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Slow Cooker Ginger Apple Cranberry Sauce
Disclosure: Post sponsored by Crock-Pot® brand slow cooker & Mirum Shopper, but all opinions are my own. Please see below for additional disclosure.
I always feel very divided when planning the Thanksgiving menu. Mostly I want a classic, traditional menu (obviously with some changes made to accommodate my diet and the diet of any of my guests, if I am hosting) but every year I like to mix it up a little with at least one dish, bringing in unexpected flavors or a new method of preparation. As part of my continued partnership with Crock-Pot® brand slow cooker, and in conceptualizing a holiday recipe using it, I knew it was the perfect tool for creating the best cranberry sauce this holiday season has ever seen. This here cranberry sauce was born to be the star of the show, rather than the unloved side that so many know it to be.
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Grain-free Savory Butternut Squash and Kale Crumble
If you haven’t noticed, it’s become Thanksgiving central around here. We’re tackling the the traditional dishes, as well as some unique and creative takes on this often very classic meal. Mostly, I want to remind you that comfort food doesn’t have to be synonmous with “bad for you” or “junk”, you can have comforting cozy foods and not pay for it later. But, we also need to remember that the holidays aren’t about perfection and rules, of course food allergies and intolerances and making choices that are appropriate for you and your healing journey is one thing, but go easy on yourself you guys. This is just one day. As I always say, honor your individuality and your personal path to health, love your body and treat it with respect – whatever that looks like for you, is right!!
I am excited to be partnering with Nuts.com for today’s Thanksgiving recipe, bringing you a completely new autumn-inspired, comfort food side dish, that is bound be a favorite for years to come.
This Grain-free Savory Butternut Squash and Kale Crumble bridges the gap between stuffing and starches, veggies and gratins. Instead of the usual pureed or roasted squash, that will get left behind, rather than steamed greens that no one gets particularly excited about, this comforting, creamy, hearty crisp is a new way to enjoy a crumble and a tasty option to enjoy your squash and greens. With a creamy sauce, smokey, crispy bacons, fresh herbs and a golden topping this is truly what comfort food is all about.
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Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad
Today is an exciting day! Well yes, it’s election day. Which is obviously HUGE, I hope for my American readers that you’ve already gone out and voted. But, it’s also book release day for my friend Alexis of Lexi’s Clean Kitchen. Her debut book Lexi’s Clean Kitchen hits stands today and this is an absolute must for your kitchens. Featuring over 150 delicious paleo-friendly recipes to nourish your life, this cookbook brings the focus to achieving health and happiness through the simple concept of eating clean. With a collection of fresh, creative yet practical and approachable recipes, Lexi makes eating at home, easy, tasty and fuss-free.
For those of us with gut issues, Lexi has a similar path to her healthy lifestyle, so her story brings feelings of familiarity and with that that instant connection. Lexi’s Clean Kitchen delivers an abundance of healthy meals packed with amazing flavor, like Thai Meatballs, Classic Chili, One-Pan Arroz con Pollo, Maple-Glazed Salmon, and Sriracha Lime Chopped Chicken Salad, with healthier options of your favorite indulgent foods, like French Toast Sticks, Perfect Waffles, Birthday Cake, Easy Sandwich Bread, and more!
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Miso Roasted Brussels Sprouts
As we head into the holidays, the focus obviously shifts to any and all dishes for entertaining. Side dishes and treats, mains and snacks. ‘Tis the season of all the eating! The Miso Roasted Brussels Sprouts are begging to be the star at your Thanksgiving or Christmas meal! Trust me, this is a veggie that can steal the show!
I enjoy creating the sweets and treats recipes, because let’s be real, the joy that healthy treats can bring is palpable. I’d like to wrap that feeling up with a pretty bow and give it as a gift. That said, when it comes to the holidays, my heart will forever remain with sides and veggies. I love a good, plant-based side dish. So much room for creativity in the vegetables. The mains are usually pretty traditional, those are generally on lock down. I just truly enjoy the challenge of creating exciting enough veggie dishes that will please the masses and especially those that won’t be the forgotten soldier at a table full of meaty mains and their carb-loaded friends. I literally have made it my mission when I feed people to make the vegetable(s) the first thing to disappear from the plate, rather than the last. This dish 100% is successful at doing exactly that.
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Slow Cooker Caramel Apple Butter
This Slow Cooker Caramel Apple Butter is the perfect way to celebrate the season’s most abundant fruit, but this isn’t your mamma’s apple butter. With a rich, honey sweetened caramel mixed right in, you’ll find notes of rich, caramely goodness paired with the traditional spicy and tart apple butter.
