My fall farm harvest inspired this recipe for healthy carrot & pumpkin breakfast bars. Shredded carrots and shredded coconut, along with homemade cassava flour, homegrown squash, and home grown raw macadamia nuts.
Because it’s October and I made these tandem with healthy winter squash cheesecake, I went for the pumpkin spice theme. And, to be honest, I started out trying to make muffins. But after I made the batter, I noticed my muffin pan was rusted. All the better because my muffins are usually more like dense hearty bars anyways.
I hope you enjoy this recipe and/or gather inspiration for your own creations. OF course, you can use fresh ingredients, or canned squash, skip the cassava flour and use another favorite flour.
Carrot and Pumpkin Breakfast Bars
katiestropicalkitchen
This recipe is inspired by my "fall" harvest on our Big Island farm. Tropical winter squash (curcubita moshata), garden carrots, fresh shredded coconuts, and freshly harvested raw macadamia nuts. I even used our homemade cassava flour.
Using a blender, standup mixer, hand mixer or immersion blender mix squash, coconut oil, maple syrup, eggs, salt, spices, baking powders and baking soda until uniformly blended.
Fold in remaining ingredients
Fold in oats and cassava flour
Fold in carrots and shredded coconut
Add optional nuts and raisen (chopped figs, dates, etc).
Bake in preheated oven
Bake in preheated oven at 375° F in large baking pan for 35-40 minutes
They are done when you smell them, the top starts to lightly brown. They will be a little soft inside. Cool on wire rack and refridgerate some, share some and vaccum seal some for later!
This recipe for chocolate banana muffins with fresh coconut results in chewy hearty muffins that feel like a treat but still somehow healthy. They are full of organic grains, and healthy coconut oil and meat, and sweetened with unrefined sugar. They are just sweet enough to erase the bitterness of the chocolate but not so sweet that it will induce a sugar high. All my recipes are made with ½ the sugar or more that modern and secular taste bud are is used to.
Fresh coconut is that star of this recipe. This recipe uses fresh mature coconut meat from our farm. It is relatively hard to open coconuts and extract their meat if you don’t have the right tools. I don’t exactly have the right tools but I was motivated. My machete was too dull and it was too hard to husk the coconut completely so that it could be easily handled. But I persevered and cracked one open extracted enough and shredded it. Only took me ½ hour total. Which I guess is ok considering I salvaged at least 800 calories from it. That just half the day’s worth of calories.
Coconuts are high in healthy saturated fats (medium-chain fatty acids) including, capris, caprylic, and lauric acid. Lauric acid, out of these three, has the most antifungal, antimicrobial and antiviral properties. Coconut meat. is an excellent source of fiber contains more than 7 grams per cup. It is high in minerals, especially manganese, copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium and selenium. It also has calcium, zinc, and phosphorus. Additionally, it contains vitamin B1, vitamin B3, vitamin B5 and folate and choline.
Owing to these nutritional characteristics coconut meat has been known to: a) help eliminate parasites from the body b) regulate bowel activity c) balance blood sugar levels d) destroy candida and other harmful organisms e) support the immune system f) aid in bone health and g) reduce the risk of heart disease.
Recipe for Chocolate Banana Muffins with Fresh Coconut
Equipment:
oven
muffin tin
grater
2 mixing bowls
measuring cups and spoons
Yield: 6 large muffins, 12 small-medium muffins
Dry ingredients:
1 1/2cups organic white flour
1/2 cup instant rolled oats
½ cup unsweetened cacao powder
2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2tsp fine ground good salt (like Celtic Sea salt)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Wet ingredients:
2 eggs beaten
1/2cupcoconut oil (unrefined or refined)liquid form (but not hot)
~1/3cup maple sugar (you can add a 10 drops of alcohol free stevia too)
1teaspoon vanilla
2-3 ripe bananas mushed well
Add last
2 cups shredded fresh mature coconut meat
Steps:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Line muffin tin with coconut oil
Mix wet ingredients well in medium bowl
Mix dry ingredients well in separate smaller bowl
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well
Fold in coconut at the end
Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees F for 6 large muffins. Reduce baking time to 20-30 minutes for smaller muffins. Baking time varies on environment, keep a close watch on your muffins looking for a firm golden-brown edge and top.
