Oh my, Oh Henry, Oh yeah! These little duddies are way better than the original, it’s so hard to eat just one, they’re just so perfectly gooey and crunchy and covered with chocolate, oh my. Bribe your babes to trade you their crummy candy for these wholesome yet indulgent little treats. Instead of roasted peanuts I used roasted cashews, which taste better and offer a few more health benefits. They say one serving of cashews is equivalent in mood boosting therapeutic properties to a dose of prozac, which you might need after seeing all the heinous halloween costumes. Has anyone seen the sexy ebola nurse costume going around…for real.
It’s almost Hallow’s Eve, and that means treats and low lying creepy fog lurking around every dark corner with only the tips of the barren trees poking out. Goblins and ghouls are almost as scary as the copious amounts of GMOs being fed to the littles. Remember when candy bars were made with just regular old sugar. A part of me is so upset that halloween has been hijacked by monsanto, but another part of my heart just wants to work harder to provide alternatives. This year I’m going to make little bliss balls and attach my contact details, we live in a small town so hopefully if any parents are freaked out they will contact me. Luckily I don’t have to worry just yet about my little guy getting into all that crazy candy, just his constant magnetic draw to the dogs water bowl.
In a food processor or high powered blender combine date paste, almond butter and coconut oil and blend until it starts to come together, add water until it is smooth but still quite thick.
In a square baking dish 8x8 spread an even layer of date paste caramel mix, top with roasted cashews and push the in to the caramel slightly just so they stick. Freeze this for at least an hour.
To make the chocolate coating, melt cacao butter or coconut oil over a double boiler, whisk in cacao powder, honey and salt.
When the caramel is sufficiently frozen, cut it into mini bars, the recipe makes about 18 little bars. Use a metal spatula to remove the bars from the dish and roll them around in the chocolate sauce until thoroughly coated.
Set aside and allow bars to set in the freezer or fridge.
Just like momma used to make… a little smoky, a touch of sweet, a lot of spicy,a flavour bomb explosion to douse all your favourite foods. My momma didn’t make hot sauce, but if she did I imagine she’d opt for a simple and delicious recipe such as this. Tomatoes, garlic and a whole whack of hot chiles are roasted together and blended with some sugar,salt and apple cider vinegar. The resulting sauce is excellent, I love to slather it all over fried eggs, sourdough bread, as a hot wing sauce, roasted potatoes oh the simple hot sauce really makes everything better. Might I say how affordable making your own hot sauce is, you get about 6 times as much for the same price and it’s way way better, for reals. Believe me because I am a self-proclaimed connoisseur of hot sauce, love the stuff.
Secrets of the Spice
Most spiciness is a hot pepper lives in the seeds.
Green chiles will give you a more bitter, grassy taste as they are still unripe.
Red chiles are ripe and at their peak, they offer a bit more heat and a more rounded out taste.
Wear gloves when processing hot peppers especially is you have young children or plan on picking your nose later…
Utilize your hood fan if you have one when you open the oven door, wofts of roasting chiles can be intense!
Homemade hot sauce is pretty much the best thing ever.
The beauty of this sauce is that it doesn’t really matter which kind of chiles you use. If you want a mildly spicy hot sauce you could go with green jalapeños and make sure to take the seeds out.
If you’re style is more medium spicy, try using cayenne peppers, with most of the seeds taken out but you could save about 2 tsp worth and add them back in when you puree.
If you’re not afraid of a little kick, try a hot pepper combo of those little cherry hot peppers, cayennes and jalapeño with the seeds left intact. It isn’t too intense but it does wake you up a bit.
And if you are one of those insane people raised on spicy foods and you have no fear than just throw a few habaneros or scotch bonnets in the mix!
The versatility of this hot sauce is another thing that makes it so great. To make enchilada sauce, just roast a whole tray of tomatoes at the same time, and add blend about 1/2 C of your hot sauce with the roasted tomatoes, salt to taste, add a touch of cumin, et voila!
This version is for a HOT hot sauce, for less spicy variations see above in the post.
Ingredients
1 lb. assorted hot peppers, de stemmed
5 whole tomatoes, halved
1 whole garlic bulb, separated into cloves
drizzle of olive oil
1 Tbs sea salt
½ C apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs raw cane sugar or palm sugar
½ C water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F or 200C.
Line a baking sheet with parchment, lay tomatoes flat and spread hot peppers and garlic around, drizzle with olive oil and a few pinches of sea salt. Roast for 30 minutes until the peppers skin starts to brown.
In a blender or food processor add the chiles, tomatoes and peeled roasted garlic. Next add the apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt and water. Blend until smooth.
Add a bit more water for a runnier sauce.
Optionally you could strain out the seeds in a cheese cloth or fine mesh strainer.
