Ginger Lime Mango Sorbet

A creamy, fruity, tangy, refreshing treat, that is easily scoopable and not icy!

Adapted from 

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/04/mango-sorbet-recipe.html

Makes 2 qts

Special equipment needed:

2-qt ice cream machine

6 mangoes, peeled, pitted, cubed (about 7 cups)

1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 cup orangecello (or you could use orange liqueur)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp coconut extract

1 tsp ground ginger

Purée ingredients in food processor or blender. 

Strain mixture through fine mesh sieve. Chill strained mixture in fridge for 30 min to an hour. Discard the remaining substance. 

Add chilled mixture to ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. I used a Cuisinart Ice Cream machine that takes about 20 minutes until the mixture is well-thickened. For this recipe, I needed to run the machine for 25 min. 

Scoop into a freezer safe container. It should 'ripen' or fully firm up in about 6-8 hours. 

Oatmeal Cookies with No-added Sugar

If there ever was a 'healthy' cookie, this one might fit the bill...
No added sugar, just the natural sweetness of dates, raisins, and bananas. Rolled oats, flaked coconut, ground flaxseed, cashews, and defatted powdered peanut butter, add some healthy fats, protein, and fiber. 

This was an experiment really, so I wasn't sure how it would turn out. But, I think they turned out pretty great for something I just threw together (that's why I had to estimate quantities in the recipe).
Makes 26 cookies.

Ingredients
1/4 cup raisin paste (about 1/4-1/3 cup packed raisins, processed into a paste/purée — another good idea might be to boil and soak the raisins to soften them, and then puree them. You could just use more dates and puree those, but raisins are cheaper!)
2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
3/4 cup chopped pitted dates
1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/3 cup (P2B) defatted, powdered peanut butter
3/4 cup roasted, salted cashews
1-2 tsp cinnamon
1 very ripe banana
1 tsp baking powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with parchment.
Pulse/ process banana, raisins, cinnamon, baking powder, peanut butter powder, coconut flakes, dates, until fine/smooth. Add cashews and pulse until pieces are small to medium sized.

Add mixture to a bowl and stir in oats until well mixed together.
Form 1.5" sized balls and place onto baking sheet. Flatten slightly.

Bake for 15 min until cookies are golden brown on edges. Remove cookies from pan and let cool on wire rack.  

Carrot Pineapple Loaf

My mom made this for our Easter dinner.
It made with regular wheat flour, but I am posting it in case anyone was wondering how it was made! I'd love to try it sometime with a GF flour.

Makes 4 small loafs

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cups baking stevia
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and dust with flour loaf pans.

Mix flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, baking powder together. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, oil, and applesauce until thickened, about 2 minutes.

Mix in carrots and pineapple. Add flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in nuts, and pour into loaf pans.

Bakes 50 min. or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean with a few crumbs. 

Easter Dinner

My mom and I received so many kind words about our Easter dinner dishes, and I must say it really meant a lot to me, after all our hard work! I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves at the party, enjoyed the food, and hopefully were pleasantly surprised to have some new dishes to try, mixed in with some long-standing family favorites!

Here is the complete menu! Send me a message if you are interested in one of the recipes without a link—those are from cookbooks I have!

Beverages
Sunny White Sangria

Appetizers

Garlic Herb Hummus with assorted vegetables (DF)

Black Pepper-Crusted Herbed Goat cheese with crackers

Parsi Deviled Eggs

Dinner

Onion & Thyme Tart (GF, DF)

Chicken Marbella 

Hoisin-Glazed Beef Tenderloin

Green beans, blue cheese, & walnut salad with vinaigrette

Warm Butternut Squash & Chickpea Salad with Tahini dressing

Dijon Vinaigrette Potato salad

Ratatouille

Strawberry Jello Mold

Black Skillet Baked Beans

(Dinner rolls and sliced French bread)

Dessert

Pear & Almond Frangipane Tart (GF, DF)

Dark Chocolate Sunbutter Crisp Bon Bons (I followed all the directions from the original recipe, Peanut Better Balls, only I swapped out the peanut butter for sunflower seed butter)

Carrot Pineapple Loaf

And...here are some other tasty treats family members brought! 

Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing

Chocolate-covered strawberries

(Blueberry Pie)

Irish Potato Candy

(Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake)

Assorted Cookies: (Chocolate chip blondies, wedding cookies, sugar cookies)

Cashew Nut Cream

I used this recipe to make the Vanilla Cashew Cream variation, for my strawberry muffins, but it can be a neutral creamy base for many other ideas. I think it tastes just like regular dairy cream, only thicker. It is not heavy like a nut butter; it's surprisingly light, and has that creamy richness of dairy cream. Using different herb/spice blends, you could probably make this into a variety of different vegan 'cream' sauces. I made this to be used later in a chicken tikka masala recipe, but since I couldn't wait to eat some, I mixed some up with a little vanilla and stevia, to make my breakfast muffin extra special.

Basically all you have to do is soak raw cashews in cold water over night, and then in the morning, drain & rinse them. Then purée them in the food processor with some water until it completely smooth. It's that easy! 

Cashew Nut Cream

Makes about 2 cups 

1.5 cups raw cashews*

3/4 cup cold water

1. Put cashews in a bowl and fill with enough cold water to cover them. Cover and let soak overnight/12 hrs.

2. Drain and rinse cashews. Add to food processor. Start running processor, and slowly stream in 3/4 cup cold water. Continue to purée until smooth, periodically stopping to scrape down sides as necessary. 

