Category: Holiday

Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake with Red Bean Paste) – Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free

P1080469-2

Nian Gao is a very traditional dish for Lunar New Year.

The word for “sticky” in Mandarin is a homonym for the Mandarin word for “year” so it’s considered good luck to eat nian gao, or “year cake” at Lunar New Year.

This recipe tastes identical to the version that my mom made when I was growing up, but is dairy and refined sugar free.

If you’ve never had nian gao before, think of it as basically a big baked mochi that’s slightly crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle with little pockets of sweet red bean filling.

Doesn’t that sound amazing?

This recipe is very simple to make. It’s basically pour everything into a bowl, stir and bake for a little more than an hour.

When I made a test batch I thought that it would be enough for 4-6 servings, but it’s so good that it was polished off very quickly. So, really, it will probably serve more like 2-3 people, so make extra if your family members are big eaters like mine are.

Nian Gao Recipe (Year Cake)

Adapted from this recipe

Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients

1/4 level tsp + 1/8 level tsp baking soda

8 oz of sweet rice flour (I used the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour)

1 egg + 1/2 an additional beaten egg (about 3 tbsp)*

5 tbsp melted coconut oil**

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 cup water

Red Bean Paste Filling

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 1/2 cups drained red beans ***

*You can replace the 1/2 egg with 1/2 tbsp ground flax seed and 3 tbsp hot water. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes before using.

**There is the tiniest hint of coconut flavor from the coconut oil, but most people probably won’t notice. If you can’t stand coconut, you can used refined coconut oil instead. I like the Trader Joe’s one because it’s filtered to remove the coconut flavor instead of being bleached.

*** This recipe uses a lot of the red beans from the red bean soup, so if you’re planning on serving red bean soup for Lunar New Year, I would recommend making an extra batch of red bean soup just to use for the red bean filling in this Nian Gao recipe. You probably have some soup left over which you can send home with guests so it will all be eaten and people will go home happy.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

Grease your baking dish with either coconut oil, or a neutral flavored oil, and flour it with a few tbsp of sweet rice flour and set it to the side.

2. Stir together the 1/4 cup of maple syrup with the red beans. Use the back of a spoon to smush about 1/3 of the red beans against the side of the bowl. This took me about 20-30 seconds. You want some texture in the red bean paste when it’s baked, and some bits that are a little smooth.

3. In medium sized bowl, stir together the baking soda, sweet rice flour, melted coconut oil, egg (and the flax egg), 1/2 cup of maple syrup, and water. Stir until smooth.

4. I used a 8.5 x 11 inch oval casserole dish, but you can bake it in whatever size dish you have, just as long as the batter is an inch thick in the baking dish.

The nian gao batter plus the red bean filling is 4 1/3 cups in volume. If you want to see if your baking dish will work for this recipe, pour 4 1/3 cups of water into the baking dish and see if the layer of water is 1 inch deep. If it is, then that baking dish should work for this recipe.

Scoop 1 1/2 cups of the nian gao batter into the baking dish so that the batter covers the entire bottom of the dish. Spoon over the red bean filling into puddles all over the batter, this doesn’t need to be perfectly even, in fact it’s better if it isn’t as the nian gao will hold together better if there isn’t a smooth layer of red bean filling separating the top and bottom of the batter.

P1080449

Spoon over the rest of the remaining batter and use the back of your spoon to slightly swirl the batter and red bean filling.

P1080456

5. Bake at 350 for 1 hr and 15 minutes until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean. It will be slightly crispy on top.

Allow the nian gao to cool to room temperature before cutting and serving.

If you don’t want to bother with the red bean filling, you can make the cake without it. I’ve only made it with the red bean filling, but if you make the nian gao without it, it will take less time to bake.

I would bake it at 350 and start checking to see if it’s done after 30 minutes. Other nian gao recipes that I’ve seen online without red bean filling seem to take about 45-60 minutes in the oven.

nian gao picture

Happy Lunar New Year!

 

 

Tang Yuan

Lunar New Year – Homemade Tang Yuan Recipe – Refined Sugar Free

P1080412

Lunar New Year is always an exciting time of year. It’s a time when we all get together and eat lots of amazing food.

Every Asian culture celebrates Lunar New Year a little differently, but growing up Chinese American, we always made sure that we ate fish (for prosperity), noodles (for long life), oranges (for wealth), and tang yuan during the Lunar New Year feast.

“Tang” means soup, and “yuan” means round. “Yuan” also signifies a family gathering around a table, so this is why tang yuan are eaten at Lunar New Year.

