These brownies are raw, vegan and pretty good for you! Since they’re packed with nuts (heh) they’re about 170 calories each, not including whatever fruit you top them with (though at their size, it’s not like you can top it with much). More importantly though, are these notable vitamin counts (these percentages are for each brownie bite); 19% vitamin B6, 21% vitamin E, 99% copper, 39% magnesium, 77% manganese, 29% phosphorus, 21% zinc and decent levels of calcium, iron, niacin, pant acid, potassium, riboflavin, and thiamin.

Ok, so why does any of this matter? Without getting into the other vitamins and minerals I mentioned, these brownies can be considered health food for the manganese and copper alone!

Manganese is one of those trace minerals found in all life forms, in humans it’s found mostly in our bones, kidneys, liver and pancreas. So what does it even do? It’s defo another of the random minerals that most of us don’t know much about, but when I started reading about it I was pretty impressed. It plays a role in bone formation, thyroid function, formation of connective tissues, sex hormone function, calcium absorption, blood sugar regulation, immune function and in fat and carbohydrate metabolism. Um, manganese had me at sex hormone function and carb metabolism! Eat it up!

I knew that copper was a big part of energy production and I knew that it’s important for nerve health, but I didn’t know until I wrote this that just like manganese it helps connective tissues, and that it helps your body use iron! Above all that, it’s essential for your skin and bones and your blood vessels and joints.

B6 has a rep for being the maker of antibodies, leveler of nerve function and blood sugar, and of course, our hemoglobin champ. Vitamin E, of course, is an antioxidant. Magnesium’s jobs are a little lesser known, essentially it’s responsible for the contraction and relaxation of muscles, and the production of protien (among other things). Phosphorus, as you probably already know, is mainly used by your body for your bones and teeth. And zinc helps your immune system fight off invading bacteria and viruses. Ewww. Let’s all bulk up on zinc.

The recipe and actual step by step are so simple it’s hardly a recipe at all, but that’s partly what makes them so great. If you have everything on hand, you can be eating these in under 15 minutes.

Raw Brownie Bites – via Dr. Axe

2 cups walnuts, chopped
2 1/2 cups Medjool dates, chopped
1 cup raw cocoa (or carob)
1 cup chopped almonds
1/4 tsp sea salt

First, chop the dates and walnuts! Mmmmm.
Then process them together. You can even use your Magic Bullet or small blender if you don’t have a food processor, just be careful to add the dates one at a time so you don’t gum it up! Then add the cocoa or carob and sea salt. Now just press it into a mini cupcake tray! By the time you wash and cut your fruit, the little cakes will be ready to pop out and eat!

These cookies don’t mess around. They’re a pretty quick fix when you’re craving a cookie, but they’re impossibly soft and chewy too so you actually put an end to that craving! It helps ease my conscious that they’re vegan of course but also that instead of just being dairy free, they’ve got a dose of the good stuff. You know? It not like there is a zucchini hidden in these babies but there is nutrition in there, so instead of cookies that are not bad for you, these actually qualify as good for you. Hooray!

Again, I will NOT post the recipe because I want to encourage you to buy the book – right here!

So I’m a big fan of the Happy Herbivore blog. Ever since one of my besties introduced me to it about a year or so ago, I’ve been checking in almost daily for inspiration, ideas and of course recipes. I also follow on Twitter and Facebook because I’m a sucker for that stuff. About two weeks ago, I saw a tweet from @happyherbivore with a recipe for instant vegan cookie dough.

TGIF! Enjoy HH Instant Cookie Dough: 1 cup rolled oats, 2 T peanut butter, 2-3 T maple syrup, 2 T cocoa, mix together. Eat with a spoon!

It was a life-changing event. No really it was. I’ve literally eaten it every day since I first saw it. I use Joseph’s Sugar Free Maple Flavor Syrup in place of the maple syrup and low fat peanut butter.

I do love that it’s healthy, especially great for anyone who doesn’t eat oatmeal everyday, but I’m even more happy about how quickly it comes together. I find it mixes best by adding one thing at a time and mixing with the back of a spoon.

