Lasagna and cheesecake!

I think I am having a bit of beginner's luck because I had what I consider another successful week in the kitchen.  I made wonderful raw lasagna that got some pretty good reviews.  I am continuing to stretch myself with balancing savory flavor profiles and while that challenge is more of a struggle the other challenge I have is maximizing on the forgiving formulas in raw cuisine.  I love the resourceful aspect of it.  Being resourceful, is the kind of kitchen challenge that brings everything "home" for me.  So after I ate and shared all this lasagna, 

I still had some almond "base" cheese leftover, so I decided to make a raw cheesecake.

I improvised the entire thing, and while I sort of took notes as I went along, I did not include everything because, it was really a little of this and a little of that.  Now this is really a shame because everyone who tried this cake, to my surprise, loved it!!!  This included my toughest critics, my four kids!  My son even wanted his girlfriend to try it and my daughter wanted her boyfriend to try it!

Here is Kari (my son's girlfriend) trying it ...

And here is Kari really enjoying it!

Now I had leftover cookie dough from last week's ice cream sandwiches (which were NOT a big hit) and some left over cheesecake crust.  What to do?  Make cookies!

Another big hit! 


Now I had to turn my oven on though, to make a dairy free birthday cake for a 7 year old.  All he wanted was a chocolate cake with white icing and balloons and sprinkles.  I think this will do the trick.

No one with any kind of food allergy should be deprived of a yummy birthday cake!


I have granola in the dehydrator, coconut yogurt in the refrigerator, sun-dried tomatoes marinating in the juice from the drained lasagna tomato sauce and a notebook of recipes I need to go over to be ready for the gluten free expo this coming weekend.  Am I excited?  That would be a "yes"!

Busy in my kitchen!

I have finally gotten around to making some raw food.  Not exclusively, but some just the same.  I have also had to make some gluten free goodies.  This is the plate of gluten free goodies I brought to lovely Lori Murphy at Murphy's Health Food Store.

Clockwise from the top, apricot scones, chocolate chip cookies and chocolate walnut brownies.  These may soon be making their debut in her store!!

I continued to clean out my freezer.  Found one lonely gluten free chocolate cake layer in there.  It became a three layer cake that I shared with my sister.

Came across a new recipe that I was curious about trying also.  A gluten free dairy free orange coconut muffin.  (I love coconut!)

A very good base recipe that I will change just a bit.  Loved the flavor, but the texture could be more tender.  Worth keeping though for future work.  (for that B & B dream I have)

And ... yahoo!  Finally got to making some raw food, too!

Kale Chips!  My poor little dehydrator worked so hard this week.  It was on nearly 24/7!  Cannot wait until my new bigger excalibur arrives!  What was I thinking two years ago when I bought such a small one!

Sprouted buckwheat with Brazil nut milk for breakfast.  Such a treat!

Raw tomato soup for lunch!

Broccoli raisin salad for dinner!

Ice cream sandwiches for dessert!

Broccoli Salad "take-out".  Taking this to someone! 

Love and peace to all from my happy busy kitchen!

Highlights of my first week back!

It should come as no surprise that I open this post with a cupcake!  I really had some baking withdrawals that I had to honor upon my return.  We were invited to a small social gathering with wonderful St. Lawrence friends less than a week after I got back and I was just a little nervous about introducing something "raw" so instead I brought something a little more familiar but still a bit of a risk.  I brought a gluten free, dairy free, coconut layer cake.  I only made a six inch cake to bring, so I had plenty of batter leftover to make some cupcakes.  Good thing because I had unexpected company.  Here is one of my little friends, enjoying her second one of the afternoon! 

She loved them.  They are gluten free, dairy free and instead of refined sugar, I used organic evaporated cane juice, so this probably isn't the worst thing she could have, is it?


The cake was four layers, with strawberry jam, buttercream, and organic unsweetened toasted coconut between each layer.

Did not have much time before we had to leave so the only thing I could do to add a bit of color and decoration was to add some organic strawberries to it.

That helped.  I meant to take photos of the sliced cake so that you could see the layers but once the cake was sliced and served it was consumed fairly quickly so the photo never happened.  I was very pleased to see clean plates all around!  


Shared the remaining cupcakes with my friend Tracy when she came for tea the next day!

Yes, we ate them all. 


One of the first things I got to work on with regard to pulling my home back in order after being gone so long was a lot of purging and cleaning out of food items in the pantry, refrigerator and freezer to make some much needed room for some "raw" items that I plan on making ... soon.


I found myself finishing some gluten free, dairy free, sugar free brownies.

The recipe is from The Spunky Coconut Cookbook, by Kelly V. Brozyna.


Also in my freezer waiting for me to bake were some cranberry scones.  This is my own recipe.  Gluten free. 

Some Udi's gluten free toast begged to be eaten, too.

I also could not resist purchasing and trying a new gluten free product for pancakes.  I have a good one already, but so many people ask me for my opinion on gluten free products, I feel compelled to try about as many as I can.

They were delicious!  I am supposed to say here that another young visitor, Jordan Porter, also thought they were incredibly delicious!  This is the plate I had prepared for my breakfast when he walked in the kitchen that I gave to him to eat instead.  Once he gave the two thumbs up, well, I quickly made some more!

Here is the mix and the syrup I used.

The last priority was collecting spring water!  We were completely out!  It was quite a different excursion going myself and in the spring when the ground is soft and muddy but it is all worth it! There is no comparison to any other water!  A constant cool clean stream of beautiful water just 40 minutes north in Kenosha!

In this beautiful setting.

It streams down into this lovely little natural rocky pond of sorts.

Finally all done collecting, after many trips uphill and back.

Time to go.  Definitely had plenty of time for reflection going back and forth up and down the hill carrying water container after container.  Realized how incredibly fortunate I am because, I am making the choice to collect clean water, when so many others must collect water under far worse circumstances because they have to.  The fact that my shoes got so muddy, well, that really isn't such a big thing, is it?

Thank you for sharing my journey with me.  It is good to be home.