Tang yuan are chewy sweet rice balls. They can be filled with anything (there are peanut butter ones, taro ones, and black sesame ones too) but these are filled with sweet red bean paste, which is one of my favorite fillings.

These tang yuan are easy to make, and refined sugar free but still taste just like the ones I grew up eating.

My family eats them with red bean soup, and this is the perfect thing to warm you right up during cold weather that we’re having.

I hope that you eat these tang yuan surrounded by lots of loved ones this Lunar New Year.

 

Tang Yuan (Sweet Rice Balls with Red Bean Filling)

Makes 12 Tang Yuan (about 3 – 4 servings) *

Ingredients

1/2 cup drained red beans **

1/8 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup sweet rice flour – 90 g (I used the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour)***

1/4 cup warm water – 60 g

* 3 – 4 Tang Yuan per person should be ok if you’re eating a big meal for Lunar New Year, but my family usually eat a lot of them. Some people want 8 tang yuan in their bowl, some want 5, so it’s a good idea to make some extra ones just in case. This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled if need be, and it’s nice to have some extra tang yuan on hand in the winter months when you want a sweet warm snack.

**Make the red bean soup first, then use those some of those red beans in this recipe. drain about 1 cup of beans and liquid before you measure the 1/2 cup. You want the 1/2 of beans to be almost all beans with very little liquid. Press the red beans lightly with the back of a spoon while the red beans are in a sieve so that you get as much excess liquid out of the beans as possible. You can save the liquid and add it back into the red bean soup, or keep it to the side to and eat it with a drizzle of maple syrup if you don’t want to make the red bean soup thinner.

*** I recommend weighing the sweet rice flour if possible for the best results.

 

Instructions

1. Add the drained red beans into a food processor with the 1/8 cup of maple syrup (I know that it doesn’t seem like much sweetener, but it gives just the right amount of sweetness to the tang yuan) and blend until smooth. It will look like this when it’s done.

P1080377

2. Cook the mixture in a small saucepan on medium high for 7-8 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened. It should be a similar texture to jam when you’re done.

P1080383

3. Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool. The mixture should be reduced to just over 1/3 cup of red bean paste. Lay plastic wrap over a plate, and scoop a 1/2 tsp amount of the red bean paste into your hands and roll into a ball. Place the ball on the plate and repeat until you use up all the red bean paste. You should get about 12 little balls of paste in total. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1 hour until solid.

4. When the red bean balls are frozen solid, add the warm water to the sweet rice flour and stir with a fork until a shaggy dough is formed. Knead the dough together with your hands for 1-2 minutes until smooth.

P1080399

5. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and keep the pieces of dough that you’re not working with covered with plastic wrap so that it doesn’t dry out.

Take the red bean paste balls out of the freezer. If you’re working with a double or triple batch, take about 12 red bean paste balls out of the freezer at a time, that way that don’t defrost before you cover them in the dough. It’s much easier to wrap the red bean paste in the dough if the red bean paste is frozen solid.

Wet your hands, and flatten each piece of dough into a small disk in your hand and pinch and fold the dough together to cover the red beans paste and roll until the ball is smooth.

P1080401

If you’re a visual learner, this video shows how it’s done starting at the 2:30 min mark.

 

The first time I tried covering the balls in the dough, I did it with dry hands and it was much more difficult to work with than when my hands were wet. When I tried it again with wet hands, I made a double batch and only had trouble covering about 4 out of 24 of the tang yuan.

If the dough is too dry, it won’t stick to the red bean paste. You can peel off the dough and knead in a few drops of water before trying to cover the red bean paste again.

If the dough is too wet, it also won’t stick to the ball of red bean paste, but it will stick to just about everything else. In that case, just knead it with your hands for a little bit until it dries out a little and try again. Don’t worry if you can see little flecks of red bean paste on the outside of the tang yuan. No one will notice once they are in the soup.

If you get an air bubble around the red bean paste and the dough is not sticking to the ball, pull all the dough off of the ball, wet your hands, knead it the dough a little and try covering the ball again. This technique works better than trying to squeeze the air out which tends to make the rest of the dough pull away from the ball as well.

Once you’re done rolling the tang yuan, put them onto a plate lined in plastic wrap and cover lightly with another layer of plastic wrap and freeze until solid. Once frozen, transfer the tang yuan into an air-tight container and stash in your freezer until you are ready to cook them.

When you want to cook them, warm up some red bean soup (or you can also eat the tang yuan in the water that you cook them in with a little maple syrup drizzled over for sweetness).

