The List TV Show: 3 Ways to Cook with Banana Peels. Yes, Really! January, 21, 2020
So honored to prepare fun “healthy dishes” on the nationally syndicated tv show, The List, with incredible co-host Segun Oduolowu. So much fun to cook together and create fun, beautiful, tasty dishes.
Thanks so much to producer Jacqui Denker for the opportunities to work together. Also, so much fun and I love your creative ideas for the segments.
Enjoy this segment with Banana Peel Beet Burgers and Banana Bread.
Based on a request for a chocolate dessert that is actually healthy, I’m happy to share this simple-to-prepare, delicious, healthy Avocado Chocolate Pudding. This dessert features a few superfoods as toppings for the pudding: Goji berries, raw cacao nibs, and hemp seeds.
Simple Recipe from “A New View of Healthy Eating” by Melanie Albert
Chocolate Avocado Pudding
Incredible, rich, and creamy vegan chocolate pudding will delight everyone. Make it for dessert or an after-work or after-school snack. Once you’ve made this avocado pudding, experiment by adding some extras, such as bananas, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, homemade nut milk, and freshly ground spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg.
SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
2 ripe avocados
4 Medjool dates, pitted and sliced
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, scraped
1/4 cup raw cacao powder
1 cups water
Avocado Pudding Mise en Place
SIMPLE STEPS
Place all ingredients in food processor or high-speed blender.
Blend on high for about 2 minutes.
Stop and scrape down sides of food processor or blender, if needed.
Blend for another 2 minutes or until completely pureed and smooth.
Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Enjoy topped with goji berries, cacao nibs, hemp seeds,citrus, raw cacao powder.
Avocado Pudding: Ingredients into Food Processor
Avocado Chocolate Pudding. Superfoods.Add Edible Flowers & Raw Cacao Powder to your Plate.
It is my pleasure to share with you another one of my favorite “healthy” desserts: Raw Carrot Cake. Berries. Edible Flowers.
The Raw Carrot Cake recipe is adapted from my cookbook, “A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods.” Carrot cake has been a favorite of mine for decades. As much as I love the aromatherapy of cooking raisins with cinnamon and nutmeg for a baked carrot cake, I love the simplicity and freshness of a raw, plant-based version of carrot cake. – Melanie Albert
Thanks
Natural Awakenings Magazine, Phoenix and Northern Arizona. Thanks so much for the opportunities to create recipe articles for your publication that supports our holistic community. I am especially honored to contribute to the May 2020 issue during the Coronavirus Pandemic to share the beauty of food to our community.
Blue Sky Organic Farmsfor the beautiful, bright orange carrots. I appreciate your hard work continuing to grow beautiful produce for us week-after-week and month-after-month, especially during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Community Exchange Table at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, where small local Arizona farmers and growers sell their extra bounty to our community. Special thanks for the seasonal Pakistani Mulberries, which I love every year.
Northwest Wild Foods for the tasty, tart Gooseberries. So great to initially meet you when we filmed the segment with your Aronia (Choke) Berries for The List TV Show. So glad we’ve connected.
If you love plant-based, gluten-free desserts, enjoy our Banana Bread Recipe.
Enjoy the Raw Carrot Cake Cooking Video
The beautiful ingredients.
Steps to prep the ingredients.
Mindful Plating: Food Art.
Raw Carrot Cake Recipe
I hope you enjoy creating your own beautiful, tasty raw carrot cake, with the aromatherapy of hand-grinding the cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and the mindfulness of plating food art with berries and edible flowers.
SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
1 cup dates, pitted and soaked for 1 hour in water, then rough chopped
Ingredients: Raw Carrot Cake. Thank you Blue Sky Organic Farms.Pakistani Mulberries. Goldenberries. Thank you Northwest Wild Foods. Community Exchange Table Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market.Edible Flowers. Thank you The Farm at South Mountain. Soil & Seed Garden.
SIMPLE STEPS
Raw Carrot Cake: Mise en Place.
Gather mise en place.
Soak dates, if they are not soft.
Place all ingredients into mixing bowl and with hands, combine gently until the mixture forms a ball.
Press dough into a springform pan.
Refrigerate for an hour.
Raw Carrot Cake: Plating Mise en Place
PLATING
Mindfully garnish with berries and edible flowers.
Enjoy!
Stay in touch with us on www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ and Instagram @experiencenturitionaz and tag us #experiencenutrition on your plant-based culinary creations.
Please reach out to us if you’re interested in planning future Plant-Based Farm-to-Table Cooking Experiences, Team Building, Retreats, or Catering. Contact, Melanie Albert at 602.615.2486 or Mel@MelanieAlbert.com
By Melanie Albert, Plant-Based Culinary Leader, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition in Phoenix, Arizona. Award-winning cookbook author, speaker, corporate wellness, team building, retreat leader, and caterer.
Since so many people are buying many bananas during our Coronavirus stay-at-home, I decided and am excited to share an incredible banana recipe with you.
Enjoy this incredible vegan, gluten-free banana bread with walnuts, dehydrated citrus, and edible flowers. This banana bread is so delicious all I can say is Wow! I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy mindfully preparing this bread and enjoying it as a breakfast break or snack. – Melanie Albert
Enjoy the Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Bread Video…for the step-by-step cooking process.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Excited to share with you the Aromatic Apple Berry Pie to enjoy creating with your family and friends. This dessert is an incredible aromatherapy culinary experience with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created this dessert with 4 different varieties of apples at our hands-on Holiday Dessert cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain, and it was “perfect”. Such a beautiful, warming fall / winter dessert.
Links to the other plant-based dessert recipe prepared at the class:
Aromatic Apple Berry Crisp with Freshly Ground Spices
This apple berry crisp is one of my all-time favorites. From mindfully hand-grinding and enjoying the aromatherapy of freshly ground warming spices, along with the aromatherapy of the apples sautéing in the spices, to memories of eating pies when I was a child, this dessert is outstanding. Enjoy the process of setting up your mise en place, cooking, and enjoying this dish with your family and friends.
Topping
Simple Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup almonds, walnuts, or pecans, sliced
¼ cup maple sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
Simple Steps
Hand-grind cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.
Mix all dry ingredients for topping until well combined.
Pour in grapeseed oil and mix.
Filling
Simple Ingredients
5 apples, sliced
2 pears, sliced
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blackberries
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
¼ cup maple sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
½ tsp cloves, fresh ground
1 orange, juiced and zested
1 lemon, juiced and zested
Simple Steps
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place sliced apples and pears in a large sauté pan.
Turn heat to medium and add remaining filling ingredients.
Cook apples and pears for 15-20 minutes until slightly soft; stir occasionally.
Pour cooked apples with sauce into 8-inch by 8-inch baking dish.
Top with oats topping, raspberries, and blackberries.
Bake on middle oven rack for 30-35 minutes.
Plate and enjoy!
So glad Nathalia from Brazil was in town to capture some fun photos from our Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm. Thanks!
The beauty of the apples…and, all the mindful chopping…
The zesting and juicing of the lemons and oranges.
The aromatherapy of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom…And, beautiful teamwork!
A few additional fun photos from the class…
Apple cutting knife skills with Melanie Albert.More cinnamon aromatherapy.The beautiful apple crisp, and a batch of hummus…ready to be enjoyed.
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Continuing to share with you delicious, beautiful, and “healthy” plant-based desserts: Berry Cashew Cream Pie, Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie, Aromatic Apple Berry, and Raw Carrot Cake. The desserts feature berries, chocolate, goji berries, and amazing aromatic culinary experiences with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created these desserts at our hands-on Holiday cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain and I have to say they were all so created with so much mindfulness and heart. Plus, they were delicious.
Today’s dessert, featured on the cover the the January 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings Arizona, is the Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie. Links to the other plant-based dessert recipes:
Try this simple chocolate dessert recipe for your family and friends. This gourmet-quality pie is so much fun to make and is beautiful and delicious. Learn to quickly and easily melt chocolate chips right in your oven. Enjoy the pie with superfood goji berries. If you have extra chocolate pie, cut it into small pieces and freeze for snacks.
Chocolate Goji Berry Pie
Pecan Crust
Simple Ingredients
2 cups raw pecans
¼ cup maple sugar
1½ tbsp coconut oil
½ tsp sea salt
Simple Steps
Pulse pecans and maple sugar in food processor.
Add coconut oil and sea salt.
Pulse to combine well.
Press and shape mixture into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan.
Thanks to my friend Nathalia, from Brazil for capturing the focus of making the crust for the chocolate pie.
Pour the chocolate chips in a single layer onto a flat baking sheet.
Place in the oven to melt for no more than 3-4 minutes or until melted. Be careful that you don’t burn them.
Melt Chocolate Chips in the oven.
Blend the Filling
Place tofu, vanilla, sea salt, and melted chocolate chips into a food processor.
Blend until smooth.
Pour mixture into pie crust and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Top with nuts, and fresh fruit or goji berries.
Chocolate Pie Plating Mise en Place
Chocolate Goji Berry Pie Plating Mise en PlaceSimplicity of the Chocolate Goji Berry Pie
In awe of the beautiful chocolate pie created at the Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain.
The beauty of the Chocolate Goji Berry Pie prepared during the Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain.
While making this pie for the Arizona edition of the January 2019 issue of Natural Awakenings magazine, I had the fun opportunity to create a “birthday pop-up celebration” for urban farmer, Billy Anthony, of the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain.
My honor to celebrate Billy Anthony’s Birthday with the Pie Pop-up.Thanks so much to Billy and Bailey for the Soil & Seed CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
What fun celebrating Billy’s Birthday…thanks so much for “playing”!
Billy Anthony’s Chocolate Goji Berry Pie is ready to enjoy.
The beauty of food…Chocolate Cream Pie with Persimmons & Berries
Enjoying the Chocolate Goji Pie creations.
Yummm…And, the perfect setting, at The Farm at South Mountain to enjoy…
Thanks Billy Anthony for growing the beautiful produce at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm. And, Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday to you, Billy Anthony…wishing you another wonderful year. Thanks so much for so passionately growing all of the incredible beautiful, tasty food at the Soil & Seed Garden at The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix.
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Excited to share with you four amazing, delicious, beautiful, and “healthy” plant-based desserts for you to enjoy creating with your family and friends: Super Berry Cashew Cream Pie, Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie, Aromatic Apple Berry, and Raw Carrot Cake. The desserts feature berries, chocolate, goji berries, and amazing aromatic culinary experiences with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.
We created these desserts at our hands-on Holiday cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain and I have to say they were all so created with so much mindfulness and heart. Plus, they were delicious.
The first dessert is the Super Berry Cashew Cream Pie. Links to the other plant-based dessert recipes:
Choose a recipe that you are excited about and then come back and make another one.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie
Create a stunning cream pie that’s simple to prepare and full of flavor. Enjoy the process of adding superfood berries, acai and maqui, to add a beautiful purple layer of color to the pie, and have fun plating with your favorite fresh berries.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie
Walnut Crust
Simple Ingredients
1 cup walnuts
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp coconut oil
¼ tsp vanilla
Pinch salt
Simple Steps
Process walnuts into a flour in a food processor.
Add cinnamon and salt and pulse to combine.
Add vanilla and coconut oil, and process until dough is crumbly, but sticks together.
Press crust into the bottom of an 8×8 parchment-lined pan.
Chill in refrigerator or freezer to set.
Filling
Simple Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews, pre-soaked in water 2-4 hours.
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp light agave
2 tbsp coconut oil
Pinch sea salt
2-3 tbsp cashew milk or water, as needed to blend
Simple Steps
Blend cashews, lemon juice, vanilla extract, agave, and sea salt in a high speed blender.
Add coconut oil, and blend.
Add cashew milk, as needed for smoothness.
Pour filling on top of crust in chilled pan. (Save ¼ cup of the filling to make superfood filling.)
Chill in refrigerator or freezer to set.
Superfood Filling
Simple Ingredients
¼ cup of cashew filling
½ tsp acai powder
½ tsp maqui powder
Simple Steps
Put cashew filling, acai powder, and maqui powder into a small bowl.
Stir with a spoon until thoroughly mixed.
Pour the filling onto the top of chilled pie in the pan.
Chill in refrigerator or freezer.
Berry Cashew Cream Pie: Maqui and Acai Filling
Plating
Simple Ingredients
½ cup fresh blackberries or blueberries
Simple Steps
Cut pie into squares or rectangles.
Plate with fresh blackberries or blueberries.
Plating Mise en Place…
Berry Cream Pie Mise en Place for Plating
The Superfood Berry Pie…
The Superfood Berry Cream Pie Beauty
A few photos from the Holiday Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm. Thanks to my photographer friend, Nathalia from Brazil for capturing the event.
Melanie Albert, Holiday Desserts Cooking Class at The Farm at South MountainBlackberries onto the Berry Cream Pie
A few more fun photos from the Holiday Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm
Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.
Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right
Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook,“A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”
PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.
