The Difficult, and Small Bites Recipes (The Easy)

 

Today I will share the recipes for the "small bites" I featured in my previous post. They're all really easy--they're basic put these ingredients in the food processor with the S-blade and process into a dough, chill a little, cut or break into pieces, done-type recipes.

But I will also share a bit more of the difficult time I'm having lately, which I hinted at in Monday's post without really going into detail. The HAWMC experience throughout April was very beneficial for me in encouraging me to write more about the hard, personal stuff. I've backed away from that a little since then because I haven't wanted to worry people. But it's been a process and a story since, and stories are always good.

"Exploring Options"--what I really meant

That's what I said we were doing on Monday. That was a euphemism for this: my Naturopath, my therapist, another doctor I started seeing, and my bloodwork all say I need to go away to a treatment center. I don't want to go. There are none in Alaska. It feels like I've spent this whole week on the phone exploring options, having doors closed. Getting myself into a space to accept one disruptive plan, only to be told that won't work, contemplating another, with the same result. 

Our insurance won't cover "residential" treatment; only inpatient or outpatient. The program my therapist thinks is ideal has residential and outpatient only--great, so we explore outpatient and I get to keep some autonomy. My Naturopath (he who's had the most experience having me come into his office unslept/unmedicated/psychotic/crying/furious/otherwise noncompliant and crazed) thinks I shouldn't go outpatient, need to be in a more full-time, structured environment.

Add to that my gluten and dairy and soy allergies and non-meat-eating habitude, and many treatment centers won't even look at me. And what is up with that? A treatment center with a focus, among other things, on food issues, won't cater to patients with food allergies?

My Naturopath says treatment centers make it hard to get into them intentionally, so that the patient has to prove she wants to come in. Phil suggested it was just that they're inundated with people trying to get in, so they rule out whomever they can to narrow down the numbers. Since I don't want to come in, it's going to be tough for me to convince them that I do. Meanwhile, I continue not to believe that I'm in any physical danger, to push for agreement that I can stay here. And I continue not to get that.

But my Naturopath said something today that scared me. He warned me that this could start to affect my cognitive functioning and my writing. I already have some short-term memory lapses, which are not me at all, and I have to make sure to take my algae oil DHA capsules (disgusting though they taste) or my brain doesn't work. I have chest pain sometimes, and disorientating tinnitus, but both those can be chalked up to anxiety.

A friend was in the emergency room yesterday afternoon. Two other friends have had serious health scares recently. I was able to help out my friend in the ER, bring her necessities, take her home, take care of her, etc--does it sound like I'm a person in serious trouble? I don't think so. These people are having serious medical emergency issues, and folks are worried about me just because I lost a bit more weight than I intended to? I feel stupid and ashamed and self-indulgent and like I should have known better, like my damaged thyroid and other organs should have been a warning to know when to stop. 

I still can't stop.

Small Bites--The Easy! 

On a more cheerful note, I will share the recipe for the apricot kernel bites, with the strong suggestion not to use the apricot kernels but almonds instead!

Almondy Apricot Bites
Ingredients:
8 Apricot kernels (these made me sick--if you think they might make you sick, please use almonds instead!)
Scant half cup (33g) shredded coconut
Scant cup (270g) unsulphured dried apricots
1/4 cup (50g) carob powder
1/8 cup (25g) chia meal (chia seeds ground in coffee grinder or Vitamix)
1 tablespoon spirulina 
1/3 cup (60g) dry dates
1 teaspoon almond extract


Process all into a dough. I processed the apricot kernels on their own, then added the apricots, then everything else.


If you cut into 30 pieces, they're 31 calories each.
I don't know what I'm going to do with these! How ironic that the first time I make myself some treats, they make me sick! And everything else in there is so good--spirulina/chia/carob is a wonderful combination. I'm afraid to give them to anyone else in case they have the same reaction as I do. But it might be just me.


Since I love dried apricots so much, I made another apricot-based 'bite' that might be even better. This one has protein from the hemp, mojo-boost from the maca, and a couple purple surprises.

Scant cup (110g) unsulphured dried apricots
1/4 cup (30g) hemp protein and fiber powder
scant 1/2 cup (33g) shredded coconut
1 T maca
1/3 cup (60g) dry dates
small handful hibiscus flowers, ground in a Vitamix or coffee grinder
small handful dulse, snipped into pieces


Process into a dough. 
If you cut into 30 pieces, they're 24 calories each.


