Chicken Noodle Veggie Soup

I made chicken noodle soup, which could only mean one thing... Yep, I was sick. As per usual, I put a ton of ingredients into this recipe, and I think it turned out quite good. It helped my throat a lot too, which is what really matters. In the recipe below, I suggest using a broth to add more flavor to the soup. However, I did not have broth available and felt too sick to go to the store, so I just used a combination of some almond milk and overly spiced water. Wasn't too bad, but could have been better.


Recipe:

(Creates 3 Servings)

1 Large Chicken Breast
1 1/2 Lemons
3 Stalks Celery
1 Head of Broccoli (and stem)
1 Large Tomato
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Medium Onion
1 Cup Brown Rice Noodles
About 5 Cups Chicken/Vegetable Broth
1 Handful (per bowl) Roasted & Salted Sunflower Seeds
Fresh Parsley
Oregano
Basil
Turmeric
Salt
Ginger


Directions:

((If you chop up everything in advance before you begin cooking, I'd recommend cooking it all for about 15-20 minutes total. Or you can chop and add as you go for however long it takes, which is what I usually do.))

Chop the chicken and broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Put them into a large pot with about 5 cups of your choice of broth (add more broth in later if the ingredients are so numerous that they are no longer submerged in the broth) and bring it to a boil.

In the meantime, chop up the rest of the ingredients into bite sized pieces (except for the lemon and noodles) and add them in as you finish chopping them.

Add in spices (I recommend some turmeric, basil, oregano, salt, and ginger) as you go.

Once the broth is boiling, turn it down to medium high so that it doesn't boil too violently. Add in the brown rice noodles and continue stirring in ingredients as they are chopped. I'd recommend adding in the tomatoes, parsley and celery last, since they don't really need to be cooked much.

Once the last of your ingredients are in, let it all continue to cook for about five minutes. Serve with a handful of sunflower seeds and about half a lemon's worth of freshly squeezed lemon juice on top of each serving.

Cheater Additions: The whole time I was eating this I kept imagining how wonderful it would taste with some cheese on top. I recently discovered that Almond Cheese exists, and the brand I found only has one iffy ingredient. I'd recommend using some of that in moderation if you'd like to try it.

Brownies!

That's right! BROWNIES!! I was very excited to have these brownies in my life for about a week, and I've missed them ever since. I don't typically bake very often because it takes too much time, but these were totally worth it. :)

Special thanks to my good friend Zak Kane for going on this brownie adventure with me in his very own kitchen!

Recipe:

(Creates about 6 brownies)

Dry Mix:

1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour

1/2 Cup Unsweetened Cacao Powder

1/4 TSP Baking Powder

1/4 TSP Salt

3/4 Cup Coconut Sugar

1 Cup chopped Walnuts

Wet things:

1/2 Cup Butter

1 Egg

1 TSP Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325ºF. 

Beat the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add in the dry ingredients. Beat and stir until everything seems mixed pretty well. 

Pour the ingredients into a glass baking pan, and place the baking pan in the oven. 

The brownies were supposed to only take about 25 minutes to cook, but they ended up taking about 50 minutes, possibly because they were made at a high elevation (Flagstaff, AZ). Stick a toothpick in the middle of your brownies every 10 minutes or so until they are no longer wet on the inside.

When they are done, take them out of the oven and let them sit for about 15 minutes. Then you can cut them into whatever shape you want, stick one in your mouth, and die of happiness. They are SO GOOD!

Celery & Almond Butter

A healthy, easy, safe snack! Hooray! The first thing you have to do is find a brand of Almond Butter that has nothing but almonds in it. A lot of almond butter brands include sugars or bad oils, so be careful with that. Once you find the perfect plain jar of pure almond butter goodness, the rest is pretty easy. :)




Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

2-4 Celery Stalks chopped into 3" pieces
1 Jar of Almond Butter (you won't use the whole thing)
Xylitol
Salt


Directions:

Get a spoonful of almond butter and plop some onto a piece of celery.

Sprinkle salt and xylitol on top of the almond butter plop.

