BBQ Rub and Seasoning with Coffee and Garlic Recipe- Inspired by Trader Joe's

My sister in law visited from the United States, and brought me along some gifts that I really appreciated- some spice mixes from Trader Joe's. One of them was this delicious coffee and garlic spice rub that I loved to put on nearly everything, though baked chicken was my favorite... but as with these types of things, I eventually ran out of it...
I decided to try to mimic the recipe, and reading the back gave me a good idea of what was in it. However, I found this link to a copy cat recipe for it, and then modified it to use what I had in the house. I left out the orange/clementine peel, but you know what? I think it's just fine without it. Can I say it tastes exactly the same? I don't know, but it's great, and my kids just wanted to sit there eating the spice mix plain, its that good.
Feel free to use this spice mix on pretty much anything you want, such as roasted veggies, chicken, fish, beef, etc... It doesn't need to be barbecued- just baked is fine, or even sprinkled onto your food right before eating.
This is a vegan and gluten free recipe, and depending on how you make it, it can also be paleo (if you use coconut sugar).

BBQ Rub and Seasoning with Coffee and Garlic Recipe- Inspired by Trader Joe's

Marinated Artichoke Hearts Recipe- Canning Option Included

I love artichokes in so many ways. Marinated artichokes have got to be some of the most delicious methods of artichoke preparation, but they cost a ridiculous amount where I live- roughly $7 for a small jar. Making it yourself, though, especially when artichokes are bought frugally in season, or even more so, when bought from the reduced rack, they are a fraction of the cost. I made each jar for under $1, probably under 50 cents. I use pint sized jars for my recipe.

The other day I posted how to prepare whole artichokes for stuffing or marinating, and you can see the whole post with explanations here. Here's the video again, though, for your ease.

Once you have your artichokes prepared, it is very simple to marinate them. You can marinate them and then keep them in the refrigerator, or you can water bath can them, and then not need to store them in the fridge. 

Just note that when I water bath canned my artichokes, they ended up turning a brownish/purplish color, so if you want your artichoke to stay a pretty light green color, it's best to make them into refrigerator pickles. (Perhaps there is a way to make it maintain its color even when water bath canned, I just haven't managed to figure it out yet.)

You can do this with as many artichokes as you want, as my recipe is per jar. Double, triple, or increase as desired.

On top of being a low cost recipe, these marinated artichokes are delicious and suitable for a variety of special diets, whether gluten free and paleo to vegan and allergy friendly. If you love artichokes, give it a try- you won't regret it.

While I used oregano and thyme in my marinated artichoke hearts, feel free to mix up the herbs, using whatever flavors you like best paired with your artichoke hearts.

Marinated Artichoke Hearts Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, Allergy Friendly

How to Clean and Prepare Artichokes for Pickling and Stuffing

I absolutely adore artichokes. Growing up, we had them on special occasions with my family, and because of that, I have really positive associations with that vegetable. I love artichoke any way I can get it, baked, boiled, stuffed, marinated, in soups, salads, you name it...
I felt like I hit the jackpot when I got 30 lbs of artichoke for 25 cents a pound, but I will admit, I was just a little bit overwhelmed. Much as I love artichoke, the only way I'd ever made it before was boiled or baked, whole; when I'd had it other ways, I'd always started with frozen or canned. I didn't want to just boil or bake all my 30 lbs of artichoke whole, but didn't even begin to know where to start if I wanted to turn my whole artichokes into hearts or to be able to can them.

I did a lot of googling to try to figure that out, and I'll admit, even that wasn't so helpful, since most of the instructions were vague or called for baby artichokes, which I didn't have.

However, I managed to figure it out and turn my artichokes into artichoke hearts for stuffing, canned them, made them into soup, and it's a game changer. I feel worlds of options opening up for me in the kitchen now because of this.

To help explain how to clean and prepare artichokes for pickling and stuffing, I made a video of my sister Lizzy, demonstrating how to do this. If it looks hard, I literally showed Lizzy how to do this only one minute before making this video- it's easy to learn. As that was her first time doing so, note that the more often you do this, the more practice you get, the faster you can get it done.

Paleo Fish Cakes Recipe- Egg Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free

I recently got my hands on a large amount of free fish (in the form of fish heads and fish bones that I cooked and then separated the meat from the bones), and have been looking for different ways to use it. My dad used to make tuna croquettes when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed them, and I thought to make similar with my fish. 

