My in laws were coming for a cookout this past weekend, so I needed a gluten-free dairy-free menu. I found this recipe from A House In the Hills via Pinterest and thought I'd try something similar.

Always experiment on your guests.

Look how beautiful her pictures are!


For this recipe I used:

4 white peaches + extra for toppings
1/4 c. pistachios, chopped
1 can coconut milk
7 Tablespoons of sugar

In a blender, combine the can of coconut milk, 4 chopped peaches, and the sugar. Blend until smooth.

Chill the mixture for 2+ hours in the refrigerator.

Pour into your ice cream maker and follow the instructions to make ice cream. (I'm happy with KitchenAid's ice cream maker attachment). Eat IMMEDIATELY as soft serve! Top with pistachios and additional fresh peaches.

Do you believe I'd never eaten a pistachio? They didn't taste anything like the pudding! I used roasted  and salted pistachios, which were perfect against the sweet ice cream.


The overall results were delicious! I altered a few things from the original recipe and have some serving suggestions:

The white peaches were on sale this week, but you can absolutely use normal peaches too. In fact, using normal peaches would probably give you a prettier color of ice cream.

The leftover ice cream can be stored in a freezer, but the texture will never be the same. Even after sitting out 15-20 minutes, the hard-frozen ice cream was never fluffy again. It broke apart into frozen chunks instead of being light and silky. You really need to eat this right out of the ice cream maker :)

The original recipe called for a 5th peach to be chopped and added to the ice cream liquid, along with the pistachios. I found that this clogged up my ice cream maker. Additionally, if you plan to ignore my first advice and put leftover ice cream for the freezer, you'll end up with frozen peach chunks in your ice cream. I didn't like that. My favorite way to make the ice cream is smooth soft serve, topped with fresh fruit and nuts.

The original recipe called for using succanat sugar ... I just used normal sugar.

The best way to eat this ice cream from the freezer is to blend up a milkshake. Add a little coconut milk and aim for as close to soft serve consistency as you can. I think I'll go make one now!

My pinterest boards are mostly caramel and carbs ... but for the summer I am trying to lighten things up.

Disclaimer: anything without chocolate or a cheese sauce generally counts as "light" in our house.

These ten recipes are on my "to try" list this swimsuit season, and feature summery ingredients like berries and garden vegetables.

1. Coconut Almond Breakfast Quinoa from Our Best Bites


2. Raw Broccoli Salad from Stone Soup


3. Apple and Grape Lettuce Wrap from Iovine Brothers


4. Mango Salsa and Salmon from Ripped Recipes - I might try this with chicken.


5. Chicken, Bacon, and Avocado Chopped Salad from Gimme Some Oven


6. . Green Smoothie Cups from Muffin Tin Mania



7. Blueberry Blackberry Rustic Tart from Taste of Home.



8. Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes by Annie's Eats


9. Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Raspberries by Dessert First Girl


10. Strawberries and Cream Angel Food Cake Roll by Brown Eyed Baker


What summertime recipes and flavors are you craving? Has anyone tried any of these recipes before and can give me a review? Let me know if you test any of these 10!

More of our favorite summertime recipes:
Brussels Sprouts with Apples and Bacon
Cranberry Almond Granola
Greek Quinoa and Avocados
Honeycrisp Salad
Mango Salsa
Red Velvet Strawberry Shortcake

Feeling fancy for breakfast? This is a favorite at our house on Saturday mornings when I wake up a little later and have time to spend in the kitchen making breakfast instead of rushing out the door smoothie-in-hand.

Typically I make a big batch and then save it in single-serve pyrex containers so I can rush out the door oatmeal-in-hand the coming Monday. If you've never tried steel cut oats, they're a little chewier than the rolled kind.

Here's what you'll need:

1/4 tsp salt
1 c. steel cut oats
1 T + 1 tsp butter
1/2 c. pecans
2 tsp sugar
2 pears (peeled, cored, sliced into chunks). If you don't have or don't like pears, try this recipe with apples instead.
3 T honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Half and half

In a medium size sauce pan, boil 4 c. water and salt. Add steel cut oats and wait for it to boil again. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Simmer (uncovered) for 25-35 minutes, stirring often.

