Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Dinner tonight: Baked Salmon with Ginger Bok Choy and Pineapple Almond Quinoa


Once again, throwing dinner together last minute and loving it!  This took about 30 minutes to prep and cook... doesn't look it, does it?  I baked the salmon with a little sea salt and dried thyme leaves with halved cherry tomatoes on top (baked at 350 for 20 min and broil for 3).  

My sides were Pineapple Almond Quinoa and Ginger Bok Choy (made the bok a million times this way- my favorite).  I cooked the quinoa in water, brought it to a boil and reduced it to a simmer for about 8 minutes and then turned the heat off and left the cover on.  In the meantime, I sauteed a diced onion in olive oil and then added the bok choy, sliced.  When the veggies were sauteed and tender, I added freshly grated ginger and sea salt.  Last minute, I FINELY diced a few pieces of pineapple and dry toasted almonds with a dash of ground cloves; I added them both to the cooked quinoa with a tablespoon of pineapple juice.  

Honestly, fridge to table, this took only 30 minutes!  It's all about thinking ahead, start prepping what takes the longest to cook (salmon in this case) and finish what cooks the quickest.  Easy as pie.

Alright, a mess in the sink awaits.  :)

Mango Almond Muffins



                                    

I am queen of making something out of nothing.  I really think my best concoctions come when I am forced to use what I have in the house!  I had a mango that looked a little funky and some pineapple that needed to be used today- it had also been about 3 weeks since I made muffins so, ta-da Mango Almond Muffins!!  

I used brown rice and tapioca flours, baking powder, soda, salt, a little ginger and lemon zest, only 3 tbs of ghee, about 1/3 cup of chopped mango and pineapple, 1/2 cup (filling 1/3 each of honey, maple syrup and pineapple juice), 1/2 cup almond flour (make it yourself in the food processor... just don't whir it into almond butter!), Hmmmm what else??  Oh, 3 eggs.  Yup, that was about it.  Baked them for about 15 minutes and they came out amber brown, moist and mouth watering.  Tasted deliciously tropical!  

I will write up the recipe for NourishThis.com and pop it on there later this week. :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Beach Picnic



I used to hate eating on the beach, even as a little kid, all I wanted was water or an ice pop.  There is something about a sandwich and a bikini that just don't match up! ha ha  My brother calls it a "hamburger belly," but no matter what, it's not attractive and in my case just feels too darn heavy.

I was in Malibu last week with one of my best friends.  Her bro lives in Point Dume and he was in NYC for a month so we took over his place for a week and loved every second of it!  It had to be the least expensive vacation of all time- free place to stay and we cooked almost every meal.  My friend Annie (seen above) is also gluten-free, so that made life easier!  We made spinach salads on this day with basically any veggie we had in the fridge so mine consisted of leftover roasted fennel and red onion with fresh tomato, chopped walnuts and a few pieces of sliced turkey.  Dressing was olive oil and lemon, my fav. :)  It was a perfect, and refreshing beach picnic.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Happy Accident Cake



I set out to make gluten-free, dairy-free, raw sugar-free milan cookies.  I wanted them to be crispy on the outside, THIN and deliciously chocolaty on the inside.  I beat the egg whites into stiff peaks and folded them into a batter of brown rice flour, tapioca flour, ghee, honey, maple syrup, lemon zest and about 1/4 of a mashed banana.  I folded in the 5 beaten egg whites and pipped them out onto 3 different baking sheets using 3 methods.  ...only one worked!  The stainless steal baking sheet sprayed with my misto worked the best (seen above) the others got too thick or stuck to the pan.  I still had half the batter left (I know, it went SUCH a long way!), so I poured the rest of the batter into a 8x8 greased glass baking dish.  Baked it in a 350 degree oven for about 18 minutes.  
In the meantime, I melted dark chocolate (70%) over a double boiler and slathered it between the one sheet of cookies that turned out well- SOOOO good!  
After the cake cooled, I turned it out onto a plate and poured melted chocolate on top.  It just seemed like it needed something more... so I scraped up the scraps from the cookies that got stuck to the pan and broke them up into bits.  They went back into the oven at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes to toast and get crispy.  I crumpled them up some more and sprinkled them all over the top of the cake and drizzled that with whatever remaining chocolate I could scrape up from the pan.  Oh my god that cake was heavenly. Seriously, so good.  
I am going to test it one more time before giving you the specific recipe because this really was a happy accident cake and I want to make sure I can get it right a second time!