Blissful Bites (47 page)

I learned how to make this pseudo feta cheese in culinary school. You'll be amazed how much this tastes like the real thing. Perfect for salads, to add to pasta, or spread on a sandwich.

¹
⁄
₄
cup sweet white miso

¹
⁄
₄
cup umeboshi vinegar

2 tablespoons dried basil

2 tablespoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 package (14 ounces) extra firm tofu

Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil

Mix miso, vinegar, and herbs in a small bowl. Crumble tofu into small-medium pieces into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Place mixture inside an airtight jar and press it down inside (a Mason jar is great). Pour in olive oil until it covers the tofu completely. Cure in refrigerator for at least two days, or up to two weeks. When you want to use the feta, take what you need from the jar with a clean spoon and squeeze out excess oil if needed.

un-tuna salad

• Makes 3 to 5 servings •
Chef Fave

You would not believe how much this tastes like the tuna fish salad your mom used to make. If you have the time to cook the chickpeas from scratch you won't regret it.

1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked 6 to 8 hours, or 2 cans (15 ounces each), drained and rinsed

1 cup celery, diced

1 medium carrot, grated

¹
⁄
₄
cup vegan mayonnaise

2 tablespoons relish, or dill pickle, chopped fine

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

1 tablespoon tamari

1 tablespoon kelp granules (optional)

Season to taste

If using dried beans, follow the
basic beans
recipe, on page 202. Drain beans and place in medium bowl. Mash chickpeas and combine with the rest of ingredients until well mixed. Add sea salt as necessary. Serve with rice crackers, as a sandwich, or wrapped in a tortilla.
 

“Happiness is life served up with a scoop of acceptance, a topping of tolerance and sprinkles of hope, although chocolate sprinkles also work.”

— Robert Brault

orange-kissed almond macaroons with chocolate ganache topping

————————

Everyone loves desserts! These recipes use sweeteners like brown rice syrup, barley malt, maple syrup, and coconut palm sugar, so you can have your dessert, but not have your insulin go on a rollercoaster ride. These foods not only taste good, but they keep you healthy, too. You will also find many gluten-free, oil-free, and wheat-free desserts.

blissful tips for baking/dessert making

natural sweeteners

spring

                        

zucchini bread

springtime lemon bars

lemon amasake custard

lemon meringue cupcakes with lemon coconut frosting

summer

                        

blueberry-hemp drops

ginger cookies

peanut butter-like mousse

heavenly raw chocolate mousse

strawberry-mint limeade

autumn

                        

coconut-chocolate bars

coconut-orange bread pudding

gluten-free peanut butter cookies

gluten-free chocolate chip cookies

pear pie with homemade flaky crust

winter

                        

pear-almond coffee cake

ginger rice pudding

no-oil pumpkin spice bread

pumpkin hot chocolate

anytime

                        

chewy trail mix bars

orange-kissed almond macaroons

chocolate ganache sauce

velvety chocolate mousse with berry sauce and toasted walnuts

wheat-free fudgy chocolate brownies

• Get everything you need together (
  mise en place
  ), then preheat your oven right before you start mixing. Never let your mixed batter/dough sit unless the recipe calls for it.
  
• My flours of choice for baking are whole-wheat pastry flour, barley, spelt, oat, kamut, brown rice, quinoa, almond, and garbanzo/fava. I rarely use unbleached white flour or whole-wheat and never use bleached white flour. That's just my preference. I encourage you to play around with different flours. Most often, I mix two different kinds. Also, remember that the type of flour you use and the amount of time it's been sitting in your pantry will determine the amount of liquid needed in the recipe. If you are making something that seems to be too liquidy, you can add more flour to round it out.
  
• Mix your dry ingredients together in a bigger bowl, wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. You don't necessarily need to sift your dry ingredients, I use a whisk to combine everything well. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold them together.
  
• You'll need to have aluminum-free baking powder and baking soda just for baking (that's not used to absorb odor in the fridge). Most desserts need at least a pinch of good-quality sea salt.
  
• When using liquid sweeteners, rub a bit of olive oil inside your measuring cups and spoons for easy, quick removal of the sweetener.
  
• Desserts are better with a little fat. I use oils instead of margarine. My favorites for baking are safflower, coconut, olive, avocado, and grapeseed. Canola is a poor-quality oil, so try to shy away from it. Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, so always melt it down before using. Often I use nut butters instead of oil. If you are trying to go sans oil, applesauce or prune puree are good alternatives.
  
• For egg substitutes, I tend to stick with more whole foods, like flax meal mixed with water or applesauce, mashed bananas, or arrowroot mixed with water or juice. I never use cornstarch because it's poor-quality, highly processed, and often GMO. If possible, replace it with its healthier counterparts, arrowroot or kudzu, if possible. Arrowroot is a white powder used as a thickening agent, just like cornstarch and kudzu. Kudzu comes from the kudzu plant grown in Japan and is good for strengthening the digestive tract. It's more medicinal but also more expensive, so feel free to use arrowroot. You can use egg replacer too, but I rarely do. When using these powders, be sure to dilute them in cold or room temperature liquid first, or they will clump up when added to the mixture being cooked.
  

• Liquid and granulated sweeteners cannot be substituted for each other. Baking is a science, and making this switch would throw everything off in the recipe. If a recipe calls for one kind of granulated sugar, however, you can substitute a different granulated sugar. The taste may be slightly different, but it should give the same texture. If you can't locate one of the natural sweeteners below, you are welcome to use sucanut, turbinado, cane sugar, or organic vegan sugar. They wouldn't be my first choice, because they are more refined, but use the highest-quality sweetener available to you.
  
• I use vanilla flavoring because it does not contain alcohol and I prefer the taste to vanilla extract. Other flavors of extracts will have alcohol; it's hard to avoid.
  
• For dairy substitutes, I prefer unsweetened rice milk or almond milk, but soy milk is fine, too. Mixing apple cider vinegar with nondairy milk helps baked goods rise and be soft and crumbly. If a recipe calls for any dairy substitute, try to find an unsweetened version to avoid the refined sugar, but don't sweat it if all you can find is sweetened.
  
• Agar-agar, which is a sea vegetable that has a texture similar to gelatin, is used in a few recipes in the flake form. It's important that all the flakes dissolve when boiling down the agar-agar. Don't be tempted to take a shortcut, because you will have little chewy gelatin chunks in your dessert. If you choose to use agar-agar powder, you need a lot less and it takes less time to dissolve. Once the agar-agar has dissolved and is allowed to cool, it will set like gelatin.
  
• Nuts are always interchangeable and optional. If you prefer one nut over another, go for it. Just make sure to use raw nuts for baking. If you want to leave them out, that's fine too.
  
• Silken tofu is often used to make creamy desserts and sauces. The best brands are Mori Nu and Nasoya, and I prefer the organic one. Firmness doesn't matter with silken tofu. If a recipe calls for regular tofu, use extra firm, not the silken variety.