Orange Millet Pilaf

My friend, Larry Fried, the owner of Natural Choice Directory, has shared his recipe for Orange Millet Pilaf. He's made it for years and is one of his favorite dishes to take to a potluck. I made it the other night for my family, including my five and three year old grandchildren. They gobbled it up, saying "I love it, Nana!" I bet you will too.

For those of you making the transition to more of a plant-based diet, I encourage you to read Larry's article "For My Heart: A Personal Perspective on Eating a Plant-Based Diet."

 

Ingredients: 

1 cup Millet (rinse)
4 medium Oranges
1/2 cup Cashews
1/2 Raisins
zest of 1 Orange (above)
1 tablespoon of Agave Nectar or to taste
Water (see below)

Directions:

• Juice 3 oranges
• Add water to the juice for a total 2 1/4 cups total liquid
• Put millet in saucepan with liquid
• Cover pan
• Bring to boil, then turn down to simmer, and cook until liquid is gone (about 20-25 minutes). DO NOT STIR
• Turn off, let sit for about 5 minutes, then fluff lightly with a fork

While the millet is cooking, combine:

• The zest of final Orange
• The juice of that Orange
• Cashews
• Raisins
• Agave

After fluffing millet, add the above mixture, stir in with the fork, and serve.

Pilaf can be eaten hot (best) or cold.

[Note: Before I cooked the millet, I dry-toasted the grain for 4 minutes or until slightly golden, on medium heat, for a nuttier flavor. Be very careful not to burn.]

For information about millet and it's many benefits. click here.

Curried-Tempeh Salad

Wow. This is way better than chicken salad! Thank you for sharing you recipe with us, Ef!

The main entree of our tailgate lunch, in the parking lot at the Portland International Raceway between our kid's cyclocross races, was our daughter's gluten-free, faux chicken curry salad, made with tempeh, served with her gluten-free sandwich bread made with buckwheat. If I am successful with her bread recipe, I will share it on this blog too.

Ingredients:

2 packages (8-ounce each) of Tempeh, diced into 1/4" cubes

1 Apple, cored and diced (peeling optional)

3 Celery stalks, chopped

1/4 cup chopped Nuts (walnuts or pecans)

2 tablespoons Raisins

2 teaspoons Curry Powder

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

1/2 teaspoon Black Pepper (optional)

1/4 teaspoon ground Cayenne Pepper

1 cup Mayonnaise (eggless, if vegan)

Directions:

1. Steam the tempeh for 10 minutes. If you don't have a steamer, add 2 to 3 inches of water to a saucepan and place tempeh in a steamer basket. Let cool.
2. Once cooled, in a large bowl, combine the tempeh with the apple, celery, nuts, raisins, seasonings and mayonnaise. Add more or less pepper and mayonnaise to your taste and level of moistness you prefer.
3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serves 8

Here's a recap by my daughter of her conversation her four year old daughter, my granddaughter, on their drive home from their cyclocross race: 

"Leify (22-month old brother), please stop making all that noise! It's not polite to make all that noise when I'm trying to have a conversation with Mama." She told me in intricate detail of her plans for opening a restaurant called "A Big Kitchen For All of Us" - it will host two large kitchens, a party room, offer world foods, the parking lot will be on the left - and I will be supplying lights for the lot, restaurant decorations, roses for the tables and a calendar for the kitchen so that she knows what day it is. And her menu sounds amazing! She's so creative she won't even have to go to cooking school! Thankfully we've been invited to dine at her restaurant every night! I can't wait for her to wow me every night, cause she certainly does evety day!!!

Some of the delectables Seph plans to serve are Crispy Crunchy Carrots and Purple Marshmallow Stew.

Apricot, Plum, Date and Almond Sticky-Bars

In the midst of moving in and getting acquainted with the kitchen, our local produce stand was about to close for the season, so we unpacked our food dehydrator and bought a bunch of ripe apricots and plums to dry before they were gone. After I got the kitchen drawers and cupboards filled with the basics, I set to work rinsing, slicing and pitting the fruit for drying for later enjoyment.

When dehydrating pitted fruits, be sure to pop the back so they will dry evenly and flat. Dry time will vary depending how much fruit you are drying at one time, but your dehydrator guide will give you the suggested temp and time for the particular food you are drying.

Later enjoyment came sooner than later, as one of the cookbooks I unpacked, Fresh - The Ultimate Live-Food Cookbook, opened to a recipe for Peach Cobbler Bars on page 112.

I adapted the recipe to accommodate what I had in the kitchen... my apricot, plum, date and almond bars turned out very nutritious, moist and tasty.

Here's my recipe... I chopped and mixed by hand. I find that a blender often pulverizes nuts, try as you might not to, and when it comes to mixing sticky ingredients in a blender, the mixture often is to "gummy" to blend properly and the effort can burn out the motor.

Ingredients:

1 pound medium to finely-chopped Almonds
1 cup dehydrated Apricots and Plums medium to finely-chopped and soaked for 5-minutes in Apple Juice
1/2 cup pitted Dates, medium-chopped
2 tablespoons Agave Nectar
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon powdered Cinnamon
1/5 teaspoon Sea Salt
Peanut or Canola oil to coat muffin tins

Directions:

1. Lightly oil a couple of muffin baking pans.
2. Drain the hydrated apricots and plums, reserving the rich nectar to drink. Yummy!
3. By hand, blend all the ingredients in a medium-size mixing bowl. 
4. Take a heaping tablespoon or so of mixture and press flat into the bottom of each muffin tin.
5. When all the mixture is pressed into the muffin tins, place the muffin pans in the freezer.
6. When chilled, remove the round bars and place two-by-two into ziplock snack baggies. Return to the freezer until ready to enjoy.

The bars have a lot of texture and moisture, making an excellent and satisfying snack to boost energy and stave off hunger mid-day.

We took a break from unpacking to check out the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race in our town. I put together a small snack bag to take along that included the apricot, plum, date and almond bars... perfect solution! 

Oh, here's just one of the participants with his crazy kinetic sculpture gizmo - a gnome working something of a gerbil cage, moved only by physical human energy down the road, into the water, across the sand and through a mud bog. 

I wish we hadn't eaten all the bars we had with us; bars that even gnomes and gerbils would love!

Mama Siran's Date and Hazelnut Spread

I began my day with a delicious serving of natural goodness and sweetness. With a butter knife, I easily and liberally troweled Mama Siran's Date and Hazelnut Spread on a toasted half of a UDI's gluten-free bagel. Mama Siran's Spread has a creamy, smooth consistency like the thick, homemade apple butter I enjoyed as a young girl. Both dates and hazelnuts are loaded with nutrients and health benefits.

I look forward to serving Mama Siran's Spread during the holidays as an appetizer atop cream cheese on thin slices of a gluten-free baguette.

Soulikhan also sells both of Mama Siran's date products, date-hazelnut and date-apricot, as pastes. A 2 tablespoon serving has 120 calories.

Rawsome! Mushroom Loaf

My 6-day fast has come to an end. I have plenty of energy and have dropped 7 pounds. I feel great and I want to stay feeling that way. So, I'm following up by transitioning to more of a raw foods diet.

Raw food. Not only does this raw mushroom and nut loaf make for a great family dinner entree, but it is a big success with guests during the holidays. I served it at our raw foods potluck and party last December; everyone was amazed how good it was. I'm serving it on Valentine's Day, too.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups almonds, soaked overnight, then rinsed
1-1/2 cups pecans, soaked overnight, rinsed, then dehydrated until crunchy - about 12 hours
1 cup chopped fresh shiitake mushrooms (if dried, soak for 2 hours first)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon of herb mixture: 1 tablespoon each of dried: sage, thyme, rosemary and parsley
1/2-3/4 cup water
4 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 tablespoons flaxseeds, soaked in 6 tablespoons water for 15 minutes

Directions:

1. Puree all of the ingredients in a food processor until well ground, except the celery, onion, bell pepper and soaked flaxseeds.
2. In a large bowl, combine the celery, onion and hydrated flaxseeds with the rest of the ground ingredients and mix well.
3. Shape the mixture into a shallow loaf on a solid dehydrator sheet and dehydrate for 12 hours.

Serves 8

Recipe adapted from Rawsome! - Maximizing Health, Energy, and Culinary Delight with the Raw Foods Diet by Brigitte Mars. Page 202.

Possibly the World's Best Trail Mix

Next time you are making preparations to head for the great outdoors, make it a family affair to mix and package your own nutritious and energizing trail mix for your journey. If you find that anyone in your clan has an allergy to any one of the ingredients listed below, simple adjust the ingredients accordingly; select non-allergic alternative(s).

 

Here is Prevention Magazine's The World's Best Trail Mix:

Our exotic blend is low in calories, helps energize, and curbs hunger. Try this trail mix recipe for a delicious and healthy snack.

1. Dried Cherries (1/4 cup)
Picked from orchards in the Great Lakes region, cherries have twice as many antioxidants as red grapes and may help fight arthritis.
Try: Welch's Dried Cherries; supermarkets

2. Brazil Nuts (6 nuts, halved)
The seed of a giant South American Amazon tree, each "nut" contains 10 times the recommended intake of selenium, a mineral with heart-helping antioxidants.
Try: Whole Foods Market Raw Brazil Nuts; Whole Foods stores

3. Dried Yacon (1/4 cup)
This Peruvian-grown vegetable looks and tastes like a dried Granny Smith apple. It's high in cancer-fighting flavonoids and digestion-promoting chlorogenic acid.
Try: Navitas Naturals Raw Dried Yacon Slices; Whole Foods and Vitamin Shoppe stores

4. Dried Goji Berries (1/4 cup)
This tart Chinese fruit (think cranberry meets green tea) provides 18 amino acids, which help maintain and repair body cells.
Try: Woodstock Farms Natural Goji Berries; grocery and health food stores

5. Cacao Nibs (1/4 cup)
Grown in the rain forests of Ecuador and Peru, this raw chocolate has up to four times the flavonoids of more processed varieties, helping to lower blood pressure. Chocolate-covered nibs are sweeter.
Try: Natural Zing Raw Organic Cacao Nibs; naturalzing.com; Dagoba Organic Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs; select health food stores

6. Jungle Peanuts (1/4 cup)
From the Ecuadorian Amazon, these soft and meaty nuts are a good source of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat recently linked to cancer prevention.
Try: Sunfood Nutrition Organic Wild Amazonian Jungle Peanuts; sunfood.com

Trail mix recipe nutritional info per 1/4 cup (makes 6 servings): 146 cal, 3 g pro, 17 g carb, 7.5 g fat, 1 g sat fat, 0 mg chol, 3 g fiber, 14 mg sodium
 

Since I am not always able to find all the above-mentioned ingredients like Cacao Nibs, Jungle Peanuts and Yacon, I create a similar mixture of nuts and dried fruits, which can include any or all of the following: apple-sweetened cranberries, organic dried apples, banana chips, apricots, raw cashews, almonds, pecans, dark chocolate.... I bag individual portions to carry baggies of them in my car for energy snacks in between meals and to take along on walks.

What do you put in your family's favorite trail mix?