These are some of my favorite recipes made from organic ingredients that are healthy, special treats!
Use all ORGANIC ingredients
Macadamias and Almonds in Dark Cacoa
Ingredients
One cup organic coconut oil
Two cups organic cacao powder
Three Tbsp. raw honey
One tsp. vanilla, if desired
Two cups raw nuts, I like raw: sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, or cashews
Pinch of sea salt if desired
Small amount of Grapeseed oil if making nut bark
In a bowl over a pan of water that was boiling, melt the coconut oil. Add next three ingredients and stir well to incorporate cacao powder. Remove bowl from hot water bath and stir in the nuts separately. Lightly spread grapeseed oil in mini muffin pan with a cloth. Spoon nut mixture into the mini muffin pan. Place pan in freezer for 30 mins. or refrigerator for two hours. Pop the Cacao nuts out of the muffin pans and enjoy.
If making nut bark, lightly oil a cookie sheet or cake pan. After adding nuts into the cacao mixture, spread all on the cookie sheet, allow nuts to stay close to each other to create a solid bark. Place in refrigerator or freezer for two hours or 30 mins. Remove from refrig and break into bite size pieces. What a great way to get your daily dose of organic coconut oil and antioxidants!
For a delicious alternative, stir in one-fourth cup date paste (processed into a paste) to the cacoa mixture when you add the nuts. It makes the bark or candies a little sweeter and rich tasting, with a softer texture. Yum!
One more very nice alternative for this recipe is:
Raw Dark Chocolates with Nuts, Seeds, and Coconut
Changes to the original recipe above is to substitute the following for the two cups raw nuts:
One and one-half cup raw cashews
One-half cup raw sunflowers seeds
One-fourth cup raw sesame seeds
Also, sprinkle the top of the chocolate with unsweetened coconut when it is in the muffin pans or other container, before placing in the freezer.
This is my very favorite variety for this recipe! Incredible!
Blackberry Cashew Ice Cream (non-dairy)
Ingredients
One and one-half cup cashews
Two cups fresh blackberries
Two Tbsp. agave nectar
One tsp. vanilla, if desired
About one cup coconut milk to cover nuts in processor
Soak cashews in filtered water for 1-2 hours. Drain cashews rinse and drain again. Place cashews in food processor or high speed blender. Add coconut milk to cover nuts. Add vanilla, if desired, and agave nectar. Process nuts until smooth and creamy, 1-2 minutes.
Spoon cashew cream mixture into an ice cube tray and freeze for 2 hours.
When cream is frozen, place berries first and then cashew cream “ice cubes” into the high speed blender. Add about 3 tablespoons of coconut milk. (I did not blend in this order and my blender started very slowly.) Blend berries and cream for 1-2 minutes until very smooth. Spoon into serving bowls or parfait glasses, garnish with a berry or a few. Get ready to enjoy this heavenly fresh Berry Ice Cream! Serves 4-5. Freeze any leftovers to thaw slightly and enjoy later.
Mango Ice Cream (non-dairy)
Ingredients
One cup cashews
Two red mango or four champagne mango
Two Tbsp. agave nectar
One tsp. vanilla, if desired
One cup fresh pineapple
About one cup coconut milk to cover nuts in processor
Blend fresh pineapple with a little water to make a juice mixture, set aside. Peel, seed, and cut mango into one inch chunks. Place mango chunks on a large glass dish or deep plate. Drizzle pineapple juice over mango and brush on top of chunks to cover fruit to preserve color while freezing. Place mango/pineapple chunks in freezer for at least 2-3 hours.
Soak cashews in filtered water.
When mango is frozen, turn it out onto a large cutting board and separate chunks. Drain cashews and place in food processor or high speed blender. Add coconut milk to cover nuts. Process nuts until smooth and creamy, 2-3 minutes. Add vanilla, if desired, and agave nectar. Add mango/pineapple chunks a few at a time as mixture is processing. Use tamper tool to keep mixture blending evenly as it gets thicker. Add one additional tablespoon coconut milk if processor won’t blend last bit of mango.
Pour finished mango ice cream into serving bowls and enjoy! Fresh berries are also excellent with this treat. Any leftover ice cream can be frozen in a BPA free container to be enjoyed later. I froze mine in ice-cube trays, so I can pop out and re-blend with a little coconut milk tom get the fabulous creamy texture. You will LOVE this recipe! Makes four generous bowls mango ice cream.
Cranberry Oat Nut Bars
Ingredients
One and one-half cups organic oats
One-half cup oat flour
One-half cup each coarse chopped raw walnuts, raw almonds, raw sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds
One tsp. cinnamon
One-fourth tsp. nutmeg
One-third cup fresh ground nut butter (I used almond butter with flax seeds)
Three Tbsp. raw honey
One cup date sugar
Two Tbsp. coconut or grape seed oil
Two cups prepared cranberry sauce. ( Three cups fresh cranberries, one and one-half date sugar, four Tbsp. raw honey. Boil over medium heat for ten minutes. Set aside to cool.)
