RECIPE: Tropical Energy Smoothie

I hope y'all don't get tired of smoothie recipes because I have several more I want to try. I'm really enjoying trying them, plus I stay full all day after drinking one. Even on cold days I blend one up! Since I had some pineapple left from the other day I decided to go tropical ... 

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (vanilla)

1 tablespoon almond butter

1 banana

1/2 avocado

1 large piece of fresh pineapple (approximately 1"X5"X2")

2 tablespoons unsweetened grated coconut

6 - 8 ice cubes

 DIRECTIONS:
1. Pour milk into blender.
2. Add remaining ingredients.
3. Blend until smooth and creamy.

 4. Pour into your favorite insulated cup and enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:

RECIPE: Fruity Power Smoothie

Smoothies are a great way to consume fruits and vegetables especially those of us with busy schedules. Imagine being able to get several servings of fruits, vegetables, and some serious protein while on the go. Folks, it's super simple and they taste great, too! Trust me  ... I had my doubts about putting avocados and spinach into a blender, but add the rest of the ingredients and you don't even know they are there! I am yet to taste the avocado. All it seems to do is add a wonderful creaminess to the smoothie. I assure you ... I would not blog about it if I wouldn't eat it myself! (And I'm pretty darned picky about stuff like this!)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup unsweetened almond milk (vanilla)

1 tablespoon almond butter

1 banana

1 small peach

1 small apple (I used fuji)

1/2 avocado

2 cups spinach

6 - 8 ice cubes

 DIRECTIONS:
1. Put almond milk into blender followed by all remaining ingredients
2. Blend until smooth and creamy.

 3. Pour. Serve. Enjoy!

RECIPE: Roasted Acorn Squash with Pecans

Along with the Almond Crusted Chicken, I prepared acorn squash a little differently from how I prepared it a couple of weeks ago. I love honey. I love ginger. I love pecans. This combination seemed like a perfect compliment for an acorn squash.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Pecans
INGREDIENTS:
1 Acorn squash
2 tablespoons Coconut oil (or butter)
2 tablespoons pure Maple syrup
1 tablespoon fresh grated Ginger
2 tablespoons chopped Pecans
Sea Salt

 DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash acorn squash and cut it in half from stem to end. Scrape out the seeds and stringy stuff.
3. Place halves in an oven safe baking dish. I prefer to use two small Karhai woks.
4. Put coconut oil (or butter), grated ginger, maple syrup, and a sprinkle of sea salt in the cavity of each squash half.
4. Bake for approximately 1 1/4 hours. At the one hour mark, add the chopped pecan pieces to the mixture in the cavities of the squash. Check tenderness. A fork should easily pierce through the pulp of the squash.
(Baking time can be cut to approximately 20 minutes by following the easy steps listed below.)

***NOTE*** I needed for these squash to be ready sooner, so I took a shortcut that worked very well. Before I put them in the oven I put them in a baking dish with an inch of water in it, then put them in the microwave for 10 minutes. I took them out of the microwave safe dish, put them in the small stainless steel woks and put them in the oven for 10 minutes, then added the pecans and baked for 10 more minutes.

RECIPE: Almond Crusted Chicken

Chicken is a favorite source of protein around here. When I went grocery shopping the other day I picked up a couple of pounds of fresh organic chicken tenders. It's cold and rainy here in Northern California this weekend, and "comfort" food seemed to be in order. It's fun finding Paleo recipes that fill the "Comfort Food" void for this Southern girl! How does Almond Crusted Chicken,  Roasted Acorn Squash and a Tomato and Blue Salad sound? Sounds great to me!

Almond Crusted Chicken Tenders
INGREDIENTS:
10 chicken tenders
1 large egg
1/2 cup almond flour
1/4 cup chopped raw almonds
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

 DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash and dry the chicken.
3. Crack an egg into a bowl and whisk until blended. Put almond meal and chopped raw almonds into another bowl.

 4. Coat each piece of chicken with egg.

 5. Then coat chicken (with egg) with almond flour mixture.

 6. Place chicken in greased pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

7. Bake for 20 minutes.

I'll be posting the recipe for the acorn squash next!

RECIPE: Pina Colada Smoothie

I bought this beautiful pineapple at the market the other day. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. While I was cutting it to put it in the refrigerator it hit me. How about using it in a smoothie? Yep, that's what I'd do!

"Pina Colada" Smoothie
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup coconut milk
1 banana
1 tablespoon almond butter
pineapple (about the same amount as banana)
1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut (Not in photo ... afterthought ... sorry!)
6 - 8 ice cubes, if banana isn't frozen. Mine wasn't ... Never are.

DIRECTIONS: 
1. Cut fresh pineapple. Use approximately the same amount of pineapple as the size of the banana. Put the rest in an airtight container in the refrigerator to use later.

