Chickpea Flour Flatbread Veggie Salad Pizza with Miso-Tahini sauce

 Getting over the notoriously infectious omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus, I made this gluten-free chickpea flour flatbread pizza with veggie salad on top it. Although I was tempted to go grocery shopping for more ingredients, I managed to make up stuff with what I had at home. I didn’t want to catch another Covid virus on my recovery from it. 

Ingredients:

Crust - Chickpea flour (1 cup), himalayan salt (1/2 tsp), black pepper (1/4 tsp), dried rosemary and dill, and filtered water (1 cup).

Toppings - thinly sliced steamed rainbow carrots, thinly diced celery hearts (raw) and thinly cut red leaf lettuce.

Sauce - Tahini, almond butter powder, white miso, extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar and filtered water. Sprinkles of hemp seeds and Atlantic dulce on top of everything on the pizza.

Direction:

1. Mix the crust ingredients, steamed the rainbow carrot slices, mix the sauce ingredients and set aside.

2. Preheat the oven at 450°F and stick the liberally greased (with extra virgin olive oil) cast iron skillet in the oven (while preheating). Then pour the crust mix into the skillet, and bake for 15 minutes.

It'll come out like this.

3. Place the toppings mixed with the sauce on top of the baked crust.

Red leaf lettuce first.

All toppings with sprinkles of hemp seeds and Atlantic dulce flakes.

4. Slice the pizza and serve.

It's gluten free, dairy free, egg free, sugarless, nutritious and good for you. The sliced and steamed carrots had a texture of a thinly sliced ham especially with the rich miso-tahini sauce. FYI. Of course, you don't need to think like that. It's just my impression of it. I thought about getting a firm tofu from a store, but I think this itself has chickpea, tahini, hemp seeds, etc. so it's fine for the day.  I'd make it again. 

Allergen-Free Vegan Donuts

 The other day, I made allergen-free vegan donuts (gluten and dairy free) for the first time. To my surprise, it tasted really good!! 😋

These are baked donuts. Not raw donuts, although I generally prefer raw food desserts. I just like to experiment. Since it was my first time baking vegan donuts, I was a bit nervous about binding the dough, so I kind of used a few different binders in the mix. As usual, a banana (for both as a sweetener and binder), flax egg and xanthan gum. Also used a bit of baking powder for fluffing the dough. BUT, after the experiment, I would just use the banana, and skip the rest. Not necessary. If you want to fluff it up, perhaps, the use of baking powder and baking soda, but I would prefer sticking to a banana only. I'm assuming that you could get the ideal consistency of the dough by adjusting the grams of the banana when mixing it.

Ingredients:

Oat flour --- about 1 cup

Almond flour --- about 1/4 cup

Coconut flour --- about 1/4 cup

(The ratio of almond flour and coconut flour, to my liking, is usually more almond flour and less coconut flour.)

1 Ripe banana

Flax egg (Optional) --- 1 tbsp Ground flax seeds mixed in 1.5 tbsp filtered water. Mix and let it sit for a few min. 

Xanthan Gum (Optional) --- 2/3 tsp.

Orange zest --- I used 3 organic mandarin orange peels, and grated them.

Cacao Powder --- 2 tbsp.

Vanila Extract (non-alcohol) --- 3/4 tsp

Cinnamon powder --- sprinkles

Dark chocolate bar --- I used the Lindt 90% cocoa (for glazing and drizzling the donuts). This one has 2g added sugar which is a small amount, so it's not too bad. I usually make my own chocolate sauce with no added sugar, but this time I skipped that process. I'm wondering where the 4g protein comes from, though.

Hemp milk (unsweetened) --- 1/4 + cup.

Baking powder --- 1/4 tsp

Coconut oil --- 1.5 tbsp (melted)

Cooking gear:

Silicon donut molds and a baking pan.

DIRECTION:

Grate the orange peels (organic orange)

Make flax egg (optional)

Melt coconut oil

Blend the ingredients (Oat flour, Coconut flour, Almond flour, 1 ripe banana, sprinkles of cinnamon powder, vanilla extract, hemp milk, flax egg-optional, xanthan gum-optional, baking powder-optional, Cacao powder and orange zest).

Fill the silicone molds with the donut dough. I filled just 2/3 of the way into the molds, but next time I'd just fill the molds all the way, since I wouldn't be using baking powder. If you use baking powder (or any fluffing agent), you'd probably need a little space for the donut to fluff up.

After baking for 15-20 minutes at 350 °F

Since I used very little amount of baking powder, the dough didn't expand much. Banana made it a bit moist and chewy. That's OK for me. Fluffing agents can interfere with a detox diet, so I try to use less of them. 

Tasted delicious💗 Texture worked for me.👍

Baked. Cool off. (Easy to removed the donuts from the silicone molds.)

Melt dark chocolate bar in boiling hot water saucepan. 

(Some coconut oil was left in the measuring cup, so I mixed it with the chocolate.)

I also don't like to use a microwave, and it's better for the chocolate to gradually melt in the hot water rather than heating it up directly in the pan. 

This is the chocolate bar I used this time. Lindt brand. Next time, I hope I'll have the time to make from scratch, but in a pinch, I use something like this. 

Delicious dark chocolate-drizzled vegan donuts! 🌱

Dark chocolate-dipped donuts tasted yummy, too!

LOVE the bitter-sweet taste!! 😋

Just like life.

Blessings🍀

Hina-Musubi (Girls' Day Rice Balls)

 March 3rd, 2022, was Hina-matsuri (Girls' Day) in Japan.  So, I made Hina-musubi (Girls' Day Rice Balls) for the occasion. The anticipation of the spring and the Sakura-color of the ceremony inspired me. Made my heart flutter. 💓

As you can see, it's pretty easy to figure out what ingredients I used to make this cute couple. Just in case, here are the ingredients:

- Sushi rice

- Atlantic Dulce (seaweed)

- Umeboshi (pickled plum)

- Dried NORI seaweed 

- English Cucumber

- Carrot

- Sea salt

Just cook the rice, separate the rice for the parts, make them into rice balls (for heads and bodies) and flatten them. For the Odairi-sama (Emperor)'s body, I used a kind of purplish Atlantic Dulce and sea salt. For his face, just cut Nori and made tiny eyes and smiley mouth. The accessories are made of an English cucumber. For the Ohina-sama (Empress)'s body, I mixed the sweet (honey) Umeboshi with the rice. For her face, Nori and Umeboshi (the lips are the skin part of Ume, and the cheek blush is the meat part of Ume.) For her accessories, I used the carrot. Background decoration is thinly-cut Nori and peeled skin of the English Cucumber.

Then, I placed the Hina-Musubi to my little sister's and lost cat's alter as the food offering. 🙏

May the force be with you. May the seasonal celebrations warm your heart. May you be able to share each precious moment with your loved ones. Peace.

Blessings 🍀 3.5.2022