Tag Archives: brunch

Blondies – easy, healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and very yummy!

Posted on by October 4, 2018
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Blondies!

My kids and I love the blondies from Simple Pleasures bakery which is inside a gluten-free Indian buffet restaurant that we love, Earthen Jar, here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Out of love of their blondies, I started experimenting with making my own blondies at home.

These are very easy to make, healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and delicious! And they mix up really, really quickly!

They are very gooey and dough-like when they first come out of the oven. Later on in the refrigerator they firm up a bit.

I haven’t tried making a nut-free version, but you should be able to replace the nuts with soybutter or Wowbutter. If you do that, please post here about how it worked! Sometimes nut-free nut-butters turn baked goods green (!!) , so you would want to try baking this first for people who don’t mind unexpectedly green food. Or bake it for Halloween or Saint Patrick’s Day.  :)

You can use other beans in this recipe instead of the white beans. Darker beans taste fine, but they visually look chocolatey, and if your eaters think that these look like chocolate but actually they aren’t, that sets them up to be disappointed. Chickpeas in this recipe taste a bit like hummus, and, while I love hummus, it is decidedly strange in blondies, so I don’t recommend using them here. So my suggestion is to use white beans, but it’s definitely okay to experiment.

This recipe is loosely based on Flourless Chocolate Chip Chickpea Blondies with Sea Salt from Ambitious Kitchen. I’ve changed which type of beans to use, removed salt, added ground flaxseed to make the blondies more cohesive, and removed baking soda and baking powder. Whew!

Yum!!!

On another topic: If you do a web search for “Valerie’s Recipes,” Google can’t find it. I think the problem is that too many websites have similar names. So I am thinking about renaming this blog to have a more unique name that Google might find. Maybe “The Painted Lentil” — or “The Lentil Rainbow” — or “The Rainbow Lentil”? What do you think?

Blondies - easy, healthy, vegan, and gluten-free!
 
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Oooey gooey Blondies! Healthy, flourless, gluten-free, vegan, quick to make -- and totally delicious!
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 16 blondies
Ingredients
  • 1 15-ounce can white beans, such as cannellini, great northern, or navy beans (or 1 1/2 cups cooked and cooled white beans -- cooled because you don't want the batter to melt the chocolate chips) (don't use chickpeas unless you want your blondies to taste like hummus)
  • 1/2 cup of pecans, or other nuts, or nut butter such as almond butter or peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup real maple syrup or agave nectar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1-2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds (optional - helps keep the blondies from falling apart)
  • a few drops of oil, or some gluten-free cooking spray
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips such as Equal Exchange (which are fair trade and organic)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Spread a few drops of oil around in an 8x8 inch pan (I like to use a silicone pastry brush for this) or spray on some gluten-free oil.
  3. In a food processor or blender, mix all ingredients except for the chocolate chips.
  4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
  5. Spread the mixture evenly in the prepared pan.
  6. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
  7. Variation: Make mini-muffins by putting pieces of dough the size of ping-pong balls into an oiled mini-muffin tin, and bake for 14 minutes.
  8. Serve warm (which is super yummy, but they will fall apart) or after refrigeration (also good, and much more cohesive).
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Cobblestone Farm Market Dinner – gluten-free, vegan, and makes my body oh so happy!

Posted on by July 15, 2018
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Cobblestone Farm Market Dinner

A few years ago, local folks started a small farmers’ market that is walkable from my house. It is at a place called Cobblestone Farm. They have a newsletter each week, with a recipe.

I call this recipe “Cobblestone Farm Market Dinner” because it is loosely based on a recipe that was in their newsletter.

Its alternate name is “Happy Three,” because it contains lentils, kale, and potatoes — three foods that each make my body very happy, so combining all three into one meal makes a food that I really enjoy.

The newsletter’s original name for this recipe was “Sauteed Greens & Things.”  :)

Whatever name it goes by — yum! This recipe is delightful, and it leaves my body feeling great!

All of the quantities in this recipe are very flexible. Feel free to add more of the things you like! You can make this at any time of year, and it is a glorious celebration of foods that are in season right now.

