"Regulars"

This may look like your garden-variety oatmeal cookie, but it's not. This little guy (about a teaspoon-sized cookie) is packed with fiber and protein (and a bit too much fat for my liking--but good omega fats, but I'm working on a different version made with nut butter instead of oil). Importantly, it's vegan.

I had downloaded a recipe for Oatcakes back in February, with the intent of making a sweet version with agave nectar. However, since I've launched into this massive calorie/fat cutting regimen, I decided to kick these up a notch, fiber-wise. As a result of my extensive changes, this is truly an Altered Plates venture. It really bares only a passing resemblance to the original -- the amount of oats.

I made them a few days ago, and the kitchen still smells faintly of the spices I used to bake them (a nice bonus). They've gotten a bit chewy over time, so I might just stick them in the oven a bit to crisp them up. These health-conscious morsels taste a lot like granola bars, and in future versions, I'm definitely adding nuts.

How did Oatcakes become "Regulars?" My husband John's a funny guy. Given the high fiber content, he promptly named them "Regulars," and advised me to eat just one per day. That's as much as I'll say on that.

Here's the recipe with a few photos to show what to expect.

Makes approximately 30 cookies.

Regulars

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups of oats
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oatbran
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/3 cup grapeseed oil
1/3 cup rice milk (I used enriched vanilla)
2/3 cups agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla paste
1/2 cup raisins (I did not pack the measuring cup)

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, salt, oat bran, and spices.



3. Mix in the oil until the oat mixture looks like this (just beginning to get clumpy):



4. Mix in the Rice milk, agave nectar and vanilla.
5. Fold in the raisins.



6. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes.
7. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the cookies and flatten them gently on the parchment paper. They will not spread, so you don't need to leave more than an inch between them.
8. Bake the cookies for 18 minutes, then turn the cookies and switch the pans' places in the oven.



9. Bake for another 20 minutes or until the edges are light brown and tops just start to turn golden.



10. Let the cookies sit on the sheets for 5 minutes before moving them gently to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Increased Dietary Restrictions

Yes, I'm making my foodie life much more complex as I go on (dare I say it) a diet. It's true. I took all the pertinent measurements, weighed myself and bit the bullet. It's time to cut my calorie intake, exercise more and drop the "married, fat and happy" weight.

My friend Dawn pointed out that since year two of happiness with John, I've gained 10 lbs per year. That's a total of 30 lbs. Too much weight for my 5'2" frame, to be sure. Not only that, but it puts me in the high risk group for diabetes and heart disease.

What to do? While nosing around Mom and Dave's cookbook shelves, I found Secrets of the Lean Plate Club by Sally Squires, health reporter for The Washington Post. It's filled with important facts such as how much protein my brain actually needs to function (46g per day), how much fat is alright, and much more. Reading just the first 100 pages of her book provided a huge wake-up call, so a week ago Monday, I began my fight against calories. I committed to losing 30 lbs in 6 months, trying to lose 1-2 lbs per week by cutting at least 500 calories from my diet each day and upping my exercise to every day, for at least an hour (instead of the 3-5 times a week I'd been averaging).

One of the first and most important pieces of advice Ms. Squires gives is to keep a food journal. I found one online that I liked, my-calorie-counter.com, and plunked down my $25 for 6 months of a premium membership (allows users to make custom entries in the food journal). I've been using it every day, mostly adding custom entries for the items I've been eating. For each entry, the software instantly calculates where I am in terms of calories, protein, sugar, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and carbohydrates.It's just up to me to measure my food and make sure that my servings are true servings and that I don't go over my self-assigned targets.

So, for example, here's how my day went (foodwise) on Tuesday, 17 July:

In the image at the beginning of this post, you can see my targets for my dietary intake. Here, you can see my actual intake and how I score against those targets (scroll down to the bottom of the image to the left). Items in blue are within the targets, while those in red show where I've topped out.

With this diet, I'm also drinking more water, taking my vitamins more religiously and exercising more deliberately. The Calorie Counter part of the journal also calculates the calories you burn when doing various exercises, like using the elliptical trainer, lifting free weights and/or hiking. Yesterday, for example, I ran a calorie deficit, but not on purpose. John and I hiked for two hours, and the calories I'd eaten for the day didn't add up to as much as I'd burned. So, I ate 3 oz of shrimp and a cup of cooked, plain, whole wheat pasta to balance things out a bit.

