The Ins and Outs of Coconut Oil

November 7, 2014 / Kake2Kale | Culinary Travel Adventures

Did you buy a jar of coconut oil because everyone is telling you it has soooo many benefits and you should jump on the coconut oil band wagon? Now your jar is in the pantry, but you remember that its got a reputation as being a bad fat. Instead of using it, you eye it suspiciously as your hand reaches past it for the good ole olive oil. Fear not, I am here to answer your queries about the controversy around coconut oil.

Coconut oil has received bad press because it was studied years ago, but the oil that was used was hydrogenated. As we now know, anytime you hydrogenate an oil it turns into a trans fat, which we should all stay away from. So, naturally, those studies came to the conclusion that coconut oil was bad for you.

Some of the benefits of coconut oil are that it is anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, and it also fights yeast (candida), because of its high lauric acid content. Coconut oil contains about 50% lauric acid. But, isn’t coconut oil a saturated fat and isn’t saturated fat bad for you? It is a saturated fat, but not all saturated fats are created equal. Coconut oil’s fat is made up of medium chain triglycerides (MCT), which behave differently in the body from other saturated fats. MCT’s get metabolized quickly and doesn’t get stored as fat, but gets converted directly into energy. There have also been studies done where high amounts of MCT’s help reverse Alzheimer’s. A doctor, whose husband was diagnosed with the disease, wrote the book ‘Alzheimer’s Disease: What If There Was a Cure?’ to document how adding coconut oil to her husband’s diet cured him.

Apart from the occasional times that you pull it out for frying and perhaps use as a moisturizer, what else is there to do with that fabulous jar of coconut oil that’s just sitting on your shelf like a Ferrari in a garage full of Chevettes?

Below are some of my favourite ways to use coconut oil. The following three recipes are vegan, gluten free and dairy free:

Dulse-licious Popcorn serves one hungry snacker

Ingredients:

1/3 cup popcorn
1 T melted coconut oil
1 ½ T Red Star nutritional yeast
1 T dulse flakes
sea salt to taste

Directions:

Pop the corn kernels in which ever fashion you desire, I use a hot air popper.
Melt the coconut oil.
Then pour oil over the popped corn, sprinkle with nutritional yeast, dulse flakes and salt.
Devour while watching your favourite movie.

Cheezy Toast* makes one slice
Ingredients:

1 slice of bread (Gluten Free if you wish)
½ T coconut oil
½ T Red Star nutritional yeast
pinch of sea salt

Directions:

Spread coconut oil on top of bread, then sprinkle yeast and sea salt on top.
Put in toaster oven for about 3 minutes.

Voila, delicious crispy cheesiness!

* When you see the words cheez or cheezy, most of the time it means there is no cheese in it, but still has cheesy flavour. Note there is a cheese cracker out there with the “z” spelling. But if you are in a health food store and see “z” spelling, chances are it is dairy free.

5 minute Chocolate Mousse serves 4
Ingredients:

I can (398 ml or 14 oz) pumpkin puree
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup maple syrup
¼ cup coconut oil
½ small avocado (mashed)
½ t vanilla extract
½ t cinnamon
½ t sea salt
sesame seeds for sprinking on top (optional)

Directions:

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend on high for 30 sec. or more if needed.
Portion into pretty bowls and serve. At this time of year we have pumpkins of all sizes everywhere you go, so I served the mousse in a hollowed out mini-pumpkin.
Note: This recipe was inspired by Must Have Been Something I Ate by Peggy Kotsopoulos.

Other Superfoods in my recipes:
Coconut oil: see above.
Red Star Nutritional Yeast: Full of B vitamins, nutritional yeast is really good for vegans and vegetarians because it has B 12, which comes mostly from animal products. I often use this as a substitute for grated cheese.
Dulse: High in vitamins and minerals, iodine (good for thyroid). Removes heavy metals from the body.
Pumpkin: High in Vitamin A, lutein, cancer fighting antioxidant and also beta carotene which is good for eye health. High in fiber as well.
Cocoa: High in vitamin B’s and magnesium, both of which supports the nervous system. It also has phenylethylamine, which stirs up happy feelings, and releases stress.
Avocado: Contains monosaturated fat which may help reduce bad cholesterol. It also contains lots of vitamins, in particular C, B’s and E and also minerals.

