Accidentally Awesome Coconut Chocolate Orange Cream Cake

So yesterday after blogging about the veg food festival, I decided to make something with coconut meat since I had some sitting in my fridge. I also had lots of oranges on hand because my mom loves buying stuff on sale and keep them until they go bad (and she relies on me to finish up the stuff.)

When I went to Raw Aura on Saturday to use up the coupon that I got from winning the "Vegan Iron Chef", I was drooling all over the place after seeing their beautiful (and delicious, I assume) raw desserts behind their glass fridge/counter.

 The restaurant

The cheesecake of the day was blueberry. yummm! I didn't order any because I went there with my mom and since the stuff there aren't cheap, two items easily used up the $25. ~sigh~
(By the way we ordered Burstin' Burrito and the special of the day, which was Mushroom caps topped with "cheese". The burrito was AMAZING. I loved the carrot flax wrap and the filling was very generous (avocadoes, pate made with pumpkin seeds, etc)...and the "sour cream" that was on the burrito was nothing but yum! There was also a small salsa by the side. Oh, and don't even get me started on the mushroom caps. Holy geez I wonder who discovered how to make cheese with cashew nuts.)

Anyway, I digress...without further ado, I decided to make my own raw dessert :)
I didn't have a particular recipe that I wanted to make, so I threw in the coconut meat and the oranges into my Vitamix (yes I did peel the oranges despite Vitamix's powerful-ness) and added some random stuff like:

• chopped Cocoa Camino dark chocolate bar
• extra virgin coconut oil
• agave nectar
• orange extract
• lecithin granules
• psyllium husk
• cinnamon powder
• and....
• carrot juice. (I have no idea what I was thinking when I added it but hey, it made it healthier and added a nice orange hue, so why not? :) besides, I knew the orange and chocolate would overpower the carrot taste)

Most of the ingredients are organic and fair trade, including the extract =D
(you probably won't find a lot of teenagers out there making their own raw vegan food, drinking green smoothies every morning and doing Ashtanga yoga in their bedroom, so yes, I consider myself a weirdo and I'm PROUD OF IT! =D )

After blending until the batter is extremely smooth (Vitamix, you are the best investment in my life!...ok fine, my mom bought it, but still), I poured it into a glass pyrex container and let it chill until firm.

The whole night I was looking forward to breakfast because I get to try my dessert! See the good thing about raw food? They're soo healthy that you can have dessert for breakfast and still feel good about yourself! hehehe...

 I should've put it in a round pan so it resembles cake more...ah well, next time

A good tip when making raw food is to line your container with parchment or cling wrap, or you'll have to lick  the container because you don't want to waste them! xD

A piece for my mommy

And a piece for me. I had to rush to catch the GO train, so no time to savour it at home! The stuff beside it are dried cherries and apricots

I must admit, its tasted pretty awesome! Creamy from the coconut and lecithin, sweet from the oranges and agave, comforting from the chocolate, and healthy from the carrots!

I can't deny, the GO train is pretty comfortable compared to TTC, but I got the shock of my life this morning when the bus took another route and I thought I was going to York instead of Union! 

Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival !

Last weekend was the annual Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival, and as always, I volunteered at the event, this year as a cooking demo food prep assistant. I met so many vegan cookbook authors and chefs! 

It used to be called "Vegetarian Food Fair", but now its officially a "Food Festival"!

Free yoga demonstrations, live music, talks, and more!

Some famous vegan chefs, cookbook authors and bloggers who came--

Lisa Pitman and Nicole Axworthy of the famous vegan food blogs 

veganculinarycrusade.com and adashofcompassion.com

Terry Hope Romero, author of  Viva Vegan and co-author of Veganomicon, Vegan cupcakes Take Over the World, and Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar cookbooks

Doug Mcnish, owner of Raw Aura restaurant 

Jae Steele, author of Ripe from Around Here cookbook

and so much more... ...

Oh yeah! Vegan bodybuilder Robert Cheeke was here too!!

 I was about to go to his talk, but fortunately I dared myself to take part in the "Vegan Iron Chef" contest hosted by Doug Mcnish during his cooking demo. Amazingly my team and I won the challenge and we got SO many freebies!

The contest started off with a trivia game, and if we get the question right, we get the item. I was lucky! My team happened to be a smarty-pants-about-nutrition-and-food team, so we got some pretty good ingredients (hemp seeds, nutritional yeast, sweet potatoes, tofu, kale, extra virgin coconut oil, tahini)
The other team got brown rice, peaches, and avocadoes. Hmm.

