Variation on Raw-Inspired Date Cookies

So the date cookies didn't last very long and I had to do something else to satisfy my sweet tooth and my need to have at least some solid food.  I was looking around at others blogs (which I do for inspiration, since I'm a relative newcomer to this way of eating - I'm still cheating with forbidden foods on occasion), and I kept reading about the joys of almond flour.  Rather than buying some at the local natural foods store (which takes up lots of my time and money already), I ground up some almonds in my coffee grinder and made a variation on the date cookies.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups fresh ground almond flour
3/4 cup finely chopped dates
1 tbsp flax seeds (optional, but recommended)
1 tbsp hemp seeds (optional, but recommended)
1 tbsp chia seeds (optional, but recommended)
2 tbsp honey
a dash of vanilla extract
a dash of almond extract
1/8 cup melted coconut oil
1 scoop greens powder (optional)
3 tbsp cocoa powder (include if you use the greens powder)

Directions

Combine almond flour, dates, and seeds in a mixing bowl.  Mix.  Pour mixture into a blender/food processor and blend until well blended.  Take mixture out of blender and back into the mixing bowl.  Add honey, coconut oil, vanilla and almond extracts, greens powder and cocoa powder.  Mix mixture until you get a good solid dough.  Scoop out on to wax paper and place in the refrigerator for about an hour, or, if you have a dehydrator, dehydrate to taste.

Raw-Inspired Date Cookies

When Michael (my boyfriend for newcomers) and I went on a nice long hike several days ago, I bought some raw cookie-like energy cubes from the natural food store here that were quite good.  As usual though, it felt like a compromise to buy the things - even from the natural food store - because they had the ubiquitous "natural flavors" on the ingredient's list.  Frankly, "natural flavors" could mean anything: all-natural extracts (which I can have, in moderation) or something I would rather not think about.  Either way, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to try and replicate the cookie-ish energy cubes on my own, so that I wouldn't have to worry about what the heck "natural flavors" means.  This is an approximation of what I came up with:

Ingredients
2-3 big fistfuls of dates, finely chopped
a tablespoon or two almond flour
two to four tablespoons shredded coconut, divided
a teaspoon or two honey
a few drops vanilla extract
1/2 a scoop of my greens powder (optional)
a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder (optional)

Puree dates, almond flour, and 2 tablespoons  of shredded coconut in a food processor.  Remove from food processor and add honey, vanilla extract, greens powder, and cocoa powder.  Mix until you get a sticky dough-like substance.  Divide into bite size balls on parchment paper and flatten into a cookie shape.  Sprinkle the rest of the shredded coconut on top and press the coconut into the cookie.  Chill for an hour. 

I'll be trying other variations, since my searches on several raw and paleo blogs have yielded some inspiration for variations on the no-cook cookie theme.

Review: Food of Life Millet Bread

I was in the grocery store yesterday and was intrigued by the thought of millet bread.  I like millet, and I've read that adding any pseudo-grain (i.e. amaranth, millet, quinoa) to gluten-free bread helps with texture, flavor, and nutritional punch.  With that in mind, I bought a loaf of Food of Life's Millet Bread and I wasn't impressed.  The flavor wasn't bad (again, I like millet), but the grainy texture wasn't wheat-bread-like at all.  I gave some to my boyfriend (who eats "normally", is a wonderful cook, and is very discerning about food) and he was not impressed either.  While it may be an improvement over gluten-free breads of the past, Food of Life's Millet Bread doesn't hold a candle to my personal "me-friendly" bread favorite from Udi's Gluten-Free Foods.  On the other hand, I do like their brown rice tortillas, which do not fall apart when you try to fold them for burritos and don't taste gluten-free either.

A yogurt substitute!

