Almond and Sweet Potato Sauce

A Casa de Luz sauce strikes again. With goodness that is!! Man, those people know how to make simple food taste awesome. I halved the recipe and used only one sweet potato, but instead of using 1/2 cup of almond butter, I used just over 1/4 cup and found it to be plenty.
The sweet potato I used, must have been particularly sweet. The Monster tasted the sauce and thought I'd slipped in some dulce de leche! A friend just gave us a tub of the stuff and honestly that probably wouldn't be beneath me by any means. You can adjust the sweetness by adding more lime juice, etc. if you want. One of these days I'm going to have to buy Casa's durn cookbook instead of trolling the internet for their recipes. :-)

Almond and Sweet Potato Sauce:
(Casa de Luz)

2 medium sweet potatoes (about 3 cups)
1 cup unsalted roasted almond butter (used less...just over 1/4 cup for half of the recipe)

2 tsp. shoyu or tamari

2 Tbs. lime juice

Pinch of sea salt

Filtered water as needed

Update:
When we ate the rest of the sauce the next night I added a touch of rice wine vinegar, a bit of sambal oelek (chili sauce), and some more lime juice. YUM.

Wash sweet potatoes and cut into 2" chunks. Place in a heavy pan with 3/4 cup of water. Bring to a simmer, add pinch of sea salt, and cover (I roasted the sweet potato wrapped in foil at 400 for about an hour, then peeled once cool).
Let potatoes simmer over low heat until tender. Remove from heat, reserve any leftover cooking water, and allow to cool, Leftover baked sweet potatoes may be used instead.
Place cooled sweet potatoes, almond butter, shoyu/tamari, and lime juice in a blender with some of the water and puree until smooth. Add a more water until you achieve a consistency you're pleased with. Serve over greens or grains. I served it with lemon and herb baked tofu over quinoa and braised kale.

Casa de Luz' Sun Cheese

Or would that be Sun Cheeze? Not cheese by any stretch of the imagination, just a really awesome topping for veggies (especially greens), grains, enchiladas, pasta...etc. Easy to make and easier to eat! A great healthful condiment to have stashed in your fridge.
I fell in love with this stuff long ago at Casa de Luz' Sunday brunch (CdL serves wonderful macrobiotic meals here in Austin), and had never thought of searching for the recipe til yesterday. Sure enough there it was, right there in the innertubes.

Sun Cheese:
(Casa de Luz Community Cookbook)

1 1/4 cup hulled organic sunflower seeds, soaked 4-6 hours or overnight
1 clove garlic
2 Tbs umeboshi vinegar (Central Market has this if you're in Austin)
2 Tbs lemon juice
1+ cup filtered water

Place seeds in bowl and cover with water to soak. Allow seeds to soak 4-6 hours or overnight (I just soaked for about 6 hrs.)

Rub seeds between hands to loosen skins. Skins will float to the top of the soaking water (so they said!). Pour out skins and soaking water. Rinse seeds, cover with water and repeat the process until most of the skins have been removed and poured out. The more skins you remove, the whiter the sauce will be.

Place seeds in a blender with garlic, lemon juice and umeboshi vinegar and add 1 cup of water.
Blend until desired consistency. I just let mixture blend until it was as smooth as I could get it.
For a thinner consistency, add up to 1/2 cup more water.
I just used the 1 cup for a thicker sauce, figuring I'd be using it for different things and could always add more water later.

Place sauce in a bowl and refrigerate. I like to think it got better in the fridge...after the flavors had a chance to marry.

Baked sweet potato, our homemade raw sauerkraut, quinoa, steamed kale topped with Sun Cheese

Vegan Thai Coconut Pineapple Banana Muffins

Hey, I finally made the Thai Coconut Pineapple Banana Bread healthier! I actually used my vegan nanner bread recipe, but added in all the goodies from the Thai style recipe. Very nice!
Will be even "nicer" next time when I follow the recipe below, but also add in chunks of Lindt's coconut white chocolate bar. That addition totally negates the recipe's veganess, btw. ;-)
I don't have a picture of these, because they went right into the freezer...lest I gobble them all up at once!

Vegan Thai Coconut Pineapple Banana Muffins:
(Makes 10 regular size muffins)

3 ripe bananas
3 Tbs extra-virgin coconut oil, melted (can use canola if you want, but I liked the extra coconuttiness, plus e.v. coconut oil is supposed to be really good fer ya)
1/2 cup agave nectar
~1/4+ cup unsweetened dried coconut
1 Tbs lime juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2+ cups whole grain spelt flour (I added a bit more to the recipe after seeing it was a bit wet)
2 Tbs coconut cream powder (Central Market in Austin has this in Asian section)
3 Tbp mild curry powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 cup chopped pineapple, fresh, or canned in juice
~1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
turbinado sugar to sprinkle on tops for sweet-crispitty-crunchy-goodness!

Heat oven to 350.
Oil muffin tin.
In a bowl, mash bananas then add melted extra-virgin coconut oil, agave, dried coconut, lime juice and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, sift together spelt flour, coconut cream powder, mild curry powder, baking soda, and salt.
Blend the wet and dry mixtures, then fold in pineapple and nuts.
Pour into oiled muffin, sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake for about 23-28 minutes, or until tops just spring back upon applying gentle pressure and a toothpick comes out cleanly.
Remove from oven and let cool in tin for about 5 minutes, then remove from tin to cool on a rack.