Cashew Yogurt: Tart, Tangy, Tasty

I know what you're thinking. You can replace all the milk you want, but some dairy products are a whole lot harder. Cheese is one, and it stumps a lot of people. But, yogurt made from alternative milks is not exceptionally difficult. And, it creates a lot of options that you would not otherwise have, when you need sour cream, yogurt or even buttermilk.

The fact is, when you want a nice, yogurt parfait, alternative milk just is not going to cut it. Well, wait no longer, for I have a pretty simple cashew yogurt recipe you may be able to recreate in your home tomorrow.

Why cashews? I like cashews for a lot of desserts and alternate dairy products because the cashews blend smooth. There's no straining when you make cashew milk and cream. Not only does this eliminate some hassle and cleaning for you, it also gives you better control over the final product. You may not know the final nutritional content of your almond, coconut, oat or rice milk. That's because you do not strain out the same amount every time. Cashews eliminate this guesswork.

Let's get started. You're going to be making something that is somewhere between cashew cream and cashew milk. I found it was easier to make the milk a little thicker, since the yogurt doesn't thicken or separate in the same way that animal milk does. Follow my instructions for cashew milk. But, instead of adding four cups of water, add two. Once it is blended smooth, you are ready for the next step.

Now, you are going to take a saucepan and heat up your cashew milk to the right temperature. If you were using regular animal milk, you might heat it up to 200 degrees to eliminate some of the bad bacteria growing in the milk. With cashews, it's obviously not the same thing. But, to try to replicate the yogurt most effectively, I found heating it up and cooling it first worked best.

The mixture is thick, so it will heat up very quickly. Once you get to 180 or so, feel free to remove it from the heat. I like to sit the pan in my sink with a couple of inches of ice water to cool it quickly. If you whisk it frequently and add cool water to the sink (do not pour it in the pot by accident), you will get to the right temperature quickly. You want all your temp readings less than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, but around 105 degrees is ideal.

At this point, you can whisk in your probiotics. For three cups of cashew milk, I added the contents of four probiotic capsules. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you let the mix cool enough before you put the probiotics in. If the cashew milk is too hot, it will kill your probiotics and you will end up with cashew milk, nothing more. After the probiotics are in, I divide the cashew milk into two quart-size jars and cover them with lids and screw bands.

You are about to discover the many intricacies of making yogurt. Everybody has a different approach. I like to make mine in a water bath in the crock pot. Some people set their oven to 100 degrees and leave the jars in there for hours. Since I have a gas oven and do not want natural gas flowing through my house for hours, I use the crock pot.

If you want to follow my method, put a couple inches of water in your crock pot and set the dial to warm. Place your jars in the crock. I put the crock pot lid on top of the jars, even though it sits a couple inches above the top of the crock. I found this works very well to keep the temperature around 105 degrees, which is really your aim.

Then, you just let it sit. Yogurt takes a long time, so apart from periodically checking to make sure the temperature isn't rising or dropping too much, just give it a break. That said, yogurt gets more sour the longer you leave it. I found that cashew yogurt tastes more like real yogurt if you leave it longer. So, where I might leave dairy yogurt to sit for nine hours, I was happier if I left the cashew yogurt for 12.

And, that's it! I haven't found a particularly meaningful way to strain the yogurt, so you might as well make the milk thicker if you want thicker yogurt. Otherwise, this will be nice and tart for all your yogurt purposes.

Cashew Yogurt
1 cup raw cashews
2 cups water
4 capsules probiotic powder
Soak raw cashews overnight. Drain and rinse. Blend with two cups water until smooth. In a saucepan, heat cashew milk until temperature reaches 180-200 degrees. Remove from heat, and cool until temperature is less than 110 degrees. Add the contents of four probiotic capsules and whisk until incorporated. Pour into two quart jars. Place in crock pot with a two-inch water bath. Leave crock pot on warm for 12 hours, or until desired flavor is reached. Refrigerate.

Almond Milk, The Grocery-Shopper's Favorite

By this point, I have been making my own milks long enough to know what I like and what I don't. Almond milk has sparked perhaps an unnecessary amount of rage in me. This is in part due to the fact that the almond milk you buy at the store is heavily processed, full of fillers and pretty devoid of natural nutrition. Too many people think it's so natural and healthy that they give it to their babies and toddlers instead of human milk. For the longest time, I wouldn't consider making almond milk because I was sure it would be as nasty as the almond milk I've bought at the store. I don't like it. Again, it's the carageenan getting my goat (or almond, as the case may be).

