Berry Simple Sundae

Here is my go to dessert when I need a little treat. It's sooo super easy and only involves two ingredients...

Frozen berries and vanilla ice cream!

I usually have frozen berries (I like to get the multi-berry pack with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries) and vanilla ice cream (I buy Haagen Daz vanilla because it has simple ingredients... cream, skim milk, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla extract) in my freezer because they are easy to store.

Simply warm up the desired amount of berries in a bowl in the microwave or in a small pot on the stove top and when warmed through, pour berries with resulting juice on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream. No added sugar needed to the berries!! Please try it without adding sugar. You'll never go back to adding sugar again! There is enough in the ice cream and in the fruit itself. Okay, as usual... Enjoy!! I know I will. :)

Mediterranean nachos (sans the chips)

I love nachos and I looove Mediterranean food (think gyros or poor man's kebab). So I thought, why not combine the two? Technically what I ate would be the equivalent of the toppings of nachos. But these can be made with "chips." Just take some pita, cut it up into little triangles, coat with olive oil and salt and bake in the oven until crispy. Then put the following on top (or eat by itself)!

Mediterranean Nacho Topping (ingredients for two)

1 onion

1 lb ground beef (or lamb)

1-2 tomato (I used Roma)

2-3 Israeli cucumbers

Handful of olives

Tzatziki sauce (store bought or homemade)

Olive oil for cooking

Salt and pepper for taste

1. Put some olive oil in a pan and add one chopped onion. Sweat the onion until translucent. Then add the ground beef and brown until fully cooked.

2. While the meat is cooking, dice your tomatoes and cucumbers. You can also pit the olives if you like.

3. Once meat is cooked, put in serving plate (if using pita chips, put on top of the chips). On top put the tomatoes, cucumbers and olives on top of that and then top with your tzatziki sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!! Read below for a tzatziki recipe...

Tzatziki or Cacik Sauce

2 cups plain yogurt

2 cloves garlic

3 medium cucumbers

Salt

2 TBL chopped dill

1. Place yogurt in bowl.

2. Grate garlic into yogurt, dice cucumbers or grate and add into yogurt, along with dill. Mix well and add salt and pepper to taste.

Pesto Pasta (almost)... includes pesto recipe

I used to be quite the pasta girl. To tell you the truth, now that I have been without for quite some time, I don't miss it as much as I thought I would. Though the idea of having some every once in a while pops into my mind. So I have tried a few different grain free options, including buckwheat noodles (or Soba... if you try these make sure the ingredients list only buckwheat, some include wheat flour as well) and black bean noodles. Both of these are grain free, but very starchy. When they cook, the water boils over like crazy (the wooden spoon across the top trick does not work here), so you have to watch it closely. These options are good if you really want pasta, but taste closer to whole wheat pasta. Anyway, I would eat them again, but figure I don't miss pasta that much to make the effort.

Fast forward to this weekend. I picked up something new to try in the noodle arena because I thought I'd give making pasta another try. This time I bought Kelp Noodles. These are made solely of Kelp and salt extracted from Seaweed. They are virtually calorie free (6 calories per serving, 18 in the whole bag). They are very easy to use and don't require any cooking. All you have to do is take them out of the bag and rinse them. If you have any left you are supposed to store them in water.

I decided to try these with pesto sauce, so I will include my recipe for that too.

Here they are before:

Here is my pesto recipe that I used to add to my clear Kelp Noodles...

Delicious Pesto Sauce

Very simple: Blend together 4 cups of basil (you can also use parsley or arugula or a mixture), 1 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts (you can also use walnuts), 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese, 1-2 cloves of garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Voila! You have your pesto. :)

After rinsing the noodles, add your pesto sauce. Enjoy! The noodles were pretty tasteless and didn't impart any weird taste, so I think they are good to enjoy with any sauce. 

