Valentine Bacon and Spicy Green Beans

Tonight I decided to play around in the kitchen a bit. I've been seeing photos of bacon hearts popping up all over Facebook and the internet, and I had some bacon in the fridge, so I thought: Why not?

Image source

I also have a new recipe for sweet & spicy green beans that I have been wanting to try- and I thought the two of those sounded great together. So, that was dinner. 

Here's a photo of my sweet and spicy string beans (with a bacon heart): 

You can Google for a recipe for the bacon hearts (that's what I did). Basically, you cut a strip of bacon in half, arrange in in a heart shape, and bake at 400 for 25 minutes or so. Pretty easy.

Obviously the bacon is not vegetarian/vegan- although I suppose you could try it with vegan bacon- I don't see why not? The green bean recipe, on its own, is vegan.

Here is the recipe for the green beans, with my adaptations 

Sweet & Spicy String Beans (gluten free, soy free*, vegan)

Ingredients

Fresh green beans, washed and trimmed

2 T brown sugar

2 T tamari  *if you are gluten AND soy free, see note below

1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes

1 tsp grapeseed oil

Method

Blanch green beans for one minute

Mix brown sugar, tamari*, and red pepper flakes in small bowl. Set aside.

Heat oil in skillet

Saute green beans over high heat 3-5 minutes or until beans look blistered. Remove from heat.

Toss green beans with tamari, brown sugar, & pepper mixture.

*If you are gluten and soy free, you can try this substitute. I've been using it in raw dishes for a while now, and have been pleased with it. This is the first time I have used it in a cooked dish, and I was skeptical about how it might perform. But I liked the way the beans turned out, so I was happy with this substitute in a cooked dish. 

Soy sauce does add a certain flavor and dimension to a recipe, but if you are limited by allergies/sensitivites, sometimes you can get away with omitting the soy/tamari and adding sea salt. The substitute linked above uses mushrooms, and that gives a little more depth and flavor than just salt. Play around with it, and see what you think. I make a batch, freeze in ice cube trays, and keep the cubes (which are approximately 1Tbsp) in a Ziploc in the freezer- just take one out when you need it.

Sweet & Spicy String Beans, with a bacon heart

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine Rice Krispy Treats (gluten free, corn free, vegan)

Good morning and happy Valentine's day!

Today I share with you cocoa and vanilla rice krispy treats. These treats use brown rice syrup instead of marshmallows, so they contain NO gluten, corn, soy, or animal products. Yum!

Easy Gluten Free, Vegan Rice Krispy Treats

Ingredients
1/3 cup nut butter of choice (I used cashew, but I think peanut or hazelnut would be fantastic with the cocoa treats)
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups gluten free crispy rice cereal (I use this one) It also comes in cocoa.

Method
In a large pan, heat nut butter and brown rice syrup over low heat until melted and well combined.
Stir in vanilla extract
Turn off heat
Stir in rice cereal until well coated with syrup mixture

Spread rice mixture in brownie pan to cool.

Alternatively, you can use a rice mold to make all kinds of shapes. I find this easier than cutting out rice krispy treats with a cookie cutter. This is what my rice mold looks like:

You can find rice molds (sushi molds) in Asian grocery stores. If you are lucky to live in a city that has a Chinatown, you can find them in ALL shapes and sizes- and super cheap. I found my heart mold, which also came with a flower mold, for 99 cents in San Francisco's Chinatown. If you can not find them in a local shop, you can also find them on Amazon.

Red White & Blue Rice Krispy Treats

Here is a fun, healthy, patriotic treat that only takes about 5 minutes to make. Enjoy!

Allergy Friendly Red White and Blue Rice Krispy treats

Gluten free and vegan. No corn, soy, or dairy.

Ingredients

1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/3 cup nut butter of choice
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder OR 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups puffed rice cereal
1/3 cup dried blueberries
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Method
In a large pot, heat brown rice syrup, nut butter, and vanilla over med-low heat until melted.
Stir in puffed rice, cranberries, and blueberries
Spread evenly in a 9x9 or similar pan, and let cool.
Cut into squares and enjoy!

Great for snacks or breakfast.

You can use any puffed rice cereal that works for you, just double check to make sure it meets your allergy needs. I use Arrowhead Mills brand, it looks like this:

Note that this kind of puffed rice is not as crisp as a Rice Krispy type cereal. For that texture, I have used Erewhon brand, it looks like this: 

Brown rice syrup comes in a jar in the sweetener/baking aisle and looks like this:

Also note that you can find a variety of puffed grains, such as millet, quinoa, and corn in the cereal aisle. Play around, and mix and match various grains for your taste or allergy preferences. For example, here is a link to puffed millet treats I made for Halloween.

Have fun! Happy 4th of July.

Health benefits of: Blueberries, Cranberries

Raw Vegan Watermelon Cups

Here is a fabulous idea for a summer fruit salad. It is the perfect party appetizer. Yes, it has several steps and looks like a lot of work, but it really wasn't that bad. The most time consuming part was dicing the fruit for the fruit salad. If you wanted to enjoy this recipe with a little less work, you could simply rough chop all of the ingredients for the fruit salad and serve in bowls. I highly recommend making the cilantro-lime creme dressing to top your fruit salad- it is quite good!

This recipe was inspired by this post. I raw-veganized it for the version below. This recipe does not contain any dairy, eggs, gluten, grains, soy, corn, or refined sugar.

Raw Vegan Watermelon Cups

Ingredients


For the Fruit Salad: 
1 mini seedless watermelon, 3-5 lbs
2/3 cup jicama, small dice
4 ripe yellow peaches, small dice
1/3 cup sweet or red onion, finely chopped
1/2 granny smith apple, small dice
1 clove garlic, pressed
1-2 tbsp fresh lime juice (depending on how tangy you want it)
1/2 fresh jalapeno, small dice (seeds and membrane removed if you don't like spicy stuff)
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped plus several small whole leaves to garnish
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

For the Cream Sauce:
3/4 cup soaked cashews (soak raw cashews in filtered water for 4-8 hours, drain)
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons agave nectar
1/4 cup filtered water
Pinch of himalayan salt
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 tbsp minced fresh jalapeno

Method

To make the watermelon cups:
Cut the ends off of the watermelon. Stand the watermelon up on one of the flat ends and cut off the sides, forming a rectangle. Discard the rind, but keep the watermelon "scraps" to add to the fruit salad.
Cut the rectangle into cubes. I pretty much just sliced mine evenly into squares- think Rubix Cube :)
Use a knife or a melon baller to hollow out the inside of each cube. I made mine square because I was in the mood to put in some extra effort, but you could just use a melon baller or spoon and make little wells in the cube. Once the cube is filled with fruit salad, you don't really see the shape of the hole anyway.
Put the watermelon cubes in the refrigerator until you are ready to fill them.

To make the fruit salad:
Finely dice the remaining watermelon, jicama, peaches, onion, green apple, and jalapeno.
Add to bowl, add lime juice and garlic.
Add chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and stir to combine.
Refrigerate until ready to fill cups.

To make the creme sauce:
Blend cashews, lemon juice, agave, water and salt until smooth.
In a bowl, add cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and 1/2 cup of the cashew creme and stir to combine.

To assemble: 
Fill watermelon cubes with fruit salad, top with cilantro lime sauce, and enjoy!

This recipe is linked to Made-from-scratch Monday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays and Allergy Free Wednesday- click on the links for more great ideas for sugar free, gluten free, allergy friendly recipes.

Gluten Free Vegan Apple Cider Donuts

Baking these donuts will make your kitchen smell like the holidays, full of cinnamon and nutmeg. And they taste delicious... I ate three... I was testing, of course, just testing the recipe... um, yeah, that's it :)

Gluten Free Vegan Apple Cider Donuts
Makes 5-6 regular size donuts
Equipment: Donut pan
Preparation: Soak chia overnight (see below)

Ingredients
1 cup gluten free flour mix
1/4 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon allergy-friendly baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt (or substitute sea salt)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon vanilla powder
1/3 cup raw cane sugar (or substitute sweetener of choice)
1/4 cup grapeseed oil (or substitute oil/shortening of choice)
1/4 cup apple cider
1 chia "egg"  (Mix 1 Tbsp chia with 1/4 cup water, let soak overnight)

Method
Preheat oven to 350 F

Use a little oil or shortening to grease donut pan. I know the pan is technically "non-stick"- but in my experience... it's not really : ) You just need a tiny amount of oil. I dab a bit of grapeseed oil on a clean dishcloth or paper towel and just swipe it around each of the donut wells in the pan. (I do not care for non stick cooking spray because it gets everywhere, and it makes the rest of the pan very sticky)

In small bowl, add gluten free flour mix, guar gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla powder. Whisk to combine.

