Chia Pudding

This is one of my go-to recipes for a quick and healthy breakfast or snack. It’s easy to make and can be topped with a wide variety of things - any fruit (fresh or warmed frozen fruit), cocoa powder (stirred in), nut butter, nuts, seeds, granola, etc etc. It’s also a great make-ahead meal for the next few days. Chia seeds are considered a superfood for good reason - they’re high in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, calcium, magnesium and iron.

You can make chia pudding with any milk. I always make it with homemade cashew milk that I pour over the chia seeds directly from the blender. (A high speed blender is helpful for this.) Note that if you mix the chia seeds with slightly warmed milk (like the homemade cashew milk), they will absorb liquid faster than if it is cold.

The one “trick” to making chia pudding is to stir it pretty often during the first few minutes so the chia seeds don’t clump. Once your pudding starts to thicken, it’s unlikely to clump.

For homemade cashew milk, the general proportion is 1 cup water to 1/4 cup raw cashews. Add some sea salt and blend for a minute of so. Because it’s being used in chia pudding in this case, there’s wiggle room in the proportions.

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Chia Pudding

Notes: You can easily scale this recipe up or down as long as you keep the ratio of 3 tablespoons whole chia seeds to 1 cup milk. I often make this with 15 tablespoons chia seeds and 5 cups milk (in two jars).

Raw cashews for cashew milk (1/2 cup-ish)
6 tablespoons whole chia seeds
Sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Measure your chia seeds into a large mason jar.

Fill the blender with about 1 3/4 cup water, pour in raw cashews until you reach 2 cups, and sprinkle in a little sea salt. Blend it up.

Pour the milk over the chia seeds and stir right away. Come back and stir again several times over the first 3-5 minutes so the chia seeds don’t clump. Once the pudding starts to thicken, you don’t have to worry about clumping. Add a pinch of sea salt as well as the vanilla extract and the maple syrup, and stir well to incorporate. The pudding needs to sit for at least about 20 minutes before it’s ready to serve.

Favorite toppings:

• Warmed frozen cherries & cocoa powder (stirred in)

• Banana slices, chocolate chips, peanut butter & hemp seeds

• Warmed frozen blueberries and fresh peach and a scoop of almond butter

Store chia pudding in the fridge. Enjoy!

Gluten-Free & Vegan Waffles

This is our house waffle recipe. In addition to making them vegan, I’ve optimized the fiber and minimized the simple starch as much as I can while still making a tasty waffle. I love the dark, nutty character of these. Because they don’t have any sweetener, they can be eaten sweet or savory. I usually go savory with smashed avocado, some homemade sauerkraut and maybe a fried egg. But pictured above is what I call the Daniel Special: with sliced banana, shaved dark chocolate and a drizzle of maple syrup. And I have to say, it’s pretty darn good.

Teff flour is one of my faves. It’s high in fiber, iron, and magnesium and also contains some calcium and potassium. It’s great for feeding kids and it makes beautiful pancakes as well. Amaranth flour also contains a decent amount of iron and calcium, so I feel really good about serving these waffles for breakfast (even with the shaved chocolate :).

If you come up with other ways to enjoy these, I’d love to hear about it!

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Gluten-Free & Vegan Waffles

Notes: You can play around with the ratio of teff to amaranth flour, as long as the total is 205 grams. As for milk, I use whatever combination of nut milk and coconut milk we have in the fridge. You can use whatever you have at home, though if you use cow milk these obviously won’t be vegan. Also… Waffle irons vary from one to the next. I previously had a waffle iron that made very large, thick waffles and I found that this batter needed less milk (and even then I didn’t love the way the waffles came out). Now I have this simple waffle iron, which I love, and this ratio is perfect for it. I like to cook these waffles on the slightly darker side.

Recipe updated 12/24/2022

Dry Ingredients:
110 grams teff flour
95 grams amaranth flour (I use sprouted)
30 grams tapioca OR arrowroot starch (sometimes called flour or powder)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon baking powder

Wet Ingredients:
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 2/3 cups nut milk and/or soy milk

Measure out and whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another mixing bowl, add the ground flax seeds and cover with the hot water. Whisk and let this mixture sit for a couple minutes to thicken, then add the olive oil and milk and whisk again until emulsified. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mix well and cook your waffles according to the instructions on your waffle iron.

On our waffle iron this recipe makes 3 large, round, Belgian-style waffles. We usually eat them 1/4 at a time (and my kids are still small enough to do this, although Daniel is currently up to 3 waffle quarters with all the fixings) but depending on how many you’re feeding, you may want to scale it up.

These refrigerate well and can easily be reheated in a toaster oven (I imagine a regular toaster would work as well).

Enjoy!!

Gluten-Free One Bowl Banana Bread

When I make breads and muffins I try to decrease the sweetener as much as possible. As far as sugar level goes, I've found that in some (not all) recipes you can significantly decrease the amount with minimal sacrifice, particularly recipes that are also sweetened with fruits like bananas, dates and prunes. But if you'd like to make a "special occasion" banana bread, you might increase the coconut sugar from 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup. Conversely, and particularly if you’re using raisins as one of your add-ins, you could even go as low as 1/3 cup coconut sugar.

This bread always goes fast at our house. It is especially welcome in the afternoon with a cup of tea or decaf coffee.

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Gluten-Free One Bowl Banana Bread
Adapted from the One Bowl Banana Bread on 101cookbooks.com

Note: The coconut milk here is from a can, not the milk substitute beverage that comes in cartons. If you don't have a can on hand, the original recipe says you can sub in yogurt or sour cream - I haven't tried either but trust that they work.

2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
1/2 cup coconut sugar (see text above)
1/3 cup melted coconut oil, plus more for oiling the loaf pan
1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk (from a can, see note)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
60 grams teff flour
60 grams brown rice flour (sprouted is great if you can find it)
65 grams sorghum flour (sprouted is great if you can find it)
80 grams tapioca starch
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Optional Add-Ins:
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips / chunks or 
1/4 cup raisins plus 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or
1/4 cup raisins plus 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use coconut oil to grease your loaf pan.

Break the eggs into a large bowl and blend well. Add the mashed banana, coconut sugar, coconut oil, coconut milk and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the flours and arrowroot powder and mix again. Then sprinkle the baking soda and sea salt over the top of the batter and quickly mix one more time just until combined. Add the chocolate chips / raisins / walnuts if using, briefly stir once more and turn the batter out into your prepared loaf pan.

Bake until done about 50-60 minutes, when the top is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, or mostly clean. Exactly how long this will take depends on your oven and what kind of loaf pan you're baking in. I use a cast iron pan (which requires a longer bake time) and bake this bread for 58 minutes.

Turn out onto a cooling rack after the bread has been out of the oven for a few minutes, let cool, slice and serve.