Carrot Cardamom Birthday Cake (Allergy-Free); Gratitude, and a Bonus Recipe

What a birthday I had yesterday (the 28th)! I feel so blessed. So many dear friends from all over the world and all over my life history contacted me on Facebook, and I was so glad to have the opportunity to think of each and every one. We had a poetry group meeting, which is always a highlight of the week in which it falls, and our hostess this time made her gorgeous living space so festive and party-like for the occasion. In the evening, our wonderful friends and hosts extraordinaires, David and Olga, hosted a limerick party for my birthday! Everyone had to bring an original limerick--that was the "admission ticket." I loved that idea: a way to honor my love of poetry so that absolutely everyone could participate.

When I came home from my poetry group to get ready to leave for the limerick party, there was a message on the phone telling me that a poem of mine won second place in the Statewide Poetry Contest! What lovely news to get on my birthday!

Now that I've exceeded my monthly allocation of exclamation points, let me share some food cheer. That up there is my birthday cake: a carrot cardamom cream cake--that's what the carrot juice in my last post was for.

I made it up as I went along, but it was a real winner, so I'm going to share before I forget what I did!
This makes one ten-inch cake, but it's not a super-tall one--which I like: the slices aren't so overwhelmingly big.

Carrot Cardamom Cream Cake (gluten and dairy free, vegan, low sugar)

Crust:
1 cup pecans
1/2 cup golden flax meal
1/2 cup carrot pulp (from making carrot juice)
~3/4 cup chopped dates
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder

In a food processor, pulse the pecans into crumbs, then add the flax meal and carrot pulp and pulse a few times to combine. Then, with the processor running, gradually add the dates until everything starts to come together. Press into a ten-inch springform pan.

Filling:
1 cup carrot juice
1 1/2 soaked pili nuts, drained
1/2 cup young coconut pulp (I used frozen pulp)
1 cup thick irish moss gel
3/4 cup erythritol
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 inch fresh ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
pinch ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon stevia
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2 tablespoons lecithin granules

In a Vitamix or other high-powered blender, blend all but the last two ingredients until smooth. Check the taste and add more cardamom or sweetener if it seems necessary. Add the coconut oil and lecithin and blend again until very smooth.
Pour over the crust and freeze for a couple hours until set.

Here's the crust...

 And the filling ready to rock'n'roll...

 And you can see here that it's not awfully tall up the side of the pan.

 I decorated it with some leftover frosting from our anniversary cake (a different kind of carrot cake!)

There's not much left, so it was thoroughly enjoyed! I love how the irish moss and the young coconut make it not quite so 'heavy,' but it's still delightfully smooth and rich.

Bonus recipe: Sweet Potato Puree with Roasted Garlic

We had an "orange" theme going in the food for the limerick party--also my influence. This is super-simple and extremely delicious; another off-the-cuff concoction.
I roasted several heads of garlic--350 degrees for about an hour in the oven.
I boiled up 4 medium sized sweet potatoes, took the peels off and drained the liquid.
I added about 2 teaspoons of coconut oil, and a whole head of roasted garlic cloves, and pureed with a hand-held blender.
It was delicious, and almost shockingly sweet--roasted garlic is darn sweet too!

The rest of the carrot pulp went into these brownie bites--perhaps I'll share the recipe for those next time.

Abundant gratitude and love to everyone--thank you.

Belated Valentine's Mint Chocolates, Out of the Woodwork

...but first--this is the snow pile in our cul-de-sac after almost two weeks of thaw! It's almost as high as the alders. I am so grateful for plow trucks--without them, we would be buried!

I had this post ready to share yesterday, a Valentine's delight as I'd hinted on Monday... 

...but yesterday was a "packet deadline" day, and by the time I'd gotten my packet in, finished up a lecture, and sat in rehearsal for over three hours, not having slept much the night before, my very sensible husband insisted I go to bed instead of posting!

Rehearsal? Yes! I'm going to share a couple poems as part of "Out of the Woodwork," a variety performance here in town on Saturday night. Two short poems, one of them I just wrote for our friends Tom and Jeanie as an elegy for the death of their son. Here's the local newspaper's announcement--it even mentions me and what I'll share a little ways down!

I used to spend many hours of every week at rehearsals. Showing up for these few, and as a poet, not a singer or instrumentalist (although, like everyone else, I do get to sing for the Finale of the show) is an interesting revisit of what used to be so central to my life. There are several wonderfully versatile musicians who are really anchoring the show, playing several instruments, supporting and shining in turn. In the past, I used to be in that kind of role. I don't at all mind not being; it's just interesting to observe how it is to be a small part of a team, briefly individuated when I come onstage and perform my poems, and otherwise in the background.

