Homemade Dewberry Cobbler Recipe

There's just something comforting about harvesting food from the land and using it to nourish your body...or in our case, to satisfy a sweet tooth craving.

It's dewberry pickin' time here in Texas, and so we went on a mission to gather a bunch of them. We first searched around our neighborhood and found a few small bushes, but that yielded only about a cup of berries. But then some friends from church invited us to their co-worker's private property to go dewberry picking.

When I say that this property was covered in dewberry bushes, I'm not even exaggerating. Everywhere you turned, there was a bush ripe with dewberries. We filled a 16-cup container with fresh dewberries.

For those that don't know, dewberry bushes have thorns. Not the fat thorns like a rose bush, but the tiny needle-like kind that burrow in your skin and you feel scratchy for hours later.

But once we tasted the homemade cobbler, it was all worth it! So for those who are fortunate enough to find about 5 cups worth of dewberries, here is a recipe for turning it into a delicious cobbler. This recipe has a lot of crust because I'm the type of girl who likes a high crust to berry ratio, so if you want less crust, reduce accordingly. Enjoy!

Homemade Dewberry Cobbler

Bottom Crust Ingredients:
2/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 Tbsp vanilla
3 Tbsp maple syrup
2/3 cup oat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small mixing bowl, combine the milk, vanilla, and syrup. Stir in the flour and baking powder. The batter will be runny. Pour into an 8x8 or similar sized dish (I used a ceramic oval shaped dish) and bake for 10 to 15 minutes - just enough so the crust hardens a bit and will support the weight of the berries in the next step.

Filling Ingredients:
5 cups dewberries (or other berries of choice)
2 Tbsp maple syrup or lemon juice (I used syrup)
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt

Directions: In a medium mixing bowl, combine all ingredients until berries are moistened and well coated. Pour on top of the bottom crust. Cover with a sheet of parchment paper first, then aluminum foil (so the aluminum doesn't directly touch your food) and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Top Crust Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups oat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp applesauce
2 Tbsp almond butter
Cinnamon sugar mixture for topping, optional

Directions: In a measuring cup, whisk the almond milk and vinegar together, then set aside for a few minutes. Then add the vanilla. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. In a small bowl, combine the applesauce and almond butter. Cut the applesauce mixture into the flour mixture with a fork or pastry cutter until crumbly. Then add the milk mixture and stir just until moistened (do not over-mix). Drop spoonfuls on top of the berries until evenly covered. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon sugar mixture if desired, and I even sprinkled additional cinnamon on top of that, because I LOVE cinnamon. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes.

Tips for Not Going Crazy in Your Kitchen

If you adopt a plant-based diet, you may find yourself preparing meals at home more often than you once did. People have asked me how I manage it all, so I thought I should do a post about how to keep your kitchen organized and to not go crazy in your kitchen when living a plant-based lifestyle.


This is how our fridge typically looks at the beginning of the week

Appliances and Gadgets to the Rescue
Modular food storage containers - We have purchased these high quality Rubbermaid containers as well as these 16 cup food storage containers from Walmart and they are great for storing very large quantities of food. I will caution that they are fairly cheap and don't last as long as some nicer sets, but they are so cheap that we find their temporary usage still worth the value. We even hold onto the cracked containers and use them as a lettuce crisper, or to hold bread and other things that won't leak. I also recommend purchasing pantry food storage containers, such as the OXO "Pop" containers or other canisters for storing rice, beans, pastas, flours, and other grains. You can also hold onto glass containers to re-use for food storage.

Instant Pot - We highly recommend the Instant Pot. It's a pressure cooker that is capable of cooking brown rice in about 15 minutes and dry, un-soaked beans in less than 30 minutes. We also use it to steam potatoes for mashing, but it could seriously be used for a dozen other purposes. The Instant Pot has dramatically improved the efficiency and reduced the hassle in our home kitchen. We even considered buying a second one to cook more than one item at a time. The price may be steep, but I assure you it's worth every penny.

Tortilla Press - We LOVE Mexican food. It's one of our favorite cuisines to eat plant-based. But since Michael has a gluten sensitivity and we want to avoid all added oils, we don't want to use store-bought tortillas. So we set out to make our own fresh homemade corn tortillas (but you could make wheat tortillas if desired). Our first discovery was finding masa harina flour to use. It's sold very cheaply at HEB, has only two ingredients (corn and lime), and you simply add water. Following the package instructions, we Michael attempted to press the tortillas using the bottom of a pan. He'd be the first to tell you: that gets really old pretty fast. So we then decided we needed to purchase a tortilla press. After some research, we decided on this bad boy. It's so easy to use, you are more likely to over-squish your tortillas than under-squish (totally legit terms).

