Tag: Basics

Iced Watermelon Cubes

Iced Watermelon Cubes – A Healthy Ice Cream Alternative

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If you’re living through a heat wave at the moment what you probably want most in the world is something sweet, cold, and refreshing to eat.

Here is the simplest of desserts to keep on hand for a hot day. These little cubes of frozen watermelon are delicious and perfect for popping into your mouth (straight from the freezer) to cool you down.

Refined sugar free, dairy free, paleo, and all that jazz… but what’s really important is that they taste so good!

Iced Watermelon Cubes

Makes lots and lots of servings

Ingredients

1 sweet seedless watermelon (pick the sweetest one you can find)

That’s it! 😀

 

Instructions

1. Cut the watermelon into 3/4 inch cubes (this is a perfect size as they can be eaten straight from the freezer and they thaw quickly too).

2. Freeze the cubes flat in ziptop bags.

To serve, scoop about 1 – 1.5 cups (or however much you want) of the frozen watermelon cubes into a bowl and eat with a spoon.

Ta-Da! I hope that these little cubes of watermelon joy make your summer days a little more awesome. 🙂

My Technique / Tips for Cutting Sweet Potatoes

cutting sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite vegetables, and they are super versatile. You can use them to make mini sweet potato pies, or sweet potato muffins (they taste like pumpkin bread), and they also taste great when sautéed with some onions, garlic and a drizzle of olive oil.

The one down side about sweet potatoes is that they can be very difficult to cut. They tend to roll around on the cutting board, and trying to cut them with a chef’s knife (even a very sharp one) can become a pretty risky situation fairly quickly.

Here’s the technique that I use to make cutting sweet potatoes a little easier.

You will need:

– a paring knife

– vegetable brush

– knife sharpener

– cutting board

– clean dish cloth or paper towel

Instructions

1. Give your sweet potatoes a good scrub with the vegetable brush and dry them off thoroughly with the dish cloth or paper towel. You want your sweet potatoes to be as dry as possible so that they don’t slip around on the cutting board. Set the sweet potatoes aside.

2. Sharpen your paring knife.

I have a little handheld knife sharpener (which isn’t the best, but gets the job done) and I run the paring knife through the carbide blades about 50 times and the ceramic rods about 30 times (if you have a better knife sharpener you probably won’t have to spend as much time sharpening your knife). Wash your knife with a little dish soap and carefully dry off the blade and the handle of the knife. You’ll also want to dry off your hands at this point so that you can get a good grip on the sweet potato while you’re cutting it.

You probably don’t need to sharpen your knife every time you cut a sweet potato, but it is a good idea too if you can. A sharp knife makes everything a little safer.

I also like using a paring knife over a chef’s knife for cutting sweet potatoes because it has a smaller blade, which means that there’s less force acting against your knife when you’re making your cuts.

3. If you want to peel your sweet potatoes, go ahead and do that now, but I usually keep the skin on the sweet potato just as a preference because it makes the sweet potatoes easier to grip when cutting.

Hold the left side of the sweet potato firmly with your left hand and then slice about 1/2 inch off from one end of the sweet potato, turn it 180 degrees, and then slice 1/2 inch off the other end.

From there you can cut up your sweet potato any way you like. I normally make sweet potato fries because they are easy to make, and make a great side for lunch or dinner.

To cut fries – hold the sweet potato firmly on the cutting board with your left hand, then place the blade of the paring knife perpendicular to the sweet potato so that the point of the blade goes straight into the middle of the sweet potato.

Once the blade is about an inch to an inch and a half into the sweet potato, (while still holding the sweet potato firmly against the cutting board with your left hand) with your right hand begin to push on the handle of the paring knife so that while you’re pushing the blade into the sweet potato, the blade also rotates all the way down and eventually becomes parallel to the cutting board, slicing through one half of the sweet potato.

Pull the knife out of the sweet potato and turn the sweet potato 180 degrees, and repeat so that the sweet potato is sliced in half and you have 2 halves of a sweet potato that you can lay flat on the cutting board.

4. Repeat this same motion (press the blade perpendicular into the sweet potato, rotate blade down and slice through), when making the rest of your cuts.

I like to cut my sweet potato fries 1/2 inch thick, and here’s how I cook them so that they get extra sweet without any added sweeteners.