The biggest challenge will be to apply low-fat alterations to some pretty high fat recipes I enjoy. However, the site also has a bulletin board and a very active community of users who share recipes and their results. One person gave a great tip about using yogurt instead of butter in cakes. I'm going to try that later and post the results here when the cake is done.

Each week, I'll weigh and measure myself before entering my numbers in the journal. The reason for this is to track my progress along with the calories. It's a little work, but I'll bet you I'll be seeing the rewards soon enough.

Wish me luck!

Whole Grain Carrot Cake

Back in March, Mom and Dave, who have long encouraged my culinary pursuits, gave me two whole grain baking books for my 38th birthday. This carrot cake recipe comes from one of those books, King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. It’s a wonderfully easy recipe that results in a light, moist, delicious cake that hardly tastes like it’s made from whole wheat flour.

It’s not your typical, many-spiced cake with raisins. Instead, it uses quite a bit more carrot than usual, shredded coconut and pineapple to keep it moist and sweet.

I’ve altered it for agave nectar by cutting the amount of oil and sweetener. The original calls for two cups of sugar, but that seemed a bit on the sweet side. I was right. When I brought my altered cake to some friends to try for the first time, they said the sweetness was right on the money.

This cake definitely improves over time. Serve it a day after you bake it, keeping it at room temperature in a sealed container. It makes all the difference.

This recipe yields two 9-in rounds, 3 8-in rounds, 24 full-sized cupcakes or one 9 x 13 in. sheet cake.

Ingredients:

4 large eggs
6 oz grapeseed oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups agave nectar
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 1/2 cups finely grated carrots (I did this with the food processor to get tiny pieces)
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 8-oz. can crushed pineapple, very well drained (as much as possible)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour your pans and/or put liners in your cupcake pans.
2. Beat the eggs and add the oil while the mixer is running.
3. Add the vanilla and agave nectar, mixing well.



4. In a very large glass measuring cup, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.



5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing to achieve a smooth batter.



6. Mess up your smooth batter by adding the carrots, coconut and pineapple. Mix well.



7. Fold in the nuts.
8. Pour the batter into your pans and bake. Cupcake pans should be turned 180 degrees at 10 minutes. If you’re baking a pan of cupcakes and one 9-in. pan, switch the positions of the pans in the oven after you turn the cupcake pan. Seven minutes later, take out the cupcakes and move the cake to the center of the oven. Then, turn up the heat to 350 degrees F to finish the cake. It should take another 17-23 minutes to finish. Use the toothpick in the center method to test for doneness. The toothpick should just have the tiniest bit of cake on it.





9. Cool the cake/cupcakes in their pans (tip cupcakes up so that their bottoms are tilted and not touching the bottom of the pans) for 1 hour before releasing them from their pans and cooling completely a rack before frosting. Let the cake sit a day before frosting and serving.



10. To frost the cupcakes, first poke a hole in the middle of the top of a cupcake, then fill the hole with frosting. Then, frost the top, covering the hole.



As you can see from the photo above, when you're poking your cupcake, you may run up against a nut or chunk of pineapple. If you do, don't worry, just fill it with frosting!

Here's a photo of the 9-in. round I made covered with Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World's "Super Natural Agave Icing." I added more coconut to it, so that's why it's lumpy.

The Best Mint Carob Chip Ice Cream Ever

I'm not exaggerating. This stuff is smooth, creamy and lush. Lush in the way velvet feels on your skin. The mint isn't overpowering in the least, and the chips are just the right foil for the cream. It's not low-calorie stuff, mind you, but it's a great indulgence on a rare occasion.

I found the original recipe at Allrecipes.com. My changes included:

1. Using whole milk for the 2% milk.
2. Using agave nectar for the sugar.
3. Using peppermint oil (and less of it) for peppermint extract.
4. Using unsweetened carob chips for the chocolate chips (and more of them).

Additionally, I made half the recipe since I just wanted to try it. The results were fantastic!

I made a short movie of the experience. Please comment and let me know what you think!

A Meme

Well, I haven't been tagged for a meme in a while, and never for this blog, so I thought I'd honor Tara's tag and participate.

