Captain Cook Hike and Carrot Coconut Bars

Yes, I can't help it--I love alliteration. But sometimes it comes and finds me. 'Captain Cook' was the name of the state park we were hiking on Saturday, and carrot and coconut, two of my favorite foods, were the main ingredients in the latest spin on ela-bar-ate (recipe below).

We were graced with broad blue skies, volcanos and mountains barely visible across the inlet.

 Check out the shelf of ice that hadn't yet melted on the landward side of the beach--and obviously, check out that hanging cabin! Someone had an architectural brainstorm, for sure!

 We were most thankful for that ice shelf: as I mentioned in my last post, the big low tide of the morning was matched by a big afternoon high tide, pulled by the waxing moon, and if not for the shelf, we would have been wading. Actually, the ice was melty and punchy, and we were almost wading in spots anyway, but we stayed mostly dry.

In terms of general logistics and convenience, the hanging cabin would be even more challenging to live in than our cabin. You have to pull yourself up a rope to get to it: anyone love hauling six-gallon water jugs and bulk groceries up a minor bluff?

I popped up the rope to check it out--it's currently deserted and the outhouse in the background (to the left of the pic) has fallen down. You can see me below the cabin, rockhopping not-so-gracefully.

 I'm glad I went up, camera-in-hand, because the owner clearly had a sense of humor and it's good to share--

I bet they're fully booked all  year.

One of the main attractions of this beach were all the beautiful rocks, agates, quartzites, jadeites, fossils that could be seen and found there. We came home with heavier pockets and packs than we started with, but some of the rocks just had to be enjoyed in situ...

 We pushed on past our determined 'turnaround time' to make this headland, and it afforded a wonderful view up and down the bay as well as locking us into a race against the tide.

 As I said before, I'm so proud to have completed this hike--twelve miles would have been far beyond me even quite recently. The next day was also busy and hectic, and by the end of it I was cranky and melted-down/frazzled: good feedback for the importance of rest and recuperation.

We enjoyed several snack breaks, delighting in the view and the warmth of this northern sun. I made chocolatey oaty bars for Phil and our friend, adapted from this recipe, with lots of orange zest, and decided that I wanted some bars that would work for my tummy too.
I liked them so much I'm making a second batch already--here's the recipe!


Carrot and Coconut Bars (gluten free, vegan, sugar free, can be raw)
(1)
1 cup finely shredded carrots (about three medium carrots)
1 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup mesquite meal
1/3 cup maca
1/3 cup tapioca starch
2 tablespoons flax meal (yes, PUFAs, but I wanted something other than xanthan gum to bind this time)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons orange zest (or to taste)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon white stevia
pinch salt

Mix all of these together in a bowl and stir in:
(2)
4 tablespoons coconut butter
2 tablespoons coconut oil
(it's been easier to do this up here lately with the warm sun through the windows!)
When well incorporated,
(3)
Add liquid until it all holds together. I used cooled herbal tea, about three quarters of a cup; but you could use nut milk, or water, or whatever you prefer.

Spread out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. I used the spatula and spoon pictured, but mostly spread it out with my hands, keeping a bowl of water handy and working with wet palms.

 I don't have a dehydrator, the heat of the sun isn't enough to do the job alone, and our heater isn't coming on so much anymore (I've shown in the past how I dehydrate in front of the heater)---but dehydrating would be a great option for these.

Instead, I baked them at 300, and flipped them over to remove the parchment paper half way through.

They taste great, have a good texture, hold together well, are satisfying.
Variations
They'd be just as good without the orange zest.
Could vary the liquid used.
I think they would be wonderful with some dried fruit chunks in there, whether raisins, dried cranberries, dried apricot pieces... (when I'm done with the yeast cleanse, I'll surely make them that way too).
As I said, could be dehydrated or baked.
Now I'm going to try a savory version, with onions!

What size of rocks do you like to pick up and bring home with you? Our friend Terry tends to be drawn to fist-sized rocks that fit in her hand. I always seem to pick up jellybean-sized ones!

Cold Here! And Snacks - Some Thoughts and Recipes (One Sweet, One Savory)

It froze hard here last night. Hard enough that ice persisted even on the salty beach, even in pouring rain, so that walking out without gloves on hands led to hands getting that constricted, bruised, blue feeling that aches even when the warmth returns.

