Artisana Raw Nut Butters Winner!

We had a lot of fun with this giveaway--everyone had such great ideas! From breakfast to savory meals to sweet treats, it is wonderful how versatile nut butters can be with a little imagination!

For breakfast, Animal Friendly loves a heartwarming stick-to-your-ribs breakfast, with nut butter melted into oatmeal. Yummy! Ricki says nut butters are great made into a sweet sauce of nut butter, mylk, and spices, poured over baked sweet potatoes--a great alternative to the usual cereal breakfast!

Sweet Karoline is inspired by the coconut butter to make a Thai chickpea pancake, which can be enjoyed for a savory breakfast or as part of a meal later in the day.

Meghan uses nut butters to enhance sauces and pestos. Vegetation and Sara agreed with Meghan, that nut butters could transform soups or curries into "creamy deliciousness".

Most everyone has a sweet tooth, right? Vegetation also listed some easy ways to use nut butters-in smoothies, ice cream, or popsicles. Refreshing! Erica specifically loves raw banana soft serve--a blend of just nut butter, frozen bananas, and cinnamon. Vegan Lisa and Sara both love to top cakes, cupcakes, and caramel apples with luscious raw "buttercream" frosting.

For coconut oil, Deb Schiff recommends Ani's Pineapple Icebox Cake, a big crowd pleaser. She also suggests replacing oil in brownies with tahini--what a nice way to enhance nutrition and flavor in brownies! Rachel H also uses coconut oil for decadent melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookies!

For those of you who love sweets so much that you'd also enjoy them for lunch or dinner--make dessert hummus and serve with cinnamon pita chips and some fresh fruit. Courtney is inspired by the idea of using different nut butters in hummus and changing up the flavors: Pecan butter with pumpkin and cinnamon, Almond butter with cranberries, Macadamia butter with cocoa powder and a touch of vanilla, or Walnut butter and Cacao bliss. Sounds heavenly!
Personally, we (LKSisters) have been using the nut butters in many ways--with fresh fruit over waffles, added to scones, cookies, and bread, swirled into a creamy smoothie, and spread on top of homemade graham crackers...

What wonderful ideas! Now, we're salvating for some delicious food and nut butters!


Alright, now to the results:

Random.org's Random Integer Generator was used to make this as fair as possible. We generated a winner in a more complex way just for something different and fun--Each person entered was randomly assigned a number between 1 and 200, using the random integer generator. Then, the random integer generator was used again to generate numbers between 1 and 200, and the first number it generated that aligned with a person's assigned number was the winner.

The winner will receive a sample of Artisana Nut Butters (tahini, pecan butter, walnut butter, macadamia butter, almond butter, coconut oil, coconut butter, and cacao bliss), plus a few brochures/coupons from the Portland Veg Fest!

Drumroll please....The winner is-----------Erica from Discovering Raw blog!

CONGRATULATIONS ERICA! Erica, let us know where we can send you the Artisana sample pack! We will also email you through your blog just to be sure you get this message.

And thank you everyone for your entries and inspiring ideas! May you all try some Artisana nut butters and continue to be creative in the kitchen!

Birthday Portland Excursion & Other Eats

It's been a while posting...partly because we've been getting burned out from 9-11 hour days at work. We had an especially bad day on Thursday June 18, which happened to be our 23 rd birthday. :(

Saturday was a wonderful day, though, hiking in Forest Park (the largest urban park in the USA), strolling through Portland's Pearl District (and stopping in at Storables, Powell's City of Books, and Whole Foods Market), and eating at Proper Eats Cafe! We had a wonderful refreshing hike followed by a fresh, healthy lunch. If you are ever in the area, you have to hike at Forest Park, it is so beautiful, scenic, lush, peaceful, and rejuvenating!

