Just about everyone agrees that crab cakes are sublime. Just about everyone likes shrimp, too. So why not make shrimp-crab cakes? The tiny and amazingly cute wild rock shrimp that come in cans are ideal for making cakes since they’re already so small, plus they can hang out in your pantry right next to the canned crab until you want to whip up a quick seafood dinner. I like the wild-caught tiny shrimp from Trader Joe’s, but you can use whatever kind of shrimp you’d like. If you have some normal-sized shrimp on hand, you can simply measure out about 3 ounces of freshly cooked shrimp and mince it to approximate the size and texture of the tiny shrimp.
I’ve used almond flour in these crab cakes since 1. the mild nut flavor pairs well with seafood (creates a much richer flavor than standard breadcrumbs), 2. it’s gluten-free, and 3. sliced almonds are a pantry staple shoo-in (they’re a snap to grind into flour with a spice/coffee grinder). If you’d prefer to use whole-grain breadcrumbs, that works, too.
Shrimp-Crab Cakes with Avocado, Lemon & Dill
Makes 6 cakes (figure on 2 cakes for a lunch serving and 3 for a heartier meal). Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.
6 oz. canned crab
4 oz. canned tiny wild shrimp OR 3 oz. chopped fresh-cooked shrimp of any size
1 egg, preferably from pastured hens
1 T. prepared mustard (my favorites are stone-ground Dijon or German-style mustard)
1 tsp. dried dill
Freshly cracked black pepper
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup almond flour OR whole-grain breadcrumbs (I like to grind sliced almonds in a coffee/spice grinder for about 10 seconds to make fresh flour)
Lemon wedges for garnish
Chopped avocado for garnish
Squeeze the liquid out of the crab and shrimp, then place the meat in a medium bowl. Discard the liquid. Whisk the egg, mustard, dill, and pepper into the crab and shrimp. Stir in enough almond flour to make the mixture dry enough to handle and shape but not so dry that it falls apart. (Hence starting with 1/4 cup and working your way up.) Divide the mixture into 6 portions and shape each one into a patty about the size of a small hamburger.
Heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil or a pat of pastured butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat for 1 minute. Add 3 cakes and cook for 3 minutes undisturbed or until the bottoms are golden brown. Carefully flip over and keep cooking for another 2 minutes or until both sides are golden brown. Remove to a plate and cook the remaining 3 patties, adding more oil/butter if the pan is dry.
Serve patties with a spritz of fresh lemon juice, some chopped avocado, and a dash or two of additional dill sprinkled over the top.
Enjoy!
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Tags: almond flour, avocado, crab, crab cakes, dill, gluten-free, lemon, mustard, seafood, shrimp
Pastured eggs are my favorite ingredient for several reasons: they’re an integral part of sweet and savory dishes, they’re ideal to enjoy any time of day, and they provide essential structure for everything from baked goods to velvety sauces. You just can’t beat an egg when it comes to artistry AND functionality! The fact that they can be prepared in such a variety of ways — nearly all of which take less than 10 minutes — makes them all the more appealing.
But although poached eggs get my #1 vote, their glaring disadvantage is that they’re one of those make-it-and-eat-it-NOW dishes. Specifically, with a fork, a plate, and an unfolded napkin at the ready. Soft-boiled eggs have a similar constraint since they also tend to have runny yolks. (Which to me is the best part! If you have the space and the resources, messy is fun.) The [lack of] Messy Factor makes hard-boiled eggs the most convenient egg option when you want to make enough eggs to have leftovers or have some to take them along with you as a traveling snack.
Lately, I’ve been playing with the length of the boiling time — I want to see how soft I can get the yolks to be without them being messy. The ideal time seems to be 8 minutes. With 8 minutes of boiling, I get yolks that are verging on runny and are decidedly soft and still dark-orange/dark-yellow in color (as opposed to the much more pale yellow of a fully hard-boiled egg) but don’t try to sneak out of their whites when you cut them in half. If you have a napkin handy and are planning on eating your eggs promptly, though, you can boil them for an even briefer 5 minutes and have soft-boiled eggs.
