Yes, I went there: FAUX-BEEF JERKY (...Oh my gosh, help me!)

My dear readers,

It's been a while since I've come at you with something truly magnificent! Tonight, before I head up to bed, I simply MUST share a new discovery with you. We're talking a discovery so fresh, I am still eating my first batch with stars in my eyes as I type! In fact, it is rather hard to type and eat at the same time. *giggle* I just can't help it, it's soo good! I am so freaking excited to share this recipe!

So, most of us have ended up vegan after at least a few years under our belts as meat eaters, am I right? And while I certainly don't miss eating meat per se after all this time, I do miss the intense flavor beef jerky had. Heck, who am I kidding? I don't eat salt! While I certainly don't long for that terrible feeling of overeating that inevitably salt encourages, or the puffiness and exhaustion that results, I *used* to enjoy salt. A lot. (Guilty face!) As a salt-free, oil-free, added sugar-free nutritarian, nothing I have come across has reminded me of beef jerky, not that I've been looking. I use a lot of garlic, spices, vinegar and even table-tasty seasoning (from Benson's Gourmet) to replicate the full flavor of something salted in savory applications, but most days salty food just isn't on my mind.

It's just one of those things I didn't feel a need to attempt to replicate when there are so many other awesome things to eat and play with! While it's easy to make cookies, cakes, bars and crackers that remind me of old foods, jerky simply never crossed my mind. In fact, I don't really make a lot of "old world" mock foods these days. The beauty and simplicity in my cherished whole foods is just too tantalizing to bother attempting to "improve." Why mess with perfection, right? Most days this is the norm for me, but tonight was different.

Folks, this new discovery was all just a big mistake! A freak dehydrator incident. A way to preserve a surplus of fresh food I couldn't consume fast enough, consisting of many different veggies that tonight, as fate would have it, included some celery stalks cut up into long sticks that dehydrated into tiny little sticks. I intended to grind them up with the other veggies to make another one of Hubby's mind blowing whole food seasoning powders, but tonight I just took a nibble out of curiosity.....

                                    .....and WHAM! Beef jerky flavor! What in the world?

Here's the recipe. It's stupid simple.

Jemoiselle's Mind Blowing Faux-Beef Jerkey

1. Get some organic celery (Psst! I won't tell anyone if you use regular, but try!)
2. Cut each stalk into thirds, and then cut third into three or four long sticks.
3. Place on dehydrator tray for two days at 95ºF. 

Dehydrate, and eat. Freak out. Do whatever you do. Share your results! 

For me, I swear, it even matched the meat texture! Almost made me kind of grossed out at first remembering how beef jerky actually felt in my mouth, the stretchy bits (shudder) that didn't quite get trimmed out. I am telling you, this stuff is the closest we will ever get to beef jerky this side of the farm! Next time, I will try making powder out of it and using it as a "one veggie" celery seasoning. Can you imagine that? Nom. Cows will sleep a little easier tonight I'm sure. *wink*

Have a great night everyone, lots of love!
Jemosielle

Faux Real! Mock PB Candy Pieces Mylkshake Magic...

Hello Everyone! 

How did you do during the infamously tempting Holiday Season? You know, that dreaded but wonderful time of the year where it seems that absolutely everyone is trying to torture/derail you with cookies and candies and fudge and everything that we try so hard to forget even exists? :) Well, I am proud to say for the first year ever, I made it through the season without a single crumb of cheat food! In fact, my last crumb was in August 2013 and I intend to keep it that way. (Update, still going strong Jan '15!) You know what, it felt GREAT! Marvelous even! We're talking Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday, my kiddos birthday, my Hubby's birthday, and most importantly Jesus's birthday, all without consuming (or serving) anything that causes us harm. I have so much I have neglected to blog about, perhaps that can be my resolution this year? Maybe? I have been dreaming of this accomplishment for years now, nearing 5 to be exact, and I've finally realized it. Finally, It's time to celebrate! Are you ready? But not with cheat food, oh no. Not even necessary. I have a special present to share with you...

Now before I became a Nutri (my way of saying Nutritarian!) one of my major weaknesses was Reese's Pieces. Well, who am I kidding, Reese's anything. By the bag full! After making the transition to this lifestyle and really embracing it, I found that even when I had cheats and ate some of those old favorites, they just didn't taste the same anymore. Needless to say, eventually I stopped eating them! My past love affair with junk however, is what has inspired this post, so hang with me and I'll explain! 

So, it started the other day. My little one, homeschooled and also a Nutri, having recently received a neat vintage cook book from Grandma for Christmas, wanted to make one of them as an experiment. It was published in 1980 and was a really neat gift, containing both healthy nutritarian-esque recipes, and umm, not so healthy recipes. Raw egg milkshake for kids anyone? LOL The recipe he picked out was in need of some modification for our lifestyle, and what I am about to share with you is the result of said experiment. I wasn't expecting this to be even remotely edible since I don't usually make smoothies or "mylkshakes" with these ingredients, but hey, he really insisted, so we forged ahead. 

The recipe in the book was originally (before I nutrified it!) supposed to taste like banana and peanut butter, so imagine my surprise when I changed some things here and there, took a cautious sip and tasted something oddly familiar and comforting all at once…it took a few sips to pin point what I was tasting, but eventually it came to me. Reece's Pieces! Say what? Another sip later and I was hooked. This is pure magic! Alchemy! How is this recipe not already circulating the boards of pinterest? How are we NOT freaking out!? Let’s change that, shall we?