As it turns out, homemade almond milk is a perfectly acceptable drink. I prefer cashew milk, because the cashews are softer and blend smoother. But, if you love almonds and you can't get cashews for whatever reason, you are fine to make almond milk. Let's get started.

There seems to be a couple of different schools of thought about making your own almond milk. Some prefer the slivered almonds because they're cut in pieces and have the skins removed. Others prefer the whole almonds because it's more natural. I chose slivered because I thought I would have to strain less out at the end.

Take your cup of raw, slivered almonds and soak them overnight. If this was a video, there would be a time-lapse and then I would magically open the fridge and the almonds would be nice and soft. You, on the other hand, will have to wait awhile. Once they're soaked, drain and rinse them. Toss them into the blender and turn it to high.

Once you are developing a nice almond paste, add some water. Start with one cup and blend on high for a minute. Then, add the remaining three cups and blend on high for another two minutes. Run it through your strainer and store the milk in an airtight container in your fridge.

After blending, I noticed something interesting. The almond milk wasn't crunchy or fiber-y, like coconut milk is if you don't strain it. And actually, the first time I strained it, it pulled very little out. But, when I drank it, the texture was gritty and not at all to my liking. I strained it a second time, more slowly, with the same strainer, and pulled out about a half-cup of byproduct. The texture was far better the second time. But, if you were really determined to use all that you produce, and you didn't mind it being a little gritty or chewy, I suppose it would be fine.

Almond Milk
1 cup raw, slivered almonds (plus 1.5 cups water for soaking)
4 cups water
Soak almonds in a bowl of water for several hours. Drain and rinse almonds. Blend in blender until softened. Add one cup of water and blend for one minute. Add remaining water and blend on high for about two more minutes. Strain to desired consistency. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week.

Egg-Free, Casein-Free Brownie Batter Ice Cream

No t-shirts were harmed in the making of this dessert.

As I sit, writing this blog post, I am eating this amazing ice cream cone. Last week, while I was messing around and figuring out egg-free, Paleo brownies, I had an epiphany about brownie batter and ice cream. You see, I love ice cream made out of cake batter. But my husband, who has had food poisoning twice from undercooked eggs, does not want anything raw and eggy to cross his lips.

It dawned on me that if I could use my egg-free brownie batter to make a mixture for ice cream, it would solve the problem of raw eggs. Plus, it would give an extra recipe for those people out there who can't have eggs. As it turned out, this recipe is much easier to put together than the cashew dark chocolate ice cream I have made before. I don't think the other one is particularly difficult, of course. But when I've tried to explain it to people, they've shut down the minute I say "make a custard." You will see how simple this one is.

First thing is to get the milk ready. Put the two cups of cashew cream and the 2T coconut oil in the blender. Blend the two on high for a couple of minutes. This makes sure that the fat is fully incorporated and doesn't freeze into little pieces. It's not terrible when that happens, but the texture is slightly off-putting.

Once that's done, pour the cashew milk mixture and the ghee into a saucepan. Substitution: Of course you can use EVCO instead of ghee. That would make this recipe truly vegan. Warm over medium heat. Get the rest of the ingredients together in a mixing bowl. If you want it to taste more like milk chocolate than a deep, rich chocolate, use less cocoa powder. Then, you will slowly incorporate them into the warm cashew milk and fat mixture.

Whew, the hard part is over. Wasn't that exhausting? All you have to do now is put it into a heat-safe container, cover and stick in the fridge until the temperature of the mixture reaches 40 degrees or less. Easy tip: if you are impatient, like me, you can cool the mixture pretty quickly by whisking it in the bowl while said bowl is floating in a larger bowl of ice water. Just make sure that you don't get water into the mixture, or it will be wasted.

Once it's cool enough, go ahead and put it in the ice cream maker and follow the directions. This makes a little over a quart of ice cream. If you used regular sugar (or even possibly coconut sugar) instead of maple syrup, you may have just made the first dairy-free ice cream that did not cost more to make at home. By my count, I paid about $3.25 to make this at home. That's quite a deal.

