The Healthy Cooking Coach

Cool Kitchen Tool: The Herb Keeper

How many times have you purchased or picked fresh herbs and watched them wilt, dry out, turn soggy, black, or mold before you could consume them? For years I’ve searched for the best way to extend the life of fresh herbs.

Been here, done this?
I tried standing them in a jar of water, like a bouquet, with and without a plastic bag on top. Perched precariously in an over-crowded refrigerator, the jar too easily tipped over. I left the herbs in their original packaging (a plastic box or bag) with and without a dry paper towel to absorb moisture. I wrapped them in a damp paper towel within a plastic bag, also tried a dry cotton kitchen towel, a cotton canvas bag, and, tossing the bundle of herbs into the crisper bin with other vegetables. The herbs absorbed odors from other foods, lost their fragile fragrances, or suffered a rough and untimely death.

I had less luck leaving fresh basil on the counter, although I have heard that it fares well that way. Perhaps because I keep my house fairly warm, even in the summer, herbs held like flowers at room temp wilt within a day or two, becoming unusable for anything other than brief entertainment for the cats. At one point, it seemed the best way to keep parsley, basil, cilantro, and other fresh herbs was to place them in a plastic bag lined with a dry, unbleached paper towel in the refrigerator.

A keeper
That was until I discovered The Herb Keeper©, a tall, lightweight, thick, plastic patent-pending product promising to keep herbs hydrated and fresh longer than my previous storage options. The long tube- shaped canister stores one to three bunches of fresh herbs at a time---parsley, cilantro, sage, oregano, thyme, and others--for up to three weeks in the refrigerator. Although I generally frown on plastic tools, this gadget won me over in early 2005 when I was introduced to it.

Basil in photo right after 6 days at room temp in the uncovered Herb Keeper with water in the bottom of the container.  

Photo credit: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2011

How it works
To use The Herb Keeper, add fresh water to the base on the continaer up to the fill line. Twist the top of the Herb Keeper onto to expose the base. Trim the ends of the herbs by one-half inch (as with fresh flowers) and place them in the Herb Keeper, immersing them in the water. Put the cap on top, store in the refrigerator, and change the water every three to four days. (The clear container allows you to see the herbs and monitor the water level.Do change the water ever few days and re-trim the stems a quarter of an inch.)

Although most herbs require refrigeration, basil and cilantro fare poorly in cold temperatures. Keep them on the counter. Simply, add cool water to the fill line and keep the herb-filled container on the counter without the black rubber lid.

Found it
At some point, maybe a few years ago, I filed the Herb Keeper away in a cabinet behind a stack of pots (that I do use) and forgot about it’s utility. Last week, after returning from the farmers’ market with a lovely, local bunch of basil, I decided to hoist it out of hiding and put it to use again. The previous week’s basil died prematurely standing in a cup of water, despite my trimming the stems so I wanted to see if the Herb Keeper would indeed keep it fresh at room temp…and it did!

I purchased this bunch of basil on Wednesday morning, May 25, 2011. I shot the picture this morning, after trimming the stems and changing the water for the second time, on May 30, 6 days later. I will probably make pesto or something else with it in the next few days. What other method would keep it so fresh looking for so long?

Photo credit: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2011

Asparagus keeper
The Herb Keeper does doubles as a storage unit for asparagus. Add a small amount of water to the base, remove the lid (most asparagus spears will stick out the top of the container), and refrigerate. The spears won’t dry out and will taste fresher for a few more days.

My verdict?
Buy it, you’ll like it. If you regularly buy and use parsley, basil, cilantro, and other fresh herbs, you want to extend their life and retain more flavor and texture until you can use them, this tool is worth investing in. It doesn’t cost much and you'll quickly recoup what you previously lost in wasted herbs.

Made by Progressive, The Herb Keeper retails for $12.99 ($10.49 + shippingon Amazon). Find it in kitchen shops and online here. Cuispro makes a similar Herb Keeper retails for $14 on Amazon.

Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of The Herb Companion in the Cool Tools Column I used to write for them. I added a bit of text to the old version.

Baking with Coconut Flour, part 3

I started baking with coconut flour in the Spring of 2010. I like the flour’s nutritional value: it’s high in protein and fiber, low in net carbs, grain-free, and a source of immune enhancing fatty acids.  If you’ve baked with it, you know that you can’t use it cup for cup to replace other flours because it soaks up much more liquid. You have to use less of it. You have to increase the amount of liquid you use as well as the leavening and in some cases you may have to test a recipe several times to produce satisfying results. What you might not realize is that additional modifications may be in order. 

Cups, grams, and confounding factors
If you’ve ever looked at cookbooks and recipes from the U.K. or Australia, you may have noticed that they call for ingredients in grams rather than cups. If you’re in the 40-something age bracket, you may have learned the metric system, as required, in seventh or eight grade, and then conveniently forgotten most of it because you weren’t expected to use it on a regular or daily basis. If you didn’t see the utility of it and of thinking in weight rather than measures and in grams rather than just ounces, in a moment you might.

How do you measure...up or down?
If you’ve done much baking (I hope) you know how much the way you measure matters.
Here’s how Erik Jacobsen describes the challenge of measuring accurately for baking:

“The problem is that measuring an ingredient by volume can result in a variety of different weights, i.e., different amounts of the ingredient, depending on how the measurement was made. In many recipes that use flour (cookies, for example), being off a little here or there doesn't really matter, but in yeast bread baking, it does. Too much flour in relation to water will often result in a "brick" rather than a nice soft loaf. Too much water compared to the amount of flour often results in another brick: the gluten structure isn't strong enough to support the loaf after it rises, and it collapses when the baking begins.”

The weight of it
Another confounding factor has to do with the texture and density of the flour, what it comes from (bread wheat vs. pastry wheat, refined vs. whole wheat, cake flour vs. all-purpose flour, barley vs. wheat, etc.) and how finely it was milled. Weigh a cup of each of these flours and you will find they vary in weight. Even two different brands of the same pastry, all-purpose, or bread flour can vary in weight when compared cup for cup.