Other ways I like to use coconut oil, besides putting them in smoothies and chocolate peanut butter cups, I also like to put them in my coffee. There is a trend going around and perhaps you’ve heard of it – Bulletproof coffee. It’s coffee made with fat, either grass fed butter or MCT (a form of coconut oil). Drinking Bulletproof coffee in the morning is supposed to give you energy that will last until lunch. So essentially lunch would be your first meal of the day.

Well, breakfast is my favourite meal of the day so I can’t give it up. But I do make my own version, which is just coffee and coconut oil that is blended making a creamy satisfying drink that gives me a good boost through the morning.

One thing to remember about coffee is that it freezes your digestive system, so I wait at least 20 minutes after I’ve had my coffee before eating.

As for buying coconut oil for cooking and consuming, I use organic virgin coconut oil. It will have more of a coconut aroma/flavour, which I like. The version without aroma will be refined, which means more processed. If the oil is just for moisturizing skin then non-organic is fine and is less costly.

I leave you with a beauty tip, that is – I have been making my own exfoliator with coconut oil, which works really well. It has lactic acid containing yogurt, which has moisturizing and exfoliating properties. Yogurt also helps with lightening spots, as does the lemon juice. Coconut oil is moisturizing of course.

Coconut Lemon Facial Polish/Mask single application

Ingredients:

1 t coconut oil
1/2 t sugar
1/4 t lemon juice
1 T plain yogurt

Directions:

Combine coconut oil, sugar and lemon juice, then apply to face and massage the paste into face with a circular motion. Avoiding eye area.
Smooth yogurt over the polish and let it sit for 10 minutes and then rinse it all off.
Use this once or twice a week.
If you have sensitive skin test on a small area by your jawline.

What I’ve shared is just the tip of the iceberg of all that coconut oil can do for you and what you can do with it, so I encourage you to crack the coconut shell wide open to find out more of its benefits for your insides and your outsides.

Eat healthy, live and look great! {Kake}

Is it Japanese Lasagna or Italian Sushi?

September 26, 2014 / Kake2Kale | Culinary Travel Adventures

The first lasagna I ever had was made from the generosity of a stranger. This was shortly after we emigrated from Hong Kong and Mom was shopping at Safeway. She returned home with a handwritten lasagna recipe given to her by another grocery shopper. That night Mom made it, much to everyone’s delight. She shared how this stranger took the time to write out the recipe then escorted her around the store to choose the ingredients. At that time, I thought of how Canada was a wonderful land and that Canadians were genuinely kind. It was probably a very insignificant act for the stranger, but to my family, we tasted the deliciousness of generosity that night.

As that stranger knew, lasagna is one of those fail proof dishes that even a first timer can’t ruin. I am almost positive that you could sneak in lawn clippings and coffee grounds and no one would be the wiser. Don’t worry; this week’s original recipe doesn’t include any lawn clippings or coffee.

One day, {Kale} mentioned that she had some seaweed in her pantry and asked if I could do something with it. It was actually giant kelp and on the back of the package was a recipe for seaweed lasagna. But what a disappointment! It was basically a regular lasagna recipe that just exchanged the noodles for seaweed. Instead, I thought about my favourite way to eat seaweed… SUSHI! What could be more crowd pleasing than a California roll? So, is my new seaweed creation considered Italian sushi or Japanese lasagna? Either way, {Kale} and I enjoyed the finished product very much.

Before you jump into making this recipe, there’s a caveat. Remember those stand-up menus in sushi restaurants that had the various types of sushi listed and some were labeled “challenging”? I suppose this recipe could be considered “challenging” if you make it as is. The challenging ingredient is the giant kelp because it is quite chewy and has a strong “sea” taste. So if you’d like to try the recipe but are not sure if you want to go for the gusto, then I’d suggest using nori. I’ve put an addendum to the recipe. Nori is the seaweed that is commonly used to make sushi. It is milder, and lighter.

I’d like to dedicate this post to my dear friend Jo who left us much too young from her battle with cancer. Jo was a master herbalist whose life was very much in tune with nature. I loved it when she shared her knowledge and the fruits of her labour with me. She had been working on a precedent setting municipal vegetable garden. Every summer she would collect kelp and drape it all over her apartment to dry and then bundle it up in silk pouches to be sold at craft fairs as bath detoxifiers. She took the time to find just the right colour of silk and handpicked each strand of kelp. I always felt refreshed after one of her seaweed baths. In case this inspires you to try this, you can reuse the pouches up to 10 times and just dry them afterwards.

