Tag Archives: fair trade recipes

Tasty Tuesday: Fair Trade Chocolate & Almond Butter Cups

- Posted by to General Tasty Tuesday

It’s only recently that I learned of the raw food movement.  It’s not surprising that I am just learning about it, I’m usually late to learn about trends.  Though I have not jumped fully on the bandwagon of raw food I do support it and I find it intriguing.  The following fair trade recipe landed in my inbox a month or so ago and I’ve been meaning to make it ever since.  So I thought that I should try it for Tasty Tuesday.  It has a few fair trade ingredients and it seemed unusual in that it is raw but familiar at the same time.  It was very easy and I enjoyed the little snacks thoroughly!

Rawalmondbuttercupsvegan-7334

Ingredients – I used regular sized cupcake holders, making each snack larger!

    for the base

    • 3/4 cup raw almonds, ground into a meal
    • 1/4 cup rolled oats, ground into a flour
    • 2 tablespoons raw almond butter (or nut butter of choice)
    • 1.5 tablespoons coconut oil, warmed if necessary
    • 1.5 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or agave nectar)
    • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
    • 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
    • pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

    for the topping

    • 3 tablespoons Fair Trade coconut oil
    • 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or 2 tbsp agave nectar)
    • 2 tablespoons Fair Trade cocoa powder
    • pinch of fine grain sea salt, to taste

    Instructions

    • 1. Add almonds and oats into a high-speed blender (or food processor, which is what I used) and blend on high until a flour forms. Dump into a large bowl and break up any clumps with your fingers.
    • 2. Add the nut butter, coconut oil, maple syrup (or agave), cinnamon, vanilla, and salt into the bowl. Stir until thoroughly combined. The dough should be fairly sticky like cookie dough.
    • 3. Line a mini (or regular) muffin tin with paper liners or use a silicone muffin holder. Portion the dough into each muffin cup and press down until even and smooth.
    • 4. To make the chocolate sauce: Whisk together the coconut oil, sweetener, cocoa powder, and salt until no clumps remain. Spoon the sauce over top each of the cups, distributing evenly. Garnish cups with sliced almonds if desired.
    • 5. Place in the freezer in a flat area for 30-45 minutes, until firm. Pop out the cups & enjoy! Store leftovers in the freezer.

    Tasty Tuesday: Fair Trade Blueberry Crisp

    - Posted by to General Recipes Tasty Tuesday

    Allow me to let you in on a little secret: I love to bake but I can be lazy sometimes! On those days when I’m feeling a bit lazy, or crunched for time, I opt for a crisp.

    YUM!blueberrycrisp

    For this year’s 4th of July I made a fair trade blueberry crisp for a family gathering.  It was quite good, if I do say so myself and quite easy! While I truly enjoy all parts of the crisp the crumble on top is my favorite part.  The crumble alone would taste good on ice cream.

    The recipe I have been using for some time comes from Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”. I used Wholesome Sweeteners Fair Trade brown sugar for both the fruit and topping recipes.

    Fair Trade Blueberry Crisp! 

    The Fruit 
    About 4 cups blackberries
    1 tablespoon flour
    3 tablespoons white sugar or light brown sugar
    1 teaspoon orange rind, finely grated

    The Topping 
    1/2 cup unbleached white flour
    6 tablespoons light brown sugar
    1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
    1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
    1/8 teaspoon salt
    4 tablespoons unsalted butter

    Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sort through the berries and toss them with the flour, sugar and orange rind. Put them in an 8-inch glass pie pan or equivalent earthenware baking dish. Prepare the topping, combining the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces; then work it into the flour with two knives or your fingers until the small pieces begin to hold together. Put topping over the berries. Bake until the top is lightly browned and the juices have risen around the edges, about 30 to 40 minutes.

    Serve with cold thick cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes 4 servings.

    Enjoy and have a great day! Dawn

    Tasty Tuesday: Fair Trade Chocolate Chunk Cookies w/ a Twist!

    - Posted by to General Recipes Tasty Tuesday
    salty sweet goodness

    Salt Sweet Goodness indeed and with fair trade chocolate!

    When I have the chance to go to the movies, which isn’t so often these days, I always get the same thing, buttered popcorn along with chocolate.  I love the combination of salty and sweet.  So when I heard about today’s recipe I was on board!

    Joy the Baker modified an already delicious sounding cookie that can be found in the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: buttered popcorn cookies.  The addition of coarsely chopped dark fair trade chocolate makes for salty sweet goodness that is unbelievable.

    Here’s the recipe and enjoy.

    Deb’s Buttered Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies

    makes 24 cookies

    adapted slightly from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

    2 tablespoon vegetable oil

    1/4 cup yellow corn kernels

    1/4 teaspoon salt

    1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

    1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

    1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

    1/3 cup granulated sugar

    1 large egg

    1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

    1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

    1/2 teaspoon baking soda

    1/4 teaspoon salt

    1/2 cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate

    (one large bar of fair trade chocolate fit the bill)

    coarse sea salt for sprinkling

    Let’s make the popcorn first.  Place oil in the bottom of a medium saucepan.  Heat over medium heat.  When oil is hot, add corn kernels in a single layer across the bottom of the pan.  Cover the pot but keep the lid ajar to let a bit of steam out.  Listen to the popcorn as it pops.  Turn off the heat and remove the pan from the burner once the popping has subsided.  Sprinkle with salt and drizzle with butter.  Toss to coat all of the popcorn in a bit of butter.  Piece through the popcorn to remove any unpopped kernels.  Set aside to cool.  You’ll have about 4 cups of popcorn.

