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Zucchini Noodle Shakshuka {gluten-free}
It’s quite possible you have heard of Shakshuka (or Shakshouka) before, but it’s also pretty likely you haven’t. If you haven’t – I am excited to introduce you to one of the yummiest egg dishes you ever will have. I myself hadn’t heard of Shakshuka before late last year sometime. I recall seeing a photo of it in a cookbook then on Pinterest and it was love at first (and second) sight, before I ever even tasted it. I have made it several times since discovering it, always changing things up a little here and there. Bottom line is no matter how I make it, it’s precisely my kind of meal – an egg dish that can literally work for any meal. Breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Though the origin of Shakshuka is somewhat uncertain, it is a staple dish in Israeli, Morrocan, Tunisian and Egyptian cuisines, among many, many others. Wikipedia (and several other sources) says it to be of Tunisian origin – which is perfect considering my love of Tunisian olive oil.
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Savor the Summer: Gluten-free 4th of July Picnic Recipes
Schools out for summer! OK, well for some of us, it’s been out for like 10+ years, but whatever – it’s still a time to celebrate!! It’s the best time to focus on enjoying the long days of summer with family and friends. Barefoot temps, trips to the beach and the farmers market, making time for fresh and simple meals and doing as much as possible outdoors… there is just so much that is especially delicious about summer. To me, there is no better word for what it we need to be doing right now – than savoring!!
One of my personal favorite ways to Savor the Summer is with PICNICS!! We love packing up some goodies and heading to the beach, to a local park, farmers market or even just our own backyard for a some good old fashioned – dining al fresco! There truly is no better way to enjoy the flavors of the season than with your feet in the grass, your skin being kissed by the hot summer sun enjoying the freshest food the season has to offer.I am super excited to share with you today a bunch of great naturally-colored red white and blue 4th of July-inspired picnic recipes plus a ton of other summer-worthy recipes!
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Grilled Peaches with Whipped Coconut Cream, Honey Balsamic Drizzle and Mint
Instead of calling this one a recipe, I feel like I should call it a “requirement.” You NEED to grill some peaches, as soon as possible. I feel like this should be mandatory for everyone in the summer months.
It all started with this salad and I haven’t been able to stop since. This particular simple and sweet dish that I am sharing today would be the perfect way to end any summer meal, and it would be especially great at pretty much any summer BBQ. It also makes the perfect snack when you are craving something a little sweet.
I serve mine with a dollop of homemade whipped coconut cream. But, if you eat dairy, you could also just serve it with regular whipped cream, your favorite yogurt, ice cream or even, some mascarpone, crème fraîche or burrata.
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Sprouted Lentil Tacos with Arugula and Feta {Gluten-free}
Sometimes, my love for food makes me feel like a real dork. A bonafide, way too excited, food-nerd weirdo! I geek out over spice blends, flavor combinations, discovering a new way to enjoy a food I have eaten a million times. I have been known to dance around my kitchen after just one bite of some random dish I created on the fly. I am pretty certain I could have a problem. (Maybe you should send help.)
This recipe may have just taken my food-nerdiness to a whole new level. I have been sooo insanely excited to share this recipe with you guys that I woke up this morning so excited to hit “publish”.
These tacos came out of a random idea I came up with on a bike ride. No seriously, Mark and I were on a long 15-mile bike ride a week or two ago, and on the way home we were riding into the wind and I was exhausted. I found myself quite agitated and struggling. My legs were tired from having worked out in the morning and I was starving. So instead of just breathing and taking in the sights, I did what most logical, food-obsessed people would do – I started dreaming up what I would make for dinner.
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Summer Berry-Coconut Milk Ice Pops – Vibrant Food Cookbook Giveaway
There are some blogs and cookbooks that I feel like were created just for me, thumbing through the pages or scrolling past the recipes, I feel like every beautiful photo was taken for me, each recipe created with my eating choices in mind. While I am not so arrogant to believe this to be actually true, it is really amazing to know that there are people out there, just like me, eating intuitively – loving and celebrating all of the beautiful, seasonal, healthy whole foods available to us. When I started reading The Year in Food, sometime last year, I instantly felt connected to Kimberley Hasselbrink, the creative mastermind behind all of the recipes and beautiful photos. Like me, Kimberley has a background in design, she, hailing from the world of furniture design, me, from a life of graphic design and it is clear in every recipe she develops. Her creativity shines brightly, as she creates a feast for the eyes by combining colors, textures, and flavors into her gorgeous, dynamic dishes. When I heard of her brand new book, VIBRANT FOOD, I knew right away before ever seeing it, that this was a book that I would absolutely love and would become a resource I turn to often. I was right.