At Proper Eats, we shared a tabouli wrap with shredded beets, sauerkraut, spinach, and miso tahini sauce on a whole wheat tortilla, and a sample platter of raw crackers, raw veggies, sunseed avocado dip, hummus, and spicy black bean dip. For dessert, decadent Thai Chili Dark Chocolate Truffle and Peppermint Dark Chocolate Truffle! While the meals were very good, unique, and fresh, we felt like they weren't wow enough to get the next time. We really want to try their other dishes, because it was all so healthy, local, and vegan. The cafe is quaint and even has a small grocery store with local produce, bulk section, and vegan snacks.
Did we mention how much we LOVE our farmer's market? Last week we bought super sweet and fresh strawberries, zucchini, lettuce, bok choy, cucumber, and fresh aromatic basil.


Since we are behind in posting, here are some more delicious yet random eats to share with you!

Starting off the weekend with a fruit n' veggie smoothie, fresh sliced pears, and some Nature's Path Flax Waffles, drizzled with a little pear butter and maple syrup.









And, let's just skip to dessert! Vive le Vegan's Chocolate Chip Cookies!

We adapted them slightly (added in a little oats for texture, among other things), but overall these were the best chocolate chip cookies we've tried. Good texture, soft yet not too doughy or crumbly, whole grain, and very flavorful! This recipe can act as a base to be used to create other great cookies. Yummy :)


Using our huge farmer's market zucchini, we made zucchini hummus. This recipe came from our raw "cook"book (Raw Food Made Easy for 1-2 People), but our tahini was non-raw, so this hummus is semi-raw. The hummus has zucchini, tahini, garlic, a little cumin and paprika, and some salt just blended together. It is slightly thinner in consistency, but very tasty and unique. It is more than just hummus - it can be used as a creamy sauce, as a dip, or as a dressing, and you can change up the spices to create different flavors. We loved it especially over pasta (chilled or warm), fresh basil leaves, and veggies (in this case some sundried tomatoes).
So, celebrate this summer by buying fresh local produce, traveling/exploring new places, eating healthy delicious meals, and indulging in decadent desserts!

Portland is a great place to travel, with beautiful bridges, parks, shopping, and restaurants.


Have a nice week everyone! We will share some more product reviews soon.

Let us know what your favorite places/cities to travel are, because we love to travel!

Wishing good health and fun for June!

Sweet red strawberries are in season here!! We are excited that our local farmer's market has started up. Soon more berries will be plentiful, along with other great summer produce. Summer fruits and vegetables and sunny warm days means refreshing, light, nutritious, easy meals!

The local strawberries were delicious as is, but we also enjoyed them in a raw buckwheat porridge, sprinkled with a little raw wheat germ and hemp seeds.


We also enjoyed a light, healthy, refreshing, and creamy GREENS smoothie! Most of the green smoothies we have enjoyed (and need to make more often) include some or all of the following: bananas, greens, cucumbers, blueberries, non-dairy milks, hemp protein powder, spices, and other fruits and juices.

Any suggestions on how to make these smoothies WOW and change them up frequently would be greatly appreciated! We need some greens inspiration. Also, if you purchase or know of any high quality nutritious greens/fruit powder mixes, please let us know. We have been enjoying hemp protein powder, but once it is gone, we want to try an even healthier blend with greens and fruit in it, such as Amazing Grass brand. Has anyone ever tried this blend? Which greens brands do you recommend that have fresh, high-quality, low-sugar, natural and organic ingredients??


Another healthy alternative to fresh food is freeze-dried food! We love freeze dried peas to snack on - a healthy snack with a nice crunch. The freeze-dried mangos are delicious in cereal in the morning, and the freeze-dried edamames are a handy addition with dinner. We usually get freeze-dried peas, corn, fruit, and tomatoes from Just Tomatoes at our local grocery store, but we decided to buy from Harmony House Foods for different freeze-dried products. Unique freeze-dried or dehydrated products, like sweet potatoes, pears, green beans, etc.... The only thing we weren't crazy about was the kiwi - was really tart. They even have really good vegan vegetable soup mixes.We are overall thrilled at Oregon summers, so much more fun and refreshing than Texas' summers! It's wonderful to enjoy farmer's markets, Oregon landscape (coast, hills, forest, waterfalls, etc..) and to savor fresh nutritious foods!

