On Life As A Picky Foodie

The other day someone said it to me.  The subject was my daughter. 

My answer? 

Unreasonable?  Moi?  You bet!

Though it wasn’t meant as a compliment, I have come to the conclusion that being unreasonable is not a bad thing.  It’s simply a lack of reason.  And reason can be more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to matters of the heart – family, love.

The brain’s job is to solve problems, discover patterns, make rules.  Emotions and feelings exist in a completely separate realm where one plus one might equal a hula hoop instead of the famous t-w-o. 

The thing about using words like “unreasonable” isn’t just that it’s judgmental and condescending.  In my experience, people who talk about being reasonable are usually the same people who view emotions as a four-letter-word.  Eek, gloopy, uncontrollable, messy, unrestrained emotions – call the police!  Or the brain.    

Ever heard (or used) the expression “keeping busy”?  People constantly need to keep busy.  It’s a way of making sure our brains don’t nitpick our lives to death.  Because the problem with having to solve problems is that when there is a dearth of trouble, you bet the brain will do its utmost to create some. 

“Unreasonable” used to feel like an insult to me and yet somehow when I heard it the other day, I almost laughed.  For the first time, I owned up to the fact that I am, at times, very unreasonable.  And that’s just fine with me.

Six and three quarter ways to make sure you’re being unreasonable:

1.  Go for a walk in the rain.  When the skies open up and it’s pouring, head out.  Wander around those familiar streets and take a good look at a totally new part of the world without leaving your neighbourhood.

2.  Use Raspberries As Finger Hats.  They’re so much more delicious that way. Or better yet, use them as hats on the fingers of your beloved.

3.  Do what you love.  This is a new one for me.  I did the whole “choose a reasonable career that will pay the bills” thing.  It left me sick and depressed.  Then I procrastinated because I feared and I reasoned.  Now I’m ready. 

4.  Have Dessert For Breakfast. Raw chocolate smoothies have successfully converted many a night owl into morning people. (tweet twoo)

5.  Love The One You’re With.  Be it a friend, a partner, a pet, or your own wonderful company.

6.  Find Inspiration.  I love Julia Cameron’s concept of the Artist Date.  It’s awesome.  Best done during the day when you “should” be doing something else. 

And the three quarters?  Read Between the Lines.   

Unreasonable Drenched Brownies in Melted Icing

(Adapted from Meghan Telpner’s hot hot hot and spicy brownies)

Sweet potato, cayenne and apple sauce in brownies?  Sounds pretty unreasonable, doesn’t it?  Need more convincing about how wonderfully delectably delicious unreasonable can be?  Give these babies a try.

Ingredients

For the brownies:

-  100 gr. 100% cacao chocolate bar

-  1 T coconut oil

-  ½ cup sweet potato puree (steamed and then mashed/pureed)

-  1/8 cup honey

-  ½ cup coconut sugar

-  ½ cup Valrhona cacao powder

-  2 t vanilla extract (gluten free)

-  ¾ cup apple sauce

-  ½ cup coconut flour

-   ½ t baking powder

-   sprinkle salt

-  ½ T cinnamon

-  ¼ t cayenne

-  1/16 t green stevia powder

-  1 banana, mashed

-  ¼ c cashew milk (blend 1/8 c cashews and 1 cup water – use the rest for the melted icing)

-  ¼ cup water (or more)

For the Melted Icing:

-  1 cup cashew milk

-  1 T coconut oil

-  1 T coconut butter

-  1/8 cup Valrhona cacao powder

- 1 T honey

Directions:

For the Brownies:

Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit (176 Centigrade)

Melt the chocolate and coconut oil in a double boiler / bain de Marie.

In the mean time, combine the wet ingredients and process with the S blade in the food processor.  Transfer to a large bowl and fold in the melted chocolate and coconut oil. 

Pour into oiled baking pan and bake for 60 minutes (check after 30 and then every 10 minutes with a toothpick)

Allow to cool fully before attempting anything.

For the Melted Icing:

Blend 1 cup or the leftover cashew milk with the coconut oil (can be room temperature, shouldn’t be too firm), coconut butter, cacao powder and honey.  Should be like pancake batter – not too creamy, this is unreasonable icing after all!  Store in the refrigerator until the brownies are fully cooled. 

