"No Healthy Diet" website plug

Recently I wrote a post for a blog that a friend of mine started. The blog focuses on maintaining a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free healthy diet. You can find recommendations, recipes and products, along with some tips for avoiding foods containing allergens. I hope you check it out! The blog gets updated several times a week. It's an excellent resource to be aware of, whether you can use the information yourself, or know someone who has an allergy to dairy, gluten and/or soy.

Can you spot the common allergens in this photo? :-)

 http://nohealthydiet.com/
And here's the link to the post that I wrote:
http://nohealthydiet.com/healthy-diet-plan/essentials-for-a-healthy-diet/

P.S. I am going to post photos of our family's garden as soon as I get our camera back! :-)

What's Cookin'?

A few weeks ago we got a big box of utility apples from the orchard in town. I decided I was going to make a few things with them. Here are a couple photos from the The Big Baking Day. :-)

Pie #1: 

Pre- top crust

(enlarged to show texture)

Ingredients: A boatload of apples, some honey, a dash of cloves, a pinch of allspice, a sprinkle of nutmeg, a little bit of stevia (and two whole wheat/butter crusts). Recipe? What recipe?! :-)

 An apple peeler/corer/slicer is an amazing gadget. :-)

The apples bowl. Phew, that was a lot of apples!

The crust is on and about to be baked! Unfortunately I have no other photos of this particular pie... I put it out for dessert on Sunday and it completely disappeared. :-) I'm glad my first pie was edible! 

Pie #2:

The final product

Pie #3:

I made this cake gluten free. I tried using quinoa and coconut oil for the crust.

I'll need to do a bit more experimentation in the future... it is (or was) still really good, though, as evidenced by this photo.

It went very well with homemade yogurt. :-)

A couple more experimental apple creations:

And that's how I spent my Saturday. :-) I used up the entire box of apples. Phew!

I'm an author!

Well, not really. But I did get my first recipe published on Recipezaar today! It's a variation on another recipe on there (you can find the original recipe via my recipe) for these really yummy brownies. Mom and I made some substitutions to make them a bit healthier and they were such a hit I decided to write down exactly what we did. You can find  the recipe Here. Enjoy!

Carrot Pancakes

For breakfast today I was contemplating making pancakes. However, I wanted a pancake slightly more nutritious than the ordinary flour/eggs/baking powder/milk ones that I normally make. So I went to Recipezaar.com to see what recipes I could find for vegetable pancakes.

I found one very basic recipe for carrot pancakes, which I ended up making for lunch instead of breakfast (I had a scrambled egg with chopped bell pepper instead). I tweaked the recipe a bit and it came out tasting rather delicious! Here it is.

            Carrot Pancakes
           Makes approximately 6 3”x3” pancakes 
            Ingredients

• 3 medium carrots, grated
• ½ medium onion, chopped
• 2 medium sized eggs, beaten
• 1 cup of flour
• Salt/seasonings to taste (I used trocomare)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

1. Peel and grate carrots into a large bowl; also chop and add the onion.
2. Add the eggs, flour, seasonings and baking powder, then mix well.
3. Cook in oiled frying pan on medium heat until brown (2-3 minutes on each side).
4. Enjoy! :-)

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You can tweak this recipe as much as you want to, of course. You can adjust the size of the pancakes, how much onion or flour, ect. These pancakes are also good as a meal in themselves: with a glass of milk, of course. :-)

Chocolate Avocado Pudding

A couple months ago my Mom found a really yummy recipe for chocolate pudding. But this isn't any ordinary chocolate pudding. It's actually healthy! Mom found this recipe on a blog called Food as Medicine. You don't even have to necessarily like avocados to enjoy this pudding. Here it is! 

Chocolate Avocado Pudding :-)  
Ingredients

• 4 avocadoes
  1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder OR 1/2 cup carob powder
• 1/2 cup of sweetener (maple syrup or honey with/and/or stevia to taste)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

• Slice the avocadoes in half, remove the pit and scoop the flesh away from the skin.
• Add to blender or food processor along with the other ingredients.
• Process until smooth.

*Add water in 1 Tablespoon increments if needed to achieve a creamy consistency

We sliced bananas and put them at the bottom of our pudding bowls when we ate ours. It's quite yummy, and it's also good for you! Enjoy!

What recipe?

Supper. And with no recipe. That means no amounts, no ingredients, no instructions.

Well, I had kind of made it before at the farm, but even then I had no recipe.

It started with ground beef and cabbage. But it didn't end there...

Anyways, I decided I would try making this ground meat, cabbage and vegetable thing that I had made before with a friend's help. Other than cabbage and ground meat, I had no idea what to throw in the frying pan. I ended up putting in sliced carrots, broccoli, salt, pepper, Bragg's liquid aminos, oregano and some garlic.

It actually came out pretty good for having no recipe! It's really easy to throw together, especially when you have no idea what to make! ;-)

Pie!

Today I made a sour cream pear pie. You can find the recipe for it on Recipezaar.com; I highly recommend it!

My sister used this recipe once before, and I decided to try it myself. It actually came out really well. Before we tried this recipe I had never eaten a pear pie! It's really tasty.

Fresh out of the oven

A few pieces went missing... :-)

I replaced the sugar with honey (I used a little less than the recipe called for) and added an extra tablespoon of flour. The topping didn't end up being crummy (which is good, I suppose!) since I replaced the sugar in it with honey. I added extra flour to it and ended up pouring it over the pie. It worked out pretty well. It might not look as nice, but it still tasted good. :-)