Tapas Party: Samosas, Socca(!), Marzipan and Fig Bread; Leftovers?

In my last post, I mentioned the tapas party that we enjoyed with dear friends and family. I have been so appreciating the encouragement to bring foods that I like to these kinds of events: until recently, I'd bring a salad just to make sure there'd be 'something' I could eat and put all my energies into making things I couldn't, of a more mass appeal.

The specific instruction was not to go 'over the top,' lots of little, simple dishes. So I thought four things was a reasonable cap: two mains and two desserts.

I made a version of raw samosas with banana tamarind dipping sauce, loosely based (as in, I don't have the book) on that in Raw Food Real World...

...and for the other 'main,' I finally got on the Socca bandwagon!

I made Pure2Raw's beautiful spinach socca, with a creamy spinach salad to top it!

As for desserts, I was so excited to make marzipan cookies--one of my favorite flavors--based on the recipe in Everyday Raw Desserts but replacing the agave with xylitol and stevia...

...and I made authentic Spanish-style fig-bread: pictured on the left of the white cake below.

Here it is again, chilling next to the rolled marzipans on our freezer.

This was a very simple two parts dried figs to one part soaked/dehydrated walnuts plus a little special honey, pinch of salt and drop of anise extract. It mimics the 'fig bread' by Matiz that can be found in gourmet stores for a high price but is delicious and simple to make.

Note the absence of chocolate in the desserts area? Good to change things up, and better for my body...

 I really didn't think I 'went over the top,' but there were definitely some busy spaces in our tiny cabin on Friday!

Here are the samosa filling (pulsed cauliflower and peas mellowing in a curry sauce), walnuts for the fig bread, raspberry jam filling for the marzipan, all 'dehydrating' on the floor in front of our heater...

Before I go into the other dishes in more detail, what do you do when you're fixing up a whole bunch of food and lunchtime rolls around? To me, it's a good sign when you can take a break to have a lunch, rather than just nibbling here and there. My 'large cauliflower' for samosas was too much for the curry sauce (fortunately I didn't throw it all in at once). So my lunch was a bunch of pulsed cauliflower and a handful of spinach leaves, sauced with a little piece of avocado, a little coconut kefir, and chlorella, curry powder and nutritional yeast. Oh, and some cilantro.

You don't think it looks pretty? Oh, me loves green so very much...

OK--after lunch, and after ice-driving practice, samosa-wrapping, now that the filling had had a good few hours to mellow and meld. I added a bunch of coarsely chopped cilantro to the filling.

For the wraps, I 'cheated.' I don't have a dehydrator (other than in front of the heater) and don't have access to quantities of young coconuts, so making wrappers out of dehydrated young coconut didn't seem sensible. I used rice-paper spring roll wrappers instead. Can you see the wrapper blotting on the towel?

I've never used these before and found the wrapping procedure to be really fun. Of course, it's a bit of a cultural stretch, putting samosa inside spring roll wrappers: but hey, this was a tapas (i.e. Spanish food) party, so I could just call it fusion.

The banana-tamarind dipping sauce was very spicy and delicious, and complemented the samosas well. I'd definitely make the samosa filling and the tamarind sauce again just separately, to enjoy. And the wraps definitely bear repeating too.

Socca! Years ago, long before I'd ever heard of socca, I used to make myself flatbreads out of chickpea flour. I've been reading about socca on other blogs for sometime but had never felt moved to try it, partly because of doing all-raw, partly being carbophobic, partly knowing that Phil, who dislikes chickpeas, wouldn't be a fan. But this recipe that Pure2Raw shared recently really called out to me and the Mediterranean setting of the evening was perfect.

Batter ready to go in the oven...

...came out crusty and hearty-looking... 

And I followed the socca part of the recipe to the letter! Me, who am congenitally incapable of following recipes. So, of course, I didn't follow the salad recipe to the letter...

I didn't have nutmeg or basil, but I did have fresh tarragon. Oh, and I replaced the hempseeds with walnuts. You know what? Tarragon and tahini is a wonderful flavor combination that I will definitely use again.

Yummy... Thanks so much, Pure2Raw ladies! Even the wheat-bread-lovers loved it.

Marzipan...intense almond flavor with a berry contrast. Based on coconut flour and cashews/mac nuts. Here I am following  tweaking a recipe again!

I used less xylitol syrup than the amount of agave called for, but still had to add quite a lot of extra coconut flour to make it a dough as opposed to liquidy.

