Lemon Lavender No-Bake Cheesecake

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Maybe it was winter, but my cooking/recipe slump feels like it is finally ending and I’m feeling the inspiration! Maybe the summer like weather here the past week has helped? 90 degrees in the first part of May. What!?

While re-testing a recipe for an upcoming event for work (I’m making my Lemon Lavender Energy Bites), I brought in the samples to co-workers and they correctly noted that the energy bite dough would make an awesome crust for cheesecake. I made a mental note of this and then went forward to try and determine if a baked or no-bake cheesecake would be best for this. No-bake was the obvious answer since the crust is also meant to be mainly raw. The filling is slightly tangier than a normal cheesecake, so you could just call it a tart, but I’m going to stick to my guns on this and say cheesecake. 🙂

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The base of the crust is ground, roasted pistachios and almond butter (in addition to the flavors of lemon and lavender) but a small difference from the regular energy bites is that I incorporated some coconut oil and less almond butter. I think the coconut oil hardens up a bit better and allows the crust to keep more of its shape when cooled. (Ignore the crumbs below – I was a bit over zealous in diving in for a bite.)

A bit about the food grade lavender. I get mine from a local farm, Los Poblanos, but the great thing now is that they ship nation-wide and have a whole bunch of other boutique body products. And another side note – their restaurants is super super delicious – I’ve been for breakfast, brunch, and dinner and always want to go back. They built a new restaurant onsite and just re-opened in the new place within the last year. If you have a chance to visit  Albuquerque, NM, I totally recommend visiting their Farm Shop for the lavender and restaurant, Campo, just to eat… and I suppose stay overnight in their inn too if you can.

But back to the food.

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Lemon Lavender No-Bake Cheesecake

Makes 2-3 mini cheesecakes or one larger pie

Ingredients

Lemon Lavender Crust

  • 1/2 c raw, unsalted, pistachios (meats, shelled)
  • 1 tsp grated lemon
  • 1/2 cup almond or coconut flour
  • 1 T turbinado sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 T creamy almond butter (do not use peanut butter – it will overpower the other flavors)
  • 3 T coconut oil
  • 1 tsp whole culinary lavender (add an additional 1/2 tsp based on strength of lavender flavor)
  • 1/4 c honey
  • 1/2 tsp lemon extract
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Cheesecake

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/3 c powdered sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1/2 c plain Greek yogurt, room temperature
  • 1/2 c heavy cream
  • 1/2 -3/4 tsp whole culinary lavender, crushed
  • 1 tsp lemon zest
  • Favorite lemon curd for topping

Directions

Crust

  1. Place nuts and flour in the food processor first. I used a 2 cup food processor or small option if using a larger processor. Pulse until nuts resemble a course meal.
  2. Add in sugar, salt, lavender, and extracts. Process for another 3-5 second or until well combined.
  3. Lastly, blend in almond butter, coconut oil, and honey. Pulse until well combined and the mixture holds its shape when pressed together. Add additional honey 1 T at a time until mixture holds a shape without crumbling.
  4. Divide the crust mixture between your three mini spring form pans or press into the bottom of a glass pie plate for a larger dessert.
  5. Place in refrigerator to cool while making the filling.

Filling

  1. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until light and creamy. Beat in sugar, lavender, lemon zest, and salt until evenly incorporated.
  2. Add in the Greek yogurt and beat until evenly incorporated.
  3. In a separate bowl, whip heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture with a spatula.
  4. Add your filling to the mini spring form pans or pie plate, evenly spreading the mixture over the top.
  5. Cover and refrigerate for at least 5 hours. Served chilled, topped with lemon curd and sprinkles of lavender and additional lemon zest if desired.

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Lavender and lemon just scream spring and summer to me, but when I went to the store looking for some lemon curd (and you can totally make your own BTW), I was told it was seasonal – Thanksgiving. Hmmm. For me lemon can be used all year round, but is particularly bright like summer. I guess you learn something new everyday. 🙂

Enjoy and I’m glad to be back in the realm of creating recipes again!

