Cashew Cheese Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers with a Smoked Paprika Sauce

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YOU NEED

For the cashew cheese

1 cup of raw cashews

3 teaspoons of nutritional yeast

½ teaspoon of garlic powder

1 teaspoon of onion powder

3/4 teaspoon of salt

¼ teaspoon of turmeric

4 tablespoons of water

2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

12 fresh jalapeños

For the crumbing

¼ cup of gluten free bread crumbs

3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast

¼ cup of almond milk (or a plant based milk of your choice)

 

For the dipping sauce

1/3 cup of raw cashews

½ teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika

5 tablespoons of water

 

YOU DO

Soak the 1 cup of cashews and the ¼ cup of cashews over night, in separate containers with enough water to cover them. Once soaked, drain the water from the 1 cup of cashews and discard the water.

Preheat your oven to 200c and make the cashew cheese by placing all the popper ingredients (except the jalapeños), into a blender and blending for 5 minutes. Make sure you scrape any lumps from the side of the blender and add them to your mixture so that they blend nicely too. Once the cashew cheese is smooth, set it aside.

 

Slice each jalapeño in half. Remove and discard the seeds. Put a generous teaspoon of the cashew cheese mixture into each jalapeño half and set aside.

To make the crumbing mixture, combine the bread crumbs and nutritional yeast and place them onto a plate. Pour the milk into a small shallow bowl. Carefully dip the stuffed poppers into the almond milk. Place them onto the breadcrumb plate and cover them generously with crumbs. Shake off any excess crumbs. Repeat until each popper is well covered. The bottom half will only have a thin layer of breadcrumbs, but the cheese stuffed top will have a nice thick layer. Place the poppers onto a dry baking tray and into the oven. Cook for 15 minutes until the jalapeños have softened and the bread crumbs have browned.

While the poppers are cooking, make the sauce. Drain the remaining 1/3 cup of cashews and discard the water. Blend the cashews with the rest of the sauce ingredients, for 5 minutes until smooth. Place the sauce into a serving dish.

Once the poppers are cooked, place them onto a platter, with the sauce and serve immediately.

 

Yields: Makes 24 poppers.

Time: 30 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook. Plus the soaking time for the cashews.

Apple Berry Pops

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Like all my pop recipes, this is incredibly easy to make. Just juice the apples and add as much or as little raspberries as you wish.

It’s a healthy, raw, delicious dairy free snack, dessert or even breakfast for kids (or adults).

 

YOU NEED

organic apples

organic raspberries to taste

 

YOU DO

Juice the apples and blend as many or little raspberries as you would like through the apple juice.

Pour the mixture into small cupcake baking cups. Place the cups onto a tray and put them into the freezer. Once they are half frozen place icy pole sticks into them and leave them to finish setting.

 

Time: 5 minutes plus freezing time.

Notes: Juicing apples are a more economical way to purchase organic apples for recipes like this.

 

Add a few raspberries at a time and taste the mixture as you go. The more raspberries you add, the more tart the mixture will become. You want to end up with a nice balance of sweet and tart.

Choc Banana Soft Serve

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Gorgeous snack, sweet treat or even breakfast for kids of all ages. I always have over ripe frozen bananas in my freezer these days and this is why.

 

YOU NEED

1 large ripe banana

2 teaspoons of raw cacao

 

YOU DO

Peel the banana, cut it into chunky slices, place it in a plastic container and put it in the freezer.

Once it’s frozen, blend with the cacao until it’s smooth.

Serve immediately.

 

Yields: 1 serve

Time: 5 minutes. Plus the freezing time.

Basic Pizza Dough

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I make pizza dough all the time these days.  That way I know the ingredients. Besides it only takes a couple of minutes to throw all the ingredients together and roll out and I just prepare the rest of the meal while it proofs.

YOU NEED

1 and 3/4 cups of plain or wholemeal flour

1 x 7 gram packet of dried yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of sugar

200ml or so of warm water (start with 200 and go from there. Flour differs in its “hardness” so I find I often need more, but always use 200 as a starting point)

# extra flour for dusting

 

YOU DO

Sift the flour into a large bowl.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients and stir to evenly combine.

Add the water and mix all ingredients. Mix them together, and then work the dough into a ball. If it is too dry, slowly add more water a little at a time until it comes together. If it is a little wet, add a little more flour till it comes together.

Dust your bench with a little flour and knead the dough for 5 minutes.

Then pop it back in the bowl and allow it to proof until it doubles in size. I am usually impatient though and often start rolling it out a lot sooner than this.