This recipe for fish cakes is flavorful enough that it doesn't even need any dipping sauce or topping, but feel free to use whatever types of toppings you enjoy on fish croquettes, from tahini dressing as I used to aioli to Russian dressing to tartar sauce. They also would work well as burgers in a bun with fixings.

This fish cake recipe can with with any cooked flaked deboned or boneless fish, or even canned fish, such as tuna or salmon. 

Mine are completely paleo and egg free, and manage to hold together nicely even without using any flour. If you don't eat a paleo diet, feel free to replace both the chestnuts and almond flour with either gluten free flour or gluten flour of choice, adding enough so that it has a decent texture that holds together into patty form.

As these don't have flour or egg, these are softer fish cakes and need to be handled gently.

I used fennel and carrots in my fish cakes, but feel free to replace them with whatever other vegetables are cheap where you live.

Paleo Fish Cakes Recipe- Egg Free, Gluten Free, Flour Free

Cheater Fast Sushi and Paleo Sushi Techniques

I've been a fan of sushi since I was a kid and have passed on that love of sushi to my kids.

The first time I ever had sushi was on a trip to New York when I was in elementary school. We stopped at a restaurant just as we were about to come home, had a variety of different types of sushi, and quickly became hooked.

Once home, we saw that it wasn't so easy to find sushi in my home town, and what there was cost a lot of money, so my parents, do-it-yourself-type people decided to learn how to make their own. Because we couldn't get sushi grade fish easily, our sushi was always made either with only vegetables or with the addition of lox or surimi (fake crab) strips.

I quickly mastered the art of rolling sushi (it's really not difficult, and becomes much easier and faster with practice), including the more complex inside out rolls. Sushi making, overall, was no big deal for me....

...Alright. Other than the rice.

Making sushi rice was always the most annoying part of making sushi for me. 

Do Chua - Vietnamese Style Pickled Carrots and Radishes Recipe - Paleo and Cheap

When I got my hands on a lot of free carrots and radishes a couple of months ago, I wanted to figure out something amazing to do with them. I'd remembered reading about a Vietnamese carrot and daikon pickle on VietWorldKitchen.com and decided to try to make my own take off from them, using regular radishes instead of daikon, and using non refined sweeteners instead of the white sugar often found in recipes.

Vietnamese carrot and radish pickles are an essential component of the famous Vietnamese sandwich, banh mi, a baguette filled with mayonnaise, chili pepper, cilantro, sliced cucumbers, soy sauce, a cooked protein of choice (from fish to meat to chicken to tofu) as well as these carrot and radish pickles. While not Paleo, I do want to try to make a banh mi inspired wrap, with those fillings and Vietnamese spicy sardines, a common component in banh mi sandwiches.  

I started off with this authentic do chua recipe and played around with the ingredients and proportions until they were to my liking, so I won't say my recipe is authentic anymore, but it is close enough that I think it still can be called do chua. 

Since that original time, I've often been able to get cheap or even free carrots and radishes and I've made them many times since. They are so delicious that my daughter will try to sneak fistfuls out of the refrigerator when I'm not looking. Every single person I've served these pickles to enjoyed them.

Best part about them? They are a great way to make past prime veggies last longer- the vinegar and salt preserves the vegetables, and these can easily last a few months in the fridge. I have not tried canning them, but I don't see why that wouldn't work (although it probably will take away from the crunch factor).

The way I make these pickles, they come out full of flavor, nice and tangy, with the perfect balance of sweet, sour, and salty. Feel free to adjust the ratio of vinegar to sweetener to suit your taste preferences- I use more vinegar and sweetener than in the original recipe. I've used date syrup, jaggery syrup, and honey as the sweetener in mine- white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar all will work as well, depending on your dietary needs/preferences and budget. Do chua doesn't typically have onions in it, but I find them a welcome addition.

If you aren't a big fan of the flavor of radishes, note that they don't taste radishy here, and even non radish lovers generally like them here. But if you want to leave them out, feel free and just increase the amount of carrots.

Do Chua - Vietnamese Style Pickled Carrots and Radishes Recipe - Paleo and Cheap

Paleo Stuffed Artichoke Hearts or Zucchini Recipe- Egg Free, Frugal

I adore artichoke; it is one of my absolute favorite vegetables. The best part of the artichoke, of course, is the heart. When I brought home a large amount of artichokes super cheaply, I knew that I wanted to make stuffed artichoke hearts with at least some of them. I prepared the artichoke to access the heart and hope to make a post in the near future on how to do that yourself. If you don't want to do that, or only have access to frozen artichoke hearts, feel free to use them in this recipe.

Stuffed artichoke is generally made predominantly with ground beef which gets expensive, with dairy that I don't eat, or with rice or breadcrumbs mixed with the meat to stretch it further, also things I don't eat. 

I took the idea for stuffed artichoke hearts that I've eaten elsewhere--beef seasoned with lemon and mint-- and made it more frugally and without ingredients I don't eat. Here you have allergy friendly, frugal, paleo stuffed artichoke. 

If you don't eat artichoke, or they aren't frugal or in season where you live, I made half of my batch with artichoke and the other half as stuffed zucchini, and they are equally delicious.

I find that when vegetables are stuffed with meat that is not stretched with rice or another vegetable, the meat ends up getting dry and not so pleasant to eat. Because the meat in this recipe is steamed in the oven and mixed with zucchini, it stays very moist and delicious.

I highly, highly recommend this recipe.

Paleo Stuffed Artichoke Hearts or Zucchini Recipe- Egg Free, Frugal

Homemade Carrot Peach Leather Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, Easy

I got a very large amount of carrots recently for free (more about that in a later post), but because they weren't in the best of conditions, they needed to be used up sooner rather than later, or at least something needed to be done with them to extend their shelf life. 

With some, I made my sweet and spicy carrots medallions. With others, I made a stir fry with other free vegetables. I made Vietnamese carrot pickles (recipe to come soon). But I still had so much more left and was trying to figure out what to do with them. (Chilled carrot soup will probably make it to my menu soon, either with orange juice, or with leek and cumin.)

When I was on my recent hiking getaway with my mom and sisters, we were brainstorming with ideas of Paleo food to bring along that wouldn't be too heavy (since we had to carry it on our backs) and while homemade ground beef jerky was for protein, figuring out vegetables was harder. I thought of making butternut squash leather, and my mom did so, and it was pretty tasty but lacking something. Eating it together with the banana leather it was perfection.

Seeing my carrots on my counter, I thought I'd take inspiration from that butternut squash leather, and see if I could turn my carrots into "fruit" leather. (I know it as fruit leather, but have a hard time with calling it fruit leather when its pretty much vegetable leather.) I did some googling to see if carrot leather worked on its own, and all other people seemed to add fruit to it, so I figured why not. It still is predominantly carrots, but I added a few peaches that had soft spots and would spoil if I didn't use them up soon. I decided to add some ginger and cinnamon so it would be reminiscent of pumpkin pie.

Well, I can't say that it worked. I don't taste the pumpkin pie. Next time I should probably increase the amount.

But what I can say is that this leather tasted amazing. In fact, I'd say its probably some of the best tasting "fruit" leather I've eaten in a while. My kids loved it too.

It doesn't taste quite carroty and it doesn't taste quite peachy, but somewhere between the two, just the right amount of sweetness, etc...

Homemade Egg Free Hollandaise Sauce Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, and Delicious

Foraged asparagus with vegan hollandaise

My 9 year old son Lee sometimes asks me "Mommy, how do you come up with all your recipe ideas?" and I tell him, more often than not I get inspired by recipes I see on the net or elsewhere. I don't usually make recipes as I find them, because of food sensitivities and monetary constraints. Some recipes I am especially proud of, as I figured them out from start to finish, not basing them off any or even multiple other recipes, but entirely out of my head.
My vegan, flax seed based mayonnaise is one of those recipes that I figured out entirely on my own, and it is really an amazing one, with the exact texture and taste of egg based mayonnaise (unlike most vegan mayonnaise recipes whose texture leaves much to be desired).

When I was lucky enough to be able to forage a bunch of asparagus (something I rarely eat, as they are ridiculously overpriced here, and wild ones don't grow so frequently where I live), I wanted to serve them in the most delicious way possible, that would let their flavor shine (and not be hidden in a quiche or soup) while adding something to bring its flavor up a notch. Cliched though it is, I decided to serve my asparagus with hollandaise sauce.
Or my version of it anyhow.