Cobblestone Farm Market Dinner
 
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This recipe contains three foods that make my body very happy: lentils, kale, and potatoes. Yum!
Author:
Recipe type: dinner
Cuisine: American
Serves: serves 4, depending on which optional ingredients you used
Ingredients
  • 1 cup green or brown lentils
  • 2 cups water
  • olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped (optional)
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
  • 1 pint of potatoes, chopped into small dice
  • 1 handful chard, chopped
  • 1 handful kale, chopped
  • 1 handful fennel fronds, chopped (optional)
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I use San-J gluten-free reduced sodium tamari) (for soy-free, replace with 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of salt)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1-2 chopped fresh tomatoes (optional, but good!)
Instructions
  1. Check through your dry lentils and remove anything that shouldn't be there (small stones, other grains, etc.). Place them in a pot with the water. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the lentils are tender, 15 to 30 minutes depending on your lentils.
  2. Either boil the chopped potatoes in just enough water to cover them, until the potatoes are cooked but not yet mushy, which takes about 10-12 minutes, then drain them. OR put the diced potatoes on a cookie sheet, toss with some salt and oil, and bake in a 400 degree oven, turning them occasionally until the potatoes are turning golden brown. (I prefer the oven version, but if the weather is very hot I'll choose the boiled version to avoid heating up the kitchen.)
  3. Meanwhile, if you are using onions, in a big pot such as a Dutch oven, saute the onions in some olive oil. Then add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes. Add the greens, and cook until they decrease in volume and are heated through.
  4. Add everything to the big pot or put it in a big mixing bowl. Stir thoroughly.
  5. Taste, and add more salt and/or tamari if needed.
  6. Serve!
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Rainbows — edible, adorable, easy, can be gluten-free and vegan

Posted on by March 15, 2018
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Edible Rainbows!

Cut-up peppers
In the spring, someone posted a picture on Facebook showing edible little rainbows of different-colored bell peppers on top of maybe bread, with cute little white clouds at each end of the rainbow — and it captured my imagination. The picture was simply a photo, without a recipe or any information about who had cooked it. Intrigued, I kept thinking about them until I tried out a way to make them. After some experimentation, I came up with a version that tastes great, is healthy, and looks adorable.

Pizza-dough basesWarning: Edible rainbows are very susceptible to puns. They are also fun to talk about. We laughed the first time we said, “Kendra ate two rainbows for breakfast.”

For the base, you can make this with any type of pizza dough that works for you, or you can use the recipe that I’ve posted here, which is gluten-free.

Pepper arcs arranged on base

Pepper arcs arranged on base. You can see that I intentionally broke the red stripe to make it more arc-shaped.

I’ve been happily using all-purpose Chebe Mix to make really good pizza dough for years, but it isn’t organic and we try to eat all-organic. So I am happy to report that I finally figured out a from-scratch recipe that comes out similar to Chebe dough, so you can make it with organic ingredients if you choose to do that. (I do.) Bonus: I also made the dough pourable, so you mix up a batter and pour it into pizza shape, rather than needing to take the time to knead it and individually roll out circles, so it is much quicker and easier — a big improvement all around.

Edible rainbow

Super cute!

A friend said this is Unicorn Food. I like that. :)

Anyway! Here is the recipe:

