Tag: recipe

The Best Chewy Sweet Potato (or Adzuki Bean) Brownies – Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free, Vegan

sweet potato brownies

This is one of my best recipes.

These brownies are the brownies of dreams. They have a rich, deep chocolate flavor, but are not too dark or too sweet, and they taste like the best brownie you’ve ever had.

I came up with this recipe one day when I needed to use up some extra sweet potatoes that I had in the fridge. Somehow this recipe came together so quickly (and I worked perfectly the first time!), and taking the first bite of these brownies made my heart sing. I couldn’t believe how good they were, and they were vegan! And made from leftovers!

The cool thing about this recipe is that you can also make them with adzuki beans (if you have any leftover red bean soup).  They actually turn out slightly chewier when made with adzuki beans rather than sweet potatoes, but both kinds of brownies are fantastic.

With brownies, most people fall into two camps – chewy, or fudgy. These brownies are the perfect marriage between the two, because the actual brownies are wonderfully chewy, and the frosting is gloriously fudgy.

They don’t need the frosting, as they taste good enough without it, but a little frosting never hurt a good brownie.

 

The Best Chewy Sweet Potato (or Adzuki Bean) Brownies

Makes 9 brownies

Ingredients

1 tbsp ground chia seed (5g)

¼ cup + 1/8 cup hot water

 

1 cup of oat flour (90g)*

5 tbsp + 2 tsp cocoa powder (34g)

½ level tsp baking soda

½ level tsp + 1/8 tsp ground coffee (I used Starbucks Italian Roast Ground Coffee, which is also Fair Trade Certified, which makes it extra cool)

½ level tsp sea salt

 

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp of vanilla extract**

level ½ cup mashed roasted sweet potato (if using adzuki beans use ½ cup + 3 tbsp drained cooked beans instead of the sweet potato)

½ cup maple syrup

¼ cup + 1/8 cup melted coconut oil

 

Notes – for best results, please measure the dry ingredients by weight.

* I grind oats into oat flour using a blender. Don’t grind the oats in a food processor because the flour won’t be fine enough.

Any extra oat flour I don’t use in the recipe goes into an airtight container and I use it for another recipe.

If you’re making this recipe for someone who has celiac disease, use certified gluten free oats, as the oats from the bulk bins can sometimes be processed on the same equipment as wheat.

**If you run out of vanilla extract ( and it’s been the kind of day where you really need a brownie) have no fear, these brownies still taste amazing without it. So go forth, and bake with a light heart.

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Instructions

1. Stir together the ground chia seed and hot water. Let sit for 10 minutes until thickened.

2. Add the cocoa, oat flour, salt, coffee and baking soda into the food processor and give it a quick blend so that everything is well combined.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and blend until smooth.

4. Turn the oven to 350F and let the mixture sit in the food processor for 15 minutes. Then give it one final blend for about 30 seconds and then spoon the mixture into a glass 8×8 inch baking dish that you’ve oiled and floured with coconut oil (or a neutral oil like avocado oil) and a bit of oat flour.

Take a spatula and smooth the brownie batter out so that it’s sitting evenly in the baking dish.

5. Bake the brownies at 350F for 70-75 minutes until the brownies pull ¼ inch away from the pan on all sides.

Allow to cool completely (at least an hour for the best texture), frost with fudgy sweet potato chocolate frosting if desired, and then cut into 9 square pieces. Serve and enjoy!

I hope that you love these brownies as much as I do, and if you’re having a tough day, I hope that these brownies make it just a little bit better and brighter.  🙂

Apple Slices and Two Ingredient Caramel Dip – Paleo, Vegan, Refined Sugar Free

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When I’m feeling like I want a sweet snack in a flash, I make myself a plate of apple slices and caramel dip.

This is the easiest no cook caramel dip ever. This caramel dip tastes incredibly indulgent  and takes just seconds to make. Olive oil and maple syrup may sound like an unusual combination, but it tastes delicious, especially when combined with the sweet apple.

