Jun 28 2012

Habanero Mayonnaise

Need a little spice in your life? Or maybe just on your sandwiches? Yes?

This mayo will do just the trick.

Recently, I started making our own homemade mayo thanks to a recipe I pinned on Pinterest. I made it exactly as is the first time, then made my own adjustment (we like it better without any olive oil). After successfully making plain mayo a few times, and with an over-abundance of habanero peppers thanks to the plant in my garden (which has given us over 30 habaneros already!), I decided to put a spicy twist on a common condiment.

All I can say is, the hubs loves me even more after this concoction. And I can also say that he’s happy that there will soon be many more habanero-themed dishes/condiments/salsas etc, because our plant is producing so many that we are giving them away! But I gotta use some of these hot peppers for us, too!

I originally was going to call this “Habanero Lime Mayonnaise”, but honestly, you can’t really taste the lime. The habanero, however, is a different story!

I immediately put some homemade roasted chicken, avocado, and tomato on that piece of bread and had a delicious sandwich. This mayo totally made the sandwich!

Ingredients:
Recipe adapted from Spain in Iowa

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 TBSP fresh-squeezed lime juice (lemon juice works just as well)
1 cup grapeseed oil
1 habanero pepper

Directions:

Slice habanero and remove seeds. Put it in the blender with all other ingredients except grapeseed oil. Pulse the blender or blend on low for just a few seconds, until ingredients are mixed and habanero is blended smooth.
If using a Vitamix (this is what I use), turn on low speed (or somewhere between variable 5-7) and add oil slowly. You can add about 1/4 cup to start, then just pour through the hole in the lid at a somewhat slow pace. It should take less than a minute to make the mayo in your VitaMix. Store immediately in the fridge to keep for a week or see note below to have it keep for 2 months.
If using a regular blender, turn onto high speed and add oil very slowly until it is thickened to a mayo consistency. It may take a few minutes, but be patient because adding the oil slowly is the key (I know this because I came up with mayo water one time when I decided to add it all at once – no bueno). Store immediately in the fridge to keep for a week or see note below to have it keep for 2 months.
If you want your mayo to keep for up to two months, add 1 TBSP whey and let it sit on the counter for 6-8 hours. Whey is the biproduct of cheese, yogurt, etc. You can drain plain yogurt on several layers of cheesecloth to easily get whey. Once you have let it sit at room temperature, store it in the fridge.

Note: If you do not like things very spicy, use half or even a quarter of the habanero. If you like things ultra spicy, do not seed the pepper or only remove a few seeds. The mayo has a definite “kick”. It is perfect for me, and I like things on the spicier side. The hubs, however, requested it be even spicier (but he’s on the verge of crazy when it comes to spicy things…ha!).

This recipe was shared on Full Plate Thursday, Little House in the Suburbs DIY Linky

Jun 26 2012

Dairy Free Chocolate Ice Cream (No Refined Sugars)

Creamy and chocolatey, it has the taste and look of real chocolate ice cream, but it has no dairy and no refined sugars. Score!

I’ve made ice cream in my Vitamix many times by using both bananas and ice as a base. While I love the recipes, they are more soft-serve or frozen yogurt style, and I wanted something scoop-able! This is the perfect recipe (though it had already melted a tad by the time I took my pictures).

After a few months of making the other recipes, I was longing for traditional chocolate ice cream. I just wanted a healthy chocolate ice cream that was creamy, not icy, and tasted like chocolate, not chocolate banana! It has no ice, so it does not have that “icy” consistency, and it has no bananas, so no banana flavor. The secret ingredient that makes it creamy? Coconut oil!

I’m envisioning a lot more ice cream flavors in the near future …

Ingredients:

1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 TBSP cocoa powder
3 TBSP pure maple syrup (or honey, if you prefer)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a VitaMix and blend until thoroughly mixed (it may be best if the coconut oil is softened first, though I didn’t need to do that). Pour mixture into ice-cube trays and freeze until hard, at least 4 hours.
Place as many ice cream cubes into Vitamix as you want. With your Vitamix Tamper, blend on high and simultaneously push down hard. Mix just until creamy, acting fast enough as to not melt the ice cream. Use an ice-cream scoop to serve.

Serves 2 people

Note: If you do not have a Vitamix or other high-speed blender, it’s possible that you could make this in a food processor, but I have not personally tried this myself. Regular blenders cannot handle so much frozen food.

