Tropical Green Smoothie with Fresh Young Coconut Meat

Last weekend, we discovered our favorite farmer's market yet in San Diego -- Solana Beach.  Most people would swear by Hillcrest or Little Italy for their weekend bounty, but we vastly preferred the afternoon time span (Hillcrest closes at 2pm??) and how much smaller and quieter it is.  We were able to get all our necessities, discovered a few new treasures (both in the market and surrounding shops), and enjoyed the prepared food (read: tamales).

I adore exposing my daughter to a farmer's market any time, any where.  She gets SO excited about fresh food and begs to try all the samples.  On this day, she absolutely couldn't wait to drink fresh coconut juice straight from the coconut.  I have to admit that the little pink umbrellas that came with the coconut didn't hurt either :)  We slurped down the coconut juice in no time . . . but since I've discovered all the amazing health benefits of the coconut, I just couldn't bear to throw away the rest of the nut.

[I have to stop for a minute here and confess that the last time I tried to open a coconut, I almost cut my hand off.  No joke.  So here is a very helpful video, should you be inspired to reap the benefits of a coconut yourself :)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZquDvW9X_U ]

Once we got home, armed with a mountain of fresh produce, we got busy with meal planning . . . and decided a fresh, coconut-themed smoothie was in order.  Inspired also by the bunch of organic spinach, I created the following bit of wholesome smoothie perfection:

Tropical Green Smoothie
1 slice of pineapple (about 1", include the core if you have a Vitamix)
1 banana
2 kiwi, peeled
1/2 c of young coconut meat (or however much your coconut yields)
Several handfuls of spinach
1 c ice

(NOTE: If you substitute shredded coconut for young coconut in this recipe, start with less and adjust to taste as needed.  Young coconut meat is much milder than using shredded coconut -- thus, the young coconut is more appropriate for smoothies.  Shredded coconut is always from a mature coconut and has a more concentrated coconut flavor -- thus, it's better for baking, cooking, etc.)

Add ingredients to your blender in the order listed.  Blend until thoroughly incorporated.  Garnish with a slice of pineapple, just cuz it's pretty :)

Seriously.  BEST. SMOOTHIE. EVER.

Roasted Acorn Squash Stuffed with Chicken Basil Sausage, Pistachio, and Quinoa

Ok, this is hands down, my most favorite recipe since being gluten free. Thank you Pinterest for the pinspiration! It's become a regular on my weekly dinner menus....

Without further ado, I give you Roasted Acorn Squash stuffed with Chicken Basil Sausage, Quinoa, and Pistachios (and lots more yumminess)

Ingredients
2 small acorn squashes, halved and seeds removed
A few tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup dry quinoa
1lb of basil chicken sausage (found at my local stores butcher counter)
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup pistachios, unsalted
2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
salt + pepper to taste
Sprinkles to taste of red pepper flakes
1/4 cup goat cheese

Directions
Preheat oven to 425.

Drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the four halves and season with salt and pepper. Lay cut side down on a baking sheet and bake until very tender and edges are nicely caramelized, should be 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

To prepare the quinoa, bring 2 cups of chicken stock to a boil, then add the 1 cup of quinoa. Reduce to a simmer, cover (ensuring least amount of steam escapes as possible), and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, cover again and then let sit for 12-15 minutes....this is important! Ensures all grains sprout and the texture is fluffy and moist.

While quinoa is cooking, add 1T of olive oil to a large deep pan (I used my beloved braising pan) over medium heat. Remove sausage from casings (if necessary) and add to pan, sautéing until browned and cooked through.

Transfer quinoa into pan with sausage and mix in parsley, pistachios, red wine vinegar, a few 2 tablespoons of olive oil and chunks of goat cheese. Season with salt + pepper to taste, sprinkle with red pepper flakes.

Season squash with salt + pepper before dividing the quinoa mixture among the four halves.
DEEE-LISH!! I promise. :)

Blueberry-Kiwi-Spinach Smoothie

Just a quick share tonight....my new favorite smoothie!

4 ripe kiwi, peeled
1 small Fuji apple
1 cup blueberries
3 cups fresh spinach
1cup ice

It's a low sugar, tart (thank you kiwis), and super nutritious. So yummy!

Baked Apples with Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Almond Butter

Happy Easter (yes, I'm late as usual with my holiday tidings)! Around my circle of family and friends, everyone's getting used to my late obsession with nutritious desserts, so it came as no surprise when I volunteered to make dessert for Easter. I had planned to make another bit of chocolate goodness that day, but honestly a fit of laziness overtook me and I really didn't feel like going to the store after church. As luck would have it, my husband had just bought a bunch of apples and the wheels started turning.....several Pinterest recipes later, I came up with the following baked apple concoction (read: fragrant, gooey, crunchy, cinnamon-y, comfort food)

Ingredients
5 firm apples (I used Jonna apples)
Almond butter (Costco has the best value $11 for 26 oz)
1 1/2 c unsalted nuts
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
1/4 c honey
1/4 c water

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place nuts on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with a healthy amount cinnamon and nutmeg, mix together. Put in oven until they smell toasted and fragrant. Transfer to a small bowl, drizzle with honey, and stir, repeating until nuts are sticky and just sweet enough. Set aside.

Slice top off apples and core them, being careful not to puncture the bottom or juices will run out. Fill cavity almost to top with almond butter, add a mound of honey nut mixture, and top with the top slice of apple. Repeat for each apple.

Place all apples in a pan (I used a pie dish) and pour water in bottom of dish to help apples stay moist while baking. Cook about 20 minutes, until easily punctured. Serve warm and gooey and delicious.....some cream wouldn't be bad with this, just sayin..............

My favorite part of these apples, besides the honey nut mixture, is that the apples were more "al dente" then traditional apples -they still had a good bite to them. In addition, they are delicious and satisfying.... They won't leave you craving more sugar even after a big Easter dinner as you are surrounded by Easter treats. Taste and see!

Merida Party for my very own Princess Merida

Ok, I've been taking a break from my foodiva-ness to invest in the Artistic I side of my brain.... i.e. party planning. (You may recall my awesome Artistic I logo for my party planning business which i unveiled last summer?) So, the reason for this party planning break?  Abby's Birthday!!



I cannot believe my sweet girl is actually FIVE! Every year, we do something huge for her birthday because we LOVE parties of all kinds, and especially birthday parties. And this year, Abby is in loooooove with Merida.....she loves the movie (Brave) as a whole, but is particularly enchanted with Merida herself. I think it's the hair. So, we went with that and made the hair one of our design focal points.
















Design
First thing, I called my brilliant and talented friend Jessica of Capture Photography (www.seeoutsideyourbox.com) and we collaborated on this fabulously wild Merida graphic. she drew it all up, put it in photoshop, and designed a stunner of a party invite. Love!

She also built the graphics for the beautiful birthday banner....and the twine/clothes pins that I happened to have were the perfect rustic touch. :)

This design also directly contributed to the deeeeeeeeelicious and beautiful cake from Bethany Perkins of Bethany Cakes (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bethanys-Cakes/128916257191675). Vanilla bean and strawberry -need I say more?

Party Activities
Once the design was nailed down, I focused on party activities .... I wanted to incorporate the Crafty Carver, archery, and the willo the wisps. So, starting with a crafty activity, I let Abby paint a paper mâché book box from Michaels (in party colors of course). She had been begging for a job to do, and this was the perfect way to include her in the party planning. We then picked out beads and suede cording for the kiddos to build their own "crafty" necklaces. Fun!  (One of my daughter's friends had a glorious time modeling her necklace!)

Next came the archery game. Archery was a MUST. I painted a scrap piece of plywood with a target and found a bow and set of eraser-tipped arrows on Etsy (I love Etsy). It was brilliant and the kids were super excited to shoot some arrows.... Buuuuuuuut, the bow was actually hard to use and only the adults could manage it, lol. They had fun! Luckily, the target also doubled as a backdrop for the dessert table, so it still made an impression!



Lastly, and my favorite, was the willo the wisp. Since Merida spends time chasing wisps through the forest, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do a willo the wisp hunt. I bought a few yards of tulle to wrap candy in, tied it each one with a ribbon, and.....oila! The kiddos had a few hundred willo the wisps to gather (they were like fiends, haha). Such glee!







Desserts
This theme lent itself to quite a bit of food creativity (so the foodiva revealed herself after all). I featured cups of blue cotton candy (willo the wisps), cups of haphazard licorice (Merida hair), and bear paw cookies (gluten free chocolate cookies with almond slivers). I also commissioned Monique Paul of Posh Desserts (http://www.facebook.com/sdposhdesserts) to make delightfully cute (and yummy!) bear cub cake pops. they were a total hit!

Oh, and i also found those awesome wooden spoons on Etsy that featured a hair-centric Merida decal. Awesome.



Favors
I found these lovely bubble sets also on Etsy (can you tell how much I really do love Etsy?!). They are bejeweled Celtic knot bubble wands, paired with bubble jars that say "Crafty Carver's Magic Potion." Brilliant, right?! I love moments of inspiration!

And there you have it, a Merida party for my sweet, sweet Abby. She was worth every moment of preparation and planning, and all the craziness on the day of. Love her!

Chicken, potato, and roasted pepper enchiladas: short-cut version

Hello blogging world!  Here is my latest favorite, lightened up (and of course wheat-free) enchilada!

This recipe idea started earlier this week: we were running late for dinner and didn't have any meat defrosted, so decided to swing by the store and get one of those deliciously convenient rotisserie chickens, hot and ready to go. As we discussed what would accompany said chicken, I remembered we had anaheim chile peppers, onions, and red potatoes in the fridge.....and corn tortillas and cotija cheese are ALWAYS waiting in my fridge too. Thus, a new meal of chicken, potato, and roasted pepper enchiladas was born. YUM

The forthcoming recipe is the short-cut version. Later this weekend, I hope to experiment with a slower version (because let's be honest, slow food usually tastes much better....unless you're on Top Chef, which I'm so not there.....yet :))

Ingredients:
1 onion, quartered
4 red potatoes cut into small wedges
Olive oil
3 Anaheim peppers
1 whole rotisserie chicken, meat removed from bone and shredded
Zest of one lemon
Hot sauce (like cholula)
1/4 c chicken broth
1T cumin
One dozen corn tortillas, warmed
Bottled tomatillo sauce, look in the Hispanic or international foods section
Jack cheese
Cotija cheese
Avocado
Cilantro

Prepare filling:
Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Prepare potatoes and onion and place on cookie sheet, toss with scant olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast ~25 minutes or until potatoes are blistered and golden.