I also probably didn't roll it out quite flat enough and when I rolled the pastry over the jam, I had to do some repair work. The substitutions may have affected the pliability also, although of course chilling is no problem here: just set it outside for a minute or two!

But bottom line: marzipan is something I adore, and will definitely try to make again and can tweak the different sweeteners and texturers: I have some more ideas. Even as a first attempt, this was so good! Intense almond flavor, sweet and rich, without being tooth-hurtingly sweet.

And of course, there were about two dozen other dishes on the table too!

Questions:
Are you more likely to eat something you 'shouldn't' at a gathering with huge selection of dishes?
I'm lucky, in that most things that make me feel sick I actually dislike. (And, Phil would add, there are lots of things that might be good for me that I also dislike!) Obviously, chocolate is an exception, but it doesn't make me sick to my stomach, just my adrenals. The only other exception for me is bell peppers. I never eat them raw because they make me sick right away. But when they're roasted, I can sometimes cope with a little, and I just love the taste. Somehow, the celebratory, diverse spirit of tapas encouraged me to eat several pieces of roasted bell pepper, and my tummy did not thank me for it! How silly, when there were so many other good options... But even so, I ate a fraction of the diversity that everyone else had, so I guess I was careful...

When you make a big batch of something, do you like it when there are leftovers?
If it's something Phil loves, I'm happy for there to be leftovers. If it's more my kind of food, I'm ambivalent about the leftovers thing. I love leftovers, especially as often the flavors meld over time. But if there are too many leftovers and they are perishable, I can feel overwhelmed, since there's nothing I hate more than waste. The day after a rich dinner, I usually want to keep things very simple food-wise. To be honest, I also know that everyone else can eat much richer food than I can regularly, and worry about calories, etc. However, I've been enjoying my leftovers this time! And of course, if it's something that freezes, the time pressure is off and you can just enjoy it when you wish.

Much love!

Ways of Being Our Best - A Spectrum of Compromises and Some Cooked Food

I am very fortunate that I have always been a free agent in my mother's kitchen. Since I was a teenager or maybe younger, she's always been very gracious when I've swooped in and taken over, although I think I'm better at failing to make a mess nowadays!

In my last couple of posts, I've been talking about staying well-fed to avoid blood sugar catastrophes and emotional nightmares, which is apparently far from a no-brainer from me and can be very hard to do! Staying at my parents', it was pretty easy for the most part: but a couple of times it helped me to break my general rule of trying to eat very conservatively, very little different from my normal foods, while traveling. I probably ate slightly more cooked food, although not every day.

Generally, I'm so much more at ease not being strictly 100% raw: that state of restriction was actually somewhat pathological. It definitely fed my eating-disordered tendencies rather than my body, and I'm sure that all the stress about 'are these nuts raw?' 'what temperature were those raisins dried at?' was harmful to my body too. I don't worry about those minutiae anymore, because I don't think they constitute the big picture in health. Raisins, dates, pistachios in southern California are exposed to temperatures well above 115 degrees just sitting on the tree, let alone when things like raisins and prunes are dried on the ground in the sun, and tropical fruits ditto. Berries in northern climates withstand very cold temperatures and maintain life force. It's not a black and white thing. And as for cacao, I had noticed before, and definitely noticed again with my recent raw cacao taste tests, that non-raw cacao doesn't affect me as badly as does the raw kind. Both kinds definitely impact my adrenals in ways that I can feel directly, but the raw cacao does so more immediately and more intensely. Last week in Anchorage I ate some veggies simmered in a coconut curry when we were at a Thai restaurant with friends, and felt much better satiated than if I'd obstinately insisted on merely getting one of their salads minus all the dressing, tofu or meat.

So, it's all about compromises and figuring the best way to be my best!

Back in London, I did make all kinds of beautiful raw goodies - mentioned the cilantro (coriander) chutney and lemon-cauliflower that I made before, and a beautiful marinaded cauliflower/purple kale/shredded carrot/green apple salad with a spicy cashew dressing...

One night I also made a no-sugar raw pie, with almond-hazelnut-flax-stevia-coconut oil-lemon zest crust,  and a cashew-lemon-stevia filling, thickened with a little agar...

...and further thickened and sweetened by some coconut milk powder, just like I used for my kefir, that I found at the Indian shop near my parents' house. Even with only stevia and no xylitol, the pie was really delicious and was well-received.

