Super Easy Cashew butter Coconut milk Ice cream! (Vegan Recipes)

Super easy Cashew butter Coconut milk Ice cream recipe is Vegan and Delicious! :)

Ready for consumption within a few hours, this recipe consists of simple mixing, freezing and repeating the process a few times.

Here's the process:

Whisk together vanilla coconut milk and a slight amount of sweetener (I used sugar). Add a small amount of cashew butter (~1 TB for a large bowl). Some of it will not incorporate, but will form small swirls of cashew butter. [I also added approximately 1 teaspoon of organic chocolate whey protein at this point.] Freeze mixture for ~45 minutes. Remove from freezer and re-whisk. Return to freezer. After the 2nd or 3rd freeze, the whisking will become difficult and it can be stirred with a spoon. Before the mixture is completely frozen solid and while it is still crystallized ice, remove from freezer, stir again and serve.

An absolutely delicious and easy recipe if you have the patience to wait on the freezer. ;) 

Beet Carrot Latkes (Vegan/Vegetarian)

Tons of root veggies gave rise to this concoction.

Pretty much used this recipe (omitting the onion and using egg replacer):
The Root Vegetable Chronicles -- Beet Carrot Latkes

Made half the batch with garlic and half the batch without.

And to really overdo it on the root veggies, I served it with these:
Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Overall, a very good experiment with the root vegetable chronicles and friends!

Tech Support Saturday: Humboldt Regains it's Internet Connection.. or Does It AT&T? (AKA The 3 hr Run Around -or- AT&T Sucks!)

Fifteen hours without internet. Fine, I'll just sleep it off. Wake up to it back on and to find the following posted: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/aug/6/humboldt-county-gets-its-internet-back/

"Internet and cell phone were down overnight in Arcata. Land lines seem not to have been affected, but some people reported that they couldn’t dial long distance."


When my internet connection was lost a mere 7 hrs after coming back up for the first time, AT&T responded by questioning my knowledge on the subject (how do you even KNOW there was an issue with the fiber optic cable?) and denying that any outage had occurred within the state in the past 24 hrs even though this had been posted the previous day just after 3pm: http://lostcoastoutpost.com/2011/aug/5/widespread-suddenlink-outage-all-around-humboldt/


"John Britton, a spokesperson for AT&T, just confirmed to the Lost Coast Outpost that the telecommunications outages throughout Humboldt County this afternoon were caused by damage to their fiber-optic trunk line just south of Willits. Britton said that his information, coming from AT&T crews on the ground, is that a small grass fire damaged a power pole supporting the fiber-optic cable, the county’s sole trunk line to the outside world, just outside that town today. The cable appears to have been damaged but not completely 
severed, Britton said."


After spending a solid TWO hours on the phone with tech support to regain an internet connection, I was ready to pull my hair out at the roots when it went down yet again. Saturday consisted of 3 solid hours online with tech support while they insisted there was no outage and there MUST be a problem with (pick one) my router, modem, computer, cable or browser. Really AT&T?--my browser?!?! Excuse me if I can't even find the comedy in your asking me to open Internet Explorer on my Macintosh. Especially after we've already tried 2 Mac compatible browsers. /sigh


This was posted on 5am on the day that will hereby be referred to as Tech Support Saturday: http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_18630483


"An AT&T fiber outage, caused by a small fire, resulted in Suddenlink and Verizon customers across Humboldt County experiencing phone and internet service problems Friday. Customers were unable to make phone calls, receiving the following message, "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now."


AT&T Director of Corporate Communications John Britton said that a small fire north of Ukiah burned a section of the cable causing the fiber outage at approximately 3 pm Friday."


So it seems AT&T was putting out press releases while simultaneously conflicting them with their tech support (*once you were able to get through during normal business hours). I don't necessarily tech support as they may not have had the knowledge if it wasn't given to them. Their employer, however, aggravates me to no end. More than a loss of entertainment, all atm transactions were down (ie: food and/or bill payments and no way to make other arrangements as there was only very sporadic and unreliable phone service) as well as the 911 call and routing system. 


At a time when solar storms are at a peak, at least some top executive could have come up with this excuse to route to their techies: http://news.yahoo.com/power-companies-prepare-solar-storms-set-hit-earth-144759933.html

"Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.
In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours."


And that's the name of the game when you only have one  line running in to a rural but very used-to-being-connected community.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


A few other opinions can be found at the following sites:
reason-no-7246-att-sucks-threatening-legal-action-for-emailing-the-ceo
www.who-sucks.com/tech/8-reasons-why-att-sucks-beyond-all-belief

Summertime Strawberries

Summertime strawberries make me happy. They bring a bliss unlike many fruits and turn it into pure ecstasy when coupled with fresh whipped cream and homemade shortcake. Whether made with real flour or with an almond and rice flour alternative to make it gluten free, homemade shortcake is where it's at. Once you've had it homemade, you won't ever find yourself buying that store bought spongy alternative ever again. A slightly sweet and very flaky biscuity goodness that melts in your mouth beneath mounds of fresh, organic strawberries and whipped cream will have you craving more of summer every time.

