I know I said no desserts for this little while but I do let myself have a sweet snack in the afternoon before a work out. I still think eating before bed is a major factor in my weight struggles so I decided that I would have treats in the daytime rather than at night. But I’m still not doing raw ice-cream because it has plenty of calories, raw or not, especially this raw banana split made of walnuts (apparently it is 1700 calories according to one of my readers *gasp*).

But having said that I still don’t count calories and I think moderation is key so I savoured two small Raweos I bought from The Raw Food World and a glass of chilled unsweetened raw almond milk (here is the recipe for a sweet version) “squeezed” by moi earlier in the day. I love pouring the lot into a big jug and it looks eerily like dairy milk. Love it though!

Once in a while, I spoil myself with a dessert for breakfast on the weekend and today was one of those days.

I would also call this raw banana split a “hormone-balancer” dessert…okay I am kidding, I just added maca powder to the mix and maca is known for helping your hormones to balance but it might have been cancelled out by all the maple syrup and dates. I know that sugar is not very good for balancing emotions and hormones, but what the heck, it’s Sunday and it’s a GORGEOUS day in Tokyo today.

The other tweak I made to my usual raw ice-cream creations is I used walnuts instead. I’ve always wanted to try them because they are full of fat which is ideal for making creamy ice-cream but if you have a regular blender, it could end up being gritty…..BUT I have my Blendtec now so I thought, “Lock and load, baby!”

Recipe (in a high speed blender):
1 cup soaked walnuts
1 cup soaked dates
1 tbs maca powder
Dash of vanilla essence
Pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup water (or just add bit by bit to get the consistency you want; the worst thing you could do is add too much water and it becomes too runny to freeze properly)

This was a very small batch so it took my ice-cream maker to whip it up in just 10 minutes. The end result was a very fluffy and creamy ice-cream compared to the denser consistency of cashews. I loved it! I cut strawberries and two bananas to go with the ice-cream and drizzled chocolate sauce (1 tbs cocoa powder + 1/4 cup maple syrup) over the whole ensemble.

It was a very decadent Sunday ice-cream brunch. It was a lot of fat to consume so I might not take in more fat for the rest of the day.

More updates on the situation in Tokyo:

Personally I have adopted a chill approach — I’m back to drinking the tap water (I filter it) and I stopped buying bottled water. I decided I couldn’t live with that mentality that something worse is going to happen. It seems that the radiation is contained within the Fukushima area though the evacuation zone is being widened slightly and residents are given about a month to move.

I do believe that Tokyo is safe from radiation because there have not been any more reports on contamination but there have been whispers that the rainy season may change things so I still have a stock of bottled water (3-4 days) plus I refilled my bathtub (more for earthquake reasons) again in case I need a large supply of water at a moment’s notice.

I know this sounds like we are in a state of emergency but we are not — not in Tokyo. I think it’s more like I’m preparing my home for practical reasons — nobody knew Mar 11 was going to happen so it makes sense to just be ready for a peace of mind. I slept pretty well this past week so I think I’ve genuinely begun to relax from all the drama and worry in the weeks that ensued the triple disaster.

I spoke too soon when I said I wasn’t interested in blogging about food. I’ve had a very strange few weeks and I still haven’t figured out what is really going on in my head and my heart. There is work to do but everything seems to take longer somehow and no doubt I’m still thinking about the terrible crisis that Japan is going through at the back of my mind.

So instead of nit-picking and over-analyzing things, I just made food all day on Saturday. I woke up, made the non-raw fiance a non-raw fry-up of eggs and sausages. I threw in a tomato to make it “healthier” — I tried feeding him salads as a side to his morning eggs but he really wasn’t a fan so I stopped. Then I made a berry banana smoothie for him, a green juice for me, then a pre-run smoothie, then prepped my nuts and seeds for what you see in that picture of vegan decadence.

I wanted to combine my two loves — chocolate and peanut butter. The chocolate tart is mostly raw but the peanut butter ice-cream is 50% raw.