I'm not a vegan by a long shot, but unfortunately I've got a sensitivity to most dairy and eggs. I've tried my way around it, tried duck eggs instead of chicken eggs, but I can't eat them either. And even ghee, which is clarified butter, with the milk protein removed, something many dairy intollerant people are able to have, makes me react, unfortunately. So the classic hollandaise sauce, made from egg yolks and butter is out for me. But that didn't mean I wanted to give up on it.

Nightshade Free Hot Sauce Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, Delicious

I love my hot sauce. Whether tobasco or sriracha or any other type, being able to add a kick to my food easily is something I really enjoy. In a discussion with a friend of mine who is off of nightshades (the family that includes potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes), she noted how I use nightshades in most of my dishes. That confused me, as I avoid potatoes, eggplants, and peppers because they bother my stomach, and make many tomato free dishes. Then it hit me- hot sauce. I use it a lot. And it is made with hot peppers or hot pepper flakes.
It got me thinking- what if I could make a hot sauce that is nightshade free? Peppercorns are actually not in the nightshade family, so if I could make a hot sauce based on them instead of the usual hot peppers, we'd be in luck, and hopefully all those sensitive to nightshades would be able to finally have hot sauce. (People off nightshades are often told to add horseradish or mustard or fresh garlic or ginger to their food in place of hot sauce, but it is definitely not the same. They have very different tastes.
I set out to see if I could make a peppercorn based hot sauce, but first scoured the internet to see if I could find something like that already out there, but came up empty. So here it is. And it's darn good. I would say it rivals my homemade sriracha sauce in terms of taste. I highly highly recommend this recipe, and not just to people who can't use nightshades, but everyone. The one issue with it is the color not being as attractive as the bright red sriracha you see in the grocery store. Oh well.

While I used sweet potato in this recipe, if you're on the GAPS diet or another diet that forbids sweet potatoes, I am confident that it would work just as well with pumpkin, butternut squash, or carrots in place of the sweet potato. The purpose of the sweet potato is to add a mild sweetness that sriracha has, as well as thickening it, and any other orange veggie would work as well.

Nightshade Free Hot Sauce Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, Delicious

Russian Vinegret Recipe- Root Vegetable Salad

One time, not so long ago, I was at a friend's house and was offered some absolutely delicious salad, a Russian one called vinegret. In American English, and in many other languages, vinaigrette is a type of salad dressing based on vinegar, but Russian vinegret is actually the name of the salad, not just its dressing. There are so many different versions of vinegret, and I posted one a few years back with mayonnaise, but that day at my friend's house, discovered one even tastier and easier, made without mayo.

Last night I made a get together at my house, a belated house-warming party (I was going to do one in December, but we ended up getting sick, and since then, so many things came up that it got pushed off until last night), to show people my new home, and in general, just to have fun with friends and family. (I don't know if house-warming party is the right term for this, since according to Wikipedia gifts are the norm at house-warming parties, but gifts were totally not the point of this party.) I wanted to keep costs down but still serve lots of yummy food to everyone. I made this vinegret and it was enjoyed by all. It was quite easy to make, not to mention frugal, using all seasonal produce that can be purchased cheaply at this time of year.

The layout of one of the tables at the party, vinegret in the back,. Also shown: sesame spaghetti, quinoa salad, veggie crudites, cabbage salad, lentil salad, tahini dip, beet and carrot salad with mint, and purchased gluten free crackers.

I have made vinegret a few times this way, and each time it tastes slightly different but just as delicious. I don't have an exact recipe, more a general guideline on how to make it, since the recipe is flexible and can be adjusted to taste.

Vinegret traditionally is a cold salad made with potatoes, beets, carrots, and cucumber pickles, but as I generally try to avoid white potatoes, I have made this with sweet potatoes and it is awesome. If I don't have cucumber pickles, I also just use plain cucumbers for this. You can add cooked (but not canned) peas to this as well- baby peas are my favorite, but as I can't usually get them very cheaply (and they aren't paleo) I tend to leave them out.
Apologies about the picture- when it is freshly made you can see the different colors in the dish more distinctly, but as it sits, the color of the beets start overtaking everything, and you get a dish with various shades of pink instead of the original magenta, orange, white, and green.