Rainbows -- edible, adorable, easy, can be gluten-free and vegan
 
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Extreme cute edible vegetarian rainbows! Fairly easy to make, wildly adorable, healthy, and yummy! This is one excellent recipe!
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: American
Serves: Serves 4-8
Ingredients
Base
  • EITHER: your favorite pizza dough, enough for two pizzas
  • OR: The following ingredients
  • 2 cups tapioca flour (note that if you buy "Letz Do Organic" brand, a box holds 1 1/2 cups, so you will need to start a second box)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder (or 2/3 teaspoon baking soda + 2/3 teaspoon cream of tartar)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup canola or olive oil
  • 6-7 tablespoons of water (start with six, add the other one if needed)
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 2 eggs (or, if you prefer vegan, you should be able to replace them with flax eggs, but I have not tried this recipe that way)
Peppers
  • 4 bell peppers -- one each of red, orange, yellow, and green (if you have a choice, red should be a wide pepper, then orange, then yellow, and green should the skinniest -- but if your peppers aren't in those sizes, it's fine)
Clouds
  • For an alternate nut-free version: Use a batch of my creamy white dressing
  • 1 cup cashews
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Base
  1. Preheat the oven to the temperature recommended for your pizza dough recipe.
  2. If you are using my dough recipe, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Then, except for the water, put all of the ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Add six tablespoons of water and stir. This should make a batter that is thick but pourable. If it is not pourable, add the other tablespoon of water and stir again.
  3. If you are using my dough recipe, use two awesomely nonstick cookie sheets, or regular cookie sheets with silicone mats on top. Make 16 tiny pizzas, using one dinnertable tablespoon of batter for each pizza, and spreading out each one into an oval about 2-3 inches by 3-4 inches. Bake for 10 minutes.
  4. If you are using other dough, roll out blobs of dough to be about 2-3 inches by 3-4 inches and the thickness of a pizza crust. You may have extra dough left over. Bake according to the directions for your dough.
Peppers
  1. While the bases bake, cut up the peppers. Cut a circle around the stem and remove the stem. Now, with the hole where the stem was at the top, look at the ribs of the pepper. Cut from top to bottom along three of the ribs that are spaced on different sides of the pepper, ideally dividing the pepper into thirds -- but it is okay if the ribs aren't spaced evenly and your three pieces aren't very exactly equal. Trim off any seeds and ribs on the inside of each section, and rinse it out.
  2. Next, cut off the uneven part on the top of each section, then cut crosswise across each section about 1/4 inch apart, so that you get six arcs. There will be a bit of extra left over at the bottom. (If your pepper is especially large or small, make your cuts a little bigger or smaller than 1/4 inch apart.) The idea is to end up with 18 arcs of pepper in each of the four colors.
Clouds
  1. Use a good blender to blend all Clouds ingredients until they form a very smooth cream. My food processor doesn't make this smooth enough, but my blender does.
Assembly
  1. When the bases are baked, put four arcs of bell pepper on top in the shape of a rainbow, with red, orange, yellow, and green going from top to bottom. It's helpful to press the arcs together to get them closer together. For arcs that aren't arc-shaped, feel free to break the piece as needed to make it more arc-shaped. You should have a couple of pieces of each color of pepper left over at the end; you can break those into pieces and use them to extend short arcs to be longer.
  2. Next, use a dinnertable teaspoon to plop about a teaspoon of the cashew mixture at each end of the rainbow arcs (that is, use two teaspoons of cashew cream, one teaspoon on each end of the rainbow).
  3. Makes 16 rainbows. Serve 2-4 rainbows per person.
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Egg Pinwheels – no gluten or dairy, and super cute!

Posted on by September 10, 2017
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Egg Pinwheels
The egg mixture

The egg mixture, after whipping and stirring in all ingredients.

This adorable recipe is fairly easy to make. You do need a food processor or mixer that can whip eggs, and a very non-stick cookie sheet. Then you are good to go!

I originally found this recipe on a site that does not exist anymore. I’ve adapted it to be gluten-free and healthier, and made it much simpler.

Ready to roll

The egg mixture, with Filling Option 1 spread on it, ready for rolling up.

My kids really like this recipe.

 

 

 

 

 

Slicing with dental floss

After baking, slicing with dental floss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After slicing

After slicing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to serve!

Ready to serve!

 

 

 

 

 

Egg Pinwheels - no gluten or dairy, and super cute!
 
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This super-cute recipe is fairly easy to make if you have a way to whip egg whites and a very nonstick cookie sheet. Yum!
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: American
Serves: serves 3-4
Ingredients
  • 12 eggs
  • 1/4 cup of gluten-free flour mix (I use 2 tablespoons potato starch + 2 tablespoons of garbanzo flour or quinoa flour or brown rice flour) -- or if you are not gluten-free, then use regular flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups of filling - see three options below
Filling Option One:
  • 1 cup "lasagna cheese" (or real cheese)
  • 1 package defrosted frozen spinach
  • 1 red bell pepper, cut into small cubes
Filling Option Two:
Filling Option Three:
  • I haven't tried it, but I think a mixture of greens, pesto, and tiny cubes of potatoes would be amazing in these.
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread a thin coating of oil all over the inside of a very non-stick cookie sheet that is about 11 by 15 inches.
  2. Separate the eggs. Put all twelve egg whites into a food processor or the bowl of a mixer, and use the whipping attachment to whip them until they are stiff.
  3. Discard eight egg yolks (I know, that's hard to do, but a dozen of the really nice eggs costs about $4, so it won't break the bank). Add the remaining four egg yolks to the egg whites, along with the flour mixture and salt. Gently mix everything together with a spatula.
  4. Pour the egg mixture onto a cookie sheet, and use a spatula to spread it all the way to each edge and smooth it out so that it is about the same depth everywhere.
  5. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, until the eggs start to brown.
  6. While it bakes, mix up your choice of filling ingredients.
  7. Remove from the oven, but leave the oven on.
  8. Gently use a spatula to loosen the egg rectangle from the cookie sheet. Be careful -- it is hot!
  9. Once the egg rectangle is detached, carefully flip it upside down.
  10. Spread the filling mixture evenly over the egg rectangle, leaving about an inch bare along one of the long edges.
  11. Carefully roll up the rectangle, rolling toward the bare edge. Keep rolling until the edge is underneath the roll. I find it convenient to put the roll on a diagonal on the cookie sheet, so that if filling comes out the ends it lands on the cookie sheet.
  12. Bake for another 10 minutes.
  13. Cut through the roll to make it into eight spiral pinwheels, and serve. You can do the cutting with a knife or a sharp spatula -- or by looping dental floss around it and pulling the loop shut, to cut through the log. Fun!
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Dessert Nachos – healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and awesomely yummy!