Egg-Free, Casein-Free Chocolate Ice Cream

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/8 cup tapioca starch

5/6 cup maple syrup (or 1 cup sugar)

1/3 cup ghee

2 cups cashew cream (1 cup cashews)

2T coconut oil

Melt the coconut oil in the microwave, just enough to warm it. Mix with the cashew cream and blend on high until completely incorporated. Mix first three ingredients together, set aside. Use less cocoa powder to make it more of a milk chocolate flavor than a dark chocolate flavor. In a saucepan, melt ghee (or more coconut oil) with the cashew cream/coconut oil mix. Once they get warm (not very hot), start whisking in the dry ingredients. Once they are completely incorporated and smooth, remove from heat. Transfer to a fridge-safe container. Cover and cool until mixture reaches 40 degrees. Prepare according to ice cream maker directions. Makes about 1.25 quarts.

Egg-Free, Paleo Brownies

OK, so the brownies I was making in the winter were a big hit. But, then I had this friend who was like, "Holly, my family cannot have eggs. What can you do for us?" And, I'll admit, going egg-free has given me pause. Dairy is easy to replace, I have found. Gluten isn't even that hard. But eggs? Eggs have been the final frontier. I am finding more and more that you can't just replace eggs with some kind of egg replacer willy-nilly, and expect the recipe to be great. A lot of times, making a recipe egg-free necessitates reconsidering the whole process.

Back to the brownies. My friend has a family full of chocolate fiends, and she just found out they can't have eggs anymore. She needed brownies, stat. And, this recipe came out as a result. I am using ghee, which makes these brownies casein-free but not fully dairy-free. Unlike my other recipe, I didn't use wet coconut fiber. And this time, I added some tapioca starch. This is because I used maple syrup instead of refined sugar. That makes this recipe technically Paleo.*

The recipe is actually pretty easy to put together. The trick is that you want to incorporate some of the dry ingredients into the fat over heat, which will help emulsify the mixture and make the rise easier in the oven (since you are not using eggs). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Start with your ghee (Substitution: EVCO works just fine here) and melt it on the stove in a saucepan with the milk. I used cashew milk for this, but honestly it's up to you. While you do this, mix half of the dry ingredients into the maple syrup and set aside.

Then, you mix the other half of the dry ingredients in with the warmed milk/ghee mixture. Once it has been fully incorporated, remove from heat and whisk the two mixtures together. Add chocolate chips, as desired. Prepare the cupcake tin by oiling the cups with ghee or coconut oil. Scoop the batter into the cups. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

That's it! It is nice to have some tasty desserts that accommodate the needs of a variety of people on elimination diets. I hope to add more in time.

*I have read much in the way of discussion about the Paleo diet and chocolate chips. While I buy that cocoa powder is technically Paleo, most commercially-available chocolate chips are going to have something in it that is not Paleo-friendly. It is not my job to make you stick to your diet. So if you think you can use your Paleo chocolate chips in these brownies, fine by me. If not, these brownies are absolutely delicious, with or without them.

Egg-Free, Paleo Brownies
1 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup coconut flour

1/3 cup ghee
3/8 cup alternative milk

3/4 cup maple syrup
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
Chocolate chips to taste

Heat up the ghee and milk in a saucepan. Mix in half of the first set of dry ingredients. Once incorporated, remove from heat. Pour all remaining ingredients into mixing bowl. Mix together, then mix with warm concoction. Once totally incorporated, scoop into cupcake tin. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. Makes 9 brownies.

Rice Milk (Nut-Free, Flavor-Full)

As much as I like the nut milks I make on a regular basis, not everyone can drink nut milks. Whether you have an allergy, you just don’t like the flavor or you need to save some major bucks on your elimination diet, grain milks are often a reasonable choice. Although you could make milk from just about any grains you choose, the two most common are oats and rice. I covered oats in another recent blog post.

The approach to making oat milk and rice milk is very similar, but the result is quite different. Toasting the uncooked rice instead of boiling it eliminates the slimy texture you get from overcooking. But, with the oat milk, the sliminess came back after a day or two in the fridge. Not so with the rice milk.

Rice milk is a flavor that has been popular for quite some time. If you don’t agree, just drink some Horchata sometime. If you want to make the best Horchata, it’s best to start with rice milk. But, there is something you should know about rice milk. If you are making rice milk after enjoying a variety of homemade nut milks for awhile, you may be a bit surprised by the consistency. Rice milk, in my experience, is much thinner than the nut milks I usually make. So, if my cashew milk has the consistency of half-and-half, my rice milk is more like skim.

