Breakfast. Growing up, this was my favorite meal of the day. Grandma making thin pancakes with jam, honey or syrup. Savory crepes with sour cream and lox. Cereal with berries. Omelets or over easy eggs.   That first meal in the morning really set the tone for how I felt throughout the rest of the day. At some point between high school and now, all of that went away. Mornings became hurried and hectic; and there was no time to do anything more then make a quick cup of tea and run out of the door to start the work day.

It’s pretty hard not to completely love someone who cleans your house for you. My cleaning lady is an awesome person … and I adore her even more since she shared this recipe with me.

In her subtle way, she inquired why I had bowls of green tomatoes all over my house. We’re talking heirlooms, Romas — both large and small — and cherries. Between our CSA farm harvest and our own plants, our tomato cups runneth over this year, and I was hoping the green ones would ripen up.

She then related to me how she used her green tomatoes — baked with garlic, oregano and olive oil — and I couldn’t wait to try it. It reminded me a bit of Scott Peacock’s slow-baked tomato recipe that we love here, but my cleaning lady said we’d end up with a much different flavor from the green ones, and she was right.

They are savory, slightly tangy and so rich and complex with flavor … very different from the sweet and syrupy slow-baked cherry tomatoes. I souped them up a bit and ended up with a new go-to recipe … as long as we have green tomatoes, that is.

Roasted Green Tomatoes with Garlic and Oregano

Ingredients:

• enough coarsely chopped green tomatoes to fill a 9X13 baking pan in a sort-of single layer (I use a bit more than that)
• about 8 cloves of garlic, sliced or quartered
• about 1/2 cup olive oil
• about 1/5 cup balsamic vinegar
• dried oregano to taste
• sea salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Arrange the garlic and chopped tomatoes in the pan, then pour olive oil over them and toss. There should be enough to coat the tomatoes and leave a coating on the bottom of the pan as well. Sprinkle with the oregano, salt and pepper and toss. Finally, drizzle with the balsamic vinegar and give everything a final mix.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, or until tomatoes are smushable. Then smush them so the juices mix with the oil and vinegar … yum.

We like to serve this over polenta with some salad and grilled sausages, but we’ve taken Kona’s suggestion and served it over quinoa with good results too.

I’m definitely not into the vegan thing. Eggs are a gift from the food gods not to be squandered. But I will say those feisty vegan bakers and their recipes saved me when my kid was allergic to eggs in the first three years of his life. in fact, almost any recipe by Isa was a big hit in our house with anyone … not just the eggless. And I have a really mean extended family who’s not afraid to tell me when my cooking sucks.

One of our favorites is Isa’a chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe. I have a cousin who has specifically requested these cookies, so that’s very telling. For years, it was revered and I wouldn’t mess with it even a little bit (I’m such a liar … I never use canola oil, so I’d use butter, rice bran oil, or coconut oil). Lately, though, I’ve started messing for a couple of reasons.

I’m sort of off chocolate, in theory. I’ll eat a chocolate dessert now and then, but I’m proud to say I no longer hoarf down a handful of chocolate chips every time I pass the pantry closet. Yeah, I’m prouder than the mom of a round-headed newborn.

I really don’t like the kid to have too much chocolate either since caffeine and the under-6 crowd of bad sleepers really don’t mix. We’ll try anything, even tricking him.

And now we’re back at the messing. A couple of weeks ago, I made Isa’s recipe with half cocoa powder and half carob powder. No one could tell, so I started getting crazy. I added, substituted and made the recipe mine, all mine. And in my house, anyway, we think it’s better.

It’s healthier, super-delicious but still “normal.” I held myself back from adding pureed spinach, but used the most nutritious unrefined sugar I could find, used coconut milk instead of soy milk and some of the oil and this and that until it fit my specs for healthy. Try it and see what you think.

Carob Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut and Cranberries

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup rice bran oil + 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 1/2 cups palm sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon whole flax seeds
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 cups whole spelt flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened carob powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup fruit-sweetened dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)

Grind the flax seeds in a blender until they become a powder, then add the 1/2 cup of coconut milk and blend more, until the mixture thickens a bit and gets gooey.

Meanwhile, mix flour, carob powder, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl.

Using a mixer (yes, Isa, I’m willing to lose the punk points), cream together the oil + coconut milk and the palm sugar, then add the flax mixture and vanilla and keep on mixing until mixture is almost fluffy.

Slowly add the dry ingredients while mixer is set to low speed. Blend well then stir in chocolate chips, cranberries and coconut.

Plop onto greased cookie sheets and make semi-pretty circles almost 2 inches around, slightly flattened in the middle. These do rise and expand, so leave at least an inch between cookies.

Bake for 10 minutes, let cool for 10 minutes on the pan and then cool the rest of the way on wire racks.

Usually I strive to find something original to add to a recipe to give it the “wow” factor. Hearts of palm in a sweet pea and black lentil salad, kelp noodles, well, with anything normal and homemade strawberry ice cream with coconut milk and Greek yogurt.

Some dishes, though, just don’t need anything funky mucking up the works. Margherita pizza, and broccoli saute using all that’s growing seasonally. I know I’m somewhat deviant — I think you’ve probably all caught on to that — but I get positively giddy when I eat something that has grown locally. My favorite Sunday game is guessing what we’ll get on our way to our CSA farm that week, and when it’s from our own yard, watch out … I’m a crazy woman.

