These first ingredients are the same ones you assemble for Black Lentil Hummus (see recipe):
Stir. Add any combination and ratio of these vegetables according to your preference:
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.
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.
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
* 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.
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
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
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.
100 grams unsweetened chocolate
100 grams coconut cream (coconut milk minus water)
70 grams dextrose
Melt chocolate on low. Stir in coconut cream and dextrose just until creamy. Do not overcook.
For those of you that want to make hummus easily, this one’s for you.
(It’s the “third cup, third cup, two thirds cup” and the “1 teaspoon, 1 teaspoon” that makes it easier to remember for me. If you use the smaller cans of beans, you’ll have to do the arithmetic to figure it out and I’m pretty sure it won’t be as easy to remember.)
Throw everything into a blender and blend it up on the low speed. You want to make sure enough bean juice has been added so that the hummus has a nice flow in the blender so that you don’t need to keep pushing it down to get mixed up, but not too much juice (but remember that it will thicken up in the refrigerator).
If you want to have smooth(er) hummus you can do one of two things: either peel each and every garbanzo bean by hand (a very meditative exercise–expect to meditate for 30-40 minutes for a 25-oz can) or do a mostly-effective chemical peel of them by bringing the beans to a quick boil in a solution of water and 1 teaspoon baking soda (followed by rinsing in cold water and sort of squishing them gently to get the skins off).
A few things of note here:
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.
Stir in:
Fold in:
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!
Not too sweet, gluten-free, and sweetened with mostly glucose and very little sucrose. Thank you, Robyn at addapinch.com, for the original recipe from which this gf, low-sucrose version was created. We first enjoyed this pie Thanksgiving 2013.
For the Crust
For the Meringue
For the Whipped Topping
Instructions
For the Pie Crust Grind graham crackers and nuts into a fine meal. Stir in dextrose and melted butter. Press into a pie pan.
For the Toasted Coconut Topping Spread 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes evenly on a rimmed baking sheet. Place in 350º F oven for 8-10 minutes until coconut has just begun to turn brown. Set aside to cool.
For the Meringue Topping Beat room temperature egg yolks with extracts and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add dissolved cornstarch and dextrose slowly. Continuing whipping until stiff peaks form.
For the Coconut Custard Combine coconut milk, half-and-half, egg yolks, dextrose, cornstarch and salt in pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring slowly but steadily to prevent lumps from forming and the bottom of the pan from scalding. Boil one minute, still stirring. Remove from heat and add butter, coconut, vanilla and salt. Pour hot custard into pie crust. Immediately spread with meringue, ensuring meringue and crust attach. Bake at 350º F for 8 to 10 minutes, until meringue is golden brown.
For the Whipped Topping Place sugar and heavy whipping cream in a large bowl. Whisk with an electric mixer just until stiff peaks form.
After 21 years of my life and 19 of my younger sister’s, my mom bought us an ice cream maker. (This was a couple of months ago.) Hallelujah! This all came about because of my mom’s penchant for vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce. Ever since she went “free-fructose-free” she’d been denied this delicacy. So here we are today with an ice cream maker. Who would have known. Funny we’ve yet to make vanilla ice cream or caramel sauce, but oh the ice cream adventures we’ve had!
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1/3 cup lime juice (we used 4 key limes)
zest of 2 limes
1/3 cup dextrose
1/6 cup water
Throw everything together in a bowl, refrigerate for 2-3 hours and follow the directions on your ice cream maker. Dextrose isn’t grainy at all like table sugar, so it should dissolve easily without heating the coconut milk, but heat it up if you need to. Just make sure to cool the mixture a little longer.
Here’s a review/story from future U.S. ambassador Amanda Oswald: Tart! I, Amanda Oswald, called up Kate after 1 year of not seeing her. She miraculously answered and wasn’t busy! (Win.) Kate impressed Amanda with her churning skills. One suggestion would be to add sugar, and not just a little bit. I gave Kate Swiss chocolate because it’s the best in the world! —31/8/13
*Gluten-free nut/grain/seed flour mix:
1 ½ cups nut-grain meal
½ cup Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose baking flour
Place buckwheat, oat groats, teff grain, brown rice, almonds, cashews and flax seeds in Rocket or Bullet; grind into flour. You can replace Bob’s Red Mill flour mix with your own approximation. The ingredients are: garbanzo bean flour potato starch, tapioca flour, white sorghum flour, fava bean flour.
**Yes, a 100% chocolate baking bar. I haven’t yet found glucose-only-sweetened chocolate bars, so diehard processed-fructose-free bakers will either have to go it full-strength (which is surprisingly just fine) or melt, sweeten and resolidify.