Tag: coconut oil

Sesame Noodles with Cabbage and Broccoli

My Dad was in the hospital this week. He had a heart attack in July of 2012 and at the time, for various reasons, the doctors thought it would be best to send him home instead of doing surgery. In the months that followed, I watched as my Dad struggled daily with chest pain, headaches, and severe exhaustion. He couldn’t work and sometimes he couldn’t get out of bed until the afternoon. His quality of life was shattered and though I knew he desperately wanted to make positive changes for his health, the odds seemed to be stacked against him.

Fast forward to today, and he’s finally had his bypass surgery. He’s in recovery and doing great! He says it’s the first time in 6 months that he hasn’t felt like someone is squeezing down on his heart. His spirits are high, and I’m really hopeful about the future and his potential to change things up and live the best life possible.

So this week when Monday came around and it was time for my Food Matters Project post, I wasn’t quite feeling up to it. I was pretty exhausted, but the crew of FMP’ers was super supportive and said I should just whip this one up quickly… and I’m glad I listened!

What a great, easy dinner for a tired weeknight. This came together so quickly and tasted so great! The original was a recipe with salmon and spinach, but it’s such a versatile recipe that just about anything would work. I was thinking it would be great with some shiitake mushrooms and red peppers… what do you think?

Check out the Food Matters Project site for all the other fantastic variations on this dish. And wander on over to Sara’s lovely blog for the original recipe. While you’re at it, why not check out our Pinterest board for some awesome meal planning inspiration!

SESAME NOODLES WITH CABBAGE AND BROCCOLI
serves 3-4

1 tbsp coconut oil
1 onion, diced
1/2 head red cabbage, sliced thinly
1 large head broccoli, cut into florets
1 small tin of bamboo shoots, drained
2 tbsp Braggs soy seasoning
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tbsp sesame seeds
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 drops stevia or 1 tsp maple syrup or other sweetener
2 tsp dried red chili flakes
8 ounces buckwheat soba noodles (I found ones with 95% buckwheat flour and 5% sweet potato!)

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. When the water boils, add the noodles and cook for about 5 minutes, or according to package directions (stop cooking before they get mushy!). Remove the noodles from heat, strain, and rinse. The rinsing step is necessary so they don’t taste too starchy.

Saute the onion in the coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the onion is tender, add the cabbage and cook for a couple minutes, then add the broccoli and cook another couple minutes. Stir in all of the remaining ingredients (except the noodles), until everything is well mixed and then remove from heat. Taste it and adjust the seasoning if you need, maybe a tad more soy sauce, sesame oil, or chili flakes. Now toss the noodles in the mix or just scoop the cabbage mix over top of the noodles and enjoy. So easy!

+ Erin
P 01/16/2013
t Blog, Dinner, Gluten-Free, Vegan
Cbamboo shoots, broccoli, cabbage, coconut oil, sesame oil, sesame seeds, soba
9 4 Comments

Grain-Free Chocolate Walnut-Date Tart

This week for The Food Matters Project, Margarita chose Walnut Biscotti. Now, I’ve never made biscotti… and I’ve never been really drawn to it, I’m admittedly a chewy cookie kinda gal.

But the walnut part got me thinking.

And I’d seen this amazing chocolately-nutty-datey tart floating around in the internet recently, it just seemed like the right thing to do. And let me tell you… it was!

I made a grain-free almond crust, pureed the dates and walnuts together for the filling, and topped it off with a raw chocolate ganache.

This is a gluten-free, grain-free, refined sugar-free, dairy free, vegan, (mostly) raw dessert that is actually delicious. I know, it’s wild.

It was really sweet. I could only eat half the tart, but don’t worry, I saved the other half for later.

And don’t forget to check out the biscotti successes over at The Food Matters Project. I may just be swayed over to the biscotti side yet, especially after all the great things the group had to say about the recipe… and biscotti can be dipped in chocolate, so that’s a huge +1 in my books.

RAW CHOCOLATE WALNUT-DATE TARTS
Adapted from the beautiful blog Gourmande in the Kitchen
makes 5 3.5 inch tarts (or 1 9 inch tart – I made 4 of the 3.5 inch ones and had some leftover that I put in a small dish)

For the Crust – combine the following in food processor until it is finely ground and crumbly, press into tart shells (with removable bottoms)
2 cups almonds
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp maple syrup (not technically raw, you can use honey but it’s not vegan)
2 tbsp melted coconut oil
a few drops water if needed to help it come together

For the Walnut-Date Filling – combine in food processor until creamy, then stir in walnuts and scoop into tart shells
8 Medjool dates (or 10 of the dried, baking dates) soaked in 1/3 cup warm water
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (stir in after processing)

For the Chocolate Ganache Topping – stir together and spoon onto tarts
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 drop stevia (or 2 more tbsp maple syrup)
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup raw cacao powder

Top tarts with chopped walnuts (1/4 cup) and chill in fridge to set for 30 mins before digging in.