Medium-Boiled Eggs on Paprika-Dusted Brown Rice
You can make as many servings of this as you like. One egg and 1/2 cup cooked rice would typically be one serving.
Eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Cooked brown rice, either long- or short-grain (I tend to cook my brown rice for 15 minutes fewer than the package instructions indicate since I like my rice on the chewy side)
Sweet paprika
Place your eggs in a pot and cover with water and a lid. Bring water to a boil while paying close attention to the pot. As soon as you hit a boil, reduce heat to medium, set the timer for 8 minutes, and tilt the lid slightly. Lower heat another notch if the eggs are bumping around violently inside the pot. (The smaller the pot, the more they’ll be tossed around in there.)
While the eggs are cooking, place the cooked brown rice on a plate (or on plates) and sprinkle with sweet paprika.
As soon as the 8 minutes are up, place pot under the tap and run cold water into the pot, tilting it to allow the hot water to spill out and be replaced with the cold water. Crack the shells of the eggs you’re going to use right away and peel them, then cut in half and place on top of the rice. Leftover eggs should be left in the pot to cool — with their shells still on — until they’re completely chilled. You can refrigerate them for up to 5 days.
Season your not-so-hard-boiled eggs with a little sea salt and freshly cracked pepper and serve as a breakfast, lunch, or snack.
Enjoy!
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Tags: breakfast, brown rice, eggs, hard-boiled eggs, soft-boiled eggs, sweet paprika
Want to get more efficient in the kitchen? Make multiple-pot meals. Heck, you’ve got four burners, so why not have them all in motion? If you simmer two ingredients while you sautée a third (and chop a fourth), your prep time will be only as long as the longest-cooking item of the bunch. For this meal, the pasta takes 8 minutes while the broccoli and sausage take 5 each, so we’re talking 10 minutes to make dinner. (That’s including the 2 minutes it’ll take for the water to come to a boil.)
I like my pasta a tad chewy and toothsome rather than mushy, so I tend to cook my pasta (and all whole grains) for less time than the package indicates. It’s easy enough to check the texture periodically and keep on cooking it if it’s still too chewy. Another plus of going with the “slightly undercooked” technique is that it takes more effort to digest chewy pasta/grain, which means less of a spike in blood sugar levels…which in turn is a good idea for everybody. It’s also nice to shave a few minutes off the prep time.
Broccoli, Avocado & Sausage Pasta
Serves 2 and can easily be doubled or tripled.
2 heads broccoli, florets cut into bite-sized chunks, the “trunks” de-barked (trim off the outsides with a knife) and then cut into small pieces
2 sausages, each cut into about 10 slices (Applegate Farms and Niman Ranch both offer sausages made of pastured meat; I used Niman Ranch’s Sweet Italian pork sausage)
1 avocado, peeled and de-pitted, flesh chopped
Cook the pasta according to package directions. While that’s burbling away, simmer the broccoli for 5 minutes. Drain pasta and broccoli separately or together. Sautée the sausage over medium heat for 5 minutes while the pasta and broccoli are simmering; prep the avocado while all three are going.
Toss the pasta and broccoli with the sausage and the pan drippings from the sausage. Add avocado, toss very gently once or twice, and serve immediately. How’s that for a ten-minute meal plan? The dish sans avocado can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.
Enjoy!
* Be sure to get gluten-free pasta if you want a gluten-free meal!
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Tags: avocado, broccoli, gluten-free, pasta, pastured meats, quick dinner, sausage
With its focus on nuts and fresh fruit (and coconuts and fresh herbs), I’ve long been a fan of raw food. Every raw dish I’ve ever had has been delicious and innovative. Vegan dishes are tasty, too, but unfortunately vegans seem to rely overmuch on soy and wheat products. I’m not a big fan of soy for a variety of reasons — ranging from health issues to environmental ones — and I avoid gluten, so lots of otherwise-interesting vegan dishes are out for me. Raw food, on the other hand, doesn’t use soy or wheat or anything processed…which means it’s always innovative, always fresh, and always scrumptious.