With over 12,000 followers on Twitter and 21,000 fans on Facebook, when you search Google for hh instant cookie dough you get about a zillion results of other people that have blogged about it – it’s that good.

Today, I’m linking up with Tasty Tuesday at 33 Shades of Green, Flock Together Tuesday at Mom’s Best Nest and Inspiration Linky #12 at Teagan’s Travels.

Hooray for making local friends turned local babysitters! Last night my husband and I went on our first official LA date and man it was fun. I mean, anytime we get to be alone together is fun, but especially nice when it involves a lovely restaurant, a glass of good wine and a late night walk (ending the night with pomegranate Pinkberry was a nice touch too).

This recipe had been in my to-make queue for almost a year before I finally made it last week. It was one of the first recipes I used to break in my new kitchen and being surrounded by alarmingly beautiful people (and also a pretty surprising amount of like, morbidly obese people, what’s up with that, LA?!) this recipe felt like a god jumping off point for a pumped up healthy kick.

The original recipe is not vegan – it includes an egg and cheese in the crust and also mozzarella cheese on top, which I subbed for a handful of oats in the cust and vegan cheese on top. Deeelish and healthier too!

Cauliflower Crust (Vegan) Pizza adapted from Eat. Drink. Smile.

1 cup cooked, pureed cauliflower
1 cup shredded vegan cheese
1/2 cup whole oats, ground
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp garlic salt

pizza sauce, shredded vegan cheese & whatever toppings you like

First steam and strain your cauliflower, then run it through your food processor to a smooth puree.
You’ll need about a cup. Pureed cauliflower is great to have on hand for adding vitamins to almost anything. Stir some into mashed potatoes, add a few tablespoons to scrambled eggs – whatever!
Chop up some garlic and add it to a bowl with the cauliflower puree and shredded vegan cheese.
This is where an egg is added in the original recipe, in my version I added 1/2 cup of ground whole oats to help it stick together.
Mix it up a bit more and roll it out (or pat it out if it’s too sticky) onto a baking sheet. I divided it in two pieces for two crusts. Bake at 450 for about 20 minutes.
Top it with pizza sauce, vegan cheese and whatever other toppings you like! Bake again for 5 minutes and voila!

I know I’m not going to get any sympathy for this but man it’s hard to stay on a productive routine down here. The weather is so lovely and if it isn’t the beach calling my name it’s the pool – or it’s the kids wanting to check out one of the eleventy billion neat things there are to check out here. We also do at least four hours of homeschooling every weekday morning so that takes a serious bite out of the day as well. We have managed to force a routine on ourselves this week though. After my husband leaves for work (at what feels like the crack of dawn), I down water and a pot of coffee, wake the kids, feed them and do school until about noon. If we have an adventure planned, away we go. If we don’t, we’re off to the pool. Then we’re back in time for me to do some cleaning, make dinner, usually with the assistance of my lovely 6 year old sous chef and it’s ready when my husband gets home from work. Tidy, baths, stories, get the two little kids off to bed and theeeeeen I have time to crack open my laptop get a blog post out and then chat with my honey while I knit or bake or whatever. Phew. It’s a full life, but it’s hella good. <3

There is a Whole Foods and a Trader Joes in the same plaza just a few minutes from us! Imagine my glee – go ahead, imagine it! Considering that less than a month ago we were living in the woods and the closest Whole Foods to me was at least two hours away and that we are sorely deprived of Trader Joes in Canada, this is big, big news. I like to go at night after my husband gets home so I can actually hunt down the vegan cream cheese without three kids begging for organic gummy bears (the new fave treat around here). I have been cooking and baking my way through Peas and Thank You still and OMG what a great cookbook! Lots of updates on that next week!

I’m still adding recipes to the site without blog posts so I have a nice record of everything I’ve made! Here is what I’ve added lately!