Now think about gluten-free flours: sorghum, brown rice, white rice, millet, amaranth, teff, quinoa, and gluten-free oat flour. These too can vary in weight. The same goes for grain-free flours, such as blanched almond flour, whole almond meal, and coconut flour. Variations may exist between flours and within different brands of the same kind of flour.

Weighing in
I was recently reminded of this. Last month, one of my cooking assistants made an airy and delicious batch of Rosemary-Garlic Popovers using a recipe from Kelly Brozyna’s Spunky Coconut Blog and her gluten-free, casein-free, often egg-free cookbook, Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts. I wanted to replicate her results. I don’t know which brand of coconut flour she used. I followed the same recipe two weeks in a row using different brands of coconut flour each time. The results: different. Both of my batches came out denser and less appetizing than Anne’s.

Two weeks ago, I made Elana Amsterdam’s Red Velvet Cupcakes. Last week I made the same recipe again using a different brand of coconut flour. The first batch came out spongy. The second batch turned out much denser and better. I followed another recipes for RVCs (Red Velvet Cupcakes) and they too came out spongy. It was then that I realized that the flours probably varied considerably in weight.

The four flours
I have four brands in my fridge: Coconut Secret, Wilderness Family Naturals, Coconut On Line, and Tropical Traditions. One at a time, I took them out, fluffed them with a fork, spooned and leveled them into a half cup measure and then into a bowl and rubbed them between my fingers. One was noticeably coarse. Another felt fine and velvety soft; another felt slightly grainy. I made sure to use the same 1/2 cup measure for each and the same bowl for weighing on the scale.

I weighed each in ounces and then in grams. The gram measurement provided a better show of the dissimilarities between them. If you see 2 ounces, 1 4/8 ounces, 1 6/8 ounces, you may have a hard time visualizing the difference.

Here’s what I found in terms of difference between the coconut flours for half a cup measure:
59 grams, 45 grams, 48 grams, 56 grams

A different of 11 to 14 grams can make a significant difference in the texture of a recipe that calls for a relatively small amount of flour (1/2 cupful). Now imagine a larger recipe calling for an entire cup and the difference doubles along with the possible dissapointment.

Coconut flour conundrum
I don’t have a solution for you…yet. At this point I’m not sure which coconut flour to use and recommend. I like the idea of being able to buy it from a variety of vendors. I like giving people options. It makes shopping more convenient and healthy cooking less exclusive. However, if I follow recipes I find on line, which I frequently do, I don’t necessarily know which brand the author used. Even if I did, I wouldn’t go out and buy another brand (right now), since I have four bags in my refrigerator that I want to use them up before buying more.

Keep on reading
I plan to bake more coconut flour recipes, so for now, just know that your results may vary from what a particular blogger writes about, describes, and photographs. You may want to make a recipe more than once. You may have to tinker with the recipe to produce a texture that suits you. You could make two half batches of a recipe using two different brands of coconut flours; observe and note the differences in the texture and the consistency after baking. Another idea would be to weigh the flour you use (make sure you following the measuring tips in this and the last coconut flour post), then measure it and then if it comes out great use that weight as the ideal when using the same amount of coconut flour.

If you haven’t already subscribed to my blog, you can do that now using the link on the upper left hand side of this page. Then, you’ll receive updates when I make new posts and crack this portion of the coconut flour conundrum and post new recipes.

For more tips on baking with coconut flour, see Baking with Coconut Flour, part 2 and Baking with Cocout Flour Part 1.

I’d love to hear about the results you’ve produced using coconut flour. Which brand do you prefer and why? What’s your favorite coconut flour recipe?

SPECIAL BONUS OFFER
Order Tropical Traditions coconut flour, virgin coconut oil, unsweetened flaked coconut or any of their other products using this link or by clicking one of the product images below and you will receive a FREE copy of the book, Virgin Coconut Oil with your first order.

Cooking & Baking with Coconut Flour, part 2

Are you baffled about how to cook and bake with coconut flour? Have your experiments with it produced disappointing results: brick breads, hockey pucks, and crackery cookies? Don’t give up. With practice, precise measuring, and some basic principles, you can crack the coconut flour code.

If you read my article," Cooking with Coconut Flour: A tropical twist on gluten free goodness,"  in the April/May 2010 issue of Living Without Magazine or part one in this series of blog posts about cooking and baking with coconut flour (December 29, 2010), you know a little bit about the features, advantages, and benefits of using coconut flour. It’s gluten-free, grain-free, high in protein and fiber, low in fat, low in net (digestible) carbohydrates. It’s a source of lauric acid (monolaurin), an immune-enhancing fatty acic also found in human mother's milk. Few people are allergic to coconut relative to foods such as wheat, corn, soy, and dairy.

Coconut flour also presents a tremendous challenge. Its high fiber composition means that it absorbs more liquid than grain-based flours so you cannot use it cup for cup in place of other flours; you must use considerably less coconut flour. You need to add more liquid and leavening (best provided by extra eggs) when using coconut flour.

Photo credits: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2009

In the spring of 2009, when I worked the coconut flour article for Living Without Magazine, I read about coconut flour and then modified, tested, and retested recipes. In the process, I developed rough formulas for replacing conventional flours with coconut flour. What follows are general guidelines.

1) Use coconut flour to replace up to 10 to 30% of the other flour(s) in muffins, loaf breads, dinner rolls, cookies, cakes, bars, and quick breads. It makes great gluten-free baked goods, but you need to measure carefully and work from a recipe or do some math calculations to remake your own or other people’s recipes (read on for more tips).