It is clear that Kimberley’s look at food is viewed through the eyes of an artist in search of beauty as well as flavor and that she’s wildly inspired by the vivid hues of produce. In her debut book, Vibrant Food Kimberley captures the radiant colors of each of the seasons with recipes that transform meals into captivating works of art. It is apparent the passion that Kimberley has for cooking, each recipe a celebration of color, flavor and mood. Besides being an inspiration in the kitchen, it is hard not to be inspired visually, as well, as you make your way through the incredible, drool-worthly photographs on each page.
Vibrant Food invites you to look at ingredients differently and let their colors inspire you: the shocking fluorescent pink of a chard stem, the deep reds and purples of baby kale leaves, the bright shades of green that emerge in the spring, and even the calm yellows and whites of so many winter vegetables. As Kimberley mentions at the start of the book, “when we intuitively let the colors guide our choices, we can trust that we are eating well, and taking care of ourselves and celebrating food for its dynamism, its vibrancy, its flavor and its colors, as much as we are for its benefits to our health.”
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Cucumber Ribbon Salad with Garlic Tahini Dressing
As always, I am late to the party on this one, but I finally got a Spiralizer last month and I have been obsessed with it, ever since it showed up. I have been having so much fun making salads, veggie noodles, curly cut sweet potato fries and all that good stuff. So, be on the lookout for many more recipes very soon.
For now, I have this super simple cucumber ribbon salad for you guys, that I have been living off of, with the beautiful cucumbers we’ve been getting in our CSA boxes. This garlicky tahini dressing is just so amazing, it is simple to throw together and full of so much great flavor. I’ve been making my own tahini* lately and that, in my opinion, really sets it over the top.
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How-to Make Dairy-Free Cultured Cream Cheese
This tutorial series has been a really fun way for me to share with you guys some of my favorite DIYs and How-to’s. But, I have also really enjoyed the challenge of exploring and conquering things I have long been dreaming of. Last post it was the yogurt and this time it’s this cream cheese.
Since I have almost entirely cut dairy out of my life, cream cheese is one of those things I just haven’t been able to find a good substitute for. Most of the store bought alternatives are loaded with soy, preservatives, thickeners and other weird stuff. Not my scene at all. Once or twice a year I like to treat myself with some of the amazing gluten-free and vegan bagels from Rising Hearts Bakery in LA and I am so happy to now have an amazing homemade dairy-free cream cheese to enjoy with them.
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Cantaloupe Mint Sorbet (Gluten-free and Vegan)
There is something about summertime and it’s fresh vibrant fruit that just makes me school-girl giddy!! Sitting in the sun, enjoying your favorite fruit, juice running down your face and your arms, that’s when you know it’s really summer!
We’ve been fortunate that for a few weeks now we’ve been getting some of the freshest, sweetest fruit in our weekly CSA box. Peaches, nectarines, watermelons, cantaloupes and so much more. I decided this year that rather than just cutting up the fruit and stuffing it into our faces, that I would get creative with some of it. Treat it like I do all of the many veggies we get.
I was dreaming up frozen summery desserts when I realized that I hadn’t pulled my ice cream maker out once since we moved to California last year. That feels like a MAJOR sin, considering I basically live in perpetual summer, here in Southern California. In discovering my terrible neglect of my ice cream maker, I also realized that I had never made a sorbet! Sacrilege isn’t it?
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Meet Our Sponsors: Terra Delyssa Olive Oil
As a Greek girl, I grew up on olive oil being the main everyday cooking oil in the house, it was used for savory cooking, salad dressings and even some baking. Sadly the quality, authentic single-source olive oil I knew as a child, isn’t always so easy to find, these days. Many olive oil companies are producing subpar multi-source oils, created from orchards treated with pesticides and chemicals or even worse, they are stretched further by adding cheaper vegetable oils or other olive oils made from olives coming from place other than what they clai . As someone that truly loves and appreciates good olive oil, this is always apparent on the first taste.
