If you’ve tried or heard about jackfruit “pulled pork”, it’s the dish that inspired me to make a better veggie patty that’s perfect for Thanksgiving and Christmas and would make a great burger patty too! They make the perfect Tofurkey Alternative.

You know what’s tough? Trying to keep a vegetarian diet in a world full of soy when you’re soy-intolerant. Meanwhile, many North American veg-heads eat too much soy to begin with, which can upset your hormonal balance.

For years I’ve been looking for the perfect soy-free meat alternative to have with gravy and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and Christmas and last year, I finally found it. I had tried some pretty great recipes before, like the Oh She Glows burgers, but this is now definitely my go-to.

The idea finally came to me after I got around to making jackfruit pulled pork for myself. I had tried jackfruit as a pulled pork alternative at Niagara Veg Fest and some restaurants, but it wasn’t until I made it for myself that the lightbulb went off.

If you aren’t familiar with it yet, unripened jackfruit has the surprising texture of meat! It’s pretty amazing! And it takes on whatever seasoning you add and produces a wonderful texture and mouth feel. I read somewhere that buying unripened jackfruit can really destroy your knives and it’s very convenient to use canned unripened jackfruit which I’ve found at Asian grocery stores.

For our Thanksgiving feast this weekend I used 5 cans of jackfruit and made about 20 patties so I would say one can of jackfruit makes about 4 patties.

Step 1.

Soak the jackfruit and remove all the seeds.

 Step 2.

Use your fingers to separate all the jackfruit “meat” into strips to prepare it to sautee with oil, garlic, and spices. (See recipe below for full details.)

Step 3.

This next part doesn’t look very glamourous but it’s the part that gives the patties a richness and also binds it together. Use ground chia or flax seed (I used chia) and almond butter to make a batter. (See recipe below for full details.)

Step 4.

Mix the sauteed jackfruit mixture into the batter. (See recipe below for full details.)

Step 5.

Form the patties and bake them at 350 for about 12 minutes on each side. I use an ice cream scoop and use non-stick silpat sheets. (See recipe below for full details.)

Step 6.

They’ll be ready when they’re golden and crispy and looking suspiciously meaty. Serve and enjoy!

Savoury Jackfruit Patties – Recipe

The above photos show this recipe multiplied by 5. The following recipe makes 4 patties.

Ingredients

• 1 can of unripened jackfruit in water
• 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil (or a cooking oil of choice)
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon of low sodium Old Bay or your favourite “meat” spice blend
• 2 teaspoon of ground chia or ground flax
• 1/4 cup of water or vegetable stock
• 1 heaping tablespoon of almond butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Start by soaking and rinsing your unripened jackfruit in water. Rinse it really well.
2. Go through the jackfruit and make sure there are no seeds. The seeds are quite soft and can be eaten if you accidentally miss any, but it’s better to remove them.
3. Separate the jackruit “meat” using your fingers from the core of the jackfruit which is harder. You can cut up the jackfruit core and include it or discard it. When I made a large quantity, I included the core but ran it through the food processor to pulverize it.
4. Take a non-stick pan and put it on medium to high heat with the oil and the garlic. Sautee it for a minute and then add the jackfruit and the spices. Sautee the jackfruit stirring regularly until it starts to change colour and seem “cooked”, about 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool.
5. Preheat oven to 350.
6. In a bowl, mix the ground chia with the water and let it start to congeal for about 30 seconds, then mix in the almond butter to make a batter. It shouldn’t be too thick or too loose, but an easy to stir paste.
   1. Notes about this recipe: I’m not much of a measurer. When you make these, you’ll want to adjust the ratio of the chia, liquid, and almond butter to make a paste that’s thick but not overly stiff. If you find it’s too hard to mix in the jackfruit, add more liquid, or if it’s too liquidy, add more chia and/or almond butter.
7. Mix in the sauteed jackfruit mixture.
8. Take a cookie sheet and a silpat non-stick baking sheet or use line your pan with parchment paper. Scoop the mixture onto the pan to make patties. I use an ice cream scoop and then flatten the mixture into a patty shape.
9. Make the patties for about 12 minutes on one side. Then flip and bake for another 10-12 minutes on the other side or until golden and somewhat crispy.
10. Serve with cranberry sauce and your favourite vegetarian gravy and enjoy!

