Tag Archives: food

Almond Milk from Scratch

19 Aug

Yes… Madelyn, lover all things dairy and cheese, has been put on a dairy-free diet for at least 30 days. 😦

And maybe you’ve found yourself in the same predicament… where most of your go-to recipes have some sort of cheese or dairy component, right?? It’s a way for us vegetarians to get some protein, no???

Nuts, and particular, ALMONDS are a great way to get some protein in you… and you usually think of adding nuts to your diet in a salad or as a garnish for a main dish or a dessert. But what about making milk out of it??? You see alternative dairy products in all major supermarkets now. But have u ever attempted to make it on your own???

It’s easier than you think…

ALMOND MILK FROM SCRATCH

About 1 cup of almonds
Water

Yep… that’s all you need. And some tools you already have in your kitchen anyways.

Start by soaking the almonds in some filtered water. I like to soak the almonds for about 1 hour to take off the skin. This is certainly not necessary, but I like my almond milk to be WHITE, just like regular cow’s milk is. After I peel the skins, I re-soak again in more filtered water. This can be from 3-4 hours to overnight. But if you will not do it in 3-4 hours, I recommend placing the soaking almonds in the fridge to prevent fermentation.

 

 

 

Gather all your equipment, just as if you were making a sesame seed horchata – a large pot with a fine sieve, a bowl to collect the ground almonds after they’ve been blended once.

  1. Place some of the almonds in the large container of your Magic Bullet or blender. Fill almost to the top with filtered water. Here I show you how much water I use.
  3. Process for a few minutes in 30 second intervals to puree the seeds as much as possible.
  4. Drain the milky almond pureed water over the sieve. Use a large spoon to move the slush around, but you don’t need to press extremely hard to release all the liquid. If you do, you’ll only push a lot of sediment into the finished “milk”. So there’s no need to use extra muscle for this. Allow gravity and a slight firm hand to do its job.
  6. Save the leftover almond slush in a bowl for re-processing. Repeat with all the never-processed almonds in the same way as before. I usually divide the original almonds into 3.   After processing all the almonds once, reprocess in the exact same way, diving it into batches, but this time after passing it through the sieve, just discard the leftover almond meal.
  7. Transfer to a bottle where you can serve the almond milk from.
  8. Chill before serving.

The almond milk will separate when standing in the fridge… but just mix well before serving.

If you want to drink the almond milk by itself… I would add about ½ cup of honey and would strain it again thru the finest sieve you can find. Almond meal is way finer than sesame seeds and there’s much more sediment than when making an horchata. Use a clean fine cotton cloth or even a coffee filter we call “media” to strain as much sediment as possible.

This is an excellent source of calcium and is great to drink by itself, in oatmeals, other hot cereals and smoothies.

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Peach Cherry Fruit Salad

17 Aug

I told you about my case of peaches and case of cherries… I also told you about my Peach and Cherry Crisp dessert that rocked my friend Walter’s world.

And, what about when you have no time to bake something? You create a fruit salad…

I discovered the wonders of ricotta cheese for breakfast already… you can use it as a base underneath some berries, you can layer it in between fruit and granola in a parfait, but you could also TOP some fruit as if it were yogurt or whipped cream.

PEACH AND CHERRY FRUIT SALAD

1 peach, peeled and cut into pieces
About 6 cherries, washed and pitted
One large dollop of ricotta cheese
About 1 tbs of raw turbinado sugar
  1. Now we just assemble… in the prettiest bowl you can find place the cut fruit and top with the dollop of ricotta.
  2. Sprinkle with raw sugar to sweeten the cheese and create a bit of sauce from the juices the fruit exude.

Wouldn’t this serve as a very pretty idea for a brunch or romantic breakfast??? Any other ideas on how to combine fruit and ricotta cheese???

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Guacamole Agrandado

15 Aug

We’re in avocado season… and there’s no way I can eat a whole avocado in slices in one sitting. Unless… It’s converted into guacamole!!!!!

My new thing with guacamole… eating it with BBQ potato chips instead of tortilla chips!!! These are the genius ideas one comes up in serendipity – when a natural doctor tells you to stay away from corn for a whole month.

And where does the “agrandado” comes from?? Agrandado in Spanish means “supersized”, like the combos in fast foods joints. We recently went to a Mexican restaurant and we wanted a small batch of pica de gallo and there were 2 options – regular and “agrandado”. I immediately though the agrandado version was simply… more quantity. But nooooooo… Agrandado meant it has pieces of queso fresco inside.

So for my sister’s recent visit, I decided to make my guacamole even BIGGER and BETTER with pieces of queso blanco del país inside… making it a Guacamole Agrandado!!!!

