Nutty Kitchen Thanksgiving 2010

Oh my…what a great week! No post this past Monday because we will be featuring and sharing our Thanksgiving Menu with you this Wednesday before the wonderful celebration. We will be posting all of our recipes following Thanksgiving.

Hmmm….ceviche you say? A bit unconventional? …absolutely! But, Luis is visiting from Bogotá and this is one of his signature dishes, so we are incorporating it into our meal as a starter and palate cleanser the same. I know that it will rock, but for those guests that would rather stick to our soup – they can.

Please click on the menu links for our creations.

Champagne with Luis German’s Cevice

or

Nutty Kitchen Signature Butternut Squash Soup

(or if you prefer Acorn Squash Soup)

***

Butter Lettuce & Toasted Pumpkin Seed-Pear Salad

***

Organic Free Range Turkey with

Chardonnay Gravy (24 lbs)

***

Steamed fresh Beets

Sweet Potatoes (TBD by Henry :-) )

(Options for you: Tuber Hash, Panfried Rosemary-Garlic Sweet Potatoes, or Mashed Butternut Squash or some amazing Bacon-Mango Butternut Hash)

Asparagus sautéed with fresh Rosemary

***

Pumpkin Pie

Vanilla Custard

 

Have a most amazing Thanksgiving Dinner – we  both wish you the best! Look for the rest of our recipes over the next few posts.

Eat for Life!

Jo and Henry

Paleo Fig & Barberry Lemon Bites

 

Brown Turkey fig split in half.

 

Watch out Paleo carbophobes, these treats are not for you.  For those of you that need or want to replenish your exercise depleted glycogen stores with real food and without added sugar, you’ll love these nutrient dense and delicious Paleo treats.  In addition to being great peri-workout options these treats are just the right amount of sweetness and fat for a post meal dessert or quick palette cleanser.  Great for upcoming Holiday parties, or as a gift in a beautiful little box for friends or loved ones.

Take a look at these simple ingredients:

  • 10 large dried figs, chopped (make sure that they are not too dry, chose the Turkish or emperor figs)
  • 1/4 cup organic plump raisins
  • 1/4 cup Barberries, our new favorite from Iran
  • 1 cup almond meal
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 1/2 lemon, juice, and a little bit of grated peel
  • 1 tbsp raw local honey (always good to use local to fight those allergies)
  • 1/4 cup Coconut flakes

In your food processor, add chopped figs, raisins, barberries, and chop away until you get a nice paste. Transfer paste into a large mixing bowl and add almond meal, coconut oil, lemon juice and honey. Mix together very well with a spatula until you have a nice thick evenly distributed paste.

Scoop out one teaspoon at a time and roll even little balls between your palms and then roll them in the coconut flakes. Set them to cool in your fridge for about 30 minutes and serve.  I can’t wait to make these for my mom when she comes to visit.  Enjoy!

The Nutty Kitchen Signature Cookie

I’ve been trying to come up with a recipe for cookie that would not only keep well in the fridge as a cookie dough roll for easy use, but a cookie that we thought would be a good representation of Nutty Kitchen.

Behold…The Nutty Kitchen Signature Cookie!

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
  • 1 pinch sea salt
  • 1 tbsp raw unfiltered honey
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 cup hazelnuts
  • 1/4 cup walnuts
  • 1/8 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 tbsp your favorite brand rum (optional)

Preparation:

Finely chop walnuts, hazelnuts and cranberries with  a food processor and add to all the other ingredients in a medium to large mixing bowl. Mix very well with a spatula and then knead with your hands. Roll into about a 1 1/2 inch log of cookie dough – roll into parchment paper like a giant tootsie roll and place into the refrigerator for an hour or more.

The roll should yield about 25 cookies. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F, place cookies apart from each other and place onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, bake for 8 – 10 minutes, until beautiful light  golden brown.

Enjoy this fantastic cookie with a chilled glass of coconut milk! Our best – Jo and Henry

Dark Chocolate Covered Lychee Balls

Fresh fruit desert, made with some of our favorite ingredients! Impress your family and friends with these little bites of love! These babies are stuffed!

Henry and I love Lychee Fruit when it’s fresh. Lychee loses some of it’s taste when it’s canned and is usually bathed in some kind of syrup or sugar water – really NOT something that we want.