Russian Vinegret Recipe- Root Vegetable Salad

Sweet and Spicy Carrot Medallions Recipe- Easy, Cheap, Paleo and Vegan

Sorry for not having posted so much lately, my husband has been on spring break from work, so we've been spending time as a family and less time on the computer and writing posts on my blog. I'm sorry about that!
So, what's new with me?
My husband has built so many cool things for our house- I posted about a couple of them already, have another few to show, and we're still working on some more projects. That has been really fun.

Since people here are also on spring break from school, I've been taking the opportunity to teach foraging classes when people are available, and that has been great! It's so nice to open people's eyes to new types of food, and help them see the wild edible plants all around them. Yesterday in one of my classes, I had a three year old enthralled by foraging, wanting to taste everything I showed them, and his excitement with the edible plant world reminded me so much of my little daughter, Rose, also three, and also in love with picking her own wild plants to eat (under my supervision, of course, but she's getting very good at identifying them).

My book is due to be released next week via the publisher, Passageway Press, on Amazon and more, and as the clock is ticking down anticipation is building. I've reviewed the final proofs and I think it's going to be really awesome, and can't wait to have a hard copy in my hands after all this time! When I saw the cover photo (not releasing it until the book is released) I was ready to squeal with excitement.

I've been watching a lot of cooking shows lately and getting really inspired by the various techniques I've seen them apply, and am trying to implement them in my kitchen, so that has been fun.

With all that going on, I've been alternating between cooking fancy meals, some with no recipes at all, just made up on the spot but ending up perfect, and some with recipes from this blog (like the musakhan I made the other day), and then some times I just want simple but good.

This carrot recipe has been my go-to carrot recipe lately, because as simple as it is, it is also delicious. My kids and I can finish a whole batch in about one meal. We love snacking on them hot or cold. They have the perfect balance of sweet, salty, and spicy, and our family finds them very addicting. As there have been requests for me to also share my simple recipes here, I decided to share this one with you guys.

Reese's Flavored Chia Pudding Recipe- Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Dessert- Vegan, Paleo Option

Recently we had a guest over from Namibia, which was really cool. For those that don't know (I didn't until she was at our house), Namibia used to be called South West Africa and gained independence from South Africa only in 1990, and is has a very large Afrikaaner population, the Dutch descent people who also comprise a significant percentage of South Africa's white population. My husband is part Afrikaaner (my mother in law's mother) and part English (mother in law's father) (along with Greek and Lithuanian from his father's side), so having over an Afrikaaner and getting to learn more about their culture and language and history was pretty awesome. South African English and Afrikaaners have some similarities in terms of culture and some things very different (and I see that my mother in law is an equal mix of English and Afrikaaner in terms of personality and culture), but one thing they have in common is similar eating habits.
Which brings me to this post.

I grew up with cakes and cookies and other baked goods being our standard desserts. Mandelbrodt was one of the most common, oatmeal raisin cookies and marble cake too, not to mention brownies. Ever since we've been married, though, my husband constantly tells me "Why serve something heavy like that at the end of the meal? You just ate something filling- dessert should be something light, like ice cream or pudding or jelly (the South African word for jello)!"
Well, sometimes I take what my husband says into consideration, and make his style desserts. Other times I stick to mine. My versions of desserts are usually more easily made with pantry staples and quickly, whereas the light desserts usually take more work or have ingredients that I don't always have in the house.
When I knew this Afrikaaner guest was coming, I decided to go with the South African accepted type of dessert- something light, but I didn't have much time available to prepare something, and my kitchen wasn't full of many of the ingredients I would usually use to make such desserts. I thought and thought about what type of dessert to make, and came up with this one.

Chia seeds are in the sage family, and have a special property that makes them absorb tremendous amounts of water and swell up. You can grind them up and use them as a vegan egg substitute as you would ground flax seeds, or you can let the seeds swell up and make desserts or drinks based on that, such as this chia kombucha drink, as long as you don't mind the gelatinous texture of soaked chia seeds.

I used chia seeds to make this quick no fuss pudding. It did need some time to sit to let the chia seeds fully absorb the liquid, but actual hands on time to make it was very minimal. And it used only ingredients I had in the house.
This makes quite a large batch- feel free to halve it or quarter it or whatever.

