Walnut Apricot Chip Ice Cream

I think I've found the perfect dairy-free ice cream base! I got the recipe from this website, and added my own extras. This ice cream is so rich and creamy! If you leave it out for a few minutes, it can even be scooped after being in the freezer! It's not like other dairy-free ice creams, which can be icy and watery, this is the full-on ice cream experience!

I first realized that walnuts, dried apricots and chocolate go well together when I was making chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies and realized that I didn't have any raisins or chocolate, so I used dried apricots and carob chips. Oh my, were they ever delicious! The flavours just work so well together! Needless to say, I ate way too much of that batch of cookies. :P

It was a little later that I thought to combine the walnuts and apricots with cocoa nibs instead of carob chips. And since I had ice cream on the brain, this ice cream recipe was born.

 For vegan ice cream, just substitute any liquid sweetener for the honey. If you can get turkish apricots, they are definitely worth the extra cost; they taste so much better! The walnuts can be raw, soaked and dehydrated, or toasted. Soaking nuts makes them healthier, so I soaked and lightly toasted mine. If you don't have/like cocoa nibs, carob chips would make a great substitution, just make sure they're homemade, the store bought ones are full of yucky hydrogenated oils and other icky stuff. One last note: the combination of the cashews and cocoa nibs are slightly reminiscent of mocha flavours. It's wierd that I enjoy that, since I hate coffee! But if you like mocha, that's just another plus to an already delicious ice cream!

Walnut Apricot Chip Ice Cream

1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 dried turkish apricots, chopped
1/2 cocoa nibs
2 cups coconut milk
1 1/2 cups raw cashews
1/4-1/2 cup honey (remember, freezing will make the ice cream less sweet, so use a little more than you think you need)
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

1. Blend the cashews, coconut milk, honey, vanilla and salt in a blender. Soaking the cashews beforehand in the coconut milk, or blending them into a powder first helps to make this mixture even smoother.
2. Blend for a minute or two, until completely smooth.
3. Taste and add more honey if needed. It should be sweeter than you want the final product to be.
4. Chill the mixture in the fridge for a few hours, the longer the better.

Straight from the ice cream maker

5. Pour into an ice cream maker and make ice cream according to your ice cream maker's instructions.
6. In the last 5 minutes or so, add the walnuts, apricots, and cocoa nibs, making sure the apricots pieces don't stick together.
7. Pour into a container and move to the freezer to freeze until solid (although it makes great soft-serve too!).
8. Take out of the freezer a few minutes before serving so it softens up a bit.
9. Scoop and enjoy!

As you can see, I garnished my ice cream with a sprig of tarragon. The flavour of tarragon works really well with this ice cream! If you want, I would highly recommend adding some fresh tarragon to the blender with the rest of the ice cream ingredients. Or make an ice cream sandwich with these cookies (or a healthier version of that idea). That would taste AMAZING!

Next I think I'll make either a nutella ice cream or a tahini one.

This post was shared at healthy vegan Fridays.

Guacamole Zucchini Noodles

The main reason I bought a mandoline was to make zucchini noodles. And I have to say, they are amazing! They taste great, and they have that noodle-y feel, and they're healthy! What's not to love? Spiralizers and julienne peelers also work, but I wanted a multi-purpose tool. Too bad it's extremely dull and can't cut much. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for buying the cheapest mandoline available. Makes great zoodles, though.

I wanted to keep these raw for the health benefits. I also thought a creamy sauce would taste much better than a tomato-based one, and wouldn't be as watery. I've eaten spaghetti squash with tomato sauce, and trust me, it isn't good. So I just tossed the noodles with some leftover guacamole and served it with tomatoes and leftover pork for a delicious and super-quick dinner. The creaminess of the guacamole, the fresh, sweet, and acidic flavour of the tomatoes, and the rich, crispy, salty meatiness of the pork went wonderfully together to create this delicious dish!

If you want to make this dish raw and/or vegan, just leave out the pork, it'll still be good!

Zucchini Noodles with Guacamole

makes 1 serving

Ingredients

3 very small zucchini, cut into noodles

1/2 avocado

lime juice, to taste

salt, to taste

1 tomato, cut into thin wedges

cooked pork meat, preferably fatty and crispy, chopped and heated

Directions

1. Mash the avocado with a fork or puree in a food processor, for a creamier sauce.

2. Add lime juice and salt to taste. Mix it all together.

3. Toss the zucchini noodles with the guacamole.

4. Garnish with the tomato and top with the pork.

5. Enjoy!

Stuffed Acorn Squash

A yummy, delicious, and filling veggie-based meal (this can be vegan, just use vegetable instead of pork stock and choose a vegan cooking fat. Chicken or beef stock could also be subbed for the pork).