Tooth pick should come out clean when inserted. Cool 5 minutes and remove from muffin tin.
Enjoy these chocolate banana muffins with coconut while still warm
These passionfruit banana fruit roll-ups are a hit with our family this holiday season. This simple recipe is gluten-free, dairy-free, can even be prepared RAW.
This Christmas 2017 we finally busted out our Teflex sheets. Last year we sent dehydrated bananas to our mainland families for Christmas. This year we needed a new trick. But since we had spent almost half of the year away from our farm, we had very little fruit and other foods to choose from…luckily the passionfruit vines Adam had planted years ago are now providing us with an abundance this winter. And, even though our banana forests were not maintained we still managed to find 3 racks of bananas. So – the lilikoi banana marriage finally happened with the help of our Teflex sheets we ordered for our mediocre dehydrater.
This super simple recipe was actually inspired by our friend in California who loves lilikoi. This kind family hosted us on and off for months. And – told us a story of how their friend tried to send them a box of fresh lilikoi, but it was opened inspected and not allowed through customs. In an effort to send our friends and family a little bit of the tropical vibe – we created these fruit leathers.
Recipe for Passionfruit Banana Fruit Roll-ups
Equipment needed:
dehydrator
teflex sheet
blender
Ingredients:
lots of ripe bananas
lots of ripe lilikoi (passionfruit)
honey
coconut oil (for teflex sheets)
Packaging:
unbleached parchment paper
You need omething to tie your fruit leather roll (better if it is food grade – or safe to put in our near your mouth)
Steps for making your own fruit leather
Prepare your dehydrator. If it has been a while since you have used your dehyradtor – take it out and give it a good wash. Here in the tropics, everything gets moldy real quick and easy. If you didn’t wash your dehydrator pristinely before your stored it from your last experiment, now is the time. Use warm soapy water. I even use a clean tooth brush to get in all the ridges and cracks.
After cleaning it, let it dry thoroughly and consider drying it with paper towels or a really clean towel. Our dehydrator is a mid-budget model. It is good because it has temperature control. Still it is on the smaller side and in my opinion a pain to clean. But all dehydrators are probably a pain to clean. I just looked it up and you can get it for $99 on Amazon:L’EQUIP 528 6 Tray Food Dehydrator, 500-watt. For making these fruit leathers I took out the plastic “grates” that usually accompany my dehydrator and replaced them with the fitted teflex sheets. See step 2.
Prepare your teflex sheets. The Teflex sheets Adam ordered were square. Not meant for the inside of our dehydrator. So I used a clean “exacto knife” – to be more exact I used the same kind of blade Adam uses for grafting – a hobby knife with a clean sharp blade. I roughly cut a circle in the middle and cut the edges to fit. After cutting the teflex sheets to the right size – I lathered them in refined organic coconut oil.
3. Blend up your ingredients. We have a Blendtec blender. I highly recommend it, or one of a similar quality. Especially when dealing with hard small seeds, like passionfruit seeds. This blender chops rights through them effortlessly. Furthermore we use the “wild side” jar for it. It is large enough to blend more than 4 cups (more like 6) without overflowing and making a mess. Here I put about 8 or so ripe bananas. 3-4 fresh lilikoi and 1 heaping tablespoon honey. I blend on high for 50 seconds until creamy.
4. Evenly pour your mixture onto your teflex sheets. I use about 2 blenders worth of the mixture per batch in my dehydrator – which has 6 levels. When pouring the mixture or batter in the idea is to make a even coat, where you cannot see through it. Try to pour evenly so that the “batter” doesn’t rub up against the middle or the sides too much making it a pain to clean. You can try using an oiled rubber spatula.