Repeat with each bite. :)

Beef, Zucchini & Rutabaga Stir Fry

I had left over rutabaga, I just bought ground beef, and I've never made a stir fry before, so I thought those were convenient circumstances for creating this stir fry recipe! I cheated and put some water in it because I wasn't sure if the rutabaga would get cooked all the way through with just some oil. I'll try to have some more faith in it next time and see what happens, ha. But I liked how it came out! It was quite delicious. :)


Recipe:

(Creates 2 Servings)

1 Zucchini, diced
1 LB Ground Beef, chopped into bite sized chunks
1 Medium Sized Rutabaga, diced
3 Coves Garlic, minced
1/4 of a Medium Yellow Onion, diced
1 Large Tomato, diced
1 TBS Coconut Oil
Ginger
Turmeric
Cayenne Pepper
Cinnamon
Rosemary
Thyme
Basil
Salt

Directions:

Put the ingredients into a large stir fry pan with about a tablespoon or more of coconut oil and a little bit of water. ((Here's what it looks like before you add the meat. You can make it vegetarian and just cook it without the meat if you'd like.))

Bring it all to a medium-high heat and stir consistently for about 12 minutes.

Spice it as much as you like, I personally love to put tons of ginger, cayenne pepper, rosemary and thyme on this, and a bit of the other spices listed above.




If you don't have a second person to feed, you'll have left overs!! Hooray! :D

Chicken, Brown Rice, & Brussels Sprouts

I make some sort of variation of this recipe 2 - 3 times a week. I usually vary my dinners between pasta and meat every few days so that I don't get tired of either one. This will be the first of a few chicken recipes I will post. Note that they are all essentially chicken with onions, a vegetable, and a gluten free starch.  (Side note: I took this photo back in January, so that's why it doesn't look as cool as the other photos I have posted on here so far. Just sayin'.) 

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1 Chicken breast, chopped up

1/4 of a medium Yellow Onion, diced

1 Green Onion, diced

1 Clove of Garlic, minced

1/3 of a Bell Pepper, diced

2 Handfuls of Brussels Sprouts, each chopped into halves or thirds

1/2 Cup Brown Rice

1-2 Cups Water

Cayenne Pepper

Rosemary

Thyme

Butter

Salt

Directions:

Bring one cup of water to a boil in a pot. Stir in brown rice. Turn the heat down to medium or medium high (whichever keeps some small bubbles going) and cover the pot. Let the rice cook for about 40 minutes (or whatever the package suggests). 

In the meantime, chop up everything else!

Cut each brussels sprout in half (to help them cook faster). Place the brussels sprouts into a small pot. Fill that pot with water until all the brussels sprouts are submerged. Bring the pot to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium high and let them boil for about 10 minutes. 

Place the chopped pieces of chicken, green onions, yellow onions, and bell pepper in a pan with a little bit of water (enough to submerge about half of each of the chicken pieces). Cook over a medium heat, turning over the pieces of chicken every now and then so they get thoroughly cooked. After about 7 minutes or so, cut a larger piece of chicken open to see if it has been cooked all the way through. (If it hasn't, let it cook a bit longer.) 

Once the rice is finally ready, serve everything on one plate. I would suggest putting butter on the brussels sprouts and the brown rice and then salting them both. I typically put thyme, rosemary, salt, and a little bit of cayenne pepper on my chicken. 

Enjoy!

Nutty Salad

Salad is a nice, safe thing to have on this diet. Salad can be just lettuce and dressing, but if you have the time to make it a whole meal, then try adding in some or all of the following components:

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1 Bowlful of Organic Spring Mix

Coconut Oil - or - Olive Oil

Apple Cider Vinegar - or - Rice Vinegar

1 Stalk of Celery, diced

1 Thin Slice of a medium Yellow Onion, diced

1/4 Cup Pumpkin Seeds

1/4 Cup Sunflower Seeds

1/4 Cup Almonds

1/4 Cup Pecans

1/4 Cup Hazelnuts

1/2 a medium Tomato, diced

1/3 of a Red Bell Pepper, diced

Fresh Parsley Leaves

Fresh Basil Leaves

Rosemary

Oregano

Thyme

Ginger

Directions: 

Put the spring mix in a bowl. Wash and chop the veggies you have available from the list above. Put those in the bowl. 