	I have a pretty serious problem with these candied pecans. I mean, I don’t want to admit this but in the interest of full disclosure, I ate all of them. Not in one sitting mind you, but I ate every single pecan. They really are that good. Of course they are though, right? It’s not like I’m going to post a loser recipe on my blog. One other side note about these little babies is they’re vegan! Hooray! (read).
	They really are so so good. White chocolate and macadamia nuts are a perfect pairing! We included this in last year’s cookie tin and everyone loved them. (read).
	Polymer clay is so fun to make little trinkets and buttons and pendants with. It’s essentially play-doh you bake to set it and keep it forever. Since it sets up really hard you can make buttons and actually use them in garments! Or you can make little beads and string them on thin elastic for bracelets or necklaces. Kids especially love making them and grow ups with a soft spot for that specific child will love receiving (and wearing) them. So cute. (read).
	Just cut the apple into thin slices, carve out the core of each slice (if you have an apple corer, just pop the whole thing out first) and fill the middle with peanut butter, cranberries and chocolate chips. Then sprinkle with cinnamon. You can fill it with whatever you want. The point is to keep it healthy and keep it small (read).
	These cookies are so painfully simple, they’re easy and fun to make with kids and you can roll them in any kind of baking candies to match whatever occasion you like. (read).
	I knitted this blanket for our cousin Jenn and her new husband Adam. They’re mega, super rad. It was a pretty easy knit once I got going on it, the bulk of it was a bit much in warmer months, but totally worth it. (read).
	I made these when I wanted to serve up something cute and simple, but that was a little more ‘adult’ than typical apps I make for the kids after school. (read).
	This snack is especially handy when people show up unexpected for movie night, or when you’re poking around the kitchen in the middle of the night when you should be in bed. (read).

I had been trying my hand at vegan baking for a few month when we made a friend with a pretty severe milk allergy. 2/5 of us are lactose intolerant so we are no really that big on milk anyway, but I have always left dairy in the recipes I use and it never seems to bother us the way a bowl of ice cream might. But even a cup of milk in a batch of muffins was too much for our new friend and I had made fudge for the kids that he had to miss out on.

Thankfully, I found this kick ass recipe on Averie Cooks and it was super simple to make and even more importantly, it’s delicious and free of chemicals and rando garbage store bought fudge is full of!

Vegan Fudge via Averie Cooks

1 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons dairy free margarine
1/2 cup coconut milk not light
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the margarine and coconut milk over medium heat until blended. Remove from heat.
In a medium bowl, combine chocolate chips, sugar, and cocoa, then pour the hot melted butter and coconut milk over top.
Mix! Mix! Mix!
Pour into a brownie pan and pop in the fridge for about an hour or two to set up.

Don’t forget about our giveaway with Keeley Behling Studios! Like the Keeley Behling Studios Facebook page and leave a comment there about something in her Etsy shop to enter. It wouldn’t hurt if you liked the So Very Domestic Facebook page too.

This is the 8th recipe from Peas and Thank You and again, so far so good. This recipe, like seven others before it, came together easily! The directions are simple, the ingredients rad (as usual) and the taste was great. There are short stories about life in the Pea household before each recipe and this one totally resembled my feelings on french toast before this recipe. Maybe yours too? You know how there is almost always a piece of cooked egg hanging off the side of your french toast? Ugh. Not possible in this vegan version! Ha!

I ate my piece, 2/3 of the children ate theirs and my husband passed, but to be fair, he very rarely east breakfast and always passes on french toast. Maybe this will make him a convert the next time I do ‘breakfast for dinner’.

I will remind you again, no recipe for you this time around but I will be making a few recipeas (har har) that are available for free so I’ll post those here! I honestly think this is a cookbook worth buying.

If you use anything at all, let it be actual maple syrup!

Another vegan win! Sweet enough to quiet the sweet tooth, not so sweet that it’s overwhelming (and it wont make you crave sweets for days after like other indulgences). They are very good.