Posted on by August 1, 2017
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Dessert Nachos

Dessert NachosHappy Birthday to this blog! Today it is three years old!

Recently I was flipping through cookbooks and I spotted a recipe for “dessert nachos” — where you thinly slice up an apple as the chips, then add caramel as the sauce and sprinkle on toppings.

That got me to thinking about trying it with the healthy vegan caramel sauce from the recipe for Banana Claw ice cream.

I tried making some, and my daughter and I liked it so much that I have been making it again every morning lately. It is a little addictive.

The best part is that it is so healthy that you can eat it for breakfast.

YUM!

I thought about saving this recipe to post in the autumn, since apples are not in season right now. But it is too good to wait.

For recipes that are in season now, I long all year for Chocolate Chip Fresh Cherry Bread. There’s also Zucchini Brownies. Also, Fresh Fruit Pie With Chocolate Brownie Crust is in season now and totally awesome!!! Yum!!!!!

Dessert Nachos - healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and awesomely yummy!
 
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Great as a dessert -- and healthy enough to be breakfast! Thinly slice up an apple as the chips, then add healthy vegan caramel as the sauce and sprinkle on toppings. YUM!!!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert or Breakfast
Cuisine: American
Serves: 4 small servings or 2 medium ones
Ingredients
  • 1 apple
  • 5-6 dates (with no pits or hard bits of stem)
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons almond butter (for a nut-free version, try sunflower seed butter or soybutter instead)
  • 2 teaspoons canola oil
  • 3 tablespoons water
  • 3/8 teaspoon salt (optional but really good!)
  • Toppings such as 2 tablespoons chocolate chips, coconut bits, pomegranate seeds, etc.
Instructions
  1. In the smallest jar of a reliable blender, using a nut-butter blade if you have one, put the dates, almond butter, oil, water, and salt. Blend until very smooth. If the mixture isn't getting smooth easily, add a couple of teaspoons of water and blend again.
  2. Slice the apple into many thin slices.
  3. Divide the apple among four plates (for small servings) or two plates (for bigger servings). Add the caramel sauce on top, then sprinkle on the toppings.
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Tiramisu in 14 minutes – healthy, gluten-free, dairy-free, and can be vegan

Posted on by May 21, 2017
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Tiramisu
cake slices

Chocolate chip pumpkin bread, cut into twelve “ladyfinger” sticks for this recipe.

Last August my kids and I visited Toronto.

Usually when we travel, I am fanatical about planning ahead so that we will always have gluten-free food available. But this one time my teens talked me into winging it. We had the impression that every street corner in Toronto had one of those restaurants where you order a bowl of plain rice and then pick three toppings from one column and four toppings from the next column, and many of this type of restaurant can make safe gluten-free food. So in the morning we went to the Royal Ontario

cake after dipping

Cake after dipping

Museum. In the afternoon we planned to go see Castle Loma. Our map made it look like these places were about three blocks apart, so we decided to walk from the museum to the castle, eating lunch at a bowl-type restaurant along the way. Alas, our map was not to scale. It was far more than three blocks from one place to the other. We walked for a really long time through an endless residential neighborhood that had no stores or restaurants of any kind. Finally we found a tiny grocery store. Hungry and tired, we bought mainstream GMO-filled potato chips and ate those for lunch sitting on the sidewalk outside the store, occasionally interrupted by people

Cake with cashew cream added

Cake with cashew cream added

who needed us to move out of the way so that they could get in or out of the building. Definitely not our best meal ever!

When we started walking again, we almost immediately found an organic gluten-free mostly-raw restaurant called Live Organic Food Bar. It looked intriguing, so my kids and I went in. Having just gorged on potato chips, we weren’t very hungry, but I really wanted to try the food there, so we ordered desserts. I ordered an expensive little tiramisu that was AMAZING!!!! It had been maybe fifteen years since I last ate tiramisu, and

Finished tiramisu

Finished tiramisu

getting to have it again was a real treat.

