Crunchy Kale Chips
September 1, 2012 § 4 Comments
Last week I ate a gallon ziploc big of kale chips that packed a balsamic vinegar punch. K-chips with chile/adobo powder are an extremely good idea. A couple days ago I read an article about chocolate kale chips (I’m not holding my breath on that one). This three-ingredient version is my favorite.
This recipe has undergone seven trials in the past two weeks; each time, I’ve whittled away at a list of ingredients that was, at one time, double in length. But as I reduced and tasted, I felt that this simple-dimple blend was just as good as the previous versions touting extra spices and peppery add-ins. (Okay, with a caveat: If you’re a garlic lover, go ahead and add a few minced cloves to this recipe — it’s terrific.) But rest assured, this combination below is simple and good, no garlic or spicy-heat necessary.
There are only three things to keep in mind when setting out to bake a batch of crispy kale chips: (1) Make sure the kale leaves are completely dry. If they’re at all wet, they’ll steam instead of crisp. (2) Don’t be tempted to pile kale onto the sheet pan. Spread the kale in a single layer and when making a large batch, use two or three sheet pans. (3) Keep a close eye on the chips during the remaining 3-5 minutes of baking. They crisp-up quickly and can burn easily.
Ingredients:
1 bunch kale, stemmed and ripped into large pieces
3-4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
sea salt, to taste
few teaspoons olive oil
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stem kale leaves and rip into large pieces. Wash and spin until dry; pile in a large bowl. Toss with a few teaspoons of olive oil to coat, nutritional yeast and sea salt to taste (be generous).
2. Spread kale leaves in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 15-22 minutes, tossing half way through, until crunchy and slightly golden-brown around the edges.
Diet Notes: SCD-safe, gluten-free, nut-free, vegan
DIY: Toasted Pepitas
July 19, 2012 § 1 Comment
Many store-bought, pre-toasted and -salted nuts and seeds are processed and coated with starches to help salt/spices adhere to the nuts/seeds. If you are steering away from added starches in your diet, or if you simply would like to have more control over the ingredients in the food that you eat, try buying the raw materials and then dressing them up yourself — it’s a resourceful, creative alternative to what’s commonly available in a standard supermarket.
I like to roast/salt/season big batches of nuts and seeds at a time. They’re wonderfully shelf-stable and then I have them at-the-ready. Included below is the simplest recipe for roasting pepitas (pumpkin seeds), but feel free to dabble. You can try roasting them with a little tamari (or soy sauce) or toss them with dill and nutritional yeast. I enjoy pepitas out-of-hand, a-top mammoth leafy salads, soups and pasta or brown rice dishes.
Ingredients:
raw pepitas
sea salt, to taste
a few teaspoons olive oil
spices, to taste (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a sheet pan, toss pepitas with a little olive oil – just enough to cover all the surfaces. Sprinkle with salt (and spices) to taste.
2. Bake for 15 minutes; stop and stir half-way. Cool completely before packaging.
Diet Notes: Gluten-free, SCD-safe, nut-free, vegan
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: Dried Tomatoes
June 5, 2012 § 4 Comments
Today is the fifth of June and down in the southwest, we’re harvesting tomatoes in full swing. In fact, we’ve been popping sweet cherries into our mouths for the last month. In light of this fact, and given that we have several more months of lycopene-glory ahead, it’s never too early to start preserving these suckers. Canning recipes are coming, but for now, I thought I’d start with a dehydration recipe. Don’t worry if you don’t own one of these mammoth electrical appliances. If you’re eating tomatoes now, your backyard is an oven.
Ingredients:
tomatoes sliced 1/4 – 1/2″ thick (cherries cut in half)
sea salt
Method:
Slice tomatoes in thick slabs and remove seeds. Arrange evenly on a dehydrator (or mesh screen for outdoor use). Sprinkle generously with sea salt. Dehydrate at 135/140 degrees for 10-16 hours (depending on thickness) or until chewy and crinkled. If dehydrating outside, keep a fine mesh cloth (ie. cheese cloth) over the tomatoes to keep bugs and debris at bay. When cool, store in an airtight container. Will keep for several months.
Diet Notes: SCD-safe, gluten-free, nut-free, vegan
Creamy Avocado Basil Sauce (think: vegan pesto-fredo)
April 18, 2012 § 2 Comments
This is a straightforward, easy-peasy recipe that has four ingredients and comes together in a minute flat. Thanks to the avocado, I like to think of this creamy, vegan shmear as a hybrid pesto and alfredo sauce.
A note about the above photo: South Tucson greenhouses are teaming with ripe, cherry tomatoes and zucchinis. As the bounty of winter brassicas and greens wanes, I’ve started loading my canvas bags with these (Sonoran) spring fruits and vegetables. My latest kick? Zucchini pasta. That’s right. I’ve been cranking one of these suckers. I’ve dabbled with many different “noodle” preparations, but here’s my favorite method that yields flavorful, al dente “noodles”: Saute a half-cup early onion/scallion with a lot of garlic and a generous pinch of salt in a wide-brimmed sauce pan. Saute until wilted and fragrant (just a minute or two) and add zucchini “noodles.” Toss until heated through and coated with oil, garlic and onion. Remove from heat; add sauce; serve warm.
