Coconut Curry Shrimp Quinoa Bowl

Happy New Years Eve, all!  Edible item #34 is another “beauty bowl” of sorts.  I decided to stick with the both “easy” and “healthy” trend for the moment.  This one is so simple to assemble that actually, its slightly embarrassing.  The taste payoff is a big one, just so yummy when compared with how quick it is to make and then be digging in mere minutes later.

The coconut curry sauce goes AWESOME smothered atop the shrimp, mixed with the subtly nutty taste of the quinoa, the crunch of the bell peppers and onions adding a great texture variety, the mango lending a surprisingly light sweetness, brightening the entire dish.  All of the flavors and textures come together really nicely, balancing one another out and playing well with each other.

Salmon Pesto Beauty Bowl

Continuing onward with the healthy, chock-full-of-vitamins-and-minerals, lighter fare trend for recipe #33, I opted to whip up another “beauty” bowl.  The reason these bowls are named as such is because the ingredients found within work wonders for your health.  They are AWESOME for your body.  Hence, I call them a beauty bowl because the foods included literally help with making you glow (both with feeling awesome on the inside and looking fabulous on the outside).

This recipe is gluten-free, sugar-free, very low in lactose, and you could nearly label it a “raw” recipe as well.  To describe a few of the health benefits for each of the included ingredients:

*Salmon can help protect the body from free radical damage.  Its also amazing for hair, skin, eyes, bones, and nails.  Eating salmon can help prevent heart disease.  It can also help with support to brain functioning and eye health.

*Quinoa is high in protein and gluten free.  It has been used to promote healing of the skin.  It can also help with energy metabolism of the brain and muscles.  Just google “why is quinoa good for you” and check it out for yourself.  This seed is being called a “new superfood.”

*Spinach boosts anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits.

Country Livin Sweet Potato Pie

Hi all!  I thought I would follow up the sweetest of holidays with a super sweet recipe (except that its not, because its refined sugar-free ;-p).  Sweet potato pie!  This was my first attempt at making one, giving me a slight flutter of anticipation and nerves as I awaited with bated breath wondering how the finished product would come out.

Whoa, was I pleasantly, delightfully, deliciously, delectably surprised with recipe #32.  This one might just become a staple among my regular dessert repertoire.  It was FANTASTIC.  It was absolutely as good as pumpkin pie.  Possibly, just possibly, even better.  I am already dreaming of whipping up another one next weekend.

Pumpkin Mac & Cheese

Merry, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Ok, people.  Recipe #31 is one of my most loved.  Its homey, cheesy, so satisfying.  I can never stop at just one plate.  Its also the perfect winter dish.  Behold, the quintessential Christmas day meal.  (It is gluten-free and sugar-free.  Its definitely not dairy free).  My Christmas gift to you:

Shrimp, Goat Cheese and Blackberry Salad

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!  For recipe #30, I went light, refreshing, easy, and really tasty.  I know all of you have been eating their hearts out with family and friends on this joyous day.  And that is the way it should be!  One of the best parts of Christmas, to be sure.  At least its one of the aspects of the holiday I most look forward to.  Pumpkin pie…gingerbread…stuffing…Christmas cookies…sweet potatoes…oh my gosh, all delectable.

However, I imagine you might be in search of some lighter fare now that the whirlwind of delicious seasonal foods has been consumed.  In which case, I have just the ticket.

This recipe is a super cinch to make.  In fact, it doesn’t really require an official recipe type-up.  You can just toss it all together however it suits your fancy.  Enjoy!

Apple, Rose & Chocolate Chip Cake

Christmas as well as winter time in general practically begs for a requisite mug of tea or coffee to be wrapped within ones hand.  I personally go for (green) tea, but I know most of you likely prefer coffee.  Either way, to each his own.  And what would coffee/tea be without a little something sweet on the side?  However, I am sympathetic to the plight of expanding waistlines that seems to always inevitably come with the holiday season.  That is why I whipped up this particular cake for your tasting (and viewing, because its a rather pretty cake) pleasure.

Made from buckwheat flour (which isn’t a wheat at all, its actually a fruit seed) which means the cake is wheat/gluten free, its also refined sugar-free and lactose-free.  Hows that for something truly sweet during the holiday season?  Now all we need is a blanket of glittering white come Christmas day.  Then, perfection.

For this particular recipe, I decided to continue my foray into experimenting with slightly more unique flavors.  My love affair with lavender is still going strong, but I recently became intrigued with the idea of doing some baking with rose.  Yes, actual rose petals.  Hence, the result is this cake which came out surprisingly lovely.