Apple Slices and Two Ingredient Caramel Dip

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

1 fuji apple (or apple of choice, I like fuji apples because they are nice and sweet)

Caramel Dip

1 tbsp maple syrup

3/4 tsp – 1 tsp olive oil

 

Instructions

1. Wash and slice your apple, and place the apple slices on a plate. Spoon the maple syrup and olive oil onto the side of the plate, or into a small dish. Stir the maple syrup and olive oil together until well combined. Dip the apple slices into the caramel and enjoy!

 

 

Vegan Taiwanese or Chinese Sausage – “Xiang Chang”(香腸) / “Lap Chong” (臘腸)

vegan taiwanese-chinese sausage

This vegan Taiwanese / Chinese sausage is easy to make and tastes very similar to the real thing.

Spooned over noodles or a steaming bowl of rice, it’s happiness in a bowl.

Taiwanese and Chinese sausages can be found at Asian supermarkets, but I’ve never seen an organic one that’s free of added nitrates yet (here’s to hoping!). They taste amazing, and even though I’ve watched a YouTube video on how to make the sausages the traditional way, I haven’t actually made them myself yet.

This recipe is an easy way to get a similar flavor and texture without the hassle of making the sausage, or the nitrates from the store bought versions.

I used this recipe instead of real Chinese sausage when I made Turnip Cake for Lunar New Year and it worked great, so you can potentially swap this in for recipes that call for diced Taiwanese of Chinese sausage.

 

Vegan Taiwanese Sausage (香腸) or Chinese Sausage (臘腸)

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

6 white or crimini mushrooms – cut into ¼ inch dice (about 1 ½ cups)

2 ½ tbsp. avocado oil (or any neutral flavored high heat oil)

¼ tsp + 1/8 tsp granulated garlic

¼ tsp + 1/8 tsp 5 spice powder

½ tsp organic red miso paste

2 – 2 ½ tsp maple syrup*

maybe a pinch of salt to taste (depending on how salty your miso is)

 

*Taiwanese sausage or “Xiang Chang”(香腸) is usually a little sweeter than the Chinese sausages or “Lap Chong” (臘腸), so if you’re looking for more of a Taiwanese sausage flavor, use the 2 1/2 tsp of maple, and 2 tsp of maple if your looking for more of a Chinese sausage flavor.

Instructions

1. Stir together the granulated garlic, 5 spice, miso, and maple syrup until smooth.

2. Make your pan non-stick. Add the oil and diced mushrooms to the pan and cook on medium high heat, stirring frequently, for 8-9 minutes until the mushrooms are golden brown around the edges.

3. Add the cooked mushrooms to the spice mix and stir until well combined. Give it a taste, adjust the seasoning to your liking.

You can also spoon this into romaine lettuce leaves (like vegan chicken lettuce wraps), or serve it over steamed rice or noodles.

However you eat it, I hope that you enjoy the recipe!

 

Note – This isn’t sponsored, but I just wanted to mention that the noodles that I used in the picture were Organic Edamame Spaghetti Noodles made by Explore Asian Authentic Cuisine (it looks like they may have changed the company’s name to “Explore Cuisine” now).

The only ingredients are water and soybeans and the noodles have a lovely flavor and texture and cook up in about 5 minutes are a good non-grain pasta alternative (if that’s something that you’re looking for). I used up the last of the box I had for this recipe (the box I had was from Costco, and they don’t carry the noodles anymore) but you can find the noodles online.

mint ice cream

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream – Dairy Free, Paleo, Vegan, Refined Sugar Free

mint ice cream

When I first realized that St. Patrick’s Day was coming up, I was at a bit of a loss as to what to make to celebrate.

So I googled “Traditional Irish Food” and pictures of things like shepherd’s pie, Irish stew, and colcannon popped up, along with literally a picture of a potato. That’s right, a plain ol’ uncooked potato.