(I personally think parsley stalks are delicious, so I put those in as well. You don't have to.)

Sprinkle nuts and seeds of your choice on top. 

Top it off with some coconut oil and rice vinegar, my personal favorite. You could also use olive oil and apple cider vinegar. The four of these are very healthy. 

Sprinkle the spices on top, and you're ready to eat!

KIND Healthy Snacks - Nuts & Spices Bars

I've been an enthusiastic fan of KIND Healthy Snacks ever since I absentmindedly picked up a KIND bar and happened to read their tagline, "Wholesome all natural ingredients you can see and pronounce." That made me really excited! Not only are KIND products gluten free, GMO free, and (some of them) dairy free, but they even have bars available that only contain 4 - 5 grams of sugar! In fact, every bar shown in the photos in this blog post are different flavors of KIND's 4 - 5 grams of sugar options. 

If they had sugar free bars available, I would be their biggest fan ever, but they come pretty close; I think 4 - 5 grams wouldn't be too bad to have every once in a while. I always keep a KIND bar in my purse in case of "emergencies;" in other words, for times when I get hungry and don't have food with me. So whenever I do have one of those "emergencies," I get excited to eat one of my KIND bars haha :)

KIND bars and other KIND products are available at every grocery store, and I heard they will soon be available at JoAnn's as well. Here is a list of the low sugar flavors they have available:

Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Pecan

Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt

Dark Chocolate Chili Almond

Madagascar Vanilla Almond

Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt

Cashew & Ginger Spice

Nut Delight

Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt is my favorite out of those; it tastes like it has a lot more sugar that it really does, in my opinion, and I like the maple and salt flavor combination. I typically only buy the last four, because eating chocolate on this diet makes me feel guilty. I suppose you could have a chocolate one - or any of these really - as a "dessert" or treat every now and then. 

Here are some photos I took of my low sugar KIND bars... I had fun with my little photo shoot. :)  

I like this brand so much that I even got a bumper sticker for my car. It makes me happy. I love their philosophy and the fact that their logo is friendly and colorful... I kinda want to get a KIND shirt too. :)

Coconut Pancakes

I discovered coconut flour the other day, so of course I immediately bought it with these in mind! They came out kinda crumbly because I did not have any milk, so I used plain yogurt and a little water instead... But they still tasted good. I thought they tasted great even without any toppings! 

Warning: Coconut flour does have some natural sugar in it, so its ok to use it every once in a while, but not all the time, since it's not really sugar free.

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1/2 Cup Coconut Flour 

1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour

3 Large Eggs

½ Cup Almond Milk 

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

¼ Cup Salted Almonds

¼ Cup Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs

1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Coconut Flakes
1 Tablespoon Raw Unsweetened Cacao Powder

1/2 Tablespoon Cinnamon

1 Tablespoon Xylitol

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla

Salted Butter (to grease the pan, and can also be used to top the pancakes with when they're done)

Directions: 

Beat the eggs, almond milk, coconut oil, cacao powder, vanilla, and both kinds of flour in a bowl until there are no lumps of flour. Then mix in almonds, cacao nibs, coconut flakes, cinnamon, xylitol, and salt. 

Grease a large pan with butter and coconut oil. Use 2 large spoonfuls of the mixture for each pancake. When small bubbles start to appear in the middle and the edges seem to be kind of hardened, flip the pancakes over and brown on the other side. 

Serve with a cup of almond milk, and sprinkle salt, xylitol, and cinnamon onto each individual pancake. And/or butter the pancakes. Or eat them plain; they're still delicious :) 

Cheater additions: I added few drops of maple flavored agave sweetener on some of the finished pancakes. It wasn't really necessary though, I really liked the flavor the vanilla and coconut flour added! 

I thought the mixture looked kinda beautiful before I added in the cinnamon, nuts, and cacao powder. :)

Mixture once cacao powder, nuts, and cinnamon were added. 

How to Satisfy a Chocolate Craving!