I’ve been wanting to make more raw dishes at home (especially raw desserts, which are unbelievably good!), but I don’t have a Vitamix and probably won’t any time soon. My trusty Cuisinart food processor just isn’t powerful enough to rip through damned near anything the way a Vitamix can. (I seriously think you could powder diamonds with one of those.) Chopping nuts and grinding them into coarse meal works in some settings, but raw dishes often call for silky-smooth nuts as a main ingredient.
About a week ago, I finally had a “duh!” moment and hit upon a solution to my sans-Vitamix-but-want-raw-food dilemma: use raw nut butter! Nowadays, you can find everything from almond butter to walnut butter to cashew butter. If you’re lucky, you might even stumble upon jars of macadamia butter sitting next to jars of pecan butter. They all have different flavors, of course, but what they all have in common is that their textures all fall somewhere between velvet and satin. I might still splurge on a Vitamix someday, but in the meantime, I’m going to enjoy experimenting with already-made-smooth nut butters. They make anything taste incredibly creamy and rich.
Almond Butter & Banana (or any other fruit) Smoothie
Note: since nut butters are highly perishable, store them in the refrigerator as soon as you get them home. If you are fortunate enough to have a Vitamix or other warp-speed blender/processor, you can make your own nut butters by grinding shelled nuts until they’re smooth. You may wish to add a matching unrefined oil to give the butter a little more creaminess. (Use unrefined almond oil with almonds, unrefined walnut oil with walnuts, etc.)
Place a heaping tablespoon of almond butter and either 1 full-sized banana or 2 small ones (I prefer the little guys) in a blender. If you use a large banana, break it into three or four pieces before adding it. Add 1 tsp. maple syrup and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Pour in enough cool water to barely cover everything and blend on high until smooth. You can add a few ice cubes if you’d like more froth and coolness.
Enjoy!
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Tags: almond butter, banana, breakfast, nut butters, raw food, smoothies, vanilla
Ricotta cheese is like a reversible coat: it has two distinct sides and both are equally appealing. Ricotta salata (or “salted ricotta”) is a hard, aged cheese that is lovely for grating and garnishing; it reminds me a lot of Parmesan. Fresh ricotta, on the other hand, is creamy and sweet and tastes like summer. Its texture reminds me a little bit of whipped cream cheese, except that ricotta made with fresh milk is incredibly lush and has none of the vaguely plastic flavor/texture of commercial cream cheese.
Seeing as fresh ricotta manages to be delightfully dense-textured and airy at the same time, I figured a heaping dollop of it would make baked goods more moist and fluffy. (Not to mention more nutritious and tasty.) I’m happy to report that my hunch was right — these muffins had a nice golden crust on the outside but were tongue-pleasingly delicate on the inside. The poppyseeds added a nice contrasting crunch.
Should you happen to get your hands on a nice tub of fresh ricotta and already have baked goods on hand, you can use the ricotta as a spread, too, just as you would butter or cream cheese. You could even slather a knifeful of ricotta onto a savory sandwich to add a whole new kind of creaminess.
Ricotta Poppyseed Muffins
Makes a baker’s dozen.
1 cup sorghum flour*
1 cup millet OR brown rice flour*
1 T. baking powder
Pinch sea salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup poppyseeds (OR chia seeds OR chopped nuts OR chopped sunflower/pumpkin seeds; the idea here is to include a crunchy accent)
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese (if you can’t find this, use full-fat cottage cheese that you’ve run through a processor/blender)
4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup almond oil OR extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 375F and line a muffin tray with paper cups. I find that the parchment-style cups made by If You Care work BY FAR the best.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, seeds, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the ricotta, eggs, honey, oil, and vanilla. Scoop the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and whisk well to combine. If you’re using wheat flour, stir with a spoon until barely blended.
Pour into the waiting tins and bake for 18 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Top baked muffins with additional ricotta and honey if you’d like.
Enjoy!
* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based muffins, use a total of 2 cups of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flour.
