Tag Archives: primal

The Ultimate Gluten Free Earl Grey Cupcakes

2 Mar

Ultimate Gluten Free Earl Grey Cupcakes with some Earl Grey Whipped Cream Frosting!

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Holy Smokes!  I’ve been searching far and wide for a recipe that combined one of my favorite tea’s with gluten free flour to make the ultimate earl grey cupcake. Now if you like matcha cake you may like this subtle and delicate take on tea cake. I adapted some of my favorite recipes into a gluten free recipe and voila! These little cupcakes are slightly sweet and depending on how you like your tea, dark or light you can play with the flavour of these scrumptious goodies.

Earl Grey Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Icing

Makes about 12
Earl Grey Cupcake Batter
Ingredients

Adapted from Honey and Jam’s recipe
1/2 cup salted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cups of sugar

1/4 tsp stevia ( optional)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups of sifted gluten free flour mix (1/3 arrowroot powder, 1/3 tapioca starch, 1/3 fava bean flour)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp of xanthan powder

1/2 cup milk

3 bags of earl grey tea

Early Grey Whipped Cream Frosting 

Adapted from Elana’s Pantry

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy cream ( room temperature)

1 tablespoon of Agave syrup

1 bag of earl grey tea

Directions

1-Preheat oven to 350 celsius

2- Cream sugar and stevia with butter

3- Add eggs and mix together ( scrap sides of bowl)

4- In the meantime heat milk up to a low simmer. Once heated place milk in container then steep tea bag to your liking.

5- Sift all dry ingredients as well as remaining tea.

6- Combine dry ingredients in stages into the butter mixture.

7-Once cooled add milk and beat in the rest of the dry ingredients.

8- Pour the mixture into cupcake liners.

Frosting

1- Run tea bag under hot water

2-Let tea bag sit the cream

3. Tear bag and use some of the tea to add more flavour (about 1/3 of the bag)

4. Add Agave

5. Beat until you see stiff peaks

6. Decorate cooled cupcakes

Voila! You can serve these yummy goodies at you next tea party. They will be a nice accent to any afternoon tea. Some of my favorite tea’s to pair these cupcakes with are Mariage Freres’ Russian Star or even some Saint Petersburg’s, Kusmi Tea .

Sit back relax and enjoy some tea and lovely Earl Grey Cupcakes.

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Gluten Free Zucchini Chocolate Dream Bread

23 Feb

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After a long hiatus, I am back to cooking again.

My love of baking has not subsided!  I have experimented with many types of gluten free flour . I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is to blend flours together to try and achieve the same consistency found in regular yummy bready things. Keep in mind it will never be the same. It just can’t. Once you make peace with that, the door into a yummy gluten free baking world will open!

So I had these ‘meh’ looking zucchini’s hanging out in my fridge as well as huge bag of dark chocolate chips. Combine that with a huge hankering for something sweet and voila its time to bake up a storm. I searched the web and found many recipes and took the best of the best each and came up with this.

Ingredients

Dry:

1 1/2 cups gluten free flour mix ( 1 part chickpea/fava bean flour, 1 cup of arrowroot or cornstarch and 1 part tapioca starch)

1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips

1 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp of salt

Wet:

2/3 cups of light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/4 grapeseed oil or coconut oil

1/2 applesauce

Other:

2 medium small zucchini shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)

Directions:

1, Preheat oven to 350 F

2. Grease large loaf pan

3. Mix sugar and oil

4.Combine the rest of wet ingredients in a large bowl with mixer or by hand

5.Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients

6. Fold shredded zucchini into mixture

7. Bake for about 50 minutes to an hour

The loaf should be nice and moist and just plain yummy. The recipe makes about 12 servings or 10 generous slices. I would suggest pairing this with some nice mate green tea, or even some nice chamomile if your having a late night snack. Or if your feeling very decadent with an amazing hot chocolate.

Happy eats!

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The Big Chill is Coming— How about some Bison Chili ?

