Posts Tagged ‘Chocolate’

Regurgitated Jicama

June 3rd, 2010

I’d celebrate the weekend getting closer, but it’s going to be another busy one for me. It’s the final weekend of helping my sister move since everything has been done on the new house and it’s time to move all the big stuff including some furniture from our house we’re giving them. Also another race packet pickup and 5K race as well as the usual stuff. All fun tasks, I enjoy helping family out, but I’m looking forward to a little down time too. :-) With all the additional training and stuff going on, I’ve been feeling a little stressed with a lot running in the background that has not been easy to shut down so to speak. I think I’m going to look into meditation classes and drag my stressed-out sisters with me to hopefully pick up pointers for home meditation. Have you ever taken meditation classes?

Interesting CalorieLab tidbit on eating more produce for a healthy tan.

“It seems that a diet rich in carotenoids, present in a wide array of fruits and veggies, gives the skin of the five-a-day practitioner a deeper tone and healthier glow, which volunteer observers, viewing before and after photos, find noticeably more attractive. “

Interesting because I’ve noticed this in the last 6 months or so. My skin has always been on the fair side, never gaining a sun-kissed golden tan from sun exposure, but rather a sunburn and back to white with more freckles. Now it has a considerably noticeable golden tint that I assumed was due to the large amount of carrots I eat daily. I really notice it when spending time with my sisters, we’ve always had similar skin tones but mine is darker now compared to theirs and has more of a golden tint in areas that never, ahem, see sunlight. I wonder if this means skin is able to repair better from sun damage and past sun damage with a higher intake of carotenoids. I found the Wikipedia article on carotenoids interesting as well, especially:

“People consuming diets rich in carotenoids from natural foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are healthier and have lower mortality from a number of chronic illnesses.[3] However, a recent meta-analysis of 68 reliable antioxidant supplementation experiments involving a total of 232,606 individuals concluded that consuming additional β-carotene from supplements is unlikely to be beneficial and may actually be harmful,[4] although this conclusion may be due to the inclusion of studies involving smokers”

More convincing data to me that most supplements are a sham.

Anyway, my sweet mother was babysitting my active nieces again today and I decided to help her out during my lunch break. While enduring the chaos of serving the kids lunches, I managed to assemble a decent lunch for myself.

Leftover hemp seed nacho salad topped with leftover almond/sunflower seed pate and sprouts. It was an interesting flavor combo that I was a bit too distracted while being bombarded with demands and questions from kids to really test. After I cleaned the bowl, I escaped to the kitchen for peace and created a healthy dessert for the kids.

I went to a raw foods for kids class at Whole Foods awhile back where the instructor created a similar snack using young coconut meat. That shocked me considering it was a beginner’s raw class and targeted towards parents with limited time, most won’t have young coconuts on hand and/or be able to get into them quickly if they did. Heck, getting the meat from young coconuts is still a daunting task for me. And they’re not exactly cheap. Frozen banana slices are and much cheaper and easier to keep on hand in the freezer. My version of the dip is:

  • 1 cup fresh strawberries
  • about 1 cup frozen banana slices
  • 1 tbsp. carob powder
  • 3 pitted dates

Blend all ingredients in a blender to a smooth puree, pour into custard cups and enjoy. Makes 2-3 servings.

The 2-year-old absolutely loved it and ate all the jicama sticks after thoroughly coating them in the dip. The 5-year-old was another story, she’s become quite a picky eater and refused to touch the jicama sticks, just like any other fresh veggie, but loved the dip. When we finally convinced her to try the jicama, she threw a drama fest and packed her mouth with chewed up jicama, refusing to swallow it and nearly choking herself spitting it back up all over the table when she coughed. Aw, apparently the terrible 5s are much worse than the terrible 2s. :-P Still the dip was a huge hit, maybe I should have pureed the jicama into it and served it as pudding. But I think kids should know they’re eating veggies and learn to enjoy them instead of having to mask every healthy food as a treat. After the cleanup, I went back to work a little late with a little indigestion myself. :-P

