Chef AJ’s Brawnies

If you love fudgy chocolate, this is the dessert for you!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups walnuts
• 2 cups pitted dates
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp alcohol-free vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a food processor fitted with the “S” blade, process walnuts into a powder. Do not over process into a nut butter.
2. Add the cocoa or carob powder and process again.
3. Add the dates until a ball forms.
4. Then add the vanilla and briefly process again.
5. Place in an 8”X8” square pan and freeze until firm.

Chef’s Note: You can use any raw nut or seed (or combination) instead of the walnuts.

 

We keep these stored in the freezer, no thawing before eating necessary!

Enjoy 🙂

Chef AJ’s Overnight Muesli

This is a great way to have oatmeal ready for breakfast as soon as you wake up.

Here’s the video where we got this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup gluten-free oats
• 2 Tablespoons currants (or raisins)
• 1 Tablespoon chia seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice (or cinnamon)
• 2 ounces apple juice
• 2 ounces unsweetened almond milk
• 1 teaspoon alcohol-free vanilla (optional)
• fresh apple

Directions:

1. Place gluten-free oats, currants, chia seeds and apple pie spice into a mixing bowl.
2. Add apple juice and unsweetened almond milk and alcohol-free vanilla, if using.
3. Grate fresh apple over the top of the bowl. Mix. Place in refrigerator overnight.

This recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled to have breakfast ready to go for the entire family or for several days during the week.

Enjoy 🙂

Chef AJ’s Yummy Sauce

This recipe is great on anything! We like serving it with beans, rice and, kale.  Ashley made a bowl that included rice, beans, kale, sweet potatoes, avocado, cilantro, and this yummy sauce.

This recipe is from Chef AJ:

Ingredients:

• 1 – 15 ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (or 1.5 cups of cooked beans)
• Juice and zest of one organic lemon (if the lemon does not yield 1/4 of a cup of juice, then add more lemon juice)
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 Tablespoons salt-free mustard (we use Westbrae Stoneground)
• 3/4 ounce pitted dates (approximately 3 deglet noor dates)
• 1 clove garlic

Preparation:

1. Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Note: If you are using a high-powered blender, you can make this sauce warm to serve over rice and veggies. It is also delicious cold massaged into shredded cabbage for “Yummy Slaw”.

What would you put this yummy sauce on?

Sweet Potato and Yellow Split Pea Soup

Here’s another one of our favorite Chef AJ’s soup recipe.  Great to make as the weather begin to get cooler.

Ingredients:

• One pound of yellow split peas (can also use green)
• One large chopped onion
• One pound carrots, sliced
• One celery heart, sliced (you can actually buy mirepoix, celery, carrots and onions already chopped at TJ’S)
• 2 Large Sweet potatoes , cubed
• 8 cups boiling water
• 6-8 cloves garlic, pressed
• 4 teaspoons chopped parsley (dried, not fresh)
• 1-2 Tablespoons salt-free seasoning
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon rosemary
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 teaspoon celery seed
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 capful (or more) Wright’s Liquid Smoke, optional (stirred in after cooking is completed)

Directions:

1. Place all ingredients in an electric pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes.
2. Wait 15 minutes then release pressure.
3. After releasing pressure, stir in liquid smoke. You can also stir in some greens after cooking like kale, spinach, or chard.

Alternatively, place all ingredients in a crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours

Enjoy 🙂

Chef AJ’s Red Lentil Chili

We make this chili at least once a week.  It is tasty and makes a large serving so there is always leftovers for the next day.  It can also be a quick meal to make if you have the spices premeasured.  We have a few empty spice jars so when we first made this meal as we measured out the spices to put immediately in the instant pot, we also measured out each spice into a separate spice jar. The next few times we made this meal, all we had to do was add an entire one of our premixed “Chef AJ Red Lentil Chili” spices and it saved a lot of time!

Ingredients:

• 2 14.5-ounce cans salt-free diced tomatoes (fire roasted preferred)
• 1 6-ounce can salt-free tomato paste
• 1 pound red bell pepper, (approximately 2 large),
• 8 cloves garlic
• 3 ounces of pitted dates (approximately 12 Deglet Noor dates or 6 Medjool)
• 4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 7 cups water (heated) (if using the crockpot you don’t need to heat it)
• 10 ounces chopped onion (approximately one large)
• 1 pound red lentils
• 1-1⁄2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1-1⁄2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1-1⁄2 tablespoons salt-free chili powder
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika (different than regular paprika)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder (or more to taste)
• 1⁄4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
• scallions (for topping at the end)
• spinach (optional)

Directions:

1. Place canned tomatoes, tomato paste, red bell peppers, garlic, dates, and apple cider vinegar in Vitamix and blend until smooth.
2.  In Instant Pot, put in 7 cups of water, onions, red lentils, mixture from the Vitamix, and all the spices. (I don’t stir this until it’s finished cooking) Cook for 10 minutes at high pressure. You can either use manual release or natural release.
3. If using spinach, simply stir into hot chili at the end of pressure cooking and the heat will wilt it.

If using a crock pot: Put in water, onions, red lentils, mixture from Vitamix, and spices. Stir and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

This chili can be served over a baked potato, brown rice, or quinoa. You can top it with the chopped scallions and sprinkle on some vegan Parmesan.

Link to the YouTube video Chef AJ made:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOfxvkqjIS4