No Oat Chocolate Granola

OK, I just have to share this one with everyone.  Once again, not my recipe, but it’s so good that I have to share it here. From www.paleoplan.com

It’s definitely gluten-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, and paleo friendly.  I believe even vegan. 

While I was making this, the entire house started to smell of chocolate.  It was out of this world. I made it in the evening, so I had no trouble falling asleep to the seductive aroma of warm chocolate.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup almonds
• 1/3 cup raw unpasteurized honey
• 3 Tbsp. Camino Cocoa Powder
• 3 Tbsp. Earth Balance Vegan Butter
• pinch of pink Himalayan Salt
• 1 Tbsp. 100% organic Vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Here is what you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 225F. 
2. Take walnuts and almonds and pulse in the food processor until it gets a coarse consistency.  You don’t want to end up with a fine nut flour consistency. Leave in the food processor for now.
3. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the honey with Earth Balance Butter.  When melted together, add raw fair trade cocoa powder, a pinch of salt and Vanilla extract.  Whisk together until it becomes the consistency of chocolate sauce.
4. Add the chocolate mixture to the nuts in the food processor and pulse so that everything is well incorporated.
5. Now add coconut and pulse again for a few seconds.
6. Spread the entire mixture evenly over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Place in oven for 3 1/2 hours. 
8. Allow to cool and then break apart into smaller pieces.  I used a large chefs knife to roughly chop it up.

This recipe will make a large container full.  Don’t leave on your countertop unless you want to be tempted to snack on the granola every time you walk past it.  It’s hard not to, so tasty

Spicy Turkey Stoup

Paleo-friendly, in other words, Gluten-free, wheat-free, dairy-free, high protein goodness.

I’m calling this one a “stoup” because it’s a combination of a soup and stew.  The recipe makes enough for 2 people to enjoy, and even some leftovers for the next day.  Bonus!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb turkey breast, diced
• 2 Tbsp. Coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp. Pink Himalayan Sea Salt
• pinch of fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp. chilli powder
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 8-10 button mushrooms, sliced
• 2 red bell peppers
• 1 Tbsp. red Thai curry paste

• 1 tsp. Bragg soy sauce

• 1 can (400mL) reduced fat coconut milk

Directions:

1. Marinate the turnkey in 1 Tbsp. coconut oil, salt, pepper, chilli and garlic for about 1 hour, in the fridge.
2. Heat a wok to medium-high heat.  When the pan is hot, add the rest of the coconut oil and sauté the onions until translucent.  Add the chicken and marinade to the onions.  Continue to cook for about 10 minutes.
3. Once the turkey is browned, add the mushrooms, red peppers, soy sauce and red curry paste and continue to cook until the peppers are al dente.
4. Add the coconut milk and stir.  Cook for another 5 – 10 minutes, or until the turkey is completely tender. 
5. Enjoy over rice or pasta (if not following a Paleo lifestyle). 

Paleo-friendly Pumpkin cocoa muffins

The recipe is courtesy of www.paleoplan.com.  I did make some changes (in red) to customise it because that’s how I roll.  I also added an ingredient.  Makes 12 small muffins.

 

• 1½ cups almond meal/flour
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (or cook and puree pumpkin yourself)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder I used 2 tsp GF baking powder instead of 1 tsp. each of baking powder/soda
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon I used 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1½ tsp pumpkin pie spice  I used 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg 
• 1/8 tsp sea salt Pink Himalayan Sea salt
• 1/4 cup raw honey (optional) I did
• 2 tsp almond butter   MaraNatha Dark Chocolate Almond Spread
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1 Tbsp. raw, unsweetened, fair-trade cocoa powder
• 1 Tbs sliced almonds I omitted this

1. Preheat oven to 350℉.
2. Coat muffin tins with coconut oil (or use paper muffin cups and add 1/2 tsp melted coconut oil to batter).
3. Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer and pour evenly into tins.
4. Bake for 25 minutes on the middle rack.
5. Sprinkle almonds on top immediately after taking them out of the oven. (I didn’t do this)

These muffins are actually pretty good, and even easier to make. They weren’t at all sweet, and you can really taste the pumpkin and the pumpkin spices.   The coconut adds a nice flavour too.  I will definitely be making these again very soon, but I found so many other paleo friendly cookies and muffins that I want to try out too.  I think next time I am going to make the muffins a little larger, so maybe only 6 muffins. 

Nutritional analysis….per serving….

153 calories

12 grams of carbs

11 grams of fat

5 grams of protein

Chocolate Rhubarb Brownies

Did I mention these are also Gluten-Free?
That’s right.  Take a look at these.  Not only are these brownies gluten-free, but they are also loaded with healthy fats and skinny on the sugar.  What could be better than that?

Now I can’t entirely take 100% of the credit for this creation.  I’ve been reading a lot of recipes in the last while, and although I did tweak my recipe to my own liking, the inspiration came from several of the sites I came across. (none specifically)
Now remember how I said they are loaded with healthy fats?  Yuppers!  The base of these brownies are made using avocado as well as a little bit of coconut spread and avocado oil.  I figure that it’s about time I don’t feel so guilty when I want to indulge and give in to my chocolate habit. 
These brownies are very moist, which I believe is due to the avocado in these decadent treats.  And they aren’t as sweet as regular brownies, so don’t be expecting a sweet chocolaty taste.  They have more of a bitter-sweet chocolate taste, which is also due to the avocado because this fruit tends to get a little bit bitter when heated.  Regardless, they are worth every bite.  
 Ingredients:

• 125g dark chocolate, melted ( I used Cocoa Camino’s Organic Semi-sweet 54% baking chocolate)
• 3 medium avocados
• 1 Tbsp. avocado oil
• 3 Tbsp. coconut spread (Artisana Organic Raw Cocoa Bliss)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 3 large eggs (try to use organic free-range eggs when possible)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (again I used Camino’s 100% cocoa powder)
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbsp. sorghum flour
• 1 tsp. GF baking powder (aluminum-free)
• 1/2 tsp. pink Himalayan sea salt
• 3 stalks of red rhubarb, chopped into small pieces

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next purée the 3 avocados in food processor and make sure there are absolutely no lumps.  You want a nice smooth consistency. (such a cool color)

Place the avocado purée into the bowl of your stand mixer (or in another bowl) and add all of the remaining ingredients to it (except rhubarb).  Beat with your mixer until the consistency is smooth and fluffy.  Then fold in the rhubarb.

Beware!  I ate a couple of spoonful's before baking and I could have easily eaten the whole bowl.
Pour your batter into an 8x8 dish and bake for about 35 – 40 minutes.  When you insert a toothpick, it must come out clean. 

Let it cool a bit before cutting and enjoy!  Best enjoyed when cooled in refrigerator.

Garlic and Herb Chicken Hot Pot Chowder

A quick and easy hot pot chowder to prepare on a busy night that also happens to be  Gluten and Dairy-Free!  Bonus!

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp. avocado oil
• 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 sprigs of fresh dill, chopped
• 2 fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 3 small fresh oregano leaves, chopped
• 1 small sprig of thyme, chopped
• 1 can of corn kernels
• 8oz can of chopped tomatoes
• dash of Worcestershire sauce
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into small pieces
• 3 Tbsp. sorghum flour
• 5 cups organic free-range sodium reduced chicken stock
• 1/4 cup dry red wine
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups of GF noodles, should be small, such as the kinds you may find in chicken noodle soup

Directions

1. In a large pot heat avocado oil and add chicken pieces.  Cook until golden brown, then add onions, garlic and fresh herbs, cooking until onions are translucent in color.
2. Deglaze pan by adding the red wine, making sure you scrape all of the good bits off the bottom of the pan. 
3. Add the flour and stir vigorously to mix well.  Almost immediately add the chicken stock a little at a time, making sure to continue stirring so that you don’t get any clumps of flour in your chowder. 
4. Add the corn, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.  Let come to a boil.
5. Add your noodles of choice.  I used small round thin GF noodles as well as some GF orzo I had.
6. Cook until the noodles are al dente and enjoy.

Chicken and Wild Mushroom Bake

Greetings to all you lovely bloggers that have ventured or stumbled upon my blog today.  I’m so glad that you are here. 

Did everyone get a chance to check out and/or partake in yesterday’s The Great Fundraising Act?  Oh my gosh, there were some amazing items to bid on. Over $26,000 was raised on behalf of Susan, a truly amazing Canadian blogger behind The Great Balancing Act.  She was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has quite the battle and medical bills ahead of her. My thoughts go out to her and her family during this difficult time in their lives. 

Now on to food...

---

Last night I decided to make something with chicken.  And that’s how my chicken bake came to be.  Sometimes I really do enjoy making things that are simple, especially on busy nights. 

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup Gluten-free flour mix (or all-purpose)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 3 chicken breasts
• 1 can cream of Wild Mushroom and Garlic Soup
• 1 cup Non-fat Greek yogurt
• 6 fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 2/3 cup shredded cheese of your choice

Set the oven to 350F.  Combine your flour, salt, paprika and pepper in a ziplock bag.  Shake the chicken, one at a time, in the flour mixture.  (remember to shake off the excess flour).

In a large frying pan, brown the chicken on all sides.  Place them in a baking dish large enough to hold them all.  In the same pan, sauté the mushrooms and pepper until tender.  Spread over the chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

In a small bowl, combine the soup and yogurt.  Pour over the chicken and vegetables.

Bake for 1 hour until the chicken is tender.  Sprinkle the casserole with cheese and return it to the oven until the cheese is just melted and a little brown. ( I didn’t have enough, but oh well).

Serve with a tossed salad or over some rice or gluten-free rice noodles. 

This casserole can even be prepared the night before.  Just refrigerate it and when you get home from a long day at the office or after running the kids to swimming, soccer or hockey practices, just pop it in the oven and get ready to enjoy. 

Bon appetite!  Back soon.

Bea

xoxo

Brought to you by the letter “A”

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.  Do anything interesting?

Well since it’s been raining all day again, I had to come up with a creative way to spend my day.  I took a peek through my fridge to find ways to use up the rest of my produce before my grocery shop tomorrow and came across a very lonely avocado.  Lately I’ve been eating a lot of avocados in my smoothies, but wanted to use it up differently. 

A little while back I tried out one of Angela’s recipes that looked oh so temping…her Chocolate Torte.  She uses avocados as her base for the filling and like I said before, you’d never taste it.  So I thought why not recreate something of that sort.  So instead of making an entire torte, I decided to make a simple Silken Chocolate Pudding.  (pictures taken on my Blackberry until I get a new camera – sorry for the low quality)

Ingredients and directions for 4 large servings

Place the following ingredients into you Vitamix or Food processor….

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1/4 cup organic raw cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup raw agave nectar
• 2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 Teaspoons of Navita’s Naturals Protein Twister Blend
• 1 Teaspoon Olive Oil (or coconut oil)

Turn on the mixer and gradually add ….. 1/4 cup So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Beverage (or almond milk if you so desire) until you get the consistency that you desire. 

For all those sceptics, believe you me when I say that the avocados cannot be tasted at all.  The cocoa masks their taste.  I’m not a big fan of guacamole because I’m not a huge fan of avocados.  Just make sure you buy ripe avocados.

But if you really want to taste some decadent, rich, chocolaty goodness that’s good for you, you must try this.  Yes, it does have 250 calories per serving (an the servings are fairly large, so feel free to have less), but it’s a healthy fat and definitely satisfies anybody’s chocolate craving.

Even better…it’s raw, vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free!

Back again soon.

Bea

xoxo

Creamy Dill with Salmon and Orzo

Here’s a great recipe that’s a breeze to put together in a snap.  It’s relatively low in fat and Dairy-Free.  You can make this one Gluten-Free if you sub the orzo for a GF pasta or even some good brown and wild rice. 

So I kept aside some of the fresh sockeye salmon that I was smoking, enough to make this great dish.  I didn’t take pictures in the process either.

Ingredients: 

• olive oil
• 1 minced garlic
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 3 mushrooms, sliced
• handful of fresh spinach, chopped
• as much or as little Dill as you like ( I added about a handful)
• some fresh salmon
• splash of skim milk (maybe 1/2 cup or so) – sub for a dairy-free milk variety
• 2 tsp of GF flour, such as sorghum or rice
• pinch of salt and pepper
• splash of Worstershire Sauce
• 1/2 cup cooked orzo

Procedure:

Over medium heat, heat oil and sauté the mushrooms and pepper until translucent.  Sprinkle the flour over the veggies and stir until slightly browned.  Add the milk and mix so avoid clumps.  As it boils, the sauce will thicken.  I can’t exactly remember how much I added, but if the 1/2 cup is too little, add more.

Next add the minced garlic and spinach, as well as the salmon.  I sliced my salmon into strips and this will cook very fast.  Also add your dill, salt and pepper and worstershire sauce.  Cook for about 5 minutes or until your salmon is cooked through.

Drain your orzo and serve the sauce over the orzo.  And ladies and gentlemen, here is the Creamy Dill with Salmon and Orzo.

Bon Appetite !

Have a great weekend everyone.

Bea

xoxo

Breakfast and Dinner perfection

It felt so nice to sleep in this morning and to wake up to the sun shining and the snow all melted away.  Trevor is away this week, on a work trip and also visiting family out East, so I have the weekend to myself.  And since I finished up my report cards last night, I planned on having a fairly mellow weekend, especially after a crazy busy week. 

