Monthly Archives: December 2020

Healthy Tips: Using Up Holiday Leftovers

by additives, health, holidays, ingredients, recipes, ,

Holiday gatherings often mean a bounteous array of food. Starting with turkey or brisket, or ham or whatever your main course is. This is usually accompanied by potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, family favorite recipes, and an almost endless parade of desserts. All of which often means lots of leftovers. How to deal with these leftovers can be a bit challenging at times.

I've put together some thoughts on things to remember for the holiday so we can all have a happy, healthy, safe, and delicious day. 

In order to make sure you have the healthiest leftovers possible be sure to start with the healthiest ingredients. You'll find the recipes in my Holiday Leftover Plan Ebook

  • Making your own cream of whatever soup base (see recipe below) is an excellent substitute for that chemical-laden standby cream of mushroom
  • If your family are biscuit fans make your own instead of the whack-and-bake variety
  • Don't buy the stuff in the can, it only takes a few minutes to make your own delicious cranberry sauce
  • If you eat gluten avoid the chlorine bleaching and bromates found in many commercial flours by choosing un-brominated and unbleached flours instead
  • Skip the crispy onions which come loaded with GMO ingredients and negative additives. Make delicious caramelized onions as a topping instead
  • Canned gravy usually has MSG, trans fats, sulfites, and caramel color, you can easily make your own
  • Pie fillings often come loaded with GMO ingredients, MSG, plus artificial flavorings and preservatives, making your own is fairly easy.
  • Don't throw out those bones, use them to make this delicious broth
  • Leftover wine can be frozen into ice cubes and used later. A standard ice cube tray is 1 ounce which is the equivalent of 2 tablespoons
  • Instead of storing each leftover item in its own container make them into Meal Jars using wide mouth pint jars for a quick and easy lunch or dinner

One of the recipes from my ebook: 

However you celebrate, whatever is on your table, whoever you gather with, I wish you a holiday full of joy and gratitude, health, and happiness!

Holiday Recipe: Olive Oil Cranberry Bundt Cake

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I love the occasional tartness of cranberries! And every year I look forward to the fresh ones available in the grocery store. 

You might hesitate to try it because of the olive oil, but I assure you that this tastes mellow and not greasy. I received many positive feedback about this recipe and I am so delighted to share it this holiday.

Tinkering with the recipe over the years, this is the final version that I came up with. Enjoy my healthy holiday treat!

Olive Oil Cranberry Bundt Cake

This moist and not too sweet bundt cake is filled with tart cranberries in every bite.
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Ingredients
  

  • 6 egg whites
  • 1 1/2 cups evaporated cane juice crystals
  • 3/4 cup *extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil (see note for the link)
  • 2 cups “GF flour blend (such as King Arthur)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1 cup buttermilk, organic

    If you do not have buttermilk you can make it by combining 1 cup organic whole milk with 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar and let it sit for 5 minutes to curdle

  • 2 cups chopped fresh cranberries
  • 2 tablespoons orange zest
  • If desired make a simple orange juice glaze: 1 cup evaporated cane juice crystals 1/4 cup orange juice

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
  • Butter a 9-inch bundt pan and dust with flour; in a bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff
  • Beat in the cane juice crystals until fluffy. Whisk together with orange juice to make the orange glaze.
  • Mix in the olive oil in a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
  • Alternately mix the egg white mixture and the buttermilk into the flour mixture until smooth
  • Fold in the cranberries and orange zest
  • Transfer the mixture to the prepared Bundt pan
  • Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean

Notes

*extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil

Start Your Healthy Holiday Plan!

 

For more healthy holiday/leftover recipes, be sure to get your copy of my Healthy Holiday Recipes and Holiday Leftover Plan ebooks! 

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Holiday Recipe: Mockstroni Soup

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There’s nothing more comforting than a nourishing bowl of soup after being out in the winter cold. This recipe utilizes an instant pot or a slow cooker, so you can easily come home to an easy-to-prepare soup to warm you up. 

This hearty soup is gluten-free and features that classic minestrone combination of herbs, beans, and vegetables. Because it's not your classical minestrone, I decided to change the name and call it “mockstroni.”

The traditional way to make this soup was to use whatever was in season, so feel free to use whatever vegetables you have on hand. Fresh herbs are always best, but in the wintertime, dry herbs are fine. And if you want to make a vegetarian version, you can simply use vegetable broth instead of bone broth.

