Coconut Haystacks

This is a very quick (if you have an electric hand mixer), very simple recipe here that I got from the book The First 40 Days.

This is my first time making coconut haystacks the more traditional way as I have been making the raw version, that I call Rawcaroons, for years now.  I have a basic version, the almond rawcaroon, a lemon one, raspberry flavor, and there are probably a few other flavors in my recipe repertoire as well, if you are up for the search 🙂 I have definitely made many more flavors just cannot remember if I have blogged about them all.

While I LOVE the raw versions, they can be heavy on the digestion and they take so much longer to make. Since I am still in my early post partum days I am continuing to be mindful of my digestion and choosing foods that feel gentle and not to heavy.

These were wonderful! They don’t hold up as nicely as the rawcaroons as they are more fragile, but so worth it! I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 6 large egg whites
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 TBS pure vanilla extract
• 4 1/2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
• 2 or 3 drops rose water (optional)

Steps:

• Preheat over to 350*F
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg whites until a stiff peak forms (this is my first time using my hand held mixer with eggs whites, and oh man was it easy and quick!!)
• Gently mix in all other ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix!
• Drop tablespoons of the batter on to a greased or lined baking sheet
• Bake for 8 minutes and check. They need to be slightly golden brown. The book says 8-12 minutes here, and I did mine for almost 20 before they started to brown on the top! They got crispy on the bottom and I actually liked that as it added a little caramel flavor 🙂
• Remove from oven when done to your liking and let cool 5-10 minutes.

 

 

These are the perfect snack for me to have around the house for a quick pick me up or little treat with my tea.

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Just Persimmons Pudding

Another persimmon pudding? Yes. I am shamelessly posting another persimmon pudding recipe. Mostly because I just made this today, faster than it took my boys to destroy the living room. That’s how quick this recipe is! And also because I love persimmons and my husbands client just gave us a huge bag of the Hachiya kind, which are the ones that need to be super ripe before eating, which means the best way to eat them in my opinion is prepared, not just as is, as they are so messy when they are ripe enough.

This isn’t even a recipe. It’s really just an inspiration for you guys 🙂

 

 

Ingredients:

• 4 really ripe persimmons
• 1/4 cup liquid (I used coconut milk)
• 1 chunk of fresh ginger (optional, but with people getting sick everywhere I throw ginger in everywhere I can to boost our immune systems!)

Steps:

• wash and stem the persimmons
• add everything to a blender
• blend on high, serve and enjoy!

 

I enjoyed mine over some warm buckwheat porridge with a bunch of spices added to it (cardamom, cinnamon and fresh grated ginger). Had a cup of chai tea with it, the perfect warming rainy day fall breakfast 🙂

Creamy Pumpkin Coconut Sauce

I love the fall for all the cooking/food making inspiration!!! It’s my favorite season when it comes to kitchen time 🙂 My very first seasonal recipe was this Salted Caramel Chai tea infused concoction I made. The kids and I have been devouring that one with sliced apples, soooo tasty!!!

And now I am looking forward to all the pumpkin and squash recipes I will be coming up with and getting inspired by!! This was another semi-accident. It was late and I needed to get dinner ready fast. I had this leftover baked pumpkin and it only took a few moments for me to realize that the fastest way to eat that (other than straight out of the skin with a fork), was to throw it in the blender with a few other ingredients to create a soup. No wait! I’ll make it a sauce so we can have it over pasta 🙂 And there it was, minutes later, our tasty family dinner.

I topped my bowl off with some homemade spicy seeds.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup fresh raw pumpkin seeds, not dried or cooked (I just keep the seeds after taking them out of the raw pumpkin)
• 3/4 cup almond milk or coconut milk
• 3/4 cup cooked pumpkin or squash
• 1/4 cup coconut cream (from a can, organic toxic free if possible)
• 1/4 tsp real salt
• 2 TBS fresh parsley minced
• 1/4 tsp dried sage

Steps:

• if you dont have left over squash, then bake it in the oven for about 45 minutes
• put first 3 ingredients in blender and blend on high until nice and smooth
• add other ingredients and blend until the herbs are nicely incorporated but not fully blended
• serve how ever you like!
• we did it over zucchini pasta for a light yet satisfying dinner

Check out my other zucchini pasta recipes here:

With tomato sauce

With sesame peanut sauce

With rawlfredo sauce

Bread and Butter (Raw,vegan,delicious)

This raw bread is one of many variations that I make and it never fails to make me so happy every time I pull a batch out of my dehydrator. It is soft and moist just like sliced bread but it doesn’t leave me feeling too full or sluggish like I can sometimes get when eating bread. Not only that, but it is packed with nutrients making this bread and and butter breakfast not just something to fill up my belly but something to nourish and fuel me for several hours in my day!