Ingredients:
2 avocado
2 cloves garlic
2 cups basil
juice of a lemon (about 1/4 cup)
Method:
Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until combined. Add additional lemon juice to thin, if necessary. Toss with zucchini or grain-pasta and serve immediately. Leftovers keep two days.
Diet Notes: SCD-safe, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free
Lightly-Spiced Almond Milk
March 16, 2012 § 3 Comments
About a month ago, I came across this video by Sarah Britton, blogger of one of my top three favs: My New Roots. Since then, I’ve watched this little flic nine more times. I’ve graduated from a noodle strainer to a cheesecloth to a fine mesh “nut milk” bag. I’ve drunk a few gallons of nut milks.
Why go to the trouble? Certainly, there are plenty of health benefits: Nuts are spankin’ healthy. Also, in most packaged almond, rice, oat, hemp and some soy milks there are added ingredients like carrageenan, a thickener (seaweed derivative) that can be rough on sensitive tummies and may have longer-lasting detriments.
These are good reasons to buy a few cups of raw nuts and dust off the blender. But I like making nut milk for two other reasons (the purported health benefits being a mere kick in the pants). First, making this drink makes me feel delightfully resourceful. Second, you can make oodles of variations. I spice each batch differently, depending on my mood. For instance, if I want a sweet nut milk, I’ll add medjool dates (soaked in water for a half hour to soften) or a tablespoon of honey to the blender. If I want a plain milk, I won’t add any spices; it’s still creamy, the flavor is more subtle. Below, I’ve put my favorite combo of late. I use the leftover nut “pulp” to make cookies like these. I nibble on one or two for an afternoon snack with a cold glass of almond milk.
Ingredients:
1 cup raw almonds
8 medjool dates, pitted
water
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, optional
1/2 teaspoon vanilla, optional
Equipment:
fine mesh bag
blender
air-tight jars for storage
Method:
1. Pour raw almonds into a large glass bowl and cover with water. Soak for a minimum of 8 hours, up to a day. A half hour before blending, add dates to soften. Drain almonds and dates and place in a blender with 4 cups of water and spices, if using. Blend.
2. Place a fine mesh bag or cheesecloth in a pitcher. Drain and squeeze the almond pulp. Reserve pulp for a fun recipe. Pour almond milk in an airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Diet Notes: SCD-safe, vegan, gluten-free
Cilantro-flecked Chickpea-Quinoa Balls with Tahini-Citrus Dressing
January 21, 2012 § Leave a Comment
When I set forth to make this wrap, I combined a hodgepodge of recipes and aimed to make a falafel-like ball with crunch and Mediterranean flavor. Instead of relying on dried coriander and cumin to amp up the taste, I wanted to use garden-fresh cilantro and scallion. I wanted to see what would happen when I incorporated a whole grain into the mix (quinoa) and fresh vegetables (spinach) for nutrients and eye-popping color.
Before supper one night, I happened upon Green Kitchen Stories saffron-falafel recipe. I liked their idea of using flappy cabbage leaves as a wrap (a pita would be good, too) and tahini as the base for a bright dressing. I experimented with a few simple four-ingredient tahini dressings. The one below was my favorite.
Ingredients for the Chickpea-Quinoa Balls:
1 cup quinoa, cooked
2 cups garbanzo beans, cooked
2 cups spinach, fresh
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1/2 cup scallion
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon flax meal
4 tablespoons brown rice flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1-2 tablespoons water (if necessary to thin)
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees on convection (or 400, standard). In a food processor, combine all ingredients and pulse until pureed. The mixture should be sticky, but not so sticky that it doesn’t hold a form or stay together. (In the event that there is too much liquid, add extra brown rice flour, a little bit at a time. If too dry, add water a tablespoon at a time.) Scoop into balls, uniform in size, and bake for 20 minutes. Flip over and bake an additional 15 minutes.
Tahini Sauce
1/4 cup tahini
2 tablespoons grapefruit juice
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
generous pinch sea salt, pepper
2 tablespoons water, to thin
Method:
Whisk together and drizzle on top of wrap.
Diet Notes: gluten-free, vegan, nut-free
Lemony Tahini “Cheezy” Dressing
January 5, 2012 § 2 Comments
It’s 70 degrees in Tucson and all the windows are open. Today, the whole fam (plus a cousin!) is at home and we’re noshing on bowls of roasted vegetables, cooked quinoa and drizzles of lemony dressing. I don’t know how we’re going to make room for the chili and cheesecake dinner finale this evening, but we always manage.
This recipe (inspired by Angela) offers a trifecta of addictive ingredients: winter citrus tang (think: meyer lemon and ruby grapefruit glory), a punch of garlic and thick tahini, which makes for great texture. It’s ready in about four minutes and is wonderfully versatile: Drizzle it on roasted vegetables, pasta, cooked grains, in a wrap or use as a dip for crudités.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup tahini
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup meyer lemon juice
1/4 cup grapefruit juice
1/4 cup nutritional yeast*
1 tablespoon olive oil
sea salt, pepper
*If following a strict gluten-free diet, seek out nutritional yeast that contains no gluten.
