Pepper Paints

Thursday’s Recipe – Super Easy, Home Made CrockPot Yogurt

The chef and I have been very busy in the kitchen this summer!

I have always wanted to make my own yogurt but never found a recipe that looked easy enough. Until now!!

This is the recipe I followed.

It was ridiculously simple.

Because this is unsweetened I have been using it like sour cream as well as yogurt. Over the top of grated cucumbers with lots of salt and pepper Mmmm-In smoothies, over fruit with a little maple syrup. Oh boy-a half gallon of milk’s worth of yogurt did not last long around here!!

Are there any home made yogurt experts out there that could answer some of my questions??? Like in addition to starter can I add more probiotics to make a super cultured yogurt? I am not sure if they would grow. I am also interested in making some non dairy non soy yogurts…Oh the possibilities!!

Thursday’s Recipe ….. Raw Pad Thai With Kelp Noodles

Kelp noodles=heaven! Oh my, I can’t believe how good these are. Excellent texture! If you are local you can buy them at the Clintonville Community Market on Crestview.

I know every week I rave about how good my recipes are—and I am biased because I really do like to eat—but this Pad Thai is awesome!!!

For 1 package of kelp noodles

4 to 5 Tablespoons  nut butter

1 Tablespoon hot sauce

1 Tablespoon honey

1 Tablespoon tamari1 teaspoon vinegar

2 teaspoons seseme oil

1/4 cup of water

juice of 1 lime

I rinsed my kelp noodles and put them in a bowl then I  put all the above  ingredients in my vita-mix and poured it over my noodles.

Next I cut up lots of veggies and tons of cilantro. You can use any veggies you choose-I used red cabbage, scallions, pea pods, chard, shiitake mushrooms. Sprinkle a few cashews on top. Let the pad thai sit for ten or so  minutes to soften the noodles.

I have been participating in the green smoothie challenge this week.  I often drink green smoothies but not daily. I must admit I don’t really love green smoothies. But I wanted to see if I would see any benefits to drinking them daily for 2 weeks. I will let you know!

Thursday’s Quarter Recipe

Remember I used to post recipes on Thursdays and invited readers to join in the fun and link to recipe on their blogs on Thursdays? Well let’s try again!! If you need the whole sorted explanation of why I chose to call them quarter recipes you can read about it here.

So here is my meager but tasty and healthy recipe for this week.

We enjoy smoothies many mornings. On this day we mixed up a couple of frozen bananas, about 3 large handfuls of spinach,  some orange juice, a couple of tablespoons of goji berries, a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds, and a whole lot of frozen blueberries in my VITA-MIX.

I keep my chia seeds in the freezer, that’s why they look sweaty.

This may be a green smoothie, but the blueberries really make it more purple.

If you have a favorite recipe to share (it doesn’t have to be raw) leave a link in the comments to your blog’s recipe post.

Or think about joining in next week. Because I have the world’s best salad recipe to share next Thursday! (I have been eating it for days)

Thursdays Raw Recipe

The grocery stores around here have been having some great prices on fruit-some organic and some not. I try to buy organic whenever possible-which is about 90-95 % of the time. But there are a few things like pineapples and mango that I don’t often see here as an organic choice. But the last few weeks these have been really cheap. So I stocked up and have been making this smoothie over and over again with a few minor changes here and there.

These measurements are just guesses because when it comes to smoothies-I just dump things into my Vita-Mix.

1 to 1 1/2 cups pineapple chunks

1 to 2 mangos

1 frozen banana

a handful of ice

almond milk-enough to make it as thick or thin as you want

a handful of almonds

2 Tablespoons of chia seeds

2 Tablespoons of hemp seeds

dash of cinnamon

This tasted a lot like orange sherbet!  I almost always make green smoothies and adding spinach to this didn’t change the taste too much.   Other additions to this basic mixture that tasted good have been spinach, frozen strawberries, flax seeds and a cut up orange. You can pack tons of nutrition into these smoothies, which is a great start to the day!

If you have a raw recipe to share this week please leave a link to your raw post in the comments. Thanks!!

Thursday’s Raw Recipe

Finally-I found a green smoothie to my liking! If you have followed me at all here you will know how I talk about how horrible my green smoothies are. Well, no more. I have realized that I don’t like my green smoothies to be sweet. I prefer them to be more like green juice.

So, I have been filling my vita-mix at least 1/2 full with spinach, then a large handful of parsley, (the more the better!), an apple, the juice of 1 lemon, water,  and a scoop of sprirulina,  and sometimes a carrot or two. I am finally able to enjoy my green smoothies!

The only problem now is the cellulose texture and the separating of the cellulose and the juice. Any ideas, besides drink it fast?????

If you have a raw recipe to share you can add the link to your raw post in the comments or simply post the recipe in the comment section. Thanks for playing along!