Banana, Almond & Carob Smoothie

by tastyyummies on January 27, 2012

Banana, Almond & Carob SmoothieThe straight-on photo I took of this smoothie, with my good SLR camera, came out terrible and out of focus, so Instagram to the rescue! YAY!

My smoothie and juice obsession continues. My latest discovery is carob powder. Since I have been avoiding caffeine and sugar for the last two weeks, I haven’t had any chocolate, which has actually been totally fine. But given the time of month that it is right now (ahem, ladies – you know what I am talking about) my slight cravings for chocolate were definitely present this week. I didn’t wanna give in, but I was looking for something that would satisfy me without the caffeine and sugar. I ran across some carob powder while shopping last week at the grocery store and I grabbed it, excited to experiment. I know it can be used in place of cocoa in many recipes, so I figured it would be fun to try out in things like smoothies and maybe even some raw “cookie” balls and stuff. It has some similarities to chocolate, beyond the way that it looks, but it also has quite a few differences, too. Ounce for ounce carob has about the same amount of calories and fat as cocoa, but carob has about 3-times as much calcium as cocoa. It has its own unique flavor that is somewhere between cocoa and carmel, it is a bit sweeter than cocoa on it’s own. It is quite tasty and it definitely helped me curb that want for chocolate. Carob is a tropical pod that contains a sweet, edible pulp and inedible seeds. After drying, the pulp is roasted and ground into a powder that resembles cocoa powder in appearance.

In addition to it’s lovely taste and being caffeine-free, carob has a myriad of health benefits. Carob can help regulate the digestion process (YAY – BONUS!), while serving as a natural anti-allergic, antiseptic, and anti-bacterial agent. Additionally, carob provides powerful anti-viral benefits that supply the body with essential antioxidants. It can lower cholesterol levels in the blood and it is great for treatment of diarrhea. Carob is also rich in phosphor and calcium. For this reason, it is used in the fight against osteoporosis.

I have used it in a couple different smoothies this week, this one being my favorite, and I also made a hot carob drink with the carob powder, almond milk, honey and vanilla. I am still working on that recipe, but once I make it again and can photo it, I plan to share it with you. It was quite delicious and nice that I could enjoy a hot drink besides herbal tea in the evening and not be concerned about caffeine keeping me awake.  The flavor at first was a bit of a shock since my brain expected it to taste more like a hot cocoa, since it looked just like it, but once I got past the visual trickery, I really really enjoyed it.

This smoothie is a nice way to bring some very lovely flavors together. It is reminiscent of the classic flavors of chocolate, peanut butter and banana but with a fun and different twist.  I made a similar version today leaving out the almond butter and replacing the almond milk with full fat coconut milk and adding an additional teaspoon of carob power and topped with a sprinkle of unsweetened coconut, it was so delicious.

 

Banana, Almond & Carob Smoothie

Banana, Almond & Carob Smoothie
Serves 1

1 banana (you can freeze it and skip the ice if you want)
1 1/2 cups unsweetened organic vanilla almond milk
2 tablespoons unsalted, unsweetened organic almond butter
1 tablespoon of carob powder
1 tablespoon raw honey, or however much you want/need to sweeten it (you could also use dates, maple syrup, brown rice syrup etc to sweeten)
1 handful of ice

Add all the ingredients to your blender and process until smooth! 

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Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup (Vegan and Gluten-free)

by tastyyummies on January 26, 2012

Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup, Vegan and Gluten-free

I am super excited about how this soup turned out. This soup actually made me realize what a dork I am about good healthy food. It actually makes me stupid excited and I wanna dance around my kitchen! I love when you have an idea in your mind for a dish, you start experimenting, tasting and playing around and it just all falls perfectly into place. That happened with this soup. In fact, it actually came out better than I had imagined it would.