The slight hint of saltiness from the dulse and the tart almost citrusy flavor of the hibiscus are so special in here. You can't really see the little flecks of purple in the photo, but they make it very visually appealing too. I'm almost sorry I haven't given these a post of their own--they're quite special!


Finally, my take on Nicole's Fudgy Chocolate Chews 

I didn't tweak Nicole's recipe much, as raisins and chocolate are a wonderful thing and I wanted to start simple. Here's what I did:
1 cup raisins
2 T chia meal
1 T carob
1 T cacao nibs
1 t spirulina
1 t coconut butter


In the food processor unto dough! This one's much wetter than the other two, so I spread the whole thing out flat and froze it for a bit, but ended up rolling into balls rather than cutting into pieces.


If you make 30 pieces out of it, they're 18 calories each.


And now, I need to go--a phone call from another treatment center, and I've almost effectively skipped lunch, so should do something about that...(And why am I making and taking all these calls when I so don't want to go?)

Taking Over My Grandmother's Kitchen; Kosher Tribulations; Grandmother's Okra.

I'm generally ready, willing and able to step into anyone's kitchen and help out, or flat-out take over. I find it a fun challenge to figure out what utensils are available, what spices are in the cupboard, and what other staples are on hand. If anything, I need to take an extra moment and make sure that my interference is actually welcome, although as I've become more experienced--i.e. tidier--I feel less and less diffident about weighing in. Nonetheless, I can be territorial in my own kitchen, and try to remember that I could be treading on toes elsewhere.

With that in mind, it's been a weird experience taking over my grandmother's kitchen here. This is the one kitchen that has been part of my life throughout its length--everyone else I know has moved at least once. And until this visit, the most I ever did in my grandmother's kitchen was raid the fridge for fruit (or, when I was a kid, yogurt), arrange dried fruit, nuts and crackers for guests, make tea or coffee, cut up watermelon in summers and prepare salads. I never did anything with the stove--my grandmother had it all under control.

This time, things are different. Today I'm going to share something I made for my grandmother that's sort of in line with her style of cooking but involves some different ingredients, talk a bit about the challenges of serving from the kosher kitchen my grandmother's style, and share another of her typical creations.

My grandmother can't chew well, so we've been making lots of soups for lunch (which is the main meal here). You know what a fan of golden food, and of sweet potatoes, I am (I yam!)--I decided to make a lentil soup with sweet potato to celebrate and share that. I've never seen a sweet potato in this house before--they grow them here in Israel, but it's a new-fangled food. Bearing in mind that there are no measuring utensils here, measurements are approximate. On the other hand, this is super-easy and quick, plus delicious.

Lentil-Sweet Potato Golden Soup
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium sweet potato (yam), coarsely grated
3/4 cup red lentils, soaked
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, minced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4-6 cups water
salt to taste

minced parsley and kale chips for garnish.

Saute the onion and spices, adding water as necessary.
When the onions are transparent, add the lentils and shredded yam (you may have to do this in two installments) and stir together.
Add water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes or more, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if necessary.
When the lentils are done and dissolving, stir in the garlic and ginger, squeeze in the lemon juice, stir, taste, and add salt as necessary.

I served this garnished with minced parsley (my grandmother's taking folic acid, and parsley will boost that and be well absorbed) and, for those of us without chewing problems, I added some kale chips I'd brought with me.

A bowl of goodness, with familiar lentils, familiar spices and the less familiar yam blending in with a fine supportive role. I think she liked it.

This so-familiar kitchen has its challenges!

I mentioned before the absence of measuring utensils, which is kind of inspiring in a way, and which reflects my own tendencies too, or vice versa. There is also no sieve, which baffles me in a cuisine that soaks rice and lentils so regularly--only an ancient colander with huge holes and an ancient flour sifter that's full of gluten! Some of the gas burners work just when they feel like it, the oven doesn't work at all (it blows the fuse), and the tea kettle suddenly burned out a few nights ago. The fridge is prone to flooding.