But nonetheless, Phil couldn't resist taking this day to launch the little boat and go see what's to see. And if he'd given me more than a couple hours notice, I might have felt compelled to go too! (As it is, I'm happy to be home and relatively warm).

Another attempt at an eagle photo: this eagle cracked us up as we drove out to launch Phil's boat. It had picked up a dead fish in its talons and was trying to get away from its competition, the crows. It flapped and flew and flapped and flew, but the fish was too big for it to get any kind of liftoff, and it finally landed back on the beach, much closer to the ocean. The crows joined it pretty quickly, but it wasn't really letting them near the actual 'food.'  I wonder what happened when the tide came in...

With winter's approach, the young trees in town have been swaddled in burlap to keep the moose from eating them down.

Yes, snacks. I used to subscribe to the belief system that says that eating between meals is 'bad' and should never be done. And for some people, that's probably true. But for me, things work much better if I do eat regular snacks. Otherwise, either I eat three big meals, which always makes me feel awful, or I'm just hungry all the time between small meals.

I'm going to review 'product' snacks later this week, but as always in my life it seems, home-made is essential. This point was driven home when I tried out a few raw bars while traveling recently - gluten and dairy and soy free is a great start, but the low-to-zero sugar piece is crucial for me right now too.

So, back to 'chia sweet!'

This batch looks dark because it also has a tablespoon of cinnamon in it. Cinnamon thickens and becomes mucilaginous when mixed with water, so it's a great addition to chia-sweet. Of course, it's also good for blood sugar balance, is warming, lowers blood pressure (maybe not such a good thing in my case), tastes delicious, etc, etc!

My recent batches of no-sugar bars with chia-sweet were tending toward the minimal - chia-sweet and shredded coconut with some algae and mint oil, so that the chia sweet was the matrix of the cookie as well as the sweetener. I was spreading them very thin too, because of our lack of dehydrator and odd setup in that regard. But with the heater coming on more of the time now (I dehydrate things in front of it), I felt like I needed something more solidly textured and satisfying.

This is that cup or so of chia-sweet pictured above, plus about half a cup of ground pecans, a pinch of salt and another of cayenne, a teaspoon of ginger and one of allspice and a half teaspoon each of cardamom and cloves. My favorite flavors!

I melted about 1/4 cup coconut oil and stirred that in.

And then it was still 'gloopy,' so I added two teaspoons of nutritional yeast and about a half cup of shredded coconut.

At that point, it became kneadable and spreadable. I spread it on the tray, scored it, gave it 30minutes in the toaster over at the lowest temp with the door open, and then flipped, cut and placed in front of the heater to get done gradually.

(haha, with the tide tables pictured under the tray - we live on the ocean!)

Since I can't just do one thing at a time, I made some raw onion crackers too.  I don't like raw onions at all - I can taste them for days afterwards and they hurt my tummy! But dehydrated or pickled seem to work better. And I recently read that onions are likely preventative of osteoporosis, due to a specific compound that they contain (in addition to being super-high in important antioxidants like quercitin, and sulfur compounds). Since I'm a super-high risk for osteoporosis on several different counts, that drew my attention.

This is super-simple. A quarter of a middle-sized onion, chopped (not fine enough: I should have diced it); a cup of soaked sunflower seeds, ground up, and a cup of flax meal. Mix all together, then add about two tablespoons of coconut aminos, about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix those in very thoroughly, and then add a tiny amount of water and it all  holds together.

I gave this batch the same treatment as the cinnamon bars above, remembering after I'd cut them up to rotate them out so that the pieces that had been in the middle could be on the outside.

They're mostly dry now, in front of the heater, but since it's such a  sporadic drying, I'm giving them a little more. I tried an onion cracker with lunch and it's great! Onions are so incredibly sweet.

And of course the cinnamon ones are great too - no danger of them not being.

Do these bars/crackers sound and look appetizing? I know that not many people have to avoid sugar in this way. And personally, I'm not drawn to dehydrated goods but with months of experimenting, it seems that drying seems to be the best way to hold together and preserve bars that don't utilize dried fruit or syrups.

Have a beautiful day!

Self Love in Writing and Food

Happy Friday, everyone! A whole week since the end of reflections on self-love - time is flying!