Authentic, Single-Source Olive Oil
I happened upon Terra Delyssa’s delicious high-quality olive oils at Expo West, earlier this spring, as I perused the aisles and aisles of natural products. Their booth was literally the first one that I stopped at. What struck me immediately was the bright colors and the bold graphics (come on, I am a designer, after all). But, what really kept me interested, as I got to chatting with them and tasting their delicious oils, was learning that their oils are all single source, that many of their products were organic and that all of their oils are produced without the use of pesticides or chemicals.
An Olive Oil That Does Not Hide It’s Origin
I love that Terra Delyssa can boast that their oils are produced and sold by the same farmers who harvest their olives by hand and care for their trees without the use of any pesticides or chemicals. Their olives are all harvested by hand and crushed within 24 hours of harvest — most of the time, within four hours of harvest — guaranteeing a fresh aroma and a lower acidity level. Terra Delyssa is the only 100 percent Tunisian olive oil on the market. The olives used for Terra Delyssa Olive Oil are grown in orchards that have been passed down through generations of olive growers. Tunisian olives produce oil with a delicate, mild flavor with hints of fruit and olive. Every single bottle of Terra Delyssa Olive Oil is 100 percent traceable and can be traced back to the field where the olives were grown.
As I got to cooking with Terra Delyssa’s delicious olive oils, what really struck me most was the smooth and fresh flavor profile, which makes it versatile enough to cook with every single day. Terra Delyssa Extra Virgin Olive Oil is made from the first cold press of handpicked olives, so there isn’t that acidic burn and intense aroma, that some olive oils can have. You’d think being a high quality, single-source, organic olive oil, that the prices would be outrageous, but that’s the best part – it is priced just right. The retail price of Terra Delyssa products range from $2.99 for a 250 ml to $24.99 for 3 liters. The extra virgin, organic, infused and specialty oils all fall within this price range. Amazing, right?
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Summer Berry Probiotic Smoothie
I am sure you have read plenty of articles and posts about the many benefits of probiotics by now. Rather than carrying on about their many wonderful benefits and why you should be including them in your daily life, I though it better to just share a delicious Summer Berry Probiotic Smoothie that is sure to make your belly happy.
If you do want to read all about how wonderful probiotics are and all of their many incredible benefits, I encourage you to check out this great post: 3 Tasty Ways to Heal With Priobiotics. I also encourage you try your hand at making your own probiotic-rich water kefir or my simple homemade coconut milk yogurt – two wonderful ways to easily include more of that beneficial bacteria in your life.
This smoothie is not only rich in probiotics, from the yogurt and probiotic drink, but I also included other super-food ingredients sure to please your tummy! Ginger, which has long been known to alleviate symptoms of gastrointestinal distress, and provide calming, anti-inflammatory and immunity boosting properties. Cinnamon, another digestive aid, known not just for it’s comforting, warming, aroma, but for it’s powerful anti-bacteria properties, its help with reducing bloating, and its help in improving circulation and digestive discomfort. Finally, I added some chia seeds, which is a great way to include healthy omega-3 fats and of course, one of your digestion’s other friends – fiber. Plus, I really love how thick chia seeds make my smoothies!Read the rest of this entry »
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Grilled Peach Salad with Baby Arugula, Pistachios and Lemony Yogurt Dressing
After rediscovering peaches this summer after a few years without them in my life, I am getting reacquainted with all of the subtle nuances of their delicate sweet flavor. I am also discovering all of the many different ways to enjoy them, sweet and savory.
Grilled peaches has quickly become one of my favorite things and something I will be making time and time again, while those sweet fuzzy beauties are in season. They are great in savory salads like this one or with your favorite ice cream or yogurt for a sweet treat.
This salad is not only a beautiful, vibrantly-colored celebration of all that is in season right now, but it is also one of the tastiest salads you’ll ever have the pleasure of indulging in.
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Ace Hotel and Swim Club Palm Springs
Earlier this Spring we celebrated our one year anniversary of living in California. We’re continuing to spend more and more time getting to know our new home state. There’s just so much to do and explore out here. The only thing we’re short on is the time to do and see everything on our long list.
Mid-last month my husband, Mark, and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary and the 11th anniversary of our first date. We wanted to do something special, so we decided a quick trip to Palm Springs would be the perfect romantic getaway. As a girl from the East coast that now lives less than 1 mile from the ocean, I am surprised to say there is something about the desert that leaves you feeling recharged and inspired. It’s an amazing escape from the reality of daily life, replaced by feelings of solitude. Yes, even when sitting in a hotel pool surrounded by other people.
After hearing so many wonderful things about The Ace Hotel and Swim Club from many of our Southern Californian friends, I decided to check them out online. The photos were gorgeous, but more than that, I was really impressed with their sustainable practices. They even had a restaurant called The Kings Highway which served locally-sourced food! All things considered, we knew this was the place for us. It seemed like the perfect place to escape life for a bit. Plus, we could take our dog, Seri, with us, which really sealed the deal.
The Ace Hotel and Swim Club caters to a very distinct crowd – the youngish, design-driven professional who has a taste for all things trendy. This meant that every detail was perfectly curated and sincere creative thought was put into even the smallest, nearly missable, finer points of each room. Nothing was left un-thought of and undesigned, yet it never felt overdone or like too much. Think bohemian camping meets Mad Men. It literally is a vintage meets modern, mid-century oasis that on one hand feels totally untouched and on the other, it feels like a place created to be the most perfect display of everything that is “it” right now.
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Cumin Roasted Carrots with Cilantro Chimichurri {Gluten-free and Vegan}
I am a veggie-lover and I am not afraid to shout it from mountain tops. The way some people crave cookies or salty junk food, I seriously crave good, fresh, in-season, well-prepared vegetables. Steam ’em, grill ’em, roast them up or shove them into my face raw, it is rare that I will pass up a veggie. OK, so I don’t love steamed frozen veggies, those soggy tasteless piles gross me out, but other than that – I am down with the veggie train!
That said, I am not afraid to admit that I don’t always get excited to eat carrots. Most times I find that carrots taste just like carrots and well, dirt. I don’t hate them, but I just don’t always love them. I know they are good for me, so I don’t discriminate when they are served to me, but I certainly don’t go out of my way very often to buy a bunch at the store. So, when our farmer Tony started including carrots in our boxes I was kinda like “MEH!”. That is until I had a taste of them, raw and unpeeled – those carrots are seriously in a league of their own. The first bunch we got never made it to a dish or even cooked, I ate them all raw, nothing on them. This is huge guys! They are slightly sweet and just the right amount of earthy, not dirty, flavor.
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How-to Make Coconut Milk Yogurt
I have been meaning to try making my own dairy-free yogurt for some time now and I just kept putting it off. From what I have heard and read from many people, it can be frustrating at times and can require some trial and error. I have also learned that there really are lots of different ways you can do it. I decided to just dive right in and do some trial and error of my own for this How-to Make Coconut Milk Yogurt tutorial, so I can share my thoughts and results with you guys.
The differences in the various results aren’t quite distinguishable enough in photos, so I decided against a side-by side comparison as I did with the whipped coconut cream, instead I thought giving you the details on all the many options and sharing my thoughts and results would be just as effective. Of course, there are many more options than I even share here, but these are the ones that I tested. That said, I really do recommend trying things out for yourself, yogurt is funny that way, what works for one person, may not work for another, whether it be the type of milk you choose, the starter, the temperatures you are culturing at, etc. So, play around, find what works for you and go with it. I hope I gave you enough information and options here to help start you down the fun road of educated guesses when yogurt making.
I do have to say that I am not vegan, nor am I allergic or highly sensitive to milk. I just choose to limit my dairy intake. When selecting a yogurt starter or probiotic powder, please always check with the manufacturer on the origin of the culture, most are made on dairy and therefore will contain trace amounts of dairy that will not work if you have a severe dairy allergy/intolerance or if you are vegan. Cultures for Health makes a certified vegan/dairy-free yogurt starter and I really love their products and customer service. Likewise, many probiotic powders and capsules can contain dairy, so be careful there too, though it is quite easy to find those that are dairy-free/vegan. If you are ever unsure it is always best to check directly with the manufacturer.
