Vegetarian Lumpia

My mom traveled a lot as a kid (and is now a travel agent) and lived some pretty incredible places. I'm sure you know by now means that i grew up eating some rather non-traditional dishes for an American kid. One of my favorites growing up was Lumpia- a phillippino springroll filled with beef, bacon, potato, onion, carrot, and cabbage. I made this recently, but without the proper wrappers had some trouble rolling and frying them, so we ended up just eating the filling out the bowl. Tonight I needed a quick sidedish, so i omitted the meat and ended up with tasty pan fried vegetables.

Vegetarian Lumpia Sidedish

Time: 10-15 minutes
Serves: 2

• 1 Large Potato, peeled and diced
• 1/2 Small Onion, diced
• 1 Carrot, julienned, minced, or in peels (however you like)
• ~1/4 head of Cabbage, sliced thin.
• ~1 tsp Black Pepper

Place all the vegetables in a hot pan with about 1 Tbs of oil. Cover with a lid and cook until potatoes are done, about 10 minutes. Coat liberally in cracked black pepper, stir, and salt to taste. Serve alongside protein of choice.

I always have these vegetables in my house so it's a quick and tasty choice

*For the full version, add 6 strips of bacon, diced and 1lb of ground beef. Let the filling cool before you roll it into eggrolls. Lumpia wrappers are a special kind of wrapper- wheat and rice and super thin. Look for them in an Asian grocery store!

The Winston (Street Bagels)

I think every college has that street vendor, the one that all the college kids go to after the bars close for some deliciously addictive food from a cart. My college street vendor was Winston's Bagels and we waited in line many nights and paid $3.75 for a char-grilled bagel topped with:

 butter and cream cheese, apples and onions, cinnamon and garlic, cucumbers, raisins, sunflower seeds, and bacon bits.

 It sounds crazy, but it works. Winston grilled the bagels and sliced the toppings for each order right in front of you, but to make every bite a perfect bite, i created Winston's Bagel Spread, with all the ingredients diced up and blended together. We leave out the raisins and sunflower seeds, So good, you can't eat just one.

-1 bag of bagels- we like mini bagels. (This is one of those things we don't make from scratch, but can still buy soy-free)
-2 large apples- peeled and diced
-2 small onions- peeled and diced
-1 cucumber- peeled and diced
-1 stick of butter- cubed
-1 pack of cream cheese
-Real diced bacon
-Cinnamon and garlic

In a bowl, combine all the diced fruit/vegetables. Sprinkle cinnamon and garlic to coat the surface and stir everything up. Honestly, if you're going healthy, you could stop at this stage and eat it like a waldorf salad. It's yummy.

Stir in the cubed butter and then add the cream cheese. It will take a lot of smearing with the back of a spoon to get everything integrated.

Toast your bagel and top it with the mix while warm and sprinkle with chopped bacon.Eat it as a sandwich. Start toasting your next bagel.

Lemony Cabbage

This is primarily a sidedish, but i also make it as a snack!

-1/2 cabbage
-2 Lemons, zested
-1 Tbs of Lemon Infused Oil
-Salt and Pepper to Taste
-Basil (optional)

Cut the cabbage to pieces of your liking, i generally cut it in 1"-2" squares, or thick slaw straws. Add cabbage to a hot pan and top with lemon oil. Stir to coat. Add zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1 lemon. Let simmer to a doneness of your liking- i like just barely translucent with crunch. Salt and pepper before serving. If desired, toss with basil before serving with a protein of your choice.

The Best Paleo/GAPS Bread

At the beginning of an unprocessed diet, the hardest thing to give up is bread. My favorite bread substitute recipe comes from Deliciously Organic/The Unprocessed Kitchen and used nut butter and gelatin to give it texture. This recipe makes a large loaf. For a small pan (4x7 which is not a common size pan) cut recipe in half or just click the link to the original recipe at deliciously organic. The small batch makes 2 mini loaves, which are perfect for breakfast with apple butter, and bakes for 25-30minutes

• 1 cup cashews 
• 3 cups almond flour
• 4 tablespoons coconut flour
• <1 1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
• 1teaspoon Sea Salt (I use Himalayan Pink)
• 3 teaspoons baking soda

• 8 Eggs
• 
 8tablespoons melted coconut oil
• 2 tablespoon honey
• 4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Instructions

-Place cashews and 1/2 cup water in a blender/food processor and let soak for 30 minutes.

