evening run tonight to my friend Kat’s house and back. It was great to be able to drop in for a few minutes and get a drink of water!

Distance: 7.42 miles
Time: 1 hour, 3 minutes
Pace: 8.49 minute mile

Eats

I made my 9-A-Day today! WOO HOO! Here’s the breakdown:

  • 1 banana in my morning smoothie
  • 1 serving spinach in said smoothie
  • 1 serving of veggies in my tofu scramble at lunch
  • 1 serving of cooked zucchini at lunch
  • 3 servings of tomato salad for dinner
  • 1 apple at dinner
  • 1 serving of Banana Soft Serve for dessert

That’s 9, baby! :)

The tomato salad idea was given to me by Kat. It’s super easy and super yummy.

Tomato Salad

  • 3 pints cherry tomatoes – I used an assortment of yellow and red that I got at the farmer’s market
  • 1/2 cup chopped basil
  • 4 cloves fresh garlic, diced
  • salt
  • pepper

Cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters. Toss with the basil and garlic – add salt and pepper to taste.
Put the salad into a colander over a bowl to catch the liquid.
Kat also recommended using the liquid to make salad dressing – how cool is that?!

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For dessert (a second dessert!) I had a homemade Peanut Butter Crispie Treat!

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Peanut Butter Crispy Treat

Prepare an 8X8 glass cake pan by spraying it lightly with canola oil.
Melt the marshmallows, Earth Balance, and brown rice syrup in small saucepan.
Add in the peanut butter and blend all together until smooth.
Combine the peanut butter mixture and the cereal in a bowl. Combine well – you may get to have to use your hands.  :)
Press the cereal into the prepared pan, and place in the refrigerator until set.
YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!!

Have a super awesome Labor Day and eat your fruits and veggies!!

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Home Yoga Practice + Raw Banana Ice Cream

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Julia14Starting a new routine is hard! Since I’ve gotten back from Foundations of Yoga Therapy Training with Gary Kraftsow, I’m determined to (finally) make my home yoga practice a regular part of my day.

This has not been easy.

It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom wanted me to wash my face every night. I used to tell her I had done it when I really hadn’t. She always knew I was lying – I found out later that she would feel the faucet to see if it was warm and when it wasn’t she knew I hadn’t washed my face.

Today I can’t imaging NOT washing my face before I go to sleep!

And so it is with my home practice. Every morning I am getting up at 6am and dragging my butt to my yoga mat where I practice asana in the Viniyoga tradition for 30 minutes or so. I love the practice, I always feel good afterwards, and I know it’s helping me to become a Yoga Therapist. So WHY then is it so hard to do??? I’ve been averaging 5 practices per week which I guess is pretty good. I just thought it would be easier, something that I couldn’t imagine NOT doing. They say it takes 21 times before something becomes a habit. It hasn’t happened for me yet!

Eats

I was flipping through a raw “cook” book a few days ago and was reminded of an amazingly simple and delicious treat – Banana “Ice Cream!”

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Here’s what you do:

  1. Cut up two bananas into 1 inch chunks and toss into a plastic bag. Store the bananas in your freezer for at least three hours
  2. Put the frozen bananas into your food processor and whirl away for about 4-5 minutes.
  3. TA DA! Now you have a creamy, low cal, low fat, raw, vegan, delicious treat for two! I added a few blueberries and a drizzle of Bees n Blossoms honey. You could also mix together agave + cocoa powder for a chocolatey topping, or my favorite -  pb2!

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Weekend Wrap Up

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Last night I went to the Flow Yoga teacher party. It was so much fun to hang with the other teachers, something we rarely get to do!

Eats

For the party last night I made a Chocolate Coconut Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting from The Voluptuous Vegan. The cake was divine! It was moist voluptuous-veganand full of coconutty / chocolatey flavor. If you don’t have that book you should go out and get it right now just for that recipe alone.

I also made Veggie Girl’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Blondies. They were pretty good – not quite what I had expected. I liked the flavor but the texture of the pretzels in the finished product felt lumpy. The pretzels were, however, fabulous in the raw batter!  I think I’ll make the blondies again but with differnt add-ins – there are lots of blondie variations on Veggie Girl’s website.

As if I didn’t eat enought last night, today we went to The Vegetable Garden in Rockville. One of my favorite area restaurants – I especially love their Hen of the Woods dish made with maitake mushrooms and asparagus. I don’t know how exactly they season the maitake mushrooms but they are so good that I actually have cravings for them. We tried a wonderful new dish (well, new to us) called “Squash Boat” which was shiitake mushrooms, yellow squash, zucchini, lily bulb, red pepper, soy protein, pine nuts, cashews,  dried cranberries in a spicy hot brown sauce. Yum.

Speaking of yellow squash, a beautiful student gave me a bagful from her garden! Any suggested great yellow squash recipes would be most appreciated!

Run

As you can imagine I ate a lot of sweets during my bake-athon yesterday. So I added extra time to my run today:

Distance: 7.25 miles
Average speed: 8.20 mpg
Vertical distance: 243 feet

I also walked the girls twice – about two miles each walk. I’m pooped!

Have a good night :) I’m getting my hair done tomorrow – hooray! Maybe I’ll just chop it all off…???!!!

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Peanut…Peanut Butter…AND JELLY!

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OMG I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about the Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie that I made a few weeks ago!

Where is my head?!

I recently discovered a lovely blog by Celine, who posts delicious recipes – mostly baked goods -  my favorite! Every time I look at her recipes I want to make all of them. I think Celine is my Baked Goods Hero!

The other day Celine created a Peanut Butter and Jelly pie recipe that is sheer genius. I knew as soon as I saw the recipe that I would HAVE to make it.

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I used grape jelly – you can just see it peeking out of the peanut butter top crust :)

When I told D. that I was going to make this he informed me that he doesn’t like peanut butter and jelly.

HUH?! Is that even legal?

DSC_0176 revDSC_0175 revHe liked the PB&J pie though!

This is probably the best pie I have ever made. Really. I could not stop eating it.  The recipe is perfect.

But as much as I LOVED this pie, I WILL NOT make it again unless I have somewhere to take it! It is downright DANGEROUS to keep this pie in your home. Consider yourself warned.

Baked Vegan Donuts

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I’m so happy it’s the weekend! I found myself running around quite a bit these last few days and it’s so nice to finally have a day that’s completely free!

Today I woke up at 6am and took the pups for a walk. Then I made my usual smoothie:

  • vanilla Spirutein protein powder
  • spinach
  • lite vanilla soy milk
  • a little peanut butter
  • banana

Then I was off to teach yoga. Boy was it HOT in the studio! Everyone was drenched at the end of class.

When I got home I had a DONUT!

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Yes I made donuts again. If you remember I tried making them last weekend and while they tasted pretty good, they were flat! This time the donuts turned out so much better, yes? :) I used a different recipe that I found at Vegan Verve. Vegan Verve has a few donut recipes posted and I tried the “revised version.” It was a tad tricky to follow but here’s what I managed to come up with:

Vegan Verve’s Vegan Baked Donuts

Makes 20-24 doughnuts, depending on size.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups soymilk – plain or vanilla
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup canola
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar
  • 2 + 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 1/4 cup applesauce
  • 1 + 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 Tbsp salt
  • 4 + 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Directions

  1. Bring the soymilk, sugar, canola oil and agave nectar to a boil. As soon as it boils, remove from the heat and cool until it is about 110°F (this can take about an hour). Once it’s at 110 degrees, add the yeast and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
  2. Next add 4 cups of the flour and mix until fully incorporated. Let the dough rise to about double the size (about an hour).
  3. Once the dough has risen, add the remaining ¾ cup flour, applesauce, vanilla, and salt. Mix completely and let rest for at least 10 minutes. The dough will be  sticky.
  4. To make doughnuts sprinkle some flour on your hands and on the surface of the dough. Take a small amount of dough and work it into about a 6 inch rope. The width of the dough “rope” depends on how large you wish the doughnuts to be. Remember that the dough will expand to at least double the size it is at this point. When you have determined the size of doughnuts you want, attach the two ends of the “rope” and adjust the hole of the doughnut to the size you want. Place doughnuts on a greased cookie sheet.
  5. At this point you could let the doughnuts rise for about 30 more minutes then place them in a 350°F oven and bake for about 10 minutes. Watch them carefully and try to remove them before they start to brown OR…
  6. Lay towels or aluminum foil over the cookie sheets and store in your fridge overnight. The next day, let the trays sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the doughnuts can rise some more. Adjust the holes before you place in the 350°F oven and bake for 10 minutes.