I used the coconut milk powder in a cooked dish that I made that I was very proud of. It was a curried coconut dal with eggplants (aubergine) and later also zucchini (courgette). Both these vegetables were salted for thirty minutes and then rinsed well before cooking. I used a mixture of mung dal (split mung beans) and urd beans (which I'd never tried before: tiny beans with a great, nutty flavor and solid texture). Soaked both of these overnight. While they simmered on the back burner, I melted coconut oil, added mustard seeds, coriander seeds, a little cumin and cayenne, and sauteed the sliced eggplant and onion...

Blended up some coconut milk powder with warm water and some turmeric and ginger, and added it...

Added the beans, and also a couple of cardamom pods (you can see them in the photo): probably my very favorite spice...

 ...and let simmer for a while so that everything was soft and infused with flavor. The eggplants were so succulent and giving, the beans still had texture and so much flavor; the coconut/cardamom/spicy combination was just delectable.

Then, a couple nights later, I took it to the next level with the leftovers. I sauteed the zucchini and another half onion in a little more coconut oil with some more of the same spices, added more coconut milk, mixed it together with the leftover eggplant dal, and baked in the oven!

This was so delicious I couldn't believe it! The baking married the flavors even more, and browned the top for an extra treat.

My tummy was happy too: what a great way to make a compromise!

But I think that my compromises and general kitchen presence are accepted most of all because of my willingness to fix foods that I don't eat. The night that I made the above goodies, there was a desire for apple pie as the 'real' dessert, with a hankering for an apple pie with a custard topping. I told my mum that I didn't have time to make the pastry from scratch but that if she could provide that, I'd take on the rest of the pie. Fortunately, she had some pre-made short pastry in the freezer. I got to work marinating apple slices and chopped dates in lemon juice, brown sugar and spices, blind-baked the crust, baked with the apples until browned and made stovetop custard meanwhile... Put all together and warmed through before serving:

Not the most beautiful presentation ever, perhaps (and I'm not the best photographer either) but it was definitely a hit and well-enjoyed, and considering how last-minute it was and that I did it all by nose and instinct, I think it went quite well!

How far will you go in compromise?
Sending love...

A Chia-Ful Thanksgiving: Back Home, Ways of Being Our Best

Happy Thanksgiving and happy late fall! We finally got home late Wednesday evening, so yesterday was consumed with basic unpacking and re-combobulating, fixing food and socializing with family and friends.

We arrived home to a wonderful surprise. In the main room of the cabin, there is a little nook with bookshelves on one side. On the other side used to be more bookshelves, mostly taken up with sprawling stereophonic equipment. Now, instead, this: (laptop added since our arrival!)

A desk, with its own office chair and shelving unit, and that beautiful wall-hanging also! I haven't had a workspace for such a long time and it takes its toll ergonomically. I don't know if she did it singlehandedly, but Phil's daughter was the mastermind of this: what a superstar. We were already feeling grateful to be home and to have the opportunity to reconnect with friends and family, but this gave us very clear grounds for marvelous gratitude and amazement that someone should do all this for us.

As I struggled toward the end of our long trip, I talked here a few times about the need to figure out how to take care of myself in order to be my best. In a standard-diet environment, it's all too easy for me to end up underfed, with unfortunately predictable and unfortunately ugly consequences. It shouldn't be as hard as it is, but sometimes it just seems impossible! As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm backed up in my head a couple posts, some still about our time in England, and they have somewhat to do with answering this need. But since it was just Thanksgiving, I'm going to skip ahead to the almost-present!

One easiest way of taking care of things to be my best is to bring my own - make and bring plenty of good food that will be enjoyed by everyone. This is Alaska in the wintertime, and the selection of produce is not enormous. We also had only just got home, so I didn't have any lead time to prepare fancy things. So, I kept it simple, but hopefully, appetizing!

This is a salad of mandolined red delicious apples and fennel, with walnuts and pomegranate and a simple lime juice-balsamic vinegar dressing with a bit of olive oil.

This salad is spinach and watercress, with pea and lentil sprouts and avocado. The dressing, which didn't turn out exactly as I'd have liked, was half a big carrot, two tablespoons of almond butter, dash of apple cider vinegar, smoked paprika, oregano, nutritional yeast, a clove of garlic all blended together with the addition of a little salt and a little olive oil. This needs some serious tweaking! It wasn't tart enough, for one thing, and there was too much oregano.

There were all kinds of nibbles while we waited for the main spread to be ready: with apple slices and almonds available in addition to the cheese ball and shrimp, etc, even I was covered! I had a small-to-medium portion of the two above salads and nothing else on my plate for the main meal, drawing some surprise about how little was on my plate. But my appetite is pretty small really, and I can't eat much in one go. Dessert was yet to come and I still went to bed plenty full when all the courses were gone through!