Roast whole chile peppers over open flame* (see note below for chile roasting how-to), remove skin and seeds, and chop roughly. Dump into medium-sized bowl and add shredded chicken. Use a micro plane if you have one and zest a lemon directly over chicken. Add a few shakes of Cholula (according to your taste) to the chicken and splash some chicken broth to make sure it doesn't dry out. (Hopefully you have a previously opened quart of broth in your fridge for purposes like this.) Finally, finish off with cumin, salt, and pepper to taste and mix thoroughly. Taste to make sure it's plenty flavorful; adjust seasoning as necessary.

If veggies are done, add just the onions to the chicken mixture. Set potatoes aside.

To assemble:

Reset oven to 400 degrees.

Warm tortillas between two kitchen towels in the microwave for 1 minute. (IMPORTANT, otherwise tortillas break while you roll them up!) While the tortillas are heating, spread a few tablespoons of warmed tomatillo sauce on bottom of 13x9 inch pan.

Keeping tortillas nice and warm between the towels, remove one at a time, place on your work surface, and spoon chicken in a line down center of tortilla. Adjust the amount depending on your tortilla sizes -you def don't want skinny enchiladas! Top with one roasted potato wedge (or two), roll tortilla up, and place seam side down in prepared dish. Continue until dish is packed with enchilada yumminess. Top with remaining tomatillo sauce, ensuring all exposed tortillas are bathed in sauce....otherwise, the non-bathed surfaces get super dried out.

Lastly, cover enchiladas with a healthy amount of jack cheese. Bake at 400 degrees until cheese is bubbly and golden like a pizza. Let cool for a few minutes.

To serve:
Carefully remove one or two enchiladas from pan and place on dinner plate. Top with sliced avocado, cilantro leaves, and cotija cheese. If you're feeling in the mood, pair with whole or retried beans that you: 1) already made (good for you), 2) heated from the can (convenient), or 3) purchased from your local taco shop (let's face it, sometimes it's better not to know how.much lard it takes to really make retried beans taste amazing).

And presto! You have a delicious "almost" made-from-scratch enchilada dinner. The chicken stays moist thanks to the broth, yet is packed with flavor thanks to the roasted peppers and veggies. The fresh toppings provide perfect balance..... and of course, the short-cut chicken and sauce make it doable for a weeknight. Yay for yummy dinner mid-week!


*How to properly roast fresh chile peppers:
I find they turn out best when roasted over an open flame. For this recipe, I use my gas range top since the oven is busy cooking the potatoes, but I usually prefer to roast peppers directly under my high heat broiler actually....or have SOMEONE do it out on the BBQ. Cook on one side until skin is black and blistered, then repeat on all sides till pepper is completely soft and fragrant. Remove from heat and place in plastic bag (I use a clean produce bag from grocery store) and tie in knot so heat doesn't escape. Let peppers sit and sweat for at least 15 minutes. Remove peppers from bag and use your fingers or a small paring knife to strip blistered skins off the peppers. Cut peppers lengthwise to remove seeds, then dice or chop as needed. Or leave in half and top burgers with them ...but that's a recipe for another day :)

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wanted to share a key to my wheat-free success: www.elanaspantry.com

Elana's ingenuity and innovation in the world of grain free eating/living has changed my life (and I'm sure I'm not the only one!). I would not be so successful with this new lifestyle of mine without the delicious and nutritious almond flour (or coconut flour) treats and the resources she shares ..... For instance, don't buy almond flour at the grocery store because it isn't nearly fine enough for baking. Instead order it from Honeyville. There's tip #1!

Without further ado, here is my slightly modified version of Elana's Primal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe .... Of course, my change made them no longer primal..... Forgive me. :)

2 c blanched almond flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 c butter, softened
2T honey
1T vanilla
1/2 c chocolate chunks

In a large bowl, whisk almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Add butter, honey, and vanilla and mix with electric mixer until dough forms.

Stir in chocolate chunks by hand. Roll approx. 1T of dough into a ball, place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, and press down slightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes until edges are golden.

Important- Let sit for at least 15 minutes once heir out of the oven or they will break apart.

Note #1 it takes awhile to beat the wet and dry ingredients together - keep at it until the dough looks like regular cookie dough. It doesn't come together as quickly as a wheat flour dough does. And the butter HAS to be soft or it will take even longer.

Note #2: without the gluten from the wheat flour, the dough wont be as sticky as you would normally find. To ensure the chocolate combines adequately, really press into it with the spoon as you mix and squeeze the dough as you roll into balls.

Most importantly, ENJOY! Our family did! :)