Recipes
Healthy, delicious recipes that I've created through trial-and-error. In addition, these recipes have substitution ideas, fit special diets, and kitchen gear recos. š
Fall in Love With Pumpkin Breakfast Bowls
Wondering what to do with extra canned pumpkin? Eat it! Fall in love with a Pumpkin Breakfast (or snack, or dessert) Bowl.
Pumpkin Power! Easy Gluten-Free Muffins to Energize Your Fall
Have you seen the Pumpkin Spice ads yet? Lattes, coffee creamers, nail polish (not kidding). While some new pumpkin spice products are questionable, I know Pumpkin Muffins are a winner. It’s not quite fall, but I’m already seeing Pumpkin Spice everything. Advertised in coffee shops and stores, pumpkin spice is like a retail cue of the fall season. Honestly, I think Pumpkin Spice Lattes (or “PSLs” if you’re a cool kid) are kind of disgusting-tasting, even though I love pumpkin. š And, if you’re trying to reduce sugar intake, PSLs are something you might not want to drink. Pumpkin itself, spiced or not, is an amazing vegetable packed with nutrition…
Amazing Chicken Salad in Under 30 Minutes
Remember the chicken salad of your youth – or, the chicken salad found in the pre-packaged deli section of your local convenience store? I’ll bet it’s a mash-up of pulverized chicken bits, eggs, and mayonnaise … maybe some salt, too. Is it tasty? Maybe. Inspiring? Not really. Visually appealing? No way – it looks like vomit. The Case For Chicken Salad If you like the idea of chicken salad but are looking for something a little more interesting than the chicken-egg-mayo combination, this post is for you! We – meaning I’ve prepared and my family has suffered, er, “tested” – have tried many chicken salad recipes. Curried chicken salad, chicken…
No-Bake Cookies – The Easy Way
Want delicious, chocolatey, gluten and refined sugar-free no-bake cookies in 30 minutes? Me, too. Problem: Hot Day at Home & No Ice Cream It was 100’F outside yesterday afternoon, and my kids had a hankering for a cold treat. They were horrified to find out that we were totally out of any kind of ice cream, ice cream bars, popsicles – even our fresh fruit was room temperature! Solution: 30-Minute No-Bake Cookies Yes, you can have super chocolatey, peanut buttery cookies without using the oven or stovetop. What makes this recipe work The fat is solid at room temperature. You can use any fat – coconut oil, butter, lard –…
Salad Slam! 4 Simple Steps to Perfect Salads
Hi there, this is an updated post for this summer, and I’ve added a FREE salad-making guide that you can grab using the form below. š If youāre from a certain generation and geography, the word āsaladā may conjure up images of limp iceberg lettuce with a few carrot shreds and bottled ranch dressing. Perhaps youāve seen āJello saladā, which combine sweet gelatin with any manner of canned fruits, marshmallows, pudding, and even sometimes vegetables. Don’t believe me? Here you go – itās real. For the purposes of this post, the term salad will always include leafy greens and vegetables. It will not include jello, pasta, canned fruit, or marshmallows.…
Make Your Own Vinaigrette in 2 Minutes
One of my favorite things to make at home is salad dressing. And, now that all four of us are eating every meal at home, our family is consuming – and making – a lot of dressing! You may have read my past post about my all-time favorite Magic Sauce dressing recipe. While I love Magic Sauce, it has a lot of ingredients, and I donāt always feel like getting the blender out to make it (no matter how much I love my blender). Thank goodness some genius invented the vinaigrette. No matter what the situation, if you have oil, vinegar, and a bottle to put it in, you can…
Easiest, Juiciest Pork Chops Ever
I get excited about pork – itās delicious, easy to cook, versatile, and more sustainable than beef (not to mention less expensive). According to research published by the National Academy of Sciences, pork uses 10% of the environmental resources to produce – on a per pound basis – than beef. That is shocking – and a relief – for me, because it gives me solid reasons for choosing pork over beef. And, who can resist the smell of fried bacon or a low-and-slow-cooked pork shoulder? Even when I was a vegan, I loved that aroma wafting through my neighborhood from someone elseās kitchen. Except for the two years of being…
How To Get Anyone To Eat Broccoli
Tips for getting the perfect caramelization every time. Anyone with a bunch of broccoli, a knife, and an oven can make amazing roasted broccoli. With a few ingredients and three key principles to keep in mind, you will amaze your family and friends by turning broccoli into a binge-worthy side dish. Before going any farther, I want to set the mood and mindset for optimal broccoli chopping … If you’re of a certain age, or if your family is really into Saturday Night Live, then every time you think of, ahem, “choppin’ broccoli”, this comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VUrbtUwsRXo?start=150 As you can see, broccoli preparation can be both delicious and hilariously…
Taste A Little Summer With Hawaiian-Inspired Ahi Tuna PokƩ
Fast, fresh, and super healthy I love pumpkin-spiced desserts and gravy-covered meats, and other fall and winter foods. However, after Christmas, I immediately look forward to temperatures above 32āF and days with more than nine hours of sunlight. Thatās not happening anytime soon here in Central Oregon, so I wanted to find a way to bring a little summer into my diet. My husband Chris and I made a recent trip to Hawaii – in December. Yes, it was sublimely warm and sunny. After that experience, we wanted to have pokĆ© here on the mainland, as a reminder that it’s warm and sunny somewhere. A few of the most popular…
Protein-Packed Lunches
Easy add-ons for a boost in protein and healthy fats Lunch: the meal that is often treated as an afterthought. In our busy lives, lunch is a meal that we āgrabā, āpick upā, eat at our desks, or consume while doing something else entirely. Increasingly, lunch is simply a means to an end – a way to prevent hangriness – so we can keep going through the rest of our day until dinner. This relegation of lunch to the sidelines of life just makes me sad. My ideal would be to sit down at a table, maybe with other people (what?!), and enjoy each bite of a simple, fresh, and…
