Hi, folks! I’ve moved to hosting my own site and all my yummy recipes can now be found at http://amandasapron.com
Yay! It’s so exciting! And don’t worry – if you’re a subscriber, you’ve already been moved over to the new site and haven’t missed a thing. Thanks for reading!
It is nearly fall. Really, this just means I am excited for the return of pumpkin spice lattes and caramel pumpkin latte candles. And of course, yummy sweet potatoes! Between you and me, this is just a sneaky way to eat sweet potatoes outside of an official meal.
These are really easy and super healthy. For those of you who are concerned about health or follow Bob Harper, you know he has published his book Skinny Rules, which gives 20 guidelines to help with overall health and wellbeing. One of his rules is to say goodbye to white potatoes. Though I did not usually keep white potatoes in my pantry, this was enough for me to embrace sweet potatoes and blue potatoes. That combined with the fact that my household runs on chips – tortilla chips, pita chips, falafel chips, pretzel chips, oh my – inspired me to try baking a new, fresh twist on a chip. And I love that it has very few ingredients!
Sweet Potato Chips
makes 2-3 servings
2 medium sweet potatoes
2T olive oil
1/2t paprika
1/2t chili powder
1/2t sea salt
1/4t cinnamon
1/4t nutmeg
Check out the seasonings and spices. These could be switched up if you’d like, but I love this combination for sweet potatoes!
First preheat the oven to 400 then wash and scrub sweet potatoes, then slice thinly and evenly. A mandolin would work well for this, but since I didn’t have one, I resorted to cutting them by hand with a knife. I tried a potato peeler for really thin slices, but it only worked on the skinny ends of the potato, so I used the knife primarily. This didn’t result in the most perfectly even cut, but I was pretty close.
You’ll want the slices as even as possible so they cook as evenly as possible.
Once the potatoes are cut, combine them with oil in a bowl or plastic bag and toss well to coat.
I used my fingers to ensure every piece had a light coat of oil on them.
Then, in the same bowl or bag add the spices and toss well to evenly coat.
Place slices evenly onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, then flip them over. This is how they look after about 10 minutes.
Continue baking for 10-12 additional minutes. Some pieces were crispy after that, others needed up to an additional 10 minutes. When they’re finished, they’re delicious hot or room temperature! Store in a covered container for a few days – if they last that long.
Hubby and I were recently on vacation in sunny Central America. At one of the resorts we stayed at we were introduced to this addictive smoothie! It’s perfect for those last few days by the pool that Summer will give us. It’s a nice refreshing treat as a healthy dessert, too!
Yellow River Smoothie
serves 1-2
juice from 1.5 mangoes
1/2 pineapple cut into frozen chunks
1 banana
ice optional
I used all fresh fruit, juicing the mango just before this photo was snapped. I also cut fresh pineapple and froze it earlier in the day. I have made this before with mango & pineapple juice with ice and the ice watered it down too much. Since I didn’t add any extra sugar (the fruit is sugary enough) I didn’t want to fruit to have to compete with ice watering it down. This time I froze the pineapple and it worked perfectly!
Combine all ingredients in a blender.
Since there is not a lot of liquid in this recipe, and I used a regular blender, I had to stop midway through and mix the top chunks in with a wooden spoon then resume blending. And that’s it!
Enjoy while summer is still here!
Happy Labor Day! If you’re able to be off and enjoy the holiday, yay! If you have a party to attend, I’ve got some recipes for you – or even if you’re just chilling at home, you still gotta eat. If you’re going to a USA themed party, check out my Red, White, & Blue Mini Trifles and Red & White Sweet & Salty Popcorn. If you just want a fun snack to bring – or keep for yourself – try your hand at one of my simplest, go to recipes.
This recipe is truly so easy. It is often my go to when people are over for dinner because it is a light, sweet addition to nearly any style of food. I love that it only requires a few ingredients, and less than 10 minutes to whip up – literally!
Berries and Cream
serves 2
2C berries – I like tart berries for this recipe such as the blackberries and raspberries I used
2C heavy whipping cream
1/4C sugar
1/4t vanilla extract
1 lemon
First, chill your metal mixing bowl and whisk in the freezer for about 15 minutes to chill. As I learned recently from Kellie, this causes the whipped cream to be lighter since it maintains a chilled temperature throughout the whipping process. The cream can easily be whipped by hand with a regular whisk, but I chose to use my Kitchenaid for this recipe. Look how frosty it is!
