I roast a lot of foods - I just like the crispy edges and the simplicity of it all! To roast (anything), you really just need parchment paper, oil, salt and pepper. I especially love roasted potatoes. Since organic red potatoes have been on sale lately, I've been cooking a lot of them and roasting them is the easiest and tastiest way! 

Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients:
- Coconut Oil
- Potatoes chopped
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 415 degrees (F). Line a pan with parchment paper and spread out the chopped potatoes on top of it. Grab a spoonful of coconut oil and crumble it on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and put the pan in the preheated oven. (You may notice there isn't any pepper on my potatoes - my kids hate pepper, so I skip it!)

Check and shake pan every 10 minutes. Potatoes are done when the edges are brown and the inside of a potato is soft when pricked with a fork. This usually takes approximately 30 minutes. 

Serve warm.

You know how to make pizza, right? You don't need me to tell you how to make sauce, or shred cheese, or add the toppings you love! The key to a good pizza, though, is the crust!

I may be a little biased, but I love bread and all things bread-y, so I know a good pizza crust when I taste one. Domino's gluten-free crust? Not so much. I need to bite IN to something, not ON to something... Sure, the gluten-y texture is always going to be missing but we can do better than cardboard! So far, this is my best crust ever!

The first thing to note is that the dough will be fairly wet and sticky. I'm not a big rolling-pin person, so I use some kind of plastic wrap or parchment paper to ease my struggles. I also coat everything with olive oil, including my hands! You'll end up with 2 pouches of wrapped dough waiting to rise. Like this:

The second thing to note is that I use a bread proofer (which my husband affectionately calls "the poofer"). I never needed one before I started making gluten-free breads, but I have had issues getting the dough to rise and ending up with harder breads. The proofer creates the warm, moist environment for the dough to thrive and rise in. It's not necessary! Some people use a microwave (I don't have one). Some use an oven that's been warmed (this hasn't worked for me). Give yourself a chance and try a few different methods and let me know what works for you. If you're really interested in making gluten-free breads, try the proofer! You won't be sorry! It folds up flat and can be stored anywhere. The affiliate link for the Broad & Taylor Folding Bread Proofer and Yogurt Maker is below:

Best Gluten-Free Pizza Crust
Yields: 2 large pizza crusts

Ingredients

3 3/4 c all-purpose GF flour ( the flour is HUGE; I only use Jules for baking bread)
2 tsp salt
1 c milk (I use coconut milk beverage)
1/2 c water
2 packages of yeast (not quick rise)
4 tsp sugar
4 large egg whites lightly beaten
6 TBSP olive oil (plus more for hands, rolling, etc)

In a stand mixer, whisk the flour and salt together.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk and water over medium heat until the temperature is warm, but not hot. Then add the yeast and sugar.

To the mixing bowl with the flour, add the warmed liquid mixture, plus the egg whites and 4 TBSP of oil. Use the paddle attachment and beat on medium for 5 minutes. Add more oil if necessary, or flour. Remember, it should be sticky and wet.

Divide the dough in half (with oily hands) and place on 2 sections of plastic wrap. Loosely fold up the edges and place in your proofer until it doubles in size. I usually leave mine in for an hour or until I'm ready to bake.

Preheat your oven to 400*F.

I don't have a pizza stone or baking peel, so I use 2 round cookie sheets with parchment paper on top. When you're ready to bake, transfer the dough to the pans and using oily hands spread out the dough, as seen here:

Bake the crusts for 5-10 minutes, or until the underside is firm and crispy.

Add your toppings and brush the crusts edge with the remaining olive oil (this stops it from drying out).

Broil pizzas 5-10 minutes, until crust is golden and cheese is bubbling.

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I've made zucchini lasagna and I love it. I've sliced the zucchini and set it out on paper towels, sprinkled it with salt and allowed it to sit while the juices ran out. I've flipped them and done it again. I've cooked ground beef and onions and set myself up for an afternoon of layering. It's beautiful and tasty. Some days though, time is not on my side! On this particular day, I had a HUGE harvest of zucchini and cherry tomatoes from our garden. It was vegetarian night, so I wasn't going to cook beef, and I did not have time to salt and spread out the zucchini slices to sit. Hence the invention and beautiful creation that is: Ladybugs on a Log (or Zucchini & Cherry Tomato Bake).

