All posts in recipes

Marlene told me, after my class in Kennewick, Washington, that she makes chia pudding for her diabetic husband as a meal or dessert. (Cinnamon is a great blood-sugar controller—note that she adds lots of cinnamon to his pudding.) It’s a great idea, since chia is a power food, and high in protein as well. (It’s pure fallacy that you can’t get enough protein eating a plant-based diet! You don’t have to go out of your way to find protein—greens, nuts, seeds, grains, and legumes average about 10%, which is perfect. But chia is particularly high, at 23%.)

I asked for the recipe, and here it is. Thank you, Marlene!

MARLENE’S CHIA SEED PUDDING

Stir together

1 TBSP chia seed 

about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of any milk alternative or water (hubby uses unsweetened chocolate almond milk, I use regular or coconut milk)

As much cinnamon as you enjoy (Hubby is diabetic so he gets about 1 tsp, I use less)

Let those two soak while you are busy for about 20 minutes.

Add any seed that you like:

1/2 TBSP sesame seed

!/2 TBSP sunflower seed 

1/2 TBSP pumpkin seed

Stir above together and add more liquid if needed

1 TBS nuts

1/2 TBSP unsweetened flaked coconut 

Sprinkle of hemp seed powder

Stir all together and then add whatever fruit you enjoy. We enjoy it with no added sweetener, just frozen berries in the winter or fresh fruit in the summer. I usually do not add the fruit till he is ready to eat, it can sit in the fridge for a couple of days if he gets too busy.  When I add the fruit, I mix in a little more liquid.  

This gives hubby a nice breakfast or dessert and does not raise his blood sugar as other breakfasts and desserts do.  He likes the energy he gets from eating it. It is usually a daily meal for him. Quantities can be increased for a family (our kids are gone and raised).

The more you eat raw food, the simpler it becomes. When I’m by myself, what I eat at home tends to be bare-bones, if I’m not in restaurants with friends. But when I have a Sunday dinner for my family, or a special occasion, I make it fancier. I’m not always the greatest at planning ahead, so sometimes I open the fridge and make something up, based on one ingredient I’d like to use.

Yesterday my two youngest kids made a lovely Mother’s Day dinner. I had a quick brainstorm about how to make the two pints of blueberries (currently in season) in the fridge into a dessert.

I put some young Thai coconut meat (1/2 cup?) and coconut liquid (1/2 cup?) into my BlendTec, with a little lemon juice (1 Tbsp?) and agave (2 Tbsp?), plus some cashews (1/3 cup?) and 6 frozen strawberries. I whizzed it up into a cream sauce and served it with ½ cup blueberries in each of five crystal glasses as a parfait. Yum, everyone gobbled it up.

(I put question marks after the measurements because I didn’t measure, so these are guesses—don’t hold me to them!)

So my Breakfast class at the Zermatt Resort last week was great fun. Just one strange thing, I discovered after class when I went to sample the food: the chef apparently made my Pumpkin Waffles . . . without pumpkin!

Weird. But my newsletter with these recipes went out, and one reader immediately went out to find canned pumpkin and said “crop damage” means no canned pumpkin right now. Maybe that’s why! (I keep it in my food storage, so I didn’t know.) If you can’t get it in the store, hang onto this recipe, perfect for fall. Or used cooked pureed carrots, or your own winter squash or pumpkin, baked, outer peel removed, pureed.

Anyway, we love these dense, delicious waffles with raw applesauce from the apples coming out of our tree now (see the photo below of Tennyson picking them), and a little real maple syrup.

To redeem myself, here’s the recipe. It makes a big batch so you have leftovers, which you can freeze if you want.

Remember (read Ch. 9 all about this) that if you soak the liquids in the grains overnight, you neutralize phytic acids that may bind to minerals, making them unavailable to you. You also break down the proteins, making grains easier to digest.