This broccoli dish is everything that excites me: broccoli from our CSA farm, basil from our own garden and a tomato from the best farm stand in town. We’re talking local, baby! This is going to be as good as Kona’s farmer’s market pizza, I just know it!

I must digress for a moment and share with you the head-spinning fact that I had my first summer tomato today. Not the tasteless, store-bought, hard-as-a-rock tomatoes — I’m talking about the sweet, meaty fresh-off-the-vine down the street tomatoes … so juicy, so sweet, so delectably ripe and flavorful. Man, it was a good day. Digression over.

Summer Broccoli Saute

Ingredients:

• 1 giant head of broccoli, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1 good handful fresh basil, chopped chiffonade style
• aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling
• pecorino romano cheese, grated, for sprinkling

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet over medium heat then add the onion and broccoli. Saute for a few minutes, then add the garlic. Cook until vegetables are tender-crisp and a bit golden, maybe 5 to 10 minutes. Add the tomato and heat through, and toss in the basil after removing from heat. Before serving, drizzle with the aged balsamic and sprinkle with the pecorino romano cheese. Toss and serve.

This couldn’t be a more simple, classic recipe, but it’s the perfect way to use your summer harvest — and get your joy on from all the fresh, local food you’ve included in one dish.

One of the treats that I wanted to make as Valentine’s Day gifts (but didn’t quite get to) were crispy skillet cookies. I thought it would be fun to get my hands dirty with the five-year-old and turn a sugary recipe into a healthy treat. I did both last night and lived to tell the tale, both about the fun we had rolling the cookies in the coconut and about how delicious the recipe turned out. I know I say this a lot, but you really wouldn’t even guess that these were healthy … honest.

But they are good on so many levels — tasty, sweetened naturally, flourless, which means wheat-free and gluten-free in this case, easily made 100% organic and did I mention tasty?

Let me just make a few notes for you. Since Keith brought me home an organic brown rice cereal that was lightly sweetened (but he did the shopping so I wasn’t going to nitpick!), I left the agave out at first. They were plenty sweet but a bit tricky to stick together. If I squeezed them tightly in my hand while the mixture was still good and warm, I was successful.

Toward the end, when the mixture began to cool, I needed to squirt on a little agave syrup to help them stick together. So my suggestion, and the way I altered the recipe, is to use the unsweetened puffs and add enough agave to make the mixture sticky. I’m thinking a couple of tablespoons would be more than plenty. You could also just add more dates and chop them very finely and make sure you heat the mixture very well to get them nice and gooey.

Crispy Skillet Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chopped dates (or more to help cookies stick better)
• 3 tablespoons organic butter
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups organic rice puffs
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds
• agave syrup to taste (try about 2 tablespoons)
• 1 cup flaked coconut

Mix dates, butter and egg in heavy skillet. Melt over low heat; cook for about 5 minutes on low heat, until bubbly. Remove from heat; add vanilla, agave, rice cereal and almonds. As soon as the mixture is cool enough to handle, roll (really squeeze) into small balls and roll in coconut.

I tried mixing it up a bit and rolled a couple in carob powder. Yeah, don’t do that, although I think cocoa powder would be heavenly!

UPDATE: I recently made these as above but added about 1/4 cup sunflower seed butter along with the agave — delicious!

Most definitely, if it’s my roasted broccoli. One of the things I like best about it are the crispy ends of the florets that get all brown and toasty. The insides are sweet and tender and it’s a perfect texture contrast, all in one little floret.

There’s something magical about the flavor of roasted broccoli. It won’t remind you of steamed or sauteed broccoli; it somehow takes on a whole different nuance of flavors and brings out the best that broccoli has to offer.

For a time commitment of about 20 minutes, you really can’t beat it. Toss the florets in olive oil, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and roast at 400 convection roast (or 425 degrees flipping halfway though) until edges are crispy. You can serve as-is, or grate some pecorino romano or parmesan over the whole deal, or roast some garlic along with it or sprinkle with crushed red pepper.

It’s a good thing to salivate over a vegetable.

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

In an attempt to eat a somewhat lighter meal than we’ve been indulging in this winter vacation, we cooked fish the other night. To be honest, I wasn’t all that jazzed up about it. I definitely could have wrapped my taste buds around a comforting stew with my mesclun salad and been very satisfied. Instead, I got a slab of fish.

It ended up to be a very delicious slab of fish (and pretty too), but still. I’m just a little resentful that fish found its way to my plate after all of the luscious stews and roasts and beef tenderloins (yes, there was even a Wellington in there, my friends). The fish was very simple to prepare and quite satisfying if you can lose the bad attitude and enjoy it for what it is: lighter fare that should probably be on your plate anyway.

Alaskan Cod and Mango Salsa

Ingredients for the fish:

• Alaskan cod (very different and much yummier than Atlantic cod)
• flour of your choice seasoned with salt and pepper
• 1 egg, beaten
• corn meal

This is the famous Steve Degon double-dip … are you ready? Pat the fish dry and dip it in the flour, then dredge in the egg, then dip in the corn meal. Saute in a pan until browned and done. Yes, you can use your sprouted spelt flour and pink mineral salt and organic corn meal, so that your recipe is worthy of a Fresh Foodie recipe.