I made some doughnuts right away (step #5) and some I made the next day (#6). I thought the next day doughnuts were lighter and better but D. liked the first batch better.

I made three different icings:

Vanilla Glaze

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • 1 tspn vanilla

Chocolate Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 1/2 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • ½ tspn vanilla

Peanut Butter Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup chocolate pb2
  • 2 ½ Tbsp vanilla soymilk

I applied the icing while the doughnuts were piping hot out of the oven. For some I applied the icing with a pastry brush and others I dunked the doughnut right in. Then I moved the doughnuts to a baking rack to cool.

The doughnuts are super yummy – just make sure you have enough people around to eat them! My batch made 20 large donuts!

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Back on Track

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After my weekend in Florida and my donut extravaganza yesterday morning I’m feeling like I’m back “on track.”

Breakfast: Green smoothie (3.5 points for those of you who count :)

  • unsweetened almond milk
  • vanilla Spirutein protein powder
  • banana
  • spinach
  • cinnamon, vanilla, almond extract

Lunch: Fruit salad

  • blackberries
  • blueberries
  • raspberries
  • strawberries
  • mango
  • kiwi
  • shredded coconut
  • sliced almonds

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+ Trader Joe’s fat free vanilla frozen yogurt drizzled with honey for dessert.

Dinner: Salad + 2 homemade biscuits + another small bowl of froyo

Salad

  • mixed greens
  • cherry tomatoes
  • cucumbers
  • carrots
  • red pepper
  • Newman’s Own Lowfat Sesame Ginger dressing
  • hemp seeds

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The hemp seeds kept getting stuck in my teeth – I don’t recommend adding them to salads! I keep trying to find a good use for them…any ideas on how to use hemp seeds?

Exercise:

  • Yoga: 20 minutes
  • Walked: 2 miles with the dogs (40 minutes)
  • Ran: 6 miles in 50 minutes
  • Walked: 2 miles with the doggies (35 minutes – hubby wasn’t with me!)

Sorry for the blurry pictures – I’m working on it! I did manage to snap this beauty:

DSC_0158awwww….isn’t she awesome??

My Stevia Nightmare and the Vegan Donut Comeback

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I decided over the weekend that I was going to go a week without sugar. I was off to a good start yesterday:

Breakfast: Smoothie with almond milk, vanilla Spirutein protein powder, banana, spinach

Lunch: Smoothie with almond milk, vanilla Spirutein protein powder, banana, spinach, peanut butter  + CARROT CAKE???!!!

Ok so that ended my week sans sugar. Oh well.  :)

But even though my Sugar Free Week lasted only four hours, I was nevertheless inspired to try baking with stevia last night. Stevia is an herbal sweetener that has zero calories. Sounds great, huh? I already use stevia in my hot coffee and tea and I really like it, so why not try baking with it?

I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Bars – the description under the recipe was “Sure to please.” The recipe included stevia, oats, whole wheat flour, lots of peanut butter, and an icing that included cocoa powder, more peanut butter, and of course stevia. Sounds great to me!

OK – they totally sucked. The stevia left a horrible aftertaste that I couldn’t get rid of, no matter how many peanut butter M&Ms I ate last night! (Yes at this point I was back in full sugar swing). So I’m not even going to bother posting the recipe or a picture – they don’t even look good. But I’m still curious about stevia – do you have a good recipe that uses stevia?

Somewhat miffed about the stevia but not defeated, I moved on to…DONUTS!