Let’s get started. For the rice milk, you need a cup of rice, a pan, water, a big measuring cup, a blender, fine mesh strainer and spoon. I did the research on the types of rice to choose, and couldn’t find a concrete recommendation for the length of the grain or the color of the grains (brown or white). So, I opted for the cheapest rice I could find. Start by dry-toasting the rice in the pan. It takes only a few minutes. Then, put the rice in a heat-safe cup or glass and submerge the rice with two cups of water. Cover the container and refrigerate overnight, or 12 hours.

In the morning, drain the rice and pour into the blender. If you have a powerful blender, you can start the blender right then. If not, add a cup of fresh water and start blending on high for a minute or two. Once you feel like you’ve crushed the rice pretty consistently, add the remaining three cups of water. Blend on high for 2-3 minutes. This is a very firm grain, especially uncooked. So, give the blender the time to crush the rice and saturate the water.

When you are done, just strain out the chewy bits with your fine mesh strainer and spoon. Pour into an airtight container and store in the fridge. If you want, add some cinnamon and maple syrup to give it a distinct Horchata flavor. Enjoy!

Rice Milk

1 cup rice
2 cups water (for soaking)
4 cups water (for making the milk)
 

Toast rice in a wide pan on medium heat until barely browned. Remove from heat and soak in two cups of water, covered in the fridge, overnight. Drain rice, then add to blender and blend on high for 30 seconds. Add one cup of water and blend on high for one minute. Add remaining water and blend on high for 1-2 minutes. Strain rice milk and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Oat Milk, The Milk For The Dairy-Free Cheapskate

Most of the time, when people decide to go dairy-free, it's not about the money. But, it doesn't take long before you start looking at your food budget and wondering what happened. If you were accustomed to buying conventional cow's milk at the grocery store, you may have suffered an extreme bout of sticker-shock when you realized that drinking dairy-free milk costs at least $6 a gallon, but often $8 or more.

Making your own milks from home usually cuts down on the price. But, it depends on the ingredient you use. I haven't been able to find almonds at a very reasonable price except when they are rarely on sale. I can usually get dried coconut and raw cashews at a rate that puts making it at home a more practical investment. But, grain milks are just plain cheap. And, oats are the cheapest. In fact, if you do not care if the oats are organic or certified gluten-free, you may get them for around $0.75/lb, which is a significant cost savings. One pound of oats will make a gallon or more of oat milk, which makes this recipe as inexpensive as $0.19 a quart.

Special Note:  If you need to be gluten-free, oats may not be the best choice for you. Oats do not naturally contain gluten. However, they are usually processed with other gluten-containing seeds and flours such as wheat, barley and rye. The proteins in oats and gluten are similar, and so many people who react to gluten also react to oats. If you know that you do not react to oats, but you are trying to avoid gluten, be sure to buy oats that are certified gluten-free.

There's something you need to know about grain-based milks, however. Many recipes suggest that you cook them on the stove, just as you would before you eat oatmeal. And yet, this is not necessarily the best idea. Both get pretty sticky or gooey once they are cooked, and oatmeal is especially problematic on this front.

While doing research for this, I concluded that the best way to prepare grain milks is by toasting them uncooked and then soaking them, instead of cooking them. It gets rid of a lot of the stickiness or sliminess you get in the end product.

Let's get started! For this recipe, you need a wide pan for toasting your oats, a glass container to soak the oats, your blender, measuring cup, fine mesh strainer, spoon and an airtight container to store the milk. First, toast the oats in the wide pan on medium heat for a few minutes. You will know it is ready when they start to turn brown and take on a nutty aroma. Remove from heat and put in a glass container. Put two cups of water in with the oats, cover them and refrigerate them for 12 hours or so.

Once the oats are done soaking, drain the water. Dump the oats into the blender and start blending. Once nothing is moving anymore, add a cup of water (cold if you have a high-powered blender, hot if you don't) and resume blending for a minute or so on high. Then, add the remainder of the water and blend on high for another minute or two.

Pour the oat milk into a four-cup measure through your fine mesh strainer. Use the spoon to press out the excess water from the leftover oat fiber. Then, pour your oat milk into your airtight container and store it in the fridge.