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Tags: breakfasts, fresh ricotta, gluten-free, honey, muffins, poppyseeds, ricotta salata, spreads
In the wide-ranging world of dairy, there are two main classifications: fresh (or sweet) and cultured (or sour) dairy products. Fresh-milk products are made with just-milked milk that has not yet had a chance to ferment and age into more complex flavors. This includes fresh whipped cream, most ice creams*, most soft and creamy cheeses, and sweet — or what we think of as standard — milk. Cultured products include buttermilk, sour cream, yogurt, and aged cheeses that are more pronounced and cheesy in flavor. *Note that you could make ice cream just as easily with buttermilk and/or yogurt. One of the best flavors I’ve ever had was made with buttermilk.
And then there are some splendidly confusing dairy products that seem to encapsulate the best of both worlds. Crème fraîche is one of them, because although its name literally means “fresh cream” in French, crème fraîche is nonetheless made with cream that has been allowed to culture and sour. (The sourness, by the way, is not added sourness. It occurs because the friendly cultures gobble up the lactose in the milk as they multiply. The more cultures that are in the product = the less lactose. The less lactose, the less sweet-tasting. A handy bit of knowledge for anyone who has difficulty digesting lactose! And anyone looking for lower-in-sugar dairy products, too.)
Although crème fraîche is reminiscent of sour cream, it’s much creamier and smoother and more complex in flavor. And because crème fraîche isn’t produced on the massive scale that sour cream is, crème fraîche is more likely to be made with milk from grass-fed cows. Vermont Creamery is my favorite producer of crème fraîche and other artisanal, small-scale dairy products like fromage blanc, cultured butter, and quark. (Fromage blanc is a cultured yogurt-like cream made from naturally skimmed milk, cultured butter is more tangy and flavorful than fresh-cream butter, and quark is rather like an ultra-creamy cottage cheese that’s been blended into a harmonious smoothness. I fell in love with quark when I lived in Germany and discovered its velvety, fresh existence.)
Since crème fraîche hits a balance between creaminess and tanginess — and hits the nail exactly on the head when it comes to smoothness — it’s great with strawberries. Simply serve a dollop of crème fraîche alongside your organic strawberries (as the #1 most-sprayed fruit, strawberries are worth buying organic) and sprinkle on a little date sugar, sucanat, or coconut sugar.
Enjoy!
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Tags: buttermilk, coconut sugar, creme fraiche, cultured butter, cultured dairy, date sugar, fromage blanc, ice cream, quark, sour cream, strawberries, yogurt
I don’t often post recipes that involve special equipment, but these pumpkin waffles were far too delicious not to share with fellow waffle iron owners. If you don’t already have an iron, perhaps knowing that there’s a lovely (and whole-grain!) Belgian waffle recipe out there will spur you into picking up that still-in-the-box, never-used waffle maker when you’re hitting garage sales this spring.
The trick of making fluffy waffles that don’t tear apart when you open the waffle maker is to pour a full cup of batter into the maker before you close the two halves and let the waffle cook into its signature crannies and crenellations. That’s just as important as the more obvious precaution of thoroughly greasing the waffle maker before you pour in the batter. (Both of these elements are exponentially more important if you’re making gluten-free waffles since they’re much more likely to tear apart when you open the waffle maker.)
If your waffle iron is the kind that rotates 180 degrees, that’s even better — then you can make sure that both halves of the maker are well-greased before pouring in the batter. If your maker isn’t flippable, use a heat-safe barbecue brush to “paint” both halves with melted butter or coconut oil.
Pumpkin-Chestnut Waffles
Because these are true Belgian-style, only-raised-with-yeast waffles, they need to sit overnight for the yeast to have a chance to flavor and puff the batter. Simply whisk together the batter the night before rather than in the morning. I prefer to make waffles this way, anyway, because this approach means a lot less work in the morning when you want to make your breakfast with a minimum of effort.
3/4 cup mashed pumpkin, either canned or freshly baked and then mashed
1 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
1/4 cup melted butter (1/2 stick), preferably from grass-fed cows
4 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 cup brown rice flour*
3/4 cup chestnut flour*
3/4 cup sorghum OR millet flour*
1 T. yeast
1/2 tsp. sea salt
Whisk together pumpkin, milk, butter, and eggs until well-blended, then whisk in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, heat your Belgian waffle maker until the “ready” light is on (or whatever happens when your waffle maker has reached the desired heat). While the iron is heating, whisk your batter briefly; it will have puffed up overnight due to the presence of the yeast.