Since I’m running tonight, I decided to go a little more carby for dinner and tried this curried quinoa recipe, only I vegan-ized it using water instead of chicken broth. I did a simple sauerkraut kale salad thinking the pro-biotic sauerkraut would be helpful to make sure dinner didn’t revisit me while running. :-)

The quinoa was great, the curry flavor was not too strong and the texture was perfect. I wouldn’t have minded more curry, but hubby is not a fun of strong curry and it worked out great for both of us. But I have ideas to improve it the next time around. :-)

Chocolate Milk & Desserts

April 5th, 2010

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. It rained and was super windy and cold here all day, really hard to get into the Spring spirit with that craziness going on outside! But we had a wonderful family dinner at my father’s house where there was plenty of room for an indoor Easter egg hunt for my nieces and nephew. As with every family gathering, there were plenty of non-raw temptations, but I behaved and my family has become a lot more supportive of my diet preferences. My sister was so sweet and brought a huge snack tray of organic fruits for hor’dourves mainly for me and healthy snacks for the kids. On top of that, I brought two raw desserts and one raw side and my mom brought a huge raw salad – so I was more than covered! :-)

One of the desserts I brought was The Real “Cheeze” cake from Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen.

I ended up altering the recipe a bit, it called for one vanilla bean and when I saw the $12 price tag at Whole Foods for just one, I quickly surmised that the jug of Costco vanilla extract in my pantry would be just fine and thankfully I was right.

The crust of the cake consisted of macadamia nuts, coconut and dates and I was amazed at what a nice crust the three simple ingredients created after a few pulses in a food processor.

The cake part was mostly cashews, coconut oil, lemon juice and vanilla and I had to juice 4 lemons to get the amount of lemon juice. The Vita-Max had no problems turning the unsoaked cashews into a beautiful, smooth cream.

I refrigerated the cake until it was served at Easter dinner and it was a huge hit!

Those 2 slices quickly disappeared. Pardon the messy slicing job, I forgot to pack a pie slicer and all my dad had was a serving spoon. :-P Many commented that they could not tell it was non-dairy, it tasted very much like a dairy-based cheesecake and maybe even better. My sister’s husband does not like cheesecake, but liked this stating it tasted like a very creamy lemon pie. Of course it was a huge hit with my little nieces and nephew. To me it tasted like a decadently creamy cheesecake with a strong lemon undertone, very good and the macadamia-based crust only enhances the experience with a smooth richness. For a dessert that impressed so many, it was very simple to make taking under 20 minutes to mix, assemble and start chilling. You can’t go wrong with serving a raw “cheeze” cake to non-raw or non-vegan guests! My husband thought this is a good raw gateway recipe. :-)

The second dessert I took was more of an experiment modifying my chocolate cake recipe. I basically added coconut oil, strawberries and NuNaturals Pure Liquid Vanilla Stevia to the cake mixture.

Then added fresh strawberry slices to the top instead of icing.

Yeah, I realize I’m not going to win any culinary artistic awards anytime soon with my placement here. :-) It too was pretty popular.

The texture was like a thick Larabar with a moister, richer flavor. The pureed strawberries was a nice add to the cake mixture, even though it gave my powerful food processor quite a workout.

I also tried something new yesterday – homemade chocolate almond milk. I added 4 tablespoons of carob powder and about 20 drops of NuNaturals Pure Liquid Stevia before blending.

Wow, is it creamy and rich with a perfect amount of sweetness! It was a divine treat in my Easter morning coffee, almost like drinking hot chocolate. Would probably be great with cereal or chia seed pudding. I notice with the carob powder, it tends to separate quicker in the fridge and requires a good shake before each use. Also the almond pulp from this batch is also nice and chocolaty, perfect for another dessert recipe.