Bianca Phillips's Blog, page 226

Juice Boost

Since Monday, I've been doing the Kaeng Raeng detox, which is basically three smoothies a day, plus all the raw fruits and veggies you want. I'll be posting a full review of the cleanse tomorrow when it's all over.

But throughout this three-day cleanse, I'm also enjoying lots of fresh juices. They're not required on the Kaeng Raeng detox, but I figured if I'm cleansing, why not? Plus, it's a great excuse to review Juice Boost: Juices, Smoothies, and Boosters for Supercharged Health by Chris Fung.

I've been looking for a good juicing book for years. I love my Jack Lalanne juicer, but I tend to fall into ruts, making the same tired old juices over and over. Most of my juicing books are from the 70s or 80s and contain way too much stuff to read. I want recipes, not narrative!

And Juice Boost delivers just that. There is a small section on the health benefits of juicing, but it's cleverly designed with lots of charts to keep things visually appealing. The rest of the full-color, photo-heavy book is recipes for juices, smoothies, and boosters (info on healthy add-ins, like spirulina, ginseng, or aloe vera).

Since my detox requires me to drink three smoothies a day (and they're made from pre-packaged powders), I opted to mix things up with juices from this book. Yesterday, I tried the Veggie Invigorator Juice:


Tomatoes, celery, carrots, ginger, and lemon. I love veggie juices the most, and this one was perfect. Like a really healthy V8 minus all that sodium. I love that Juice Boost tells you which nutrients play the largest role in each juice. This one is loaded with B vitamins, beta carotene, magnesium, manganese, and phosphate.

Today, I made the Apple Strawberry Cooler, so I could try something fruity:


This is made from apples, strawberries, and coconut water. You juice the apples in a juicer, but then that juice in blended in a blender with the fresh strawberries and coconut water. I loved how the coconut water gave this juice a cool, refreshing flavor. This would be perfect on a hot summer day. Unfortunately, today was stupid cold again. But I sipped on this and pretended I was at the beach. But if I was really on the beach, I'd probably spike it with some coconut rum.

There are so many more juices and smoothies I want to try from this book! The full-color, glossy pictures on nearly every page make me want to make everything! I'll definitely be using the smoothie recipes to jazz up my bi-weekly Vega smoothies.

Nuts for Nutty Steph's!

Two things I love — chocolate and granola — have come together in a magical concoction. Purely magical. I'm talking about the kind of magic only made by unicorns and fairy godmothers. I'm talking about Nutty Steph's.

Nutty Steph's is a little company started in 2003 by Jaquelyn Rieke (a.k.a. Steph), a former math teacher with superhero-esque granola-making powers. Rieke made the right career shift. This woman can make some damn good granola, especially when that's combined with sweet 'n' bitter dark chocolate. I know because her company sent me samples to review on this blog.

First, I tore into the Dark Chocolate Vermont Granola Magic Chunks:




I think the name says it all. Chewy chunks of maple-sweetened granola are covered in a layer of 71 percent cacao chocolate. It's like a candy bar, but it somehow seems healthier as you bite down on crispy granola under those layers of chocolate that just melt in your mouth.

I thought for sure that the plain chocolate flavor would be my favorite. But I guessed wrong. These Black Forest Magic Chunks really took me by surprise:


Same concept as the dark chocolate flavor, but these have bits of dried fruit like in one of those granola bars that have raisins and cranberries. I couldn't tell what the fruit was, since it was covered in chocolate, but I'm guessing it was one or the other or both. Also, I should note that these were sample bags, so they weren't all the way full. If you order some, you'll get more chunks!

Next, I decided to sample Nutty Steph's Vermont Granola on its own:


A few handfuls of this crunchy, sweet granola was the perfect tide-me-over-til-dinner driving snack on a trip across town to pick up my cat's medicine at the pharmacy. It doesn't clump like some granolas. Instead, each small piece is separate from one another. This stuff would be great with So Delicious Greek Coconut Milk Yogurt.

Nutty Steph's also included some samples of their chocolate bars:


The Blackbird Dark Chocolate was loaded with sunflower, pumpkin, and flax seeds. But they were mostly ground up, so you'd get all the health benefits of eating seeds with all the deliciousness of dark chocolate. Yet there was still a hint of seedy crunch. Delicious!

But the Lemon Ginger Pecan Dark Chocolate!!! There are no words to describe how awesome this was. Hands down the best sample of all the bunch. I don't even like crystallized ginger, which is used in this bar. But somehow, when combined with lemon oil and pecan chunks, it just works. Maybe I just love all things lemon so much that it overpowers my dislike of crystallized ginger. I will be ordering more of this from Nutty Steph's for sure!

By the way, these are just a small selection of Nutty Steph's products. Their website is full of all kinds of goodness. There's a cherry-pine nut-popcorn-walnut chocolate bar, peanut butter Magic Chunks, mint Magic Chunks. The list goes on.

I have a few bites of each sample left, but sadly, I'm not allowed to have any chocolate until Thursday!! I'm doing a three-day detox (more on that tomorrow and Wednesday), so I'm counting down the days until I can savor my last bites of lemon chocolate and fruity chocolate-covered granola.