Unfortunately, sugar-free chocolate bars usually contain bad sugar substitutes and other ingredients that are not good for you... But fear not! I have discovered some chocolate that has no sugar in it whatsoever! In fact, unsweetened chocolate is the only ingredient. Huzzah!

So you may get all excited like I did and bite into it expecting it to taste amazing, but instead you'll taste a very bitter, unsweetened cacao flavor... But there are ways to remedy this.

As I have said before, I typically put raw unsweetened cacao nibs, xylitol (a safe sugar substitute - it's good for your teeth too!), and cinnamon in my plain yogurt to satisfy my chocolate cravings. (This is why those ingredients are also featured in the photo, as another option.) But just now I discovered something that tastes even better!

(Note: Don't overdo it with this chocolate; although it is completely sugar free, too much chocolate is still bad for your liver, especially when its a processed chocolate bar... All good things in moderation. Yet apparently, the raw, unsweetened cacao nibs are a lot easier on your liver. Therefore, I'd advise you to alternate between the chocolate bar and the cacao nibs on different chocolate craving days so that you don't overdo it. Or just use cacao nibs every time, if you'd like to play it safe.)


Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving (Unless you have a severely intense craving, then this is probably only half a serving.))

1 Handful of Raw, Unsweetened Cacao Nibs - OR - 1 square of a Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate Bar (can be found in the baking aisle of Whole Foods, and most likely in other health food grocery stores as well) 
1/2 Teaspoon worth of Xylitol
1 Spoonful of Plain Cow Yogurt


Directions:

Snap a square of chocolate off of the chocolate bar, as if it was a regular, delicious, sugary chocolate bar. Break it into 2 or 3 pieces, (to make it last), and put one in your mouth. (Or, drop a pinch of cacao nibs into your mouth.)

As you can see in the photo, I am the proud owner of a xylitol shaker, so I pretty much just shake some xylitol directly into my mouth. It probably ends up being about 1/8 of a teaspoon or so for each bite.

Then get a very small spoonful (like only 1/3 of a regular spoon) of plain yogurt and put that in your mouth as well.

Chew, and enter a magical fantasy land where you start to believe that you are eating chocolate like a normal person.

Swallow and repeat with the other pieces of the square, or the rest of your handful of cacao nibs.

You're welcome :)

Bonus! Here is another photo of my chocolate craving satisfaction kit, since the label on the chocolate bar was hard to read in the other photo.

Eggs with Veggies and Chard

I literally eat this every morning for breakfast. I use as many of the ingredients below as I have available, so again, if you don't have all of the ingredients handy, no worries; just use what you have :) When I tell people about all the things I put in my eggs, they usually say, "oh so you're making an omelet!" But I don't like calling it an omelet; omelets are very neat and are generally made in one piece, and what I make is more like scrambled eggs with a bunch of stuff mixed in. 

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving (unless you use every ingredient listed and add one more egg))

Eggs:

3 Eggs

1 Green Onion, diced

1/4 of a Yellow Onion, chopped

1 Tomato, chopped

1 Clove Garlic, minced

1 Stalk of Celery, chopped

1/4 of a Red, Yellow or Orange Bell Pepper, chopped

1 Handful of Salted Almonds

Fresh Basil Leaves and/or Fresh Cilantro 

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

1 Teaspoon Butter

Cayenne Pepper

Turmeric 

Rosemary 

Ginger

Salt

Leaf Greens:

2 Big Leaves of Chard or Kale, ripped or chopped into several pieces (or 2 handfuls of Spinach or pre-chopped Kale or Chard)
1 Teaspoon Butter
1 Teaspoon Coconut Oil
1/3 Cup Water


Directions:

Put butter and coconut oil into a small pan over a medium-low heat. Let the butter melt. Spread the oil and butter so that it covers the entire bottom of the pan. (It doesn't have to cover the sides.)

Pour about 1/3 of a cup of water into a small pot. Add in the butter, coconut oil, and the leaf green of your choice (keep in mind that the amount you put in will shrink considerably by the time it cooks. Especially if it's spinach). Bring that little bit of water to a boil as you begin chopping onions.

