Spooky Sweets

This month has gone by faster than a witch on a broom for me:)

Just a quickie post today to show how the spider cheesecake came out.

The recipe is adapted from the White Chocolate Cheesecake in Sweet Gratitude. The filling is white chocolate with just a layer of dark chocolate on top to show the white spiderweb design. I added a large raw chocolate spider:)

It is shown with some tiny caramel pears. I like to use those little seckel pears, or lady apples because the size is more appropriate for little ones:) They were dipped once in the creamy caramel, but you can chill them and dip again for a thicker coating.

There are many awesome looking recipes for raw caramel apples online at this time. I adapted this recipe today.

Ooops! Another broken link! This is the recipe(as near as I can remember), no longer available using the link above:
2 cups Medjool dates, chopped and soaked for one hour in a mixture of water with the juice of one small lemon (drain the dates, and leave the soaking water aside)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
juice of one half small lemon
1 teaspoon salt

Blend in a high powered blender, and using the plunger tool, keep moving the mixture as the blender might struggle a bit. Blend until creamy. Serve the dip with apples or pears.

They can also be dipped into chopped nuts before chilling.

The little chocolate cheesecake is dripping in caramel with pecans on the sides, and some chocolate skulls for decoration.


Well, tomorrow is Halloween! I hope some of you will try some of the ideas that I had so much fun with this month!

Hugs from your Raw Halloween hostess,
~Nevergreen~ :)

Vampiric Vermin:)

It seems my Sweet Strawberry Mice got into some bad cheese!

Not-so-Sweet Strawberry Mice

Ingredients per "mouse":
1 strawberry, remove hull, trim bottom to make it sit as desired.
2 pumpkin seeds
2 sunflower seeds
2 currants, cut in half, 3 halves are needed per mouse
1 thin strip dried pineapple, cut using kitchen shears
toothpick for applying eyes and tail:)

1. Stick pumpkin seeds point up in strawberry for ears as shown.

2. Add cut currants for eyes and nose, cut side should be sticky, stick on using toothpick.

3. Add 2 sunflower seed fangs:)

4. Insert pineapple strip for tail as shown, making hole with toothpick if needed.

For "Cheese"
1 apple or pear makes several wedges

apple or pear, peel and remove core
lemon juice to prevent browning
tiny sprinkle of green powder such as vita-mineral green or spirulina
drinking straw

1. Cut apple or pear into wedges

2. Push straw through wedges of apple or pear to look like swiss cheese:)

3. Sprinkle with lemon juice

4. Sprinkle a little green powder to look like mold:)
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I also wanted to let you know I mixed about a cup of the whipped sweet potatoes into a (3) banana soft serve today with a little extra maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice and it was awesome!

I got the idea when I scooped the mini pumpkins from the potato whip using an ice cream scoop. You can scoop little ice cream pumpkins decorated just like the sweet potatoes for a cute dessert in little cupcake papers. Use a mint leaf in place of the parsley. Freeze soft serve for a few hours before scooping.


If you need more healthy raw Halloween recipes click here:)

Raw Halloween Main Course

If your raw Halloween menu needs a main course, how about some ghosts in the gravy yard.

Ghosts in the Gravy Yard


Most likely, you have your own favorite recipes to use for this cute idea. If not, here is what I used:

The mashed boo-tatoes are blended jicama, cashews, nutritional yeast, rosemary, and salt. Add two black sesame seed eyes per ghost.

The little pumpkins are based on Whipped Sweet Potatoes by one of my favorite bloggers, Berry Blue Toes. Top with a sliver of pecan stem and a parsley or cilantro leaf.

I used a zip-top bag with a corner snipped off to pipe out the ghosts and pumpkins. Use a pastry bag with a large plain tip if you have one.

I saw the ghost and pumpkin idea on Martha Stewart.

ETA~I played around with the sweet potatoes and made them using a small ice cream scoop. I pushed the stem of the parsley leaf into the potato whip using the pecan so it stood up. This would be cute for a Thanksgiving side dish.

