Vegan Desserts

This week, a friend of mine told me that her mother was having a vegan over for dinner that night, and had no idea what to serve for dessert.

The option that most people attempting to feed the Vegan tend to go for is fresh fruit. This is fine, wonderful, and a great healthy option.

Are you ready to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes?

I thought so, Neo. We'll start easy.

GINGER'S APPLE PIE (gluten-free edition)

4-5 tart apples (granny smith work best)

1/4 c. fresh ground almond flour. Make this yourself using the instructions below

1/4 c. brown rice syrup

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 pinch sea salt

1 gluten-free/vegan pie crust (good luck finding these anymore... since the demise of Wild Oats, it's been a trial)

Almond Flour:

Take about 1/2 of raw almonds and roast on a baking sheet for seven-ten minutes at 375. I like to use a coffee grinder that I reserve for seeds and nuts, placing small handfuls of the nuts in there and grinding them to a fine powder. I rarely buy almond flour from the store, because there's a pretty high likelihood that it's gone rancid, and making it yourself gives the dish a lightness, fluffiness, and a warmth that you just can't get any other way. That being said, I was the fortunate recipient of some freaking incredible cookies made with King Arthur's Flour, so no judgement, only love.

The Rest of the Pie:

Peel apples and run them through the largest holes on a cheese grater. This gets the maximum sweetness out of them and ensures that your pie comes out sweet and not soggy. Hit it with a dust of cinnamon or a lattice-work crust for aesthetic's sake. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and bake at 375 for 42-45 minutes until golden and beautiful on top.

Olive Tapenade!

Ever since I had an absolutely spectacular tapenade by the brilliant chef Gabrielle, I've been dying to make one for myself.

So I made three.

On day three of tapenading, I would be lying if I said my stomach wasn't in a crazy place right now, but how could I say no?

I love tapenades. They are beautiful dishes as far as presentation goes at a party, they're great as a complement for goat cheese and crostini if you're neither vegan nor gluten-free (both of which I am, so I just have to reflect on crostini as a beautiful memory)...

My favorite thing about a good tapenade is that it celebrates and reflects whatever season it's made in. In the summer, the fresh chopped herbs, tomatoes, and roasted bell peppers all give the dish a lightness and a freshness that characterizes the dip.

In the winter, the smokiness from the sun-dried tomatoes, dried currants, and toasted nuts give it a heartier, warmer flavor.

Here is a photo of my tapenade, just before mixing:

You can see in the upper left-hand corner the sun-dried herb-soaked tomatoes, below that the walnuts, in the center the chopped garlic and fresh thyme, and at last on the bottom, three different kinds of olives previously prepared in red wine vinegar, dried herbs, and bay leaves.

I've already mentioned in the "seasons" section above some great add-ins for tapenades, but here is the recipe I developed:

Olive Walnut Tapenade

2-4 cloves of garlic minced

1 1/2 cups chopped assorted olives (ideally already seasoned)

1 cup toasted chopped walnuts (purchase raw and roast yourself for 10 minutes at 375. nuts that have already been toasted by purchase date are typically rancid)

4-5 slices sun-ripened tomatoes (I prefer the ones soaked in oil, but if you need to rehydrate them yourself, follow instructions on package)

2 tsp. fresh chopped thyme

4-5 tbsp. olive oil

Optional:

Capers

Anchovies

Roasted Bell Peppers

Dried Currants

Goat Cheese or Feta Cheese

Outside Vendors Part 2: Chefs and Made-To-Order Foods

What do you do when one too many of your vegan gluten-free sugar free chocolate muffins have come out like briquettes? Who do you call when your local vegan and gluten-free bakery tells you that they're only a vegan OR gluten-free bakery? What do you do when you're wiped out but you can't go out to eat anywhere?

Phone a friend and order it off the internet!

Here are my favorite places to order foods that are safe for people with allergies. I love supporting these individuals because it not only helps small business and the economy, but it feels great to experience and enjoy the blessing that God has given someone!

What I mean by that is that God has blessed each of us with unique talents, and some people have not only been given a gift of a talent for baking, but a calling to cook healing food for others. When we support the individual who is just getting started in their business, or a small company that fits into a larger healing community, we are not only celebrating the gifts that God has given others and encouraging them, but we're able to see with a thankful heart that God has blessed each of us uniquely too. So if you're reading this and healing today, take a moment and be filled with gratitude for the gifts of others working in your life!