When I was finishing up high school, my breakfast of choice was vanilla yogurt topped with mixed berries and some granola.  These days, I haven't done much with yogurt, since I've not been bothered to try and make the stuff myself.  It's not that I don't like the stuff - it's just that I'm of the mind that I should eat primarily things that are naturally gfc-dfsf, rather than trying to find substitutes for the things I can't have.  While that's all fine and good when I'm eating on my own, when I'm with company, it makes us both uncomfortable if I can't have some equivalent.  That said, Turtle Mountain has added coconut milk-based yogurt to it's line of dairy alternatives.  They've got 9 flavors to choose from, and the reviews look good.  I've not yet tried it myself, but I intend to by the time school starts.  It's not a perfect substitute - it has carregeenan (a food additive I try to avoid) - but since I don't do yogurt (or yogurt substitutes) very much, I can compromise a little in the event I need a "yogurt".

Anti-Performance-Anxiety Smoothie - Literally!

A few years back, I was really worried about panicking at my piano juries (really high-pressure performances - not fun). My counterpoint professor overheard me and told me that if I give up dessert for a week and have toast with peanut butter and a banana at least two hours before my jury time, it would have the effect of a beta-blocker, without the nasty meds. I did it and it worked.

Now, I have to take the GRE - like an SAT for grad students - and I'm worried that I'll choke. It's not that the test is hard, but it's long, and it messes with your head. Thankfully, I have a way to bail out if I don't like the way I did, but it costs $140 to take the test, and I only want to do this bugger once. I can't have traditional bread, but I have a kick-butt blender, so I made this.

The Anti-Performance-Anxiety Smoothie

4 tablespoons peanut butter
1 whole banana
1 tablespoon hemp seed
1 tablespoon flax seed
1/4 cup lite coconut milk

Place all ingredients in blender. Blend until smooth. Enjoy cold at least two hours before your high-pressure event for an all-natural beta-blocker.

I think I understand now why Elvis liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches so much. I never made that connection before.

Boiled White Rice Recipe

When my dad's family lived in Japan, his mom asked for a no-fail recipe for boiling rice, and the recipe has been passed down to me (and probably my sister, though I don't know how much rice she makes). I'm passing it on to you, dear readers, with optional olive oil and salt.

3 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)
a dash of salt (optional)
2 cups rice

Rinse rice. Pour water, olive oil, and salt in a sauce pan and bring to a rolling boil on high heat. Add the rice. Bring heat down to medium heat and allow to lightly simmer uncovered. Simmer until water evaporates - about 20 minutes or so. Fluff and serve hot immediately.

Boiled Amaranth Recipe

In the spirit of getting back to basics (with some actual measurements), here's the basic recipe I use for boiling amaranth seed (adapted from 1).

2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)
a dash of salt (optional)
1 cup amaranth

Rinse amaranth. Pour water, oil, and salt into sauce pan and bring to a vigorous boil. Add amaranth. Allow the amaranth to boil for until the water evaporates - about 20 minutes or so. The end result should be sticky, but not gummy.

A basic buckwheat recipe

A few weeks back, as part of my efforts to get over major food boredom, I bought some buckwheat groats to try. I finally made another curry-like dish last night and a oatmeal-like dish this morning, both of which need some refining before I post here. I will admit that buckwheat has an unusual texture that I need to get used to (fluffy, but kind of springy), but I understand why the food allergy community likes to use the grain as the base for pancakes so much. Here's a basic cooked buckwheat recipe.

Cooked Buckwheat
4 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)
a dash of salt (optional)
1 cup uncooked, rinsed buckwheat groats

Pour water in a saucepan. Add olive oil and salt, if desired. Bring water to boil. Add buckwheat. Turn stove to medium-high, or just enough so that the contents are vigorously simmering. Cook until the water evaporates. Serve hot immediately.

An Ice Cream Maker!

A few posts back, I was pleased to discover a technique for making ice cream that was quick and didn't involve coffee cans or going out and buying an ice cream maker. My parents have an ice cream maker that has just been sitting in their cupboard and offered to let me use it. As wonderful as Luna and Larry's Organic Coconut Bliss is, it's expensive, so I'll be experimenting with my own coconut milk ice cream and coconut water sorbet when I get home. Yum!