OK let’s get into it… How-to Make Coconut Milk Yogurt
Read the rest of this entry »
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Peaches and Cream Smoothie (Vegan)
Smoothies are seriously my favorite, easy weekday breakfast. I wake up, practice yoga and immediately head into the kitchen to throw together a delicious, nourishing smoothie made from whatever I have on hand and it always keeps me full till lunch!
I almost always have a quart or two of my homemade almond milk on hand for just this reason and I let the fruit and veggies we get from our CSA box determine what the flavor of the day will be.
We’ve been getting these beautiful, organic juicy, sweet peaches from Tony, our farmer, and they have been an absolute treat, while we are waiting for our own peach tree to do it’s thing.
This Peaches and Cream Smoothie is creamy, rich and so easy to throw together. I add a small amount of raw honey when I make my almond milk and the peaches we have been getting are quite sweet, so I find no additional sweetener is needed, but you can use your own judgement.
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Watermelon Hibiscus Lime Cooler
Having an organic farmer that shows up at your door every Wednesday afternoon with the freshest, yummiest and most in-season foods is literally a dream come true for this girl.
It’s like my own personal Food Network show where I am given a box of random ingredients and I have to create something delicious with them. I guess the only difference is, I don’t also have to use random canned weirdness, fish body parts or other strange things no one has ever heard of.
Basically, it just means I get to play with my food and I get to be creative with different delicious treats, each week. It really is so fun.
Lately, we’ve been getting all kinds of amazing fruit in our boxes and most excitingly we have been getting these big beautiful watermelons that are seriously the tastiest things I have ever had. So sweet, so juicy and just so perfect for these hot sunny days we’ve been having.
I created these non-alcoholic Watermelon Hibiscus Coolers simply because at one point we had more watermelon than we knew what to do with. They are soo refreshing, so perfectly sweet and aromatic and a beautifully impressive, refreshing treat when you have guests. I served these at the little Memorial Day BBQ we hosted here at our place. Some was even served as margaritas (recipe below) with silver tequila and a little extra fresh lime juice.
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American Yoga School Launches Yoga Teacher Training Online
Many of you know that in January of this year I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training certification here in the Los Angeles area, through American Yoga School.
When the time came for me to start looking into my teacher training options, there were many factors that personally played into my selection of a school and a teacher. I was so fortunate that world renowned yoga teacher trainer, James Brown, was offering an upcoming training in Venice Beach/Santa Monica, which is quite close to my home in Long Beach. The training was/is built on the fundamentals that I was searching for and after one conversation with James about the training, I knew I had made the right decision.
I was also very fortunate that I have the type of schedule that allowed me to take an entire month off from my life to make the long rush-hour drive to and from LA, every day. This allowed me to fully submerge myself in the learning, the content and readying myself for teaching. I realize that this isn’t exactly the case for everyone. For many people, with the decision to pursue furthering their yoga practice through teacher training, comes the concerns of how to make this fit into their existing life.
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Raw Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bars (made from almond milk pulp)
Every week I make at least one quart of homemade almond milk, if not more than that. For a while now I have been taking the leftover almond milk pulp and immediately placing it in the dehydrator and drying it out, then I give it a few quick pulses in the food processor before add it to a jar in the fridge.
I usually just add it to granolas or cereals, sometimes muffins or other baked goods, but mostly I have just been collecting a ton of this almond pulp flour, waiting to come up with the perfect use for it.
These raw chocolate chip cookie dough bars are the answer!! I have been making something kinda similar for a while now, with blanched almond flour and I would usually make a single serving in a bowl. A simple way to handle those sweet cravings at the end of the day. That is, until I came across this recipe on Pinterest, which gave me the idea to make it into bars. Which is also when I thought this would be the perfect use for all of the dehydrated almond pulp.
These cookie dough bars are grain-free, egg-free, easily made vegan, they are safe-to-eat raw, and they taste just like the real deal, usually made with eggs and butter. Now, I generally prefer to eat dairy-free, but since I am lucky to not have a dairy intolerance or allergy, I can be a bit lax on this. Good grass-fed organic butter is one of those things I keep on hand for special uses. If I am having a fried egg, I want it cooked in a teaspoon of butter, grilled corn just isn’t the same without a little melted butter and so on. But generally I prefer to bake dairy-free most of the time. That said, I have found that these bars are amazing and taste most like the real thing when they are made with some good quality grass-fed butter (local if you can find it) and for me, it is a fine time to indulge a little. I can tell you though that they are also insanely delicious with softened coconut oil, which I have made several times and really enjoy, as well. If you are vegan, you can also easily substitute your favorite vegan butter.