I found a donut recipe on line at Vegan Yum Yum that looked pretty good. The pictures look amazing! I made a few modifications to the recipe:

Vegan Baked Donuts
Make 8 Donuts

Dry Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 Cup Sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp Cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:

  • 1/2 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk
  • 1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
  • Egg Replacer for 1 Egg
  • 4 Tbs Earth Balance
  • Sugar

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350º F and lightly oil a baking sheet.
  2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients (not the sugar) in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should feel just slightly warm.
  3. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined to form a very soft, wet dough.
  4. Drop by 1/4 cup onto your baking sheet. Create a hole in the middle of each donut using your finger and an oiled butter knife.
  5. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake for 16 minutes. Mine looked like this before I put them in the oven:

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They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Cool completely on rack before decorating.

Here’s what they looked like when they were done:

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It looks like there’s a little Rosie on my thumb! LOL!

IMG_0735I mixed up a little pb2 + powdered sugar + almond milk and created a makeshift frosting for this last one. YUM! But I have to say I liked them plain too. I KNOW they don’t look great but they taste really good. I think I might have to get a donut pan if I am going to make more donuts! I also need to get better at photographing my products…any photography tips???

It's Raw Vegan Dessert Day!

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Today I had the awesome (rawsome) experience of going to a raw foods restaurant in Tampa called The Leafy Greens. (Oh, did I mention? I’m in Florida!)

I ordered “The Real Deal” which is a sandwich of raw cashew hummus, letttuce, grape tomatoes, and guac served on raw onion bread. Fabulous! Doug ordered the Zucchini Spaghetti – also very good with sun-dried tomatoes and a fresh tomato sauce. Doug’s mom got the “Not Tuna” sandwich, which I didn’t think really tasted like tuna but was good nonetheless, and Doug’s brother got the Mediterranean Pizza – hemp seed and walnut crust with cashew hummus, fennel, olives, cucumber, and tomatoes YUM. A really cool thing about this place was that you could get half orders of everything. So if you really wanted the Zucchini Spaghetti but The Real Deal was calling you too, you could half orders of each. It was totally rawsome (!) to find a raw foods restaurant here since I’ve only seen them in LA and NYC.

Of course we had to get dessert! I got the Carrot Cake

SNC00018Isn’t it gorgeous? There’s no flour in it (it’s raw!) so it was very dense. Just carrot pulp (ah ha!  something to do with leftover carrot pulp after juicing!), walnuts, dates, apricots, and raisins. It was not very sweet at all -  actually I think I would have liked a teeny bit more sweetness.

Doug’s mom got the Mango Cobbler, which I think was the best of all of them.

SNC00022It was like a fresh mango pudding with crunchy pieces of walnut and dates. Sweet and light. Heaven!

And Doug’s dad got the Apricot Pie

SNC00025It was so good that I couldn’t get a picture taken before it was practically gone! This was my second favorite after the mango pudding.

Doug and his brother both got the chocolate peanut butter raw Soft Serve ice cream made with a banana base. It was so delicious it inspired us to make our own raw vegan ice cream!

So for our dessert tonight we had:

Raw (sort of) Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup peanut butter (ours wasn’t raw but you could use raw peanut butter or other raw nut butter)
  • 2 cans of coconut milk
  • 1 cup agave nectar
  • 1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Line a small cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Take 1/2 teaspoons of peanut butter and roll into little balls (ok, more like globs). Place the globs on the cookie sheet and put in the freezer.
  3. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and mix until well combined.
  4. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and process for about 30 minutes.
  5. When there is about 5 minutes left to go, add in the frozen globs of peanut butter.
  6. You could eat the ice cream right out of the ice cream maker but it will be soft like soft serve. We scooped ours into individual serving cups and put the cups in the freezer while we prepared and ate dinner. When we got the ice cream out for dessert, it was still pretty soft but it was awesome anyway. I’m sure if you leave it in the freezer longer it will become more like traditional ice cream.

The ice cream was delicious. I think I would maybe put in more peanut butter next time but really it was pretty fabulous as it was.

SOOOOOOOO….now we want to make another batch tomorrow night! Hey we’re on vacation! Some ideas we’ve talked about:

  • Changing the base of the ice cream to soy milk + creamer, cashews, almond milk, or hemp milk
  • Adding in avocado to increase the creaminess
  • Flavor ideas: mint, cinnamon, chai, peanut butter, vanilla
  • Sorbet? Gelato?

Any ideas out there on a fabulous vegan ice cream we can make tomorrow?