As Hippocrates says, "A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessing." "He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything."-Unknown

P.S. We found this great website to be creative - wordle. Express yourself, your thoughts, your desires, your joys!

Happy June!

Whirlwind of Seasonal Eats Part 1

Spring is finally here, with a hint of summer this week (high 70's and sunshine)!! But sadly, it is only temporary. In terms of meals from the end of March to the beginning of April, we have cooked meals that have wavered like the wind- from winter, spring, and summer meals.

To celebrate the sunshine, we enjoyed many meals outdoors and ate crisp, refreshing, summer/spring-type foods:

Raw Buckwheat Pepita Pate with carrots, cucumbers, and collard greens. Very palatable, much like fancy tuna/chicken/chickpea salads. Good with lots of celery seed.






Raw Creamy Tomato Soup, with fresh red bell pepper, onion, herbs, and garlic for enhanced flavor, and with avocado for richness.


Fresh corn on the cob. We're ready for more sweet corn to make some corn soup. But for now we enjoyed the corn with some buttery olive oil on it.

Tempeh BLT's (no bacon of course), based off of this recipe. Awesome. We just started experimenting with tempeh, and it is so versatile, nutritious, and tasty. We love hearty healthy sandwiches, and the marinated tempeh with avocado and red onion was delicious!

Cheezy Quesadillas with pinto beans, based off of this recipe. This was almost too rich, slightly sweet. We love the idea though and feel this is a great idea to branch from. We are making cheezy hummus quesadillas when our parents come up to visit this weekend.

and Tofu Scramble Fiesta Wraps, with potatoes, black beans, salsa, avocado, onion, bell pepper, and jalapeno.

For breakfast, we made a refreshing Raw Buckwheat Porridge with fresh blueberries and sliced oranges on the side. Zesty, fresh, and flavorful! For a nice snack, we chomped on Kettle's Baked Potato Chips (the best potato chips, and baked, too). And, we savored some Homemade Root Beer Banana Ice Cream.


Stay in tune for Part 2 of "Whirlwind of seasonal eats" post - about the winter eats. :)
-LK

Adding Pumpkin

We like the idea of adding pumpkin to all kinds of foods. In quick breads and yeast breads, cookies, smoothies, puddings, ice creams, oatmeal, soups, and main dishes. This winter we've added pumpkin to a variety of foods and not only does pumpkin make the foods delicious but also nutritious!

We tried this pumpkin pie ice cream, but used all soy milk (no soy creamer), a little more pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice, and added some frozen bananas. Made lots of ice cream! Deliciously spiced, and we read that adding arrowroot powder helps prevent ice crystals from forming.

Other creamy pumpkin treats of course include pumpkin banana yogurt smoothies and pumpkin puddings.

From our wonderful friends at Bob's Red Mill, we made Gingerbread using their Gingerbread Cake Mix, but instead of using eggs and oil, we used pumpkin puree, a little oil, and flax with water. So moist, spiced, and delicious! Will definetely make again. You could add some raisins or orange juice for a different variation.


Last weekend we went on a trip to Salem and to Lifesource Natural Foods, where we got some fresh squash pumpkin veggie soup. Warm and creamy for a cold day! Adding pumpkin to even a bowl of split pea soup is another great idea!

Another pumpkin hide-a-way --- in tofu scramble! We love tofu scrambles, and having pumpkin tofu scramble was no exception. Chewy tofu with creamy pumpkin. Yum! Added green bell peppers and onion, but other veggies like kale or broccoli would have been good.

