mushroom latte

i really missed an opportunity here.  

i TOTALLY should have hooked a shiitake mushroom off the top of 

the cup as a garnish.  next time i make this, i'm doing it for sure!

today we're doing a sponsored review of alphay's

zhi4 black coffee

with a base of arabica coffee, this instant mix contains the lingzhi herb,

shiitake, and maiitake mushroom powder!

i'm not a huge drinker of straight black coffee.  i usually prefer lattes.

i started with a base of soy and rice milk (approx 2 cups) in a small skillet.

if you don't have a frother, use a big whisk and a strong arm to make foam.

as the milk heated, i added 1 tbsp. brown rice syrup, a splash of

almond extract, and a splash of vanilla extract.

once the milk was steaming hot, i added the packet of mushroom

coffee powder, mixed vigorously, and poured.

finally, i dusted the latte with unrefined raw cocoa powder,

cinnamon, and nutmeg.  wonderful!

i was impressed by how smooth the zhi4 coffee tasted.  there

was no bitterness and it certainly didn't taste like mushrooms.

i also really like how cheap it is.  it comes out to around a dollar

a cup, and while i dressed it up, all you REALLY have to do

is add it to a cup of boiling water.

you can order the zhi4 mushroom coffee from ginny harper

at 615-292-9168 or her website, You Can Heal You.

Vegan GF Pumpkin Bread Pudding for Sara

it's true, i've neglected the blog.  i've been terribly delinquent.

since returning from california, i've enrolled back in school as a post-bac

student, and it has left very little room for macrobiotic experimentation.

BUT BUT BUT

fall is my absolute favorite season.  no season's ingredients inspire me

more than the raw materials of fall.  the gorgeous squashes, round veggies,

dark greens...  fall is the best season to be macro.

i had a hankering for pumpkin muffins, so i decided to make some homemade

applesauce.  the apple sauce was great.  i used it to sweeten the pumpkin bread.

i made the pumpkin bread using bob's red mill flour.  mistake.  it tasted like sawdust

with subtle notes of pumpkin.

what was i to do with a pan of chalky pumpkin muffins?  i knew there

was only one way to turn it around.

i made bread pudding.  and the results were shockingly delicious.

ingredients ::  5 cups cubed pumpkin bread or pumpkin muffins.  here is a recipe.

i didn't use this recipe, but since the one i used was such a hot mess, i didn't want

to share that one.  just sweeten it with brown rice syrup and some homemade

apple sauce instead of the xylitol that she recommends.

2 cups soy milk

1/4 cup brown rice syrup

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp. vanilla

cinnamon

whisk liquids until dissolved.  soak your bread crumbs 10 minutes until soggy.

pour everything in a deep oiled pan, mixing well.  sprinkle extra walnuts on top.

cover with cinnamon.

bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

easy!  delicious!  no sugar!

Healthy Desserts 102: Mochi Puffs!

Two nights ago I went to a super-famous Boston desserterie: finale... yum!  I LOVE finale, but with desserts like Molten Chocolate Cake, Creme Brulée, and Tiramisu, I knew there was no WAY I could find a "macro dessert."

I'm pretty proud of myself.  I tasted everything I wanted to taste (gluten-free, of course.  There are some lines I can't cross without an early birthday trip to the hospital) without over-indulging.  I had a bite of this, a bite of that, and as much fresh fruit as I wanted.

Today I'm sneezing, wheezing, and my system is unhappy with me.  "DAIRY AND SUGAR AND EGGS?" I can hear it yelling.  But I walked out of that restaurant having only eaten about 1/4 cup of American style dessert, so I'm calling it a win.

These "seasonal allergies" that I didn't have before Tuesday are pretty much on me for eating the desserts.  I'm just going to treat my body right this week... some nishime, some greens, some brown rice, some soup.

I want to thank it for letting me have my cake and eat it too!

To cut back on my post finale sugar cravings, I've been supplementing with fresh fruit and macro sweets.  These cloud-like confections were done in about 10 minutes, required NO work, and really hit the spot!

.: mochi puffs :.

1 inch squares cut mochi

2 tbsp. brown rice syrup

1 tsp. cold water

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

preheat oven to 400 degrees.  combine brown rice syrup, cinnamon, and water in a small bowl until blended.  toast mochi 10-15 minutes until it pops and puffs and breaks the cube-shape.

dip mochi in sauce and serve hot :)

Healthy Desserts 101: Not Your Mom's Rice Crispy Treats

School bake sales, church potlucks, summer afternoon...  Who can forget the sweet and salty lighter-than-air crunch of these delectable snacks?


Wedding season is nearly upon us, and I don't know about y'all, but I've been wiggling and squeezing and praying my way into party dresses that I bought in lighter times.  I've kissed my Starbucks indulgence goodbye.  Farewell, Grande Soy Mocha Latte.  Perhaps we'll meet again someday.


I'd be going crazy right now, BUT I've got an arsenal of healthy desserts that have way more taste than guilt!


Rice Crispy Treats are well-suited for wherever you're at in the healthy eating spectrum, because they can be as sweet or as natural as you'd like.  Low on calories and a great source of protein, mono- and polyunsaturated fats, these treats can be tailored to meet your dietary goals.


A great Rice Crispy Treat has three things:

base  --  binders  --  ingredients

Your base is always rice crispies.  This is the foundation of the treat.  My favorite brand of rice crispies is Erewhon Crispy Brown Rice Cereal (Gluten-Free), because it has no cane sugar or corn syrup.  Arrowhead Mills has a Puffed Rice cereal that comes in a bag, but this brand doesn't have a very good crunch.


Your binders are the liquids.  They're the "marshmallow" and "butter."  They make your treat stick together!  You'll need something sweet, and something with fat, like a nut or seed butter.  This is also the place you add your salt.  You can handle this one of three ways:
-pinch of salt
-teaspoon of sweet or mellow white miso
-salted nut/seed butters


Your ingredients are the jazz that make the treat uniquely yours.  They're the fun part that takes this treat from after-school snack to grown-up dessert!

--sweet--

brown rice syrup

maple syrup (just a little, mixed with BRS or it's too sweet)

carob chips (make sure these are vegan and/or gluten-free, they often have add-ins)

note  These chips are from tropical climates and are considered quite yin.  Make sure you find a brand that doesn't use cane sugar, evaporated milk, or malted barley sweetener if you're sensitive to gluten.  If you're serious about trimming up, skip this guy in favor of the brown rice syrup.

--buttery--

almond butter

cashew butter

sunflower seed butter

tahini

dried apricots

raisins

dried apples

dried cherries

note  I chop all dried-fruit finely so it's easier to chew!

roasted sesame seeds

roasted almonds

roasted chopped pecans

note  If you want the flavor of chocolate with less of a calorie boost, melt a handful of unsweetened vegan carob chips and drizzle it on top of the treats when they're done!  You'll use 1/8th the carob but still get the flavor!

Measure 4 cups crispy brown rice cereal and set aside.  Roast any nuts or seeds that need to be roasted.  I add about 1/2 cup of roasted nuts/seeds, total.  Combine nuts/dried fruit with brown rice cereal and set aside.


Measure approximately 1 c. sweet ingredient.  If using carob chips, use a little closer to  1 1/2 cups and be ready to cut smaller portion sizes, about 1" x 1".  This will make a dense treat.  If you're using brown rice syrup, add another 1/2 cup brown rice cereal.  This will make a light treat.


Measure 1/2 c. buttery ingredient.  Use 1 pinch salt if buttery ingredient is unsalted, or 1 tsp miso.


Combine sweet, butter, and salty ingredients in a saucepan and warm over low heat.  If heating carob chips, use a double-boiler to prevent burning.  Liquid ingredients should be steaming and easy to stir.


Grease a casserole pan and spread your brown rice cereal and nuts/dried fruit evenly across the pan.


Pour your liquid ingredients over the brown rice cereal, mixing vigorously with a spoon until pan is evenly coated.


Freeze for at least 2 hours.


Enjoy in moderation!

Roasted Seed and Apple Salad

I loved the way this salad came out so much that I made it three times in three days!  The best part is, it only takes 15 minutes to make!

- roasted seed and apple salad -

- 4 apples, assorted variety (I used Fuji and Granny Smith)
- 1/2 cup whole raw almonds
- 1/4 cup raw tan sesame seeds
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tsp. maple syrup

Chop apples.  My favorite technique is to slice them into quarters, seeds, stem and all.  Just a big + right over the top.  I then slide a paring knife down the middle of each quarter to remove the seeds.  After that, I cut those quarters in half.  We now have eighth wedges.  Cut those in 3-4 pieces, resulting in the bite-sized chunks you see above.