Method: Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until smooth. Refrigerate leftovers; to reconstitute, add water a tablespoon at a time.
Diet Notes: Nut-free, vegan, gluten-free (see asterisk)
Apple Preservation: Fruit Roll-Up Style
December 1, 2011 § 2 Comments
I get such a kick out of edible table decorations; along those lines, I like consumable party favors (or wedding take-home goodies), too. This year, for Thanksgiving, I whipped up a double batch of apple fruit roll-ups and put a small wrap on each plate. It was a seasonal palate cleanser and was a fun story-prompter. I might’ve even convinced my uncle David to buy a dehydrator!
Ingredients for the Roll-Up:
apple sauce
honey
cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, ginger
Tools:
food dehydrator
parchment paper
scissor
string
Method:
Cook down apples into a sauce or scoop from a jar. Heat on the stove; add honey and spices to taste. Remove from stove and spread on a plastic dehydrating sheet (like this one) about 1/2 cm thick. Turn dehydrator on at 135 degrees and dehydrate for 10-12 hours. Peel away from plastic, rip or cut into thin strips and roll up in parchment paper.
Diet Notes: SCD-safe, gluten-free, nut-free
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: Dried Basil
November 3, 2011 § 4 Comments
We have 22 containers of pesto preserved in the frosty depths of our freezer. Even though I’m a pesto-eating champ (case in point: for snack-time I eat dollops of pesto on carrots; I pour an extra quarter-cup on top of my already-seasoned pasta), I’ve run out of Tupperware.
Instead of processing my most recent harvest into a sauce, I dried it. That way I’ll have basil-flavor handy for dishes where pesto is unwarranted (do those exist?) or when the green goddess shmear runs out.
Home-dried basil is a zillion times more potent and scrumptious than its cardboard-flavored cousin on the spice rack in the supermarket. What’s more, when you dry it yourself, you make bank. (CHA-ching!) To illustrate: We have multiple basil plants in our garden. On average, one plant will yield three to four harvests of 9-12 cups of basil leaves. I harvested all of what you see above & below from one plant. Two weeks later I had over a pint of dried leaves. This week I’ve used my dried basil in two soups and a frittata and the taste is to-live-for-good. Here’s how easy it is:
STEP 1. Snip-snip: When harvesting basil for pesto, for cooking or drying, cut back the whole plant, stems included. Giving your basil plant a big haircut will allow the plant to regrow stems, preventing them from hardening and turning woody.
STEP 2. Clean as a Whistle: Gently wash each stem in a sink basin full of water to remove any dirt or dust. Give each stem a little shake and let them air dry on the counter top for several hours.
STEP 3. Twisty-tie Time: When the leaves and stems have dried, group stems into bundles and turn upside down. Use a twisty-tie (or hemp or strong string) to tie the stems together at the base. I usually tie four or five stems in each group. Be mindful not to group too many stems together; there should be some breathing room between each stem so that all the leaves can properly dry out.
STEP 4. Forget about ‘em: Clip each bundle to a drying rack (like below) or use a string and tie each bundle to a hanger. Place in a cool, dry place for a couple of weeks.
Socca To Me: The New Friday Night Pizza
August 19, 2011 § Leave a Comment
It’s Friday and it’s pizza night! While five-minute-pizza dough most certainly has its merits, if you have a hankering a gluten-free pizza alternative, grind up some beans (or buy ‘um ground) and whip up a socca tonight.
Soccas are like pancakes on MiracleGro, except they’re in the savory camp and don’t necessitate maple syrup dredging. They require only a couple of ingredients: ground up garbanzo beans (garbanzo bean flour), salt, a splash of olive oil and water. I’ve been adding dried herbs from our garden, too. While soccas are great plain, hot out of the skillet, they also make a toothsome base for a pizza. Our favorite toppings include garden zucchini, caramelized onion and fresh-picked cherry tomatoes.
Ingredients:
1 + 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Italian spice blend (rosemary, sage, parsley, basil)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water, cold
Method:
1. Grease oven-safe skillet. Place in cold oven. Preheat oven & skillet to 350 degrees (or 325 on convection).
2. In a bowl, whisk together garbanzo bean flour, salt and spices. Add olive oil and water and whisk vigorously until all clumps dissolve.
3. When oven is preheated, carefully remove skillet from oven and add batter to skillet slowly. Be mindful of hot, splattering batter. Place back in the oven and bake for 40 minutes, until the top is golden and slightly brown around the edges. The sides will receede slightly from the edges of the cast iron.
4. Remove from skillet and place on baking stone or sheet pan. Top with favorite pizza add-on’s. Bake five additional minutes and one minute (keep a close eye) under the broiler to make the cheese bubble.
Diet Notes: Gluten-free, vegan, nut-free
