Carob Bark

Let me start off today by saying that I had an excellent food weekend. Friday I tried out my new spiralizer and made zucchini pasta, this was accompanied by a homemade sauce of crushed tomatoes with olive oil, garlic and fresh basil, topped with parmesan cheese. I also had garlic bread on the side, a recipe I fully intend to share soon but have been holding off because I really want it to be my first cooking video.

 Tamales w/my enchilada sauce from last week.

Saturday I had enchiladas for breakfast topped with a fried egg. The enchilada sauce was my homemade batch that I made a few weeks ago and froze. I was so pleased to find out how insanely easy it is to make your own homemade enchilada sauce. Mine was made with 6 dried ancho chiles, 2 dried guajillo chiles and 2 small dried chipotle peppers, simmered in water with 3 garlic cloves and some cumin seeds. Once the chiles were rehydrated I turned off the heat and let it cool, blended it in the blender with one 6 oz can of tomato paste, salt to taste and added water till it got to the right texture. I've been living off this stuff ever since, its great on enchiladas, tamales, as a dip for corn chips, everything!


The weather was so nice that I went with a friend over to check out the old historial Evergreen Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Los Angeles (est. 1877,) located in Boyle Heights. It was a perfect day for it. The neighborhood is actually really interesting and the cemetery grounds are beautiful, lots of large oak trees and shade.

When we got back to my place we ate pie and butter pecan ice cream. I had made a gluten free pie with pumpkin apple butter filling and the butter pecan ice cream was from a few weeks ago, it had a coconut milk base, sweetened with brown sugar and pecan pralines.

Same pie, just this slice is topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

Saturday night for dinner I made a vegetarian tempura soup. I simmered shitake mushrooms, and kombu seaweed for a few hours. I removed the mushrooms and kombu and added some ginger slices, a little vinegar, tamari sauce, sugar and a garlic clove and let it continue to cook on a low heat while I made my tempura. The batter was simple, 1 egg, beat with 1 cup gluten free flour (I did my standard brown rice flour, potato flour, corn starch blend) and one cup sparkling water. I made tempura sweet potato, green beans, tofu, zucchini and shitake mushroom. I ate the broth on the side with the tempura dipped in the broth and also in a sweetened tamari sauce. I can't even remember the last time I was that full but it was AWESOME.

Sunday I had toast, eggs, and potatoes for breakfast with some of my homemade catsup sauce. The rest of the day was spent thrifting and on a mission to find gluten free carob chips. Which leads me to the point of this post...

A friend of mine texted me yesterday asking about where to find carob chips. I believe she was using them to make dog safe treats. Carob is an excellent safe substitute for special doggy treats. As soon as she mentioned the word carob I immediately needed to have something with carob! Once my mind gets hooked onto something my body goes into full craving mode.

I haven't really eaten carob since I was a kid living in upstate NY. I confess to once eating a carob  Three Dog Bakery oreo cookie that was intended for dogs and admittedly it was tasty. So you ask what are the health benefits of carob? I'm not really in the camp that its a substitute for chocolate, to me it tastes very different, smokier, however it is caffeine free. Carob is already naturally sweet so it needs less additional sweetener, it regulates your blood glucose levels and lowers cholesterol. Carob also is an excellent antioxidant, anti-viral, anti-allergetic, anti-ceptic and anti-bacterial agent and aids in the digestive process as it reduces acids... thats a lot of antis! And if that doesn't sound good enough yet, ladies, a study published in Plant Foods for Human Nutrition Journal indicated that the flour has the capability to attack and target specific cervical cancer cells.  More here on the benefits of carob.

I bet just reading this you've already begun craving carob.

I tried calling over to the Ralphs around the corner, it took them about 15 minutes to confirm they do not stock carob, there was a lot of confusion as to the fact that carob was something and not a brand. My only option was to trek over to the Whole Foods in Pasadena (this became justified by my decision to also check out the Pasadena Goodwill, never miss an opportunity for potential thrifting.)

The Whole Foods in Pasadena is pretty shi shi, its two stories high, there are multiple juice, cheese and beer bars, and frankly in my opinion its completely confusing as there are about ten different places that one item could potentially be shelved. In my search for carob chips, at this time I was imagining baking up a batch of oatmeal carob chip cookies, I headed over to the baking section.

I found a bag of Sunspire sweetened carob chips, but my excitement was quickly squashed when I found that the first ingredient listed on the back is "malted corn and barley." GAH! not gluten free!

No one in the store seemed to have any idea where to direct me for gluten free carob chips. I function in the world of food sensitive restrictive dietary habits so its hard for me to imagine that I am the first person to ask for this at Whole Foods. I will say in his defense the guy who was helping me did say he had just started working there and apologized for not being able to provide me with more information.

So there I stood, in the baking section of Whole Foods with not a carob chip to my name... when suddenly I saw it: Bob's Red Mill Toasted Carob Powder.  I will warn you that the bag clearly states "Manufactured in a facility that also uses soy, wheat, and milk." however the only ingredient is ground toasted carob so for myself personally I feel its fairly safe.

So I bought the bag with no real direction as to what I would do with it... enter, carob bark!

CAROB BARK

• 1 cup coconut oil
• 3/4 cup toasted carob powder
• 1/4 cup Lyle's Golden Cane syrup
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup roasted salted cashews
• 1/4 cup chopped apricots
• 1/4 cup raisons (I like golden but use whatever is available and looks good.)

1. Melt coconut oil in double boiler.

2. Add cane syrup and then mix in vanilla and carob powder. Do this all quickly or the mixture will seize up and separate.  

2. Pour onto pan (think pie pan, or small brownie pan, should be deep but not huge) covered with plastic wrap.

3. Sprinkle nuts, chopped apricots and raisons over the mixture. Do not stir in.  

4. Cool in the fridge or freezer. 

5. Break into pieces. Keep in the fridge so that it doesn't melt. 

I think you can probably change this up depending on your personal preferences, maybe different dried fruits or nuts. Stick to the ratio and order of the first part though, this was surprisingly difficult to make and my first crack at it the coconut oil separated from the carob. Tasty yummy but didn't look so hot.

Be healthy, happy and eat well! xoxo - Iris