 

Peach and Ricotta Crostini

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It might be fall, but I’m still obsessing over peaches, especially the ones I can grow in my own back yard! That’s right, we have a fabulous peach tree that grow giant peaches – like the kind you need to grab with two hands. Even though I massively hacked and pruned the tree earlier that year (like I thought nothing would grow back and we’d have this ugly stumpy looking tree), but it still branched out all over the place and we had peaches everywhere – even after C took half off at the start of their growing. We removed some so the others get more nutrients and grow bigger.

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So after having a refrigerator full of peaches, I thought why not do some sort of appetizer with them – I had some left over ricotta and we always have honey, so a super easy snack was born. 🙂

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Peach and Ricotta Crostini

Serves as many as you’d like

Ingredients

  • 1 long baguette
  • Part skim ricotta (it has more protein)
  • Fresh peaches
  • Honey
  • Aged balsamic vinegar

Directions

  1. Slice the baguette on a diagonal and arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet.
  2. Toast baguette slices under the broiler for 30 seconds to a minute or until toasted to desired toastiness.
  3. Slices peaches (can leave skins on or off if you prefer).
  4. Spread each toast with 1-2 T of ricotta.
  5. Arrange peach sliced on toast and drizzle with your choice of honey or balsamic vinegar. If you’re using vinegar, make sure to have the kind that is aged and really think. If it’s not already thick, you can place it in a pot on the stove over a simmer and reduce down to desired syrup consistency.

Eat and enjoy! Preferably with some wine.

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It’s my 4th summer in this house and each year I’m enjoying the fruit produced more and more – peaches, apples, and figs. After finishing the creation of the patio and fencing around it, I’m also enjoying the backyard more and more – when I’m out there, it really does feel like home. When everything is put away (a wind storm tore down our temporary pergola), I’ll post a video of the space – we have a waterfall too and the sound of falling water is just so relaxing!

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Cheers to the ending of summer and the beginning of fall!

Everyday Arugula Salad

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I recently made this salad for a small wedding reception we held at our home. I was looking for something light yet super tasty at the same time and satisfied the need for something green with all the smoked meats we had. And since the party, I’ve been wanting to eat this every day! It goes with basically every meal, IMHO.

I also neglected to get any pictures of the party or food set-up! Who am I? Maybe it’s just me trying to live in the moment more? Or for a more positive spin, I was just too involved in the people who were there to think about taking pictures – although they would have been nice to have after the fact.

At least I remade one of the salads to capture these shots! And did remake the Raspberry and Whipped Hazelnut Tart for a couple of the desserts. 🙂

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This type of lightly dressed tangy greens reminds me of the salads we ate in France with just about every meal. It’s a great way to eat your greens and get all of the nutrients they provide without needing to be dosed in Ranch or smothered in so many additional toppings the healthiness becomes obsolete.

Everyday Arugula Salad

Serves 1 or a whole table

Ingredients – in no particular quantities

  • Arugula
  • Marcona almonds
  • Golden raisins
  • Shaved parmesan cheese

Vinaigrette

  • 3 T Olive oil
  • 1 T Lemon juice
  • 1/2 -1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Place desired amount of arugula in a bowl.
  2. Sprinkle with almonds, raisins, and cheese. (If making a bowl for one, measure about 1 T of each topping – maybe double the nuts.)
  3. Measure vinaigrette ingredients into a mason jar, seal lid, and shake to combine.
  4. Lightly drizzle desired amount of dressing onto salad and toss to combine. Leaves should be very, very lightly dressed.

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Sometimes simple is just better.

 

Raspberry and Whipped Hazelnut Tart

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Has anyone been watching the Great British Baking Show or the Great British Bake Off if you’re from the UK? I know we’re sort of behind on the times, but Netflix just released their first season of it last year (which was actually season/series 4?) and now they’ve added 2 & 3 (or 5 &6).  C and I did some binge watching and after finishing what Netflix had, sort of freaked out that there were three seasons prior to what we’d seen and had to get them to watch. Well…. to wrap things up, if you haven’t seen it, watch it now. And their opening cake was somewhat of an inspiration for the flavors of this tart.