So, we have a can of pumpkin ready to use for the coming week, and we are thinking of creamy curry sauce with cauliflower and veggies, pumpkin maple banana pancakes, and pumpkin vinaigrette broccoli. Get creative with pumpkin! - LK

Autumn Blends

So simple!

(each recipe serve 2)

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

1/2 -2/3 cup pumpkin puree
1- 1 1/4 cup soy milk
~ 1/3 cup frozen bananas
3-4 generous dashes pumpkin pie spice
~ 2 tsp molasses and 1 tsp agave, optional
1 individual carton vanilla soy yogurt, optional

Puree in a blender until smooth. Then enjoy!


Pumpkin Pudding (with tofu)

~2/3 cup pumpkin puree, or to your liking
1 packet of vanilla pudding mix ( we used Mori Nu)
1 pack firm tofu
dashes of pumpkin pie spice

Blend until smooth, then refrigerate to firm up.



Egg Nog Smoothie (no measuring)

1 individual carton vanilla soy yogurt
soy milk (enough for a good consistency to thin it out)
frozen bananas
dashes of nutmeg
dash of cinnamon
dash of allspice
some coconut butter, optional

Blend into smooth. Enjoy!


Banana Pumpkin Applesauce

1 banana
2 large apples
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
dashes of cinnamon

Puree in blender until smooth. Eat cold or warm!

A Little More About Us

This past week we've made lots of healthy tasty meals, but we were unbelievably busy at work that we didn't take any pictures. We made a creamy pumpkin pasta dish made with large wheat shells, tofu/pumpkin 'ricotta' filling, onions, garlic, and marinara sauce. Delicious and made enough for 8 people! We also enjoyed burritos with homemade whole wheat tortillas, revised from the King Arthur Whole Grain cookbook.

Being apart of the Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA), by buying produce for the winter season from a local farmer, has been such a great opportunity. We absolutely love all the mixed greens and salad mixes - we have eaten so much more greens than we ever have! Here was a delicious salad with mixed salad greens and stripped sweet raw beets!


With chan dal beans from Bob's Red Mill, we cooked Channa Palak Masala from Happy Herbivore, though we changed it up just slightly. Love homemade soup out of the crockpot! So easy, filling, and warm on a cold wet day in Oregon.


Fall is all about pumpkin and winter squashes! We have such a craving for anything pumpkin/squash. Yummy pumpkin smoothie with bananas, and yummy pumpkin pudding!Veggie Delight recently tagged us to post more about us. So, here goes:

Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links. Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are the people we are going to tag (We're only tagging three):
Monique of The Happy Veganarian
Anni and Heikki of Tofu for Two
Swell Vegan

Facts about us:
1. In junior high and some of highschool, we played violin in the school orchestra, and we took German as our foreign language. We are very passionate about music - we enjoy listening to music and playing the piano, we liked the violin (but got burned out after a while), and we have a guitar sitting in a corner waiting to be learned how to play. We are also interested in culture - we traveled to Germany, we went on exchange for a year in college to New Hampshire, we like cultural foods, and our heritage is a mix of different cultures.

2. Krista is left handed and Lisa is right handed. We are "mirror" twins; even our first cavity was on opposite sides.


3. We like licorice and as children our grandparents would always give us black jelly beans for Easter. Right now we have licorice vegan mints and licorice flavored Nature's Gate toothpaste.

4. As children, we loved to make crafts, color, and be creative. We were very quiet, soft spoken girls who liked to just dive into a project, such as crocheting, making posters, coloring, creating ornaments, etc. Today we still love to work on projects. We make scrapbooks of our unique experiences, create recipe and prayer books, paint ceramics, and create collages to give as gifts to our family members (through websites such as shutterfly.com).

5. We each have a different favorite 'animal' - Lisa's is an elephant and Krista loves dolphins. We have lots of figurines and such of each. Of course, we love cats and dogs, especially our two felines, Emma and Noah!

6. We don't like spending lots, and try to conserve and be good spenders. Sometimes though we do spend alot on food because we like food so much, especially when we see new products or go to cool stores like Whole Foods and Bob's Red Mill.