Part one of the chia-ful thanksgiving:

I brought along this 'nog' to share. It was a creamy almond-sesame-brazil milk with xylitol and lecithin, with lots of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla bean, and a little turmeric for color, with two tablespoons soaked chia seeds blended in. I added a tiny bit of whisky: most people added a lot more when they drank it! It was very yummy, but next time I wouldn't use sesame. In fact, if I'd thought it out, I wouldn't have this time! It clashes with the nutmeg.

Does anyone else ever do that? Know somewhere in your brain that something won't be a good combination, but go ahead and make it, and only realize that you already knew it wouldn't be best after actually tasting it?

Next time, I also think that I'd use something other than the chia (whose seeds can be a little scratchy) for thickness - I know it's time for me to get some irish moss to try soon.

Part two of the chia-ful cheer: raw, no-sugar pecan pie. It's the right-most pie in the spread below at our friends' home.

The crust was golden flax meal, pecans, shredded coconut (about a cup of coconut and half a cup each of flax and pecans), 2 tablespoons xylitol, cinnamon, a little water, coconut oil. The filling was two cups of chia-sweet (chia gel made with stevia and spices: in this case, cinnamon and ginger) and a cup of soaked pecans. Really got the Vita-Mix working with that! Added some lecithin, xylitol, some more spices. A soft, puddingy kind of texture that didn't ooze too much at room temperature. I thought it worked quite well.

We brought lots of after dinner mints but I also made a batch of my own peppermint bark with some chocolate flavor extract in it.

It's a half batch, still with its odd whitish sheen from setting up in the freezer. No one else even tasted it, they were too busy with the chocolates, but I was glad to have a nibble too, although it wasn't the best I've ever made it. A little too much chocolate extract and too little peppermint.

I feel like I've been pretty critical of what I fixed for yesterday: a lot of things didn't turn out exactly as I'd have liked. And of course, most things I was 'winging,' as always. But I think that considering we'd only just gotten home the night before, it was an ok success story. Mostly, I'm grateful to have such understanding friends and family, and to get to spend such good quality times with them.

Can you let it go when you prepare something and it doesn't turn out just right? Happy winter weekend to all!

'Theme and Variations' 4: Little On-the-Spot Snacks/'Puddings'

Well, another theme to this 'theme and variations' series of mine seems to be the lack of a good name for some of my staple food items! I guess this is the flip side of my observation that I often mention, that people who eat a 'standard' diet and don't think about what they eat are often so attached to a prototypical 'named' food, which must always taste the same every time, and be paired with the right partner, or else it's unacceptable. (Bacon and eggs, corned beef and rye - many of them I'd never even heard of before I met my husband - or, smoothies must be ice cold or else they're undrinkable, etc.) This has made it very hard for me to imagine winning people over with rawified 'pizza,' 'lasagna,' etc - even the desserts need some explanation. My flip side is that lots of things that I eat on a regular basis don't even fall under a generic characterization (like 'salad,') - far less a prototypical rendition with a standard list of expected ingredients (like 'caesar salad'.) 

Theme

Of course, salad itself is one of my main staples, and will be part of another 'theme and variations' post. But for this week, the 'theme' is a little snack, mixed together on the spot from superfood powders, spices, omega-3 seeds, etc. This is a 'make at home to eat at home with a spoon' snack, not a take-and-go. It can be mixed together in a small bowl or mason jar, but I often make such a small amount that I mix it up and eat it from a jar lid!

My basic 'theme' for it at the moment is coconut kefir, a little coconut butter, some flax seed meal or chia seeds, and spices and superfoods.

Variations

Here are some favorite combinations:

Couple tablespoons coconut kefir, 1/2 teaspoon coconut butter, scoop of flaxseed meal, teaspoon each of maca and mesquite, cinnamon, cardamom, bee pollen;

First three ingredients above plus a few chopped goji berries;

First three ingredients and some ginger, cardamom and spirulina;

Couple tablespoons coconut kefir, couple tablespoons chia gel or 'chia-sweet,' cardamom, rose water, teaspoon almond butter;

(Especially if I've just been exercising): add some hemp or pea protein powder and some kefir whey to any of these mixtures.

'Theme and Variations' 2: Nut Milks

Happy Friday everyone! This week seems to have shot by alarmingly fleet(ing)ly. We have some beautiful weather up here in Alaska these last two days: it's actually gotten up to 60 degrees! So funny to think that that used to be the bottom of my range, and now I'm thrilled with it. Yesterday was an interesting day - I went to court! I'll talk more about that maybe tomorrow, but for today, I'll carry on with the recipe series 'theme and variations.'