A couple weeks ago I made hazelnut butter. And while it was really delicious on it’s own on toast, etc. I thought, what if it was a pie or fake-ish cheesecake? And Ta-Da! Idea born.

While the filling was a no-brainer for me with the tofu – since the same style works so well with peanut butter dip, I had a more difficult time trying to decide whether to do a fully “raw” tart (which you could totally do with this crust) or something more like a short crust pastry tart. I opted to go with the short crust pastry type and used inspiration from Sally’s Baking Addiction to make a pretty standard nutty pastry crust.

Raspberry and Whipped Hazelnut Tart

Serves 12-16

Ingredients

Toasted Hazelnut Crust

  • 3/4 c raw hazelnuts
  • 1 c all-purpose flour (or flour of choice)
  • 2 T sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 c butter, cold and cubed
  • 3 T ice water

Whipped Hazelnut Filling

  • 1 ½ c creamy hazelnut butter
  • 14 oz firm tofu (1 package)
  • 3 T sugar or to taste
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • pinch salt
  • 3-4 T vanilla soy milk (or other milk of choice)

Raspberry Sauce

  • 1 c organic raspberry jam
  • 2 T water
  • 1 c fresh raspberries

Directions

  1. If making your own hazelnut butter, I suggest you do that first before moving on to the rest of the recipe. Store bought is also fine, but difficult to find, and homemade is just that much better!
  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spread hazelnuts out onto a foil or parchment lined baking sheet. Toast until slightly darkened, about 7 minutes. Watch these like a hawk! Allow to cool down for 5 minutes. Leave oven on to bake the crust.
  3. To remove the skins of the hazelnuts (they’re kind of bitter), lay a clean tea towel on your counter, and scoop the hot hazelnuts, into a pile in the center of the towel (take care due to the high heat of the nuts). Bring the four corners of the tea towel together and gather it up in one hand, so that all of your hazelnuts are scooped up in the bottom of the tea towel. Using your other hand, squish the bottom and the sides of the tea towel so that all the hazelnuts are rubbing up against each other. Do this for a couple minutes until most of the skins are removed.
  4. Separate out the skins from the nuts. I use a slotted serving spoon – it’s big enough to get more than a few nuts at a time and the holes are small enough that the nuts won’t fall through but the skins will.
  5. For the crust:Using a food processor, pulse the toasted hazelnuts, the flour, sugar, and salt together until it reaches the consistency of coarse meal. Add the cubes of cold butter and pulse until the mixture turns into pea-sized crumbs. I used frozen butter since I was working in a warm kitchen – you don’t want it to get too soft.
  6. Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, slowly stir in 3 Tablespoons of ice water. You only want to add enough water to bring the dough somewhat together. Using floured fingers or the bottom of a flat and lightly floured measuring cup, press the dough evenly into a 9 inch tart or pie pan. (If you’re making smaller tarts, depending on the number of pans you have… I had three smaller spring form pans, reduce the recipe by one quarter.) You want it extremely tight in the pan. You’ll need to use baking beans or pie weights for the next step, so line the crust with aluminum foil or parchment paper and add pie weights or dry baking beans.
  7. Bake at 350F (with pie weights) for 18-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack so it can slightly cool as you prepare the filling.
  8. For the filling: In a clean food processor, blend together the hazelnut butter, tofu (drained), sugar, vanilla, salt, and soy milk until it comes to a super creamy and fluffy consistency.
  9. Spoon filling into tart crust, creating a slight ridge around the outside that can hold in the filling, and place in refrigerator while preparing the topping.
  10. For the sauce: Mix the raspberry jam/preserves with 1-2 T water. Using a wire mesh sieve, press the mixture into the mesh to collect the seedless topping below. (You can also choose to make your our raspberry jam, I just find it to be a little bit of a time saver to by your own and tweak it.)
  11. Spread the raspberry sauce over the top of the tart, staying within the “dam”. Place in tart in refrigerator to chill and set – 4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, line the edge of the tart with raspberries (bottoms up).

