Healthy Eating Can Taste Good!

One of my missions in life is to demonstrate to people that eating healthy can taste good!  I have a blog that I love to visit called Nourishing Meals (www.nourishingmeals.com)  it contains many tasty healthy and nourishing recipes for all types of meals and snacks.  I have included one of our family favorites below.  This cookie contains good fats for your brain- coconut oil and coconut.  It contains almond flour which is high in protein along with only 2T. of maple syrup a natural sweetener!  This is a great way to sweeten up the day and nourish your body!  They taste like little banana bread bites!  Give them a try and let me know what you think!

Banana Coconut Cookies

These cookies are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. They are only slightly sweet and high in protein, making them a nutritious after school snack served along side carrot and celery sticks. You can add mini chocolate chips to some of them if desired though this will add a little bit of cane sugar. You could replace the 2 tablespoons of maple syrup with more banana if you don't want any sweetener.

Wet Ingredients:
1/3 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium)
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon organic almond flavoring

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups blanched almond flour
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

In a medium-sized mixing bowl whisk together the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and mix together using a fork. Form dough into ball and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Form dough into small balls (about 15) and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten each cookie ball with the palm of your hand. Bake for about 15 minutes. Cookies will be soft straight out of the oven but will firm up once completely cool. You can place them onto a wire rack to cool and then place the rack into your freezer for quick cooling.

Today's Menu!

    Well, today we began out day with a protein punch!  I prepared gluten free bagels that contain 6gr. protein and 4gr. iron each and one of the main ingredients is brown rice flour which contains vit. b's as well.   The next layer was organic peanut butter also high in protein. I topped off the breakfast with bananas: high in fiber, potassium, and a natural way to sweeten things up!  Yummy and healthy way to start the day.

    For lunch today I sent in lunch boxes chicken enchilada soup (I defrosted from the freezer, I had made it in my bulk cooking day), organic corn chips for dipping, spinach salad with poppyseed dressing, craisins and pecans, fruit leather, strawberries, and carrots.  

    Dinner tonight is going to be chicken wings in the crock pot with BBQ sauce, sauteed green beans, and spinach salad with a strawberry vinaigrette.  This is a quick easy dinner as I have a staff meeting that goes until 4:30pm and then youth group at 6:30pm.  So, I will walk in the door, serve up a healthy dinner, and head right out again.

    Snacks today:  Morning snack:  nut pack from Trader Joes- cashews

                            After School Snack:  Veggies and Dip

                            Bedtime Snack:  Nutty Bars

    Even with a busy day we can still eat healthy!  Here is a simple recipe for homemade BBQ Sauce:

    

3/4 c. Ketchup- No High Fructose Corn Syrup/GF

1/2 c.100% Pure Maple Syrup

3 T. Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar (I use Braggs)

Put all ingredients in a bowl, stir, use as a marinade, sauce, 

or in the crock pot with little hot dogs by Thousand Hills Cattle Co.,

 chicken, or meatballs!

How we do it?

People often ask me how do I do all the "homemade" stuff with 5 kids and special diets.  So, I am going to do some blogging about how I make "homemade" food a life style choice.  The first thing I do is each week I make a menu.  This is a plan of breakfast, lunch, dinners, and snacks.  I also include on our menu events that we have going on for the week.  Then on dance night I make a quick and easy meal that can be done early, on the day that I teach I make a crock pot meal, and nights where everyone has something I make a meal (usually crockpot style) that people can eat when they can, luckily this does not happen very often.

Today we started our day with crapes that were amazing.  They are grain free, thus gluten free, dairy free, and no sugar.  I filled them with a choice of strawberries and bananas, blueberries, or apples and cinnamon.  They were a HIT, everyone gobbled them up.  Here is the recipe it is from a blog called Life As A Plate.
(www.lifeasaplate.com)

Sunday Morning Grain-Free Crepes

What you need:

• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 c. coconut flour, sifted
• 4 tbsp arrowroot powder
• 1 3/4 c. milk (can use coconut/almond milk if dairy free)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp honey

What you do:

1. Put the eggs, honey, vanilla, and milk in a bender.
2. Slowly add in the sifted coconut flour, arrowroot, and baking soda.
3. Set a nonstick pan on medium (this is important to not burn or undercook) and melt butter or your fat of choice.
4. Pour enough batter in to thinly coat the entire bottom of the pan. Swirl the batter around till it’s even.
5. Cover with a lid and let cook for 2-4 minutes and then flip for 1 minute to get a quick brown on the other side.
6. Serve with fresh fruit, maple syrup, or your choice of topping!

For lunch I sent peanutbutter honey GF sandwhiches, mixed veggies with dip (a homemade dip I made on Friday, my bulk cooking day):  peapods, carrots, cucumbers, orange peppers- left overs from a veggie tray yesterday when we had guests for a bbq, a home made granola bar (also made on bulk cooking day, I just grabbed it out of the freezer and put it in the lunch box!), strawberries, and a "squeezie" apple sauce for their snack.

For dinner I need a quick, easy, and early breakfast as we are going to the Twins game tonight.  I am making a sundried tomato pesto salmon (sundried sauce I made and froze 1/2 the last time we had it so it is in the freezer, I just need to take it out and let it defrost.), we will have sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli and a spinach salad with it. 

We will have popcorn and peanuts at the game for bedtime snack!  That is how I did it today!  

I Can't Believe It is French Toast: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free Recipe

Today I want to encourage all of you on special diets that you can ENJOY LIFE!  I found that with all our food sensitivities I had one of two options.  1- feel deprived of every good thing because we can't eat anything or 2- explore the world of foods and learn that there is an abundance of options out there I did not even know existed and change my thinking to all the things we CAN eat.  I just needed to learn how think and cook differently.  After many years of doing this (cooking for special diets) I am here to share my tips with you so your journey can be easier and tastier!  So, here is to ENJOYING life- focusing on all the things we CAN eat!

We are basically EGG free in our home.  I use eggs a little bit in baked goods here and there but for the most part, to keep all tummies happy, I stay away from eggs.  It has now become a choice, not a HAVE TO!  Being egg free does make some dishes a challenge.  But, I found a few tricks that allowed us to eat some our favorites!  French toast is one of those favorites.  Below is the recipe.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Ingredients:
2 T. Flaxmeal mixed with 6 T. of water- set aside until it turns into a gel.
1 C. Rice or Almond Milk
1 tsp to 1 T. Cinnamon (we LOVE cinnamon so I put quite a bit in!)
1 tsp. GF Vanilla
GF Bread of choice

Whisk flax meal, milk, cinnamon, vanilla.  Use a griddle set at 350 degrees or a pan- coat pan with coconut oil.  Dip bread, one slice at a time in the liquid mixture and place it in a pan.  Let it sit on the griddle until toasted, flip and toast other side.  Serve with diced fresh fruit and coconut milk whip cream, pure maple syrup, honey, or fruit sweetened jam!

Easter Morning Muffins: Beets and Kale for Breakfast!

This recipe I adapted just a bit from the website www.yumuniverse.com they have some yummy recipes!  I will explain how I made these cupcakes/muffins.  The reviews from my family- kids 2 loved them, 2 kids liked them, 1 kid did not like them.  I loved them, my hubby said he thought they were a bit "kaley".  Took them to a friends house and she loved them and her kids liked them as well.  So, although a bit different to some with a more sensative pallet to the rest of us they were just chocolately goodness, yummy!  In the future I may use purple kale like she suggested- maybe it has a milder flavor!  The dark chocolate covered almonds I found at the co-op they are naturally colored with beet juice and the like...so I better option than food coloring!

Ingredients:

Frosting:
1/2 container of coconut cream cheese
8 drops of liquid vanilla stevia

Cake:
2 leaves green kale, ribs removed and chopped into tiny, tiny pieces

Dry Ingredients
3/4 cup almond flour/meal
1 cup sweet sorghum flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 tsp fine ground sea salt
1/2 cup sucanat

1/2 cup coconut sugar

Blend/Wet Ingredients
1 tbsp chia
1/2 cup warm water
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp cold-pressed virgin coconut oil
3 tsp gf vanilla extract
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup grated beet

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line cupcake pan with paper liners. In a blender put chia and water and let sit.  Mix in a large bowl all the dry ingredients.  Go back to the blender and add the rest of the wet ingredients...vinegar, oil, vanilla, lemon juice, and beet.  Blend until smooth.  Pour liquids into dry ingredients and stir until well blended.  I use an ice cream scooper, and put one scoop of batter in each cupcake wrapper.  Place in the oven and bake for 20-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean!