Oats, Dark Rye Bread...and something new!

When I lose my drive to keep cooking up new things and keep eating a variety of things I start eating lazy, shabby things. I lose my energy, and what happens is I fall back on trying to emulate the things I was eating before I knew I had celiac disease, and I invariably fail. That's when I know I need new inspiration to get to that place where I don't see all the restrictions, but all the possibilities.

Real oats and heavy, dark rye bread full of grains are about the two only things that can still spark some serious food envy in me when I look at what the "normies" are eating. Probably it's no use trying to convince non-Danes who didn't grow up with the rye bread phenomenon that it's any good, but hey, Oprah was here and it's said out there on the web that she was converted and brought some back to the states. Sorry, tried to google for some links on that, but I just fell in to a long and useless joyride through different versions of rye bread recipes...

Green MONSTER!

Please try and make the recipe from this post over at Vegan Strong if you need a little extra protein and are fairly open-minded about food textures and about mixing at-first-glance-weird-sounding ingredients or if you need a quick filling breakfast option or indeed all of the above. I realise that protein is probably not something that any of us actually lack and I have never obsessed about it, but I like to add it sometimes for a nice filling feeling. I am not a vegan, but the debate about protein-intake and a vegan diet seems to be ongoing as witnessed by this post, with lots of links to articles and resources, at Love Veggies and Yoga. I am easily convinced of the logic that we don't need animal protein to grow muscle. It's probably true that most monkeys = super strong = plant eaters?

Something else I have to mention about this recipe and I don't know which was there first - I'm guessing the term "green monster" is not exactly patentable - but this recipe should not be confused with the Green Monster Movement started by Angela from Oh She Glows to promote green smoothies. These are green monster breakfast cookies.

Oooh! Where can I get these?

I have just been reading this post over at Rawdorable and I went straight from being fine and happy with the health food choices around here to feeling downright deprived!

We haven't HALF the variety of Larabars where I live. I'm pining for info if anyone has it: do these interesting varieties (and the pack with the minis!!!) ship from anywhere in Europe, maybe some UK internet shop? Or is it US only? As if it didn't enduce enough shopping envy when Averie posts her "wall of..." pics, like the wall of nutbutters in this post. Sigh. I guess I'll manage ;-).

Double Chocolate Delight

I have not been able to eat regular types of chocolate since going glutenfree, but chocolate remains a girl's next-best friend (I mean, if you are having trouble getting your hands on some diamonds) so I have of course been experimenting with raw cacao, raw chocolate bars and cacao nibs. All are delicious! But I get quite the sugar rush from eating them, to me they're as addictive as coffee and - like coffee - give me a headache when I stop eating them. Problem. Ok, not exactly a vital one, but still.

Averie over at love veggies and yoga is having a Cuisinart Food Processor give-away and one of her conditions for entering the contest prompted me to look at an "old" post of hers about recipes with oats. I can't eat oats, not even the GF ones, but I spent a couple of minutes drooling over the recipes anyway - after all, recipes are born to be tweaked. I noticed that Averie uses a leftover chocolate bar instead of cacao nibs or -chips in one of her recipes and I remembered having seen a chocolate bar with 99% cacao content somewhere. It's an ordinary, fairly inexpensive "Lindt" chocolate bar from Magasin (for those resident in Denmark curious about where to get it) and I bought one today. I admit it's a taste experience that takes getting used to (on the bar it says that they recommend working your way "up" through the 60, 75, and 85% bars, "refining your palate" before you daringly attempt the 99%) but it's an instant hit with me and I detected hardly any sugar rush at all - maybe it's the cacao butter content? I'm not sure. Could be something I'm imagining ;-). But it is definitely time to try some new recipes with this yummy, new (for me) ingredient.

Coconut Cookies & Coconut Granola

IS there such a thing as too much vanilla? I've been (un)baking - well, it includes my old oven and it sure smells good so I guess it's okay to say I'm baking - some Lemon Coconut Cookies and Coconut Vanilla Granola today. I bought two mature coconuts and they've been sitting around just waiting for me to decide on a recipe. I ended up using only one for the two recipes, and I tossed in some of the water to replace some of the sweetener in the granola. Pure, tropical bliss in the kitchen. I did not have any vanilla essence, only a bag of vanilla powder, so I think may have overdosed more than a little. I'm wondering if vanilla has any nutritional significance, good or bad? I've read that nutmeg is unhealthy in large doses, and I'm a huge fan of turmeric not least because Meghan says it is super-healthy, but I have no clue about vanilla.

Here's how I tweaked the two recipes: for the vanilla crunch granola I did NOT use a whole cup of agave syrup, more like just a good long squirt. All the coconut makes it sweet enough for me. I kind of wish I tweaked it by halving the amounts, though, it turned out to be the absolutely hugest amount of homemade granola I've ever seen (how did I not foresee that?). Guess I'll be eating it for a while. And I accidently swapped the measurements for almonds and sunflower seeds, but the taste is still fine, only it's cheaper. For the cookies I halved the recipe - which got me around 15-18 cookies, I think, and I used half cashews/half some almond pulp left over from nut-milking. For both recipes I used fresh, not dried, coconut and I also used a bit of coconut water in both to cut down on the agave.

Nut milks and Raw Food book

Just to round off Meghan's prize draw, she was super-kind enough to reward everybody who participated (incl. moi!) with a download version of her most recent guide, the 5 days healing with everyday superfoods tutorial. It is not really a five-day challenge in the spirit of her low-glycemic or smoothie cleanse challenges, it is more like a guide to superfoods, and how to incorporate them into tasty meals on an everyday basis without breaking the bank.

So, I got all that new info to read, plus I picked up a present I got from a family member - actually what I got was a gift certificate when we celebrated my birthday and I made okay/not so great tasting but very festive looking cupcakes - a book in Danish on Raw Food, called..."Raw Food".

More balls for me, please.

Speaking of smart, strong women like Meghan and Averie: I have another of my favorite ball recipes from this Danish site belonging to Thorbjørg Haffsteinsdottir. If you read Danish, try the "sweet and sugarfree carob balls" - or donut holes, whatever you choose to call them - from the "snacks" section, or if you're not raw, try the glutenfree pizza crust, which is positively the best gluten free pizza solution I've encountered. Thorbjørg has a website too - where there's an "English" option but it doesn't have as much info as the Danish version - and a blog with health and nutrition news in Danish. I mean to try her recipe for "Delicious Liquorice-Chai Tea" next :-)