Chop the yellow and green onions first. Put the onions into the pan of butter/oil. By now the water in your pot should have began to boil. Cover the pot and let it sit over a low heat as you work on your eggs.

Chop the tomato, celery, and bell pepper, and add them to the pan. Then add in the 3 eggs. (I put them straight into the pan and scramble them in the pan with a fork, but if you want you can scramble them in a separate bowl before you add them in. But if you do it my way, you'll have one less dish to wash!) Add in your spices. Mix the eggs with the ingredients with a fork or spatula.

As the eggs cook, chop the basil and/or parsley leaves and dice the onion. Move the eggs around the pan with the spatula until they are cooked to your liking. Then add the basil/parsley and garlic to the eggs and mix them in with the spatula.

Serve the egg mixture on a plate alongside the leaf greens.

If you're like me and you want to really be able to taste the spices, add them all to the eggs again, and then salt the eggs and the leaf greens.

Since I eat this every day, I've come up with several different combinations of the ingredients listed above, depending on what I had in stalk. Here are a few extra photos, just for fun:

Noodles in Creamy Avocado Sauce

This is one I like to make a lot whenever I have avocados handy. It's one of my top favorite pasta recipes for this diet.











Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

3/4 Cup Brown Rice Noodles
1/2 Cup Plain Cow or Goat Yogurt
1 Avocado, squished
1/3 of a Yellow Onion, chopped
1 Clove of Garlic, minced
1 Green Onion, chopped
1 Tomato, chopped
Fresh Basil Leaves
Cayenne Pepper
Rosemary
Turmeric
Oregano
Salt


Directions:

Boil the noodles for as long as the package recommends. Chop the yellow onion and green onion and add them to the boiling noodles.

While those boil, squish the interior of an avocado with a fork, wash the basil, and chop the tomato and garlic.

When the noodles are finished, strain them and put them back into their pot. Add the things you've chopped and washed into the pot. (If you want your final presentation to look like mine above, keep the tomatoes separate and place them along the sides of your pasta later.)

Pour in the yogurt and mix it with everything in the pot over a low heat. When the yogurt is warm, (this should only take about a minute), pour the contents of the pot into a bowl or plate. Spice it with rosemary, turmeric, oregano, cayenne pepper, and salt. Now it should look like this:

Now you can eat it! Huzzah!














Cheater additions: I suppose you could add some goat cheese if you want to. But it's already creamy because of the yogurt, so, come on... you don't really want to cheat, do you? ;)

Speaking of cheating, you may have noticed there's no turmeric in the main photo. I did that on purpose so you could see how the yogurt sauce looked green because of the avocado.

Nutty Trail Mix

If you need a quick snack and don't have time to cook anything, you can eat the following separately or mixed together:










Recipe:

Almonds (Salted or Raw)
Hazelnuts (Salted or Raw)
Pecans (Salted or Raw)
Pumpkin Seeds (Salted or Raw)
Sunflower Seeds (Salted or Raw)

Technically, walnuts are also allowed, but are likely to contain some mold in their intricate creases and folds, so it would be best to soak those in some filtered water overnight before you eat them. If you do soak them overnight, eat them all the next day. If you try to save them for later, they will grow mold super quickly.

I've found that soaked raw almonds actually taste very juicy and delicious. However, in my opinion, pecans taste soggy and unappealing when they are soaked, and I prefer the taste of dry hazelnuts. You can experiment and see what you prefer.

Noodles with Extra Veggies and Eggs!

So this creation was yet another result of finding random leftovers in the fridge. This time, I found shredded carrots, shredded beets, boiled beets, and hard boiled eggs. Anytime I find random vegetables in my possession, I put them in my eggs in the morning and/or in my pasta in the evening, and it has always turned out great! So I obviously found these leftovers in the evening, since I put them into my pasta. (Warning: Beets and carrots are not recommended to have on this diet until the later stages. But you could easily make this without the beets and carrots.)


Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

3/4 Cup Brown Rice Noodles
1/2 Cup Plain Goat or Cow Yogurt
1/4 Cup Diced Broccoli pieces
1/3 of a Yellow Onion, diced
1/2 of a Beet, already chopped and boiled (optional)
1 Hard Boiled Egg, chopped
1/2 a Tomato, chopped
1/4 Cup Shredded Carrots and Beets (optional)
1 Garlic Clove, minced
Fresh Basil Leaves
Rosemary
Cinnamon
Turmeric
Oregano
Salt


Directions:

(optional) Boil the beets and the egg, if you did not happen to find them already prepared in your fridge like I did. (how to make hard boiled eggs and how long to boil beets) This step may take a while. The site for the beets recommends about 45 minutes. This is why I don't eat beets very often. (And, you know, also because they're not really allowed on the diet.)

Boil the noodles, onions, and broccoli in water for as long as the package of noodles recommends. (Mine usually take 8 minutes or so.)

While those boil, wash the basil leaves, chop the tomato, mince the garlic, and (optional) shred a carrot and a piece of a beet. Then you should have all of the ingredients in the photo below ready:


When the noodles and eggs are both ready, strain the noodles, and put them back in their pot. Chop the hard boiled egg. Add all of the ingredients you cooked and/or chopped into the pot you made the noodles in.

Stir in the yogurt until it is mixed with everything. Once the yogurt feels warm, pour the pasta mixture onto a plate. The beets (if you used beets) will make the yogurt turn pink, which looks pretty entertaining.

Now you should have this on your plate. It's time to overload it with spices.

I added rosemary, cinnamon, turmeric, oregano, and salt. I may have also added a tiny bit of cayenne pepper, just for fun. 

Now you're ready to eat!

Side note: I thought my plate looked pretty artistic when I finished eating... :)













Cheater Additions: You could add a bit of goat cheese if you want. I did... :)

Yogurt and "Chocolate Chips"

So this one is nearly the same as the yogurt and nuts recipe, except this one focuses more on the cinnamon and cacao and doesn't require nuts. This is a quick thing to make that satisfies my craving for chocolate, so hopefully it does the same for you!

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1 Cup Plain Cow or Goat Yogurt

1 Tablespoon Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs

1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Shredded Coconut

1-2 Tablespoons Cinnamon

Almonds and/or Pecans and/or Sunflower Seeds (optional) 

Xylitol

Directions:

Mix yogurt, cacao nibs, cinnamon, and some coconut in a bowl, sprinkle more coconut, cinnamon, and xylitol on top, and enjoy!

Cheater additions: You can add a few blueberries or raspberries if you want, since berries aren't very sugary.

Chunky Delicious Guacamole

I love guacamole. I also love salsa, but unfortunately, store-bought tomato products are not so great on this diet, mostly because they usually contain sugar, canola oil, or other forbidden ingredients. So I spice up my guacamole with some cayenne pepper instead. Note: If you do not have all the ingredients listed below, that's totally fine; just use what you have, and it will still taste great. The other day I made guacamole with just avocado, onions, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and a bit of lemon juice, because I did not have the rest of the ingredients handy. So you can pick and choose which of the ingredients you want to put in it. The only necessary one is avocado, obviously.


Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

Several Brown Rice Cakes

1 Avocado, squished 

2 Spoonfuls of Plain Cow or Goat Yogurt

1 Handful of Salted Almonds

1/4 Cup Red Bell Pepper, diced

1 Tomato, diced

1/3 of a Yellow Onion, diced
1 Celery Stalk, diced

1 Garlic Clove, minced

1/3 of a Lemon

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar

A Few Fresh Basil Leaves, diced

A Few Fresh Cilantro Leaves, (and stems, optional), diced

Cayenne Pepper
Rosemary

Xylitol

Salt

Directions:

Chop up all the ingredients as described above, and mix everything in a bowl. Juice the piece of lemon and add the juice to the mixture. Add in the rest of the ingredients listed above (vinegar, coconut oil,  spices, etc.) Taste it. Add more lemon juice, xylitol, cayenne pepper, and/or salt until it tastes right to you. Serve with brown rice cakes and enjoy!

Cheater additions: It wouldn't be too terrible to add a few sprinkles of goat cheese on top.