To keep your apples from turning brown, place cut pieces in a bowl of cold water until the final step in the recipe.

Roast almonds at 400 for approximately 5-10 minutes, keeping a wary eye on them.  They should smell sweet, not burned.

Dry-roast your sesame seeds in a hot skillet.  Stir constantly with a spoon until they release a sweet aroma and begin popping.  Remove promptly from skillet to prevent further cooking.

When almonds and seeds have cooled, crush seeds in a suribachi or blender, and rough-chop almonds until they're about the size of pencil erasers.

Drain apples and combine with seeds, nuts, and all remaining ingredients.  Serve immediately!

Squash Pudding : Lovely Glasses

squash pudding

I've got leftover brown rice amazake, a massive amount of squash, and a willing accomplice.  What do I make?

Squash pudding.  I'm modifying Aveline Kushi's "Squash Pie" recipe to make it slightly sweeter and more spiced, featuring my best friends cinnamon and nutmeg.  To top it all off, an icy white, thin layer of amazake and a thin dusting of crushed green pumpkin seeds.

As soon as I make it, I'll put it up here on the blog.  This is the recipe I'm using, modified from Aveline's "Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking" is now gluten-free and slightly sweeter because I'm using Lundberg's brown rice syrup, and I need to conceal the flavor with some maple syrup (I'm now firmly Team Suzanne's).
-----------------------------------------------
1 butternut squash
1 cup of water
pinch sea salt
1/2 c. brown rice syrup
1 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. kuzu, dissolved in cold water
-----------------------------------------------

I'll put technique up when I make it.

We've been making a lot of puddings and parfaits lately.  But what to serve them in?  We can't just put them in cereal bowls!  How gauche!  They simply MUST go in dessert glasses.  Anything else would be barbarism.

Anthropologie ::  Helianthus Goblet  $8

Anthropologie ::  Sunk Shades Goblet  $12

Target ::  Tulip Glass Dessert Bowl Set of 12 - Green   $84

Etsy ::  Ruby Red Avon Cape Cod 1876 Dessert Bowl  $10

Crate + Barrel  ::  Tinge Turquoise/ Green Dessert Plate $4

Crate + Barrel ::  Delice Dessert Bowl $8

Amazake Parfait: Not Actually That Hard

I've been putting off making amazake forever.  Whenever I crack open a macro book, it always reads like this:

Amazake is a sweet fermented rice product that makes a balanced, health-supportive dessert option.  First we inoculate rice kernels with the koji aspergillus spore.  Next, we make three gallons of soft rice, bring the pot to 140 degrees fahrenheit with a cooking thermometer, insulate an insulated tub, and ferment for 8-12 hours in a sterile jar.  It's so simple!

Just like making a TB vaccine!

My friend Sue from the Kushi Institute rolled her eyes and laughed when I told her I couldn't make it.

"It's not rocket science," she said as she gave the boiling rice a stir with an enormous bamboo paddle.

Isn't it?  I decided to give this spore-inoculating, twelve-hour incubating rice byproduct a try.  Koji has been sold out in a bizarre nationwide dearth.  I tried all the normal culprits... the Kushi Store, South River Miso... everybody was sold out.  Then me and May were walking by this busted up Japanese grocery store in Brookline trying to score cheap seaweed, and BAM.  A fridge FULL of koji!  Who would have thought that this store, which had the nutritional depth and range of a 7-11, would have three giant tubs of koji spore for sale?  It was a birthday miracle.

So we cradled our tub of fungus-spiked rice fragments like a baby and took it home.  It was a sign.
Amazake was our destiny.

making amazake

It's not actually that hard.

I could probably make it after having a drink.

I'm not going to try to prove that, though.

::INGREDIENTS::
.: 3 cups koji-inoculated rice fragments.  Brown or White Rice is ok.
.: 3 cups short-grain brown rice
.: 9 cups water


::PARFAIT TOPPINGS::
.: vanilla extract
.: cinnamon
.: nutmeg
.: almond extract
.: apples
.: toasted almonds/pecans

The day before ( afternoon or evening for an overnight fermentation, 8 AM or earlier for a day fermentation), make your rice.  Soak and rinse your brown rice, then bring rice and 9 cups of water to boil.  Cover and simmer 40-50 minutes, until rice has a soft, porridge-like consistency.