Once the dough has proofed, dust your bench again and roll it out into whatever shape and thickness you want. I tend to roll mine very thin as I prefer thin crust pizza.

 

Yields: Makes enough for 1 large or 2 small pizza bases.

Time: 10 minutes preparation. Plus proofing time.

Freeze: Absolutely! Just portion any dough you don’t need, wrap it well and freeze it for another day.

A Quinoa Summer Salad

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I have not been exploring the world of quinoa as much as I would have liked to yet but when creating some new Christmas inspired recipes for a magazine last month I added what to me are the flavours of summer Christmas.

Don’t get too hung up on measurements with this. The intended result is simply nourishment, colour and a medley of fresh gorgeous ingredients.

This would go beautifully with bean burgers and a crisp garden salad or it would be the perfect accompaniment to a fragrant nut roast or lovely just on its own for lunch.

 

YOU NEED

1 cup of black quinoa

2 organic cobs of corn

1 punnet of roma cherry tomatoes

1 fresh mango

½ Christmas melon

½ cup of pomegranate seeds

1 cup of fresh, washed spinach leaves

1 lime

olive oil to taste

 

YOU DO

Rinse the quinoa well under cold water. Drain it and discard the rinsing water. Then place the quinoa into a medium pot with 2 cups of water. Bring it to the boil, then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and cover the pot. Cook for 15 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. When it’s cooked, it resembles little curls. Once it is cooked, allow it to cool and set aside.

While the quinoa is cooking, remove the husks from the corn and place the corn cobs on an open flame. Turn the cobs as the kernels start to blacken and continue cooking until all the corn is cooked. Once it has cooled, slice the kernels from the cob. Discard the cobs and set the kernels aside.

Cut the cherry tomatoes, lengthways into 4 and set aside.

Remove the stone from the mango, cut the cheeks of the mango off and slice and remove cubes of mango. Discard the stone and peel and set the mango cubes aside.

Remove and discard the seeds and skin from the melon and either ball the melon with a melon baller or cut it into cubes.

Mix all the ingredients together now, except for the lime and olive oil. When you go to serve the salad, squeeze lime juice over the it  and drizzle some olive oil over the top also and serve.

 

Yields: 4 side serves.

Time: 30 minutes.

Notes: It’s really important to rinse the quinoa well because depending on how it has been produced it can have a very bitter flavour.

If you don’t have a gas stove top, simply blacken the corn in a pan or on the BBQ.

If you can’t find Christmas Melon, you can substitute it for honeydew melon.You can often get pomegranate seeds at the supermarket in the fruit and vegetable section. Otherwise just remove the seeds from a fresh pomegranate.

Citrus Scented Date Rolls

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I keep seeing these at my grocers & the supermarket, so I decided to give them a go and they are SO easy.

They would be perfect in school lunch boxes or for a quick easy mid morning snack at work or home. They would even be a lovely sweet finish at a dinner party, served along with coffee.

I used medjool dates so they blended beautifully and they blended in seconds. I never pass up a chance to add a bit of citrus zing to a dish though too so added some orange zest. This is completely optional.

 

YOU NEED

1 large organic orange

1 cup of pitted medjool dates

¼ cup of desiccated coconut

 

YOU DO

Grate the peel of the orange with a citrus zester.  Put the rest of the orange aside for another use.

Blend the dates & zest together until you get your desired texture. I blended mine until it was smooth.

Get a tablespoon of mixture and roll it into a ball and then into a log shape. Repeat until all the mixture has been shaped.

Once all the date mixture is shaped into logs, roll the logs in the coconut.

Serve straight away or refrigerate in an air tight container in the fridge.

 

Yields: 16 small date rolls

Time: 10 minutes.

Notes: My medjool dates were organic and so soft and caramel like. If you use dates that are not quite as pliable and soft you may need to add a small amount of water to get them to blend.

Lemon zest instead of orange zest would be a gorgeous addition too. You could also roll them in sesame seeds, pistachios or any other nut instead of coconut. Just make sure any rolled in nuts don’t go into lunch boxes as schools tend to be nut free zones these days:)

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Sun in a Glass

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This was breakfast today and it was gorgeous. Winter has hit and it’s freezing out side but this was like drinking the sun in a glass <3

 

YOU NEED

2 large oranges

1 over flowing cup of fresh pineapple chunks

¼ cup of coconut yoghurt

 

YOU DO

Juice the oranges and pineapple. Blend the coconut into the juice.

DRINK & LOVE IT!

