These authentic Carribean treats are not as sweet as you might think. Many recipes call for the addition of sweeteners, but they are really quite delicious on their own. They are only slightly sweet, with a tang. We loved them. Be sure to use super ripe plantains that are covered in brown spots, but not black.
Cut the ends off of the plantains and make a slit down the length of the skin . Peel off the skin and discard. Slice the plantains into 1/3-inch thick diagonal slices.
Place the coconut oil or ghee into a cast iron skillet on medium heat. Once oil is hot, carefully put plantain slices into the skillet.
Cook the plaintains slowly until caramelized on that side, about 7 minutes. Then flip over to caramelize the other side for another 7 minutes or so.
Drain on a cloth or tea towel.
Season with salt to taste and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.
This dip is a great way to incorporate an inexpensive type of seafood into your diet, and tastes especially good on sourdough crackers or celery.
In a bowl combine the cream cheese, sour cream, butter, parsley, onion, garlic and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Stir in the salmon and dill. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
These gluten-free, paleo, GAPS-friendly parsnip morsels are called Savory Cakes at our house. They can be served as breakfast, lunch, a hearty snack, or a light dinner.
**If your parsnips are raw, bake in 400º oven for 20 minutes, allow to cool slightly, then proceed with recipe.**
Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until it’s doughy. You might need to turn it off and push the spinach leaves down towards the blades, then turn it back on to get it all to incorporate. Use your hands to form balls and flatten into cakes, about 1/3 inch thick.
Melt fat of choice in a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat. Cook cakes about 3 minutes on each side, or until browned and crispy. Serve warm with butter, a dollop of creme fråiche, or simply salt & pepper as garnishes.
If you like Kettle Corn like I do but don’t want it made with nasty rancid oils and white sugar this is the way to go. Quick easy and oh so good! Great for a snack or a night of popcorn and a movie. Also great for kids lunches.
Put coconut oil and popcorn in a large heavy bottom pot. Turn heat on Medium/High.
When the popcorn just barely starts to pop put in the Sucanat. Shake pot constantly while it finishes popping so the Sucanat won’t burn.
Put in bowl and add salt to taste if desired.
Enjoy!
Parsnips are beautiful in all their simplicity and also delicious all by themselves made into fries. Serve them with a bowl of pesto and you’ve got yourself one stunning side dish (or snack), pleasing to both the eye and palate. I didn’t realize pesto could be made with herbs other than basil until my friend Karen introduced me to this delightful, in-season variety made with lambs quarter and Swiss (or rainbow) chard. GAPS, paleo, gluten-free, and the general foodie alike can all commune over this springtimey snack.
Preheat oven to 400º F. Melt coconut oil on low and stir in the garlic, rosemary, and pepper. (Take a moment to close your eyes and breathe it in. Heaven. Nevermind the strange stares when you open your eyes back up.) While the oil melts, prepare the parsnips.
Toss parsnips with oil mixture in a bowl. Place seasoned parsnips on a baking sheet (stoneware makes these fries deliciously crisp) in a single layer, not overlapping.
Bake on high for 30 minutes or until browned on the edges.
While the fries bake, prepare pesto by placing all ingredients in a food processor. Process until it’s of the desired consistency. Serve with warm parsnip fries.
Cocoa roasted almonds seem to be the new snack food. But often times they are loaded with unnecessary sugar and not so good for you oils. These are a great snack for any type of snacker, they are slightly sweet, crunchy, have a little heat, and of course chocolatey.
Put the almonds in a bowl and add honey mix to evenly coat all almonds. Warming the honey slightly will help with this but is not necessary.
Sprinkle on the cocoa, salt, and cayenne. Remember just a little cayenne goes a long way. You can always taste it (taste a whole almond not just the coating) and see how you like it and add more if you need. Mix this in to coat the almonds. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 250 for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the almonds are fragrant and the honey starts to dry some.
After you take them out you can sprinkle another tablespoon of cocoa on them and coat. Let cool, place in an air tight container, keep in the fridge and enjoy.
This easy recipe for liver pate’ will be a big hit with your family and guests! It is delicious. Another easy way to eat nourishing liver.
In a cast iron skillet, cook the bacon over medium/low heat, stirring constantly until it is slightly brown.
Add the onion and garlic and turn the heat to low. Stir and cook until the onion begins to brown.
Add the butter to the pan.
Cut the liver into approximately 1-inch square pieces. Add them to the pan and continue to cook, stirring often, until the liver is browned but still a little pink on the inside.
Salt and pepper generously.
Turn the mixture into a food processor with a metal blade. Add the parsley leaves.
Pulse 3 or 4 times until a roughly textured paste is formed.
Line a small bowl (a 2 cup bowl works well) with parchment paper. (You could also just grease the dish)
Press the pate’ into the bowl and smooth the top. Cover.
Refrigerate until the pate’ is thoroughly chilled.
Turn out onto a serving plate and garnish with fresh parsley leaves, if you like.
Serve with sprouted crackers, sourdough toast points, or raw vegetables.
Although freshly made salsa is the very best, for much of the year it may be impossible to find high quality organically grown tomatoes. For that reason, each summer I can several jars of this delicious homemade, home-canned salsa. Wonderful with Mexican dishes, served with roast, fried eggs or as a dip for chips or fresh vegetables. You will be very glad to have this on your pantry shelves!
Using a food processor, chop the tomatoes in small batches so that you don’t have to turn them to mush to get them all chopped. You will need to have 5 quarts of chopped tomatoes. Alternatively, you may dice the tomatoes (and other vegetables) with a very sharp knife.