I had returned from our trip to Texas and there was very little food in the house, but I certainly didn't want take-out after traveling. Thankfully, our garden was producing more food than I knew what to do with and there were copious amounts of cherry tomatoes and gigantic zucchinis! I used one giant zucchini for a 9x13 pan. Basically, this is a "use what you have" recipe and I swear you can't go wrong, not with cheese and tomatoes and zucchini!


Ladybugs on a Log (Zucchini & Cherry Tomato Bake)

- 1 Giant Zucchini (or several small ones) sliced lengthwise as thin as possible
- several cups of cherry tomatoes, halved
- 10+ oz chevre (goat cheese) or other soft cheese
- 2 eggs
- salt & pepper to taste
- Italian seasonings (I used oregano, basil and parsley)
- 1 cup of shredded cheese (we use yogurt cheese with garlic)

Coat the bottom of your 9x13 glass pan with coconut oil (or other high heat oil). Place one layer of zucchini slices down on the bottom. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and Italian seasonings.

Mix the chevre and eggs together until it forms a creamy cheese. Add spices to the mixture. Spread about a third of the mixture on the first layer of zucchini and top with halved cherry tomatoes. Repeat until your last layer on top is cherry tomatoes.

Sprinkle shredded cheese on top.

Bake 45 minutes at 375* covered with foil. Remove foil for 15 minutes.

Prepare for liquid at the bottom of the pan. Perhaps a lot! I actually tipped my pan on its edge over the sink and drained what I could carefully without dumping my creation down the drain. This is the price I paid for quick and easy. Also notice there's no jarred sauce. The cherry tomatoes provided all the juiciness needed. I'm sure marinara sauce wouldn't hurt, but we didn't need it. Let me know if you try it! :)

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You may notice on my Weekly Meal Planning Inspiration posts that I roast a lot of vegetables! In my opinion, there's no better way to bring out the delicate flavors of nature's great vegetables than to drizzle them lightly with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast! I made Roasted Asparagus this week, as well as roasted cauliflower. The recipe remains the same, for the most part; the only thing that changes is the length of cooking time.

The recipe is simple!

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch of asparagus washed, hard ends snapped off (snap in half - optional)
1-2 TBSP high heat oil (like Safflower, Sunflower, or Coconut - not olive)
Salt & pepper to taste

Arrange your asparagus on the pan and drizzle your oil evenly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Using your hands, mix the oil and spice into the asparagus and spread it out.

Place in your oven, preheated to 425F. Set your timer for 7 minutes. After 7 minutes, poke your asparagus with a fork. If it's still very firm, shake the pan a little and put in for an additional 5 minutes. Repeat until desired firmness. Usually, I cook for 12-15 minutes total.

I’m in love.

Seriously, in love.

Okay, I have a history of getting obsessed with new recipes and making them until I’m burnt out, but what if I never get burned out on this one?

Do you like chocolate? Fudge? Smooth, creamy, wonderful goodness with 100% healthy ingredients?

You know by now I’m really not big on exact measurements, so follow this loosely and then do what you want with it!

Melt chocolate chips in a small pot – approximately ½ cup.

When melted, remove from heat and mix in the following:

1 can of coconut milk

Dash of vanilla

2 TBSP of raw cacao powder (or more)

2 TBSP of raw, unheated honey (or more)

(See below for which ingredients I choose to purchase.)

Use an immersion blender to make everything creamy and then choose your adventure:

Do you want popsicles that are fudgy frozen perfection?

Pour them into a ZOKU popsicle maker and wait 7 minutes for your heaven.

Or, pour them into popsicle molds and wait however long those things take.

Do you want chocolate fudge mousse that’s so creamy it melts in your mouth?

Pour the mixture into a small jar or bowl and chill in the fridge for a few hours.