I used an angled icing spatula and found this was much easier than a rubber spatula. Although , it is still hard to get it completely even. Try but don’t drive yourself nuts. Shoot for ⅛” thick. Do not go more than ¼”. Wilton Angled Icing Spatula is one example you can find on amazon.
lilikoi banana mixture spread out on sheets
5. Start the dehydrator. For raw fruit leathers the raw foodies will tell you that you should not heat items above 105 degrees F. This is fine, but it will take a long time to dehydrate your passionfruit leathers. Especially because passionfruit pulp adds a lot of water to the equation. Consider your audience for the fruit roll-ups. For me, this Christmas 2017 the audience was our family – definitely not raw foodies. So I set the dehydrator around 115 F t 125F. I did several batches. If I was starting it later in the evening, I would set the temperature a little lower overnight. Then when I woke up would check them and flip them and adjust the temp for the day.
At 115 – 125 degree F, with about ⅛” thickness, most fruit leathers should be done at around 18 hours in the TROPICS. It is important to flip them over about halfway through. You should be able to peel the leather off the Teflex without compromising or ripping it and turn it over. If it starts to rip it is not ready to be turned over yet. The fruit roll-ups are done when they are no longer soft, or tacky.
6. Roll-em up. Use a large cutting board to cut the leathers in your desired length shape. At first I made small ones, like the horrible ones we all ate as children. But I found this to be labor intensive – so I began to make them as big as possible. Use the razor/exacto knife here again to help cut the leathers and the parchment paper.
Roll up as tight as possible, secure with your preferred method. At first I used scotch tape. But Adam gave me grief because it was hard to take off and he felt like he could taste/smell the sticky stuff on the tape. For lack of better options in our rural, humble town we used clean floss, like tooth floss for the remainder of our gifts. I am sure there is a better option out there. Please comment if you have any suggestions on that or anything else.
I recently visited my parents in upstate NY during apple season. They have more than 20 unknown varieties of cute apple trees with little tart apples of varying sizes, shapes and tastes. Adam was visiting with me and begggggged me to make apple pie. Then I made 4 more. This pie recipe is classic, really good and does
n’t involve a lot of processed ingredients. In my crust recipe I cut the butter with 50% coconut oil. Obviously you could leave out the coconut oil and use all very cold butter and this recipe should work great. I encourage people to try using just coconut oil for the crust. I haven’t been that adventurous yet.
My mom had this cute apple peeler and corer, it was definitely a time saver with the super small apples on their farm.
Recipe for the Apple Pie
Yield: 1 apple pie in 9” inch diameter pie pan, with a top and bottom crust
Equipment: Pie pan, food processor
Ingredients for the pie crust:
2 1/2 cups white flour (plus another cup or so for rolling out the dough)
1/2 cups salted butter ice cold, chopped (plus another tablespoon or two for dabbing under the top pie crust.
1/2 cup solid coconut oil
1/4 tsp or less salt
1/2 cup ice cold water or less
1 egg beaten (for the egg wash)
Steps for the pie crust:
Mix cold butter and coconut oil in food processor with flour. I roughly chop frozen butter and flash freeze the coconut oil first. Pulse the mixture for 2 -3 seconds at a time until it becomes crumbly. Maybe about 30-40 pulses. You want there to be small chunks of butter and coconut oil.
Pour the mixture into a shallow bowl and add the icy water teaspoon or so at a time, mixing gently with fork until the dough becomes uniformly moist but not sticky.
Stick your hands into ice cold water and dry them, gently mold dough into a ball (mixture will be crumbly, be patient and gentle). Then wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.
Apple Pie Filling Recipe
Ingredients for the apple pie filling:
3-4 cups sliced thin apples that are cored and peeled.
1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup
2-3 tablespoons flour
Juice of 1 or 2 lemons
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Steps for rolling out the pie dough:
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it warm for a few minutes (2-5).