The little headstone and casket are hand shaped from a recipe based on Thanksgiving Nut Loaf, another yummy recipe posted by Berry Blue Toes.

I added a little salt to the basic recipe, and used pecans in place of almonds. Her awesome thanksgiving feast is posted there:) Check it out if you need some recipes.


For the gravy, I added some poultry seasonings, nama shoyu, dehydrated onion, water, and pepper to a little mashed 'potatoes' left in the blender.

Add more graves, ghosts, and pumpkins for larger portions:) Add some of your favorite broccoli as fallen trees.

I wanted to share this cute idea just in case anyone is having a raw Halloween dinner party. I just made a very small portion of each to show you. I was just 'winging' all the recipes to my own tastes and available ingredients.

Thanks to Martha Stewart and Berry Blue Toes for the inspiration.

Oh, and the cute little mushrooms are just cute little mushrooms:)


Links to all my Healthy Raw Halloween Recipes:)

Creepy Caponata

It looks:) like my favorite recipe has gotten a Halloween makeover! This will be added to my complete list of Healthy Raw Halloween Recipes.

Creepy Peepers Caponata

For creepy peepers:
eggplant globes, cut using a melon-baller
black olives
green pimento stuffed olives, these are probably not raw but look cute:)
pine nuts, for "maggots"
capers
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1 Recipe Raw Eggplant Caponata, recipe follows

Preparation:

1. Peel eggplant and create as many globes as desired for eyeballs. Use the un-seedy parts.

2. Cut slices from green olives, cut black olives in half lengthwise.

3. Apply olives to eggplant globe, securing with decorative picks if desired.

4. Prepare caponata using all scraps from any garnishes.

5. Plate caponata and garnish with eyeballs, capers, and pine nut "maggots".

I had this today with the cheezy tombstone crackers I recently made, but my caponata crisps recipe would be good too.

You can check out some of the comments on gone raw for the different ways people have eaten this caponata, without the creepy peepers, of course:)

I made myself laugh when I realized what I was drinking with this...kom-boooo-cha!!!

If you want a very quick decorating idea, simply make some chive and olive spiders, and cut out a few moon shapes from yellow pepper. For spiders, cross (like an "X") 4 chives approx. 2 inches long and top with half a black olive.

Here is my caponata recipe re-posted for convenience.

Raw Eggplant Caponata
makes about 6 cups

Ingredients:
1 medium eggplant,peeled, 1/4"dice approx 4 cups
1 cup tomato, 1/4" dice
1 sweet bell pepper, I used yellow today, 1/4" dice
1 celery stalk, 1/4" dice
¼ cup red onion,or more to taste, 1/4" dice
¼ cup olives of choice,I used a mix of green and black, 1/4" dice
2 tablespoon capers,optional, not raw
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Dressing:
½ cup sundried tomato, soaked... or use 1/4 cup fresh tomato and 1/4 cup dried
½ cup olive oil
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons agave, or 2 soaked medjool dates
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 clove garlic, or more to taste
all organic if possible

Preparation:
1. Prepare dressing ingredients in magic bullet or blender.

2. Combine first 7 ingredients in a bowl and mix well with dressing.

I love to use my vidalia chop wizard for cutting all the veggies quickly and uniformly:)

If you would like to reduce the amount of oil, replace with equal amount of tomato soak liquid:) .

Good right away or can be marinated several days in fridge. This keeps very well and almost gets better as it sits. I love it served at room temperature or warmed in the dehydrator:)

The liquid that forms after marinating may be mixed back in, or carefully poured off.
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This month has been so much fun for me! I have so many more ideas, but Halloween is next week! I would love to hear from anyone if there is something special you are looking for, like more kid ideas, or a main course, or anything. Please send me an e-mail with any suggestions. My contact info is on my profile here:) Thanks!

Smoky Bones

This ghastly grub is another savory treat for your healthy raw Halloween party. It is very quick and easy to make. It is a smoky variation of my chili-lime fries:)

Smoky Bones

1 large jicama
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon chili powder, or more to taste
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
juice of 1/2 lime, about 1 tablespoon
½ teaspoon salt, or more to taste
ground cayenne,as desired, if you like "the burn"
any other additional spices like cumin, oregano, garlic

1. Peel and slice jicama about 1/4 of an inch thick. Cut into bones using small cookie cutters. Jicama scraps can be used for this lovely Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:)

2. Toss bones with oil, lime juice, and spices.

Serve with raw ketchup, or your favorite guacamole, garnished with ghosts cut from sliced avocado, and an orange pepper pumpkin with a parsley or cilantro leaf:)

Shown pictured with my own guacamole, Gena from Choosing Raw just posted a guacamole recipe that would be perfect with the smoky bones!

The guacamole was also tasty on some tombstone crackers made from the orange cheese and ground flax. I added the idea to the bottom of this post:)

The cute decorative "candle" idea is from one of my recent magazines. Use a carrot (or parsnip) in a candlestick! The eyes are black-eyed peas. LOL!...well, it is raw:)

Spooky S&M Salad

Even the most delicious salad can be spooked up with a little imagination, (and some little cookie cutters)! This is my take on Sarma's S&M Salad.

A while back, I wanted to try the famous S&M salad posted in this interview. I didn't have the macadamia oil in Sarma's dressing, but I did have mac nuts. Another one of those happy accidents, my Creamy Macadamia-Lime Hemp Dressing was created:)

This time the "S" is for spider and the "M" stands for monster:)

The Spiders!!!

Black olives
Fresh rosemary leaves
Toothpick

1. Poke 8 holes around the middle of the olive as shown with the toothpick.

2. Insert 8 rosemary leaves in the holes.

I like 3 spiders per salad.
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The Monsters:

Sliced avocado
fresh rosemary leaves
drinking straw
mini skull cookie cutter

1. Cut out skull shapes from avocado, use straw to make holes for eyes, and a small rosemary leaf for mouth. A third hole may be cut for open mouth, in place of rosemary.

About 7 monsters is a good amount.
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The Dressing:

Creamy Macadamia-Lime Hemp Dressing:
Ingredients:
1 cup macadamia nuts(or 1/2 mac + 1/2 cashews)
1/2 cup fresh lime juice*
1/4 cup fresh water
1/4 cup hemp seeds
1 tablespoon agave, more or less, to taste
additional 1/4 cup fresh water or more if needed

1. In blender, combine nuts, lime juice, 1/4 cup water, and agave until creamy.

2. With blender running, add additional water until desired thickness is reached.

3. Mix in hemp seeds by hand.

I have been making this recipe "to taste" as the limes vary and sometimes I like it a little sweeter:)

Makes enough for 2 or 3 good sized salads, or 4-5 appetizer sized. Keep in fridge 2-3 days in glass jar.
This is awesome as a dressing in a plain avocado half.

*to get the most juice out of your lime, have them at room temperature, press down on them and roll back and forth several times on the counter before cutting and reaming.
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The Tombstone Crackers: just my rosemary crackers:)

Ingredients:
2 cups almonds, soaked 8 hours, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup whole golden flax seed, ground after measure
1 cup fresh water
1/4 to 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1-2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
1/2-1 teaspoon salt
Additional rosemary for top of crackers, optional

1. In food processor fitted with "S" blade, process almonds until coarsely ground.

2. Add nutritional yeast, flax, rosemary, and salt, and process until combined. Adjust seasonings as desired.

3. With machine running, pour in water to form dough. Let mixture stand a few minutes to thicken if it seems too wet

4. Divide mixture in half and roll out onto 2 teflex sheets, sprinkle with additional rosemary if desired, and score into crackers. These are cut into tombstone shaped crackers. Check my post about making breads and crackers for some helpful tips:)

5. Dehydrate at 112 degrees for about 8 hours, flipping about halfway through. Drying time depends on thickness of crackers.

6. Store in glass jars for several weeks.

This is a very forgiving cracker recipe. It will work with more or less flax seed, rosemary, yeast and salt according to your personal preference:) These are also excellent using different herb blends, especially Italian mixed herbs or Herbes de Provence.

Spooky S&M Salad

Ingredients for salad:
Spring mix baby lettuce
dulse
hemp seeds
avocado monsters
olive spiders

1. Plate mixed baby greens. Sprinkle with some torn dulse and hemp seeds. You can add any scraps of avocado, chopped.

2. Drizzle with creamy dressing, and garnish with a few spiders and monsters.

3. Serve with tombstone crackers:)

All my Raw Halloween Recipes on this post:)

Savory Raw Halloween Ideas

Just a quick post today to show that not all raw Halloween party treats have to be sweet.

Shape your favorite orange colored cheeze into a pumpkin shape, stick in the end of a zucchini as a stem, and surround it with spooky stenciled crackers. I just happened to chill some cheeze in a mold that looked like the top of a pumpkin to me so I went with it!!!

The pumpkin shape can be made by making a ball with the cheeze, and making lines in it with a rubber spatula.

Make your favorite savory raw soup and add a raw sour cream spiderweb. Finish with a spider punched from nori:) The crackers are stenciled with cookie stencils from the craft store

For the spider web, make concentric circles with the sour cream drizzled from a squeeze bottle. From the center, draw straight lines out to the rim of the bowl with a toothpick or skewer.

Try to be a little neater than me today...I was in a bit of a rush when I made these:)

ETA... Another party idea!I just had a couple of mini BLTs on the little crackers using eggplant bacon chips and campari tomatoes...so good, and cute too:)

I also spread some cheese right onto nori sheets. To decorate, I punched out spider shapes from nori. I was inspired by Kandace's Cheesy Nori Snacks.

I used the squares of the punched out sheet as silhouettes to top another sheet.

They were dehydrated until crisp and cut into squares.

This is what I made with the last of the cheese. I added some ground flax to the mixture and cut out tombstone crackers. I used stamps sold for making stepping stones for the letters.



Hope you like these healthy raw Halloween ideas!!
All my Halloween recipes or links are here.

Have a great weekend everyone:)

Halloween Chocolate!

For many people the word Halloween is synonymous with chocolate!! I love to indulge in a piece of healthy raw chocolate once in a while, and Halloween is a great excuse:)

Don't worry, making raw chocolate doesn't have to be scary, unless you want it to be!

This recipe is yet another incarnation of my raw chocolate chip recipe. It uses mostly cacao butter and just a spoonful of coconut oil to enhance the melt-in-your-mouth quality. It is a harder chocolate that will stay hard at room temperature, as long as your room is less than 80 degrees:)

Halloween Raw Chocolate Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup grated cacao butter, ½ cup melted measure
¼ cup agave, or sub a scant 1/4 cup maple syrup or coconut nectar
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon coconut oil
Pinch salt

Preparation:

1. To melt cacao butter, place grated butter in a glass bowl placed inside a pot or larger bowl filled with hot water. I use water that has been warmed on the stove to just below a simmer.

I check the temp of the melted butter with an instant read thermometer. It stays below 90 degrees when melted. Cacao butter may also be melted in a bowl in the dehydrator. Do not allow water to get into the chocolate, as it will "clump".

2. Once cacao butter is melted, add agave, cocoa powder, coconut oil, and salt.

3. Allow mixture to cool slightly, until it starts to appear a bit dull and has thickened. This is also the texture you want to pipe raw chocolate chips.

4. Carefully spoon chocolate into molds. Tap mold on counter to level chocolate. Place lollipop sticks into chocolate and turn once to fully coat stick with chocolate. Tap again on counter to level if needed.

5. Place filled molds into fridge until hard. This should fill two average chocolate molds, depending on size.

6. When fully hardened, turn mold up-side down and gently press back of each mold to release chocolate. Special treat bags are available for lollipops .

All molds, sticks and bags are available at large department stores and craft stores.

This is my favorite chocolate recipe, and it is very versatile. It is awesome with dried fruits and nuts added. Try adding some buckwheaties for a Nestl*s Crunch kind of treat. Great for dipping fruit like strawberries, too!

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A little about the ingredients used in this recipe:

These are some of the ingredients I usually need to purchase online. I do try to avoid doing this, but some things just are not available in the several stores I shop at. I try to get the best quality I can afford at the time of my order. The coconut oil, Organic Nectars agave and cocoa powder pictured are from stores:)


To grate cacao butter, I use the fine shredding blade on my food processor.

The entire pound of cacao butter can be stored in a quart sized mason jar once grated. I cut out the name(for identification), and nutrition label from the package it came in for reference. I find the melted amount to be about 1/2 of the dry grated butter measure.


I hope you will enjoy making some raw chocolate as much as I do. This post will be added as a link to my Healthy Raw Halloween Recipes post.

Halloween8

Here is another eerily tasty beverage idea for a Healthy Raw Halloween party.

Swamp-water Smoothie

Ingredients for smoothie:
6 fresh pineapple spears
2 frozen bananas
4 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup fresh mint
1/2 cup water

For garnish:
1 tablespoon hemp seeds
1 tablespoon chia seeds
6-8 of the tiniest mint leaves
6-8 goji berries, soaked and sprinkled with a few chia seeds, optional for ladybugs
1 coconut skull ice cube, optional*

*For ice cube, blend the meat and water from 1 young coconut until smooth and freeze overnight in a skull mold. The mold holds 3 cups, my coconut was 2 and 1/2 cups, so it did not fill completely. Pass under warm water to make it easier to pop out of mold.

If using coconut ice sculpture, put a small custard cup up-side down in bottom of punch bowl, as the ice will sink. You can let it sink if you want it to reveal itself as your guests serve the smoothie:) Another suggestion is to use two ice molds(back to back), or just an ice block, to elevate the skull from the smoothie.

1. Combine pineapple, banana, spinach, mint, and water in high speed blender until smooth.

2. Pour into prepared bowl. Lay scull onto custard cup, if using.

3. Sprinkle with hemp seeds, chia seeds, tiny mint leaves, and goji ladybugs, if using.

Of course, you can make this with any flavor smoothie and ice sculpture. A green smoothie skull in a light tropical smoothie would look awesome too!

The ladybugs are from my Ladybugs on a Log. They would be a cute snack for the little ones at the party.

Ladybugs on a Log

Ingredients:
1 stalk celery
1 tablespoon almond butter
5 dried goji berries, soaked for 1 hour
1 sprinkle chia seeds, pictured, or poppy or black sesame seed

Preparation:
1. Wash and dry celery.

2. Fill with almond butter.

3. Sprinkle berries with seeds, and place across almond butter.

A variation:
ladybugs on a "raft"
Top sliced apple,pear,banana the same way.
Sprinkle the fruit slices with lemon or orange juice if making ahead (to slow browning)
Sprinkle with cinnamon, optional before adding the "ladies"!

Another quick fruit idea for the kiddies:)

Spooky Silhouette Slices

1. Simply cut slices of any fruit. Apple and pear can be sprinkled with lemon or orange juice to prevent browning. Melons work well for this idea.

2. Cut out center of apple or pear slices with a tiny cutter shape large enough to remove any seeds. Discard this cut out if it has seeds.

3. Cut out a contrasting color of fruit slice (the same thickness) with same shape.

4. Fill in the hole with contrasting colored fruit shape. All edible scraps can be blended into smoothie:)

I have also made these with geometric shapes to teach basic shapes to little ones:)

This eerie edible is a version of my goji jam and apple fries:

Cut fruit with bone shaped cutters and serve with a side of red jam for dipping:)
Remember to sprinkle apple and pear with lemon juice, and a sprinkle of cinnamon if the little ones like it:)

Halloween7

Every good creepy cookie deserves an equally frightening glass of milk to go with it!