In a frying pan, melt 1 tsp butter. Add pecans and sugar. Stir 1 minute: the sugar should melt and coat the toasty pecans. Move them to a cutting board and chop coarsely when cooled.

Right before your oatmeal is done, melt a tablespoon of butter in the frying pan again. Add the pears and stir occasionally for 3 minutes. The juice should come out of them and they should be hot all the way through. Add honey and cinnamon.

Split the oatmeal into 4-5 bowls (depending on how hungry you are). If you don't have enough people to eat it all immediately, portion some into individual pyrex bowls for reheating later. I have a pyrex obsession. Store leftover pears and pecans separately so the pears stay juicy and the pecans stay crunchy. When I reheat the oats in the microwave, I add a little milk to keep them from getting sticky.

Serve hot oatmeal topped with pears, sprinkled with pecans, drizzled with cold half and half. Not room temperature, not skim milk.


I always run out of pears and pecans by the time I get to the last of the oatmeal cups, but then I eat it with coconut or maple syrup or blueberries ... etc. What's your favorite way to eat oatmeal? Are you more of a steel-cut or a rolled oats family?

See more recipes I've been trying in the recipe tab up top!

Winter means I crave carbs and hot chocolate for about 5 months straight. Pasta, homemade bread, maybe pasta served with homemade bread ... It was time to add a lighter layer to my food pyramid.



Adapted from this recipe at Fitnessmagazine.com

Makes: 2 meals or 4 side salads

Ingredients:

1/2 c. uncooked quinoa
1 c. water
1/4 c. chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c. shredded fresh spinach
1/3 c. finely chopped red onion
2 T lemon juice
2 T olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 avocados, pitted, peeled, and sliced (each person gets half an avocado)
1/3 c. crumbled feta cheese

Directions

Boil quinoa and water in a small saucepan. Cover and simmer at reduced heat for 15 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed.

Remove from heat. Pour in lemon juice, oil, and salt and fluff with fork. Stir in red bell pepper, spinach, and onion.

Place avocado slices on plates. Preferably, get fancy and fan them out. Scoop quinoa mixture on top. Sprinkle with feta.


For more recipes from our table, check out the "recipes" tab up top.

Or, total TMI about how I got my husband to voluntarily eat a mango on his chicken flatbread tonight.

To those of you who are not picky eaters or have never cooked for one, this post will probably make you think that I am obsessive and ridiculous. Perhaps I am. Don't judge.

I was the kid who hated the hot lunch program and wrote letters to my mother petitioning her to let me bring a sack lunch. Hot lunch meant carefully planning which foods to skip based on what I could give away, what I could trade, what could be stirred around/hidden to make it look like I had eaten the requisite half, what could be swallowed without chewing/tasting, and finally, what I would actually eat. I was really less concerned about going hungry than being allowed to leave the lunchroom.
I grew up. Fortunately, my current food reality is very little like the hot lunch program at my elementary school. There are no gag-me-mashed potatoes made from flakes, no mystery ground meats covered in tomato sauce served as a main dish, no canned corn, and no lunch lady checking my tray and infringing upon my recess time. However, I still do not enjoy some foods -- leafy things, raw tomatoes, meat with bones in it ...

Our house has two picky eaters: Myself, and the one that I married. I find myself easy to feed. Jon, however, follows a complex set of rules. A brief sampling of Jon's law of consumption:

• Nuts are okay in pie or alone, but not in banana bread or apple crisp topping.
• Blueberries are ideally in pie, acceptable in coffee cake or muffins (but "blueberry chips" are preferable (disgusting)), and blueberries ruin pancakes. 
• Lunch meat must be turkey not ham, and can't have a stringy thing around the edge. 
• Fruits absolutely cannot be blended into a smoothie, but salsa absolutely MUST be blended. 
• Salads are eaten for appearances and mothers only and complained about later. 
• Red grapes good, green grapes bad. Or was that the other way around? 
• Sunflower seeds are good if you get to chew them out of the shell (salted only) and spit the shells, but are no longer good if they are already shelled and could be consumed as a normal food. 
• Coconut milk or coconut oil can be substituted if it can't be tasted and the eater is unaware; however, the food is rejected upon discovery of use a coconut product, even if it tastes invisible in the dish. 
• Meat cannot be served with a fruit ingredient (raspberry/chicken, apple/pork, pineapple/ham, no no no). Obviously pineapple cannot be served with ham, because --
• Pineapple is uneatable unless it is the main ingredient in a cooking competition.

