Italian Fried Egg

I love eggs, at any time of the day, but eating them the same way can get a little boring. I made this Italian dish for breakfast, but you could have it for any meal of the day and it would go great with some garlic toast on the side and a nice espresso.

Ingredients:
1/2 zucchini (about 1/4 cup)
1/8 cup Tomato sauce
1 Egg

Preheat oven to 375. Thinly slice zucchini into spaghetti like pieces. Place zucchini in a pot with boiling water and boil for about 5 minutes, until the zucchini becomes soft. Drain zucchini and place in a small baking bowl and cover with tomato sauce (some people like a lot of sauce, so you can alter the amount to your taste). Create a small dent in the top of the zucchini tomato mixture, like a pool. Next crack an egg in the pool and bake for 5-7 minutes. If you like your egg runny-- keep an eye on it cooking because of differing altitudes cooking time may vary.

Shake cubes- shakes without the pain!

I've recently turned to smoothies to try to fit in all of those foods you're "suppose" to eat for health benefits-- but just can't seem to get into your meals. I mean we all know things like: garlic, cilantro, beets, flax, coconut milk, are good for us, not to mention those extra powders and supplements we need to improve our health, but how the heck do you fit them into your menu every single day....not an easy task! The second problem is storing all of the raw ingredients that can spoil.
My shake cubes solves these problems and also helps cut down on shake making time. I usually add cilantro and beets to my shakes. Cilantro helps detox heavy metals, helps reduce cholesterol, and stimulates the endocrine system. Beets are proven to reduce the growth of tumors, a great vitamin A source and help manage blood pressure. I would never get a daily source of cilantro or beets without my shakes!

Ingredients:
1 cup of beets-- or your favorite shake ingredient
2 tablespoons Coconut milk
1 tablespoon Water

Beets need to be boiled and softened first. If you are using other ingredients like cilantro, or spinach you can skip the boiling step. Boil beets until soft. Once soft remove from heat and cut into small pieces. Add pieces to food processor and add coconut milk and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into ice cube trays and freeze. The next morning all you have to do is get out your different types of ice cubes and add them to your milk of choice and blend. This eliminates the hassle of prepping your ingredients every day and better yet your ingredients wont spoil in the fridge! Prepare different types of cubes to keep your taste buds happy :-)

Egg White Salad-- how have I not had this before?!

I'm really confused how I have not had this before. Tuna salad was pretty common in my house growing up and it wasn't until college that I tried chicken salad, when I shared lunch with a friend (that's great too!), but egg salad-- for some reason I hadn't tried. I guess I just didn't think it would be any good, but it's delicious people! I'm sure most of you have tried it. this egg white version helps by reducing cholesterol if that is something that concerns you, it also just reduces calories in general. I used boxed egg whites, but you could use the real thing-- it just might take a lot of eggs!

Ingredients:
1/3 cup Egg Whites
3/4 tablespoon Mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Yellow Mustard
1 tablespoon Chives or red onion
1/2 tablespoon Capers
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 pieces of Bacon (optional, but sure are good!)

Place eggs in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for about 1 minute, or until fully cooked. Chop egg mixture and place back in bowl. Add mayonnaise mustard and olive oil to eggs and mix well. Chop chives and capers then add to mixture. Lastly add salt and pepper to your taste. I added bacon to my sandwich, but it would be great to add the bacon directly to the egg salad mixture too! Another twist too- you could substitute the regular mayonnaise for my chipotle mayonnaise :-)

Oh Granola: how I've missed you!

There are so many things you miss out on when you're gluten free and even more when you're grain free. I've been pretty lucky to figure out how to reproduce so many of my favorites. I'm not really sure why it took me so long to even think of this! I love eating yogurt and am a huge snacker so granola used to a staple in my diet. When I was little my Mom would take us to Costco and I would get the granola in the HUGE milk carton and literally pour it into my mouth (of course I'd get yelled at for contaminating everyone's granola). So yesterday when I woke up around 5am and could not get back to sleep (it was awful), I got up and made this-- which was De-licious!

Ingredients:
1 cup Roasted Almonds
1/3 cup Sunflower seeds
1/8 cup Raisins
1/4 cup Shredded coconut
2 tablespoons Sesame seeds
1 tablespoon Molasses
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
2 teaspoons Stevia powder
Coconut oil for skillet (or butter)
**Feel free to add any other seeds or dried fruit

Warm a medium sized skillet to medium heat and add coconut oil. Chop almonds and place skillet. Chop sunflower seeds and raisins and also add to skillet, make sure to stir mixture to heat it evenly. Next add coconut and any other seeds you will be using. After mixing well lower heat to low then add molasses-- you do not want to cook the molasses. Next add stevia and vanilla. Heat mixture for a few more minutes then remove from heat. Turn the oven on to 375. Pour granola mixture onto a lined cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. This will help the granola become more crunchy. Remove from oven and let cool.

Daring Cooks Challenge: Three Spice Liver Pate

This was my first daring cook challenge and it was De-Licious! Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice. I have enjoyed this pate in so many ways! I've used it in place of ham for eggs benedict, with apple slices, and of course with toasts and mustard. This recipe is pretty easy, although time consuming-- I'd be surprised if you could mess it up!

Ingredients:
1 lb Chicken liver (you can use pork too, but I couldn't find it)
1/2 lb Ground pork
1/2 lb Pork belly
2 cloves Garlic
2 Shallots
1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Coriander
1/2 tsp Cumin
3/4 tsp Salt
1 tbps Pepper
2 tbps Cognac
2 Bay leaves
1 package of Bacon

Preheat oven to to 350. Cut liver and pork fat into small pieces and add to food processor. Add ground pork, garlic, shallots, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Grind until smooth. In mixing bowl, incorporate the meat and liver mixture with the cognac and eggs. Line bottom of baking or ceramic pan with overlapping pieces of bacon. Place a bay leaf on the bottom and then fill with meat/liver mixture. Cover top with another bay leaf and then overlapping pieces of bacon. Place in oven in the larger baking pan and add enough water to cover 2/3rds of the pan containing the meat/liver mixture. Bake for about 1-1.5 hrs. The pâté will contract and the juices will be on the bottom. Allow to cool and soak up the juices. Remove any excess bacon and discard the bay leaves.


I recommend pairing this lovely pate with my Fluffly Almond flour bread-- you can't go wrong :-)

LuLu's Birthday Cake

Today is Lulu's birthday. We don't know exactly when she was born, but we know that it was in June so we thought this weekend would be a great time to celebrate. Lulu got a new pink summer shirt and some new bones to commemorate the occasion and of course a cake! I made the cake out of beets, peanut butter and carob powder, so it is dog friendly... and people friendly! This cake has a great light flavor with a hint of chocolate (carob- so its dog friendly), the frosting is sweet, fruity and also chocolatey-- its good stuff! This recipe fit a bread loaf pan, if you want a full sized cake just double the recipe. Lulu's piece of cake didn't have frosting on it because she really likes peanut butter.


The above picture is Lulu's cake with the peanut butter as frosting, but I think people prefer the chocolate raspberry frosting :-)

Ingredients:
1 cup Beets
1/2 cup Peanut butter
2 Eggs
1 1/2 tablespoons Cinnamon
3 tablespoon Carob powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking soda
1/4 teaspoon Baking powder
3 teaspoons Honey

Preheat oven to 350. Boil fresh beats in large pot for about 30 minutes or until softened (You want to be able to stick it with a fork and remove fairly easily). Take beets and place in food processor and blend, add peanut butter and blend again. Next add cinnamon, stevia, honey and once the mixture cools a bit add eggs. Pour mixture into a greased loaf pan (the size of a loaf of bread) and bake for 40 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean.


Ingredients:
1/3 cup Coconut milk (full fat)
1/2 Banana
2 tablespoons Raspberry jelly
2 tablespoons Carob Powder
1 tablespoon Honey

Place half banana in a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds or until soft. Mash up the banana then add coconut milk and mix well. Add raspberry jelly, carob powder and honey. Mix well, then place in the fridge for about 10 minutes so that it will harden. When the cake has cooled smooth frosting over cake and place back in the fridge and the frosting will continue to harden.

Please tell me this isn't my future