Solar Cooking – Zucchini Swiss Chard Fritatta

Morning Friends! This morning I am going to make another frittata for breakfast in my Solavore Solar Sport Oven. I am so enjoying harvesting the suns energy to cook my family meals. I set my solar oven outside at about 8am to preheat with the reflectors, since it is early morning time and the rays are not very hot at the moment.

TIP when cooking with liquid: Yesterday when I made my first frittata I didn’t have the solar oven level, so when I checked on my dish it was all formed up on one side leaving a very thin layer of egg matter on its opposite side. So make sure you have your solar oven on a leveled surface.

 

Zucchini Swiss Chard Frittata

• 1-2 cups thinly sliced swiss chard

• 1 small zucchini sliced into thin rounds

• 1 medium chopped bell pepper

• 1/2 – 1 cup chopped scallions

• 1/4 – 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles

• 8 eggs

• Milk – optional

• Handful of minced herbs (I used oregano, dill & thyme)

• Coconut oil

• Salt & Pepper to taste

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Preheat your solar oven

• Sauté the bell peppers in a skillet, medium heat, with some coconut oil, until they start to brown.

• While the bell peppers are cooking, grease the inside of your dark 4 qrt. pot with coconut oil and layer the bottom with the sliced swiss chard.

• Cover the swiss chard with a layer of sliced zucchini rounds so you can no longer see the chard. Season with salt and pepper.

• Now add the sautéed bell peppers, scallions and minced herbs. Top off with the feta cheese crumbles.

• In a separate bowl blend your eggs together until well combined. You can add a little bit of milk if you desire. Pour over mixture.

• Season the top with salt & pepper.

• Cover with lid and place into your preheated solar oven for 1-2hrs.

ready to place in the solar oven

1hr and 45m later breakfast is ready!

 

Solar Cooking: Black Bean Burger Chili

So I’m looking into my freezer and notice I bag full of broken pieces. As I examine closer I figured out I smooshed a bag of black bean burger patties. 

I know I’ll make chili in my new solar oven.

Here are the ingredients I thru together. I didn’t measure anything but I will guess.

• 4-6 broken up black bean burgers

• 2 cans of diced tomatoes w/ juice

• 1 can of black beans w/ juice

• 1 onion chopped

• 1-2 tbl Worcestershire sauce

• 1 tsp chili powder

• palm full fresh minced oregano, basil & parsley

• salt & pepper to taste
Preheat solar oven for 15-20m.

Cook & break up black bean burgers in a skillet with a little bit of oil until unthawed.

Toss everything in a 4qrt black pot with lid and combine well.

Place pot In solar oven for 3-4hrs. Mine was done in 3.5hrs.

Creamy-N-Soft Cauliflower Soup – RAW!

I started from the recipe in Kristin Suzanne’s Easy Raw Vegan Soups book. A few things I didn’t have so replaced with other ingredients, also added some new ones.

Kristen’s Original Recipe:

1 cup water
2 cups cauliflower, chopped
2/3 pine nuts
2 teaspoons onion powder
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon raw agave nector
pinch white pepper
Himalayan crystal salt, to taste

My Version:

1 cup water
2 cups cauliflower, chopped (I weighted 16 oz)
1 cup cashews soaked for 1 hour
2 teaspoons onion powder
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 large medjool dates
1 large spoon or fork full of sauerkraut
coarse black pepper
Trocomare Herb Seasoning Salt, to taste
Garnish with cilantro & sprouts of your choice

Ingredients

Sauerkraut & Medjool Dates

Place everything into the blender

Blend all the ingredients until velvety smooth!

Soak pine nuts/cashews in water for at least an hour. Add everything to your blender (vita-mix preferred) and blend until velvety smooth. You can also use the vita-mix blender to warm up the soup. Just make sure not to heat over 115 degrees!

This tasted amazing, I had 2 bowls! A girlfriend stopped by and she had a bowl too. She liked it! Yeah!

Raw Breakfast

1tbl Chia Seeds
1 Banana chopped
1 Apple chopped
Handful of Blueberries
Sprinkle Cinnamon
3 Oranges Squeezed for juice

Place everything in a bowl in the order listed. Let your breakfast sit for about 5 minutes or so for the chia seeds to soak up the juice. 

ENJOY!

So Simple Banana Cookies!

So cool! I had so many bananas so I’ve been making all sorts of goodies. These are so simple. I got this recipe from my Vitamix cookbook! I had a great little helper too.

Remember the riper the bananas the sweeter the cookies will be. The bananas & raisins serve as the only sweetener in the recipe.

If you can’t read the recipe from the photo, let me know and I will type it in.

ENJOY! KID & ADULT APPROVED!

I didn’t have any raisins but I did have organic dried cranberries. They tasted great!

Sauerkraut, Adzuki Beans & Avocado?

I’m trying to get well from this stupid flu and finally felt HUNGRY! Looked in the fridge and steamed some sprouted adzuki beans and thru in a bowl with sauerkraut and avocado chunks … It was really tasty!!!

Ruth’s Chia Goodness – 88% Raw Breakfast

What a great morning so far. Woke and did my normal fresh squeezed lemon water drink. Yoga in my newly cleaned rearranged room. Elliptical for 20 minutes, and now for breakfast!