I have kept the concept in mind, and have been realizing that there are two especially tricky areas for me. One is doing what I know I need to do, despite being busy or having resistance. The other is finding the balance between taking care of my body's special needs and satisfying my curiosity to try out new things, retry old things, or just feel like I'm joining in some food-related pleasure. The last is maybe the most fraught for me, since I feel some guilt around it too.

not all treats are sweet...

So, I want to talk about these tricky areas today - to show some pitfalls that I've had since I've been away from home, and how to fix them.

Writing


I know, and have said many times, that I feel like I'm actually living my life when I'm regularly working on my poetry, and when I'm not, I feel like I'm just marking time. So, why has it been hard for me to make time here in Oregon? Well, there are reasons. I have a lot of work to do, then there's the work on the farm and all the visiting... I'm often exhausted at the end of the day, which isn't the best state in which to get good writing done.

But I am also lacking a lot of my familiar inspirations. At home, I have probably a dozen books of poetry on the go at any one time - my reading practice is important for my writing practice.

So, to help me, I'm going to share a few of the things that are on my shelf at home:

This is wonderfully sensuous and really is about the heart.

I adore McGrath's use and extension of forms, his humor, his use of incantation, his cynicism.

Limpidly exquisite as always - the latest book of poems by someone I'm honored to call a mentor, who is also the new Alaska Writer Laureate.

An amazing set of poems...

A wonderful anthology about writing poems.

There are many more too, but I don't want to lose anyone! Will share more later. And you'd better believe I'm taking some poetry from online home on this computer when I leave town...

Food


I have a couple of stories of things that didn't work, and some ideas for things that will work better for me.

A few nights ago, Phil and I went out to dinner. We went to an Indian restaurant. I love Indian food, especially the spices, and the ease of finding gluten free and meatless choices. But I was nervous about the fact that they tend to cook in ghee. Although this is clarified butter, it's still a dairy product, and dairy affects my mood in such horrid ways that I'm afraid to eat it. But I want to be able to be flexible enough for the occasional outing - we eat out extremely seldom.

I ordered utthappam, which is basically a sourdough pancake made of rice and lentils with onions and chilis, with some sambar - lentil soup. These are South Indian dishes, where coconut predominates over dairy, so I was hoping that they might not be made with ghee.

Well, it was deliciously spicy, but I could detect an element of dairy in the aftertaste. I only ate half of it, so had some to experiment with the next day. I woke up mucusy, headachy, and in a really bad mood, and tried a bite or two of the leftovers mid-morning for an immediate return of those symptoms. Told me what I needed to know. I think some Indian restaurants nowadays use olive oil or coconut oil, to cater to vegans, so I guess I should look out for those or make my own. Another one for the 'watch' list.

The other 'food' problem area is temptation. I'm away from home, can't make my own treats (although I brought some with me), am often working long hours in town. At the farm, everyone eats tons of sugar and ice cream. In town, there are a few raw bars available that aren't around where I live.

So, I gave into temptation twice over the past week and tried out these new larabar flavors I hadn't had before:

Chocolate chip brownie and peanut butter chocolate chip. First ingredient: dates. Possible milk contamination in the chips. But I love chocolate chip anything and have it so seldom (not supposed to have chocolate either, remember). I didn't eat either of them in one go - they took a couple days each. And the pb one gave me a good idea for an alternative energy bar to make for Phil, but they're really not a good food for me.

It's another piece of the discussion about 'natural' versus 'what works for you.' Dates are more 'natural' and whole than the white stevia powder I use in my home made bars and barks. But when I eat my stevia-sweetened goodies, I feel good and stable. When I ate the larabars with dates, I felt jittery, unsatisfied, with a big increase in appetite and cravings. That's the worst thing to me about eating high-glycemic things: they make me hungrier!

So, what is going to work?

Well, I've shown before the whole bunch of no-sugar cookies I brought with me -

these are disappearing fast.

There's one batch that is _very low_ sugar instead of 'no sugar:' I made a batch of these cinnamon maca bars from Sunfood to bring with me to Oregon. The recipe calls for dates and two tablespoons of honey. I subbed goji berries for the dates, but I did use the two tablespoons of honey: I used some hoarded precious Christmasberry honey from my Hawaii days. Christmasberry honey is supposedly as potent a healer as Manuka honey. (Christmasberry is a noxious weed that is also a potent herb. Also known as Brazilian peppertree.)

It boggles my mind that the recipe says 'makes six bars:' I think I got 18 out of it! So, two tablespoons of healing honey and two tablespoons of (low sugar anyway) goji berries in a batch of 18 is pretty low-sugar for now. And again, these don't send my blood sugar for a loop like the larabars.

I also brought some bark:

I've shared many recipes for bark in the past. Earlier this year, when I was 'very depleted' and not digesting anything, these really were my major source of calories. More recently, I've backed off a lot on them, since I have so many more options and they really are dense. But, since they're so similar in composition to chocolate, especially when I use my dark chocolate flavor extract, they make a pretty good substitute/treat when chocolate is making the rounds.

One more thing I did was to make a chia mix - chia seeds, coconut flour, goji berries, ginger, bee pollen. Mix a couple spoonfuls with some nutmilk and stevia - and, here, some blackberries I gathered a couple days ago:

This is something I hadn't been doing at home, but everything else smack of the familiar.

Finally, if I absolutely have to have chocolate, I will occasionally buy a Lindt 90% bar.
Being 90% cocoa, it's very low sugar obviously, and I find one square (which has 55 calories) to be very satisfying, so long as I am mindful. So a single bar will last for weeks. I try not to do this, because of chocolate's effect on my adrenals, but when we're away from home, and considering that I am generally so very strict, I consider it an slight indulgence that works if I'm careful. On the side of self-love, not self-abuse.

And, not all food treats are sweet! I pictured jicama up top, always a great treat for me. And avocado is another wonderful treat.

What are some non-sweet treats for you?
How do you take care of your muse?

What If I Can't Have Cacao? Acceptance, Rule-Bending and Some Creative Alternatives

I mentioned recently that I'm avoiding cacao at the moment, on the advice of the ND and in recognition of my body's own response to it. I've been learning that it pays to do as the ND says - but - it seems awfully unfair that the one thing that really interests my taste buds also jolts my adrenals in a bad way and builds itself into an addiction whenever I eat it regularly. I've now gone through several cycles of eating it regularly, noticing addiction, starting to experience physical symptoms (like sleeplessness and skin irritation) and made myself quit it completely. There have also been times when I've been able to 'stay on top of it,' being very strict with myself about only eating it a few times a week, only eating it in the morning, etc. I'm hoping that eventually my adrenals will recover to the point that I can eat cacao with impunity, but the ND says not to hold my breath for that! (Even raw cacao? 'Fraid so. Although I do notice that the nibs (the whole bean, fat and all) have less impact than the powder (concentrated, minus the fat).

What to do, then? If you don't have a major adrenal issue, the very best advice is that given by Christian, to have your cacao with other superfoods that balance it out. Reishi powder, maca, algae - they all taste great together too. When I do have cacao, I always do that.

But if you have to avoid it completely, until you are recovered to the point that you can experiment to see how much bending of this rule your body can handle - ;) - here are some strategies and recipes!

One strategy is to remove chocolate from the picture altogether. The first three or four years I was into raw foods, there was no raw chocolate and everyone seemed to manage! There are so many other delicious flavors. For some, it's all about the berries and fruits. For others, like myself, the spices are where it's at (and isn't it interesting that both berries and spices are super-high in antioxidants?) I love making barks and cookies with lots of cinnamon, ginger and my favorite cardamom. Nutmeg is great too. And although mint chocolate is unbeatable, mint by itself is a wonderful flavor. Mint with lots of spirulina and chlorella pleases the eye with the minty green and pleases the body with all that wonderful chlorophyll and protein. Somehow, if you can find other things that are delicious to your taste buds and nourishing to your body, it doesn't seem as much of a hardship.

But what about when everyone is eating chocolate, when it seems like chocolate is coming out at you everywhere you look? What about when, no matter how much you remove your energy from it, it comes looking for you - whether through a habitual hankering at certain times of the month or the evocation of a social custom of sharing? Part of my playing in the kitchen yesterday was to find some answers to this.

Well, the first piece of good news is that cacao butter has none of the caffeine in it - that's all in the powder.

Cacao butter tastes wonderfully chocolatey and provides that special mouth-feel, because it is mostly a (good) saturated fat and its melting point is right around the human body temperature! For myself, I'll probably use cacao butter in combination with coconut oil for the most part, because coconut oil is what my body 'needs.' But just a little cacao butter will give that flavor and texture, and increase the melting point a bit too.