    Next we’ll make the dough.  Place a rack in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Set aside.

    In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar.  Cream until butter is pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in egg and vanilla extract for one more minute.  Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat on low until just combined.  Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula to fold in the popcorn.  It might seem like a disproportionate amount of popcorn considering the cookie batter.  Keep folding.  The popcorn will break down a bit as it’s folded in.  Fold in dark chocolate.

    Scoop dough by the heaping tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheet.  Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with coarse sea salt.  Bake for 10 to 13 minutes or until the edges and tops are golden brown.  Remove from the oven, allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

    Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.

    PS – Would consider serving these truly amazing cookies in our lovely Teal Brilliance Wooden Serving Bowl – who says cookies should only be served on a plate?!?

    mango_salad_bowl_teal

     

    Teal Brilliance Wooden Serving Bowl 

    Tasty Tuesday: Fair Trade Quinoa Granola!!

    - Posted by to General Recipes Tasty Tuesday

    It wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t like to cook or bake at all.  These days I like cooking but I love to bake and this fair trade quinoa granola is such a tasty bakes treat; it was so fun and easy to make!

    Fair Trade USA posted a photo of this fair trade quinoa granola on their Instagram feed and we posted it on our Facebook page too again, because it looked so good. The recipe that Fair Trade USA referenced for this fair trade quinoa and the recipe that I used to make it came from the blog A Couple Cooks.

    crispy granola

    Crispy Fair Trade Quinoa Granola:

    by: a Couple Cooks

    Makes: About 2½ cups

     

    What You Need

    • ¾ cup uncooked quinoa
    • ½ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
    • ½ cup almonds
    • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
    • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • ¼ cup honey
    • ½ cup dried golden raisins (or other dried fruit)
    • *Note: Can easily be doubled and fit on one baking sheet.
    What To Do
    1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
    2. Chop ½ cup almonds. In a medium bowl, combine ¾ cup quinoa, ½ cup pumpkin seeds, ½ cup chopped almonds, and ½ teaspoon kosher salt. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil and ¼ cup honey to thoroughly combine. Spread onto a baking sheet.
    3. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring a few times during baking. Add ½ cup golden raisins (or any dried fruit) and let cool 15 minutes. Break any large chunks into small pieces and store in an airtight container.

    Tasty Tuesday: Fair Trade Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cookies

    - Posted by to General Recipes Tasty Tuesday

    For this Tasty Tuesday I bring you, straight from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, fair trade chocolate and peanut butter sandwich cookies.

    They are pretty easy to make and so so good. These cookies are a little time consuming though, but I say it is worth it! And a little shout out for the Smitten Kitchen because I really like her recipes and I find them creative, interesting and pretty easy to make, which is saying a lot because while I love to bake I don’t really like to cook.  But her recipes make we want to do both!

    peanut-butter-and-chocolate-cookie-sandwich

    Fair Trade Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookies

    Cookie:

    8 Tablespoons unsalted butter; at room temperature

    (a little tip I learned from the Barefoot Contessa reagarding ‘room temperature’ leave the items out overnight to be sure they are at the correct temperture)

    1 cup smooth peanut butter; at room temperature

    1/2 cup granulated fair trade sugar

    1/2 cup firmly packed fair trade light brown sugar

    1 large egg

    2 cups all purpose flour

    1/4 teaspoon baking soda

    1/4 fine sea salt

    Filling:

    8 ounces fair trade semisweet chocolate; coarsely chopped

    3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

    2 tablespoons unsalted butter

    Pince of salt

    Make the cookies In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy, then add the peanut butter and beat until smoothly combined.  Add the sugars and beat until combined. Add the egg and beat until the batter is smooth.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. The dough will be thick and a bit crumbly. Divide the dough into two parts, placing each on a piece of plastic wrap. If you’d like to slice the cookies from a log, form each dough half into a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch log that should be about 12 inches long. Wrap each log and freeze for 30 minutes, until firm. If you’d like to roll out the cookies, flatten the packets a little and place them in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling cookies out.

    Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two or three baking sheets with parchment paper.

    To Slice Cookies Slice each log of frozen cookie dough into just shy of 1/4 inch slices. I like to hold the end of the log gently with two finger as I a slice the cookies, because they are so prone to breaking.

    To Roll Out Cookies First, promise me you know what you are getting into. These cookies are crumbly and the dough, it will not want to be rolled out. It helps to let it warm up a little and use as little flour as possible. And again, accept that the dough will be crumbly and keep nudging it back together until the cutouts resemble cookies. The upside of all of this crumbliness is that the cookies hold their shape nicely in the oven.

    Bake Cookies Transfer the formed cookies to prepared baking sheets with a thin spatula and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.  They should be a little puffed and faintly golden at the edges when they are finished.  Transfer the cookies to cooling rake and cool completely.

    Make the Filling In the top of a double bolier or ina bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, butter and a pinch of salt, whisking together until they are melted and smooth.  Let the mixture cool until it is thick but spreadable.  You can speed this process up in the fridge or by setting the bowl in another bowlof ice water, but for both methods, be sure to stir frequently so that it chill evenly.

    Finish the Cookies Dollop half the cookies with about 1 teaspoon of chocolate peanut buttter filling each. You can do this with a butter knife or, if you wish to be more precise, you can use a pastry bag with a round tip, or a sandwich bag with the corner snipped off.  Place a second cookie over the chocolate mixture, and press the cookies gently together so that the filling approaches the edges.  Repeat with the remaining cookies. Let the cookies set until the chocolate is mostly firm.