I have to be careful with my eye contact: I tend to pay close attention, and when the director is looking around for someone, my eyes are right there--but in this case, I'm not the one she needs!

OK, about those mint chocolates. They were an experiment, and I'd say a successful one, sort of along the lines of the pomegranate fondants I made at Christmas, utilizing Irish Moss gel for a soft but creamy texture.

This time, I tried using pili nuts. They were a delicacy when I lived in HI--several farmers at some elevation grew them. They're even fattier than macadamia nuts, and like mac nuts, seem to have mostly monounsaturated fat and very little omega 6, so good in my book. Phil doesn't care for them because they don't have a distinctive flavor, but coupled with their creaminess, that makes them a great base for raw desserts!

Mint Chocolate Fondants (sugar free, vegan, mostly raw, gluten free)
For the filling:
1 cup pili nuts (cashews or macs would also work)
1 cup Irish Moss gel
1/2 cup nut milk
1/2 cup erythritol
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cacao butter
1 tablespoon lecithin

Blend together all but the last two ingredients in a high-powered blender. To make it easier on the blender (but dirty more equipment), process the nuts into butter in a food processor first.
Then, add the cacao butter and lecithin and blend again until very smooth.

I used only 1/8 cup cacao butter, and it meant that the filling took a very long time to set, and really needs to be kept refrigerated or frozen. The extra cacao butter will provide more solidity.

Pour the filling into a bowl and refrigerate until it firms up a bit. Then, either form into balls, or put in molds--I used my heart-shaped ice cube trays from IKEA again. They'll need to be frozen for some time before coating.

For Coating:
Homemade raw chocolate or your favorite high quality dark chocolate
And/or homemade carob chocolate (here's my recipe).
(I did both)

Melt the chocolate gently, and dip the fondants in it, ensuring they are thoroughly coated. Set them on a nonstick surface so that they don't break apart when you pick them up. Our ambient temperatures are such that it's quite a challenge keeping the chocolate melted enough, and with the lesser amount of cacao butter, the fondants were also softening up quickly. Best to keep them in the freezer and pull out a few at at time, with chocolate-covered fingers!

I'm not the best at coating chocolates--they never seem to come out perfectly smooth when I do them. But homemade-delicious-looking, you betcha!

These are creamy, smooth, not overpoweringly sweet, with a lovely mouth-feel.

I'll be back tomorrow with the post, also promised on Monday, about food and what counts as "good" for me...

Have a beautiful day!

Parsnip-Based Cheesecake? The 'Why on Earth' and a Preliminary Recipe

So, Ela, why on Earth would you use cooked parsnips as a base for raw cheesecake?
Yes, congratulations to kt for guessing correctly that the secret ingredient in my latest cheesecake was parsnips!

In this post, I'll answer the 'why on Earth?' question. I'll also give a preliminary recipe, since we're going on a trip in a couple days and I won't be able to do any more recipe testing for at least a couple weeks.

The simplest answer to 'why on Earth?' is because it's important to me to feel good about something I'm eating and serving to others. I've found that this applies to desserts and treats almost more strongly than to regular foods: I want it to taste delightful, decadent, creamy, indulgent, and I want to have confidence in my ingredients, and know that I'll feel good afterwards.

Now, to details.
I can see two major criticisms of using parnips in cheesecake, so I'll deal with those before I get to the 'pros.'
1) Won't the shelf life be greatly reduced by using a cooked starch?
It is possible that the shelf life will be reduced slightly, but I store cheesecakes in the freezer anyway, and everyone loves them (yes, this version too!) so they don't last long! There's still plenty of fat in there.

2) Um, cooked parsnips? I thought this was raw food cuisine!
OK: here's what I think: the base ingredient in 'regular' raw cheesecakes is cashews. And unless you are paying through the nose for 'truly raw' cashews, cashews aren't 'raw' either! Like mangos, cashews are in the poison ivy family and have a highly toxic secretion in the shell that is almost impossible to circumvent without application of heat.

I've done it, both in Thailand and HI. In HI, I got blisters all over me and maybe a half dozen nuts. (3 cups of cashews for a full-sized cake.) In Thailand, with slightly better equipment and protective clothing, two of us worked for a half hour for a scant half cup of nuts. How many raw restaurants, let alone regular raw foodists, (can afford to) pay out for 'truly raw' cashews?

And then, if you're making a low-sugar version, as I prefer to (for reasons I'll get to in a second), chances are that your xylitol isn't 'truly raw' either. I am highly skeptical about the raw status of agave, at that. Even if it's low-temperature processed, it's highly refined. For comparison: bees laboriously fan their gathered nectar from an 80% moisture start product to a 20% moisture finished product. I used to be a beekeeper, I love bees, but I definitely think that their honey is highly refined and 'processed,' even if it's raw and otherwise magical. For the more decadent raw desserts, I think most people would agree that there's a certain degree of 'fudging' on the raw status generally, certainly vis-a-vis level of processing.

Just because the bees processed the honey where we couldn't see, it doesn't mean it's unprocessed. I think a similar cognitive dissonance takes place for people when they think of nuts, which they can just buy at the store and use (raw material that might have been heated unbeknownst to them), versus parsnips, which they have to cook on the stove themselves.

Are you with me so far? For me, the 'it's ok, because it's raw' argument doesn't wash with the cheesecakes. I love them, but haven't always felt good with them, and wanted to have it both ways.
So, on to the 'pros' of parsnip use.

I used to think that the reason why people tend to feel heavy after enjoying a raw cheesecake was the combination of huge amounts of fat together with lots of sugar. That's what I speculated after the last time I tried a 'commercial' raw cheesecake (at Blossoming Lotus in Portland). And that's why I've always made my own cheesecakes much lower sugar, usually with a combination of xylitol syrup and stevia; occasionally coconut nectar. They're still very rich, but don't seem to be so coma-inducing.

But you know what? Raw cheesecakes are typically based on cashews, nut milk and coconut oil/cacao butter for firmness. Sugar's going to tend to make that a gut bomb, but all by itself, that's a whopping great load of fat! Of course, my recent interest in avoiding PUFAs has caused me to examine that aspect of cheesecakes.  Cashews are actually relatively low in PUFAs (and mac nuts, which also work in cheesecakes, contain almost none, but are almost as expensive as 'truly raw cashews'). This overall fat load seems excessive, even when compared with the standard cheesecake that's based on cream cheese and eggs.

For concreteness: cashews are around 750 calories per cup (three cups for a large cheesecake, remember); a cup of cooked chopped parsnips is around 150 calories.

You pair that with the nut milk and coconut oil, and even without using sugar, it's no wonder that it's so heavy.
The good news is that if you keep the nut milk and coconut oil and replace the cashews with parsnips, it's still plenty rich!

I've already made delicious 'pumpkin pie' type mousses with cooked yams, but a parsnip, or perhaps a white sweet potato, is great for the cheesecake application because they're still white, and have a sweet, neutral flavor. As I mentioned in the previous post, I could taste the parsnip, but only in the same, unobtrusive way that I can taste cashews in cashew-based cakes, and not a single person that I served it to detected it at all.

What do you think? Would you try this, or do you prefer to stay with the cashews? (Hey, there's room for both, isn't there?)
To help you decide, here's the recipe: please note that this is not the final version.
White Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake
Recipe for a 7in cheesecake; I made it crustless--any favorite crust would work.
1 cup cooked chopped parsnips, well drained (peel before cooking)
3/8 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup xylitol syrup
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 tablespoon lemon juice
pinch vanilla powder
pinch salt
1/4 cup melted cacao butter
1 tablespoon lecithin

1/4 cup blueberries and an additional tablespoon of lemon juice for swirling.

Blend the first seven ingredients until smooth. Add the melted cacao butter and lecithin and blend again until thoroughly combined.

Pour out into bowl (or onto crust) but leave 1/2 cup in the blender. Tip: I tend to save some of the 'white' mixture in a cup so that I can 'mend' the swirl if need be.
Add blueberries and lemon juice to the blender and blend well.
Pour over the white filling, swirl with a chopstick.
Freeze to set.

I really hope folks will try this: please let me know. Another benefit of using parsnips is that I imagine that a 'regular' blender would be able to handle this more easily than a nut-based cake, so non-Vitamix-owners will still get good results.

I'm pretty excited about this whole idea and can't wait to hear what others think.

It really is spring here--amazing to think that this time last year there was still snow on the ground. I spent some time outside with a shovel this morning, uprooting some of the more persistent weeds. Pushki--cow parsnip.
Look at the size of those roots--and this is just at the two-leaf stage!

 Meanwhile, in the raised beds, our chives made it through the winter! Several small patches like this one.

I did pause to consider the irony of our delight at the survival of these plants that we carefully babied, and our zeal to uproot other plants that survived the winter with no help from us. Pushki is nasty, though... And you better believe that I'll be living on nettle smoothies a few weeks from now! I love wild foods...

Please tell me what you think about the cheesecake and if you try it!