GUACAMOLE AGRANDADO

1 avocado, cut into small pieces
½ large tomato, peeled and finely diced
¼ medium onion, finely diced
The juice of 1 criollo lemon or lime
A drizzle of olive oil – about 1 tbs
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/3 cup of pieces of Queso Blanco del País or Mexican Queso Fresco or a mild Feta
2 tbs of fresh parsley (optional)
  1. Mix everything in a medium sized bowl.
  2. Let it stand in the fridge for a few hours so the flavors meld together.

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Goat Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms

12 Aug

My sister came for a quickie visit to Puerto Rico… And to make things easier on her and my BIL, we decided to cook up some appetizer-type food and tell everyone if they wanted to see baby Ale, all they needed to do was to stop by my mom’s house.

I didn’t want to cook something and have it re-heated… I though stuffed mushrooms would be perfect because I could stuff them at home and cook them in batches as people would visit and decided they wanted something to nibble on.

The idea worked out perfectly because I did way too many… and we ended up dividing the leftovers between my mom and I for lunch the next day. Great make ahead idea…

 

 

GOAT CHEESE STUFFED MUSHROOMS

1 large package of white stuffing mushrooms
1/2 medium onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, minced or grated on a microplane
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
5 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped in small pieces – make sure they’re made without sulfites as a preservative
1/4 cup of vegetable broth
½ cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese, organic preferably- divided
½ cup crumbled goat cheese
1/2 cup of loosely-packed fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
  1. Clean the mushrooms well using a damp paper towel. Remove the stems and chop them into small pieces and set aside. Reserve the caps for later use.
  2. In a small saucepan, heat the vegetable broth to a simmer and add the sundried tomatoes. Turn off the stove and let the tomatoes just sit in the hot broth for a few minutes to help them reconstitute a bit.
  3. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, pour a little olive oil and sauté the onions, garlic and the mushrooms stems you already chopped. Cook until the mushrooms are browned. Season with the thyme, stripping the leaves from the stems, salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to cook some more to evaporate a bit, about 5 more minutes. Remove from pan into a bowl and allow cooling a bit.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix together the cooled mushroom stem/onion mixture with the sun-dried tomatoes, breadcrumbs, goat cheese, ½ the parmesan cheese, and chopped fresh parsley. Drizzle some olive oil if you see the mix a bit dry… but chances are it’s not.
  5. Preheat oven to 425F.
  6. In a large baking dish drizzled with a bit of olive oil, place all the mushrooms stuffed with the mixture we just made. Don’t push the stuffing too much into the mushrooms cavity, but do heap any additional stuffing generously on top of mushrooms. No need to discard or leave any stuffing for future use.
  7. Take the extra parmesan we saved and add a small mound on top of each mushrooms. I usually drizzle a bit of olive oil and sprinkle some additional salt and pepper to season the mushrooms themselves.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the mushrooms looked cooked and cheese on top is golden brown.

Serve immediately…

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Peach Cherry Crisp

9 Aug

I raided Costco the other day and bought a whole case of peaches… and a case of cherries. All, just for myself. Well, I did share some with my mom when she came over to visit, but before she came over I was puzzled on what would I do with a case of peaches all for me.

I have made already this plum and blueberry crisp… so I tried the same concept with peaches and cherries to see if it would work. The results??? It DID!!!!

When I asked a bunch of you on FaceBook what should I make with these peaches, Adriana recommended a peach pecan something… that gave me the idea to add pecans to the crisp topping. A hit!!!

 

PEACH CHERRY CRISP

2 medium peaches, peeled and cut into pieces
About 14 cherries, pitted and cut into pieces
3 tsps cornstarch
¼ cup raw sugar
The juice of ¼ lemon
Pinch of ground cinnamon
 
For the crisp topping
¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour
¼ cup rolled oats
3 tbs butter
¼ cup raw sugar
2 handfuls of pecans… about ¼ cup
Butter Spray
  1. In a glass baking dish, sprayed with butter spray, add the cut fruit. Add the cornstarch, sugar, lemon zest and juice and finally the cinnamon. Stir well to combine.
  2. Pre—heat oven to 350F.
  3. In the bowl of a food processor combine the crisp topping ingredients – flour, oats, butter, sugar and pecans. Pulse a few times for all the ingredients to combine and form a sand-like consistency. If you want to make this crisp gluten-free or even dairy free, just follow the instructions for the crisp topping I use here. It’ll work all the same.
  4. Place crisp topping over the fruits in the glass dish. You can be generous.
  5. Bake in oven for about 45 minutes, until the topping is golden and you see the fruit juices starting to bubble a bit. If you would like to avoid spills in your oven or toaster over, place the glass dish over a sheet pan to catch any drippings.

I did this the other night for a dinner with my friend Walter… he is not into sweets and he had seconds. I hope that meant it tasted awesome!!!!

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