Here is a gruesome, but delicious way to dress up your beverage of choice.

The Grim Rimmer


1/2 cup strawberries
3-4 medjool dates
2 tablespoons really red juice, like pomegranate or cherry, optional to deepen color
1 tablespoon coconut oil, softened

1. Combine all ingredients in bullet or blender until smooth.

2. Pour into squeeze bottle or carefully drip by spoon onto inside rim of glass as shown. I used a chocolate mold painting bottle with a #3 tip. Let set for a few minutes before filling with favorite drink. You can pre-decorate all glasses if you have a cool place to keep them before filling.

This would be good with any light colored fruity smoothie or nut milk.

This link will be added to my Healthy Raw Halloween Recipe post.

I used my cardamom flavored almond milk to compliment the flavors in the cookie:) This may be too strongly flavored for small children.

Warm Almond Milk

Servings:
makes 12 ounces

Ingredients:
¼ cup sprouted almonds
¼ cup whole brown sesame seeds, soaked a few hours, rinsed and drained
12 ounce (1 and 1/2 cups) fresh water, warmed to 100 degrees if desired
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom, more or less to taste
3 pitted medjool dates, soaked if not soft

Preparation:
1. Place all ingredients in bullet or blender.

2. Blend until creamy and white.

3. Strain through nut milk bag.

I made this milk last year after trying Roshi's badam ka halva, shown in the background of this picture. The pulp from this milk probably could be dehydrated to use in the Creature Finger cookies. Omit cardamom from cookie recipe if using this pulp:)

I would like to wish everyone in Canada a Happy Thanksgiving today!!!

Happy Columbus Day to all in the States:)

Halloween6....I Scream!!!

As promised, I am back with another freaky, fruity, raw, and healthy treat for Halloween.

Please check out my main post on Healthy Raw Halloween Recipes for all the treats you don't have to be afraid of enjoying this Halloween!

This one is so simple, and again, can be made a head:) of time.

Banana I Scream

Ingredient:)
7-8 ripe organic bananas

Preparation:

1. Peel and slice bananas into about 1 inch chunks. Place banana slices in a freezer-safe container or zip top bag. Freeze about 6 hours or overnight.

2. Place frozen banana into food processor fitted with "S" blade. Pulse to start breaking down banana, then process until light and creamy. You will have to stop and scrape down a few times.

3. Fill mold and tap on counter to allow mixture to fill smaller indentations. I wasn't as careful as I could have been, but it still looked fine. Next time I would fill in the teeth cavity:) first using a spoon instead of a huge scoop.



4. Freeze until solid, about 6-8 hours. Overnight is better. This can be made days in advance and kept in freezer until serving.

To un-mold, rub over outside of frozen mold with a clean towel wrung out in very hot water, or carefully pass under warm water for a second to loosen. Gently press out onto serving platter. You can smooth over any rough spots with a clean finger. If using a silicone mold, just pop out, no need to warm.

The only trick to this treat is that you need to purchase a mold for the I Scream.
Wilton made the one I used today, and there is also a silicone mold with 6 individual cavities:) These are available at Michaels craft stores.

This can be made using any white(ish) ice cream recipe. I used the incredibly easy banana ice cream first made popular by Alissa Cohen in Living on Live Food (p. 516). When I first tried it a few years ago, I was so surprised how much it tasted like ice cream! It was the inspiration for my favorite variation, Triple Thick Chocolate Shake:)

Another suggestion is to fill the mold with blended young coconut (meat and water). Float coconut ice skull in a punch bowl filled with green smoothie. It will keep the smoothie cold, and add delicious flavor!

I was happy to see this banana ice cream idea enjoy a new popularity when the lovely Gena blogged about it. I love the title of her post, and check out the response she got from it!!!

I was also really happy to see T.V. foodie Rachael Ray make a variation of it as well. I love when I see raw food go mainstream:)

I'll be back next week with more healthy raw Halloween treats!