A gift from Grenada

Banana pancakes made with rice flour and nutmeg. Yummy!


Lake Bars Jason and I made out of: dates, raisins, almonds, walnuts, almond butter, sunflower seed butter, vanilla, sea salt and nutmeg everything ground in a food processor then formed into bars and rolled in coconut.

Fresh nutmeg!

Jason came home from our practice a few days ago with two shiny brown seeds. One of his patients had visited Grenada and she was thoughtful enough to bring us fresh nutmeg.

I knew very little about nutmeg and even less about Grenada so I did a little google research. Grenada is known as "The Spice Island of the Caribbean". It is said you can smell the nutmeg wafting in the air.

"There are three layers that surround the nutmeg fruit. The outer layer, known as the pericarp, is used to make nutmeg jelly. The red membrane, which enwraps the shiny dark nutmeg shell, is known as mace, nutmeg's twin spice, which is eventually dried and ground, and used in a variety of dishes. Inside this shell is a seed - the nutmeg. No part of the nutmeg is ever wasted including the shell, which is used as flower bed mulch and for covering garden plants." http://www.nut-med.com/story.htm

Well I was excited to get such an unusual treat and from such a far away land! I broke the thin outer layer off exposing the meat of the seed. I have been grating nutmeg and sprinkling it on almost anything the past few days - love it.

We took a trip up to the mountains to escape the heat and take the baby to the lake. We decided to make a little snack with us. Jason and I set to work making fruit and nut bars. I grabbed the food processor and Jason started pulling stuff out of the cupboard - the result yummy bars. We rolled them in fine coconut tand packaged them up they were perfect to enjoy by the cool lake.