These little raw tarts and adorned with the last local fruits of the season, oh how it pains me to type that. The sheer beauty of the grapes, blackberries and plums demanded something precious and extravagant to adorn. What better than a little chocolate tartlet with an intensely amazing creamy centre, no added sugar, not necessary, just an emphasis on the natural tastes present in every bite of bursting fruit. The base is brazil nuts and dates with raw cacao and the luscious filling is the smoothest creamiest vanilla cashew cream sweetened with a touch of wild honey. Absolute perfection I tell you my friends, just do yourselves a favour and make these for the people you love the most. They are little bites of heaven and I thought 12 would be enough to last a few days but I’m sorry to say they are too good and J has already devoured, errm, 5 in the last 12 hours, sigh. It’s okay though, because good things are meant to be enjoyed.
don’t mind my exceptionally old muffin tin…
It was the last farmers market on Wednesday and I went absolutely bonkers and bought ten of everything. I can’t say I hold any restraint or fiscal responsibility when I step foot on market grounds. The colours draw me in and my mind goes a mile a minute thinking of all the beautiful creations I could make and of all the hard work and love these organic farmers put into their food. I must do it all justice, it’s only proper. If I burn the garlic, I burn them, and I just couldn’t do that to these hard working passionate people. The tomatoes are at that point where they ooze unspoken songs begging to be used. The apples have finally arrived in all their glory. Grapes provoke stories of old, that dusty ephemeral morning harvest way back when, frozen fingers and the promise of wine. My mind wanders, I can’t help but swell with gratitude for all this bounty, memories flush of fall times past and how that same feeling always hits me almost all at once. Then I come home and lovingly unpack it all and actually take a picture of the contents of the fridge because it isn’t too often that it is so overflowing with possibilities. Dreams of my own someday garden start to dissipate and I am just content that other people do it, I wish I could cook them all dinner.
The first order of business this morning was to adorn everything with shiny bubbly blackberries. These Cookies and Cream Tarts do more than justice to blackberry beauty. Tomorrow we will bring some of these divine little tarts on a wild mushroom hunt in the proverbial woodland. Please people send me good juju so that I will find the treasure- yes the matsutake or pine mushrooms- they grow here in abundance, if you can find the spots that is. I’ve yet to hit upon a huge score but I know the next big patch could be just around the corner!
1 C brazil nuts (you could also use walnuts or almonds)
¾ date paste, softened in some warm water for a few minutes, or about 8 dates softened in warm water
½ tsp sea salt
2 Tbs+2Tbs melted coconut oil
2 Tbs raw cacao
1 C cashews, soaked for 6-8 hrs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract or ½ a vanilla bean pod,seeds scraped out
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs wild honey
¼-1/2 C water
pinch sea salt
various local seasonal fruit- berries, grapes, pears,plums...
Instructions
In a food processor or blender add the brazil nuts, followed by the soaked dates,salt,2 Tbs coconut oil and cacao. Pulse until the nuts are totally broken down and it looks like brownie batter, nice and smooth.
Fill a muffin tin with this mixture about 1 Tbs per section. You can use paper muffin cups for easier removal. Press the mixture up the sides to form little cups. Put it in the freezer to set while you make the cream.
In a food processor or blender add strained cashews, vanilla, lemon,2 Tbs coconut oil, honey, salt and ¼ C of water. Blend on high until super super smooth, adding a touch more water until desired consistency is reached. You want it to mix easily and be light and creamy.
Remove muffin tin from freezer, if you didn't line the tin you may want to remove the formed cups before adding the filling. Just let the tarts sit out and unfreeze a bit before using a fork to scoop them out onto a plate.
Fill the tarts with a Tbs of cashew cream, top with preferred fruits, or nothing at all.
For a firmer filling, refrigerate for an hour before serving.
So stoked on this Paleo Banana Bread with Pears and Honeyed Chocolate Sauce, for reals, it’s gluten and grain free, super moist and indulgently delicious. All I wanted today (and most days) was something rich and chocolately, warm and comforting, with a nice hot chai, and it doesn’t get much better than this banana bread folks. We have these two bountiful pear trees bordering our driveway, most of them are still unripe but one was ready, I wanted to make something special with the first pear of many to come. The bottom of the bread is caramelized gooey pears, which is surprisingly easy to achieve with a little coconut sugar and oil, the loaf pops right out, truly worthy of a pat on the back, a nice book and a cozy blanket. Monday moods.
We had to go to the court house today for a little ‘business’, apparently babies aren’t normally guests at such places since no change table was present anywhere. All the serious lawyers were ogling Mavi’s monkey pants, and he had plenty of smiles to share with all. What a gift children give to the world with their endless joy. The little one is starting to eat some solids, we’re taking a bit of an unconventional route and holding off on the grains and fruits. Instead, pastured egg yolks and grass-fed beef liver are the first foods. Quite the stretch from Pablem and other processed baby gruel. The reasoning behind this is that babies don’t produce amylase, the enzyme needed to break down all carbohydrates. Babes are much better equipped to digest protein and fat. At about 6 months they don’t have any iron stores left from when they were still inside momma, stealing all her iron for their journey outward. Liver is rich in iron and many vitamins, and the egg yolk from pastured chickens is high in healthy brain building cholesterol and lutein. I’m grateful to have this knowledge for our son, I’m sure at his age I was downing cheerios and goldfish, and I actually remember those vanilla baby cookies that one would just suck on until they disintegrated, yum?
