We have a garden full of tender fresh collard greens right now which is what inspired me to create these nourishing raw wraps! My children even love them. Well, my 8-year old thinks they are just okay, and the littlest one can only really eat the pâté and cucumber strips, but the rest of the gang enjoys them!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I have a one-year old now who is into everything.....and four other children. Need I say more? However, we do have a new website in the works which I'm excited to share with you, so stay tuned! If you want to keep up with what I'm cooking and creating in my kitchen please follow me on Instagram. In the meantime....please enjoy this raw collard wrap recipe!
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We just got back from visiting family in the midwest. This recipe is one my mom likes to make often, though I have put my own twist to it. She asked me to make it one evening for dinner, but we were out of sliced almonds, which she toasts on the stove with a little bit of honey and sprinkles over the salad. I found raw pumpkin seeds in her freezer and devised my own version of candied seeds. We made this salad again and again during our trip and everyone enjoyed it!

Since we've been back home, our children have been picking all of the juicy, ripe strawberries growing in a special 3-tiered strawberry bed we built a few years ago for our backyard. I am not sure there will ever be enough for a salad! If you don't have strawberries available, try fresh blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries instead.
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We like to roast a whole, organic chicken on occasion for family meals. In the wintertime I will serve it with sautéed winter greens, such as kale and collards, a few spoonfuls of raw sauerkraut or cultured vegetables, and roasted root vegetables. In the springtime, I like to serve it with a light quinoa radish salad with fresh parsley, lemon, and chopped sorrel or napa cabbage. The next day I pull the meat off the bone and use it to make chicken salad, chicken pot pie, or toss it into soup.

So nothing goes to waste, I put the bones and skin into a stockpot along with a chopped onion, celery, carrot, garlic, peppercorns, fresh herbs, a piece of kombu, and a little cider vinegar; cover with water, and simmer for about 6 hours. This creates the most wonderful, nutritious, healing soup stock. You can freeze it in quart jars and use it everywhere stock or broth is called for in a recipe.

We always use organic chicken, but prefer to use organic chicken that is also local and pastured. What's the difference? Well, organic chickens can still be mass produced in large open hen houses. They are fed an organic grain feed and sometimes have access to the outdoors. Non-organic chickens are generally raised in cramped quarters and fed non-organic grains, which are most likely genetically engineered. (I won't even get into antibiotic use here). Pastured chickens can be ordered online but usually you will be able to find a farmer who sells them locally. We have quite a few around us, in fact you can find them in the frozen section of our local food co-op and health food store. Pastured chickens are usually fed some organic grain but also eat a diet rich in vegetable scraps, bugs, grasses, and moss creating a healthy balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fats. They also have plenty of fresh air, sunshine, and space to move.
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Rhubarb is in season here! It is almost like the first fruit of the season. There are so many creative ways to use rhubarb, such as in compotes, pies, jams, sauces, crisps, scones, and ice cream! If you have any more idea please share. These gluten-free, vegan rhubarb scones make a tasty breakfast treat or afternoon snack with tea.

This is another recipe of mine that doesn't require any starches or xanthan gum. The binding action comes from the chia seeds and sweet rice flour. If you are looking for a good source of chia seeds that are a little less expensive than buying them at your local health food store, I found them on sale today at Nutiva.com. I usually buy a ten pound bag from Azure Standard but forgot to include it in my recent order. Be sure to store them in your refrigerator. I usually grind about a cup in my Vita-Mix to use during the week. I store the ground seeds in a tightly sealed glass jar in my refrigerator.



Gluten-Free Rhubarb Scones

If you prefer to use something other than rhubarb in these scones, try chopped strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or peaches. You can add a small amount of spices to compliment whatever fruit you choose to add. For example, peaches and nutmeg pair well together. I use superfine sweet rice flour from Authentic Foods but I believe any sweet rice flour will work. I normally use coconut sugar in my scone recipes but I realized today that I was out, so I used the organic cane sugar in my pantry for kombucha making. They were slightly sweeter than normal but still tasty!

1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
4 tablespoons granulated sugar (coconut, maple, Sucanat, or cane)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
6 tablespoons organic palm shortening
3/4 cup chopped fresh rhubarb (chopped small)
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 tablespoons ground chia seeds
2 tablespoons hot water
3 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup unsweetened hemp milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, sweet rice flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the palm shortening using your fingers until pea-sized crumbs form.

Add the rhubarb and orange zest, set aside.



Add to a blender the chia seeds and hot water. Then add the applesauce and hemp milk; blend until thick and creamy. Pour the liquid ingredients over the rhubarb and flour mixture. Quickly mix together using a fork until the ingredients have come together. Do not over-mix.