The Vegan Mash-Up Project

I love, love, love cooking shows. But as you know, options for vegan cooking programs are slim. I can watch the meat stuff on the Food Network and pretend I'm looking at seitan or Gardein, but that pretty much sucks. So I was thrilled when I heard some of my favorite chefs — Terry Hope Romero, Miyoko Schinner, and Toni Fiore — were coming to public television with the Vegan Mashup cooking show.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of the lucky people who lives in an area that broadcasts Vegan Mashup on public television. So I waited for the show to come out on DVD, and then I scored a great deal on the disc through Vegan Cuts.

I've watched two episodes of the six on the DVD so far, and I'm in love. Each episode features several dishes, one prepared by each chef and then a dish made by a guest chef (My fellow Memphian/soul food magician Bryant Terry guest cheffed on the first episode!).

Anyway, I'd a total nerd, and I've decided to type out each recipe as it's shown on the screen during the show. And I've made a promise to myself that I will cook every recipe from the first season throughout the year, so you'll see a series of Vegan Mashup posts here.

To start, I picked two recipes from the Party Foods episode. Now, I considered waiting until I had another party at the house, but who knows when that will be? Why not make party food for everyday eats? I made a meal of these appetizers and washed them down with a little red wine, so I could pretend I was having a party with myself.

I made the Gruyere and Pear Croustades by Miyoko Schinner:


Those are crostini topped with homemade aged cashew gruyere, pear slices, and a sweet red wine sauce. Wow! These flavors just belong together — the tanginess of the aged cheese, the sweetness of the pear, and the dry flavor of red wine. This recipe will be a keeper for entertaining. By the way, it's also in Miyoko's awesome Artisan Vegan Cheese cookbook, so if you have that book, you can make these too! The making rejuvelac and aging cheese takes about a week, so plan ahead.

I also made Toni Fiore's Tempeh Bites with Tzatsiki Sauce:


Tempeh is baked in a savory soy sauce marinade, and then it's served at room temperature with a homemade tzatsiki sauce for dipping. The sauce is made with a base of silken tofu, oil, and shredded cucumbers. In the past, I've always used vegan yogurt to make tzatsiki, but I like this tofu version better. It's thicker and creamier.

There are lots more recipes featured in the first season, so expect periodic Vegan Mashup posts. And don't forget to check the Vegan Mashup website to see if you live in a market that broadcasts the show.

Chloe's Vegan Desserts

I just love Chloe Coscarelli! In case you're not familiar with Ms. Chloe, she was the first baker to win the Food Network's Cupcake Wars with a vegan cupcake. Talk about takin' it to the mainstream, right?

Last year, I reviewed her first cookbook, Chloe's Kitchen, which was filled with, not only yummy vegan baked goods, but delicious savory dishes, many of which paid homage to Chloe's Italian roots. Well, now Chloe has released an all-dessert cookbook, aptly named Chloe's Vegan Desserts.

It's a gorgeous, full-color tome filled with cupcakes (including her Cupcake War-winning Chocolate Orange Cupcakes with Candied Orange Peel), layer cakes, cookies, pies, bars, cinnamon rolls, pudding, and ice cream. How Chloe can bake so much and still look so thin and smokin' hot is beyond me, but seeing her hotness on the cover makes me feel like I can eat any dessert and not gain a pound. Sure, it's a fallacy. But it's one I'm willing to give in to.

On that note, I tried several recipes from this book without a shred of food guilt. First, I made this Olive Oil Lemon Cake:


I mostly picked this recipe so I'd have an excuse to use my new bundt pan. But dude, I'm so glad I did. The was the most ridiculously moist, light lemon cake in the world. I brought it to a potluck, and it was devoured so fast that the host didn't even get a taste. Perhaps wrongly, I took two slices for myself before the host even fixed his plate. But hey, I baked the cake, and it was damn good (and he was taking his sweet time making his plate).

Next, I tried the PUPcakes! These are mini cupcakes for dogs!


As you can see, Datsun was licking his lips just thinking about these. The basic, wheat flour-based, applesauce-sweetened cupcakes were topped with melted carob, so they were totally safe for dogs. My pups loved these. Datsun would swallow them whole, and Maynard (my pit bull) would spit his on the floor and carefully eat the cake first. Then he'd lick the carob off the floor. He's a messy pup, but I can't blame him for wanting to savor each part.

I actually tried these too, and they were awesome. I was tempted to steal the whole batch for myself, but, perhaps feeling guilty for hogging the lemon cake, I decided to only have one of these and give the rest to my little guys.

This week, I made a batch of Chloe's Sugar Cookies in fun spring shapes:


Those are bunnies, a flower, and an umbrella if you can't tell. My co-workers, who ate most of these on Tuesday, couldn't decide if the umbrella was really a basket or a mushroom. Anyway, perfect sugar cookies. I like mine soft and not at all crunchy. These were melt-in-your-mouth soft and buttery without a hint of overcooked crunchiness.

I have a ton more recipes bookmarked to try from this book later. The Double Crust Fudge Bars (shortbread crust with coconut-chocolate topping) are at the top of that list, followed by Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze, Baked Chocolate Doughnuts, Mocha Mud Pie, and Chocolate Beer Cupcakes with Irish Whiskey Buttercream.