This might be my heaven. Luckily a few bites are already pretty filling, so it’s easily shared. 🙂

After making this amazing tart, I find out C doesn’t like hazelnuts. WHAT!? What crazy person doesn’t like hazelnuts? So not wanting to eat the equivalent of an entire tart by myself, I brought two of the small tarts to work. And they were a complete hit! That creamy nutty filling, the tart raspberries, and crunchy crust is what my summer dreams are made of.

Even though the recipe looks long and maybe a bit overwhelming, I promise that if done in steps, it’s super easy and almost completely fool proof.

Tofu is one of my favorite additions to all things creamy that need some sort of structure. What are some of your favorite “hidden” ingredients?

Creamy Roasted Hazelnut Butter

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About five or six years back, I was in a Middle East specialty grocery store and found a jar of hazelnut butter.  Not just the normal Nutella themed chocolate and hazelnut, but straight up hazelnut butter and it was delicious! Since that time I have yet to locate it in another grocery store and I’m too lazy and/or cheap to buy it online when it’s so easy to make!

Basically, so stupidly easy I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner, but to be fair, I was on a regular old peanut butter kick and then cashew butter – both also delicious.

Creamy Hazelnut Butter

Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients

  • 1 pound raw hazelnuts
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 T sugar, honey, or agave
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Preheat over to 350F.
  2. Arrange hazelnuts on a foil lined baking tray and roast in the over for 7-10 minutes or until a light golden brown.
  3. Let cool just slightly and transfer to a clean towel. To remove the skins of the hazelnuts (they’re kind of bitter), scoop the hot hazelnuts into a pile in the center of the towel (take care due to the high heat of the nuts). Bring the four corners of the tea towel together and gather it up in one hand, so that all of your hazelnuts are scooped up in the bottom of the tea towel. Using your other hand, squish the bottom and the sides of the tea towel so that all the hazelnuts are rubbing up against each other. Do this for a couple minutes until most of the skins are removed.
  4. Separate out the skins from the nuts. I use a slotted serving spoon – it’s big enough to get more than a few nuts at a time and the holes are small enough that the nuts won’t fall through but the skins will.
  5. Place warm nuts* in a food processor and grind until smooth. Add in vanilla, salt, and sweetener (if desired) and continue to blend until a smooth butter is formed – yes, it should be kind of runny. If it hasn’t yet reached that consistency, just be patient, it will get there.

*Warm nuts tend to work a little better and faster by making the oil more available during the processing.

You can keep it stored in an air tight container. I like mason jars because you can easily see through them and they store about 2 cups perfectly.

My hazelnut butter is a little on the darker side because I toasted the nuts just a bit extra. If you like you’re lighter, just watch very closely and removed when they’ve gathered just a hint of golden. You can also make the butter raw, but won’t be able to remove the skins. Just a bit of trade offs. I also added a touch of sweetness to mine because I was trying to get as close as possible to the flavor I found in that Middle East grocery (which was akin to the chocolate hazelnut without the chocolate, but still some sweetness).

Stick around for a to-die-for dessert coming to the blog in the next couple of weeks that features this fantastic spread – hazelnutty goodness.

What are your favorite nuts butters? Do you stick with the classic peanut butter or almond or branch out into walnut, pecan, cashew, and hazelnut?

Roasted Poblano and Cauliflower “Cream” Soup

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It’s January and it’s cold. Of course being winter, that’s not really surprising, but I’m always unpleasantly surprised whenever the temp drops below freezing. And with all of the chill, it has me thinking about soup – and why not a hot soup that is spicy as well. 🙂 Win, win?

When looking for more flavors of New Mexico to incorporate into cooking classes at work, I had an inspiration for a healthier poblano cream soup. When looking for an option for a cream base alternative, cauliflower immediately popped into my head. Maybe cauliflower is still a hit vegetable in 2017? It’s so versatile – everything from pizza crust to “rice” to cream soups. And you definitely won’t miss the full fat – the cauliflower puree is so creamy it still feels just as decadent with less than 200 calories for 2 cups – or about 1/8 of the recipe.

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They say you love things more if you’d put a lot of work into it or paid a high price. I went into a battle for this soup – while chopping the poblano peppers, some capsaicin sprayed into my eye and boy did it BURN. I flushed my eye out for a good 20 minutes until it felt even remotely back to normal. Blood, sweat, and so many tears.

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Roasted Poblano and Cauliflower “Cream” Soup

Makes about 8 – 2cup servings

Ingredients

  • 3-4 poblano chiles, roasted (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 c white wine
  • 1 large head of cauliflower (~8 cups), cut up
  • 4 c chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1-2 c additional water as needed
  • 1/2 c cream or half & half (optional)
  • 2 ribs of celery, chopped
  • 4 c corn, I used frozen, but fresh is also great!
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/4-1/2 tsp white pepper
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 bay leaves

Directions

  1. If roasting your own poblanos, there are a couple of options – you can grill them on an outdoor grill, under your oven broiler, or over the flame of a gas stove top. If using your gas range, the large burner works best – place 2 poblanos at a time over the flames, rotating when one side gets sightly charred with tongs. Set chiles aside to cool until ready to use.
  2. In a large pot with a bit of oil on the bottom, sauté the onions until translucent and soft.
  3. Add in the garlic and wine. Cook to reduce the wine until almost all has evaporated.
  4. Add in the cauliflower and broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until cauliflower is very soft.
  5. While your cauliflower is cooking, in a separate pan, cook the celery until soft.
  6. While the celery cooks, remove the seeds from the chiles (use gloves and eye protection if you have it) and chop into whatever size pieces you like best. Set aside momentarily.
  7. To the celery pan, add the corn and dried spices. Cook until corn is soft, then add in the chopped/diced poblanos. Cook until warm or “cream” soup is done.
  8. Moving back to your large pot, once the cauliflower is soft it’s time to puree.
  9. In three batches, blend all of the large pot contents – adding additional water to make it the consistency you want. Depending on the power of your blender, you may need to add even more additional water or other liquid in order to puree.
  10. Once the contents is all pureed, dump everything back into the large pot and add you cream or half & half.
  11. Add the corn and poblano mixture to the cauliflower cream base, stir to combine and bring the temperature back up to almost boiling.
  12. Garnish with green onion, parsley, or any other large pieces of the roasted poblano.

Nutrition Based on 1/8 of recipe with Half & Half (~2 cup serving)
Calories 174, Total Fat 3g, Sodium 233mg, Cholesterol 6mg, Carbs 32g, Fiber 6g, Protein 7g

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I also love, love, love this new patterned tray I found at World Market – not sure why I hadn’t been there in so long, but it took all my restraint not to walk out with an entire cart of items. But I did practice restraint and managed to make it out with just this tray and the ottoman it’s sitting on.

Stay warm out there!

Wild Rice Salad with Honey Mustard Viniagrette 

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As I was exploring Minnesota my internet wasn’t the greatest, so I didn’t hit publish on this post until I returned. I wanted to share one of my favorite Minnesota dishes – Wild Rice Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette.  I first had this salad at the Douglas Lodge at Itasca State Park (the headwaters of the Mississippi) and then proceeded to buy their cookbook because it had this recipe! I have preceded to change it a little and make it my own and my mom continues to make this salad every time I come to visit or we get together in the summer. It may seem like a strange combination of food and flavors, but believe me it works pretty darn well. Celery adds crunch, grapes add sweetness, rice is chewy, and the almond can be toasted too for more flavor enhancement. Wait, I almost forgot about the water chestnuts and I’m the one who throws a fit if they get left out of the actual salad – they add a refreshing crunch although not super strong in flavor.

Wild Rice Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette
Serves 6 or 4 large dinner salads

Ingredients

  • 1 c dry wild rice
  • 2 c water
  • 1 c halved red grapes
  • 1/2 c craisins or raisins
  • 1/2 c sliced water chestnuts
  • 1 c chopped celery
  • 1/4 c sliced almonds

Honey Mustard Dressing

  • 1/4 c cider vinegar
  • 1 T spicy ground mustard or other grainy mustard variety
  • 1/4 c honey
  • 1/4 c olive oil
  • Pinch of Cayenne (optional)
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Pour all salad dressing into a mason jar and shake vigorously. Set aside until ready to use.
  2. Prepare wild rice: Rinse rice prior to cooking.  Bring wild rice and water to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook until grains have split and rice is chewy but not hard. Rinse rice in cold water and drain.
  3. Combine the rest of the ingredients and mix well.  Then add in rice and enough dressing to coat (you will not use all of it the first time. The salad gets better as it sits, but you might need to add more dressing over time as the rice and raisins tends to soak up the dressing.

Just a nice short and sweet recipe!

Although this morning I’m exhausted, vacation was a much needed break where I really tried to unplug (didn’t look at work email once!) from my normal routine, see family and friends I haven’t seen in years, and really remember what’s important in life. Now it’s back to work and back to reality for me.  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Black Bean Mocha Brownies

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Achilles heel? Kryptonite? Whatever way you like to phrase your weakness, brownies are mine. I can turn away from cake; I can turn away from cookies; I can even turn away from ice cream, but put a brownie in front of me and I crumble… especially the fudgy brownies. And if they’re the crunchy top brownies, I’m finished, vanquished. With that being the case, I’m alway on the look out for a healthier brownie version; and while I’ve found some great options with almond flour gluten free brownies, pumpkin, and a few others, black bean will always be my favorite. Beans in brownies? Yes it may seem crazy, but is so so good. I stumbled upon this recipe probably 6 years ago or so – which means I honestly can’t pinpoint where the original recipe came from.

While there are a lot of black bean brownie recipes out there, this is by far my favorite and the easiest in my opinion. And because we’re replacing the oil and eggs with the beans, depending on what brownie mix you pick, they’re definitely vegetarian but can also easily be vegan as well.

Over the years I’ve ramped up the coffee in the recipe to really make them more of a mocha. 🙂 I also started experimenting with cold brew coffee, but you can use just strong black coffee or even espresso instead.

Black Bean Mocha Brownies

Serves 16-20

Ingredients

  • 1 box chocolate brownie mix with chocolate chips (the chips in there make a real difference, I use Ghiraradelli), or another rich mix
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 c cold brew coffee or other strong coffee
  • 2 tsp Vanilla
  • 1/4 c additional water or coffee

Directions

  1. To puree the black beans, process in a food processor with 1/4 cup of cold brew coffee until very smooth and you don’t see large pieces of bean skin (hull?).
  2. Then mix with the rest of ingredients, remaining coffee, and last additional 1/4 cup water or coffee (depending on how much mocha flavor you want) until batter is your desired consistency. Adding a little less water will help with the texture, but the full 1/4 cup are guaranteed to make the brownies extra fudgy.
  3. Follow the directions on the brownie box, baking at about 325 for 35-40 minutes; you want to undercook them a little bit so they’re not dry.
  4. Bake in an 8×8 pan, and they’re still pretty thick. I typically use a 9×9 pan because my brain works on size of the top of the brownie and doesn’t always register how thick it is when it comes to portion sizes.

Holy yum! And I don’t feel as guilty eating one of these a day (until the pan is finished)… or maybe two? But in order to avoid the dreadful task of having to eat theses all by yourself because your partner in life, food, and fun can’t reconcile that these delicious treats are made with beans – I suggest you share with another group of fine people.

Enjoy!