While the bowl and whisk are freezing, wash all the berries and set them aside to dry. Then, zest the lemon. I have had this recipe with lemon curd folded into the cream which is just as delightful – and significantly more lemony. But the zest is a nice light touch that compliments the berries well.
Once the bowl and whisk are sufficiently chilled, pour in the cream and begin to whip on a low setting, if using a hand beater or Kitchenaid, or medium by hand.
Once the cream has begun to be whipped, slowly add in the vanilla,
sugar, and lemon zest.
Whip for several minutes until incorporated, or until the whip cream can stand on it’s own in nice peaks that curl over.
Be careful not to over whip – you do not want to create butter! Look at this goodness.
Prepare berries in whatever bowls you’ll be serving them in.
Oh, blackberries! Good thing I love you!
Serve cream over berries immediately. I chose to add a little more lemon zest on top for presentation. So easy!
My food wanted to model. The camera loves it!
I feel like quinoa popped up overnight. One minute I’ve never heard of it, the next it’s all over the internet. I have grown very fond of quinoa and it is now a regular part of my diet. It is known as an ancient grain and isn’t considered one of the “bad grains” I’ve written about earlier. Quinoa has twice the fiber and protein of brown rice or any other grain. It also has a nearly perfect blend of amino acids which helps keep stabilized blood sugar, etcetera, etcetera. I’m probably boring and not as qualified as the rest of the internet, so do your own googling!
This is one summer salad that is so easy to make and it’s light, healthy, and delicious! The ingredients are easily interchangeable so the flavor profiles are endless. It also packs well so it’s great on a picnic or the next day at work or school.
I used a tri-color quinoa of red, black, and white, but using simple white quinoa is just as tasty. I love that quinoa is easily made on the stovetop or a rice cooker, with water or vegetable stock. It is a great rice substitute and it goes well with so much. I have given approximate portions of what I used, but this is the type of recipe that doesn’t need exactness, you just put a little bit of what you like and a lot of what you love.
Quinoa Salad
serves 2-3
2C cooked quinoa
1.5C cooked black beans
1 mango
1/2 bell pepper
2 scallions
zest from 1 lemon
3T lemon juice
5-6T olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
First, cook the quinoa if you haven’t already. This would be a good time to make the dressing. Simply combine the oil, lemon juice and zest, with the salt and pepper in a small food processor to combine. Then, chop all the fruits and veggies of your choice.
Once the quinoa has cooled to room temperature, combine it with the black beans in a large serving bowl.
Toss the veggies and fruits in.
Look at the lemony yellow dressing. It’s BEAUTIFUL!
Pour it over the salad and toss thoroughly to combine.
Rest for at least an hour to let the dressing soak into the quinoa and serve chilled or at room temperature.
So…I haven’t been totally grain-free the past few weeks – uhhh, especially since hubby and I just got back from vacation and we kind of just ate the whole time…and maybe even had chips and pico every single day. However, I have enjoyed experimenting with different types of baking with my new grain-free interests.
What you are witnessing is a complete experiment. I wanted to make garlic knots and could not find a grain free recipe. So I decided to create one. Except, it did not turn out like garlic knots, so I improvised with these cute little muffins. Not gonna lie, the texture is different. They are very flaky, yet very dense. And surprisingly very delicious! I had a friend over for dinner who openly admits her “pickiness” towards food, but even she loved them!
A lot of grain free bread recipes call for a mixture of coconut flour and almond flour, so that’s what I went with, though I mostly guessed at the ratio. From the research I’ve done, coconut flour is very dry so I used a bit less of that compared to the “oily” almond flour. Here’s what I came up with. If you find a way to improve this recipe, please let me know!
Garlic Muffins
makes 16 mini muffins
For the muffins:
1C almond flour
1/2C coconut flour
1 packet of active dry yeast
1C warm water, to activate yeast
2T olive oil
1t sugar
1/2t sea salt
For the Garlic Topping:
2T butter, I used vegan Earth Balance
2T garlic
2T fresh parsley
I first activated the yeast in the warm water, following the back of the yeast packet’s directions, pouring the yeast on top of the warm water.
Meanwhile, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and in one bowl I combined the flours, salt, and sugar.