You may notice that the oat milk will take on a slightly gooey texture as the days go on. I am not a fan of this. But, if you are looking for a drink to thicken your tea, or you want something to pour over your cereal, oat milk is a perfectly acceptable replacement to plain cow's milk. It's not my favorite alternative milk, but it is so inexpensive that it deserves special mention. Happy Cooking!

Oat Milk
1 cup oats
2 cups water (for soaking)
4 cups water (for making the milk)

Toast oats in a wide pan on medium heat until barely browned. Remove from heat and soak in two cups of water, covered in the fridge, overnight. Drain oats, then add to blender and blend on high for 30 seconds. Add one cup of water and blend on high for one minute. Add remaining water and blend on high for 1-2 minutes. Strain oat milk and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Cashew Milk (So Easy, It's Nuts!)

I have been so busy with, you know, life, that I only just found the time to get together my recipe for cashew milk. As it turns out, cashew milk is stupidly easy. I like using cashew milk because it is rich and thick, without a lot of sugar. And, I definitely prefer homemade over the store-bought version, which is basically just giving you water cashews have been soaked in. Plus a bunch of other stuff they add to make it taste more complete. Tasty! Or, not so tasty.

Let's get started! You will need a cup of raw cashews, a bowl, something to cover the bowl, a blender, a jar to store the milk in, and a strainer if you prefer. That's really it.

Start by pouring the cashews into the bowl, and covering the cashews with water. Cover the bowl and leave it in the fridge for several hours, preferably overnight.

The next morning, drain the water from the bowl and rinse the cashews with fresh water. Then, put the cashews into the blender. Blend on high for 30 seconds or so, or until nothing is moving. It will look like this:

Not the most appealing thing ever, but stick with me. Now you are going to add a cup of water, and blend on high for about a minute. You should be getting some great blend action at this point. Once it looks fairly incorporated, add the remaining three cups of water. Blend on high for about two minutes. At the end, it will look like this:

You can see that it is amazingly rich and creamy. I always strain my cashew milk, because I'm worried there will be some hard piece that never blended. That hasn't been the case so far, but I do it anyway.

Unlike my coconut milk, there is no byproduct from cashew milk. On the downside, that means there's nothing left over that you could use for something else. On the upside, you get more cashew milk. One cup of raw, soaked cashews, plus four cups of water usually makes about five cups of cashew milk. These jars don't hold five cups, so I usually reserve a cup left over to add to my tea or something.

And that's it! Cashew milk with only one ingredient, that took you about 5-10 minutes of active preparation to make. If you can find raw cashews at a bargain somewhere, you can save quite a bit of money making it yourself. And, you can avoid all the garbage they put into the store-bought stuff.

Cashew Milk
1 cup raw cashews (plus 1.5 cups water for soaking)
4 cups water
Soak cashews in a bowl of water for several hours. Drain and rinse cashews. Blend in blender until softened. Add one cup of water and blend for one minute. Add remaining water and blend on high for about two more minutes. Strain if desired. Store in the fridge for up to a week.

Cashew Dark Chocolate Ice Cream (Dairy-Free, Refined Sugar-Free)

Ah, ice cream. It is delicious, easy to serve and can be a great treat, whatever the season. When you decide for whatever reason that you need to avoid consuming dairy, you wonder if you'll be able to eat ice cream again. The good news is that you usually have a lot of options at the grocery store for dairy-free frozen treats. The bad news is that a lot of them suck. Oh, you can stuff yourself full of ice cream made from soy... Except you can't. If you need to avoid dairy, you probably need to avoid soy as well. That soy is also almost certainly GMO. And that doesn't even address the elephant in the room, which is that it tastes horrible. So, you think, I'll just buy some ice "cream" based on coconut milk or almond milk. Until you spot the carageenan as an ingredient. And don't even look at the price tag.

If you want to bypass all that aggravation, you can eat ice cream made with cashew milk. Cashew milk and coconut milk are similar in price to make. But where products made with coconut milk will always taste at least vaguely of coconut, cashews provide a more blank canvas to add other flavors. Years ago, I tried some insanely-expensive chocolate ice cream ($8/cup) made with cashew milk. It was delicious, and inspired me recently to convert this original recipe of mine to dairy-free. You will be pleased to discover it won't break the bank for you, either.

