Edibly Educated

Inspiration through Education

You are here: Home / 2015 / Archives for August 2015

Archives for August 2015

4 Outstanding Resources a Natural Foodie Will Appreciate

by

Resources for Foodies

I love supporting companies that share the same values as I do as far as food goes. I’m really into farm-to-table restaurants, and I love buying stuff from local health foods stores and farmer’s markets. These resources will help you find good, local food around where you live, including places you maybe were not aware of! These websites are also great for traveling. When I visit a new city, the first thing I do before going is look up all the good places to go out to eat or get food. I seriously plan my trips around eating and which restaurants I want to try 🙂

Also, if you’re planning on moving, it’s good to know what’s in the area to help you decide where exactly you want to settle.  I was thinking about moving to a different state this fall, and the first thing I researched when looking up locations was what’s in the area as far as farms, CSAs, markets, health food stores, and farm-to-table restaurants. Having those options available is something that is very important to me. I thought I would share some of the ways I find these places because if you’re anything like me, you’ll love being able to pick something nearby that you feel good about eating and supporting.

Eat Well Guide

I’ve been using this website for a little while now. It’s such an awesome resource that lets you search any city and then informs you of the local farms, markets, and hand-picked restaurants in the area. It’s very easy to navigate and color codes different pinpoints on a map to show you where everything is at.

Eat Well Guide

Know Where Your Food Comes From

This is another incredible website I have recently encountered that is very comprehensive. It shares dining options, farmer’s markets, local foods and co-ops, where to get seeds, and craft bakeries. It has a section dedicated to listing all of the CSA’s in your area too. There are also other goodies you can see along the menu bar that might be fun to check out!

Know Where Your Food Comes From

Local Harvest

You can utilize the search bar at the top of the page to see farms, CSAs, and farmer’s markets in your area. They also have the results color coded and pinpointed on a map. I have found that this website has the best list of CSAs in the area.

Local Harvest

Happy Cow App

When I’m on the go, especially just in a new city for the day, I’ll do a quick search on this app to scope out some of the options that I might be interested in. The free app includes restaurants and health food stores in its listing, which is really pretty convenient.

Happy Cow

I hope these help you on your food endeavors now and in the future. Are there any other resources that you love that I haven’t discovered yet? I’d love to know!

With love,

sign 2

 

This is How you Can Take your Chia Pudding to the Next Level

by

Today something great happened. Banana Ice cream and chia pudding met, fell in love, and smooshed.

I’m certainly a banana ice cream and chia pudding fanatic as you may already know, but I haven’t put them together until now. And I am so glad I did. When I set out to make a batch of chia pudding layered with some fruit, I thought about making a fruit smoothie too and layering it with that. But I wanted something that was cold and more firm, and that’s when it dawned on me to add banana ice cream to it.

Chia banana ice cream pudding is what I’d like to call it.

So what kind of banana ice cream specifically?

Think more of a sorbet with this.. more fruit than banana. I went with tart fruit one, which consisted of a little bit of frozen banana, frozen cranberries and strawberries, and frozen apricots. I loved the tartness from the apricots and cranberries. I didn’t use any liquid, which made for an awesome sorbet texture. Depending on what kitchen equipment you have, you may or may not be able to do this. My Cuisinart 9-cup processor works like a charm, but it was pretty loud chopping through that frozen fruit in the beginning.

I also thought about making more of a chocolate-y banana ice cream and adding that to a chia pudding too! I don’t see that going awry so you could try that as well! I’ll report back when I get around to doing that 🙂

This treat was a success on so many levels. Here are some of the other things I did that I felt made it so enjoyable in addition to just adding the banana ice cream:

  • add some superfoods and spices to the chia pudding like shredded coconut, goji berries, cacao nibs or powder, carob powder, vanilla bean powder, cinnamon, allspice, powders like ashwagandha, maca, spirulina or chlorella, wheat grass, ginseng, lucuma, matcha, mesquite, camu camu, mangosteen, maqui berry
  • give it some crunch; add things like cacao nibs, chopped nuts or grapes
  • add some fresh fruit too; make your chia banana ice cream pudding a little fruit explosion by layering or just mixing in some fresh fruit – I did blueberries and halved grapes and LOVED IT!

Chia Pudding with Banana Ice Cream

The chia pudding was a very simple mix of chia seeds, almond milk, mashed banana, currants and cinnamon. Look below for an estimated recipe for the whole thing.

Ice Cream Pudding-14  Chia Pudding with Banana Ice Cream Chia Pudding with Banana Ice Cream  Ice Cream Pudding-41  Chia Pudding with Banana Ice Cream

My favorite way to consume this was by mixing it all together in a bowl so that the coldness and flavor from the banana ice cream  and the bits of fresh fruit could be tasted in every bite!

