That Sauce: Finger Lickin’ Date Sauce

In Florida, we look forward to fall as it means, cooler, beautiful weather, unlike the 90 degree plus humidity temps we are used to all summer long. With that comes all those delicious fall festivals and good eats! I am a sucker for all things fall since I grew up in Atlanta, and just a short drive to Ellijay, GA where all the fabulous apple festivals are held.

It has become a tradition that our family will enjoy dinner in our little quaint downtown area in Winter Garden, FL and feast on great delicacies at Plant Street Market. Inside this great market is Press’d Juice Bar & Kitchen.  I had the wonderful opportunity to have one of their fall smoothies, the Pumpkin Spice Smoothie. To describe to you the burst of raw, vegan delicious flavor would be a travesty as it is one you must personally experience. However, the real surprise was the “caramel sauce” that was drizzled on top. Being Press’d Juice Bar is a vegan bar, I knew this was no ordinary sauce. When I asked what they were drizzling on top of the smoothie, the sweet gal responded that it was “date sauce.”

While I am an all thing organic, fresh, healthy, sometimes raw kind of gal, I have never heard of this!

After I slurped and practically licked my cup clean from that incredible smoothie, I raced home to experiment in making this date sauce. After a few moments surfing the net, I came up with what I feel is a very close recipe to what I experienced in the pumpkin smoothie from Press’d Juice Bar. 

My date sauce whipped up so nicely that it took on the form of a thick, gooey caramel sauce that is absolutely finger licking delicious! Of course the real test came when I offered a plate of sliced tart apples to my teenage boys with a bowl of “caramel sauce” for dipping.

Needless to say, this will be a new staple in our house and the possibilities are endless!

I am a scratch cook sometimes when it comes to experimenting in the kitchen, therefore my recipe has no measured ingredients.

Vegan Date Sauce

3 Handfuls of organic dried pitted Dates

Water

Organic Vanilla Bean (or Organic Vanilla Extract)

Soak dates in water that just covers them for 8-12 hours OR to speed up the process, boil water and pour over dates to just cover them until they get soft. Once they are good and soft, dump the date mixture, and add vanilla bean to the Vitamix. Pulse a few times, then slowly blend increasing intensity and adding water as needed. If you want a thicker sauce, stop when desired consistency is achieved. For a thinner sauce, add water. Blend til smooth and creamy. 

ENJOY!

Raw Nourished and Spicy

Mundane….. that sums up how my weekly meals were becoming. Very active busy family of five +  not a whole lot of time = mundane meals. Notice I said our meals “were” becoming mundane.  After I pulled myself out of this comatose state I was in, I discovered a whole new world thanks to Nourished Kitchen, Raw Food Rehab, and Raw Food Recipes. I am not necessarily a vegan, or a raw foodie as I would say, BUT I do believe that adding these elements into our diet is extremely important. I am not a big meat or chicken lover but I do try to prepare dishes with them often. So finding out about these websites opened up our options drastically. Not to mention Facebook and Pinterest made this quest for new options a piece of cake! Nourished Kitchen  is more than just a recipe blog and food site. I discovered Moroccan Lemons  on their site along with many other options to spice up our weekly meals. Spicing things up is what we needed! Being I love all things books (kind of nerd in that respect) they’ve recently launched a new cookbook! It’s called “The Nourished Kitchen: Farm- to-Table Recipes for the Traditional Foods Lifestyle”.  Do yourself a favor and check them out when your surfing Facebook. You can find them there as well. They offer a wealth of information along with fabulous pictures!

Onto the “Raw” part….. Time to get down and dirty…. Literally. To change things up, and eat more fresh veggies, adding raw was the ticket. I decided to surprise my family, *insert evil laugh*,  one night and make Raw Pad Thai.

Let me back up a minute. My first brush with raw was at a little cafe in Winter Park, Florida called Cafe 118 Degrees.  Hot Hubs (aka Steve) and I decided to live on the edge (really just me but I talked him into it)  for date night one evening. Being it was an all raw restaurant, I convinced Hot Hubs that it was an adventure we’d never forget! Boy was I ever right! Little did we know how our lives would change after this crazy night out. First up, Raw Crackers and Hummus. Don’t remember much about this other than it was delish. Next up, Pad Thai. This sounded like something we could handle. Not too freaky if you know what I mean. To say the dish was exceptional would not do it justice. My taste buds were having a party and even more shocking was that Hot Hubs was actually enjoying it as well. To finish off our evening, we opted for a raw cashew ice cream. There were many choices, but cashew seemed safe. This clinched our evening. The server stopped by several times to check on us, I think she thought we might bolt, and in the end we had her pulling up a chair to chat about all things raw.

Fast forward a few weeks to my attempt to turn my boys onto this new concept of a raw dinner. Never mind that I didnt’ exactly tell them it was raw, but their facial expressions said it all when they realized there was not a trace of chicken and the “noodles” were not cooked. Welcome to all raw baby and the rest is history! Well, not really, as this was just the beginning. Let me introduce you to two of my favorite raw food sites:

Raw Food Rehab

and

 Raw Food Recipes

Now we’re cookin’….. or NOT. Both of these sites were a gem for me, as I had felt like I struck gold when I stumbled upon them. Sure I had accomplished making Raw Pad Thai, but I didn’t want to stop there. Both Raw Food Rehab and Raw Food Recipes were a well-spring of information and being they are both on Facebook, it once again made my life 100 times easier. I like the idea of one stop shop social networking, and this made that possible. Click and go! I also love pictures so I can see what I’m attempting to make, and once again these two sites delivered! You know when you absolutely love something, it makes you want to share it with the entire world? Well, I’m very much like that and when I love something, I can’t resist shouting it from the rooftops, and directing people to the proper sites.

It has been almost a year to the date that I decided to spice things up and today we are still going strong. I think most families are super busy, and either honestly  don’t have the time to research fresh and new ideas, or simply get stuck in the same mundane comatose state I found myself in. Adding one meal per week of simply raw into our routine was easy and not as hard as you think thanks to these wonderful sites I stumbled upon. As for myself, I routinely eat a raw breakfast or lunch each day,  and again it’s not hard, it just takes the effort of thinking out of the box! Everyone needs a little SPICE in their life! So what are you waiting for? Spice things up!