Note: One thing that's a bit different about these noodles is that they are slightly crunchy. I'm kind of weird about textures, so I'm not sure I will use these as a pasta alternative in the future. Because even though they were great and perfectly fine, I couldn't get over the idea of crunchy pasta. But I will definitely use them in soups and salads where a little crunch is possibly expected. :)

Grain-free sausage pancake bites

So I saw this post online and was immediately excited because I love pancakes and I love my sausage. I was a wee bit skeptical of the picture, because it definitely looked like something made with grain. After making it (I'll share my picture compared to the picture I saw on the internet), I am pretty sure that the picture did not display the advertised ingredients. Anyway... despite their funny looking appearance, they were actually quite tasty. Somewhat on the drier side, but with a little syrup they gave me the grain-full pancake breakfast feeling. Now I'm super full! So here is the recipe and the pictures... Enjoy!

Sausage Stuffed Pancake Bites

1 cup Blanched Almond Meal (maybe this is where I went wrong, mine was not blanched)

3 Large Organic Eggs (or non-organic)

2 TBS Oil (I used coconut oil)

3 TBS Water or Milk (I used water, should have used milk)

3 TBS Granulated Sugar

1/4 Tsp. Salt

1-2 Sausage links (I used Trader Joe's Chicken Jalapeño Sausages)

Oil for Cooking

1. Cook cut up pieces of sausage and set aside.

2. Add 3 eggs to a blender and blend until thick and smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until all ingredients are blended well and smooth. 

3. Drizzle a little oil onto a pan if making pancake style. The author used an ebelskiver pan (I don't have one of these). I used a greased muffin tin in the oven (cooked at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes until cooked through). Wherever you pour the batter, put a piece of cooked sausage into each mini pancake. Flip after about 1 minute of cooking. 

Recipe from: http://realsustenance.com/grain-free-sausage-stuffed-pancake-bites/

 Internet Photo

How mine came out. :/

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Apparently I wasn't done with cooking for the day. I decided to bake something sweet. So here is the recipe for a simple flourless chocolate cake. It is grain and gluten free, but probably far from low-calorie. This makes a good size cake so be prepared to share. Hope you enjoy as much as I did!!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet tonight and it was still very good)

2 sticks butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 eggs

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 10-inch pan.

2. Melt chocolate and butter in the microwave in 30-second increments until melted. Stir in between increments. (Do not overheat)

3. When melted, whisk in sugar. Then add eggs one at a time, whisking well after each. 

4. Sift in cocoa powder and whisk until combined. Pour batter into pan.

5. Bake until top has formed a thin crust for about 35-45 minutes. Cool cake in pan for about 10 minutes before serving.

Dust with powdered sugar and serve with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream. 

Simple Soup

Today I made my standard hearty and healthy soup. It basically includes anything you have in your fridge or freezer. You can start by sautéing a chopped onion in a little olive oil in a big pot (I try to do everything in one pot... for less clean-up). You don't have to sauté the onions, but it helps minimize the overwhelming smell left in your home. Once the onions are translucent, add the rest of your ingredients.  Here is what you can include:

Liquids
Chicken Broth or Vegetable Broth
Add some water until desired liquid level is reached

Garlic (I mince one clove)

Vegetables (can be frozen)... as many as you want
Kale, spinach or collard greens
Tomatoes or half a box of Pomi (this is what I use)
Okra
Sweet Potato
Squash

Beans (I use one or two kinds)
Any kind of bean. I've used canned or frozen;
Lima beans
Broad beans
Edamame - shelled (Trader Joe's sells frozen shelled Edamame)
Chickpeas

Spices (really whatever you want)
Salt (if not using chicken broth)
Pepper
Dash of crushed red pepper

Once liquid is just at a boil, bring to a simmer and let cook between 45 min to an hour (to desired consistency). Then enjoy! Tonight's pot made 7 servings. Plenty for the whole week or for a very hungry family!

* Note: you could add noodles, gluten-free noodles or rice to add a grain. I obviously don't.

Paddleboarding

In the midst of this negative degree temperature, I am reminiscing fondly of the beautiful summer we had and how much I miss my lake activities!

This past summer I tried something new that I had been wanting to try for some time... Paddleboarding! I thought it would be harder to balance, but I seemed to be a natural! This is a great activity that can stimulate the mind and body. I realized that I found an exercise that didn't feel like work and that I can now include in my tool bag for relaxation and self-care techniques. Great activity to enjoy with friends or by yourself in combination with mindfulness techniques. Be safe and have fun!!

(Me on my way to a healthier lifestyle)

Note: Apparently they even have classes for yoga paddleboarding.