I can’t believe I’ve made it a week and already cooked 10 My New Roots recipes! I am rather sorry for the backup in reviews however, I happened to get a stomach bug 🙁 Let’s just say food blogging is not the most fun when you can’t eat anything you look at!
I wanted to get you caught up to everything I have tried so far, so I am going to jump right into it and review four great recipes I have made this week (and started off yesterday with!).
First off, I will chat to you about making the lovely Chakra Fruit Salad With Enlightened Tahini Sauce yesterday, for day 8 of my challenge! You can get the grocery list and nutritional contents for it here. I really enjoyed this salad, and thought the ideology behind it was particularly Interesting. Sarah shares in her post, (she always has such great write ups) in a Reiki class she took, the idea of seven major energy centers in the body, called Chakras. She took the idea of Chakras, forms of energy and light that move through the body and translated it into her recipe – a rainbow salad! I have to say I really did feel alive eating this salad. The tahini sauce complemented all seven fruits beautifully, and was a sweet but light way to end or begin the day. I suggest not overdoing it on the sauce, it is surprisingly filling and felt very full the first time I had it! I particularily love how beautiful it looked, with the colours of the rainbow. The only criticism I have about this salad is buying seven different fruits – it can add up if you aren’t careful! But if you can enjoy parts of the fruits in other meals, then it’s money worth spending! Perhaps you can make a Chakra smoothie with the leftovers 😉 Overall, this recipe was a solid 34/40 – Sarah you have done it again!
Next up are the Savoury Spring Hand Pies, found in the cookbook page 48. I was really excited about making these. As a kid, my dad and I wou
ld always get turkish patties, which were filled with meat and always loved the pastry outer shell. What I particularly like about these is they are made with Spelt flour (an ancient grain which is higher in fibre and nutrients than other grains such as wheat). I couldn’t for the life of me find ramps however, so I substituted with leeks (which ended up being amazing), and used goat cheese instead of feta. Really great taste, and overall texture was wonderful with the crispy outer shell and moist filling. Be warned, you may want to hold off on the sea salt, just add as much as you see fit. With the capers, and feta, it ends up being quite salty on its own. I froze these and took one out in the morning, and was often thawed by lunch. I was also pleasantly surprised by how filling this was, could easily eat one as a meal over a snack. Nutritionally, these pies are packed with complex carbohydrates (33.4 g), as well as 8.9 grams of protein which keep the body fulfilled for a long period of time. Overall this one came in close behind the Chakra Salad, at 33 out of 40 points. 
My my the Moon Macaroons… where do I begin with this one! A friend on Instagram @foodie_lover_ recommended I make this and I was intrigued as I had some leftover almond pulp from some almond milk I made. These are found on page 63 of the cookbook). First of all, is anyone else a bit disappointed by homemade almond milk? Food bloggers constantly say how “easy it is to make” and I beg to disagree. I have now owned 2 food processors and 2 blenders, and each one doesn’t seem to make it properly. My new 400$ Kitchenaid food processor I thought was up to the test, but again, water splatter everywhere! Argh! My friend Kendra, also agrees she had to do her last one in batches. I digress…
I then went to the local health food/ grocery store to find some of the more difficult ingredients: lucuma powder, coconut butter and cocoa butter specifically. I had some issues in the past making coconut butter from scratch (read here). I also was determined to only find lucuma in bulk as the bags I had found were 10$ + and I only needed two tablespoons, also who was to know if I’d ever use it again! Well my dear friend surprised me and bought me a bag as a graduation gift, so that just meant finding cocoa and coconut butter. I was at a loss, so I ended up scrapping the cocoa butter, and attempting to make coconut butter on my own (again). And again I failed, my fancy food processor for some reason could not grind it 🙁 So I ended up finally making it work in my coffee grinder. Needless to say, I had a “Julie and Julia” moment in my kitchen as coconut at one point exploded everywhere, as my poor boyfriend was simply trying to make a sausage for dinner (I burned the sausage) and had a coconut meltdown.
I didn’t want to let @foodie_lover_ down so I made them work! They ended out being pretty amazing, not going to lie, however all I could taste was frustration in every bite haha. I brought them to my school friends for a more judgement free review – they both l
oved them! So my notes in summary: buy coconut butter, don’t worry about getting cocoa butter if you can’t find it, lucuma powder is the bomb and worth the 10$ bag! I know found you can put it in smoothies! This review lost some marks in cost, ingredients and preparation (as noted above) but still pulled a 30/40 overall. 
Lastly, the wonderful Black Lentil Salad with Tzatziki, Avocado and Pea Shoots, again in the cookbook (page 56), a super fresh yet hearty salad! This was really a pleasure to make, as it was easy to prepare, had easy ingredients to find (black lentils are probably the best ones to use, but could use green in a pinch too!), and kept for a long time in the fridge. I didn’t have pea shoots so I spread on a body of spinach, and really enjoyed the super mild vinaigrette, it really let the vegetables do the talking! I was very interested in the nutritional content on this recipe, 16.9g of protein! super great as a light spring/summer meal to fill you up for longer periods of time. This got my highest review of the day, with 36.5 points out of 40. This recipe could easily be made vegan with a cashew cream tzatziki (or perhaps with coconut yogurt?). Please let me know if you have made any substitutions!
That’s all for tonight! I am going to rest up and get rid of this stomach bug for good, so I can review a bunch of more recipes tomorrow, wee!!
xoxo Hannah