Lightly flour a wooden board and place the dough ball onto it. Dough will be a little sticky. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough and gently pat into a round disk about 1-inch of thickness. Using a sharp, floured knife, cut into quarters and then eighths, so you have 8 triangles.



Use the knife to slide under each scone and gently pick up. Then with the knife still supporting the scone, place onto a cookie sheet. Brush each scone with hemp milk and sprinkle with sugar if desired. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Source: www.NourishingMeals.com



More Recipes you Might Enjoy:
Rhubarb Muffins
Maple Raspberry Scones
Strawberry-Hazelnut Shortcakes

These beautiful holiday cut-out cookies are made with whole food ingredients and sweetened only with stevia. Not only are they gluten-free, but grain-free as well. I use a combination of almond meal and shredded coconut pulsed in the food processor to create a nutritious, low-glycemic, and naturally sweet "flour" blend.

These cookies certainly don't have that toothsome sugary bite even though they use naturally sweet ingredients and a little stevia to help boost the sweetness. My children are not accustomed to really sugary treats so they love these cookies and will devour the whole batch in one day if I let them. If you are accustomed to treats being a little on the sweeter side you may consider replacing 2 tablespoons of the applesauce with 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup or honey.


Coconut Almond "Sugar" Cookies

These flakey, flavorful cut-out cookies can be used for just about any holiday. Here we have used Easter cookie cutters and colored the icing with natural food colorings. In the past to color the icing I have used turmeric powder to create yellow, beet juice for pink, and spirulina powder for green. This time I thought we would try something new. I used Seelect plant-based food coloring in these photos. Once the cookies are baked and frosted they are best frozen until ready to serve. This keeps them crispy and flakey and the icing set in place. They will thaw out in a matter of minutes. This is also nice if you don't have a large family and would like to store your cookies for a longer period of time. 

Note: I have only tested this recipe twice. First with 1 cup each of the almond meal and shredded coconut and the second time with 1 1/4 cups each. Both ways worked, however using 1 1/4 cup of each resulted in a little more fragile cookie but with great flavor and texture. You can decide how much to add. If you get a chance to leave me some feedback in a comment that would be very helpful, thanks!

Dry Ingredients:
1 to 1 1/4 cups almond meal (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1 to 1 1/4 cups unsweetened finely shredded coconut
1/2 cup arrowroot powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Wet Ingredients:
6 tablespoons virgin coconut oil (I use Nutiva)
4 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring
30 to 35 drops liquid stevia

Place the dry ingredients into a food processor fitted with the "s" blade. Pulse the ingredients until combined and ground fine, about 60 to 90 seconds.



Add the wet ingredients and process until a dough ball forms. It will be soft but you should be able to form it into a ball. Place the dough into a bowl sprinkled with a little arrowroot powder. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Then remove from refrigerator and roll out in between 2 pieces of wax paper or parchment paper to about 1/8 inch of thickness. Cut out with your favorite cookie cutters (they should all be fairly equal in size).



Bake for 10 minutes and watch carefully as timing and temperature may need to be adjusted. If they cook fast and brown then turn oven temp down to just over 325 degrees. Cool on a wire rack.



Icing:
1/2 cup raw cashews
6 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons coconut nectar, honey, or agave nectar
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon lemon flavoring
2 to 3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Place all ingredients for the icing into a high-powered blender and blend until ultra smooth, stopping the machine if necessary to scrape down the sides. Spoon icing into individual small bowls and add a tiny amount of natural food coloring if desired. We used chopsticks to ice each cookie, then sprinkled them with shredded coconut or natural sprinkles. Freeze the cookies for at least 20 minutes to set the icing. Source: www.NourishingMeals.com



More Easter Dessert Recipes:
Oatmeal Cut-Out Cookies
Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clusters (stevia sweetened)
Raw Chocolate Pie
Mango Coconut Pudding

For the past few months, citrus and cabbage have become some of my favorite two foods! This scrumptious salad combines them both. I use napa cabbage which is a very mild, tender cabbage. It is also a favorite vegetable of our children. My oldest daughter likes to pack napa cabbage in her lunch! All four of our children devour this salad in no time!

Tom and I also have some more news......we are having another baby! This explains the cravings. All I have wanted to eat is cabbage, raw or cooked, and also raw sauerkraut. Also any kind of citrus works really well. The all day nauseousness finally subsided last week and now I am feeling great! Baby number five is due at the end of the summer. I've also been working on finishing the next cookbook. Can't wait to tell you more about it!
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