Green Chile and Chocolate Cupcakes

This recipe didn't start with green chile - but as a rule of thumb, if you can put green chile in it, then you probably should. The cupcakes hold their own without, chocolatey and fluffy, and there's nothing to be missed from flour. Because who has time for flour.

1/2 cup almond butter
1 garbage banana, mashed
1 egg
1.5 Tbsp maple (or honey, or sugar, or some weird xylitol mixture)
1/4 cup unsweetened cacao powder (see footnote)
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup zucchini, shredded
1/2 cup carrots, shredded (excessive vegetable is optional, but makes the muffins go farther)
1 green chile, roasted, peeled, and finely chopped (ya, ya, optional).

Combine, fill a 12 cup muffin pan (they'll be like half height muffins), and bake at 350F for 20 mins.

Footnote: This recipe is just a ploy to eat more chocolate. Cacao powder is so delicious and you can add it to anything.. like your morning oatmeal, or yogurt, or coffee, or just eat it straight out of the bag.  Hell you could put that shit on a celery stick.  I love cacao powder so much I recently bought a 5 lb bag to qualify my 2 dollar amazon purchase for free shipping.  I think I won on that.  They even wrote superfood on the bag so you know it's haaaaalthy.

On another note, I have a similar rule of thumb for kimchi, so these cupcakes might get interesting pretty quickly.

Just Banana Bread

For some reason I absolutely cannot get enough of this recipe. So here it is. Simple is as simple does.

3/4 cup oats
2 bananas
2 eggs
1/4 c almond butter
3 T sugar (wet, dry, stevia, whatever works. maple is awesome and honey makes everything taste like honey)
1 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt

Food processor - start with just oats until they are floury. Add the rest and blend to a batter.  Pour in a oiled (or lined) loaf pan and bake for 40-45 min at 350F.  You can add some walnuts or chocolate chips for some extra fun.

Calypso Beans (WHY IS THERE FRUIT IN MY FOOD?!)

This list may seem outrageous to you, as it did to me, when this recipe was passed down to me many years ago. So much so that it took me 6 literally years of sitting in my "starred" e-mail box before I gave it a try. Huge oversight. Try it now.

2 red peppers, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 banana, chopped
1 mango, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb dried calypso beans
1 unloved beer (or stock or bouillon)
3-4 thai chili or red chili
salt and pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 bunch of chopped cilantro
1 can coconut milk

*If you can, soak beans overnight.*

In a stock pot, sauté all the vegetable and fruit things (don’t add coconut milk yet. Drain the hopefully soaking beans and add the beans in water (mix in a beer or add bouillon, etc) to the mixture and simmer for an hour or so, making sure you have a least an inch of liquid over the beans – and you may need to add more water if it gets low.

Add salt and pepper and chili during the hour to taste. When the beans are approaching softish, add the cilantro and coconut milk and simmer for 15 minutes longer.

Hummus: the paste that connects us all.

When the end of times is here - we can all agree on one thing.. hummus is awesome.  Here is a cooked and raw iteration. The best part of these hummus recipes is they are bean free -- i.e. wont give you hummus farts.

Roasted Zucchini Hummus

2 zucchinis, charred, roasted, go ahead and burn it
2 Tbsp tahini
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp pepper
juice of 1 lemon
a bit of fresh cilantro
1 tsp olive oil

Throw everything in a food processor except the olive oil. Keep the skin on the zucchini.  Pour blended into a dish then add some additional paprika for color and drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top. SO EXCELLENT.

Raw Sweet Potato Hummus

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, in a few chunks
1/4 cup cashews (or sub pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds)
2 Tbsp tahini
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp pepper
juice of 1 lemon

Blend in a food processor or a blender. Taste good?  This is a recreation of a cultured hummus product made locally in Sacramento. It never tastes quite the same. But it also doesn't cost $7.

Shakshuka

This super simple recipe has rocked the house lately. Even if nobody can say it.

1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 hot pepper, fresh or dried (ancho chiles are great!)
1 jar tomatoes n juices (or three or four fresh tomatoes, tomato paste to sub for volume)
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika (smoked preferably)
1 tsp cumin
4 - 6 eggs (or 2 eggs per human being fed)
1/4 cup parsley (or something that looks like it, I've used celery leaves for the parsley effect)
1/2 cup feta cheese

Optional, but really fun adds:
Mushrooms
Kim Chi
Kale


Saute onions and garlic for 5ish minutes. Throw in the peppers, tomatoes, and spices and cook the tomatoes down for 20ish minutes, stirring occasionally.  If you have any fun optionally add them here.

Spoon a few depressions in the tomato mix and crack eggs in the holes.  The eggs will poach themselves after 5ish minutes and turn off the heat when yolks are still running but the whites have turned, well, white.  Throw on the feta and parsley and serve! Can eat with a spoon or over rice or with breadtype things if you so desire.  I'm pretty sure this is a breakfast food but I think it makes a great dinner.

Steel-Cut Risotto

Risotto is delicious. It's also time consuming and requires an inappropriate amount of attention while cooking. Enter rice's best friend, oats! Subbing steel-cut oats for arborio may seem like a lazy way to avoid the grocery store - but it's really quite brilliant.  Thus far, my efforts at steel-cut oat risotto have yielded better results than the original. Try it, you'll see!