Cabbage-Stuffed Acorn Squash

Ingredients

1 small or 1/2 large cabbage, thinly sliced
1 box of mushrooms, sliced
2 onions, thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp hungarian paprika
1/2 tsp sage
1 tsp rosemary
salt and pepper, to taste
cooking fat of choice (bacon/pork fat reccomended)
1/4 cup concentrated pork stock, optional (this is just regular stock boiled until most of the water has evaporated)
2 acorn squash, cut in half and seeds removed
the squash seeds, cleaned and toasted
salad with tomatoes and ACV dressing, optional, to serve

Directions

1. Roast the squash cut-side down at 375*F until tender, about 45 min-1 hour.

2. Heat the fat in a large dutch oven or heavy pot on the stove.

3. Add the onions, and cook over medium heat until brown.

4. Turn up the heat, add the mushrooms and cook until brown.

5. Lower the heat to medium-low, then add the garlic, cabbage and pork stock. Stir, then add the seasonings.

6. Cover and cook until the cabbage is tender, adding extra water if needed, about 30 min.

7. When the cabbage mixture is done, check the seasonings and spoon it into the bowls formed by the acorn squash. Return to the oven and cook for about ten minutes. 

8. Sprinkle with toasted squash seeds, or any crunchy topping of your choice, such as toasted nuts or other seeds. Alternately, top with cheese and broil until melted.

 9. Serve on a bed of salad with tomatoes and an apple cider vinegar dressing.

This looks especially nice if you arrange the tomatoes in a
circle around the squash.

Dairy-Free Cream of Spinach Soup

This soup is fast and easy, and it tastes really great, although I found that it tasted a bit more like cauliflower cheddar soup than spinach soup. It's weird, because I didn't add anything cheesy, and the only thing that was creamy was the coconut milk (I know, coconut milk in spinach soup sounds weird, but it actually tastes really good!), but I guess as long as it tastes good that's all that matters. And it definitely tastes good! Maybe if you add more spinach it'll taste more like cream of spinach soup? Whatever, here's the recipe:

Cream of Spinach Soup

Ingredients

-1 or 2 Tbls coconut oil or other cooking fat

-1 large onion, chopped

-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

-1 head of cauliflower, coarsely chopped

-about 10 cups of stock (I used turkey but chicken or vegetable would work too)

-about 3 pounds spinach or other leafy greens, coarsely chopped (I just used a giant costco bag of spinach and a bunch of swiss chard)

-1 can full-fat coconut milk

-fresh nutmeg

-salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Heat the coconut oil in a large soup pot. When the oil is hot, add the onions and saute on medium-low until lightly browned. 

2. Add the garlic, saute for about a minute.

3. Add the cauliflower and pour the stock over everything. Turn the heat up, cover, and simmer until the cauliflower is tender. 

4. Add the spinach and cook until it wilts.

5. With a stick blender, blend the soup until smooth.

6. Add the coconut milk, grate some nutmeg into the soup and add salt and pepper. Give the soup another few seconds of blending.

7. Taste and adjust seasonings, then serve.

serves about 10

Tastes great with a sprinkling of nutritional yeast too!

Chinese Vegetable Soup

My first recipe! It's a soup, which I thought would be fitting. One thing that I want to mention about my recipes: I make these up as I go along, so feel free to make substitutions where you see fit. Also, I never measure anything, some add things to taste as the measurements might not be completely accurate. Anyway, onto the recipe! I made it with pork stock, since I had half a frozen pig's skull (from a previously roasted pig's head) and some frozen pork feet, and there's not much else to do with those things other than make a delicious, extremely gelatinous stock! But you can use whichever kind of stock you want.

Look at all that wonderful, healthy gelatin!

  

The Ingredients

Chinese Pork and Vegetable Soup

  -a few tablespoons of sesame oil, or other fat (I used a combination of sesame oil and self-rendered lard)

  -2 large onions, chopped

  -5 cloves of garlic, minced

  -2-inch knob of ginger, peeled and minced

  -3 stalks celery, thinly sliced on a bias

  -4 carrots, chopped (you can also slice these on a   bias, if you prefer)

  -1 head of bok choy, thinly sliced

                 

 

Celery sliced on a bias

  -1 bell pepper, chopped

  -1 large box of mushrooms, any kind (I used    about twice as much as are pictured)

-stock, as much as required to achieve desired liquidy-ness

-1 cooked spaghetti squash, separated into strands

-a large pinch of red pepper flakes

-salt and pepper, to taste

-organic tamari, to taste (I didn't use any because soy isn't allowed on the whole30, but obviously it would make this soup taste much more Chinese) all soy that isn't organic is genetically modified!

 

Directions
 1. Heat the sesame oil/fat in a large soup pot (make sure it's REALLY large, or do what I had to do, and use 2 pots. This recipe makes a lot of soup). When the sesame oil is hot, add the onions and saute on medium heat until lightly browned.
2. Add garlic and ginger, and cook for a few minutes.
3. Add the celery, carrots, and bok choy stalks (reserve the leaves for later use). Cook for a few minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a separate pot/pan, heat some more sesame oil/fat and saute the mushrooms on high heat until browned. (You could skip this step, and just add the mushrooms in with the peppers, but I think sauteing them separately gives them a nicer taste and texture.) When the mushroom are done, add them to the pot with the other vegetables.
5. Add the bell pepper. 
6. Pour in enough stock to cover the vegetables, or more if you want your soup more soupy. 
7. Add the bok choy leaves and the spaghetti squash. Cook until all the vegetables are tender.
8. Season to taste with red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and tamari. Add some powdered ginger if the soup if you want the soup to taste more gingery. A splash of rice wine vinegar might be nice too, but I didn't try it.

Makes about 12 servings.

Enjoy!