Recipe: Super Socca

Socca is a fantastic gluten-free bread to make when you're short on time and want something warm and bread-like in a flash.  You can make socca, or chickpea crepe bread in about 15 minutes.  The base recipe is very simple. It's basically ground up chickpeas and water.

Ingredients:
1-cup chickpea flour

1-cup of water*
pinch of himalayan salt
minced herbs of choice (Rosemary, Thyme and Chives are agreat)
(optional) high-heat baking oil

Prep:

1. Place a seasoned* pizza stone or a large cast iron skillet upside-down in the top rack of your oven.       *If your stone or skillet is not well-seasoned you may want to rub some coconut oil to prevent sticking.
2. Preheat your oven to 500deg F with the pizza stone in it.
3. Make your socca batter by combining the ingredients except for the water in a large mixing bowl, gradually adding just enough water to make a pancake-like batter.  More water will make a thinner, lighter dough.  Less water will be firmer.
4. At this point you can add your favorite herbs.
5. Let batter rest for about 10 minutes.
6. Carefully (use high-heat oven mits!) take the pizza stone out of the oven and slowly pour the batter in the center.  If your pizza stone is small, you may need to do this in two batches.  Only pour enough batter so that it does not run over the edge.
7. Let bake for about 3-5 minutes.  It should start to puff up a bit as air pockets escape.
8. Carefully remove the pizza stone from the oven and use a flat spatula to lift up the edges.  If it starts to fall apart, you may need to cook another minute until you can lift up the dough and flip it.
9. Cook for another 1-min on the other side.
10. Remove from oven and enjoy!  I like to use traditional pizza toppings like tomato and pesto and roll it up like a slice of Brooklyn tomato pie.

Super Socca Pizza Wrap:

Prepared socca, homemade pesto, fresh tomato slices and chives.

Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Kale Chips

The changing color of the leaves never fails to delight and surprise us.  As days get shorter and shorter, the trees and plants prepare for cooler weather by slowing down photosynthesis so they can store up energy for Winter.  The array of colors we see were in the leaves all along, just covered by the constant greening from photosynthesis.  This is a wonderful reminder that we too have within us a pallet of untapped energy, colors that make us shine if we remove barriers of bad habits and use our energy efficiently.
Another way plants respond to cooler temps is to store up their sugars.  This is why carrots and leafy greens like kale get especially sweet around Autumn.  Like the plants and trees, people benefit from storing energy and choosing foods that keep us nourished and warm in the fall.  I love making soups, stews and chili throughout the cooler months.  They can be comforting and also highly nutritious because you preserve more of the nutrients by consuming the broth that cooks them.  Until it gets very cold, I still try to get a fair amount of raw (especially calciferous) vegetables which have their living enzymes in tact.  However this gets more challenging in the Winter.  It takes a lot of energy to digest raw foods.  So one way that I ensure I still get my raw veggies in the cooler months is to make dehydrated crucifers.
Kale chips are easy to make and strike a good balance between raw nutrition and comforting taste.  A lot of kale chips have nuts in them, for example this wonderful cashew cheese sriracha version.  So if you are looking for a lighter snack, I like to make them with alternatives.  I've been playing around with winter squash and cooked sweet potato as another way to get creamy texture and sweet flavors. Recently I stumbled upon a Pumpkin kale recipe that I had to try.  The original recipe can be found over at Fragrant Vanilla Cake.  I made a few modifications but for the most part this is Amy's creation that I've borrowed from liberally.

No Oil Pumpkin Pie Kale Chips

Ingredients

2-bunches of kale
2-cups of pumpkin puree
4-ripe organic pears*, seeds removed
2-inches of ginger
1-tbsp pumpkin pie spice
2-tsp vanilla
filtered water as need

(*optional ingredients, if using nuts, omit the pears above)
2-tbsp maple syrup
3/4 cups soaked cashews





Process

1. Gather your mise-en-place.  Once you get going, your hands are going to get sticky :-)
2. Wash and dry your kale.
3. Break kale into bit size pieces but don't worry about massaging yet, that comes later. Put into a LARGE mixing bowl.
4. Set up either 2 to 4 dehydrator trays with parchment paper or 2 to 4 large cookie trays with parchment if using an oven*.
5. *(If using the oven method) set your oven to the lowest temperature possible, 150-200 deg Fahrenheit will work best.
6. Create the "pie dressing" by putting all remaining ingredients in a high powered blender.
7. Blend, adding only as little water as you need to help get things moving.You want a creamy thick sauce without any visible chunks.
8. Pour dressing over kale.

Rise Power Plant Based Yogi Snacks

Today I had the pleasure of sharing post-yoga snacks at the grand opening of Rise Power Yoga in Princeton.  The owner of the studio, Annie, invited me to provide treats for hungry yogis after a two hour special class.  I'd never catered an event like this on my own but I was inspired to rise to the occasion ;-)  It was a special celebration and I am overjoyed to be a part of it.  Most of the yoga teachers that have gone on to start their own studios in the area have roots in the space that Rise occupies.  Today Annie shared how she first taught in Princeton years ago at this space that was Yoga Above and when it closed had a vision to breath new life and energy in this already vibrant community.

When I was asked to provide snacks after a yoga class, I thought I would make a trio of treats that provide quick nourishment and satisfy sweet, savory and salty cravings after a long-sweat in class:

I played around with the recipes but here are the inspirations:

• Rise Power Crispy Treats -- inspired by the 5-Ingredient Recipe from Healthful Pursuit.

I made two batches, one with added melted dark chocolate vanilla and chia seeds, the other with maca roots and vanilla sun warrior protein.

• Raw Vegan Cookie Dough made into Truffles with Coconut, Cacao, Goji, and Traditional Chocolate Chip, inspired by Oh She Glow.

Using four batches as the base, I made four different kinds by rolling them in different toppings.  My favorite was a crumble I made from organic goji berries, muldenberries, golden berries and raw cacao, although I ran out of the vanilla coconut balls so that may have been an audience favorite.

• Two kinds of kale chps.  One double batch of Pumpkin Spice Kale from the awesome Fragrant Vanilla Cake blog and  a double batch of my own standby super-yummy raw kale mixed with cashew cheez and sriracha.

I'll post the full recipes and process for each this week.  Thank you to all who came, hope you enjoyed the snacks and enjoyed yoga today :D