I decided to break open a young thai coconut and use the coconut water in Ruth’s Chia Goodness Cranberry Ginger Raw Cereal!! (the original flavor is 100% Raw). I have been eating this stuff for about a year now. I love it. It’s not just for breakfast. It’s an instant Raw cereal you can eat cold or hot, so it is perfect to carry around with you for when you get hungry or need a powerful pick-me up!

Ruth's Cranberry Ginger Chia Goodness Cereal, Coconut Water, Young Thai Coconut Meat, Apple & cinnamon.

Cranberry Ginger Ingredients:

Chia (salvia hispanica), buckwheat, hulled hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, currants, cranberries, org. cane sugar, ginger, celtic sea salt.

 

Gotta try some. For folks here in Livingston, Foodworks carries it!!

Raw Cacao (Chocolate) Pie!

This is one of my favorite desserts & it is so easy to make. This recipe is not my own creation but altered from another Raw chef.

Ingredients

RAW CACAO PIE!

Coconut Crust

•  1 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded dried coconut

•  1 1/2 cups raw macadamia nuts or raw walnuts (I usually do 1/2 walnuts & pecans)

•  1/4 teaspoon salt

•  8 pitted medjool dates, unsoaked

Chocolate Mousse

•  5 pitted medjool dates, soaked for a bit till soft

•  1/4 cup maple syrup or agave nectar + 3 drops of stevia liquid

•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•  2 medium size or 3 small mashed avocado

•  1/2 cup to 3/4 cup unsweetened raw cacao or carob powder (I do 1/2 & 1/2)

•  1/2 cup water ( I use the left over water I soaked the dates in)

•  Cinnamon

Slit open Medjool Dates & Remove Seeds inside. Set 8 dates to the side for the crust.

Soak 5 Dates in water for Chocolate Mousse Filling

Coconut Crust Instructions:

Place the coconut, nuts and salt in food processor with S blade and process until finely ground. You could coarsely ground the ingredients too.

Take the 8 dates you set aside & chop them up into chunks.

Add the dates and process until the mixture resembles crumbs and begins to stick together.

Grounded Up!

Put mixture in pie pan.

Press crumbs uniformly & firmly along the bottom and up the sides of the pan to form a pie crust. Place in freezer for 15 minutes.

 Chocolate Mousse Instructions:

Place the soaked dates, sweeteners and vanilla in a food processor with S blade. Save the water the dates were soaking in!

Process until smooth.

Add the avocado.

Again process until smooth.

Add Cacao & Carob Powder.

Process well. The filling will be very thick & creamy! Make sure to scrape the sides a few times while processing.

Now add 1/4 cup of the date soak water & blend.

Keep adding water a little at a time to make the filling light & fluffy but still slightly thick.

Retrieve the pie crust from the freezer and place mouse filling inside the middle of the crust.

With a spatula spread the filling evenly within the pie crust. Sprinkle with cinnamon and decorate as you like.

Now you must close your eyes to eat the first bite!

You can’t even taste the avocados! Enjoy this amazing healthy chocolate treat any time of the day!!

James Had a Craving for PANCAKES!!!

I was visiting my wonderful friend James Saturday morning and he had a crazy craving for pancakes. One of his favorite foods but didn’t like the low health factor they had. So we put our brains together to come up with a healthly pancake that still rocked in taste and texture. We bundled up and walked to the Bozeman Co-Op for ingredients.

We almost bought Pamela’s Gluten Free pancake mix but then we decided to make our own Gluten Free, Egg Free, Milk Free pancakes from scratch. We bought organic quinoa grain, cinnamon, baking powder, organic vanilla extract, & organic chocolate covered cacao nibs. At his house he had flax & chia seeds & bananas. Ok this is what we did:

Homemade Allergy Friendly Quinoa Pancakes!!

•  With a coffee grinder (or if you have the dry blade container for a vitamix that works great) we ground up enough Quinoa grain to make about 3 cups of flour.

•  Grind about 2 tablespoons each of Chia Seeds & Flax Seeds. This is to bind the batter together instead of using eggs & the chia seeds will give the nutritional value a boost!

•  Added a little over 1/4 teaspoon of Real Salt

•  A lot of cinnamon

•  1 teaspoon of baking powder

•  Mix all the dry ingredients until well blended

•  Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

•  Enough water to make a nice semi-thick sticky batter, not runny!

•  Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of melted organic coconut oil

•  Add 2 bananas mashed

•  Add as many cacao nibbs as you want or nuts!

•  Blend well

I wish I had a picture of these. They turned out amazing. I will no longer need to buy Pamela’s GF Pancake Mix. The quinoa made the pancake texture spongy with a mild nutty flavor. I want to experiment with other grain flowers too. HEARTY & DELICIOUS!!! Yummy!!

You gotta try them.

Pesto Time!!

I created this quickly with what I had available in my kitchen. Turned out well, surprised!

I made a pesto with lemon juice, cashews, olive oil, garlic, basil & seasonings.

Spiralized angle hair zucchini pasta.

Added diced cherry tomatoes & green grapes, hemp hearts, & capers.

I couldn’t believe the flavor that burst in my mouth when i had a bite with a grape! The tomatoes & zucchini came from my garden & the rest of the ingredients are organic. This dish served it’s purpose, I AM FULL!!