Banana Bread with Pears and Honeyed Chocolate Sauce
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
For the banana bread
3 ripe bananas,mashed
2 eggs
1/4 C almond butter, raw or roasted
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
3 Tbs+1 tsp coconut oil,melted
2 Tbs coconut sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 C dark chocolate chips
1 ripe pear, thinly sliced
1/3 C coconut flour
For the chocolate sauce
2 Tbs coconut oil, melted
2 Tbs cacao powder
2 Tbs honey
pinch of salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F or 170C
Combine bananas,eggs,almond butter,vanilla, baking soda,sea salt, coconut oil and 1 Tbs coconut sugar until smooth and creamy.
Add coconut flour and baking soda until well incorporated, then proceed to mix in the chocolate chips.
In a loaf pan spread 1 tsp coconut oil on all sides until well coated and sprinkle a Tbs of coconut sugar over top, spread pear slices evenly over top.
Carefully pour the batter over top of the pear slices and smooth it all out.
Bake for 50 min. until a toothpick comes out clean.
Makes about 10 slices
For the chocolate sauce
Combine all ingredients and leave at room temperature to thicken. Stir well before pouring over your finished banana bread.
Yes I just made that word up, Manguac, it’s great right, hilarious, it’ll be the next hummus I swear you’ll love it that much. Because what grows together, goes together, not that mangoes or avocados grow in my backyard,though maybe someday. So here goes, you’ve had mango salsa, now welcome mango guacamole, a new hero sidekick to top your grilled summer goodies. Manguac is splendid with grilled fish, BBQ chicken, pork chops, on a burger or veggie burger. I also just eat it with some fresh local greens as a salad, pack it to the beach and you are set!
An amazingly seasonal addition to this dish would be fresh local corn, honestly the corn right now is bonkers. Every summer I get that max. 1 month of the freshest, tastiest corn on the cob, I add it to everything. The best way in my opinion is grilled corn covered in butter or ghee. Yum. But grilled and added to this manguac is divine and makes it all the more delicious.
If you haven’t seen this video on how to easily peel a mango, check it out, the method of scraping the mango against a glass actually makes perfect sense.
Rrratatouille, it’s worth making, not only is it a palatable way to enjoy a smorgasbord of summer vegetable abundance, just the word ratatouille is fun to say. I love to enjoy ratatouille in a number of ways, traditionally it is a slowly stewed dish with herbes de provence, but I also love roasting it and layering the veggies all pretty like. The addition of pesto is magnifique, and unless I can find a fresh bouquet of herbs de provence I will use pesto to add the pizazz required for a special french dish such as this. You could also try adding brazil nut pesto instead of sunflower for an extra selenium boost. Now the possibilities for enjoying ratatouille are many. I love it as a simple elegant side dish with a roast chicken, or with poached eggs on top, ratatouille is also really nice with a soft cheese like chèvre and drizzled with balsamic reduction.
Heirloom tomato season is my absolute favourite, just look at those glistening sweethearts. The mad harvest is on, you can feel the end days of summer in the air. The time is now to enjoy the bounty and nourishment that summer gives us, replenish your stocks for that time that we’ll just pretend doesn’t even exist…
What I’ll miss most about summertime…
-the livin’s easy
-my baby can’t even crawl yet and I’m certain that won’t last into the Fall
-jumping in the cool but not too cool river everyday
-the abundance of local food and wild food everywhere
1/2 of a medium sized zucchini, cut into thin slices
4 medium sized tomatoes, cut into thin slices
1/2 of an onion, cut into thin slices
1 sweet pepper, cut into thin slices
Instructions
Pesto
Add basil, sunflower seeds, garlic,parmesan, olive oil and salt to a blender or food processor and process until smooth.
Ratatouille
Set oven to 375F
In a skillet or baking dish assemble layers of eggplant, zucchini, tomato,onion and peppers, working your way out to the edge of the vessel.
Sprinkle with salt and fresh cracked pepper and drizzle 1/2 C of your pesto over top. The seeds will get nice and toasty in the oven and the garlic basil flavour will penetrate all your lovely layers. Bake for 20-25 minutes
Hey I'm Chantelle, my alter ego would be a mermaid if I wasn't such a terrible swimmer. I love writing authentically and cooking in my pyjamas. My favourite pastimes include eating avocados, travelling the world and hanging out with a toddler.
