Recipe by Miz Hummus: Grand Marnier candied pecans

Grand Marnier candied pecans

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.

2. Grate the rinds of 2 large oranges to create 7 tablespoons zest.

3. Melt together over low heat in a saucepan:
1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
2 teaspoons salt
Zest

4. Let cool slightly

5. Add mixture to a mixing bowl and cover 5 cups pecans in mixture

6. Butter two cookie sheets

7. Spread pecans evenly on cookie sheets and bake for 15 minutes

8. Let cool for 5 min and then sprinkle pecans with 1/8 cup Grand Marnier

9. Let cool completely and serve

Astonishingly simple chocolate mousse recipe

Courtesy of unwilling guest blogger Mr Bee:

Purchase ~200g of bittersweet chocolate (Callebaut ~70% cacao works for me — the better the chocolate, the better the mousse) and six eggs. Mr Bee is Aussie and so talks in metric equivalents; I think I used 0.48 lb chocolate or something like that.

- Beat egg whites in a bowl until firm
- Melt chocolate on low heat and mix into bowl with egg yolks (use bowl that you want to serve mousse in as this will be final bowl)
- Then fold the beaten egg whites into the chocolate/yolk mixture using a wooden spoon (make sure it is wood)
- Put in fridge for 4-5 hours
- Optional: add a little fruit or sea salt, or even sesame seeds to give it a “sexy edge” (Mr Bee’s words)

Recipe by Miz SunDrop: Cornbread Dotted with Dried Cherries

We used Indian green chillies (just 2, finely sliced -- nowhere near the 1/2 cup the recipe calls for!) instead of the canned kind. Enjoy!

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

4 eggs

1/2 cup diced canned green chillies (or 2 finely sliced fresh Indian or Thai green chillies)

1 1/2 cups "creamed" corn (canned)
1/2 cup shredded jack or cheddar
1 cup flour

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 tbsp baking powder

1/2 cup dried cherries

Cream together butter, sugar and eggs. Add remaining ingredients, mix well. Spread into a greased 9"x9" pan (double recipe makes a 9"x13").

Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes.

Recipe by Miz Hummus: Antioxidant Powerhouse Salad with Citrus-Ginger Dressing

From Miz Hummus (another guest blogger!), here is a tasty way to eat a rainbow of super free radical-fighting veggies!

Antioxidant Powerhouse Salad with Citrus-Ginger Dressing for 5

Salad:

5 handfuls baby spinach (about 2 Cups)

3 beets, peeled and grated

3 large or 5 small carrots, peeled and grated

10 radishes, trimmed and grated

10 mushrooms, sliced

1 avocado, diced

2 handfuls cherry tomatoes, halved

Can add: raisins or dried cranberries, sprouts

Dressing:

2 tbsp. minced fresh ginger

1/4 Cup lemon juice

pinch salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk dressing ingredients.  Toss salad ingredients, and plate salad.  Serve dressing on the side for people to pour over the amount they want themselves.

In Awe of Raw (Guest post by Miz Capsicum)

Miz Capsicum has been a friend of mine for more than a decade, and is a singer-songwriter who has been eating a vegan and half-raw diet for about two and a half years. As I have received multiple requests for posts on eating raw, I asked Miz Capsicum to guest blog about her experience.

Also, recently, I had caught a cold, and was supposed to meet up with Miz Capsicum and our mutual friend, and canceled our get together both because I wasn't feeling well and because I was concerned about infecting them with my cold virus. I was really struck when Miz Capsicum was so unconcerned about possibly catching my cold -- recently, her partner had had one, and she hadn't caught it even from him. So I have been wondering, does Miz Capsicum's diet hold the secret to better immune system functioning?

~

About my diet: I am 99% vegan but occasionally eat bread and desserts which may contain any number of non-vegan substances that I pretend not to notice. And sometimes I put butter on that bread too. : ) As well as being vegan, at least 40% of what I eat in a day is raw, with no more than one or two meals with cooked foods in them per day. (I would like to include more organics, but conventionally grown foods are much easier to come by in my neighborhood, and much less expensive, so unfortunately I don't get as many organics as I'd like.)

Prior to becoming vegan, my diet looked more like Miz Masala's: vegetarian with fish here and there, plus eggs, and unlike Miz Masala, I also handled cheese and milk.