Now here's the thing about making your own ice cream: you need to get the fat content right. Any fool with an ice cream maker can tell you how easy it is to just throw any kind of milk and sweetener into the ice cream bowl and freeze it. In practice, it is not that simple. Ice cream requires fat. That's why it's called ice "cream" and not ice "milk." Sure, you can buy low-fat and even fat-free ice cream at the grocery store. But they use carageenan as a stabilizer, and they have equipment that almost certainly works better than yours. You need fat to make it work. In my experience, the best ice cream comes out when you make the custard using half and half and add heavy whipping cream to it. We aren't using dairy today, but we will work to get the fat content to about the same for both. Let's start with the cashew milk.

Start with a bowl of cashews. You'll need one cup of cashews for about every three cups of milk you need. For regular cashew milk, you'd add four cups of water. Today you will only add two, since you need to make this extra thick to get the fat content right. Soak the cashews overnight, covered, in the fridge. The next day, strain them, rinse them and pour them in the blender.

Blend the heck out of those cashews. Then add about a half-cup of water and blend again. Then add the other 1.5 cups and blend again on high for a couple of minutes. You can strain it with a fine strainer, but I maybe had a half-teaspoon of excess after straining. If you don't mind the occasional tiny piece of cashew in it, I don't think you need to. I ended up with three cups. I reserved one for the custard, one for adding to the mixture later and one to use for something else at another time.

Let's talk about fat content now. Regular half and half has 24 grams of fat in one cup. This double-thick cashew milk has somewhere between 18-26 grams. It's not exact but it worked perfectly well. Heavy whipping cream has 40-48 grams of fat in it. The original recipe called for one cup of heavy cream to be added shortly before freezing. For the second cup of cashew milk mentioned above, I recommend adding 1-2T of extra-virgin coconut oil and blending it together, to boost the fat content. Once you've done that, put that milk covered in the fridge to cool. Let's make the custard now.

Let's start with the chocolate mixture. This is 6T cocoa powder and 6T pure maple syrup (don't you dare use Mrs. Butterworth's), in a four-cup bowl or larger. If you ever decide to increase the recipe, just remember that these two ingredients increase at a 1:1 ratio. Once you've got it mixed together somewhat like frosting, mix in your three egg yolks. Set that aside.

Pour the first cup of cashew milk into a small saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-high. You want to get the temperature to about 180 degrees. It will not take long at all.

Once it has hit 170-180degF, turn the heat down to medium-low. Take one ladle-full of the cashew milk and pour it slowly into the chocolate mixture bowl, whisking continuously. This allows the temperature of the egg yolks to rise slowly enough that they do not harden (like scrambled eggs, which would be a horrible texture for this). Once you have mixed it thoroughly in the bowl, slowly scrape the contents of the bowl into the saucepan, whisking continuously. Return the heat to medium-high and whisk continuously until the custard begins bubbling. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once the custard has cooled, I like to pour it back into the bowl I was using to make the chocolate mixture. But since it had raw eggs in it, I usually wash it first. Cover the custard and put it in the fridge to cool. Once both the custard and the cashew milk/coconut oil mixture have reached a temperature below 40degF, whisk them together and return them to the fridge until you are ready to make the ice cream (which you should do within an hour of this last task).

It's pretty easy from here. Scrape the ice cream mixture into the freezing bowl, and turn on the ice cream maker.

When I made this, it took almost no time to freeze. It was surprisingly quick, around 10-15 minutes. If you double the recipe, it may take a little longer. It's hard to wait around while the custard cools in the fridge, but you're better off if you give it that time to get down to 35 or even 30 degrees. It freezes that much easier.

It's done! And it is so tasty. We couldn't tell that it didn't have dairy in it, because the fat gave it such a smooth texture. This recipe makes about 3-3.5 cups of ice cream, so you may want to double it if you want more leftovers.

Cashew Milk Chocolate Ice Cream
Cashew Milk
1 cup raw cashew pieces
2 cups water
Soak cashews covered overnight in the fridge. Rinse and strain. Blend in blender with water until completely smooth. Divide into three one-cup portions.

Cashew "Whipping Cream"
Return one cup of the cashew milk to blender with 1-2T of extra-virgin coconut oil. Blend until completely incorporated. Cool covered in the fridge.