Blender - We bought this Vitamix, but you certainly don't have to have a Vitamix to follow a plant-based diet. Yes, it's extremely handy and economical to be able to make my own oat flour, brown rice flour, millet flour, ground flax and chia seeds, as well as sauces, gravy, soups, and smoothies. But a good regular blender can do most of those things well enough, with just a little more effort involved. If you do decide that you want a Vitamix, you can look into a refurbished model on their website because they still offer a pro-rated warranty (their regular warranty is 7 years).

Food Processor - We purchased this 9-cup Cuisinart food processor. I'm sure you can get away with a lower-priced model, but this was a good moderately priced one with great reviews. We bought it over 2 years ago and it still runs well. If you do get a food processor, don't be like me and completely ignore the shredding and slicing discs for over a year that came with it. It works great for slicing and shredding carrots, zucchini, squash, and cooked potatoes (for making hash browns). Plus I use the regular blade for making dips, sauces, hummus, and finely chopping or pureeing things.

How to Stay Sane When Working in the Kitchen
Fresh, Frozen, or Frequent? First you need to decide whether you and your family like to have meals that are prepared fresh every day, or whether you're okay eating leftovers throughout the week. You also need to decide how many fresh versus frozen/canned ingredients you will use. For our family, we don't mind eating leftovers, and we try to opt for fresh ingredients over frozen or canned, but we will happily use frozen or canned ingredients if it will mean saving some stress or time for a given week. It's important to voice all your expectations and concerns before planning meals.

Don't shop and cook in the same day if you can help it - I enjoy cooking, but I don't enjoy having a marathon day of working, grocery shopping, unpacking from the store, washing produce, and cooking all in one day. Plan ahead, and break up those tasks during the week until you find a routine that works for you. I do my grocery shopping on Friday evenings, and then use Saturday and Sunday to cook and prepare meals for the week. Depending on the meal plan for a given week, I may end up having to cook something else during the week, but I try to prepare as much as I can ahead of time on the weekends.

Wash all your produce at once - Since I shop on Fridays, I strive to wash all my produce for the entire week as soon as I get home, or at least by Saturday morning. It sometimes takes me up to an hour to wash and store everything, but I have found that it helps the food to stay fresher longer, plus it's clean and ready for me to grab from the fridge when I need to cook it.

Buy and store things in bulk that you use often - What are the food items that you find yourself always running low on, wishing you had quicker access to, or enjoy eating the most often? You should consider purchasing those items in bulk and storing them in large containers in your pantry. For us, we eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast, and our flour of choice is oat flour that I make myself in the Vitamix. That means that we need to always have a lot of dry oats on hand. We purchase a 25 lb bag from a local store once a month, and I store them in large cereal containers.

Plan your meals for the week based on your schedule and stress level - If you know you have a busy week ahead, don't take on a challenge of making something that's new or time-intensive. Pick something that's filling, easy, and delicious enough to get the job the done. Some of my high-stress go-to meals include: baked potatoes with salsa and a side of veggies, veggie rice stir-fry, herbed potatoes, or a simple soup or chili.

If you need help, ASK for it - I'm probably speaking mostly to the ladies here, but seriously, don't be embarrassed for asking for help. I'm guilty sometimes of not asking for help because I want all the glory and praise of having prepared a decadent magazine-worthy meal. But that's just me being prideful and selfish. And it's much better for the whole family if you just ask for help to keep your sanity and a pretty smile on your face.

Monday Memes

Healthy Pizza Recipe

When Michael and I first switched to a plant-based diet, we thought we were going to crave meat. To our surprise, we never did crave meat again, but what we did have a strong craving for was cheese.

I remember the moment: we were at Radio Shack buying a new battery or something and it hit me: the sinfully delicious smell of pizza. Suddenly my mind was filled with images of Pizza Hut commercials. You know, where someone picks up a slice but the stretchy cheese is still stuck to its former slice neighbors? We were determined to have pizza again, but only healthy pizza.

We bought The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook and got to work creating a healthy pizza. But is an oil-free, dairy-free, and meat-free pizza even possible, let alone delicious? Well my friends, I can assure you that this one is. Although it will not have the same cheese stretchy qualities as a Pizza Hut commercial, it will be filling, sinfully delicious, and good for you. You can make this recipe and do what we we're doing this week: eating pizza for dinner every night!

