What could you not love about a buttery pecan crust piled high with honey sweetened fresh blueberries? Basically nothing.
This dessert is a riff off of this fresh blackberry pie that we make every summer. I really love both recipes because the filling is a combination of fresh and cooked fruit, giving it this juicy, not too sweet flavor that I can’t get enough of. If you happen to get your hands on a whole bunch of really good blueberries, this recipe will not do you wrong. Make sure to chill this tart before you serve it; it’s much better cold. Top with whipped cream to make it really divine.
HONEY-SWEETENED BLUEBERRY PECAN TART
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1/2 c. toasted pecans, finely chopped
3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
5 tbs. cold butter
3 tbs. honey
1 tbs. water
Combine the flour, salt, and pecans in a mixing bowl. Work the butter into the flour with a fork. Add the honey and the water and bring the dough together into a ball using your hands. Press the dough into the bottom of a 9″ tart pan. Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the crust until golden brown and aromatic, 15-20 minutes.
While the crust is in the oven, cook the filling.
Ingredients for the filling:
5 cups of blueberries, divided
1/2 c. honey
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 c. water
2 1/2 tbs. instant tapioca (or cornstarch is fine too)
1 tbs. butter
In a medium saucepan, combine 2 c. blueberries with the honey, water, lemon zest, tapioca, and butter. Mash the blueberries with a potato masher to release some of the juices. Bring everything to a boil. Cook until the mixture has visibly thickened, then remove from heat and fold in the remaining three cups of blueberries.
Pour the prepared filling into the cooked pie crust and then chill in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.
This salad.It’s so delicious and so simple, and takes just a few minutes to throw together.
My brain is kind of fried from working so much, and this is the perfect kind of dish to make for that kind of time in your life.
We’re emerging from this crazy whirlwind right now. In April, we moved from our house in the mountains of Lake County to a sweet little house down the road from our new farm space in Redwood Valley. Part of the transition meant turning a bunch of raw land into a vegetable and flower farm over the course of about two months so that we could grow during this season and not have to wait til next year to start. Our last farm was tiny and took us ten years to get to where it was. This farm is still very much in process, but it took us about a month to get an area planted that absolutely dwarfs anything we’ve ever had before. We’re pretty excited about everything and I can’t wait to show you some pictures.
If you know me personally, you might know that I’ve been compulsively planting too many tomato starts for years and years, and that heirloom tomatoes are my one true vegetable love. I always plant more than I should but it’s really never enough. I’m so thrilled to say that I just planted the heirloom tomato garden of my dreams! (It’s HUGE). The land owner, an expert farmer who’s been teaching us a lot as we go forward this year, keeps making comments along the lines of “you are an absolute lunatic for planting that many tomatoes” but I’m soldiering on, undaunted.
(I still remember the first time I ate an heirloom tomato. I was working at Restaurant Lulu when I was 19 and had just moved to San Francisco, where they were serving this simple tomato salad, but it used tomatoes that were unlike any that I’ve ever seen before, and when I tasted one, it basically blew my mind and changed the entire course of my life. True story.)
Anyway though, this salad. I made this tabouleh with some leftover quinoa, lettuce and herbs from the garden and some mediocre grocery store tomatoes, and it instantly became my favorite salad of the moment. It’s going to be amazing when I actually have some decent tomatoes to put in it. It’s a nice side dish for a summery dinner, served with grilled lamb or chicken, but it’s also a wonderful lunch on its own. We used butter lettuce leaves to make lettuce wraps with the tabouleh inside and it’s about my favorite thing to eat in the world now.
QUINOA TABOULEH
Vegan & Gluten Free
Serves: 4
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
2 1/2 c. cooked tricolor quinoa
1/2 c. finely chopped parsley
1/4 c. finely chopped mint leaves
3 c. diced tomatoes
juice from 1 1/2 large lemons
olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
1 small head of lettuce (butter lettuce would be perfect)
If you’re making the quinoa specifically for this recipe, rinse it with cool water after it’s cooked so that it doesn’t cook the vegetables in the salad. Leftover quinoa that’s not steaming hot anymore obviously doesn’t need rinsing. Combine all the ingredients except the lettuce in a bowl. Add the olive oil, salt and pepper to your own taste. Cover and let the mixture sit at room temperature for 30 minutes (not in the fridge! Cold tomatoes taste weird). Serve on a bed of lettuce leaves, or use the lettuce leaves as wraps.
So here’s my theory: If you’re going to have a fried chicken dinner, I think you need to serve a lot of really fresh vegetables to go with it so that the whole meal’s not super heavy and deep fried. Braised collards are traditional, of course, but I think what really makes the meal is a big dish of pickled okra. The vinegar is such a good counterpart to country gravy and mashed potatoes. Plus, everyone knows to make collard greens so they’re necessarily all that exciting, but I’m not sure the general public realizes how amazing pickled okra taste. If you like dill pickles, you will love these. They’re crisp and tangy (not slimy at all), and even though I could have canned them, I didn’t bother because my family and I polished them off in just a couple days. They were perfect as a side dish to a big southern dinner, but also delicious with cold beers, pimento cheese and crackers. This is a horrendous picture from my phone because I was more worried about serving a table full of people and then eating with my family before the food got cold than taking perfectly styled photographs, but just so you see where I’m going with this: It was so good!
My recipe for fried chicken is here, along with some prettier pictures. The biscuits are a recipe that I always use from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. They’re yeasted buttermilk biscuits and come out wonderfully fluffy. If you don’t have that cookbook you should almost definitely buy it – it’s a winner.
PICKLED OKRA
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
1 lb. okra
2 c. apple cider vinegar
2 c. water
1/4 c. kosher salt
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp. dill seed
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
1 onion, cut in half and sliced thinly
optional: a pinch of red pepper flakes
optional, which I didn’t use because I couldn’t find: one or two fresh dill blossoms
Combine the apple cider vinegar, salt, water, garlic, dill seed, black peppercorns and sliced onion in a nonreactive pot and bring to a simmer. (If you want them spicy, this is also when you should add the red pepper flakes to your own heat preference). Simmer for 3-4 minutes. Arrange the okra in a nonreactive container (I used a glass dish but you could use jars too) and add the dill blossoms if you are using them. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the okra. It should cover them completely. Move the container to the refrigerator. Refrigerate for at least 48 hours before serving. They should last in the fridge for about a month, but you’ll probably eat them much quicker than that.
I just got back from a week in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. My parents, one of my brothers and I all stayed at my grandma’s house and cooked a lot of pretty amazing food, so I have a several recipes I’ll be sharing this week as I get the time to write them up.
my grandma Molly in high school, in 1936. she’s the first one on the left, front row.
First up: this strawberry-peach-lemon jam. It turned out really nice, with a gorgeous color, a good set and texture and lovely complex flavor. (But… It’s also a bit of an abomination, since I used a bunch of sketchy fruit from a tiny local grocery store right down the road from us: conventionally grown, underripe, out of season peaches, some mediocre strawberries and a lemon to try and add some flavor.) I’ve deemed it totally acceptable to break the usual rules about local fruit in our situation, when you’re staying at a house with several family members who all know how to make and can preserves, somehow there’s no jam in the house and all the local fruit is out of season. The decisive moment was when I found an open jar of smucker’s strawberry jam in the fridge. I don’t know who in my family bought that, but SHAME! Recently, I’ve been trying to make really simple preserves, with just one kind of fruit, sugar and sometimes lemon juice. I’m kind of obsessed with finding the best-of-the-best-most-delicious-you’ve-ever-tasted apricots/blackberries/whatever and doing the bare minimum that I need to do to get them into jars. Whoever grew the fruit is really doing most of the complicated work. As far as my part goes, tracking down the perfect fruit is actually way more complicated than getting it into jars.
