Cherry licorice tapioca/garbanzo flour pudding is delicious.

...in non-pomegranate related kitchen news.

In the writing of my initial draft - I first melted the kitchen timer by leaving it too close to the hot stove. Then I proceeded to scorch beyond saving, not just one, but three kitchen pots, and salvaged one. Clearly the phone timer is not a substitute for me. Or the paper….

To the point - I lost my pudding double boiler and tried using my rice cooker to make tapioca pudding because my gut misses it - and it worked! Smaller batch, but easier.

*Addition: There is now a follow-up post with a Licorice Pudding (no cherries) recipe, Retinoid Toxicity strikes again . . . (substack.com). It turns out that tart cherries are a very good source of vitamin A equivalents and beta-carotenoid. Good news for me - I did manage to save one of the 3 pans. I hadn’t looked at the third one very closely - just shoved the burnt mess in the garage to deal with later. The pan wasn’t scorched, after all, just the food.

It led to a new variation on my tapioca theme (How much butyrate?, jenniferdepew.com) - dried tart cherries, water, licorice root powder, and to thicken it tapioca starch and roasted garbanzo bean flour (precooked beans made into flour), and to make it creamy, coconut oil.

Tart Cherry Licorice Pudding

I’ve made two batches and am working on the ratios - second try was too big a batch, I ended up bringing it back to a boil in a bigger pot than the scorched ones.

• 2 cups tart cherries, dried

• 4 1/2 cups water

• 3 rounded Tbs of coconut oil

• 1/2 teaspoon rounded, salt

• Sweetener - this batch got a generous amount of a hardened lump of brown sugar, maybe 1 1/2 cups roughly. I tasted my initial mix and added the last lump too, as tart cherries are quite tart.

Make a starch slurry with a 1/2 cup water and set it aside until the cherries are hot, boiling, then add the slurry and stir - it needs to come back to a boil.

• 6 Tbs tapioca starch

• 4 Tbs garbanzo bean flour

• 2 rounded Tbs of licorice root powder

• *If I wanted to add some pomegranate inner pith, powdered, 2 Tbs would go in with the starch slurry.

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My first batch had smaller amounts of water and only tapioca starch and the same cherries and same licorice powder and it had more - Zow - what was that? from the licorice but was stringy from the tapioca.

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This is an experiment that I will just have to keep working on - so good! It is innovative - the tapioca starch as a solo thickener is a little too resistant and acts like stringy melted mozzarella. The garbanzo bean flour adds some protein content and thickens but breaks up the stringy effect of the tapioca starch. Traditional tapioca pudding made with the pearls is too milky for me and I always add additional starch to thicken the broth. The beads confine the stringy effect and therefore a combination of tapioca beads with some garbanzo bean or arrowroot starch could also be additional thickeners. Arrowroot also turns translucent and is less stringy but similar to the tapioca starch. I make a slurry and add it after the tapioca beads are translucent (or cherries are ready) and the pudding is simmering.

When the pudding is finished it will be somewhat thick but still runny compared to after it chills, so the opaqueness is what I look at. Tapioca thickened pudding will turn translucent when it is ready. It just needs to return to a boil for a minute once the fruit or pearls are ready. If the batch ends up staying too runny, use it as a sauce or reheat it with some additional starch slurry to thicken it to your liking.

Health Benefits of Cherries

The cherries are a pain killer and more does not increase the pain-killing effects than about a 1/3 cup - so I have small amounts or just a spoonful as a more frequent treat and belly and body comfort. A review of the health benefits of cherries: (Kelley, Adkins, Laugero, 2018).

Cherries are also a natural source of melatonin. “Which Cherries Have the Most Melatonin?” (chukar.com)) Answer: Tart Cherries

Related posts - Why pudding makes us happy - the melatonin/opioid tangent. (substack.com)

Health Benefits of Licorice Root Powder, (organic)

My source of organic licorice root powder (on sale - unaffiliated) Mountain Rose Herbs.

CAUTIONS -

Licorice root powder in medicinal amounts is not recommended for pregnant women as it may affect fetal brain development. (WebMD)

Licorice root affects potassium and may cause arrythmia and is not recommended for people with heart conditions and it may raise blood pressure, so caution is recommended for people with hypertension. (WebMD)

Caution when other diuretics are used as it increases potassium excretion. Licorice use with Aldactone is contraindicated. (WebMD)

Caution when other blood thinners such as Warfarin as it may lower the active level of Warfarin in the body. (WebMD)

Benefits for other people may include:

A long history of use in Traditional Chinese Medicine for GI problems, infections, malaria, and insomnia.

A long history of use as a sweetener in candy, beverages, and medicine which provides health benefits from the over 300 bioactive chemicals and flavonoids. It is 50 times sweeter than sugar and I make a hot beverage with a 1/4 teaspoon of the powdered root in a mug - sweet and licorice flavored with nothing else needed.

Glycyrrhizin is the most bioactive phytonutrient with the largest body of research showing benefits for weight control, fighting infections or cancer, and healing stomach ulcers. (WebMD)

De-glycyrrhized supplements of licorice are available but for my health purposes the glycyrrhizin is part of what I want for medical benefits. Excreting extra potassium may help my tendency towards edema - I get worse when I skip my pomegranate peel tea. So, I am using diuretics, but I seem to need the help. One of my gene alleles may benefit from licorice, and not the DGL type, for activity as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor - MAO-B or less so for MAO-A. (Jeong, 2020) I have a double allele of MAO A/R297R (Call – T). It might cause lower levels of Monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) which is an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters. Now I am not sure how the licorice may help or not help me. I don’t know much about MAO-A and only just learned of MAO-B. Maybe it helps balance the two? Females with the T alleles less often and may have anxiety or self-violence tendencies and a more volatile temper if seriously angered, while males or females with the allele tend towards more anger and aggression. Impulsiveness may be a problem. Yeah.

See: Point 4 in the double allele list: Methylation Cycle Defects – in me – genetic screening “for research purposes only.” (transcendingsquare.com) The screening panel was designed for gene alleles commonly seen in autism and has to state “for research purposes only” - not for diagnostic use. Learning about alleles that affect metabolism means that you can modify your diet and supplements to help reduce issues caused by the alleles. It would be helpful to have systemized help for ‘diagnosing’ metabolic differences in digestion or other pathways and trying to make improvements individually. I have been taking a non-DGL licorice supplement for a few years and during CoV - it has anti-viral benefits too.

I have always loved licorice but can no longer have wheat. Most licorice candy is largely a sweetened wheat product.

Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use. It is not intended to provide individual guidance. Please seek a health care provider for individualized health care guidance.

Reference List

(Kelley, Adkins, Laugero, 2018) Kelley DS, Adkins Y, Laugero KD. A Review of the Health Benefits of Cherries. Nutrients. 2018 Mar 17;10(3):368. doi: 10.3390/nu10030368. PMID: 29562604; PMCID: PMC5872786. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5872786/

(Jeong, 2020) Jeong GS, Kang MG, Lee JY, et al., Inhibition of Butyrylcholinesterase and Human Monoamine Oxidase-B by the Coumarin Glycyrol and Liquiritigenin Isolated from Glycyrrhiza uralensis. Molecules. 2020 Aug 26;25(17):3896. doi: 10.3390/molecules25173896. PMID: 32859055; PMCID: PMC7504216. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504216/

(WebMD) WebMD Editorial Contributors, ‘Licorice Root: Health Benefits, Safety Information, Dosage, and More’. Reviewed by Dan Brennan, MD, 19 Nov 2020. WebMD.com