Category: Vegetables

green goddess dressing

Parsley Green Goddess Dressing Recipe – Paleo, Dairy Free

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I like to think of Green Goddess dressing as Caesar dressing’s sort of hippier, more free spirited cousin.

Caesar is the dressing that you want for a beautiful dinner party, while Green Goddess is for summer picnics and dancing through a garden in a sundress while wearing a daisy crown.

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My Parsley Green Goddess dressing has all the things that you love about Caesar dressing (the rich savoriness and creaminess, with a bit a bit of garlic thrown it to punch up the flavor) and is full of anti-inflammatory herbs like parsley, rosemary, and basil.

It’s light and creamy, a little thinner than most green goddess dressings (which makes it better for drizzling over a salad), and is packed with heart healthy olive and avocado oils.

This is also the perfect recipe for when you’re looking to use up a bunch of fresh parsley in a hurry. You can blend it all into this beautiful dressing.

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Parsley Green Goddess Dressing

Makes 1 1/4 cups

Ingredients

3/4 cup packed parsley (stems and leaves)

1/2 cup water

2 cloves garlic

1 egg (lightly scrambled over a double boiler, and cooled to room temp)

 

2 tbsp + 2 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 tsp fish sauce (I used the Red Boat brand)

 

1/8 level tsp dried rosemary

1/4 level tsp dried basil

1/8 level tsp granulated onion

1/4 level tsp granulated garlic

1/4 level tsp black pepper

1/2 level tsp sea salt

 

1/4 cup avocado oil + 1 tbsp (or any neutral oil)

1/4 cup olive oil

 

Instructions

1. Add all the ingredients except the oils to the blender and blend until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender occasionally.

2. Take the top cap off of the blender, and with the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive and avocado oil into the dressing (you’re basically making a cooked mayonnaise).

If there is some separation in the dressing at this point, that’s ok. Put the top cap back onto the blender and blend on high until well combined.

3. Pour the dressing into a jar and keep in the fridge until ready to use. The dressing should keep at least 3-4 days.

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This dressing would also be delicious over chopped roasted potatoes for a quick potato salad, but honestly it’s good on just about anything.

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I hope that you enjoy this recipe!

Happy Eating 💚

 

How To Get A Pan Super Clean

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Baking soda and vinegar can be your best friends in the kitchen. They help muffins to rise, can make a sink squeaky clean, or help you scrub out a pan without damaging the finish.

Here’s how I like to clean my pots and pans (if they need a little more help to get clean than the dishwasher can handle by itself).

(This is a pan that I used to sauté some baby spinach with garlic and olive oil.)

Start by sprinkling a generous amount of baking soda into your pan to absorb any leftover oil.

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Add a splash of plain white vinegar, and use a sponge to give the pan a good scrub.

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Rinse the pan out, then wash with soap and water as usual.

Ta da! A super clean pan, ready to make your next delicious dish.

How to Bake Sweet and Creamy Sweet Potato Fries – with No Added Sweeteners

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This is one of my favorite recipes and I make it all the time. I love cooking sweet potatoes this way because they become soft and creamy in the middle and almost taste like custard, but the crispy ends taste like toasted marshmallow.

The sweet potatoes are cooked slowly so that it brings out their natural sweetness and this is a great recipe to make when you’re trying to avoid added sweeteners, but still want to have something that tastes like dessert.

Make a big batch, and keep any leftovers in the fridge. They actually get sweeter once refrigerated and are wonderful for snacking during the week. They are delicious on their own, but you can also sprinkle over some cinnamon and nutmeg right before serving and it makes this sweet potato dish even more dessert-like and wonderful.

Sweet and Creamy Sweet Potato Fries

Makes about 3 – 4 servings

Ingredients

2 – 3 sweet potatoes (cut into 1/2 inch fries)

1 tsp of avocado oil (or any neutral flavored oil)*

Notes – * I’ve used olive oil before too and that works great as well. You don’t taste the olive oil flavor very much at all when you cook the sweet potatoes this way, so really any oil that you use will be fine. Coconut oil is nice too, the sweet potatoes taste even sweeter when cooked with coconut oil.

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.

cut raw sweet potatoes

2. Take your sweet potatoes and place them onto a sheet pan or glass baking dish (I prefer using a glass dish for this, as the sweet potato fries do stick a little to the pan and you can use a spatula to scrape any crispy bits off of the glass without having to worry about scratching up a sheet pan).

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3. Pour the tsp. of oil into a corner of the baking dish and slide each sweet potato fry into the oil and toss them with your hands until well coated.

Place the baking dish into the oven and bake for 55 – 60 minutes until the fries turn a little crispy and golden brown at the edges. In my oven this takes about 57 minutes.

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4. Allow your fries to cool a little before serving.

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I hope that you love these sweet potatoes fries as much as I do! I’m about to go make another big batch of them, and I can’t wait to eat them.

 

fudgy chocolate frosting

The Fudgiest Sweet Potato Chocolate Frosting – Dairy Free, Refined Sugar Free, Vegan

Fudgy Chocolate Frosting

This fudgy chocolate frosting works great over my Chewy Sweet Potato or Adzuki Bean Brownies, and it’s delicious enough that you can eat it by itself with a spoon. It tastes better than any store brought chocolate frosting, and it’s refined sugar free and dairy free.

It’s stable enough of a frosting that you can pipe designs with it and give cupcakes or brownies a little extra joy and decoration if desired.

 

The Fudgiest Sweet Potato Chocolate Frosting

Makes 1 cup (enough for 1 batch of brownies)

Ingredients

4 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder (25g)

1/4 cup oat flour (27g)*

1/2 tbsp ground chia seed (about 2.5g)

level 1/4 tsp sea salt

 

1/4 cup water

level 1/4 cup mashed roasted sweet potato

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 1 tsp maple syrup

5 tbsp melted coconut oil

 

Notes – * 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.

 

Instructions

1. Add all the ingredients to a food processor and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and gently heat over a double boiler and stir until glossy.

If eating with brownies, spread the frosting onto the brownies while the frosting is still warm and glossy. If you frost the brownies while the frosting is still warm, then the frosting will stay glossy when it cools and sets.

If you want to use this frosting to pipe flowers or designs, then the frosting needs to cool to room temperature before you transfer it into a piping bag. You can make this frosting in advance if needed and keep it in the fridge, and either heat it very gently and quickly over a double boiler, or let it sit a room temperature until softened before piping.

 

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.

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!

Kitchen Tip – How to Regrow Green Onions

green onions

Green onions are used in lots of Asian recipes, and they are actually super simple to regrow on your windowsill from the trimmings that you would normally compost.

I cut the green part off the green onions so that there’s about  1.5 – 2 inches of the white part attached to the roots.  Then put the green onion roots in a little jar (old spice jars seem to work well for this) and add about 1.5 inches of cool water into the jar. I put a little piece of folded paper towel under the jar when I put it in the windowsill so that no watermarks stain the wood.

Replace the water everyday (that way the water doesn’t get slimy as quickly). I’ve been able to successfully regrow a trimmed green onion root about 2-3 times.  After that, they get a little too slimy around the roots and it’s time to compost them and wash out the jar.

The picture shows about a week of growth, and you can trim off what you need to add to dishes.

You can also plant the trimmed green onion roots in some soil, and they should regrow a few more times than if they were simply regrown in water.

I hope that this tip helps you save a little money! Let me know how this trick works for you. What would you make with your regrown green onions?