carrots

Quick Raw Beet & Carrot Salad

I know what you are thinking.. beets again?!  Yes folks, beets always. Because they are good to our taste buds and good for our bodies. Still in season, beets and carrots have been in abundance this past month or so, ruling our root veggie pallet with hella flavor combinations.  

Sometimes raw beets don't get enough love. But stained hands aside, it's one of the healthiest ways to enjoy this delish vegetable. You see, beets are an incredible source of the phytonutrients, betalains. Betalains provide a wealth of anti-oxidants, specifically that promote eye health and nerve tissue health; aid in detoxification, and present anti-inflammatory benefits. This phytonutrient is also the pigment which gives beets those rich, stained hues. 

All to say - the v important betalains are not  heat stable. The longer you cook your beets, the less nutrients you'll receive. So! Bypass the whole problem and keep these babies raw. Fear not, because this simple and yum recipe makes that pretty easy to do.

Ingredients:

2 carrots, grated
1 medium beet, grated
3 tbsp chopped scallion
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint
juice from 1/4 lemon
juice from 1/4 orange
1 teaspoon sea salt
¾ teaspoon ground cumin
olive oil drizzle
1 tbsp hemp seed hearts

Method:

1. After carrots and beets are shredded in a food processor or grated by hand, transfer the veggies to a serving bowl.

2. Add chopped scallions and mint to the mix.

3. In a medium bowl or in a screw-top jar, combine lemon juice, orange juice, sea salt, cumin and olive oil.

4. Pour enough dressing on top of carrot and beet mixture to coat lightly and toss until combined.  Add more if desired.

5. Add hemp seeds and avocado on top of salad and taste for seasoning.

Carrot Cake for the GF-Vegan Sweethearts

Carrot cake might be an all time fave amongst us bloomers, and we are especially fond of it when it is made without loads of sugar, oil, and things that are not, by our standards, wholesome ingredients. However, this recipe is. This recipe was taken out of an old journal filled with college notes passed back in fourth in class amongst friends. Yes, college going on high school. An old friend wrote this recipe out for me when I first started kicking wheat out of my diet, in I think it was a statistics class. Has remained the tried and true in my heart inspired by the deathly boredom of frequency tables and math equations. This cake is sweetened with maple syrup, vegan, flour-less, made with coconut oil and yeah, packed with nutrition from garden carrots, ginger, omega-3s and everything in between. I would even say this cake is healthy enough to eat for breakfast (which we did and totally recommend).

Ingredients:

For the cake: 
3/4 cups brown rice flour
1 cup garbanzo bean flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
lotsa cinnamon
1/8 tsp cardamon *this is optional, not traditional but definitely delish!
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup of warm water
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cups grated carrots
2 tbsp grated ginger
1 1/4 cups shredded unsweetened coconut
1 cup of chopped pecans

For the icing:
2 cups raw and soaked cashews
1 cup water
1/2 cup lemon zest
1/2 cup coconut oil
Sweeten with maple syrup to taste

 

Method:

1.  Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

2. In a second bowl mix together oil, water, vanilla, and sweetener.

3. Fold wet mixture into dry and mix until just combined.

4. Grate your carrots and ginger, and then add into the bowl. Add any other remaining dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.

5. Pour into your lightly oil cake pan and pop in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until toothpick comes clean.

6. While the cake is baking, whip together your frosting. Just pour all of your frosting ingredients together into a high-speed blender. Scoop out and place in the freezer until your cake is done baking.

7. Take the cake out and let it cool for about 25 to 30 minutes. Slather it with cashew goodness, and eat a large warm slice with a dear friend.


 

 

Dill We Beet Again..

Sometimes genius strikes when you least expect it - tired, without a plan, too lazy to drive to Publix... All we knew though was that a) time to try out that fancy expensive vegan nut cheese our Whole Foods recently started selling b) use those gigantic n gorgeous beets from E's super garden c) get as close to a sloppy joe as we possibly can.

Thus we found ourselves with the ever elusive "beet ball", loosely adapted from about 20 different random online recipes but with possibly the most flavorful results we've yet encountered.

This recipe is super easy, so delicious, and while is better considered a starting point for a more full dish (ie beet burgers), these lil fried balls we ended up with were clearly nom enough to post on Bloom.

With beets already in the equation, we had a serious 'aha' moment when we found that one of the only two cheese flavors (does it even need a flavor?) came in truffle, dill, and chive. ALSO pickles were buy one get one, clearly steering our palate towards Polish cuisine. 

Unfortunately we were kinda disappointed with the cheese... It's consistency was almost identical to tofu, it tasted good but not great, and doesn't really melt that well. So we basically just smashed it into the beets balls - which of course added great flavor, but just things to keep in mind if you plan on cooking with it in the future.

Fried these lil' suckers up in some coconut oil - ours were pretty moist so the final consistency wasn't that solid but still worked out. And last these make great fillers for a bread n butter pickle sandwich.

Final result is super healthy, easy, packed with flavor, and ingeniously versatile. Don't think we'll throw down all those dollas for the cheese again, but definitely was worth a try!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 cooked and mashed medium sweet potato
2 packed grated medium sized beetroot
½ cup finely chopped red onion
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
¼ tsp chili powder
½ tsp cumin powder
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 cup corn flour
salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat a teaspoon of coconut oil in a cast iron skillet and add in the chopped red onion and garlic. Saute until the red onions are translucent.

2. Add in the grated beetroot, sweet potato, cumin, salt, chili powder, thyme. Cover the pan and simmer on low heat until the beetroot and sweet potato have turned soft. Then crumble your cheese into the mixture.

3. Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool completely. Once cooled, add in the corn flour and keep the salt & pepper levels in check.

4. Make small lime sized balls or go big with a burger. You can cook them by baking for 30 minutes at 375 degrees or pan fry them up in a low heat.