Raw Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

Wow! Talk about easy and delicious.  Total 5/5 happy monkeys.

Directions:

From Living on Live Food by Alissa Cohen: Take two or three raw bananas, peel, chop and throw in the freezer.  Freeze up to two weeks.  Take them out and blend until soft and creamy.  Add ice to bulk it out if needed.  Also, you can add cocoa, carob or any other flavoring if you want.  We found raw cocoa to be a bit too bitter, and prefer the carob.

Next time: freeze the bananas before they get too ripe and sweet; try carob/mint flavoring.

Tangy Raw Strawberry Yogurt Pie

After buying the delicious raw cheesecake in our local whole foods every other week, we decided it was time to try to make our own.  This recipe is loosely based on the recipes in Alissa Cohen’s book Living on Live Food, but with the sugar content drastically reduced.

It was yummy and healthy, hower, it didn’t quite live up to the whole foods version, mostly because it was too liquidy to completely hold together, even after many hours chilling in the fridge.  I think it is because we added a cup of water to get our crap blender to actually blend.  Now we have a ultra fantastic vita-mix so hopefully next time this won’t be an issue.  Did you know a vita-mix can blend an iPod?  I know it’s true because it’s on the internet.

This version gets a 3/5 happy monkeys because it needs some work in the firmness area.  The crust was fantastic and gets 4/5 happy monkeys all on its own.

Crust:

1 cup pecans
1/2 cup dates (pitted, soaked & drained)
1.5 cups shredded coconut
1 tsp vanilla

Filling:

4 cups strawberries (fresh or frozen, we used both)
4 cups cashews (soaked & drained)
2 tsp vanilla
juice from 1.5 limes
1 cup water

Directions:

To make crust: grind pecans until fine, add dates and blend until creamy, add the rest of ingredients and blend well.  Press into the bottom of a pie pan.

To make pie filling: blend all ingredients together, pour into pie pan on top of crust.  Chill.

Next time: try a more complex base than straight cashews (maybe add fresh young coconut); soak cashews first; do not use a cup of water; if use any water, use coconut water or date water instead of plain water; use vita-mix!

Also, I really want to try Rawmazing’s Raw Strawberry Cream Pie next time we get strawberries and I have the foresight to soak my cashews for 6 hrs first–it looks sooo good!