Banana Mug Cake

Cake for breakfast... Mug cake that is! This mug cake recipe is simple to whip up and you can feel good about starting your day off with a healthy and protein rich treat breakfast. I shared this recipe on my Instagram but wanted to share it here as well.

Ingredients:

1 banana, half mashed and reserve the other half to slice for topping
2 tablespoons soy milk
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 heaping tablespoon almond butter
1 egg
½ teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons coconut flour
2 tablespoons whey powder
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ packet of stevia (I use NuNaturals)
Tiny pinch of salt



To make:

 In a bowl, mash half of the banana. Add almond butter, olive oil, soy milk, and almond extract. Mix well to combine. Add in coconut flour, whey powder, baking powder, stevia, and salt. Mix to incorporate batter. Pour into a large greased mug and cook for 2 minutes in the microwave. Top with whatever suits your mood. I topped mine with a dollop of plain greek yogurt, sliced banana, 1 chopped date, drizzle of honey, and hemp seeds.

Carob Cherry Granola, Gluten Free

Carob Cherry Granola, GF


Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups gluten free oats
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
3 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1/4 cup carob powder
3 packets stevia (NuNaturals brand)
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch of salt
1/2 cup dried cherries

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
In a large bowl, add oats, sesame seeds, flax seeds, carob powder, and pinch of salt. Mix well to incorporate ingredients evenly.
In a medium bowl, add honey, olive oil, and stevia packets and mix well.
Add the wet ingredients into the dry and toss to coat evenly.
Spread out on greased baking sheet or silpat mat placed on top of baking sheet.
 Bake for 30 minutes, stirring about every 10 minutes.
Once removed from the oven, add 1/2 cup dried cherries.
Let cool completely before storing.

Gluten Free Stawberry Mascarpone Tart

Thanks to Instagram I discovered Sweet Lady Cook. Located in Santa Barbara, she specializes in small batch jams using local fruit, no preservatives and minimal sugar. I was so thrilled to see that she was located just 30 miles south of me! At the time she was only selling her product online. I placed an order and couldn't wait till my jams arrived. Along with strawberry habanero and blackberry lavender jam, I purchased her clementine marmalade for my mom. (I'm not a marmalade person.) Funny how that turned out to be my favorite. See previous post for my Gluten Free Clementine Marmalade Granola. It's been so much fun using her jams in my food experiments. 

Using seasonal fruits, her newest flavor is a seascape strawberry! The smell was absolutely amazing upon opening the jar. I decided on making gluten free strawberry mascarpone tarts using an almond and date crust. For the full recipe "click on the link below."

sweetladycook.com/blog

Clementine Marmalade Granola, GF

Gluten Free Clementine Marmalade Granola

Ingredients

3 cups gluten free oats

1/4 cup sesame seeds

3 Tbs ground flax seed

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup honey

Generous sprinkling of cinnamon

1/4 clementine marmalade from Sweet Lady Cook 

(I'm sure any orange marmalade would work just fine)

2 packets stevia

1/2 cup golden raisins

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, combine oats, sesame seeds, ground flax seeds, and cinnamon (to taste.)

Gently stir to incorporate ingredients evenly.

In a medium bowl, mix together honey, olive oil, marmalade and stevia. 

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry and mix well to evenly coat the oat mixture.

Transfer mixture to a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Spread out evenly.

Bake for 30-35 minutes stirring about every 10 minutes or so. 

Remove from oven and add raisins.

Let cool completely before transferring to container... or bowl if you want to snack immediately.