*note* This is a very rich dessert, and while it doesn’t contain any refined sugar, wheat flour, butter, and milk products, it is by no means a freebie treat. It’s got lots of coconut oil, nuts, and maple syrup, so that means it’s also got lots of calories. It’s still better than your average processed dessert, but it’s best enjoyed in moderation and with a great big smile on your face!

+ Erin
P 12/10/2012
t Blog, Dessert, Gluten-Free, Vegan
Calmond, coconut oil, dates, raw, raw cacao, tart, walnut
9 9 Comments

Curried Squash and Red Lentil Soup

For this week’s Food Matters Project, I threw together this hearty, flavourful soup. With Winter quick approaching, this is a quick meal, perfect for a cold evening.

See the original recipe (Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon) on Jen’s blog, and see what everyone else did (including a squash ravioli and squash waffles, oh my!) at the Food Matters Project.

I used a Carnival Squash instead of a Butternut. These guys are versatile, and delicious.

Adding red lentils to this soup added some substance without sacrificing the flavour. Plus, a little bit more fibre (soluble and insoluble), protein, folate, magnesium, and iron will nourish your body!

You can use a pre-blended curry powder, but I like to make my own and add lots of different spices depending on how I’m feeling. Did you know that curry spices (usually turmeric, cumin, and coriander) are anti-inflammatory and rich in vitamins and minerals?

CURRIED SQUASH AND RED LENTIL SOUP
serves 6

1 onion, chopped
2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp curry powder (I used 1 tsp each of turmeric, cumin, coriander, ginger, paprika, and cinnamon)
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 cups red lentils
1 carnival squash (or other squash), cut and roasted at 350F for 30 mins – remove skin or scoop out squash
6-8 cups water, more depending on consistency and size of your squash
1 tbsp maple syrup (you can taste first, it did make it quite sweet and you might choose to omit)
juice of 1/2 lemon
splash of balsamic vinegar (1-2 tsps)
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, saute the onion in the oil until soft, add spices and mix to coat the onions, about 1 minute. Add the lentils and stir to coat, then add the squash and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer until the lentils are cooked, about 20-30 minutes. Let cool and puree with an immersion blender (or in your regular blender, just make sure it’s not scalding hot). Now taste and season. Add the rest of the ingredients, and extra water as needed. Enjoy!

Peppermint Coconut Sugar Cookies

These tasted like shortbread. Do you know what that means?

That means I at a lot of them.

I really love shortbread and its smooth, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth flavour and texture… but I don’t really eat it anymore, mostly because it’s typically loaded with sugar and butter – and if you buy it from the supermarket then who knows what else might be in the ingredients list. Binders and gums, high-fructose corn syrup and other corn derivatives, chemicals I can’t pronounce. The types of things I’d really rather not have in my cookies, thank you very much.

On top of that, I hadn’t figured out a way to make it without sugar and butter. I mean a way that tastes good, at least. So when these came out of the oven, I was very, very pleased.

I found them on Shauna’s site along with a post about how to make your own gluten-free all-purpose flour. I tolerate wheat alright, but I personally feel like it is a bit of a franken-crop (having been hybridized and changed so much from it’s original self), so I do my best to choose alternatives. Here are some great references for going wheat-free or just starting to explore consuming less wheat (and soy and corn).

And of course, there is the added bonus that the recipe calls for coconut oil as the fat and coconut sugar to sweeten – one of my favourite sugar substitutes as of late.

But back to the cookies.

+ Erin
P 11/08/2012
t Blog, Dessert, Gluten-Free
Ccoconut oil, coconut sugar, cookies, peppermint extract
9 2 Comments

Raw Chocolate Nut Clusters

Reid likes to bring home the occasional junk food. He usually has to hide it from me, but last night he came right out and sat next to me while eating his chocolate bar. I grabbed for it to check the ingredients… milk, milk products, milk milk milk, sugar, sugar hiding behind another name, safflower oil, blah blah blah.

Great.

Now I have someone eating chocolate right in front of me, the day after I’ve finished my cleanse, and I can’t eat it. I mean, I guess I could, but that might defeat the purpose of doing a cleanse in the first place… on top of the fact that milk makes me physically ill.

I flew into the kitchen in a frenzy. I dug out the raw cacao and rigged up a makeshift double boiler (a pot with a small plate inside and a bowl on top of the plate, the pot filled with water up to the middle of the bowl).

I spent the next 10 minutes making the most deliciously satisfying dark chocolatey treats that you ever did taste. Way better than some junky chocolate bar – real whole food chocolate treats! I’ve been eating them 2 at a time because one is never enough.

Raw cacao powder has loads of antioxidants and because it’s raw, you get all the goodness of active enzymes. If you can’t find raw cacao (really try though, it’s so good!) then regular cocoa powder will do. Cacao butter can be hard to find too, and it’s pricey, but it lends such a silky smoothness to the chocolate and stays more firm at room temp compared to coconut oil. You can still replace all the cacao butter with coconut oil and have a supremely delicious treat. Don’t fret, it will all work out… we’re making chocolate after all!

Decadent, indulgent, I-ate-one-at-breakfast-and-don’t-feel-bad-about-it chocolate. Bring it on.