Tag Archives: blueberries

Berry Pie, ‘Nuff Said. (gf, vegan, and processed sugar free)

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IMG_9353Pie, my friends. Sweet, sweet pie. As the berry season cometh, so cometh delicious pie. I wanna be straight with you folks though, and this may sound like blasphemy to the pie purists of the world, but I don’t historically love traditional pie crust. So I made a different crust. Also, let’s be honest because we’re friends, regular crust from scratch is a huge pain in the ass and gluten-free and vegan crust is even more of one. Thankfully, the crust in this recipe is easy as, well, pie. 🙂IMG_9348Berry season (i.e. summer) in the northwest is the best. The berries are giant, sweet, and abundant. I literally spent 20 minutes just picking blackberries one block from my office yesterday and came home with 3 pints of juicy blackberries. One of my favorite memories is picking blackberries with my little brother and my folks at the beach. To this day, just taking a couple of minutes to slow down and pick a few blackberries brings the biggest smile to my face (pause for reverie about berries). Okay, resuming pie talk.IMG_9332So, crust. What you need:

2 cups of gluten-free oats

1.5 cups of almonds

2 heaping Tbsp coconut oil

1/4 -1/3 cup maple syrup

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Will the preheating is happening, grind your oats and almonds. I did it in my Vitamix. If you don’t have a power blender (or a magic bullet is awesome here!) just buy oat flour and almond meal.IMG_9333Here’s my oat and almond flour all ground up and mixed. Don’t grind your almonds too long or you’ll have almond butter, which is delicious, but not our goal here. 🙂

Add your coconut oil and maple syrup. Mix well and press into a pie tin.IMG_9338Bake for about 15 minutes.

While your crust is baking, prepare the filling (this part is shockingly unchallenging). What you need:

1 pint strawberries, rinsed and sliced

1 pint blueberries, rinsed

1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Mix them berries! After your 15 minutes of crust baking, fill that thar pie crust!IMG_9351Bake for another 45 minutes-ish until the crust is golden brown and berries are cooked, but not mushy. The outside of the strawberries ends up almost roasted and was so tasty that it led to a future recipe about roasted strawberry ice cream. Prepare yourselves.IMG_9354Now eat a slice of pie! Or the whole pie! (brief pause for pie reverie).IMG_9361Yum. 🙂

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Raw Cacao Ka-pow Secret Green Smoothie Goodness (raw, vegan, and gluten-free). Huzzah!

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P1030118It’s a long title for a smoothie with a long list of fine (and most importantly, delicious) attributes. Not only is this one green, full of antioxidants, protein, and some crazy tasty cacao pow, it’s refreshing, not too sweet, and can keep me full through a hard workout or for at least 3-4 hours, which is really something if you’ve met me. I’ve been making it most mornings for the past month or so, and it just makes me happy. But again, this is not the smoothie for you if you’re looking for super sweet and fruity. While it’s many things, it is not those two things and it doesn’t like to front.P1030116What you need: Serves 1 (or two if you just want wee smoothies)

1 banana, preferably frozen and chopped (alternative: frozen mango chunks. WHAT?! Yes, it’s not bad and will do if you’re out of bananas)

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

2 cups baby spinach, kale, or chard

1 Tablespoon raw almond butter

1.5 Tbsp raw cacao powder

1 cup almond (or other non-dairy milk)

1 tsp maple syrup if you’re using homemade almond milk without sweetener (I’ve been making my own nut milk lately and a little sweetness boost is sometimes nice for those not used to green smoothies)

1 Tbsp chia seedsP1030112_2Put it all in a blender (again, magic bullet to the rescue!) and wait for it…..wait for it….BLEND! Add ice if your banana’s not frozen or you want slightly more thickness. Drink it up!!! POW!P1030117P1030115

 

Olive Oil Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins (gluten-free and vegan)

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Today was a day for muffins…savory, fruity, cakey muffins. I’ve been so swamped with school lately that I’m prepping a lot of food on sundays to get through the rest of the week. I’ve also discovered that listening to lectures on my iPod while I cook is actually helping me retain the information better, so it’s win-win. 🙂

These tasty little friends are made with cornmeal, olive oil, and luscious, luscious blueberries, and they have a velvet-y texture despite the cornmeal. I never actually thought I’d describe any food as velvety because it’s always struck me as impossible unless you’re talking about mousse, but these come pretty close.

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To make:

1 cup gluten-free all purpose flour

1 cup cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup coconut sugar

2 Tbsp chia seeds (whisked into gel with 6 Tbsp water) – if using eggs, use two whole eggs instead

1/4 cup olive oil

3/4 cup almond milk

1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1/4 tsp sea salt

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of cinnamon

From here, it’s easy. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk chia seeds into a gel (will take about 5 minutes of setting). Sift together dry ingredients (except sugar), whisk together wet ingredients (include sugar here).

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Add wet to dry and fold in blueberries. Add extra almond milk by tbsp if the batter seems too dry.

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Spoon into regular-sized greased muffin tin, and bake til golden-brown on top and fork comes out nice and clean (about 20-30 min).

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Eat ’em up!!!!!

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