We are home and still getting settled after our whirlwind trip to Europe. It was absolutely glorious, incredible, magical and so inspiring. I came home with a heart full of memories, sore feet from so very many miles of exploring and a head full of ideas for recipes inspired by all of our delicious meals. While the jet lag has been a bit brutal (8 hours time difference is no joke), what has been an even greater challenge is getting back into it all. Not the work, my usual healthy eating or my daily fitness routine, I jumped right back into all of those – they are so important to my mental well-being and were sorely missed in those 10 days away. Rather, I again found myself plagued by something interesting upon my return, something that seems to happen nearly every time I step away for an extended period of time. The much needed break from the internet, the constant connection and the need to check in across the various platforms throughout the day, it all obviously disappears when I am off adventuring. It helps that with international travel we were limited in our data usage, and of course the time difference plays a role, as well, but being busy and present, this perfect combination renders the vast, never-ending virtual world essentially non-existent to me and I love it. I often look forward to that aspect of vacation as much as I do the travel itself.
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Grain-free Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Tart {Paleo, Vegan}
Clearly, as evidence by my recent posts, we are coming up on the season of sweets and treats. With all the upcoming holidays, I think less is more when it comes to this encore course. I find most desserts to be far too heavy, too sweet and generally just too indulgent for my tastes. As with most everything in life, I truly believe that a little goes a long way.
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Grain-free Everything Bagel Crackers
It only seems fair after the rash of sweets recipes that has filled this website over the last week, to give you a solid savory recipe. Seeing as savory, salty and crunchy are definitely my personal, crave-worthy foods. These 4-ingredient Grain-free Everything Bagel Crackers are my everything, this is my kind of snacking!
The amount of options for gluten-free crackers in the snack aisle at the grocery store is kind of mind-blowing to me. I still remember what it was like 12 years ago when I first shifted to a gluten-free diet. There was absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Now there are far too many options, but the problem still exists, as it does with most processed and packaged foods, vetting the ingredients. Trying to find an option that isn’t highly processed and loaded with strange ingredients, it’s just damn near impossible.
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Dark Chocolate Nut Butter Cups
With Halloween approaching and the rest of the holidays not far behind, sweets and treats are going to be just about everywhere, tempting us at every turn. While I don’t see anything wrong with the occasional indulgence, I still also maintain my concerns about the quality of ingredients in most treats. From loads of refined sugar to, often times if store-bought, a lengthy list of fillers, thickeners, “natural flavors”, soy products and who knows what else. There’s just no reason for it, especially when you can make your own.
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Golden Rice and Cauliflower Pilaf
Every single day, the choices we make, when eating, have the power to not only impact our own health and vitality, but also that of many others. The decisions we make on the food we put into our bodies, of course, affects us from a nutritional standpoint, but our choices also have the power to affect our environment and our community, both locally and globally. That sure is a heavy burden to put on an unassuming Golden Rice and Cauliflower Pilaf, but the proof is in the ingredients.
I recently had the opportunity to partner with REBBL, to collaborate and develop a unique, inspired recipe using one of their amazing elixirs. I discovered their products some time last year, while shopping at Whole Foods. I was instantly drawn to their commitment to quality of ingredients, sourcing and their efforts on leaving a lasting and positive impact. REBBL‘s level of consciousness leads to products that are certified organic and fair-trade and you’ll only find real food ingredients listed – no lab-created flavors or thickeners. REBBL also takes great interest and care in their formulas and the efficacy of their super-herbs and other super food ingredients. Finally, with their transparency you can actually track ingredients using their Sourcing Tracker to see their commitment to sustainable farming and their support of fair labor practices.
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Maple Glazed Pumpkin Spice Almonds
With the start of fall and now as we enter October, I say this means it’s officially, official that we can go all-in on the pumpkin spice everything. Sure it’s considered Basic B*tch to some, but I don’t care, call me “Basic Beth” if you wish – I want to pumpkin spice ALL the things, like these Maple Glazed Pumpkin Spice Almonds.
These lightly sweetened with just a hint of salt, crunchy, crispy, coated almonds are flavored with my homemade Pumpkin Spice Blend (but of course any store bought pumpkin spice blend will work) – they get coated with maple syrup and then if you allow them time to dry slowly, they harden, up, get crispy and will wow you! Otherwise you end up with sticky, stuck together, not-so-crispy nuts.
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How-to Make Homemade Pumpkin Pie Spice
It’s pumpkin spice season and before we dive head first into all the fall baking and making, let’s get down to the basics. Homemade pumpkin pie spice takes but 5 minutes to make and while buying a pre-made blend is just as time effective, I often find the pre-made blends aren’t made to my liking. It’s also more cost effective to make your own, especially considering you probably have all of the ingredients in your pantry, already.