Next up - Carob! Wait! Don't dismiss this out of hand! 

Yes, I know, I hate it when people say that carob is a substitute for chocolate - because I don't think it's fair on carob! I love carob - even feel an affinity for it as a fellow-transplant from the Mediterranean. But I'm the first to say it tastes nothing like chocolate. It's also much lower in fat, which means higher in carbs, which is less optimal for me. However, it's super-high in calcium (so could be said to balance magnesium-rich cacao).

Even though carob is not chocolate and does not taste like chocolate, in combination with cacao butter and the next ingredient I'm going to talk about, it does offer the color and texture of chocolate without the caffeine, and (if you like carob on its own merits) adds a special, sharply-sweet flavor of its own. (Note: I've been using toasted carob because I haven't been able to get hold of raw carob, and toasted carob has a much finer texture and flavor. I'm ok with this in small quantities.)

Imagine taking chocolate and distilling it to an essence, and then being able to take a drop of that and evoke the whole thrill of chocolate. Well, that's what the folks at Medicine Flower claim to have done with their dark chocolate flavor extract

. 

It's a bit expensive and I was skeptical, especially having tried chocolate flavored stevia and liked it, but not as a 'real chocolate' flavor. But I'd seen good reviews of this flavor essence, and got some to try.

Yes, it's very concentrated indeed! On the side of the bottle, it recommends using one part essence to 10,000 parts finished product! That's a lot of zeroes. Trying a drop on the tongue is just overwhelming. Unfortunately, the dropper 'drops' by itself, without you even squeezing the bulb, so it's good to ensure that the dropper is almost empty before removing it from the bottle, if you don't want waste/overwhelm.

In water, it definitely imparts a chocolate flavor - but not a full-bodied, full-on chocolate. That's what you need the fat for! 

So, my theory was that using cacao butter, a few drops of this flavor essence, and carob for color and binding would make a decent chocolate replacement. I tried it out to make a no-sugar version of Larabar's 'German Chocolate Cake' - a bar I've only tried once but have had a hankering for ever since. 

My challenge was to use only the ingredients listed in the bar plus my substitutions. The ingredients are: dates (I subbed chia-sweet), pecans, almonds, shredded coconut, virgin coconut oil (I used vco plus a little cacao butter), cocoa powder (I used a little carob).

I know that for the larabar, the dates predominate: it's about two parts dates to one part nuts. So I made two cups of chia-sweet from water, two teaspoons white stevia and about three drops of dark chocolate essence. 

Whoops - I ran out of chia seeds! This gel has only 5 tablespoons of chia - seven or eight would have been optimal to make it really thick…

Here's the chia-sweet mixed with the melted coconut oil and cacao butter, with the ground-up (soaked and dehydrated) pecans, almonds and shredded coconut going in.

And here it is with the addition of the carob. With the slightly gloopy chia-sweet, it looked like a big chocolate pudding - and tasted like one too!

Here it is going onto trays to be dried out. I gave it a couple hours in the oven on lowest setting with the door open, because it was so wet, and then went back to my fan contraption. By this morning, I had delicious no-sugar cookies! I made them flatter than I'd prefer, because I was worried about drying, but this was the first time! Next time, I'll have more chia seeds (I ordered them already) and will probably add some flax meal too. 

So, delicious, no sugar, no chocolate, full of good things!

And while I was at it, and since I've been feeling inspired by other bloggers, I also made the beautiful Twins' tahini bars! How's this for serendipity - they mentioned those bars in their blog yesterday too!

Yes, I own no mixing bowls, I mix and serve in our baking pans...

Again, I subbed chia-sweet (I had some in the fridge) for their date paste, omitted the cacao nibs and used extra shredded coconut (with the chocolate essence, the chia almost feels like chocolate chips), and made the topping with coconut oil, cacao butter, carob and vanilla. I didn't make it look nearly as pretty as they do, but the taste is just to die for! I adore carob and tahini together - they are both squarely in the middle of that nostalgic Mediterranean spot that I hit with Lisa's dal yesterday too! I also love that the omega 3-rich chia-sweet balances out the tahini, which is heavily omega-6.

Enjoy - I hope you have a beautiful day.