After I finished laughing for a good solid minute (that lone potato really cracked me up), I decided to go check out what was in the fridge and see if I could come up with a recipe from the ingredients that I already had. After a quick glance at the bananas on the counter, I opened the fridge to find that I still had a big box of baby spinach. After a little tinkering, I came up with a recipe for this gorgeous ice cream.

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Ireland is the Emerald Isle after all, and this recipe borrows just a bit of that lush green color just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

This amazing mint chocolate ice cream is rich and creamy, and you can’t taste the baby spinach at all, but it gives the ice cream it’s lovely bright green color without any food coloring. Little flecks of dark green dance across every beautiful spoonful, making every bite a little more festive, a little more special.

Sprinkle over a little cocoa powder before just serving and every delicious bite will taste just like a Thin Mint cookie, but in ice cream form (which is even better).

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That little bit of cocoa gives a little bit of bitterness which goes incredibly well with the brightness of the mint and allows the flavor of the ice cream to really sing.

This recipe is also a great way to use up extra baby spinach and overripe bananas. The avocado oil seems like a funny addition, but it adds a real creaminess and makes it taste more like traditional mint ice cream.

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

Makes a generous serving for 1 (about 3 scoops)

Ingredients

2 bananas

1/2 cup packed baby spinach leaves

5 1/2 tsp – 6 1/4 tsp maple syrup

5 tsp avocado oil (or any neutral flavored oil)

1/8 cup water

1/8 tsp peppermint extract (or more to taste)

the tiniest sprinkle of sea salt imaginable (optional)

A little cocoa powder to sprinkle over the ice cream before serving

Instructions

1. Peel and slice the bananas into 1/2 inch slices. Put a piece of plastic wrap over a plate and arrange the banana slices in a single layer over the plastic wrapped plate. Cover with another layer of plastic wrap and freeze until solid.

2. Allow the bananas to defrost for 5-8 minutes until just thawed. Add the bananas, baby spinach, maple syrup, avocado oil, water, and peppermint extract to a food processor.

Blend until smooth. Taste and add in the tiniest sprinkle of sea salt if desired, and at this point you can add more mint flavoring if you like (add a drop at a time as this stuff is strong).

3. Once you’re happy with the flavor of the ice cream, scoop the ice cream into a dish and sprinkle with cocoa powder. Serve.

Notes – The bananas that I used were medium sized and they were ripe but were only lightly speckled brown, so if the bananas that you use are very brown and sweet, then you can probably decrease the amount of maple syrup.

The measurements that I ended up using in my own batch were 6 1/4 tsp maple syrup, and 1/8 tsp + 3 drops of peppermint extract (as I like a strong minty flavor in this ice cream).

You can also make the ice cream ahead of time and put it into something like a plastic snapware container and stash it in the freezer. This works especially well if you want to be able to scoop it into pretty scoops of ice cream for a nice presentation.

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So much minty chocolate goodness in one bite…

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

cole slaw tacos

Cole Slaw Dressing (Paleo, Refined Sugar Free, Soy Free)

cole slaw tacos

I love this creamy dressing. The dressing takes just minutes to put together and you can make it ahead of time as well and dress the cabbage and carrots when you’re ready to eat.

It’s slightly sweet from the maple syrup, and has a little bit of a bite from the apple cider vinegar and finely grated onion. And the dressing makes eating a good size serving of a cabbage (which is really good for you as it’s a cruciferous vegetable) a delicious experience.

When I first went gluten free, I experimented with a lot with different food combinations to try and come up with more exciting dishes to eat.

One of my first and favorite food combinations ones turned out to be chicken and cole slaw tacos.

I use homemade gluten free tortillas, top them with cole slaw and some leftover roasted chicken. If you’re vegan, you can use a vegan mayo and a meatless chicken subsitute (or crispy tofu would be good too).

You can also serve the dressing over a normal salad (like I did in the picture). I trimmed off the edges of the tortillas and pan fried them with a little oil until they were crispy and added them to salad as a crouton substitute.

I hope that you enjoy the dressing (and that it makes eating lots of vegetables more exciting!).

Happy Eating!