Meanwhile….

Ingredients for the salsa:

• 1 cup mango chunks, diced
• 1/2 onion, diced and microwaved for a minute or two in a little olive oil to take the edge off
• about 1/4 cup fresh basil, chiffonade style
• 1/2 red pepper, diced
• lemon juice to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

What can I say? It’s what we had in the house and it worked. You could also try the crunchy mango salsa recipe I devised some time ago, which has snap peas and other yummies in it.

I didn’t get my hearty stew, but I did get a delightful, spur-of-the-moment fish and my gourmet musclun salad, so all was not lost. Oh, and the kid got his potatoes (Owen’s living up to his last name with the whole potato-obsession thing he’s got going). We recently bought a new mandoline (which we love!) that makes crinkle cuts, so we sliced thick chips and oven-roasted them at 400 degrees convection roast for about 20 minutes or so.

I suppose as we detox from the holidays and get back on the healthy bandwagon that lighter food is inevitable. And as soon as the weather warms, I’ll embrace it, but for right now, I want me some beef stew!

Every Christmas Eve, my family throws a giant party with all of the aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and we munch and mingle the night away. In the past we’ve brought our butternut squash sage pizza, chicken wings, and a variety of dips and one-bite appetizers.

One thing I always try to bring is something I know Owen can eat, since he’s got lots of food allergies. And in fine five-year-old form, he’ll refuse to eat anything at a party that can’t be scooped up easily, grabbed and eaten on the run. If there’s a fork involved, all bets are off.

A few weeks ago, I was playing with a white bean dip recipe which we ended up using inside quesadillas. Yesterday, I stepped it up a bit and perfected it and that’s what I’m bringing tonight, along with these recipes for Alton Brown’s olive tapenade and sun-dried tomato tapenade (can’t stop eating this one … hope it makes it to the party!). They go so well together and when it’s a bigger gathering, I feel cheesy just bringing a little bowl of dip, so classing it up and presenting it as a “dip trio” made me feel better about myself.

White Bean Dip with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Roasted Garlic

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained
• 2-3 large cloves of garlic (or more!)
• 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice, depending on how lemony you like it
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted in hot water, then drained
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• pinch sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

To roast the garlic: Cut the tops of the garlic cloves off, but leave them in their skins. Drizzle with a little olive oil and wrap loosely in foil. Cook at 400 degrees convection roast (or 425 normal) for about 30 minutes.

Puree beans and sun dried tomatoes until smooth, adding lemon juice and olive oil until smooth and of desired consistency. Adjust, then add the garlic and puree again.

Add all other ingredients and pulse until just blended. If you blend too long, the basil will become pureed and make the dip an ugly color, so please pulse. Serve with baguette rounds drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with grated cheese (we used pecorino romano) and baked at 400 degrees for about 5-7 minutes. Rice crackers and pita chips are also perfect with these three dips.

This has not been my year for making sweets. First, I completely botch a gift batch of Never Fail Fudge (oh, sweet irony… pun intended) and then I make these cran-crackle bars for my cookie swap and the crust just simple falls apart. They should be called cran-crumble bars. I have a fix idea for them, but I didn’t want to risk it one night before the swap, so I looked to Rich’s recipe for coconut macaroons to save my sorry baker’s butt.

Me being me, I healthed them up something good, and honestly, they are a complete dream. They’ve made up for my December cookie-baking foibles and I feel worthy of writing for a food blog once again. When you make them, you’ll know just what I mean, and you’ll be petitioning to be the Next Iron Chef.

Healthy Chocolate-Coconut Macaroons

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup spelt flour
• 2 3/4 cups (about 8 ounces) shredded un-sweetened coconut
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons agave syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips, finely chopped (I used my Pampered Chef equivalent of the Slap Chop)

Mix together the dry ingredients (the first three), then stir in the rest. I found that letting the batter sit a few minutes before making the cookies allowed the liquids to soak into the dry, making them hold together better. I completely agree with Rich — you’ve got to mush these suckers into balls yourself. Simple dropping them onto the cookies sheet doesn’t make a pretty cookie or one that stays together well.

I rolled balls about 1 to 1.5 inches, and cooked them at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

These are so good that I’m making another batch tomorrow to replace the Completely Fail Fudge that I tried to make as gifts. I actually feel a lot better about gifting a recipe that won’t wreak havoc on the recipients’ liver and glycemic load too.

Just so you believe me that I actually can bake, this recipe for cardamom snaps is also a complete winner … I promise.

Is it possible for someone — someone who doesn’t actually have a sweet tooth — to love ginger snaps as much as I do? The chewy inside, the crispy outside, the zing of the ginger, the mellow sweetness of the molasses. Cookie perfection, I tell ya!

In an effort to mix things up a bit this year, I went for it … I made the cardamom snaps I mentioned earlier this week in my cookie roundup post. You might think that someone like me, so resistant to change, so in love with ginger snaps, would have a hard time embracing a recipe that rewrote all that cookies mean to me, yet embrace it I did, and how!