Yogurt & Nuts

For a quick breakfast, lunch, or snack :) Plain yogurt is supposed to be really good for you on this cleanse. Before I started the diet, I used to add berries, apples, bananas, or other kinds of fruit to my yogurt rather than using tomatoes. But now that I'm avoiding sugar, I tried it with tomatoes and it still tastes good!




Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1 Cup Plain Cow or Goat Yogurt
2 Handfulls Salted Almonds
1 Handfull Walnuts or Pecans
1 Handfull Sunflower Seeds and/or Pumpkin Seeds
2 Handfulls Cherry Tomatoes, each chopped in half (or chop up 1 medium-sized Tomato)
2 Tablespoons Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs
1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Shredded Coconut
Cinnamon
Xylitol

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, sprinkle the coconut on top, and stuff it in your face.

Cheater additions: You can add a few blueberries or raspberries instead of using tomatoes if you want, since berries aren't very sugary.

Noodle Vegetable Fish Guacamole Stew-ish Thing

So, obviously, I wasn't entirely sure what to call this one. I found left over noodles, fish, guacamole, and lemons in the fridge, so I invented this stew thing. It was quite good! The guacamole on top was really nice.







Recipe: 

(Creates 1 Serving)

Stew thing:
1/4 Cup left over cooked pieces of salmon or chicken or beef (or just cook the pieces of meat/fish in a separate pan or boil it with the noodles)
1/2 Cup brown rice noodles
1 Cup water
1 Green Onion, chopped
1/4 Cup Yellow Onion, chopped
1 Garlic Clove, minced
1 Stick of Celery, chopped
1 Handfull of Salted Almonds
2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
1/2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
Fresh Parsley and/or Fresh Basil
Turmeric
Cinnamon
Rosemary
Oregano
Ginger
Salt

Guacamole Topping: 
Half an Avocado, squished
Half a tomato, chopped
1/8 Cup Yellow Onion, diced
1/8 Cup Red Bell Pepper, diced
1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice

A little bit of Cayenne Pepper or Paprika
Xylitol

Salt

Directions:

Boil the brown rice noodles (and small pieces of chopped fish/meat, if you don't have leftovers to use) in 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of coconut oil for as long as the package of noodles recommends. Chop the yellow and green onions, and the garlic, and add them to the boiling noodles.

While those boil, chop up a stick of celery, and basil/parsley leaves. Then prepare the guacamole by mixing the ingredients listed above in a small bowl.

When the noodles are done, strain the pasta mixture and put the pasta back into the pot. (Note: In the photo, I used a pan rather than a pot because the noodles and fish I used were already cooked, so I just started at this step.)









Add in almonds, 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice, and the celery, basil and/or parsley you chopped. (Add in the left over fish/meat at this point.) Sprinkle in turmeric, cinnamon, rosemary, ginger, oregano, and salt. Stir everything in the pot over a low heat for a minute or two.







Pour the contents of the pot into a bowl. (Optional: Taste the mixture and add more turmeric and cinnamon if you're crazy like me and want it to taste overly-spicy. You could even add some cayenne pepper in there if you want.)








Pour the guacamole on top, and you're ready to eat!













Cheater additions: I actually did not use salmon; I used some sort of white fish. So technically that wasn't the perfect thing for my diet. But whatever. Close enough. :P

Brown Rice Flour Chocolate Pancakes

I recently discovered that there is such a thing as brown rice flour, so now I'm excited to start making cookies and pancakes that work with my diet!

These were super good; I've been craving chocolate, coconut, and pancakes, so this fulfilled all three cravings at once!

Note: If you don't want them to be chocolatey, don't add the cacao powder or cacao nibs. The pancakes in the photo were actually made without cacao powder; they turn out dark brown if you add that in.


Recipe:

(Creates 2 Servings) 

3 Large Eggs

½ Cup Almond Milk

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

1 Cup Brown Rice Flour

¼ Cup Salted Almonds

¼ Cup Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs

1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Coconut Flakes
2 1/2 Tablespoons Raw Unsweetened Cacao Powder

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

1 Tablespoon Xylitol

1 Teaspoon Salt

Directions:

Beat the eggs, milk, oil, cacao powder, and flour in a bowl until there are no lumps of flour. Then mix in almonds, cacao nibs, coconut flakes, cinnamon, xylitol, and salt. 

