New Recipe: Cookie Dough Bites (grain-free)

Over the years I have travelled a long and strange dietary journey. On the way I have learned many food preparation and cooking techniques. At this point it seems to be that everything I eat is a hybrid of different dietary theories and cooking techniques.

Chocolate chip cookies are something I could prepare as a standard, gluten-free, traditional foods, raw foods, or paleo version. What I decided to make was more of an amalgamation of all of these into one yummy little bite. I was going for the taste of a standard cookie dough, obviously gluten-free, with grass-fed butter as a nod of the head to traditional foods, unbaked as taught by raw foods, and grain-free as per paleo. What I came up with is a delicious, lightly sweet, and highly addictive snack.

Cookie Dough Bites (grain-free)

8 oz. raw cashews, ground to a coarse meal in food processor
1/4 lb. grassfed, preferably raw, butter
2 tbs. almond butter
2 tbs. raw, unfiltered honey
10 pitted dates
1 tbs. vanilla
salt to taste (I like mine on the salty side)
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 cup coconut flakes, lightly toasted
1/2 cup finely ground coconut flour
3.5 ounces very dark chocolate (I used 85%), chopped to chocolate chip size

In a food processor combine butter, almond butter, honey, dates, vanilla and salt. Process until well-combined and dates are broken down. This mixture is quite thick so add in the almond milk while the machine is running.

In a bowl combine cashew meal, coconut flakes, and coconut flour. Mix well. Add in wet mixture and combine with dry until evenly mixed. Stir in chocolate chips.

Using wet hands roll mixture into donut hole sized balls and place on a plate. Allow to chill for 30 minutes before serving.

There is a possibility of baking these or dehydrating them. I didn’t try this. If you try let me knw how they hold up.

New Recipe: Flourless Chocolate Cake (gluten-free, grain-free)

Now that we’re settling into our new home it is time for me to start cooking, that seems to be my way of settling into a new environment. Since we are staying with another family I get the chance to cook for even more people which makes me even more happy. I think I would be happiest cooking for a whole commune.

In honor of Valentine’s Day yesterday I cooked a big feast and this cake was the finale. This is a cake I used to bake at Gathering Grounds in Patagonia, AZ. I’m sure it was based on another recipe but at this point I have no idea what the original source is.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

cake
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
3/4 pastured butter
6 eggs, separated
12 tbs. granulated sugar (refined or unrefined)
2 tsp. vanilla

raspberry sauce
24 ounces frozen raspberries, defrosted
4 tbs. pastured butter
1/4 cup sweetener of choice
1 tsp. vanilla
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a 9″ springform pan by lining the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. Assemble pan and grease. Wrap the outside of the pan with foil.

In a double boiler melt chocolate chips and butter, remove from heat and set aside. In a large bowl add 6 egg yolks and 6 tablespoons sugar, beat until thick, creamy, and the yolks have lightened in color. Take melted chocolate and slowly add to egg yolks while beating consistently. Beat in vanilla.

Using a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer (I’ve done this by hand but it is a workout!) add egg whites. Start beating and slowly add 6 tablespoons of sugar as you beat the whites until they hold a firm peak.

Add a small amount of whites to the chocolate mixture and carefully mix in, then add the rest of the whites and carefully fold in. Now gently transfer the batter to prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes.

When the cake is done set out and allow the cake to cool in the pan for about an hour or two. If you like a dense cold cake you can transfer it to the refrigerator at some point. I prefer the cake served at room temperature. When you are ready to serve run a knife carefully around the cake and then carefully open the cake pan.

For the raspberry sauce, add all of the ingredients to a saucepan and put over medium high heat. Stir ingredients until they are totally broken down, bring to a simmer. Let mixture simmer for a few minutes and then pour through a sieve to remove seeds. Use a wooden spoon to be sure you’ve extracted all of the juice from the seeds. I chilled the raspberry sauce before serving.

When slicing this cake have a wet rag handy to wipe the knife between cuts. Serve with some raspberry sauce.

One More Isadora Video

This is the other video Isadora and I made together a few years ago. After the move I am looking forward to making some new cooking videos with her.

New Recipe: Blueberry Trifle (grain-free, gluten-free, low sugar)

The holiday season has been an interesting time to play with slightly more decadent recipes within the grain-free, low-sugar parameters that my diet has fallen into. For the most part I got through Hanukkah without eating any grain but I did have a few lapses here and there. Last night I enjoyed some particularly junky foods and was amazed at how my energy shifted so drastically.

I do like to entertain during the holidays and particularly savored the challenge of creating desserts with no grains and very little sweetener. So far I think this Blueberry Trifle was the most dramatic of the desserts I created.

Blueberry Trifle (grain-free, gluten-free, low sugar)

Lemon Cake
3 cups almond meal
zest of 2 lemons
pinch salt
1 tsp. baking powder
8 tbs. pastured, raw and local butter
1/2 cup raw, local honey (I used mesquite honey)
3 pastured eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 drops lemon essential oil (food grade)
1 cup almond milk

assembly ingredients
1 pint pastured, raw, local cream
1 tsp. vanilla
32 oz. wild blueberries, defrosted if frozen
trifle bowl

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease one loaf pan and line bottom with a piece of greased parchment paper.

In a large bowl combine almond meal, lemon zest, salt and baking powder and mix well. In a food processor add butter and honey and process until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, lemon oil and almond milk and process until well-combined. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix well. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 40-50 minutes. The loaf should be firm but moist and dense.

Allow to cool in pan for a few minutes and then turn the loaf out and allow to cool completely. Cut the loaf carefully into slices.

To assemble: whip the cream and vanilla into a nice firm whipped cream. Arrange half of the loaf cake slices among the bottom of the trifle dish, cut some slices in half and arrange them along the side of the trifle dish. Place 1/2 of the blueberries on the cake slices and top with 1/2 of the whipped cream. Arrange the remaining slices of cake on the cream, top with remaining blueberries and whipped cream. I drizzle some of the blueberry juice from defrosting over the top.

New Recipe: Wild Blueberry Crumble (grain-free, sugar-free, dairy-free option)

It has been about a week since I really adjusted my diet towards a more paleo-style of eating. It has been shocking how easily I have given up grains and sweets. In the past when I have tried to give up grains and sugars I find myself tortured by cravings and constantly preoccupied by food. My energy does seem to be a bit better as well, I’m waking up a little easier and needing less caffeine to get through the day.

I had some friends over for dinner the other night and wanted to prepare a special meal for them. We started with a curried coconut soup, then had grain-free fish cakes with roasted kale and I wanted to make some sort of dessert, this Wild Blueberry Crumble is what I came up with. Everyone loved it and went back for seconds!

Wild Blueberry Crumble (grain-free, sugar-free, dairy-free option)

1/2 lb. dried figs, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes
1/4 cup coconut oil of pastured butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup brazil nuts
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
32 oz. frozen wild blueberries
pinch of salt
additional coconut oil or pastured butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Start to thaw wild blueberries, they do not necessarily have to be totally defrosted.

In a food processor combine soaked figs and coconut oil or butter. Process until fairly smooth. Add in vanilla extract and brazil nuts. Pulse until brazil nuts are broken into smaller pieces. Add coconut and pulse some more until a pleasing crumble texture is achieved.

In a deep baking dish pour half of the blueberries. Put a few pats of coconut oil or butter on the bluerries. Spread about half of the crumble mixture over the blueberries. Add the rest of the blueberries and again top with a few pats of oil or butter and spread the rest of the crumble mixture on top.

Place in oven and bake for 20-30minutes or until the crumble is warmed through and starting to brown on the top.

Almond Cupcakes with Orange Creme Filling & Chocolate Halva Frosting (gluten-free)

In my home I have a bit of a reputation for being to whip up something extravagant with an empty refrigerator and without heading out to the grocery store. These cupcakes are perhaps the best illustration of this strange skill. We had just finished a pretty yummy dinner when my husband mentioned he has a sweet tooth so I headed over to the kitchen area to see what I could possibly whip up. My first thought was that I would make an Almond Sour Cream Loaf Cake, because I thought I could perhaps pull this together. Then I thought it might be fun to make cupcakes with some sort of filling. Wait, if I was going to make cupcake I would need frosting, right?

In the end I came up with these Almond cupcakes, I was actually out of brown rice flour so I ground whole, uncooked brown rice in a blender. The Orange Sour Cream filling was runny so I added some strange ingredients to make it thick enough to fill the cupcakes with. The frosting is actually an idea which I have had for ages and this seemed like the perfect place to try it out.

Almond Cupcakes with Orange Creme Filling & Chocolate Halva Frosting (gluten-free)

cupcake

1 cup almond meal
1 cup brown rice flour
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch Celtic Sea Salt or Real salt
1/2 cup cold pressed coconut oil
1 cup rapadura or sucanat
2 pastured eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. almond extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prep cupcake pans with paper liners. I find when using coconut oil in baked goods that it is a good idea to make sure that your ingredients are close to room temperature, otherwise the coconut oil is very likely to curdle when added with other ingredients.

In a small bowl combine almond meal, rice flour, gum, baking soda & powder, as well as salt. Mix well.

In a separate, larger bowl combine coconut oil and rapadura and combine until creamy. add eggs and mix well. Add sour cream and almond extract and mix until well combined. Slowly add dry ingredients until well combined. This makes a fairly thick batter.

Spoon batter into cupcake pan. I filled mine up quite high since this is a thick, heavy batter. Place in the oven and bake between 25-30 minutes.

When done baking remove cakes from pan and cool on a rack while you prepare filling & frosting.

filling

1/2 cup sour cream
zest of 1 orange
3 tbs. raw, local honey
3 tsp. psyllium powder
2 tbs. rapadura or sucanat

In a small bowl whisk sour cream, zest & honey until well combined. Next whisk in psyllium powder. In a small blender add 2 tbs. rapadura and blend to a powder. Add the powdered sweetener to the sour cream and combine. Allow mixture to thicken in the refrigerator while you prepare the frosting.

frosting

3 tbs. pastured butter
1/4 cup raw tahini
3 tbs. raw, local honey
1 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
3 tbs. raw cacao
a few drops wheat-free tamari
4 tbs. almond milk

In a food processor add butter, tahini, honey, melted chocolate, tamari and cacao powder. Turn on processor and slowly add almond milk until the frosting is thick in creamy.

assembly

Once the cupcakes are cooled off and the filling and frosting are prepared you can start filling the cupcakes. Take each cupcake and cut out a little circle of cake, on an angle about half way into the cake. Spoon a small amount of the filling in the cake and then replace the circle of cake. For a visual on how to do this part please check out this page.

Once your cupcakes are filled frost each with the chocolate halva frosting and enjoy! These stay good in the refrigerator for a few days and hold together a little better when chilled for a bit.

Banana Nut Corn Bread (gluten-free)

My house seems to be filling up with bananas, perfect for baking over-ripe bananas. I also noticed someone searching for corn bread stumbled upon my blog the other day, I have no cornbread recipe. This is more of a dessert or breakfast bread. You could make the cornbread without the banana nut topping for a sweet, dense cornbread.

Banana Nut Cornbread

Banana Nut Cornbread

Topping
2 tbs. coconut oil
5 very ripe bananas, sliced in rounds
1/4 cup rapadura or sucanat
1/4 cup raw, pastured heavy cream
pinch salt
2 tbs. gluten-free liquor of choice
1 cup of raw brazil nuts

In a saucepan heat coconut oil over medium high heat. Add bananas and cook in oil for a few minutes. Now pour in the cream and sweetener and mix well. Bring to a simmer and add salt & liquor. Simmer, reducing heat as necessary to prevent a rapid boil, for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mixture will thicken and bananas with break down some. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a food processor add brazil nuts and pulse until broken into pieces but with some larger chunks remaining. Mix brazil nuts into banana mixture. Allow to cool further while you prepare the batter.

cornbread

2 cups cornmeal
1 cup almond meal
1 cup brown rice flour
1 tsp. real or celtic salt
4 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. baking soda
1cup rapadura
1 cup coconut oil
4 eggs
2 cups of milk of choice
1 tbs. vanilla
juice 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil two loaf pans.

Place corn meal, almond meal, rice flour, salt, xanthan gum and baking soda in a bowl and mix well.

In a separate bowl combine rapadura and coconut oil, mix well. Beat in eggs, then milk, vanilla and finally lemon juice. Add dry ingredients gradually, mixing each addition into the wet ingredients well.

Split batter between 2 bread pans. Using a wooden spoon create a indentation down the middle of each loaf. Scoop the banana nut mixture onto each loaf, mostly in the indentation. Bake each loaf for 45 minutes.

When removed from the oven, run a butter knife around the edge of each loaf to loosen. Then cool the loaves for about 30 minutes before removing. Refrigerate if you are not consuming right away.

Gluten-free Peach Clafouti

Most mornings I have a smoothie for breakfast or juice. Sometimes I get a crazy idea of something I want for breakfast in the 30 minutes before I walk my daughter to school. The other day a clafouti was what I decided I needed for breakfast. I did manage to get it done in less than 30 minutes. I don’t suggest trying this in your home, I do think it’s better cooked the typical 35 minutes at 350 degrees rather than the crazy things I did to get it to cook faster. My husband and daughter both went crazy for it though!

GF Peach Clafouti

Peach Clafouti

3 large peaches, sliced in thin wedges
a few tablespoons of pastured, raw butter cut in slices
2 tbs. rapadura or sucanat
3 pastured eggs
1/3 cup rapadura or sucanat
1 tbs. vanilla
1 cup 1/2 and 1/2 (I actually used a 1/2 cup of cream mixed with a 1/2 cup almond milk)
1/4 cup brown rice flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of a cast iron pan. Spread the peaches evenly on the bottom of the pan. Distribute sliced butter over the fruit and sprinkle with the 2 tbs. rapadura. Place fruit in the oven while you prepare the batter.

Place eggs, rapadura, vanilla, 1/2 & 1/2 and rice flour in a blender and blend until smooth. Remove pan from oven, pour batter over the fruit and put back in the oven. Bake for 35 minutes. You can brown under a broiler if you like a crispier top.

I serve mine for breakfast with a full fat greek yogurt, the tart yogurt is the perfect foil to the sweetness of the clafouti. This tastes like a bread pudding with fruit.

Red Wine Plum & Strawberry Crumble

Last night we were invited to a potluck birthday party. I worked all day sewing custom orders, tweaking wording on my website and helping customers try on dresses. In the back of my mind I was planning a fruit crumble for the potluck, I’ve had fruit crumble on my mind as of late. After work we ran over to the grocery store and then I dropped off a custom sewing order, picked up fabric for another (all during a huge rainstorm with the most gorgeous double rainbow overhead). By the time I got home I only had 45 minutes until the start of the party!

So I ransacked the kitchen and suddenly had the recipe gel in my head, a good enough recipe I thought to share here, but who had time to write down a recipe right now? I decided to enlist my daughter and had her transcribe the recipe as I made a mad dash about the kitchen trying to get this thing together. It came together deliciously in the end.

Red Wine Plum & Strawberry Crumble

8 plums, pitted and cut into thin wedges
1 pound strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup sweetener of choice
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup pastured butter or coconut oil, solidified

Pre-heat oven to 400º. Place fruit in a bowl and toss with sweetener and wine. Spread fruit in the bottom of a baking dish and place bits of the butter or coconut oil over the fruit. Place fruit in the oven for about 10 minutes while you make the crumble topping.

1/2 cup pastured butter or coconut oil, softened
1/2 cup sweetener of choice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch of real salt or celtic sea salt
1/2 pound raw pecans
2 cups of old fashioned oats, certified gluten-free

Place butter, sweetener, vanilla & salt in a food processor and process until well combined and creamy. Add pecans and pulse until the pecans are well combined but some larger pieces still visible. Place oats in a bowl and pour contents of food processor over the oats. Toss together until oats are well combined.

Remove fruit from the oven and carefully crumble the topping mixture over the fruit until evenly distributed. Put the baking dish back in the oven and cook for 25 additional minutes.

This is excellent hot out of the oven but equally delicious chilled for breakfast the next morning with a healthy dollop of greek yogurt on top.

WAPF vs. RAW Recipe: Raw Lemon Bars

WAPF vs. RAW Recipes will be a new series of recipes and posts I’m going to be posting regarding my hybrid diet. For those of you who are not nutrition nerds, such as me, may not know a lot about these two diets. WAPF is an abbreviation of the Weston A Price Foundation which is a group which promotes the work of dentist turned nutrition researcher Weston Price. Raw foods are becoming more well known and consist mostly of raw plant foods and is typically a vegan diet.

I have followed both of these diets fairly religiously at one time or another but have found that a hybrid of the diets works quite well for me. I find that a mostly raw diet, filled with lots of leafy greens, some superfoods and minimal grains mixed with some pasture raised animal foods keeps me feeling energized and reduces health issues that I have suffered from in the past.

So this series is going to focus on some of the more interesting recipes that I craft using these principles. The first thing up is lemon bars. Now my cooked gluten-free lemon bars are honestly pretty divine but they are far from healthy. I love lemon bars though and have had it in my mind for quite some time that I could make a raw, whole food based, gluten-free lemon bar. They came out really great. This morning my daughter packed her lunch with a huge square of these very lemon bars.

Raw Lemon Bars

1/2 cup irish moss, soaked 12-24 hours
zest of 2 lemons
1 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup raw, local honey (I used a thick mesquite honey)
3 tbs. pastured, raw butter, softened

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and blend on high until smooth. Let rest while you prepare the “shortbread”.

1/2 lb. macadamia nuts
1/4 lb. pastured, raw butter, softened
1/3 cup raw, local honey
pinch of real salt or celtic salt

Cream butter and honey together until well combined. Place macadamias in a food processor and pulse until you a achieve a coarse, breadcrumb-like texture. Mix macadamia meal in with the butter and honey and salt. Using wet hands press the mixture into a glass baking dish, mine was about 6″x9″ but you could use a slightly larger dish as well.

Once the dough is evenly distributed pour the lemon mix through a sieve to strain out any large chunks of moss and spread over the “shortbread”. Place in the refrigerator. It should set within 2-6 hours.