Sugarless Chocolate Coconut Hash

Posted on March 28, 2013 by roguemama80

Sugarless chocolate coconut hash

I wanted to do a stevia-sweetened dessert for Pesach. The Bean was being a whiner and the Sprout was all about adding to the vocal cacophony – so I whipped together this delicious bit of chocolate and coconut products and it turned out great. I used three squares of unsweetened baking chocolate. No, it wasn’t organic or free trade (it was a madhouse and I was reduced to using what was on hand in my cupboards). Add one tablespoon organic liquid Stevia and two tablespoons of coconut oil. Melt together on low heat in a sauce pan, stirring frequently. Once you have fully melted the ingredients, dump one cup of shredded unsweetened organic coconut in the pan. Fully incorporate. I spread the mixture out on a sheet of wax paper and refrigerated till cold.

Seder Hash

After being refrigerated it was easy to break into small pieces. This treat is SO easy and an incredibly decadent treat….

Garden spillover? Tomato Powder!

Posted on March 22, 2013 by roguemama80

Tomato preservation options

We’ve all done it. Planted two or three tomato plants and then suddenly, mid-summer, we have tomatoes coming out of our ears! Here’s another method of preserving your herculean grow efforts – Tomato Powder!
At the height of ripeness dehydrate thinly sliced tomatoes in large batches. The pictured tomato products were made from Amish Paste tomatoes; a super-tasty heirloom variety. The tomato slices need to be particularly dried. On their own they can later be reconstituted in water or oil for various applications.

Dehydrated slices of Amish Paste tomatoes

With a blender, food-processor or (in this case) a Magic Bullet process the dried slices into powder. Reconstitute small amounts of the power for sauces, pastes or just to add rich tomato flavors to other dishes.
The variegated shades of powder in the jar pictured below is caused from the variety of dried tomato batches used in the powdering process.

Tomato Powder made from multiple batches of dried tomatoes

A jar of home-grown tomato powder makes a nice gift as well…

Guilt-Free Tropical Popcorn

Posted on March 20, 2013 by roguemama80

Double Coconut Corn

My oldest and I were in the mood for a ‘zert tonight (That’s Bean-speak for dessert) and I, of course, want to avoid refined sugar….what to do? What to do? Enter Coconut-corn!

3 Heaping Tbls Coconut Oil
1/4 Cup Organic Popcorn Kernels
1/4 Cup Xyla
1/4 Organic Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
2 tsp Sea Salt

In A large pot with a lid heat the oil on medium. Add popcorn kernels – cook till popped, shaking the pot regularly as to not burn the popcorn. Once the corn is popped remove pot from stove and add remaining ingredients. Stir well.

This is a lightly sweet kettle-corn-like dessert with tropical notes from the shredded coconut and the oil. Super yummy!

Raw Goat’s Milk Ice Cream

Posted on March 14, 2013 by roguemama80

Raw Ice Cream

The Bean has a sweet tooth and I love to indulge him in sneaky-sneaky-good-for-you-ways. The afore-pictured “ice cream” is one of his favorites and is healthy enough to serve as a meal. Technically, this is an ice milk but no need to explain the difference to the little ones…

4 C raw goat milk
5 egg yolks
1 tsp liquid stevia
1 tsp pure almond extract
Strawberries

Whisk 1 cup milk with the egg yolks and bring to just boiling. Be sure to rapidly whisk as to keep the egg from “cooking”. Immediately mix in the rest of the milk and remove from stove.
At this point, I add the stevia & extract and then put the mixture back in the fridge. When the mixture is chilled simply pour into ice cream maker (I use an attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer). When the ice cream is finished serve with sliced strawberries. Delicious and something you can feel good about serving to the kiddos!

Shortcut for whey and Greek yogurt

Posted on February 27, 2013 by roguemama80

Plain Nancy’s Organic is a good choice

So the boys and I plan on making some ‘kraut this week a la lacto-fermentation. Well, rather Beans and I are gonna make it and the little Sprout will watch…enraptured by our skills, I am sure….. I don’t have enough milk right now to shake it down for its whey so I chose a cheap and easy alternative.
Taking a carton of organic plain yogurt (I use Nancy’s), I plopped the contents in some fine cheesecloth and suspended it over a stainless steel bowl for the afternoon. It’s important to use a yogurt with live probiotic cultures.