When I woke up this morning, I decided to try my hand at making the popular Breakfast Pizzert I keep hearing and reading about in the blogosphere.  Christin over at Purple Bird Blog made one a while back that looked really tempting.  SoI thought I’d try one out myself this morning..with no kids around and no commitments, let the cooking experiment begin

TADAHHH …….

Looks like one ginormous cookie or pancake….and it tasted oh so good. I ate it around 10:30am and my stomach didn’t even make a peep until about 4pm.  Definitely very filling.

GF Apple Pumpkin Breakfast Pizzert

Mix together all of the following ingredients

• 1/2 cup  Gluten-Free flour mix
• 1 tsp  Aluminum free Baking powder
• 2 tsp  agave syrup
• 2 Tbsp  100% pure pumpkin pure
• 1/2 grated apple
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 Tbsp  Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter
• 1 tsp  Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp  Vanilla
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/3 cup  Chocolate Chips

Spray a glass pie dish and pour mixture into the prepared dish.  Stick in a 420F oven that was NOT preheated for about 15 minutes.  Allow to cool in the pie dish for a few minutes before trying to remove it. 

I found mine was a little tough to get out in one piece without breaking it, so if you eat it right out of the dish, why not?  I also drizzled mine with some maple syrup, but you can top yours with whatever your little heart desires. 

---

I’m sure glad I managed to get my pizzert out of the oven in time this morning.  About 10 minutes after sitting down for breakfast, the power went out.  I had already noticed when I got up that all of the clocks were flashing, so this was obviously not the first time the power went out today.  But with the power out, it was perfect timing to get out of the house and run a bunch of errands.

I planned out my meals for the next few days, made myself a grocery list and headed over to Trevor’s house to take care of something for him.  I also made my way to the school to print off my report cards, prepare some stuff for Monday and work a bit on my class banner (pictures to come soon… you will NOT want to miss those). 

Now on to tonight’s meal… it’s DA BOMB……..

---

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Smashed Potatoes and Squash

It didn’t take long at all to make the Lamb and the flavour was unbelievable….juicy, tender and very very tasty. 

Here’s what I did…….

ROASTED LEG OF LAMB

• 1 Kg  Butterflied Boneless Leg of Lamb
• 3 Tbsp  Pesto
• 2 Tbsp  Balsamic Vinegar
• 3 tsp  olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• salt and pepper to taste

To prepare the marinade, mix all of the ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside while you prepare the lamb.

Trim any excess fat off of the lamb, including that large gland that is often found on a leg of lamb.  (not every piece has one, but most do… it kind of looks like a really big chunk of fat, but it’s more round and bubbly). 

Place the lamb in a dish and pour the marinade over the lamb.  Cover and place in refrigerator for a couple of hours. 

Preheat your oven to 450F.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and go get your meat thermometer.  Find the thickest part of your meat and insert thermometer.  Place the meat on the cookie sheet and into your oven.  Mine took about 20 minutes or so, but you want an internal temperature of 145F for Medium Rare. 

After you take it out of the oven, tent it with aluminum foil and let rest for about 10 minutes.  By doing so, the juices in the leg of lamb will have a chance to settle.  Then place on a cutting board and cut with the grain into desired thickness. 

Serve lamb with potatoes and vegetables and all of the good juices that came from the lamb. 

Smashed Potatoes and Squash

I used 3 medium red potatoes and a medium sized butternut squash.  Place the potatoes into a large pot.  Peel and slice your squash into large pieces and place into pot with the potatoes.  Add enough cold water to cover your vegetables.  Then boil until tender…about 25 to 30 minutes.

Drain the water and then peel the potatoes.  Add some fresh grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, 2 Tbsp of Earth Balance Butter and about 1/2 cup of milk.  Smash everything together until you get the consistency for mashed potatoes.  I also added about 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese.

---

For dessert I had a bowl of fresh fruit and some non-fat vanilla yogurt. 

So the night comes to an end with an anticipated good game of hockey.  We play tonight at 10:45pm (gross times, but it’s for the love of the game…).  I’m going to try my dandiest to not fall asleep on the couch before I have to leave..only about 1.5 hours to go.  But then again, I do get to sleep in tomorrow morning.  There will be no school visits on my agenda either.. simply a day to relax, play with the dog, enjoy some fresh air and do a little bit of cooking.  Oh…and plan out a few lessons on nutrition for my class. 

What are your plans for Sunday?  What do you do when you have a day to relax?

Hope you’re all having a great weekend.

Bea

xoxo