Looking for more recipes? Have a look at my Healthy Holiday Recipes and choose which soup you’ll be ladling up! 

Note: Get 10% off on my Healthy Holiday Recipes + FREE Holiday Leftover Plan when you buy before the launch on December 18!

Enjoy cooking and have a healthy holiday season!

Pie Crust

The Secret To A Fabulous Pie Crust

by holidays, recipes

It's the holidays, and that usually means pie season!

That, truth be told, is something I dread.  I'm not very good at making pies. Let me amend that.  I'm pretty good at the filling, as a matter of fact, I make a mean coconut custard, but the crust?  Well, that's a different story. For years I have struggled, mumbled under my breath, and cursed as I patched together yet another sorry-looking crust.

In the olden days, before I got the gospel of whole food nutrition, I would “cheat” and buy my pie crusts at the grocery store.  That, my friends, is no longer an option.  It's not the lard that I object to, it's the BHT, the artificial colors (!), and, more often than not, the partially hydrogenated ingredients (read trans fats).  These do not need to be in a pie crust and most certainly do not need to be in your body.

The secret to a fabulous pie crust!

I know it may sound silly to be so happy about this but believe me, several decades of ugly pies later, I'm amazed at how well this worked out.  I'm so excited about this that I cannot wait to share it with you.  I made an extra batch just to be sure it works and turned it into pie crust cookies.  (Admittedly not high on the healthy item list but a treat nonetheless.)

Apparently, this method was developed by Julia Child. Rolled out between two sheets of wax paper, it does not crumble, fall apart, or need patching.  I'm seriously tempted to write out the recipe and tape it permanently to the side of my Cuisinart, so I always know where it is.

My next experiment will be to see if it works with gluten-free flour.  Since pastry flour is supposed to be low in gluten anyway (we don't want it rising while the pie is baking), I think this should be a fairly simple translation.  I'll keep you posted the next time I need to make a pie.

Recipes

pie crust

Julia Child's Cuisinart Pie Crust

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Servings 2 crusts

Ingredients
  

  • 1 3/4 cup of flour or King Arthur's Gluten Free All Purpose flour
  • 1 stick butter, cut up
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used walnut, it was delicious)
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions
 

  • Blend flour, butter, oil and salt in cuisinart until crumbly
  • Add 1/4 cup cold water and blend until it forms a ball

Pie Crust Cookies

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Ingredients
  

  • One rolled out pie crust
  • 2-3 tablespoons melted butter
  • Cinnamon sugar to taste (I use 1 teaspoon cinnamon to 7 teaspoons evaporated cane juice crystals)

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350 F
  • Brush pie crust with melted butter covering thoroughly
  • Dust according to taste with cinnamon sugar
  • Cut either using cookie cutters or into strips
  • If making strips twist them before placing on lightly greased cookie sheet
  • Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown
  • Let cool completely before eating

braised carrots

Braised Carrots Recipe

by recipes, vegetables
One of our favorite family recipes is braised carrots.  It makes an appearance at all holidays and is a comfort food that we all love, they're delicious anytime.
Everyone knows that carrots are very high in beta-carotene (that's what gives them their lovely orange color).  This is converted to vitamin A in the liver.  The antioxidants in carrots are believed to be very beneficial for cardiovascular health, night vision,  and are thought to help protect the body against certain cancers.   Carrots are also very high in vitamins K and C as well as providing lots of fiber, definitely a good food.
 
We've been making this recipe for so many years that I'm not sure where the original recipe came from; it's been modified over time and this is our version: 
braised carrots

Braised Carrots

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Ingredients
  

  • 6 large carrots, scrubbed, peeled and cut into 2″ chunks
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 2 T. butter
  • 1/2-3/4 C. water
  • 1 T. vegetarian soup base
  • 1 T. sucanat
  • generous pinch salt
  • 1 T. freshly minced parsley

Instructions
 

  • Sautee the onions in the butter until soft
  • Add the carrots and toss for 1-2 minutes until thoroughly coated
  • Add 1/2 C. water and the soup base
  • Turn heat down to simmer, cover and let sit 10-12 minutes
  • Check to see if more water is needed
  • Let simmer another 5-7 minutes until carrots are done
  • Add sucanat and salt and stir well
  • Sprinkle with parsley and serve