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Forbidden Rice Spring Veggie Bowls with Tahini Lemon Dressing
To know me, is to know that I get weirdly obsessed with things. Currently I am obsessed with two things, first is my new spiralizer (yes you will see lots of recipes made with it very soon) and secondly, any and all meals that can be served in bowls! As you can imagine the cross-over on these two obsessions is quite high so one is perpetuating the other right now.
Today we are just talking about my love of any and all meals served in a bowl. I am not talking about your traditional soup or salads, though I still love both of those, I am talking more about creative, complete and hearty meals with everything you might possibly need or want, all served in one big bowl.
To me, there is something just so comforting and so appealing about a meal in a bowl. Whether it be a Sprouted Quinoa with a Kale Almond Pesto Bowl, a 30-Minute Sweet Potato and Kale Coconut Curry over rice, a Buddha Bowl with Garlic Turmeric Cashew Cream or just a big ‘ol salad with loads of gorgeous bits and bops from your pantry and fridge. Mostly I find these bowl meals to be an opportunity to cram as much seasonal goodness as I can into one dish and to arrange it in a beautiful color coordinated way that turns it into a work of art.
The other bonus of a bowl meal, is the organized and seemingly planned out way to eat up what you have on hand and to make it appear that it was done with great purpose. I have been known to do that a time or two around here.
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How-to Make Coconut Butter
This is a super easy tutorial this week you guys, literally One Step. One ingredient.
How-to Make Coconut Butter.
What is Coconut Butter?
Coconut butter is basically just ground up coconut meat that has been processed until it is smooth and creamy. The same idea as nuts being used to make nut butter. Though it isn’t quite as creamy as a store bought creamy peanut butter and the texture can vary.
What is the Difference Between Coconut Butter and Coconut Oil or Coconut Cream?
Coconut butter includes the meat of the coconut and coconut oil does not. Coconut oil is used more as typical oil is, when cooking or baking, where coconut butter is more of a spread or dip, it could also be used in baking as nut butters would be.
Additionally, coconut butter is different from coconut cream which contains water. Coconut cream involves cooking down as much as 4 parts coconut to 1 part water, then straining out the coconut. Coconut cream is also what is found at the top of a can of full fat coconut milk. Coconut cream contains less water then coconut milk but coconut butter contains no water at all and there is no straining involved, the meat is left in.
How-to Make Coconut Butter:
Start with a quality brand of unsweetened organic shredded dehydrated coconut. Unsweetened coconut flakes will also work. Not fresh, not low fat, not sweetened, not toasted. Just regular ‘ol unsweetened flaked or shredded coconut. Use somewhere between 2 cups and 4 cups of shredded coconut, depending on the size of your food processor or high speed processor blender. 4 cups of shredded coconut will make about 1 cup of coconut butter. I find in my 14-cup food processor, that using 3 or 4 cups of coconut works much better than just 2 cups.
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Coconut Apricot Cardamom Bourbon Popsicles {Vegan}
Thankfully it has since broke, but this past week, we had the most insane heat wave here in Southern California. After living here just over a year, I haven’t felt anything quite like this. Several days of right around 100ºF and many days even a few degrees more. Now, we don’t get any of that nasty humidity I am used to from my days on the East Coast, but mugginess or not, 100 degrees is DAMN hot.
Early in the week, we had been in the desert, in Palm Springs, on a much needed anniversary getaway and we came home ready to work our butts off on the various projects we have going on in our cooler beach breeze town of Long Beach. Instead, without any air conditioning and not a breeze to be found, we found ourselves doing a lot of laying around in undergarments, drinking tons of water and we planned lots of meals at restaurants in air conditioning. Seriously guys, I sweat in places this week, that I didn’t even know was possible.
After our lovely organic farmer, Tony, dropped off our CSA box on Wednesday afternoon, I took a peek inside at the goodies and saw some beautiful freshly picked apricots and I instantly thought that they would be perfect for some boozy popsicles for the next day, that might help take my mind off of the furnace we were living in.