Weeks later, at home again, I kept thinking about that amazing tiramisu. It wouldn’t be easy to go back to Toronto for more, so I decided to create my own. I had a tiramisu recipe that I had loved many years ago, so I used that as a starting point.

To my surprise, the tiramisu that I invented is very fast to make, over-the-top healthy, and over-the-top delicious!!!

Tiramisu in refrigerator

Tiramisu in refrigerator – these glass containers are great for making tiramisu. You can pop on the lid and store it easily in the refrigerator.

Traditional tiramisu is made with ladyfingers — long, thin cakelike cookies that are shaped like very large fingers. In this recipe you can use a wide variety of baked desserts cut into finger shapes, as the ladyfingers. I think cookies would work well too. I suggest using something that is not all-chocolate — though actually that too might be interesting. I have done this with Corbin’s muffin bread, and with chocolate chip pumpkin bread, but you could also use storebought cookies or cake or banana bread. Also I have seen gluten-free ladyfingers available at the store, though they don’t look at all healthy. The finished tiramisu will taste like whatever baked good you choose, so you should choose a baked item that you think would taste good inside tiramisu.

TiramisuIn the pictures, I used the super-healthy version of chocolate chip pumpkin bread — the second recipe on that page. That version has no refined sugar, and I add a lot of veggies, so in the pictures you may notice that the cake part looks a little green. That’s kale. It made an awesomely healthy tiramisu that tasted fantastic to me, but if you or your eaters are at all skeptical about kale in tiramisu, you can totally make this with some other baked item. Not everybody is as crazy about kale as me, and I completely respect that. You can make a very excellent tiramisu with this recipe without any kale, if that’s what you prefer.

Anyway, I hope you will try this recipe.  It makes an amazing tiramisu!

Tiramisu in 14 minutes - healthy, gluten-free, dairy-free, and can be vegan
 
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This tiramisu takes only 14 minutes to make. It is delicious, and can be healthy, vegan, and gluten-free. Yum!!! Warning: Addictive!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: gluten-free
Serves: 3 servings
Ingredients
  • 4 slices of baked goods, such as cookies, banana bread, Corbin's muffin bread, or chocolate chip pumpkin bread, or about 3 cups of cookies
  • 3/4 cup cashews
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 5 dates, pits and any bits of stem removed
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 mug of coffee or espresso (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon brandy or cognac (optional - I leave it out)
  • 1 tablespoon baking cocoa powder
Instructions
  1. Brew a mug of coffee. (I have an ancient one-cup-at-a-time coffeemaker that makes it easy to brew just the right amount.)
  2. In a good blender, mix the cashews, water, dates, vanilla extract, and optional brandy or cognac. Blend until creamy-smooth. When the coffee is ready, add 1/2 tablespoon of coffee and blend until mixed.
  3. If you are using baked goods from a loaf, cut each of the four slices crosswise into three sticks, so that you end up with twelve finger-shaped sticks of baked goods. If you are using cookies you can skip this step.
  4. Pour the coffee into a small bowl, such as a cereal bowl. Have a fork and a loaf pan handy.
  5. A few at a time, put half of the baked goods into the coffee (that would be six "ladyfingers" or half of the cookies), then immediately use the fork to scoop them out again and put them crosswise into the loaf pan.
  6. Evenly pour half of the cashew mixture on top.
  7. Sprinkle 1/2 tablespoon of baking cocoa evenly everywhere on top.
  8. Make a second layer: Dip the other half of the baked goods in the coffee, put them into the loaf pan, spread on the rest of the cashew cream and sprinkle on the rest of the baking cocoa powder.
  9. In theory you should refrigerate this for a few hours at this point, but it is really hard not to just dive in and start eating. It firms up a bit in the refrigerator, but even when it is liquidy from being freshly made it is still good.
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Fresh Fruit Pie with Chocolate Brownie Crust – gluten-free, raw, vegan, beautiful and yummy!

Posted on by October 12, 2015
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Fresh Fruit Pie With Chocolate Brownie Crust

Fresh Fruit Pie with Chocolate Brownie Crust This summer when the market was full of beautiful fruit and berries, I bought lots and made them into a series of beautiful pies. These pies take about 20 minutes to make, need no baking, look gorgeous, and taste delicious. Yum!!!

I fell in love with this recipe this summer, so I made it again and again, all summer long.

The chocolate brownie crust is adapted from a recipe in Chocolate Covered Katie’s cookbook.  And the cardamom cashew cream filling is adapted from a recipe in an older edition of the cookbook Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People by Jennifer Cornbleet. I love cardamom and think that the hint of it in the cashew cream really makes this pie recipe over-the-top amazing.