Healthy Homemade Pizza
Dietary Needs: Gluten-free, oil-free, dairy-free, and meat-free
Yields: Two 12-inch pizzas every night for one week

Just to clarify about the quantities, we make the week's worth of sauces and dairy-free cheeses, and then make fresh pizza crust each night so that we end up with two 12-inch pizzas made fresh every night. We also like to make two kinds of pizza: a tomato sauced version and an alfredo version. The pizza crust recipe is shown last below.

Tomato-based Pizza

Tomato Sauce (one week's worth):

• 4 6-oz cans organic tomato paste
• 2 15-oz cans organic tomato sauce
• 2 12-oz pkg. silken firm tofu
• 4 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• Garlic powder to taste
• Basil (dried) to taste
• Ground oregano to taste
• Pepper to taste
• Sea salt to taste
• Directions: Blend all ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth and creamy.

"Mozzarella Cheese" Ingredients (altered from the Uncheese cookbook):

• 3 cups plain unsweetened almond or soy milk
• 3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/2 cup oats (we use GF oats)
• 6 Tbsp sesame tahini
• 4 Tbsp arrowroot (it's sold in the baking aisle)
• 4.5-6 Tbsp lemon juice (about 3 lemons)
• 1.5 Tbsp onion powder
• 1.5 tsp sea salt

"Mozzarella Cheese" Directions:

• Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.
• Pour into saucepan, cook and stir over medium heat until until slightly thickened.
• Pour into storage container, and cool, uncovered in refrigerator. You can cover it once it's completely cooled. You'll have to use a knife and spoon to spread gently over your pizza.

Toppings:

• Prepared sauce and "cheese" above
• Fresh parsley, oregano, and rosemary as desired
• Chopped yellow onions
• Broccoli florets
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sliced red bell pepper
• Sliced roma tomatoes

Alfredo-based Pizza

Sauce Ingredients (altered from the Uncheese cookbook):

• 4 cups plain unsweetened almond or soy milk
• 2 12-oz pkg. silken extra firm tofu
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 bulb garlic, roasted (cover in foil, bake at 400 for about 30 minutes) and peeled
• 1 large head cauliflower, steamed
• 2 cups from the "Parmesan cheese" batch below

Sauce Directions:

• Combine all ingredients, except "Parmesan cheese", in a blender and process until smooth.
• Pour into large storage container and stir in "Parmesan cheese".
• Cover and store in refrigerator.

"Parmesan Cheese" Ingredients (altered from the Uncheese cookbook) (Makes 6 cups):

• 3 cups almonds
• 3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 6 tsp mellow white miso (found at health food stores in refrigerated section)
• 1.5 tsp sea salt

"Parmesan Cheese" Directions:

• Put almonds in a saucepan and add enough water to cover almonds completely. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 minutes. Drain completely (in a colander is best) and allow to cool either on its own or by running cold water over it.
• Pinch each almond individually to remove the skin (it should easily pop off, but I admit, it's time consuming to do this to every single almond!) and place de-skinned almonds in a food processor container. Process until almonds are finely ground.
• Add remaining ingredients and process until well incorporated. It should look like the Parmesan that comes from a shaker can. (Also makes a delicious topping for popcorn!)
• You can store in airtight container in refrigerator for several weeks.
• This recipe makes 6 cups, and you'll need 2 cups of that for the Alfredo sauce above.

Toppings:

• Prepared sauce and "cheese" above
• Fresh parsley, oregano, and rosemary as desired
• Fresh chopped basil
• Chopped yellow onions
• Broccoli florets
• Sliced mushrooms
• Spinach, sauteed in water until wilted

Homemade Gluten-free Pizza Crust

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees – a temperature between 105 and 115 is important for yeast to rise properly)
3 tsp granulated sugar
2 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
2 Tbsp ground flax seeds
6 Tbsp warm water (110 degrees)

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice flour
3/4 cup millet flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 cup tapioca starch/flour
1/2 cup arrowroot powder (Bob’s Red Mill is one brand that makes this, sold in the baking aisle)
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp salt

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups warm water, sugar, and yeast and whisk vigorously until dissolved. Cover with a towel and let stand for 10 minutes.

2. In another small bowl, combine 6 Tbsp warm water and ground flax seeds and mix well. Let stand until the yeast mixture is done.

3. Meanwhile, combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add wet to the dry and mix the dough well.

4. In the bowl, divide the dough in half, then let rise in non-drafty area for 20 minutes. (Preheat oven to 425 shortly before the timer is up.)





5. Cover pizza pans with parchment paper. Place one half of the dough on each pan. Use wet hands to evenly spread dough out in circular motion. You’ll have to keep re-wetting your hand to keep from sticking.



6. Bake, without toppings, for 7-9 minutes.



7. Add sauce, "cheese", and toppings. Bake for 15-18 minutes.





Enjoy!

Whole vs Processed

When I share that I eat a plant-based diet, people often assume one or more of the following:
1. That all I eat are vegetables (FALSE)
2. That must mean the same thing as juicing (FALSE)
3. *Weird look* That I'm a crazy hippie. (Ok, you got me with this one - TRUE!)

First things first, a plant-based diet is not restricted to vegetables only. As I've said previously, eating vegetables are wonderfully healthy, but eating only vegetables will result in an insufficiency of calories because a pound of vegetables have only 100-200 calories on average. It's very important to eat legumes, whole grains, potatoes, and starches in addition to fruits and vegetables.

Second, juicing continues to be very popular. First let me say that the idea of juicing several vegetables as a way to consume vegetables and all its healthy nutrients is fine in theory, but is not superior to eating whole vegetables. Allow me to elaborate...

Whole, War-of-the-Worlds-looking carrots are superior to carrot juice

Juicing Removes Fiber
When you run vegetables or fruit through a juicer, it removes all the flesh and fiber, leaving only the juice behind. Though occasional vegetable/fruit juice is perfectly fine, juice should not replace a meal on a regular basis. Fiber is helpful for many reasons. It promotes a feeling of satiety. It helps you to feel full for a longer period of time than non-fiber foods. The two types of fiber (soluble and insoluble) help lower cholesterol and estrogen levels in the body and help regulate bowel movements, which helps protect against several chronic diseases. The more fiber you can consume from whole, plant foods, the better. Juicing does not help achieve that goal. (And recall that animal foods contain zero fiber.)

Concentrated Calories
Because the flesh and fiber are removed from fruits/vegetables when juicing, a person is likely to consume more calories overall and at a much faster rate than if he/she ate the fruits/vegetables as whole foods. A whole apple is more filling and satisfying as a meal or snack than eating a bowl of applesauce or drinking a glass of apple juice.

The Idea of Juicing is Based on the Idea of Nutrient Deficiency
One of the key selling points of the juicing world is that there is no easier way to consume the same amount of nutrients from vegetables/fruit if you were to try to eat them as whole foods. While that point is true, it is also misleading. This selling point implies that the people in this country are suffering from diseases caused by nutrient deficiencies. This simply is not true. The people in this country are suffering from diseases of excess, not deficiency. Too much fat, calories, sugar, cholesterol, and protein. So my big question to people who promote juicing is what about the rest of your meals each day? Are you consuming an excessive amount of animal foods, processed foods, or calorie-dilute foods? I say this often, but it is so important to look at the totality of your diet, not one single food item or meal.

Bottom Line: Do not be fooled into believing that juicing will save you from chronic diseases. You must consider all of the meals you eat each day. Focus on eating whole, plant-based foods most of the time, and then enjoy juicing as an occasional treat.

Monday Memes

More Yummy Food

Another addition to the post label "So What CAN You Eat??"


Pineapple (and all fruit) - simple and tasty dessert


Our first year's yield from the garden. We're expecting bigger and better this year!


We bought a horned melon at Whole Foods while visiting friends. It tastes similar to a kiwi, maybe mixed with a lemon. Not my favorite, but it was fun to try it.


We traveled to a conference and the hotel went above and beyond catering to our special diet. Oatmeal and a plate of fruit - perfect start to the day! (We brought our own bananas, cinnamon, and honey to top the oatmeal with!)


Hash brown potatoes (oil-free)


Quinoa Veggie Chili with Cornbread Muffins


Sweet potato & spinach lasagna with asparagus and homemade gluten-free whole grain rolls


Mexican-Stuffed Sweet Potatoes - really easy and filling!


Banana Pancakes with blueberries


We love to top these with "Banana Butter" (mashed bananas and peanut butter)


Brownie Batter Dip with apple slices


A special treat: Fudgy Beet Cupcakes served a la mode (with homemade Chocolate Banana Ice Cream - dairy-free of course!)