Then drench and allow to set in the fridge for at least five hours.

Note: coconut flour does not a crumbly brownie make.  These are too gooey to be cake, and too cakey to be mousse.  But if you allow them to set (see below*), they’ll reward you with fudge.

This might sound a bit bananas.  Because by the time you’ve removed gluten, dairy, refined sugars and most nightshades from your diet, the last thing you want to hear is that there are more foods to take out of the rotation.  A couple of weeks ago, however, that is exactly what happened to me. 

Let me explain.  For the past few years, I have been successfully managing a hypo-thyroid condition with food and herbs.  During pregnancy and breastfeeding, however, many of the herbs I had been using were contraindicated and so off-limits.  Few people are aware that pregnancy often exacerbates pre-existing thyroid conditions, which is what recently happened to me.

After running the requisite blood tests, the doctor prescribed thyroid medication.  And why wouldn’t he?  For a moment, I got scared enough to consider taking it.  After all, what has worked for me in the past is not viable at the moment.  To be honest, I was also frustrated: I thought with all I do for my health, why is this happening to me? 

But I got over my self-pity and I gave my fear a good talking to.  Then I made an appointment with a Naturopath.  The way I see it, if the alternative method doesn’t work, I still have the option of medication.   But once I’m taking the pills, it’s much harder to wean myself off them.

The naturopath really seemed to know her stuff.  There was just one problem: she was asking me to radically change my diet. 

What qualifies me to do what I do are my studies in holistic health but also – or so I thought – the fact that I myself have been through a serious food makeover.  And it was hard.  But oh, how quickly we forget. 

When the Naturopath told me what I needed to remove from my diet, I asked her the same question I get asked by so many of my clients: What am I going to eat?

But I’ve lived to tell the tale and am feeling great.  So in addition to eating gluten-, diary-, refined carbohydrate- and sugar-free, I am not having beans, pulses, grains, nuts or seeds (except coconut and the occasional macadamia or cashew), or vegetable oils (though a little olive oil is OK).

What I am eating are a lot of vegetables, fruit and some animal protein.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it is.  And it’s forced me to go back to the drawing board and start getting creative in the kitchen again.  We’ve enjoyed curried veggie burgers and energizing smoothies, colourful salads and satisfying soups.

The Internet and its many food bloggers have been a wonderful resource, for which I am insanely grateful.  Some days you simply need a helping hand and a dollop of inspiration from others on similar journeys. 

Still, I waited to post this until I had a proper dessert.

People somehow assume that my desserts are healthy.  And while they are made entirely of whole, nutritious foods, they are still dessert – so to be enjoyed in moderation. 

But life’s too short to give up pudding.

Coconut Royals -- no oven necessary
(adapted from ohsheglows.com)

*  For the bottom layer:
-  1 ½ cup macadamia nuts
-  1 ½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats (I use gluten-free)
-  1.5 t salt
-  8 large medjool dates
-   ¼ cup coconut oil

*  For the filling:
-  17 large medjool dates
-  ½ cup water

* For the crumble:
-  ¾ cup crust mix
-  ½ cup shredded coconut
-  ¼ cup old-fashioned rolled oats

*  For the bonus layer:
-  a bar of 100% cacao chocolate (90 grams)

Line your baking tray with parchment paper (I used a 13.5 x 9.5 inch baking tray).

To make the bottom layer, process the macadamia nuts, 1 ½ cups oats and salt in the food processor until fine.  Then add the 8 medjool dates and process again.  Melt the coconut oil on a low flame and then add to the mixture and process until it becomes a more or less cohesive mass. 

Put ¾ cup aside and press the rest down with your hand on the lined baking tray until uniform and flat. 

Then process the 17 dates and the water until a paste forms.  Scoop and spread it over the crust layer using a flat spatula.

Finally, pulse the ¾ cup leftover crust mixture, the coconut and the ¼ cup of oats.  This needs to remain relatively crumbly.  Sprinkle over the top. 

And then we go over the top!  Melt the chocolate bar in a bain de Marie.  Drizzle over the mixture. 