 

Serves: 1

Time: 5 minutes

Freeze: N/A

Notes: If you are allergic to coconut just use alternative dairy free yoghurt. It will change the flavour but you will still get the stunning natural sweetness of the fruits and a satin creamy finish to your juice.

Smoky Pea Soup w/ Mint Pistou

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YOU NEED

1 leek

2 medium potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped

3 cups of frozen green peas

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

1-2 tablespoons of Mexican fajita seasoning or a tiny touch of liquid smoke

5 cups of vegetable stock

salt and pepper

2 cups of fresh mint leaves, washed

¼ cup of nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of olive oil

 

YOU DO

Finely slice the white part of the leek and set the rest aside for stock or another recipe. Gently cook the leek and garlic in a medium pot, in a little water (just enough to stop the leek from sticking to the pan while it cooks) until the leek softens. Stir regularly while you cook the leek and add a little more water if you need to.

Add the potatoes and the stock to the pot and bring it to the boil. Once the stock has come to a boil, turn the heat down to a medium simmer and cook until the potato is almost cooked. Just before the potato is ready, add the peas and cook another couple of minutes. Add the Mexican Fajita seasoning or liquid smoke. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste and blend all ingredients until smooth.

While the soup is cooking prepare the mint pistou by simply blending the mint leaves, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and set aside.

Serve the soup hot with fresh crusty bread and topped with a generous dollop of mint pistou.

 

Serves:  Serves 4

Time: This only takes about half an hour if you pop a top on your pot to get it to the boil and cut your potato quite small.

Freeze: Suitable.

Notes: Nutritional yeast is an inactive yeast that is rich in B12. It offers body and a cheesy flavour to recipes. It can be purchased in well stocked health food stores.

Liquid smoke offers a plant based smokey flavour to soups and marinades. It can be purchase online and at well stocked delis.

For a lower fat option you can simply omit the pistou.

Juicepresso Review

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Juicepresso approached me recently to review their product and I have never used a juice presser before so I was keen to review their product for them.

The juicer arrived promptly via mail with a manual and recipes. (There are also a number of recipes online.)

The first thing that struck me was how small/compact the Juicepresso is and how light the machine is compared to some juicers! I had a little trouble putting it together but that was simply because I am a technically challenged cook land I always refuses to refer to a manual – which I had.  It was also easier to pull apart (for someone who doesn’t read manuals) and cleaning was easy too. The only section that sometimes needed a bit more elbow grease was the small feeder into the output jug. Having said that though there is a small brush provided that has a pointy end you can use to push any backlog out. Like any juicer, rinsing in hot water straight after use and washing immediately means for a much easier clean.

The feeder took some getting use to because it is quite small compared to my juicer. This just meant that I had to get use to cutting my fruit and veg smaller and feed it through a little slower. The motor cut out on a couple of occasions but that seemed to only coincide with me being clumsy and impatient and not cutting ingredients small enough and placing too many ingredients in the feeder too fast.

The output jugs both go to the front which I really liked. I liked that I could not only see the juice/milk but also the fibrous output. It gave me more of an awareness of what I wasn’t consuming and potential wastage so I found myself making chocolate truffles with the almond skins from my almond milk and throwing the fibre from my juices into vegetable burgers and soups instead of just tossing nutrient rich food in the bin as wastage. I was really impressed too with the sheer quantity of basil juice that fed into the juice jug when I was doing my Basil and Pineapple Pops.

There were recipe examples online such as juicing corn to make corn milk which I had never heard of before and  would just never have thought of doing myself so that alone was pretty exciting to a foodie like me. I have made a number of granitas in my time too but would never have thought of using some of the fruits they suggested in their recipes so in the warmer months I had a freezer full of varying flavoured ices with gorgeous colours showing through Tupperware tops. Some of the recipes don’t stipulate quantities of ingredients though which I like when first trialling a recipe but I contacted Juicepresso and they were really helpful and gave me some direction on how much of each ingredient I should be aiming at.

Over all my experience with my Juicepresso and the company was really pleasant and made for some gorgeous new recipes on the site so I am really appreciative that they gave me this opportunity.

For more info on Juicepresso:

Their website: www.juicepresso.com.au

Their recipes: resources.andatech.com.au/recipes/juicepresso/high_resolution.pdf

FB page http://facebook.com/juicepresso

Blog http://www.andatech.com.au/blog/tag/juice-recipes/ for recipe ideas.

You can also check out their YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/juicepresso for videos on the Juicepresso and its features.