When the kids are tucked into bed and Nancy Grace is over, bring your cool rice back up to temperature.  It should be warm and steaming, but not hot.  You should be able to put your finger in it for a few seconds and not get scalded.  If you have a food thermometer, this is 140 degrees.

Pour your koji rice in the big pot of warm rice, and stir stir stir.  Stir until it's well-mixed.  At this point, the books all say to put your pot of rice/koji in a warm lunchbox surrounded by jars of hot water.  I put the pot in the oven set to 150 degrees because I knew the oven was old and leaked heat, so it'd be between 130 and 140.

May stuck signs on the oven that said "WILD FERMENTATION IN PROCESS, DO NOT DISTURB," and we left it in for 12 hours.

I know I just threw a ton of numbers at y'all, but it breaks down like this:

Make watery rice.  Make it warm, not hot.  Mix in fungus.  Stick in oven.  Check on it in 12 hours.

I checked up on it about every 2-4 hours just to make sure the oven wasn't acting up or catching on fire.  Safety first, guys.

When we opened the oven, it was kind of like having a baby.  The rice was sweet like candy and SO delicious!  I knew right away I had to make it into parfaits.  I mixed in vanilla extract, nutmeg, and cinnamon to a small bowl of amazake.  We roasted walnuts and layered the parfait, amazake, nuts, amazake, nuts.  Next time, I'm going to do mixed berry and almond parfaits with cashew cream on top!

One Pot of Brown Rice, Three Ways

How many times have we looked at the stove and seen this?

It's a grim feeling.

Another pressure cooker of short-grain brown rice, another day.

Sometimes, I get so bored with the basic rice-beans-greens macro meals that I could have a fit.  I don't want to go to the grocery store and spend more money, I don't want to spend six hours in the kitchen, and I don't want more basic brown rice.

Here are three ways to jazz up a fresh pot of brown rice to make new, exciting meals!

warm, nutty rice

 This is the quickest and easiest ways to change up the rice.  Preheat the oven to 300, and lay out almonds, walnuts, or pecans on a tray.  Roast the nuts until they begin to give off a toasted smell (approx. 5-10 minutes) and release their oils.  When the nuts cool, crush them with your hands or a suribachi.  DO NOT buy pre-roasted nuts.  Not only are these much less delicious, they are often rancid.  Mix rice, nuts, a little olive oil, and a small pinch of salt.  I often add a few sprigs of rosemary, pan-fried in olive oil to give it a great flavor.

ohagi

Ohagi is a Japanese sweet dessert made of pounded short-grain rice.  Take your brown rice, cooled, and place it in a large pot.  Pound the rice (I used the end of a rolling pin) for approximately 20 minutes, until the rice is sticky and paste-like.  This takes a firm arm and patience, but it's worth it!

Once your ohagi is a paste, you can play with it.  The goal is to roll it into balls (about golf-ball sized), filled and covered with different toppings.  You can see from this picture, there are many ways to make ohagi.  I'll be experimenting this summer with filling them with matcha and sweet tofu paste!  Here are a few easy ones using ingredients you have at home:

-Cover the ohagi in roasted sesame seeds (black or white)

-Fill the ohagi with toasted nuts or a roasted nut paste (I'll be working on one soon)

-Fill the ohagi with dried fruits (At Kushi we used dried apricots)

-Fill or cover the ohagi with sweet adzuki bean paste (1 c. cooked aduki beans mixed with 2-3 tbsp. brown rice syrup, mixed in a food processor)

rice croquettes

Rice croquettes turn a grain into a flavorful main course.

Finely shred carrots, onions, celery, and/or cabbage.  Pan-roast raw sunflower seeds until they begin to turn brown and pop, then quickly remove from pan to avoid overcooking.

Mix cool rice, veggies, sunflower seeds, and a splash of ume vinegar, and kneed into a sticky mixture.  If it sticks to your hands, coat your hands in cool water.

Pat the croquettes into burger-shaped patties, and if you'd like, cover in a light dusting of corn flour.  This isn't always necessary.

