Archive | March, 2015

Homemade Coconut Butter (& Coconut Chocolate Fudge)

Published on in Condiment, Freeze-able, Nightshade-free, Raw, Snack By |
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One of my favourite things is discovering that a specialty food item that I buy on a regular basis is actually really easy to make at home. It’s not just about saving money, it’s about being able to choose the base ingredients and having control over the processing variables too. Cleaner, fresher, less processed food is right up my alley, and the money saving thing is pretty awesome too.

You may have heard of (or spent a lot of money buying) coconut butter (aka coconut manna). It is different from coconut oil, as it is made with the whole coconut flesh as opposed to being extracted from the coconut flesh. Physically, it is like the difference between puréed avocado and avocado oil.

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Kimchi, the Crushing-Cancer Way

Published on in Condiment, Fermented, Keto-friendly, Nightshade-free By |
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I had a dream the other night that I smelled like old cabbage and everyone around me was too polite to say anything. I have been spending a lot of around fermenting cabbage lately… So far nobody has been bold enough to tell me that I smell like sauerkraut, but clearly my subconscious thinks I might. Oh god, DO I?!

At least I am on trend. Home fermentation projects are picking up steam, which is great news for the world’s intestinal health. Imagine a world where all of our intestinal bacteria was in balance! It could only lead to world peace.

Kimchi, a spicy, more interesting version of naturally fermented sauerkraut, is a Korean staple, and I totally understand why (and that’s before we even get into the health benefits). It is tart, salty, pungent, complex and sooo very addictive. The version that I make is not authentic, as I have kept the ingredients fresh and as local as possible (no rice starch or fish sauce etc) but it is equally delicious and addictive.

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Gado Gado Salad with Sunflower Seed Sauce & Quinoa

Published on in Freeze-able, Grains, Legumes, Main course, Nightshade-free, Salad, Seeds By |
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I spend a lot of time thinking about how to encourage people (trick people into?) eating more vegetables. It is just too easy to become bored with ‘salad’ or to eat the same convenient veggies all of the time until we can’t bring ourselves to eat them anymore. If we keep them fresh and interesting, eating more vegetables and an a greater variety of them will not feel like a chore.

Gado-gado literally translates to mix-mix but it may as well translate to ‘this peanut sauce is going to trick you into eating aaaaaalll these veggies’, because that is what happens every time. In my experience, pour on a warm, delicious sauce, bonus if it is Indonesian, and whatever it is mix-mixed with will get eaten.

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Millet Polenta

Published on in Grains, Nightshade-free By |
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You may remember a looooong time ago, your little sister coming home from school with a homemade birdfeeder: a pinecone rolled in peanut butter and then mysterious little grains. Naturally when most of us see these grains, even if it’s in a human-food aisle at the grocery store, we think of birdseed. It makes sense, it has been in our birdfeeders (or stuck to our pinecones) for years.

Not just for the birds anymore, millet, the grain with the nerdiest name also happens to be one of the few grains that is alkalizing to our bodies. This doesn’t mean it will help you fly like a bird, but it may help you alienate some wonky cells. Cancer waaaaay prefers to live in an acidic body over an alkaline one, so alkalizing foods are our cancer-crushing friends. Millet is also gluten/allergen-free and very easy to digest. Bonus.

It also happens to make a really good, cornmeal-free polenta. Millenta? It is mild-tasting and somehow texturally comparable enough to pass for something very close to the real deal. (more…)