Whisk everything together.
After about 5 minutes of the yeast resting it looked like this.
Then lightly whisk the yeast with the water. The color and texture will look similar to almond milk.
Next, I made a well for the olive oil, cut through the muffin mix a few times, and then added the yeast.
I have yet to exactly figure out how to knead dough, particularly grain-free dough. So I mushed it around for several minutes and eventually formed a large ball.
I left the ball in the bowl, covered with a kitchen towel to rise for several hours and nothing happened. So I have figured out for you, that this particular combination of baked goods will not rise. So you can skip that step…ahem.
So, using a cookie dough scooper, I placed the dough in each mini muffin tin well.
I then baked them for about 10 minutes. Due to the nature of the dough texture, the way they are in the pan is the way they will come out, so you may want to take care in packing the scooper to get smooth, round muffin tops.
While the muffins are baking, begin to prepare the delicious garlic topping by chopping the garlic and parsley.
In a small saucepan on medium heat, combine the garlic and parsley with the vegan butter.
Keep on the heat for 1-2 minutes to melt the butter and to cut the spiciness of the fresh garlic, then remove from heat.
You’ll know the muffins are ready when the tops are slightly browned.
Allow to cool for a few moments before removing them from the muffin tin. Once they are removed, brush the garlic sauce on top and serve immediately.
They were a great compliment to our spaghetti dinner! (Try the quinoa noodles for a great grain-free pasta option!)
In my search for grain free options, I stumbled upon this idea. I have attempted making granola bars before with various ingredients and have never found the right combination for a bar with a great consistency. Or any consistency for that matter. Every “bar” recipe I’ve tried before turned into mushy crumbles. With some inspiration from around the internet and Pinterest, I was able to create this lovely “granola.” Some pieces turned out to be bar like, but most of it turned out to be a great granola. It has a great flavor, great texture, and knowing that I put only wholesome ingredients makes me feel really great about having this available for me and my husband to have something quickly available. There is a lot of time required to make these – but it’s not a lot of hands on time, so pick a day off you have and make these while you do something else around the house.
The flavor is so ridiculous that I had to hide some to photograph because my husband was gobbling it up! We ate it as a dry snack and with almond milk as a yummy cereal. The first cereal that doesn’t go mushy! Lovit!!!
I based my recipe off of this one, and know that you could switch out any nuts and seeds for others if you’d like.
Grain Free “Granola”
makes about 4 cups
1C almonds
1C pecans
1/2C sunflower seeds
1C of golden raisins or various small dried fruit of choice
1C shredded coconut
1/2C maple syrup
1/4C coconut oil
1/2t salt
1/2t vanilla extract
a few dashes of cinnamon
First I put 3/4 of the nuts and seeds with the coconut in a food processor
and pulsed several times until it was a fine chop.
Then, I roughly chopped the remaining nuts and seeds and preheated the oven to 200 degrees.
Stir the two nut mixtures together with the dried fruit. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the coconut oil with the vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and maple syrup.
Once the mixture begins to boil, promptly remove from heat…
and add it to the fruit & nut mixture. Mix well with a wooden spoon.
Press into a pan lined with parchment paper.
Press into the pan well with the wooden spoon, greased fingers, or another piece of parchment paper. Set in the oven for 3-5 hours. The time will be determined by how thick your mixture is in the pan. If the mix hasn’t had time to dry out enough, it will be moist and crumbly. A few hours into the dehydrating process, most of the mix will be bar-like if you’d like to make nut bars out of the mix. Continue dehydrating to create crunchy “granola.”
Or like me, kick back with a bowl and enjoy!
Add a little almond milk. So delicious!
I feel like I have had an obsession with cherries and peaches lately. And who can blame me? It’s summer! So I have allowed myself to entertain it and I started researching. I knew I wanted to do a crisp, but I’ve been reading a lot lately about how grains are actually unhealthy! Though I am not trying to be cynical, and may not be ready for a completely grain-free life, I am open to exploring new options and trying a few recipes to check it out. I started with these crisps…and they were completely delicious!
I could not decide between the combination of cherries and blueberries or peaches, so I made both! Even my husband loved them – hot and cold!
If you want to scar your idea of “healthy” whole grains, there are a lot of websites to read from, however, I like the way Katie writes about it here. I “see the light” since I know a few people with celiac’s disease, so I try to cook gluten-free when I can, and this is further inspiration. Since I had to be creative and go grain-free, I got a lot of ideas from Kelly at Foodie Fiasco. Here’s what I used.
