Davey Scones’ Locker!
I lied in my last post when I said I’d been away at college the past few months. Actually, I’ve been traipsing the Coral Sea on a bedraggled schooner with several diverse characters including Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson, Michael Crichton’s Lazue (hawk-eyed female, raised as a man), and the obligatory Jack Sparrow. Our mission? Capture all shark-finning boats, train the fishermen onboard to be marine biologists, perform emergency surgery on the sharks, and of course, take all the fishermen’s treasure for ourselves.
We managed to overtake one ship just as its captain was about to slice off the dorsal fin of a reef shark. Madame Ching the pirate queen shocked him with a spontaneous performance of “Call Me Maybe,” which made him drop the thrashing fish to the deck.
Noticing the peculiar shape of the shark’s stomach, I came over and performed CPR until he coughed up none other than Auntie Teach’s Recipe Book. Allegedly handwritten by the aunt of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) in the Golden Age, this pudgy, homespun volume of recipes to fuel illegal activity on the high seas has been sought after for centuries by foodies and historians alike!
I decided to sell it to a museum as an act of charity that also made me a lot of money. But before doing that, on our last day on the pirate ship, I flipped to a random shark-bile-soaked page and made the recipe lovingly scrawled (and personalized with drips of rum) for “Anti-Scurvy Scones.”
When traveling at sea for weeks, particularly before refrigerators were invented, getting fresh fruits and vegetables was a serious problem. Sailors used to drink lime juice to avoid nasty diseases resulting from a lack of certain vitamins.
Auntie Teach’s recipe includes flavorful limeade, as well as coconut flakes that could have been harvested from local islands, dried cranberries that would have been brought onboard to replace fresh fruit, and white chocolate chips to sweeten the deal. She packs even more nutrient-rich fruit into these breakfast delights with the surprise inner filling: passionately tart red raspberry compote made from frozen raspberries. As our formerly shark-finning friends loved smoothies, they had a freezer full of the berries for me to mush to pulp.
Over a breakfast of hot scones oozing gooey raspberry filling, we discussed the state of sharks in today’s changing world, as well as practical matters such as the leeches in Jack’s boots and how terrible the internet service was in the middle of the ocean.
By the time we got back to the states to drop me off at college, everyone was begging me for this recipe. I promised to publish it on my blog. And a pirate always keeps her word, especially if she doesn’t want to be troubled with revenge while trying to finish school. So here it is.
Click here for the full recipe: “Pirate” Scones (Key Lime Coconut Surprise)
Like reading about swashbuckling environmental pirates as much as you like healthy treats? Check out my free ebook People with Fishtails on Smashwords and Amazon, and my active author blog, aseaworthyfrigate.wordpress.com for more.
Image credits in order of appearance (excluding scone pictures which were taken and edited by me using iphoto and Ribbit):
“Nordsee”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nordsee.jpg#/media/File:Nordsee.jpg
“Wreck of the Dart (Sketched on the Morning after the Storm of the 25th Octr 1842) at Madeira” by Emily Geneviève Smith – National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wreck_of_the_Dart_(Sketched_on_the_Morning_after_the_Storm_of_the_25th_Octr_1842)_at_Madeira.jpg#/media/File:Wreck_of_the_Dart_(Sketched_on_the_Morning_after_the_Storm_of_the_25th_Octr_1842)_at_Madeira.jpg
Breaking the Silence with Mini Cheesecake Parfaits!
Ahoy there, Internet! Remember me?
I started this blog to aid my tumultuous transition to a nourishing, yet still highly restrictive diet towards the beginning of high school, when I realized starvation wasn’t as pretty as I had once thought. Now, four years later, I’ve just finished my first semester as a college freshman, and I have survived the dining hall!
Above: Flower and moth in McMinnville, OR residential neighborhood garden.
Over the years, my relationship with food has evolved, and not always in a positive way. There were years where I obsessed in anguish over differences of 5 calories; days where I abstained from eating on account of unrequited attraction to a crush who couldn’t care less about my numbers.
I’m not going to claim I have “made a full recovery” at this point; recovery is one of those things you don’t achieve in eating disorders; you just keep plodding along on the endless journey. With that said, though, I have made giant strides in leaving behind my food obsessions, thanks to my dedicated family, my expert support team, and my own conscious decisions. I can end the year thankful for all the people who continue to insist upon believing in me.
Above: Tree in a McMinnville, OR park, founded by a graduating class of Linfield College (Go Wildcats!)
I made these mini cheesecakes when I came home from college for Thanksgiving break in November, so that shows you how connected I’ve been to the blogging world lately. Truth be told, I haven’t made anything blog-worthy since, though I’m now home for winter vacation so that could change soon!
My mom said she liked these, but they didn’t have any recognizable flavor she could put her finger on. I guess cookie dough cheesecake is already pretty innovative, and adding spiced apples makes it even weirder. So only make these for your party if your guests are willing to step outside their comfort zone!
