Ingredients

• 2 Ripe bananas
• 1 heaping tablespoon Creamy almond butter
• 1 Egg

Methods

1. Mash bananas. Food processors do a good, quick job
2. Add egg and almond butter. Mix thoroughly.
3. Pour batter into small cakes on a greased pan or griddle.
4. Look for the edges to firm up a bit and the cake begin to steam – that’s the time to flip them.

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If you haven’t taken the challenge yet, you still have the rest of the day. Let your nose decide which is the real one. Otherwise, say it’s the one in your left hand. At least you’ve got a 50/50 shot.

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Whole Foods brought in a local seller for free roasting if you buy their *cheap* Hatch chilies. I’m talking $1.99/lb, compared to upwards of $5.99 at most other places  – grocery stores and farmers markets. Eight pounds and several gallon-sized vacuum-sealed bags later, I’m good for at least a few more months.

To celebrate my inaugural meal with the famed chili, I made a simple egg scramble breakfast. And boy was it good!

Ingredients

• 1/2 roasted Hatch chili, peeled, seeded, diced (as best you can)
• 1/2 Green or red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 2 Tbsp Onion, diced
• 3 Eggs, whisked
• 2 slices Bacon, chopped
• 1 oz/1 slice Jack cheese (optional)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Oil for the pan

Methods

1. Place onion and bell pepper pieces into a pan on medium heat with a little bit of oil. Cook until slightly softer
2. Whisk chili pieces together with the egg, and pour into pan
3. Scramble until eggs are thoroughly cooked. If adding cheese, put the slice on top about a minute before eggs are finished – it should be melted by the time you serve
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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Special Equipment

• Double boiler (or a makeshift one)
• Ice cream maker (optional but greatly helps)

Ingredients

• 1 (14-oz) Can coconut milk (skip the light and get the regular/full-fat kind)
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 Tsp Chopped lavender flowers
• 2 Tbsp raw honey

Method

1. Add coconut milk, lavender, and vanilla to a double boiler. Stir frequently until the mixture is hot, but not boiling.
2. Whisk eggs in a separate bowl. When the coconut milk is hot, add it to the eggs 1/2C at a time while continuing to whisk until the eggs mixture is hot.
3. Add the egg mixture back into the double boiler and whisk until it thickens (similar to a custard). Do not allow the mixture to scramble – if it does, remove it from the double boiler while continuing to whisk.
4. When thickened, remove the mixture from the double boiler and allow it to cool.
5. Once the mixture is cool enough to dip your finger in without burning it, whisk in the honey until dissolved.
6. Add the mixture to your ice cream maker’s manufacturer’s instructions and enjoy! If you don’t have access to an ice cream maker, place the mixture in the freezer for a few hours until it’s set. It’s not the preferred way, but it will do.

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1. Coconut Banana Ice Cream

One thing you will get at the farmers market that you won’t at the grocery store? Quality. I don’t know if I’ve ever had peaches (one of my all-time favorites) that tasted as good coming from the grocery store as it did from a local grower. For many of us it’s a worthwhile additional cost when you know you’re about to bite into the most flavorful piece of fruit or freshest vegetables. You’re also more likely to get some interesting variety that may not be typically found in a grocery store. Local farmers are also more likely to produce organics, using more sustainable methods. Of course, this all comes at a price.

So what’s your motivating factor when selecting produce? You may be better off purchasing from the grocery store except in those circumstances where you need the better quality food. Here are a few links to get you thinking.

• Which price is right?
• Cooking with a Friend: Cooking without a Plan
• Cooking with a Friend: Menu Planning with a CSA Box
• Eating Summer for $10 a Week; Week One, Two …

Finally, looking at the last set of links – can eating from at $10/week menu bought from the local farmers market really work? Maybe. I haven’t tried it, but my gut feeling is that we eat more than $10 of produce per person/week around this house. It’s worth a shot. It’s also worth seeing what is available through your local CSA, which provides boxes full of produce to you at a pickup location on a regular basis. It has some of the benefits of the farmers market – without the market.

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The ice creams we’ve all grown up with rely on lots of heavy cream and loads of refined sugar to make us smile. This version replaces the cream with coconut milk (known to have several health benefits) and nixes the added sugar in favor the sugars naturally found in fruit. To top it off, you don’t even have to have an ice cream maker – just cold or frozen ingredients and a blender.

Ingredients

• 1 Can coconut milk (I prefer the flavor and texture of normal over light)
• 4 Ripe bananas
• 2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Methods

Prep by chilling the coconut milk in the refrigerator for a few hours, and cutting the bananas into bite-sized pieces and then place those in the freezer until completely frozen. If you will be substituting other fruit in this recipe you’ll want to freeze them first.

1. Add coconut milk, bananas, and vanilla to blender.
2. Blend until smooth.
3. (optional) Freeze mixture until set

Wait! Did you just read that right? Two steps plus one optional? If your ingredeints are cold enough you’ll have something pretty close to half-melted ice cream without all the guilt. Stick it in the freezer for a few hours and you can scoop it. Also, riper bananas will taste sweeter and have more of that characteristic banana taste.

Try a variation by substituting two bananas with 1 ½ C frozen mangos to taste (pictured above). Other fruits will work as well. You can also cheat a little by looking at food labels for ingredient ideas.

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1. Honey Lavender Coconut Ice Cream

Check out this article from Slate.com and be ready to have your perspectives on lard challenged, even changed.

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Basic ingredients:

• “One 7-ounce, grass-fed, dry-aged, hand-chopped, beef-fat basted, bad-a*s, extra-crisp, uber-beefy, rib-eye patty. Perfectly seasoned.”
• Rendered beef fat
• Fixin’s

Hand-chop the beef, form it, and cook it in its own fat. Yum – Serious flavor!

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Ingredients

• 1.75oz / 50g Mixed nuts. I used cashews, almonds, pistachios, and pecans.
• 3.5oz / 100g Date paste. I couldn’t find any so I made my own according to this recipe. It involved measuring out some pitted California dates and throwing them in the food processor.
• 3.5oz / 100g Medjool dates. You can find these at most grocery stores. Make sure to pit them first.
• 1/3tsp. ground Cardamom. This should equal the amount Clotilde called for: seeds from two pods.
• 3Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 rounded Tbsp cacao nibs
• Pinch of salt
• 1/8tsp. Cinnamon

Methods

1. If you couldn’t make any date paste, go ahead and do that now with about 3.5oz of pitted dates. Throw them in the food processor and let them go for a spin. It took maybe 30 seconds. You may need to add a little bit of water (little, as in less than a tsp) if they’re kinda gummy. Remember – you’re looking for a paste. This being my first experience I erred on the less water end of the equation.
2. Roughly chop your Medjool dates (did you remember to pit them?) and give them a go in the food processor. I decided to leave them kinda chunky. I thought it would help make sure I would get date chunks in the bars when I was done. Not so. Just whatever you do – don’t turn it into a paste.
3. Chop the nuts. Scrape down the sides of your food processor so it’s mostly clean (don’t wash it) and then chop the nuts by pulsing the processor. I goofed a little bit and overdid it – the pieces were smaller than I was intending. You want chunks, now powder or sand.
4. With the nut bits still in the processor, add the remaining ingredients (cocoa, cacao nibs, cinnamon, salt, cardamom) and give the mixture a couple of quick pulses to combine the ingredients.
5. Add the date paste and the Medjool dates to the nuts and have at it until everything is well mixed. I ended up with a sandy mixture that looked nothing like my other Larabars (cue horror flic music, enter monster stage left).
6. Fears aside, line a small loaf pan (8″x12″-ish) with wax paper and pour your chocolaty date mixture in. Looks tasty – go ahead and sample a tiny bit. Press the mixture down all over with your fingers and compact it really well. You’re looking for something that might resemble a Larabar in a loaf pan when you’re finished.
7. When you’re good and done compacting your Jocalat mixture, cover and place it in the fridge for at least a couple hours to let it set. When you pull it out to divide into bard you’ll be thankful to have the was paper so you don’t have to try scraping out a “nonstick” pan.

I realize I took plenty of artistic license with the directions here, but it all seemed to turn out really well. Next time I make this recipe I will probably chop the nuts less, then fold them in with the dates and the date paste right after I add the cocoa et. al. ingredients (step 4). Given the consistency of the date paste it might be a better idea to just process everything together but start with coarser nut and Medjool pieces.

Many thanks to Clotilde for a great recipe!

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1. Homemade Lärabars and Modifications

Top Ten Things To Expect When Dining With A Food Blogger

If you’ve been my guest over the last several weeks since I’ve started working on this blog, consider yourself lucky I haven’t done this to you yet. My wife? That’s another story that begins with “She didn’t realize what she got herself into when she married me.”

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