I’ll add a pic of the finished dish a bit later but after I posted this teaser on Instagram so many of you have been asking for the recipe that I wanted to get it up here for you all.
Category Archives: Recipes
Glazed Root Vegetables
This was a lazy cooking day. I was actually surprised that this dish turned out as well as it did. I don’t know why I’m still surprised that extremely simple recipes turn out to be my faves. I guess after years of cooking “five star” meals it’s hard to set aside the idea that you need tons of ingredients and even more time to create something extraordinary. While I used carrots and jicama for this dish, this works well with any winter squash. Try it with sweet potatoes, butternut squash, or acorn squash.
Cut vegetables into chunks, or sticks.
Heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil over medium heat. When oil is hot, place vegetables in pan and lightly salt them. If you use sea salt you can thank me later. Saute for three to five minutes until the veggies just start to get tender. Stir them occasionally. In a small dish mix a scant one tablespoon coconut sugar or honey, two tablespoons water, or juice, or broth, one teaspoon seasoning from the list below. Cook and stir until veggies are glazed and just barely tender.
Seasoning:
Cumin
Ginger
Curry
Hot sauce
Cayenne
Crushed peppers
Ginger
Curry
Hot sauce
Cayenne
Crushed peppers
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Three Ingredient Super-Healthy Chocolates
Virgin run of my new silicone heart mold.
I love, love, love this recipe is. I love how the basic recipe is only 3 ingredients and really doesn’t need anything else to achieve melt in your mouth deliciousness. I love that you can add all kinds of things to change it up. I love that you basically melt and stir and you’re done. So get out your microwave safe bowl and get to it.
Ingredients
1 cup coconut butter (this is the whole coconut pulverized, don’t use coconut oil or the resulting chocolate will melt in your hands)
1 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup honey
Instructions
Melt the coconut butter in the microwave or in a double boiler. Stir in the cocoa powder and honey. Pour into molds or onto parchment paper. Leave out to set or speed up the process by putting in the fridge.
When chocolate has set unmold or cut into squares. Store in fridge.
Variations
Stir 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, almond extract, mint extract, coconut extract, or orange extract into he chocolate mixture.
Stir 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper into the chocolate mixture.
Add 1 tablespoon green powder, maca powder, or mesquite powder to the chocolate mixture. These ingredients won’t enhance the flavor but they’ll add tons of healthiness to your candy 🙂
Cut the honey in half for a more bittersweet chocolate.
Use cocoa butter in place of the coconut butter.
Sprinkle large flakes of sea salt over the chocolate after pouring it into the mold or onto parchment.
Break up whole wheat pretzels and scatter over the chocolate after pouring into the mold.
There’s tons more that you can add to this recipe but I’m drawing the line here because I’m going to head to the kitchen to make another batch to bring to tomorrow’s beach picnic.
Just a note – I’ve been experimenting with this recipe and so far creamed honey tastes the best, although regular honey works fine. Maple syrup does not work – AT ALL. I’m working with adding peanut butter to see if it sets up. So much fun working with healthy candy recipes. It feels (slightly) virtuous eating candy made with good ingredients.
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Low Carb & Gluten Free Lemon Garlic Pasta
I wanted to share with you all another super easy shirataki recipe. I like to make up several packages of the pasta all the way through the boiling stage and then let the pasta sit in the salted water for as long as possible. Then I’ll drain and rinse the whole pot, setting aside what I need for tonight’s meal and putting the rest in the fridge for quick dinners later in the week.
Drain and rinse two or more packages of shirataki noodles, any shape that works for you. Place in a microwave safe bowl or medium sauce pan and cover with water. Liberally season with garlic salt. Bring to a boil, turn off heat and allow to sit until you’re ready to use them. I like to let the pasta sit in the salted water as long as possible.