Other benefits of making your own: You can also make it in smaller batches, if you prefer, to keep it fresher, keeping it’s strong flavor, for longer. You can tweak the blend to make it to your liking. Adding even more cinnamon or nutmeg if you prefer, dropping the allspice if that’s not your thing, you can fully customize this spice blend to be your own.
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Smoky Sweet Potato and Apple Soup
With the start of fall just mere days away, I am reveling at the thought of my favorite season of eating! Fall food is pure comfort, to me. Squash, potatoes, apples, pears, pumpkins, cranberries and all the other goodness. I just can’t get enough.
Thinking about this season soup comes to mind quite often. Soup is one of my favorite things and while I know gazpachos and chilled soups are a thing, they aren’t the same. I love a good, steamy, cozy bowl or mug of comforting soup and by the time summer is wrapping up, it’s about all I can think about.
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Fig Vanilla Bean Almond Milk
Summertime’s sweetness comes in many forms. From the delicious, in-season and abundant produce, to the lush and vibrant flora and foliage and many hours of beautiful sunlight.
I haven’t maintained a vegetable garden for the past few season’s, mostly due to the incredible amount of time that a garden requires and I don’t always have. But I am also so incredibly lucky that our home has several low maintenance fruit teas, the fig tree being the largest and most producing of all of them.
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Grilled Romaine Salad with Blueberries, Avocado and Creamy Lemon Tarragon Vinaigrette
As I sit to write the posts for this website, 2-3 times a week, often I find myself lacking the words. I am no writer, have never claimed to be. I am sure my sentence structuring is atrocious, I am certain my posts are littered with typos and poor punctuation skills. I generally didn’t start this website to share my personal thoughts on life or my beliefs, as often as they do trickle into the pages by default. I mostly have always had a strong desire to help make a difference for those, like me, that struggle with their health, are challenged by navigating the ever-evolving landscape of eating and food and what it truly means to be well.
As our worlds are all constantly changing and shifting, as life seems to get busier than ever for us all, I find myself more called to want to simply live my life without a filter, to share my experiences in all their realness and hopefully, simultaneously, inspire you to be excited about getting into the kitchen and tapping into your own creativity. I want you to approach food and your health without fear. I want you all to feel empowered to be your own advocates and to never settle for anything other that feeling amazing, every day. My hope is also that through sharing my recipes, how-to’s and other tips here on the website and on social media, that everyone knows eating well doesn’t always have to be about the crazy flavor combos and complicated ingredients that you can only buy online or at a specialty food store. I think we all have to admit that even though weeknight meals deserve a little flair sometimes, a totally boring, basic
bitchmeal of veggies and some baked fish, that isn’t exactly instagram-able – that’s totally OK, too. -
Grain-free French Tomato Tart {Paleo-friendly}
How are we rounding the corner to the second half of August already? Where has this summer gone? This is about the time of the season where I start to feel a bit like a crazed maniac, trying to consume as much of the seasonal produce that I can, before it’s gone again until next year.
The heirloom tomatoes have been particularly beautiful this year. They are like luscious, vibrant gemstones. We’ve mostly been enjoying them in summer salads, often as the solo star of the show, but this tart has got to be my favorite way to enjoy them, right now.
A rustic savory pie meets pizza, meets a sophisticated sandwich. This tart is so simple to put together, you could easily impress guests and whip it up for a weekend brunch, a picnic or tea! (I like how I say tea like I have ever in my actual adult life hosted a tea).
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Grain-Free Chilaquiles with Salsa Verde {Paleo-friendly}
If you have read Tasty Yummies for some time, you guys have definitely heard me speak of my love of balance. For me the concept of individualized moderation is important, to not feeling trapped by my dietary restrictions (whatever they may be at the current moment), but also to being able to live my life normally, despite my autoimmune conditions and said restrictions. But, the word “moderation” can be a loaded one and I am very keenly aware that for some this word it can be very much overused, it can be a scape goat and an excuse to over indulge. Moderation can be the place where we dwell without self-judgement, 100% yes, without feeling trapped by rules and to just live and enjoy life. But, if the need for restrictions in our diet comes out of necessity (whatever the reason) than this concept of “moderation” just might actually be a detriment to our health, even in all it’s innocent and fleeting goodness. It might be the overlooked moments in your week that are causing that still lingering distress, as much as you don’t want to admit it. Why work so hard 80% of the time to, in the other 20% undo all of your hard work, only to have to work that much harder the other 80% to undo that damage? There has to be a better balance. To enjoying life without doing harm. To me that balance is honoring your individuality and not just following others’ paths.