In large bowl, add oil, sugar, apple cider, and chia egg, and beat with hand mixer until well combined.

Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing with hand mixer.

Spoon donut batter into pan (it will be thick), filling each well about 3/4 full. Usually I get 6 donuts out of a recipe. Today it was 5. Go figure.

Bake in center of 350F oven for approximately 15 minutes. Let cool in pan for a few minutes, then carefully slide donuts out and let cool on rack. They will crumble or break if you try to slide them out too soon, so try to be patient before gently sliding them out of the donut pan (this is really difficult when they are fresh from the oven and smell delicious, mmmm). You might try sliding a knife around the edges first once the donuts have cooled. It can be hard to get those donuts out of the pan in one piece :)

Optional: sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar. Be sure your powdered sugar is allergy-friendly. Most powdered sugar contains cornstarch, but I've found Whole Foods 365 Brand uses tapioca starch instead.

Enjoy!

Also posted on Allergy Friendly Friday and Wellness Weekends <--click the links for more great holiday recipes!

Allergy-friendly Candy Apples

This recipe is linked to Wellness Weekends and Allergy-Friendly Fridays. 

Be sure to visit those pages for more yummy Halloween treats!

Hi everyone! I meant to post this recipe last week. I was traveling, and I thought I'd done well in planning ahead to write this post on the road. I made the apples early, took photos, loaded all of the photos onto my laptop, and edited photos while on the plane. Perfect! Now I just had to add the recipes and upload to the blog...

Guess what I forgot at home???

Yup. The recipes.

Oops!

But now I'm back, and here you go...

Here are recipes for THREE versions of candy apples. No gluten, corn, soy, dairy, or refined sugar. Bonus: they are RAW vegan! Yes, raw vegan treats for Fall : ) Who needs Halloween candy? These taste MUCH better- and they are better for you.

As I was thinking about writing this post, I came across some pre-made candy apples in Publix (our local grocery store).

Here are the ingredients: 

Obviously these are not an option for anyone with a corn allergy, or kids who may be sensitive to artificial flavors or dyes.

There were also caramel apples: 

Ingredients: 

Corn syrup, refined sugar, dairy PLUS sugar, soy, more dairy (can you really call dipotassium phosphate "milk"?), more soy, even MORE soy, something unpronounceable, imitation vanilla- really, there is not any FOOD in here, except for the apples. And it contains three of the eight major allergens.

How about the chocolate turtle apples?

Ingredients:

Yeah. More of the same. 

So, now that you are convinced you probably do not want to feed this commercial, pre-packaged "food-like substance" to your family... here is an easy & healthy alternative.

I started with the biggest, prettiest Fuji apples I could find. You can use any variety of apple you like.

Note: next time I would choose the smallest apples I can find, not the largest. I was dazzled by the beautiful large apples in the store. But as I was making the apples, they were really too big and heavy, and they were much too big to eat. Each of these apples was enough for 2-4 people. Too big. But they were pretty : ) 

A smaller apple would be easier to handle (especially for kids) and it would also give you a better candy-coating-to-apple ratio.

OK, on to the recipes. I experimented with caramel, chocolate, and white chocolate apples. 

I used the "I Am the Best" Caramel Sauce recipe from Cafe Gratitude's I am Grateful (un)cookbook

Raw Vegan Caramel Apples

Ingredients

Apples

Lollipop or popsicle sticks

Caramel

1 cup macadamia nuts

1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt

1/4 cup raw almond milk

1/2 cup raw agave nectar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder

1/2-1 teaspoon yacon syrup

Method

Place all ingredients apart from the yacon syrup in high speed blender. Pulse or start on low and gradually increase the speed until you have achieved a smooth texture (you may need to add a little more almond milk).

Now blend in 1/2 teaspoon yacon syrup, slowly. Taste and add a little more yacon syrup if you like. Note: if you add too much yacon syrup, the color will change from golden to green!

Note: I added about 2 Tbsp melted raw cacao butter to this recipe in the hope that it would harden on the apple once it cooled. It did not harden as I'd hoped, and I also thought it changed the taste (it was still good, but it was much better without). I did not try it, but I think adding 1 Tbsp coconut butter to the recipe might have the "hardening" effect I was going for. So you might try that if you are feeling adventuresome. If you try it, I'd love to hear how it works out.