Sugar and Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

 The weather is finally cooling down a bit and it’s starting to feel like fall. I love seeing the all the colored leaves falling from the trees. In keeping with the season, pumpkin cheesecake was one of the flavors on the weekly menu for Enjoy Cupcakes this past week. Not being able to eat sugar or gluten was torturous on me. On Sunday morning while at work, I was thinking to myself how I could make a gluten and sugar free pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is approaching and I need an alternative. I’ve been making quiches lately so I thought I could use a similar recipe for the crust. In my first attempt I used equal parts almond and coconut flour with equal parts water, grapeseed oil, and almond milk. This crust came out too thick and dry. The recipe for the filling was found on Kath Eats Real Food. The end result had too much spice added to it giving the mixture a grainy texture. Overall it was decent but I knew I could make it even better with some revisions. Today I made my second attempt. The recipe is below. After my first bite I knew my alterations had paid off. I will be making this for Thanksgiving. A larger batch of course. This mini pumpkin pie can be eaten in one sitting by one person. Yes, that would be me.

Sugar and Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

For the crust

1/4 cup + 1 Tablespoon almond flour

1 Tablespoon coconut flour

1 Tablespoon ground flax

1 + 1/2 Tablespoons Earth Balance (I use the soy free)

1 teaspoon xylitol

1/2 teaspoon water

pinch of salt

Sift together all dry ingredients. Beat butter until well combined and then add the water. Form dough in a ramekin and bake for about 13 minutes at 350°. 

Remove from oven and let cool completely.

For the filling

1/2 cup organic canned pumpkin (fresh could be used in place)

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

37 drops liquid stevia (I use the Kal brand.)

3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

dash of vanilla extract

Mix well to combine

Once your pie crust is completely cooled, fill with pumpkin pie filling.

Garnish with slivered almonds if desired... Chopped pecans would probably be good too.

Place in freezer for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Remove and enjoy the pumpkin pie goodness without sugar or gluten.

Breakfast Bars... kind of

Another reason why I love Mondays... I have the whole morning and early afternoon free. This gives me time to play around in my kitchen and create what ideas and recipes I think up in my head. As you know, I love all things sweet. For breakfast I usually try and stick with veggies. Just ask my boss. She always makes fun of me (in a joking way of course) for bringing my steamed kale to the kitchen in the mornings. I always feel better starting out my day eating that way but sometimes I just want something sweet for breakfast. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it's prepared using wholesome ingredients and no sugar. Thank you stevia and yacon once again for making this possible. This morning I attempted to make no bake breakfast bars I had been thinking about. 

Cinnamon Carob Almond Breakfast Bars

They didn't come out exactly how I imagined... Revisions will be made for these.  Being a bit on the crumbly side they made a great topping for my yogurt. Here is the recipe if anyone would like to try them out. Modifications or suggestions are always welcome : )

1/2 cup blanched almond flour

2 Tablespoons ground flax

1 Tablespoon chia seeds

2 Tablespoons almond butter

2 Tablespoons cinnamon flaxseed oil*

15 drops stevia

1 teaspoon yacon syrup

1/8 cup unsweetened carob chips

In a bowl combine almond flour, flax, and chia seeds. Mix in almond butter.  The mixture will start to get crumbly. Add in remaining ingredients except for carob chips. Once the mixture turns into a ball of dough you can add in carob chips. 

*I use Barleans cinnamon flax oil. This stuff is amazing in smoothies. If you just have regular flax oil, add in 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon... I think that would work just fine.

Place on cutting board and form into a rectangle "bar" shape.

I placed in the fridge to let sit. This was only for about 5 minutes because I was so hungry. This recipe does contains a lot of fat from the nut flour, butter, seeds, and flax oil so you don't need much. This recipe yields 4 servings.

Happy Monday everyone! Enjoy your week.

Sugar Free Desserts are Possible

When people are faced with certain health issues, it's imperative to avoid foods that will proliferate their condition.  For some, this can be the hardest thing. Many people resort to foods that are convenient... not paying any attention to what they are putting in their bodies. When told they must avoid these foods, they are clueless on what to eat. This is how I felt two years ago when I was told I had a sensitivity to soy and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a type of yeast. Also having candida, I had to give up sugars. My diet was healthy at the time except for all the sweets I was eating. Desserts are my favorite. When I look at menus online for restaurants I want to try, the dessert section is where my eyes wander first. Okay, I needed to follow a diet free of yeast, sugar, and soy. The yeast seemed easy to avoid but the soy and sugar not so easy. These are two ingredients that are added to what seems like everything. 