 

Cole Slaw Dressing

Makes 1 serving

Ingredients

1/2 tbsp finely grated white onion (I use the really small holes on my box grater for this)

3 tbsp mayo (I used an avocado oil mayo)

3/4 tsp apple cider vinegar

1- 1 1/4 tsp maple syrup

pinch of salt (to taste)

1 cup finely shredded cabbage and grated carrot mix

 

Instructions

Stir together the onion, mayo, vinegar, and maple syrup. Add salt to taste.

Pour over the cabbage and carrots and stir until well mixed. Serve.

salmon sushi

Salmon Salad Sushi – Super Easy

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I love tuna salad, and this is a slightly fancier version but is still super simple to make. It’s perfect for a quick dinner, or an easy snack and you can use up your leftover brown rice or salmon to make this tasty dish.

Salmon Salad Sushi

Makes 8 pieces (2 snack size servings, or 1 serving for a hungry person)

Ingredients

1/3 cup cooked flaked salmon (canned salmon is fine too)

2 ½ tbsp. mayo (I used an avocado oil mayo)

1/8 tsp dijon mustard

2 ½ tsp finely chopped green onion

3 tsp lemon juice

tiny pinch of pepper

¼ tsp dried parsley

1/8 tsp granulated garlic

¼ tsp sea salt

1 ½ cups warm cooked brown rice (I just steam it for a few minutes in the rice cooker to warm it up if it was in the fridge)

1 sheet of nori

Instructions

1. Stir together the salmon with everything but the rice and nori.

2. Lay the nori sheet on a plastic wrap covered bamboo mat.

Wet your fingers, and spread the warm rice on the nori into a thin layer leaving about a ¾ inch of nori uncovered at the top of the sheet.

3. Spoon the salmon salad into a line at the bottom of the rice covered nori. Roll firmly into a sushi roll, and set in the fridge for 10 – 15 minutes to firm up. Cut into 8 slices and serve.

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Salmon Salad Sushi and Vegan Thai Peanut Sauce with Veggie Spring Rolls

The snack plate of dreams…

sunshine smoothie

Good Morning Sunshine Smoothie – (Strawberry, Apple, Pineapple) – Easy, Vegan, Dairy Free, Delicious

Sunshine smoothie

This super pretty smoothie looks like sunshine in a cup. It’s a snap to make and is not only delicious, but also full of healthy and anti-inflammatory ingredients.

Chia seeds provide omega-3 fatty acids, and avocado oil is a monounsaturated fat that helps to increase the absorption of the beta carotene from the carrots. The pineapple adds sweetness (if you use fresh pineapple then you get the benefit of an added anti-inflammatory enzyme called bromelain which helps with pain) and the strawberries add anthocyanins (the compounds that give the strawberries their color) which can help boost neurogenesis (helping your brain to produce new brain cells).

What I’ll sometimes do is pour one serving of the smoothie into a screw top jar (just an empty jar of coconut oil that I’ve washed and cleaned out) and keep it in the fridge to drink later in the day. It’s a filling smoothie and drinking this is usually satisfying enough that I can walk by the wall of chocolate candy at the grocery store and not crave any of it.

The apples, strawberries and pineapple give the smoothie a lovely sweetness, but if you want the smoothie a little sweeter, you can squeeze in a little honey to taste.

Good Morning Sunshine Smoothie

Makes 2 generous servings

Ingredients

1 1/2 fuji apples, roughly chopped

1 large carrot, but into 1/2 inch slices (about 1 cup)

1/4 cup canned pineapple + 1/4 cup of the pineapple juice*

8 strawberries (fresh or frozen) about a scant 1 cup

1 1/2 tbsp chia seeds

1/2 – 1 tbsp avocado oil (or any neutral flavored oil)

1 1/2 cups water

Squeeze of honey (optional)

*If you don’t want to use canned pineapple, Trader Joe’s sells pineapple juice in a carton which tastes great. You can just add a few splashes of that to the smoothie instead of the canned pineapple for sweetness.

Instructions

Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into cups and serve.