Fruit Crisps
makes 4 servings – 2 peach and 2 blueberry-cherry
1 large peach
1 handful of cherries
1 handful blueberries
1/3C almond meal
1/4C shredded coconut
2T unsweetened applesauce
1t vanilla extract
1t coconut oil, divided
1t sugar, divided, optional
1/2t salt
Allow me to introduce you to rainier cherries. If you have never had these, they’re worth the extra buck for a recipe such as these. Compared to their darker cherry cousins, rainiers are lighter and sweeter and can only be described as golden. They are definitely worth adding into your fruit basket! Look at them! They’re a blend of a lovely light yellow and pink.
Preheat the oven to 400. After washing and drying your produce, cut the peach in bite size pieces and pit the cherries and slice them in half. The rainiers are slightly larger than a normal cherry, so they were a bit difficult to maneuver into the cherry pitter, but it didn’t really bother me that the skins were a little scuffed up since they were cooked together with the blueberries and the scuffs weren’t noticed.
The original recipe called for shredded coconut. Due to weird sensory issues from childhood, I don’t really love the texture of shredded coconut. I decided to try to be an adult and try it, but I still chopped it up further so it was tiny pieces.
Meanwhile, I combined the almond meal, coconut, vanilla, salt, and applesauce which will serve as the healthy, gluten-free, sugar-free crisp topping. Putting half the sugar and half the coconut oil in a pan on medium heat, let it melt.
Then I cooked the fruit in separate batches for 3-5 minutes each.
The blueberries will give off a blueish, purple juice, but don’t worry – since it’s not being cooked too long, the color doesn’t effect the light cherries too much. Melting the other half of the coconut oil and sugar, I repeated this step with the peaches.
Separate the fruit into oven-safe ramekins.
Then top with the crisp topping. Because this isn’t a traditional crisp with butter and flour, it will not be very crumbly. I carefully and evenly placed the crisp topping onto each ramekin with my fingers and a fork.
Then baked for 20 minutes. You’ll know they are ready when the fruit is bubbly and the crisp is lightly browned. Cool for a few moments on a towel or cooling rack and serve. For a non-vegan version, fresh whipped cream or even ice cream would pair well with these lovely crisps. However, on their own they are a delicious, healthy treat and they showcase the delicious flavors of the fruit. Despite the non-traditional ingredients in the crisp, I was pleasantly surprised with how crispy the topping turned out. (And for all the coconut haters out there, you could probably up the almond meal if you wanted to ditch the shredded coconut.) Here’s the peach crisp.
And the blueberry-cherry crisp.
I can’t decide which is my favorite! They are both so good!
Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want some? Oops!
I apologize for the delay. I’m changing my posting days to Mondays. And also, my husband and I were recently leading 150 youth at camp.
There’s this game my husband and I play at various times. One main time is when we’re about to go out of town. It’s called: Use only the ingredients on hand and make it work! This often leads to culinary genius! But a lot of times it leads to stir fry. We love Asian flavors, and we can basically whip up stir fry any day of the week at our house. I always keep rice, sesame seeds, and various Asian spices and oils in the pantry, and there’s always some teriyaki and soy sauce in the fridge – though lately I’ve switched to Braggs Liquid Aminos which is much healthier than soy sauce, and I pleasantly have not noticed the difference. No complaints here! The beautiful thing about stir fry is that the veggies you include can be whatever you’d like, so use whatever you have.
Stir Fry
serves 2
2C rice, cooked and chilled I used brown rice
1 egg, optional
1C broccoli
1C mushrooms
1 small zucchini
1/2 bell pepper
1/2 onion
1T of butter or margarine or sesame oil
2T Bragg’s or low sodium soy sauce
1-2T sesame seeds
I’m not gonna lie. I don’t remember if I read this somewhere, heard it on a cooking show, or if I straight up asked the hibachi chef one day, but I found out that Japanese hibachi grill restaurants make fried rice with cooked, chilled rice. It apparently cooks better, takes on the flavor better, and doesn’t become mushy in this state. So I cooked my rice the night before – gasp – in a rice cooker. Hey, I’m human, too. I chilled the rice in a covered container in the fridge over night.