So how do you make these amazing little gems?  Easy…

whole lychee fruit, one half peeled

  • buy as many Lychee as you like
    • you will need to peel them
    • once you peel them, carefully slice them open down one side and push out the seed…carefully
  • now place one Gooseberry in the middle of each lychee (look for small gooseberries, some are large which will not work)
  • roll stuffed lychee in almond meal
  • roll stuffed almond meal encrusted lychee’s, very carefully in dark chocolate cover
  • (optional…feel free to roll the chocolate covered lychee ball in coconut flakes, delicious!! We made them both ways
  • Chill in refrigerator for 20 – 30 minutes prior to serving.

These are amazing!  Devour with enjoyment – Jo & Henry :-)

Gluten-free Banana Squares

It has been a while since we’ve posted a dessert. Today we would like to share one of my mom’s fabulous recipes that I have enjoyed for years. We have of course modified it, as we do not use mounds of sugar as usual traditional European recipes call for.

This dessert is very easy to make, totally gluten-free, grain-free, and organic. What is not to love?

Ingredients that you will need for the bottom:

  • 6 eggs (we prefer cage-free)
  • 160 grams of blanched almond flour
  • 2 tbsp raw local unfiltered honey
  • 1 tbsp organic vanilla extract

Toppings ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp homemade (preferable no-sugar) blueberry jam (we make ours without sugar and with a splash of lime juice); it is key to use an organic slightly tart spread
  • 2 1/2 bananas sliced
  • 200 grams of dark cooking chocolate (we prefer 75% or 85%)
  • 1/8 cup heavy cream (you may need to add a few drops if you feel that the chocolate is too thick)

Here’s how you make them: Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Instructions for the bottom: Separate egg whites and yolks. Beat egg whites with a hand-blender until they are totally stiff and set aside. Then mix egg yolks with honey and vanilla and beat until as frothy as possible, this usually takes a few minutes. Add blanched almond flour and mix gently on low until all ingredients have properly blended. Now gently fold in the egg yolks with a rubber cake spatula until it becomes a beautiful light fluffy mixture and pour into a non-stick rectangular 13 x 9 x 2 cake pan and bake for about 10 minutes. Be careful not to overbake. The best way to check to see if it’s done is to see if it has a beautiful golden color and if prodded with a steel kabob, nothing sticks then you are all set. Turn off the oven and let it sit for a minute and remove from the oven. Let it cool for 10 – 15 minutes and gently spread it with your favorite jam. Add sliced bananas and begin to prepare your chocolate cover.

Chocolate cover: Heat cream in a small saucepan on medium high, add chocolate ribs and stir constantly, reduce heat to medium. Once all chocolate has melted and no lumps remain, gently pour onto cake in sections using a spatula to disseminate all the chocolate.

Refrigerate it for 30 minutes and serve either cold or warm. It is delicious either way. This one is for you Janine! :-)

Thai Bananas in Coconut Milk (Kluai Nam Wa) Paleo-ized

These last few days have been incredibly busy, thus the late post.  So as a reward for your patience, we thought it pertinent to share a dessert with you. :-) It is super delicious, very easy to make, has no added sugar and can be enjoyed warm or cold.  As many of you know, we love Thai foods and really anything made with coconut.

Today we’d like to share a very popular and traditional Thai dessert with you, minus the added sugar.  Thai Bananas in Coconut Milk or Kluai Nam Wa, eliminating the sugar makes this a perfect Paleo dessert.

Ingredients that you will need for 4 serving of Paleo-ized Kluai Nam Wa:

  • 3 – 5 Red bananas (can also use regular bananas)
  • 1/4 cup Coconut Cream
  • 1 1/2 cup Coconut Milk
  • 1 pinch Sea Salt
  • 1 tsp Organic Vanilla Extract

We recently covered why cooking with coconut oil is good and beneficial for us. Many folks have asked us about Coconut Cream lately, what it is, why it’s good for us, etc. So we wanted to shed some light on it, as we enjoy it all the time. It’s an amazing energy food and it’s completely natural. Coconut Cream Concentrate is certified organic whole coconut meat in concentrated form. It contains no additives* (not even water).  The dried coconut meat is ground into a very fine powder, giving it a creamy consistency due to its high fat content. Since it is 70% fat, it is a rich source of pure coconut oil.  Note: this is a food, not a cooking oil.

Why red bananas? Because they are less sweet, have a slightly tangy taste and don’t get as mushy as yellow bananas. This dish can also be made with the little greenish yellow cousin (not to be confused with plantains) of these little red lovelies.

So how do you make this traditional dish?