This recipe was shared on Traditional Tuesdays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Whatcha Whipped Up Wednesday, Allergy Free Wednesday, What’s Cooking Wednesday

Jun 22 2012

Making Almond Milk at Home

We make our own almond milk and pecan milk here at our casa. It has both saved us money and allowed us to control exactly what goes in it. For drinking, we both like ours on the sweeter side, so I add dates and vanilla to it to sweeten it up naturally. I also make an unsweetened version for baking and cooking, so as not to add any unnecessary flavors to the recipe.

It’s easy to make and as I mentioned earlier, it’s very cost effective. On average, a half gallon of almond milk around here costs $2.50-$3.00. One half gallon of homemade almond or pecan milk costs us roughly $1.32, so we’re saving over a dollar on each half gallon. We buy whole almonds at Sam’s Club in a 3 lb bag for $10.99 or a 3 lb bag of pecan meal (which works just as great in pecan milk as whole pecans) at a local pecan company for the same price. With as much almond milk as we use, it really saves us a lot. We use it in our smoothies, our ice cream, and in place of regular milk in any recipe I come across.

I use our Vitamix to make almond milk. If you don’t have a VitaMix, you can still make this recipe, but I would reccomend soaking your almonds for 8 hours in water so that they will absorb some of the water and soften up a bit. If you are using pecans or another softer nut (ahem! Get your mind out of the gutter!), I think you should be fine to go ahead without soaking them.

We have the Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend, 2 Speed and we absolutely love it. We use it for all kinds of things – from almond milk to smoothies, nut butters, homemade ice cream, and much more. We use it at least three times a day, sometimes more.

This milk is creamy if made with less water, and goes a longer way when made with more. We tend to make our “drinking” milk creamier, while the milk we use for recipes I like to thin out with an extra cup of water, just to stretch our dollar a little further and to get a better consistency for baking and cooking. I strain it through a nut milk bag to get out all the “grit” – and even that can be reused for cookies and other recipes!

This milk is just as delicious as store-bought almond milk, and best of all, if you want it sweeter, less sweet, or flavored with anything, you can do it yourself!

Ingredients:

1 cup raw, unsalted almonds
4-5 cups water (depending on how thick you like it)
3 dates (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in your VitaMix and blend on high for 1 minute. Strain through a nut milk bag. Discard of almond pulp left in bag or save for other recipes. The almond milk should keep for at least a week in the fridge.

*Note: If you do not have a Vitamix, soak your almonds in enough water to cover them for 8 hours or overnight before blending.

May 15 2012

Making Almond Flour at Home

Almond flour is my newest baking assistant in my kitchen. You can use it to replace flour in many recipes (breads may be one of the only exceptions). The biggest problem with almond flour? The price. I never baked with almond flour until recently because I just could not bring myself to buy a bag. At $36.99 for a 5lb bag, my wallet was staying shut and the door was slammed. But I’m cheap like that.

So, in comes my VitaMix. My best friend. My sidekick. Miss Vita is used every day in our household, usually multiple times a day. She really is awesome. Now, don’t stop reading if you don’t have a VitaMix. I hear you can make almond flour in a food processor as well, although it doesn’t come out quite as fine and may affect the texture of the cookies. But in some recipes, that doesn’t really matter, like my Almond Flour Banana Bread Cookies, which are chunky anyway!

The first thing you should know about making almond flour is that if you blend/process it too long, you are going to have almond butter. If this happens, don’t worry, as that is equally delicious and nutritious and can be used to make nut butter cookies. In order to avoid the nut butter, blend no more than 5-10 seconds (possibly longer in a food processor), and add no more than 1 cup of almonds at a time.

You’ll want to use raw almonds. Whole and slivered will both work. I buy a 3 lb bag of raw almonds from Sams for $10.99. You can’t beat it.

Your almond flour should look like this when it’s blended. I haven’t tried storing it for an extended period, as I always just make what I need for the recipe I’m making, but I’m sure it would keep in the fridge for at least a week. Good luck and happy baking!

May 15 2012

Almond Flour Banana Bread Cookies

Almond Flour…my new best friend in baking. I am SO excited! My nut butter cookies have been a success so far, and I can’t wait to experiment with this as well! Keeping it grain free and healthy with all of the usual unhealthy treats is an awesome feeling. I have such a huge sweet tooth, and almond flour is going to be yet another way for me to make healthy baked goods that I don’t have to feel guilty for enjoying!