Pan-fry until golden brown on each side.  Serve with a sweet carrot and onion sauce or a light summer pesto!  Enjoy!

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.

Taking the Sin Out of Holiday Sweets

Merrrrryyy Christmas!

Gearing up for the holidays down in Nashville! After a positively sinful batch of gluten-free vegan iced sugar cookies that I sadly failed to document (I ate them too fast), I took a few days off from the indulgences of the season. I returned in full swing today, when I made lumps of coal. I didn't invent the recipe, and it's GENIUS, so I can't print it, unfortunately, but I'm sure you guys can come up with something like it.

So before we eat all this truly snackro junk, we need to take a dose of Vitamin Real.

Just because there's no sugar/gluten/dairy/eggs in something, that doesn't make it healthy. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but many people I served at Tealuxe seemed to think otherwise, and I want to keep it real with y'all. There are three kinds of foods that we need to be mindful of, especially during the weaker months of winter:

Health-Supportive, Neutral, and Detrimental Foods.

Health-Supportive foods are foods our body draws nutrition and strength from. Things like adzuki beans, deep leafy greens, and whole grains. These are foods that have centering energy that make us feel calm and well-supported.

Detrimental foods are foods that weaken our body and pull us too strongly in a direction. There are some foods that are obviously more weakening than others (Cheetos Xtra Hots, Red Bull, etc. are worse than organic, vegan, fruit-sweetened waffles), but it's important to be realistic with what our bodies can handle. For a person with an extremely yin affliction, like a severe candida overgrowth (yeast infection), that fruit-sweetened waffle can cause just as much pain and discomfort as the Cheetos cause a healthy person.

Neutral foods are "fillers," foods that aren't really bad for us, but can keep us from eating the good foods we need. I do this a lot. My big one is rice cakes with hummus. Bad for you? No! But if it replaces brown rice? Yes!

OK! So the dose of Vitamin Real has been swallowed.

On to the sweets!

MAKING DELICIOUS PARTY TREATS THAT DON'T SINK YOUR PROVERBIAL BATTLESHIP.

Let's take a recipe from Queen Martha and clean it up a little, the Snackro way.

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

Cause don't nobody not like biscotti for Christmas

First, we identify the problems with the original recipe.

• Right off the bat, I see gluten. Some of you may not have a problem with it, but I have celiac, and this would sink my battleship. Let's cut it out.
• There's some serious butter going down. Let's cut that foolishness before we get some mayhem.
• I see a whole lot of sugar. I'm going to hit it and quit it.
• Because I'm taking out the wheat and butter, I'm taking out the cornmeal so it's not too dry. Baked goods with corn dry out in a hot minute, and without the moisture that the gluten protein locks in, leaving this corn in would be a bad idea. Just be sure to replace this amount with more of your chosen flour mix.

I'm replacing the wheat flour with a mixture of brown rice and chickpea flour. I'm doing a ratio of 3/4 brown rice to every 1/4 chickpea. I'm doing it because brown rice isn't "sticky" when it bakes, so you need something a little spongier, but chickpea is too sticky and spongy if used alone, so we're mixing.

The butter can either be replaced with Earth Butter, which is a little processed for my taste, or replaced with flax seed or safflower oil.

I'm replacing the sugar with 1/2 c. orange juice and 1/4 c. agave nectar. Agave is SO sweet, it's incredibly important to do it in moderation.

NOTE:: If you replace the sugar with liquids, IT IS DIRE that for every cup of liquids that substitute dry sugar, you combine ALL LIQUIDS OF THE DISH (oils, agave, juice, etc), mix, and remove 1/3 c. for every cup of liquid added. Otherwise, you get soup, not biscotti.

It's also important at this point to add 1 tsp. kuzu root dissolved in cold water so that your mixture sticks together.

Voila! Just keep in mind, with animal products, gluten, and sugar, it's pretty easy to replace 2 of the 3 categories, but the more categories you replace, the farther the texture and taste get from the original recipe. Also, there's a MUCH greater difference between replacing 2 and 3 categories than there is replacing 1 and 2 categories. Meaning, if you replace 1 category, you probably won't tell the difference. Two, you'll be able to tell the difference, but it's still pretty good. Three? It'll be a whole different dish, and it will pretty much always taste like "health food."

Where the Heck I Have Been!