Grease a large pan with butter and coconut oil (or just butter). Use 2 large spoonfuls of the mixture for each pancake. When small bubbles start to appear in the middle and the edges seem to be kind of hardened, flip the pancakes over and brown on the other side. 

Serve with a cup of almond milk, and sprinkle salt, xylitol, and cinnamon onto each individual pancake. 

Cheater additions: I filled 1/3 of my cup with organic cow milk, and 2/3 with almond milk. I also couldn't help but put a few drops of maple flavored agave sweetener on each pancake, which tasted magically amazing. But if you want to follow the diet super strictly, don't do that, haha. However, if you don't mind cheating, I'd recommend putting blueberries into the pancake mixture as well. 

Intro: Ta-Da! I finally created a food blog!

I've been meaning to start this for quite a while now, and I finally made time to do it! I'm on a pretty strict Candida Cleanse diet right now, so there's a lot of things that I'm not allowed to eat for at least the next few months. It's primarily a sugar and gluten free diet, and since more people can relate to that, I decided that would be a good name for the blog. For now, anyway. Here's the full list of things I'm allowed to eat on this diet: http://www.thecandidadiet.com/foodstoeat.htm And here's the list of all the things I can't eat right now, which is pretty extensive:  http://www.thecandidadiet.com/foodstoavoid.htm

Whenever I tell people that I'm on this diet/cleanse, and name the main things I can't eat, they say, "wow, well what can you eat?" I wondered the same thing when I first started. All I could think of at the time was eggs, plain yogurt, and rice cakes, so those were the first things I bought. Gluten free options in stores tend to have sugar, canola oil, potatoes, and other things I'm not supposed to eat, so that wasn't helpful. Likewise, most sugar-free options include ingredients I should not be eating. It was difficult to think of "fun" things I could eat to have some variety in my limited diet. But little by little, through trial and error, I've discovered that when you throw random things in the "can eat" list together, it actually comes out tasting really good. I hope this blog can reach other people venturing on this cleanse so they can find out that they have more meal options than they think. Even if you are not on the diet, these recipes are still healthy and tasty, so I'd recommend trying them out regardless.

I made up all of the recipes shown in this blog; I didn't get them from any websites or cook books or anything. And if I do start doing that, I will make a note of it in the recipe descriptions. I started eating according to this new diet by buying everything that was safe for me to eat, and then combining things and seeing what worked. Through that experimentation process, I discovered some very healthy, tasty recipes. Hope you enjoy them too :)

I've never heard anyone say, "gee, I just love washing dishes!" Therefore, I think it's safe to assume that most people do not purposely like to use as many pots as possible when they cook just so that they have more to wash. I don't like washing dishes, so I tend to try to cook as many meal components as I can in the same pot or pan so that there's less to wash. So if you feel like cooking the vegetables, meat, and/or noodles in these recipes separately from each other rather than in the same pot, go for it. I won't be insulted, I promise. :)

On a similar note, it should be noted that I prefer to cook meals that are simple to make; whenever several bowls, baking sheets, pots, pans, and just steps in general are needed to make something, I just don't even try to make it. Therefore, you'll find that all of the recipes I created are simple; they contain as few steps as possible. However, if I do decide to include a few "step-heavy" recipes in this blog, I will include a warning towards the beginning so that people like me can easily skip it and find something easier to make.

Most (if not all) of the ingredients I use in these recipes are organically grown. I'll just tell you that now so I don't have to write "organic" all over the place.

Warning: I absolutely love onions and coconut (whether it be flakes or oil), so they will be found in nearly all of these recipes, whenever I can sneak them in. I will also warn you that I like to put a ridiculous amount of spices on my food, so that will be optional for all of these; I'm pretty sure most people would prefer not to drown their food in potent spices the way I do.

Alrighty, that's about it! Now onwards to this Gluten & Sugar Free adventure!