Here are the rules: Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves. Tagees should write a blogpost of eight random facts about themselves. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged.

My eight random facts (within the topic of the blog and food in general) about myself:

1. I will gladly eat the most bruised banana in the bunch. This suits John just fine because he prefers them speckle-free. In fact, I'm eating a mashed, severely bruised one right now.

2. Even prior to realizing my dietary sensitivities, I altered recipes to suit my taste and to figure out what would happen if I did something different with them.

3. When friends and/or family and I go out for a meal, I often ask them to order dessert so that I might live vicariously through them. I also request detailed descriptions of the dish for a "fuller" experience. I don't find it torturous, instead, it's hugely amusing. It's like participatory voyeurism (oxymoronic, I know).

4. I'm a huge fan of many food bloggers. My Google reader has 46 entries. Thank goodness they don't all update their sites daily!!! If you asked me my favorites, it would be hard to say, but among those I've pretty devoted to reading for a while are The Amateur Gourmet, The Girl Who Ate Everything, Culinary in the Country (formerly Desert), and Cream Puffs in Venice.

5. On many occasions, I will prefer something savory to something sweet. I will always prefer something crunchy to something gooey.

6. Now that I know how to bake really tasty cookies with agave nectar, I no longer look for fruit-sweetened cookies in the stores.

7. I drink a lot of herbal tea. To my right is a cup of my homebrewed iced tea made from St. John's wort and ginseng peppermint teas. I like it strong, too. It usually doesn't have any sweetener in it because it's just me drinking the stuff.

8. Finally (!) my biggest challenge at the moment is developing an agave frosting that won't melt away if the temperatures are high.

Consider yourselves tagged! Please leave a comment on my blog here with a link to your meme entry. I'd like to see your eight random facts.

Star-Spangled Pie

My dear friend Richard and his lovely friend Barbara throw an annual 4th of July party each year to the delight of his employees and friends. For this festive occasion, I thought I'd bake a pie. Little did I know it would become such a spectacular hit!

The crust is an altered version of Elise's All Butter Crust, originally adapted from Oprah magazine. I've used this crust many times before, but I made it slightly different this time to ensure a less sticky dough.

My changes included:

1. Omitting the brown sugar and water, substituting a total of 4 tablespoons of agave nectar (very cold).
2. Using roasted, unsalted almonds instead of blanched almonds.

For the first time ever making this crust, I also happened to have heavy cream in the house, so I used her glaze of heavy cream and egg yolk to top the pie before I baked it. Her glaze is just genius. It works brilliantly.

Well, on to the process. You've waited patiently enough.



In my food processor, I pulsed the almonds until they were pretty finely ground.



Then I added the flour and salt before pulsing a few more times, and the almonds were incorporated well into the flour.



Next, I added the butter and pulsed until I could see the coarse meal above.



Cautiously, I added agave nectar one teaspoon at a time until I saw these streusel-like clumps. Then I took the dough out of the processor and formed it into a disk.



I wrapped the disk in plastic and let it chill while I created the bottom crust. If, on the other hand, you have a processor big enough to handle the entire recipe (lucky duck!), divide the dough in two, and wrap each disk in plastic. You'll need to chill yours for at least an hour.

While all the dough chilled, I prepped my fruit.



I really need a cherry pitter. It took way too long to cut these up and remove the pits.



Blueberries are so great in this pie. Heck, they're great in any pie!



I'd made a syrup using agave nectar, water and lemon juice a few days prior to making this pie, and poured the remains over a pint of raspberries. It macerated them over the course of three days.



The surprise fruit in the pie (no one ever guesses it) -- nectarines!



I drained the syrup from the berries and added some arrowroot to it in hopes of thickening it a bit.



Next, I mixed the fruit into the arrowroot syrup until all was coated.

When the dough had chilled enough, I rolled it out on a silicone mat.



I always wanted to try the trick where you roll out your dough and use your rolling pin to transport it to the pan. It worked well enough, although you can see a tear in the bottom.



After a small amount of patching, I was able to fit the dough into the tart pan and put the pan into the fridge to chill while I rolled out the excess dough.

With the excess crust dough from the bottom, I cut tiny butterfly cookies and spread a little strawberry jam on each. They were so tasty, they didn't last the day.





