PGM In Season | Will Frolic for Food

TEXT by Celine MacKay | PHOTOGRAPHS by Renee Byrd

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Last week we were thrilled to open the summer PGM In Season campaign with a lovely sweet and spicy eggplant recipe by Sasha. This week we're introducing our next community leader, Renee of Will Frolic For Food. Renee's recipe, created exclusively for you, is delighfully delectable, our mouths are watering and we're counting the minutes until we can make this for ourselves. Like all our in season community leaders, Renee's blog is one that we follow regularly; her writing is inspired and her photography and food styling has us swooning. Perhaps one of the best things about Renee's blog though, is that she believes in eating well, in all senses of the word, and her blog shares a regular sweet treat made with whole, healthy ingredients, and most importantly, joy, like her recent Gluten-Free Chocolate Olive Oil Muffins or her Raw Vegan Chocolate Milk. In a recent post she wrote: "Life can be a vast, delicious dessert or it can be an oppressive paperweight." Yep, we totally agree!

Today Renee is sharing with the lucky Pure Green community a recipe for Vegan Pistachio Nectarine Tarts, and is prefacing the recipe with a few words to help you get to know her. Enjoy the feature and please share your thoughts with us in the comments after you've had a chance to give the recipe a try! Lastly, don't forget to submit to the PGM In Season community cookbook project before Sept 5!

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5 Questions with Renee

WHAT THREE WORDS DESCRIBE YOU BEST?

Vibrant. Grounded. Inspired.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INGREDIENT?

Oh you know I can’t pick just one! I would be lost without a high quality coarse Celtic sea salt, best quality olive oil, virgin coconut oil, full fat coconut milk, and lemon juice. I use those ingredients every day of my life. Also, avocado is basically my life blood.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BEST KITCHEN FAILURE / ACHIEVEMENT?

My best recent kitchen failure was attempting a vegan cold-brew “bulletproof” coffee. I tried to combine coconut oil and cold brew in a blender. You could describe it as: delicious coffee topped with coconut oil sludge. It's like I knew it wasn't going to work but I did it anyway. I'm sure it's great with hot coffee though!

My greatest success… I don’t know! I feel like I achieve lots of little successes day in and day out. Maybe nothing that's going to change the course of humanity or anything. But I like finding joy in small achievements. They're all sort of a blur at this point. My knee jerk reaction is to mention some sort of dessert. Because it makes me feel fancy to think I’ve achieved success with any gluten free dessert ever. But I think my favorite recent success is a hemp mayo / aioli recipe. I sort of stumbled on it. IT'S DELICIOUS. I put it on all the things. That’ll hit the blog in September.

HOW DO YOU INCORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY INTO YOUR LIFE?

I live a minimalist lifestyle. I don’t accumulate material things that don’t serve a vital purpose or bring me lasting joy. I live in a small house. My husband and I only have one car. But I bike or walk everywhere. Minimalism helps cut down on participating in waste culture, I think. Absorbing stuff into our lives creates a lot of clutter (in my home and in my mind). And I don’t want to be feeding into that loop.

My husband and I also do our best not to accumulate food-stuffs that come wrapped in lots of packaging. The result is that we eat a lot of fresh foods. And we end up with a lot less trash at the end of the day.

WHAT DOES EATING LOCAL, SEASONAL, ORGANIC FOOD MEAN TO YOU?

I think to me, eating this way is a part of my practice of ahimsa -- non-harming. And so it's part of my yogic path. But it's also just, you know, delicious. Yes I want to eat Organic because I don’t want to consume nasty chemicals. And I don’t want to support people that put chemicals into the earth, generally. But I also want to eat foods that are fresh and at peak flavor for the season. A tomato in August tastes just as a tomato should. And that tomato offers a bounty of nutrition when harvested at the right time. Plus it reduces my carbon footprint like WOAH when I eat local!

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VEGAN NECTARINE PISTACHIO TART

An oat and sunflower seed crust is filled with overnight coconut yogurt, nectarines, and pistachios! Fresh, tangy-sweet, and perfectly summer seasonal. If you don't care for making your own coconut yogurt, you can use store-bough plain coconut yogurt. If you're not vegan, use full fat greek yogurt or goat milk yogurt.

Ingredients

COCONUT YOGURT

1 can full fat coconut milk
1 capsule active probiotic (I use Udos Flora High Potency Probiotic, 48 billion cells)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon maple syrup

CRUST

1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup coconut chips or flakes
2 cups gluten free rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
pinch Celtic sea salt

FILLING

1 cup coconut yogurt (or sub any unsweet full fat yogurt)
5 medjool dates, pitted
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped of its seeds
2 nectarines, pitted and sliced
1/4 cup pistachios, chopped roughly

Method

YOGURT

Combine the coconut milk, the contents of 1 capsule of active probiotic, lemon juice, and maple syrup in a medium or large mason jar. Stir with a non-metal spoon. Cover with a breathable cloth and secure with a rubber band. Let sit in a warm environment for 6-24 hours (depending on how tangy you like it!). When you're happy with the tanginess, cover and refrigerate.

CRUST

Preheat the oven to 350F. Toast the sunflower seeds in a wide pan over medium heat until just beginning to brown and become fragrant. Add the sunflower seeds to at the bowl of a high powered blender, along with the coconut, oats, and cinnamon. Blend on high until you have a semi-fine flour blend. Add the coconut oil, maple syrup, and celtic sea salt. Blend on high until your have a pliable dough. Press equal amounts of the dough into four 4.75" tart pans with removable bottoms (or one regular 9" tart pan with a removable bottom). Prick the bottoms of the tarts with the tines of a fork all over. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Once baked, let cool completely at room temperature before removing the crusts from the tart pans.

FILLING

Combine 1 cup coconut yogurt, dates, and vanilla bean in the bowl of a high powered blender. Blend until smooth.

Putting it all together

Pour / spoon the coconut yogurt filling into each of the tarts equally. Top with nectarines and chopped pistachios. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve. Best within 24 hours.

Enjoy!