I made these for my Dad when he came up for a visit to the woods and not only did he say he loved them (Dads just do that to make us feel good, yes?), I totally caught him eating them in the wee hours of the night! <3

They come together pretty quickly and as all my favorite vegan recipes they make my food processor feel reeeeeeeally useful. The original recipe calls for raw oat groats flour which requires you to soak oat groats overnight, drain and rinse the next day, sprout if you wish, dehydrate and process in a high speed blender to a fine powder oooor you can use grind up raw oats in your food processor until they’re powdery. So far, every time I come across raw oat groats in a recipe I just use raw oats, but next time it comes up, I’m totally going to try the actual oat groats.

As far as I have read, a lot of the health benefits of raw oat groats are the same as regular oats, since you know, they’re practically the same thing. I said practically, so there is a difference. An oat groat is the whole unbroken grain of the oat without the hull. Since it’s raw and still in one piece, you can sprout it! Rolled oats have been rolled flat and dried. Most of the time rolled oats are steamed to do this, and so they’re not raw but some health food stores have actual raw rolled oats. With that distinction in mind, both kinds of oats are an amazing source of fiber (including soluble fiber – a great help in regulating blood glucose levels). They also have a serious punch of B vitamins, potassium, iron, phosphorous, selenium, zinc, manganese and magnesium. Phew. I just read today that regularly drinking raw oat milk ‘can reduce bowel fungus and promote the growth of healthy intestinal fauna.’ OMG ewww. Does that mean that most of us have bowel fungus?! Ugh, sometimes a little knowledge is a painful thing. You know I’m going to try to make raw oat milk now.

Anyhoo, so what do all these vitamins do for us anyway? Well, together they support the rate of metabolism, maintain healthy skin, hair and muscle tone, enhance immune and nervous system function, promote cell growth and division, and reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer. They can help against stroke, blood pressure problems, anxiety and stress, muscular strength, metabolism, heart and kidney disorders and the nervous system! Not to mention boosting your energy levels, improving your body’s immunity, and helping you sleep.

Raw Vegan Cinnamon Donut Holes – via Mama in the Kitchen
*The original recipe made the donut holes and then rolled them in a mixture of cinnamon and dried whole cane sugar, I added the cinnamon and cane sugar right to the donut holes themselves.

1/2 cup raw coconut flour (just grind raw dried shredded coconut in your food processor)
1 cup raw oat groats flour (or like I did, use 1 cup of ground up raw oats)
1 cup raw sprouted soft wheat flour (I didn’t sprout mine)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
5 tablespoons raw honey
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons dried whole cane sugar

So first mix together the coconut flour, oats and soft wheat flour. Then add the salt, vanilla, coconut oil and honey.
Once that’s all combined, add the cinnamon and cane sugar.
Now you shape them into donut holes however you can! You could scoop them out with a spoon and roll them or you could use a small ice cream scoop or melon baller or whatever you have on hand. Whatever shape you make them, they’re delicious and actually good for you!

Yes, yes. I know. Another raw vegan recipe. Yes people, it is another raw vegan recipe and it is amazing! Getting into raw vegan cooking doesn’t mean I’m only going to ever eat raw or even that I’m only ever going to eat vegan, but I’m looking at it the same way a lot of people look at quitting smoking. Every cigarette a person doesn’t smoke is better for them, right? So I really think that every vegan or raw vegan meal I eat is better for me. Plus with raw vegan desserts like this, it’s pretty hard to go wrong!

This was yet another vegan treat that was happily devoured by a room of non vegans.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Cake via Mama in the Kitchen
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup raw cocoa or carob powder
1 1/2 cups dates, pitted
2 cups soaked oat groats (or oatmeal grinded into oat flour)
6 tablespoons raw local honey

First, process your sea salt, raw cocoa or carob and dates. It’s sticky! Then add in the honey!
After that was mixed as well as I could get it, I mixed in the oat flour (or soaked oat groats). Now grease whatever tins or pans you’re using with coconut oil and press the batter into them. They don’t take very long to set, then you just pop them out and add whatever vegan frosting you like! I used the Deceptively Delicious chocolate pudding recipe I first tried last year. To make it vegan, I used non-dairy margarine instead of Becel.
This recipe is pretty dense, I could only eat one layer of this little cake at a time!