While the recipe was nearly perfect in its own rite, you know how I do that darned healthy thing that I do … so of course I substituted this and that, cut way down on the sugar and ended up with a guilt-free recipe (if only it didn’t have calories!) that I’m proud to serve to my kid. When he gets old enough to realize that all of his treats growing up were actually good for him (or at least not detrimental to his health), I’m probably going to catch an earful!

Cardamom Snaps
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
Inspired by Better Homes and Gardens’ Cardamom Snaps, made healthier by me

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup organic butter
• 3/4 cup palm sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup organic blackstrap molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 1/4 cups spelt flour

For the coating, mix together:

• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon cardamom

Using your amazing KitchenAid stand mixer (or any other mixer you’d give your life to have forever), beat the butter until creamed, then add the palm sugar, baking soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons of cardamom and the cinnamon. When combined, beat in molasses and egg. Gradually beat in flour.

Here’s the fun part, the part that you definitely need a five-year-old helper for: Roll the dough into 1-inch balls, roll into the coating mixture and place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

This recipe makes 3-4 dozen cookies, depending on how much batter you snitch and how big your 1-inch balls really are. Mine seem to grow the more I make. This is starting to sound a little dirty, so bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes, until set at the edges and cracked a little on top. Cool on a wire rack, and try not to eat them all at once.

Do you see the gorgeous turbinado sugar crystals sparkling in the photo? Don’t use anything else; they just won’t be as pretty. Are you daring enough to veer from the ginger snap tradition? You’ll be glad you did!

Seriously — is that bread a thing of beauty, or what? I’ve been tweaking Marilu Henner’s recipe for healthy zucchini bread for years. I find her recipe has far too much oil. No, I’m not being overly healthy — it has stained my cloth napkins that I line my bread basket with, it’s so greasy. That not appetizing, Marilu, that’s just gross.

Even though she uses healthy sugars, I prefer to cut down the amount of sugar she suggests in her recipe as well. There’s a certain ratio of sugar to zucchini that’s just right in my estimation; when you go beyond this, the zucchini doesn’t shine on its own and is actually highlighted in a negative way by too much sugar.

This particular bread was served right alongside the traditional pumpkin bread at Thanksgiving this year and was enjoyed by one and all — even the not-so-healthy eaters in the family. It’s a wonderful breakfast bread too, and complements a frittata, breakfast meats and even a bowl of cereal.

Here’s the recipe with my tweaks, exactly as I made it in the picture above. I’ll list some of the variations I’ve tried over the years as well, so you can decide what works for your family. I like this version the best because the bread rises the way I like it.

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup rice bran oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup palm sugar and turbinado sugar combined
• 2 cups grated, unpeeled raw zucchini
• 2 cups sprouted spelt flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 scant teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter (or spray with canola oil) a 9×5 loaf pan. Beat eggs, oil, applesauce, sugars and vanilla until light and thick. Fold grated zucchini into oil mixture.

Mix dry ingredients together well. Stir into zucchini mixture until just blended. Pour into buttered loaf pan. Bake on middle rack of oven for 55 minutes to an hour or so, or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from pan, and cool completely on a rack.

Variations:

• I’ve used 1/2 cup almond butter and 1/2 cup applesauce for the fat, but it doesn’t rise as nicely. It’s delicious, though!
• I’ve used melted organic unsalted butter and applesauce too, which works.
• Yeah, I went there: I added chocolate chips.
• When Owen was allergic to eggs, I used egg replacer, but it didn’t rise as nicely. It does work, though!

I love vacation days … the ones where nothing in particular has been planned and schlepping around the house is the preferred family activity. It’s days like these (add in some pouring rain) that inspire me to make a big pot of homemade soup, and that’s exactly what I did today.

We don’t have any Thanksgiving leftovers hanging around, since we didn’t host, so the fridge and pantry were looking pretty bare. I didn’t even have a can of lentil soup, which turned out to be a very good thing indeed. I literally just chopped and tossed, tossed and chopped until a soup was born. Cooking with whole foods is so very easy and healthy, and this soup took just over 30 minutes from start to finish.

The fun part about this lentil soup is that you can alter it in about four-thousand ways and never feel like you’re bored. I’ll include a few variations — that Owen whined about while he was eating lunch — but the ingredients in your fridge, freezer and pantry are your only limitations. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that I am a food hoarder and have just about every frozen vegetable known to man at any given time. Trust me, it comes in handy.

Easy Lentil and Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups dried lentils
• 6 cups water
• 1 TB Better Than Bouillon, or any concentrated veggie broth
• 2 large carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 cups corn
• 2 cups green beans
• 1 tablespoon miso
• 2 teaspoons basil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup baby spinach
• pecorino romano for serving

Put the water and lentils in a large pot and bring to a boil, then turn heat down so you’ve got a rapid simmer going. As you chop the other ingredients (or yank them out of your freezer) just toss them in. I’m sure you could argue technique with me from now until the soup pot boils over, but this method works for this soup (and for me most of the time). If there’s an ingredient you want less cooked, add it in late (like I stirred in the spinach at the very end).

Simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. You can cover this or not, depending on how thick or brothy you like your soup. Be sure to sprinkle with freshly grated cheese just before serving.

Variations:

• Add diced potatoes, your five-year-old will whine much less.
• Add a 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes.
• Change out the spices and use 2 tablespoons of curry powder and 1 teaspoon of ginger instead. And heck, if you’re going there, add a can of coconut milk to the broth.

