Post sponsored by Cascadian Farm. See below for more details.
Whenever my parents are in town visiting, we find ourselves eating breakfast out quite a bit. One of the places we hit serves their own version of blueberry cornmeal pancakes that are as large as the plate. While I like them, I’ve found I can make a similar variation at home that I love a bit more. I enjoy using frozen blueberries in place of fresh because they create a juicer pop when eating. The secret, I’ve learned, is to toss the blueberries with a bit of cornmeal then let them slightly thaw before adding them to the pancakes. The cornmeal soaks up juice which helps the pancakes to set better while cooking. Read more and see the recipe.
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Summer finally came to Denmark and I am one happy, happy person. Life just seems easier when the sun is shining and I don’t need to wear a snowsuit. In August.
I am also in the groove of cooking less, eating more simple, raw foods and whizzing stuff up in a blender. Tess Masters’s book, The Blender Girl Smoothies could not have come out at a better time considering I’m making smoothies ‘round the clock and looking for some new inspiration. With over 100 gluten-free, vegan recipes her book is kind of like the bible of blended drinks. What I appreciate is that you can look up recipes according to what effects you are after (to detoxify, alkalize, boost immunity, reduce inflammation etc.) and the chapters are divided into types of recipes (clean and green, light and fruity, dessert…). There are tips and tricks, a thorough pantry section and a good resource list for those of us who are new to this blending world.
Because I’m such a wild cat, I chose to make two recipes from the book and combine them. Oh yea. The Blueberry Breakfast Tart and Mystical Mango both sounded like heaven-in-a-glass to me and the combo, I must say, is over the top. I know it may seem a tad excessive to make two smoothies, but if you’re serving these at a brunch or something, it’s really fun (and beautiful!) to see them swirled together in a glass.
The blueberry one is really what it claims to be: liquid breakfast. With cashews, oats and maple syrup (which I didn’t use actually) it will wake you up and fuel you through a long morning of summer-ness. The mango smoothie is bright and tropical tasting – I loved the lime, orange and cardamom flavours in there! Whooo-hooo!
All I can say is, way to go, Tess! Whether or not you’re a smoothie pro or just getting started, this is the book to get your fruit-sticky hands on.
Blueberry Breakfast Tart This tastes like a Pop-Tart, and is great for digestive health. Oats are a wonderful source of fiber, to combat carcinogens in the gastrointestinal tract. And both oats and blueberries become gelatinous in the colon, helping to expel toxins and lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
2 1/4 cups (540ml) unsweetened almond milk, hemp milk, or rice milk (strained if homemade) 1/3 cup (45g) raw unsalted cashews, soaked 1/3 cup (30g) rolled oats, soaked 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more to taste 1 tablespoon chia seeds 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 cups (320g) frozen blueberries
Throw the milk, cashews, and oats into your blender and blast on high for 30 to 60 seconds, until creamy. Add the remaining ingredients and blast again on high for about 20 seconds, until smooth. Tweak the maple syrup to taste.
Mystical Mango With a creamy texture and exquisite flavour, this immunity blend is fabulous for collagen formation and glowing skin, hair, and nails. Mango’s enzymes and vitamins A, C, and E cleanse the liver and aid digestion, and its potassium and fiber help regulate blood pressure and cholesterol. This one will make your heart happy.
1 1/2 cups (360ml) freshly squeezed orange juice 1/2 cup (120ml) water, plus more as needed 1/2 medium avocado, pitted and peeled 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lime zest 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom 2 cups (320g) frozen mango 1/2 cup (62g) ice cubes
Throw all of the ingredients into your blender and blast on high for 30 to 60 seconds, until smooth and creamy. Add more water as needed to blend.
August will always and forever be the month when we wash blue stains off our clothes. It’s still early in the month and we have already spent many days on our knees, picking blueberries in the Swedish forests. At the moment, the forests are literally covered with gorgeous blue gems, so sitting down inevitably means staining your clothes. We add blueberries to every breakfast dish, add them to our lunch salads and in our desserts.