Today, I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie and Life as a Lofthouse for Menu Monday and with KD Buggie Boutique, Mom Blog Monday and Tough Cookie Mommy for Mingle Monday.

One of the best intros to a vegan diet, or even just helping people to be less put off by vegan food in general, is with vegan desserts. Strawberries are always amazing, whether you think bacon is a good idea or not. Amirite?!

I made this for dessert one day and my husband wasn’t really interested in it. He’s a trooper though so he tried and it he was sold! He ate one individual pie and asked for a second one. Then he insisted Wee One #1 try one, and as reluctant as he he, he tried it too and also loved it! Hooray for strawberries!!

As with the grapefruit pancakes post, I’ll go on a little about why this recipe is a healthy choice.

In order of appearance, let’s start with coconut oil! Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and we all know that saturated fats are bad for us, so what’s up? MSN Health does a decent job of covering both sides of the debate, while The Huffington Post explains that not all saturated fats are equal and Care 2 Make a Difference lists six healthy uses. The truth is that the jury’s out on this one. That may not have been helpful, except to confuse you further. Sorry (and welcome to the club).

Honey is a an anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal substance. Um, so I take that to mean we should all be rolling in it?! There are also studies that claim honey can promote better blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity! Plus as many of us with hippie parents know, it works pretty well as a natural cough suppressant! Though that last point is moot with honey as an ingredient. Moving on!

Almonds are one of those foods we’ve been reading about as a ‘superfood’ for so long we’ve accepted it but what’s so super about almonds? They’re high in mono-unsaturated fat and that has been linked to lowering LDL cholesterol and a reduction in the risk of heart disease. The heart disease reducing ability comes from the vitamin E in almonds and of course almonds are also a great source of magnesium (amazing for your veins and arteries) and potassium (important for nerve transmission and contraction of all muscles including your heart).

Orange juice, yes, is full of vitamin C. The phytonutrients in oranges are helpful in lowering both blood pressure and cholesterol!

Cashews, another seriously healthy nut, have the same mono-unsaturated fat that lowers cholesterol and heart disease risks as almonds have. They are also linked to a reduction in coronary heart disease and of course, the elimination of those little bastards we call free radicals.

Strawberries are the star of this show, both in taste, presentation and health benefits. Not only are they amazing for all the reasons we already know they are amazing, like their off the charts antioxidant scores, their combination of phytonutrients, cardiovascular support, prevention of cardiovascular diseases, improved regulation of blood sugar, decreased risk of type 2 diabetes and prevention of of certain types of cancers (like breast, cervical, colon and esophagel) – they are a very good source of fiber (duh) and iodine (really?!) which can help protect us from radiation exposure of iodine-131.

So eat up!!

We are moving long distance in just a couple of weeks. I don’t want to jinx it so I’m not going to talk about it until we are on our way, but it means we are eating from our pantry, and while well stocked, it’s going to be funny next week trying to use up what we have!

This week’s menu (March 12 – 18)
I mentioned last week, I make two separate dinners most nights because I’ve made some dietary changes and I’m not pushing it on my family. They tend to join in with a healthy May-style breakfast and lunch and I make their faves for dinner.

Sunday – Chicken Alfredo for the fam, Chick Pea Salad and Flatbread for me

Blend all of the crust ingredients together in your food processor until it’s mushy. Grease whatever molds you’re using with coconut oil and then press the crust into the molds. Put these in the freezer for a while. You can leave them in for as little as it takes you to prep the rest of the recipe and hope for the best or do this part earlier in the day and make the rest later. I did mine all at once.
Drain all the water from your soaking cashews and pulse them till you have cashew butter!
Mix your cashew butter with the orange juice and the honey till it’s smooth.
Wash and chop your strawberries.
Now the magic. Assembly time! Pop out the frozen crusts and layer them crust, strawberries, orange cream, strawberries.
Honestly so good and refreshing!