Experience Nutrition

Tag: cooking videos

  • Experience Nutrition: Raw Carrot Cake. Vegan. Gluten-Free. Beautiful.

    Experience Nutrition: Raw Carrot Cake. Vegan. Gluten-Free. Beautiful.

    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 Farms for 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.

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    SIMPLE INGREDIENTS

    • 1 cup dates, pitted and soaked for 1 hour in water, then rough chopped
    • 2 cups carrots, shredded
    • 1 ½ cups apple, minced
    • 1 ½ cups raw cashews, ground into a fine meal
    • ½ tsp cinnamon, freshly ground
    • ½ tsp nutmeg, freshly ground
    • ½ tsp cardamom, freshly ground
    • Pinch sea salt
    • Garnish: Goldenberries, Pakistani Mulberries, Edible Flowers.
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    Ingredients: Raw Carrot Cake. Thank you Blue Sky Organic Farms.
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    Pakistani Mulberries. Goldenberries. Thank you Northwest Wild Foods. Community Exchange Table Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market.
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    Edible Flowers. Thank you The Farm at South Mountain. Soil & Seed Garden.

    SIMPLE STEPS

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    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.
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    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.

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    The Raw Carrot Cake.

  • Experience Nutrition: Hummus 3 Ways. As seen in Natural Awakenings Magazine, Arizona

    Experience Nutrition: Hummus 3 Ways. As seen in Natural Awakenings Magazine, Arizona

    So honored to create plant-based recipe articles during the last several years for the Natural Awakenings Magazine, Phoenix and Northern Arizona. This month, May 2020, I am especially humbled to contribute to the magazine while we are all together during the Coronavirus stay-at-home. And, while so many people are experimenting more in the kitchen with families and kids.

    For this article, I decided to bring a touch of positivity to our world with “The Joy of Beautiful Food.” Experiment with the tips to add beauty to meals and have fun creating dishes with beautiful food and edible flowers. – Melanie Albert

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    Natural Awakenings, May 2020.

    Top 4 Ways to Add Beauty to Your Meals:

    1. Buy Beautiful Veggies from Our Local Farmers.
    2. Add Color and Texture to your Dishes.
    3. Add Natural Aromatherapy to Your Culinary Creations.
    4. Plate Mindfully.

    I hope you are inspired to add a little beauty and joy to life by creating some beautiful, mindful plant-based dishes. Share your creations with us on  www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ and Instagram @experiencenutritionaz and tag us #experiencenutrition.

    Happy to share a few of my very favorite recipes in the Natural Awakenings article. Importantly, you can easily modify the recipes with local farmers’ seasonal produce, along with the fruit and veggies in your refrigerator. Enjoy!

    Three Beautiful, Simple Plant-Based Recipes

    Enjoy mindfully and intuitively creating these simple dishes. Take time to appreciate the beauty of the food, the mindfulness of the cooking process, and the final food art of your culinary creations.

    • Hummus. Three Ways. Classic. Turmeric. Beet.
    • Avocado Salsa. Intuitively create with the veggies, aromatics, and herbs in your kitchen.
    • Raw Carrot Cake. Simple, beautiful, tasty, aromatic dessert.
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    Hummus Three Ways: Beet. Turmeric. Classic.
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    Simple Avocado Salsa.
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    Raw Carrot Cake. Edible Flowers.

    Hummus Video. In the cooking video, come into my kitchen and see the steps to create the Three Hummus Recipes.

    RECIPE: Hummus. Three Ways. Classic, Turmeric, Beet.

    Use these recipes as a guide to create your own hummus. Once you’ve learned how to prepare the basic classic hummus, have fun experimenting and intuitively creating your own versions of it.

    Serves 4

    Classic Hummus. Turmeric. Beet.

    I’m excited to share with you the same recipe we made for the Super Bowl XLIV VIP Tailgate Party for the Super Bowl in Miami. Now you can make it, too. In addition to the Classic Hummus, traditionally made with tahini (ground sesame seeds), we can create different versions of hummus with turmeric or beet powder. Enjoy!

     Simple Ingredients

    • 2 cups cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
    • ⅓ cup chickpea water
    • 3 tbsp tahini (sesame seed paste)
    • 3 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
    • ⅛ tsp cumin seeds, hand -round
    • ⅛ tsp coriander seeds, hand-ground (seeds from cilantro)
    • Pinch sea salt
    • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • Turmeric Hummus: 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, pinch black pepper
    • Beet Hummus: 2 tsp beet powder

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    Simple Steps

    • Place all ingredients, except olive oil, into a food processor.
    • Blend a few minutes, until smooth.
    • Stream in the olive oil and blend until creamy.
    • After the hummus has been blended, taste and add more of any of the ingredients to suit your taste.
    • Turmeric or Beet Hummus: After creating the Classic Hummus, add either the turmeric or beet powder to the food processor. Process until well combined.

    Simple Plating

    • Mindfully plate the three versions of hummus with fresh edible flowers, fresh herbs, or chopped veggies.

    Stay in touch with us on www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ and Instagram @experiencenturitionaz and tag us #experiencenutrition on your plant-based culinary creations.

    Will also be sharing the Avocado Salsa and Raw Carrot Cake in videos and blog posts. Stay tuned.

    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.