Then bring a pot of water to the boil. Add the tang yuan (cook a few extra in case a few break open while cooking), cover with the lid and turn the heat down to medium low. Let the tang yuan cook until they float (about 6-8 minutes) lifting the lid to check on them occasionally. Once they are floating, put the lid back on and then set a timer 3 minutes let them continue cooking over medium low until the timer goes off.

If some of the tang yuan break open, don’t worry about. Just ladle those ones into your bowl (cook’s treat, you can also ask if anyone else wants the extras) and they will taste just as good as the whole ones.

For the Miniature Tang Yuan – You can also make little (non-filled tang yuan) as well, and those are even easier to make.

Stir together 1/4 cup (45g) sweet rice flour with 1/8 cup warm water (30 g) and knead until smooth. Roll the dough into a long snake and keep cutting the dough in half until you have 32 little pieces of dough about the size of a centimeter. Roll each little piece of dough into a ball and place them on a plate lined in plastic wrap. Over lightly with another piece of plastic wrap and freeze until solid.

The cooking instructions for the little tang yuan (no matter if they are freshly made or frozen) is to bring a pot of water to the boil. Add in the little tang yuan, cover, and set a time for 3 minutes.

When the timer is up, scoop out the little tang yuan with a slotted spoon and add them to the red bean soup. Ta-da! Extra adorableness for Lunar New Year!

To Serve – Ladle the red bean soup into bowls, top with your tang yuan and drizzle over some maple syrup.

What I do when I eat this soup is I’ll drizzle over about 1 tbsp of maple per bowl and don’t stir it in. That way, each time you take a bite you get a little hint of sweetness and you use less sweetener overall in the soup.

P1080412-2

I hope that you and your family have a lucky, wonderful, safe and prosperous Lunar New Year!

Happy Eating!

 

 

Lunar New Year – Red Bean Soup Recipe, Refined Sugar Free, Maple Syrup

red bean soup

Red bean soup is a recipe that my family makes often. Red bean is a very popular flavor in Asian desserts (there’s red bean ice cream, red bean filling in mochi, and even red bean popsicles), and I’ve grown up eating this soup all my life.

This soup is a sweet soup that warms you up in the winter, and it goes great with tang yuan, which are a traditional chewy sweet rice balls that signify family togetherness and are eaten at celebrations like weddings, and especially at Lunar New Year.

This soup is normally made with a lot of cane sugar, but I make the soup with maple syrup instead. My trick for using less sweetener when eating this soup is to drizzle about 1 tbsp of maple syrup on top of each bowl, and to not stir it in.

That way each time you take a bite, you get that little hint of sweetness and you end up using less maple syrup overall.

Another good way to cut down the sweetener in red bean soup is to cook the soup in a slow cooker. The beans taste sweeter when cooked this way, and with a few tang yuan and a drizzle of maple syrup, I promise you that you won’t miss the cane sugar version because this one is amazing.

If you need to cook red bean soup in a hurry, you can do this on the stove top in about 1 – 1 1/2 hours. The texture of the beans won’t be quite as soft and tender as the slow cooker red bean soup, but the stove top version will still be very good.

If you’re expecting to serve this to more than 6 people for Lunar New Year, I recommend making two batches of this soup. If you have extra, you can send it home with people and everyone will be extra happy for Lunar New Year.

 

Sweet Red Bean Soup Recipe

Makes 4 – 6 servings (if you use some of the red beans to make tang yuan, 6-8 servings if you don’t).

Ingredients

1 lb Adzuki Beans (aka Red Beans, preferably organic)

10.5 cups of filtered water

– maple syrup for serving


Instructions

Slow Cooker Directions

1. Give the beans a good rinse. Add them to a large pot and cover them with 1.5 inches of cool filtered water. Bring the beans to a boil, then set a time for 2 minutes and let the beans boil until the timer goes off.

2. Drain the beans and add them to a slow cooker along with 10.5 cups of filtered water. Cover, and let the beans cook on high for 9-10 hours until the beans are very soft and tender.

Stove Top Directions –

1. Give the beans a good rinse. Add them to a large pot and cover them with 1.5 inches of cool filtered water. Bring the beans to a boil, then set a time for 2 minutes and let the beans boil until the timer goes off.

2. Drain the beans and add them back into the pot along with 10.5 cups of filtered water. Cover, bring the beans to a boil again, then turn the heat down to medium low and let the beans cook covered for 1 – 1 1/2 hours until the beans are soft. Give the beans a stir every now and then, and if the water looks a little low, add a little more water. The soup is done when you can easy smush a bean between your thumb and forefinger.