That being said, here are some of my favorite vendors:

Southern Scratch-- I can't tell you how much I love her baking! It is thoughtful from start, organic and local ingredients of the highest quality, to finish, with cute ingredient cards and pom-pom poufs to decorate :D

The Wild Cow-- Tonight I had a piece of gluten-free vegan cake that was so delicious, I almost sent it back to the kitchen because I was sure there was no possible way it was gluten-free and delicious. To be honest, I only ate half of it because I'm waiting to see until tomorrow morning if it makes me sick. It was that good. If it didn't, I'm running down there and purchasing a whole thing. $36

Sarah's Sea Salsa-- This stuff is the best salsa around. Not great if you're in hardcore healing mode as there is a little kick to it, but honestly, it's delicious. It almost makes it worth the trek up to Boston.

Outside Vendors Part 1: Supplies

If you talk to any macrobiotic person OR chef, at some point in the conversation they'll refer to something as "Ginny's _________" or "Ginger's ____________."

No man is an island. The thing about starting a new way of cooking is that when you're perhaps away from one of the large health-supporting cities in America such as Boston, New York, and San Francisco, it can be really baffling to see a shopping list like this one below, and have any idea where to get any of it:

Kuzu Root

Wakame

Hijiki

Umeboshi Plum Tablets

Chickpea Miso Soup

Powdered Rice Flour

Mochi

Burdock Root

It's hard sometimes for me to remember this, because I was more or less raised in a Macrobiotic family. While you can find many of these things at your neighborhood Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joe's, or independent health food grocery store, many of these are best ordered off the internet. Here's how the Paxtons do it:

The Natural Import Company: Kuzu (bulk because we go through it like toothpaste), sea weeds, umeboshi plums, plum paste, plum vinegar, and plum tablets

Local Japanese Grocery Stores or Asian Grocery Stores (In Nashville, try Sonobana): Mochi, Burdock Root, daikon radish, fresh fish, seaweeds, great Asian dipping sauces and instant rice packs, rice flour.

South River Miso Company- Chickpea miso, garlic and chili pepper miso, 3 year barley miso, sweet brown rice miso, and pretty much any other kind of miso that you could possibly want forever and ever. NOTE::: This miso is only available to ship seasonally during the cool months!

Agh I am so behind!!

I'm sorry! It's been a whole month since I've posted on here. I've been working non-stop in preparation for a huge move. Later tonight, I'm hoping to write a post about how to do Macro in different cities.

For now I'm going to write about

Corn

Corn is the new chocolate for me. I eat corn like nobody's business. This week I got stranded on the highway for an hour in stand-still traffic with nothing but some uncooked vegetables and a bag of corn chips. I ate them all like it ain't no thing. The kinds of corn I eat now fall into three categories:

-Smeared with lime juice and rock salt and grilled

-Chopped up and baked in salsa

-In the chips I dip in the salsa

Like many Americans, I used to believe that my body didn't have a "corn problem." In my Pre-Macro life, I ate popcorn all the time. I was a college student... it was practically its own shelf of the food pyramid. Corn is wildly cheap in this country. It's used as "filler" in commercial sausages and burgers. If you ever go to the United Kingdom and eat at a certain greasy Scottish spoon-chain known as Gregg's, they'll tell you how much meat is in the sausage patties... by the percentage.

Can you imagine if American burgers had to label like that? I mean, it was truly frightening to plow my way through a pork pasty only to see in tiny letters on a sticker at the bottom of the wrapper, "64% meat." What is the other 36%? If I hadn't known better, I would have SWORN that entire patty was meat.

Okay, so there I was, non-macro, eating pasties that were 36% Something Else, some of which was corn, and it wasn't making me sick.

Not at all like corn makes me sick now. If I have corn one day, I'm fine. Two days, I start to feel the rhythm of my body getting off a little bit and I have trouble sleeping. Three days in a row or more and I start experiencing horrible intestinal pain and my old buddy nausea begins to flare up at bed time. I think this nausea is a response to the intestinal pain. I won't go into details from there, but it's not a nice feeling.

It's funny... I wondered at first why I was fine eating high-fructose corn syrup. And then I realized that eating high-fructose corn syrup could have been the cause, and not just a side-note to some of the weight gain I experienced in college.

Which brings me to my final point for today... that excess weight is not just a cosmetic thing, but an external symptom of an internal imbalance.