1 c steel cut oats, soak for 1 hour (or all day)
1 T olive oil
1/2 white onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c white wine
2 c broth (or water and bouillon)
1/4 c sun dried tomatoes, chopped
1 c mushrooms
1/2 c spinach
2 T nutritional yeast
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 t salt
pepper to taste
Cheesy substitute to top if desired, although it's pleasantly creamy without.

Soak your oats. Do it. Then, when you're ready:

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil for 3-5 minutes. Add oats and lightly toast for another 3 minutes or so.  Add your wine, stir, and bring to a simmer. Add sun-dried tomatoes. After your wine has evaporated, add 1 c of broth, stirring to avoid oat stickage. Drop in your mushrooms. Add the last broth cup after the first dose has been absorbed. add the remaining ingredients. Once all the liquid has disappeared, you're ready to go!

Carrot Fake

Oh hey girl, hey. Been a while. I've been making a lot of random sub-par foodstuffs lately, mostly from unwanted food waste, and nothing worth blogging about.  This recently recurring recipe is a change of pace. So hey, why not put it on the internet. Note that it's not original. Stealz. But tasty.  Most convenient this tasty dessert requires no cooking - because who can wait for sugary goodness?

The Fake Part
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup pitted dates
1 cup walnuts
2/3 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt


The Top Part
2 cups raw cashews, soaked
2/3 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
juice from 1/2 lemon

In a food processor, shred carrots. Switch blades, add the remaining ingredients and smoosh until well chopped and mixed but still identifiable objects. Spread into the bottom of a bread pan or pie dish. Don't wash your food processor. But in all the top part ingredients and mix until its as liquid and smooth as it with get. If you need to add extra water to get it smoother go for it, but the intent is for it to be a self-supported goo so don't go too wild.  Once smooth, spread on top of what is in your pan. Then immediately take it back out of the pan and put it in your mouth.

Banana Cream Pie

GARBAGE BANANAS!

So I made this raw dessert mostly to use aging irish moss I had. It's used primarily as a solidifying agent as a substitute for fat products in raw foods. I don't recommend buying the stuff as its weird and smells like fish. So where I used 1 cup of irish moss, I would sub with 1 cup of cashews, blended to smithereens.

Crust:

1 c almonds

1 c cashews

1 c dates

1 T coconut oil

Banana Cream Filling:

3 garbage bananas

1 c coconut flakes

juice from 1 lemon

1 t vanilla

1 c irish moss

Not so creamy whipped cream topping:

1 c coconut flakes

1 c coconut milk

1/4 c coconut sugar

1/4 c coconut oil

1/4 c irish moss

Crust - food processor until you get the consistency of a Larabar.  About 3-5 minutes and it will start to clump together. Press into a pie pan and chill.  Filling things in a blender then pour into pie pan. Let chill between layers.  Let finished pie chill and set for about an hour.

Mega Salad to the Max

This one is a winner.  I had this salad at Fudenjuice in Nevada City (which is just awesome) and it was so incredibly good I immediately wanted to eat it again. So for a dinner party that very same day I recreated it. Well received.

Everything works just so right, I'm in love.  I've had it both cold and warm (cause I couldn't wait for the quinoa and tempeh to cool) and it's really pretty fantastic either way.

First note - the recipe calls for a cup of cooked grain further down, so I suggest you start that first before preceding.

Dressing
1/4 c miso
1/4 c tahini
1/4 c water
3 T rice vinegar
2 T tamari
2 T sesame oil
1 T maple syrup

Combine everything in a bowl and stir until smooth. If still pretty thick (kind of tahini-dependent) add more water (or oil).

Tempeh
8 oz package tempeh, cut into half inch cubes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T tamari
1 T lemon juice
1 T fennel seed
1 t basil
1 t marjoram
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 t sage

Cover the tempeh with water in a saute pan and boil until water is absorbed. Add everything else and cook about 10 minutes, stirring aggressively to break up the cubes a bit.

Salad
1 bunch spinach
1 cup cooked grain (rice or quinoa)
1 apple
1/4 c seeds (pumpkin or sunflower)
1/4 c nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Chop and wash your spinach (spinach, along with leeks, are the only items I consistently wash - for reals that's dirty). Layer your spinach and pile a cup of cooked grain, your sliced apple, and then go nuts... or not. Top with your cooked tempeh and add your dressing.

Lemon Rosemary Muffins

A quick savory muffin recipe. Let's get baked!

1/2 c rice flour
1/2 c garbanzo bean flour
1/4 c arrowroot starch
2 T buckwheat flour
2 T quinoa flakes
1 T baking powder
1 T flax seed
1 T rosemary
1/2 t salt
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c coconut milk
juice of one lemon
1 tsp lemon zest
1/2 c butter-like substance*

Combine dry. Add wet. Stir. Bake at 350F for 15-17 minutes.

*For an extra fragrant savory breakfast treat, you can use herb-infused fat products. You know... like lavender butter or basil olive oil. Sounds fancy, right? Easier than you think. Put ~1/2 cup of ground herbs with 1 cup of oil or butter (or a 1:48 herb-to-fat weight ratio) and put in a crock pot with 1/4 cup of water on low for 8-10 hours. I've used this local brand of cultured non-dairy buttery product, but anything high in saturated fat will do: actual butter, avocado oil, coconut oil, palm oil, etc. would all do the trick!