Bean-de-duk May 27, 2013

I visited my mom recently and was able to get a variety of recipes from her….but of course no specific measurments :p but that seems to be typical of family recipes.

So there are two ways to make the base of the “pancake.” If you have access to rice flour and mung bean flour you can just use that in a 1:4 ratio of rice to bean flour and add enough water to make it pancake texture. If you don’t have that you can used uncooked split yellow mung beans and some dried rice. In the same ratio soak the beans and rice in water for 24 hours. The next day blend it in a food processor til smooth.

Next its the time to pick the add in-s. You can use chives, spring onions, sliced onions, zuchini, carrots, Kimchee…..really any vegetable you want. You can also add a precooked meat like pork or seafood. Add the chopped add-in of your choice to the batter and stir. Fry in a hot pan with oil added to grease the pan before every batch, just like making pancakes. Flip once nice and brown on the first side. Serve with soysauce! Yum.

[ this particular version had chives, zuchini, and baby octopus]

18 Rabbits! April 21, 2013

Isn’t that the cutest name ever??? That’s what I thought when I went to the website and their graphics are cute too very modern Alice in Wonderland 🙂 So I just had to try their product….oh packaging how you draw me in like a 3 year old child to candy. So I ordered it online and a few days later I received this

Even the box is cute!!!! And I immediately received a delivery confirmation email, nice touch. And this was what was inside….its keeps getting better! my husband (JQ) was probably very confused as to why I was so excited but it was just SO CuTe!!! O.o

So they have granola, granola bars and jr granola bars. I decided I wanted to try the granola. The three flavors they have are:

Veritas Granola-Hazelnut, Walnut, Cacao Nibs, & flaxseed (wheat free)
Gracious Granola-Pecans, Almonds, Maple, Coconut (wheat free)
Felicitas Granola-Chia, Sunflower Seed, Honey, Bing Cherries (wheat & nut free)

Okay so a warning for those that have actual nut or gluten allergies this product was made in a plant that processed wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts….so beware. That would be my first comment on something they could change but since I am none of the three I just dug in 🙂

The only one that blew me over was the Gracious Granola. That had a really nice coconut flavor. I shared some with a few different friends at different times and they all really liked it too.

I neither saw nor tasted cacao nibs in the Veritas or cherries in the Felicitas so I was a bit disappointed. Also with these two they were a bit tasteless and left a residue in your mouth. Also the clusters could have been bigger for eating by the handful. One last complaint the walnuts in Veritas where too big (or clusters too small) it was too much of a contrast. But the walnuts did have a nice sweet coating on them which I discovered when I fished them out so that I could go onto the next step of my review process.

18 ways to enjoy

Since I didn’t really enjoy Veritas and Felicitas straight from the bag I decided to try and find a way I would enjoy them and score!!!

I really liked eating Felicitas (pink bag) on a parfait. I spooned unsweetened whole fat yogurt onto a cup and topped it with cooked down peaches and a healthy shake of the granola and it was delicious much better then it would have been with just the cooked peaches. The contrast was perfect and it was nice that it wasn’t too sweet. Did I remember to take a picture? No. Did I remember to devour it…yes.

I decided to use Veritas to make granola bars. Like I said I had to fish out the walnuts, they were too big to use with the recipe especially since I wanted JQ to try it and he doesn’t like large chunks of nuts. I decided to try to make a chocolate chip granola bar since I thought the Veritas would have chocolate undertones since it supposedly has cacao nibs in it.

No bake (18 rabbit) Chocolate Chip Granola Bar

1/2 stick butter/coconut oil
1/2 cup brown sugar/honey/agave
3/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup flax seed
2 1/2 cup granola (18 rabbit)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter/coconut oil. If using brown sugar add at this point and cook until sugar crystals are dissolved. If not using sugar as soon as the butter is melted remove from heat and stir in honey or agave. Next stir in almond meal, flax seed, granola, and cinnamon into oil/sweetener mixture off the heat. Then stir in chocolate chips. Press evenly into an 8×8 sprayed baking dish. Chill in refrigerator. After a few hours cut up into 9 squares. Enjoy!

I used brown sugar this time in the recipe since I ran out of honey (and money to buy more) it didn’t stick together as well as I liked so the bars had to be cut bigger to keep it from crumbling apart. Also it was a bit sweeter than I liked (JQ liked it fine) so I have to figure out how to get it to stick together better but with less sweetener….any tips?

*FYI I did get this product for free but the review is based on how it actually tasted in my mouth not on the lack of impact on my pocket*

Gluten-Free Cupcakes by Elana Amsterdam February 2, 2013

Gluten-Free Cupcakes by Elana Amsterdam

★★★★★
5 out of 5 stars

*Bright, cheery
*Nice cover
*great pictures sprinkled throughout
*alot of the recipes use coconut flour which i have not used yet, nice to have some help
*not too many weird ingredients like xanatham gum
*like the recipe text’s colors and layout
*liked that there were only one recipe per page
*like shape and size of book, fits nice in hand
*each recipe has levels of sweetness: low, medium, high
*like the chapter categories like fruity cupcakes, warm and spiced, and savory

Of special note are three recipes: one with no flours just shredded coconut, the next with hazelnuts that you grind yourself into a flour and a 3 ingredient flourless white chocolate cupcake

You can buy this book here and if you buy it through this link I receive a small commission

Groats (steel cut oatmeal) an easy week long breakfast (wheat free/dairy free) January 26, 2013

So I wanted to make oatmeal for the week. It’s been super cold and snowy and I wanted to try soaking it again (why to soak grains). The first time I soaked it was a fail. I used yogurt as the acid and that was unpleasant. This time I soaked the groats with apple cider vinegar and rinsed it real good after a 12 hr soak (I was originally going to soak it for 24 hrs but I really wanted some oatmeal!). As I was rinsing all that milky goodness down the drain I thought that is probably really good for skin…..

Ingredients:
3 cups of groats
3 tsp apple cider vinegar
warm water to cover

2 cups Coconut Milk (from Trader Joe’s- thanks Jess! much better than the watery coconut “drink” from So Delicious…so NOT delicious)
2 tbs coarse ground almonds
pinch sea salt
2 tbs unrefined coconut oil

Add 1st three ingredients into a glass bowl. Place in a warm spot for 12+ hours (I placed mine in the oven with the light on since it is cooooold in the house). Once you are done soaking rinse in warm water until you can’t smell the vinegar anymore (about 3 times did the trick). Toss soaked grains into a pot on the stove with the coconut milk, ground almonds, and sea salt and cook until soft (it took about 30 mins). Stir in coconut oil.

Yuuuum! This was so good warm and coconuty…next time I will probably add some vanilla and cinnamon but this weeks topping is brought to you by mom’s homegrown frozen figs cooked down with some blackberries.