2) For each portion of coconut flour you use, add an equal amount of additional liquid in the form of water, milk, juice, a dairy-free milk alternative, or light coconut milk, or honey. I usually replace granulated sugar (white or brown) with honey. To do this, I replace 1 cup sugar with 3/4 cup honey. Next, I usually halve the amount of honey and supplement with pure stevia extract liquid or powder to reduce the amount of sugar and carbohydrate calories. My Ice Dream Cookbok features a conversion chart for sugar to honey and sugar to stevia). When I do this, I count the honey as part of the additional liquid I need in the recipe.

3) To counter balance the heaviness and high fiber content of coconut flour, you may need to double or triple the amount of eggs in a recipe. When using an egg replacer in baked goods, double the amount you would ordinarily use.
 
4) When using coconut flour to replace 100% of the flour in a recipe, you will need as much as 30% less, and a larger amount of eggs for leavening and binding. You may need to triple the amount of eggs called for in muffin, quickbread, and cookie recipes and quadruple the amount called for in a cake.

5) In meatloaves and meatballs, you may replace cracker crumbs or bread crumbs with a quarter to a half as much coconut flour, then add an equal amount of water, milk, nut milk, or diluted coconut milk as coconut flour. So, if your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of bread/cracker crumbs, try 1/4 cup of coconut flour, the first time around, combined with 1/4 cup liquid. You may need to increase the liquid or add an egg to the recipe the second time or reduce the amount of coconut flour you use.

6) Remember to fluff the flour before diving into the container with a measuring cup or spoon. This can make the difference between a dense doorstop and a culinary masterpiece. I use the dip and sweep or spoon and sweet method to measure all kinds of flour. Click here to learn about these methods.

Let me know what you make and if you apply these suggestions, what results you achieve. I look forward to hearing from you and to helping you crack the coconut flour code.

Order Tropical Traditions coconut flour, virgin coconut oil, unsweetened flaked coconut or any of their other products using this link or by clicking one of the product images below and you will receive a FREE copy of the book, Virgin Coconut Oil with your first order.

Decorate cakes & cupcakes like a pro

After seeing Todd’s exquistely frosted, ribbon topped Bon Appetit cake pictures and comparing them to the photos in Elana's new Gluten Free Cupcakes book and the delicious, but less than stellar job I did of frosting mini cupcakes a friend's wedding reception in early May, I realized that I needed to ramp up the presentation of my desserts. (Thank you, Felicia and Todd!)

Pastry bag-less in Phoenix
I didn’t own cake decorating tools until a week ago. I was 16 years old the last time I’d used a pastry bag. My friend's wife, Tracy, mentioned using a plastic zip-top bag to decorate cakes, cutting a hole in one corner. when she did catering. My new friend Felicia uses disposable pastry bags for ease of clean up. Two days after the delicious lamb riblet meal at her house, I began hunting for pastry bags. I vaguely remembered how messy cleaning a pastry bag had been when I was a teenager. I nixed the idea of using disposable pastry bags; I didn’t like the look of them or the prospect of throwing out a steady strem of plastic bags knowing that other alternatives exist. I found what I was after at the second store I visited.

Decorate like a pro
I settled on the Wilton Dessert Pro Decorator kit: an ergonomically designed stainless steel cylinder with a pull-out plunger, 6 decorating tips, 2 couplers, and a nylon-dishwasher safe storage bag for the tips and couplers. The tool resembles both a cookie shooter and a jerky press. I like that it’s durable and eco friendly (mostly stainless steel rather than plastic) and easy to fill and clean. It won’t transfer flavors and does a better job of maintaining the temperature of the filling than a bag. Cloth and plastic bags absorb the heat of your hands, which can make frosting melt faster.

My first demo
Last Saturday, after my cooking class and before dinner, my 9 year old neighbor, Abby, helped me make two batches of gluten-free red velvet cupcakes, one with a gluten-free flour blend and the other with coconut flour. We also made one batch of honey-sweetened goat cheese buttercream frosting (a lower-sugar, lower-fat twist on classic cream cheese frosting. I filled my new Dessert Decorator Pro  with frosting and used the star tip. You can see the results here (photo right). I think I did fairly well for a first attempt!

Cupcakes in the works
I plan to test more red velvet cupcakes and frosting in preparation for a two-part, gluten-free cooking series I’ll be leading at Desert Botanical Garden in July and August. I like to add new recipes to my repertoire. Not only had a never made a red velvet cake or cupcake prior to last weekend, I’d never even tasted a red velvet anything prior to last year when I took home a killer, gluten-free red velvet cupcake from Nourish Café in Scottsdale. It had a massive  amount of thick, creamy, white frosting on top, skillfully swirled through a pastry bag. Now I’m on a mission to make something as good or better!
 
My team
In addition to my baking buddy, Abby, I have a team of taste-testers who help me evaluate my experiments. I won’t post my best red velvet cupcake recipe until after the class at Desert Botanical Garden. If you sign up for the class (see my cooking class page for details) you'll have the recipe before it goes live here. However, I will share the results of my testing and tasting process and tell you what other foods I decide to decorate with my new Decorator Pro. In the meantime, if you already decorate your food with a pastry bag or want to, consider getting a Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro. You can order one using the link below.

Dinner with Todd & Felicia

I had incredibly delicious meal this past week. I didn’t have to plan it, shop for ingredients, prepare it, or even wash the dishes. I had dinner with two new friends and their four children. I met Felicia and Todd at PrimalCon 2011, Mark Sisson’s primal diet and fitness conference April 15th to 17th, 2011, in Oxnard, CA. I attended as a presenter. Felicia and Todd went as attendees. We shared meals, talked about cooking, favorite recipes, local sources for organic produce and grassfed meat in Phoenix, and reconnecting when we returned home after the conference.

Food by Todd
Todd’s the head chef of the house. Felicia’s his sous chef. Todd’s great with food. He’s never had any formal training in cooking. He has a pilots license and a degree in music and he’s worked as a general contractor for more than 10 years. Felicia thinks its the arts background that makes him so good with food. She said, “He reads and finds recipes, which he never follows. It's hilarious! I will have something in my head to cook or a craving and, if I start it, he has to finish it for it to turn out, or he will just whip it up.” She cleans, he cooks. He reads and cooks from Food & Wine and Bon Appetit magazines, Mario Batali’s books, and others, modifying recipes to make them grain-free and paleo- and primal-perfect.