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.  Cut into small (or large) squares) and serve straight from the refrigerator. 

He hadn’t been gone more than an hour when the ideas started coming to me.  Maybe I would make a wild rice salad, or a green smoothie with rocket and the leftover frozen cherries.  When I’m sad, I make food.

Some people eat when they’re emotional, others burrow away like squirrels in the winter.  I cook.  That’s not to say that I don’t indulge ias well, but mostly, it’s about the act of creation.

From the moment he left, I started planning what I was going to be baking.  The baby looked up at me and smiled as if she knew what was coming.  Soon enough, she was secured in her little seat on the counter sucking on an Italian blood orange as I whipped up blood orange ice cream.  I had to use up the rest of the coconut milk, after all.  The idea that I was making something that would keep until his return pleased me.  We could celebrate with a couple of scoops, a little cup each to toast being back together. 

The ice cream cups are grey, with a brown stripe running around the top.  Beautiful Danish design.  Everything in this house that has any kind of aesthetic comes from my grandmother.  I love watching her inspect my belongings when she comes to visit.  She smiles in recognition of the things she has given me over the years, the cutlery, the tablecloths, the mugs that we use for ice cream or chocolate pudding. 

He texted me from the airport: it all seems so unreal. 

It does.  The baby said goodbye to him like she does every morning, unaware that this time it would be for much longer.  There is no way to explain it to her yet.  And in this feeling of dislocated reality, I got down to cooking. 

I found myself wanting to make his favourite things.

After the ice cream was in the freezer, cookies seemed like the easiest thing: quick and simple, before the baby lost her patience. 

Ba, she said happily holding the blender plunger in one hand and her snack in the other, ba mba, mbaba. 

Yes, I replied, cookies.  Sweetness combined with a little rosemary, to suit my bittersweet mood. 

Bababababa Nanamba.

Glad we agree, I said, giving her a kiss that she didn’t really want.  The orange was way more interesting at that moment.  Thankfully.

Here we go! his text read, I’m switching off now.  Will let you know when I arrive.

I put the cookies in the oven.   The baby was now wanting a change of scene.  Last night, when I told her we were going “au bain,” she looked me in the eye and said, “au bain.”

Au bain? I asked her now.

Mbadum badum.

My sentiments exactly. 

Rosemary Almond Cookies 
(makes about 28 small cookies)

Preheat the oven to 204 Centigrade (400 Fahrenheit)
-  Grind 1 cup almonds  and 1 cup hazelnuts
(the end result should be 1 cup of each)
-  Mix in:
2 t vanilla powder
¼ t salt
¼ c melted coconut oil
¼ c coconut nectar*
1 (organic, free-range) egg**
pinch rosemary

Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add everything but the egg.  Taste the batter to make sure it’s not too sweet, not to savoury.  Only then should the egg be added to minimize the risk of food poisoning.

Using an ice cream scoop, form little balls on a Silpat sheet or non-stick tray.  Use a fork to carefully flatten into cookies.

Bake for 9 minutes.  After removing from the oven, place on a rack and allow to cool fully.    

*  If there is no coconut nectar available in your area, you can substitute with 1/2c date syrup (no sugar added) and 1 T honey.
**  if you don't eat eggs, mix 1T ground flax seeds with 1T water.  Allow to sit and turn into a gel and use this mixture instead.  However, it's important to wait until it has gelled.  

P.S.  To turn them into slightly savoury chocolate chip cookies, simply add a chopped up tablet of 100% unsweetened chocolate 

In our house, Monday is Mad Men night.  We download the latest, plug it in and travel back in time for close to an hour. 

Like with all great storytelling, we lose ourselves in it and forty-six minutes go by in what feels like 5.

Then we have dessert. 

It’s a bit of a tease because like with all great desserts, even though I try to make sure to savour every bite, it doesn’t last nearly long enough. 

(Serves 2)

Ingredients
1 c coconut water
2 T raw cacao
1/3 c + 1 T hemp seeds
1/3 c + 2 T coconut butter or meat (not the oil)
1/3 c raisins
2 pitted dates

Blend until smooth

Top with fresh raspberries

(sorry there's no picture -- this stuff never lasts long enough...)