If after an hour and a half of cooking the beans are still firm (older beans sometimes take longer to cook) turn the heat up to medium and cook for another 30-45 minutes and the beans should be soft by then.

Serve the soup with homemade tang yuan and a drizzle of maple syrup.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Vanilla Extract

Kitchen Tip – Easy Way To Get The Cap Off A Vanilla Extract Bottle

vanilla

 

If you’ve ever known the struggle of baking cookies and not being able to get the little cap off of the vanilla extract bottle, this one’s for you.

Here’s the secret –

Wrap a few thin rubber bands around the cap of the vanilla extract. The rubber bands make the smooth metal of the cap easier to grip. The bottle of extract should be a breeze to open after that.

I use the rubber bands that come wrapped around vegetables like kale, or green onions, or bunches of cilantro or parsley. It’s a thrifty solution, and makes baking with vanilla extract much much easier.

This idea for this came to me when I was testing the recipe for the maple vanilla sugar cookies. For a moment I was concerned that I was not going to be able to get the cap off of the bottle of extract, and I actually thought for a second “Do I really need vanilla in this recipe?”

The answer was “Yes. You do need vanilla in maple vanilla sugar cookies.” So I had to come up with a solution pretty quickly, and here we are!

I hope that this kitchen tip helps you to never again be held back from your baking dreams by another difficult to open vanilla extract cap!

Happy Baking!

 

Instant Homemade Vegetable Stock

Instant Homemade Vegetable Stock Mix – Vegan, Soy-free, Gluten-Free

P1080022-2

Vegetable stock is easy to make, but can be a little bit of hassle, and takes up a lot of space in the freezer. Store bought veggie stock can be expensive, and it can have a lot of added ingredients that leave you wondering “What is organic caramel coloring?” and “Why does it need to be in vegetable stock?” I find myself asking the same questions when I read the back of soup bouillon labels as well.

If you too have these questions (and are wondering if there is an easier way to make vegetable stock with less additives) this might be the answer that you’ve been looking for.

This is a super simple and easy recipe to always have vegetable stock on hand. This recipe is soy free, thrifty and easy to customize.

We’re going to basically make a spice mix that contains a lot of flavors that you would normally find in vegetable stock. You can almost think of it as a tea. Admittedly, it takes 10 minutes to steep (so not quite “instant”) but it’s still pretty quick.

You can also make a large batch of this veggie stock mix and put it into a little jar to use as needed.

If you don’t like the little bits of dried spices in your soup, you can strain the broth through a coffee filter, or place the spices in some layers of cheese cloth, tie it up with some kitchen twine and place it into your soup pot (basically like a tea bag) to fish out later once the flavors of the broth have infused.

I hope that this recipe helps you make lots of wonderful soups in the future. I plan on making a noodle soup with this pretty soon. Perfect for the cold weather.

 

Makes a scant 2 tbsp of veggie stock mix = 4 cups of vegetable stock

Ingredients

1 tsp granulated onion

3/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp celery salt

1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp of granulated garlic

1/4 tsp dried rubbed sage

1/4 tsp dried parsley

1/4 – 1/2 tsp sea salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

 

Instructions

Stir all the spices together. Add the mixture to 4 cups of boiling water and allow to steep for 5-10 minutes. You can strain the mixture at this point or leave the spices in the stock depending on your preference.

Use in your favorite soup recipes, or add some noodles, and some veggies for a quick and filling lunch or dinner.

Enjoy!

Maple Vanilla Icing

Maple Vanilla Icing – Refined Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Vegan

P1080184

No gingerbread cookies or sugar cookies would be complete without icing! This is a super easy and allergy friendly icing for gingerbread cookies, and sugar cookies. Perfect for decorating cookies around the holidays!

Maple Vanilla Icing

Makes about 1/4 cup

Ingredients

3 tbsp + 2 tsp maple syrup

3 tbsp sweet rice flour (I used the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour)

3 tbsp + ½ tsp melted refined coconut oil (I used one from Trader Joes)

¼ tsp + 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

tiny tiny pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Stir together the maple syrup, sweet rice flour, and vanilla extract until smooth.

2. Add in the melted refined coconut oil and stir until well combined.

3. Allow the icing to sit for a minute or two until the coconut oil cools a little and it’s easier to spread or pipe onto cookies.

To get a glossy finish on the cookies, ice the cookies while the icing is still warm, and use the back of a teaspoon smooth the icing to the edges of the cookie. If the icing firms up too much to frost with, just put the icing over a double boiler to gently melt the coconut oil and it will smooth right out again.

