Vegan Basil Pesto

We needed a Vegan Basil Pesto for the Pizza on Joel's birthday. The store nearby was out of Basil Pesto, so Joel decided to make his very own, from scratch. We happened to have a recipe in our miscellaneous drawer in the kitchen. It's a recipe from Whole Foods Market, printed as part of the Health Starts Here program.

The following pictures demonstrate the process of the recipe as Joel made it the other day. One of the photos is the recipe itself. Joel followed it to the tie. Only thing he did that was not mentioned in the recipe is that he had soaked the walnuts for about 3-4 hours in Celtic Sea Salt brine to remove phytates from the nut and to hydrate the nut - a process that brings the nut to life. After all, animals receive more nourishment from living food, since life gives life.

Paleo Cauliflower Pizza Crust with Veggies

I never thought I would love cauliflower as much as I do now. For the past few weeks, I have been craving for a pizza, but I wanted a gluten free crust.

One day, while I was doing laundry, I received an email of recipes from a newsletter I subscribed to, and in one of them was a cauliflower pizza crust, which caught my attention. It was very simple and easy. I was so excited, I turned to look at Joel, showed him the recipe and said, "We're making this!!!"

The newsletter is directed towards people interested in the Paleo lifestyle. Paleo comes from the word "Paleolithic"  and it denotes the period of human evolution that began 2.5 million years ago and ended at the agricultural revolution. This diet, that many people follow, is based upon the notion that humans have evolved through a lifestyle of hunting and gathering. What agriculture brought was the movement into farming practices and the propagation of crops and foods, that humans originally didn't consume.

Paleo is basically eating whole unprocessed foods. For instances, lean meat, poultry, seafood, organic vegetables and fruits, as well as nuts and seeds. At least what a hunter and gatherer would eat.

CRUST

2 cups ground raw cauliflower flourettes (about 1 small cauliflower) 

¾ cups almond flour (may need to add more flour for doughy texture)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon fresh basil, chopped or ground basil spice

½ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon sea salt 

A few grinds of fresh ground pepper  

TOPPING

Pesto Sauce or Sundried Tomato sauce *pizza base* (we used Bolani brand)

1/2 yellow Onion

2 cloves of garlic 1/2 bundle of Spinach

small broccoli Florettes

1/2 bundle of kale

4 carrots chopped

4 Crimini Mushrooms

Mixed Greek Olives

Whole red bell pepper chopped

1 whole zucchini chopped

2 tbsp Ghee

DIRECTIONS

Making the Crust

Preheat oven 450 degrees.

Cut up cauliflower into small florets and add into food processor until small pieces.

Take 2 cups of cauliflower from the food processor and put it into a bowl.

Add almond flour, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, salt, black peper and eggs into bowl and mix it all together.

Put mixture in a pizza pan and flat it out and put it in the oven

Bake for 25-30 min

Take the crust out when it is golden brown on top.

Spread pesto on top of the crust

Making the Topping 

Get a pan warm it up about high to med heat and add about 2 tbsp of coconut oil in the pan.

Cut up onions and garlic

once the coconut oil is melted  add onions and garlic

Cut up carrots, spinach, kale, broccoli, red bell pepper, zucchini, and mushrooms, then add into the pan, let it steamed by putting a lid on pan.

Let it steam for 25min.

Keep an eye on it by mixing

the veggies now and then. 

After the crust comes out of the oven, add pesto or tomato sauce as the base, then incorporate add the veggies on top of the crust and spread out evenly

Add cut up mix greek olives on top of the pizza pie

 

Coconut Flour Brownies with Pecans

 

Who doesn't like brownies? right?! It goes good with everything. I started making my first brownies in Israel, though back then I had made it with 1-2 cups of sugar, I have since weaned off of sugar and have been experimenting with lifestyles that involve delicate balancing of tastes and the acquiring of an appetite. 

The source of sugar in this recipe is from dates. Although Tapioca flour is a source of starch, we now know that all starch is converted into simple sugar when undergoing nutrient mining in the digestive canal. This means that this meal contains a fair of glycemic content. However, with the presence of coconut oil, sugar's quickening actions are slowed down, and instead, they trickle in gently.

The coconut flour is a good source of fibers. When fiber enters the small intestines, bacteria can feed on it and colonize. Coconut attracts beneficial microbes, that are friendlier internally, but also retains a very large water volume. The fibers can soak up a lot of water, so ample hydration, such as tea or juice with the brownie, would compensate on water loss. Sufficient fiber in the diet aids in toxin elimination, as toxins are trapped within the fibers retention forces and are carried out with the stool. 

Water is a natural laxative. Drinking water with your food hydrates you, and also widens the lumen with aqueous consistency. Water acts as a coolant for organs, and as a space for biochemical mining to occur. A dry meal is dehydrating, as the body needs to flush lots of water for food digestion into the digestive canal. Food must continue at all times towards the exit, otherwise it putrefies and causes toxemia. When toxemia has been established, constipation occurs and the overheating of the organs. Consequently, the body compensates on the poisoning of the blood, by expelling it from the skin pores - the only other large elimination organ.

Rashes and acne rage, as the toxins are being released out of the skin onto the acid mantle and skin surface. Taking a sea salt bath can deeply nourish the skin and help with toxin elimination, as it is a huge pressure release as the bath is a full body diffusion. Capillaries open for water ways to welcome the aqueous environment, and facilitate the active transportation of toxins out of the body and the transport of micro-nutrients inwards.