Oh, my! Such a wet pie! I really should have drained the syrup off the fruit, but I thought it would be alright. Next time, I'll do that.



Next, I rolled out the top crust and cut out some stars to make it more festive. Then, I used Elise's great cream and egg glaze on top.



About 20 minutes into baking, I should have switched pans to one with more of a lip. Already, the juices were flowing.





Messy, yet tasty. I switched pans to save the oven from being completely covered in fruit juice. Still, the pie was a huge hit at Richard's party. I've never had so many compliments on my baking.



Juicy! Lesson learned.

A New Role For Agave Nectar -- Sports Drinks?

While I'm not a big drinker of liquid nutritional supplements or sports drinks, I am interested in a trend -- the emergence of lower glycemic sweeteners such as agave nectar in commercial media.

Just in case you're interested, here's a great article by Leonard S. Ershow on how agave nectar might be a viable resource for "natural" sports drinks.

Enjoy!

The Straight Dope

Yep, that would be me.

I really would have liked to have shared with you the magnificent tart I made for the party. Except that at every turn, disaster showed its ugly face. On the bright side, I have some great footage for an outtakes reel.

Sometimes the kitchen works with me and sometimes it just laughs at me. It laughed loudly on Saturday morning. Guffaws could be heard in Ohio (I'm in Jersey).

Main problems:

1. Not adequately reading the recipe prior to baking.
2. Lack of pie weights (that's a whole blog entry unto itself).
3. Dumb decision NOT to use the shiny new tart pan in favor of a cheapie disposable tin I could just leave at the party. Hypocrite -- I've got a sign on this very site saying "Ditch the Disposables" (albeit, the ad is talking about something not remotely food-related).
4. Too much noodling with the tart crust.
5. Pastry cream issues up the wazoo.

After all that, we didn't end up going to the party. After all the baking and cleaning up after the disasters, I had such a nice time catching up with John after a stressful week that he and I decided to just stay put for the rest of the day (except for a lovely walk). It was a good decision, but now I have a pastry cream fruit pie with lovely fruit decorations [in a (gasp!) store-bought, perfectly baked pie shell, no less] sitting in the fridge.

No worries, though. I'll be meeting up with some friends tomorrow night and am bringing this less-disastrous and less-homemade version with me. Here's a tiny clip of the pie:

Stopping By

Just a quick update to let you know that my next post will be a special fruit tart for my friends Jessie and Steve. They'll be hosting a party on Saturday, and I thought I'd bring something special. The tart has a rich crust, a pastry cream filling and gorgeous fruit as a topping.

It's a bit of a practice tart. If it works alright, I'll make it again for another party. It's just one of those roll-of-the-dice things that happens when I try altering a recipe for the first time. I'm not sure I'll be making a tart for Richard's annual 4th of July bash. That will probably be pie.

Stay tuned. I should be updating with the new tart soon.

Oatmeal Cookies at Pride in NYC

The oatmeal cookies below were a huge hit at my friend's gathering as well as another big party on the roof of a gym to watch the Gay Pride Day parade in New York. Yesterday evening, my mother reminded me that the first time I experienced Pride was when I was in junior high school. Mom and a friend of mine watched Andy Wharhol wave to us from a window during the parade. Even at that young age, I knew this parade with all its colorful participants was something important and special.

The Pride parade has become such a big event now -- 6 hours more or longer. I'd completely forgotten that it was the last Sunday of June when I drove into the city to meet Thom for his birthday lunch. I'd arrived a bit early, so I walked around the neighborhood where we'd agreed to meet, the West Village. I walked up Greenwich Street to 15th Street, where the Chelsea Market is.

I'd been there before, but I enjoyed the treat of walking through the market, stopping to buy three pints of beautiful raspberries for a tart I plan to make and blog about here. I also bought a shiny, new, round tart pan with a removable bottom at the restaurant supply store. It's the first one I've ever owned, so I'm pretty excited about using it for an Altered Plates recipe.

Thom and I enjoyed a yummy lunch at The Village Den, then headed off to meet the others. I remarked that there was a bigger traffic police presence than I'd seen lately, and Thom reminded me that it was Pride day. The buzz was palpable.

Everyone at the gathering loved the homemade cookies. Other folks had brought store-bought cookies and donuts, but I was happy to see what a big impression the cookies had on these lovely folks.

It was so much fun watching the parade from a rooftop filled with gorgeous young shirtless men enjoying this celebration of freedom. We waved to all the marchers and float dancers, especially the beautiful cross-dressers singing to us in their gowns and short summer frocks. Of course, the handsome bodybuilders were great to see as well.

At the end of the day, buoyed by the excitement of Pride, I drove back to my suburban home in New Jersey, thinking how much the times have changed, yet how much they stay the same. The number of young, out people we saw was remarkable. On the other hand, the stroller set was not represented at all in any of the groups I could see from the roof. Regardless, I'm happy for my gay, lesbian and transgender friends, for whom every day is Pride day.

The Best Oatmeal Cookies Yet

I'm not a big self-horn-tooter, but these are definitely the best oatmeal cookies I've ever had. Not that I wrote the original recipe, because I didn't. The lovely and talented Elise of Simply Recipes did. I've included a short film below describing my baking process for these fabulous cookies.

The recipe is really buttery -- 2 sticks, but the resulting cookies are heavenly. I almost hate to give them away, but I made them for my friend Thom's birthday party taking place later today -- and if I'm not as good as my word, then what am I?

The original recipe makes 18 large cookies, but since I'm making them for a large (or rather, potentially large) group, I made smaller cookies. My yield was pretty high: 60 cookies. However, by the time I got to the end of the batch, there seemed to be a few ugly ones to keep to myself. No worries though, the ugly ones taste just as good. So filled with buttery goodness!

Before we get to the movie, here are my alterations:

1. Additional spices: 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon cloves -- really made a huge difference in flavor.
2. 1 1/2 cups of agave nectar for the 2 cups of mixed sugars.
3. 1/2 cup of chopped apricots for 1/2 cup raisins.
4. Pecans for walnuts
5. Baked at 325 degrees F for 11 minutes, then switched the positions of the pans in the oven and baked for another 11 minutes (but that's just my tricky oven, you may have different baking times).

And now for the show...



What are your favorite oatmeal cookies?

Tweaking Cook's Illustrated's Classic Brownies

Well, isn't that just the picture of brownie loveliness?

Have I mentioned how much I adore brownies? In my case, they're carob brownies, but they still taste great regardless. In today's blog entry, I'm reworking Cook's Illustrated's classic brownie recipe, curtosy of the wonderfully talented Smitten Kitchen blogger, Deb.

I made a few substitutions:

1. Whole wheat pastry flour for cake flour
2. 8 oz of unsweetened carob chips for 6 oz of chopped unsweetened chocolate
3. 1 stick of butter for 1.5 sticks
4. 2 cups of agave instead of 2.25 cups of sugar
5. 4 egg whites instead of 4 whole eggs
6. Vanilla paste for extract

First, the recipe calls for toasting the chopped walnuts. While they were toasting, I melted the butter and the carob chips together in a glass bowl over previously boiling water.

Then, I combined the dry ingredients. After the carob mixture cooled, I added the egg whites one at a time, whisking after each addition. Then, I added the vanilla and mixed again before mixing in the dry ingredients and the nuts.



Next, I poured the mixture into my favorite Polish pottery baker, just to try something different. I'd lined the baker with aluminum foil as per the recipe. That was a really good idea because the brownies later were extracted with the greatest of ease.

After 30 minutes, the brownies were still very wet and the walnuts had floated to the top. I put them back in and baked them for another 30 minutes. To do this recipe again, I would have increased the heat to 325 degrees F, as in the original.



The brownies cracked right in the spot where I tested them earlier. They smelled so great, I could hardly wait until they were done to try them.

They came out great! Very carob-y, rich and nutty. I didn't mind that the nuts floated to the top, but if I were to tweak this even more, I'd probably just use two whole eggs, and cut the agave by another 1/2 cup because the brownies were pretty sweet. Otherwise, I'm pleased with how they came out.

John's Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies

I've been making these Vegan With a Vengeance cookies for a while now, but haven't shown in a movie how I do it. So, I decided to take the opportunity while I baked John some cookies earlier this week. They really don't take much time at all to make, including the baking. What's more, they're tasty and reasonably healthy.

I only made two changes to Isa's original recipe, and those were 1. agave for sugar, and 2. no arrowroot/cornstarch.