Last week I started a new series of posts based on the observation that staple recipes usually consist of a 'theme' with endless 'variations.' Last week I talked about 'barks'/'fudges' - still looking for a good name for those, by the way.

This week, it's nut milks. When I first learned about these, about twelve years ago, I was amazed that they weren't in more common use, since they're so simple and so very good. It turns out that they used to be much more commonly used - look at any highbrow European recipe from the Middle Ages and it's highly likely to feature 'milk of almonds.'

As simple and delicious as they are, they are also almost infinitely variable. The fibrous, lower fat seeds like flax and chia don't have the requisite creaminess, but any other nut or seed commonly available can be used for making nut milk. And you can also use a combination of two or more - and flax and chia do work in combination with others, which is a handy way to correct the omega-3 to -6 ratio, since besides hemp seeds and walnuts, all other nuts and seeds are overbalanced in favor of omega-6. (More on this in my article for this month's 'Eighty Percent Raw' magazine.)

The basic method is to soak the nuts, rinse (discarding the soak water) and then blend with fresh water until thoroughly pulverized. Then strain through a cheesecloth or mesh bag, blend again with more water if you like, and that's it.  If you have a high-powered blender (vitamix, blendtec), sometimes you don't even need to strain it. I just have a little hand blender and have managed to blend even small seeds into milk, provided that they've been well soaked and that I add the liquid just a little at at time. And I am ready for a high-powered blender, o universe!

However, besides the plethora of potential permutations simply by varying the nuts and seeds used, there are so many other variables. Some people love to add sweetener, which can be dates, honey, agave, stevia, xylitol. Some people also love to add a pinch of sea or rock salt. Vanilla is a popular flavoring, or one can go beyond the simple 'milk' and add a chai spice flavoring, or cacao powder, mint leaves or essence. Or use herbal tea or other flavored liquid instead of water. Another permutation is the ratio of nuts/seeds to liquid. Looking around, the general recommended ratio is 1 part nuts/seeds to 3 or 4 parts water, so 1/3 or 1/4cup of nuts/seeds per cup of water; a quart of milk would use a cup of nuts or so. I have to be aware that it's part of my stinginess with myself that my milks use a far smaller amount - around a half cup of nuts/seeds per quart - and then I always dilute the milk again with tea!

Another question is the homogenization issue. I like to add a tablespoon of lecithin to the recipe to ensure that the milk doesn't separate. However, I've noticed - but don't know the reason - that some milks are more 'separation prone' than others. For example, I forgot to put the lecithin in a batch of milk that was mostly sunflower seeds with a  few filberts, and it separated. But I recently forgot it in a batch of mostly walnut milk with a few brazil nuts and hempseeds, and it stayed pretty much homogenized. I did add some lecithin in by hand afterwards and shake it, but it didn't blend in and just settled to the bottom, so it's not clear that it was much help. It's possible that the walnut/hemp mix was fattier, and therefore homogenized better. But sunflower seeds are a natural source of lecithin, so one might have thought that they'd be good at homogenizing too!

My current recipe is: 

'Theme' 

~1/2c nuts/seeds, 

2 T xylitol (a sugar alcohol derived from birch trees that has antifungal properties)

1 T lecithin

pinch salt

1 quart water

Variations:

Sometimes a pinch of ground vanilla bean or a shake of cinnamon

I have made: almond milk, filbert milk, brazil nut milk, walnut milk, pecan milk,coconut milk (using shredded coconut), sunflower seed milk, sesame milk, hemp milk, pumpkin seed milk, and many combinations of these. Generally, I think that pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds have a rather savory flavor on their own, but taste great when combined with nuts, especially brazil nuts and filberts.

Some favorite combinations:

coconut-sesame

sesame-hemp

filbert-brazil

filbert-brazil-sunflower

My current favorite: walnut-brazil-hemp - since I've been so depressed lately I'm trying to make sure I get in more omega-3's, as well as the selenium that the brazil nuts provide. Walnuts are probably my favorite nut at the moment anyway (although I can hardly eat them unless they've been soaked, that tannin hurts a girl's mouth! - but I'm fine to soak them).