365 days of green smoothies! Well, I maybe take a few days off for juice fasting and vacations when I don’t carry a mini blender with me, but still… there are a lot of green smoothies in my life! I make at least 2 servings of green smoothie every morning for my husband and me, and sometimes I make extra. Green smoothies store very well in mason jars in the fridge and are perfectly good the next day, so sometimes I make a batch in advance if I know I’m going to be busy.

Green Smoothie Benefits

How many servings of fruits and veggies do you think you really eat every day? Most people just don’t get enough, and a lot fewer servings than they’d like to think. Most people only get 3-4 servings a day when they should be consuming 5-9+. More fruits, and especially vegetables, helps to regulate your blood sugar and prevents heart disease, cancer and other illnesses.

Starting your day with a green smoothie is a quick and convenient way to start your day with 3+ servings of fruits and vegetables. Blending also makes the vegetables easy to digest and assimilate, and each smoothie is full of healthy fibre. A smoothie is a particularly great way to consume leafy greens; with no chewing involved and the sweet flavour of the fruit, it couldn’t be easier to kickstart your day.

Green smoothies are full of phytonutrients and are very high in antioxidants. With all of the vitamins, minerals, and all around nutrients that you’re consuming first thing every morning, green smoothies really help boost your energy. They also help with mental clarity.

You’ll not only feel better from drinking green smoothies but you’ll look better too. Green smoothies are great for your skin and are great for weight loss and weight management. Starting your day with a green smoothie will also help to reduce your cravings for sugar and junk food.

Components of a Great Green Smoothie

I’ve been playing around with green smoothies on a daily basis for a few years now, and I’ve come to understand that a good green smoothie is made up of the following components:

1. Leafy Greens
2. Fruit of Choice
3. Thickener/Something Creamy
4. Liquid
5. Superfoods/Supplements (optional)
6. Sweetener (definitely optional)

1. Leafy Greens

It wouldn’t be a green smoothie if it didn’t contain a green vegetable. My preferences are spinach or kale. I use a lot of baby spinach, and generally I use one serious handful of spinach per serving. Note that my smoothie recipes are always for 2 servings, so for spinach I would use 2 big handfuls. For kale, I use 3 leaves per serving, so that’s 6 good sized leaves.

I also sometimes use mixed greens, chard, or other green vegetables that I have in the fridge. However, some of the other greens can have stronger flavours that don’t integrate into the smoothie quite as well, so I would be more conservative with other greens. Romaine, for example, is surprisingly sour in a smoothie.

On occasion, I do a wacky smoothie with something like shredded carrot instead of a green vegetable. You can also throw in the ends of raw zucchini that are left after spiralizing zucchini noodles.

2. Fruit of Choice

The defining flavour of your smoothie (unless you’re making a chocolate or peanut butter smoothie) will be the fruit that you choose. I like to use frozen fruit, and the frozen element also acts as a thickener in the smoothie. Frozen berries, particularly raspberries are my first choice, followed by mixed berries. While blueberries are delicious, they have a lot of pectin and using straight blueberries rather than a mix of berries will cause your smoothie to over-thicken and even separate. Another reason why I like raspberries is that because they have the strongest red colour and will make your green smoothie red. Other berries will give your smoothie a muddy colour when mixed with the greens, but you get over the colour pretty quickly. However, it’s still appealing to have a red smoothie once in a while, and raspberries are bold and delicious.

My second and third choices for fruit are pineapple and mango. These have good flavour profiles to go with the greens, and you have the added bonus of a bright green smoothie when you use these.

Rule of thumb: I use about 1.5 cups of fruit for 2 smoothie servings.

Note: I don’t include banana as a fruit in this context, I use it as a thickener. See below. 

3. Thickener/Something Creamy

Without a thickener, your smoothie will come out watery which is less tasty and also less filling. I don’t believe in smoothies as a “meal replacement” or just a drink – rather, to me a smoothie is a meal. Including a thickener is important. Thickeners also add a delicious creamy element. Thickeners include:

• Banana
• Nuts or seeds
• Avocado
• Coconut, hemp, or flax oil, or sunflower lecithin
• Something frozen (like your banana, your other fruit, or ice cubes)
• Protein Powder

Though banana is a fruit and there is other fruit in your smoothie, I find that a smoothie just isn’t the same without at least some banana in it. 1/2 to a full banana per serving is ideal. I often use 1.5 bananas for 2 servings and set aside the other half a banana to have with my lunch. If you’re not keen on banana, consider adding avocado, hemp seeds, raw cashews, almonds, or pumpkin seeds to your smoothie and definitely don’t skip a frozen element as you’ll need these other ingredients to thicken in the banana’s place.

