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Recipes by Joanne Newell

Orange-Choc Bliss Balls

Makes 20 balls

Rather than opening up a chocolate bar when you next feel like eating something sweet, try making these tasty little morsels – they’re tangy, orange-flavoured balls with a hint of chocolate.

Ingredients
1 cup almonds
½ cup cashews
4 Medjool dates
1 cup sultanas
1 orange, rinsed & dried
¼ cup cacao powder (or carob powder)
¼ cup desiccated coconut, for the mixture
½ cup desiccated coconut, for rolling

Equipment
Measuring cups
Sharp knife
Chopping board
Food processor
Grater
Citrus juicer
2 dinner plates

Method

1. Roughly chop the almonds, so that each nut has been chopped into about 2 or 3 pieces (tip: to make this easier, chop half a cup at a time). Put these pieces into the food processor.
2. Roughly chop the cashews and add these to the food processor.
3. Process the nuts until they look like a fine powder (a bit like breadcrumbs – this will take at least 20 seconds).
4. Chop the dates in half and remove the pit. Roughly chop each date.
5. Add the sultanas and chopped dates to the food processor.
6. Using the ‘fine-grate’ side of the grater, grate the orange’s zest onto the chopping board. Put the zest into the food processor on top of the chopped nuts and dried fruit.
7. Chop the orange in half, and use the citrus juicer to squeeze the juice. Add the juice to the food processor.
8. Add the cacao powder and coconut to the food processor, and process the mixture until it is like a thick, sticky dough. If the mix is a bit stiff, add a few drops of water.
9. On 1 of the dinner plates, spread out the extra ½ cup of coconut. Put the other dinner plate next to it.
10. Wet your hands, and pull off a small chunk of the mixture. Roll it into a ball, making it about the size of a macadamia nut that’s in its shell. Then roll the ball in the coconut, and place the finished ball on the final dinner plate. Chill the balls for at least 1 hour.

Spicy-Coconut Climbing Beans

Serves 4

Whip up some rice, quinoa (pronounced ‘keen-wah’) or couscous to serve with these climbing beans, and you’ll have a very tasty dinner. You’ll need about 30 beans, depending on their size. Oh, and this dish isn’t spicy-hot, it just has yummy spicy flavours!

Ingredients
270ml tin coconut cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
½ cup water
250g climbing beans (green beans)
1 yellow capsicum
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon crushed sea salt

Equipment
small & medium bowls
can opener
measuring spoons
measuring jug
dessertspoon
colander
sharp knife
chopping board
garlic crusher
large nonstick frypan
egg lifter
large spoon

Method

1. In the small bowl, combine the coconut cream, tomato paste and water, stirring with the dessertspoon.
2. Rinse the beans under the tap and then drain them in the colander. Chop off the tips at the end of each bean (‘topping and tailing’ the beans).
3. Carefully push your knife into the top of a bean, then slice lengthways down the bean, making two long strips. Then chop the beans in half acrossways, so that you have four short strips from each bean. Put the strips into the medium bowl.
4. Slice the capsicum in half lengthways. Cut out the core and seeds. Slice the 2 capsicum halves into 0.5cm-wide cubes (have the inside of the capsicum facing upwards, so that your knife doesn’t slip). Add these to the bowl.
5. Chop the onion finely.
6. Put the frypan on the stovetop and add the olive oil to the pan. Turn the heat to medium-high. Add the onion and garlic to the pan and stir it around with the egg lifter, cooking gently.
7. Once the onion starts to become clear, add the coriander, cumin, turmeric and salt to the pan, stirring. Then add the capsicum and beans to the pan.
8. Add the combined coconut cream, tomato paste and water, stirring well with the large spoon.
9. Put the lid on the frypan and cook over medium heat until the beans become fairly soft (25–30 minutes).
10. Serve, using the spoon to lift the vegetables and sauce into serving bowls.

Green Smoothie

Serves 2–3

Have you heard of green smoothies? They’re a bright green colour, and they include dark leafy greens such as spinach and silverbeet – but they taste sweet!

They’re mostly made up of fruit, but have greens added (and no milk).

It’s a delicious way of getting vitamin-packed raw green vegies into growing bodies, and they taste fantastic – you can also freeze the leftovers in icy pole (ice block) moulds.

For extra sweetness, add a dash of honey.

Ingredients
3 bananas
1 date
¼ cup (60ml) water, for soaking
1 large silverbeet leaf (enough to make at least 2 cups, when chopped)
1 cup (250ml) water, for blending
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Equipment
sharp knife
chopping board
large freezer bag
blender
tea cup
measuring jug
measuring spoons

Method

1. The night before you want to make this smoothie, chop the bananas into little pieces and pop the pieces into a freezer bag. Spread out the banana pieces inside the bag, seal the bag, and then put it in the freezer.
2. The next day, open the freezer bag and tip the frozen banana pieces into the blender, leaving them to thaw for about 10 minutes. (Note: if you don’t have time to freeze bananas, just roughly chop room-temperature bananas and add 6 crushed ice cubes to the blender.)
3. Chop the date in half and remove the pit. Chop the date finely, and put the pieces into the tea cup. Pour the ¼ cup of water into the tea cup, on top of the date pieces, and leave to soak (soaking the date makes it a bit easier to blend up).
4. Chop off the white stem at the bottom of the silverbeet leaf (put these tough stems into your compost). Then roughly chop the silverbeet leaf and the white stem that runs up the middle of the leaf. Pop the chopped silverbeet into the blender with the chopped bananas.
5. Then add the 1 cup water, the vanilla extract, and the chopped dates and soaking water to the blender.
6. Blend for at least 20 seconds, or until everything is completely blended. Serve!

Crannie-Oatie-Chockie Cookies

Makes 20

These cranberry, oat and chocolate-chip cookies will probably be gobbled up by your family and friends while they’re still warm, but if you want to keep them for later, put a piece of bread in the storage jar – this keeps the cookies fresh.

Ingredients
125g softened butter
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed into cup
1 egg
1 cup plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup milk chocolate chips

Equipment
2 baking trays, greased or lined
small, medium & large bowls
kitchen scales
measuring cups & spoons
wooden spoon or electric beaters
fork
sifter
dessertspoon
egg lifter
oven mitts
2 heat mats
wire cooling rack

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. In the large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar with the wooden spoon or electric beaters.
3. In the small bowl, lightly beat the egg with the fork. Gradually add the beaten egg to the butter and sugar mixture, stirring or beating gently between each addition.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder together into the medium-sized bowl.
5. Add the oats, cranberries, chocolate chips and sifted flour and baking powder to the butter and sugar mixture, and fold these in with the wooden spoon.
6. Scoop up the mixture with the dessertspoon, and place blobs of mixture onto the baking trays, flattening each cookie slightly.
7. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Using the oven mitts, remove the trays from the oven.
8. Because the cookies will still be soft, leave them on the trays for 5 minutes before using the egg lifter to lift them onto the wire cooling rack. Leave to cool (if you can wait that long!).