I am not making this up.

Everyone in our house would be happy and obese if I served pizza for every meal. I would be very happy. I would field no complaints, which would make me even happier. We could rotate between fresh, frozen, and takeout. (Of course, the only toppings to choose from per Jon's statutes are pepperoni, bacon, or both. Plain cheese is too boring. Anything else is vile).

I do not enjoy being picky. It's is a hassle. My general goal is to broaden the variety of foods that we eat, especially produce. (I have no desire to teach either of us to like mayonnaise or mustard or oyster soup.) More freedom of menu means:

1. Healthier options
2. More flexibility when eating at someone else's house (oh you are serving salad and brats and devilled eggs? I will just have a brownie.)
3. Less mealtime stress at home

The following are some strategies I have embraced in cooking for my picky eater. I think that aversions to certain foods are largely mental as well as simply "not liking" a taste or texture. My experience is limited to cooking for myself and my husband and hasn't been field tested on children, which I'm sure is a different realm entirely.

1. Include the picky eater in the cooking

When the picky eater is involved in the planning, prep, and production of a meal, they're more likely to enjoy it. It is very difficult for a picky eater to eat something when they don't know what is in it. Suspicious sauces, soups, and salads can all harbor a dreaded "mystery ingredient" that would ruin it for a picky eater. Obviously this is not a cure-all. If you included me in your making of egg salad, I still wouldn't eat it. However, knowing what exactly is in the food being eaten does calm some (totally rational) fears about what mayonnaise or coconut product might be lurking in the menu.

2. Chop questionable ingredients finely and work up

A prime example: the onion. Dreaded by children and some adults.
Original review: Jon --  eat only as onion rings. Me -- do not eat.
Current review: 80% cure. Not acceptable in large slices.
We got over the onion by chopping it very very finely. There is a button for this task: puree. I'm sure Iron Chef would frown severely, but this method worked for us! By beginning with onion paste and working up to finely chopped onion, and then to more of a normal (?) chopped onion, eventually onion became a safe food. This took about a year plus. We did essentially the same thing with peppers. Yes. Jon pureed a red bell pepper and put it in a stir fry.

3. Incorporate questionable foods with familiar foods

Find just one way that the picky eater LIKES to eat a certain ingredient by paring the scary food with a safe food. For example, fettuccine alfredo (safe) with spinach (scary). Broccoli (scary) with cheese sauce (safe). Brussels sprouts (scary) with bacon (safe). Avoid large amounts of scary ingredients, and please avoid combining scary ingredients; spinach salad with brussels sprouts and broccoli is too much to handle. Once the picky eater knows they like spinach in a creamy pasta, they may try it in a smoothie or an enchilada or eventually ... A SALAD. I haven't reached that point. The leafs. I can't do it.

4. Plan "build your own" meals

This would include meals such as wraps, paninis, salads, mini pizzas, or stir fry where each person chooses what to include on their food. This reduces mealtime drama by accommodating certain food dislikes without having to make multiple dishes. If you don't like it, don't put it on. Or, just put a little on. In our house this also encompasses meals like waffles or pancakes, which I sometimes prefer to eat with fruit and Jon prefers butter and syrup.

5. Compromise

I am perfectly content eating a "BLT" with only bacon and cheddar and don't want Jon ruining it by slapping a tomato on there. In the same way, I like banana bread with nuts but I make it without. Every meal should not be a battle. Food should be enjoyable! The point of expanding our food horizons was so we could enjoy more foods, not to be continually eating something we don't like yet.

Something delicious:


Tonight we ate these homemade soft wraps (revised from this recipe) with avocado, grilled chicken, mango, red pepper. The flat bread was a new recipe, and we really liked how it turned out!