Insert a popsicle or lollipop stick and dip apples in caramel:

Sit on plate or bowl. This is where I'd hoped it would harden, but it never did (it was still yummy though)

Some of the caramel slid off, and I wound up with a thin coating of caramel, something like this:

Roll apple in topping of your choice, if desired. I used a coconut and pecan mixture left over from another recipe:

Next up: Chocolate apples. The chocolate part of this recipe is from Sarma's Living Raw Food (un)cookbook.

Raw Vegan Chocolate Apples

Ingredients
Apples
Lollipop or popsicle sticks

Chocolate coating
1 1/4 cups coconut oil, warmed to liquify
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons raw cacao powder
3 1/2 Tablespoons maple syrup
Pinch of sea salt

Blend all chocolate ingredients until smooth and fully emulsified.

Dip apples in chocolate. Roll in topping, if desired. I used chopped almonds. This topping will harden even faster if you put it in the fridge.

Last one: White chocolate apples!

White Chocolate Candy Apples

Ingredients

Apples

Lollipop or popsicle sticks

White Chocolate (recipe from Lisa at Vegan Culinary Crusade)

1/2 cup melted raw cacao butter (place it in a bowl of hot water until it becomes liquid)
1 tsp vanilla bean (extract or powder)
1/4 cup raw agave syrup (if you keep it in the fridge give it some time on the counter to warm up so it won't cause the cacao butter to solidify too quickly).

Method
Stir everything together in a bowl.
Dip apples in white chocolate coating. Let cool to harden. It is OK to put in fridge, but do not put in freezer. The white chocolate coating is ok in the freezer, but frozen apples thaw out to be mush.
Note: I did not try it, but I think adding 1Tbsp coconut oil to this recipe would make a nice smooth coating that hardens. Let me know if you try that and how it turns out!

Enjoy your healthy, allergy-friendly candy apples! 

I'd love to hear which one you choose, and how it turns out.

Gluten Free Vegan Halloween Krispy Treats

The inspiration for this recipe was a bag of puffed millet that I wasn't quite sure what to do with. If you are not familiar with millet, you will be happy to know that it is a low-calorie, gluten free grain with nearly 10% protein. Millet is high in magnesium; magnesium is beneficial to cardiovascular health, and can help prevent muscle cramps and migraines. Millet is also high in B-vitamins, folate, iron and zinc. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I found this puffed millet is similar in texture to puffed rice. It is puffed and airy, but soft, not crispy. The only ingredient in the (Arrowhead Mills brand) cereal below is millet; nothing else.

The recipe below uses brown rice syrup instead of the marshmallows that are traditionally used in krispy treats. Why? Take a look:

The ingredients in Kraft marshmallows, large or small, are: corn syrup, sugar, modified food starch, dextrose, water, gelatin, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, artificial flavor, natural flavor, and blue #1.

Besides the corn, corn, and more corn, fake laboratory ingredients with names I can't pronounce, and artificial colors and flavors- I won't even go into how gelatin is rendered. You can Google it... it's pretty disgusting. Blech! I'm not even vegetarian, but gelatin is an ingredient I'd like to avoid.

Dried apricots and raisins sneak in a little extra nutrition in this recipe, in addition to adding Halloween color.

Allergy-Friendly Halloween Krispy Treats

Ingredients
2 cups puffed millet
1/2 cup cashew butter (click here for how to make your own)
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
Dash himalayan salt (optional)
Dried apricots, diced
Dried zante currants (or raisins)

Method
Add cashew butter and brown rice syrup to a large saucepan over low heat.

Stir until melted.

Add dash of salt, if using. Stir to mix.
Add puffed millet.

Stir until millet is well coated with syrup mixture.

Add diced dried apricots and currants. Stir to combine.

Drop large spoonfuls of millet-fruit mixture onto parchment paper and let cool.

The mixture is pretty hot at this point, so just drop it onto the parchment paper, don't worry about the shape.

When it is cool enough to handle, shape into balls (just roll between your palms).

Enjoy!

Bailey is such a good dog. Since he is so darn cute laying there watching me take photos of food, I thought I'd let him pose with the treats too : ) He just likes the attention, he doesn't even try to swipe a treat : )

This recipe is linked to Cybele Pascal's Allergy Friendly Friday. Click to check out the other great allergy friendly recipes and the rest of Cybele's blog for awesome gluten, dairy, and egg free recipes.