If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
~St. Francis of Assisi
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March 15th, 2010
Ok, well I’ve been out of the kitchen for awhile… busy, busy… but, I’m finally catching up on important stuff — my blog! Another recipe from everydayraw by Matthew Kenney. I seem to have acquired a new habit of buying a cookbook and then trying almost every recipe in the book. I’m sure Matthew would not like me to publish all his recipes on the world wide web! And I won’t — even though there are many many yummy recipes inside his book!
This recipe he calls: Super Goji-Cacao-Maco Bars with Sweet Sauce and it could easily be named Super Goji-Cacao-Maca-Hemp-Flax Bars with Sweet Sauce… ’cause all that good stuff is in the bar! Yow! As I had never used goji berries, cacao nibs or maca in any recipe before, this was an exotic adventure into super foods for me.
The recipe is pretty straightforward and the bars were good at first tasting but even more SUPER DUPER after I stumbled upon a little addition. Just to be on the safe side I made only half the recipe. I don’t know about you, but I have messed up a recipe or two in my time and the 8 cups of almonds that goes into the full recipe was a little bit more than I could spare. Below is the full recipe as it appears in everydayraw.
One curious thing that I have come across before using this cookbook is the instruction to drain the flax after it has been soaked. This completely befuddles me… after you soak flax, it is one big gelantinous gob of flaxxy goo. What do you drain? In all honesty, I admit to you that the last time this instruction came up in a recipe — I actually tried to drain the flax. Why you may ask? Somehow I just needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t doing something wrong. Do you know what came out of the strainer? Absolutely nothing! A few bits of globby flax goo poked through the little holes in the strainer but didn’t make it all the way through. If someone has a different experience with soaking flax please let me know. Right now, I’m clueless why one would need to strain the stuff.
Anyway, back to the SUPER DUPER bars and what warrants the DUPER… When it came time to apply the Sweet Cacao Sauce I tried to make my bars look exactly like the luscious photo in everydayraw by glazing the sauce in thin parallel lines across the top. This is quite aesthetically pleasing, but as I discovered later… more sauce is even better. Remember, I made only half of the entire recipe that included half of the almond crumbs and half of the Sweet Cacao Sauce but even after delicately squeezing out every fine line of sauce… I still had well over half a batch leftover. What to do, what to do with all the leftover sauce? Well after eating a bar or two, I thought these are good but they need a little something… and that something was… drum roll please — MORE SUPER DUPER SAUCE! Squeezing on or should I say lathering on more Sweet Cacao Sauce really added to the flavor of the entire bar for me. What doesn’t taste better with a little more fat and sugar. Try them for yourself and see! How much sauce will it take to sweeten you up?
SUPER GOJI-CACAO-MACA BARS
Yield 32 bars
4 3/4 cups almond crumbs (see below)
3 cups cashew pieces
1 cup hemp
1/2 golden flax seeds, soaked 2 hours and drained
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon zest, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups agave
1/4 cup maca
1/2 cup cacao nibs
1 cup goji berries, soaked no more than 15 minutes and drained
1 recipe Sweet Cacao Sauce (see below)
Mix all ingredients in large bowl until incorporated. Spread evenly on a parchment-lined half sheet pan and press firmly. Dehydrate overnight. Loosen all sides of pan and turn out onto cutting board. Trim edges and cut into bars. Glaze bars with Sweet Cacao Sauce. Return to dehydrator screens and dehydrate overnight.
Almond Crumbs
Yield 3 1/2 cups
Place 8 cups almonds* (unsoaked) in a food processor and blend until ground but still slightly coarse.
* For this recipe use about one cup more if you are making the entire recipe
Sweet Cacao Sauce
Yield 2 cups
1 1/2 cups cacao nibs
1 1/4 cups agave
1/2 cup coconut oil
Blend ingredients in Vita-Mix until completely smooth. Pour into squeeze bottle and store in refrigerator. Before using, place the bottle near dehydrator or let it sit in a warm area.