Two more pictures and then the recipe!

Fresh Fruit Pie with Chocolate Brownie Crust

Fresh Fruit Pie with Chocolate Brownie Crust

 

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Fresh Fruit Pie with Chocolate Brownie Crust - gluten-free, raw, vegan, beautiful and yummy!
 
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This beautiful pie is raw, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, free of refined sugar, quick to make, totally delicious, and full of fruit!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 1 pie
Ingredients
Crust ingredients:
  • 1 cup dates, with pits and any bits of stem removed
  • 1 1/3 cups nuts (for example 1/2 cup walnuts, 1/2 cup pecans, and 1/3 cup of almonds)
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon water
Cardamom Cashew Cream Filling Ingredients:
  • 1 cup cashews
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 4 dates, with pits and any bits of stem removed
Fruit Ingredients:
  • strawberries, perfectly ripe mangoes, blackberries -- or whatever fruit you have handy, cut into chunks
Instructions
  1. Place all of the crust ingredients in a food processor. Blend until you have tiny bits, much smaller than the head of a pin. The mixture should have tiny bits of nuts visible in it but be soft and mashable. Don't blend it for so long that you turn it into nut butter!
  2. Empty the food processor into a pie plate. Use your hands to press down on the mixture, to flatten it. Push some of it against the sides, too, so that there is an even coating of crust pushed down all over the bottom and sides of the pie plate. I usually don't put the crust on top of the edges of the pie plate, because on a raw foods crust that tends to fall off during serving. Take the time to make sure that the crust is pushed down into the corners of the pie plate and that the edges are finished off neatly. I usually make the edges a tiny bit taller than the pie plate, so that the pie can be deep. If you press down on the pie crust on the insides of the pie plate, the crust will get taller and do exactly this.
  3. Place all the ingredients for the cardamom cashew cream in the food processor. (You don't need to wash it out after making the crust.) Blend until you have a very smooth cream. It should look and taste smooth. I usually let cashew cream sit in the food processor while I work on other parts of a recipe and then come back to it to re-blend it once the blended bits of cashews have had a chance to soften.
  4. Wash the fruit and cut it into chunks. If you are using strawberries, cut out the stem from each strawberry and then cut it in half. You can leave blackberries whole. For a mango, imagine a mango pit with a piece of paper on top and another piece on the bottom, lying down flat. Now imagine that pit inside a whole mango, and use a knife to cut where each piece of paper is, so that you end up with two mango hemispheres, and an oval of mango left behind that includes the pit. Now on each hemisphere, cut 2-3 lines through the flesh in one direction, cutting down to the skin but don't cut through the skin. Now cut 2-3 lines across in the other direction, across the first cuts, making a grid. So you should have a mango hemisphere with its skin still intact and the mango flesh scored into about 12 squares. Then use a dinnertable tablespoon to separate the mango flesh from the skin, so that you end up with about 12 cubes of mango. Repeat on the other mango hemisphere.
  5. Re-blend the cashew cream (which is still in the food processor) until it is super smooth, then put it into the pie crust and spread it evenly over the bottom.
  6. Arrange the fruit prettily on top of the cashew cream, to fill up the pie crust. Tip: A ring of cut strawberries interlocks really nicely, like Lego. :)
  7. Voila! One quick and yummy fruit pie!
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This recipe is entered in Gluten-Free Fridays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, and Meat-Free Mondays!

Cucumber Sandwiches – gluten-free, dairy-free, sophisticated, and easy!

Posted on by August 1, 2017
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Cucumber Sandwiches

chopped cucumbersI can’t believe how long it’s been since my last posting!! Last winter, I had plans for recipes that I would post in the spring and summer with fresh ingredients like blueberries, strawberries, and cucumbers. But then over the summer with my kids at home, even with an awesome nanny for my youngest, there was never enough free time for me to get to all of my paying work programming computers, let alone time left over for blogging. And so here it is, the end of September — and I have a zillion recipes in my head, waiting to be typed in and posted here.

cornbread before baking

cornbread before baking

This is a good springtime recipe — though really it works anytime that you can find fresh cucumbers, which is pretty much all year long. Though if you have garden-fresh homegrown cucumbers, those are fabulous in this recipe!

I invented this recipe one day when I was reading someone else’s cucumber sandwich recipe and wishing for an easy type of gluten-free yeast-free bread. Then I realized that I have an awesome cornbread recipe, which is gluten-free and yeast-free, and which can be baked in a thin layer on a cookie

vegan cream cheese in blender

vegan cream cheese in blender

sheet to make a very decent, quick and easy type of bread that works great in sandwiches.