My absolute favourite protein powder is Sunwarrior Protein-Vanilla. We include it in every single smoothie. It’s a raw vegan protein powder and the classic vanilla is delicious. The Sunwarrior Protein-Chocolate is also really good. I’ve tried a lot of different protein powders over the years and this one is by far the best. It’s tasty and makes the smoothie wonderfully creamy.

I also often add some coconut oil to my smoothie. Because coconut oil reacts to the cold, I blend it with water and all of the room temperature ingredients first before adding anything frozen. That way, it won’t get tiny specs of solid coconut oil. Hemp and flax oil can have a strong taste so you might like to add a pinch of stevia. Brazil nuts are rich in selenium which helps to prevent small tumour formation – particularly in men – and I include 3 brazil nuts per serving for my husband and me. I don’t personally use avocado in my smoothies very often but it does add a luxuriously creamy component that can be a great treat.

4. Liquid

While many people use nut milk, soy milk, coconut milk or coconut water, or even juice in their green smoothie, I absolutely don’t see the point. If you’ve used the right quality ingredients for the rest of your smoothie, you don’t need anything but filtered water. These other ingredients just contribute to a higher cost per smoothie, and also unnecessary calories. I would adjust your creamy component of your smoothies first, but if you aren’t using a protein powder for example, you might consider using a nut milk in your smoothie.

5. Superfoods/Supplements

You can also supplement your smoothie with superfoods and supplements. I always include maca, reishi, and chaga to my smoothie, as well as drops like B12, iodine, and vitamin D in the winter. There are so many supplements and superfoods available and it can be a tough field to navigate. I’ve tried most of them and it’s taken me a while to figure out what’s right for me and my husband. 6. Sweetener (Optional)

You don’t necessarily need a sweetener! However, when supplementing green smoothies with certain strong superfoods, like reishi, I do sometimes find it necessary to sweeten the smoothie if it’s become bitter. I personally always use stevia. I would never use any kind of processed sugar.

A date or two are also good choices if you have a good blender. I might consider a drop of maple syrup, agave, or coconut syrup, but stevia in either liquid drops or a pinch of the powder does the trick. Depending on the flavour profile of your smoothie, a little cinnamon can also be a nice complement.

How to Blend Your Smoothie

If you have a high powered blender like a Vitamix, you can put all of your ingredients in and not worry about the order of things. However, if you’re working with a standard blender, you can take a few steps to make things work more efficiently in your machine.

• Start with your liquid and your base fruit. Pulse first, then blend.
• Add your thickening ingredient. Pulse first, then blend again.
• Add your greens. You can also add your superfoods and any powders at this stage and put the greens on top of the powder so that it doesn’t puff up. Pulse, then blend.
• Once all of your ingredients have been added, taste your smoothie and determine if it needs a little sweetener like stevia. You can usually skip this step altogether, and definitely taste first before assuming that you need sweetening. Only bitter superfood powders should require the addition of sweeteners as the fruit is already sweet enough.
• NB: When I include coconut oil in my smoothie, I change the order of ingredients. Because coconut oil reacts to the cold, I blend it with water and all of the room temperature ingredients first before adding anything frozen. That way, it won’t get tiny specs of solid coconut oil.

Invest in a Good Blender

My prized possession – truly, my dessert island piece of kitchen equipment – is my Vitamix. Yes, they’re pricey. However, I use it every single day and have been using it every day since I bought it in 2011. Seriously. Everyone who owns a Vitamix will say the same thing. It’s an amazing piece of equipment and you’ll never regret the purchase.

How to Wash your Blender

It wasn’t until I got a Vitamix that I learned about how to really care for a blender. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this technique sooner? When you’re done making your smoothie, give it a rinse and then fill it part way with water and some soap. Then put the lid on it and run it! It becomes a self-cleaning tool! You’ll still want to wipe it out with a sponge to make sure that no residue builds up in the various nooks and crannies but this is by far the most efficient way to clean and care for your blender.

Get into the habit of washing your blender right after use rather than letting it sit around. With this method, cleaning is super quick so there’s no reason to leave it sitting around, especially not over night. I like to flip my blender upside down to let the water drip out while it’s drying.

Super delicious vegan “cheese” sauce made with squash or pumpkin, full of vitamin A!

It wasn’t a very hard winter around here–not like last year’s Arctic winter–but spring has been dragging its feet. I do love raw food and I do embrace the raw spirit, but sometimes I just want some hot comfort food. I can’t think of a dish that’s quite as comforting as macaroni and cheese!

I was very inspired by the Oh She Glows Butternut Squash Vegan Mac n’ Cheeze. What a terrific idea! I just love the concept of using squash or pumpkin to create the base of a vegan cheese sauce.

However, I was looking for a bit more “zing” in my vegan cheese sauce. I ultimately found the punchy flavour that I was looking for in the form of a lot of mustard and extra nutritional yeast. Using miso also gives depth to the sauce. Be sure not to add extra salt to your sauce when using miso as it should be salty enough.

I either use roasted butternut squash for this recipe, or I also keep some canned pumpkin around for times when I’m either feeling lazy or I haven’t had time to buy any fresh produce.

For the squash, though the packaging is wasteful, I find the convenience of the pre-sliced butternut squash from President’s Choice at Zehrs or Loblaw’s very convenient.

Vegan Mac n’ Cheese (aka “Cheeze”) Sauce Recipe

• 1 lb squash, roasted OR 1 small can of pumpkin puree (14 oz.)
• .5 cup almond milk or non-dairy milk of choice
• .5 to 1 cup nootch, to taste (nutritional yeast)
• 3 tbsp miso (I use soy-free miso)
• 2 tbsp yellow mustard or more to taste (or more mustard and no miso)
• 1 tbsp yellow to taste
• 2 tbsp garlic powder (not garlic salt!)
• daiya mixed in at the end (optional)

Sauce Method

1. Add the squash or pumpkin along with the milk to the blender and blend. A food processor would probably also work.
2. Add the nutritional yeast and blend. Scrape the sides. Add more milk if you need to but don’t add too much, unless you like a thin sauce. I like mine thick.
3. Add the other ingredients and blend. Add more mustard and/or nutritional yeast as needed.

This makes a very generous amount of sauce, enough for an entire standard box of macaroni noodles. Because I like a thick sauce, I like to pour the macaroni and cheese into the bottom of a casserole dish and then add the cooked macaroni noodles on top rather than the other way around. Then I mix it up so that all of the noodles are coated. You can also sprinkle the top with Daiya if you like and bake it, or just heat it up of it’s cooled.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

If I had to give you a go-to smoothie recipe, this would probably be it. It’s probably my very favourite smoothie, and though it’s considered a “green” smoothie, the deep colour of the raspberries actually makes it very red. It also works well with mixed berries instead of raspberries.

I actually use these ratios with whichever type of frozen fruit I have handy. Swap in any of your favourite frozen fruit in place of the raspberries.

NB: Recipes that include raspberries are really much better with a high powered blender. Raspberries have very tiny seeds and if your blender isn’t powerful enough, you’ll get a grainy a bunch of grainy sand at the bottom of your glass.

Recipe – 2 servings

• 1 banana
• 1.5 cups of raspberries (or any fruit
• 2 serious handfuls of spinach (probably about 4 cups)
• 18 oz. of water
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder of your choice (optional)*
• pinch of stevia (optional)

Directions

If you have a high powered blender like a Vitamix, you can put all of your ingredients in and not worry about the order of things. However, if you’re working with a standard blender, you can use this order of operations to make things work more efficiently in your machine.

1. Start with your liquid and your fruit: raspberries, banana, and the liquid. Pulse first, then blend.
2. Add your protein powder and then the greens on top so that the powder doesn’t puff up. Pulse, then blend.
3. Once all of your ingredients have been added, taste your smoothie and determine if it needs a little sweetener like stevia. You can usually skip this step altogether, and definitely taste first before assuming that you need sweetening. Only the addition of bitter superfood powders should require the addition of sweeteners as the fruit is already sweet enough.

