October 2015 – Alicia TL Hamilton

Monthly Archive: October 2015

Paleo Pumpkin Spice Coffee Creamer

I’m super excited about fall flavors. The pumpkin, cinnamon, apples, spices- they are everywhere and I love them all. The temptations to dive into sugary, gluten filled treats is everywhere. So, to tame my cravings for everything pumpkin flavored, I made this Paleo Pumpkin Spice Coffee creamer. It uses hazelnut milk as a base, but you can really use any acceptable nut milk. I made my own & the process is super easy. Here’s a link if you want to try it out. Also, until recently I never used a real vanilla bean for anything. This tutorial from Chow helped me to figure out how to scrape a vanilla bean. This is the method I used to make the coffee creamer.

3 dates, pitted, soaked for a few minutes then drained
1/3 cup pumpkin purée
1 vanilla bean scraped
1.5 cups hazelnut milk or milk of choice (I bet coconut milk would be good too)
1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice – I used one from Trader Joes

Blend all the ingredients in a blender until well combined. Store in the fridge for 2-3 days. Mix well before adding to coffee.

Although I say that this is a coffee creamer, this recipe is adaptable into other goodies. Some suggestions are to make a Pumpkin Spice smoothie. Blend a banana and a few ice cubes in a blender with the creamer as the base then sprinkle it with some cinnamon. Or how about making a chia seed pudding? I made one by simply mixing a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds into the creamer and letting the seeds do their thickening magic for about 20 minutes before topping with whipped coconut cream and some cinnamon.

Paleo, Recipes, Tips and tricks, Vegetarian

Oct

2015

Making your own Hazelnut milk

Alicia Hamilton0

I’ve played around with making almond milk, but just recently started branching out. A couple of days ago I made hazelnut milk and it is crazy good! I especially love it in my coffee. It has the richness of cream and the flavors of fall. There are many different methods to making your own nut milk. Just do a Google search and you could come up with endless amounts of recipes. Here is the method I followed.

1 cup raw hazelnuts
3 cups water – for soaking
2 cups of cold water – for blending
A pinch of sea salt
Blender
A nut milk bag, or fine mesh strainer, or fine cheese cloth

Soak the hazelnuts in 3 cups of water for 12 hours. Drain the nuts and rinse well. Place the nuts into the blender with 2 cups cold water. Pulverize the contents well. Strain the nut milk using the nut milk bag. Squeeze well to get out as much liquid as possible. Add a pinch of salt to the milk and stir well. Store the hazelnut milk in the fridge for 2-3 days. The milk will settle and may separate, just give it a mix before serving.

I like my milk creamy and thick like half and half. If you desire you can add more water to the blender when you get to the blending step. Also, you can play around with adding some vanilla bean to make it flavored. I don’t use vanilla extract because even when I am not doing strict whole 30, I still adhere to most of the rules. But if you are paleo and don’t mind using vanilla extract than you can

Also, you can follow this basic recipe using other nuts such as almonds or cashews.

I also made a paleo pumpkin spice coffee creamer that you can use your newly made hazelnut milk to make. Check it out here!

Paleo, Recipes, Vegetarian, Whole 30

Oct

2015