Why haven't I made it from macadamia nuts or cashews or pine nuts? These are the three most commonly used nuts in rich gourmet recipes. They are the nuts that are creamy enough and low-fiber enough that if you have a high-powered blender you could probably get away without even having to strain the milk. Well, I'm not eating cashews at the moment because they're generally cautioned against if you're cleansing yeast - ditto for pistachios and peanuts. I've made pine nut milk before and it's delicious but very strong. - would be better in combination with something else. And pine nuts are unbelievably expensive here so I just haven't been buying them. Mac nuts: we're hopefully getting a load of them soon from a small farm in Hawaii owned by some friends of ours. But Phil loves them so much that I'd rather just keep them for him to eat.

What's your favorite nut milk? Do you use lecithin or another emulsifier?

No-Sugar Mint-Chocolate 'Bark'/'Fudge' Recipe, Phil's Bear Hunt, Ingredient Notes

Phil's gone on a bear-hunt today! We got up early to get him loaded and launched at the harbor. We saw two moose on the way there, one great with calf, the other a skinny yearling. I felt a little sacrilegious, but I was so relieved not to be going on the trip! The whole undertaking of going across the bay in his little tiny inflatable boat is so arduous. Stuffing multiple drybags full of equipment and warm clothing under the bow, then loading up fuel tanks, anchor, motor (which all by itself is significantly heavier than me), bundling up in multiple layers to withstand the cold of being flush with the ocean. 

It reminded me of all the times that we went off like that last year, and how exhausted I would get from all the hauling and lifting! I really need to work on reminding myself of what wonderful adventures we had too, hiking along remote trails, watching unusual wildlife, encountering bears, eating early spring greenery…Being flush with the ocean means encountering sea otters, seals, all kinds of seaducks, sometimes even whales, at close quarters, which is a unique experience every time. But Phil asked me to pump up the keel of the boat, which has a slow leak, before launch, and that alone together with a little equipment stowage was enough for me that I had to lay down when I got home.

So, it seems like a good day, although I intended to do this last week, to share my more stimulating no-sugar fudge/bark recipe.  Since the naturopath told me that I should be eating a half cup of coconut oil a day(!!), I've been focusing more on these fudge/bark type snacks than on energy bars. There's no way I'm eating that much a day, but at least a part of me wants to try. The recipe follows the same format as my 'celebratory fudge' that I shared earlier, except that now I'm using exclusively coconut oil instead of a coconut/cacao butter mixture. This is just for my specific needs at the moment: if you want something more room-temperature-stable, feel free to add some cacao butter.

My problem with this recipe that I'm sharing today is that it tastes too good! I have no appetite at the moment and this is the only thing that I eat that I want to eat more of. But its main flavors are cacao and peppermint, both of which are somewhat stimulating, and so I'm afraid of creating more crashing and burning for my wiped-out adrenals with it. 

Yesterday, I created another one that appeals to my tastebuds without the stimulation: a cardamom/almond/sesame based one that appeals to my Mediterranean nostalgia. 

But the peppermint/cacao one is too good not to share, so here it is:

Mint-Chocolate Bark

1 c coconut oil, melted

1 t stevia (white powder)

generous pinch of salt
generous pinch of vanilla powder

6-7 drops peppermint oil (or 1/2t peppermint essence)

1 T lecithin, ground in coffee grinder

1 T spirulina

2 T glutamine powder

2 T maca

shakes of cinnamon, ginger, cayenne

1 c coconut flour

3/4 c cacao nibs

2 T ground chia seeds

1 c ground filberts

Melt the coconut oil and add the other ingredients in the order specified, stirring well after each addition. If the mixture is still oil-heavy at this point, add some more dry ingredients, which could be more coconut flour or some pulp from making nut milk.

Pour the whole thing out onto a shallow tray and refrigerate or freeze until set, then cut or break into desired sizes. 

Oh, this is so yummy! It's green and minty and crunchy and just so good!

A few notes on the ingredients: 

Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid that is considered crucial for rebuilding the small intestine. It has also been clinically shown to help reduce cravings.

Ground chia seeds: I always add some flax or chia to my energy bar/ball/bark recipes, to help balance the omega 3:6 ratio of the whole. I talk about this ratio and how important it is in my article for 'Eighty Percent Raw' Magazine for the month of May.

Lecithin: is an emulsifier, which means that it helps things to bind together and also helps with digestion of fats. It's an important source of choline, an essential b-vitamin. Non-soy-based lecithins are starting to be available: out of my reach for the moment but I make sure to get non-GMO organic soy lecithin.

I can talk about maca and spirulina sometime if there's interest, but I think most folks know the buzz about them… Ok, a few words!  Maca the Andean adaptogen, the brassica-family pioneer of harsh environments, said to be a godsend for thyroid problems (guess I should eat more of it): I have a tray of maca starts up here: we'll see how they do! Delicious subtle malty flavor.

Spirulina the wonderfully protein-rich, easily cultured alga loaded with beta carotene and b-vitamins, as well as magnesium-rich, life-giving chlorophyll. I was just remembering today an experience years ago of having depression lift almost instantly after eating some spirulina. And it's green and makes this treat look yummy and minty!

No-Sugar Energy Bars: Summary, Collected Links and Specific Comments

No-Sugar Energy Bars - Summary, Collected Links and Specific Comments

How's everyone doing with this end-of-week? I hope I haven't been too much of a downer this week - it's been a tough one! 

I had my first two mercury fillings out on Friday: the dentist was awesome and I feel very good about it, but obviously it's a pretty exhausting thing to go through, and then I tweaked my vitamin C IV at the naturopath's and it hurt more than it needed to… It's quite an adventure!

Today, I wanted to provide a post with links to all the posts that I've made about no-sugar energy bars, so that you could get at all of them in one go. I also wanted to make a few specific comments about ingredients.

The naturopath has told me that I should be eating 1/2 a cup of coconut oil a day!!! I know he's right, especially in the heavy-metals-detoxing situation, but it's hard for me to do. So I'm probably going to be trying to eat more of the 'fudge' (the recipe for which I'll link here too: I made my second batch of it with mostly coconut oil and just a little cacao butter instead of equal amounts of each) instead of energy bars.

Here are all the links, then:

Part 1 Preliminary

Part 2 Palette of Ingredients - first recipe

Part 3 Intermission - 'Palate' Considerations

Part 4 - My Magic Ingredient - recipe

Part 5 - My Special Technique

My Celebratory Fudge

And here are a few specific thoughts about ingredients and techniques:

Remember - basic ingredients are nuts and seeds (including shredded coconut), 'chia sweet,' coconut oil and sometimes cacao butter, protein powders and nut milk pulps, superfoods, spices, high quality salt.

When you use hemp protein/fiber powder in a recipe, you will want to use more spice than usual: for some reason, this ingredient can create a very bland-tasting end product if you don't up the spices. The same goes for flaxseed or if you happen to use psyllium - but it seems to go for the hemp more than anything else. 

I'm not sure why this is, since if you use whole hemp seeds you have to be careful the opposite way: they have such a strong flavor, you have to balance it carefully. Coconut complements that hemp flavor very well, and lemon zest, cayenne and cinnamon are ok, but cardamom and rose water and mint - some of my very favorites - don't go well with hemp.

Nut milk pulp is a great ingredient for extending, and making things that are not too rich. Make sure it's fully dry before you use it in an energy bar. You can crumble it with your hands to make sure it's not too clumped: it's not really necessary to sift or vitamix it for this purpose so long as you mix it in well.

Play with the thickness of the 'chia sweet:' generally, thick is good (remember, it's replacing honey/agave/date paste-type textures). Also, if the liquid part of the chia gel includes a flavoring (like an herbal tea) besides the stevia, make sure that it's a strong infusion to ensure that the flavor comes out.

Pressing is a very good technique for enhancing the texture of the bar. But unless you keep them in the freezer, my bottom line is that it's probably advantageous to dry them a little if you need them to last for a long time, take them camping, etc.

Have fun and enjoy!

Some Tips on Preparing Raw Foods Without Fancy Equipment

Abundance

The first thing I want to say in this post is that this is not about deprivation or lack of abundance. I have decided, with Phil's encouragement, that I _am_ going to get a Vitamix (or possibly a Blendtec), when the universe is in alignment, there is a good sale, etc. If I was still living in Hawaii, where damp and mold are such an issue, I would definitely be working on manifesting a good dehydrator as well. However, since we live in such a tiny space and, while we feel good about using power from the grid because it's sustainably hydro-generated here, we both have a lot of experience of living without electricity or with unpredictable or wimpy solar power, it's a strong habit to avoid proliferating 'stuff' and equipment for us. We also don't have running water at this point, so for all of you who hate washing up food processors and blenders after a multi-step job, spare a thought for me!

I do have to confess that I have a tendency to take this frugality too far when fixing stuff for myself. I am ridiculously willing to eat things with less pleasant textures if it means using less power! One morning I tried actually blending my nut milk/chia gel/herbal tea/chlorella/coconut oil breakfast instead of just stirring it together and it was wonderful how it was transformed! I like it fine as a 'chunky' with blobs of aromatic oil floating on top but I'm sure that not many people would ;o)

How to do almost everything you could do with a Vitamix

That said, I want to share how I do manage to make blended and dehydrated goods with no Vitamix/Blendtec and no dehydrator. I do have a Cuisinart, but it doesn't come out very often because of the cleanup issue!

For blending, and for several food-processing tasks, I have a Kitchen Aid Immersion Blender. It comes with the regular blender attachment, a whisk (which I use occasionally when I'm baking for others) and a little s-blade food chopper that can handle about a cup of nuts at time. If I'm making energy bars that call for a cup or two of ground nuts, I'll often use this because it's much quicker to clean than the Cuisinart.

In my opinion, immersion blenders do a better job than regular standup osterizer-type blenders, even if they have a lower wattage, because you can move them around in the mixture and get the blades to places, as opposed to having to rely on centrifugal force to have the stuff fall into the blades. It's also handy because you can blend right there in your mixing bowl or blend a smoothie in a wide-mouth jar and take it along. If you're cooking, you can puree a soup right in the pot. 

It doesn't have the oomph of a Vitamix or Blendtec - you're not going to be able to grind dry nuts/seeds with it - and generally food will need more 'prepping' for successful blending. Vegetables will need to be pre-chopped and blended with a little more liquid, and will never be pureed quite as smoothly.

That said, I have successfully made milk with sesame seeds and hemp seeds as well as with larger nuts: in all cases it's just important to have the nuts/seeds well soaked (and rinsed) first and to start blending with a very small amount of water so that they get ground up rather than just whirling around in the liquid. If you start with too much liquid, you get a big mess too! I put my hand over the top of the jar to minimize splatter.

The same goes for veggies - start with a small amount of liquid and add as needed. 

When making a compound recipe, like a dressing with hempseeds and parsley, say, blend the hempseeds (and garlic, if using) with a small amount of liquid before adding the parsley. Start with just the ingredients that need the most blending, and gradually add the rest.

Although all these processes take longer, there's something I actually appreciate about doing it in stages and allowing the recipe to reveal itself. When you have a mighty monster like a Vitamix, it's tempting just to throw everything in and let it do its business. For now, I have the luxury of time and making small quantities. But at some point, I may be called upon to make more! I look forward to it.

Dehydrating

As for dehydrating, I bought a DeLonghi convection toaster oven (which is all the oven we have room for), which has a 'dehydrating' option where only the convection fan runs, but that's not actually what I mostly use. I bake a lot for Phil and the rest of our little family, and loved the idea that the one little toaster oven could also serve as a dehydrator. In a kitchen where cooking pots and tupperwares double as mixing bowls, multifunctionality is prized! 

But there are a few problems with it, and it turns out I had better options. The first problem is, it's rather noisy. When something has to be dehydrated overnight and you live in a one-room cabin and are sleeping in the loft right above the noisy fan, it's not so good! Also, you can't adjust the temperature of the drying function, and I suspect that initially it's too cool to prevent potential proliferation of undesirables. This can be worked around, of course, by starting the dehydrating right after baking, when the oven is still warm, or by dehydrating for the first half hour or hour with the oven on its lowest setting with the door open. These are all good solutions.

But for most of the winter, our heater is running off and on, and it basically blows hot air out into the room. So I discovered that if I set the dehydrator trays in front of the heater, things get dehydrated very well! I've dehydrated soaked nuts, jalapeno peppers, crackers, energy bars (oh, and boots, gloves, coats, hats at any given time!) In fact, when it was really cold outside and the heater was working hard, it even got a little too hot in front of the heater! In the summer months, as I have mentioned, this cabin is a solar oven because it has so many windows. Last summer I dried nettles and all sorts of things simply by spreading them out in our sleeping loft and running a small fan to keep air circulating. So that will be an option again too! But of course, these options are only workable because the climate is so dry. Dry and cold. If I leave anything out on the counter, it gradually desiccates. Which is far preferable to molding or getting infested, which is what would happen if I left anything out for more than an instant in Hawaii!

Alaska as a Natural Refrigerator

We have been using a similar strategy to make up for our lack of a decent fridge (we have one very small one). The little half-room off of the main cabin is unheated and scarcely insulated, and we've been using it like a walk-in fridge. We are seriously contemplating insulating the windows, blocking them from the light and allowing it to become a year-round fridge (as the sun is out more, it's warmed up some in there too and whereas before we had to be careful that it didn't freeze, now I'm keeping a window open in there). I like the idea of making use of the fact that even in the summer it's never warmer than the 40s at night here to make a room double as a large fridge and save having to buy one… But this isn't yet completely decided upon.