I went into "cooking competition mode" (I've been spending too much time watching Food network lol) and started planning what we were gonna make.
I was in charge of the tofu (yay!).

I decided to make nutritional yeast and hemp seed crusted tofu (although I've never made or tried it before.) Not only have I been watching Food Network, I've been spending wayy too much time reading recipe books hehehe...
Here's what I randomly threw into the batter (includes some other items available to us from the pantry)

• nutritional yeast
• hemp seeds
• sesame seeds
• ground cashews
• paprika, black pepper, salt, oregano
• veg broth (to make it become batter-y)

I pan fried it in coconut oil and surprisingly it turned out very well! Even Doug said it tasted good. 

(Watch out, world! Vegan chef in the making!)

Leftovers that I took home. They tasted very similar to KFC chicken :D

Jason Charette, my teammate, was in charge of the kale. He made a "kale-tahini" sauce. It tasted wrong at first (too much raw kale taste)! So I saved the day by suggesting he add brown rice vinegar, agave nectar, and some cashew. People were actually asking for the recipe! (obviously we didn't have any). The only reason I knew what to add to the sauce to make it taste better is because I've made too many things that tasted disgusting, and since it kills me to see food goes in the garbage, I had to keep adding random stuff to make them edible xP

As for the sweet potatoes, we just roasted them in the oven with some spices and olive oil. (but it tasted great!)

The amazing prizes that we won--

$25 gift cert for Raw Aura restaurant

Rume reusable bag 

Nourish tea (brown rice sencha)

and a (designer?) glass straw 

My team on the right, Doug in the centre, the other team on the left

It was after this awesome experience that inspired me to start this blog. One day I might even have my own vegan cookbook! But in the mean time, I'll keep you posted on some crazy fun stuff that I do, food that I've tried, and recipes that I've created. Can't wait!!

25 Question Tag

To introduce myself, I'm gonna do a random tag that I found on Google :)

Question 1: Do you have any pets ? No, but I wish! My mom is germophobic..

Question 2: Name three things that are physically close to you: My laptop, backpack, and camera

Question 3: What's the weather like right now ? It's sunny and breezy! yay!

Questions 4: Do you drive ? If so, have you crashed? Nope. I'm a public transit-ter. That's why I have to do yoga--transit life is rough!

Question 5: What time did you wake up this morning ? 7.15am, although its a Sunday. Went for a run and did some yoga =D

Question 6: When was the last time you showered ? This morning after working out

Question 7: What was the last movie that you saw ? Earthlings! it was sooooo sad!!! Please help me save animals by clicking on the link at the right (Peta2) >>>

Question 8: What does you last text message say? come to the counter (my dad was looking for me at the mall xD)

Question 9: What is your ringtone ? I have no idea lol its some random ringtone originally in the phone

Question 10: Have you ever been to a different country? Yep. Mostly asian countries since I come from Asia.(but I was born in Canada)

Question 11: Do you like sushi? Yes! Preferably brown rice, buckwheat or quinoa based (I know...such a health freak)

Question 12: Where do you buy your groceries? Herbs and nutrition, Ambrosia Natural foods, Longos...I'm a bargain hunter so I go everywhere! :)

Question 13: Have you ever taken any medication to help you fall asleep faster? No! I don't like drugs.

Question 14: How many siblings do you have ? One. An older sister

Question 15: Do you have a desktop computer or a laptop? Both. But the computer is too slow so I never use it.

Question 16: How old will you be turning on your next birthday? 2 more months til I'm 18!!! Sweet freedom!!!

Question 17: Do you wear contacts or glasses ? Both. Having 6 eyes is better than two ahaha...(that's why my family thinks I'm a creeper since I know what they're doing without actually looking LOL)

Question 18: Do you colour your hair ? No! I keep everything as natural as possible.

Question 19: Tell me something you are planing to do today: Hmm. Make some raw dessert I guess.

Question 20: When was the last time you cried? Few days ago when my parents were being unreasonable

Question 21: What is your perfect pizza topping? (vegan) pesto and Daiya cheese all the way!!!!

Question 22: Which do you prefer, hamburger or cheeseburger ? Veggie burger!

Question 23: Have you ever had an all-nighter ? Of course!(who doesn't?) but it was because I was baking not studying LOL

Question 24: What is your eye colour ? dark brownish, though my mom said I was born with green eyes because she drank too much barley grass ahhahaha

Question 25: Can you taste the difference between Pepsi and Coke? I wish they never existed! They're killing lives and wasting resources!!