So, without further ado, I present to you with much love and compliments especially from my 6 year old whom without his inspiration and insistence this recipe would not have come to life, a completely dairy-free, no unnatural sugars (it uses honey) salt and gluten free, guilt free mylkshake that tastes so good you’ll swear it’s bad, but it’s not! I present, a healthy mylkshake (this is no smoothie, folks!) that actually tastes and looks like a real milkshake, tastes to me, exactly like Reese’s Pieces, but is as harmless as a fluffy feather lazily drifting about in the wind. Enjoy with great pleasure, and to your health! Clearly, this is not something we are going to eat every day, right (ahem!) but when you want something truly special, I hope you'll give this one a try! 

In Love and celebration,

Jemoiselle

Faux-Real Reese's Pieces Mylkshake

Serves 2-4

2c Homemade Cashew Milk (Vitamix 1c raw unsalted cashews to 2c filtered water)

1/3c Natural 100% Peanut Butter (No salt, sugar or oil please, only peanuts)

2 Tbsp Raw Honey, or to taste.

1/2 Large Speckled Banana, PERFECTLY ripe (Don't be tempted to add more banana!)

1/2 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract (Check those labels, no added sugar please!)

Ice cubes, Approx 4 cups (or to your texture preference)

FOR THE CASHEW MILK

In a Vitamix Blender or other insanely high powered blender, make that cashew milk. My cashew milk is a whole milk, no straining or filtering. Blend until rich and creamy, store in the fridge for a week max. Adjust amount of cashews for your preference, more or less. 

FOR THE FAUX-MYLKSHAKE

In a vitamix, add all ingredients except the ice. Blend until smooth. Taste test for desired sweetness, then add ice one cup at a time until desired consistency is reached. I like mine SUPER thick! Your mileage may vary! :)

A Shout Out to Spinoza's in Beavercreek, Ohio!

Hello my friends!

I have something neat to share with you today! As some of you know my sweet wonderful Hubby is a meatatarian, and before I became a Nutritarian we loooved to eat out! We are what the world affectionately calls "foodies" through and through, and well, since my transformation our restaurant life has been...bleak...at best or on the flip side, extremely guilty! Amazed by local restauranteur and owner Glen of Spinoza's, whose skills and passion for fresh ingredients at his restaurant in Beavercreek, Ohio's Fairfield Mall sets the bar about as high as it gets for gourmet pizza and salads devoid of canned anything even offering whole wheat crust, I set out to ask him a huge favor: create something a nutritarian can eat! Glen's pizzas are some of the best around and I am not supposed to tell you how amazing they are (no, siree!) but what is a gal who is trying to be a good Nutri to do? I'll tell you what. Go hungry! And that is what I did, and it didn't take long of that routine for me to decide to bite the proverbial bullet and ask him if he would help out, and to my shock, not only did he oblige with a huge smile as he sat down to hear more about it, but he was really excited about it and even did some research about how we Nutri's go about our days, the focus of our dietary guidelines etc. Wow! Talk about above and beyond the call of duty!

The next time we went in, I was absolutely floored to find that he had purchased a special dutch oven just for nutritarian cooking, and had planned out and had on hand everything he needed to craft a beautiful dish of herbed steamed veggies and whole garlic cloves atop a bed of hydroponically grown romaine, leaves left intact (a gorgeous touch!) with a huge bowl of lime wedges. Unbelievable. The veggies were steamed to perfection, not too done, not too crisp. Chopped herbs flecked within the veggies and added visual interest, and I thought I detected a hint of white wine. There were puffy cauliflower pieces, tender yet crisp asparagus with lime, yellow squash and even whole steam roasted garlic cloves sprinkled here and there as smooth and silky as butter but without the guilt and heart ache (literally)!

 Even more incredible and much to my unknowing delight, he had gone to the trouble of creating a surprise nutritarian sorbet of ripe juicy sweet (but not a drop of sugar added!) dark black grapes, and it was obvious that great care was taken to get the temperature and presentation just right, as the sorbet was absolutely matte and traditionally textured, just as if it were real ice cream, it held it's shape and frozen temp while I savored each bite, yet, it was easy to spoon, not too firm at all, and to my great delight, each bite seemed to almost dissolve light as a cloud and effervesce on the tongue! How did he do that?! It was pure nutri-alchemy! The whole ordeal brought back an element of joy I was honestly missing very much in my pursuit of optimum health and fitness.

I couldn't believe he had gone to such lengths and with such beautiful enthusiasm, and I just had to share with you, dear readers, so that should any of you find yourselves in the Dayton Ohio area (Beavercreek Ohio, Fairfield Mall to be exact) you might like to pay him a visit yourself and delight in his culinary prowess! He said he has aspirations of making a nutritarian pizza in the future, can you imagine? Nom! Spinoza's can be found in the Fairfield Mall in Beavercreek Ohio in the Dayton area. Check them out over at yelp here! Or to find them via Google Maps go here!

Spinoza's Pizza & Salads

2727 Fairfield Commons Blvd., Beavercreek, OH ‎

The Mall at Fairfield Commons

(937) 426-7799 ‎ · spinozas.com

Glen, from the bottom of my heart, thank you dear friend! A priceless gift.

With Love For All,
Jemoiselle