 2. Put coconut milk, banana, ice, almond butter, pineapple, and coconut in blender.

 3. Blend until all ingredients are smooth and creamy.

 4. Pour into your favorite smoothie glass and enjoy!

RECIPE: Roasted Vegetables - Broccoli

I had an "Ah-ha" moment yesterday afternoon. I had two huge crowns of broccoli and needed to prepare at least one of them for dinner last night. I'm rather tired of steaming them and I had seen several recipes for roasting broccoli, so I decided to give it a try. I'm VERY glad I did! We'll be eating roasted broccoli a lot more often, plus I will be trying LOTS more roasted vegetables now that I know it's so simple and so yummy!!

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Let me preface this recipe by telling you about a very cool gadget I bought the other day. It's a MISTO Olive Oil Sprayer. It's a spray can that you use the lid to pump the contents so it actually sprays! All you do is fill the container 1/2 way with olive oil, pump the lid a few times, and spray! I LOVE it!

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Here's my version of Roasted Broccoli - Plain and Simple
(You'll notice there's okra and a red bell pepper in the photo, too. More on that later.)
INGREDIENTS:
1 large crown fresh broccoli
olive oil
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
grated parmesan cheese (not pictured as this was an afterthought)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash broccoli, but it must be thoroughly dry before you cook it, so it's best to wash it well in advance and let it dry. Cut broccoli into large bite-sized pieces.
3. Put about a tablespoon of olive oil in a deep dish baking stone or whatever kind of dish you'd use for roasting.

 4. Place cut broccoli into pan and spray olive oil evenly on the broccoli. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Toss and repeat.

5. Bake in center of the oven for 15 minutes, then stir broccoli to expose bottom sides.
6. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, if desired. (We do!)
7. Continue roasting for another 10 minutes. Some of the broccoli will be golden brown. Most of what you see in this photo is the browned parmesan cheese.

**NOTE*** I wanted to try this with some okra, too. It worked very well! We still had some Mediterranean Eggplant Stuffing left, so I roasted a red bell pepper, too, with the intention of putting the stuffing in at the 15 minute mark. I also stuffed some large mushrooms. We preferred the mushrooms over the red peppers as the taste of the peppers over-powered the stuffing, in our opinion. Keep in mind I am not a pepper person.

RECIPES: Mediterranean Stuffed Eggplant

It has literally been at least a decade since I've had eggplant. As a child growing up in the South I remember my mom cutting it into slices, soaking it in milk, then rolling it in some sort of floury mixture before frying it in vegetable oil **STOP** What were we thinking back then??? My body cringes at the thought! As is visible in the photo of the vegetables I bought for the week, there's an eggplant among them. It has plagued me all week as to what to do with it. Upon my 'exploring' on the Internet I came across this recipe for food.com's Mediterranean Stuffed Eggplant, so I figured I'd give it a try.

I am very glad I did! It's an amazing recipe and one I will definitely use again and again. As a matter of fact, I bought extra mushrooms in hopes of having some stuffing left over, so guess what's for dinner tomorrow night? You guessed it! Stuffed mushrooms!

Ingredients

• 1 lb meatloaf mixture ( ground pork, veal, beef)
• 1 tablespoon lard
• 1 small onions, chopped
• 1 tablespoon organic butter
• 1/2 pint white mushrooms, chopped
• 2 small eggplants, halved and contents scooped out and chopped
• 1/4 cup raisins, chopped
• 1/4 cup almond meal ( or finely chopped almonds)
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 pinch cayenne powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese**Please note** The photo shows a jar with some bacon fat. I was going to use it instead of olive oil and butter but changed my mind. 
  

  Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a cast iron skillet over medium high heat, cook ground meat in lard until well browned, scraping bottom with a wooden spoon periodically to avoid burning.
  3. In a large saucepan over medium heat, saute onions in butter, with a little salt, until translucent (about five minutes). Add chopped mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms have softened.
  4. Add onion and mushroom mixture to meat in skillet, and stir to combine. Add chopped eggplant to skillet, stir to combine. Add seasonings, raisins and almonds. When eggplant softens, add water to skillet, and deglaze bottom of the pan.
     
     5. Add olive oil to the empty saucepan. Lightly salt eggplant cavities, and place eggplant in the saucepan, cut side down. Cook eggplant this way for about 3-5 minutes. Flip eggplant, exposing cavities. Cook eggplant in a 400 degree oven for another 5 minutes. Remove eggplant from the oven.
     6. Add cheeses to the meat mixture and stir to combine. Check for seasonings, and add salt if necessary. Divide meat mixture evenly, and stuff into the 4 eggplant halves.
        
        7. Bake until delicious, golden brown, and bubbly, about 5 more minutes.
        
        8. Serve.
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        ***NOTE*** This is by far the best way I have ever eaten eggplant. It's amazing! (Even Conrad raved about it!!)