You can also use this icing to pipe with. I just scooped the icing in to a ziploc bag, cut off a tiny bit of the corner of the bag and used it to pipe the frosting onto the cookies.

If you want to pipe with the frosting, add in about 1/4 – 1/2 tsp more of the sweet rice flour to the frosting (to get a firmer frosting) and pipe the icing while the icing is still a warm.

If the icing gets firm to pipe with, scoop it out of the bag, heat it in a double boiler again, allow to cool for a minute and then scoop the icing back in to the bag, and pipe the icing as usual.

If it does look a little rough in places, you can dip your finger in some warm water and smooth down the rough edges, or use a wet toothpick for ever more precision in cleaning up the edges of your icing.

 

 

Maple Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Maple Vanilla Sugar Cookies – Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free, Vegan

P1080165

These are great cookies, and super simple to make. They are sort of a cross between a traditional sugar cookie, and a fortune cookie. They have a wonderful crunchiness and the maple gives them a lovely sweetness.

Another good thing about these cookies is that they don’t contain any baking soda or baking powder, so the shape of the cookies don’t spread out or distort at all during baking.

The shape that you put the cookies into the oven is the same shape that they come out of the oven, perfect for holiday cookies.

You make them exactly the same way as the gingerbread cookies (hence the same instructions are repeated here) and the maple vanilla flavor really shines through in these cookies.

They aren’t too sweet, and I love them most when they are completely frosted with the maple vanilla icing. If you also love sweeter cookies, you can double the icing recipe. They frosting really gives the cookies a very polished look and makes them taste even more amazing.

 

Maple Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Makes 10 – 12 cookies

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp water

½ level tsp psyllium husk powder *

 

tiny pinch of sea salt

1 ¼ cup + 2 tbsp oat flour **

 

 

¼ cup + 1 tsp maple syrup

½ tsp + 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

 

2 tbsp + 2 tsp melted refined coconut oil ***

 

Notes – *Psyllium husk powder gels like nothing else, and there’s no great substitute for it. I found mine in the bulk spice section of the local Fred Meyer, but Whole Foods, Trader Joes have been known to carry it as well. If it’s not in the natural foods, or bulk spice section, check the dietary supplement/ digestive health (where the Metamucil is) section of the store or pharmacy as it’s sometimes sold there as well.

** I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

If you’re making the cookies for someone who has celiac disease, use certified gluten free oats, as the oats from the bulk bins can sometimes be processed on the same equipment as wheat.

*** I used the refined coconut oil from Trader Joes, which is filtered and not bleached. It’s the fat of coconut oil, without the flavor which works great for these cookies. You can use regular coconut oil for this recipe, but it probably will give the cookies a mild coconut flavor. Because I used the refined coconut oil, these cookies didn’t taste of coconut at all.

 

Instructions

1. In a small bowl stir together the water and psyllium husk, try to stir out all the lumps. Set aside for a few minutes and let it gel.

2. In a medium size bowl, sift the oat flour, and salt together.

3. Add the maple syrup, and vanilla to the oat flour mixture, and stir until well combined. Add in the gelled psylium husk and stir until you no longer see any bits of the gel.

4. Add the melted refined coconut oil to the mixture and stir until well combined. It will look very sticky, but don’t worry. There’s no need to add any additional flour, the coconut oil will firm up in the fridge and the dough will sort itself out.

5. Let the dough sit in the bowl for 2-3 minutes and it should be firm enough to scoop onto some plastic wrap. Wrap it up and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

sugar cookie

 

6. Preheat your oven to 325 F. Cut the top and sides off of a gallon size Ziploc bag and open it and lay it flat to form a long rectangle.

Dip a paper towel in a little bit of neutral flavored oil (like avocado oil or vegetable oil) and oil the inside of the plastic. Don’t use the coconut oil for this, it solidifies too quickly and the dough ends up sticking to it.

7. Take the dough out of the fridge and cut it in half. Wrap the half you’re not working with in plastic wrap and set to the side.

If the dough breaks when you try to roll it out, you can knead it with your hands for a little bit so that the coconut oil in the dough melts a little from the heat in your hands. It should soften up and become easier to work with after this.

If the dough is too sticky to work with, you can add about 1 tbsp of oat flour, and knead it into the dough to combine, or put it back into the fridge to firm up for a few minutes.

P1080174

 

Roll out your dough between the layers of oiled plastic to 1/4 of an inch thick, re-oiling the plastic each time your re-roll out the dough.