The vegan butter is a twist on my childhood favorite. I grew up eating vegan butter that my family would make. I actually preferred eating that over butter, even though I grew up in the country in France where the butter we got was freshly made in our neighbors barn. Don’t get me wrong, that butter still tasted amazing to me, but on a regular basis, I preferred lathering my bread with the vegan homemade stuff. I remember my family using vegetable margarine, which I am not a fan of so I replaced it with coconut oil, which adds a really great flavor in my opinion. But if you are not a coconut fan, you can replace the coconut oil with another vegan oil or butter of your choice.

This butter if full of healthy fats, super easy to make, and lasts a really long time in the fridge!!! Several months I would say. But I usually make a small batch so that we go through it in several weeks.

Top it off with some homemade jelly or fruit spread and have a happy belly!!

The bread is a variation of this bread. I did not put coconut this time and used brown flax seeds instead to the golden. It was equally delicious.

Vegan Butter Recipe (raw):

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup nut butter (I mixed almond and hazelnut)
• use all raw ingredients if you want to keep this recipe all raw, but I have to admit I prefer the flavor of toasted nut butters

Steps:

• in a double boiler (or a glass dish over a boiling pot) melt all ingredients together
• store in a jar or ramekin in the fridge
• use just as you would any other butter!

Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Bananas.Peanut butter. Chocolate. I mean c’mon. If you love bananas, you can’t go wrong with banana ice cream. SO easy. SO delicious. SO nutritious. SO cheap. And pretty fast to make. One of my very first posts was a banana ice cream. I’ve been making this ice cream for years, and although I have upped my skill in the kitchen and purchased an ice cream maker to make more fancy frozen things, I still love the simple and easy dessert that a frozen banana offers. I am sure most of you reading this have tried a version of the banana ice cream. What is your favorite combo?

Ingredients:

• 4 large frozen bananas
• 3 TBS natural peanut butter (I used crunchy)
• 7 TBS chocolate sauce

Steps:

• if you don’t have any, make chocolate sauce
• in a food processor put all the bananas and blend. You will have to turn off the machine every now and then to scrape down the sides. Eventually it will catch and a beautiful creamy mixture will start forming
• At this point, add the peanut butter and 3 TBS of the chocolate sauce
• resume blending
• spoon into bowls and top with 1 TBS of chocolate sauce. This will harden at the contact of the frozen banana and create a nice crunchy chocolate layer. MMMMMM goodness….

This made just enough for my little family of 5. We all could’ve had a little more 😉

Fig Spread

Figs are not in season, but they are sooooo tasty!! That’s why I purchased cases of them and froze a bunch so that I could eat them at any time of the year. When looking for something else I stumbled upon these in my freezer and immediately I thought “Fig Spread”. So here it is. I don’t know who started spreading mashed fruit on things but I find it a very clever idea. A very delicious and clever idea. I don’t generally buy jam or jelly as it is packed with sugar. I will eat homemade jam that someone has gifted me though. Nothing like homemade goodies to make me temporarily forget that refined sugar is evil. At my house though, we stick to fruit sweetened jams if we buy them. Trader Joe’s actually has a brand that I don’t mind my kids eating. Nonetheless, I still generally choose to not eat it regularly. Making my own is a different story. Since I love eating raw breads, I enjoy switching up what I top them with. After letting the figs thaw, this spread was so quick to put together. And so incredibly delicious. I can see this going great with some porridge, or yogurt, or anything you typically enjoy fruit with! Ingredients:

• 1 cup thawed figs (you can use fresh but the texture will be different)
• 2 TBS honey
• 1 TBS almond butter
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Steps:

• Put everything in a food processor and blend until well combined
• store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week

Kabocha Persimmon Pudding

Thick. Creamy. Dreamy. Nutritious and satisfying. 4 ingredients and 3 minutes later and I had myself a super tasty vegan pudding. Kabocha squash and persimmons being two of my favorite seasonal produce items, I cannot believe this is the first time I combine them. I had just gotten home from a workout and was going to be working shortly after. I needed something quick and satisfying. This was it. I love it when I can get away with eating something after a workout that seems like it should be had for dessert. I would have this pudding at any time of day really.

Persimmons being super high in vitamin A (Good for eye sight, and skin as well as mucus membranes), as well as vitamin C (great for the immune system and mucus membranes). Kabocha squash has half the calories of butternut squash, yet double the richness in flavor in my opinion! It is also very high in vitamin A and C and beta carotene (powerful antioxidant and anti inflammatory).

Needless to say, this pudding is a great way to get a good dose of vitamin A and C !

Ingredients:

• 1 cup roasted kabocha squash
• 1 cup fresh ripe fuyu persimmons
• 1 1/2 cups almond milk
• 2 medjool dates
• cacao nibs as toppings

Steps:

• put everything in the blender and blend on high until nice and creamy
• makes 2 servings, (but I got jipped cause all my kids wanted some)

Easy Peasy Peachy Jelly

This is the easiest peach jelly to make. For real. And it has zero refined sugars in it.

My kids love jelly. I do to, but the store bought kind just has too much white sugar in it to make a staple in our house. Although we have found a Trader Joe’s brand that I don’t mind buying every now and then, I still prefer to make it myself, like pretty much anything else I eat 😉

I used frozen peaches here, which I like better than the fresh kind because of the texture. Also, it’s not peach season anymore, so I cannot get the fresh kind at the market. These peaches I froze over the summer so I could satisfy my peach cravings even when the season is over 🙂

This is so easy you can substitute peaches for any fruit that tickles your fancy! Again, since this a raw jelly, I would recommend using frozen fruit. Once thawed they are super soft, just like cooked fruit, which makes their texture work better for this kind of preparation.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup thawed peaches
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 TBS psyllium husk, that I ground finely in the coffee grinder
• 2 TBS sweetener (I used coconut sugar).

Steps:

• Put in blender and blend until desired consistency.
• Let sit for at least 30 minutes before eating. I made mine last night so we could have it for breakfast.
• Store in a jar in the fridge for up to a week.

Dijon Balsamic Dressing

I asked one of my friends if there was a recipe of mine she would like to see on my blog, and, unexpectedly, she said my salad dressing! It’s true I often have compliments on my dressing. To me it’s nothing much more than a bunch of ingredients thrown in to a bottle to drizzle over my salad. But it’s true that it tastes great. And I’ve had many people compliment me on my salads over the years. And this dressing here, is a staple in my house. I use it for most of my salads. I’ve never measured the ingredients. As I mentioned, I just throw everything in a bottle, shake it up and pour it on my veggies. So for my dear friend, I measured the ingredients this time, snapped a picture and am now sharing it with you.

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS dijon mustard
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 TBS red wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp salt

Steps:

• put everything in a screw top jar
• shake it shake it shake it shake it!!!!!!!
• and you have yourself a nice thick dressing to use with your salads or even to dip artichokes in!!

Maman’s Happy Start Breakfast

Having two kids around, it’s important I take care of myself to keep up with them and the plethora of housework, cooking, running around, and random other things a stay at home finds herself doing. Starting the day off right makes a world of a difference to me. While there are days when I really enjoy sharing in almond buttered toast with my daughter or eating half of my sons super delicious fruit and nut oatmeal, those do not leave me feeling as happy as this chia seed concoction I find myself craving. Not only does this make me feel great but it is so quick to put together! Chia seeds are amazing on so many levels and I try to incorporate them in mine and my family’s diet as often as possible.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS ground chia seeds
• 4 TBS water
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 cup berries
• 1/8 cup chopped walnuts
• homemade almond milk, or any milk of your choice
• dash of cinnamon

Steps:

• soak the chia seeds in water for about 10 minutes (that’s usually when I put my kids breakfast together) so they get that gelatinous texture.
• top it off with banana and fresh berries, or any fruit of choice really, and the chopped walnuts
• pour milk over the top, wrinkle cinnamon and enjoy!

(If using whole chia seeds, I recommend soaking them overnight to get that gelatinous texture.)

I like to mix everything up as to incorporate all the flavors. This breakfast leaves me feeling energized and full for quite some time thanks to the chia, banana and nuts. My one year old is actually quite a fan of this breakfast too, but I sometimes find myself having a hard time sharing as I want it all to myself 😉 This makes for a delicious snack too!