Category Archives: lowfat snacks

Pear Fruit Roll-Ups-How to make fruit roll-ups at home

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Pear Fruit Roll-Ups

Pear Fruit Roll-Ups

One of my favorite ways to use ripe fruit is by making fruit roll-ups.  In my opinion it’s the best way to use fully ripe fruit, because the fruit is ripe, it’s very sweet, and that means that you don’t have to add sugar to make these fruit roll-ups great.  Additionally fruit roll-ups are so super easy to make and a great way to reinvent a fruit that you have an abundance of.  I have dehydrator, but these can be done in an oven.  Just set your oven to 150 or the lowest possible setting. If you don’t own a dehydrator yet, I suggest that you get one, they are really inexpensive around $40-$50 on the lower end–these work fine, and $299 on the higher end.  But they are so useful! At the least you’ll be able to make some of my favorite fruit roll-up recipes like: Tropical punch fruit roll-ups, pineapple fruit roll-up, Strawberry-apple fruit roll-ups or strawberry fruit roll-ups.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 4-6 hours

Ingredients:

5 ripe pears

Directions:  Quarter the pairs and remove the core.  Add cored pears to a blender,

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Blend until smooth.

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Pour the pear puree out onto a piece of parchment paper or a silpat, and smooth out into a thin layer.

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Place in a dehydrator on 134F for 4-6 hours.

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Alternatively you can place the parchment paper or silpat on a cookie sheet and place in the oven on the lowest setting for 4-6 hours.

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Tahini Salad Dressing — Tahini Vegetable Dip

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Mother's Market Inspired-Tahini Salad Dressing

Mother’s Market Inspired-Tahini Salad Dressing

I love a great salad. One of my favorite salads to eat when I eat out is a simple garden salad that I get at a local health food market that I frequent.  The salad is simple in every way,  fresh mixed greens, topped with fresh mushrooms, carrots, and beets.  What makes this salad better than other salads?  That’s simple, the tahini dressing that accompanies it. The dressing is one of the best salad dressings that I have ever tasted.  The only problem is that the restaurant doesn’t sell it in a bottle, so I can’t take it home to use at a later time, and the restaurant is very secretive about what exactly is in the dressing.  I’ve asked a thousand and one times, but they won’t give me the recipe. Sort of like they wouldn’t give me the recipe for their gingered greens, which I also love.  So as usual, I had to experiment, and come up with my own version, and it is amazingly close to their tahini dressing– exact actually.  It is so good!  You can use it to dress a salad, but it’s equally good as a dip for cucumber, carrot, and celery sticks. My daughter loves it, with a capital L, and the best part is that nothing in it is bad for you.  It’s high in protein, because it contains both sesame and cashew butters.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: none

Total time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of tahini paste

2 teaspoons of cashew butter (about 20-30 whole cashews)

4 medium sized cherry tomatoes (about 2 tablespoons chopped)

1 large clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of Tamari soy sauce

3 tablespoons of a neutral oil like safflower

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

Directions:  Place all of the ingredients in a blender or processor and blend until smooth.  Pour into a serving container and enjoy! This would be awesome on grilled veggies as well!!

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Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes!

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Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Mash

Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Mash

 

From time to time, I crave a meal with a deep rich wine sauce. When that happens I turn to Julia Child’s beef bourguignon recipe, or my version of it.  If you have ever made beef bourguignon, then you know the sauce that accompanies the beef is everything for that particular dish! The beef, as succulent as it is, is nothing without that sauce, and that sauce was made to adorn a potato mash! The year that I had Page I decided rather than running from house to house to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family, it would be easier on her, and my husband and I,  if we just stayed home and made dinner ourselves. My best friend agreed and we divided the dinner duties. Instead of a massive turkey, I roasted a chicken, she made a few sides, and I baked a cake. One of the sides she made was a potato and cauliflower mash. It was delicious, and Page loved it! It was hearty and everything you’d expect when eating mash potatoes and at the same time it had the added bonus of cauliflower. When I was making my beef bourguignon, and anticipating the yumminess of the sauce, I knew that this cauliflower mash would go perfectly with the sauce. If you’re on a low carb diet, you can omit the potatoes, and whip the cauliflower in a blender. For this recipe, I opted to not whip the mash, I wanted the hearty texture, so I used a potato masher instead. If you want a more creamy texture, just throw all the ingredients in a blender after cooking them.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10-15 minutes

Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 small head of cauliflower (about 5 cups)

2 medium potatoes (2 cups cubed)

4 tablespoons of grassfed butter

2 tablespoons of half and half (optional)

1 head of roasted garlic

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:  Add the cauliflower and potatoes to a pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, and cook until potatoes and cauliflower are fork tender.  Immediately drain the water from the cauliflower and potatoes, then add in, butter, half and half, roasted garlic, sea salt and pepper.

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Mash with a potato masher until well incorporated, or add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth, then enjoy!

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Roasted Garlic-How to Roast Garlic

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How to Roast Garlic

How to Roast Garlic

Can you image cooking without garlic? I can’t! I love it! Garlic lends so much flavor to a savory dish, it’s hard to imagine not having it to use. I love garlic in every state, raw, blanched, powdered, and roasted.  Each has it’s own unique flavor. Roasted garlic is so delicious, and there are so many uses for it. I add roasted garlic to a plain tomato sauce to instantly take it from bland to fantastic! I add roasted garlic to one of my favorite roasted eggplant dishes. I spread roasted garlic on a good piece of crusty bread and dip it into a balsamic, red pepper, and olive oil vinaigrette, and of course, I add roasted garlic to mashed potatoes, or my cauliflower potato mash! There are a plethora of uses for roasted garlic, (like using it for my Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken recipe), once you learn how to roast garlic, you will wonder why you’ve been cooking without it!

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Prep time: 2 minutes

Cook time:30-45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large bulb of garlic

1 teaspoon of olive oil

sea salt and black pepper to taste (optional)

1 sheet of foil–must be big enough to fully enclose the garlic

Directions: Pre heat the oven to 400F. With a knife slice the top off of the garlic. Place the garlic inside of the foil, pour the oil over the top of the garlic, making sure to cover all exposed garlic. add sea salt and black pepper if using:

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Fold all sides of the foil, making sure that the garlic is fully enclosed. Place the garlic bulb in your oven:

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Cook  for 45 minutes, or until garlic is beautifully golden brown:

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Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes, then remove by squeezing, or by removing each individual clove of garlic with a pairing knife, and enjoy!

Flourless Peanut Butter and Chocolate Meringue Cookies

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Flourless Peanut Butter Meringue Cookies

Flourless Peanut Butter Meringue Cookies

If there was ever a food match that was made in heaven, it is peanut butter and chocolate! One of my favorite lazy treats is to dip a dark chocolate bar into peanut butter.  So the other day when I was craving a sweet, I thought what a great idea it would be to make a delicious peanut butter cookie that was both moist and light.  Sort of like my Starbucks Inspired Flourless Chocolate Cookie ,or, (cue the light bulb over my head), how about exactly like my Flourless Chocolate Cookie! But instead of adding melted chocolate to the meringue, I’d add melted/warmed peanut butter—and so this cookie was born! It’s light, moist, gooey, and crisp in all of the right places! A miracle really, considering the fact that we all know that I am not the most proficient baker. I was fully expecting that this would turn out to be another disastrous baking episode for me. I’m so glad that I was wrong, and that this turned out to be all that I wanted and more!

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 10-12 minutes

Total time: 20 minutes

Makes 8 cookies

Ingredients:

2 egg whites
6 Tablespoons of creamy peanut butter warmed
1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar
3/4  cup of powdered sugar (I used maple sugar,see how to powder any type of sugar here)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

1/8 teaspoon of sea salt

Directions:  Pre-heat the oven to 375F. Over low heat warm the peanut butter, until it begins to thin a bit, and takes on a glossy shine—about 5 minutes, set aside.