Cut out the shapes with the cookie cutters. Use something like the flat edge of the back of a butter knife (an offset spatula would be perfect for this) and run it under the cookies to get them to release from the plastic.

If there are any little bits of the dough stuck to the plastic after you peel your cookies off, make a little ball out of your scrap dough, and drag it over the plastic and it should clean it right off.

If your finding it difficult to remove the cookies from the plastic (especially for more complex shapes like snowflakes), cut the cookie shapes out using the cookie cutters, and remove the excess cookie dough from around your cookies. Then lay the cookies that are stuck on the plastic onto a plate and stick them in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. After that, the cookies should be firm enough to peel off the plastic and set them onto the baking sheet.

I usually use my finger to press the sides of the cookies smooth, just to clean up the edges.

Place the cookies onto a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 325 for 34- 38 minutes (I baked them for 36 minutes) until just lightly golden brown about the edges and firm to the touch.

Allow the cookies to cool before icing.

P1080152 copy

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays!

Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread Cookies – Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free, Nut Free, Vegan

P1080121

It just doesn’t really feel like Christmas without gingerbread cookies.

These cookies are free from nuts, gluten, refined sugar, dairy, egg free and completely vegan.

They are also delicious.

They are actually the best gingerbread cookies I’ve ever had. Who knew you could make amazing gingerbread cookies that work with so many dietary restrictions?

These cookies are crunchy, and not too sweet. They have a lovely warm flavor to them, and are perfectly spiced (without being too spicy) so they are perfect for kids as well.

The black pepper is optional, but I do think that it gives the cookies a wonderful complex rich flavor.

Another good thing about these cookies is that they don’t contain any baking soda or baking powder, so the shape of the cookies don’t spread out or distort at all during baking.

The shape that you put the cookies into the oven is the same shape that they come out of the oven, perfect for holiday cookies.

If you like your cookies on the sweeter side, double the recipe for the Maple Vanilla Icing and give those cookies a good coating of icing. So good…

P1080137


Gingerbread Cookies

Makes 10 – 12 cookies

 

Ingredients

 

2 tbsp water

½ level tsp psyllium husk powder *

 

1 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp + 1 tsp maple syrup

1 tbsp + ½ tsp organic unsulfered blackstrap molasses

 

1/8 level tsp ground black pepper (optional)

¾ level tsp ground ginger

1 ¼ level tsp + 1/8 level tsp ground cinnamon

1 ¼ cup oat flour + 3 tbsp oat flour **

tiny pinch of sea salt

 

3 tbsp + 1 tsp melted refined coconut oil ***

 

Notes – *Psyllium husk powder gels like nothing else, and there’s no great substitute for it. I found mine in the bulk spice section of the local Fred Meyer, but Whole Foods, Trader Joes have been known to carry it as well. If it’s not in the natural foods, or bulk spice section, check the dietary supplement/ digestive health (where the Metamucil is) section of the store or pharmacy as it’s sometimes sold there as well.

** I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

If you’re making the cookies for someone who has celiac disease, use certified gluten free oats, as the oats from the bulk bins can sometimes be processed on the same equipment as wheat.

*** I used the refined coconut oil from Trader Joes, which is filtered and not bleached. It’s the fat of coconut oil, without the flavor which works great for these cookies. You can use regular coconut oil for this recipe, but it probably will give the cookies a mild coconut flavor. Because I used the refined coconut oil, these cookies didn’t taste of coconut at all.

 

Instructions

1. In a small bowl stir together the water and psyllium husk, try to stir out all the lumps. Set aside for a few minutes and let it gel.

2. In a medium size bowl, sift the oat flour, spices and salt together.

3. Add the maple syrup, molasses and vanilla to the oat flour mixture, and stir until well combined. Add in the gelled psylium husk and stir until you no longer see any bits of the gel.

4. Add the melted refined coconut oil to the mixture and stir until well combined. It will look very sticky, but don’t worry. There’s no need to add any additional flour, the coconut oil will firm up in the fridge and the dough will sort itself out.

5. Let the dough sit in the bowl for 2-3 minutes and it should be firm enough to scoop onto some plastic wrap. Wrap it up and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

P1080096

6. Preheat your oven to 325 F. Cut the top and sides off of a gallon size Ziploc bag and open it and lay it flat to form a long rectangle.

Dip a paper towel in a little bit of neutral flavored oil (like avocado oil or vegetable oil) and oil the inside of the plastic. Don’t use the coconut oil for this, it solidifies too quickly and the dough ends up sticking to it.