He gets the techniques from what he reads, then improvises from there. He sets out to make things that many, if not most, people wouldn’t even imagine making, like the chocolate cake from the cover of the December 2010 issue of Bon Appetite with frosting fashioned to look like ribbons on a wrapped present.

Todd made the cake as directed, down to the ribbons made with fondant put through a pasta maker. Todd breezed through the two day construction project. Felicia told me that Todd didn’t really care about eating the cake or the frosting. He's not big on sweets although he enjoys them every now and then, if they're not too sweet. He tackled it for the challenge.

Photo right: Felicia Koziczkowski Copyright © 2011

Dinner at Chez Todd
Last Wednesday night, I went to Felicia and Todd’s for dinner. When I arrived they were working on a salad. Todd tended to a pot of simmering purple cauliflower and onion slices, and then seasoning lamb riblets, then seared them in duck fat in a cast iron skillet and transferred the skillet to the oven to finish cooking. Next, he went  back to the salad, added the last couple of ingredients, and set about plating it. The food looked phenomenal, even before they finished cooking, and smelled fantastic.

We started with an arugula salad with golden beets, slivers of fennel and red onions, raw, local goat cheese, and toasted pine nuts in a light and lemony dressing and pan-seared lamb riblets finished in the oven and served with a mustard sauce, accompanied by a purple cauliflower and onion puree (faux mashed potatoes). Everything tasted divinely delicious!

I brought dessert––three flavors of non-dairy coconut milk ice cream from my Ice Dream Cookbook: Avocado, Almond Butter & Jelly, and Cinnamon that we served with Karly’s Cocoa Sauce, also from my Ice Dream Cookbook. Felica, Todd, and their kids loved them.

The morning after
After eating the meal, I knew I wanted to recreate it at home even if I had to do it in stages with different dishes on different days. The next morning, I set out to make a facsimilie of the salad Todd  made. I didn't have golden beets on hand; I had organic red beets from a local farmers’ market. I got them boiling first thing in the morning, then peeled, sliced, and chilled them. I didn’t have arugula so I substituted baby spinach. I had soft goat cheese, pine nuts, but no fennel bulb. I subbed celery. In place of red onions I used scallions. I whipped up a lemonette (my version of vinaigrette using lemon juice). Delicious!

I knew I wanted to recreate what Todd made, even if I had to do it in stages. The next day I set out to make a facsimilie of the salad. I didn't have golden beets so I used organic red beets from a local farmers’ market. I boiled, peeled, sliced, and chilled them. I didn’t have arugula so I substituted baby spinach. I had soft goat cheese and pine nuts, but no fennel so I subbed celery. In place of red onions I used scallions. I wmade Lemonette Dressing (my version of vinaigrette using lemon juice) from The Garden of Eating. Yum! I'll use golden beets, fennel, and red onion next time.

Dandy Blend Giveaway

Do you like the robust flavor of coffee but not the caffeine? If you like Teeccino, my favorite brewable coffee alternative, and you want something for busy times when you don’t have leftover Teeccino or you want something instant that you can take with you when you dine out, travel, or head to work, try Dandy Blend. I like it better than the Pero, Postum, Caffix, and Kafree Roma products I drank in my 20s.

What’s Dandy Blend
It’s an instant, non-addictive, herbal beverage made from dandelion and chicory roots. It’s 100% caffeine-free, gluten-free, legume-free, and free of acidity. It’s free of barley malt and malted barley. You can use it to wean yourself off of coffee. If you don't drink coffee, you simply savor it for the richer, more robust flavor it provides over herbal teas. It comes in 7 ounce and 2 pound resealable bags. The product also comes in single serving packets, available from the company.

What’s in it?
Dandy Blend comes from water soluble extracts of three roasted roots and two roasted grains (strictly speaking it’s not paleo or primal but if you follow the 80/20 or 90/10 rule, it fits in with these programs). Ingredients: extracts of roasted barley, rye, chicory root, dandelion root, and beet root.

How can it be gluten free?
The gluten from the barley and rye is eliminated in the extracting process. Here's how Peter Gail, the owner of the company explains it on their web site:

"Dandy Blend is made of the water-soluble extracts of five ingredients--three roots and two grains. The ingredients are roasted separately and them combined in prescribed proportions, placed into a vat, covered with hot water, and allowed to steep for a prescribed period of time. The water, with the soluble portions of all the components, is separated from the grounds and spray dried. The remaining fine brown powder left after the water is driven off is what becomes Dandy Blend. All the gluten and other water-insoluble substances are left behind in the grounds to be composted.

"Hence, there is no gluten in Dandy Blend. Goosefoot Acres periodically submits samples of Dandy Blend to Elisa Technologies Laboratory in Florida, one of the most respected gluten testing labs in the United States for analysis, and so far, every test has come back gluten-free. Click here to see test results letter."

In the U.S. I product can be deemed gluten free if it contains less than 20 ppm. Dandy Blend tests even lower at less than 5 ppm (parts per million) of gluten.

What’s so great about dandelion and chicory root?
Here’s what Joyce Wardwell, author of the Herbal Home Remedy Book (Storey Publications) says about dandelion root:

“It's a prime ingredient in many herb blends on the market, including formulas for weight loss, PMS, detoxification, and rejuvenation, along with liver, digestive, kidney and skin ailments!”