Note that the red peppers are chopped and not pureed :)


For this picky eater experiment, I chose a recipe with safe foods (bread, avocado, chicken) combined with questionable foods (pepper, mango, and combining meat and fruit). I already broke my own rules by attacking multiple questionable foods at once. I omitted red onion from the recipe because there was enough going on. I ended up doing the chopping myself since some football event was on and I was unable to enlist my picky eater as sous chef. I brought him a cube of mango while he was watching football and he liked it plain. I did set up a "build it yourself" meal with the mango diced instead of in large slices like the original recipe. Interestingly, when Jon came to the table he got out a knife and chopped his red pepper into smaller slices.

He then proceeded to build himself a wrap with all the available ingredients (!) without any whining prompting from me to please eat something that is not brown. Ate the whole thing, then built another. Success!

This is my go-to granola recipe. I wonder if it could be made using coconut oil instead of butter for an even stronger coconut taste? I am on this huge coconut kick lately. Coconut greek yogurt. Coconut cookies. Coconut brownie frosting. Coconut Cold Stone. Coconut smoothies. There's a place between here and Omaha that sells coconut ice cream.

For Jon and I, breakfast is the meal where we tend to eat the most pre-packaged and processed foods. Mainly cereal. Lately we have been leeching fresh eggs out of his parents' egg basket, but I like my eggs cooked until they are all the way dead and I don't always have that much time in the morning. Maybe when I have a kitchen I'll try a month of homemade breakfasts...

Ingredients:
4 c. oats
2/3 c. honey
4 T butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. sliced almonds
1 c. sweetened flake coconut
1/2 c. wheat germ
1 c. dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread oats on a large jelly roll pan and bake 18-20 minutes, stirring halfway through.
In large bowl, stir honey, butter, vanilla, and salt. Add oats, almonds, coconut, and wheat germ.


Spray jelly roll pan with non-stick spray, spread with granola and bake 12-14 minutes or until golden brown, stirring halfway.

Transfer to large bowl. Stir in cranberries or add them before eating.

Store in an airtight container. For maximum crunch, you could keep the dried cranberries separate and add them right before eating. I don't bother since the batch always disappears so quickly.

For more recipes from my kitchen, click here.

For the month of October I'm doing one thing a day that is a step towards a simpler way of living -- less cluttered, less wasteful, less distracted. My goal through this month of less is that by taking a new step every day, I will be able to live in a way that is more organized, more stewardly, more purposeful. Read more about it here, and let me know if you're joining in!

How convenient that taco seasoning comes pre-mixed in a packet... But have you read the ingredient list?

The Tastespotting blog was talking about taco seasoning and how the ingredient list includes several non-food ingredients also found in pet food and pesticides. Their easy-to-follow recipe (sans pesicides) includes the following spices:


4 parts chili powder
2 parts ground cumin
1 part paprika
1 part crushed red pepper or cayenne pepper
1 part dried oregano
1 part onion powder
1 part garlic powder
1 part salt
½ part black pepper
Directions: Throw spices and herbs in a bowl and combine.

Not only do I know what's going in my tacos, but I tend to always have these spices on hand anyway (unlike the pre-mixed envelopes).

For the month of October I'm doing one thing a day that is a step towards a simpler way of living -- less cluttered, less wasteful, less distracted. My goal through this month of less is that by taking a new step every day, I will be able to live in a way that is more organized, more stewardly, more purposeful. Read more about it here, and let me know if you're joining in!

(picture from recipe.com)

Every so often we end up with a lazy weekend morning that requires a so-late-it-hardly-counts-as-breakfast meal. Cereal doesn't cut it. Since we're still living in my inlaws' basement and lately have startlingly few responsibilities, we've had time for pancakes.

We tried a new recipe that makes extra fluffy pancakes; The secret is to beat the egg whites, like you do with waffle batter. If you're a boxed panake mix kind of person (are there those kind of people?), you won't be anymore.

Anything from scratch counts for my month of less (less packaging, less non-food "ingredients", less transport) even though it may be more work.