And so, this very alternative-y cucumber sandwich recipe was born.

You can easily make this vegan by using flax eggs to replace the eggs in the cornbread.

Here are two variations for how to make vegan cream cheese. In case it is helpful for deciding which kind to use: The tofu version has fewer calories, more protein, and is less filling. The nut-based version has

baked cornbread, cut into triangles for this recipe

baked cornbread, cut into triangles for this recipe

more calories, and is more filling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

cucumber sandwiches!

Cucumber sandwiches! Yum!

Cucumber Sandwiches - gluten-free, dairy-free, sophisticated, and easy!
 
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Awesomely yummy easy homemade gluten-free dairy-free cucumber sandwiches.
Author:
Recipe type: lunch or dinner
Cuisine: Vaguely British
Serves: Serves 4
Ingredients
Cornbread
  • 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1-2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk OR 1 1/2 cups nondairy milk mixed with 1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar (see my recipe for super-easy cashew milk)
Vegan Cream Cheese
  • 1 cup tofu OR 1/3 cup cashews plus 1/3 cup sunflower seeds plus 1/3 cup water
  • 1/4 cup cashews
  • 1-2 tablespoons water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
Cucumbers
  • 2 cucumbers
Instructions
Cornbread
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. In a mixing bowl, mix all cornbread ingredients.
  3. Pour onto an awesomely nonstick 11x15 inch cookie sheet.
  4. Bake for 12 minutes.
Vegan Cream Cheese
  1. Mix all cream cheese ingredients in a blender. If it won't mix, add a tiny bit more water and continue blending. Blend until very smooth and creamy.
Cucumbers
  1. Cut cucumbers into 1/4 inch thick quarter-circles. A mandoline is helpful for slicing to a very even thickness, but you can also slice them with a regular knife and that works fine.
Assembly
  1. Use a hard plastic spatula to cut the cornbread into a grid of twelve squares (see picture), then cut the squares diagonally so that you have 24 triangles.
  2. Spread some vegan cream cheese on each triangle, then decorate with plenty of cucumber slices.
  3. Yum!
Variation
  1. Instead of making triangles, you can use a cookie cutter to cut the cornbread into shapes. Heart-shaped cucumber sandwiches are adorable!
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I shared this recipe on Gluten-Free Fridays!

Chocolate Chip Fresh Cherry Bread – gluten-free, dairy-free, and addictively amazing!!!

Posted on by June 2, 2015
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chocolate chip fresh cherry bread


I wait all year for fresh cherries to appear in stores, so that I can make this recipe. I long for this recipe all winter long. It is that good.

This may be the most amazing and wonderful recipe in this entire collection!

Years ago now, I was thinking that a loaf with chocolate chips, fresh cherries, and some cardamom woChocolate chip fresh cherry breaduld be really amazing. So I searched the web to see what I could come up with. I found this recipe for Fresh Cherry Bread, from www.recipesource.com. The recipe credits the newsletter of King Arthur Flour – The Baking Sheet for the original version of the recipe. I modified it by adding chocolate chips, adjusting the amounts of cardamom and vanilla extract, and making it gluten-free.

The one thing I don’t love about this recipe is that it uses refined sugar. I have experimented with making a version of it that is sweetened with fruit, and I will post that someday. But for now, this is the reliable original version of the recipe — and it does use refined sugar.

I hope you will try this recipe — it is soooo good!

Chocolate Chip Fresh Cherry Bread - gluten-free, dairy-free, and addictively amazing!!!
 
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A dessert loaf made with chocolate chips, fresh cherries, and cardamom. I long for fresh cherry season all year so that I can make this awesome recipe!
Author:
Recipe type: dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 3/4 cup gluten-free flour mix, or regular flour (for example, today I used 1/2 cup of teff flour, 1/2 cup of quinoa flour, 1/2 cup of tapioca starch, and 1/4 cup of garbanzo bean flour)
  • 1 teaspoon xanthan gum or guar gum (omit if you are using regular flour)
  • 1 teaspoon cardamom, ground
  • 1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder (or, instead, 1 teaspoon baking soda + 1 teaspoon cream of tartar)
  • 2 eggs - or, for a vegan version, use 2 flax eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup cherries (about 1/2 pound), pits removed and cherries cut into quarters or eighths
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Oil a loaf pan, and flour it (for gluten-free, I like brown rice flour for the flouring).
  3. Put all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Stir well.
  4. Add all wet ingredients. Stir well, making sure you find all the pockets of dry flour and get them mixed in. The batter will be thick, like cookie dough.
  5. Pour the batter into a loaf pan. Smooth it flat with a spatula.
  6. Bake for 55 minutes.
  7. Let cool, then refrigerate.
  8. Best served at refrigerator temperature.
Variations:
Mini-muffins: Use one medium cookie scoop (1 1/2 tablespoonfuls) for each muffin, and bake for 13 minutes. Makes about 24 mini-muffins.
Muffins: use 1 1/2 to 2 scoops (2-3 tablespoons) of dough for each muffin, and bake 15 minutes. Makes about 16 muffins.
Muffin-bread: Multiply recipe by 1 1/2. Use a spatula to smooth out the whole batch of dough onto a very nonstick cookie sheet, and bake for 18 minutes.
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Muffin Bread – awesomely healthy sugar-free banana bread – gluten-free and dairy-free