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Add the two egg whites to a bowl and beat on low until bubbles form, add the cream of tartar and beat on high, add in the sugar one tablespoon at a time and beat until peaks are stiff and fluffy—you can turn the bowl upside down with out the mixture running.

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Pour in the melted peanut butter and fold it into the egg white fluff–be gentle– fold until the white streaks disappear.

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Fold in the chocolate chips,

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then spoon the cookie mixture onto a parchment/silpat lined cookie sheet.

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Let them cool for 10 minutes, then move them to a cookie rack to continue cooling 5-7 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

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Gourmet Popcorn — Homemade gift giving

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Tis the season to be jolly–and to give until it hurts no more. Giving gifts is supposed to be fun, right? Well if you’re anything like me, waiting in long lines, and inching through crowds of people at a mall, all so that you can get something a loved one may or may not appreciate, just isn’t fun! So this year, I’m giving the gift of food. Everyone young and old appreciates it, and if done right your pocket book will too. One of my favorite gifts to receive when I was a kid was one of those huge tins of popcorn. The tin always contained caramel, plain, and cheese popcorn, all delicious in their own rite. You could go out right now and buy one of those tins, or you could make my version of gourmet popcorn and make a loved one very, very happy! My recipe for Caramel Popcorn with almond and coconut flakes is to die for. It’s so good in fact that my mom told me I should remove the recipe from my blog and sell it on the free market. After tasting it recently, I think she may be right…it is soooooo good! Addicting even! My recipe for coconut kettle corn is equally as good! Trust me if you make these two gourmet pop corns and give them as gifts, your friends and family will thank you and thank you some more!

Caramel Popcorn with Almonds and Coconut Flakes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of Organic non GMO popcorn
3 Tablespoons of Coconut oil
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of Almonds
1 cup of Organic Sugar
4 Tablespoons of grassfed butter
3 Tablespoons of Organic Corn Syrup
1 teaspoon of Sea salt
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of coconut flakes (optional)

Spray a large baking sheet with coconut oil. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Add popcorn kernels and 3 Tbsp. coconut oil to a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, shaking frequently. You will start hearing the corn pop after a few minutes—keep cooking until there’s a gap of about 5 seconds or more between pops. Immediately remove the pan from heat and pour the popcorn onto the prepared baking sheet. Add the almonds.
In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, butter, corn syrup, and water. Place over medium heat and cook, without stirring, until the mixture is a light caramel color, about 10 minutes. Add the salt and stir to combine. Pour the caramel over the popcorn and almonds.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and cook until the caramel becomes thin and shiny, about 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and with a rubber spatula, fold the popcorn and Almond to coat with the caramel. When the caramel hardens, you’ll know it because the popcorn mixture will be harder to move, return the baking sheet to the oven. Repeat this process as many times as necessary to completely coat the popcorn and Almonds with caramel and until the caramel has darkened to a dark amber color. I did this 5 times checking on the popcorn and tossing it, in 5-7 minute intervals. On my 4th turn and check I added the coconut flakes. I just sprinkled them in and gave good toss.

Once you remove the popcorn, let it cool for 2-3 minutes, then break up the popcorn into bite-size pieces. Let cool completely. It will last two weeks stored in an air-tight container. This makes enough caramel corn to fill 3 treat bags, or 2 good sized tins. If you need more then double or triple the recipe.

Coconut Kettle Corn
Ingredients:
1/4 cup of organic corn kernels
3 tablespoons of  organic coconut oil
1.5 teaspoons of coconut sugar
1/4 teaspoon of sea salt

Directions:
Add all of the ingredients except for the sugar to a pan with a tight lid. Place on high heat until the corn starts popping. Once the popping is active, turn off the heat and allow the corn to pop on residual heat, shaking occasionally. Once the popping stops sprinkle with the coconut sugar, shake to coat and then transfer to a bowl and enjoy!