Feel free to suggest a shortcake recipe if you have one as I'm still searching for the perfect recipe that I used to make..!

Quick & Easy Haystack Stir Fry [vegan/soy free]

Haystack Stir Fry Friday!!

Quick & easy recipe that can be thrown together in minutes.

While stir frying veggie selection, soak rice stick noodle in hot water (3-5 mins avg).
You will especially want to do this when your veggies are near done if you are going to stir fry the rice stick noodle in the same pan. Alternately, you can fry the rice stick in a separate pan and/or put the cooked veggies off to the side while you stir fry the noodles in the already hot pan and oil.

For this recipe, choose a lighter oil that works well for frying (grapeseed oil on hand).

To make haystack, drop drained rice stick noodle into hot oil to puff and crisp up.

Add sauce (and veggies if they are off to the side).

Any stir fry sauce can be used and should be added in at the last moment and incorporated well.

Especially yummy served with seaweed or traditional salad.

This particularly simple variation from what was on hand consisted of carrots, portabello mushroom and cashew butter/sriracha/coconut amino sauce.


Haystack Stirfry Sauce: (per 1/4 of rice stick noodle pkg)
1-1.5 Tb cashew butter
1/2 tsp Sriracha rooster sauce
1/2 tsp coconut amino acids (soy sauce alternative; slightly sweet but not coconutty)

 It was not necessary to add oil to the sauce since it was added directly to the entire conglomeration of stir fried veggies and rice stick with all the oil in the pan.

Such a simple, refreshing and light meal for a Friday evening!

Fried Spring Rolls with Cashew Butter Sriracha dipping sauce [vegan/soy free]

Dinner tonight was impromptu veggie rice spring rolls fried to a delicate crispiness.

This tasty meal is vegan and soy free.

The filling was short grain sweet brown rice and simple carrots and broccoli as that's what I had on hand.
Rice lightly flavored with no-chik'n broth during cooking enables even the picky eater to still have a flavorful meal should they decide to forgo the dipping sauce.
*Do not forgo the dipping sauce!

The filling was rolled up in moistened rice paper spring roll wraps and then fried in a combination of grapeseed and coconut oil.

The cashew butter sriracha dipping sauce was a variation on a recipe I found online which called for chili paste or powder, neither of which I have on hand right now. Deciding to give it a go with the sriracha turned out to be a major taste sensation!

Ingredients for the dipping sauce with very approximate measurements listed:
roasted cashew butter (1-2+ Tbsp)
sriracha sauce (1-1.5 tsp)
maple syrup (1 tsp)
coconut oil (1 tsp)
grapeseed oil (1 tsp)

Adjust the first three ingredients (cashew butter, sriracha & sweetener) to taste before adding additional oil for consistency. (After adding oil, I added more sriracha but after allowing it to sit for a few moments found it to be too spicy and had to add more cashew butter to compensate.) The flavors will come together if you allow them to sit for a moment so don't be afraid to readjust the seasonings to taste because once you get them right, this will be the hit of the meal!

Veggie Puff Pastry Shell Pot Pies [vegan option]

Tonight I am eating my infamous Veggie Puff Pastry Shell Pot Pies.

Okay, I'm not sure exactly how infamous they are outside my immediate family, but hey, we love them nonetheless.

Back when I used to eat super unhealthy, I'd make this with canned cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup. Now I make my own home made cream sauce with mushrooms and usually Edward & Sons no-chik'n broth (which has become a staple in my house). The cream sauce can be made vegan with a butter substitute or high grade oil along with a milk substitute. Tonight, I went all out and made the heavenly cream sauce with real butter and cream and a splash of hemp milk. (*When making this dish vegan, it is often necessary to use an additional thickener such as tapioca starch or dry egg replacer.) Add to the cream sauce sauteed vegetables and mushrooms and any herbs (fresh thyme tonight!). Serve all of this up in a puff pastry shell for a beautifully presented and amazingly delicious new spin on the traditional pot pie. Yum yum yum yum.


Here is a link to a pretty good recipe for homemade cream of mushroom soup. I substituted a few ingredients including Edwards & Sons No Chik'n for the chicken broth and rice flour for the flour and left our both the onions (due to an allergy) and the sherry for the fact that I had none on hand. I also added some cashews for crunch and texture and only pureed about 2/3 of the mushroom/cashew mixture in order to leave some body in the soup for the pot pies later.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/cream-of-mushroom-soup-i/detail.aspx

The AllRecipes site comes in handy in that it allows you to adjust the ingredients by portion size.