I admit, my eye-catching title sure doesn’t make it sound simple, but trust me, this is the easiest healthy breakfast you could possibly create. You can plan ahead a little, right? It’s that simple.

I’ve been experimenting with oatmeal in the slow cooker and I’ve gotten it down to a science. It’s not only convenient, but it’s also the healthiest way to cook oatmeal to get all of the nutritional benefits. I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but it’s not just about the ingredients here: the process is important in boosting the nutrition of this yummy breakfast. Yeah, I admit it — there’s a place for technique.

We’re not talking some snobby French cooking school technique … just follow these three simple steps and you’ll have your healthy oatmeal.

1. The morning before you plan on eating the oatmeal, put the ingredients into your slow cooker and allow them to soak all day.
Ingredients:

• 1 c. whole oats
• 3 c. water
• 1/2 c. organic whole milk yogurt, plain
• 1 c. dried fruit (try to find unsulfured and unsweetened or fruit sweetened; I used currants in the above picture)

Why would you do such a thing as to soak your grains? The yogurt interacts with the oats, causing the anti-nutrients to dissipate, leaving a more digestible grain and boosting vitamin content, especially B vitamins.

2. Before bed, set your slow cooker to low. You want the oatmeal to cook about 7-9 hours, so plan your bedtime and waking time accordingly.

3. Wake up to your delicious breakfast! You want to try to serve this oatmeal with a little fat, which helps the nutrients absorb better. Swirl in some unrefined coconut oil, a little whole milk yogurt, flax or hemp seed oil or even some organic butter.

Did I mention all of the amazing benefits of this breakfast, besides the nutrition?

• Convenient — It is hot and ready for you when you wake up, smelling up the house with its hearty aroma.
• Variable — You can change it up so it is never the same oatmeal twice. Use different dried fruits, add nuts and seeds before serving, even swirl in more yogurt.
• Cheap — Oh, it is cheap to make (buy whole oats in bulk) and there is no packaging to clutter up the house and the environment.
• Portable — It can be portable — just stick it in a thermos, coffee cup, container of choice and eat it on the run.

You know you have the 24 hours to spare, and you’re dying to try this oatmeal. All the cool kids are doing it….

This article was originally posted on That’s Fit three years ago by me. It has been altered to fit CliqueClack Food’s style.

When I say orange, I mean the color. The four-year-old and I wanted to make orange-colored muffins befitting of our jack-o-lantern muffin pans. We (read: me) also didn’t want to use chemical food coloring in the batter or the frosting, so we came up with pumpkin carrot muffins. If you were jazzed by the idea of orange-flavored muffins, don’t worry, we’ve got a variation just for you.

We’re about to serve these to, you know, normal kids at a little Halloween get-together we’re having in a few minutes, so I’m coming back to report how they fared with kids who weren’t raised on bizarre vegetable-filled muffins with natural sweeteners. Consider the experiment underway!

I won’t lie — the muffins were a huge hit for one and all. There was even one crafty little three-year-old who ate the rest of someone else’s muffin when she was playing out of visual contact with said muffin, and still he kept begging for more. Now, if a room full of kids, ranging from two to five-and-a-half (and their moms) can enjoy these muffins, I think we have our control group, folks. And our target audience. Which would be everyone. Did you get that?

Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup flour (I used sprouted spelt flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 1 cup cooked pumpkin / carrot puree (I cooked chunks in the microwave and then food-processed them)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, my go-to)
• 1/3 cup rice bran oil, or your favorite cooking oil or melted butter
• shredded unsweetened coconut, optional

Combine dry ingredients and spices in a large bowl, and combine wet in another bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Fill 12 greased muffin tins with batter and sprinkle with coconut if desired (that was Owen’s way of making the ghost muffins look white!). Bake at 400 degrees for about 18 minutes.

Variations:

• Use orange juice instead of milk and add 1 teaspoon orange zest and you’ll get the orange flavor you’re craving.
• Add small chunks of apple. You can’t lose with all the cinnamon and nutmeg in this recipe.
• Frost with your favorite cream cheese frosting. It would make some pretty, white ghosts.
• Or, make a streusel-type topping with cinnamon, butter, brown sugar and a little flour. Combine in your favorite ratio to make coarse crumbs.

Are you brave enough to serve a healthy treat on Halloween?

One of my favorite healthy baking cookbooks is Uprisings: The Whole Grain Bakers’ Book. You’re probably wondering why, since I always substitute sprouted spelt flour for everything anyway, but the real reason is because these treats are creatively sweetened. In fact, this cookbook has made me think even beyond itself. Most of the recipes are sweetened either with honey or maple syrup, which I’ll do, but I like to venture out into other territories as well. Sucanat, agave syrup and different fruits are all sweetening options I think about when baking these days.

Like making this pumpkin cornbread, for instance. The recipe my pumpkin cornbread was based on used a whopping 2/3 cup of brown sugar. To me, that’s gross on so many levels. First of all, I can’t stand a sicky-sweet baked good. Cornbread should be mostly savory, in my opinion, and that much sugar would seem out of place. Did I mention how offended my liver would be, at being asked to process all of that sugar? I’m apologizing to the livers of the world, or at least to anyone who has eaten that pumpkin cornbread.

