 This yummy dessert is dairy free, gluten free, and can be made refined sugar free, depending on which dark chocolate you use. It's easy to make, soooo delicious to eat, and packed with fabulous, nourishing fats! Serves 2, prep time 10 mins Flesh of a whole ripe avocado 2/3 of a tin of coconut cream (the fatty part and a small splash or two of the liquid) 3 heaped tablespoons of cocoa or cacao powder OR 100g melted dark chocolate (melt in a stainless steel bowl over a pot with 2cm boiling water) 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste -Combine all the above in a blender and blend until smooth. -Taste and add more honey or maple syrup if needed (only likely if you are using cocoa rather than melted chocolate). If it needs thickening, add a little more coconut cream fat. -Scrape the mix into ramekins, tumblers, or pretty small cups. Refrigerate for two hours. -Garnish with grated dark chocolate and serve. Some lovely possible additions are chopped fresh cherries or boysenberries, chunks of dark chocolate, and layers of cream (not dairy free). For a special treat, I like to add all three!  I could eat this Italian-inspired soup again and again. Nourishing, delicious, full of lovely seasonal veg, and comforting in cold weather. The chicken can be left out and more cannellini beans added to make a hearty vegetarian soup.
Serves 2, prep time 60 mins (including making sourdough croutons if desired) Olive oil 5-6 large potatoes (organic if possible – potatoes can be heavily sprayed with pesticides) Sea salt and ground black pepper ½ large white onion 1 large leek Good handful cavalo nero Few cloves of garlic, roughly chopped Fresh thyme sprigs 1 tin cannellini beans (use 2 tins if making vegetarian version) A few good handfuls of shredded or sliced roasted free range chicken Optional extra: Pre-made sourdough croutons – simply cube the end of a stale loaf of sourdough and bake in the oven for 20 mins with olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt.  Contrary to what you may have heard in some circles, bread is not the devil's food, and nor are grains (though if you are allergic to gluten or don't tolerate glutinous grains, you have my understanding...feel free to skip this recipe and check out my gluten-free recipes instead).
Seldom is a single food outright bad - the problem with some so-called bad foods often lies more in how the way we are preparing them has changed so dramatically, and to the food's detriment. And in the way we are now over-consuming these modern, non-nourishing versions (refined sugar anyone?) Many modern food production processes that have emerged over the last 50-odd years have left certain foods - particularly grains - highly processed, devoid of nutrients, harder to digest and in questionable genetically modified forms. This is especially true for bread. So what if we returned to making bread the way our great grandmothers would have made it? |