Peel the bananas and cut them vertically into half, then once again cut the pieces horizontally, basically resulting in 4 pieces for each banana.
Pour the coconut milk into a small sauce pan and heat on high until it begins to boil. Once the coconut milk is at a boiling point, add bananas and tiny pinch of sea salt and reduce heat to medium. Cook bananas until tender, but be careful not to overcook them, or they will be a mash.  Once they are tender turn off the heat. Now add the coconut cream to the pan. Continue to stir, carefully, until all the lumps have disappeared. Let it cool for 15 to 20 minutes and serve.
Note: The bananas should remain as distinct pieces and not break down to a pulp.  We love this dessert cold as well.

Want to add an antioxidant punch?

Follow the preparation instructions above, but add fresh berries, such as raspberries, blueberries and some strawberries with a little cinnamon on top! Oh, yeah baby! :-) Now that our friends, is Food Porn.

Yoga for Foodies, Primal Foodies that is!

Today we’d like to share an experience of the senses with you. An experience that many would deem perhaps as strange and unconventional, but that is what makes this experience unique and special. As some of you may already know, our friend David Romanelli has been traveling throughout the US to bring us Yoga for Foodies experiences. We were fortunate to be able to join him at At One Yoga for his session in Phoenix recently.

Yoga for Foodies Program

David believes that once your senses are open and heightened the experience of clean food, chocolate and wine are that much more enjoyable and allow us to understand and appreciate life just a bit better. We all move so fast, it’s good to slow down and to relax and take it all in. He begins his yoga session with breathing and some slow vinyasa poses, followed by warrior As and Bs…mixed in with some chaturangas. All while listening to an awesome playlist consisted of Marley to Tori Amos. Once you’re in savasana, David quietly makes his way to each yogi and gently pats a tiny amount of very special lavender oil on your shoulders to calm and invigorate your senses at the same time. It is amazing!

After regaining your awareness, David introduced three wonderful entities. Each of them played an important part in preparing the food that we experienced on our mats while each spoke to the production, the importance of clean fresh food and thoroughly explained each vegetable, each dish. Everything was gluten-free, sugar-free – and truly a combination of meals to remember. Let’s not forget our very own Arizona Stronghold to help us digest properly. …thank you Eric & Maynard! :-)

The making of Yoga for Foodies…check out Henry and I on the first shot in the yoga studio to the right of David! :-)

The 3 companies present were:

  1. Maya’s Farm, Fresh – Local – Natural, who provided all the wonderful ingredients
  2. Blackbird Naturals, who made the most amazing sugar-free, gluten-free truffles
  3. Slow Food Phoenix, Patty Emmert, who was kind enough to be the chef for this amazing culinary experience

The menu created by this triangulation of talent, as you can see, was deliciously amazing.

If you can make it to one of David’s sessions, do try, you’ll be sure to love it. Support your local farmers, support your local chapters of Slow Food. Don’t forget to breathe, open your senses and slow down enough to enjoy life!

Have a wonderful midweek! Jo and Henry

**Henry & I did not eat the bread of the crostini**

Start your weekend with a healthy lunch!

Raspberry Walnut Mixed Greens!

This simple antioxidant berry salad will help you stay fit, but also kick off your weekend to a healthy start.  Enjoy it anytime for lunch or dinner.

Ingredients

4 cups Mixed greens
1/4 cup Raspberries
1/8 cup Walnuts broken
1 small jalapeno pepper chopped
1 pinch Sea salt to taste
1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp Feta cheese crumbled


Instructions
Place organic mixed greens into a salad bowl, sea salt lightly, add olive oil and toss. Top with raspberries, walnuts, feta, jalapeno (if spicy pepper only use a very small amount if mild, use half a pepper. *Just make sure that the taste does not overpower the salad.*

This is a great salad for lunch or as a side dish for dinner.

Very light and very healthy. Enjoy often!

Banana Blueberry Almond Pancakes

A perfect gluten-free power breakfast!

Ingredients

2 large Bananas
1 Egg
1 1/2 tbsp Raw Unsalted Almond Butter
1 pinch Sea salt
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 pinch Fresh ground nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 cup Fresh blueberries


Instructions
Combine all ingredients except for blueberries and puree them with a hand-held blender until creamy. Add blueberries at the end. We cook ours in with a little ghee in a cast iron pan on medium.

Serve with freshly whipped cream and fresh strawberries. This is a power breakfast that will keep you going for quite some time. We love to make ours on a Sunday morning before heading out for the trails.

Berry Good Morning

The Power of Berries is an interesting article on the health benefits of berries.

Start your day with a quick and easy breakfast bowl of berries and Greek Yogurt.

1/2 cup Blackberries

3 large Strawberries

1/8 cup Pomegranate Seeds

1 tbsp Flax Seeds

1/2 cup Greek Yogurt

For those of you with a sweet tooth, add a teaspoon of honey, preferably local honey.

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