mint-chip cheesecake!

so today i made the mint-chip cheesecake out of sweet gratitude, page 100. think mint cacao chip ice cream by cashew creamery as a cheesecake!

 i prepared last night by soaking the cashews and making the almond/cacao/coconut crust so this morning was easy!

ew, the mint and cashews don't look so pretty in the blender.... yet...

there's the crust! YAH!

 ooh and the warm from blending (oops) mint cheesecake! 

 and the chocolate blend for the swirl... my first attempt at a swirl!

 so fun!!!

 probably still could've saved less of the cake mix (and i saved less than the recipe asked to!) for the chocolate swirl but oh well! last time i saved the 2 cups the recipe asked for and it was way too much!

 now here is the best part... after having it in the freezer a few hours, i pat cacao nibs on the sides and top and add some mint leaves and it looks like a real dessert, doesn't it?

just in case you didn't see the first photo... ^_^ 

 oh, you want a view as if you're me, looking down on the cake, ready to cut it?

and here we go! 

 it gets soft so fast! i like it right out of the freezer! ah, and a note for next time with the swirling... i will pour heavier right away so that some of the swirl goes deeper into the cake! 

mmmm... cheesecakes are getting so easy to make! i'm so excited! 

soup and sandwiches and... pad thai

so the other day, i tried to make soup again.. this time it was too salty. 

 but then i made ice cream out of frozen bananas (with cacao macaroons on the side) to make it all better!

 but really the best lunch is a sandwich using whatever veggies on hand, brazil nut and nacho "cheeses" on the juice pulp/flax dehydrator bread!

 i have to start using the recipe books i have! i've started looking through ani phyo's raw food essentials and did kelp noodles with pistachio avocado pesto. so creamy and great!!!

 had cashew creamery's cacao chip mint ice cream spread into a cacao coconut frozen crust for dessert.

 i put too much coconut oil in the crust but it was super fun to eat! like dq ice cream cake. sort of.

 ok and then i tried soup AGAIN. this one wasn't a total bust! and paul actually ate it all... with lots of nutritional yeast of course. this one was inspired by ani's kream of broccoli (page 138) but i didn't add the red pepper kream on top and i used brazil nuts instead of cashews. simple, green and good!

 ooh but the real hit... the pad thai with kelp noodles! (page 227) wish i added crushed nuts of some sort on top or cauliflower or something to look more pad thai-ish. but the cilantro and lime and bit of jalapeno glow... yum!!!