Buttermilk Pancakes: (serves 6)

2 c. flour
2 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/3 c. buttermilk (or make your own with milk and lemon juice... google it.)
3 large eggs, separated
1/4 c. butter, melted
Canola oil or butter for cooking

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a medium bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg yolks, and melted butter. Pour this into the flour mixture and stir until just combined -- the batter will be lumpy.

Using a mixer on high speed, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Stir about 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then fold in the remaining 2/3.  There will still be lumps.

Lightly butter/oil the griddle and turn the burner to high heat. Pour 1/3 c. batter for each pancake and spread it out with the back of the measuring cup. Cook about 1 1/2 minutes (until bubbles form and break on the surface). Flip the pancakes and cook another minute.

If the batter is too thick, you can add more buttermilk to thin it.

Serve hot, and preferably with bacon.

Optional: Add to the batter 2 c. fresh/frozen blueberries or rasperries, or try diced ripe bananas.

For the month of October I'm doing one thing a day that is a step towards a simpler way of living -- less cluttered, less wasteful, less distracted. My goal through this month of less is that by taking a new step every day, I will be able to live in a way that is more organized, more stewardly, more purposeful. Read more about it here, and let me know if you're joining in!

It's brussels sprouts round 2 at our house! To all you mini-vegetable haters, calm down. Even Jon ate these. I have discovered a trick: if the kitchen smells like bacon, everyone is suddenly interested in what's for supper.

This recipe makes about 3-4 servings. I found a similar recipe by Martha Stewart using the oven, but thought everything came out to mushy. Also, Martha was too stingy with the bacon. Which let's be real, is the only reason that most everyone in our house wanted to taste this.

4 slices bacon, cut in 1/2 inch lengths
2 c. brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
Salt and pepper
1 tsp red wine vinegar (optional. This is Martha's suggestion)

Fry bacon in a skillet. Remove and set to drain on paper towel.

Jon took the LSAT on Saturday, so while he was gone for 5 hours I craigslisted all our kitchen appliances. Just in case.

Hasty? We've been talking about replacing appliances since we moved in, and every meal with our slanty-burnered, knobless, mystery temperature, shelf-dumping kitchen was a little reminder that we should keep our eye out for a great sale. Well this weekend was it! It was a perfect storm of Kenmore's 98th birthday, redeemed recycle points, Sears vs. Nebraska Furniture Mart, free delivery, no interest, have some more cash back, online coupon codes honored in store, grandfather-like salesman who offered us contractor pricing, and a stream of people who for some reason wanted to give us money for our crappy appliances.

Within 4 minutes of posting, I had sold the refrigerator and the microwave, and Sunday someone came for the dishwasher. We still have one lonely, dilapidated range to get rid of. All the newbies were available for pickup except for a refrigerator. We promptly brought all our frozen food (mostly fish and apples with a few surprise Mr. Freeze's) to our neighbor's freezer and drank all our milk.

Friday the new fridge should be here, so until then we are eating anything room-temp. We had to take a special trip to the grocery store and just wander through the non-refrigerated sections. We're eating a lot of apples, bananas, peanut butter, granola bars, and oatmeal. Well, I am. Jon is eating a lot of spaghetti-O's and fruit snacks and potato chips and pop tarts.

I don't like oatmeal by itself, but it's delish with peanut butter!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal:

1/4 c. oatmeal
1/2+ c. soy milk, water, or milk
1 T. ground flax
1 blob peanut butter (2T?) or Almond Butter
1 blob honey (1T?)

Microwave 1 minute and then stir. Good with nuts or bananas on top!

We need a little more dirt to fill the last box and build up the slope, but everything is planted! My strawberries are in the barrel at the top.

½ teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded


Mix in small bowl:
6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled (otherwise it will lump)
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg


Whir in food processor to make "paste":
6 to 8 strips of cooked bacon

 

Step 1: Let it puff up

 

Step 2 : Punch out biscuits

Step 3 : Cover in cornmeal



Step 4 : Rise



Finally : Eat!

Several hours later, still in my pajamas, the kitchen was filled with smoky hot-oil haze, smelled like fried flour, and looked like a bakery explosion survivor (note all the pans, utensils, and flour featured in the pictures. multiply by 2 or 3). Naturally, the maintenance man chose this moment to show up at the door.