Helen

Veggie Red Chile Stew

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Christmas 2013

Last night I made two pots of chile: red chile with liver broth and veggie red chile. Guess which one was better? You got it. Moral: NEVER put liver broth in ANYTHING. Corollary: Never stretch a pot of liver chile hoping to dilute the taste. You just get more. Here’s how to make the excellent veggie version:

Saute:

1/2 onion, diced
3 corn tortillas, ripped up
2 tbsp olive oil

Add and saute:

3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons New Mexico chile powder (or other medium-hot variety)
1 tablespoon paprika

Stir in:

1 15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes,
1 can water (or more)
2 cubes veggie bouillon

Et voila!

 

Camping Cakes

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You can call these flax cakes if you’re serving them to adults, but they taste better to children if you call them camping cakes.

  • 3 tablespoons flax meal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil, virgin or liquid

1. Mix all ingredients in a cereal bowl. If you use room-temperature virgin coconut oil, it will be difficult to blend completely, but the lumps will resolve in the baking.

2. Cook approximately 1 minute 15 seconds in a microwave oven. Let cake sit for one minute. Swipe a knife around the inside of the bowl and remove the cake. Slice it in half horizontally to make two round slices.

3. Or bake: Make four recipes; pour into in a 12-count muffin pan; and bake in a 350F oven until golden brown. Skip step 4 below.

4. Toast in a toaster oven for about 3 minutes. Spread with butter or oil spread . Top with jam or syrup.

High-Protein Variation

  • Add 1 tablespoon plain gelatin powder

Camping Tip

Pack untoasted cakes in your cooler. Brown cakes in oil at breakfast time in a pan on a cookstove. Serve.

Caramel Sauce

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The delightful Feldman sisters, 9-year-old Leah and 6-year-old Evann, helped me make this excellent sauce on a recent visit to their parents’ home in Petaluma, California.

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 stick salted butter
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Caramelize the sugar in a narrow, deep pan (stir slowly over medium heat until the sugar becomes a golden-brown syrup).

Add butter one pat’s worth at a time, allowing the butter to melt before adding more.

Pour in the cream a couple of tablespoons at a time, allowing the caramel mixture to resume  boiling before adding more.

Serve liberally over vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Note of caution: fiery hot temperatures result during the cooking process. Adult supervision required.

 

 

Flax Coconut Oil Chocolate Cookies

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I love these cookies. Also see excellent vegan and raw versions at the end of this post.

  • 1/3 cup coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup coconut flakes (unsweetened)
  • 2/3 cup flax meal
  • 2/3 cup dextrose (glucose as powder; common baker’s sugar)
  • 2/3 cup cocoa (or 1 cup ground cocoa beans/nibs)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla (best is Madagascar, Mexican or Dominican Republic)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Combine. Roll into balls. Place 1″ apart on a cookie sheet. Smash flat. Bake at 350F for 14 minutes.

Upon leaving the oven, the cookies will be moist and fragile. Remove them carefully from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack. After coming to room temperature, the cookies will have a perfect crunchy chew.

Variations: Add chopped walnuts or pecans. Add dark chocolate chips (my favorite is 90%).

My friend Maureen gets the prize for trying this recipe out first. Hers were excellent. Thanks for sharing, Maureen! Friends who bake are the best kind, aren’t they?

March 2014

Vegan Version – Raw or Baked

  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/3 cup coconut flakes
  • 2/3 cup flax meal
  • 2/3 cup dextrose (glucose as powder; common baker’s sugar)
  • 2/3 cup cocoa (or 1 cup ground cocoa beans/nibs)
  • 1 scoop chocolate protein power (10g protein)
  • 3 tablespoons rum
  • (baking powder not necessary for raw version)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla (Madagascar or Dominican Republic)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (for baking but fine for raw too)

Roll into balls of 1 heaping tablespoonful. Bake 5 min at 350F (if you prefer) and let sit in cooling oven. Excellent raw too.

Anna came for dinner just because.  What a nice surprise. We  had these for dessert, but I served them blackened. This is how we found out five minutes is enough. – Helen 

April 2016

Lentil Hummus Salad

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These first ingredients are the same ones you assemble for Black Lentil Hummus (see recipe):

  • 1 tablespoon tahini
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup cooked and drained lentils (try black, green, French)
  • 1 crushed garlic clove
  • 1/2 – t teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Stir. Add any combination and ratio of these vegetables according to your preference:

  • radishes
  • carrots
  • green onions
  • tomatoes
  • parsley

Black Lentil Hummus

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We happened to have cooked black lentils in the fridge one evening, and this recipe came into being. Lentils have more fat and protein than chickpeas, the usual hummus legume (but the same carbohydrate content). This gives lentil hummus an even lower glycemic index than traditional hummus. January 2014.

