Recipe FAIL and success!

Before January 1st I registered for the 21 Day Vegan Kickstart program. I printed up their menus and their recipes and organized them by day the program said I should be eating them. So far I've made four of the Kickstart's recipes...two have not been an epic fail.

By epic fail I mean that the end result, even though the recipe is followed exactly, is just gross. How gross? So gross that even my dog who recently ate one of the tiki torches in the backyard wouldn't come near it. These failed recipes were the Confetti Couscous and the Raspberry Chocolate Mousse.

First lets start with the couscous. The mixture of couscous and vegetables was actually good. It's the dressing that blew. The dressing was essentially rice vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice. It tasted way too much like sour vinegar for my taste. So the Confetti Couscous is now sitting in my fridge...

The Raspberry Chocolate Mousse sounded more promising. I put all of the ingredients in the blender as instructed, then realized the blender wasn't going to mash everything up like it should have. So I switched to the food processor. That didn't help either. I was left with a grainy goopy cocoa powdered flavored mess that would probably make pretty good glue. It was so bad that I didn't even bother chilling it. It went straight into the trash.

However, the 21 Day Breakfast Rice Pudding and the Fantastic Fruit Smoothie are both great recipes!

Breakfast Rice Pudding

Makes 6 1/2-cup servings

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 ¹/₂ cups vanilla rice milk I used regular rice milk and added a little bit of brown sugar
3 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¹/₄ teaspoon cinnamon

In a medium saucepan combine all ingredients and bring to a slow simmer. Cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until thick. Serve hot or cold.

Fantastic Fruit Smoothie

Makes about 2 to 2 1/2 cups (2 servings)

1 frozen or fresh banana, broken into chunks
1 ¹/₂ cups unsweetened fruit juice (your choice; any kind)
¹/₂ cup sliced fresh or frozen unsweetened fruit or berries
¹/₂ cup plain, vanilla, or fruit-flavored soy yogurt (optional)

Combine all ingredients in blender and process until very smooth and creamy. Serve immediately.

This recipe is great because there are so many variations on it. I add 1-2 tbsp of ground Flax to mine just to give me some much needed Omegas. I also use rice yogurt instead of soy yogurt. You need to be careful with soy yogurt, many brands of soy yogurt are NOT vegan! They contain live cultures derived from milk. Your safest bet is rice yogurt and I find that it's more tasty too!

This morning I had a smoothie with strawberries, strawberry rice yogurt, the rest of my left over Nakked Juice Super C Machine, a banana and flax. It was VERY yummy!

Tonight I plan on trying a recipe or two from Alicia Silverstone's A Kind Life website. I'll let you know how that goes!