Hey all,

I survived the GRE's! That's the monster test I spent most of October studying for. May's taking it too (two weeks, so keep your fingers crossed and send good vibes her way!! She's studying across the table from me right now :) so we crammed studying in every available nook and cranny in our respective schedules. As we drove out to Kushi, we shouted words like "prevaricate" and "peregrinate" across the seat. We quizzed between macro cooking classes.

My life is now devoted to even thirds: coffee shop, grad school preparation, and sleeping. It's been hard to squeeze macrobiotic cooking into the schedule, but I've tried. I'm writing this blog post because all the blood in my body is currently in my stomach making headway on a heavy pumpkin muffin, and I find myself unable to write anything really funny.

I made a truly righteous set of Honey Coconut Cornbread muffins this week that were surprisingly delicious. They were extremely mild in sweetness, and were sweetened entirely by Boston-area raw organic honey.

Here's the recipe on that. I don't have a picture, so here's a picture of the pumpkins we made for Halloween (the originals from the internet). Happy Halloween!

1 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour
½ cup coconut shavings plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered kuzu root, dissolved in cool water
1 cup soy milk
2 large eggs
1/2 stick vegan margarine, melted
3 to 4 oz. raw organic honey

Preheat oven to 400. Mix liquids, then solids. Mix liquids forever, because the soy milk and honey congeal, and it's a serious pain to get it looking nice. Line 12-16 cups in a muffin pan with aesthetically pleasing cupcake liners. I used pink polka-dot. After filling tins 2/3 full with batter, sprinkle the tops of each muffin with a generous pinch of shaved coconut and cook for 15-20 minutes.

NOTE: These cupcakes were great, but they were kind of small. Going back, I'd probably do 6-10 in a deep pan. Great recipe, and really cheap to make. Coconut shavings cost a little more than sawdust. It's great.

Matcha Cupcakes

I'm back in beautiful Nashville taking a few days off from the high-stakes game known as Tea-tending. For those of you who may be wondering what such a lovely and gifted individual does for a living, I'm a bartender/sommelier, but for tea. The image above you is a sign I made for a really cool tea commodity known as matcha. Matcha will heretofore be written in green, because the thing you need to know about matcha is that it's a Nickelodeon shade of green.

Matcha is finely powdered Japanese green tea, ideally from a high-quality green like Gyokuro. In the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, it's whisked in a small bowl with 170-180 degree water and unlike "regular" green tea where the tea bag is removed after steeping, the matcha has no filter and is consumed together with the water into which it was blended.

Matcha tastes familiar to many Americans who have enjoyed it in green tea ice cream, and it's pretty incredible blended with powdered sugar and steeped in hot milk as a latte.

We've got an even better way.

Vegan, Gluten-Free Matcha Cupcakes.

BE ADVISED: These are some expensive friggin cupcakes. They are quite costly due to the high quality and cost of matcha powder, as well as their dependence on yuppie groceries like gluten-free flour and almond extract. Are they worth it? Totally. You can reduce your costs considerably by purchasing a bulk green tea and pulverizing it with a seed grinder. I did this when I forgot my matcha powder and needed to make the cupcakes on the fly. It's not quite as good and can be a little... grassy, so be aware.

Source: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

EDITS BY BECKY PAXTON

1/2 cup soy yogurt

2/3 cup rice milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 1/4 cups gluten-free flour (I recommend making your own almond flour or Arrowhead Mills Baking Mix)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp. powdered kuzu root, dissolved in a little cool water.

3-4 tsp matcha tea powder

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup Agave Nectar. Be SURE to see the liquids step below because stuff needs to get removed before adding the agave!!

Green Tea Glaze (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, rice milk, vanilla, oil, and almond extract, beating well to blend in yogurt. REMOVE 1/3 CUP OF GENERAL COMBINED LIQUIDS. Then add agave and mix well. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, matcha powder, and salt.

Fill liners two thirds full and baking 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks before topping with glaze

Glaze:

If you're using matcha/powdered sugar combo:

1 c. matcha/powdered sugar mix

4 tbsp. earth balance soy margerine

2-4 tbsp. soy milk

pinch salt

dash vanilla extract

If you want this to be sugar free:

3-4 tbsp. matcha powder

1 c. powdered soy milk

4 tsbp. earth balance soy margerine

agave nectar as needed

pinch salt

dash vanilla extract

Seasonally Inappropriate Chocolate Peanut-Butter Ice Cream!