According to Michael Tierra, world-renown herbalist and formulator of Planetary Herb Formulas, one of which uses Dandy Blend as its base, aand uthor of many books on Chinese Herbalism and owner of the East-West Acupuncture Clinic in Santa Cruz, CA:

"Dandelion is regarded in diverse cultures worldwide, both among Western herbalists and in the Chinese Medical tradition as one of the best detoxification herbs that also has potent anti-cancer properties. Dandelion root promotes normal liver function by enhancing biliary detoxification. It also helps regulate insulin levels and it works as an effective aperient promoting normal bowel function and diuretic urinary function. The most advanced research on cardiovascular disease and cancer, two of the major killers in the world, is that these diseases are caused by, or attenuated by, inflammation. Dandelion root is one of the greatest herbs for relieving inflammation and is well known to exert a benefit in the natural treatment of both of these conditions.”

Each cup of Dandy Blend beverage (made from one teaspoon of powder) provides 630 milligrams of dandelion/chicory extract. If you make it triple strength, like I do, you’ll get almost 1900 milligrams of dandelion and chicory extract per serving.

Is it raw?
No. Dandy Blend is made by roasting the roots and grains at a low temperatures the way herbalists have prepared dandelion root for centuries. Roasting releases beneficial aromatic products, converts the naturally occuring inulin into fructose (a very small amount of fructose, not enough to pose any health risks), and makes trace and major minerals more available. As with many foods, cooking makes more of the nutrients available for absorption than if these roots were consumed in their raw state.

How do you use it?
For a light, tea: add 1 level teaspoon per 8 ounces hot water.
For a rich, full-bodied coffee-like flavor: add 1 rounded teaspoon per cup hot water.
For a strong, coffee- or espresso-strength beverage: use 1 tablespoon per cup hot water.

I prefer the stronger strength. I add unsweetened canned coconut milk (roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons per cup or mug of hot water) and several drops of vanilla stevia or vanilla crème flavored stevia extract liquid. Sometimes I also add a few drops of cocoa bean extract.

Besides using it to make a refreshing drink, you can use Dandy Blend powder to make shakes, malts, coffee-flavored ice cream and ice cream alternatives, chocolate sauces, lattes, and other drinks. Use Dandy Blend in a one-to-one ratio to replace instant coffee or espresso powder in recipes. Try it in brownies, cakes, bars and frostings. (Use a two-to-one ratio in cake frosting.)

Does it have any calories?
One teaspoon of Dandy Blend powder contains 3 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrate, .08 grams of protein and 5 calories. Triple that if you like a strong cup of dandelion/chicory “coffee” using a tablespoon of the powder.

For a free downloadable booklet of recipes for Dandy Blend, visit www.DandyBlend.com and click on “recipes.”

For the best price on ordering Dandy Blend in the U.S. and overseas, click here or click here.

Here’s how you can enter to win a 7.05 oz package of Dandy Blend

Leave a comment below
(a) Telling me why you want to win this product or what you want to make with it.

To receive bonus entries, spread the word about my blog and this giveaway:
(select as many of as you like; post a separate comment for each action telling me what you did):

   1. Subscribe to my YouTube page
   2. Subscribe to this blog (upper left side of this page)
   3. Subscribe to my newsletter (upper left side of this page)
   4. Tweet about the giveaway and send me a link
   5. Announce the giveaway on Facebook and send me a link
   6. Mention the giveaway to your family and friends and invite them to enter
   7. Mention the giveaway on your blog and send me a link
   8. Come up with your own creative idea and tell me about it
 

Note: Do any or all of the above; post a separate comment for each action telling me what you did.

Deadline: Midnight, Wednesday, May 11th, 2011.
Selection criteria: Random drawing
Limitations: Drawing open only to US residents due to shipping restrictions.

Dandy Blend Cinnamon Nutmeg Café au Lait

Yield: 1 serving

1 cup cold or hot milk or milk alternative (try almond or cashew milk)
1 rounded teaspoon Dandy Blend (double if desired)
sprinkle of cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
Sweeten to taste (I use liquid stevia, vanilla or vanilla creme)

Stir or blend until smooth and drink.

Gluten-Free Strawberry Cupcakes

Friday I made two more cupcake recipes and one frosting recipe from Elana Amsterdam’s new book, Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour. I tested Flourless Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes (p. 42), Strawberry Cupcakes (p. 24), and Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (p. 96). The occasion was the wedding of my long time friend and colleague, Don, and his fiancée, Tracy. They had two other desserts on the menu, a small (maybe 6-inch diameter) gluten-free, two-layer chocolate cake with raspberry filling and some incredibly beautiful egg shaped dark and white chocolate truffles with cream filled centers, and they welcomed my making and bringing 44 frosted  mini cupcakes (48 minus two of each I taste-tasted, for quality control, the day before).

The cupcakes
I made the two flavors of cupcakes. The Flourless Chocolate Coconut Coconut Cupcakes were made from (73% cocoa content) dark chocolate chips (a dark chocolate bar also works), unsweetened shredded coconut, eggs, sea salt, and agave syrup, which I replaced with honey. You’ll find the Strawberry Cupcake recipe below.

Of the two, the strawberry ones were my absolute favorite! They had just the right amount of sweetness for my tastes and I loved the generous dose of vanilla they contained. I like the short ingredient list and the moist consistency despite no added fat. I liked the chocolate ones just not as much.

In the Orange Cream Cheese Frosting recipe  I replaced the agave nectar with honey and the cream cheese with soft goat cheese, a swap that cuts the calories in half without much change in flavor. (The same switch works in cheese cake recipes). The  frosting calls for butter. If you don’t use butter, you can substitute non-hydrogenated palm shortening cup for cup.

From my previous testing the Lime Cupcakes were my favorite. The Orange Cream Cheese Frosting could be modified to include lime zest for those cakes.

Frosting faux pas
I made one and a half times the recipe (one full batch would have been plenty and I wanted to make sure to have enough). I now have a half batch of frozen frosting for future cupcake endeavors.

I included the orange zest in the frosting and set about picking natural vegetable dye-based food colorings for two out of three portions. The sweetness was just right and required no doctoring up or down. For one portion I added bottled natural yellow food coloring made from glycerine and turmeric. That turned out great!