Why Soaked?

The soaked Pecans are the awesome part. Hydrating a seed prior to baking it and eating it is a wise thing to do. All grains, legumes, nuts and seeds come with protective mechanisms to ensure the survival of the next generation. Those measures are symbolized by the presence of toxins (lectins) and digestive inhibitors, that when introduced internally they can harm from within. A seed is a pod, that is about to burst to life when adequate hydration, temperature and pH are present. When they undergo germination, they release those protection mechanisms in favor of growth behavior. Growth behavior expresses itself as enzymes and accessibility to nutrient reserves.

This has been in the making for a while. As I made lots of coconut milk from dry shredded coconut, I would dehydrate the coconut pulp in the oven, mill it into flour and save it in my pantry. Well, I now have too much coconut flour to handle and I had to make something out of it. Behold the perfect coconut flour brownies...!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Coconut flour
• 1/4 cup Tapioca flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Backing Soda
• 1 whole baking bar of Organic 100% Dark Chocolate

• 7 soaked Medjool dates
  or 1/2 cup RAW Coconut Nectar
• Two (2) handful soaked Pecans
   
• 3 Eggs (whites and yolks separated; see instructions)
• 1/2 cup Coconut Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Prepare 2-4 ahead of time and start soaking the pecans and dates in water. Add a pinch of salt to accelerate the w
ater absorption by the pecans. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place dry ingredients in food processor and blend.
That includes both flours, salt, baking soda and chocolate bar.

Then, once they are mixed together,
add soaked dates one at a time while the processor is running.

Then separate the egg yolk from the white;
place the three egg yolks in with the mix
and in a separate bowl - whip the whites until achieving a Firm Peak.

Once you have achieved a firm peak,
fold the stiff whites with the dark chocolate flour batter
slowly and gentle, enough to preserve the foamy structure of the whites.

Rinse and add the pecans to the mixture.
Oil up a 9x9 baking tray with ghee or coconut oil.
Add the complete mixture to the baking tray and bake for:

25 MINUTES

After 25 minutes,

check readiness with a toothpick.

If toothpick comes out completely dry and clean,

then you take out the brownies and let cool.

Goes wonderful with Ice Cream.

I used Coconut Bliss's Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge.

I would otherwise make it myself with frozen fruits.

Tell me how it turned out for you...!

Joel D. Jacobson

Hydrating Cumberland Juice

Seeing that it is now the spring, and that lots of high water volume foods are growing and about to become available, I thought it is time to share my hydrating juice. Those detox juices are meant for a certain purpose, such as jump starting your detox mechanisms... since detox symptoms, like withdrawals, are not the most pleasant thing to experience while out at the beach or hiking on a trail, a hydrating drink is excellent for quenching your thirst signals, while the body receives adequate nutrients. 

Ever since Deanna had started self mastering Ayurveda I have learned a bit about nutrition from an ancient Indian perspective. According to my body type, my dominant dosha is pitta, and accordingly, most foods that I should eat are high in water content and have cooling properties. Unlike a Kapha dosha, which is what Deanna's body type is, she does better on a spice-rich meal. 

Furthermore, I am reading a book called "Your Body's Many Cries for Water" by Dr. Batmanghelidj, who explains that most diseases of the human body are caused by water deprivation or "Dehydration" mechanisms. The body requires water as the primary key nutrient in transporting other nutrients, as well as making nutrients available for absorption and distribution. 

The name Cumberland came to me while walking past a street in San Francisco by the same name. Cucumbers are very hydrating and contributing to pitta balance. Let's get the juicer out and get this juice going!

Serving Size: 1 Full Quart Jar

Ingredients:

• Two (2) Large Cucumbers
• Half (1/2) small-medium Red Cabbage
• Three (3) Celery Stalks
• One (1) Apple

Note: Since  the apple and cucumbers repeatedly have issues going through a juicer, due to their low fiber content, placing them first and then letting the juicer bite at a celery stalk, helps get the apple and cucumber pieces moving. 

Remember, 

- Water on its own bypasses the stomach and goes straight into the small intestines.

- Salts help metabolize water (Sodium retains water, Magnesium draws water into the cell etc.)

- The first organ in the body to be affected by dehydration is the brain, that is why a headache or dizziness is the first indicator of dehydration.

- A dry mouth is the LAST sign to indicate water shortages in the body.

Final Tip!

For the Cumberland Juice, 

you can mix a quarter to a half a cup of the juice

with 3/4 to a half cup of pure water,

which can then save you on the juice

and hydrate you a whole lot more.

The logic behind this...

...is that you mix the nutrients responsible 

for water absorption and distribution

with more water volume,

that way you get the chief keys 

to open up the gates for water 

to nourish and cool the cells.

Let me know how it turned out for you :) !

The strainer is used to capture any fibrous matter that made its way into the juice. 

The goal of juicing is to remove the hard-to-digest fiber, that would normally extend digestion in order to squeeze nutrients out, and instead supply a high water content and nutrient-rich juice, that would bypass stomach digestion and easily nourish the cells.

The fiber can be stored in bags in the freezer for later use, such as in the making of crackers.