Brunch/ Holidays/Parties/ RECIPES/ Sweets

Cinnamon Roll Wreath Christmas Tradition

The holidays are upon us and I am determined to enjoy every moment of them! One of the ways our family makes the holidays special is by using traditions to make memories from year to year. We have found some of those traditions changing. As the age of our 3 girls (12, 14 & 16 years) change, so do their interests. We used to put them to bed early, then grab them from their beds, pajamas blankies and all, and throw them into our heated car to go look at Christmas lights. They LOVED it. I remember the giggles, their ringlets & curls bouncing as Daddy carried them out to the car, & the sound of Christmas music streaming out from the car every time he would open the car door to throw another girl in! Oh what fun memories! Now we can’t imagine lifting our grown girls, or that they would enjoy being in public in their jammies. Yes, traditions sometimes have to change.

GF, Vegan & Raw/ RECIPES/ Sweets

Sweet Potato Chocolate Bites

Teniel-Moore-Sugar-Free-Sweet-Potao-Choc-Bites-3-WATERMARKED-011014

by Teniel Moore, our Aussie Raw Foods Contributor

At this time of year I get so inspired by all the American fall recipes. So I decided to make up these chocolate bites using sweet potato. This is not a fully raw snack due to the sweet potato being cooked but its still an amazingly healthy treat for you.

Of course with pumpkin so readily available in the States right now you can substitute the sweet potato for pumpkin.

These are not overly sweet as I made them when I was doing a strict candida cleanse so I used stevia instead. Like all my recipes please use whatever sweetener you prefer as long as its a healthy version.

Sweet Potato Filling

1 large sweet potato, baked
1 cup of coconut butter (3-4 cups of dried unsweetened coconut blended until smooth)
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
tiny pinch salt
1 Tbs of melted coconut oil
10 – 12 drops or more of stevia (or 1 tbs or more of rice malt syrup or maple syrup)

In a high speed blender blend well till combined, smooth and creamy

Set in fridge for a while to firm up then roll into bliss ball size balls and place on a lined tray in the freezer to harden. This will help set the chocolate fast.

………………………………………

Here are the balls rolled and on a tray ready to go in the fridge & firm up before they get the chocolate topping:

Chocolate Topping:

~About 1 Tbls of raw cacao powder
~Melted coconut oil (enough to combine well with cacao)
~Stevia to taste (or your sweetener of choice as above)
~Tinniest pinch of himalayan salt to bring out the chocolate flavour (optional)

Take the frozen sweet potato balls from the freezer and roll into the chocolate mix.
The chocolate will set fast so work quickly giving at least 2 coats.
Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt to decorate if you desire (optional)
Set again in freezer and store in freezer

I enjoy these straight from the freezer as a great little snack or dessert.

……………………………………………..

Here are a couple of great ways to get the most out of this recipe & any leftover ingredients you might have:

~Instead of cleaning out your blender and trying to get all the remaining mix out, just add some almond milk, ice, more spices and stevia and make your self a smoothie.

~Keep some of the sweet potato mix in the fridge to make sweet potato creamy smoothies during the week. The mix will keep for a week in the fridge.

Enjoy!

…………………………………………….

Raw Foods Contributor

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Vegan Pumpkin Bread With Brown Sugar Streusel Crust

We have been enjoying Meatless Mondays around here for quite a while now. It has been much fun creating or finding meatless & dairy free meals and desserts. It causes us to eat more plant-based & gives me excuse to mix up my recipes & pour over my Vegan board on Pinterest. I found a couple of recipes for Pumpkin bread and remixed them to come up with this better-for-you Vegan Pumpkin Bread with Brown Sugar Streusel Crust recipe. It is now a favorite! It is so very good that I won’t ever go back to my usual non-vegan, double-the-sugar pumpkin bread recipe.

It is also Monday night football season, so I’ve had extra fun finding meatless meals and desserts that we can enjoy as a family while having the game on. Notice I say “having the game on” instead of “watching the game.” That is because my husband is really the only one who watches Monday night football. He is in a house of girls who are not too interested, but I must say, I love the fun fall atmosphere that a football game brings to the house. It causes me to light fall candles, plug-in my fun lighty- up pumpkin & even use it as an excuse call up my friends and have them over during the week if I’m feeling social. If not, I just cozy up in the corner of the couch with my fuzzy blanket and fuzzy socks & listen to my husband cheer on his team. He is an extremely quiet guy until it comes to sports…then he gets quite animated and I find myself chuckling at him. It can be very entertaining. Oh how I love my man!