All this, I'm pretty used to. What I never quite get used to for all the time I've stayed at my grandmother's is "the kosher thing." The "no cooking on Shabbat" part works out nicely--you do a ton of cooking in the days before, and then you put the lid on the stove and plug in the "platter," a hot-plate that keeps things warm without requiring you to hit a switch (i.e. kindle a fire). There's a pan of soup on the left, a pot with eggs on the right, and in the middle my mom put a pitta bread wrapped in foil.

Before they had electricity, they had little flames that would last 24 hours--one of my uncles blew them out one shabbat when he was little, and it remains in the family memory as a prime 'naughty boy' story.

The part that's difficult, for me and for everyone else who comes into the kitchen, is the segregation of 'meat' and 'dairy' utensils. There are pots that can cook dairy but must not cook meat, and vice versa. There are plates that can serve meat, but not dairy, and vice versa. And Has ve Halila you get it wrong! When my grandmother was making the kibbeh the other day, my mom brought her water for the batter in a 'dairy' bowl and she wouldn't even pour water from the bowl into the meat-destined-but-not-yet-meaty batter! There are even two sponges at the sink, one for washing 'meat,' one for washing 'dairy.'

As if this wasn't onerous enough, there's no rhyme or reason or logic to which utensil is 'meat' and which 'dairy.' There are plates with a ruffled edge that are 'dairy,' but the matching bowls are 'meat.' At least the white-handled silverware are 'dairy,' but the rest of the silverware's a crapshoot, except for a few that look identical to each other (and thus likely to be for the same use) but have 'dairy' or 'meat' printed on their ends, so you have to read before you use. In most households, there's at least a color scheme or some other simple way to tell which is which.

None of this has ever made much sense to me--in my experience, once you've washed a utensil really well, it carries no trace of what was there before. Besides, I eat neither 'meat' nor 'dairy,' and really am only endangered by gluten contamination, so I've never paid much attention so long as the dish is clean. And when I cook, since everything I cook is 'parve'--permissible both together with 'meat' and with 'dairy,' I don't have to worry about the wrath of god descending on me if I'm using the wrong pan. But when I'm putting milk in my grandmother's tea or spreading cottage cheese on her bread, I try to get it right--partly out of respect, partly out of self-preservation. I've had to ask "am I allowed to use this for this?" a number of times.

Moving on...
I was so happy when I found bamia (or I guess I should call it okra) at one of the produce stores--its season is over here, so maybe it was imported, and was frightfully expensive, but I bought a package to make with my grandmother. Here it is, topped and tailed, in the colander I mentioned above.

Again, like most things, you start by frying an onion with some turmeric and black pepper.
Then add tomato paste and lemon juice "according to your eye and taste," and add about a pint of water.
Bring to the boil and add the okra.

Let it simmer, covered.
There followed several rounds of me carting the pan out to my grandmother for her to inspect, sniff, taste and command more tomato paste, or more lemon juice, or a pinch of sugar or, to my continuing surprise, more water.
We left it to simmer on a low fire for a long time, until the sauce was thick and most of the water evaporated.

 We've had sunshine, which has made photography difficult but has gladdened me immensely. So that picture doesn't do the dish justice.

For full disclosure, my grandmother would often steam kibbeh in the same liquid and serve the kibbeh on a bed of bamia, but we didn't do that this time--we just enjoyed the yummy bamia as it was. Yummy warm, delicious also as cold leftovers. My grandmother was pleased and repeated that it's a delicacy.

It's not that different to gumbo, right? But I was raised on this stuff long before I ever heard of gumbo or knew to call it okra.

Happy almost Thanksgiving! I should have one more post to share before I start my journey home...

"Food as Pleasure" Challenge #1--"A" is for "Amaranth"

Often, I take on a new challenge or institute a new practice, only to have life circumstances move in ways that make follow-through complicated at best. Maybe I'm not alone in this?! This time, however, I knew from the get-go that when I set that 'food as pleasure' recipe-following challenge, I would be on the road within a few short days, heading off on my big adventure, my MFA residency, almost two weeks of everything 'writing and literature,' probably just the bare minimum of food-prepping, and otherwise just making the food thing work as seamlessly and graciously as possible. And so, on the eve of my departure, I have the first recipes (yes, I did make two) to tell you about.

First off, not a recipe but a wonderful fruit salad that is also a celebration of my renewed embracing of all macronutrients.