  • 1 tablespoon tahini
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 cup cooked and drained black lentils
  • 1 crushed garlic clove
  • 1/2 – t teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne

Pulse in a small blender, adding only as much water as needed for pureeing. Serve with carrot sticks and romaine lettuce leaves.

Lentil Hummus Salad (a variation)

Assemble the ingredients for Black Lentil Hummus in a bowl, bypassing the blender step. Add freshly chopped vegetables like tomatoes, green onions, radishes, carrots and parsley. Toss.

 

German Chocolate Cake

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Following are two chocolate cake recipes, a coconut pecan frosting recipe and a dark chocolate frosting recipe.

Ma and I perfected the nutmeal cake recipe in late November 2014 after she had just turned 80. She sat at my counter while I baked, read the ingredients to me, and kept me great company. We talked about how Grandma Montoya, her mother, had not been afraid of baking powder. Neither are we.

Nutmeal Chocolate Cake

  • 1/2 cup dextrose
  • 1/2 cup brown rice syrup
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla
  • 1/4 cup coconut, almond, soy or hemp milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup coconut fat, melted
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 cup nut/grain/seed meal*

* Grind nuts/grain/seeds together in a mini-blender to a coarse flour. Grinding them all at once prevents the fattier nuts from collecting in the base of the blender. Try a 3-item combination of walnuts, pecans, cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, oats, buckwheat and/or barley.

Grain-flour Chocolate Cake

Tried and true. We made this cake for Katie’s 21st birthday celebration with cousins Ben and Sasha.

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 cup ground cocoa beans
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1  1/2 cup dextrose
  • 1 cup oat flakes, oat bran or ground oat groats (if oat flour, 3/4 cup)
  • 1/3 cup espresso or coffee
  • 1/3 cup canola or olive oil
  • 2 eggs

Combine dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients. Combine dry with wet. Bake in three 6″  or two 8″ diameter shallow pans. Baked goods sweetened with 100% glucose do not rise as high as those containing sucrose.

Coconut Pecan Frosting

  • 2 tablespoons Dominican Republic or Mexican vanilla
  • 1 cup brown rice syrup
  • 1/4 cup coconut cream* from a can of full fat coconut milk
  • 1/2 cup coconut fat (or butter)
  • 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
  • 1 cup chopped pecans, walnuts or both

Melt coconut fat. Stir in vanilla. Stir in brown rice syrup until heated, but not hot. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients.

Dark Chocolate Frosting

  • 100 grams unsweetened chocolate
  • 100 grams coconut cream* from a can of full fat coconut milk
  • 70 grams dextrose

Melt chocolate on low. Stir in dextrose and cream until creamy. Cool.

Assembling the Cake

Spread tops of cake layers with Coconut Pecan Frosting. Stack layers. Spread sides with Dark Chocolate Frosting.

*Upon opening a can of room temperature coconut milk, spoon out as much cream as you can, then measure out the desired amount. Use the coconut water for another purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mexican Chocolate Pudding

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Nancy, Mark and son Schorl Brest Van Kempen are coming tonight to visit us Salases and to sing Christmas carols. We are serving Veggie Red Chile (see recipe) and this pudding.

  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 ¼ cups half and half
  • 1 ¼ cups coconut cream
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 3/4 cups dextrose
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • ¼ cup bitter or semisweet chocolate, melted

 Stir in:

  •  1 tablespoon butter

 Fold in:

  • ½ cup whipping cream, whipped and sweetened to taste

 

Veggie Red Chile Stew

Posted on by

Christmas 2013

Last night I made two pots of chile: red chile with liver broth and veggie red chile. Guess which one was better? That’s right, hands down. Moral: Never put liver broth in anything. Corollary: Never stretch a pot of liver chile hoping to dilute the taste. You just get more. Here’s how to make the excellent veggie version:

Saute:

1/2 onion, diced
3 corn tortillas, ripped up
2 tbsp olive oil

Add and saute:

3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons New Mexico chile powder (or other medium-hot variety)
1 tablespoon paprika

Stir in:

1 15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 or more cans water or bean broth
2 cubes veggie bouillon
1  1/2 cups cooked Christmas beans (or other)

Et voila!

 

 

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