New Page: AFF Friendly Food Brands

My family visit gave me an idea for another page - a list of AFF-friendly food brands. So far, I have two listed, Udi's Gluten-Free Foods, and Enjoy Life! Foods, but I know about others - I just need to relocate them and post links to their online stores.

Hurray for Udi's Gluten Free Foods!

I'm visiting family this week and gluten, soy, and dairy free they are not. Thankfully, my parents hardly live in a gluten, soy, and dairy free desert, so they can tell me what they are going to eat, and I can buy AFF-friendly substitutes. Udi's makes the best gluten, soy, and dairy free bread I've ever had (it may be the only gfcfsf bread I've ever had, but it's good), as well as AFF-friendly pizza crusts and blueberry muffins. They are pricey and can be difficult to find, but it makes navigating the social aspect of food a lot easier - especially the "I can't have that because it has [insert objectionable ingredient here]" conversation. Yay Udi's!

The Ultimate Green Smoothie Variation Set

I was poking around the Vitamix site again and they have a mix-and-match green smoothie cheat sheet in PDF format. There's a quick sign-up, but what you get is quite good - 336 different variations on the green smoothie. I have been beat, dear readers, by quite a long shot. Then again, this is Vitamix - this is what they do. Maybe I'll try out the cheat sheet and share my favorite combinations here.

My only quibble is that it doesn't include basil, cilantro, parsley, or other green, leafy herbs anywhere on the mix-and-match table. They do cut the same old green taste quite a bit and make things more interesting.

Cookbook, Edition #7: Basil Smoothie!

Here's yet another variation on the green smoothie in a further attempt to cure food boredom. It was inspired in part by Giada De Laurentiis' version, but without the dairy or the syrup.

As much fresh basil as you can stuff into your blender (the stuff reduces fast)
A squirt of lemon juice or two
A teaspoon or two of agave nectar/honey
A splash of coconut milk
A splash of water.

Blend until smooth. Serve immediately cold.

Enjoy!

Cookbook, Edition #7: WholeFoods Raw Berry Crisp

I've not made this yet, but it looks and sounds fantastic! My mouth started watering just thinking about it. And there are so many variations you could make on it: peaches, mangoes, pears, apples, cherries - yum!

And WholeFoods puts out more recipes indexed by special dietary needs - I'll be posting more as I find more good things to eat!

Cookbook, Edition #7: The Pink Smoothie

The Pink Smoothie resulted from two things: 1) combating food boredom, and 2) applying lessons from my former academic concentration to my food.

I am a musician by training, but I am more an academic than a performer. I was a composer until I realized that, as much as I love composing, I love learning about and teaching music theory more. One of the main lessons I took away from composing was that you can generate a lot of good stuff from just a few ideas. In fact, the less stuff you have to work with, the more creative you get with what you do use.

With the original Green Smoothie, I just wanted to get the vegetables into my system without setting off my gag reflex. As a brave soul who actually tried some of the original Green Smoothie said, "It doesn't taste bad. It doesn't really taste like anything." While that works for awhile, drinking tasteless green goop doesn't work long term, especially for a food lover. The variations on the Green Smoothie are one result of that effort to make this thing long term and enjoyable.

That said, just plain fruit is fantastic, especially in the morning. This is what I've been making for breakfast as of late.

The Pink Smoothie
2 handfuls chopped strawberries
2 handfuls blueberries, de-stemmed
1 banana
1 tablespoon or so hemp seed
1 tablespoon or so flax seed
a splash of coconut milk
a splash of water

Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth. Serve cold immediately.

Cookbook, Edition #6: Green Smoothie, Variations I and II

Spinach and berries are great, but I get bored with the same food all the time quickly. Not only that, but other fruits pair nicely with spinach and have been in-season (and on sale) recently, and I like saving money just like anyone else. To take advantage of the in-season, on-sale fruit, I had to come up with a few variations on the green smoothie. This is what I came up with:

Variation I

2 fistfuls baby spinach
2 big handfuls red grapes
2 big handfuls chopped mango
1 peeled, chopped banana
1 chopped carrot with green, leafy parts
1 tablespoon or so hemp seed
1 tablespoon or so flax seed
a splash of coconut milk
a splash of water

Blend in a blender until smooth. Serve cold immediately.