Otherwise, I really don't change the recipe except for the lower oven temperature. Here's a short film that shows my baking process.



What are your favorite peanut butter cookies?

Not Shortbread, But Lovely Cookies Nonetheless

Shortbread is my baking Everest.

The cookies above were my attempt at reworking Martha Stewart's Living Cookie of the Month for July, Rum-Raisin Shortbread. The main challenge was adapting the recipe to account for the agave/sugar substitution. While I thought I'd be able to do it with the coconut flour, the cookies ended up tasting much more like these treats I made for Passover instead. Not that there's anything wrong with them at all. They were lovely. However, they did not remotely taste like shortbread.

Here is a list of my alterations to the original recipe:

1. I don't cook with rum (or any other alcoholic drink for that matter), so that was the first change.
2. I substituted chopped dried apricots for the dried currants.
3. I used agave instead of sugar.
4. I employed a lemon for zest instead of orange (although that would work really well with the apricots).
5. I added vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract.
6. I used a mixture of coconut flour and all-purpose flour instead of just ap flour.

When I creamed the butter with the agave, I had high hopes for the recipe working out as shortbread. However, when I added the remaining ingredients, the dough was just too creamy.



It wasn't like a sugar cookie dough, but I plowed ahead.



Martha's recipe called for forming the dough into two logs wrapped in parchment. Luckily, the parchment really helped in rolling the very mushy (yet tasty) dough.





Afterward, I let the dough rest in the fridge for two days, until I had time to bake the cookies (day before Father's Day).

At this point, I'll let a short clip tell a bit more of the story.



The resulting cookies were yummy and a big hit at my Dad's for Father's Day. However, they're not what I think shortbread should taste like. On the other hand, I'm willing to keep trying different flours and perhaps barley malt powder to achieve a more dry, crunchy, shortbready mouthfeel.

Why Agave Nectar?

Over the past two years, I've been cooking and baking with agave nectar, experimenting with ways to replace all other sweeteners in my diet. I had tried stevia, but really didn't like the flavor at all. Then, there was honey, but it had such a huge affect on my system that I couldn't tolerate much of it at all. Honey almost instantly causes my body and skin to feel very hot. It also affects my mood the way cane sugar does -- a huge, arcing high, then a devastating low. Crying under the table, low.

Prior to going back to trying natural sweeteners, I tried Equal, Splenda and Sweet'n Low. All three left metallic tastes in my mouth, and Splenda had the same affect on me as sugar, but it didn't last as long. Still, not viable options.

So, I went completely sweetener-free for about two years. They were long, difficult years. I missed things like cookies, cake and pie. I had to do something.

I tried a number of different options. First, I tried brown rice syrup. In small amounts every once in a while, I enjoy some frozen Rice Dream (mint carob chip to be exact), but not often because, but it's high on the glycemic index. While I don't get the "hot" feeling, I still experience the mood shift. The same thing happens with barley malt, but I enjoy a barley-malt-sweetened candy once in a while.

While those two liquid sweeteners are used in a great deal of "health food" sweets, they're really not much better than cane sugar. It grinds my gears that "health food" manufacturers try to pull the wool over people's eyes by saying that evaporated cane syrup is any better than plain sugar. It comes from the same place! They just use a different method to extract the sucrose.

So, I discovered agave nectar at a local health food store one day. I asked the owner what he thought of it, since he knows of my dietary restrictions (and musical tastes, but that's for another blog). He recommended it highly and mentioned that I'd need to drop my oven temp and alter the other liquid ingredients in recipes if I were to bake with it.

Before I tried the stuff, I did some preliminary research. Agave falls at 14 on the glycemic index. Now, that's less than half of fructose. Just reading that fact led me to try it straight on pancakes. No mood swing. No wacky feelings at all. I was instantly hooked!

But, like every learning experience, I pushed the envelope. If I ate too much of my own baked goods made with it, I did experience the hot/moody bit. Let me clarify "too much" -- 4 brownies; 10 cookies; 1/4 of a pie. You get the idea. I had to eat a large amount to make the negative effects occur. I don't normally eat that way, so I figured I'd be alright.

Agave nectar is much sweeter than sugar, so I don't always use equal amounts to the recipes I'm altering. However, it's fortunate that agave is sweeter because it's also so much more expensive.