I topped this soup with a roasted red pepper puree that was inspired by a recipe I came across from Bon Appetit magazine in 2003 and I also drizzled some roasted butternut squash seed oil over top. I realize this oil is a very specialized product, and many of you may not have access to it, so you could certainly just use a good quality extra virgin olive oil, or just skip it altogether. The butternut squash seed oil that I have is from a company based in the Finger Lakes region of NY called Stony Brook Oils, I picked it up at Farmers and Artisans here in Buffalo. You can visit Stony Brook’s web site to get a listing of all of the stores you can buy their various squash seed oils at or you can even buy them online. Honestly, if you ever get a chance to try a pumpkin or a squash seed oil, do it. The flavors are incredible. It brings a unique nutty and roasted flavor to so many different dishes. I have never tasted anything like it.

I happened to be able to get my hands on some beautiful red bell peppers that I roasted on my stove top to use in this soup and for the puree on top. If the red peppers at your market aren’t looking so hot, just go with jarred roasted red peppers, they will work perfectly fine, too.

This naturally gluten-free and vegan soup is bursting with flavors and it is so beautiful and colorful. The roasted red peppers in the soup compliment the nutty flavor of the squash and the spicy, garlicky puree on top is a nice burst of bright flavor with a hint of spiciness. The puree was so delicious that I have been using it as a spread on sandwiches and on top of freshly steamed vegetables, etc. I feel like I always need to have a batch of this stuff on hand.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup, Vegan and Gluten-free

 

Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup
serves 6-8

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large butternut squash (about 2 to 2 1/2 lbs), peeled, seeded and cubed
1 large onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 roasted red peppers, diced (here is a great page of different options on how you can roast your own red peppers at home, I roasted mine on my stove top)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, roughly chopped
1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
7 cups low sodium vegetable broth

butternut squash seed oil (or olive oil) for drizzling

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions, celery and butternut squash and sauté until the onions and celery are tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and roasted red peppers; stir 1-2 minutes. Add thyme, salt and vegetable broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer until squash is soft, about 45 minutes.

Purée with an immersion blender or in batches using a regular blender or food processor*, until smooth. Return puree to pot. Thin soup with more broth if desired. Ladle soup into bowls. Top each bowl with 1 tablespoon of the roasted red pepper purée and a light drizzle of butternut squash seed oil. Sprinkle with a pinch of fresh thyme.

* When puréeing hot soup in a blender or food processor, do so in small batches, filling the blender pitcher only about halfway. Put the lid on, but remove that small cap in the lid (if you have it) and hold the lid down tight with a towel, otherwise the steam will cause the lid to explode off, spewing hot liquid everywhere. This has never happened to me, but it can, so be careful.

Roasted Red Pepper Puree
via Bon Appetit Magazine, November 2003

2 roasted red peppers (approximately 1 cup)
2-3 garlic cloves
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Puree all ingredients in processor until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

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Carrot, Pear, Raspberry, Cucumber Juice

by tastyyummies on January 25, 2012

Carrot, Pear, Raspberry, Cucumber Juice

 

This is gonna be a quick post – I am a bit behind on recipes and my day is full of client work and other projects, but I really wanted to share this juice recipe with you. I have to admit, I was a bit at a loss for a clever and cute name for this juice, so I went with the obvious. I kept wanting to find a way to combine the words “berry” and “brightness” but I just didn’t have it in me this time.

At any rate, this juice is FULL of flavor. It is incredible bright and perfectly tart, with the right about of sweetness. It sounds like and will look like a lot of berries, but sadly they don’t produce a ton of juice, which is why I rarely buy berries for juicing. But even in small amounts they bring a really wonderful tart flavor to juice and the color from the raspberries are just so beautiful. I found this fun fact about raspberries that I thought was interesting “Raspberries possess almost 50% higher antioxidant activity than strawberries, three times that of kiwis, and ten times the antioxidant activity of tomatoes”. Raspberries are low in calories and they are a wonderful source of dietary fiber. Raspberries are also an excellent source of Vitamin C.

I always love adding cucumbers to my juices since one cucumber offers up so much juice and I really love the flavor from it. Cucumbers are almost 96% water, that is naturally distilled, which makes it superior to ordinary water. The skin contains a high percentage of vitamin A, so should not be peeled off. Read on about the many other benefits from adding cucumbers to your juice.