7. We are followers of Christ and love going to mass every weekend! God is so much a part of us, and He's number one in our life. We love to collect crosses to hang around the house.

God bless! Lisa and Krista (LK Sisters)

Eyes, Bugs, Tornadoes!

Happy November! Since Halloween was yesterday, we wanted to get creative in the kitchen and have a "themed" meal. Easy but delicious...

... Black Eye Soup, slimy cucumber salad with bugs, and tornado and moon crescent rolls.



The Black Eye Soup was a variation of our Black Bean Soup, but we added a can of black eyed peas to have "eyes" in our soup. Pureed the black beans but not the black eyed peas.

For the cucumber salad, we just shredded a cucumber and added onion, currants, black pepper and some vinegar. It would be good with some other seasonings, but it was still refreshing and we enjoyed eating our slimy salad with black bugs!

Our Tornado and Moon Crescent Rolls were made with Bob's 10 Grain flour and carrot puree. We were hoping the carrots would make the rolls orange, but it just made it a darker golden brown. The carrot flavor though definetely stood out and made the crescents subtly carroty sweet. Yum!


We had so much fun carving a pumpkin (quite large one too!). The best part - roasting pumpkin seeds! We loved this garlicy cayenne addicting snack.


We are in the mood for comforting Autumn foods, so this morning we baked gingerbread raisin cookies. The recipe is from David's Pure Vegetarian Kitchen Cookbook that we checked out from the library. It is a great book so far with easy but tasty recipes that are quick to make and don't require much ingredients.

Another holiday treat we made last night was homemade "egg nog". In the Vitamix, we blended So Delicious Vanilla coconut milk yogurt, hemp milk, frozen bananas, nutmeg, and a dash of allspice. Turned out excellent!

Hope your November is off to a great start!

Today's All Saints Day, so here is a Bible verse in recognition of Saint Martha, the patron saint of servants and cooks.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:6a)

We should prepare our meals with love and be thankful for the food we have. We should serve others and ultimately seek nourishment from God.

- LK Sisters

Raw Autumn Delights

Laughter is the best medicine....of course, vegan raw food is even better! We made some wonderful raw sweets over the past few weeks, and now it will be easier to make raw food with our trusty Vitamix. Raw vegan food makes you feel so rejuvenated and lively!

For lunch today, we enjoyed our first homemade fruit & veggie smoothie - a plum, frozen bananas, a few dried apricots, and a zucchini! The vitamix was so quick to blend it - eating veggies is so easy now!

We also enjoyed an apple fig medley (~80% raw), with diced local apples, dried fig pieces (Bob's Red Mill), Frontier's Apple Pie Spice seasoning, and no-sugar added natural apple cider. Hints of cinnamon, orange, and Autumn! Fresh, yet warming.


A refreshing treat to cool you down - homemade raw ice cream! Bananas, homemade almond mylk, cinnamon, and agave. We enjoyed it with Pure of Holland's apple cinnamon bar (The apples are so good. The bar is similar to Larabar, but has brown rice protein. They claim it's all raw.)


With the almond pulp leftover from making almond mylk, we made raw almond apricot cinnamon cookies, just "dehydrated" in our oven at the lowest temperature.

Our major raw treat this week was sweet potato vanilla spice cinnamon rolls, with currants. We followed the cinnamon roll recipe we used last time, but shredded raw sweet potato in the Vitamix and addeed dried currants to make a "Halloween" filling.
Instead of using all almonds for the nuts, we used half raw almonds, half raw pecans. Then, for the icing, we mixed Artisana's Raw Walnut Butter with Frontier's 5 spice powder and some water. The sweet potato filling made it moist and more nutritious! We'd like to do maple, lemon blueberry, apple, and pumpkin variations, too. This filled us up for hours.

It's so nice to indulge in dessert when it's good for you! Happy Autumn!