Pumpkin is pretty sweet on its own (or at least my fresh-from-the-farm puree that I made today was), so like banana bread, I didn’t want to overdo it with the added sweeteners and make it unappealing. I want the real flavors of the ingredients to come through and not be masked by an unwelcome sweetness.

A tweak here and there and I’ve created the corbread that’s perfect for my family. We ate it with chili last night, and again for breakfast this morning, slathered with apple butter or organic butter and dipped in maple syrup (depending on who you are at the McDuffee residence).

Pumpkin Cornbread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sprouted spelt flour (or whole-grain flour of your choice)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or freshly cooked and processed)
• 2 tablespoons Sucanat
• 1/3 cup rice bran oil (or melted butter)
• 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses

Mix wet in one bowl, dry in another then mix until just moistened. Pour batter into a greased 10-inch pie pan and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until springy.

You might think with all the cinnamon and netmeg that this cornbread wouldn’t go very well with chili, but somehow it worked. And trust me, I am not a nutmeg fan….

I’m sure you’ve fallen into the same trap with your kids. No matter how healthy you try to be, as soon as they’re old enough to start ordering their own food at restaurants, they discover the kids’ meals… and the French fries. I really have a bone to pick with pretty much every restaurant in the northern hemisphere, because if they didn’t celebrate the French fry as a vegetable, then perhaps children across America would be eating more broccoli.

Nevertheless, the four-year-old loves French fries, so we give him French fries, often and in great, heaping quantities. But stop! Before you report me to the Department of Social Services, we make him oven-roasted potatoes cut in the shape of French fries, and he doesn’t know the difference. And yes, mine are as crunchy — sometimes crunchier — than the deep-fried versions at your local watering hole… uh, I mean restaurant where you’d appropriately take your kid. Yep, that’s what I mean.

Oven-Roasted French Fries

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Ingredients:

• 3 very large and very fresh potatoes (I used Yukon Gold tonight)
• olive oil
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper

I know, the list of ingredients is freakishly small, but go with it. They’re perfect.

Now here’s the trick: the technique, or should I say the process. Start by cutting your potatoes to a uniform size, using a mandoline if you have one. You can toss the cut potatoes in olive oil and spread them evenly on a roasting sheet, or you can spray the pan with olive oi, spread out the potatoes and spray again.

Then, season with salt and pepper.

Cook at 400 degrees convection roast if you have it, or 425 degrees bake, flipping potatoes halfway through cooking time. Cook for approximately 30 minutes or when potatoes are a deep, golden brown. Then shut off your oven and leave them in for 5 more minutes. You can also put the potatoes in the oven before it reaches the desired temperature. This is they key to getting them crunchy, so don’t leave out the low temperature cooking part.

Well, it’s also important to use potatoes as fresh as you can get and as starchy as you can get, because they will definitely turn out crunchier.

So go — make your kids happy and feed them healthy potatoes… they’ll never know.

I think I may have stumbled onto a great discovery in healthy beverages, my friends. After a little treadmill walk at work, I was thirsty as all get-out for something invigorating. I was really jonesing for one of the Harvest Bay coconut waters I keep in the fridge, but I also wanted another cup of hot green tea to top off the afternoon. So as I held the Harvest Bay in one hand and the Rishi Emerald Lily in the other, I thought: why not do both at once?

So, that’s just what I did. The result: a caffeinated, mega anti-oxidant, electrolyte-replenishing super cocktail. And it tastes good!

The recipe, if you can call it that, is really simple:

Coconut water green tea
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Ingredients:

• 11-12 oz. coconut water
• 1.5 Tb loose leaf green tea

Heat coconut water to 180°F (microwave high approx. 2.5 minutes). Fill tea mug with heated water (or simply heat the water in the mug in the microwave). Diffuse green tea in mug for approximately six minutes.

Coconut water isn’t for everyone, so give it a try before you commit. It’s not as coconuty as you might think and it’s an alternative to adding sweetener to your tea, if you like sweetened tea (but definitely not too sweet). Not only will this give your mind and body a pep, both ingredients are full of well-documented health benefits; coconut water helps with hydration and urinary function, and green tea is full of anti-oxidants and helps fight cancer. Coconut water doesn’t have many calories, either: about 65 calories in 11 oz. I’ve also found that you get a different sort of caffeine “buzz” from tea that you don’t get with coffee: gives you a nice pick-me-up without the jitters of headache crash.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Gourmet cooking doesn’t have to entail hours of cooking with a list of ingredients longer than your normal grocery list. Create meals bursting with complex flavors that will please every food snob in your life, easily.

All my years of getting multitudes of chard from the CSA farm, I’ve experimented with at least 70,000 ways to cook it. Time after time, I always come back to this easy, versatile saute. Three little ingredients and somehow the flavors magically blend together… perfection.

You can serve it as a side dish, with your protein on a bed of it (think grilled chicken or fish, even tempeh) or add sliced sausages to your saute and create an easy, healthy main dish.

Chard with Onion and Tamari

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch chard, coarsely chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• tamari, soy sauce or Bragg’s liquid aminos

In a skillet over medium high heat, saute the onion until tender, about 5 minutes. Add chard and saute until bright green and starting to limp, about 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with tamari, heat through and serve.