Separating the whey from the yogurt

Once all the whey (or most) has dripped off the yogurt just pour the whey in a container and, likewise, scoop the resulting greek-style yogurt into a dish of its own.

The whey

Greek-style yogurt

Now, while Beans isn’t a huge fan of plain yogurt I can sweeten this stuff with stevia and fruit; super-duper thick and yummy.

And we now have some way-easy whey with which to make our sauerkraut!

Man, I love puns….

Wheat-free Eggplant Parmigiana – the kind that’s supposed to induce labor…

Posted on February 9, 2013 by roguemama80

Wheat-Free Eggplant Parmigiana

So everyone has an old wive’s tale about how to naturally induce labor. In the middle of my 39th week of pregnancy I am not above non invasive attempts to start things along by eating inordinate amounts of fresh pineapples or watching the whole Series 0ne of Downton Abbey while walking on my treadmill. Enter the Scalini’s Eggplant Parmigiana….
Scalini’s is an Italian restaurant in Georgia who’s claim to fame is an eggplant parmigiana dish they say will get labor going within 48 hours of eating. If you can’t make it physically to their restaurant they are awesome enough to post a copy of their recipe on their website. Here is their original recipe.
Because I thought their original recipe was just too much for my household, I cut it roughly in half. I also made some revisions to the ingredients to make the parmigiana wheat-free as well as choosing organic products and produce.

Scalini’s Marinara Sauce (REVISED)
1 Tbs Chopped Garlic
3 Tbs Olive Oil
1 32 oz can of Crushed Tomatoes
1 Large Yellow Onion – chopped fine
1c Fresh Italian Parsley – chopped
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1c Fresh Basil – chopped
Pinch of Rosemary
Pinch of Ground Thyme
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Black Pepper

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil for about 10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients except the crushed tomatoes. Saute for another 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and allow to simmer for an hour.

Best marinara EVER!

Scalini’s Eggplant Parmigiana Recipe (REVISED)

1 Large Eggplant
1c Brown Rice Flour
2c Almond flour
1/4c “Italian Seasoning”
1/2c Romano Cheese
1/2c Parmesan Cheese
12oz Mozzarella – shredded
1c Ricotta Cheese
Marinara from previous recipe
Olive oil

Wash eggplant and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Lay out on paper towels and allow to dry out for at least an hour. Mix Italian Seasoning with almond flour. Heat olive oil in skillet. Coat slices of eggplant in rice flour, dip in egg and then coat with almond flour mixture. Fry in skillet until each side is golden brown. In a baking dish layer eggplant, cheeses and marinara until about a quarter inch from the top of pan. I had some seasoned almond flour left over so I sprinkled that on top of eggplant slices as well. Top the parmigiana off with remaining mozzarella. Bake covered at 375 for 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake for another 10 minutes.

I ate this eggplant parmigiana over 45 hours ago – No sign of labor yet. However, The parmigiana is incredibly delicious and the marinara is perhaps the best sauce I’ve ever had. I may not have had my baby but I was one very satisfied pregnant lady. Nom Nom.

Easy Cake Pops

Posted on February 5, 2013 by roguemama80

My best friend is hosting a sprinkle for the new baby and I though I’d try my hand at making a little something special that I had never made before: Cake Pops. I know these hardly qualify as “real food” but we’ll try our hand at converting to a crunchier alternative once we get the fundamentals down! I watched about a dozen tutorials on how to do it and this is what I came up with to make it the most simple experience. I completely ruined the first half of my cake pop batch through trial and error, so it looks like there won’t be enough pops to take to the event. But, hey! I know how to do these puppies from here on out.

You need:
One boxed cake- baked
One tub of pre-made frosting
30 pop sticks
2 bags of Wilton’s Candy Melts
Piece of styrofoam
Mini ice cream scoop

Start with baking and cooling the cake.
Once the cake is completely cooled use your fingers to crumble it into a fine grain.

hand-crumbled cake

Next, spoon in a little less than 1/3 of the container of frosting. This is essentially two giant spoonfuls. DO NOT use too much frosting. Mix in the frosting to the crumbled cake with your fingers. It becomes a dough-like blob that you can shape.

Frosting and cake mixed

Now use the mini ice cream scoop to measure out uniform amounts of the mixture. Use your hands to roll into tight, solid balls.

Cake balls

Melt about a quarter cup of the candy melts in a glass cup.

Candy melts

Melted candy

Dip about 3/4 of an inch of the ends of the pop sticks in the melted candy.

Pop stick dipped in melted candy

Insert into cake balls. Freeze for half hour. This will keep the sticks from coming out of cake balls when you candy coat them.

Cake balls with sticks

Melt a tall glass full of the candy melts. I did this in the microwave – took about a minute and twenty seconds. I did this in twenty second increments. I originally tried to use white chocolate chips and this was a disaster. They melted too thick and thats how I ruined half of these cake pops.
Remove cake balls from the freezer and dip one at a time in the melted candy.

Dip cake balls

Dip them down far enough in the tall cup that the candying on the stick is covered. Gently twist the cake pop as you bring it out of the melted candy. Poke the cake pop stick into the styrofoam block and allow the candy to harden. Super easy cake pops! The next time I make these I plan do do so baking a cake from scratch with Real Food ingredients and using stevia-sweetened cream cheese for the “frosting”. I’m at a loss for what to do to reduce the refined sugar content in the candy melts. I’d love to hear ideas on good substitutes!

Real Food Snacks – DIY Trail mix

Posted on January 30, 2013 by roguemama80

Organic pumpkin seeds, almonds, date pieces, raisins & dried apricots

With a preschooler you always have to have snacks on hand. You never know when they are going to get hungry, and a healthy, energy-giving snack can mean the difference between finishing your errands and having to deal with a DEFCON 1 meltdown. In my family we LOVE trail mix. Nuts, seeds and dried fruits produce a tasty pick-me-up that never fails to make my Bean happy. We have found that by purchasing our trail mix ingredients separately from the bulk natural foods section of our local supermarket or co-op we not only get to customize what goes into our trail mix – but we wind up paying a lot less. The trail mix we blended in today’s pictures are made from all organic ingredients and cost less than $5/lb. The only prep required was cutting up the dried apricots. The next time you want to stock up on portable snacks, consider making your own trail mix blend.

Beans loves his trail mix!

BREAKFAST OF WELLNESS: Raw Kefir Smoothie

Posted on January 27, 2013 by roguemama80

Raw Kefir Smoothie with organic strawberries, bananas & chia seeds

In the dreariness of January we sometimes need a cup of sunshine to perk us up. Enter raw kefir smoothies! We cultured our raw goats milk with a kefir culture we purchased at Grains, Beans & Things. After bringing our milk up to room temperature, we inoculated a quart jar of it with our chosen culture and allowed it to sit out on the counter for 48 hours. Our end product was slightly sour and not too thick. I would prefer to make my kefir with kefir grains as opposed to the cultures. If you live in the Southern Oregon area and have extra grains you’d like to share please comment!
So, using the beloved Magic Bullet we blended our kefir with organic strawberries, bananas, chia seeds and a few drops of liquid stevia. Oh, so good smoothie of probiotic goodness!!!

Say “hello” to millions of my “little friends”!

Grain Free, Sugar Free Chocolate Brownies

Posted on January 24, 2013 by roguemama80

A little bit of grain-free heaven

Here’s a recipe for my grain-free, sugar-free brownies. These goodies are seriously fabulous! When eaten warm they are gooey like regular brownies. But if you chill these “brownies” they are almost like eating chocolate cheesecake in their consistency.
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 Can Coconut Milk (Full Fat)
1 Cup Coconut Oil
2 Cups Almond Flour
1 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
6 Droppers Liquid Stevia
1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa

PREHEAT OVEN TO 350

Directions:
1.) Melt the coconut oil
2.) Mix the cocoa into the melted oil till the cocoa has melted thoroughly into the oil
3.) Add the stevia to the chocolate/oil mixture
4.) In a different bowl combine coconut milk and eggs – mix well

5.) Combine coconut milk mixture with cocoa mixture
6.) In ANOTHER bowl mix the salt and baking soda with the almond flour
7.) Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients

8.) Grease an 8×8 pan with coconut oil & pour in “brownie” batter
9.) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes
10.) EAT!!!!

Rogue Mama

The lifestyle and discoveries of a quasi-crunchy Southern Oregon mama

Category Archives: Recipes