The Virtuous Tart E-Book

Susan Jane White

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 156

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Now you can have your cake and eat it too.Susan Jane White eats something sweet every day. Many of us do. But the difference is most of us don't get the same health kick from our indulgences as Susan Jane does. That's because all of Susan Jane's sweets, treats, drinks and snacks are packed with nutritional hits that love your body, boost your brain and make you feel and look great. It's no wonder they are her most requested recipes.With this book you'll learn that wholesome food need never tax your taste buds. You'll discover new ingredients that not only taste better, but treat your body better too. Imagine a nutritional slam-dunk while snacking on a slice of tiffin! Picture your taste buds raving to the tune of coconut torte! Visualise your toes breakdancing with every crunch of a teff cookie!The Virtuous Tart will nurse your sweet tooth and service your body like a first-rate Formula 1 pit stop, and you'll have the energy levels and body to prove it.

Leseprobe

THE VIRTUOUS TART

RECIPES FREE FROM WHEAT,

DAIRY AND CANE SUGAR

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

What’s It All About?

Why Sugar Free?

Why Dairy Free?

What About Wheat? And Gluten?

Tips from a Tart

A Note on the Measurements Used in This Book

Virgin Drinks

Hazelnut Milk

Golden Turmeric Milk

Almond and Hemp Milk

Black Sesame Milk

Almond Milk Chai Latte

Caffeine-Free Nightcap

Matcho Latte

Coffee and Almond Milkshake

Hipsteria – Peanut Butter Chocolate Shake

The Hot Cocoa

Piña Kaleada

Hot Shots

Limonade

How to Brew Your Own Kombucha

Probiotic Coffee

Virtuous Tarts

MILF Muffins

Boozy Cherry Cupcakes

Brainiac Brownies

WTF Brownies

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Banoffee Mess

Earl Grey Chocolate Tartlets

Macaccino Torte with Roasted Pecan and Chocolate Crumb

After Eight Dinner Party Torte

Pressed Coconut Torte with Tamarind and Miso Caramel

Rawvolutionary Carrot Cake

Victoria Sponge with Chia Jam and Coconut Cream

Lemon Shizzle Cake

Orange, Cardamom and Polenta Cake

Strawberry and Basil Cheesecake

My Wedding Cake

Saintly Treats

BBQ Kale Crisps

Vegetable Crisps

Homemade Coconut Milk Yoghurt

Raspberry Jam – The Healthy Kind

Teff, Ginger and Black Pepper Cookies

Anti-Cholesterol Cookies

American Peanut Butter Cookies

Camu Camu Cookies

Leonard Cohen Flapjacks

Superhero Tiffin

Honuts – The Healthy Donut

Chia Breakfast Pud with Passion Fruit and Sea Salt

Apple and Winter Squash Crumble

Secret Agent Gingerbread

Anti-Ageing Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate Seed Soldiers

Poached Pears with Star Anise

Pomegranate Halva

White Chocolate Bark with a Touch of Sea Salt

That Lemon Curd

Birch Sugar Granola

Activated Nuts

Toasted Pecans

Banana Popsicles

Strawberry and Liquorice Ice Cream

Born Again Truffles

Amazonian Truffles

Mega Raspberry Bombs

Spirulina Grenades

Peppermint-Laced Energy Balls

Health by Chocolate

Sea Salteasers

Acai and Beetroot Macaroons

Online Resources: Where Can You Buy All This Weird-Sounding Stuff?

Praise for Susan Jane White’s first cookbook, The Extra Virgin Kitchen

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill Books

INTRODUCTION

‘A man who gives little time to healthwill one day give much time to illness.’

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Healthy food is all very well and good, but it’s got to taste great, right? Damn right! I love cooking for flavour, but cooking for the good of my body makes me giddy. It’s like dating a terribly tasty hunk, then finding out he’s rich too.

Health and flavour are my thing, a potent duo. This way of cooking stokes the imagination. Gives wings to your spice rack. Thrills the body. And places vitality at the centre of your table.

Imagine a nutritional slam-dunk while snacking on a slice of tiffin. Picture your taste buds raving to the tune of BBQ veg crisps or your toes break dancing with every crunch and snap of a teff cookie. Wholesome food need never tax your taste buds.

Food is information. Every bite we eat contains software that tells our genes how to express themselves. Food literally has the ability to turn our ‘good’ genes on and our ‘bad’ genes off. By nourishing your body with the right nutrients, your body will nourish you. It makes a lot of sense to count nutrients, not calories. If calorie-controlled diets worked, we’d all be thin (and achingly dull).