I know — painfully easy, ridiculously healthy… how do you think you’ll serve it?

I’ve experimented with agave here and there, mostly in my snow cones, but not so much in baking. I decided it was time to give it a go, and not panic if the muffins flopped. If they came out terribly, I’m pretty sure my four-year-old would have eaten them anyway.

Luckily, they did not. In fact, I was pretty pleased with these berry muffins. They started off to be raspberry muffins, but when I was too lazy to walk down the stairs to get another package of frozen raspberries, they became raspberry-blueberry muffins. It’s not often, but sometimes laziness pays off in a big way, because I think these muffins were better for the combo.

I really was concerned that the agave would change the texture of the baked goods, so I based this recipe on one that I’ve used maple syrup in, thinking the consistency was similar enough for it to work. This muffin recipe is pretty similar to my oatmeal strawberry muffins, only I used organic melted butter instead of oil and of course the obvious substitution of agave for the sugar.

Berry Muffins with Agave
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Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups sprouted spelt flour (or flour of your choice)
• 3/4 cup oats
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup raspberries and blueberries (I used frozen)
• cinnamon and sugar for sprinkling

In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients, and whisk together wet ingredients in a small bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just moistened. Fold in berries and divide evenly into the 12 cups of a greased muffin tin. Sprinkle the top of each muffin with a bit of cinnamon and sugar (I used Sucanat). Bake at 400 degrees for about 16 minutes, until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

Owen gulped down three of them and asked for a fourth, but a good mom’s got to draw the line somewhere, right?

I’ve written before about how spelt flour can sometimes make baked goods come out a little dry. Yes, there are some recipes it works wonderfully with, like these dark chocolate brownies and sprouted spelt flour pizza dough for the bread machine.

So you might think that any corn bread, a dish that can be dry by nature, would completely suck when made with spelt flour. You’d be wrong. I’ve gotten more compliments on the moist and yummy corn bread that I make, based on a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. People want to know the secret for its moistness. Sure, there’s a boatload of butter in it, which is probably the main reason, but it’s nice to know that using a healthy flour doesn’t make corn bread dry. And it really is just as easy as opening the box of mix — wouldn’t you rather serve something made from scratch?

Spelt Cornbread
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Ingredients:

• 2 cups sprouted spelt flour
• 1 and 1/2 cups corn meal
• 4 tablespoons sugar (Sucanat)
• 5 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)
• 1/2 cup melted butter (organic)

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just moistened. Pour into a greased 9×13-inch pan, and bake for 18-20 minutes at 400 degrees, or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.

And you know you want to serve it with some homemade chili.

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Like Molly, I champion the homemade salad dressing, and I’d go so far as to say I shun the bottled monstrosities out there. I feel like screaming into everyone’s collective ear, “Hey? Have you heard the news? It’s cheaper, healthier, tastier and nearly as easy as opening a bottle of crap sauce, so just try your hand at making your own vinaigrette, people.”

Do you have a whisk? A decent collection of vinegars, oils and herbs? Then you can do this, I just know it.bal

I’ve posted recipes for favorite vinaigrettes before, namely the maple mustard balsamic vinaigrette I am completely obsessed with. This new creation of mine, though, takes the homemade vinaigrette to the next level. It’s not just fresh food that you put your dressing on this time; this one’s chock full of fresh, lovely green herbs.

Fresh Herb Vinaigrette
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Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil (I like it tart, so I use less)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano (time to get myself an oregano plant!)
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• at least 1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs (I used sage, basil, thyme and parsley)

Let’s take a moment and discuss emulsification. I am a lazy emulsifier; I dump everything into a bowl and whisk the heck out of it and get what I get. If you really want to get a creamy vinaigrette, blend the vinegars, drizzle int he oil while whisking constantly until it’s thick and creamy and lighter in color. Then stir in the herbs. Another lazy trick I use is tossing the vinegars and oil into my Vitamix and whipping it into a frenzied emulsification.

The onion powder, besides adding flavor, will also help your dressing emulsify better. Mustard added to dressing recipes will do the same. Now that you have basically no idea how to emulsify your dressing, do my lazy thing and whisk the heck out of it and hope for the best.

I used this dressing on a salad with roasted veggies, almonds and feta and it was incredibly flavorful. It could go anywhere — a basic salad to pasta to quinoa and probably lots of things I’ve never thought of. It’s fresh and worth every flick of the wrist as you whisk it, so the next time you go to open your bottled dressing, I hope you feel really, really guilty and give this recipe a try instead.

Are your gardens starting to produce amazing veggies, green and dark, red and sweet, juicy and perfect? Or, if you live in New England, perhaps you finally have a whole lot of vegetables ready to harvest at once, since we went sunless during June and nothing ripened!

It’s not often we think of using vegetables at breakfast, but a frittata is the perfect way to do that. Eggs at breakfast — or anytime! — are a thing of beauty, and mixing in fresh vegetables simply elevates your meal to eggy perfection.

Here are eight frittata recipes to help you use your fresh veggies while they are still fresh. These will taste even better if you can find some local eggs to use.

Spinach frittata — You can use fresh tomatoes instead of sun-dried ones in this, or you can create your own oven-dried tomatoes using your harvest.

Easy garden frittata — Using potatoes, broccoli, carrots and red peppers, you’ll have a colorful and nutritious feast with your fresh veggies.