Chia Pudding with Banana Ice Cream

Berry Apricot Chia Banana Ice Cream Pudding
 
Print
Prep time
Total time
 
This treat will satisfy your fruit cravings in so many ways!
Author:
Serves: 1-2
Ingredients
  • -Chia Pudding
  • 2 tbsp. chia seeds
  • ⅓ cup almond milk
  • 1 mashed banana
  • dash of cinnamon
  • small handful of dried currants
  • -Berry Apricot Banana Ice Cream
  • small handful of frozen cranberries and strawberries
  • ½ frozen banana
  • large handful of frozen apricot
  • -Toppings and Mix-Ins
  • cacao nibs
  • goji berries
  • halved grapes
  • fresh blueberries
Instructions
  1. Mix the ingredients for the chia pudding and place in the fridge for at least a half hour.
  2. Place the frozen fruit in the food processor and process until it forms a sorbet. You may need to stop it and scrape down the sides multiple times.
  3. Add or layer the toppings and mix-ins with the banana ice cream and chia pudding.

Enjoy! Let me know if you try this and what you think of it!

sign 2

Beginner’s Guide to Stuffed Energy Dates

by

Raw Goji Energy Stuffed Dates

So I made these quite awhile ago and never got around to posting them. I feel that they’re a little too pretty not to, so here they are!

But the only problem is that I never made a recipe for this. I actually made them and took pictures for a demonstration I was doing so I never wrote anything down because I just wanted the pictures. I know what’s in them, just not the amounts.

Buuut, I’m just going to go about this like I do with most of my beginner’s guides. I give you the ideas, you run with them.

I came across this raw stuffed dates idea and thought it was pretty rad. I really just experimented without following any sort of recipe and used inspiration from other recipes I’d seen. I also just used things I had in my cupboard, which I recommend. No need to go out and buy all sorts of stuff if you’ve got a well-stocked pantry.

Where to begin?

Start with the date. The food kind of date. As far as amounts go, it all depends on how much you stuff them, how big the dates are, how much mixture you have, and so on. My advice is to make a cup or two of the mixture and then stuff dates until you run out. Dates usually come in a container with quite a few or you can buy them in bulk. I would get at least 10-12 dates.Which variety? Doesn’t really matter. A really common and popular one to use is the medjool date because they are quite large and nice and chewy. I have also used some smaller Deglet Noor ones, and those worked fine too – they were just less sweet and can’t hold as much. The kind of date you use is dependent on your preference (sweeter, chewier, nuttier, etc.) and availability. Here is a website that talks a little bit more about different types of dates if you’d like to read about them.

Next, you’re going to want to use a food processor for best results. You could get by hand chopping and mixing all of your desired ingredients, but it takes a lot more time and the mixture may not stick to itself as well as it does when you use a food processor.

Energy Stuffed Dates

Place your choice of the following ingredients together and process until combined. It should be a chewy granola bar texture so keep in mind your wet/dry ratio. If it’s too dry, add some more ingredients from the wet category and vice versa.

Dry

Nuts and Seeds 

Walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, pistachios, ground flax seeds (bring on the omega-3’s!)

Powders, Spices and Other Superfoods

Shredded coconut, cacao nibs or powder, carob powder, vanilla bean powder, cinnamon, allspice, sea salt, ashwagandha, maca, spirulina or chlorella powder, wheat grass powder, ginseng, lucuma, mesquite, camu camu, mangosteen, maqui berry, reishi, turmeric

Wet

Dried Fruits – these can be soaked to help the mixture come together more

Cranberries, blueberries, goji berries, raisins, dried mango, currants, apricots, figs, and dried cherries

Other

Small amount of lemon or orange juice, drop of essential oil (like a citrus one), vanilla extract, coconut oil or manna, cacao butter, any nut/seed butter, any liquid sweetener like raw honey or maple syrup**

**As far as the liquid sweetener, I would first determine if you’re going for more of a snack or a dessert. If it’s a snack stick with a more savory/nutty/less sweet filling, but if you’d like to make more of a dessert or a treat, I’d play around with adding a little sweetener for taste if you’d like. Be careful not to add too much though, the date itself is pretty sweet on it’s own!

Like I always say, add small handfuls/spoons/dashes at a time and taste test your mixture as you go along to make sure it’s something that you’re taking a liking too.

Energy Stuffed Dates Energy Stuffed Dates

Next is ready, set, stuff!

Slice the date on one side, remove the pit and then take a spoon or small handful of the mixture and press it into the date. I had quite a bit of the mixture so I stuffed my dates to the brim and beyond. I also think it helped balance out the sweetness of the date by adding more of the mixture.

Keep these babies stored in the refrigerator and consume within a few days for the freshest tasting stuffed dates!

Energy Stuffed Dates

Energy Stuffed Dates

This is what I put in the ones shown in the pictures:

Soaked raisins, soaked goji berries, sunflower seeds, soaked almonds, walnuts, shredded coconut, chia seeds, allspice, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and a couple cranks of sea salt

Now over to you — do you have any other ideas I’m missing? I’m sure there are more. I’d love to hear from you!

With love,

sign 2