Jo would have been tickled by my sushi inspired lasagna, not only because of the kelp but for the Asian twist that I added. Jo was adventurous in many ways and trying new foods was definitely one of them. Though she was of British stock, she joked about having Asian blood in her because she loved foods like congee, dumplings, tofu. This one’s for you beautiful Jo!

Superfoods in this Recipe:
Seaweed: Contains many nutrients and is especially high in iron and iodine. Iodine can help with supporting a sluggish thyroid. Also contains minerals that are important for strong bones.
Tofu: Soy has had some bad press, but I always say, everything in moderation. When I lived in Hong Kong as a child, I would have a chilled bottle of soymilk (sold like cola) as a weekly treat. But here, it becomes a replacement for dairy milk, and is consumed everyday. Tofu is high in protein, calcium has lots of soy isoflavones, that may decrease bone loss due to menopause.
Avocado: Contains high amount of potassium, vitamins K, B complex, C and E. Rich source of monosaturated fat which is a good fat, can help with lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of strokes.
Crab: High in protein and minerals like zinc, iron, calcium and copper, as well as Omega 3’s. It is also abundant in selenium, which is an antioxidant and plays a role in thyroid health.

California Roll Lasagna serves 4

Ingredients:

8 lasagna noodles (may replace with Gluten Free noodles)
8 sheets giant kelp*
250 gm medium firm tofu
1 large avocado
120 gm crabmeat
1 T. lemon juice
1 t. salt
1 t. black pepper
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 cup Bechamel sauce**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cut 8 strips of tin foil to approximate the width and length of the noodles.
Boil the noodles according to the instructions on the box.
While noodles are boiling, blend the tofu, avocado, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Stir in the crab meat once it is blended.
When the noodles still have 2 minutes left to cook, add the kelp.
Drain the noodles and kelp.
Lay the tin foil out then lay a strip of kelp, then a lasagne noodle, spread with a thick layer of the tofu crab mixture. Then roll up and put in a casserole dish.
Continue until all eight are rolled. Top each with some béchamel sauce.
Bake for 20 minutes. Unwrap the rolls and serve topped with more béchamel sauce and sprinkle of parsley.

*Nori version
Take 3 sheets of nori and cut each sheet into 3 long strips, you will have one leftover. Boil the noodles, drain. Then lay out the noodles onto the foil, place a strip of dry nori onto the noodles and spread the tofu mixture on top. Carry on as above.

Bechamel Sauce

1T. butter
1 T. flour (or GF flour)
1 cup milk (non-dairy is fine)
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium high heat.
Add the flour, stirring constantly, letting the flour cook for about 2 minutes until it gets a nice brown colour.
Add the milk, stir constantly until the sauce thickens, and coats the back of a spoon.
Season with salt and pepper, to your taste.

This recipe is perfect for tweaking. If you want you can add more crab or avocado, some herbs, or if you prefer, to use cream cheese instead of tofu. Make this recipe your own and let me know how it goes.

Eat healthy, live great! {Kake}

Kale Pesto with Roasted Potatoes and Egg

September 19, 2014 / Kake2Kale | Culinary Travel Adventures / 1 Comment

We’ve been growing kale in our garden for a few years now. For those of you who have never planted anything for fear of killing it, then kale is for you. We usually just buy the seedlings in the spring, plant them and water them somewhat regularly and they supply us with their prodigious leaves from summer into late fall. Growing kale is definitely 20% effort for 80% results.

Kale used to be one of those mysterious things that adorned plates at restaurants. Mom and I had lunch many years ago when my sandwich platter came with a scoop of coleslaw that was nestled in a green frilly leaf. Mom saw this leaf and in an awed voice said, “I think that’s kale; it’s very nutritious.” It was like she had seen a unicorn! I took a little bite of this strange leaf with high expectations, but was completely disappointed by the tough chewy texture and bitterish taste. Mom finished off the rest of my discarded leaf. Little did I know then that she was further fortifying her anti-aging genes; my Mom has always looked young for her age. But at that time, I had as little use for kale as those plastic green cut-outs that come with your sushi.