To cut rounds – for if you want to use the sweet potato rounds as bases for veggie pizzas, press the blade about 1 inch into the sweet potato and press down while you rotate the sweet potato with your left hand until you end up with a little round of sweet potato.

cut raw sweet potatoes

I hope that these tips help make cutting sweet potatoes a little easier for you. If you also love eating sweet potatoes, let me know in the comments below how you like to cook them. It would be cool to see how other people like to cook them as well.

What To Do With Leftover Baby Greens

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Sometimes when you go grocery shopping, you see a gigantic bag of organic baby greens for $5 and think “Hey! That’s a great deal!”

Once you get home though, you realize that there is no way that you’re going to be able to eat that entire bag of baby greens before they go bad. I had the same thought with a big bag of baby kale. But have no fear! There’s a super easy way to get the most out of your purchase.

And it’s ok to do this after your greens have started to look a little worse for wear. You may have to compost a few more leaves of baby greens, but you should still be able to save most of your baby green bounty.

Instructions

1. Take two large bowls. Pick out the greens that have started to get slimy (you don’t want those) and place them in one bowl, and the still good greens in the other.

Compost the old greens, and then give the fresh greens a few good rinses in cool water. Pour the baby greens with the rinse water into a large strainer and drain off the excess water (it’s ok if there’s still a bit of water on them, you don’t want them to be perfectly dry).

2. Place your greens in a large pot with a few tablespoons of a neutral flavored oil (I like avocado oil). The oil makes it easier for your body to absorb the nutrients in the greens.

If the greens are really dry, add about 1/2 – 1 cup water to the pot with the greens. Cook over medium to medium high heat (depending on how fast you want the greens to cook down) stirring occasionally until the greens have all wilted down.

3. Wait for the greens to cool to room temperature. Spoon the greens into a freezer ziploc bag (you may need more than one bag depending on how many greens you have) and flatten the bag so that the greens are evenly distributed inside of the freezer bag.

Fold the bag into thirds the way that you would fold a letter before putting it into an envelope (please see top photo for reference). You should be left with a long rectangle, then do your best to fold this long rectangle into thirds and wrap a rubber band around the whole thing, place it into a shallow dish of some sort (just to catch any drips on the off chance that there are any leaks) and pop it into the freezer and freeze until solid.

frozen greens 2

(They are kind of pretty aren’t they? The one on the left almost looks like vegetable stained glass, or baby kale stained glass.)

Once frozen, you should be left with these squares of baby greens. You can throw them directly into soups, or defrost them and add them to smoothies, or stir fry them with a bit of garlic and maybe a squeeze of lemon juice.

I also sometimes just throw a square of frozen baby greens into a bowl with some cooked leftover rice and sweet potatoes and put it into the rice cooker to steam for about 10-15 minutes, and ta-da! Add a little Thai Peanut Sauce Dressing that’s a simple and delicious dinner.

However you use your frozen baby greens, I hope that this trick helps you to make the most of them.

Cashew Whipped Cream

Cashew Whipped Cream – Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Vegan

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This cashew whipped cream is a great alternative to store bought whipped topping, and it’s super easy to make.

On it’s own, this cashew whipped cream isn’t super flavorful, but poured over a fresh summer peach it is absolutely spectacular, and it gives a wonderful creaminess when dolloped over mini pecan tarts, or pumpkin tarts at Thanksgiving.

Once it’s blended, you can add another tsp. of maple syrup, or a little more vanilla to taste, but the pie fillings will already be quite sweet, so try the cashew cream on a tart with some pie filing before adjusting the flavor of the cashew cream.

The oil may seem like a little bit of an odd addition, but it gives the cashew cream a little extra richness, and rounds out the flavor of the cashew whipped cream along with the sweetness of the maple syrup.

If you’re making a lot of tarts, you can easily double this recipe if need be. You can make this in advance and then keep it in an airtight container in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

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Cashew Whipped Cream

Makes about ¾ cup.

Ingredients

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp maple syrup

½ cup raw cashews (soaked overnight)

5 ½ tbsp. water

1 -1 ½ tsp avocado oil, or any neutral flavored oil (optional)


Instructions

1. Soak the cashews overnight, and drain. Add the cashews to a blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.

2. Spoon over fresh fruit or mini tarts. Serve.

Note – If you forget to soak the cashews, you can boil them for 50 minutes (it’s a long time I know, but they plump right up), adding water the pot occasionally if the water runs low. Drain them and allow them to cool to room temp before using