Instead Foods

A couple of years ago my sister was going through a phase where she only wanted to eat hot wings. OK, so that phase has lasted up until the present (we've gone to Fire On the Mountain, THE place to get wings in Portland, OR twice in the last five weeks), but it kind of used to be worse. When she was trying to loose weight her friend suggested she make "hot wing salads" of baked chicken breasts over lettuce with hot sauce and blue cheese dressing.

This is an example of what I call an instead food - instead of eating the thing that is really not good for you, you eat something that kind of fills that craving you are having. Unfortunately, like the hot wing salads, most instead foods just aren't quite the real thing.

I have recently been in need of an instead food for my ice cream addiction. Firstly, no one needs to be eating ice cream at the rate I can put the stuff away. Sweet, creamy and chocolate are my three favorite things and there's a grocery store in my neighborhood that sells Hagen Dazs at less than 3 dollars a pint. Secondly, I am coming to the realization that with my third decade of life is coming less and less tolerance for conventional dairy products. Especially fatty and sweet dairy products. Sadness.

So I began the hunt for my chocolate ice cream instead food. Coconut milk is a wonderful substitute for creamy and sweet so I looked into coconut milk ice creams. There is one good quality, all natural brand here in Oregon called Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss that really is blissful but at 7 dollars a pint or more that is just not gonna cut it. So Delicious makes a coconut milk ice cream that is more reasonably priced, but is full of guar gums and "natural flavors". I was lamenting this situation on Facebook when a friend of a friend said that she makes ice cream in her freezer without an ice cream maker. I immediately turned to google to see if this miracle could be true. Sure enough, David Lebowitz has a recipe for ice cream made in a shallow pan that you stir up every 45 minutes or so. I combined his method with The Nourishing Gourmet's recipe and ended up with an amazing product. Who knew it could be so easy?!?


I wondered what else I could accomplish with this amazing coconut milk and chocolate combination and my mind immediately turned to pudding. I didn't grow up eating pudding but have come to appreciate it's creamy texture and the fact that it comes in truly single serving size containers. I this recipe from vanilla & lace and was very pleased with the flavor and set of the pudding. For the ice cream I had used a canned coconut cream but for the pudding I used So Delicious brand coconut milk. It comes in a tetrapack, is much lower in fat and more like cows milk in consistency. It doesn't give the same really creamy texture as the coconut cream, but the cornstarch does a fine job of creating the pudding texture that fools you into thinking its really fatty and creamy. I poured the hot pudding into 1/2 cup sized tupperware containers and had my own pudding packs in the fridge.

The main problem with my first batch of pudding was the lumps of cornstarch that come from adding the cornstarch to the hot chocolate milk. For my second batch of pudding I used Martha Stewart's recipe that has you whisk small amounts of milk into the cornstarch at the very beginning of the process to form a paste, then add the rest of the milk. I also added a little cinnamon to the pudding for a refined, adult flavor and again poured it into small plastic containers for individual servings. The recipe was 100% successful and definitely a dessert worthy of eating alone in front of a rerun of Sex in the City or serving at the end of a dinner party.

Photos by stu_spivak and llsimon53. Please click on their names or photos and see what else they've been cooking up!

Saturday Baking

Doesn't it seem like as soon as the weather turns cooler you just want to turn the oven on? Well, the weather started changing around here around the middle of October and sure enough I spent two Saturdays in a row baking lovely things for breakfast and sharing. The warm sweet aromas coming out of the oven and the occasional burst of bright sunshine through the orange and red leaves makes fall a not so bad time of year after all.

Making sweets or baked goods while following a traditional foods lifestyle can be challenging for a couple of reasons. Evidence is stacking up from all sides that sugar and simple carbohydrates in refined flour are just not good for you. Sally Fallon recommends the use of rapadura, an unrefined cane sugar, instead of refined white sugar or adapting a recipe to use honey or maple syrup. These sweetners, while still very high in sucrose and fructose that can wreck havoc on all but the very most stable blood sugar levels, do contain some of the trace nutrients of the original plant material. Traditional wisdom reminds us that tempering our sweets with adequate fats can help regulate our blood sugar so I always try to include nutritious ingredients and a full compliment of butter, eggs or coconut oil.

The other problem with baking is the problem of grains. Sally Fallon teaches us that though whole grains are more nutritious than refined grains, they need to be processed properly in order to neutralize anti-nutrients and release their full potential. The usual methods for neutralizing phytates are soaking in an acidic medium, sprouting or fermenting using sourdough methods. I won't even get into gluten free baking, oy! Sprouted flour can be used in any recipe that calls for wheat flour with minimal or no changes to the process. Soaking and fermenting require completely different processes and honestly, are a bit outside my range of motion on a typical Saturday morning. I take comfort in the knowledge that white flour, though not adding much nutrition, is not removing vital minerals through the action of phytic acid. My baked goods are treats, not staples in my diet, and so I don't worry too much.

This recipe, though, circumvents most of these problems by being grain free and refined sugar free. It is based on a recipe in the great cookbook White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matt Mickler, a lovely collection of authentic recipes reminiscent of the author's childhood in rural Mississippi. The original is called Sweet Potato Pone and is a mix of baked sweet potatoes, heavy cream, molasses and eggs baked into a sweet treat. I subsituted the sweet potato for canned pumpkin and the heavy cream for coconut milk to make a healthful, easy baked treat for any Saturday morning.

Pumpkin Molasses Custard (or Pone, if you prefer)

1 can canned pumpkin (or 2 cups mashed cooked pumpkin, winter sqash or sweet potato)
1/2 can coconut milk (or 1 cup heavy cream or evaporated milk)
3 eggs (or 2, if that's all you got)
1/2 cup molasses (give or take - a big hearty glugg out of the jar will do)
spices to taste - I used 2 tsp cinnamon. Nutmeg, ginger or cloves are not out of place here.
1/2 tsp salt

Combine everything in a mixing bowl and then pour into a greased 8x8 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes or until set and browned to your liking. It really can be eaten anywhere from still a little jiggly to brown and firm so take it out whenever you just can't stand it anymore.

Serve with whipped cream, cold heavy cream, chopped nuts or just a spoon. It's very rich but very tasty.

What do you like to bake up on these cool, rainy, autumn mornings?