Then, everything is pretty simple. Chop all your veggies in about bite size portions. I like to switch up the shapes, so diced onion, pulled apart stems of broccoli, matchstick zucchini, chopped carrots, sliced mushrooms, etc.
Once all the vegetables are prepared, I heated my wok with a small bit of sesame oil inside. Cooking in order of the hibachi restaurant, I started by scrambling the egg,
then added the rest of the sesame oil (or butter if you choose) and the chilled rice on top.
Once the rice begins to cook, add the Bragg’s or soy sauce to taste.
Once it was cooked through, I set aside the rice mixture
and cooked the vegetables, starting with the thicker, or longer cooking ones first. I sautéed the garlic and onions together, then added the broccoli. If you’re using carrots or mini corn this would be a great time to throw it in. I added a bit more sauce as the liquid was either cooking in or evaporating. (Look at the steam!)
Next zucchini, and peppers, and whatever else you’d like.
Once all the vegetables are cooked through, add the rice back in and a little more sauce if you’d like.
Stir well.
Top with sesame seed and serve. I actually have genuine wooden chopsticks that I received as a souvenir after my mom had a trip to China. Thanks, Mom!!!
Oh, summer. I love it! It has been a busy, yet wonderful summer thus far! Light summer desserts are one of my favorite things about summer and I cannot get over my obsession with the combination of strawberry and basil! In March, some friends and I ran a 5K in St. Augustine and afterwards we treated ourselves to a gourmet popsicle shop! (After a rewarding breakfast of fruit, pancakes, and potatoes!) This popsicle shop, called the Hyppo was fairly new and had a line out the door! We had to check it out. They had several flavors to choose from, so of course I chose strawberry-basil! It was the perfect combination in a not too sweet popsicle. I will tackle trying to create my own version at some point this summer. For now, I have these lovely goodies to eat!
I am a firm believer that if you have a friend’s Tupperware (or Gladware or Ziploc containers, etc.) they should be returned with treats! I tweeted this a few weeks ago and got a container returned to me with Dove dark chocolate. I had forgotten about that container, but was greatly delighted to receive it back – with the lovely contents. I had accumulated two different friends containers so I decided to bake them a summer treat. I found a recipe for strawberry bars and changed up a few thing to account for my own friends’ tastebuds.
Strawberry Basil Bars
makes about 24 bars
Adapted from allrecipes.com
1C sugar
1/2C butter or margarine, softened
1/4C mashed ripe banana or fruit purée of choice
2 eggs
31/4C flour, divided
1t lemon zest
1t baking powder
1/2t salt
1 dash of cinnamon
8-10 basil leaves
12oz strawberry jam
First, combine 3 cups of flour, the baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Then preheat your oven to 350.
Whisk dry ingredients together.
In my Kitchenaid, I creamed the butter, mashed banana, and sugar together, but of course this could be done in a bowl with a hand mixer. This was somewhat of an experiment since I found out that banana can be a butter substitute. Since I used the banana, I cut butter and sugar from the original recipe, but did not end of compromising on flavor.
Then added the eggs in, one at a time allowing the beater to incorporate each egg individually.
Add the lemon zest.
Then slowly add the flour mixture…
until the dough appears as big crumbles.
Set aside 1/4 of the dough-crumbs (about 1 cup,) then press the bottom of the remaining crumbs into either a 9×13 or 10×15 inch baking dish. Greasing your fingers to press the crumbs helps tremendously. So as not to brown the basil leaves, rip them into strips rather than cutting them, and spread them on top of the pressed dough. (It’s ok if there are finger prints!)
Spread the strawberry jam on top. If you’re really feeling adventurous and want to make your own strawberry jam, check out my first attempt here.
Finally, mix the remaining crumbles with the flour.
Work with your fingers until it looks about like this.
Then top the jam and basil mixture. You want to keep this part crumbly, but you also want to make sure all your basil pieces are covered. Exposed basil in the oven = black, burnt basil = no bueno. It’s ok if some strawberry jam peeks through.
Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes and viola! Crumbly, gooey goodness. Seriously, they’re so good. The bars aren’t too sweet, and the basil and strawberry combination shines!
Strawberry basil bars!!! Eat liberally, or be a hero and give them to your friends. And oh, yeah, Operation-Return-Tupperware was successful.
Amanda's Apron 