Chocolate Custard
6T maple syrup
6T cocoa powder
3 egg yolks
Whisk ingredients together in four-cup or larger bowl. Put one cup of cashew milk into small saucepan, on medium-high heat. When temperature reaches 180degF, turn heat to medium-low. Pour one ladle-full into chocolate mixture, whisking continuously. Scrape contents of bowl into saucepan, whisking continuously. Return heat to medium-high until custard begins bubbling. Cool, cover and refrigerate until <40degF. Whisk together with cashew milk/coconut oil mixture and return to refrigerator. Pour ice cream mixture into ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions.

Makes 3-3.5 cups ice cream.

Finally! Easy Coconut Milk

I absolutely love coconut milk. As a fan of regular old cow's milk, you might wonder why I would even bother. And yet, it makes a lot of sense. If you're trying to make the switch away from dairy or carbs for whatever reason, coconut milk makes for a pretty easy switch. It's rich and creamy, which means that it feels like you're drinking whole milk. It has some saturated fat, but it's the good medium-chain saturated fats that experts believe may boost your metabolism. Plus, unsweetened coconut milk has no sugar in it. None. Unlike the 8 grams you'll get in a cup of cow's milk.

You may know by now that I love to make things myself, whenever I can. Some alternate milks (I'm looking at you, almond) may not be cheaper to make it yourself. But coconut milk made at home can save you a bundle, and give you a useful by-product while you're at it. Plus it tastes a whole lot better. If you've had store-bought coconut milk, chances are it has carageenan in it. I'm not sure what I think about the rumors that carageenan causes cancer, but there are other reasons to avoid it as an ingredient in your milk of choice. It stabilizes the milk so the fat does not separate. But at the same time, it adds a somewhat slimy texture. I didn't notice it years ago when I went DF for awhile and bought the coconut milk. But now that I know the difference, I want the unadulterated coconut milk.

The thing about making your own coconut milk is that most recipes don't take your blender into consideration. Believe me, it matters. If you have a Vitamix like mine, which has a wand, you can make it more efficiently than the average instructions. And if you have a dirt-cheap mixer you bought when you were 18, you need to follow different directions as well. They may tell you that you have to soak or boil your coconut first. You don't. Try my instructions, and see how it works for you.

Let's get started! First you need to get your tools together. Pictured is my blender carafe (Vitamix), a four-cup measure, a half-cup measure, a fine mesh strainer and a spoon. Not pictured (d'oh!) is a small bowl to collect the coconut fiber, and something airtight to store the milk in once you're done.

The first thing you want to do is scoop the unsweetened dried coconut into the carafe. You want 1/2-3/4 of a cup, depending on how creamy you want the finished product. Note: I have made sweetened coconut milk this way using sweetened dried coconut. If you don't care what sweetener you use, you can do it that way. It actually makes the coconut milk perfectly sweet, not overdone. If you have a Vitamix like I do, you can leave the coconut dry. If not, add a cup or so of hot water. Mix on high for a minute or two (which is longer than it sounds).

When you're done, it will look nice and pasty. Now, add water. If you blended the coconut dry, add four cups. If you added water to the last step, add three cups. Whether the water must be hot depends on the power of your blender. With a Vitamix or a BlendTec or something similar, it can be cold or room-temperature water. Once you've added the water, blend on high for at least three minutes.

Now it's ready to strain. Pour the contents of the blender out over your mesh strainer, which should be positioned over a measuring cup of at least four cups.

As you pour in the liquid, the strainer will catch the excess coconut fiber. Use the spoon to help the liquid pass, and squeeze out the milk from the fiber.

If the strainer gets full, scoop out the fiber and put it in a bowl.

 Once you've gone through all the contents of the blender, you'll have 3.5-4 cups of coconut milk. I like to store mine in a Mason jar in the fridge. It will stay good in the fridge for several days. What's left in the bowl is awesome, as well. That technically is coconut flour, before it has been dried. If you want to dry the coconut fiber into coconut flour, you can put it on a pan and roast it in the oven at 200 degrees F until it's dry. Then you can spin it in your food processor and store it that way. Otherwise, I just store it in the fridge until I have a good opportunity to use it. The wet coconut "flour" is an excellent way to make my fabulous Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Brownies.