If unusual, the combination certainly works. The crisp, juicy apple is a nice break from gooey winter baked fruits, delivering all the unadulterated nutrients of fresh fruit. The cookie dough yogurt “cheesecake” is satisfying and protein-rich. The chocolate chunks are a must!
As a no-bake and easily gluten-free recipe, these cuties could spice up your holiday get-together or just make a nice anytime treat to have in the fridge.
Mini Apple Spiced Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough Cheesecake Parfaits
Makes 9 mini cheesecakes
Ingredients:
- one whole, fresh Cripp’s Pink Apple (or your favorite apple variety)
- dash of cinnamon
- splash of nutmeg
- pinch of ginger
- 2 Laughing Cow Light Creamy Swiss cheese triangles
- one single-serving container (5.3 oz) of plain nonfat Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour – or use your favorite flour; almond for instance would make the whole thing gluten-free!
- 2 tbs Truvia Baking Blend
- 2 tbs creamy peanut butter
- 9 Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate kisses
Directions:
Arrange 9 regular-sized aluminum muffin cups. Remove chocolate kisses from any freezing or refrigeration so they will be easier to chop later.
Place cheese triangles and plain yogurt in blender; puree until smooth. (Retrospectively, blending by hand may have yielded a faster and more effective result than the blender did.)
Blend in the flour, Truvia Baking Blend, and peanut butter. Mixture should be smooth and very thick.
Slice and dice the apple into bite-sized morsels. Toss to coat with the spices.
In each prepared muffin cup, layer apple pieces with a dollop of the yogurt-flour mixture on top.
Unwrap each chocolate kiss. One by one, chop them and sprinkle the chunks over the cheesecakes. You will use about one chocolate kiss per cheesecake.
Refrigerate cheesecakes for several hours (I did about 3.25). Serve cold.
My holiday wish for you is a perfect balance of sweet love from the warm hearts of those that count, savory labor serving whomever you are able to enjoy a better life, and whatever parts of life are dark chocolate to you, I hope they flurry to your window like snowflakes to warm your heart this season! Cheers.
Meet Kato and Celebrate with Grain-Free Chocolate Mini Soufflés!
If you read this post, you know that my family’s cherished betta fish, Francisco, recently passed away. I was all for an extended period of mourning, but Artemis the cat was really pushing for a new fish right away, and when she was backed by my mom and brother I really had no choice but to give in and go to PetCo with the gang to seek our new aquatic companion.
Last time we bought a fish, my brother got to choose the individual, and I got to choose the name. This time we switched jobs: it was my turn to select the fish. I chose a dazzling silver and blue half moon male betta with a hooked mouth that somewhat resembles that of a salmon. When he swims in the light, his scales shimmer with iridescence, and I really love how his tail fin looks like it was dipped in blue ink. I think that’s the feature that sold me on this particular fish.
We brought him home, and I carried the case upstairs with the utmost care. As soon as we were through the door my brother asked me, “so are you going to do a blog post about the fish?” I assured him that I would do so later. A few minutes later the boy came up to me again and inquired, “so are you going to start blogging about the fish now?” I told him I needed to wait until there was enough information to blog about, and meanwhile he should fulfill his obligation and privilege of naming the new little guy.
My brother deliberated for several minutes over the name, then dubbed the fish Kato after some character in some show he’s currently into. (It’s not as cool as some of the names I came up with, but I suppose it’ll do until he gets bored of that show and comes up with a new name.) We prepared Kato’s water and introduced him to his new bowl, a mansion compared with the container he came in. He immediately began exploring his castle and outside territory, and seems to approve of the place. We fed him some fish pellets and found him to be a hearty eater. Hopefully as he grows up he’ll learn more about health and even try some of the nutritious recipes I cook up!
Speaking of nutritious recipes, how’d you like one for grain-free, gluten-free, kosher-for-Passover chocolate soufflé cupcakes? Yep, you read that right. I baked these today and they were a stunning success. I would totally serve them at a party to celebrate joyful events such as the introduction of a new family member.
These individual soufflés are super rich and chocolatey, with a delicious puddle of melted chocolate in the center. To lower the sugar, they are sweetened in part by Truvia baking blend, as well as agave syrup and nutritious chocolate almond butter. This provides just the right amount of sweetness to complement, but not overpower the chocolate. There is no oil or butter used in this recipe, nor grains of any kind, yet it tasted scrumptiously sinful. My ultra-picky little brother, who always swears he will never ever ever ever try anything I bake, gobbled up one of these babies in the blink of an eye. He and my mom both praised the mini soufflés, and told me they did not taste like a Passover dessert at all.
Well, here it is. I have blogged about the fish and shared a festive recipe with you. My work here is done. Now you get in the kitchen and try this recipe! It’s time to celebrate. Francisco, we still miss you, and I hope you can enjoy a dessert like this in fish heaven. Someday I will make some for you. In the meantime…
Click here for the full recipe: Grain-Free Chocolate Mini Soufflés
True Healthy Me 
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