5 Nov

With the cool temperatures of fall nibbling at your ears and winter around the corner, comfort food seems to be in order. I personally like to be able to cozy up with a bowl of soup or something even heartier and watch a movie. I miss being able to have a classic chili with beans and other ingredients that make my tummy hurt. So as per usual I have been experimenting in making a chili that is healthy and yummy! In the process I discovered how great bison meat is. Bison is a great alternative meat to the classic beef chili recipe and its healthy and rich in omega 3. So do you want to give my Bison Chili a try?

Bison Chili

Ingredients
500 grams of ground Bison meat (approximately 4 cups)
2 cans of canned diced tomatoes
2 medium/large shallots
2 cloves of garlic
2 TBS of bacon lard
1 TBS of tomato paste
1 large carrot
1 large celery stalk
red chili peppers flakes
capers (optional)
diced sun dried tomatoes (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
1. In a pot heat up bacon fat minced shallots, garlic and chili peppers
2. When the shallots start to wilt add both minced carrots and minced celery
3. Cook for about 8-12 minutes on a medium heat
4. Add bison meat and break it up with a fork
5. Let meat cook on medium heat
6. Add canned tomatoes
7. Add capers and diced sun dried tomatoes (optional)
8. Cook for about 1-2 hours on low heat

*If you don’t have bacon fat you can always use some coconut oil or butter. I recommend keeping bacon fat on hand for recipes like these.

While the chili cooks I like to taste it and see what it may be missing. If you are using canned tomatoes that seem watery I would add some tomato paste and maybe drain some of the water before adding it to the chili. Once the chili starts to thicken I either steam some spinach or prepare some quinoa. This chili is nice on it own or it can double as a sauce. Personally I think both work and give the chili a different taste every time. So try my Bison Chili and Enjoy!

If you have any questions drop me a line!


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A Nostalgia For Food—3 Weeks in Paris Makes for a Sleepy and Grumpy Cave Woman

22 Sep

Part 1

After a long busy busy summer, I left for Paris at the end of August. I have, since the beginning of February been keeping a strict paleolithic diet ( with some ups and downs here and there). It started with my boyfriend throwing down the challenge and I figured: well 30 days on this crazy diet scheme won’t hurt, if anything I will go back to the way I eat!

This 30 day experiment has now been going on for 7 months plus. What began as ‘crazy diet scheme’ has now evolved into a way of life. I think that I have taken so strongly to this so called ‘diet‘ because I just feel better then I ever have. Recently, like many of my friends I had developed intolerance’s to dairy. I remember the day I cut out milk as the day I learned to drink coffee black. I thought that this simple action would solve the constant bloating and abdomen pains I had been feeling for over one year. I soon came to realize that there was more happening underneath the surface. Supplementing my dairy with almond milk only sightly alleviated my problems, I still felt, to put it plainly GROSS and I didn’t know why. Long story short once I eliminated all grains, unnecessary legumes and most importantly sugars, I started to feel better. I felt lighter less bloated and full of energy. More importantly I keep feeling better, the longer I keep to this routine the better my body feels.

Where was I, Paris right. This conversion to a primal way of life has benefited me in ways I had not and have not foreseen. However it’s important when committing to something so different to test your limits and to test your theories. The switch for me was not easy. I love sweets, I love baked good I love food. Going back to Paris was going to be hard. Having lived there once and have acquired the knowledge all the best bakeries and local restaurants, this was going to be a challenge.

Upon arriving I realized what I was dealing with was food that had more flavor then what I was use to back home. Things were fresh and local and had for the most part less preservatives. I allowed myself the freedom to eat what I wanted and disguised this with the phrase “I’m on vacation”. I ate what I wanted, how much I wanted without the need to feel guilty because I was on vacation. What I started to figure out was that my cravings were linked to a nostalgia for food. What I ate was linked to a nostalgic search for sweet and savory tastes and the consequential satisfaction, I once felt. In other I was eating all these sugary doughy gluten filled pastries for memories sake and the sad conclusion was that it wasn’t as good as I remember it being.

How could I have gone from wanting to overdose on this sort of food to now feeling ‘meh’ about it? I guess the consequences of how that food makes one feel can outweigh the nostalgia. The liberal attitude I adopted in Paris began to take its toll and this is something I felt just after the first week. How could I feel sleepy and grumpy when I had no work to do? I could sleep in and I was on vacation eating the best food in the world.

Tune in to part 2 next week!

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Black Tomato Fennel Cucumber Medley

10 Aug

As a child I wasn’t a big fan of fennel. With a sensitive child’s palette, the taste of fennel was strong and reminded me too much of black licorice. However with the added years I have also acquired a more adventurous and mature palette. Fennel is fun and fresh great for a summer salad or as a bed to your favorite meat of choice. I like to have this Black Tomato Fennel Cucumber Medley with some white wine garlic shrimp!
Yummy all around!

Ingredients
8 black tomatoes
5 medium sized cucumbers
2 small fennel bulbs
1 celery stalk
1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley
3 small purple pearl onion
a pinch of rock salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1.Peel and seed the cucumber
2. Remove stalks from fennel, keep the bulb and the tender parts
3. Cut both fennel, cucumber, black tomatoes and celery into similar bite size pieces
4. Mince parsley and onion
5.Toss vegetables with salt and pepper
6. Guess what your done!

I like to mix some olive oil separately with some apple cider vinegar and add that to the medley. It keeps the fresh taste of the vegetables present and strong to the taste but adds a nice sweet taste. The medley is good on its own for a nice vegan treat, especially with the special taste of the black tomatoes! Optionally for the meat lover you can cook some shrimp in coconut oil with tons of garlic, as things heat up add some white wine and watch it all sizzle. Take those shrimp and toss them over the medley and voilà. That is my personal favorite, though I think a nice piece of steak would be tasty as well! Until then you can use this as a main course or a bed for your savory meats and main dishes….Enjoy!

If you have any questions drop me a line!

Vegan Style Medley

Yummy Shrimp Medley

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Sweet Basil Zucchini Soup: The Fresh Taste of Summer

21 Jul

I recently started receiving an organic vegetable basket every two weeks. This forces me to prepare my vegetables ahead of time so I can just dive into my fridge and find a yummy snack waiting. Last week’s basket came with about 6 zucchini and a whole lot of other fresh organic goodies. I had no idea what to do with some many vegetables and with so little time to eat them all. Until I thought of soup! Soup is such a great way to use vegetable that may otherwise go to waste! Not to mention I just love eating soup and with this cooler weather, a nice little bowl in the evening sounds just about right…

Sweet Basil Zucchini Soup

For this recipe you will need
Ingredients
4 cups of water
2 cups of chicken stalk/ or vegetable stock
12 basil leaves
6 green zucchini (peeled)
2 carrot (peeled)
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 celery stalk
1 TBS of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Cut all the vegetables (zucchini’s, carrots, celery, onion, garlic)
2. In a pot combine the vegetables, broth and water.
3. Add 8 of the basil leaves
4. Let the vegetable and liquid heat up to a boil on meduim heat.
5. This should take about 40-45 minutes ( or till you can fork through the carrots easily)
6. After letting the contents of the pot cool put everything into the blender!
7. Add remaining basil leaves, oil and salt and pepper.
8. Blend it all, till it is a smooth consistency ( this is always my favorite part)
9. I sometimes like to add an extra raw garlic clove for a kick.

I find this soup tastes better after its had time for the flavors to take. I leave it in the fridge for about a day, and then take it out at night for a great delicate tasting soup! Optionally, I like to add some strong goat cheese or feta into my soup with a drizzle of olive oil and chili peppers flakes to counter the subtle sweet taste of the basil. If you like the sweet fresh taste of basil and want to add more shred some on top of heated bowl of soup! So until then, enjoy the soup as much as I do…

If you have any questions drop me a line!

