Vegan (Almost) Organic Chocolate Cake

This organic vegan chocolate cake is good for you and tastes good. Try it, you’ll like it.

What You Need

1/2 a ripe organic banana

1 pkg. (10.5 oz) organic firm lite silken tofu

1/3 cup organic canola, organic olive or organic sesame oil or a mix of all three

1 1/4 cup H2O

2 1/2 teaspoon organic vanilla

2 tablespoons egg replacer (powder) (Reason 1 this recipe is not organic is I have not been able to fine a dry, organic egg replacer anywhere. If anyone knows about it let me know.)

2 1/2 cup organic pastry flour (for a little denser cake use 2 cups organic pastry flour 1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour)

2 cups organic sugar or organic sucanat

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoon organic baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup organic cocoa powder (for extra flavor you may add 1/3 cup carob powder)

What You Do

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Oil and flour pan.

Blend tofu and oil in a processor or blender until smooth. Next, add the banana, water, and vanilla.

Combine remaining cake ingredients in a large bowl. Add to tofu mixture and whip for 8 minutes.

Bake for 35 minutes

Organic Banana Nut Bread Recipe

I am strange in the sense that I don’t like certain foods solely based on their texture. For example, I don’t like the texture of raw bananas, pudding, Tiramisu, warm fruit, and eggplant depending on how it is prepared, pretty much anything with that thick mucus texture grosses me out.

I try foods I don’t like every year just to see if anything has changed. I never liked peanut butter, but now I do, olives as well, and a plethora of other fine foods I will not list here. Raw bananas since birth has been on my, “not going to happen” list. It is a shame as I like the flavor of bananas and they are good for you with their high potassium level! I did discover that I like banana chips, banana bread and I can even handle some smoothies which contain bananas.  This organic banana nut bread recipe happens to be my favorite way to eat bananas. :)

What You Need

2 1/2 cups organic flour, sifted

3 teaspoons organic baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup organic sugar

3/4 cup organic walnuts

1/3 cup organic butter, softened

1 organic egg

3 small organic ripe bananas, cut up

1/2 cup organic milk

What To Do

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the flour, baking powder and sea salt in a medium bowl.

Put the walnuts in a blender or food processor and chop for 4-10 seconds. Add to the bowl with the flour and such.

Put the sugar, butter, egg, bananas and milk into a blender or food processor for 6-15 seconds. Then pour over the dry ingredients and mix.

Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

It is great in the morning, toasted with a cup of coffee.

Enjoy.

-Cara

Sea Grape Jelly

I remember when I was a kid growing up in Miami my Nana and Papa had the best backyard. In it, to name a few of the million plants, were mangoes, guavas, avocados, papayas, bananas and sea grapes. I remember helping them make guava and sea grape jelly in their small ranch house. We always made less of the sea grape jelly, so it made it more of a treat.

Here is my Nana’s Sea Grape Recipe given to my mom, then given to me.

2 to 3 quarts of sea grapes

8 cups fruit juice from sea grapes

8 1/2 cups sugar

1/3 cup lime juice

Select ripe and partly ripe sea grapes. Wash and place in large pot, add water to not quite cover the fruit. Bring to a boil and soak until tender. Squeeze juice out by hand or strain through jelly bag, then measure juice.

To each 8 cups of juice obtained, add 8 1/2 cups sugar and 1/3 cup lime juice.

Cook to 225 degrees, which will take about 27 minutes. When it reaches the jelly stage, skim and pour into sterile jars and seal. Makes eight 1/2 pound jars.

It’s been a long time since I’ve made sea grape jelly. I need to find some wild sea grapes again.

-Cara

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Reason 64 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:

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