Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit

Tag: real food (Page 9 of 20)

Gluten-Free Coconut-Cream Bliss Cookies

I think it’s time for a cookie recipe, and these are absolutely divine! They’re made with coconut cream concentrate (from Tropical Traditions, a favorite company of mine). CCC has the same fat & calorie content as nut butters do, so I like to use it in place of those sometimes. Plus it’s a delicious way to take advantage of the health benefits of coconut.

Lindsey’s Gluten-Free Coconut-Cream Bliss Cookies

1 1/2 cups coconut cream concentrate*

1/2 cup plain yogurt or kefir

1 1/4 cups arrowroot powder

Rounded 1/2 cup sucanat

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

*****

Heat the coconut cream concentrate over low heat until softened or melted.

Then melt the coconut oil over low heat; remove from heat and mix in the vanilla and almond extracts.

In a large bowl, mix the arrowroot with the sucanat and salt.

Add the coconut cream concentrate and coconut oil to the arrowroot.

Mix until well combined.

The dough should be very nice and workable, not overly sticky. If it’s sticky, add more arrowroot.

Form dough into tablespoon-sized balls and place on a greased cookie sheet (or for easier cookie removal, use parchment paper). Flatten each ball with the palm of your hand or the bottom of a glass.

Bake at 325° for 20-30 minutes or until they hold together and are very lightly browned on the bottom.
Cool a bit and remove from the cookie sheet while still warm. If they cool down and then seem to be glued to the cookie sheet, place them back into the oven to warm up again, and then they’ll be easy to remove.

*****

* Coconut Cream Concentrate is dried coconut meat which has been ground very finely into a butter, the way nuts would be ground into nut butter. You can cook and bake with it, mix it with water into coconut milk, put it in smoothies, spread it on a tortilla with honey & cinnamon, or eat it plain. The Concentrate will arrive separated into two layers, and you’ll need to mix them first before you use it.

To do that, unscrew the lid and put the jar into a pan of barely simmering water.

Keep the heat as low as it’ll go. This will take a while — you’ll know it’s ready when you stir the concentrate and no chunks remain.

Once it’s smooth, stir it up completely.  (I like to dump it all into a big bowl, which makes stirring easier. Then I pour it back into its jar.)

Transfer the jar to the fridge to solidify. Once it’s solidified, you can remove it from the fridge and store at room temperature. It’ll stay mixed in all but the hottest weather.

Warm your concentrate very gently in a pan of water set on the lowest heat.

Once it's melted and smooth, pour into a bowl and mix until combined. Pour back into the jar and transfer to the fridge to solidify.

Crunchy Kale Chips – A New Favorite!

Kale chips fresh from the oven

I admit that I don’t love kale. It’s not a green that I crave the way I do others, but there are ways to prepare it that can really make it downright delicious. And it’s so full of nutrition! But best of all it self-seeds itself in my garden pathways, so it’s always there in abundance when we need it, all throughout the spring and summer.

Here’s my new favorite way to eat it. I LOVE these chips!! They have the salty, satisfying crunch of potato chips.

Crunchy Kale Chips

1/2 lb kale, ribs removed and leaves cut into 2″ pieces

Generous 1/4 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp olive oil, on the generous side

Preheat your oven to 250°F  (120°C). Wash the kale if needed, and dry it well. Toss in a large bowl with salt and oil. Spread on cookie sheets in a single layer (you can crowd them together and overlap a bit). Bake 20-25 minutes until crunchy. The kale should remain a bright, deep green. If it begins to brown, it’ll taste slightly bitter.

Store in an airtight container if you don’t eat the whole batch right then and there!

De-rib the big leaves by folding in half and cutting the rib away.

Cut into 2" pieces.

Arrange in a single layer on cookie sheets.

Make Your Own “Green Smoothie Frozen Concentrate”

Green smoothie frozen concentrate made with lettuce, spinach, and lambsquarters.

So I peeked into my remaining three bags of lettuce from the garden this year, and discovered that they were starting to go south and needed to be used right away. I separated out the slimy leaves, washed the rest, and had an idea! I’ll make green smoothie frozen concentrate cubes!

To make the concentrate:

1. Pour some kefir, water, juice, or watered-down yogurt into a blender. You won’t need too much — just enough to get everything to blend together smoothly.

2. Add lots of greens. Ideas are: lettuce, spinach, beet greens, chard, lambsquarters, purslane, mint, parsley, cilantro, edible flowers, etc. (Kale is the only one I don’t like in a shake, but if you do, go for it!)

3. Start the blender and let it run until you have a uniform slurry.

4. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze.

To use:

When you’re ready to make a green smoothie, thaw out some cubes; I usually use 2 cubes when I make a shake for myself. Add the green liquid to your blender containing the rest of your smoothie ingredients — I like to use fruit and kefir with some ground flax seed and vanilla extract. Blend & enjoy. Yum!!

*****

If you’re curious about green smoothies, you might check out the book Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko, or the related website. My friend Sasha recommended this book to me, and I loved it! While I don’t agree with absolutely everything in the book, I’m glad I read it.

*****

Easy Greek Spanakopita

Spanakopita is one of my favorite things to eat. It’s a very easy dish to put together, and everyone loves it!

Spanakopita

1 pound (or more!) fresh spinach (feel free to substitute some of the spinach with chard, kale, turnip greens, or arugula) OR, frozen spinach — maybe a 10 oz. package? Maybe more? It doesn’t have to be exact.

5 oz feta cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup fresh dill (chopped and then measured)

3 green onions, chopped

2 eggs

salt/pepper to taste

1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil

phyllo dough (thawed overnight in the fridge)

1. Steam spinach till it wilts. Run under cold water to stop cooking process. Squeeze spinach and drain. Chop the cooked spinach into small pieces.

2. Mix spinach, feta, dill, green onions, eggs, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.

3. Brush the bottom of an 8×8 pan with olive oil (9×13 also works). Brush the top of a sheet of phyllo with oil and place in pan. Fold phyllo over to fit in pan. Repeat until you have 6-8 layers of phyllo (more or less, depending on how thick you want the crust).

4. Spread the spinach mixture on top of the phyllo crust.

 

5. Brush the top of a sheet of phyllo with oil and place on top of spinach. Repeat till you have 6-8 layers, or however many layers you’d like. Finish by brushing the top layer of phyllo with oil.

6. Cut your unbaked spanakopita into squares or triangles with a sharp knife.

7. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until golden brown on top, about 30-50 minutes.

*****

Free Shipping Today Only (Monday, June 13) at Tropical Traditions!

It’s a Free Shipping Day at one of my very favorite companies, Tropical Traditions! The free shipping will save about $10-15 off your order, so it’s a good day to stock up, or try them out if you haven’t before. I really love this company’s products, and use them daily. Today only, Monday, June 13th through Midnight EDT, they’re offering free ground-only shipping when you enter coupon code 61113 at checkout.

Click here to read about which products I love most.

And if you’re a new customer and have never bought from them before, you can also get this Virgin Coconut Oil book, with information  & recipes, for free (any time, not just today) by entering my User ID, which is 6032410. When you’re going through the checkout process and you’ve added your shipping address and phone number, you will see the question “How did you hear of us?” Just choose “Referred by a friend” and then a new “User ID” field will appear below that where you can enter my User ID. I also get some sort of little gift if I refer a friend, so that’s nice too.  🙂

(screen shot below)

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 The Herbangardener

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