We seem to get hooked on new blueberry recipes every year. Last year this wonderful crumble was going on repeat and a few years earlier, this blueberry smoothie. This year we have been making batch after batch of this Sunken Blueberry & Yogurt Cake. It is similar to some of our other almond flour cakes but we have adjusted the recipe to make it easier to bake without burning. It is light and moist, has a balanced sweetness and a fresh accent from yogurt and lemon zest. The cake is gluten free too (choose certified gluten free oats if intolerant). The beaten egg whites give this cake a very light and airy feeling so I imagine that it’s hard to create a vegan version of it. For vegans, I instead recommend making a cake version of our blueberry turmeric muffins with chia seeds. They are one of our favourite vegan treats and we imagine that they would be excellent as a cake. Just give it a little extra baking time.
The randomly scattered blueberries and the golden crust on this cake makes it beautiful as it is, served straight up, perhaps with just a dollop of yogurt on the side. But after a visit at the amazing rooftop restaurant Stedsans on Østergro in Copenhagen, we got hooked on a new way to serve cake. They made a chocolate cake that they smashed up/shattered into randomly sized pieces that they mixed with dollops of whipped cream, yogurt and berries. It’s a really friendly way to serve a cake as all pieces have different sizes and different amount of topping and it makes picking pieces to a bit of a lottery. Swedes are also very rigid when it comes to fairness and size of cake pieces so this is perfectly provoking. And most importantly, we also think it looks gorgeously decadent and chaotic served like this. Elsa however wants us to add that she think it looks ugly like this and can’t understand why we want to destroy a perfectly pretty cake!
What do you think? Do you feel like shattering your next cake into a decadent dessert chaos or do you prefer it nice, tidy and pretty, like Elsa does?
Shattered Blueberry & Yogurt Cake Serves 8-10
You can of course replace the blueberries with other berries in season.
1 cup / 250 ml / 90 g rolled oats (choose cert. gluten free if intolerant) 1 cup / 250 ml / 100 g almond flour/meal ½ cup / 125 ml / 80 g rice flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp ground vanilla 1/2 tsp sea salt 3.5 oz / 100 g butter, room tempered 1/2 cup / 125 ml maple syrup or honey 1 organic lemon, zest 3 eggs, separated 1 cup / 250 ml full-fat plain yogurt (we use Greek or Turkish yogurt) 2 cups / 1/2 liter / 200 g blueberries
To serve 2 cups whipped cream 1 cup full-fat plain yogurt 2 cups mixed summer berries
Heat the oven to 350°F / 180°C. Place the oats in a food processor and mix them into flour. Pour into a large mixing bowl and mix together with almond flour, rice flour, baking powder, vanilla and sea salt. Place butter, maple syrup and lemon zest in the food processor and mix until creamy. Add egg yolks and yogurt and continue to beat for another minute. Pour the liquid into the mixing bowl with flour and fold everything together.
Beat egg whites in a separate bowl with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Slowly fold the egg whites and half of the blueberries into the cake mixture.
Put a baking sheet inside an 8 inch / 22 cm spring form cake pan and pour the batter into it. Sprinkle the remaining blueberries on top. Bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until dark and golden on the top and baked all way through. Remove from oven and let cool for a while before removing the sides.
To create the shattered look: Wait until the cake cools completely then place the cake on a large serving platter. Carefully break the cake into variously sized pieces. Keep the same round shape, but only bigger. Twist and turn the broken cake pieces a bit and arrange with random dollops of whipped cream, yogurt and mixed berries on top and in between them. Scatter any remaining berries on top and serve immediately.
Food photography has been sparse in my house these days (Now, if we’re talking baby photography on iPhones, well let’s just say I’m killing it.) Lately, I only have 15-20 minutes for food photoshoots, so I’ve learned to be super quick when it comes to snapping pictures. I used to be militant about using my tripod, but I haven’t pulled it out in months. I used to give photoshoots a bit of planning before diving in, but that rarely happens anymore. It’s taken me a while to realize that my expectations of how things should be done aren’t always practical for the stage of my life that I’m in. This applies to life in general too. I’m going to do what I can and try to be a bit easier on myself. Perfectionism kills creativity. It’s also the killer of fun! If I only have 10 minutes to snap some photos, so be it. I’d rather share a little bit than nothing at all.
I started off this photoshoot using this darker background – it’s a scratched up piece of metal signage I found at an antique market last year (the front of the sign says “DO NOT ENTER”). I thought it was going to work perfectly, but I actually found it to be too moody for this recipe. It just looks too dark for the light, summery mood I was going for.
So I switched to my trusty slab of white quartz instead. It’s the surface I’ve used the most in the past year. It’s heavy as heck and I actually managed to dent the hardwood with it one day (*headsmack*). Anyway, I like this clean and fresh feel much better even though the lighting wasn’t the best because I shot at noon when the sun is overhead. The inspiration for the photo came from Ashley. She did a cool multi-jar shot with homemade milk for my cookbook. Too much fun!
In Lightroom, I made minor edits to the photo: increased clarity, exposure, whites, saturation, and removed blue and adjusted temperature. It took me about 30 seconds. There are things about the lighting I’m not super happy with and I probably blew it out too much, but oh well. Gotta pick your battles!
This is the same photo before editing…50 shades of grey!
So that’s where my head is at with photography lately. I’d love to spend more time on it again, but right now I’m rolling with doing it under a time crunch. I’m beyond excited that Ashley is shooting the photography for my next cookbook. I honestly can’t imagine doing over 100 photos again with a baby crawling at my feet (and stealing the food). You guys are going to be blown away by the photos in the next book. We’ll have to show you some sneak peeks!
Now, finally onto the food. This is my newest overnight oat parfait creation. Six to seven years later, I’m still making vegan overnight oats on the regular. I’ll often make a large batch that lasts 2-3 days in the fridge. Or sometimes I eat it all in one day because I just can’t help myself. It’s so easy, perfect for the summer, and endlessly customizable. Make it parfait-style in portable jars and you’ll have snacks for days. Toss it in your bag and run out the door. Bring one for your friend and he/she will love you even more.
If you haven’t tried overnight oats layered with chia seed jam, you really must. It’s divine. This would be great with granola on top too.
Coconut-Cardamom Vegan Overnight Oat Parfait with Blueberry Chia Seed Jam
Overnight oats are getting fancy up in here! Coconut milk, oats, and chia seeds are mixed with ground cardamom, cinnamon, and maple syrup, and then layered with blueberry chia seed jam and sliced pear. You’ll want to eat this for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner! Chia seeds don’t lie. Also, can I just say how awesome a layer of vegan ice cream or banana soft serve would be in this?
1 (15-oz) can full-fat coconut milk (yes you can use light, but full-fat is super creamy and delish)
1 cup rolled oats (use gluten-free if necessary)
3 tablespoons chia seeds
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom , or more to taste
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, or more to taste
1-2 small ripe pears, diced (for layering)
Directions:
Prepare the chia seed jam: In a medium pot, stir together the blueberries and maple syrup until combined. Add a dash of salt. Simmer over medium-high heat, uncovered, for about 8-10 minutes until softened (the berries will release a lot of water during this time).
Add the chia seeds and stir until combined. Continue simmering and stirring frequently (reducing heat if necessary to avoid sticking) about 8-15 minutes longer, until most of the water cooks off and the jam reduces in volume. it will look thickened.
Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, uncovered, and into the fridge until cool, for at least a couple hours. For a quicker cooling method, pop the jam in the freezer, uncovered, for 45-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, until cool.
For the vegan overnight oats: In a medium container (with a lid) or in a medium bowl, stir together the entire can of coconut milk, oats, chia seeds, maple syrup, cardamom, and cinnamon until combined. Cover and chill for 1-2 hours, or overnight, until the oats soften and the mixture thickens. Stir to combine before using.
Layer the chia jam, overnight oats, and diced pear into small jars. Secure lids (or cover with wrap) and store leftovers in the fridge for up to 3-4 days. The chia seed jam will keep in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Also, leftover jam can be frozen in plastic baggies and it thaws beautifully.
PS – Thank you for your enthusiasm regarding my 2-Day Meal Plan! I’m so thrilled by your response and hope to do another in the future.