Place a little scoop of coconut oil or a dab of butter in the center of each of the four quarters of the bottom half of the maker. Close and flip over to grease the other half. If your iron doesn’t rotate, use a heat-proof brush to brush both halves with the oil or butter. The idea is to have a well-greased waffle iron.
Pour 1 full cup of batter into the waffle maker, flip over if you can, and cook for as long as the manufacturer’s instructions indicate for your desired setting. (For mine, it takes about 5 minutes to cook to a lovely golden brown.) You might wish to flip it back over halfway through the cook time. Carefully use a heat-proof spatula and a fork to lift the cooked waffle out of the maker and onto a waiting plate. Add more oil or butter to the iron before making the next waffle. Recipe makes about 4 waffles.
I like to top my waffles with maple syrup and either pecan or walnut oil — the pumpkin is particularly nice with nuts. Or sprinkle toasted nuts on top of your waffle with perhaps some fresh fruit or freshly whipped cream.
Enjoy!
* These are gluten-free flours. If you would prefer to make wheat-based waffles, use a total of 2 1/2 cups of spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour.
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Tags: Belgian waffles, breakfast, chestnut flour, gluten-free, pumpkin, waffle maker, whole grain, yeast
Conceptually speaking, one of my favorite things to do for dinner is to embellish something I already have. Creative embellishing is an ideal way to translate leftovers into new dishes. (Although there’s a lot to be said for the whole idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — i.e., if you loved a dish the first time around, by all means skip the embellishing and enjoy it just as it is.) Creative embellishing is also a great way to use what you’ve got in your fridge rather than ignoring it and then wind up throwing it away a week later.
Incidentally, here’s a hot tip: if grocery economics seem complicated and not worth figuring out, you could always attach what you spend in cold hard cash to each item in your fridge for a week and then see how much $$ you’re literally throwing away on a weekly basis. I guarantee that’ll make you an even bigger fan of re-enjoying and embellishing your meals!
In this case, I had a bunch of cilantro I had initially purchased to make Indian recipes. Half of the bunch had been happily eaten; half of it was still sitting pretty in my fridge. Seeing as I also had some leftover marinara on hand, too, I figured I would put the two of them together and toss them with pasta for a quick meal. Marinara is such an easy-going sauce that it pairs well with almost any fresh herb, so you could use this idea to enjoy whatever kind of herb you might have on hand.
Cilantro-Marinara Pasta
Leftover marinara sauce (home-made or store-bought)
Fresh cilantro, basil, or any other leafy herb
Whole-grain pasta (make sure to get gluten-free pasta if that’s what you’re aiming for)
Cook the pasta according to package directions. While it’s simmering, rinse and then chop/mince the herb (or leave it whole). Although my favorite fresh herbs are cilantro and basil, this would also be nice with dill, oregano, or even mint.
While pasta is draining, heat the marinara in the pot the pasta was in for a minute or two, stirring often, until the sauce has warmed through. Stir in pasta and herb(s), starting with just a handful of herb and adding more to taste if you’d like.
Enjoy!
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Tags: basil, cilantro, fresh herb, marinara, pasta, quick meal
Plenty of “convenience” foods are far more convenient to make yourself — while the commercial versions tend to have unpronounceable ingredient lists and a mind-boggling amount of sugars/sweeteners, you can whip up a homemade version with a few simple healthy ingredients…and in less than a minute. Sixty seconds spent preparing AND at least 30 minutes saved by not going to the store? Now, that’s convenience! And using ingredients you already have vs. spending more money on an inferior product = thrifty (and smart) convenience.