Zucchini frittata — With bread crumbs and lemon, this one’s a different sort of frittata that will add some variety to your zucchini dishes.

Spinach and potato frittata — A hearty combination of fresh and local veggies.

Zucchini oven frittata — Green pepper, mushrooms, onion and garlic highlight the zucchini in this recipe.

Tasty frittata — We can’t forget our favorite Heidi Swanson frittata, with potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin seeds, goat cheese and cilantro chile sauce.

Sunday morning tomato frittata — Chunks of roma tomatoes, green pepper, and turkey sausage.

Fresh basil and tomato frittata — Accented with Worcestershire sauce, this one’s a winner.

I tried to highlight some unique frittata recipes that would use in-season vegetables. Do you have any favorite frittata combinations to make with your ripe veggies?

Any of you who have ever read, well, almost anything I’ve written about on CliqueClack Food, know I have a minor affinity for chocolate; I just like it a little bit. But you also know that putting healthy food into my body is really important to me. How do I make peace with my chocolate addiction?

I only eat dark chocolate, because it really does have health benefits. The dark chocolate has a lot less sugar and if you get the grain-sweetened, you’re getting no refined sugar at all. There’s also tons of organic chocolate out there (Green & Blacks being one of my favorite).

When I bake with chocolate, aside from using the grain-sweetened chocolate chips, I make sure the rest of the recipe is full of healthy ingredients. This means sprouted spelt flour, organic Sucanat or blue agave syrup or added vegetables.

No, you didn’t misread that last sentence. You can add vegetables to your baked goods without most people ever knowing. C’mon, it’s not that outrageous; Jessica Seinfeld made it popular and now all the cool kids are doing it. But I was doing it even before the famous Jessica.

My first foray into brownies with vegetables was way back when I stopped eating wheat. A recipe for black bean brownies was shared on a Yahoo group I belonged to, and the rest was history. Even the plebeians, the ones who would buy the junk I baked for the bake sale, would scarf down these brownies by the handful and never think twice about what might be making them so rich and moist. The recipe that I use is not to be found anywhere online, but it’s very similar to the black bean brownies on 101 Cookbooks. I’ve never tried it with agave syrup, though; I just use sucanat.

Get on the Jessica Seinfeld bandwagon and toss some veggie puree into your brownies — carrot and spinach puree to be exact. It would be a fun test to see if your family would know. Apparently those little Seinfeld kids were born without taste buds … only kidding. I honestly haven’t tried these but they are definitely on my list.

These beet root brownies were actually the inspiration for this article, as I stumbled upon the recipe while searching for a photo to accompany my “Dark chocolate brownies that stand up to spelt flour” post. I can really see the sweetness and earthiness of the beets complementing the rich chocolate perfectly.

Tell the truth — what healthy things have you snuck into your brownies?

Did you ever create a recipe so good that you were surprised it was actually your brainchild? I do it often, actually. I can never quite believe that tossing together the ingredients in my fridge can yield such amazing dishes. This is not to toot my own horn; If I can do it, anyone can do it. All you need to know is what tastes you like together.

I tend to blend traditional flavors together and then add a unique twist. This time, I made a pretty standard Asian cole slaw, paying attention to the textures — crunchy almonds, creamy almond butter dressing — and the flavors — fresh cilantro and ginger, scallions, red pepper flakes. Delicious, but I couldn’t resist adding the mango for a contrasting sweet flavor and that fun surprise.

Mango Cole Slaw
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Ingredients:

• about 6 cups shredded cabbage and carrot
• 1 cup mango, diced
• 2 scallions, sliced
• 3 tablespoons sliced almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• crushed red pepper flakes to taste (I used 14 shakes, probably about a half teaspoon)

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon almond butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss all other ingredients together with the dressing. This dish went well with pork tenderloin last night.

The fun part about it is, depending on what you’ve got in your fridge (or have the forethought to buy), you can come up with endless variations. This would be great with sprouts added, or some julienned jicama. How about some sugar snap peas or snow peas? What would you add?

I love entertaining. We’re learning to keep things simple around here (not that I was ever actually using napkin rings, placecards or anything else that Martha Stewart might set out on a Tuesday, just to celebrate Tuesdays), which helps with the prep time and clean up. Throwing something on the grill goes a long way to help with that too.

The fact that I can make a side salad ahead of time and visit with my guests instead of cook is invaluable. I’m always creating something with beans or legumes and a unique dressing. It’s quick, easy, healthy and keeps me from eating a bunch of carbs to fill up. And anyone can open a can — no excuses!

Grilled Zucchini Chick Pea Salad
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Ingredients:

• 2 grilled zucchini, cut into bite -sized pieces
• 1 small red onion, grilled, or 2 scallions, sliced
• 1 15-ounce can chick peas
• 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Dressing:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons tahini

Whisk dressing ingredients together. Grill the zucchini and onion and cut. Toss all ingredients together in a big bowl with the dressing and serve room temperature or chilled. Oh, alright — you can even serve it warm; it will taste amazing!

I served this tonight on a bed of greens, and there is plenty of dressing on the salad to seep down onto the greens and make them scrumptious. It’s a vegetarian meal in and of itself (even though we served it with grilled flank steak).