Cashew Cream Crepes

Crazy Bread

This week, I made uncomfortable bread.

Everybody who ate this bread squirmed and writhed and had to go to the bathroom frequently. I asked myself what went wrong. I made accidental Star Wars pancakes last week that came out great!

The Millennium Falcon

I had a jar of Kalamata Olives and a bottle of olive oil, and I wanted to go rogue. I went off the grid. I didn't use a recipe. In hind sight, this was a huge friggin' mistake.

I don't actually know how to make bread very well. I'm great at biscuits. Excellent at cookies. You don't even want to get into it with me about muffins. I'll rock your world.

But bread is something very different. Andrew makes bread. Not me.

It's kind of a schlep to bake. The kitchen is in use from 6 AM to 8 PM every day, so if the kitchen volunteers want to make anything, we use the spaces available to us, and try to stay out of the way. Between cooking classes, meals, desserts and remedies, the kitchens around here are pretty hopping, so I try to keep my baking and cooking to a dull roar. I mixed the bread dough in my bed, and it rose on the desk.

This bread tasted okay, but the side effects were grim. I used baker's yeast that failed to rise, so it was more or less... a toxin. The result of this is that it started to chemically react when it hit the large intestine, home not only to our colon, but also (in macrobiotics) our mental stability.

If I could do it all over again, I would probably not bake a loaf of bread that induced mental anguish in an entire commune.

My bad.

Sugars, Syrups, and Sweeteners

I love syrup. I love smothering my pancakes, waffles, french toast, et. al, with syrup. As much as I wish I could make an excuse for using straight maple syrup, the fact is that sweeteners, even the "natural" ones, aren't all they're cracked up to be. If you have a condition that gets aggravated directly by sugar, having "evaporated cane juice" isn't going to save you. It's not even a better option. It's really just as bad.

Here are the ones that are sugar by any other name:

• CANE SUGAR
• EVAPORATED CANE JUICE
• UNREFINED CANE JUICE
• MINIMALLY PROCESSED CANE SUGAR
• NATURAL CANE SWEETENER
• BEET SUGAR
• EVAPORATED BEET JUICE

Here are some that are very yin and should be used with moderation:

• HONEY
• MAPLE SYRUP
• AGAVE NECTAR
• COCONUT SUGAR
• PALM SUGAR

Less yin, more natural and balanced, but still in moderation:

• FRUIT JUICE
• COOKED FRUIT
• RAW FRUIT
• BROWN RICE SYRUP
• BARLEY MALT
• AMAZAKE

This last category is the least "traditionally sweet" of all the sweeteners. To people who aren't macro, these sweeteners have little to no taste. Our taste buds are blazed on modern sweeteners, and we often can't taste how extremely sweet something like brown rice syrup really is. After a month of balanced eating, these sweeteners will taste as sweet as any "modern" sweetener.

So how to make pancakes without slathering them with maple syrup?

CINNAMON-MAPLE BROWN RICE SYRUP

1 1/2 c. brown rice syrup (I love Suzanne's brand)

1-2 tsp. organic maple syrup (beware big grocery brands. I've heard there's rarely any real maple in them)

1/4 c. water

1 stick organic cinnamon

1 pinch sea salt

Mix syrups and water in a small saucepan, stirring continuously until dissolved, about five minutes. Heat mixture until just below boiling, over medium-high heat. Add sea salt and cinnamon, and stir over low heat for ten minutes. If clumps develop, skim and remove.

Slather and enjoy! I have been keeping my leftovers covered and in the fridge, and I'm thinking about making a tossed apple salad with it next week.

Macrobiotic Kimchi

Remember that Kimchi Soup I was telling you guys about? How there was no macro kimchi to be found, and you should probably make your own?

Well guess what? I did!

And now I'm going to share my trials, tribulations, and shattering, exploding jars with you!

So it's not the prettiest picture. I wish I had a camera that didn't look like something Wario played with in his N64 dream castle, but I don't. Not yet, at least.

I'm so excited to share this recipe with you, and to share this kimchi with the staff at the Kushi Institute. We're an excitable bunch. The prospect of free koji spores or a homemade batch of natto can titillate us for days. This kimchi is pretty much the most scandalous thing to happen since the dumpster was emptied.

HOMEMADE MACROBIOTIC KIMCHI

1 4-5 lb napa cabbage
5 carrots
2 packs of scallions
1 onion
1 head of garlic
1/2 lb. ginger root, fresh
4 dried ancho chili peppers
4-5 tbsp. salt
8 c. water

Chop your cabbage into big, wide slices. The water will wick out of them, so don't worry about their being too large. Slice your carrots into thin ribbons. Your scallions can be cut large, into about 3-4 inch sections, and your onions can be cut into eighths. Combine all vegetables in a bowl, and begin to squeeze them. Here at KI, we call that "Pressed saladizing" them. You're basically breaking down the cell walls a little bit so they absorb the salt water faster.

Combine salt and water, then submerge and press the veggies, as though you were doing a pressed salad. Leave them under pressure for a few hours, until the veggies start absorbing some of the water. Make sure all the stragglers are submerged, because you don't want anything poking above water for sanitation issues.

After you remove your heavy thing, drain (and save) the water. Mince your garlic, grate your ginger, and crush your chili peppers. Mash them into a pulp (wearing gloves!!), and massage them into your kimchi.

Press vegetables tightly into a jar, filling in any gaps with salt water. I banged my jars on the table a few times to get the bubbles out. Make sure they're full to the top, store in a room-temperature location, and let them chill out for at least 7 days!

BEWARE THE EXPLODING JARS: Check on your jars every morning. If the lids feel extremely tight, it's okay to open and drain them a little. The vegetables will wick liquid, and nobody wants a pressure explosion. I put my jars in a plastic box, and everybody made fun of me until one of them exploded and I didn't have to face a disaster! Ha ha!

When your kimchi is done, if it's too salty, feel free to rinse them. The fizz and pop to my kimchi makes it feel more ALIVE than any food I've ever made before. How blessed are we, to have fresh, alive food?

It's awesome.

Vegan, Gluten-Free French Toast

Believe it or not, this beautiful French Toast is completely vegan, gluten-free, and free of refined sugars. On top of being gorgeous, a veritable warm morning in Provence where the wind smells like lavender, it's delicious too.

There are a lot of Internet French Toast recipes going around. The Internet will tell you that you need flour to make vegan french toast. This is a fallacy. You need bananas. Incorrect. Sugar? Specious lies.

You need none of these things to make good French Toast.

I can't give you my recipe, because it's not mine. I got it from a chef here at KI, and even though it's the best French Toast I ever had and I'm ITCHING to share, I can't.

I CAN tell you to make the following replacements:

Replace flour with a little bit of kuzu or arrowroot, dissolved in water.
Replace sugar with maple or brown rice syrup.
Replace bananas with tofu. I was an unbeliever too.

Delicious French Toast is out there, friends. Get some.