Combine first five ingredients together in a large bowl. Use one-eight tsp of coconut oil to coat bottom and sides of a 13 X 9 inch cake pan. Place nut butter, honey, date sugar, and oil in small saucepan and heat, stirring to melt nut butter to make a smooth consistency mixture (about 3-4 minutes). Pour hot mixture into bowl with dry ingredients. Mix together until dough forms large clumps. When mix can be handled, spoon about two-thirds of mixture into the oiled cake pan. Press down well with fingers and hands to make a condensed layer. Cook in 330 degree oven for 25 mins or until slightly golden on top. Take out of oven and spoon cranberry sauce onto bar layer. Crumble the rest of the oat nut dough over the cranberry sauce layer and cook another 25 mins at 330 degrees, until top is slightly browned.
Remove from oven, cool for at least two hours before cutting into bars. (Cuts better if completely cooled)
Makes 20 bars that everyone will love! My family and friends did!
Fresh Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
One medium size pumpkin (I used an 8″ beauty)
Four cups vegetable stock
Three cups almond milk
One large onion, chopped
Six stalks celery, chopped
One-half pound mushrooms, chopped (I used shittake)
Three tablespoons olive oil
Two -three tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
One teaspoon ground cinnamon
One-half teaspoon ground nutmeg
One half teaspoon salt if desired
Braggs No Salt Seasoning for garnish
Cut pumpkin into halves and scrape out seeds. I roasted the seeds to snack on later, as I was preparing the soup ingredients. Cut cleaned out pumpkin shell into fourths, place on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 45 mins at 350. If pumpkin has a thin shell, baking time will be less.
When pumpkin meat is cool enough to handle, cut off thin outer skin and cut pumpkin meat into 1″ cubes. Place pumpkin cubes, vegetable broth, Chopped ginger root, and almond milk in a large blender and blend until smooth in 2-3 batches. Pour puree into a large cooking pot. In a separate large skillet, saute chopped onion, celery, and mushrooms together with olive oil for 7-8 mins. Add the sauteed vegetables to the pumpkin puree, with cinnamon and nutmeg, salt if desired. heat gently and let simmer together on low for 8 mins. Serve in bowls with a dash or two of Braggs No Salt Seasoning, or a sprinkle of your favorite fresh herb. Serves 7-8 people.
Fresh Blackberry Tart
Ingredients
Pie filling:
3 cups berries, (blackberries, raspberries, ollalaberries, etc. )
3 tablespoons flour, wheat or partially wheat with other healthy alternatives such as coconut flour 2 tablespoons – one-half cup sugar
Crust:
1 1/4 C organic unbleached white flour
1 stick COLD organic pastured butter
1/2 t salt
2 T sugar (less if you like a more savory crust)
3 T ice cold water
For the crust: I put the flour into a bowl and mix it with the (probably 1/2 tsp) salt and sugar.
I take my one (1/2 C) stick of butter which is very cold (I even put it into the freezer for 10 minutes usually) onto a cutting board, and I cut the stick in fourths lengthwise, then dice it, to get little cubes. (I have made a habit of doing this because then you don’t have to use a mixer or a food processor.) With my hands I break the little cubes up into tiny pieces throughout the flour, evenly crumbling it. Then, I sprinkle in about 3 tablespoons of water from a cup that I have put water and ice into (the colder the water, the better!) and slowly press the dough into itself until it turns into a ball. When you can gather and press it into a ball, stop mixing and flatten it to approximately a 5 inch disc and put it into the freezer (if you want to use it soon) or fridge (if you will be using it tomorrow). I learned that the flakiness comes from the butter and flour not completely mixing, so it’s good to see “marbling” of butter and flour!
After the dough has firmed up for about 30 minutes, I roll it out to cover the dish I will be using. If your “innards” of your pie are not too juicy, you can make a free-form tart by simply putting the filling in the middle of this flat crust and folding the sides over so that they form a small lip. This is usually served in high end cafes and called “rustic fruit galette.” I call it “too lazy to make a nice pie crust,” but they taste the same.
For the filling, the recipe changes depending on the fruit. When you have something with a lot of natural pectin, such as apples, you hardly need to add any thickener to the fruit. For berries, I used about 3 Tablespoons of flour sprinkled over the fruit. The same rule applies for sugar. If you have a very ripe and sweet crop, you may use hardly any sugar at all. I hand picked and hand selected these berries and I knew that each one was very sweet. I only used about 2 tablespoons of sugar for my 3 cups of berries. If I were using mixed berries or fruit that had a tartness to it, I would increase the sugar to up to 1/2 cup for 3 cups of fruit.
Gently toss the flour and sugar into the fruit and pile it into the center of your pie crust. If you are not pre-baking your crust, I always dot the bottom of the crust with a fork before adding the fruit, or else you may find that the center actually rises and forms an air pocket under the crust. The last two touches (from my Grammy) are always to dot the top of the pie with butter and brush the crust with an egg or milk wash. I like the egg wash best.
For most fruit pies, I generally cook them for one hour at 425 degrees F.
This pie cooked a bit less than that (about 50 minutes) as it was a thin, open-face tart. Hope you enjoy making and sharing this fresh berry tart!
Gathering Wild Blackberries video