Flavored yogurts fall into the “Prime Candidates for DIY Convenient Foods” category. If you keep a container of full-fat plain Greek yogurt in your fridge, you can enjoy the same yogurt innumerable ways by simply stirring in a few extra ingredients. Plus, when you have plain yogurt, you can even go sweet or savory without having to spend extra money. Use it as a basis for creamy salad dressings (use the yogurt in place of oil), as a way to enrich curries and soups (remove the pan or pot from the heat and stir in the yogurt at the last minute to keep it from curdling), or as a substitute for sour cream (to me, full-fat plain Greek yogurt tastes richer and fresher than sour cream does). And remember that fresh herbs make a wonderful companion to yogurt.
To go the sweet route, you can stir everything from spices to jam into your yogurt. For this batch, I opted to go with cinnamon, maple syrup, fresh blueberries, and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs. Any fruit would work, though, and you can use any sweetener you like, from honey to palm sugar to date sugar. Let your imagination run (conveniently) wild!
Cinnamon-Maple Yogurt with Blueberries & Cocoa Nibs
Plain full-fat Greek yogurt
Drizzle of maple syrup
Sprinkling of cinnamon
Fresh blueberries (or any other fruit)
Cocoa nibs (optional, but adds an appealing chocolate crunch)
Use a fork or a small whisk to stir the maple syrup and cinnamon into the yogurt. Gently stir in blueberries and top with nibs. Note that any fruit would be lovely — just be sure to cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces before stirring it in. Or you could dip larger-sized fruit slices into the yogurt.
Enjoy!
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Tags: blueberries, breakfast, chocolate, cocoa nibs, fruit, full-fat yogurt, greek yogurt, honey, maple syrup, natural sweeteners, plain yogurt, spices
You tap a maple, you get maple syrup. You cut into the flower buds of a palm tree, you get palm nectar that you can cook down into palm sugar. (Specifically, you can tap sugar date palms, sago palms, and coconut palms.) If you let the palm sugar dry out and go from a semi-liquid to a hard block, you can grind it up to create granulated palm or coconut sugar.
Typically, the term “palm” sugar refers to the sap tapped from sugar palm and sago trees, while “coconut” sugar indicates that the source was a coconut palm tree…but often the terms are confused and/or used interchangeably. No matter which palm was tapped, though, these natural sweeteners taste absolutely lovely. And seeing as palm sugar isn’t processed into send-your-blood-sugar-rocketing, over-the-top sugar oblivion, palm sugar also imparts flavor along with its pleasant not-too-sweet sweetness.
Palm sugar in its semi-liquid form dissolves easily in hot and cold liquids and is my favorite sweetener for hot chocolate. Granulated coconut sugar is perfect to sprinkle onto fruit, desserts, or ice cream…or to whisk into quick breads and muffins in place of refined white sugar. To me, the semi-solid palm sugar has a slightly stronger and more unique flavor than the granulated coconut sugar.
Coconut nectar is another lush sweetener and is more free-flowing than semi-solid palm sugar. That’s because the nectar is the liquid that initially wells up out of the cut flower; the darker, semi-solid palm sugar is created by boiling down that nectar. Again, I prefer the deeper-tasting palm sugar. (It somehow reminds me of candy corn!) And because it’s so flavorfully sweet, I find that I use a lot less of it. When I make hot chocolate, for example, I either use a full tablespoon of maple syrup or a half tablespoon of palm sugar.
Whichever you’re looking for, you’ll find these palm-sourced sweeteners in the baking section of well-stocked natural foods/health foods stores and sometimes in mainstream stores. Since palm sugar — also called “jaggery” in Indian cuisine — is used extensively in Southeast Asia, you might also find the palm sugar nestled into the Asian section.
Fresh Limeade with Palm Sugar
To make this refreshing and decidedly tropical drink, pour the juice of 1 lime into a tall glass. Stir in 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 T. palm sugar, stirring well to dissolve the palm sugar. Add 4 ice cubes and top it off with water. Stir again. (This would make an excellent base for a rum or tequila cocktail, by the way.)
Enjoy!
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Tags: citrus, cocktail, coconut nectar, coconut sugar, drink, lime, limeade, natural sweetener, palm sugar, tropical, vanilla