Please do this.
Immediately.
Then, please thank me.
Nah, just enjoy.

Below are the affiliate links to some awesome tools and ingredients. You do not have to purchase through these links but if you do, a small, very small, percentage of your purchase will go toward supporting this blog and my family!

One of our favorite side dishes is roasted brussels sprouts. They are bright, crispy and flavorful. I didn't like brussels sprouts as a child. I remember they were steamed, a little mushy, somewhat stinky and served with vinegar. Blech. (Sorry, Mom and Dad!) Once I discovered the beauty of roasting pretty much anything, I was sold!

So few ingredients and so little time needed for this!

Cut the ends off your brussels and slice them in half. Wash them under cold water in a colander and shake off the excess water.
Line a large pan with parchment paper (I prefer unbleached parchment paper).
Dump the brussels on the pan. Drizzle with a high heat oil (NOT olive oil) - try Safflower, Sunflower or Coconut. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Using clean hands massage the oil into the brussels.
With your oven set to 425F, put the brussels sprouts in and check every 8 minutes, shaking and turning them over. Depending on how crispy you like the outsides, they'll be done in 15-25 minutes. You'll want them to be fork tender.
Serve immediately.

Please find affiliate links for my favorite products below:

I didn't intend to write about Snow Cream Ice-Cream today. Or yesterday, either. I wasn't sure what I would post about, actually. And then the snow came. It fell and it fell and it fell and when it stopped, we ran outside to play and then it fell some more. I remembered to put bowls out to catch the fresh snow for snow cream and I had to share!

What is snow cream? It's ice cream, but it's made with freshly fallen snow and it's amazing. Here's how I make it:

Bowl of freshly fallen snow
Cream (I use SoDelicious Coconut Creamer)
Dash of organic vanilla
Organic Maple Syrup
Optional: raw cacao powder

Mix it all together and adjust to taste.
It's that easy!

You can see my daughter loves the vanilla, but I prefer chocolate. Between the organic maple syrup, organic vanilla, coconut milk cream and raw cacao powder, you can't really go wrong! You don't need much of the ingredients above, just enough to wet the snow and stir.

It makes for a sweet ending to a sweet day. There's something wonderful about a snow day, with Daddy home from work and kids in their snow suits running through 18 inches of snow. We dug tunnels to walk in and ate more snow than anyone probably should. We snuggled and loved and read books and made Valentines' and pretty much had what I would call the perfect winter day.

You know all those health benefits of chocolate? The real health benefits are in the raw cacao because it hasn't been heated, so the enzymes are alive and able to provide all the benefits to you! Here's the affiliate link for the raw cacao powder we purchase (as usual:

Tamale Pie is so versatile; you can do all kinds of things with it! You can use meat instead of beans, or mix half and half, or add more veggies or less veggies, cow's dairy cheese, goat's cheese, vegan cheese or no cheese. I really don't think you can go wrong with this recipe! It's like a shepherd's pie but with cornbread instead of mashed potatoes, beans instead of meat. It's nostalgic to me because I remember my dad making it when I was a kid. I have moments when I'm desperate to recreate those meals that warmed my heart and my stomach. This one did not disappoint!

I’ve been wracking my brain for healthier snacks. Now that my 3-year-old gets up by herself in the morning, turns on the TV and rummages in the pantry for a snack, I just can’t handle getting up to find a half-eaten bag of chips on the couch. We aren’t a family that censors food; I don’t want to pass on food issues to my children that way. So, we have chips, cookies and the like in our pantry. Moderation is our motto. Still, seeing my daughter devour a bag of BBQ-flavored organic potato chips throughout the course of a weekend put something in perspective for me. I need other options.

I bought some roasted seaweed. She loves it. I’ve gotten Pamela’s Anywhere Bars and they’re a big hit (affiliate links below). I made fruit leathers and they were a hit too. So, I’m trying to make foods that will keep in the pantry and be a first choice for her in the morning. I decided to try kale chips, using this recipe here.

