Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Ani Phyo’s Healthfully Decadent Raw Coconut Kream Recipe

Dessert has always been my favorite part of any meal (though I do love apps!) and while I’ve managed to tame my sweet tooth in the last few years, I’ve by no means eliminated it. (By tame I mean I can get my sweet-happys from maple syrup, honey, and desserts made with fruit and less sugar.) Frankly, I’d rather carry around an extra five pounds than skip desserts, in all their toothsome glory. But I try to concoct or uncover desserts that are healthy as well as tasty. Just because it’s dessert doesn’t mean that it has to be a nutrition wasteland!

So stumbling upon Ani Phyo’s wonderful raw dessert cookbook (with 85 recipes!) was a coup. As you may already know, raw foods retain all sorts of wonderful enzymes, vitamins and minerals, plus are less ‘predigested’ (I know it’s a bit gross, but that’s basically what cooking is; partial digestion of food before you eat it). That means your body has to work a bit harder to digest, which makes you feel full longer and is actually really good for your gut. All of which means you get more nutrition and eat less when you go raw. While I’m not a raw foodist by any means, I’m going on my 19th year of vegetarianism and love the way whole foods that are minimally processed taste and make me feel. And the more I’ve read about the benefits of raw, the more I try to incorporate it into my diet.
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Eco Chick Giveaway: Target Earth Day Giftbag

In honor of Earth Month, THREE lucky Eco-Chick readers will win and Eco-Starter Kit from Target. Making small changes, even during typical daily routines such as brushing your teeth and washing your hair can have a positive impact on the Earth.

The Target Eco-Starter Kit includes the following items (for more ideas visit the new eco-boutique):

Target Eco-Starter Kit:

* Home Organic Towels
* Dr. Bronner’s Organic Fair Trade Shikakai Soap
* Burt’s Bees Shampoo and Conditioner Value Pack
* Conair ECO Ionic 1400-watt Dryer
* Radius Source Toothbrush 3-pk
* H2O Eco Bottle (stainless steel)
* Reusable Tote Bag GiftCard
* Standard Reusable Shopping Bag
* Organic Archer Farms Fruit Bars

To win, leave a comment below telling us which product you’d most love to try and why. When you fill in the comment field, it will ask for you email address. This is the address I will use to contact the winner, so use a real email. There are three winners for this one!

Deets and Promises: Eco Chick does not sell, lease or lend any email addresses we collect. Giveaway ends Friday, April 23rd 2010. Good luck!

“Per FTC guidelines I am disclosing that Target is providing the product which will be given to the three readers.”

Eco Fashion Basics: An Ode to the Perfect Little Black Dress

Wearing my Carol Young LBD at the Mini Exhibit at the Go Green Expo in LA.

It is only this year, my 32nd, that I have truly understood the value of the Little Black Dress. Of course I have heard the legend; what woman hasn’t? This mythical raiment could be worn anywhere, tarted out or demurely cover up, achieve figure flattery whether one was surviving on a diet of tropical fruit and raw macadamia nuts or daily chocolate bars and creamy pastas nightly. A frock that would work equally well with flats or heels, could be thrown in a bag and would never wrinkle, and be made of fabric that would dry quickly after a drenching but keep you from perspiring in the blasted sun (and could even hide said dampness when it inevitably made its moist mark). And of course it had to be impossibly chic.

This Little Black Dress from the very specialized boutique, Little Black Dress Shop

Frankly I had more faith that unicorns still existed in some ruddy-mudded and tangled corner of Eastern Europe.

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Fruit Tree Mapping and Eating (and Driving Green)

I think the Honda Insight’s pretty cool, but the guys behind fallenfruit.org are even cooler! A fun video from Pink Cloud. MMMMMMmmmmmm, loquats.

Thanks to Damien Somerset for the link!

What to Do with Overripe Summer Fruit? Make a Delicious Crisp!

The crisp with chopped fruit, before oat topping

If you’re like me, and have a crazy-busy life, sometimes you come home after three days of running around, and realize that all that delicious fresh fruit you bought at the farmer’s market is….turning (into compost, slowly, on the counter).

I find this incredibly upsetting. It makes me sad to think about those farmers in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut who went to all that trouble to grow my food, bring it all the way to my town, and then it ends up as compost! Having been raised by my grandma, a born-and-bred Manhattanite who lived through the Depression, I have have not only the guilt about tossing food (that’s the NYC part!), but also the skills to figure out what to do with it! Doris Ross, my grams, always did something with old stuff, even if it became dog “porridge”.

So I stared at the overripe strawberries (just starting to develop a fuzzy layer of mold), the drying-out blueberries (and some ancient frozen ones), the mushy nectarines, and thought about blending them, but was a bit worried about the mold. There was just a bit, and I knew it wouldn’t kill me, but it could be dangerous (I’m not a mold expert) AND even a little mold has a strong flavor. I would have to cook it to kill the mold. OK, baking then. And then all of a sudden I saw it, in my mind’s eye: a perfect, healthy fruit tart to eat for breakfast!

I got to chopping, removing any seriously rotty bits and washing off all the mold. I just threw it all in a glass pie dish (see directions below) and voila! It was extra-sweet since the fruits were overripe so I needed to add only a small bit of sweetener. SO GOOD!

Starre’s Superripe Summer Fruit Crisp

-Enough fruit to come up to edge of baking dish (I used about 3 cups of strawberries, blueberries, figs and nectarines to fill a standard pie dish; I bet old grapes, peaches, pears, apples or any fruit other than melon would work well)
-2 cups oatmeal (I actually used the rest of my Dorset Cereal’s organic meusli)
-handful of organic sultanas (better than raisins as they are quick-dried and retain more flavor)
-handful organic pumpkin seeds (any nut or seed would work, almonds or walnuts, etc.)
-tablespoon of organic flax seeds (for easy Omega-3′s)
-1/3 stick organic butter (I like Kate’s from Maine, which wins butter-yumminess contests all the time)
-2 tablespoons organic light brown sugar
-1 tablespoon agave
-cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
-1/2 teaspoon organic lemon zest

Chop fruit into bite-size chunks (as if you were making a fruit salad) and place in baking dish, mixing with lemon zest and then sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg to your liking. I like a bit more cinnamon than nutmeg, but quite a bit of both.

-Top fruit mixture with 1 tablespoon light brown sugar and agave nectar. Fresh ginger would also be a good addition here, but I was out.

In a bowl, mix oats, 1/3 of a stick of butter (melted or at least smooshy), flax seeds, sultanas and pumpkin seeds.

When well blended, spoon on top of fruit and flatten out, covering the fruit with a layer of oat mixture.

Bake in a 400-degree oven for 35-40 minutes (prepare for your house to smell amazing!!)

Oh, the beauty! And it was really, really delicious, which is why I’m compelled to share it with you!

Serving suggestion: Sheep’s milk yogurt tastes GREAT with this crisp scooped on top of it. I like Old Chatham Sheepherding Company’s, which is made in upstate New York and available at Whole Foods in Westport, Connecticut near where I live.