This Vegan Pumpkin Bread recipe is anther something that I just love. It pleases both the girls & guys, and is the thing to make when having people over. It is nice and girly & tastes great with a cup of coffee or tea, but also is sweet & special enough to pass as a dessert with the guys, enjoyed with a pumpkin ale.

The bread is soft and moist, you won’t miss the whole milk, butter or eggs one bit! Creamy Silk Almondmilk, thick pumpkin, and vegan butter alternative is what this bread so moist. The streusel top is a buttery brown sugar concoction that is nice and hearty, not dry & crumbly like most streusels. It seeps into the bread a bit while it bakes and the result is just—MMM.

This recipe mixes up in a snap. All ingredients except the flour and baking powder are combined together in one bowl. You then simply wisk in the dry ingredients, pour in a pan, and top with streusel.

It is a great way to keep things simple on a Monday night. Serve with a crockpot of vegan chili & call it good. Your home will smell, taste, look and sound like fall while eating this if you make it on a Meatless Monday Football Night!

Do you have any recipes that can be remixed for #MeatlessMondayNight?

———-

Silk’s plant-based beverages & yogurt alternatives are super versatile and can be used as substitutes for dairy products. Using them is a great way to make delicious meat & dairy-free versions of your normal go-to Monday Night Football recipes.

Silk’s products are lactose free, cholesterol free, high fructose corn syrup free & no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.

Vegan Pumpkin Bread With Brown Sugar Streusel Crust

3/4 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)

1/3 cup coconut oil, melted (another plant-based oil can be substituted)

1/4 cup Unsweetened Silk AlmondMilk

2 tablespoons molasses

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

pinch of salt

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (can use wheat)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Streusel Crust

1/4 cup of vegan buttery spread or butter if you are non-vegan, softened

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease & flour one 9×5 inch loaf pan. Set aside.
Bread- in a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredient through salt & whisk to combine. If coconut oil re-solidifys, no worries, a few small white clumps are ok.
Stir in the flour and baking powder until just combined, don’t overmix. Batter is quite thick.
Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula.
Streusel Crust – in a medium bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour & toss with a fork until mixture combines and crumbs and clumps form. This is a moist streusel, but if your seems very moist and is paste-like, add another 1-2 tablespoon flour, as needed to dry it out.
Evenly sprinkle the streusel topping over the top, using your fingers to break up large clumps in necessary.
Bake for about 40-44 minutes, or until center is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter.
Allow bread to cool in pan, on top of a wire rack, for at least 30 minutes before turning out onto the rack to finish cooling completely.
Slice bread with a serrated knife in a sawing motion, going over any stubborn patches of the crust a few times, taking care to be gentle to not compress the loaf. Bread will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week.
To freeze, wrap completely cooled loaf in plastic wrap, then place loaf inside a gallon-sized plastic zipped bag. Bread will keep airtight in the freezer for up to 6 months

Enjoy!

This conversation is sponsored by Silk. The opinions and text are all mine.

Halloween/ Holidays/Parties/ RECIPES/ Sweets

Caramel Apple Biscuits

Fall has arrived and with it is some of my most favorite flavors, holidays & traditions! I love all things about fall– the changing colors of our midwest trees, lighting candles to cozy up on cool fall evenings, and both the color and the taste of caramel!

Halloween is the first fun fall holiday, and with it comes many traditions our family has participated in, old and new. It has hit hard lately how quickly time passes and I never realized until lately that some traditions are destined for change. As the years pass, our girls get older and some things that excited & brought joy to them years ago, just are not quite what they used to be!

Trick or treating is one of those things, and will only be done by our youngest this year, which is really hard to believe! The older two used to LIVE for Halloween, with the most anticipated moment being when they arrived back to our warm home & dumped their bags of candy out. They would immediately start sorting their candy, lining all the ‘likes’ together and trading out their least favorites. I loved watching it, their rosy cheeks puffed up from smiling so big (and also because they were so full of candy!)

{a recent family photo-2015}

This year, I will be home with my older two girls, Teagan & Colsie, while Todd takes Avery trick-or-treating. I will make a crockpot full of chili, which is our traditional Halloween meal. I do not like being in the kitchen on Halloween, so chili in the crockpot is a great way to be able to offer a warm, comforting meal to my family by making it earlier in the day.

I’ve been thinking about what I could make that was sweet for my older 2 girls who are home with me and not out gathering a bunch of candy. I wanted something easy & festive, and I did NOT want to be in the kitchen for very long. I wanted something that would make the house smell like fall and help us make a new traditions of being home together, passing out candy and eating a great dessert instead of trick-or-treating.

Since I did not want to make anything from scratch, and it IS a holiday after all, I have decided to make my girls Caramel Apple Biscuits using Pillsbury Grands®!

Pillsbury® has been part of a few of our past family traditions, from a family favorite Monkey Bread recipe that came from my aunt, to a Taco Ring recipe from a cousin of mine. Both recipes have been passed around and are favorites at family potlucks. It is only fitting for Pillsbury® to be a part of our new tradition!

When it comes to special occasions, I am totally at peace with taking shortcuts. These little Caramel Apple Biscuits were actually inspired by shortcake! A shortcut shortcake.

I did a little practicing on the recipe to make sure what was in my head would actually work, and boy, did it ever! It turned out beautiful and scrumptious. I think this sweet will be the perfect follow-up to our spicy chili dinner.

I went to Wal-Mart and took advantage of all things store-bought to keep this recipe short and sweet! I grabbed Pillsbury Grands® Buttermilk Biscuits, some already-made apple pie filling, some caramel bits for melting, and whipped cream. I had butter on hand for coating the tops of the biscuits. This little step made me very happy, as I am a big salted caramel lover, and the saltiness of the butter and the biscuits give this recipe a nice salty/sweet balance. It is so good.

It took no time at all to put together, and I think my girls will be quite impressed with how sophisticated it looks. Their palates and tastes have become pretty mature, which I love because they appreciate pretty food that has a variety of flavors and textures.

This recipe certainly has a variety of flavors and textures, with the cinnamon-y apples, the tender biscuits with salty-buttery tops, the ooey- gooey caramel drizzled all over, and the creamy whipped cream. It is key to serve it up warm which keep the soft gooey factor to a maximum! It is super shortcut easy, and really delicious — and I can’t wait to serve this new tradition to my girls on Halloween night!

Caramel Apple Biscuits

{a no recipe, recipe}

1 Roll Pillsbury Grands!® Buttermilk Biscuits, warm from the oven

1 can apple pie filling, warmed up a bit

1 pkg. caramel melting bits or plain caramel’s, melted

Whipped cream

Cube of butter

Bake:

Bake the Pillsbury Grands!® Buttermilk Biscuits according to package directions. Remove from oven and immediately rub tops of biscuits with the cube of butter.

Assemble:

~Cut the buttered biscuit in half. Add a scoop of warm apple pie filling to the bottom part of the biscuit.

~Drizzle with melted caramel. Note: You may need to thin with some milk and stir well until drizzle consistency. I melted mine in the microwave.

~Add the top biscuit.

~Top with a dollop of whipped cream.

~Drizzle the whole thing, including the plate, with more caramel.

~Serve warm

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What is your favorite holiday tradition?

{my youngest, Avery, last year in her ‘nerd’ costume, which she made by herself!}

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Pillsbury. The opinions and text are all mine.

GF, Vegan & Raw/ Healthy Eating/ RECIPES/ Sweets

2 Raw Fruit Leather Recipes- Berry Pear & Pineapple Mint Kiwi Kale

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by Teniel Moore–our Austrailian Raw Foods Contributor

At times when fresh fruit is abundant I love to make fruit leathers, or as we call them here in Australia Fruit Roll Ups. I also freeze all types of fruit for use when out of season. Currently in Australia its not stone fruit season. We are in the middle of winter. So the recipe below is more suitable for what’s in season now.

However I do have a stash of mangoes in my freezer from summer that makes amazing fruit leathers also.

Like any of my recipes this is only a guide. The ingredient list for fruit leathers are endless. Today I will be sharing 2 recipes with you. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. They make a great addition to a healthy lunch box for adults or children.

*You will require a dehydrator & a blender for this recipe.

Raw Berry Pear Fruit Leather

Ingredients

1 large apple

1 large pear

1 cup of frozen berries

2 leaves of kale or 2 leaves of silver beet (optional)

1 Tsp raw honey or coconut nectar to keep it vegan

Instructions

Blend all the ingredients in a high- speed blender.

Then pour the mix onto dehydrator trays with the dehydrator sheet and spread evenly with a spatula.

This amount will make about 2 trays worth. Dehydrate on 105 overnight or until dry.

When ready the roll ups will peel easily away from the dehydrator sheets. Roll up the dehydrated fruit and cut into long strips. Keep in airtight container in the cupboard for up to a week.

…….

Tip – If you add the kale or silver beet your kids will not be able to taste the greens at all. However the berries and greens will turn the roll ups a dark green once dried.

I look for every excuse to get more greens into my kids and this way I promise they can’t taste it at all, so why not add them!

Raw Pineapple Mint Kiwi & Kale Fruit Leather

Ingredients

2 -3 Kiwi fruit peeled

1/2 – 1 fresh pineapple

1 stem of curly kale

Generous handful of fresh mint

Instructions

Blend all the ingredients in a high- speed blender.

Then pour the mix onto dehydrator trays with the dehydrator sheet and spread evenly with a spatula.

This amount will make about 1.5 – 2 trays worth. Dehydrate on 105 overnight or until dry.

When ready the roll ups will peel easily away from the dehydrator sheets. Roll up the dehydrated fruit and cut into long strips. Keep in airtight container in the cupboard for up to a week.

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Other fruit leather combinations to get your creative juices flowing are

Mango & mint

Berry & Honey

Apricot

Mango & coconut

………………

Amy here: If you do not have a dehydrator, you can use the oven method below.

Here is what I do when making fruit leathers/roll ups:

~Spread out on freezer paper on top of a cookie sheet (can use waxed paper)

~Put them in the oven for about *4-5 hours (150 degrees is recommended, the lowest my oven went was 170 degrees)

~Take them out, let them cool

~Cut them into strips and rolled em’ up

~Store in a mason jar. (or Ziplock bag or any airtight container)

*I put them in the oven after dinner and took them out right before I went to bed. I let them sit out on the counter all night, then cut and rolled in the morning.

……………….

Raw Foods Contributor

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No Bake Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites

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August is a great month to use a recipe that does not require heating up the oven, although these No Bake Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites are great to eat any time of the year!

Speaking of August, we are a week and a half away from my 3 girls heading back to school. I will have 2 girls in high school, a freshman and a sophomore, and one in middle school.

As you might have noticed, the summer got the best of me and I have been pretty MIA when it comes to blogging. There are many reasons why, of which I will share with you in upcoming posts, but it sure felt strange to step away from the computer and just focus on getting through a very challenging and busy summer. I have had this blog since 2007 and have never taken time off of writing regularly in it. I feel that things are starting to get back to normal, not just myself emotionally, but also with a fall schedule coming. I do best with a schedule!

One thing that happened this summer was that we got a complete kitchen makeover! I was out of a kitchen for about a month, and we had to get pretty creative with meals around here. Now that the kitchen is finished (I will show you in a post coming soon!) my youngest has been very eager to get in there and make something! She is my little baker and is constantly surprising me with fun recipes that she finds on Pinterest. Yesterday I was back- to- school shopping with my Colsie girl, and came home to cocoa powder scattered on my new countertops, a sign that my little one had been busy whipping something up and enjoying the new kitchen.

She proudly presented these No Bake Cookie Dough Bites, and let me tell you, they are GOOD! They hit the spot when it comes to a chocolate craving, as the chocolate is pretty intense. They are almost like a dark chocolate, but still sweet enough for my two older daughters to enjoy who usually don’t care for dark chocolate. They are rich and fudgey and oh so good!

No Bake Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites

{inspired by this recipe}

¾ c all-purpose flour

6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 tbsp butter or margarine, melted and cooled

¼ c unsweetened applesauce

½ tsp vanilla extract

½ c light brown sugar

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, and salt in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, applesauce, and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Mix in the brown sugar, smearing any clumps along the side of the bowl. Add in the dry flour mixture, stirring just until incorporated.

If the dough is too sticky to shape, refrigerate for 20-40 minutes (or freeze for about 10 minutes).

Line a baking sheet or large plate with wax paper. Roll the cookie dough into 32 little balls, using between 1-11/2 teaspoons of dough 9in each ball. Place on the wax paper until ready to serve.

Keep the cookie dough bites in the refrigerator. Their flavors meld over time, and they actually taste best after sitting in the fridge.

RECIPES/ Sides/ Sweets

Raspberry Lemon Yogurt Loaf

Summer Kitchen Adventures

We have had our share of cloudy summer days here in the Midwest, and although I miss the sunshine on those days, they are great days to stay indoors and get creative! My youngest daughter, Avery, is always up for an adventure in the kitchen, so on a recent cloudy day we decided to bake up some sunshine of our own and make Raspberry Lemon Yogurt Loaf.

I also have two teenage daughters, Teagan and Colsie, but they are much less enthusiastic to get in the kitchen, so it was all up to Avery and I to make this amazing bread that was full of fruit and oh so moist!

Avery is my very capable baker. If you follow my instagram feed you’ve seen some of the incredible things she has baked up. I asked her if she wanted to make this recipe alone and she said “Let’s do it together.” I loved hearing that. She usually has her own plan and loves independence in the kitchen, so to hear her excitement about doing some summer baking together made this Momma happy.

This loaf was really fun and easy to make. I love any recipe that involves mixing the dry ingredients, then making a “well” for the wet ingredients. I also love any recipe that allows me to keep my mixer stored away and clean.

The citrus comes from grated lemon rind, which adds such a great fresh flavor. Raspberry and lemon go so well together, which makes this bread special, but the ingredient that makes it extra special and moist is Yulu yogurt.

HELLO YULU. GOODBYE GREEK.

My new favorite brand of yogurt is called Yulu.

I have never been a big fan of the sour taste of yogurt. I’m a bit picky with my yogurt, as I prefer it to be creamy, but not as thick as Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt tends to be an “acquired taste,” as it is quite tangy, so I have stayed away from it.

Yulu is an Aussie-style yogurt that is made here in the USA. It is double-smoothed and double-creamed, so it was a whole new yogurt experience for me. It is not too thick or not too thin. It does not have the too-sour quality that is found in Greek yogurt. I think it tastes divine.

It comes in a container that is see-thru, which I thought was pretty cool and is a clear sign of the honest company that it is. The ingredient list made me smile as they use real fruit, fruit juice and even vegetable juices for color and flavor– so no artificial colors– and it there is 9 grams of protein in each cup.

If you want to know more about Yulu, you can check them out here and sign up for the Yulu newsletter for coupons, giveaways & more! Keep in mind that Yulu is a new product on the market, so check their site for locations & availability in your area.

Raspberry Yogurt Lemon Loaf

Back to our summer kitchen adventure, I gathered all the ingredients and Avery started in on the measuring. She was a rockstar with grating the lemon rind, which is not my favorite job so I was happy to let her go to town on that. It came together in minutes, smelled amazing while baking, & made a great sunshine snack on a cloudy summer day.

Recipe

2 cups plain flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)

2 eggs

1 cup Yulu Raspberry Yogurt (about 2 small containers)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups rasberries (fresh or frozen)

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Coat a 1lb loaf pan with oil.

Combine flour, sugar, & baking powder in a bowl. Made a well in the center of the bowl.

In a separate bowl combine oil, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla.

Add wet mixture into the dry well and mix well.

Gently fold in raspberries and lemon rind.

Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake until top is golden and springs back when you gently touch it, and a knife comes out clean.

45-60 minutes.

{for your Pinning Pleasure!}

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Yulu. The opinions and text are all mine.

Older Posts

Newer Posts

Sweets

Cinnamon Roll Wreath Christmas Tradition

Sweet Potato Chocolate Bites

Sweet Potato Filling

Chocolate Topping:

More posts by Teniel at New Nostalgia:

Vegan Pumpkin Bread With Brown Sugar Streusel Crust

Vegan Pumpkin Bread With Brown Sugar Streusel Crust

Streusel Crust

Caramel Apple Biscuits

Caramel Apple Biscuits

Bake:

Assemble:

2 Raw Fruit Leather Recipes- Berry Pear & Pineapple Mint Kiwi Kale

More posts by Teniel at New Nostalgia:

Raspberry Lemon Yogurt Loaf

Summer Kitchen Adventures

HELLO YULU. GOODBYE GREEK.

Raspberry Yogurt Lemon Loaf

Recipe

Method