DESERTS

We don't eat a lot of deserts since we usually fill up with meals and snacks. But here is our list of favorites, with homemade ice cream topping the list. Notice that our deserts contain some good quality protein and fats, and we look for ways to reduce or eliminate sugars and flours. 

• Homemade ice cream using raw cream, raw eggs, arrowroot powder, vanilla, raw honey, and maybe pureed berries (our favorits are raspberries or strawberries) or chocolate (Our recipe is a modification of that found in Nourishing Traditions)
• Ice cream pie with either a nut crust or coconut crust, no sweeteners
• Baked custard modified slightly from the recipe in Nourishing Traditions
  
• Tapioca pudding, recipe in Nourishing Traditions
• Cheese cake. A recipe for an all raw cheese cake is in Nourishing Traditions, or use your own recipe - just use the best ingredients possible (raw cheese from pastured animals) and either raw honey or organic evaporated cane juice or for diabetics zylitol made from birch bark (not corn) in the least amounts possible. We also use a nut/butter/date crust instead of flour.
  
• Chocolate Mouse (use organic cacao from Wilderness Family Naturals)
• Homemade milk shake for a quick - and filling - desert. Just use raw milk and cream from pastured cows, raw honey or stevia to sweeten, the organic cacao from Wilderness Family Naturals if you flavor with chocolate and raw eggs from healthy chickens. Then top with homemade whipped cream from RAW cream from pastured cows. WOW!!!
• Homemade kefir, a favorite when made with raw honey and milk

Here are a couple of recipes for former favorites (that we still like):

#1: Decadent Chocolate Almond Torte, adapted from Suzanne Somers recipe)

1 1/2 cup dry roasted or raw almonds, soaked in water a few hours (we prefer to leave skins on)
8 ounces dark low sugar chocolate (such as Trader Joe's 70% dark) or try cacao from Wilderness Family Naturals
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, preferrably unsalted
6 large pastured eggs, separated
1/3 to 1/2 cup raw honey or organic evaporated cane sugar. Diabetics might want to use zylitol till metabolism can be healed

Butter bottom of 8" round springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper cut to size. Then coarsely grind the almonds in a food processor. Add the chocolate and grind until chocolate is broken into small pieces.

Cream butter and sweeteners together with electirc mixer till light and pale. Add egg yolks one at a time, mixing well with each addition. then add the chocolate/nut mixture, blending till just combined. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites untill they form soft peaks. Using a spatula, fold one quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate/nut misture with large circular motions. Fold this mixture into the remaining egg whites. Pour battter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick comes out clean.

#2: Apple "pie":

4 or 5 pounds organic Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced into pie plate. Mix together a combination of ground almonds and maybe dessicated coconut (from Wilderness Family Naturals), butter and less than 1/3 cup of organic evaporated cane sugar - or zylitol, plus cinnamon. Make enough to form a decent crust over apples. You will need enough butter in order to press mixture into a crust. Press into a"ball" and press into crust over apples.  Bake at 350 for about one hour or till apples have softened. This is not a good desert choice for diabetics - or anyone with signs of insulin/blood sugar imbalance (which is probably most of us if we are honest, and which is why we eat this only occasionally)