How far we’ve come! Kale has now shot out of the shadows and straight into our gardens, our salads, chips, smoothies. It’s the Susan Boyle of the vegetable world, living a life of obscurity until a spotlight was shone on it and it burst forth in all of its green glory. It has definitely had more than its share of 15 minutes of fame, and still going strong, though other veggies are trying to vie for its prominence in our fridges and plates. Besides the conventional curly and heavy textured leafy kind, there is the non-curly and not as chewy kind called locinato, or dinosaur kale, as well as black kale, which really looks purplish.

My favourite way to eat kale is to make them into chips by dehydrating them, which makes them really crispy so they taste just like the kind you can spend oodles of money on in the grocery store. It’s worth the trouble. My neighbor has a dehydrator that she generously let me use, but she just moved and I might have to get one for myself. Here is my go to recipe for dehydrated kale chips. http://goneraw.com/recipe/cheesy-kale-chips

With the abundance of kale in my garden, I thought I’d make pesto with it. One night I had a craving for comfort food, and what’s more comforting than breakfast for dinner. So I roasted some sweet potatoes and potatoes, added the kale pesto and a fried egg, read my Vanity Fair magazine and settled in for the night…heaven.

Superfoods in this recipe:
Kale – High amount of calcium and vitamin K. In the Brassica oleracea family which is known to have a protective effect against cancer, because they contain Indole-3-carbinal (IC3) , which promotes a healthy balance of good estrogen to toxic cancer causing form of estrogen, it also has an anti-tumour effect.
Garlic – The major player in the allium family ( includes, leeks, onions, shallots, chives, green onion) contains sulphuric compounds that may help with lowering blood pressure, destroy cancer cells. Allicin, one of these compounds in garlic is not only anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal, but research has shown that as allicin helps your body to neutralize dangerous free radicals.
Pine nuts – This seed has the highest amount of protein found in any nut. They are the only source of pinoleic acid, an appetite suppressant. They contain a high concentration of oleic acid which is good for heart health. Pine nuts are also rich in iron and packed with antioxidants.
Olive oil – Extra virgin olive oil has a distinctive taste and is high numerous antioxidants which are anti-flammatory and may protect the heart.
Sweet potatoes – Contains vitamin C, B complex, calcium and beta carotene. This is a complex carbohydrate, which means the carbs get released slowly in our body, so we don’t experience a dip in our energy levels, so our blood sugar remains stable. B vitamins support our nervous system, which help us to feel calm and improves sleep.
Eggs –Nature’s near perfect food. Contains a wide range of vitamins, such as vitamins A, D, E, choline, B12, as well as protein, lutein and zea-xanthin. Try to purchase Omega 3 eggs, to make it even more of a superfood.
Breakfast for Dinner serves 2

Ingredients:

1 potato
1 sweet potato
½ T. olive oil
¼ t. salt
Kale pesto (recipe below)
2 eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Cut both potatoes into wedges then drizzle with olive oil and salt. Place on baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes, turning once.
Just before the potatoes are done, fry the eggs and set aside.
Once potatoes are cooked, divide them between two plates, put about 1-2 Tablespoons of pesto onto each plate and top with fried egg and parmesan cheese if desired.

Kale Pesto makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:

2 cups kale (chopped)
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Puree kale, garlic and pine nuts in a food processor, or blender.
Then stream olive oil into the mixture with machine on low.
Then add cheese and salt and pepper at the end.

To store leftover pesto, pour olive oil over the top to create a seal, so the pesto does not oxidize. It can be refrigerated for a week, or frozen for 3 months. But if freezing, do not put the cheese into the pesto, but add when serving.

Eat healthy, live great! {Kake}

From the Culinary Trail – Ciaoing Down in Italy Part 3

September 5, 2014 / Kake2Kale | Culinary Travel Adventures / 1 Comment

A Tale about Tomatoes From Tuscany

During my university days, a friend affectionately nicknamed all guys as spuds and girls as tomatoes. The lingo kinda went viral and was used in everyday conversations on and off campus by a large network of students. As an example, a bachelor pad was referred to as the spud pad and good looking girls were called hot tomatoes. I trust you get the idea. To this day, I sometimes refer to my university girlfriends as tomatoes! Getting back to this Italy trip, our group of tomatoes traveled to Tuscany following our awesome stay in Cinque Terre. For a week, our base was a rustic Tuscan villa, surrounded by vineyards and olive trees. We idled away the days with pool time, games, reading, visiting medieval villages, finding interesting markets and cooking up incredible meals. There were too many culinary finds and experiences to sum up in this post. Instead, this third part of my adventures with superfoods in Italy is focusing on delicious Italian tomatoes, that is – the vegetable, but botanically classified as a fruit.