I used peanut butter, since that was what I had available, but any nut or seed butter can be used for this, whether walnut, almond, cashew, hazelnut, sunflower seed butter, or tahini etc.... You can even use coconut milk or rice milk or regular milk in this, but then it won't have that Reese's chocolate peanut buttery taste that you can get when combining the chocolate with other nut or seed butters.
What I like about this recipe is its versatility, that you can use whatever sweetener or nut butter you prefer or have in the house, so I could make mine cheaply and vegan and refined sugar free by using jaggery syrup, but you can make it paleo by using nut butter, and as cheap as possible by using white sugar if you don't try to avoid it.
I topped mine with dragon fruit that I got super cheaply at the market because it was from the reduced rack, and coconut cream, but you can top it with whatever fruit you have available, or leave out the fruit if you want.

Not only is it a wonderful dessert that went over well with my family and with my guests, leftovers also made a great breakfast.

Reese's Flavored Chia Pudding Recipe- Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Dessert- Vegan, Paleo Option

Making Your Home Gluten Free- Without Breaking the Bank: Beginner's Guide to Going Gluten Free- Part 2

Gluten free corn tortillas I made from scratch

When my friend Daniella's son was diagnosed with Celiac, I told her I'd help her transition her son to going gluten free, with a series of posts on my blog, and I did part one-  the Beginners Guide to Going Gluten Free: What is Gluten and How to Avoid It, which did a very thorough job of explaining that aspect, but part two, the part that actually tells people how to make the transition... never got written. However, now another friend's kid is most likely going to be diagnosed with Celiac, so what better time than to put out part two of this guide.

So, you or someone you love has been diagnosed with either Celiac or gluten sensitivity, or otherwise told to avoid gluten by a medical professional. Generally when someone is told something like that, it is scary and overwhelming and people don't know where to start. On top of that, these diagnoses are nearly always are not temporary (though some say gluten sensitivity can be reduced via certain gut healing diets, but Celiac is not one of them), so it isn't just a temporary change people have to make, but a change that will be for the rest of their lives.
Nearly anyone "in the know" will tell you that gluten free diets are much more expensive than gluten diets. People who tell you otherwise are not comparing like with like. A processed food filled diet that contains gluten will be much cheaper than a gluten free processed food filled diet. An all natural made from scratch gluten diet will be much more affordable than a from scratch gluten free diet. Those who say going gluten free saves money or doesn't cost any more are only accurate if you switch from a processed food filled gluten diet to a more frugal, made from scratch, gluten free diet, but that isn't a fair comparison. I know that when my family switched to a gluten free diet for our family of six, most of the extremely frugal things that I did in the kitchen became much more expensive. Yes, our family size grew, but that doesn't account for the nearly doubling of our grocery budget. Gluten free living is expensive.
People often go to health food stores or health food aisles to find their gluten free items, which typically mark up the prices of their gluten free items.

But, I'm here to tell you that while it is expensive, there are ways to make a gluten free life less expensive than it would be otherwise, and without needing to shop in overpriced places catering to those gluten free. However, I'll admit that much of this takes a lot more work. Life is a trade-off though. In life you can typically save money, or save time, but saving both at the same time is much more rare. (Though I do have a post coming up on how to save money while very short on time.)

How To Make Your Home Gluten Free -- Without Breaking The Bank

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Chews Recipe- Vegan, Refined Sugar Free, Paleo Option

I love my chocolate. A lot. But I am trying to stay away from white sugar and eat healthier in general. So when I saw someone in a healthy eating group share this recipe for homemade chocolates using date syrup as its sweetener, I knew I had to try it out. But using jaggery syrup, since that is the cheapest non refined sweetener I can get my hands on locally.
Of course, the recipe as is didn't appeal to me, because once I was tweaking a part, I just went a-tweaking and changed pretty much everything in it. I replaced the coconut oil with palm oil (cheaper, and irritates my stomach less), date syrup with jaggery syrup, then decided that it needed peanut butter, because, hello, healthy chocolate and peanut butter? Even more winning combination!
Now that I made these changes, my chocolates don't qualify as Paleo, since peanuts are a legume and forbidden on the paleo diet, but they could just as easily be Paleo if you used nut butter or sunflower seed butter in place of the peanut butter.

These chocolates are not crunchy- they are more chewy (similar to this recipe, but not quite), so when molding these, keep size in mind- you don't want them to be too big to fit into your mouth. Because they're chewy, they last longer than if it were crunchy, since there is a limit to how fast you can eat these. I made about 40 slightly bigger than bite sized chews with this recipe.

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Chews Recipe- Vegan, Refined Sugar Free, Paleo Option

Making Homemade Miso- Recipe and Cost Breakdown

My new homemade lentil miso

Growing up, my mother did much of the day to day cooking in our home, introducing me to various dishes and cuisines from around the world, but it was my dad that did the funky stuff. The earliest memory I have of him doing interesting kitchen stuff was making port wine, and us stomping the grapes for it. Around the same time, we started tapping our neighbors' trees (with their permission) with sap to make maple syrup.
At some point later, my father started making sake, miso, beers (mainly stouts, but the occasional pale ale), and meads. He loved biochemistry in school, but became a doctor, and considers this brewing of his kitchen chemistry.
Since moving abroad, my dad hasn't really been making much wine, beer, and meads (I make the wine, and my brother Josh is the beer maker), but he's been on a miso kick, making miso like there's no tomorrow.

Making Homemade Miso- Recipe and Cost Breakdown

Indian Style Tomato Soup Recipe- Vegan, Paleo, and Easy

I don't know what it's like where you live right now, but over here in my neck of the woods it is currently freezing, making it perfect soup weather! I am making an Indian themed meal and was looking for the perfect soup to complement the meal, but didn't want something curry like since I had so many other curried dishes, so I did some googling for recipes and this soup is based on a bunch of different Indian soup recipes, which I've now made my own. It's pretty easy to make, and is suitable for a variety of diets, and everyone who's tasted it so far agrees with me that it is delicious.

Indian Style Tomato Soup Recipe- Vegan, Paleo, and Easy

My Foraging Book- Available to Buy

Many people have asked me where they can buy my adaptable foraging cookbook, Penniless Foodie in the Wild, filled with 65 delicious recipes, that I've been talking about and describing for many months already. Unfortunately, though I tried to get it up on Amazon in time for Christmas, I had technical issues with Amazon, and it now all needs to be reformatted before it can be purchased from Amazon.

However, fret not, because in a few hours, from precisely 12:01am CST, January 16, for a complete week, you can purchase my book, Penniless Foodie in the Wild, and 72 other books, all related to frugal and natural living, and more, as part of the Back to Basics book bundle!
Yes, 73 total, valued at $814.94!

But I am excited because I like saving my readers money, and for one week only, you can purchase the entire thing at more than 96% off, for $29.97! That's pretty insane and impressive savings, and since the books are all such good resources, they will be well worth your money and will end up saving you money in the long run with your newfound knowledge. I stand behind this book bundle as a frugal woman and consider it a frugal purchase and money well spent.

This is how many books there are in each category:
Simple Living: 8
Cooking From Scratch: 9
DIY: 9
Frugal Living: 5
Gardening: 7
Homesteading: 7
Natural Remedies: 6
Natural Parenting: 8
Food Storage: 9
Preparedness: 5

Tomorrow I will share information with you about each book, but for now, here's the description of my book:
Update: Here's a full list of all the books and a description of each. 

Learn how to make sumptuous meals from your available ingredients, foraged or inexpensively purchased. Enjoy 65 deliciously frugal recipes from around the world, appetizers to desserts, written with adaptability in mind.
Real food and kosher, and free of most of the top 8 allergens, most recipes can be made without the other top 8 allergens, and to suit Halal, vegetarian, vegan, low carb, low fat, and Paleo diets.

I'm so excited to be able to finally share this with you!
But remember, after this next week, you'll have to wait until my book gets reformatted before you'll be able to purchase it.

Only 11 hours to go!