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Yummy In Your Tummy Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins

7 Jul

The great muffin debate. This is what I used to call the enthused argument my friend Teo and I would have about muffins. Are muffins, cupcakes in a ‘healthy’ disguise? Can a muffin be a healthy treat? For the most part I would say that muffins are not as healthy as they seem, unless you are making your own at home. By baking your own muffins you can see how much sugar actually really goes into what you are making. I can guarantee you would be surprised how much sugar goes into a classic muffin recipe. Needless to say I do believe that muffins can be healthy treats…

Blueberry ( Coconut Flour ) Muffins

For this recipe you will need
Ingredients

6 eggs ( at room temperature)
3/4 cups and 2 TSP of Coconut Flour
2x(1/4) cups of Melted Butter or Melted Coconut Oil
1/2 a TSP of Salt ( to taste)
2x(1/4) cups of Raw Honey ( sweeten to your taste)
1 TSP of Baking Powder
8 TSP of Water
1 cup of Blueberries

Directions
1.Preheat oven at 375 Celsius and grease muffin tin (makes 12 muffins)
2. Combine all the dry sifted ingredients (baking powder, salt and coconut flour) into a medium to small bowl.
3. In a larger bowl mix all the wet ingredients (honey, eggs, butter)
4. Gently combine the dry ingredients in a whisk like motion until they are all mixed
5. Add water into mixture a teaspoon at a time until well mixed, mixture should be slightly glue-y
6. Add blueberries.
7. Baking time, 15-20 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean,tops should be golden.

What is great about these muffins is that every ingredients is accounted for. The honey which can be diminished-with apple sauce- is full of minerals and amino acids. So, although these muffins are sweet they are by no means related to cupcakes. The coconut flour is gluten free and filling and the blueberries are great antioxidants. Try them out… I guarantee this is the healthiest ‘yummy in your tummy treat’ you have had lately!

So until next time, enjoy the muffins treats!

If you have any questions drop me a line!

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Teo’s Terrific Tuesday’s- Beets two ways….

29 Jun

Some more great food ideas from Teo!

____________________________________________________________________

If you’re anything like me, beets are far from your mind in the
spring/early summer. Beets belong in the fall with all the other root
vegetables: boiled, roasted, pickled…served up with gherkins and
cocktail onions alongside your grand maman’s tourtière. But I can’t
stop seeing them these days. Tiny, bright beets at the tips of
ginormous veiny leaves, alongside decidedly summer fare like
cucumbers, tomatoes, and new potatoes. And after all, why the hell
not? Tiny, little, succulent, tender-as-they’ll ever be beets. Sign
me up.

Now, many people are not beet fans. It’s alright. I must admit that
I wouldn’t touch them myself until my late teens. And then, I
suffered through them for a while, convinced that–given their colour
and weird-ass taste–they had to be good for me. But now I love them.
And you should too.

These are two of my favourite beet recipes. If you are a tentative
beet-er, you may want to start with the cooked salad. If not, go
ahead and try the raw beet one. Either way, you’ll get lots of iron,
potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, and vitamins A and B. Beets are an
excellent detox-booster, as they tone blood and feed red blood cells.
Enjoy!

Beet slaw

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
5-9 beets, depending on the size
2-3 limes, depending on how many beets
1 carrots (optional, for colour)
1 clove of garlic
3-4 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and pepper
1-2 avocadoes, ripe

Directions
1. Do not peel the beets if you can help it–the skin has most of the
fibre. Scrub them well, and maybe peel them a bit towards the top
(where the root meets the stem) and the skin is thicker. Peel around
any bumps and rought spots, but otherwise leave the skin on.
2. Grate the beets using the bigger setting on a cheese grater (I
have a flat handheld grater and it is a god send). Watch your
fingers. Try to grate directly into the bowl or you will have a
purple kitchen.
3. Grate the garlic into the beets. Raw garlic is an excellent
antimicrobial (ie, a yeast killer, it rids the intestines of bad
bacteria to leave room for the good ones to grow) and this is an easy
way to get some in. But if you are not a raw garlic fan you can skip
it here to no great harm.
4. Grate your carrot in for colour. I mean, the whole thing will be
purple, but some people like shades.
5. Squeeze your limes and toss the juice in with the beets.
6. Drizzle in the sunflower oil and toss well. Season to taste.
Place salad in serving bowls.
7. Cube your avocado and serve on top. Try to get a chunk of avocado
with each bite. Awesome…

Beet and corn salad

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
5-9 beets, depending on the size
1 red onion (or half if very big)
2-3 handfuls of frozen corn (ie, 1/2 to 1 cup), thawed
1 bunch of parsley, I prefer flat leaf (ie, Italian) in this recipe
but there is absolutely no reason why
3-4 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper
Sunflower oil

Directions
1. Cook your beets. It takes a long-ass time. Be patient. When a
fork can make some headway in but they feel like they would still
crunch a bit, they’re ready.
2. Rinse your beets and soak in cold water. Peel them (the skins
should just rub off, but sometimes a little help from a knife is
welcome).
3. Cube them. You are going for bite sized pieces. Don’t chop too small.
4. Slice your red onion THINLY. You are going for quasi-Goodfellas
slivers. Toss them in with your beets.
5. Wash and coarsely chop your parsley, toss it in.
6. Drain your corn and toss it in.
7. Salt and pepper to taste.
8. Add vinegar. Drizzle with sunflower oil. Toss. Toss again. Eat!

PS. Beet greens are a whole other level of adventurous. Try
sauteeing them or steaming them. The trick is to cut the bitterness,
so add a little bit of orange juice or, oddly enough, balsamic…and
lots of salt and olive oil.

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Grandma knows best, atleast her cookbook does.

15 Jun

This is ‘the’ cookbook of my childhood cake dreams. My grandmother received a copy of Better Homes and Gardens when she graduated highschool in 1949. My memories of this cookbook, are my grandmother taking it out for special occasions, usually birthdays and making delightful cakes (which to me seemed to be 6 layers in height). In the next couple of weeks I am going to try to make some of these recipes with gluten, primal and paleo concerns in mind. In the meantime check this out.

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Nicaraguan guacamole vs. the mainstream stuff

9 Jun

When I first arrived in Montreal, I was about 6. There was a lot of adjusting to be done, however it didn’t take long. Children are resilient in that way. One of the hardest things to adjust to was the food available. The change in produce required a change in diet. Needless to say when I discovered that avocados were sold here and so was guacamole, things didn’t seem so grim. However the guacamole that is popular in here by no means resembled my guacamole salad I had growing in Nicaragua. The texture seemed to be totally different and it was. The puree consistency of the North American version contrasts with the chunky Nicaraguan version. For these reasons I wanted to share two traditional Nicaraguan guacamole salad recipes, one that I grew up with Doña Petrona’s, and one found in 50 Años en la Cocina.

Doña Petrona’s Guacamole

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
4 small avocados cubed
2 hard boiled eggs cubed
firm cherry tomatoes (optional)
1/2 cup of onions cubed
1 lime juiced

Directions
1. Toss all the ingredients a bit if you like. The salad is supposed to remain chunky
2. Dry crumbly feta can be added as a garnish!

Traditional Nicaraguan Guacamole

For this recipe you will need
ingredients
3 large ( 6 small) avocados in pieces
2 tomatoes skinned and seeded in pieces
1 small onion cubed
2 tsp of olive oil
2 tsp of chopped cilantro

Directions
1.Delicately toss all the ingredients

Both these salads are a variation on a party classic. Sometimes I like to put these two salads on a bed a baby spinach. My preferred one and childhood favorite is Doña Petrona’s. I grew up with this lady who would help my mother out with some cooking here and there when my mother was at work back in Managua. I am pretty sure my love of cooking is partly due to her! So this is a nod to Doña Petrona! So until then, enjoy the salads as much as I!

If you have any questions drop me a line!

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