Photo credit right: Rachel Albert Copyright © 2011

For the second one I added natural red food coloring made from glycerine and cherry extract. No success! Perhaps because the coloring was 3 years old or because I failed to notice the “refrigerate it after opening” note on the label, it didn’t produce a red color despite shaking the bottle and adding many, many drops. By the time the frosting reached a grayish-pink color, it tasted strongly of tart cherries. I remedied that by adding unsweetened cocoa powder, a dash more honey, and vanilla, figuring chocolate cherry would be tastier and prettier than what I had in front of me. The result was good but not great. I much preferred the plain orange and the lemon yellow colored frostings but I had wanted something with more contrast for the chocolate cupcakes.

Chill it
I chilled the frosting on Friday and left the cupcakes in covered glass pans at room temp. Saturday, after teaching a 3 hour cooking class and before unpacking, changing my clothes, and leaving for the reception, I removed the frosting from the refrigerator to let it soften enough to spread over the mini cupcakes.

Next time I plan to frost the cakes within 30 minutes of chilling the frosting and refrigerating the cakes to make it harden. Softening chilled frosting without letting it get too soft is as tricky as transporting freshly frosted cakes in 100 degree weather. Despite placing ice packs between the covered glass pans, the frosting softened and some of the cupcakes capsized on the way. They were righted on arrival and chilled until serving time.

The verdict
The guests loved the cupcakes. They were intrigued before they even tasted them. I overheard the bride telling people that everything being served (from dinner to dessert) was gluten-free. A few people came up to me when they heard that I brought the cupcakes and expressed interest in them. Once the bride-groom cake, cupcakes, and truffles were served I heard compliments on them and requests for the recipes. I told them about the source and about how they could find out more on my blog. The bride and groom were particularly pleased.

If you’d like to try these and other grain-free, gluten-free cupcake recipes, I highly recommend buying a copy of Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour by Elana Amsterdam as well as her Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. You can also visit her blog for cupcake recipes not found in her book. She has many winning recipes.
 
Strawberry Cupcakes

Yield: 8 full size or 24 minis                 Sweetness: Medium

According to the headnotes for this recipe, Elana's younger son loves these cupcakes and calls them Strawberry Spongecakes. He enjoyed topping them with Cream Cheese Frosting (page 95), though they also pair quite nicely with Strawberry Meringue Frosting (page 97 and photo right). These pink-flecked pleasers are best made at the height of strawberry season. 

Ingredients
1/2 cup coconut flour (sift before measuring if lumpy)
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
4 large eggs
1/2 cup agave nectar (I used honey)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 8 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, combine the coconut flour, arrowroot powder, salt, and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, agave nectar, and vanilla extract. Blend the wet ingredients into the coconut flour mixture with a handheld mixer until thoroughly combined, then fold in the strawberries.
3. Scoop 1/4 cup of batter into each prepared muffin cup.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 1 hour, then frost and serve.

My modification: I baked the batter in lined mini muffin tins (24 mini muffins per batch). In my oven they took approximately 12 minutes to test done.

Strawberry Meringue Frosting

MAKES 3 CUPS                    SWEETNESS: HIGH

This is not the frosting that I made for the wedding. (I mde the Orange Cream Cheese Frosting on page 96 of her book.) This is the one in the professional photo (upper right) from Elana's book and it's the one I have permission to reprint. I do plan to try it on another batch of cupcakes. Elana's younger son eats this straight out of the bowl!

 Ingredients:
1/4 cup agave nectar (I would use honey instead)
2 egg whites
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh
strawberries

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the agave nectar to a boil, stirring constantly. Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 6 to 10 minutes, watching constantly and stirring occasionally, until the agave nectar darkens slightly from its original amber color, then remove from the heat and set aside.
2. In a deep bowl, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks using a handheld mixer. Be sure to push the beaters around the bowl to incorporate air into the whites. This step is important; if your egg whites are not whipped to stiff peaks, the recipe won’t work. Stop whipping as soon as the egg whites are stiff; overwhipping will result in egg whites that are dry and grainy. The foam of the whites will be stiff enough to stand up in well-defined, unwavering peaks.
3. Drizzle the warm agave nectar very slowly into the egg whites, while whipping with a handheld mixer, to keep the peaks stiff. The meringue will become pearlescent and shiny.
4.    
5. Allow to cool to room temperature, then fold the strawberries into the meringue. Use right away.

Reprinted with permission from Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour. Copyright © 2011 by Elana Amsterdam, Celestial Arts, an imprint of Ten Speed Press, a division of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA. Photo Credit: Annabelle Breakey.

Gluten-Free Cupcake Cookbook Winner

Thank you to all of you who entered and helped promote the giveaway of Elana Amsterdam's new book, Gluten-Free Cupcakes. We drew the winning name yesterday, Monday, May 9th, 2011. Krista Behymer of Lynn, MA, will receive a copy of Elana's book this week.

Here's what Lynn said when she received myemail notification:
"Oh, WOW!!! You've just made my day!! I'm thrilled."

Turns out she's been following my work since the mid 1990s. She thanked me for consistently putting such great info out. She said, "I never learned to cook as a child and your cookbooks have information about kitchen organization and meal planning that I have not seen anywhere else."

So there you have it, another happy book customer who has benefitted from by books, newsletters, blog posts, articles, and resources.

If you would like more information about my cookbooks and you'd like to order them, click here. If you'd like to subscribe to my monthly e-newsletter and get updates when I make new blog posts, check out the links on the top left corner of this page. If you'd like to visit and subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can watch new videos as I post them, click here.

Keep reading. I'll be announcing another giveway within the next week, right here!

If you'd like to order one or both of Elana's great cookbooks, click the icons below for Amazon's special offers.

