Super Simple Blueberry Carrot Salad

To celebrate getting back into the habit of blogging after a whirlwind month that included moving, I am giving you a salad that is both super simple and very delicious. I dare you to not love this salad. Its a healthful easy to make salad for the lettuce phobic or just someone tired of the same old romaine routine. Technically it doesnt even need a recipe just a combination of six ingredients you probably have in your kitchen on a regular basis.

Aside from the amazing minimalism of it this is a beautiful salad. The contrast between the blueberries and carrot in color is reveled only by the juxtaposition of the crunchy and then sweet soft berries. It was outstanding with a lean steak and a microbrewed local beer. This was the perfect meal to christen my kitchen with and I fully plan on preparing many more of the salads from this article in the New York Times. My life needs more simple, light, no fuss dishes and the dwindling days of summer seems like the right time to work my way through 101 salads.

Blueberry and Carrot Salad

2 carrots, ribboned or grated
1 handful fresh blue berries
1/2 handful sunflower seeds
equal parts olive oil and lemon juice
lots of black pepper

Grate or ribbon carrots into a bowl. Toss on blueberries and sunflower seeds.

Whisk oil, lemon juice and pepper together. Pour over carrot mixture. Toss to coat.

From a recipe suggestion by Mark Bittman in the New York Times The Minimalist column.

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Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

After the third or fourth night in a row of having vivid Salvador Dali-esque dreams about baking cookies I knew something needed to be done. I ceded to my subconscious and scoured the internet for a cookie recipe, any cookie recipe I could eat. No flour, very little starch and no sugar puts most recipes out of the running. After looking through enough gluten free vegan blogs I found cookies I could make with what I had on hand without much trouble and gleefully went about doing so.

The great thing about these cookies is that since they are vegan and therefore egg less there is really no reason to cook them. You could very easily mix this up and eat it raw to satisfy a cookie dough craving. With my new found ice cream obsession Im thinking of making this batter again and tossing it raw into vanilla custard. The decadence of such a thing is grin worthy and obviously something I will try very soon.

For the first time around however I resisted the urge to eat all the dough raw (though a couple spoonfuls were sacrificed before the oven got turned on) to see how these would turn out. Substituting in the agave nectar caused a strange reaction in the oven, browning the bottom of the cookies heavily without burning them. There was a bit of smoke in the kitchen and the cookies werent very pretty but otherwise they were great little treats.

Believe the recipe when it says that super creamy more expensive peanut butter is best. I used the cheap natural peanut butter I had on hand and ended up with gritty cookies. If taste is more important to you than texture use whatever nut butter you have, your cookies will just look odd.

Also the original recipe involved sugar and corn starch so switching that out for agave nectar and arrowroot caused interesting problems. You may have to play with amounts of sweetness and starch to get a good consistency. I would suggest putting in too little agave and then adding the arrowroot bit by bit until you get the dough to firm up. I made the mistake of tossing in all the agave and then adding too much arrowroot to compensate. If youve never tasted raw arrowroot I wouldnt suggest it as it isnt pleasant. Almost like a gritty fermented yam or something along those lines. Not something you want your cookies to taste like. So use the arrowroot sparingly.

Ive yet to find sugar free chocolate chips so I used a meat hammer to break up baking chocolate. This was extremely satisfying and worked out well. The uneven bits of bitter chocolate worked out well in my overly gritty cookies

Apparently these cookies did a good job imitating real cookies because I havent had cookie lust dreams since making them.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 1/2 tablespoons flax seed meal
3 tablespoons water

1 c. creamy peanut butter (the kind that does not separate into oil and nuts is best)
scant 3/4 cup agave nectar

1 tablespoon arrow root
1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a small bowl or ramekin, use a fork to whisk together the flax meal and water. Allow to sit 3-4 minutes or until it gels.

In a mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter and agave nectar. When the flax seed egg replacer has gelled, add it to the mix. Add the arrowroot and mix well. The mixture should be pretty stiff. Add more arrowroot if the mixture is too soft to hold peaks when you lift the spoon out of it.

Stir in the chocolate chips as gently as you can.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for 15-30 minutes. Turn the oven to 350 degrees to preheat during this time.

Scoop the chilled cookie dough into small balls using a normal eating-sized spoon. Place the cookie dough balls onto a baking sheet about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake cookies at 350 degrees for around 15 minutes. You want to take them out once the tops are getting brown. The cookies may still seem soft at this point, but they will harden as they cool.

Original recipe from the Aprovechar healthy cooking blog.

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Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan 113

Find more clean eating ideas at CLEAN GREEN EATS by Candice Kumai

Over 100 clean eating recipes to improve your life!

Click here for details!!!!!!!!

Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan 113

Breakfast

Organic Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage, Banana Slices and Scrambled Eggs with Organic Ketchup

Mid Morning Snack

Fresh Blackberries

Lunch

Toasted Tofu in Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Over Organic Quinoa

Afternoon Snack

Cucumber Slices, Egg White Haves, Craisins and Coconut Chips

Dinner

Green Onion, Egg and Mushroom Stir Fry

Its a simple clean eating dinner but its tasty. Get recipe at easy healthy dinner recipe.

Thanks for visiting todays Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan!

Hope you liked the choices above.

Happy Friday!

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Chipotles in Adobo Sauce

In case you thought I was kidding when I keep saying everything has sugar in it heres another thing to add to the list: chipotles in adobo sauce. Theyre a standard ingredient in our kitchen especially to add a nice kick to Tuesday crockpot meals. However after a month of searching we couldnt find a single grocery store can of them that wasnt full of brown sugar not even at Whole Foods. Not willing to live without them and not liking any of the smoky pepper sauce alternatives we tried the fella searched out a recipe. Gotta love him.

So on Sunday when I was out drinking beer with another man he stayed home and made adobo sauce. I came home and the house smelled like a smoky spicy heaven. Apparently it was one of the easiest things ever to make as its a toss it in the pan and forget it for hours type thing. And the final product was better than any canned adobo weve ever had. The fella tossed them in the crockpot chili he made today and my lips are still burning hours later.

Take that sugar weve once again found a way around you. Next stop: bacon.

Chipotles in Adobo Sauce

10-whole chipotle peppers
1/3 cup onion, diced
5 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, sliced
4 tablespoons sugar free ketchup (found in the organic aisle)
3 cups water
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.

Cook over a very low heat for 1 to 2 hours until the chilies are very soft and the liquid has been reduced to about 1-cup. Put in blender and process for a thicker sauce.

Will keep for a week in an air tight container when refrigerated.

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Gluten Free Double Chocolate Scones

While getting ready to host a wine tasting party this upcoming weekend Ive been shuffling through all the bookmarked recipe ideas I have saved to see what weird and wonderful snacks to make. In the process Ive been finding recipes Ive been remiss in not yet posting.

I made these scones months ago for our house warming party. They were delicious. So delicious in fact no one even noticed they were gluten free which is a compliment when you can trick wheat eaters into making yummy noises over something sans flour. But shame on me for taking so long to tell you about them. They were easy, had a nice chewy consistency and took care of the scone craving I had at the time. Now that I rediscovered this recipe I might have to make them again tonight.

Gluten Free Double Chocolate Scones

2 1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 chopped dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix almond flour, salt, and baking soda together. In a separate medium bowl mix the coconut oil, agave nectar, and eggs together until blended. Add cocoa powder to wet ingredients. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix well. Briefly stir in dark chocolate.

Place 1/4 cup of batter onto parchment paper lined baking sheet or silicone baking mat. Repeat for each scone and space about one inch apart. Bake 12 to 17 minutes or until scones pass the clean toothpick test.

Original recipe from Celiac Chicks blog.

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Halibut with Sun Dried Tomato Butter and “Potatoes”

This is one of my favorite low maintenance menus taken of course from a Rachel Ray recipe and improved upon. There are three different things to work on all at the same time (four if you add a steamed green vegetable to the mix as I do) but none of them take any effort. Its almost too easy after some of the things Ive been making, that probably means I need to start coming up with really complex menus soon to make up for it.

I have a thing about not liking plants from the lily family raw. It probably has something to do with the fact Im allergic to the flower. This I found out the hard way a couple years ago when the fella bought me a huge arrangement of purple and orange lilies. It was gorgeous and exactly my taste and my favorite colors. It should have been perfect birthday gift except for the fact that the next day I woke up unable to breath and spent the rest of it feeling like I was about to die at any second. We put the lilies outside to think about what they had done and I miraculously returned to normal.. The poor pretty lilies got re-gifted to a friend and the fella wisely has not buy me flowers since. Its better that way, I prefer my flowers alive in the ground and to be able to breath.

So though I adore garlic, shallots, leeks and on a limited basic onions they absolutely have to be cooked in order for me to eat them. This makes things interesting considering the large quantities of raw onions people seem to toss on seemingly everything Ive ever ordered in a restaurant. I also cook the hell out of

The original recipe for this called for both raw garlic and scallions, obviously that had to change I have a tried it a couple times that way and hated it so this time around I took the time to cook them both slightly before adding them to the butter spread. This I loved. It made the spread much less intense and allowed the sun dried tomato to really shine. If youre into raw lilies feel free to just mix up the butter ingredients and save yourself some time.

This horribly divine butter is great on the fish and beans but it would be sinful not to slather it on some warm potatoes. Unfortunately potatoes arent in my near future. Instead we made a much better fake out cauliflower version of mashed potatoes than the ones I posted the recipe for a week or so ago. Boiling the cauliflower made it too wet, it wasnt possible to add cream or butter to it without making cauliflower soup. Steaming solves the problem, this makes the cauliflower the right texture to mash and mix with your favorite creamy mashed potato fixings. Top it with the sun dried tomato butter and you wont know they arent real potatoes.

Drinking a glass of the Cline Viognier made this dinner even more enjoyable. Ive already talked a couple times about how much I love everything Cline so it was no surprise that I fell in love with this bottle. It was super floral (more along the lines of roses and not lilies thankfully) on the nose and the perfect balance of dry and sweet. There were all sorts of delicious summer fruits on the first sip, I got pear and a tart apple where as the fella loved that it was citrusy. With fish and faux potatoes I couldnt have picked a better wine.

