Beegan Latte

I've been reading a lot about Bee Pollen lately and was stoked to have some on hand after reading a lengthy PDF - this stuff is pretty much the perfect food. It is supposed to make your skin radiant and younger, help your digestive tract run smoother, alleviate allergies and asthma, be an effective anti-radiation food, prevent disease, stimulate and boost the glandular system and immune system and ward off alien invasions, among other things. Extraterrestrial life has been trying to contact my orange cat Pierre so I've been feeding him bee pollen in his wet food. Hopefully it will also help his asthma.

Every once in a while when I remember I have the granular goodness in my freezer, I choke it down because I know it's so good for me. One should never have to 'choke' anything down though. Yesterday I was determined to create a drink that makes bee pollen palatable. Turns out it was so simple!

Beeeeegan Latte

2 cups homemade almond milk (½ cup almonds w. 2 cups water, blended and strained through fine strainer to allow foam to transfer)

pour milk back in blender with:
2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp fresh bee pollen
1-3 tsp raw honey
½-1 tsp lecithin granules (optional)
a large pinch or 2 of vanilla bean

Blend everything together in a high speed blender for about 30 seconds.
It is nice to put a few frozen cherries in the bottom of a glass if you want your drink chilled but don't want to water it down.

I made another one today without nut milk and coconut oil because sometimes my guts don't want to hang out with the rich. This one was surprisingly delightful, and you can barely taste the bee pollen!

NUT FREE Beegan Drink

2+ tbsp bee pollen
1 tbsp raw honey
1-2 tbsp raw carob powder
2-3 tsp lucuma powder
1-2 tsp ground cinnamon
1+ tbsp tocotrienols (some raw white powder made from rice that makes drinks creamy)
large pinch of vanilla bean
2 cups filtered water

blend in vita mix for 30 seconds.

So the second nut free option is only for those who's cupboards are full of strange raw vegan powder accessories, otherwise this drink might end up costing more than you think, and you might not even care for it. It will make you feel good though, and fill your belly for hours.

Guess what?! I made cheese!
For Christmas dinner we made cheese boards with crackers and all the usual suspects (fruit spreads, olives w/ truffle oil, homemade mustards, etc). Real dairy cheese attended for those brave enough to eat it, but I made four different kinds of nut cheese and raw almond thin crackers. Two of the cheeses were raw cashew based, one was orange zest + dried cranberry and the other was lemon + fresh thyme. The other two cheeses were made from macadamia nuts. One was plain with a rind (dehydrated for a day) and the other was fresh rosemary + black pepper, also with a rind. They were incredible. I got the recipes from Russell James' cheese book. It was so nice to take the 'simple' route and not stress about Christmas dinner - these cheeses were minimal effort and were ready in just a few days.

- Insert CHEESY joke about BEEEEEING finished this post.