Pears are an excellent source of water-soluble fiber. The high vitamin C and copper content in a pear act as good anti-oxidants that protect cells from damages by free radicals. You can read more about the health benefits of juicing with pears, here.

I’ve already sung the praises of the carrot, in this juice recipe. The main point about carrots are they are one of the most healing foods. Carotenes, the famous ingredient in carrots, is an anti-oxidant that has powerful healing virtues for many diseases. Read more about the health benefits of carrots here.

What would you call this juice?


Carrot, Pear, Raspberry, Cucumber Juice
makes 1 large serving

4 or 5 carrots
1 pear (I used a green Anjou)
12 ounces of organic raspberries
1 cucumber

Juice all of the ingredients. Serve immediately with ice, if you wish.

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Green Goddess Juice

by tastyyummies on January 22, 2012

Green Goddess Juice

Yup – I am still on a major juicing kick. I am loving it. I am so full of energy, I feel totally content with what I am eating otherwise and I have no cravings at all. I think by cutting back on some things but not going into a full on cleanse or detox, I am able to reap many of the benefits without putting my body through hell of those rough few first days and I am not taxing my digestive system, which is already a bit grumpy. I didn’t want to do that to my body right now.

I am excited because every day my tummy is feeling better and better and I am really able to notice what is triggering it when it does get upset again. The juicing has really given my digestive tract the rest that it so badly needed. This Green Goddess juice in particular is full of so many of my favorite things and it really made me feel great, on top of the energy I am already bursting with, this juice actually made me feel like I had more! That’s why I decided to call it Green Goddess Juice. Truthfully I really wanted to call it “Green Superheroine Juice”, but that just didn’t have the same ring to it, but it did make me feel like I had super powers! I once again included fennel in this juice, I have been trying to include it in every juice I am making right now since it is so great for your digestion, plus I am really loving the unique flavor it adds.

We had a very busy weekend filled with tons of home projects like ripping up carpeting, reflooring our bedroom, moving furniture around and work for clients. While doing all of those things, I have been ridding myself of so much stuff, both in my personal life and my digital life. I have been going through all of my clothes and accessories and getting rid of things I no longer need or wear. I have donated so many bags of clothes and other goodies to the Salvation Army in the last few weeks and yesterday I did the same to my computer. Well kinda. I backed up and removed over 200 GB of files on my computer that I really didn’t need on there, so my computer can perform better. I streamlined my already existing backup system to be even more thorough and easy to manage. I also organized my email inbox and archived old emails. I took my inbox from over 4000 email down to 81! It feels so good to be lightening my baggage in all of these areas of my life, it is instantly therapeutic and cathartic. It only takes a few bags full of stuff and a handful of gigabytes for you to feel that liberation and suddenly you find yourself looking at everything and thinking “Do I really need that?”.

Since we plan to move later this year and we are in the process of finishing up a few projects to the house that we have to do before we put it on the market, there really has never been a better time to do all of this, than now. I have been putting it off because it takes time and some tough decision making to decide what things in your life you don’t need, but once you start, it really gets easier and easier.

Now I can walk into a room in our house and feel the weight that has been lifted. There is still a lot of stuff that we need to go through and I actually can’t wait! It is ironic the timing on all of this, with me deciding to also take out things from my diet that I really don’t need. I think I can say the same for my eating as my house, I was putting off removing certain things but now that I have, I feel great! I honestly haven’t felt as good as I do right now, in years. So, if there are boxes you need to go through, piles of shoes you know you don’t wear, an email inbox that is jammed full of messages, etc – make the time to go through it. It doesn’t take as long as you think, in the last 3 days I have gotten rid of more stuff from my life than I have in the last year plus I still had time to grocery shop, go to yoga, bake bread, make soup, watch a movie and some football with my hubby and more. Don’t talk yourself out of things, don’t put them off, just do them. It feels better to accomplish something than it does to sit down and feel guilty that you aren’t.

I plan to continue purging things from my life this upcoming week and I am looking forward to it instead of dreading it and I also plan to continue juicing, so look for more recipes.