Rosemary-Garlic Popovers

I recently received an amazing and unexpected gift. One of my former cooking students from the holistic nutrition program at SWIHA (Southwest Institute of Healing Arts) contacted me in late Feburary. She’d spent 8 months away from home (out of state) caring for her father who was ill. She had returned to Arizona and was recovering from minor surgery. She apologized for being out of touch and away from my classes and told me how much she missed them and the stimulation they provided and how she was wanted to help me. She offered to not only research and test recipes for me but also purchase the ingredients, prepare and critque the recipes, and then figure out the best day to meet with me to so I could taste test what she made. I'm not sure which one of us was more excited about the arrangement!

After several weeks, I settled on half a dozen recipes (most of them made with quinoa and slated for possible use in a summer cooking class at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix), then sent her the links. We met twice over a period of a few weeks. In some cases she made two versions of the recipe she so graciously tested for me. She saved me a huge amount of time. I had so much going on and didn’t know when I’d find time to test new recipes for two of the summer classes.

My favorite recipe from Anne’s testing adventure was Braided Bread with Rosemary & Garlic”... with modifications. I found the recipe on Kelly Brozyna’s Spunky Coconut Blog and her gluten-free, casein-free, often egg-free cookbook, Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts.

Photo credit: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2011

Anne is meticulous with details (maybe even more so than I am!). As a former teacher and experienced cook, she knows the importance of reading instructions several times and measuring accurately. She attempting this recipe twice and each time was unable to create anything vaguely resembling a dough that could be braided, much less shape with hands. The ingredients were wet even after being divided and refrigerated for an hour. After throwing out the first batch of batter, she decided to trying baking the batter in muffin cups, a brilliant idea!  They puffed up, turned golden brown and were savory and delicious.

A few days after sharing the tasty popovers she gave me with a couple of friends over dinner, I made the recipe myself, as written on Kelly’s blog. I produced the same pourable, unbraidable batter as Anne had and I baked it as muffins.
 
We both liked the recipe and wanted to simplify the preparation steps and tweak the instructions. I replace her homemade, overnight soaked cashew milk, which you can do if you plan ahead, with the option of unsweetened almond milk or lite coconut milk (coconut milk diluted 50:50 with water), this greatly reduced prep time.

NOTE: I think the brand of coconut flour used can make a difference in the thickness of the batter along with the size of the eggs. I made this recipe again today (5-6-11) and measured carefully but used a different brand of coconut flour. The batter looked thicker than the last time I made it (but still not thick enough ot make a shaped bread) and the popovers were more dense this time. I will have to do more experiementing to see how much variation exists between brands of coconut flour.

Photo credit: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2011

Rosemary-Garlic Popovers

Hands-on: 30 minute       Cooking: 15 to 17 minutes      Yield: 9 popovers

This recipe makes delicious, light and airy popovers that are perfect for breakfast, brunch, or with lunch or dinner. Serve them as is or dipped in olive oil or spread with real creamery butter. (See notes below for warming and moistening leftover popovers.)

Brands of coconut flour I've used include Tropical Traditions, Mid America Marketing, Tiana, Wilderness Family Naturals, and Coconut Secret. They're most economical as is the blanched almond flour in 5 pound bags. See links below for these products on Amazon.

Wet ingredients:
4 large eggs at room temp (cold eggs will harden the coconut oil)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
¾ teaspoon xanthan gum or guar gum (I prefer guar gum)
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoon coconut oil, soft or liquefied (avocado oil also works)
2 tablespoon ghee, soft or liquefied (if you tolerate it, substitute butter, or use palm shortening or avocado oil)
¼ cup cashew milk (or substitute almond milk or lite coconut milk)

Dry ingredients:
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup coconut flour (See sources above; fluff before measruing and sift if lumpy)
½ cup tapioca flour
½ cup almond meal flour (I use blanched almond flour)
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon (non-aluminum) baking powder
1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary (double if desired; I used 1 teaspoon dried, powdered rosemary)
¼ teaspoon garlic powder (double if desired! I prefer 2 cloves of fresh garlic, pressed)

1. Combine wet ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix lightly to combine.
3. Combine all ingredients. It will be wet. If desired, cover mixture and chill for 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Meanwhile, oil 9 muffin tins or line with unbleached paper liners. Fill any unused muffin tins 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up with water to prevent warping.
5. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Allow muffins to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then run a flexible spatula around the sides to loosen the muffins from the tins or turn onto a cooling rack.
7. Use olive oil for dipping or serve with butter softened at room temperature.
8. Cover leftovers and use within 1 week or freeze for longer storage. Refrigerate in warm weather.

 COOL TIP:
To reheat and moisten leftover muffins if they get dry, wrap them in a cotton or linen (not paper) napkin and place on steamer rack, cover the pot, and let steam for 3 to 4 minutes, then serve.

Source: Recipe and instructions modified from Kelly Brozyna’s Spunky Coconut Blog and her gluten-free, casein-free, often egg-free cookbook, Grain-Free Baked Goods & Desserts.

Instructions by me, Chef Rachel, The Healthy Cooking Coach, and Anne, one of my trusty assistants.  

Looking for ingredients?

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free Lime Cupcakes & Cookbook Giveaway

Last Monday I spent the first half of the day making four cupcake recipes and two frosting recipes from Elana Amsterdam’s new cookbook, Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour and taking pictures of my work. Making my food photos look like the ones created by professional food stylists will take more time than I thought! It will take a a lot more time, study, and practice.

Before I get into the details of what I’ve made, let me tell you what I like about the book:

• Great baking tips
• Recommended brands for ingredients
• Short ingredient lists
• Easy to follow recipes
• Requires fewer ingredients than grain-based, gluten-free cupcake recipes
• Beautiful photographs
• Interesting head notes above each recipe
• Yields listed at the top of each recipe
• Sweetness rating for each recipe
• It’s small, compact, easy to navigate through
• It has an index (many books do not)
• It provides a lot of flavor options for special treats

I would buy the book even if I wasn’t reviewing it. I enjoy baking with coconut and almond flour, I’m always looking for new recipe ideas, and I prefer to cook, bake, and eat a grain-free diet, saving even gluten-free grains for infrequent use.