Halibut with Sun Dried Tomato Butter and “Potatoes”

BUTTER
1 tablespoon oil
1 scallion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, diced
3 tablespoons softened butter
2 sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, finely chopped

In a pan warm the oil over medium heat, add garlic and scallion and cook until tender but not browned. Place in a small bowl to cool then add butter and sun dried tomatoes, combining well to create a soft butter mixture to use when serving meal.

FISH:
3 tablespoons butter
4 six-ounce halibut fillets (or whatever tender white fish you choose)
2 tablespoons flour (if you can use it)
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in the same pan you used in the first step over medium heat. Season fish fillets with salt, pepper and flour (if using it) on both sides. When butter is fully melted and foamy start pan frying fish. Cook fish about 8 minutes total, longer if using a thicker piece of fish, flipping over half way through cooking time. Transfer to a serving dish when cooked through.

“POTATOES”
1 head cauliflower, cut into rough florets
1 tablespoon butter
1/ 4 cup milk or cream (maybe less depending on how creamy you want your “potatoes”)

Place the cauliflower pieces in a steamer and cook until tender. Mash cauliflower in large bowl until the consistency of mashed potatoes. Add butter and enough milk to make cauliflower creamy. Season with salt and pepper then serve topped with sun dried tomato butter.

Original recipe from Everyday with Rachel Ray.

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Salty Stuffed Tomatoes

These were a lovely and perfectly salty accompaniment to the sweet beef dish that was the main dish of dinner.  Everyone was as shocked as I was at how good these tomatoes were.  Even the fella dug into his, and we all know how he feels about tomatoes.  And the big meaty Chilean Cab from Cousino-Macul Antiguas Reservas that we drank while enjoying dinner was a nice contrast to the acidic and salty stuffing in the tomatoes.

 All the wonderful wines that we paired with dinner.  Full tasting notes of all the wines over at Forkful of News.

I could see making these again with more tuna and less capers to cut down the salt and make them more substantial.  For some reason Ive never been a fan of stuffed peppers but these really did it for me.  It could have had something to do with the deeply satisfying and meditative scraping out of the juicy delicate tomato centers.  Not that Im creepy and sometimes like to de-seed squishy fruits every once in a while or anything. 

I even saved all the juicy bits from the inside of my tomatoes and used them instead of diced tomatoes in a soup later on in the week, so this meal helped out in later recipes.  How can you not love a recipe that leaves you with left overs that hint at what you should cook next?

Also included in this meal:

Sundried Tomato Tapenade

Orange, Olive and Argan Oil Salad

Crockpot Beef Tagine

Red Quinoa with Roasted Vegetables

Rice Crepes and Amlou

Salty Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large tomatoes
4 red peppers

salt, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 7-ounce can tuna
2 tablespoons capers
4 tablespoons chopped black olives
1 lemon, zested
2 tablespoons, chopped parsley

Cut a small circle around the stalk of each tomato and cut out a cap in the top of each.  Using a grapefruit spoon, scoop out the seeds and flesh inside the tomato.  (Save the insides for later when you have a recipe that calls for a can of diced tomatoes.)

Roast the pepper yourself under the broiler or buy good quality pre-roasted red peppers in a jar.  If roasting them yourself, peel, de-seed and chop into strips.

Put the strips of red pepper in a large mixing bowl along with all the remaining ingredients.  Gently fold everything together.  Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with this filling.

Arrange the tomatoes on a shallow baking dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes.  Check on them fairly often so that the tomatoes never get to the point where that explode or fall apart in the pan.  They are done when the filling is warmed through. 

From Claudia Rodens Arabesque. 

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Peanut Butter Brownies with Chocolate Chips

This is my attempt at modifying another recipe from the Lisas Kitchen blog to make it gluten and sugar free.  I was hoping to make it 100% Montignac friendly as well but I couldnt justify putting almond flour in something with a cup of peanut butter in it so I used brown rice flour instead.  That means this is a decent treat for dessert on the maintenance phase since it just has a hint of carby goodness in it instead of a refined flour.

My version isnt perfect as its a little dry so feel free to play around with the ingrediants and let me know if you could up with a different flour ratio.  Besides slightly dry baked goods are an excuse to have ice cream along side it and ice cream makes everything better.  And we all know how well peanut butter and chocolate go together so there really isnt anything else I should have to say to sell you on these yummy bars.

Peanut Butter Brownies with Chocolate Chips

7 tablespoons of melted vegan shortening (I used Earth Balance butter flavor spread)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 cup crunchy peanut butter (divided use)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
scant 3/4 cup chickpea flour
scant 1/2 cup brown rice flour
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate finely chopped (or 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Grease an 8 inch square pan with shortening. Line with parchment paper, leaving some overlap. Grease the paper in the bottom of the pan with more shortening.

In a large bowl, combine the melted shortening, agave nectar and 1/2 cup of the peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Gently beat in the flours, arrowroot, baking soda and cream of tartar. Stir in the chocolate and remaining peanut butter.

Spread evenly into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until it passes the tooth pick test.

Modified from a recipe on the Lisas Kitchen Blog.

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