Chia Jam

This recipe idea came to me during my recent trip to Australia. I was sitting down overlooking the beautiful scenes of sydney harbor, treating myself to devonshire tea (aka tea and scones with jam and cream). I thought to myself "there must be a way to make jam thicken without adding all that sugar". Fast forward a few days to when I was making my morning smoothie. I added a few too many chia seeds and it became sooooo thick and hard to drink. Voila! I knew what to use. 

Turns out i'm not so quick on the uptake- there seems to be a bunch of recipes online for chia jam. But hey, here's one more for you all from my experiments in the kitchen!

Here's how I made it:

Cooking time: approximately 10 mins

Ingredients:

1 cup blueberries (or berry/fruit of choice)

3 tablespoons water

3 tablespoons coconut sugar

2 tablespoons chia seeds

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:

Add all ingredients into a small saucepan.

Place saucepan over medium heat  and cook, stirring occasionally until berries have popped and jam has reached desired thickness (takes approximately 10 mins).

Chill in refrigerator and serve. 

That's it! So simple and quick. Let me know what you think, and if you have any modifications you have made that you loved please feel free to share on this post! 

Cashew Parmesan Cheese

This is super super simple to make and is a delicious alternative to dairy parmesan cheese. I actually like the taste if this even more! It has a nutty cheesy deliciousness. 

I love adding this to salads, sprinkling it on top of avocado toast, cheese alternative in homemade pesto, sandwiches & tacos etc etc. 

Prep time: Just a few minutes!

Ingredients:

1 cup raw cashews

4 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

3/4 teaspoon of salt 

Directions: 

Place all ingredients into food processor and grind until ingredients take on the consistency of fine crumbs. That's it!