Chop the onions in an electric food processor
Remove the stems but not the seeds from the Jalapenos and process them as well. (Note ~ this recipe makes a salsa with medium heat. You may add more or less Jalapeno so suite your own taste.)
Place all of the vegetables into a stainless, heavy bottomed 2-gallon kettle.
Add the tomato paste, vinegar, salt and garlic powder. Stir well.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Turn off the heat.
Process in pint canning jars, in a boiling water bath, for 30 minutes. Please consult a reliable canning guide for authoritative instructions. I recommend the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.
The idea of making a vegan cheese was never on my radar, because I love the taste of grass-fed raw cheese! However, in an attempt to fast from animal products during Lent, and to provide a dairy-free alternative to cheese (that doesn’t have soy!) for those who can’t tolerate dairy, I whipped up a batch of this cheesy-tasting spread made of cashews and real food ingredients. And I swear - it tastes just like the garlicky boursin cheese!
Soak the raw cashews. Rinse the cashews and soak in warm filtered water (just enough to cover them) overnight with a dash of sea salt. Discard the retained water and rinse the cashews.
Add the cashews and other ingredients to a blender. Add vinegar, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, garlic, white wine (optional), salt, and pepper.
Blend. As usual, I used my bullet blender, which worked well … but you can use something more powerful if you’d like.
Cover and refrigerate overnight. Add to a glass container, cover, and keep in the fridge overnight for all the flavors to mingle. It should stay good for 5-6 days after that if refrigerated.
Eat. Enjoy with sprouted grain or gluten-free crackers and wine, as a dip accompanied by some raw veggies or right off the spoon. Your imagination’s the limit!
I wanted to create some special treats for my children that didn’t include a ton of sugar, but were still tasty and nutritious. These citrus cardamom candied almonds are crunchy, sweet and fragrant. A perfect inclusion in lunches or for a party snack.
Whisk egg whites until very frothy. Add in sweetener, ground cardamom, extract and salt. Beat until well combined.
Stir in almonds until coated.
Pour onto 2 parchment lined baking sheets or dehydrator trays.
Dry out in a cool oven set at 150 degrees (or it’s lowest setting with a rolled up tea towel to prop the door open) or a food dehydrator at 150 degrees for four or more hours or until most of the coating is stuck to the nuts. Coating will still be *slightly* sticky when “done,” but will continue to harden after nuts cool. Stir every half an hour until the coating is well stuck to the nuts, then you can stop stirring and just allow the coating to harden. Be careful not to over dry.
Allow to cool completely and store in a mason jar in the refrigerator for a week.
If you would like the nuts to keep longer as in gift giving. Bake at 200 in the oven stirring every 15 minutes for about 1.5-2 hours. This will cook the egg white completely so they may be stored at room temperature, but it will also cook the nuts and they will lose their raw qualities.
*If you use sucanat as opposed to syrup or honey, your mixture will harden quicker and be done sooner. It also will appear less sticky and shiny.
I began making almond meal at home so that I could soak the almonds before. Making almond butter was an afterthought, because there were leftover almond bits that were too big for almond meal, at least in my opinion. The price of the almond butter becomes cheaper than buying it at the store, plus you get the added benefit of the nuts being soaked.
Start with soaking your nuts, for every 4 cups of nuts with 1 tablespoon of sea salt and then cover with plenty of water. Let this soak overnight. They will plump up a bit while soaking so make sure there is water enough to account for that. The next morning, drain the water from the almonds and dehydrate them. There are two ways to dehydrate them, first, place then on a cookie sheet and place them in a warm (150 degree) oven for 12 – 24 hours, or alternatively you can do this in a dehydrator at the same temperature. You will know that they are done because they will be crispy/ crunchy like regular nuts again.
Pull out your food processor (you may even be able to use your blender but I’ve never done it this way. If you do let me know if it works or not.) Take about half of your almonds and place them in the food processor.
Pulse for about 10 seconds at a time, 3 or 4 times, until the nuts are pretty well chopped up. You don’t want to go to long or all you will get is almond butter and no almond meal.
Pour the chopped almonds into a sifter (I use a fine mesh strainer) that is over a large bowl and sift to get all the meal out.
Once all the meal is out, return the larger pieces to the food processor and repeat these steps again.
After you do it this time most of the left overs will be pretty small, and you will be able to feeling the oil on them. You can do it one more time if you would like but chances are you won’t get much more meal.
Place what is left in the strainer in a separate bowl and do the second batch of nuts the same way. When you are done making the meal you should have about 4 – 5 cups. When you have finished making your almond meal place it in the container of your choice, label, and keep in the refrigerator.
Now take all the leftovers and place them back in the food processor and turn it on high and let it go. It won’t take as long to turn into butter as it would from whole nuts because it is already half way there, but will still take a while.
Keep it going until it all starts to clump together. That is how you know you are almost there, you may be tempted to stop here, but don’t, it’s not done. After this it will spread out and cover the bottom. Now it is done, add some salt towards the end if you would like. Place this in a container of choice and store in the refrigerator. Pull out a few minutes before you would like to use to help it soften up a little and make it easier to spread.
Editor’s Note: Soaking nuts for several hours makes the nutrients in the nuts more available for your body to use and also helps to make digestion much easier.
This is a great Paleo snack recipe for gluten-free almond crackers. Only 4 ingredients! This is a really great use for almond pulp leftover from making almond milk.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl
Roll dough into a ball, press between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll to ¼ inch thickness
Remove top piece of parchment paper
Transfer the bottom piece with rolled out dough onto baking sheet
Cut dough into 2-inch squares with a knife or pizza cutter
Bake at the lowest setting for around 20 hours, or until crunchy
Let crackers come to room temperature on baking sheet, then serve