7. Take the dough out of the fridge and cut it in half. Wrap the half you’re not working with in plastic wrap and set to the side.

If the dough breaks when you try to roll it out, you can knead it with your hands for a little bit so that the coconut oil in the dough melts a little from the heat in your hands. It should soften up and become easier to work with after this.

If the dough is too sticky to work with, you can add about 1 tbsp of oat flour, and knead it into the dough to combine, or put it back into the fridge to firm up for a few minutes.

P1080124

Roll out your dough between the layers of oiled plastic to 1/4 of an inch thick, re-oiling the plastic each time your re-roll out the dough.

Cut out the shapes with the cookie cutters. Use something like the flat edge of the back of a butter knife (an offset spatula would be perfect for this) and run it under the cookies to get them to release from the plastic.

If there are any little bits of the dough stuck to the plastic after you peel your cookies off, make a little ball out of your scrap dough, and drag it over the plastic and it should clean it right off.

If your finding it difficult to remove the cookies from the plastic (especially for more complex shapes like snowflakes), cut the cookie shapes out using the cookie cutters, and remove the excess cookie dough from around your cookies. Then lay the cookies that are stuck on the plastic onto a plate and stick them in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. After that, the cookies should be firm enough to peel off the plastic and set them onto the baking sheet.

I usually use my finger to press the sides of the cookies smooth, just to clean up the edges.

Place the cookies onto a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 325 for 34- 38 minutes (I baked them for 36 minutes) until just slightly darkened about the edges and firm to the touch.

For small cookies (about 1-1.5 inches in size) bake for 22-24 minutes, until slightly darker around the edges.

Allow the cookies to cool before icing.

P1080131

Enjoy!

Happy Holidays!

 

Mini Chocolate Peppermint Pies – Vegan, Gluten Free, Dairy Free Tarts

P1070527

Before I cut out gluten, dairy, and refined sugar out of my diet, one of the things that I looked forward to every Christmas was the arrival of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Peppermint Bark Squares at the local grocery stores.

How I loved those little squares… so creamy, and rich, and wonderful. I loved opening each of those little brightly colored red and white wrappers.

I loved the little crunchy bits of that swirled in amongst the smooth bright flavor of the peppermint white chocolate. They were so festive, and eating each one felt like such a treat.

 

P1070601

This year, I decided that I would come up with a recipe to get that same sort of feeling of eating a chocolate peppermint treat at Christmastime, (but one that I could eat with my dietary restrictions) so that I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out on anything.

These little tarts are vegan, and nut (without the cashew cream) / soy / and gluten free, so they will work with a variety of food sensitivities and food allergies, and would be a good dessert to bring for any holiday party.

You can make this mixture ahead of time and spoon it into the tart shells right before serving. You can eat them as is, or top them with some cashew whipped cream, or a little star made from the scraps of your pie crust for a more festive look.

Any way that you eat them, I hope that you really enjoy them this holiday season!

 

P1070523

 

Makes 6 tarts

(Ingredient amounts for 12 tarts listed at the end of the post)

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup roasted sweet potato puree

5 tbsp maple syrup

4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the Ghirardelli’s brand one)

1 tsp strong coffee or espresso*

6 tbsp melted coconut oil **

1/8 tsp peppermint extract (I used the McCormick brand one) ***

tiny pinch of sea salt to taste

 

Instructions

1. Melt the coconut oil, and add it along with all the other ingredients into a food processor and process until smooth.

2. Taste the mixture, and if the peppermint flavor isn’t strong enough, add another drop of peppermint extract at a time to the mixture until you’re happy with the flavor.

Peppermint extract can be very strong, and there’s a very fine line between it being perfectly minty in flavor, and way too strong.

If you accidentally add too much extract, you can add in a little more of the other ingredients to balance the flavor out again. This recipe is pretty forgiving and can take a little tweaking if need be.

If your sweet potato puree was cold from the fridge before you blended the mixture together, the coconut oil may have set before it had a chance to incorporate with the rest of the ingredients. What you can do in this case is gently heat and stir the mixture over a double boiler until it’s glossy and smooth.

For serving, if you want the mixture to be sort of soft and pudding-like, you can gently heat the mixture up again using a double boiler, just until the coconut oil melts and the mixture turns glossy, and then spoon it into the tart shells. Coconut oil melts at 76 °F, so it won’t take long to heat up. For the pictures in this post, I heated the filling using this method before dolloping the filling into the shells, which gives the tarts a beautiful finish.

