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Whipped Sweet Potatoes
This Whipped Sweet Potatoes recipe is shared with permission from Diane Sanfilippo’s Practical Paleo 2nd Edition
For many of you that have followed Tasty Yummies and my ongoing health journey for some time, you know that this website, my passion and my recipes were all born of my own quest to find health. In discovering a severe gluten intolerance nearly 12 years ago, to my autoimmune disease diagnosis and a slew of other digestive troubles along the way – I have always chosen to let these challenges be the catalyst to me educating myself, empowering myself and in turn hoping to help others do the same.
From the very start, I have always embraced and preached the idea of nourishing your individuality, that there is no one-size-fits all approach to health and that if you can quiet down the outside influences enough and tap into your own intuition – all of the answers are there. When the paleo movement began to come to fruition and came more to the forefront, I admittedly found myself viscerally opposed to this idea – just as I always had been with any other diet that contained strict labels, rules and a very black and white approach to health. It wasn’t so much that I was against the idea that it could work for some, it was more that I was witnessing very dogmatic activity from many of it’s supporters, which turned me off. It was feeling to me like some vegans’ approach to health and their belief (and often consequent judgement) that “their way” was the only way. Despite following a diet fairly close to what was labeled as “paleo” and having some interest in the idea that it could continue healing my body using a paleo diet, I stubbornly rejected the notion of slapping a label on my heath journey, this blog and my continued autoimmune struggles.
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Roasted Garlic Parsnip Cauliflower Mash
In an effort to lighten things up, I have definitely made mashed cauliflower as a swap for mashed potatoes in the past. Listen, I am not going to lie to you guys, mashed cauliflower it’s not “faux mashed potatoes”. Mashed cauliflower is mashed cauliflower. It’s really freakin’ good, but it’s also fairly flat. It lacks the starchiness of mashed potatoes, it lacks the heft! It doesn’t hold up to a thick, luscious gravy.
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Red Wine Poached Apples and Pears with Cinnamon Whipped Coconut Cream
Your farmer brings you a bunch of Asian pears and apples, I mean really, what else is there to do with them then soak them in some booze? OK, yeh, I know, predictable – another blog post that I start out talking about my CSA. Snore! But, to be honest, every single week that box of goodies that shows up on my doorstep, delivered by my farmer himself, and it inspires me and my cooking in so many ways. Every Wednesday, I feel like I am on a game show, where a mystery box shows up and I have to get creative with whatever I am given.
Sure I could have just eaten the apples and pears straight up, but where is the fun in that? Plus, I have to assume if I am getting apples and pears in my weekly box, other folks are too, and they might want some fun ideas on how to prepare them. It doesn’t get much more fun than these Red Wine Poached Apples and Pears with Cinnamon Whipped Coconut Cream.
A friend of ours, John, works in the “wine biz” up in LA. What he exactly does, I am not 100% totally sure, but what I am sure of is that he gave me a huge case of some really nice wines the last time I saw him – so he is A-OK in my book. These days I don’t do a ton of drinking, if we have guests or it’s a special occasion, maybe, but generally I drink very little at home. But, cooking with wine, that’s far more my speed.