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Savory Veggie Breakfast Bowls with Herb Olive Oil Drizzle {Paleo-friendly}
So here we are, another recipe on Tasty Yummies where I leave a lot of the decision-making to you guys. I have to say these end of being my favorite recipes, in a lot of ways. It’s not due to a laziness on my part, more, it’s that this has always been my approach to cooking in my own kitchen and to teaching others in their own unique culinary journeys. I always want to give you the tools to make the right decisions for you, your unique desires and/or your dietary needs. My hope is that I can always help to empower you to feel confident in the kitchen, to try new things, to get adventurous and make decisions on the fly and who knows, maybe even jump outside of your comfort zone at times.
Our nutritional needs can vary just as wildly as our fingerprints. This is why I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition and eating, it simply can’t work. I don’t believe in slapping a label on my diet, following an arbitrary set of rules and ignoring my body’s intuitive response to food. That said, the fundamentals and foundations that we know to be true, can absolutely be applied across the board, with many little variations along the way. I think this is what I love about food so much, it can be tweaked, the details shifted to suit your needs, cravings, desires and even location – the sky truly is the limit.
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Greek Potato Salad
This light Greek Potato Salad is full of a bright, fresh tang from the freshly squeezed lemon juice, an incredible fresh crunch from the red onions and cucumber this all comes together with the fresh fill and oregano to create perfect Greek flavors. Step away from the mayo and opt for my family’s favorite summer side dish.
Summertime is the time of quick meals, picnics, BBQs and cookouts. As much as I am a big fan of mayonnaise, I have never been able to get down with the idea of it on my cold salads. I have never enjoyed it on potato salad, coleslaw or pasta salad. Not sure why. Maybe it’s too many picnics in my youth, seeing the salad and the mayo baking away in the sun, no one has a care in the world. I won’t ruin it for those of you that like it, but it’s just not for me.
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Grain-free Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Coconut Milk Ice Cream {dairy-free}
I broke the seal on this summer’s ice cream maker usage with this incredible Peach Raspberry Sorbet, earlier this month and now I can’t stop. When I get a craving for something, you best watch yourself. Get out of my way and let me do my thing. My current adoration of my ice cream maker plus a craving for a childhood favorite meant it was time to create!
I had the realization that I have sadly been without cookie dough ice cream for longer than should be allowed. The store-bought ones, even when gluten-free or dairy-free, are still loaded with so much junk, tons of refined sugar, creepy lab experiment thickeners and I just can’t.
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Roasted Peach and Vanilla Bean Matcha Popsicles
Summer kicked off this week, we’ve had a killer heat wave in Southern California and wait for it…it’s also #popsicleweek!! ‘What is popsicle week?’, you ask. It’s just an epic celebration with basically ALL the food bloggers of the entire internet participating. OK that may be a bit of an overstatement, but whatevs, it’s over 100 popsicle recipes brought to us by our friend Billy of Wit & Vinegar. That’s right, for the fourth year in a row, the king of popsicles has declared a whole week dedicated to this summer-inspired frosty goodness on a stick.
So, this week is awesome and the popsicle week party is pretty much the be all end all of summertime frozen goodness. For my first popsicle recipe of the season, I bring you these beautiful, tasty Roasted Peach and Vanilla Bean Matcha Popsicles. Loaded with vibrant color and flavor.
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Cantaloupe Creamsicle Smoothie
Part of the self-initiated responsibility that I have gladly taken on with Tasty Yummies and now as I move towards my Nutritional Therapy Practice, is to not only read about and research how traditional whole foods can play a role in our healthy lifestyles and healing journeys, but to also keep my ear to the ground about new (or new to me) nutrient-dense alternative foods. I especially am drawn to foods that are more under the radar, that may be of benefit to my readers and their health.I know that with this community we have created together here, we have a wide array or food allergies and intolerances and unique health concerns, so whenever I come across a food that may be of benefit to the community, I get really excited. Like little-kid-on-Christmas-morning stoked!
This particular discovery was one that I had heard about, long before I had the opportunity to sample it for myself. Camel milk. Yes, you heard me correctly, milk from a camel. Now, before you shy away I think it’s important to learn what makes this 100% wholesome, raw and natural milk an amazing alternative to cow’s milk.
Nutrition
For centuries, man has subsisted on raw camel milk – and this wisdom must be passed on! Unlike the homogenized, de-fatted and pasteurized cow’s milk you’ll find at the store, that is devoid of almost all of the beneficial vitamins and minerals naturally found, Desert Farms Camel Milk is raw, non-homogenized, it contains no hormones, preservatives or additives and the milk comes from camels that are pasture raised, 100% grass-fed on non-gmo feed and they are grain-free.