The first time I tried to make kale chips, they were bitter and bland. I didn’t like them at all. This time, I bought the kale and waited almost 2 weeks to use it because I didn’t want to spend the time on something that might not work out. Finally, on a winter, snowy afternoon, I just buckled down and did it. It took a couple of hours, because the kale has to be in a single layer and not all bunched together, so it can dry. I also figured out what I did wrong the first time! I didn’t massage the oil into the kale! This made a huge difference.

In conclusion, it worked and it didn’t work. It worked because they were awesome. It didn’t work because the entire plate piled high with kale chips was gone by the time the kids went to bed, so no new snack in the pantry. I can’t complain, though. I mean my kids devoured approximately a pound of kale in only a couple of hours. That’s success in my book.

So here you go.

Kale Chips

-       2 bunches of kale
-       approximately 4 Tbsp olive oil
-       salt to sprinkle

Wash and dry your kale. Cut out the stems. Tear the kale into medium pieces – chip size. Throw them in a bowl. Drizzle olive oil on top. Massage it into the leaves, gently. Lay in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 300 F for 8-10 minutes (I did 10 minutes). And repeat. And repeat. And repeat, until all the kale is gone.

Let me know if you try it and if you like it!

Brrrrr, it’s time for comfort food in our house! How about yours? Sometimes I get a craving for something but don’t have a recipe in my repertoire. So, I go searching until I find a recipe that I can tweak to make it my own and sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t, but this isn’t one of those times!

I was craving a casserole of sorts with broccoli, chicken, rice, and cheese. I guess I was thinking of a “chicken divan” but I didn’t want that specifically. Of course, I googled “broccoli chicken cheese rice casserole” and began to browse the results. I landed on this recipe and if you follow along, you’ll see where I’ve tweaked it and how I alter recipes to make sure they’re gluten-free, incorporate only goat’s cheese (since we don’t eat cow’s cheese), and have easy substitutions like yogurt instead of sour cream. I also look for ways to add more vegetables and nutrition.

Cheesy Chicken Broccoli and Rice Casserole (Gluten-free)

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 cups brown rice
4 cups broth (I used our mineral broth, stored in the freezer)
4 cups broccoli florets
coconut oil
3 chicken breast tenders (boneless, skinless) chopped
salt
pepper
garlic powder
all seasons salt (from Simply Organic)
5 teaspoons gluten-free all purpose flour (I use Better Batter)
2 cups of milk (I used So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage)
1/3 cup whole, plain organic yogurt (I used Stonyfield)
6.7 oz shredded goat’s cheddar cheese

Directions

Depending on your broth situation, you may have to thaw your broth like I did. I placed a jar of frozen broth in a pot on very low. It takes a while but ensures the jar doesn’t crack from temperature changes.

Chop onions and garlic. Add to a pot and sauté in coconut oil until wilted. I don’t really specify amounts of oil here. It depends on your pan and your preference. Besides, don’t all recipes say 2 Tbsp?

Add 4 cups of broth and 2 cups of rice and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to medium-low and simmer for 25-30 minutes.

While cooking the rice, add more coconut oil to another pan and begin cooking the chopped chicken. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

During the rice-cooking time, chop and wash broccoli, shred the cheese and measure out the yogurt.

When the chicken is cooked through, remove it to a plate and add half a cup of milk to the pan with flour. Whisk thoroughly and add the remaining milk. This will cook for approximately 7 minutes, while stirring constantly, until thickened. As it thickens, add salt, pepper, garlic powder and all seasons salt. Also add half the shredded cheese and the yogurt to the milk and mix together.

When the rice is almost done, add the broccoli to the pot (and cover) to steam.

Finally, the rice should be cooked, the broccoli should be steamed, the milk should be thickened and the rest of your ingredients ready to go. It’s time to put it all together.

Spoon the rice and broccoli into a 9x13 pan. Add the chicken and fold it in, distributing evenly.

Pour the milk-cheese-yogurt sauce over top and mix it in.

Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese on top and broil in a preheated oven for 5-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it; it can burn!

We loved this. It was even better the next day. I thought I might have enough leftover to freeze or share with other families, but it was gone. That’s always a good sign!