I LOVE DATE PASTE!

When I went on my Vegan thing I gave up a lot of the things I loved --- I am not going to even mention meat, turkey, fish, chicken - blah blah blah. I gave up milk, eggs, white refined sugars, white flour, white rice - anything white. Well I always say the only white thing I didn't give up was my husband. :)

But that meant I fell in love again with fruit - real fruit. Straight off the vine fruit - the organic kind. And it's wonderful. For baking or making milk my go to sweetener, if I need it, is date paste. So easy to make. You can mix it with nuts to make a wonderful pie crust, add just a bit to your almond or cashew milk to give it a bump. And it doesn't take much. Fall in love with the produce department. Enjoy!

Simple Date Paste

Ingredients

1 cup Medjool dates, rehydrated

1 ½ cups water

1 tsp lemon (optional)

Direction

1. INSPECT YOUR DATES

Inspect your dates for bugs. It doesn’t happen often but make sure by inspecting. Slice the date on one side and pull it open. You should also check for mold – black mold. This also doesn’t happen very often but you always want to make sure. Take out the seed, cut off the crown, and you are ready.

1. REHYDRATE YOUR DATES

Place your cup of prepared dates and put them in water for about 15 minutes. This will get them to a soft and ready for processing.

1. Once the dates are rehydrated take them out of the water and squeeze out the excess water.

2. Place the dates and a tsp of lemon in the food processor and process until they turn into a paste. You want to make sure there are no large pieces but a smooth paste. If it is too thick you could add a little water to thin it out.

You are now ready to use your sweetener.

You can store your paste in a glass jar in the refrigerator. I have kept my date paste in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. (but it usually doesn’t last that long.)

I am into preparing things ahead of time so I don’t have to be making several things just to get the main thing done I want to do. Yes – it spins my head too. But you can make your date paste ahead of time and freeze it in in mini ice cube trays. Once they are frozen you can take the cubes out and put them in a freezer bag. If you measure the paste out you will always know how much you have in a cube. Do what works for you.