Set up a well floured surface to roll the dough and flour the rolling pin. To make it easier for yourself, is this is your first time in a while with pie dough, you can lay a piece of wax paper down and flour that.
Separate the dough into two, one part should have a little more dough for the bottom of the pan.
Roll the dough out gently for a first time, it will crack a lot and be very crumbly. After a couple of rolls, turn it into a ball again and then roll it out again on the wax paper. Adding more flour on the wax paper and the rolling pin as necessary. Be careful not to warm the dough with your hands too much. Handle as little as necessary. Remember you want chunks of butter and coconut oil to make the pie crust flaky. Try to roll it out until it at least a ½ in more than the diameter of your pie plate when it is upside down. Add more flour as necessary during the rolling making sure the bottom of the dough isn’t sticking too much. You can turn it over a few times during this process. Then fold in half and gently place into pie pan. Set aside in the fridge
Repeat steps for the top of the pie crust. When finished place on a plate in the fridge and For the bottom of the pie pan, roll out half of the dough . Roll it out until it looks at least a 1/2 inch – 1 inch more than the diameter of the bottom of your pie pan. Place carefully in pie pan. Roll out the second half for the top of the pie.
Add the juice of 1 or 2 lemons to a large mixing bowl (discard seeds).
Wash, core and slice the apples, tossing them in lemon juice as you add them to a bowl.
Add the cinnamon, vanilla and maple syrup and gently toss until the apples are evenly coated.
After your bottom crust is in place, put the apples carefully in the pie pan, adding a little flour as you go. Right before you put the pie top on, add small dabs or little pinches of butter under the top of the crust.
Make a few slits in the dough, and gently wash with beaten egg.
11. Bake in preheated oven at 350° F for 30-35 minutes until the crust is golden brown.
I found out about this classic Italian Almond Pear Cake recipe when asked to make a cake for my Grandmother’s 93rd birthday this past September. My brother had just harvested several pounds of pears from a tree my Italian grandfather planted many moons ago. The unique part about this recipe is how little flour it uses and how the pears are placed on top of the cake batter, allowing the cake to rise around the pears. Many recipes you will find online for this type of cake call for a springform cake pan. In my experience this is unnecessary. Just butter and flour your typical 9″ diameter cake pan. This recipe is simple and easy to throw in the oven and impress your guests.
Recipe for Italian Almond Pear Cake
Equipment: Hand mixer or standup mixer, cake pan
Ingredients:
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup granulated cane sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup almond flour or ground almonds
1/3 cup flour or an all purpose gluten-free flour
1/2 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 ripe pairs, peeled and cored and cut into large pieces (halved if possible)
½ teaspoon baking powder
powdered sugar for garnish
sliced almonds
Steps:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F
Butter and flour a cake pan and set aside
Cream butter and sugar
Add the eggs one at a time
Then add vanilla to the butter, sugar, egg mixture.
Next, in separate bowl mix the flour, spices, and baking powder
Then add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture.
Once it is uniformly incorporated spread evenly into the bottom of the floured cake pan, it should only take up an inch or less
Arrange pears on top of the batter, as the cake rises it will rise around the pears
Bake in oven for 30 minutes and remove, add the almonds on top. Place back in oven for another 5-10 minutes until knife or tooth pick come out clean.
Let it cool, remove from pan and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
inspired by:
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These banana brownies are a marriage between my oat flour banana bread recipe and chewy chocolate brownies. Bananas are so abundant here on Hawaii Island. They are also extremely versatile and especially great with chocolate. This recipe features coconut oil, maple syrup, and oat flour instead of wheat, butter, and refined sugar. It uses organic cocoa powder instead of processed chocolate chips. These are a guilt free dessert. Eat em up! Use a little less oat flour if you’ like them to come out more gooey than cake like, try substituting a different flour if you’d like a smoother brownie mouth feel.