*Depending on the recipe you want to use this for, you could sub in roasted cashews, but I would suggest not using salted ones  

Vanilla variation:

For 1 big dollop

1.5 tbsp cashew nut cream

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp stevia

Recipes using Cashew Nut Cream:

Strawberry Chia Seed Muffins
Chicken Tikka Masala (coming soon)

Peach-blueberry ice cream pie

I know this is rather out of season, but I was going through my recipe book, and this one was too yummy not to post here.

This stuff is just heavenly. Sweet and a little spicy, it is the perfect treat to pull out of the freezer on a hot summer day. Or, if you just gotta have some ice cream whenever… Maybe fireside in the winter, so you don't freeze?!

This is one of those do-ahead desserts. It's easy prep-work; most of the time it takes to make this is just waiting for things to cool and freeze.

If you can find TruWhip, you can sub-it in for the fresh whipped cream. It is more stable and lower calories/fat. It's a non-dairy whipped topping that doesn't use nasty hydrogenated oils that most other nondairy whipped toppings do (like CoolWhip). It does contain a tiny bit of sodium caseinate (a milk protein), so it's not entirely vegan, but apart from that it is a great "nearly vegan" tasty topping.

I made this gluten-free by using Mi-Del gluten-free gingersnaps, but you could use any kind of good gingersnaps.

ALSO, if you chop up some extra crystallized ginger and mix it into the ice cream, you'll get an even more yummy pie.

This pie makes 8 servings.

It can be made up to 2 days ahead.

TMP ADAPTED, FROM ORIGINAL RECIPE BY Sweet Rose Creamery In Santa Monica, California

Printable recipe

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces Mi-Del gluten-free gingersnap cookies
• 2 tablespoons softened Earth Balance or coconut oil, melted (or use any non-hydrogenated, vegan margarine)
• 1 tablespoon So-Delicious French Vanilla Coconut Milk Non-dairy Creamer
• 2 cups fresh blueberries, divided
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 pint peach ice cream, softened in refrigerator for 20 minutes*
• 2 cups TruWhip All-natural whipped topping
• ¼ cup + 2 tbsp chopped crystallized ginger

*Originally I used Alden’s organic peach ice cream (so good!), but if I want to make this dairy-free, I would substitute this for coconut milk ice cream, and mix in about ¼-⅓ cup of pureed peaches (or more or less, depending on how peachy you want it, I guess! Too much though would change the texture of the ice cream and make the pie too hard when it re-freezes). One little snack cup of peaches in juice could be an easy way to do this.

Here's how to assemble this ridiculously yummy pie:

First, grind up the cookies in a food processor until you get a fine crumb without any big chunks. You should have about 1-⅓ cups of ground up cookies when you’re done.

Put the cookie crumbs into a medium-sized bowl, and add the margarine and creamer. Mix well. Press the mixture firmly onto the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie dish. Then pop it in the freezer for about 30 minutes, so it can firm up.

Toss 1-3/4 cups of the blueberries plus sugar and lemon juice in another bowl, and set this aside for about an hour at room temperature, for the flavors to marry.

Next, transfer the blueberry mixture to a heavy-bottomed pot, and cook on medium heat, for about 10-15 minutes. This will soften the berries and release their juices. 

Strain the berries through a fine-mesh strainer, over a medium bowl. Reserve the berries and juice in separate bowls, cover, and chill.

When everything is nice and cold: In a bowl, gently fold the blueberries into the softened ice cream. This is also where you can mix in a couple tablespoons of the crystallized ginger, if you want. Spread the ice cream into the crust, and smooth out the top. Next, spread the whipped topping evenly over the top, and then sprinkle with the remaining blueberries and crystallized ginger. 

The reserved blueberry juice is meant to be drizzled over the pie when you serve it, but this is optional. 

Finally, put the the pie back into the freezer to firm up, about 6 hours or overnight. (You'll want to put the pie into something that you can cover it in a way that won't smush the top.)

Just before you're ready to serve it, put the pie in the refrigerator for 10-15 min, or until it has softened just enough to slice. At this time, you might want to cut the whole pie, and make it a little easier to get out single servings (so you don't have to soften the whole pie next time you want a piece!). 

Gingerbread loaf with orange glaze

Gingerbread, take 2!

With glaze

We're calling this the 'gingerbread frosted donut' bread at home because it reminds us of a tastier, gingerbread variation of a Dunkin Donuts glazed chocolate donut.

We are loving this loaf…it turned out much better than the last gingerbread! It was moist and pleasantly spiced. I had thought about omitting the orange glaze to cut back on the sugar, but I'm glad I didn't, because the hint of orange flavor really added something special to this bread.

You can go here for the recipe!

Here's what it looked like without glaze

Vanilla almond sugar cookies

These had a soft, pillowy texture and a great vanilla/almond flavor.

Given that this was my first attempt at making a gluten free cookie, and I was unfamiliar with some of the ingredients, I think these came out great!

This could be easily modified to dairy-free and vegan, if you wanted to sub-in all coconut oil for the ghee or butter, and use coconut or soy milk (or other nondairy milk).

Adapted from Bob's Red Mill recipe.

Makes about 30 cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 c ghee 
• 1/4 c coconut milk 
• 1 c sugar 
• 1/3 c milk 
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 
• 2 tbsp potato starch 
• 3/4 c white rice flour 
• 1/3 c coconut flour 
• 1/2 c finely ground almond meal 
• 1/2 tsp baking soda 
• 1/2 tsp baking powder 
• 1/2 tsp sliced almonds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream sugar, oil, and ghee.

Mix in milk and vanilla.

Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Blend all together.

Mix in almonds.

Drop rounded tbsp. sized balls of dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheet.

Bake 10 min. on middle rack of oven.

Cookies will still be very soft but should be lightly browned. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 10 min before transferring to cooling racks.