Variation II

2 fistfulls baby spinach
2 big handfuls chopped mango
2 yellow peaches, diced
1 peeled, chopped banana
1 tablespoon or so hemp seed
1 tablespoon or so flax seed
a splash of coconut milk
a splash of water

Blend in a blender until smooth. Serve cold immediately.

Cookbook, Edition #6: Curry-ish Beans and Rice

I have been meaning to try curry for a while simply because I had no idea what it was, friends rave about the stuff, and I've been bored with my other rice and beans concoctions. I'm happy to say that I tried making something like curry last night and thought it quite good. I doubt its close to authentic curry, but I liked it enough to share it with the world. It's vegetarian, and it cooks up quick, so I'll be making it during the regular school year too.

Ingredients

Rice
1 cup Brown Rice
1 1/2 cups water
A tablespoon or so olive oil
A pinch of salt

Curry-like Beans
A handful or two of fresh diced onion
A tablespoon or so of olive oil
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
A pinch of cayanne pepper
A heaping tablespoon of premixed curry powder
A pinch of powdered coriander
A pinch of salt
1 15 oz can garbanzo beans
A tablespoon or so of coconut milk

Rinse rice. Boil 1 1/2 cups water, tablespoon of olive oil, and pinch of salt in a sauce pan. While boiling, add rice. Simmer uncovered until water boiled off and/or absorbed.

While the rice simmers, saute chopped onion in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and let gently simmer until the rice is finished. Serve hot over rice.

You can substitute jasmine rice for the brown rice, adjust the spices to your taste, or substitute other kinds of beans, tofu, or meat for the garbanzo beans.

Finances, Edition #3

I enjoy my weekly grocery store trip. There’s something about all the colorful food that makes me briefly forget about my worries. I also adhere to my family’s food-money philosophy: “You either spend money on food or you spend money on medical bills”. While I knew that my food bills would increase when I started buying all-organic fruits and vegetables, I didn’t think they would increase as much as they did - to $60, $80, sometimes $100 a week. To draw attention to the cost of good food, I’m keeping a cumulative tally of my weekly grocery bill and the tab from any time I eat out.

I did some more cutting corners last week, although early this week, I blew it because pesticide-free strawberries, organic blueberries, and organic mangos were on sale for the best prices I've seen where I live.

5/28/10

Organic Kidney Beans (15 oz): $1.39
Organic Black Beans (15 oz): $1.29
Organic Light Coconut Milk (15 oz): $2.39
3 Organic Lemons, $2.49/lb: $2.27
4 Organic White Peaches, 3.99/lb: $4.27
Organic Raw Hemp Seeds: $5.68
Organic Deget Dates: $2.04
1 lb pesticide free Strawberries: $3.00
1 lb pesticide free Strawberries: $3.99 (Interesting. The strawberries were supposed to be on sale - 2 for $6.)
4 Organic Mangos, 1.25 ea.: $5

Total: $37.41

Then, when I went back to grab something to eat before going on a nice drive, I saw that there were more strawberries, blueberries, and mangos for the taking, and they looked better than the ones I'd picked through the last trip.

5/31/10

4 1lb boxes of Pesticide-Free Strawberries: $12
4 boxes of Organic Blueberries: $12
4 Organic Mangos, 1.25 ea: $5
AmaZake Rice Drink (by Grainaissance), Original Flavor: $2.49
Peanut Butter Cookie: $1.99

Total: $33.65

Week's Total: $71.06

Blog Total: $192.17

Confession, Edition #4

We all make poor food choices and I am no exception, so I am sharing the occasions when I break my own diet. In doing so, I hope to keep myself accountable in adhering to the diet; bring attention to the difference in cost between AFF friendly food and not-so-AFF-friendly food; and show where to find AFF-friendly food outside the apartment kitchen.

