Good morning blog buds! This week, I’m breaking the recap into segments to keep the size a little more manageable. A wise blogger (Joan) once told me that she’d heard blog posts should be able to be read quickly, and I agree. No one wants to see a post so long they think it will take them 10 minutes to read, right? Hopefully you’ll prefer this shorter segment.
So the first class of this past week that I’m going to share with you is Grains, Legumes, Nuts, Seeds.
Funny story about something I learned in school this week: MSP and I were playing “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” on our Wii last night, and one of the questions was, “Who is the Goddess of Agriculture?” from Greek Mythology. The answer is CERES, hence “cereal” grains – which we just learned on Monday! I may have been taught this in grade school as well, who knows! Hey, at least I know my education dollars are improving my Wii Trivia performance! 
Another tip that’s been discussed here at FitFeat is adding kombu to your beans during soaking and cooking to help reduce “gassiness” and impart additional minerals (thank you Alicia Silverstone…). But you can also add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda for every 1 cup of beans to your cooking liquid to help reduce gas as well.
Soaking grains, beans, nuts and seeds (and even taking it one step further and sprouting them) will make them ALL more digestible and increase their nutrients.
My assigned recipe for this class was Nut and Seed Brittle. It turned out SO tasty! I modified the recipe they’d provided somewhat, eliminating the cashews and sunflower seeds and adding some extra spice and dried fruit. This brittle is made by mixing your favorite nuts, seeds and spices with some high-quality maple syrup and then baking and breaking. Mine had almonds (run through the food processor), pepitas, sesame seeds, flax seeds, crushed goji berries, a few chopped dried cherries, Saigon cinnamon, orange zest, and ginger. As it was cooling I topped it with some minced fresh mint. To serve, I made a batch of “chocolate syrup” to drizzle on top using maple syrup, brown rice syrup, carob powder and cocoa powder.
I’m having fun working to improve my garnishing & plating skills.
When I think of “brittle” I think of the peanut brittle that we used to eat around the holidays growing up, incredibly high in refined sugars (white sugar and corn syrup), butter and using roasted peanuts which don’t really provide anything in the way of health. So this holiday season I’m thinking about making this MUCH HEALTHIER nut/seed brittle for gifts, maybe with some dried cranberries as the holiday fruit.
Some of the other dishes from that day included Persian Split Pea and Barley Stew:
Pecan Loaf with Creole Glaze (meat free and it was SO good – I can’t wait to try this at home!):
Black-Eyed Pea and Corn Biscuits (gluten free) – another delicious treat that I will definitely make at home:
This was a VERY filling day of class what with all the beans and grains! Good thing I got in a solid weight-training session that morning!
Have a SUPERB Saturday friends! See you soon with a recap about SEA VEGETABLES!
– Shari B. =)
Tags: Bauman College, gluten free, healthy eating, meat free, nut and seed brittle