If your blender isn’t that great at blending frozen things, you can let the strawberries thaw for 15-20 minutes before blending.

I hope that this colorful smoothie brings a little joy and sunshine to your day!

frozen lemons

What To Do With Leftover Lemons – How To Freeze Lemons

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Lemons tend to be expensive. A single organic lemon can cost in the neighborhood of $1.30 – $1.70 depending on the store, so it’s usually a cheaper option to buy the 2 lb bag of organic lemons for about $5 instead.

This means that I usually end up with a bag of lemons when I only needed 1 or 2 of them.

If you’re ever in this pinch and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your lemons before they go bad, then freezing them is a really good option.

I wash the lemons, then juice them and pour the lemon juice into an ice cube tray. Once frozen, pop the lemon juice cubes into a zip top bag and stash them in your freezer until you’re ready to use them. The lemon juice cubes melt quickly and are a great way to always have lemon juice always on hand. I used an ice cube tray from daiso, which just happens to make smaller ice cubes, but a normal ice cube tray will work just as well.

I add the lemon juice cubes to tea, or to chicken soup with brown rice and quinoa, or quinoa tabbouleh.

You can freeze the lemon rinds as well in a separate zip top bag, and grate them from frozen on a microplane to add lemon zest to your dishes.

When I have a cold, I’ll toss a few of the frozen lemon rinds into a pot and boil them with some water, ginger, turmeric, black pepper, a tablespoon of coconut oil, and honey for a soothing tea.

However you use your frozen lemons, I hope that this trick brings you many happy lemony dishes!

Tabbouleh

Quinoa Tabbouleh – Easy, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Delicious

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I have a bit of secret…

I don’t actually love eating quinoa.

I know that it’s healthy, but like most people, I didn’t grow up eating it. So quinoa lacks that sense of nostalgia and comfort that many of my favorite foods have. It doesn’t have too much of a flavor, and to be honest I’m still sometimes at a loss as to what to eat with it, or lack ideas on how to make it more exciting.

I know that people say that you can swap quinoa out for rice, but honey, it ain’t the same.

Making sushi with quinoa doesn’t work that well, and when you’re eating something like Lou Rou Fan (Taiwanese Braised Pork with rice) or Taiwanese Style Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Green Onion, you want rice. I can eat brown rice with both of those dishes and not feel like I’m missing out, but I don’t want to eat those dishes with quinoa.

But this is a recipe that I love to eat. This recipe makes quinoa taste (imagine Oprah saying this) amazing! I love the brightness of the lemon juice with the freshness of the mint and parsley. The quinoa has a lovely texture that really works well with this dish, and gives the tabbouleh a lot of good protein. This tabbouleh is also full of different colored vegetables and herbs, and it’s a very nutrient dense salad that just tastes great.

And it doesn’t feel like another boring old salad, it looks and tastes exciting.

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So if you’re ever stumped as to what to do with leftover quinoa, make this dish and see if you don’t just eat the entire portion yourself in one sitting.

I like to make this dish a day in advance so that the lemon juice has time to mellow out the sharpness of the onion. It’s also nice to have a batch of this sitting in the fridge so that there’s always something healthy to snack on when you’re hungry.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

Makes 2-3 servings

 

Ingredients

1 diced Roma tomato (about 2/3 cup)

½ cup diced white onion

¼ cup finely chopped parsley, loosely packed*

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint*

¾ cup cooked quinoa**

 

1 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice***

¼ level tsp sea salt

¼ level tsp black pepper

 

*For tips on how to keep your excess herbs fresh, here’s a link to a post that I wrote about that.

**If at all possible, buy the quinoa in the store that doesn’t say to rinse it on the package instructions. Quinoa can be difficult to rinse if you don’t have a fine enough strainer, and life is easier if you can just scoop the dry quinoa out from the container, add it to a pot with some water and cook it in the rice cooker and not have to think to hard about it.

*** If you have any excess lemons, you can freeze them.

Instructions

Stir all ingredients together. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Taste it the next day, and adjust the seasoning if needed.