That is a bowl of blueberries, half a mango, thawed cherries and grapes, two chopped dates, spirulina and coconut kefir! It's like what you might make a smoothie from, but it's a very different experience from drinking a smoothie, let me tell you. A bouquet of varying textures and flavors: the intense almond note of the dense cherries, the juicy smack of the blueberries, the occasional sticky sweetness of the dates--and when you stir it all together, the spirulina and kefir just melt into the mix. So, I was pleased with that, and you'd enjoy it too (although replicating it just that way to eat while driving up to Anchorage might have been less smart--should have gone with the good ol' smoothie)!

As for the recipes I chose to feature for purposely delicious food, a little voice in my head had been nagging me for weeks that I should try amaranth. I've never had it before, and I haven't really explored the world of the 'pseudograins' (quinoa, millet, amaranth) yet. I'd been impressed by its nutrient profile and since I love the greens, I was curious to try the seeds.

I googled around to find a recipe to try it in, and was immediately drawn to this 'Amaranth Polenta with Wild Mushrooms' recipe: I'd been having a hankering to make a mushroom risotto-type dish for ages too, so this fit both the amaranth and the 'mushroom risotto' hankerings!

For the challenge, I wasn't supposed to 'healthify' the recipe, and in this case it was pretty easy for me not to: it's a simple and healthy recipe as it stands. My one exception to the 'no healthifying' rule is that I'm allowed to substitute coconut oil for other cooking oils if high heat is going to be involved. So, the recipe calls for butter or olive oil, and I used a bit of coconut oil instead.

Garnished with fresh thyme...They recommended serving it with 'wild game,' so I fixed up something of that ilk, together with freshly harvested chard (steamed with lemon) and lettuces (in a salad), and freshly baked bread--and it was quite a spread!

We had one friend over for dinner, and then another one unexpectedly stopped in, and everyone enjoyed all of it. I knew that Phil would like the amaranth, because it still has a crunch even in a porridgy-textured context like polenta. Here's the funny thing: both Phil and our friend who was there from the start commented that the texture and appearance of the amaranth reminded them of fish roe at Japanese restaurants (although it tasted completely different). And then, when the unexpected guest started eating it a little later, he said, "What's this? Fish eggs?"

But I wasn't done! That same website linked a recipe for gluten free Amaranth-Ginger Muffins--a blend of gluten free flours including amaranth, with crystallized ginger pieces and nuts scattered through them. I decided I should make those too. Now, this was a gluten free recipe, but it called for eggs and milk. I used ener-g egg replacer and almond milk instead, but this was veganizing, not 'healthifying!' In other words, I used real sugar, not stevia and xylitol, and although I did use coconut oil instead of the recommended canola (not on your life!), I didn't reduce the quantity. (Actually, with the quantity recommended, there's only a quarter-tablespoon of oil per muffin anyway, less than a teaspoon...) I _did_ leave out the nuts, but not for 'healthifying' reasons: simply because I don't like nuts in baked goods. Oh, and I used arrowroot instead of potato starch because I didn't have the latter.

Crystallized ginger is definitely one of those things that I _would_ normally leave out: honestly, though, I was fully intending to include it. I chopped it all up hours ahead of time. But I was multitasking, and only remembered that I'd forgotten to add it when the muffins were almost done. Since I'd decided not to make the sugar crumb topping (just didn't think it was necessary--you can call me on it if you think that's 'healthifying' :) ), I added the crystallized ginger pieces as a belated topping a few minutes before they were done.

I'd been quite nervous about how these would be received, being as they were gluten free and vegan and all. But they were delicious on all palates! Phil ate three of them right away, and one of our guests also went for seconds. Very moist but almost a 'stretchy' texture, from the combination of xanthan gum and egg replacer: I imagine that the texture would have been more like classic gingerbread had I used real eggs.

Since I made the amaranth flour by grinding whole amaranth in the Vitamix, there were a few whole grains still in there--you can see them in the picture above (maybe I need to grind for longer next time). These little seeds popped like fig seeds as we chewed--I'm glad that people were put in mind of figs and not fish roe in this context!

Oh, and I liked them too. I love gingery, spicy stuff. I didn't adore them but it definitely felt like a treat.

So. I'm flying south to Tacoma tomorrow. For the next two weeks I don't know what my schedule will be vis-a-vis blog-writing and reading but I'd love to stay checked in as and when I can. 