Recipe:

Tart base (in a food processor)
3/4 cup pumpkin seed pulp (leftover from the morning’s milk)
1/2 cup walnuts, soaked
10 dates, chopped
2 tsp cocoa powder
1 tbs coconut oil
Pinch of sea salt
Dash of cinnamon

Chocolate filling (in a blender)
3/4 cup cashews, soaked
3 heaping tbs cocoa powder
3/4 cup soaked dates
1 tbs maple syrup
Dash of vanilla essence
Splash of water

Peanut butter ice-cream (in a blender)
2 heaping tbs peanut butter (I used Peanut Butter & Co Smooth Operator)
1/4 cup cashews, soaked
2 tbs maple syrup
Splash of water

On hindsight, I should’ve cut down on the maple syrup in the peanut butter ice-cream so I would recommend one tbs instead of two. While the ice-cream was just amazing, it overwhelmed the chocolate tart which wasn’t as sweet.

I still loved every bite though. It was the perfect finish to our quiet evening at home after a hearty comforting meal of tacos. I like tacos because it sort of hits my junk food spot but incorporates a lot of raw components like salsa, lettuce, shredded cucumber, and guacamole. Also, it gave us the illusion of a shared meal instead of separate ones — I just whipped up a meat dish for his tacos (stir-fried beef) and I had red kidney beans.

It wasn’t a super healthy day for me but I needed the heaviness and the strong flavours. Is the radiation issue still bothering me? Sort of. Yes. I am wondering why I’m so paranoid about it, especially the water, because I’m quite a health freak compared to the average person and anything I cannot control regarding my health would make me feel uneasy.

BUT.

I cannot let this get to me and have to be assured that a bit of radiation will not do me any harm. I think the uncertainty of when the whole nuclear reactor mess in Fukushima will be cleared up is gnawing away at me too — it seems it would take months or even years.

I think I’ve mentioned that the non-raw fiance travels a lot for work, so when he comes home, I try to make something special for him.

He was struck down by flu but the chocolate fiend in him couldn’t resist raw chocolate ice-cream (recipe here) topped with chopped banana and chocolate sauce (cocoa powder + maple syrup). I like mine with strawberries…

“Babe, this tastes so good!”

Awww…. It’s the one thing about raw food he never trashes Oh and Larabar’s Cinnamon Roll flavour.

The kawaii (cute) bug has bitten me bad since I moved to Japan — I swear it’s so infectious! The non-raw fiance has just arrived in town back from a business trip in NYC just in time for Valentine’s Day — it would be our first together in one place for several years. But he’s fallen sick so I don’t know if we would go out for dinner but you know I’m happy to stay at home too.

To get into the mood of V-day, I made heart-shaped raw brownies with a cutter (recipe here; but I left out nutmeg — ran out; didn’t do the coconut frosting and just pressed the brownie bites onto dried coconut flakes).

My cutter is from a set actually meant for making bentos where you use them to cut vegetables like cucumber and carrot into cute shapes. The heart shape is not very obvious – LOL – but well, it was an experiment and though I have whipped up this recipe tons of times, I found renewed glee in making them into hearts. Yeah, I know, I’m such a kitchen geek.

The non-raw fiance doesn’t read my blog so I can safely surprise him with these…Though I probably would have to tell him point-blank they are hearts. Maybe I should get very pointy type cutters in future to make obvious-looking shapes…

I was hoping to do a bento post but I think the next raw bento I’ll be making will actually be this Sunday when I take my Japanese exam.

This pistachio ice-cream was inspired by Jennifer & Jaclyn over at Sketch-free Vegan Eating. I love pistachio ice-cream so I had to try it.

Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 avocado
1 cup soaked pistachios, skins peeled
4 dates, soaked
juice of half a lemon
One scraped vanilla pod
1/2 cup water

After blending it, I poured the mixture into my ice-cream maker.

The end result was a little icier than my cashew based ones but it was still very ice-cream like. I regret putting in so few dates and would use maybe six to eight next time. I was only making one portion so I thought four would be enough.

I added some sweetness by topping it with banana slices. It was such a lovely snack…

My other new ice-cream concoction was a peanut butter banana soft serve ice-cream drizzled with chocolate sauce. I know the picture looks messy but that’s because I scooped the ice-cream and put it into the bowl that I used to whip up the chocolate sauce.

