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 :)

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!

Honey Bunches of Moch

I took a walk down memory lane this morning as I rifled through the pantry.

"Remember Honey Bunches of Oats?"  I asked myself, as my fingers brushed crusty ume plums and jars of hydrogenated vegetable fat.
"I sure do," I replied.

Who can forget that happy little parade of silhouettes marching across the bottom of the box?  I used to space out and stare at them as I absently hunted for chunks of granola in my bowl.  Those were the days.  Let's be real.  Honey Bunches of Oats is a pretty delicious cereal.

Apparently, it's healthy now too!

At least, that's what the website proudly proclaims...  The facebook site runs through glowing endorsements from various fans, including the following nuggets of nutritional wisdom:

"not only is it healthy, it taist's yummy!"
"IT IS GOOD 4 U"
"It's healthy.  Good for body and skin."

A quick look at the ingredients showed that it was indeed high in Vitamin B6, Vitamin Sugar, Vitamin Brown Sugar, Vitamin Milk Byproduct, Vitamin Corn Syrup, Vitamin Artificial Flavor, Vitamin Natural Flavor, and Vitamin BHT ADDED TO PACKAGING MATERIAL TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS.

The website for Honey Bunches is pretty slick.  It's a pretty tough sell to call all that stuff healthy.  They let the comparisons do the work.  You can compare Honey Bunches to Frosted Flakes, Honey Nut Cheerios, Special K (The obvious token "Boring Cereal"), and Frosted Mini Wheats.  The obvious conclusion is that Honey Bunches is lower in sugar and calories than all but one of these.

Which isn't saying much, if you ask me.

Frosted Mini Wheats and Frosted Flakes are the whiffle balls of the unhealthy cereal world, and Special K has the gastronomical appeal of packaging peanuts.  The study says, "We may be unhealthier than Special K... but do you really want to eat that stuff?"

I don't think I do.  I also don't want to eat BHT.  Which is why this morning, I decided to make

Honey Bunches of Mochi

Ok, so the picture isn't Captain Fantastic.  It was early, ok?

1 block gluten-free brown rice mochi (available at whole foods and most grocery stores)

1 tsp. lemon zest

1/2 c. roasted almond slivers

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1-2 tbsp. roasted tan sesame seeds

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 c. brown rice syrup

Grate mochi block on largest hole of a cheese grater.  This takes strong muscles and some patience.  For 2-3 servings, grate 1 1/2 to 2 cups of shredded mochi.

Combine mochi, lemon zest, almond slivers, and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix well.

Heat a skillet (no oil) over medium-high heat.  Scoop 1/2 cup of mochi per "pancake," and allow the mochi to heat.  As it heats, the flakes will run together and hold the pancake together.  Once the bottom can be lifted fully intact, flip the mochi "pancake."

Once the pancake is done (the mochi will have run together so that the whole thing can be lifted at once), remove, allow to cool, and slice into thin strips.

Heat brown rice syrup in a small sauce pan with about 3 tbsp. cold water.  Add lemon juice and stir constantly until syrup is heated and water and lemon juice have been completely absorbed.

Dip your mochi sticks and enjoy!

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.

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."

Rocking Collards

I don't have a picture of these awesome collard greens I made the other day, so I'm just going to put up a picture of my dog.

I was trying to cobble together a dinner using rice, the fish in the fridge, and some collard greens. I was totally sick of all my collard green recipes that I've made a billion times before, so I got hit with a crazy idea.

Lemon juice.

The result was light and bright, a perfect compliment to the spiced tuna and jasmine rice.

LEMON COLLARD GREENS

-1/2 lemon, juiced

-1 bunch collard greens

-1 small yellow onion, sliced into thin strips

-4 garlic cloves, minced

-pinch coarse sea salt

-(optional) pinch ground black pepper

Slice the onions into thin strips, mince garlic cloves. I am a garlic fanatic and did six cloves, but not everyone shares my obsession. Pan-fry the garlic until it just begins to brown, and then add the onion, cooking 3-4 minutes at medium-high heat. I typically slice my collard greens into 3-4 inch thick strips, and add them just after I finish the onions.

At this point, it's important to be judicious with oil. It's really easy to see the ingredients sticking to the pan and slosh some more oil in here, but I've found that adding 2-3 tbsp. cold water works even better, keeps the flavor light, and keeps it low-cal. If you add the water, let it simmer down a few minutes and then add your lemon juice and spices.

The whole cooking process takes between 15-20 minutes and results in a totally rocking collard dish!

Life Changes and Lattes

I was reading back on some posts I did a couple months ago before I went home. Turns out there were some big life changes headed my way, and I'm pleased to announce that beginning in January, I'll be taking on a five month macrobiotic apprenticeship!