Sending love to everyone and hoping that if it's raining as hard where you are as it has been here in AK, your garden is growing beautifully as a result--and otherwise, that you're enjoying sunshine and summer with no breath of fall!

Have you tried amaranth? Liked it? 

A Load of Rhubarb (Rhubarb Curry?!) and Cabin-et-ry

I told you we lived in a small cabin...

 ...So small, it's actually a cabin-et! OK, I made that up. But I did get back to kitchen construction today: the cabinet is 8 ft tall and 15 inches wide (which means barely 13 inches on the inside, above). It had to go in this space:

 And I had this much space to put it together.

 We took the pic of me inside it before I put the shelves in!

Some more drawers to go in, but a good start, and suddenly our storage potential in a tiny space is amplified and magnified. Phil's back is so much better, and mine, which had gone on the fritz in sympathy, bore up, so I was definitely glad of his help as we danced that gangly, heavy baby around.

OK, Rhubarb! People usually set rhubarb up for downfall by calling it a 'fruit,' which is kind of like presenting carob as 'chocolate:' with that kind of fanfare, it's never going to live up to the billing. (Imagine: I read in one low-carb cookbook that rhubarb was a great substitute for peaches! I'm sure the author had only ever eaten peaches from a can.)

Actually, the stalks of rhubarb are not a fruit, but are thick stalks that support leaves, just like celery stalks or cardoons or...chard. A lady I know and love very much, who loves rhubarb, once received some red chard stalks, assumed that they were rhubarb, and made "chard stalk pie." Apparently not the best ever. She wasn't far wrong, though, because rhubarb and chard are in the same family: the same family, too, with spinach, beets, dock, amaranth.

Now, I have no qualms about using spinach juice to color a dessert recipe, or using beets in a chocolate cake, but not everyone is that way inclined! When most people think of this family of foods, they consider them vegetables and use them as such.

Like the other members of that family, rhubarb contains abundant oxalic acid and thus an abundance of tartness, and requires a lot of sweetening if used in desserts. Given its taxonomical spot, it does make me laugh that most of the recipes I see for it are as pies, jams, cobblers, crisps.

However, I'm going to indulge that tradition myself here with a bread recipe and a couple breakfast ideas. But then, I present Rhubarb Curry, and I think you'll see why I'm proud of it.

Rhubarb Bread
I made some rhubarb bread that was very well liked, thrice, and failed to photo it at any point. I adapted it from a recipe in Cooking Alaska with enough tweaks that I feel comfortable sharing what I did. It's super simple and quick.
Grease 9x5 loaf pan, get oven to 350.
Sift together:
1 1/4 cup flour (if gluten free flour, add 1 teaspoon xanthan gum)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Add to that:
2/3 cup sour milk (which can be dairy, or nondairy milk plus some lemon, or kefir whey, or...)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg (or 1 tablespoon flax and 3 tablespoons water: gives a great depth to the texture)
Stir until just mixed, then add in:
1 cup diced rhubarb
1 cup chopped nuts

Bake in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes (check at the 45 mark). Even when it's fully done, it will still be very moist.
I didn't taste any of the versions, but they went fast: I was impressed that Phil, who is not a rhubarb lover and is not impressed by gluten free flours, ate about half the gluten free one at a sitting!

And hey, if you don't have rhubarb, you can use chard stalks! No wait, I mean you can use zucchini.

Breakfast Ideas
Again, I haven't eaten any of these, but they've gone down well. Sometimes, I make Phil oatmeal for breakfast. Lately, it's been 'oatmeal' made out of kamut or barley flakes, because he's been discerning a lack of feel-good after eating oats.

Sometimes I've been cooking in some rhubarb with the oats, adding a little sweetener and coconut oil, serving with some almonds on the side, and leaving him to dollop his strawberry jam liberally, as he does no matter what's for breakfast.

 Once, I put frozen blueberries in to thaw with the cereal and rhubarb, and it all turned a pretty purple. At least, I thought it was pretty, but Phil really prefers cereal (and food in general) to look the color it's 'supposed' to look. My habit of dyeing things green with spirulina or purple with beets or berries is quite appalling to him sometimes, I think.

But what of the potential of rhubarb as a vegetable?
I had to try it out--and I was pretty pleased with the results, as were the four other people who enjoyed it!