I prefer the texture when the filling has been refrigerated. It’s like a cross between a fudgy peppermint chocolate frosting and a chocolate mousse. Once you spoon it into the tart shells, you can give the filling a glossy finish (it won’t have the same “dollop” look, but will still look really nice) by dipping a teaspoon into hot water, and smoothing out the tops of the tarts before topping them with cashew whipped cream, a little pie crust star, or leaving them as they are.

3. Spoon the filling into the tart shells and serve immediately.

 

I used this recipe for the tart shells. For the stars, I used the scrap dough, cut them out using a small star shaped cookie cutter and baked them on a silpat at 375 for 10-15 minutes until golden brown around the edges.

 

* I add 1 tsp ground Italian Roast Coffee to a mug with 1/4 cup of hot water, allow it to cool, cover with plastic wrap and then refrigerate this overnight. This strong coffee is good to have on hand for this recipe, but also for adding a depth of flavor to other chocolate things like hot chocolate, brownies, and even chocolate frosting.

**I used regular coconut oil, and there is the faintest hint of coconut flavor in these tarts. If you that’s not really your thing, you can used refined coconut oil instead so that you don’t get that hint of coconut flavor in the tarts.

*** I would prefer to use an organic peppermint extract, but this is just the one that I had on hand, and the flavor is good.

 

P.S. I’ll let you in on a little secret – this recipe makes enough filling for about 7 1/2 tarts, but what that means is that you can fill the 6 tart shells, and save the extra filling as a treat to eat later after all the holiday parties. When you get home, you can look forward to having a quiet moment to yourself to sit in your jammies, and eat this and fall asleep watching Christmas specials on TV. No one will ever know…

 

 

For 12 tarts

1 cup roasted sweet potato puree

10 tbsp maple syrup

8 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the Ghirardelli’s brand one)

2 tsp strong coffee or espresso

12 tbsp melted coconut oil

1/4 tsp peppermint extract (I used the McCormick brand one)

tiny pinch of sea salt to taste

 

stainless steel pan

How to Make a Stainless Steel Pan Non-stick (non-toxic)

stainless steel pan 1

(This is what the pan looks like before the coating of oil).

When I decided to stop using non-stick cookware, one of the hardest thing to get my head around was how I was going to be able to cook things like pancakes and sunny-side up eggs.

I googled “how to make a stainless steel pan non-stick” and wasn’t able to find an answer.

So after much trial and error, I finally figured it out. And it’s actually super simple to do.

By heating the oil in a pan this way, the oil binds to the surface of the steel (forming a polymer – whatever that means…), creating a temporary non-stick coating. I’ve used this method with olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado various times and all have worked great.

Instructions

1. Start with a cool stainless steel pan. Rub the bottom of the inside of the pan with probably about ½ tsp (maybe less) of olive oil with either your fingertips or a paper towel. You only need a thin layer, but want to coat the entire bottom of the pan so that there are no gaps in where you put the oil.

2. This can get a little smelly so, I’d turn on the cooking fan for this.

Put the pan onto a cold burner and turn the heat up to medium. Hover your hand a few inches above the pan. When the air over the pan feels about as warm as a warm bath you’d give a baby (so not too hot) then turn the burner off, and leave the pan to cool on the burner while you prep your veggies for your stir-fry, or your pancake batter.

3. Then just cook as usual.

The non-stick coating is temporary, but you should be able to get through cooking a batch of pancakes, or fry a few eggs on this surface just fine before you need to add a little more oil.

When you’re done cooking, you can scrub this non-stick surface off with some baking soda mixed into a paste with a little dish soap and a scrubby sponge. When I need a non-stick surface next time, I just repeat the process.

stainless steel pan 2

(This is what the pan looks like after it’s been heated with the oil).

For me, I cook on an electric stove, and I’ve done this enough times now that I know that if I start with a cold pan, it takes 5 minutes to heat to the baby bath level of warmth. Now I can just rub the pan’s surface in oil, put it onto the burner, turn on the stove, turn on the fan, and set a timer for 5 minutes.

You may have to adjust the timer for your stove, as you may find that your stove heats up more quickly or more slowly than mine does.

I always stay in the kitchen as I do this, just in case the pan starts to smoke.

If you see the pan start to smoke, pull the pan off the hot burner right away (also turn off the burner) and put the pan on one of the cold burners to cool. Once cool, it should still have created a non-stick surface and you can just cook on this pan as usual.

If you fry an egg sunny side upon this surface, I’d cover the pan with a plate or a lid while the egg is cooking. The egg white cooks through more evenly with a lid on the pan.

What would you cook using this trick? Let me know in the comments below.

Happy Cooking!