There is no real recipe because I just put two frozen bananas into my food processor with a heaping teaspoon of White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter. I let it turn and turn and it became softserve ice-cream. Then I mixed cocoa powder and maple syrup together to make chocolate sauce. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…..

Hope you enjoyed Vegan Mofo as much as I did. I’m afraid I have to vamoose for a while because this week is crazy busy. Ja ne (bye in Japanese)!!

This raw coconut-frosted brownie is so decadent and I’ve had this one on my mind for a while. I tend to only make more complicated desserts when the non-raw fiance is around, but I thought, “You should be nice to yourself especially when you are alone!”

He goes off on very long business trips, often five or six weeks at a time, sometimes even eight or nine weeks, so cooking for one tends to get me down a bit. I tend to either forage my fridge for leftovers or just put together one-dish meals. I decided to snap out of this blah mode and get down and diiiiiirty in my kitch.

Recipe (in a food processor):
3/4 cup soaked walnuts
1/2 cup soaked pecans
1 tbs almond butter
6 soaked dates
1 tbs maple syrup (usu I just use dates but I was running low)
Dash of cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
3 tbs cocoa powder
1 scraped vanilla bean

For the coconut-frosting (in a food processor):
3 tbs dried coconut flakes
1 tbs coconut oil
1-2 tbs water

The coconut frosting doesn’t need a lot of water and it’s better to add a tiny bit each time as you pulse to get the consistency you want. You don’t want it to get too wet and ruin your brownie.

I pressed the brownie into a long flat block with saran wrap. Then I peeled it open and layered on the coconut frosting. I covered the whole lot with saran wrap again and pressed the coconut frosting gently onto the brownie. Then I stuck it in the chiller section in my fridge.

The next morning I got this unbelievably chocolately moist brownie. Tip: leave the brownie out for 20-30 minutes to get rid of the coldness and this will become even more moist and mimics baked brownies better. This block of brownie lasted me a whole week — I would only eat a small piece or two everyday because it was so rich. So good, though.

Looks like bubblegum pink….Such a pretty shade…

I adore my ice-cream machine. It doesn’t do big batches of ice-cream that well but for a one or two person serving, it works like a dream…Just fifteen minutes of whirring will do the job if the tub is frozen for at least 24 hours. The colder the better…

Perfect strawberry ice-cream…

Made even better by topping it with sliced bananas. I felt so girly eating this.

Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup soaked cashews
8 soaked dates
1 scraped vanilla bean
Splash of water

Once this is made into a super-smooth smoothie, pour it into your ice-cream maker and there you go: happiness in a bowl.

I made these chocolate cherry cookies with pumpkin seed milk pulp and walnuts. My recipe follows this one here but without the sunflower seeds. Though these cookies were generally yummy, they could’ve been more moist but the pulp made it a little dry and powdery in texture.

While saving seed/nut milk pulp makes sense, somehow it doesn’t translate well into cookies or truffles. I think I’ll stick to saving pulp for raw pie crusts.

But yeah, I’ve been trying to incorporate more iron-rich food in my diet (beans daily) because I haven’t felt so genki (energetic in Japanese) plus I had a few worrying spells of vertigo. So I’m trying to shake things up a bit while being careful about nutrition. I tend to have a mental block when I’m supposed to be eating something that is good for me, the less I want it.

Do you suffer from anemia on a vegetarian/vegan diet?

I wanted some chocolate ice-cream the other night so I soaked cashews and dates for a small bowl of yum.

I try to take maca daily but sometimes I get sick of the taste. I’m trying to balance my hormones hence the desire to consume maca regularly so I try to take it in different forms (smoothies and chia puddings namely).

So I thought, why not hide it in some chocolate ice-cream?!

Recipe (in a high-speed blender):
1 cup cashews, soaked
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
6 dates, soaked
3/4 cup water (date soak water)
1 vanilla pod, scraped

Sometimes I find it such a drag to scrape vanilla pods and it’s no wonder why raw vanilla powder is so expensive — it’s so labour intensive to get even a tiny amount of vanilla out of a pod.

BUT, it is always worth it! This bowl of deliciousness was topped with very ripe banana slices and it was just what the doctor ordered.

I used my ice-cream maker. I think everyone should get one of these…