Yam-bars and Recipe Development

I hope everyone's having a beautiful day--hump day, midweek, or however it feels. No more domestic mishaps here, although I've been putting cabinets together all day and come close. The sun is bright again and that foot of snow is running away rapidly.

Today, I want to share some (of my idiosyncratic) thoughts about (idiosyncratic) recipe development, and share a recipe.

Idiosyncratic or not, it's almost uncanny to me how often it happens that when I start to explore some idea or go down some avenue, there are others thinking the same thing. These yam-bars that I'll share today are a tribute to Pure2Raw's recent pumpkin squares.

I will happily produce all kinds of food, far beyond the bounds of my preferences, tastes and allergies, and feel that it's an enjoyable part of my  culinary artistry. However, when it comes to making food that I'll be eating too, I really prefer that even 'treats'--perhaps especially treats--should be food that I feel good about eating. With all the baggage that I carry around whether given foods are beneficial or not, etc, a treat is definitely undermined for me if it's full of sugar/the wrong kind of fat, etc.

So, although my expanding line of non-dairy cheesecakes is delectable and sought-after, and continues to be very low sugar, and although cashews are some of the lowest PUFA nuts around, the cashew-basis of those cheesecakes and the inevitable PUFA load is something that I'm wanting to minimize for now, for myself. The trouble is, when we start making our own definitions of what foods are helping us to feel optimal, we often run the risk of falling outside of clear definitions.

To wit: I'm dreaming a whole bunch of raw creamy goodies where the cashew base is replaced by...pureed cooked root veggies! Watch this space for some examples soon. The problem: it's not completely raw anymore! Fortunately, around here that's not a problem: most of the people who love my cheesecakes don't even think of them as 'raw' or vegan, just as 'delicious' and 'beautiful.' And I've been feeling so good with the addition of cooked roots that I'd far rather eat a dessert based on them than based on cups of nuts. And it looks like Lori had the same idea recently too, speaking of shared thoughts resounding all over the universe.

I don't often bake bars/cookies for myself. It's partly an ideological issue: the components of baked goods have often undergone several degrees of processing before you make the brownies, and that doesn't sit quite right with me. However, I had baked several yams all at once, and had just made coconut milk, so had about two thirds of a cup of pulp, and baked yam and milk pulp seemed like suitably minimal preprocessing for my neurosis. So, inspired by the Pure2Raw ladies, I made bars!

 A cup of yam puree (which was almost two whole yams, so I can stop thinking that one whole yam for dinner is a lot), which I mixed with:
a quarter cup of coconut oil...

Two thirds of a cup of coconut pulp, topped up with:
one third of a cup of arrowroot, and a quarter teaspoon each of xanthan gum and baking soda.
I added a generous amount of cinnamon and ginger, a pinch of salt, a quarter teaspoon of stevia, and about an eighth cup of xylitol syrup (homemade) that was waiting to be used up. The wonderful thing about the yam/cinnamon tastescape is that it's so sweet without much further sweetening.

It was a fairly thick, gooey dough...

 ...and after 30 mins in the oven at 350, it yielded these dense, gooey bars. They could probably have baked for longer and become crispier, but they hold together so well and the gooiness is quite pleasant!

Although they might seem strange to those who are accustomed to and demand white flour and butter-shaped texture, I think they're yummy!

I'll be writing more soon about the whole process of defining what makes a feel-good treat, in terms of ingredient membership. The challenge of figuring this out, especially the 'feeling' part and the 'treat' part, actually feels like a very affirmative action, since there have been so many years in my life that I didn't allow myself to acknowledge what really appealed to me, but used strong self-persuasion that what I thought I should like was what I liked. Of course, the ideal is if you feel good about eating your favorites, and right now I'm feeling pretty good about baked yams, cooked or not. 

I'd better get back to cabinet-wrassling. What do you think about cuisine that falls between clear definitions? Which lines are you willing to eat outside of?