Enjoy! Keeps well for up to 36 hours in a mason jar in the refrigerator as needed.

I want to share and give credit to the original creator, Raw Lulu, of this particularly excellent twist on the famous raw onion bread. This is my very favourite kind of raw bread, or it becomes a raw cracker if you dehydrate it longer.

Yes, this recipe does require a dehydrator. However, I want to say that it’s really not necessary to have a dehydrator in order to pursue a raw lifestyle. I do have a dehydrator but I rarely use it. It’s fun to have, and I used it a lot when I first got into raw recipes, but once you really get on a roll with eating raw, you start to enjoy much more simple meals that rarely use a dehydrator. So if you don’t have a dehydrator, don’t let that stop you from getting into the raw world.

Raw Lulu’s New & Improved Raw Onion Bread

• 2 large onions (sweet onions work best)
• 1 cup flax meal
• 1/4 cup namo shoyu
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Directions

• Process onions in food processor a few seconds.
• Add remaining ingredients.
• When combined flatten mixture on teflex sheets.
• Score the mixture with a knife to make lines to divide your bread into whatever sizes and shapes you like.
• Dehydrate at 115 degrees 12-16 hours.

Yesterday I participated in Toronto’s Totally Fabulous Vegan Bake-Off! I entered in the raw category with my raw lemon squares. It was a really neat experience!

I competed as part of Team Lindy Hop. In the above photo, I’m on the far right. To my left is Kris Light with her P.B. Phone Home squares, next is Ashley Bratty with her Snickerdoodle Sandwich Spectacular/Snickerdoodles Marsala, and then on the far left is Heather O’Shea with her Jazzberry Lemon Cupcakes. Heather won Best in Show for her cupcakes!

I received so much positive feedback on these squares. Someone even told me that they were not only her favourite dessert of the day but the best lemon squares she’d ever eaten! It was really an honour to participate. However, lemon lost to chocolate in the end. I understand. People do love chocolate, myself included, and the winning raw chocolate lavender cheesecake in the raw category was very lovely.

Pucker Up Raw Lemon Squares Recipe

Filling:

• 5 cups of dried, unsweetened coconut  butter (approximately one jar or about 4.5 cups of fine dehydrated coconut converted into coconut butter)
• 2-4 tbsp of coconut oil
• 10 lemons, zested first, then squeezed
• 1/3 cup of lucuma powder (optional)
• Stevia Powder to taste – I like NOW brand
• 1/4 tsp tumeric (for colour, optional)

1. Blitz the dried coconut and 2 tbsp of coconut oil in the food processor to make coconut butter. This can take several minutes. Stop and scrape the sides of the sides of the food processor often. If after 5 minutes your mixture is still dry, add more coconut oil as needed.
2. Once you’ve made a completely smooth butter, add the lemon zest. Blend.
3. Add the lucuma. Blend.
4. Add the lemon juice. Blend.
5. The stevia that I use comes with a tiny little spoon inside the jar. Add 2 of the tiny spoonfuls, or just a small pinch of stevia and blend and taste often. Adding only a small amount at a time, add more of the stevia as needed adjusting to your palette.
6. Add the tumeric. Blend.
7. Pour contents in to a bowl and set aside on the counter (not the fridge) while you continue on to make your crust.
8. When working in this order, there is no need to clean the food processor. Blitz cashews in the food processor until they start to form a crumb.
9. Add the coconut flour and approximately 6 dates and start the food processor going, adding more dates until the mixture starts to seem slightly sticky. Stop the food processor and smoosh some of the mixture together with your fingers from time to time and when the mixture starts to stick together, it’s ready.
10. Line a pan with parchment paper, or oil and dust with coconut flour before pressing the crust in to the form.
11. Once you’ve pressed the crust in to a pan, scoop the filling in to the pan and smooth it out with a spatula. Place it in the freezer for at least one hour before cutting and serving. I like to make this the night before and thaw it out the next day for serving.

When I first started hunting for the best raw lemon square recipe, I wasn’t very satisfied with what I found.  That led to a lot of experimenting and eventually to this favourite recipe of mine. Here are some photos of an earlier version of the lemon squares, without the addition of tumeric for colour:

My lemon square display made it in to this photo gallery from BlogTO.