If there is one edible item that unifies Italy, I think it’s the tomato or pomodoro! Italy is the most important country in Europe for the production of tomatoes. The tomato plant originally was brought to Italy, specifically Tuscany, by the Spaniards around 1548 from South America. At that time, tomatoes were ornamental and they didn’t become a food staple until 200 years later. Today, there are hundreds of varietals in Italy; but I heard the most popular is the San Marzano pomodoro.

There is something about Italian tomatoes. They are all incredibly tasty – plump and juicy – compared with the mainstream varietals that we get in North America. When possible, I spend a bit more money and buy heirloom tomatoes because of their delicious flavours. In Italy, all their tomatoes are like hyper-heirloom tomatoes. So, it was a joy to eat an abundance of yummy tomatoes during our time in Tuscany with Caprese salad, anchovies on bruschetta, pasta sauce and pizza…to name a few. Just when I thought we had exhausted ways to prepare tomatoes, I stumbled across something that I had not seen before. While sitting at the pool and flipping through a local food magazine, I saw an article about a hand mill for making fresh tomato puree. There was no doubt in my mind, I had to get one while in Italy!

Sante Luce was the closest village and it had a tiny hardware store which could order the mill for 26 euros, but it wouldn’t arrive in time. Then I searched for the mill at the next local outdoor market, and presto, I found the mill at a stall (actually, it was a converted truck) selling household goods. The stainless steel version cost me 11 euros! Although I was anxious to try it out at the villa, I ran out of time before flying home to Vancouver. It took me several weeks before I could face a regular tomato in our food shops. Even my favourite heirloom versions are not close to the quality that I enjoyed in Italy. Nevertheless, I used the mill to make a fresh puree for a tomato soup and it turned out to be quite delicious. Imagine how much better it could be if I had real Italian tomatoes!

I liked the texture of the soup without the tomato skin (filtered by the mill); but note that the skin has flavonols which are healthy for you. As a superfood, tomatoes are high in nutrients, vitamins (E and C ), beta-carotene, potassium, and fibre. They also contains zea-xanthin, which is good for eye health. Tomatoes are known to protect against various forms of cancer. They are chock-full of lycopene, an antioxidant that provides the red colour and fights free-radicals, supports prostate health, and protects skin from sun damage. Interestingly, lycopene is best absorbed in our bodies when tomatoes are cooked or processed eg. puree or sauce. Hence, having tomato soup is a great option! However, vitamin C is retained when tomatoes are eaten raw; therefore, it is better to strike a balance of consuming cooked and raw tomatoes.

Below is my simple fresh tomato soup recipe, based on my trial usage of the hand mill. Adding pesto as a topping is a fun option!

Tomato Soup – serves 2

Ingredients and Directions

– 6 medium tomatoes
– 1 food or vegetable mill (with 3 discs)
– 1 small bunch of basil
– 1 small onion (diced)
– 1 garlic clove
– Salt and pepper to taste

Assemble the mill with the coarse disc. Place the mill securely on top of a bowl with the mill’s feet resting on the rim. Quarter tomatoes and place in mill. Turn the blade and grind tomatoes until the peels are left in the mill. Place chopped basil in the tomato puree bowl. In a separate pan, saute the diced onions and pressed garlic. Combine the tomato puree with infused basil, cooked onions and garlic into a pot and simmer till hot. Stir in a dollop of butter.

After two weeks of hiking, relaxing, exploring, photographing, feasting, drinking, loading up on superfoods and catching up with dear friends, our Italy trip came to an end. It was hard to leave Italy and much harder to say good-bye to my friends whom I admire and think are some of the most caring, smart, and gifted people I know. On the sunny side, there will be future trips to look forward to…sooner than later I hope.

Travel Far, Explore More! – {Kale}