When you’re ready, drain and rinse the pasta. Top with:
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest
2 tablespoons smashed or chopped capers
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley (optional)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup freshly grated or shredded Parmesan
sea salt and black pepper to taste
Toss, taste, adjust and enjoy 🙂
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Pasta Nicoise
I love me a good tuna casserole and once I got off wheat based pasta that’s been one of the things I’ve missed. I’ve come up with several tuna casserole recipes which we’ve all enjoyed, but I wanted to have a go-to dish for those times when we were hankering for a tuna casserole but there wasn’t time or I didn’t have all the ingredients. This quick Pasta Nicoise does the trick. Bekki M – please don’t mention any comparisons to Slop on Glop on Rice in the Comments 🙂
Note: this recipe is not gluten-free, because of the flour used in the sauce. You can sub 3 tablespoons coconut flour + 3 tablespoons additional milk for the whole wheat flour.
This recipe makes 8 servings, mostly because we love leftover Pasta Nicoise. It’s like mac ‘n cheese that way, it just gets better with age. And just like mac ‘n cheese it’s best reheated in the oven so that you get to enjoy all the crusty browned bits. You don’t get that with a microwave.
Ingredients
4 packages shiritaki pasta – any shape
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced or very thinly sliced
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons white whole wheat flour
3 & 1/2 cups unsweetened plain nondairy milk (you can use dairy milk if you prefer)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
10 ounces drained white tuna
2 cups frozen peas, thawed
Instructions
Drain and rinse shirataki noodles, any shape that works for you. Place in a microwave safe bowl or medium sauce pan and cover with water. Liberally season with garlic salt. Bring to a boil, turn off heat and allow to sit until you’re ready to use them. I like to let the pasta sit in the salted water as long as possible.
When you’re ready, drain and rinse the pasta.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat melt the butter and olive oil together. Add the onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour and cook until the flour is slightly golden, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the milk and cook until the sauce is thickened, about 3 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Add drained pasta, stir to combine. Leave on heat until hot. Remove from heat and serve.
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More Easiest Tastiest Breakfast EVER
We’ve all been enjoying the egg bake cups so much that I got to work making up some variations.
These can easily be converted to a Paleo breakfast by eliminating the cheese.
If you’re doing low carb and want to reduce the carbs a bit you can add 1/4 to the vegetable side and subtract 1/4 from the onion side.
Feta Spinach Cups
You can use plain ol’ feta or you could use one of the varieties that have sun-dried tomatoes or other add-ins.
1/2 cup chopped frozen spinach (thawed and squeezed to get as much water out as possible)
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup feta cheese
Heat a small pan over medium high heat. When hot swirl some cooking oil into the pan. Add the onions to the pan and saute until soft, seven to eight minutes. Mix spinach into onions. Divide vegetables among muffin cups, topping with feta cheese and then egg base either evenly divided among the cups or filled to 3/4 of the cup. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until egg is puffed and golden.
Remove from pan and serve or cool, pack in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to one month.
Asparagus Cups
1/2 cup diced asparagus
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup shredded white semi-soft cheese such as jack, Havarti, mozzarella, gouda …
Heat a small pan over medium high heat. When hot swirl some cooking oil into the pan. Add the onions to the pan and saute until translucent, about five minutes. Add asparagus and saute until al dente. Divide vegetables among muffin cups, topping with shredded cheese and then egg base either evenly divided among the cups or filled to 3/4 of the cup. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until egg is puffed and golden.
Remove from pan and serve or cool, pack in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to one month.
Tomato Bacon Cups
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced bacon
1/2 cup shredded white semi-soft cheese such as jack, Havarti, mozzarella, gouda …
Heat a small pan over medium high heat. When hot add bacon and cook until crispy. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Add the onions to the pan and saute until translucent, about five minutes. Add tomatoes and saute until most of the moisture from the tomatoes is cooked off. Divide vegetables among muffin cups, topping with bacon and shredded cheese. Either evenly divided egg base among the cups or fill to 3/4 of the cup. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes or until egg is puffed and golden.
Remove from pan and serve or cool, pack in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to one month.
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Low Cal Snack – Dried Tomato
Juicy tomatoes ready to become tomaisins.
When I’m running errands I don’t like to stop for lunch. I prefer to pack up a baggie or two with veggies and/or fruit. Recently I’ve been running a lot of errands and getting tired of carrot and celery sticks so I thought I’d try making up a few low cal snacks that I can toss in my bag and eat just as easily as my unimaginative veggie sticks.