I thought I'd repost an earlier recipe with my new modifications now that I've made it a billion times. I have a picture this time, and in my head I made it with peanut-butter. I didn't put actual peanut butter in it because my copilots May and China don't love peanut-butter with the scary intensity that I do.

But in my head, it's in there.

Beautiful Vegan's Gluten-Free Raw Chocolate Ice Cream

Modifications by Becky. Re-modifications still by Becky.

(I typically double quadrouple this recipe. Replace Agave with your preferred sweetener)

From BeautifulVegan.com :

In a blender mix:
1 avocado (pitted and peeled of course) -should be a ripe one
3 heaping Tbsp of raw cocoa powder (you can use normal cocoa powder if you don't have raw)-
1/6 c raw agave nectar

1/6 c brown rice syrup

more agave nectar if you're addicted to sugar like i am.
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp vanilla extract (or the scrapings from a vanilla bean pod)
1/2 c water (or more depending if your blender wants more water to work or not)-sometimes it needs quite a bit more.

healthy dollops of peanut-butter. go ahead. go nuts.


Make sure it's really creamy, use a spatula to get the pieces of avocado that get missed. And that's it. I know it sounds weird to make chocolate pudding with avocado, but it turns out creamy and absolutely delicious! It can be used for a breakfast, snack or formal desert. Just add berries (especially strawberries) or use it as a fondu with cut up bananas and other goodies. this recipe serves 2 big bowls.

Becky's Notes:

I don't care what haters say about agave, I still cook with it. I've heard convincing arguments both ways, and I rarely use it anyways, so I'd say that a little in moderation goes a looong way towards achieving butteriness. I don't use only agave in the recipe above. I think it dominates the flavor of the vanilla and overwhelms the dish. Since I double the recipe, here's the break-down:

1/6 to 1/4 cup agave, with the rest of the 2/3 cup of sweetener as brown rice syrup

1 extra tsp. vanilla

When I dollop this into the frozen popsicle maker in my head, I add 2 tsp. cinnamon and a TINY hit of cayenne pepper. Ole!

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

...And the Egg Dilemma.

So I've been a little more lax about my veganism following several major health crises that arose from the fact that:

a) I live in Boston, therefore
b) My diet has the nutritional depth and variety of sawdust.

I eat about 1 tbsp. of dairy/egg every couple of days now, so that if I'm caught out for dinner, I don't totally starve. Have I noticed an impact on my health? Absolutely. My sinuses have had a major cave-in, the likes of which I haven't had all year, including when I had the flu last year. The dairy makes me puffy, stuffy, and congested. I'm trying to keep it at/under the 1 tbsp mark every day. This is part of me working on "moderation," which I've been hearing good things about. I've decided that the anxiety of being broke and vegan is not worth the pain of poor health because I'm prevented from eating good food due to minute amounts of dairy.

So this week's recipes are not entirely vegan. They can, however, be made vegan by using vegan egg-substitute. I just find that the puffy egginess of them is totally delicious.

This week's recipe is a modification of the one on the back of the Arrowhead Mills bag. I've modified it to reduce the amount of sugar, and to alkalinize the batter a little bit using Kuzu Root.

LEMON BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

2 c Arrowhead Mills GF Baking Mix
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 c Agave (I cut mine with about 1/3 of the amount being honey, but that's pretty minute)
1/4 c COLD water
1 tsp. powdered kuzu root dissolved in 1-2 tsp. COLD water. This is important. Anything warmer than this, and the fragile powdered kuzu will cook and thicken prematurely.
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg/ egg substitute
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 tbsp. zested lemon rind
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. avocado, grapeseed, or safflower oil

Cook at 350 for 20 minutes. The consistency of the batter should be dry and crumbly. Today I made the mistake of trying to loosen it up with more water, but the water stays trapped in the dough, making it doughy and falling-aparty. The frozen blueberries give more moisture as the thing bakes, so you want the dough to start out pretty dry.

GLAZE

1/4 c. brown rice syrup

1 tbsp. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. lemon juice
pinch of salt

Mix and pour generously over the muffin. The dough soaks it in, and it becomes lemony and delightful!

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.