Banana Brownie Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup liquid coconut oil
3 cups mashed banana
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs beaten
1 2/3 cups oat flour (ground oatmeal)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cup cocoa powder
macadamia nuts for topping
Steps:
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Oil 9 x 11 baking pan
mash and measure bananas. I use a immersion (stick)
blender and
its done in 30 seconds. You can leave some chunks if you want the banana chunk vibe
in a bowl combine all the ingredients starting with the liquid (oil, eggs, maple syrup, vanilla, banana).
Then add the dry ingredients (salt, baking powder, cocoa powder and oat flour)
These blueberry banana spelt muffins have become a staple in my household. I make a double batch and they still hardly last us through the week. Perfect for breakfast, a snack or dessert. The amount of sweetener can be adjusted to your taste, but I tend to reduce the amount of maple syrup or honey and add a little stevia. This recipe highlights the use of spelt flour in cooking. Below is a little more information on spelt.
Spelt (Triticum spelta) is a grass that originated in southeast Asia. A relative of wheat, spelt is thought to be the “wheat” that was used over 9,000 years ago, it is considered an ancient grain and has been referenced in the bible. It remained a favorite grain until the 19th century agricultural revolutions and the modernization of wheat strains.
Spelt is more easily digested than regular wheat and it has a reputation for helping people maintain good health. Additionally, it has more protein, fat and fiber than wheat, making it a a high-quality energy source. The gluten in spelt is of a different molecule pattern than that in modern wheat. Whereas, today wheat has been designed/bred to have a high gluten content, the character of the gluten in spelt has not been modified from its natural state.
According to the World’s Healthiest Foods website: “Spelt does not seem to cause sensitivities in many people who are intolerant of wheat.” This is why my sweeties begs me to make him spelt muffins – we are taking a break from regular old wheat. In baking, spelt behaves like whole wheat flour and has a wonderfully nutty but subtle flavor. In comparison to oat flour, rice flour, etc. which have strong flavor profiles, spelt makes a better wheat substitution.
Recipe for Blueberry Banana Spelt Muffins
Equipment:
oven
muffin tin
2 mixing bowls
measuring cups and spoons
Yield: 6 large muffins, 12 small-medium muffins
Dry ingredients:
1 1/2cups white spelt flour
1/2 cup instant rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)
1/2tsp fine ground good salt (like Celtic Sea salt)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Wet ingredients:
2 eggs beaten
1/2cupcoconut oil (unrefined or refined)liquid form (but not hot)
1/3cup honey (substitute maple syrup, or reduce the sweetener and add a few drops of stevia)
1teaspoon vanilla
2 ripe bananas mushed well
Add last
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
Steps:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Line muffin tin with coconut oil
Mix wet ingredients well in medium bowl
Mix dry ingredients well in separate smaller bowl
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredient and mix well but do not over mix
Fold in blueberries at the end
Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees F for 6 large muffins. Reduce baking time to 20-30 minutes for smaller muffins. Baking time varies on environment, keep a close watch on your muffins looking for a firm golden-brown edge and top.
Tooth pick should come out clean when inserted. Cool 5 minutes and remove from muffin tin.
Enjoy these blueberry banana spelt muffins while still warm
I’ll have to brag for a moment here about the wonder of a variety of bananas called ICE CREAM BANANAS. It is a cross between Musa acuminata and balbisiana known as Blue Java. I know they don’t carry these in any supermarkets, they are even hard to find at the farmer’s market here in Hawaii. But you can usually find some trees at home depot for $7, plant it and wait about 1 to 2 years.
If you get the chance, you MUST try them. They are soft and creamy, with notes of vanilla and resemble ice cream when frozen! The have a blueish tint when they are un-ripe, and once they are yellow and very soft they are at their peak ripeness. These banana trees like to lean instead of standing tall, so beware before you plant them on the side of your path. Read more about ice cream bananas at this article from the Huffington Post.
Banana Ice Cream Instructions:
To make ice cream banana “ice cream”, all you need to do is peel several ripe ripe bananas and add to your blender or food processor and whip into a creamy creamy puree and chill in the freezer for 1-2 hours.