So that's all it takes! Depending on where you get your coconut, this can be a reasonable deal or an excellent deal. The most I've paid for coconut is about $6/lb. One pound of dried coconut makes about four quarts of coconut milk, with probably 1-1.5 cups of the wet coconut fiber leftover. But I've easily found it for half the price as well. Just shop around and you'll find something. No matter what, when you compare it to $3+ for a half-gallon in the stores, you'll be spending much less to make it from home. Enjoy!

Homemade Coconut Milk
1/2-3/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut
4 cups water

Put coconut in a dry blender. Add one cup of (hot) water as necessary. Blend on high until dried coconut has a pasty consistency. Then, add water to a total of four cups. Blend on high for at least three minutes. Pour contents of blender through a fine mesh strainer into a medium-size bowl or large measuring cup. Reserve excess coconut fiber for other uses. Pour strained coconut milk into airtight container, store in the fridge.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Brownies

 
I know what you're thinking. You saw "gluten-free" and thought that the whole manner of this blog had gone awry. These are bound to taste terrible, right? Or they'll be sweet and chocolatey but have the vague taste of beans that most GF flours have, right? Wrong. These brownies are so freaking delicious you'll be eating them hand over fist. And I would not be able to keep my foodie badge if I wasn't interested in trying some interesting substitutions. So let's get to it!

It starts with a very interesting fundamental observation I have made. Cocoa powder is awesome. It has a great deal of fiber, but is comparatively low in carbohydrates. In some recipes, it can mimic flour. In some recipes, it can replace flour. But let me back up a bit. For awhile now, I have been making my own coconut milk. Every time I did, I ended up with about a half-cup of wet coconut fiber that just sat in my fridge until I threw it into some muffin recipe or into a smoothie. Little did I know that coconut flour is nothing more than that wet coconut fiber, dried in the oven on a low temperature.

I have a hard time trusting GF flours. It's mostly that I want to be able to make it myself. So coconut flour I had already made seemed like a sure bet. If you have ever read about coconut flour, you probably know that it absorbs a lot of liquid. I have a bit of a trick to get out of this mess: don't dry it out in the first place. If it's already soaked, it won't absorb as much. So it is with this recipe.

All right, back to our love of cocoa powder. To test out my coconut flour, I needed a recipe that called for comparatively little flour, so I wouldn't have to do a lot of additions. I find that this recipe from Alton Brown is inspired. 1.25 cups of cocoa powder, and 0.5 cup of all-purpose. SUBSTITUTION: I used the wet "coconut flour" in place of the AP. In retrospect, I could probably have just used more cocoa powder. But there you have it.

So you start out as you usually would, creaming the oil and sugar together. SUBSTITUTION: I used 8 oz of EVCO instead of butter. I'm using sugar according to the recipe, but you could make your substitutions here as necessary. I've used turbinado sugar (spun finer in my Vitamix) with fine results. If you want to use a liquid sweetener such as maple syrup or honey, you may need to tweak the dry ingredients to get the right consistency. Then add the eggs and mix for 30 seconds or so. Now is also a good time to preheat your oven to 300.

I just dumped in the coconut flour and the vanilla right after.

Then it's time to get the dry ingredients. Cocoa powder and salt, that's it. You don't need any chemical leavening for this recipe, which is pretty awesome.

Mix it together until you get a pretty thick consistency. Feel free to add more cocoa powder if necessary, but I wouldn't go too crazy.

Now to get it in the pan. I use a cupcake tin. And really, that is a genius idea. You get the lovely crusty edges all the way around the brownie, and it's easy to get out of the pan. Spray or oil the tin, and use a scoop to put the batter in. Looks fantastic, doesn't it? Just wait until it's done.

Now take a look at THAT.

Fabulous, isn't it? I love that I get a fantastically chewy brownie that has no flour and no dairy in it. If you feel like the coconut flavor is a little strong (which is not my problem, but it bothers some people), use coconut oil that doesn't have coconut flavor to it.

Wet Ingredients

1 cup sugar, sifted
1 cup brown sugar, sifted
8 ounces EVCO

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/3-1/2 cup wet "coconut flour"

Dry Ingredients

1 3/4 cups cocoa, sifted
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Cream first wet ingredients, add the remaining wet ingredients. Incorporate dry ingredients. Mix until consistency is thick. Scoop into oiled cupcake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes.