Carrot Cake (sweetened with crushed pineapple and juice)

Dear David's birthday, his first, and I wanted to make something special and healthy. I found this recipe on Cooks.com, but the original recipe called for 6 tablespoons of sugar. I wanted something totally sugar free for my baby and only sweetened with fruit juice concentrate, so I just cut the sugar and added more crushed pineapple and unsweetened pineapple juice concentrate. The recipe turned out great and even my mother was asking for the recipe and my father-in-law enjoyed it, too!

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour 

3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. olive oil 

2 eggs
1/4 c. unsweetened pineapple juice concentrate
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. shredded carrots
1/2 c. raisins
3/4 c. crushed unsweetened pineapple, drained

Very first step, preheat the oven to 350°F and grease and flour two 8x8x2 inch pans. Next, I grated the carrots using this old outdated archaic food processor. It looks like its from the 60's, because it is from the 60's. A hand me down from my mother that I will not let go. It's dependable and efficient. They don't make 'em like this one anymore!

After that, I tossed the dry ingredients in one bowl. In a second bowl, I stirred the oil, eggs, juice and vanilla.

Stir the liquid into dry ingredients until smooth. 

 

Add the carrots, raisins and pineapple. 

Scrape the batter into prepared pans and bake 35-40 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for about one hour or if you are like me, till you have time to come back and frost, which may be the next day.

The finishing touch, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting. See recipe below. I hope your family enjoys it as much as mine did!

Cream Cheese Frosting

For Carrot Cake or Applesauce Cake.

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsweetened pineapple juice concentrate
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. finely grated orange zest

Beat all ingredients together until smooth.

Whole Wheat Sugar Free Apple Cake

I love the fall weather and especially the crispness and sweetness of the apples. I recently purchased 20 lbs of organic Fuji apples from Azure Standard, a provider of quality bulk and natural foods. I think half is already gone. My favorite clean eating recipe for apples is apple cake and my kids love it, too! What I love most about this recipe is no sugar is needed. The apples' own sweetness makes this recipe a delightful dessert.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 stick (8tbsps) unsalted butter, softened and cooled
• ½ cup apple sauce unsweetened
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup and 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3-4 large apples, cored, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray an 8- to 9-inch pan with olive oil.  Using an electric mixer or hand whisk, mix the butter, apple sauce, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add them to the moist mixture. Mix again until the batter is smooth. Fold in the apple cubes.

 Pour the batter in the prepared pan. Bake until the cake is set and slightly browned, about 35 minutes. Serve with homemade ice cream or store bought works just as well.

Quick and Easy Chocolate Pudding

My oldest son and I have a love in common...we both truly and deeply love chocolate. My son especially loves chocolate pudding, but after reading the ingredients' list on a package of instant pudding and discovering that many of the ingredients are unrecognizable and even derived from petroleum, such as artificial food colorings and additives, I decided that chemically processed and artificially flavored pudding is not something I want my family to consume on a regular basis. I love the real food tips that are provided by one of my favorite bloggers, Lisa, at 100 Days of Real Food. She has a great article on artificial food dyes. After doing my own research and reading her article, I definitely decided that artificial food dyes and chemical supplements in food is not something I really want my family to eat.

So, I found this simple, easy, and less processed alternative. Granted, this recipe requires sugar, but sugar consumed occasionally and in small amounts by my family is acceptable by me. The original recipe, from Debra at allrecipes.com, required a full cup of sugar for 8 servings. I reduced the amount of sugar by half and only used a half cup instead and added butter and vanilla for extra smoothness and flavor. My kids love it! Now, if only I could make it taste great without the sugar...hmmmm...a work in progress.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup confectioners sugar (you could use granulated sugar instead, I just like the smoothness of the powdered sugar)
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup cornstarch
4 cups milk
1 TBSP vanilla
1 TBSP butter

In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa and cornstarch.

Whisk in milk a little at a time so the mixture does not have any dry lumps. Place in the microwave, and cook for 3 minutes on high. Stir, then cook at 1 minute intervals, stirring between cooking times for 2 to 4 minutes, or until shiny and thick. Stir in vanilla and butter.

I have a secret to share with you. If you don't know me by now, I am a little impatient, especially when it comes to chocolate...so...sometimes I cook for 2 minute intervals rather than 1 minute intervals as the original recipe states. My only caution is to watch the microwave to make sure the chocolate pudding does not bubble over your microwave safe container as its cooking.

Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming (I know, I know, in previous blog entries I have written how I dread plastic wrap on warm food, but if someone comes up with a different way to prevent the surface of the pudding from forming a skin, let me know), and chill in the refrigerator or if you are like me, eat it immediately after its cool enough to touch your mouth! You could go without the plastic wrap. The chocolate skin on top tastes just like the pudding, just firmer and thicker in texture.

Unsweetened Banana Muffins with Chocolate (Carob) Chips

I am always in search of clean eating recipes for me and my family to consume, the entire purpose of this blog. When I use the phrase clean eating, I refer to unprocessed and totally sugar free without any honey, agave, and especially without any artificial sweeteners. Sometimes though....I crave something sweet, usually chocolate...o.k. to be honest the only sweet thing I usually crave is chocolate.

When you bake muffins following this recipe, the ripe bananas add enough sweetness that you do NOT need to add sugar, honey, or sweetener of any sort. Add some cinnamon along with the bananas and the muffins are sweet enough to eat. I have made this recipe before and have even included the recipe on my blog, but this time, we added "carob" chips to the mix for a different twist and to sedate my chocolate craving. To be honest though, "carob" chips are not chocolate and I would prefer 70-80% cocoa chocolate chips with very low sugar content, but the kids find dark chocolate too bitter for their taste buds.

What are "carob" chips you ask? I am so glad you asked..."Carob" chips are made from the carob plant. It is an evergreen plant native to the Mediterranean region, but now grows in other locations, like California. To find out more about "carob" chips, visit this link at eHow Food.

There are some health benefits to eating carob chips. Carob needs less sugar than chocolate to make it sweet, carob chips have one third of the calories of chocolate, and because it is not chocolate, it is safe for animals to eat!

 Ingredients:

6 lg. bananas
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
2/3 cups melted butter
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
3 cups organic whole wheat flour
1 cup "carob" chips or dark chocolate chips (70-80% cocoa content)

Mash bananas. Add cinnamon and slightly beaten eggs. Add melted butter.
Sift dry ingredients together and add to above mixture. Add carob or chocolate chips. Mix until moistened. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. This makes two dozen muffins, which my kids loved as a snack!

Mix the dry ingredients together first. My kids love making this recipe!

Add the wet ingredients to the sifted dry ingredients.

My dear son loves to break the yokes with his fingers.

Coconut Rice Pudding

Remember in my previous post, I have many boxes of brown rice to go through and what a blessing to find a dessert that uses brown rice. I love rice pudding but never have used brown rice to make it. I remember this dessert as a school girl enjoying it as a side with my school lunch. The inspiration for this recipe was found at TV Food Network with some modifications of course. I cut the sugar to 2 TBSP from 1/2 cup, cut the liquid measurements in half, and added more rice than the recipe required. Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as our family did!

Ingredients:
1 (13 1/2-ounce) can coconut milk (unsweetened)
1 3/4 cups milk
2 1/2 cup brown rice
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
2 TBSP sugar

Put the coconut milk, milk, rice, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat so the liquid simmers very gently. Cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until rice is tender but chewy and absorbs most of the liquid, about 1/2 hour.

Remove the pudding from the heat, transfer to a bowl, and cool in the refrigerator, about 1 hour.

To serve, top with a banana or whipped topping.

Other topping suggestions from TV Food Network: Diced fresh pineapple with toasted coconut and finely grated lime zest, berries or peaches sweetned with honey or 2/3 cup dried blueberries steeped in 1/2 cup boiling water.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Ok...down one week until baby Sosa arrives and I still have a sweet chocolate craving, but I don't want to succumb to all the sugar of a normal cookie, so I have been experimenting. I have 4 jars of natural peanut butter in my cupboard (no sugar added) and need to find a way to use those as well. After searching online, I found a recipe at www.allrecipes.com and made some modifications by reducing the sugar, increasing the amount of peanut butter, and using a high percentage of cocoa chocolate chips (which uses less sugar).

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup 60% cocoa or higher chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda; stir into the peanut butter mixture. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Let cool for 1 or 2 minutes on sheet before removing, or they will fall apart.

Truly Sugar Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Early Out because of snow (which now seems to have stopped) and a something sweet craving have lead to the search for a truly sugar free peanut butter cookie recipe. Why peanut butter do you ask and not chocolate like I normally demand? An over abundance of Smucker's Natural Peanut Butter in my cupboard. And when I say I am looking for a sugar free recipe, I mean without even sugar substitute, only natural ingredients.  I didn't want to give in completely to my sugar cravings (Valentine's Day was difficult, I ate an entire bag of M&M's by myself, UHG! Talk about not healthy!) and I wanted to find some healthy and unprocessed treats for the kids to enjoy as well, so my search led to a vegan peanut butter and banana recipe from About.com with some modifications of course!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup natural peanut butter without sugar
2 ripe bananas (overripe is fine), mashed
3 TBSP honey vanilla Greek Yogurt
2 TBSP honey
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, I mashed bananas with a fork until smooth.

Then, I added peanut butter, Greek yogurt, honey, and apple sauce and mixed well. Next, I added the remaining ingredients and stirred until well combined. A little note, before adding the oats and flour, I thought the batter tasted divine! Once I added the dry ingredients, I thought the recipe became a little bland...

Even though the batter tasted slightly bland, I went ahead and dropped spoonfuls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet (I line mine with aluminum foil, just in case the cookies stick, to make clean up easier) and bake 13-16 minutes at 350 degrees, or until lightly browned on the edges.

The cookie was not as sweet after baking and was somewhat bland (like I didn't know that already after tasting the batter), but not terrible by any means. My youngest son ate the cookie without complaint and even asked for seconds and thirds!

I think next time I will add some salt and maybe more peanut butter. I think the peanut butter flavor could have been stronger.

So instead of throwing the batch and starting from scratch, I thought...hmmmm, how could I add more flavor without wasting these cookies?  How about a topping for Greek yogurt! and wouldn't you know, it tasted just like granola mixed in with yogurt, SO YUMMY! I will try this recipe again, but with some additional modifications. I will let you know how it works!

Zucchini Muffins

I discovered at my health screening that my cholesterol is the lowest and best since high school. Although I suffer from a genetic predisposition of high cholesterol (both parents have high cholesterol), even in high school and college I scored near the 300's for total cholesterol and weighed pounds lighter than I do now.  My cholesterol has never been as low as 224 and my ratio of good to bad cholesterol the lowest ever at 2.8, I can't help but attribute it to my new healthy lifestyle of eating. Granted, my weight is much more than college or high school, but am so excited to see such great numbers on my screening. To celebrate, I wanted to make a healthified version of my Mother's zucchini muffin recipe. Plus, I have many large zucchinis that need to be eaten before spoiling. So I shredded 5 large zucchinis (each at least one foot long), filled 3 large quart size freezer bags, and placed in the freezer for enjoyment this winter. I couldn't reach my mother for her famous zucchini muffin recipe and anyway, I wanted to find a recipe that used honey as a sweetener rather than sugar, so I searched online and found this whole wheat recipe using honey as a sweetener at AllRecipes.com. I did modify the original recipe slightly...so far the batter tastes great (come on, I know you all sneak a little of the batter when cooking). We will see how it tastes fresh from the oven!

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup nonfat milk
• 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 cup grated zucchini

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease muffin tins lightly with oil or spray with a non-stick cooking spray.
2. Combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon, mix thoroughly.
3. Mix the milk, slightly beaten egg whites, oil, honey and shredded zucchini together. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until just barely moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full with batter.
4. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Whole Wheat Apple Cake Sugar Free

8 servings

1 stick (8tbsps) unsalted butter, softened and cooled
½ cup homemade pear sauce unsweetened
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup and 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3 large apples, cored, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes (You could use fresh, but I used the frozen apples from last fall. I thought it was necessary to get them used up before the apples really developed freezer burn.)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray an 8- to 9-inch pan with olive oil.

Using an electric mixer or hand whisk, mix the butter, pear sauce, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add them to the moist mixture. Mix again until the batter is smooth.

Fold in the apple cubes.

Pour the batter in the prepared pan. Bake until the cake is set and slightly browned, about 35 minutes. Serve with homemade ice cream or store bought works just as well.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp

I was looking for something sweet to eat without the refined sugar to elevate my blood sugar, and still get a serving of fresh fruit. My sweet tooth took me to one of my favorite healthy vegan cooks - Christina. Its easy to make and the topping only has a little bit of flour. I think I will have to experiment to see if I can make this recipe gluten free, too, not just healthy!

The Topping:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup light olive oil
1/2 cup brown rice syrup (found one brand at the co-op)
1/4-1/2 cup skim milk (the original recipe calls for Eden rice and soy blend or vanilla rice or soy milk) The original recipe also calls for 1/2 cup coarsely minced pecans, but I did not have any on hand so decided to just leave them out.

The Filling:
3-4 apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1-2 pears peeled and sliced (the recipe did not call for this, but I had some on hand that needed to be eaten)
3/4 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
1 TBSP light olive oil
2 TBSP corn flour (the original recipe called for arrowroot flour, but alas I had none on hand)
2 TBSP brown rice syrup

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 deg and lightly oil a standard square baking dish. Combine the dry ingredients with the spices. Mix in oil and rice syrup to make a soft dough. Slowly mix in skim milk until a thick batter forms. Fold in the pecans if you have them available.

Mix apples, pears, and cranberries with olive oil to coat. Stir in corn flour and brown rice syrup and spread in baking dish. Spoon topping on top, over the surface of fruit. Bake until fruit is bubbling and topping is golden and firm, about 30 minutes. I plan on serving this warm with a dollop of frozen yogurt or heavy whipping cream whipped into peaks. Makes about 8 servings suggests the recipe, but whatever. I think my family of four will have no problem eating up this entire dessert in one sitting.

Ok...After actually enjoying/eating this desert, I retract my previous statement. It is a very filling desert and easily makes eight servings.

Whipped Topping:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 TBSP vanilla flavoring
Whip until peaks form. Serve on top of dessert.