 

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Happy Eating!

Nian Gao (Chinese New Year Cake with Red Bean Paste) – Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free

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Nian Gao is a very traditional dish for Lunar New Year.

The word for “sticky” in Mandarin is a homonym for the Mandarin word for “year” so it’s considered good luck to eat nian gao, or “year cake” at Lunar New Year.

This recipe tastes identical to the version that my mom made when I was growing up, but is dairy and refined sugar free.

If you’ve never had nian gao before, think of it as basically a big baked mochi that’s slightly crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle with little pockets of sweet red bean filling.

Doesn’t that sound amazing?

This recipe is very simple to make. It’s basically pour everything into a bowl, stir and bake for a little more than an hour.

When I made a test batch I thought that it would be enough for 4-6 servings, but it’s so good that it was polished off very quickly. So, really, it will probably serve more like 2-3 people, so make extra if your family members are big eaters like mine are.

Nian Gao Recipe (Year Cake)

Adapted from this recipe

Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients

1/4 level tsp + 1/8 level tsp baking soda

8 oz of sweet rice flour (I used the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour)

1 egg + 1/2 an additional beaten egg (about 3 tbsp)*

5 tbsp melted coconut oil**

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 cup water

Red Bean Paste Filling

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 1/2 cups drained red beans ***

*You can replace the 1/2 egg with 1/2 tbsp ground flax seed and 3 tbsp hot water. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes before using.

**There is the tiniest hint of coconut flavor from the coconut oil, but most people probably won’t notice. If you can’t stand coconut, you can used refined coconut oil instead. I like the Trader Joe’s one because it’s filtered to remove the coconut flavor instead of being bleached.

*** This recipe uses a lot of the red beans from the red bean soup, so if you’re planning on serving red bean soup for Lunar New Year, I would recommend making an extra batch of red bean soup just to use for the red bean filling in this Nian Gao recipe. You probably have some soup left over which you can send home with guests so it will all be eaten and people will go home happy.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

Grease your baking dish with either coconut oil, or a neutral flavored oil, and flour it with a few tbsp of sweet rice flour and set it to the side.

2. Stir together the 1/4 cup of maple syrup with the red beans. Use the back of a spoon to smush about 1/3 of the red beans against the side of the bowl. This took me about 20-30 seconds. You want some texture in the red bean paste when it’s baked, and some bits that are a little smooth.

3. In medium sized bowl, stir together the baking soda, sweet rice flour, melted coconut oil, egg (and the flax egg), 1/2 cup of maple syrup, and water. Stir until smooth.

4. I used a 8.5 x 11 inch oval casserole dish, but you can bake it in whatever size dish you have, just as long as the batter is an inch thick in the baking dish.

The nian gao batter plus the red bean filling is 4 1/3 cups in volume. If you want to see if your baking dish will work for this recipe, pour 4 1/3 cups of water into the baking dish and see if the layer of water is 1 inch deep. If it is, then that baking dish should work for this recipe.

Scoop 1 1/2 cups of the nian gao batter into the baking dish so that the batter covers the entire bottom of the dish. Spoon over the red bean filling into puddles all over the batter, this doesn’t need to be perfectly even, in fact it’s better if it isn’t as the nian gao will hold together better if there isn’t a smooth layer of red bean filling separating the top and bottom of the batter.

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Spoon over the rest of the remaining batter and use the back of your spoon to slightly swirl the batter and red bean filling.

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5. Bake at 350 for 1 hr and 15 minutes until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean. It will be slightly crispy on top.

Allow the nian gao to cool to room temperature before cutting and serving.

If you don’t want to bother with the red bean filling, you can make the cake without it. I’ve only made it with the red bean filling, but if you make the nian gao without it, it will take less time to bake.

I would bake it at 350 and start checking to see if it’s done after 30 minutes. Other nian gao recipes that I’ve seen online without red bean filling seem to take about 45-60 minutes in the oven.

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Happy Lunar New Year!