I used to have acid reflux all the time, and terrible indigestion. I was losing my voice and canceling shows. But I have experienced a huge improvement in the past two and a half years. I'm still working on making my diet more consistent and managing my impulsive eating urges (I have a sweet tooth), and on continuing to help my body's natural detoxification systems re-balance and function as they ought (I still have one major persistent symptom: acne) through a gradually lighter diet and colonics.

Miz Masala asked me if I felt that eating more raw foods and staying vegan enhanced my immune system, and the simple answer is, Yes: increasing the amount of raw food in my diet has benefited my immune system. How and why it works as it has been taught to me operates on a set of principles that are at some variance with the assumptions underlying Western medicine. One of the views I've adopted as my own as I've learned more about healing the body through nutrition is that the cause of illness is the presence of toxins in the body. Toxins increase via the consumption of poisonous substances, but also through indigestion and improper elimination, a much more common circumstance than we think.

The cleaner, more alkaline, and less toxic the body, the smoother its intricate and beautifully designed systems can function. Raw foods, when eaten in the proper dietetic combinations, serve to alkalinize, cleanse, and facilitate proper digestion and elimination.

As for my own health, I'm so grateful that I've been learning more about healing through food. It's a lifestyle and a commitment to your own health in the short and long run. I find that I really enjoy learning about food and health and watching my body heal.

Thai lettuce wraps from the popular all-raw restaurant Pure Food & Wine in New York City. (I have tried them, and they're delicious.)

~

What is the raw diet? The raw food movement prescribes a diet of unprocessed, preferably organic, plant foods that have not been heated above 116 degrees F. The theory underlying this diet is that cooking destroys the enzymes in plant foods that assist in the absorption of nutrients and elimination of toxins and diminishes the nutritional value and "life force" of food (which sounds very similar to me to the "prana shakti" concept in Hinduism). People are considered to be on raw diets if 75% or more of what they eat is living (raw). Raw "cooking techniques" to make dishes of varying textures and easier digestibility include sprouting seeds, grains, and beans; juicing, chopping, and julienning fruits and vegetables; soaking raw (not roasted) nuts and dried fruit; making "milks," "creams," and "ice creams" from nuts and young coconut; and blending, dehydrating, culturing, fermenting, and pickling raw foods.

Recipe by Miz Paprika: Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

This is a Guest Blog Post by Miz Paprika! Enjoy : )

Hi all! Miz Masala asked me to share with you one of my new favorite recipes: savory muffins.

This is adapted from 101cookbooks.com, the incredible and beautiful website maintained by Heidi Swanson, author of “Super Natural Cooking.”

Savory muffins are great because they are 1) high protein and low carb and 2) incredibly portable, so I often take them with me for lunch or as a snack for the airplane when I’m traveling. Like most muffins, these take only one bowl to make and are incredibly easy to alter to fit your tastes. This recipe includes sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, and basil, so they taste a bit like a very wholesome pizza, but you could easily do scallions and cheddar cheese, ham and gruyere, spinach-feta, or rosemary, garlic, and parmesan. Once you have this basic recipe, it’s very easy to experiment.

Savory Sun-Dried Tomato Muffins

1 cup cottage cheese (I use farmer’s cheese because it blends better, and I like the texture, but if you have some available and want to try this, make sure you add a little bit of milk to compensate for the dry texture of farmer’s cheese vs. cottage cheese)
¾ cup parmesan cheese
¼ cup flour (any kind will do, but I prefer to use all-purpose white flour or whole wheat pastry flour to cut the rough texture of the almond flour)

1 cup almonds, finely ground (you can use almond flour, if you have it available - I know Whole Foods sells it)

¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil) finely chopped
¼ cup fresh basil (finely chopped)
¼ cup water
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 °F. If you bake with any frequency at all (or even if you are an infrequent baker and want to try baking more), I highly highly recommend purchasing some silicone muffin pans. They changed my life : ). The muffins just slide out when they’re done and you don’t have to grease the pan or mess with those annoying paper cups. If you don’t have a silicone muffin pan yet, line a regular muffin pan with paper cups or grease the pan - just be careful to get it all the way up the sides and around any corners so the muffins don’t stick.

Combine all of the ingredients except ¼ cup of the parmesan in a bowl and mix all together by hand. Pour into your muffin pan and top each muffin with a sprinkling of the parmesan cheese. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. I have never made it this long, but they should keep for a week.

Makes 9-12 muffins depending on the size of your pan.