Vegan Mushroom-Nut Burger with Raw Zucchini Mac-N-Cheese

After working crazy hours the last couple of weeks I have been going to all my go-to recipes to make quick good meals. I have been flipping through our new raw books and I got my eye on these recipes and I have been wanting  to try them out.

The zucchini mac-n-cheese comes from  Mimi Kirk's recipe in her Live Raw recipe book. This is a very simple recipe,  I used the nacho cheese recipe only because I didn't have enough oil make the other cheese sauce that she had in her mac-n-cheese recipe. The original recipe is on page 175 but the cheese sauce recipe I used is on page 167. I cut the recipe in half cause most of the recipes are a lot of food for 2 people. This is what I used to make the cheese sauce. 

The Cheese Sauce 

1 cup cashews soaked for at least 4 hours

1 small bell pepper ( she called for a red all I had was green)

1 1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp turmeric 

1/2 tsp paprika

1 clove garlic 

A pinch of salt 

1/2 to 3/4 cup of water

Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend till smooth adjusting the water to make it more pourable. 

The zucchini is real simple wash and cut in half then run a spoon or melon baller down the middle. Flip over and cut in half inch slices this while be the pasta side of it. Mix the cheese sauce and zucchini together. 

Now I don't have a dehydrator yet so I use the stove top to warm the cheese and zucchini slightly never letting it get to warm. Wow I can't believe good this is and so is simple to make yet has so much flavor.

Now the mushroom-nut burger came from the book Practically Raw, by Amber Shea Crawley. I really like this book because most of recipes have cooked options. This recipe can be found on page 144 and 145 of this book, I cut this recipe in half also. This recipe is calls for Seasoned Mushrooms from page 174. 

Seasoned Mushrooms

1 cup sliced mushrooms 

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp olive oil 

Mix the olive oil and soy sauce together then pour over the mushrooms and let sit for an hour. This is what I used to make the burgers.

The Mushroom-Nut Burger

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 small onion

1 small clove of garlic

1 rib of celery

1 small carrot

1/2 cup seasoned mushrooms

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp ground sage

1/2 tsp sea salt 

1/2 of a 1/4 cup flaxmeal 

This was the same order as in the book with my measruements. Put in the first 3 ingredients into the food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Then add celery, carrots, lemon juice, sage, and salt and mix up for about 1 min. Add the flaxmeal last and mix till smooth. Pre-heat your oven to 325, now I used a ring mold to get the perfect burger shape right on to a piece of parchment paper this made 3 burgers about 3/4 of an inch thick. Bake for 15 min then carefully flip over and bake for 30 more min. Now this last part I did was my own idea I heated up a tbsp of organic sunflower oil in a skillet and fried the like real burgers wow that added a real nice crust.

After 15 min in the oven

Carefully turn them and put back in the oven.

After 30 min in the oven.

It only takes a couple of min on each side.

I plated them up a bed of spinach and topped with a home grown tomato.

Have fun and Enjoy.

Raw Apple Pie with a Almost Raw Caramel Sauce

Well if this ain't the your favorite pie I will be very surprised. After eating raw desserts you will want to make more of them, cause they are very addictive and don't last very long so you will have to make more. After reading through more of Mimi Kirk's recipe book I came across some pie crust recipes and the looked awesome. So I have made apple pies in the past so all I did was make her crust with my filling and u knew it was gonna be awesome.

Pie Crust or as she has it " A Simple Nut Crust"

This what I used 

2 cups nuts ( walnuts, almonds, cashews)

5 pitted dates 

1/4 cup coconut oil

And a pinch of salt

Put all the nuts, oil, and salt in to your food processor and pulse to break all the nuts down, then turn on adding the dates one at a time so that way they don't clump up. Once all the dates are in let it go for another min or two till it sticks together real nice. Press out into a pie pan and set in the fridge while you make the filling.

For the filling I used

2 apples sliced very thinly on my triple blade slicer 

2 tbsp agave nectar

1 big tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp cinnamon 

1/4 tsp nutmeg 

Slice down your apples place in a bowl and all the other ingredients mix gently till all well incorporated place into the pie shell I sprinkled so walnuts on top just for show. 

The almost raw caramel sauce 

1/2 cup coconut oil 

1/2  maple syrup

1/3 cup peanut butter

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt 

Place all the ingredients into the food processor and mix for 5 min scraping down every couple min and its that it. Drizzle over top your pie then stick in the fridge or serve right away, but if you put in the fridge the carmel will stiffen up but still taste great. The use of the earth balance is why its not fully raw.

There you go a very easy raw pie full of flavor and nothing has to be cooked.

Have Fun and Enjoy