Foraged Grape Leaf Chimichurri Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, With Alternative Options

As a forager in my area, what you typically have to work with is lots and lots and lots of greens. Sure, there are some fruit and nuts and mushrooms you can forage, but the vast majority of forageables in my area are greens. To be honest, as someone who likes variety in my diet, sometimes I get bored of those greens and wonder if, perhaps, there are other things I can do with those greens other than just eating them in a salad or sauteing them.
For inspiration when it comes to greens, I find it best to look abroad, as every country in the world, I assume, has traditional recipes made with greens that are local to them, each with their own methods of making them, with different flavors and styles of preparing them. Take these traditional recipes and replace the greens with what you forage locally and voila- you're left with a new and creative and different way to eat those "boring greens". Of course, food purists would be all over me and say "That's not [whatever name you gave your dish]! Real [whatever name you gave your dish] has [standard ingredient] in it and yours does not!" But I don't really care. If it has a similar flavor profile to the original, and most of the ingredients are the same, I am happy to call it that, even if the purists give me grief.

Take this chimichurri recipe. If you've never heard of chimichurri before, and you just read the ingredient list, you might think that it sounds like pesto, and I'd say you're correct. Chimichurri is similar to pesto in that it is a condiment made from pureed/blended greens, garlic, and oil, but while pesto is Italian in origin, chimichurri is Argentinian. A big difference between pesto and chimichurri is that pesto typically is made with pine nuts (or another nut replacement), and cheese (or a cheese substitute), while chimichurri is made with  decent amount of vinegar or lemon juice. The predominant taste, other than the greens, in chimichurri, is sour, while pesto is more garlicky than sour. Another thing that chimichurri always has is oregano. The base of it is oil, vinegar, and parsley, but the additional flavorings are oregano, pepper, garlic, and salt. Replace the parsley with whatever local green you want to use and you won't get exactly the same flavor, but similar enough that I feel it can certainly be called chimichurri.

Chimichurri is traditionally used as a sauce for grilled meat or chicken, but I find it works well on fish and vegetables and as a replacement for other sauces on sandwiches, grains, etc. When I make a batch of chimichurri, I pretty much put it on everything I make, until it gets used up. It's that tasty.

While I make my chimichurri with grape leaves that I forage, feel free to replace the grape leaves with any not too bitter green you have locally. However, bear in mind that grape leaves have an acidity of their own, so if you use a non sour leaf (lets say mallow, for example), add some lemon juice to your chimichurri, in addition to the vinegar, until the flavor is just right. I've seen chimichurri recipes using chickweed, mustard greens, wood sorrel, nettles, kale, swiss chard, arugula, mint, basil, carrot greens, etc. while I haven't seen any recipes specifically with it, I can't see why this can't also be made with mallow, lambsquarters, milk thistle, amaranth, romaine lettuce, sow thistle, or celery greens. It is so versatile. Start off with this recipe, but use a little less of the salt and vinegar than it calls for, and replace the grape leaves with your other greens. Then add more vinegar and lemon juice and salt to taste as needed, and you're good.

Really, you can't go wrong with this one.

Foraged Grape Leaf Chimichurri Recipe- Paleo, Vegan

All About Versatile Yuca Dough and Using it to Make Grain Free Vegan Goodies

Baked yuca dough wild greens gnocchi, absolutely delicious, grain free, and vegan!

First off, I need to write that there are two plants, one named yuca and one named yucca and people often misspell them. Yucca with two c's is also known as Spanish dagger, and grows wild in many places and is ornamental in others, is in the asparagus family, and can be foraged to use as food. This yuca, with one c, is also known as cassava, manioc, and tapioca, and surprisingly to me, is in the spurge family, the family with many, many poisonous plants...

Yuca roots, where I live, are not cheap at all, at approximately $3.89 a pound, but in many areas of the US, as well as other parts of the world, yuca can be bought very cheaply, for as little as 50 cents a pound in many parts of the US.
I first heard about the uses of yuca root when I was researching how to make your own tapioca starch, and then I heard about cassava flour (unavailable to buy here, or even to ship here) which works wonderfully in gluten free/grain free products. Then I heard more and more about yuca dough, and how it has so many uses. Many typically gluten items, such as baked goods, can generally be made gluten free with a bit of finessing, but making them grain free is harder. However, gluten free, grain free items are possible when using coconut flour, eggs, and/or nut flour, but if you can't use coconut flour or eggs (both bother my stomach) and try to use no or fewer nuts (it can get expensive) it's quite hard to come up with ideas on how to make things.
Enter yuca dough.
Without any grains, gluten or not, without any eggs, and without any nuts or coconut flour, you can make all sorts of items generally made from grains, from pizza crust to ravioli to gnocchi to empanadas, just by using a dough made from yuca.