PUMPKIN WAFFLES

2 cups whole-wheat flour (finely ground, soft white is my favorite for this)

2 cups regular rolled oats

1 (30 oz.) can pumpkin

¼ cup coconut oil (liquid)

3 Tbsp. Sucanat or unrefined coconut sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. sea salt

1 ½ tsp. baking powder (no aluminum), reduce by ½ tsp. if you soaked grains overnight

1 cup yogurt or kefir

2 ½ cups water

2 tsp. vanilla

3 eggs (organic, free range) or 3 Tbsp. chia soaked in 9 Tbsp. water

Mix rolled oats in your high-power blender to break them down to a coarse meal. Mix the whole-wheat flour, oats, yogurt, and water together, then cover and let sit overnight (optionally). In the morning, add the remaining ingredients and mix by hand, but don’t overmix. Batter is dense, and baking time usually must be longer than waffle timer indicates. Top with Quick Raw Applesauce or plain yogurt, and real maple syrup.

Quick Raw Applesauce

4 large Jonathan or Fuji apples, washed/cored/quartered

1 cup water

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

1/3 cup (or more, to taste) maple syrup

Pulse all ingredients in high-power blender for a chunky sauce.

Some people have a holiday season. I have that, plus Birthday Season. As I’ve mentioned, all four of my kids were born within a couple of weeks of each other. A primetime TV show made hay about me having a combined birthday party. (The producers cooked up something about an obsession I supposedly have with efficiency.)

Unfortunately they failed to mention the proximity of the birthdays, and the fact that they get an individual “friend” party. They just get a combined party for my very large extended family who has to drive 45 – 90 minutes to get to my house.

Here’s what I did this year. I made whole-grain, naturally sweetened Chocolate Beet Cake for my kids and me. I made the usual stuff for everyone else. At the family party, I served my kids the healthy stuff. Then I put that cake in the fridge, serving everybody else cake-mix stuff they’re used to.

The next day at noon, I had Tennyson’s baseball party at the city park. Three hours after that was over, we had Libby’s water party in the back yard. I didn’t want to make two or three beet cakes. (It is easy, though.) As it is, I had to make cakes and cupcakes for 3 parties in 24 hours.

I got the leftover healthy cake out for my kids, for both “friend” parties.

See if you can tell which cake is which, in the photo below. (You can’t.) Also check out Ten’s birthday party—he’s the kid in the middle drinking a GS.

Maybe I’m obsessed with efficiency after all. But if so, let me plead my case here . . . it lends itself well to writing books that have REAL moms with REAL time-and-budget constraints in mind.

Not naming any names, but I’ve bought so many raw recipe books that have laborious instructions, expensive and exotic and hard-to-find ingredients. I’m not a gourmet, though I like food to taste good. I don’t love spending my whole day in the kitchen, though I’m willing to spend more than the average modern person’s 20 minutes in “food related activities.”

I’ve improved the chocolate cake and frosting recipes. Coconut sugar is better for you and has less impact on blood sugar than Sucanat (what’s in the original recipe in Ch. 11). The frosting is now more spreadable with the addition of hot water. Here they are:

Chocolate Beet Cake

3 eggs (organic, free range) or 9 Tbsp. water with 3 Tbsp. chia soaked in it
1 1/2 cups unrefined coconut sugar
3/4 cup coconut oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cup pureed, steamed beets (about 3-4 medium size)
1/4 cup baking cocoa (non-alkalized) or raw powdered chocolate
2 cups finely ground whole-wheat flour (soft white wheat is best)
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Steam beets until soft, about 15 mins. Puree beets in a VitaMix or BlendTec until you have 1 3/4 cups. Add eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add chocolate and other dry ingredients. Bake in 9″x13″ greased pan at 350 degrees for 30 min.

Fudge Frosting

1 cup unsweetened non-alkalized cocoa or raw powdered chocolate
2 cups coconut cream concentrate (soft, room temp or slightly warmed)
2 cups coconut sugar, blended in dry blender container until “powdered”

¼ to ½ cup hot water, to make frosting spreadable

Cream together all ingredients by hand until smooth. This frosts a 9″x13″ cake and leaves some extra for a treat.