-Preheat oven to 325ºF. *This is a lower temp than linked recipe to accommodate for longer cook time.

- Blend cashews until smooth, scraping down the sides a few times to ensure all cashews are pureed. Transfer to mixing bowl

-Add almond flour, coconut flour, gelatin, salt, baking soda, eggs, butter, honey and cider vinegar to the cashew mixture. Mix until smooth 

-Pour batter into oiled loaf pan and loosely shield the top with aluminum foil

- Bake for ~60-70 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

*Because this is a doubled recipe, edges tend to cook before center. If the outside is "crusty", remove a small piece of "crust' before testing for accurate done-ness

 Cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the outer edges of the bread and then invert bread onto a cooling rack and remove from loaf pan. Serve smeared with unsweetened apple butter for a delicious treat.

Easy Peasy Guacamole

I generally am not a fan of guacamole. I don't particularly care for avocados. However, my husband loves guacamole and so I started making it for him and found that- SURPRISE- I like my own guacamole where I control what gets added to the mix based on my own flavor preferences. The best part? I mix this all in a plastic zip bag. I wrote measurements but honestly it's more a shake of this a scoop of that. 

• ~3 Ripe Avocados- cut in half, and scoop meat out with a spoon. It should come out whole
• 1/2 tsp Hot Sauce of choice -OR- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp Lime Juice
• 1/4 tsp Cumin (what makes tacos taste like tacos)
• 1/4 tsp Garlic
• 1 Tbs Sour Cream (optional
• 1 Tbs Cilantro-chopped (optional. Add to bag just before eating

Place all ingredients in a plastic zip bag and squeeze most of the air out before sealing. Smush it all up with your hands until smooth. If your avocado wasn't quite ripe enough, you can use a rolling pin. If you want to eat it right then, eat directly from bag or snip of a corner of the bag and squeeze guacamole into a bowl. Since corn is a grain, serve with veggies or vegetable chips (like squash or beet chips). I sometimes cheat with plantain chips for dipping which ARE starchy but also high in vitamins A & C. 


If you are NOT going to eat immediately, squish all of the guacamole to one end of the bag and try to get any extra air out before resealing. Avocados oxidize quickly (they turn brown) so you want to expose as little of it to air as possible. The color change can be off-putting but there is nothing wrong with your guacamole and it will still taste great!

Homemade Chocolate

Homemade chocolate is better for you because it doesn't contain things like soy lecithin and absurd amounts of sugar. It also tastes better because you're using better ingredients. I use a chocolate bar mold I bought at a craft store which is 2- 6oz bars. Cacao Ingredients often come in blocks, which I grate and store in original packaging.


Basic Recipe:


1c Cacao Butter -OR- 2-3Tbs Coconut Oil or a combination of the two
1c Cacao Powder or grated Cacao Paste (They're basically the same thing)
2-4 Tbs Honey or to taste
1 Tbs Vanilla or other extract flavor


Melt oil/butter in a double boiler. Add cacao and honey til well combined and melty. Stir in flavors and pour into mold. Chill.


*My favorite recipe is a 1:1 ratio of cocoa butter to cocoa paste. I source from nuts.com and pay $32 for 2 lbs of chocolate which comes out to ~$3 per 6oz bar which is about on par for gourmet chocolate. Flavor-wise, i love adding almond or orange extracts to my chocolate. For a harder bar, use a little less cocoa butter and a little more cocoa paste.




*Coconut oil is generally liquid at room temperature and melts almost instantly with body heat. Chocolate made with coconut oil with have similar melting points and needs to be kept cold. Cacao Butter also has a relatively low melting point, but is not liquid at room temperature.




For a chewy freezer treat, mix equal parts coconut manna (coconut butter or crème- basically finely ground coconut with some oils still added) and cacao paste with honey to sweeten and pour into individual portion sizes (like a silicone mini muffin pan) and keep in freezer. It will remain chewy straight from the freezer and makes a great treat, but I do not use it for baking/recipes.