My friend Natalie was telling me that there's a difference between a "pull" and a "call." A pull towards something means that you feel a nervous urge to do it, whether from guilt, desire, or some sort of need. A call is quieter, and often much more subtle. It can be long term, never "pulling," simply waiting at the periphery of your life for you to decide that it's the right thing to do.

I have felt a call to take on a more serious study of macrobiotic practice that has been growing for some time, and once I stopped fighting the urge to be right in the thick of things here in the city, it became clear that it was the right thing for me to do, and that this is the right time for me to do it.

I plan on setting down some major roots in the next two years (graduate school, a dog, a lease with my name on it and checks that don't have hello kitty on them)... so this feels like the right time for me to do this.

Ok, onto the next. I had two major culinary accomplishments today:

1. Homemade vegan lattes.

2. "Buttermilk" Scallion-Corn muffins.

As you know, I am a purveyor of artisan crafted beverages by day, so on my days off, I find myself utterly bereft of steamed foamy drinks. This morning I went to the yuppie grocery and got two soy lattes. This evening I needed another, so I cleverly heated soy milk to boiling, put on an oven mitt because it was insanely hot, and used the $3 Ikea Milk Frother to make a drink that looked nothing like this:

But it tasted pretty good.

My second victory was a modification of a positively stellar Martha Stewart recipe that blew my mind with its utter goodness. I told May I'd make her dinner because she's been cooking all kinds of insanely good Chinese comfort food lately for my cold-ridden self. The theme? Southern Comfort.

We had vegan chili with kidney beans, organic local onions, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not too sure about. We had patatuh salahd, as it were. And we had these amazing freaking biscuits. I know that I just wrote a tirade about making vegan substitutions and calling it healthy. So hear me say:

This is not healthy.

There we go. I feel heard. Onto the muffins:

Ingredients

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour

• 2 tablespoons agave nectar/ brown rice syrup
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons rice or soy milk
• 1 tbsp white or white wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons oil
• 2 large eggs, whisked
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 1/2 cup fresh corn, cooked first

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lightly grease 6 cups of a standard-size muffin pan with vegetable oil. In a large bowl,
   combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center; stir in buttermilk, oil, egg, and scallions. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, 10 to 13 minutes.

Courtesy of Martha Stewart. Modifications by Becky to make it dairy free and gluten-free and more delicious. I was privileged in my muffins to have both local scallions and local corn, which totally heightened the experience, because the cornmeal I was using was so generic it was probably GMO'd to glow in the dark so it could be picked at night.

MON DIEU OH LA LA, C'EST RATATOULLIE!

The CSA had an insane number of zucchini and squash, so what was there to do but pop in Disney's Ratatouille and make the dish itself! Typically it has more cheese than a Whole Foods dairy aisle, but May and I were having none of that, so we cut butter and cheese where we could, and replaced the rest of it with soy and rice cheese.

To date, this is my favorite snackrobiotic dish we've ever made. It was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten. It's labor-intensive, but if you really want to rock the minds of your vegan friends, I have to say that this is a truly stunning dish.


* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 6 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon dried parsley
* 2 eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
* salt to taste
* 2 cups grated soy cheese (try either rice cheese parmesan or soy cheese mozarella)
* 4 zucchini, sliced
* 2 large red onion, sliced into rings
* 4 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
* 4 large tomatoes, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat bottom and sides of a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish with 1 tablespoon olive oil.
2. 
   
3. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic until lightly browned. Mix in parsley and eggplant. Saute until eggplant is soft, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste. Follow these same steps for the mushrooms, cooking about 10 minutes until most of the liquid is released and evaporated. Add to the mushrooms one sprig of fresh thyme.
   

See the steps below for pictures of what happens next!


It took a long time to slice these by hand. I'd recommend using a mandolin where it's available, and doubling or tripling the recipe to make at least two pans of it. If you're going to do the work, might as well have a tray of leftovers, because this thing will be consumed to the last drop.
It's key to saute the mushrooms, eggplant, and then (separately) the onion slices. The former two because they'll make the dish too liquidy when it cooks, and the latter because onions lose their flavor when they are raw and touch acidic tomatoes in the oven. You have to saute them a little while first, so that their flavor comes out and is sealed in.
Coat the bottom of the pan in mushrooms and eggplant like the bottom of a pie crust.
Begin layering all of your ingredient discs, alternating materials (squash, zuc, tomato, onion) all the way up and down the pan. Once a level is complete, cover it in soy/rice cheese, and start building the next level.

Pop it in the oven and cook for 45-60 minutes! I hit it with one last layer of soy cheese and let it really brown...

It was such a perfect night. We sat in the sun room, which is this great turn-of-the century construction off the side of the house that is all windows, popped in the movie "Ratatouille," and enjoyed this incredible dish together. What an amazing experience!