Printable Recipe
February 21st, 2010 
I love banana bread for breakfast… and almost anytime of day. This recipe stands out from others as the addition of lime and coconut give it a delicious tropical and somehow exotic flavor — as far as banana breads go. It comes from The 30 Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray. As you can probably guess, bananas are abundant and available from many local sources here in Hawaii. The taste difference between bananas that have ripened on the tree vs. those that have ripened on the way to a store or in a store is immense. They seem sweeter. Not in a ooey overly sweet way… but in a luscious oh so perfect ripe fruit way. What can I say… they are delicious and I make banana bread frequently. This however was the first time I tried petite loaves. Smaller than a mini loaves, the petite size is more of a single serving — slightly bigger than a large muffin. Check out the recipe below. I’ve also included the variations that Reinfeld and Murray cite in their book. Enjoy!
COCONUT-LIME BANANA BREAD
Makes one standard loaf, 3 mini loaves (approx 5 3/4″ x 3 1/4″ x 2 1/4″ high) or 6 petite loaves (approx 2 1/2 x 3 3/8 x 1 1/2 inches deep)
Ingredients:
2 Cups whole spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups banana, sliced or mashed if preparing by hand
1/2 cup coconut, safflower, or sunflower oil
1 cup Sucanat
1 TBS vanilla extract or Jamaican Rum
1/3 cup soy yogurt
1 tsp raw apple cider vinegar
1 tsp lime zest
Glaze:
¼ cup agave nectar
1 TBS freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp lime zest
½ cup shredded coconut (optional)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil the baking pans and dust with flour. Sift the spelt flour, baking soda, and salt through a fine-mesh strainer. Add the shredded coconut, whisk it all together and set aside.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, start to blend the banana on low speed, changing to medium speed as the banana mashes more. Add the oil, sucanat, vanilla, yogurt, vinegar and zest and keep blending for 2 minutes, or until the mixture is uniform and soupy with very few chunks of banana.
- Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture. If using a hand mixer, stir in flour by hand. Blend for 1 minute or until dough is blended but still chunky. Don not overmix! It doesn’t need to look like pancake batter; chunks are okay. Transfer to the prepared baking pan (1 standard loaf or 3 mini loaves).
- Bake for 60 minutes for standard loaf and 40 minutes for the mini loaves or until toothpick in the center comes out clean and edges have pulled away from the pan. Remove from the oven and let the pan sit for 10 to 15 minutes before removing the bread and transferring it to a wire rack.
- For the glaze, combine all the ingredients together and let it sit while the bread bakes. Pour it over the bread after it is transferred from the pan to the wire rack. Try to keep most of the coconut, if using on the top. It will stick more as the bread continues to cool.
Variations:
- Add 1/2 cup of your favorite nuts, such as walnuts, macadamia nuts, or roasted almonds.
- Experiment with different flavors and extracts, such as almond, orange and lemon.
- Try toasting the shredded coconut for the bread and/or the topping
February 5th, 2010 
This yummy recipe comes from Alex Jamieson’s book The Great American Detox. She put her her boyfriend, Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me on a detox plan after he ate only McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 30 days, gaining 24.5 pounds and dangerously increasing his levels of body fat and cholesterol. She writes about how she ” steered him away from dairy products and meat…” and how we all can detox.. and why we need to. Her book includes some simple tasty recipes! One of these days, I will cook up her Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili – it’s delicious!
If you are reading this blog… I doubt you are craving a Big Mac, but if you are like me, you might get an occasional craving for something sweet. If this is the case, these cookies will satisfy just fine. The maple syrup gives them just the right amount of sweetness to alleviate your craving and the coconut oil and nuts give them a dose of fat that make them filling enough so that you will feel satisfied after eating just a few. These cookies went with me to a recent get-together with friends and they were a hit! They are are also one of my husband’s favorites!
MAPLE PECAN COOKIES
Yield: 30 cookies
2 ½ Cups pecans, ground in food processor until size of small pebbles
2 cups quick oats, ground
1 cup unbleached white spelt flour, sifted
1 cup whole wheat spelt
1 cup maple syrup
½ cup unrefined coconut oil
1 TBS real vanilla extract
¼ tsp sea salt
15 pecan halves
1. Preheat Oven to 350° F
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground pecans, oats, and sifted white spelt and whole spelt flours
4. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, vanilla, and sea salt
5. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and stir well to combine
6. Scoop ¼ cup of dough onto lined baking sheet and gently press down using your palm. Repeat with remaining dough. Press a pecan half into the top of each cookie
7. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown.
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