With boring grocery store fruit, though, I figured there’s no harm in playing around with some new flavor combinations to try and make the jam a little bit more vibrant. And it worked! It’s kind of ridiculous that homemade jam is still so much better than the grocery store counterpart even when you’re not using very high quality fruit. I’m really curious to see how this recipe turns out if I made it during the summer with some really sweet, ripe strawberries and peaches from our own peach trees.STRAWBERRY-PEACH-LEMON JAM
Makes: 4 half pint jars
Ingredients:
1 quart of strawberries, stems removed and sliced in half
3 peaches, blanched, peeled and diced
1/2 large lemon, sliced for marmalade*
1 tbs. vanilla
3 c. sugar
Day 1: Prepare the fruit and macerate
Combine the sliced strawberries, peeled diced peaches, sliced lemons and sugar in a nonreactive container. Cover and refrigerate for 12-24 hours.
Day 2: Cook off the jam
Bring boiling water canner to a boil, prepare jars and lids.
Transfer the fruit to a heavy bottomed, nonreactive pot and cook on high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. After about 10 minutes, when the fruit is cooked through but the jam isn’t gelled yet, remove the pot from the stove and use a potato masher to mash the fruit to a consistency that you like. (At this point it will really start to look like jam). Put the pot back onto the stove and continue cooking until the jam reaches the gel point. Ladle into hot half pint jars leaving 1/4″ headspace. Attach lids and rings and process for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude as necessary.
Note: Strawberry jam can be challenging to get to set properly, but since this has a bunch of lemon slices in it, it should set pretty easily. It did for me, atleast.
Another Note: When you make marmalade, the sliced citrus fruit is often parcooked in some water before the sugar is added to make sure that the rinds are cooked all the way through and don’t end up chewy at the end. Since this recipe skips that step, it is very important to slice the lemon extra super thin, otherwise I’m pretty sure it won’t cook thoroughly with the strawberries and peaches.
And, don’t forget that if you don’t have your boiling water canner with you, all you really need is a pot with some jar rings laid in the bottom and you’re good to go.
So, I canned a bunch of pears back in September. (Recipe here). Now that it’s February it’s really sinking in how delicious they are.Out of all my canning projects from 2013, they’re one of my favorites. Before they were ever in jars, these pears were some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Ever! They were grown right in Redwood Valley by a lovely couple that I met at the farmers market a few years ago. (They’re basically the embodiment of the kind of fruit I want to be preserving all the time). A lot of the time we just eat them out of the jar, but I needed to take a dessert to a friend’s house yesterday and whipped together this tart with some of them. An almond crust combined with sliced canned pears and a rich vanilla custard (with eggs from our chickens!) made for a really lovely tart that tastes delicate and luxurious at the same time. This recipe is a combination of a couple recipes: the crust is an adaptation from Deborah Madison’s nut crust in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, p. 695and the filling is based off of this pear tart recipe from Williams Sonoma.
PEAR ALMOND TART
Cook Time: 1 hr.
Ingredients:
For the Crust:
1/2 c. slivered almonds, roughly chopped
3/4 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 tbs. sugar
5 tbs. butter
2 tbs. water
For the Filling:
approximately 6 canned pear halves
3 medium eggs
2/3 c. sugar
zest from 1 lemon
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. heavy cream
3 tbs. flour
2 tbs. butter, melted
Combine the almonds, flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Cut in the butter with a fork. Add 2 tbs. of water and use your hands to form the dough into a ball. Press the dough into a 9″ tart pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the crust into the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up, and then bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
While the crust is baking, prepare the filling:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the eggs until they’re frothy. Add in the sugar, lemon zest, vanilla, heavy cream, flour and butter. Mix to combine everything thoroughly. Slice the pear halves into 1/4″ thick slices. (Depending on the size of your pears, you may need slightly more or less to cover the tart shell with a layer of pears.)
After the crust has cooked for ten minutes, take it out of the oven. Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Arrange the pear slices to make an even layer covering the crust. Pour the custard mixture over the top of the pears. Put the tart in the back in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, until the filling is set and golden brown.
Note: I served this tart after it had fully cooled. I’m not sure how it would be still hot; I think the custard sets a bit while it’s cooling.
We’re finally getting a glimpse of the winter I’ve been dreaming of for months and months.Up until now, it’s been warm and sunny outside, making my summer farming plans started seeming more and more farfetched. Now that we’ve had a bunch of rain and snow, though, I’m starting to relax a little bit. I’m so happy to have a proper winter Saturday, indoors with a fire going in the woodstove and a loaf of bread in the oven. I’ve been working to get better at baking, and I think this recipe is starting to get pretty good. I like a loaf of bread with lots of seeds and good things in it. I want it to taste savory, without a bunch of sugar or honey in it. Something that I can toast and spread with butter and maybe avocado. I still have a huge amount of learning to do about baking, so if someone with more experience than me happens to be reading this and has any suggestions for improving it, please feel free to chime in.
FRENCH BREAD WITH QUINOA, SEEDS AND ROSEMARY
Makes: 2 baguettes or 1 larger loaf
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. lukewarm water
1 packet of yeast (2 1/2 tsp.)
1 tsp. sugar
3 c. bread flour*
2 tbs. flax seeds
1 tbs. chia seeds
1 tbs. poppy seeds
2 tbs. pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. cooked quinoa, cooled
2 tbs. fresh rosemary
1 tsp. sea salt
Put the water in a small bowl and sprinkle it with the yeast and the sugar. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, until small bubbles start forming on the surface. Put the mixture into a bigger mixing bowl with 1 c. of flour and mix together thoroughly. Add the flax seeds, chia seeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, quinoa, rosemary and salt, along with 2 more cups of flour. Using a wooden spoon, stir all the ingredients together as much as you can, then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead all the ingredients together. Knead for 8-10 minutes to make a smooth, elastic dough. If it’s too wet and sticky, add a little bit of flour. If it’s too dry, add a little bit of water. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a greased mixing bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in size.
Once the dough has risen, punch it down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it out into a rectangle. Starting with the long side of the rectangle, roll it up into a loaf shape. Transfer to a cookie sheet and let it rise again for 30-40 minutes, covered with a kitchen towel, until it doubles in size.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Slash the top of the loaf with a very sharp knife and then put it in the oven to bake for 25 minutes until it’s nicely golden brown.
*I was out of whole wheat flour when I made this, so I didn’t bother using it, but a mixture of white and whole wheat flour would be great if you feel like doing it.
I usually make monster batches of preserves. I like preserving by the bushel when fruits are in peak season. During the winter, I usually end up going down to San Francisco once or twice and getting some citrus fruit from the farmers down there who are coming over from the central valley. I haven’t made it down there this winter, though, and a girl needs lemon marmalade, so when I was in Whole Foods the other day (I can’t believe I’m saying that; I never shop at Whole Foods and I think the stores are super pretentious, but I was trying to kill time in Santa Rosa, so I kind of just ended up there) I ended up buying six precious little meyer lemons. Apart from feeling like a loser for buying fruit at the grocery store, this little batch of marmalade was quite a success. It only takes a few minutes to slice up six lemons for marmalade (the last time I made lemon marmalade I did fifty pounds of lemons, which took hours and hours). The cooking time is also really short, which is nice. Also, I’d forgotten just how lovely a kitchen smells when it’s filled with the aroma of fresh lemons. The most important part: a piece of toast with butter and marmalade is one of the best things in the universe. MEYER LEMON MARMALADE Makes: almost 4 half pint jars Cook Time: 1 1/2 hrs. Ingredients:
6 meyer lemons
3 c. water
3 c. sugar
The first step is to wash and slice the lemons for marmalade. If you’ve never done this before, check out this set of instructions from Hitchhiking to Heaven for an explanation. (It seems redundant to take another set of pictures of virtually the exact same thing). Save the seeds and wrap them in a piece of cheesecloth. Tie the top closed with string. Next, measure the prepared lemons. The six lemons I had came out to almost exactly 3 cups of prepared sliced lemons. The ratio of lemons to water to sugar should be 1:1:1, so adjust the rest of the recipe accordingly. Combine the lemons and water in a large, nonreactive pot. Add the cheesecloth bag with the seeds and bring the mixture to a low simmer to cook the lemons. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the peels are tender. Using a pair of tongs, remove the cheesecloth and give it a squeeze to release the juice that’s inside (it’s homemade pectin, which will help the marmalade set). Discard the seed bag. At this point, prepare boiling water canner, jars and lids. Add the sugar to the pot and stir to combine. Turn the heat to high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the marmalade reaches 220 degrees on a candy thermometer. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can use the frozen plate method. The marmalade will come up to a full, rolling boil and you’ll see that the liquid will start to thicken and runs off a spoon in sheets instead of a thin stream (click here for a picture). At this point, you can put a teaspoon of the liquid on a plate that’s been in the freezer. Put the plate back in the freezer and wait for a minute. Pull it back out and run your finger through the liquid. If it wrinkles, it’s done. If it’s still thin and syrupy, it needs to cook for another few minutes). Ladle the hot marmalade into hot, clean jars leaving 1/4″ headspace. Wipe rims clean and attach lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude as necessary.
Last month, I came to grips with the fact that I really just don’t like quince. I think they taste like eating roses, and not in a good way. The problem is that I still have two bushels of quince sitting in the pantry looking a little worse for wear and I really hate wasting food. I’m going to need to do a couple projects to use them all up, but this is attempt #1 at creating something we might enjoy. (That last project I did was membrillo, and I thought it was foul). My original inspiration was this recipe for roasted pears and quince in white wine with tangerine zest which looked like it would be lovely adapted into a shelf-stable canned recipe. I ended up making quince slices white wine syrup infused with rosemary and tangerine zest that I’m hoping to use for some savory applications instead of just dessert. I feel like I might love them with some moroccan-spiced roast chicken and homemade flatbread or in a tagine with slow cooked lamb. I’m going to let the jars sit for a week or two for the flavors to come together and then give it a try. QUINCE SLICES IN WHITE WINE SYRUP
Makes: 4 quart jars
Cook Time: awhile. peeling quince is kind of a pain.
Ingredients:
8 lbs. quince
2 tbs. lemon juice
4 c. water
4 c. dry white wine
4 c. sugar
zest and juice of 1 tangerine
juice of 1 lemon
1-2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
Prepare the quince:
Rinse them under running water to remove the grey fuzz on the outside, then peel off the skin. Remove the core and cut into 1/2″ thick wedges. As you’re working, put the wedges into a large, nonreactive pot with water to cover them (about 12 cups.) and 2 tbs. of lemon juice to prevent the fruit from browning. Once all of the fruit is cut into wedges, put the pot on the stove and simmer for 30-45 minutes.
While the quince are poaching, fill the boiling water canner and bring to a boil and prepare 4 quart jars and lids.
When the quince are fully cooked, drain them in a colander* and set aside for a minute. Put the pot back on the stove and add the ingredients for the syrup: water, wine, sugar, tangerine zest and juice, lemon juice and a sprig of rosemary. Bring to a simmer and cook for a couple minutes, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Transfer the cooked quince slices from the colander back into the pot with the syrup and simmer everything for a few more minutes. Ladle the quince slices and syrup into hot, clean jars leaving 1/2″ headspace. Remove air bubbles with a chopstick or plastic spatula and adjust headspace. Wipe rims, attach lids and process for 15 minutes, adjusting for altitude if necessary.
*You can save the cores, peels and poaching liquid to make quince pectin stock if you want.
P.S. See that little green spatula? My mother in law gave it to me for Christmas. At the time, it seemed like a random little stocking stuffer, but I’m obsessed with it and have been using it for everything. It’s perfect for removing air bubbles from jars!
P.P.S. You may notice in the top picture that I actually totally failed on removing the air bubbles from one of the jars and the headspace isn’t right at all. We’ll be using that jar first since it won’t have the shelf life that the others will.
I think that maybe this would maybe be called gobi mutter masala? That’s what I was googling when I was originally looking at recipes for cauliflower curry. But then I changed the recipe a whole bunch, so maybe it’s just some weird americanized cauliflower curry. Really, I have no idea. Either way, this curry is delicious and a really wonderful way to use up cauliflower if you happen to have some lying around.A few notes:
I used a pretty substantial amount of heavy cream and some butter in this recipe, but it could easily be made vegan by switching to a neutral flavored oil and coconut milk. The amount of heavy cream can also be tweaked; I used an amount that made it taste super rich and creamy and good, but if you’re trying to go a little bit lighter (since it’s January and all), you could just add another cup of plain yogurt instead of the heavy cream. It won’t be quite as luxurious, but it will still taste good. For a lighter vegan version, I would use plain almond milk.
GOBI MUTTER MASALA
Serves: 4-6, depending on portion sizes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
2 tbs. butter
1/2 tsp fenugreek
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tbs. ground cumin
2 tbs. paprika
1 tbs. turmeric
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 inch of fresh ginger, minced
1 jalapeno, minced (remove the seeds if you want to keep the dish on the mild side)
1 onion, diced
1 quart crushed tomatoes
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 tbs. brown sugar
1 c. plain yogurt
1 c. heavy cream
1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
2 c. frozen peas
salt and pepper
chopped fresh cilantro, for serving
Heat the butter on medium heat in a large pot. Add the dry spices (fenugreek, coriander, cumin, paprika and tumeric) and saute them in the butter for a minute or two. Then, add the garlic, ginger, jalapeno and onion and saute for another few minutes until the onions start to turn translucent. (Add more butter or a little water if the onion/spice mixture gets too dry and starts to stick).
Add the quart of crushed tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice, yogurt and heavy cream and turn the heat to a low simmer. Cook for ten minutes and then puree with an immersion blender (or whatever you use to puree things in your kitchen).
Add the cauliflower and peas to the tomato sauce, cover the pot, and then simmer for another 20 minutes or so to cook the cauliflower. Taste and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice as necessary. At this point the curry is ready to serve, but you can also simmer it on low for a bit longer if you have the time. (The flavors tend to improve if it sits on the stove for awhile. )
Serve over rice topped with chopped fresh cilantro.
I’m kind of obsessed with New Year’s Resolutions, this year especially. Let me just say, I am relieved to be done with 2013. It was really a mess. You know how life tends to go in cycles, with ups and downs, and it’s not always sunshine and flowers? I thought about that often last year. It’s over though, thank god!
I know not everyone bothers with making resolutions and that they’re kind of made to be broken eventually, but I find it very clarifying to have a clean slate and the opportunity to kind of step back and evaluate what I would like to have happen for that year. I write ridiculously long lists of dreams, plans and ideas, knowing full well that I’m not going to do all of them at all, but usually I end up doing some of them, which is great. I guess they’re not really “resolutions” in the traditional sense. Intentions is probably a better word. Past examples that worked out really well include: “start my own jam business” and “I think we should get 200 chickens.”One of the things I am focusing on right now, at least for the beginning of this year, is to take better care of myself. Meaning, if I’m trying to get my life really on track for where I want to be going, working every moment of every day and drinking 9,000 cups of coffee to get through it is a horrible way to make it happen. Very little will end up getting accomplished, except being really exhausted and crazy. It’s funny, because I totally know that already, but sometimes we just need learn things the really hard way, right? (Although… I might say that the thing about learning things the hard way is that the lesson is so painful that I personally will absolutely not be forgetting it any time in the near future). So. For the last few days I’ve been making smoothies for breakfast. Some resolutions might be difficult to keep, but I think this one is pretty easy. “Eat a real breakfast with things in it that are actually good for you.” I’ll sheepishly admit that it’s pretty simple, not exactly rocket science, and I’ve known it for a long time, yet I decided to have coffee for breakfast for most of last year.Here’s to a happy and healthy 2014!
CRANBERRY CHIA SMOOTHIE
Makes: about 1 quart jar
Ingredients:
2 c. almond milk
2 tbs. chia seeds
1 c. cranberries
2 big kale leaves, stems removed
1 banana, sliced
1 tangerine, peeled
optional: 1 tbs. honey or maple syrup
Combine the chia seeds and almond milk and let the seeds soak for atleast 30 minutes. (I do this step the night before so it’s ready to go in the morning). Once the seeds are soaked, combine the almond milk/chia mixture with the other ingredients and blend until smooth.
Make sure to chill this tart before you serve it; it’s much better cold. Top with whipped cream to make it really divine.
This recipe is a combination of a couple recipes: the crust is an adaptation from Deborah Madison’s nut crust in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, p. 695 and the filling is 
grow it cook it can it 