Stevia and yacon syrup became my two new favorite ingredients. I needed to get my sweet fix somehow and these two alternative sweeteners made it possible. Many know about stevia but yacon syrup isn't that commonly used. The only place I've found it is at Whole Foods or online. Yacon contains a healthy type of sugar called fructooligosacharides or FOS. It is not digested by the body so it doesn't spike blood glucose levels, making it safe for diabetics, people with candida overgrowth, or even people who just want to watch their weight.

As of now I can include small amounts of soy into my diet. I've been on and off sugars for the past two years and recently went sugar free again. I do feel so much better eating this way and it allows me to be much more creative in what I prepare for myself.  When you can't have sweets all you want is something sweet, right? Which brings me to the photo above. The other night after dinner all I wanted was something sweet. I'm a sucker for cookie dough so I've been playing around with different variations. I based the idea off this recipe found on spark recipes. I love the idea of this recipe because it's the perfect portion size and you won't be tempted to overindulge. Here's my most recent variation.

Gluten free Sugar free cookie dough

2 heaping Tbsp blanched almond flour

2 tsp yacon syrup

1tsp grapeseed oil

1 tsp soy free Earth Balance

pinch of salt

a few drops of vanilla extract

mix everything together and you have a delicious cookie dough. 

I topped this with a little bit of peanut butter and unsweetened carob chips. It was just like eating a chocolate chip peanut butter cookie.

Chocolate Pancakes with Berries and Cherries

How I love and hate PMS. I love it because I crave the yummiest treats but hate it for the way I feel after indulging too much. It's about that time of the month now when all I crave is sweets and carbs.  Since I have been very watchful over my sugar intake lately, I had to come up with something sweet that wouldn't contain too much sugar. After smelling chocolate cupcakes all morning at work I had the biggest craving for brownies, but I thought that my sweet treat, rather my lunch, should be a bit more substantial. I decided to make chocolate pancakes. Last week at the health food store I got a sample of Pamela's chocolate brownie mix. Molasses and honey are used as the sweetener. I mixed 1/4 cup of that with 1/4 cup of Pamela's pancake and baking mix. I added 1 Tablespoon of ground flax seed. The Spectrum brand is my favorite for ground flax seeds. A few drops of stevia and some water will give the mix a runny consistency. I also added some chopped unsweetened baking chocolate.

Chocolate with fruit is such a lovely combination.

To top my Pancakes I added a scoop of plain greek yogurt with blueberries, cherries, and walnuts. I did end up adding a little bit of yacon syrup as well, in place of maple syrup.

Spinach, Berries, and Lime

Spinach, Berries, and Lots of Lime Smoothie

Juice from 2-3 limes

6-8oz water

3/4 cup frozen raspberries

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

2 handfuls raw spinach

1 tbsp hemp seeds

a few drops of stevia

blend and enjoy

I really love the tartness from the limes but if you do not, I would suggest using 1 - 1 1/2 limes.

Faux Brown Sugar

I love, love, love sweets and not being able to eat them while avoiding sugar is VERY hard for me. I was craving something sweet today and tried to think of what I could have that fit into the anti candida diet guidelines. The other day I came across a recipe for a brown sugar substitute. Since it's pretty much pointless for me to browse dessert recipes, which is what I spend a lot of my internet time doing, I have been on a mission to look for sweets suitable for candida dieters. The recipe consists of yacon syrup and xylitol. I cut the recipe in half and added a few drops of stevia and some madagascar vanilla powder. You mix all of the ingredients until it looks like brown sugar.

hubpages.com/hub/Yacon-Syrup-Sweetener. 

I recently found yacon syrup at Whole Foods. I've also purchased it from therawfoodworld.com. This is an awesome raw food website. The husband and wife owners are very nice people. They offer a wide variety of raw vegan snacks, bulk products, books, and more.

For my sweet treat I spread almond butter and coconut oil on a rice cake and topped with my faux brown sugar and cacao nibs. It was delicious.