Have you gotten rid of anything in your life lately? How does it feel?

 

 

Green Goddess Juice

Makes 1 large serving or 2 smaller (it makes about 1 quart)
(if you want less juice go with 1 cucumber and 1 stalk of celery)

2 cucumbers
1 granny smith apple
1/2 or 1/3 of a large bulb of fennel (stalks and leaves included)
2 stalks of celery

Juice all of the ingredients, saving the celery for last since it is stringy and can sometimes clog the machine. Serve immediately.

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Chickpea and Brown Rice Burgers

by tastyyummies on January 19, 2012

Chickpea and Brown Rice Burgers

This week has been really nice. I am feeling much more like myself, I have been spending time taking the necessary (and long overdue) steps to be as organized and productive as I can (in life and work) and I have actually really been enjoying eating a limited diet.

The only bad thing about this week is that it’s almost over. I cannot believe it is already Thursday night. How did that happen?

Today is day 5 of no dairy (among other things) and I am feeling really good. I stepped on the scale today for the first time since the holidays and my weight was WAY down (like nearly 10lbs)! YAY! A wonderful bonus to healing my grumpy digestive tract, I would say! I have been enjoying piling in the vegetables this week but on Tuesday night I was wanting something a little bit different for dinner than a plate of vegetables, a smoothie or fresh juice. Since the January/February issue of Whole Living features tons (over 50) great cleansing recipes for their New Year’s Action Plan, I knew I would be able to find the perfect starting point recipe that would still adhere to all of my current self-imposed rules!

These burgers jumped out at my instantly. They are so simple, just a few ingredients and with a few tweaks on my end to my tastes, they would be exactly what I was looking for. I served my burger on top of a nice big leafy piece of green lettuce as they suggested, hoping that the raw roughage wouldn’t be too much for me right now, and it wasn’t, which I was definitely pleased about. I served my burger with some roasted cauliflower tossed with steamed baby spinach on the side and it was a nice light dinner! These patties held together very nicely when cooking and had a beautiful crispy and browned outside. The original recipe suggests mashing the chickpeas with the rice by hand, but I just wasn’t getting the consistency I was looking for and I worried they would end up falling apart, so I processed the chickpeas and brown rice and my food processor and I think that was a wise decision. I also went with cilantro instead of the recipe’s suggested parsley, for a brighter and bigger punch of flavor and I added in some  lime juice and chile powder. You could certainly add whatever your favorite fresh herbs and spices are, so many different combinations would work in these bugers. The flavors I went with were so perfect together and topping the burger with fresh scallions and dijon mustard was a great way to finish them.

I kept debating adding fresh spinach to these, but I was worried about them staying together, so I figured it was best not to mess with the ratio too much, but I hope to make these again and play with adding either the spinach or shredded carrots or zucchini or something like that, for some extra color and nutrients.

I think you could also make these burgers a bit smaller and make them more of an appetizer than a meal, serving them with a fun dipping sauce.

How has your week been? Has it flown by or carried on very slowly?

Chickpea and Brown Rice Burgers

 

Chickpea and Brown Rice Burgers
Adapted from Whole Living Magazine, January/February 2012 Issue
Makes 4 burgers

2 cups cooked and drained chickpeas
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 large shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (You could also use parsley, chives or whatever your favorite fresh herb is)
1/2 teaspoon chile powder (I used ground smoked chipotle powder)
2 tablespoons freshly squeeze lime juice
Coarse salt and pepper
1 large farm fresh brown egg, whisked (you could try an egg replacer here, I haven’t yet, but it’s worth a shot)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Whole-grain or Dijon mustard
Tomato, sliced, for garnish
4 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish
Green-leaf lettuce, for wrapping

Add the chickpeas and brown rice to your food processor and process until a thick paste forms (you can also mash them by hand). Add the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Stir in shallot, garlic, cilantro, chile powder and fresh lime juice. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the egg. Form into four 1/2-inch-thick patties.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over a medium-high heat. Add the burgers and cook until golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Spread with mustard, top with tomatoes and scallions and wrap in lettuce.

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