Here’s what I made from the book so far:

• Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes (page 78)
• Marble Cupcakes (page page 27)
• Poppy Seed Cupcakes (page 67)
• Lime Cupcakes (page 55)
• Vegan Coconut Frosting (page 97)
• Vegan Chocolate Frosting (page 92)

Change it up
As usual, I made some modifications to the recipes. Since I don’t use grapeseed oil or agave nectar, I always replace the oil in Elana’s cupcake recipes with either avocado oil (a new favorite of mine), coconut oil, or real creamery butter, and the agave with honey. Normally these substitutions pose no problems. I’ve made many of Elana’s recipes that way and they’ve turned out great.

Photo credit: Rachel Albert © Copyright 2011

Switching out the oil doesn’t change the consistency of a recipe, unless you’re talking about frosting, in which case coconut oil can make it harder when refrigerated; but I didn’t change the fat or oil in her frosting recipes. This time, however, I had a particularly thick batch of raw, local honey. In two of the recipes I over-mixed the wet ingredients trying to soften the honey. In the process, I beat too much air into the Marble and Ice Cream Cone Cupcake batters, resulting in a spongy consistency. Realizing my error, I picked up a runnier honey and used it for the next two cupcakes (Lime and Poppy Seed), which created a much better, cakier texture. I baked two of the recipes in mini muffin tins to allow more people to taste more cupcakes more easily. If you do this, stay close and cut the baking time in half and check with a toothpick as you would with any baked goods.

Cupcakes companions
All week I’ve been sharing the cupcakes with friends, neighbors, and colleagues eliciting their feedback. Three of my neighbors, 2-year-old Delaney and her mom and 9-year old Abby, who I often bake with, preferred the Lime Cupcakes with Vegan Coconut Frosting. The kids also liked the Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes despite the fact that mine didn’t have the high swirls of frosting like the photos in the book. I don’t have a pastry bag for piping the frosting and I didn’t have the patience to make a facsimile with a zip top bag.

My colleagues Karen and Cathy, Karen’s husband, Pat, and her son, Dominic, rarely eat super sweet desserts. They thought the frosting overpowered the cupcakes (like me they prefer desserts that are less sweet than what most people eat). They and my hiking buddies, Harald and Inkeri, aren’t into frosting, so they preferred the barecupcakes.

My colleagues and friend, Don, and his financee, Tracy, didn’t think the cupcakes were too sweet. They liked the flavor of all of them, especially the one baked in (gluten-free) ice cream cones---a good sign give that the cones were not as crisp as they could have been had they not been sitting in my cupboard for 9 months.

My friends Heather and her husband, Jeff, would have liked a softer frosting. I plan to try some of the whipped frostings next week when I have another bake-a-thon for Don and Tracy’s potluck wedding reception. I have several more samples saved for two more friends, so their verdicts are still out. I think they’ll really like them.

And the verdict is...
The Lime Cupcakes were favored by most of my tasters. They were my favorite too!

You could win a copy of this cookbook
Click here to enter the drawing on this blog  for your chance to win a copy of Elana's cupcake cookbook.

As expected, most of my taste testers (except for the kids) noticed the spongy texture of the cupcakes whose batters I over mixed. Next time, I’ll be sure to use thinner honey or warm the dense honey by setting the jar in a bowl of hot water to soften it before measuring and mixing it into the eggs.

Recipe redux
In making the cupcakes again, I will probably cut back the sweetener in both the cupcakes and the frosting for those marked MEDIUM and HIGH on the sweetness scale if I’m baking for myself and for people who prefer things less sweet.

Photo credit right: Annabelle Breakey.

I enjoy and have made repeat performances of many of Elana’s recipes. For the ones marked high on the sweetness scale, I usually cut the sweetener back a bit. For example Elana’s amazing, grain-free, dairy-free, Chocolate Chip Brownies call for 1 1/4 cups of agave nectar. My friend Heather and I both use only 1 cup of honey in that recipe and find it just right in sweetness.

Here’s the recipe for the Lime Cupcakes with Vegan Coconut Frosting.

Lime Cupcakes

Makes 10 regular or 24 to 28 mini muffins
Sweetness: Medium

Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup blanched almond flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 large eggs
1/2 cup grapeseed oil (I use avocado oil or melted, cooled coconut oil)
1/2 cup agave nectar (I use honey instead)
2 tablespoons firmly packed lime zest, plus more to decorate (about 3 limes)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 10 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine the coconut flour, almond flour, salt, and baking soda. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, grapeseed oil (or avocado or coconut oil), agave nectar (or honey), and 2 tablespoons lime zest. Blend the wet ingredients into the coconut flour mixture with a handheld mixer until thoroughly combined.

Scoop 1/4 cup of batter into each prepared muffin cup.

Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 1 hour, then frost, sprinkle with the remaining lime zest, and serve.

My variation:

• For mini muffins: spoon batter into 24 to 28 lined mini muffin pans. Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool for 30 to 60 minutes before removing from pan.

Reprinted with permission from Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour. Copyright © 2011 by Elana Amsterdam, Celestial Arts, an imprint of Ten Speed Press, a division of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA. Photo Credit: Annabelle Breakey.”

Vegan Coconut Frosting

Makes 2 cups
Sweetness: Medium

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (canned, unsweetened, full fat) coconut milk
1/2 cup agave nectar (I use honey instead)
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1 tablespoon water
1 cup coconut oil, melted over very low heat

In a medium saucepan, bring the coconut milk and agave nectar (or honey) to a boil over medium heat. Whisk the ingredients together, then decrease the heat and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, to reduce just slightly, stirring frequently.

Reprinted with permission from Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour. Copyright © 2011 by Elana Amsterdam, Celestial Arts, an imprint of Ten Speed Press, a division of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA. Photo Credit: Annabelle Breakey.”

To buy a copy of Elana's new cupcake cookbook at a special introductory price or her Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, click on the icons below.