So what counts as nourishing? Raw, unprocessed food like whole fruit, quirky beans, fresh vegetables, groovy grains such as buckwheat and quinoa, and weird-sounding flours milled from chickpeas and rye. Fat is your friend: chia, olive, flaxseed, almonds, avocados, oily fish and coconut. These choices will service your body like a first-rate Formula 1 pit stop, and you’ll have the winning body to prove it. Whether it’s in the boardroom, college library or on the track, we want to perform, right? Let’s not sabotage our own fuel supply.

Yet that’s exactly what I did 10 years ago. I thought I was too busy to cook and cycled past my local grocer, cackling at the queues. Turns out smarter people make time to cook. Smarter people pay the grocer, not the doctor. Smarter people embrace cooking as an adventure, a love affair. Smarter people prioritise their health over their wristwatch. The irony was rather spectacular.

It wasn’t wheat, sugar or dairy that triggered my portfolio of health disorders. It was the industrial amount of it I was consuming and the dodgy expiry dates that accompanied my preferred junk foods. I thought healthy food was for the elderly or infirm. I convinced myself that pepperoni was a vegetable. I counted coffee as one of my five a day (coffee beans are from a plant, right?) and horsed into breakfast cereals with a misguided sense of passion normally only seen in Silvio Berlusconi.

Eventually my body said no. Enough. First up was chronic stomach upsets that felt, and sounded, like a civil war was erupting inside my colon. Then exhaustion, with no energy to think straight, to make judicious decisions, to summon patience when required. Then insomnia set in and symptoms rocketed as I dragged my body around campus thinking it was quite acceptable to feel ill and confused in my twenties. My peers weren’t the epitome of health either, but it was difficult to tell hangovers apart from deeper health issues. One thing was clear, though: we were digging our way to the grave with our teeth.

The amount of white flour, white sugar and dairy we eat is borderline pathological. Cereal and milk for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, scones, cake, toast, biccies, pasta – the same old circus day in, day out. Sound familiar? My body begged for a break. Maybe yours is screaming for one too.

I’m not against wheat, sugar and dairy. They’re all delightfully alluring. But my energy levels are a whole lot better when I cut back on their mindless consumption. When I open up my food choices to all the other exhilarating ingredients around me, suddenly I find that eating less wheat, less sugar and less dairy isn’t restrictive at all. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. My choices become liberated and I discover loads of fabulous stuff I didn’t even know existed.

We are excluding so many outrageously tasty foods when we’re stuck in the dairy-wheat-sugar love triangle. Are you a fan of crisps? Wait until you try them made from Jerusalem artichokes! You think I’m joking? Just turn to here. Fudge brownies? They’re way better made with sticky dates and walnuts. Love pasta and couscous? Not when you discover at least a dozen tastier choices in the Asian supermarket, ranging from black sticky rice to mung bean noodles.

Figure out what makes your body feel good. Pizza, ice cream and soda can be like a two-faced friend who’s kind to your face, then stabs you in the back. So thrill the bejaysus out of your taste buds. Spicy black bean chilli? Raw chocolate torte? Maple and sesame halva? Now you’re listening. That was your body talking. Work with your appetite instead of fearing it. You already know what your body needs.

WHY SUGAR FREE?

I used to carry Kit Kats like cigarettes. An expert sugar junkie.

Not anymore. I’ve cut out nasty refined sugar and ditched sodas. This simple change has transformed my energy levels and even my dress size. And guess what? It’s far from restrictive, which was my first assumption when I embarked on this crazy-assed plan. It’s the exact opposite.

Suddenly I found loads of different ingredients within my orbit that not only tasted better, but treated my body better too. Discoveries included chestnut flour, Medjool dates, coconut sugar and naturally sweet spices like cinnamon and liquorice. These flavours helped nurse my sweet tooth while recalibrating my taste buds.

It’s science, innit? My taste buds have been reprogrammed. Yours will be too. Along with this reprogramming comes a profound sense of respect for my body and how it works. That’s because every bite I took affected my mood, my skin and my energy, either positively or negatively.

I’m not controlled by the sugar highs anymore. I have escaped their poxy shackles. Ever known what it’s like to be in the nucleus of a comet? This might be your year.

So how can you service your cravings and lessen the damage? Look at Mother Nature’s stash of nectar (turn the page). All contain valuable trace minerals and vitamins as well as offering that sensual sweet hit – Ray LaMontagne on the lips.

If your diet obliges you to stay off sugar, this means quarantining all forms of sugar, good and bad, from your diet, including maple syrup, honey and even dried fruit. My cookbook only evicts nasty white sugar from your kitchen. I can’t accuse any sugar of being nutritious, but what follows is my list of healthier choices when it comes to tickling a sweet tonsil. Glycemic loads, per serving, are scribbled to the side for diabetics to note. As with all sugars, you can pack on the pounds if you’re using them with glorious abandon. Think of these as sweet treats. If sugar, even natural ones, becomes a staple in your kitchen, you’ll have the waistline to prove it!

Candida diets require the elimination of all sugars, including natural, unprocessed sugars like fresh fruit. Small amounts of stevia and xylitol are permissible, but it’s always a good idea to find a specialist to embark on this candida pilgrimage with you. You’ll slowly be able to reintroduce natural sugars to your diet, mindfully, just like I did.

‘I used to carry Kit Kats like cigarettes. An expert sugar junkie.’

AGAVE (LOW GL)

Agave syrup doesn’t excite me, but it’s still there on my shelf.

So what’s the deal with this fructose syrup? Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in fruit and some veg, but in small concentrations. It’s also delivered alongside the other minerals and fibre contained within that piece of fruit. When fructose is artificially concentrated, like when agave is manufactured, and in isolation from other nutrients, our body treats it quite differently. Glucose is metabolised by every cell in the body, says endocrinologist Dr Robert Lustig. Fructose, however, can only be metabolised by the liver. Too much fructose in a concentrated, isolated form has been shown to burden the liver.

Much of the research on high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) exposes its adverse health effects, especially in the form of liquids. Drinks and confectionary sweetened with HFCS shoot excessive amounts of concentrated fructose to the liver, the outcome of which is more than alarming. For more on this, I recommend reading authors Dr Robert Lustig, Michael Moss and Marion Nestle.

I think agave can be useful in small quantities for diabetics as an occasional treat. Diabetics have it tough. Honey, maple syrup, dried fruit, date syrup – all are delisted for the diabetic. The alternative for diabetics is xylitol (not a fan), stevia (never liked it) or artificial sweeteners (no chance). In this light, agave has a functional and positive use in the kitchen as long as you don’t stick a straw in the bottle and neck the lot.

BARLEY MALT SYRUP (LOW-MEDIUM GL)

This licky-sticky yummy stuff is responsible for the taste of Maltesers, barbeque sauce, bagels and beer. What’s not to love? Barley malt syrup has great attitude in the kitchen. It’s half as sweet as honey but twice as thick, so don’t substitute it one for one in recipes. This might explain why so few celebrity chefs use it. One diva in the kitchen is already too much.

Production of barley malt syrup is peculiar. This rich caramel is made by soaking and germinating barley to activate important enzymes – a process often referred to as malting. The sprouted grain is then dried before it’s cooked slowly at a low temperature. I imagine the smell is delightfully inebriating. The resulting ambrosial liquid is strained of any impurities and sent to stores in glass jars.

BLACKSTRAP MOLASSES (MEDIUM GL)

Molasses is that earthy sweetness found partying in gingerbread and baked beans. This incredulously sticky syrup is closer to tar than sugar cane. At less than 1 cent per gram, it’s a fairly sweet deal too.

Black molasses is the syrup that’s left over from the process of turning sugar cane into table sugar. The plant’s nutrients are concentrated in its juice, then boiled and boiled into a fudgy molasses. Unlike table sugar, artificial sweeteners or fructose syrups, blackstrap molasses is humming with a variety of minerals that help promote good health. But don’t squeal yet – it’s not the new coconut nectar. Black molasses is only a fraction as sweet as regular sugar, imparts a mineral flavour that can be an acquired taste and can frequently misbehave in dishes. More often than not, it’s just misunderstood. Once you get to know it better, you’ll find its inadequacies charming and much easier to work with.

For a sugar, blackstrap molasses is a surprisingly good source of iron (useful for vegetarians or incorrigibly moody teens). Without sufficient iron, our bodies struggle to make haemoglobin. This is the stuff that helps transport oxygen around our system. No oxygen, no mojo. Sound familiar, ladies? That’s because iron deficiency is more common in women than in men. One tablespoon of blackstrap molasses also shoots us with 15% of our recommended calcium intake, making jam warble with envy. Breathless yet?

BROWN RICE SYRUP (LOW-MEDIUM GL)

Apparently brown rice syrup is soaked in symbolism. It stands for more than just a sweetener. Ever heard of Russell Brand? Joaquin Phoenix? Jared Leto? All are indecently hunky-looking vegans who prefer brown rice syrup to honey. Brown rice syrup says, ‘I am kind. I am sweet. I am savvy.’ So I signed up.

Despite brown rice syrup being a fairly processed product, it has low levels of glucose (about 5%) and high levels of the more complex carbohydrate maltose (around 55%). This gives it an attractive glycemic load that drip-feeds your body’s battery. Table sugar has a high glycemic load, giving you explosive bursts of energy but leaving you with a sugar hangover and often a greater deficit in energy than before the initial hit.

Brown rice syrup is made by fermenting the cooked grain with cultured enzymes to break down its carbohydrates. The liquid by-product is boiled to make sweet, sticky syrup. It can come in a variety of ‘processed’ gradients worthy of further sleuthing. Sticking to organic seems sensible given the volume of agrichemicals regularly used in rice production. For example, a few years back there was some alarm regarding arsenic levels in brown rice and apples from particular parts of the world. Keep those antennae finely tuned.

CINNAMON (LOW GL)

This warming spice is naturally very sweet and doesn’t tax blood sugar levels. There is considerable hype about cinnamon’s ability to control diabetes, but these are premature claims, I’m afraid. There is insubstantial evidence to date, or at least none significant enough to merit such accolades. But it tastes great in baked goods, hot chocolate and porridge, so go ahead and parachute it onto your goodies as a natural source of sweetness.

COCONUT BLOSSOM SYRUP (LOW GL)

See coconut sugar. The syrup is less heat-treated than crystallised coconut sugar. The only brands I have found in the UK and Ireland are Biona and Coconut Secret (which does a splendiferous raw version). Let me know when more brands come on the market where you live – send me a tweet @SusanJaneHealth #extravirginkitchen.

COCONUT SUGAR (LOW GL)

In 2014 I flicked coconut blossom sugar out of my cupboard, condemning it as another hysterical trend for the kale-gnawing postcodes of London. But somehow it slipped back under my radar and spectacularly high-jumped my cynicism. Now I like to look at my packet of coconut palm sugar and stroke it like an adorable little sea urchin.

Think granulated toffee. Crunchy caramel. Got it? Coconut nectar doesn’t have that sickly sweet kick of regular sugar, which does frightening things to my heartbeat. Too good to be true?

Here’s what happens in far-off places like Bali, king of the coconut community. Nectar from the coconut palm tree is collected by securing a vessel underneath the tree’s flowers to collect its sticky sap. This liquid nectar is then roasted in big cauldrons to boil off the water content and turn it into a sweet, viscous syrup. To make a crystallised sugar, the syrup is boiled some more and left to cool before massaging and grinding it into granules. Many small boutique producers in Bali will sieve the sugar to create a fine, powdery coconut palm sugar for the Western market, but locals will use it in big clumsy clumps. Coconut nectar and coconut sugar are unlike any other sweeteners I have tasted: smooth like caramel, yet acidic and fruity. Lip-smackingly fabulous. The finished product is a whole sweetener, which means its nutrition is intact and hasn’t been stripped away. Don’t get me wrong – coconut sugar is still a sugar, like all these natural sweeteners, but it’s a less evil variety. You’ll find surprising amounts of iron and potassium in coconut sugar, which may help explain why athletes become curiously giddy at the mere mention of it. But this sweetener’s USP is its low glycemic range. Coconut sugar won’t spike your blood sugar levels and leave you with a crashing low that ultimately drives the vicious circle of craving more sugar and another high.

DATE SYRUP (MEDIUM-HIGH Gl)

These wondrous fruits frequently disrupt my sleep. When I know I have a bag of sticky Medjool dates downstairs, it’s almost traumatic to keep my mind and mitts off them. Try eating one without levitating.

These delectable dried fruits contain modest amounts of alkalising minerals such as potassium, magnesium and calcium. Dates can be alchemised into a paste or syrup by boiling different varieties and reducing the liquid to a viscose treacle. Date syrup has a higher glycemic value than other sweeteners, making it desirable for gym bunnies. However, this also means that date syrup is off limits for diabetics, as it can fiddle with blood sugar levels. While dates aren’t fattening, overindulging will force the body to store its excess sugars with your fat depot. So munch in moderation unless an afternoon with Rich Roll and Brendan Brazier is planned.

JAGGERY (MEDIUM Gl)

Jaggery comes from 70-foot-high Palmyra palms. The nectar of the fruit is collected, gently heated and then dehydrated to become an irresistible powdery sweetener. White sugar is boring, predictable and bankrupt in comparison. Like an ex, you’ll wonder what you ever saw in it.

This caramel-coloured dust imparts a rich flavour to baked goodies, similar to molasses. It has a desirable low-medium glycemic load and only tiny amounts of fructose (if this concerns you). Deep, dark, musky and sticky – all the virtues required of a naughty treat. But iron? And B vitamins? There’s the thunderbolt.

B vitamins help your battery, your body and your brain (and don’t forget B for bad hangover). Stress robs your bank of B vitamins. If you run out of your B supply, your body will struggle to make stress-related hormones, nourish nerves or watch House of Cards