Posted on by March 19, 2017
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Muffin Bread

My son Corbin named this recipe, when he was little. You can bake it as muffins, a loaf, or cupcakes. Usually I bake it on a cookie sheet and then cut it into squares. I have some awesomely nonstick cookie sheets — which unfortunately are not sold anymore. Baking on the cookie sheet is the easiest and quickest way to make this recipe.

Corbin takes muffin bread with him to school every day. At home sometimes it is all he wants to eat.

Luckily, it is a 100% healthy food, and even fairly well balanced. So it is okay for Corbin to eat as much as he wants.  :)Roblox HackBigo Live Beans HackYUGIOH DUEL LINKS HACKPokemon Duel HackRoblox HackPixel Gun 3d HackGrowtopia HackClash Royale Hackmy cafe recipes stories hackMobile Legends HackMobile Strike Hack

Because this recipe contains no refined sugar, it is much less sweet than the typical sugar-bomb banana bread recipe. Its sweetness is more comparable to a loaf of slightly sweet whole wheat bread than to a typical banana bread.

Because this recipe is less sweet than most, the amount of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves looks low compared to other banana bread recipes. But the amounts listed here work really well for this recipe — more would be overwhelming.

Tip: This recipe works great as French toast! Bake it, cut the muffin bread into slices, dip the slices in beaten egg, and fry each side in a little bit of oil. Serve with maple syrup. Yum!!!

This recipe is originally adapted from a cookbook called Sweet and Sugar Free – An All-Natural Fruit-Sweetened Dessert Cookbook by Karen E. Barkie. I really like that cookbook, because it replaces refined sugar with natural sweeteners or just leaves it out entirely.

I normally make this recipe nut-free, so that I can send it to school or feed it to Corbin in the mornings before school. But if you don’t have those restrictions, it would be great with 1 cup of chopped nuts (eg. walnuts) added to it.

This may be the single recipe that I have made the most in my life. I make it for Corbin so often that have it memorized.  :)

Muffin Bread - awesomely healthy banana bread - gluten-free and dairy-free
 
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Prep time
10 mins
Cook time
19 mins
Total time
29 mins
 
A super-healthy gluten-free vegan banana bread. No refined sugar! Sweetened entirely with ground-up raisins (it doesn't taste raisin-y) and bananas.
Author: Valerie Mates
Recipe type: snack
Cuisine: American
Serves: 16 squares or 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 3/4 cup raisins
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 overripe bananas, broken into chunks (frozen and defrosted is okay)
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder (or 2/3 teaspoon cream of tartar + an additional 2/3 teaspoon baking soda)
  • either 2-3 tablespoons ground flax seeds, or 1 1/2 teaspoons of xanthan gum or guar gum
  • 2 cups gluten-free flour mix (I usually use 1/2 cup each of: quinoa flour, teff flour, garbanzo flour and either potato starch or tapioca starch)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • optional: 2-3 cups frozen chopped kale or spinach, defrosted
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Put the raisins, eggs, and bananas in the bowl of a food processor. Run it for a few minutes, until the raisins are broken down into tiny pieces and everything looks mixed.
  3. Add all of the other ingredients, except for the kale or spinach.
  4. Run the food processor until everything looks mixed.
  5. Add the kale, if you are using it.
  6. Run the food processor until the greens are in small pieces and everything looks mixed.
  7. Pour the batter either onto an awesomely non-stick cookie sheet and spread until it covers the sheet, or into muffin cups or a loaf pan. You can decorate the top with artfully arranged pumpkin seeds (without shells on!) or sunflower seeds -- I like to make muffins with pumpkin seed flowers on top.
  8. Bake for 19 minutes for the cookie sheet or muffins, or 45 minutes for a loaf.
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