I went a week and five days without writing a confession! I know my detractors would say that if I were serious about clearing acne and feeling better permanently, I wouldn't have to write confessions at all. While they may have a point, I would prefer to be as honest as possible about my gluten, soy, and dairy-free (and industrial-animal-product-and-synthetic-sweetener-free avoiding) adventures and misadventures. Should someone of influence come across this blog, I hope they will see the benefits of maintaining high food-quality standards and just how difficult maintaining these standards is in today's food market - and maybe do something about it.

So, confession from yesterday. A friend (and my new roommate!) and I went on a day trip so that she could meet a professor who teaches at a school to which she's considering applying for her doctoral program. I went along because the school is also in my hometown and I would get a chance to see my mom.

Before we left, we had to get our cashier's checks and money orders to pay the up-front fees for our new apartment and sign the lease. While dealing with the mess that is cashier's checks and money orders, I bought tall coffee with soy milk at Starbucks and sweetened it with white sugar (soy, non-organic, processed sugar, caffeine). In my defense, I also got a Berry Blast Naked Juice for later, bringing the day's total sins to $5.29.

Then, after we signed the lease and paid our money, we stopped and got some more Starbucks coffee for free. Our new apartment offers free, fresh brewed Starbucks coffee in it's main office. Unfortunately, they don't have any fresh, liquid, non-dairy, soy, gluten, or artificial sweetner-laiden creamer. I do like black coffee, but I didn't resist pouring some hazelnut-flavored powder creamer (gluten, soy, dairy, non-organic, artificial sweetener/processed sugar, caffeine) to celebrate a new, beautiful apartment with a new, awesome roommate.

So, we drove down and found where she needed to be, with a few minutes to spare. My mom came and we went to the Starbucks near the campus. We both got the non-organic black tea without sweetener (non-organic, caffeine). It was Mom's treat.

When my roommate's appointment was finished and my Mom went home, we had a misadventure trying to pick up something for my roommate's boss. We had had nothing to eat besides coffee (and, in my case, tea and Naked Juice) and ended up at Red Robin. I was so hungry I didn't even really want to think about a salad with fruit. I ordered the Burnin' Love Burger with a Garden Burger for the meat (gluten, dairy, soy) and had marinaded cheese sticks and fried jalepenos with marinara and ranch (dairy, gluten, fried food). That total was $15.75.

For dessert (because my roommate's meeting went very well), I ordered an iced boba chai tea at a local tea shop for $5.55.

The day's total: $26.59.

I still need to write another confession for a few nights ago. I bought an organic pizza (gluten, dairy, soy) and had a soy-based cheesecake (which actually was quite good). The total was $14.93.

So maybe it's been less than a week and five days since my last confession . . .

This confession's total: $41.52.

Cookbook, Edition #4: Chocolate Goo

I love chocolate. Before I went gluten, soy, and dairy free, I tried to have a little bit of dark chocolate every day. Whether or not it is actually good for you, I liked having an excuse to have a nibble or two.

Now, most chocolate bars require a confession entry. Nonetheless, I still have the last bit of a Trader Joes Dark Chocolate Bar in my fridge. I know it's probably gone bad, but I just don't have the heart to let it go yet - not to mention I hate wasting food.

When I went gluten, soy, and dairy free, I knew that I would need some kind of chocolate substitute to satisfy my addiction. I did some reading, adapted recipes to my situation, and came up with a Chocolate Goo that works well on its own and as a frosting that surprised the day-lights out of my gluten-soy-and-dairy-eating friends. If you come up with a better title, feel free to leave it in the comments.

Chocolate Goo

1 part Cocoa Powder
2 parts Coconut Oil
1 part Honey (I switched to Agave Nectar after I read it wouldn't make my blood sugar spike - another possibility for my breakouts - you can use less if you use it)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer, for best mixing. At this point, you can use it as frosting or eat it plain. I've also experimented with adding flax and hemp seeds, as well as other nuts, to make the goo less goo-like and more like a chocolate. I've also tried substituting bananas for part of the honey/agave nectar, but that experiment didn't work so well.