First up are these dried tomatoes. Super easy. I cut organic grape tomatoes in half, sprinkled with salt and placed on a dehydrator tray. I dried them at 115 degrees so I could keep these raw but you can dry them at any temp that you like. In fact I started drying these later in the day and before I went to sleep I turned the dehydrator down as low as it would go so they could keep drying but not get over-dried while I slept. The next morning I turned the dehyrdrator back up to 115 and a few hours later my tomatoes were now tomaisins.
Note: I like to take half the tomatoes out when they’re at the chewy stage and then keep dehydrating the rest until they’re chewy crisp.
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Buffalo Ranch Popcorn
Do you all love popcorn as much as I do? Lately I’ve been trying to move away from microwave popcorn. I started by switching to organic microwave popcorn which actually tastes WAY better than popcorn of the Orville Redenbacher variety, however it does still use palm oil and butter flavoring. I tried several types of popcorn that didn’t have the bad stuff added to it and didn’t really like the taste. So the next stop on the popcorn train is to make it from scratch so I can use the kind of oil I want and then add different seasonings to make it fun. This Buffalo Ranch version is the first one in a series that I’ll be posting. I love that this one has tons of flavor and isn’t loaded with butter. If you want to really make the butter stand out, brown it before adding the buffalo wing sauce.
Ingredients
8 cups popped popcorn
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons buffalo wing sauce
1 tablespoon ranch seasoning mix
1 teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
Place popcorn in a large bowl or paper bag. In a small bowl mix butter and buffalo wing sauce. Drizzle this mixture over the popcorn and toss to evenly distribute.
Sprinkle ranch seasoning and sea salt over popcorn and toss again.
Now settle in with a good movie or if you’re in my house take it out to the bonfire in the back yard.
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Deliciously Easy Parmesan Pasta That’s Gluten Free & Low Carb
If you’ve read any of my books then you know that I have an on-going love affair with shirataki pasta. It’s 20 calories and ZERO net carbs per serving! Seriously! I mean, really, I’m not messing with you. “How is that even possible?” you ask. It’s a miracle of soy + yam + Japanese culinary skills and the end result is as versatile as “regular” pasta.
Drain and rinse one package of shirataki noodles, any shape that works for you. Place in a microwave safe bowl or medium sauce pan and cover with water. Liberally season with garlic salt. Bring to a boil, turn off heat and allow to sit until you’re ready to use them. I like to let the pasta sit in the salted water as long as possible.
When you’re ready, drain and rinse the pasta. Top with extra-virgin olive oil, melted butter, freshly grated or shredded Parmesan, sea salt and black pepper to tasted. Toss, taste, adjust and devour.
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Spicy Parmesan Kale
I love kale. I don’t know what it is but give me my choice of greens and I’ll choose kale every time. Even so, sometimes I get tired of my go-to recipe of Garlic Kale and start playing around until I come up with a new way to serve this nutritious leafy green.
This recipe serves 4 as a side dish. Add ham, bacon, or chicken and it’s a meal for 2. My apologies to any vegetarians or vegans reading this recipe, please know that in the interest of helping families to accommodate the varied tastes of it’s members I like to include variations of many of my recipes that may include meat or dairy.
If you’re not adding meat to this dish, you can make it a meal by serving it with a pot roast, steak, chicken, fish or for my vegetarian and vegan readers I love a really good whole grain bread, toasted and brushed with olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar.
Ingredients
2 large bunches of kale (if you’re picking from your own garden that going to be 2 pounds)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon chili flakes
3 garlic cloves, smashed and minced
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
Instructions
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onions, salt, pepper, chile and cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes. Add the kale and garlic and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the Parmesan. Taste and add salt, pepper, and olive oil if needed.
Variations
Stir 1/2 cup bread crumbs in with the Parmesan.
Add 1/2 cup toasted, chopped almonds, cashews, pecans, or peanuts with the Parmesan.
Add 1 to 2 cups chopped cooked chicken, ham, or bacon at the end.
Quick Version
Use 3 five-ounce bags of prewashed, deveined kale in place of the 2 bunches of kale.