Since I've been keeping this blog, I've signed up to a Google alert on agave nectar. There appears to be a trend forming regarding this sweetener. Increasingly more manufacturers are using it in "raw" foods and in energy bars. I'll bet that we'll be seeing more of it in the news now that obesity and diabetes are the latest epidemics in the United States and agave nectar is safe for diabetics who watch their carbs.

So, in response to my title, why not agave nectar? Except for the high price and cooking challenges (liquid versus dry sweetener), it's ideal for me and other folks who suffer from sugar sensitivities.

Off topic just a little -- I'm still battling this $#@!*&% cold, so when I'm better, I'll be making pie. The summer fruits are filling the shelves, and I'm rarin' to bake!

Apology

So sorry, friends. I've been struck down with a massive cold this week and just can't get it together to bake. Also, I'm not sure I'd want to serve anyone anything I'd made while sick, so there it is.

I'm drinking lots of herbal tea and taking huge doses of vitamin C, so hopefully this thing will run its course, and I'll be back to baking next week. Until then, be well.

Reworking Lidia's Bread and Berries Pudding

I am a HUGE fan of Lidia Matticchio Bastianich's programs on public television. Just the fact that they're on PBS rather than some other network is enough to make me watch. John says that Lidia reminds him of my mom in that they explain things in a similar way.

This special way of expressing herself is artfully echoed in Lidia's well-edited cookbooks, of which I own two. These aren't garden variety cookbooks. I enjoy reading them even when I don't plan to cook. It's evident that her editors took the time to keep her readily identifiable voice within the pages. And, for that I am very grateful. Even John, who doesn't normally read the books as I'm cooking, laughed along with some of the "Lidia-isms."

Earlier today, while John tied flies for his fishing excursion, I decided to play with Lidia's recipe for Bread and Berries Pudding from her book Lidia's Family Table. I adore bread pudding, so there was no question I would make this dish eventually. But instead of waiting for an occasion, I scooped up all the bread-on-its-way-to-the-croutons-pile bits available and made them ready for the recipe.



The first part of the recipe calls for cubes of bread to be tossed in maple syrup and toasted for 15 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees F. As is my way, I substituted agave nectar for the maple syrup, and lowered the oven by 25 degrees. I also didn't limit myself to hearty white bread, but also included some of my homemade wheat bread and some whole wheat pitas (I will not use those next time, although they added interesting texture. I can think of lots of her lasagne recipes where they would work much better.)

When those came out of the oven, I nearly ate a handful because they smelled great and tasted better. While they cooled, I noodled around with the rest of the recipe.



While this may seem like an OXO ad, it's not. It's just to show you how much liquid I ended up using -- less than the recipe due to the agave nectar. It's a rich recipe. When I say "rich," think eggs. Lots of eggs. Four eggs and four egg yolks. Not the kind stuff you'd give to your uncle with the heart condition. I kept all the eggs, but dispensed with the heavy cream and whole milk in favor of vanilla rice milk. (I do plan to use almond milk in a future recipe, but I bought the rice milk in bulk, so it needs to go first.) I also cut the amount of rice milk by 1/3 to account for the agave.



For the fruit, I used a small banana and two cups of fresh strawberries. If you live within 250 miles of the New Jersey area, please take advantage of the Jersey Fresh produce. It's in season now, and you will get good prices on them. Better yet, visit a local farm stand. You'll get even better prices and fresher produce.



I filled two of my favorite Polish pottery bakers with the toasted bread cubes and the fruit. Lidia advised buttering the bakers well, and I'm glad I did. When they came out of the oven later, the juices of the berries made for sticky edges.



Next, I topped the bakers with the liquid ingredients and made sure that all of the bread and fruit had been dunked at least once. Then, off to the oven to bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes.

At 30 minutes, I saw that the tops were browning too quickly, so I tented the bakers with foil and lowered the heat another 25 degrees. That worked like a charm.



After it cooled, I tasted the dish. It was delicious! Next time, though, I'm taking Lidia's advice and using just white bread. I know, it's indulgent, but I don't eat white bread often. I'm taking the big baker with me to Mom's on Monday so she and Dave can enjoy it (and so I don't eat the whole thing myself).