Rhubarb Curry
Cast: Onion, garlic, ginger, cauliflower, potato-broth, rhubarb.
Crew: Coconut oil, mustard seeds, curry powder, coriander powder, cayenne powder, salt, black pepper, turmeric powder, goji berries, coconut cream.

disclaimer: I'm no photographer. this was gorgeous

Step 1:
Chop: (keep all the vegetables in 1-2inch pieces but mince the garlic and ginger)
1 small onion
half a cauliflower
3 cloves garlic (or to taste)
1 inch ginger (or to taste)
2 stalks of rhubarb

Melt a teaspoon of coconut oil in a three-quart heavy-bottomed pan, add a good sprinkle of mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add:
the onion
a tablespoon of curry powder
a teaspoon of coriander powder
a shake of salt

After a couple minutes add the garlic and ginger too.
When the onion has softened, stir in the cauliflower. Cover, and cook for around 7 minutes. Add a few drops of water if it seems too dry.

Meanwhile, mix together about one cooked, chopped potato with a cup and a half of the water it was cooked in. (This happens to be what I did: if you don't have cooked potatoes on hand, use a quarter cup of potato flour or other starch with warm water). Often, I would use the immersion blender to make this smooth: this time, I just used a fork, so it was slightly chunky.

 Add this to the pot and bring to a boil. When it has been simmering for a couple of minutes, add in the rhubarb.

Stir in thoroughly, add a teaspoon of turmeric and a shake of cayenne. Bring to a simmer and cover until all the vegetables are cooked. Check for seasoning and adjust to taste. Grind some black pepper over the top, add a handful of goji berries. If you'd like it creamier, add about a quarter cup of coconut cream.

The rhubarb goes in last so that it holds its integrity and stays in chunks rather than going to mush.

This was so tasty! The one taster who was a little 'weirded out' by rhubarb in a savory dish ended up loving it and going back for thirds.

There was barely a cup of this creation left, and the next day, that cupful was transmogrified into the basis for my dinner. Yes, like Gena, I love to transmogrify leftovers.

And yes, I turned it green.

I added in a bunch of sauerkraut, some corn kernels, some coconut kefir, some nutritional yeast, some more cayenne. And spirulina, obviously. The potatoes and purple potatoes look pretty as a border, but of course they got mashed up in there too. Some of it even got squished into a nori roll!

Have you ever cooked with rhubarb? Have you considered treating it as a vegetable?

One More Lesson: What's For Breakfast?--Troubleshooting and Kale Chip Recipe

Traveling can be challenging because it disrupts routine and raises questions that I don't even have to consider, ordinarily. But this disruption also offers the opportunity to re-evaluate components of that routine and see whether they work as well as I assume they do.

This is the story of why we've been home for three days and I haven't yet made a smoothie (shocker). It's not just because we've been very busy.

Until we went on our trip, my breakfast was always a green smoothie.

It was a smoothie with a lot of ingredients and in my current yeast cleanse, the base was: 

thin (homemade) coconut milk, 

coconut kefir whey, 

a carrot (sometimes two), 

frozen peas (or lately I was using frozen beans because their omega3:6 ratio is better: minutiae, I know)

three or four heaping teaspoons of my superfood mix of chlorella, wheatgrass juice powder, ginger, cinnamon, maca, tocotrienols

a little pea protein powder (seem to have been using less and less lately)

a little piece of avocado

a little blob of coconut oil

drop of stevia

a handful of greens, either fresh, or dried nettles or peppermint

and then it would sometimes have irish moss, or a few flax seeds, and sometimes some extra spice like cardamom and cloves, or cooled peppermint tea, leaves and all; sometimes a drop or two of medicine flower flavor extracts.

Originally, that amount made my breakfast, but before we went on the trip I was diluting the same amount into two smoothies and having it for breakfast and lunch. I was doing so because (despite the fact that it's not very calorie dense as smoothies go) I was feeling too full from it, uncomfortably so! And even cutting it in half, I still always felt a little sick after drinking it, to the point that I was often going right through to lunchtime with no in-between snack.

I assumed that my body was to blame--yeast die-off, etc. 

But on our trip, with a little jar of superfood mix and some unsweetened store bought coconut milk and no blender, I never felt sick after breakfast! I often ate vegetables for breakfast, or leftover salad, sometimes with a little glass of coconut milk with a little bit of the superfood powder. And I often had carrots, frozen (thawed) peas or beans for breakfast too. So it wasn't the powder per se, or the veggies. 

What gives? It seems like it was something about the smoothie itself that was making me feel icky. Interesting that I persevered, had exactly the same thing day in and day out, and it never occurred to me that if I ate something different for breakfast, I might not feel sick!

Since we got home, I've eaten leftover salad and carrots, or thawed(ish) frozen peas and beans, and carrots--weird breakfast but it works.

At this stage, I'm really looking forward to being over the yeast cleanse (three more weeks!) and going back to more fruit, in my smoothies and otherwise. I'm over the fruit-phobia with which I was afflicted when I started this blog over a year ago, with which I had been afflicted for over a year before that. I've reconnected with the recognition that I felt great for many years eating a lot of fruit. Discovering cooked root veggies and how much better I feel with them has been a great stepping stone in that direction.

More on this soon. Any ideas on why that particular smoothie combination would be so stomach-churning?

It's delightful to see all the green growth here. Down in OR, of course, it was lush and green and many steps ahead of us. There was a big stand of kale in the garden at the farm, so I made kale chips (there are dehydrators at the farm).

I'd never made these before, and of course it was my typical Ela 'throw it all together' kind of recipe, but here it is approximately:

1/4 cup coconut butter

2-3 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons mustard

juice of half a lemon

dusting of stevia

chili powder

chipotle powder

2 tablespoons flax seeds

1/4 cup nooch

black pepper

I added warm water to all that until it was a thick sauce, then added torn kale into the bowl until all the sauce was coating kale. Dehydrated for about 6 hours at 115--I was impressed with how quick it was.

Everyone loved them except Phil, who thought they were just ok--which often happens when I make something new. But he loathes kale, doesn't like nooch or tahini, so what do I expect? He thinks it's uncanny that all my favorite tastes happen to be the 'few' things he doesn't like. Disappointing for me at times, given our huge dietary differences to begin with, but we love each other anyway and respect each others' gustatory differences! And I've written several poems about that very situation, so it can't be all bad.

What's your favorite breakfast?

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.

'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' 3: Energy Bars/Bliss Balls

I guess I'm picking an easy one this week, because I'm still so behind on everything having been gone camping and then up to my elbows in processing afterwards. I'm still not caught up energetically either, and Phil is feeling a little sick too, so catching up on chores is taking longer than we'd expected.

'Energy bars/bliss balls' is an 'easy' 'theme and variations' for me because I've already done a whole series of posts about energy bars here! I might as well link them all in here so that we're consolidated up to this point. But another good reason for picking up on these again is that I have a good modification to the basic recipe technique that I figured out this past week. So then, here's the first recipe and conceptual background, and here's the post where I explain 'chia sweet,' and here's where I explain about 'pressing.'

For me at the moment, 'no sugar'/'low glycemic' is taken as read (although I am open to seeing how goji berries can be worked in and perhaps yacon slices too, as in Shannonmarie's suggestion).

This means that whereas the standard energy bar 'theme' is nuts/seeds blended with dried fruit plus whatever superfoods and spices, for me, 'chia-sweet,' or chia gel, or flax meal whipped with water or tea, are going to replace the dried fruit, and stevia (or occasionally xylitol) is going to replace dried fruit and any honey or agave as the sweetener. Cinnamon, vanilla and other spices that have a sweetening effect are also used a lot.

I wrote before about my technique of mixing all the nuts and dry ingredients together, and adding the coconut oil and chia-sweet last. But this week I discovered that mixing the coconut oil and chia-sweet together first and then stirring in the dry ingredients works much better overall. I'll give the full recipe that I winged up in a moment in the 'variations' section.

Variations

Obvious variations are the whole slew of 'lara bar' flavors (or: 'bitt bars?!'. Just by varying which nuts are used, the flavor can be changed a lot. I've posted before about how much I enjoy super-spicy mixes, with everything from cinnamon and ginger to lemon peel and cayenne pepper all together, but variations involving just cinnamon and ginger, or just cardamom and cinnamon, or just lemon and poppy seed, or just vanilla, are wonderful also. 

And I seem to have lots of good company on this one: my all-time favorite combination, mint and chocolate! 

My new recipe was for mint-chocolate balls. 

I started by mixing together 1/2c coconut oil (melted) and about a cup of 'chia sweet,' which was chia gel made in strong stevia-sweetened peppermint tea with some peppermint oil added. Added a little shake of salt.

Next, I stirred in about a cup of shredded coconut. Then, about 3/4c cacao nibs. And then, I simply added coconut flour until it all held together. To make it last better, I left it out on a tray in a warm spot with lots of airflow (the air is dry up here and as I've said before, on sunny days our cabin is an oven).

These 'balls' (it made 20-some) are almost too yummy to me! It scares me when I like something that much. 

What's your favorite energy bar flavor? What's the weirdest one you've ever tried? Mine would have to be my own spirulina/cayenne/lemon zest/cinnamon/sesame bars! Can we say 'Ela-bar-ate?!'

New Recipe Series - Themes and Variations Intro and #1

New Recipe Series - Theme and Variations

Time for some food talk!

I realized that there are several categories of recipe that I make over and over again, with constant variations on a consistent theme. I thought it would be fun to share these 'themes' and list some 'variations' too. It will be a helpful thing for me to do now, to remind myself that yumminess and using up ingredients are ok and good things, and might turn out to be a helpful collection also.

So, here goes! Today, I'll make my list of 'themes' and talk about just one of them, and then every week I'll talk about another. I'll link everything back, so that eventually it'll all be interconnected. Like life? 

Themes/Food Categories

Coconut Oil/Stevia 'Barks'/Fudges (still not quite sure what to call them but they're my staple atm)

Nut Milks

Salads

Crackers

Smoothies

Puddings and quick-snack-mini-puddings

Variations: (1)  'Barks'/'Fudges'

I might as well start with these, since they are the one thing that I really do seem to be making and eating at the moment, and since I have posted a couple of recipes for them fairly recently.

But what should I call them? I really don't know, and would much appreciate suggestions. 'Fudge?' 'Bark?' 'Nuggets?'...

The basic Theme for this Variation is:

1 c coconut oil, with 1 t white stevia powder, a shake of sea salt and spices and/or essential oils added as desired;

Then, gradually mix in dry ingredients until it holds together, spread out in a flat container (baking sheet or similar) and refrigerate or freeze until firm, then cut into pieces and keep cool. These will melt if they get warm, so I carry them in a small mason jar. They're still really good even if they aren't solid pieces.

Dry ingredients consist of superfoods, ground nuts, protein powder, and often I also include some nut pulp from making nut milk just to extend them. 

Superfoods include: maca, bee pollen, cacao nibs, spirulina, chlorella, glutamine powder, lysine powder (anti-viral), reishi mushroom powder, lecithin.

Ground nuts (presoaked and dehydrated): almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, sesame seeds, hemp seeds are what I have mostly used. I also always include some flax or hemp, to ensure a goodly omega-3 to -6 ratio. I talk about the importance of this in my article for the 'Eighty Percent Raw Magazine' for this month.

Hemp protein/fiber powder is a good addition also, although it always seems to make the overall product blander, so more spicing is necessary. I also use pea protein powder sometimes.

Variations that I have made so far:

I have posted the recipes for my original maca-bee pollen variation and for my green mint-chocolate variation. Last time I made the mint-chocolate version, I added some reishi mushroom powder. It was a great flavor addition.

I have also made:

a Mediterranean almond/sesame/cardamom variation,

a lemon/ginger/poppyseed variation

a cardamom/clove variation

a hemp/bee pollen variation

But the two for which I've already posted the recipe have been by far the most commonly made, especially the mint choc! That's partly because I love getting the algae in: I'll have to think of another 'green' variation besides mint choc.

Another variable with this recipe is how much 'dry' ingredients to add. If you really saturate the oil with dry ingredients, especially if you add a lot of something gelling, like flax or chia, or something very fine, like pea protein powder, you can end up with a taller, chunkier nugget; it's moldable when you pour it out on your sheet, whereas if you leave it a little looser, it'll spread all over the sheet and set up into something thinner and crispier. Both ways are really good.

I'm going to try using a little lavender essential oil and make a lavender variation. Any suggestions for other variations?

And if someone can help me come up with a name for these little treats, I'd be so glad!

Enjoy…