Obviously, any bananas will work. Just don’t use ones that are browning or very bruised. An easier way to enjoy the taste, is to simply peel and freeze the bananas and enjoy as a super simple, sweet and satisfying dessert. If left in the freezer longer, it will still be good but the consistency will crystalize. If you have an ice cream maker, you may want to take it a step further and prepare the bananas by churning it to decrease the crystals. I have used my Kitchenaid Ice cream attachment with excellent results. You can try adding coconut milk for a coconut ice cream banana ice cream.
This healthy carrot cake recipe is made with coconut oil, significantly less sugar, and goes great with macadamia nut frosting.
A few days ago, I told my hunny I would not try to make another carrot cake for his birthday. The first one I made for him, was huge, dense, moist, but dense, it took days to make our way through ½ of the leftovers and we ended up giving the rest to our dog. BUT, I couldn’t resist trying to make another, better, healthier and with less sugar. This one comes out, light, moist, and moderately sweet, so you can eat an entire piece and feel good.
Recipe for Healthy Carrot Cake:
Yield: This recipe makes approx. one 9 x 12 by 2 inch cake, 15 servings or so.
Ingredients for the cake:
dry…
2 cups organic white flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons aluminum free baking powder
2 tsp cinnmon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
wet…
4 eggs beaten well
1 ¼ cup organic coconut oil (liquid, if you melt it make sure it cools before adding)
1 ¼ cup brown cane sugar (to taste)/
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups grated carrots
Steps:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Oil glass baking pan with coconut oil
Mix the dry ingredients well in medium bowl.
In large bowl, add the beaten eggs, coconut oil, vanilla, and sugar.
Gently mix in the grated carrots.
Add, little by little, the dry ingredients to the wet.
Lastly, add to oiled baking pan and bake for 40-50 minutes until the cake springs back when you poke with a finger or when toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Macadamia Nut Maple Syrup frosting
Yield: approx: 1 ½ cups
Ingredients for the frosting:
2 ½ cups macadamia nuts
up to ¼ cup maple syrup
4 drops of liquid, alcohol free stevia
2 tablespoons + water
Steps:
Add mac nuts, add ½ maple syrup (2 tablespoons) and water to a good blender and blend on high .
Next, taste for sweetness, add a few drops of stevia (not too many as it can enhance the flavor of maple syrup but too much can make it taste almost bitter).
Add more maple syrup to taste.
Variation –
This slight variation will allow you to feed a few more people. It is 1.5 times the recipe above. I also use maple syrup instead of sugar and add cinnamon and a bit more oil to give the cake more moisture.
Ingredients for the cake:
dry…
3 cups organic white flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
4 teaspoons aluminum free baking powder
3/4 teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
wet…
6 eggs beaten well
2 3/4 cups organic coconut oil (liquid, if you melt it make sure it cools before adding)
From about July to October we have avocados raining down from a very old, tall large tree. Raining. Each morning during these months I pick up perhaps 20 avocados from the ground. I know for city dwellers this is an insane amount of avos. It’s almost like a money tree if you consider how much money people spend on avocados a year.
For 25 years of my life I never really cared for avocados thinking there we just another bland, fattening, caloric food that people were trending on. I would always give up my share of avocado to the next person that wanted them. My brother told me I was NUTs and one day, craving mousse (but abstaining from milk,) I came across the avocado mousse concept…and it was this dish that made me LOVE avocado.
This recipe is vegan, dairy-free and uses unrefined sugar. It is so luscious you will have a hard time putting it down.
¼ -½ cup cocoa powder (depending on the size of the avos)
To taste honey or maple syrup, or stevia (ideally stevia is an addition to honey or maple syrup and allows you to use less of the honey or syrup by adding a few drops of stevia to bring out the sweetness).
Bananas, sliced
Steps:
Add avocados and some of the cocoa powder to blender, add some of the sweetener