Without further ado, recipe #29:

Cowboy Black Bean, Egg & Veggie Skillet

Christmas is coming, which means dessert and sweet overload, am I right?  I imagine many of you would welcome a healthier dish to offset the massive caloric bomb the holidays has so aptly deployed to your waistlines.  I have just the dish.  In fact, it was my breakfast this morning which I inhaled while nearly moaning in pleasure, the combination of flavors so yum.

Recipe #28 is my own New Hampshire country girl riff on Huevos Rancheros.  This dish is rustic and homey.  It tastes AWESOME.  Its insanely easy to make, one can throw this together in less then 15 minutes, no problem.  You will be satisfied for hours afterwards.  Its filled to the brim with healthy ingredients and is low in calories.

This recipe is of course is gluten-free and sugar-free.  The lactose in this dish is quite low, though you can omit it entirely if you like by not using any goat cheese.  This recipe is also, essentially, raw.

Ricotta Cookies

Happy Holidays, everyone!  I apologize for the major lag since I last posted.  I was away this past weekend, which is my usual time for baking/cooking and photographing, so there was a pause on the usual churning out of my creations.  That will recommence now.

With Christmas just around the bend, its…cookie time!!  I imagine many of you have similar traditions which may involve any of the following: baking up batches and batches of Christmas cookies in all varieties (while pausing in between to sample spoonfuls of the raw dough, mm mm.  Wait, what, you don’t do that too?  Whoops!).  Piping colorful icing and placing shimmering decals onto your finished cookies just so, to make them all Christmasy and such.  Carefully boxing/packaging up said cookies for friends and family.  And to conclude the baking whirlwind, sitting down and eating a stack of 3…4…5…of the finished product with a tall glass of cold milk or a hot coffee/tea while sitting alongside your colorfully glowing tree with a sigh of contentment.

This is one of my very favorite traditions of the holiday season.  While gingerbread is a requisite recipe for December, I am going to give you an additional cookie for recipe #27.  These babies are refined sugar-free and lactose-free.  They are moist, cakey, lightly sweet, really dang good.  You may just find yourself not wanting to put these on the plate for Santa but instead, end up keeping and eating them yourself.  Enjoy!

Sunday Morning French Toast Bake

For recipe #26, I thought I would go with the lazy-Sunday-mornings-in-bed vibe, being that time of year again.  Once Christmas has concluded, all the holiday splendor, the glittering lights, the nostalgia and romance of this particular month, the remaining winter months seem to stretch on endlessly.  We long for something else to look forward to as the next few months of winter move along.  Am I right?

I have an answer to that.  Breakfast in bed is just one of many awesome things one can look forward to, especially during the winter.  I am thinking long, luxurious mornings lying side by side, engrossed in a riviting read, the covers creating a toasty cacoon.  A steaming plate of French toast, eggs and bacon to snatch bites of in between reading and chatting with your love as one relishes the morning away.

This recipe is just the ticket for the morning I have just described.  Make your own romantic Sunday morning, the details of which you will mold to your liking and preferences.  But this recipe?  Make this part of the deal and you cannot go wrong.  This recipe is both refined sugar-free and lactose-free.

Moms Traditional Christmas Cookies

Happy Holidays, everyone!  I am not going to count this recipe towards the 250-in-one-year goal, as it doesn’t really fit the criteria.  There is both sugar and gluten in this one.  However, I can promise you that this one time, its absolutely worth it.  I made an exception because this recipe is particularly special to my heart.

My mom used to bake up batches this exact cookie recipe for my brother and me every single Christmas, throughout our childhood.  I awaited this time of year almost solely based on these cookies.  She would press the dough into heavy iron mold castings.  Shapes of ballerinas, drums, sleighs, bells, Santa Claus, rocking horses, the list went on.  When they were finished cooking, we would ever-so-gently dig the pillowy cookies out of their molds with the edge of a knife.  The result was a three dimensional shape which we would proceed to cover in colorful frosting and decals.  The taste, awesome.  Light, sweet, cakey, divine.

Typically I would down 5 or 6 of these per decorating session.  My mom would come to the table and grow wide eyed upon seeing the significantly diminished number of cookies left, asking where so many of the cookies had gone.  My brother and I said nothing, our silence and sneaky smiles giving us away.  These cookie decorating evenings were always a great source of contentment and joy for me.  Lots of giggling and coziness came from sitting next to my mom and brother as Christmas music lulled in the background.