Spoonful of Sugar Free

Registered Dietitian

Breakfast

Twelve Days of Christmas Recipes

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I present to you “The Twelve Days of Christmas” by Alex.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:

Twelve Pick-a-Fruit Crisps,

Eleven Grain-Free Pumpkin Spice Breads,

Ten Baked Banana Oatmeals,

Nine Raw Coconut-Iced Barks,

Eight Sugar-Free Monsters,

Seven Peanut-Chocolate Truffles,

Six Healthy Pumpkin Rolls,

Five Leftover Salsa Bowls,

Four Apple Pies in Bowls,

Three Hobo Dinners,

Two Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes,

And a Grain-Free Bitter Chocolate Cake for One!

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

Do you have any recipes planned for the Holidays yet? I actually have a lot more Christmas-y recipes to post, so I better get them up before the Holidays pass by!

What is your favorite Holiday song? There are so many of them, but I think I would have to choose Greensleeves! It is my favorite one to sing!

P.S. Don’t forget to enter my Agar Agar giveaway! Today is the last day to enter!


Apple Pie in a Bowl

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Check out my guest post at The Flourishing Foodie by clicking

HERE.

While your at it, make yourself a nice, hot bowl of Apple Pie for Breakfast.

Apple Pie in a Bowl

~On a cold winter morning, make this quick apple pie in less than five minutes. Then, sit by the fire and enjoy breakfast with Christmas music on!

Ingredients

  • One Apple
  • A handful of chopped walnuts
  • A sprinkle of cinnamon
  • A dash of water

Chop the apple into little bits. Put all ingredients into a saucepan and heat on medium heat, covered. Heat until the apples are nice and soft. Stir Occasionally.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

If you had to choose either the crust of the pie or the insides, what would you choose?
I love the insides. Just make me some pie in a bowl!
Psst! Don’t forget to enter my Agar giveaway HERE.

Crazy for Agar Agar

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I finally found it! I have been on a quest to find agar agar flakes/powder ever since Katie wrote about the wonderful pudding and creams you can make.

While I was playing in a tournament over Thanksgiving, I came across a wonderful Hong Kong Market. They sold anything imaginable there: spiky fruits, seafood, dried seafood, chopsticks, and even purple sweet potatoes (we’ll talk more about this one later)!!!

I scoured the aisles for agar, and I found it for a good price. At the health food store they were going to charge me $20 for a package of agar agar, but at the Hong Kong market I bought it for $1.50. Yeah, I definitely bought more than one pack!

Agar Agar Base

~This is the base you use to make any of the treats listed below!

Ingredients

  • 1 teaspoon agar agar powder (if you are using agar agar flakes, use 1 Tablespoon)
  • 2 cups of liquid (juice or milk substitute)
  • Optional: add ins like vanilla extract, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, fruit chunks, nuts, be creative!

In a saucepan, heat up the liquid (not boiling), then add the agar agar. Stir well and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until the agar has dissolved.

Next, pour the liquid into a container and place in the refrigerator. Let the agar base set for about 20 minutes until jelly-like.

Note: It does not thicken while heated. The mix only thickens if chilled. The first time I made this I expected it to thicken like regular pudding, so I kept adding more and more agar agar. When I put it in the fridge, it was rick-solid!

You can make Vegan Fruit-Sweetened Jello…

Orange Jello with fresh citrus. I made this by using orange juice as the liquid and adding fresh clementine chunks.

You can make Pudding…

Chocolate pudding. Made by making a vanilla-base and blending in cocoa powder after it was set.

You can make Whipped Cream…

Strawberry Cream atop Bitter Chocolate Cake for One. I made this cream by blending frozen strawberries into the agar base.

 

You can make Vegan Yogurt…

Meg made this wonderful vegan yogurt by mixing a probiotic capsule into the agar base. Brilliant, Meg! Can’t wait to try this!

You can make some yourself…

I am going to giveaway one of my packets of agar agar powder to one lucky winner, so you don’t have to score the aisles of every grocery store. Each packet contains  25 servings of agar. This will make about 13 cups of jello, pudding, yogurt, or whipped cream. Think of this as a Christmas giveaway 🙂

To enter:

  1. Leave a comment telling me what you would make first with the agar agar powder
  2. Become a fan of Spoonful of Sugar Free on Facebook, and leave a comment back here telling me.
  3. Subscribe to me by email by entering your email address in the box to the right. Leave a comment here telling me you did.
  4. Answer these questions for fun and more entries!
    1. What is your favorite holiday treat?
    2. How are you spending the Holidays?

The Giveaway ends this Friday the 17th. Good Luck! THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Healthy Twisted Pumpkin Roll

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Another Pumpkin Recipe! Yay!

Don’t you just love pumpkin? One cup of pumpkin has 7 grams fiber, 2650 IU Vitamin A, 564 mg potassium! It also boasts a truckload of antioxidants like Alpha-carotene and Beta-carotene. What a wonderful winter fruit. Yes, science defines seed-carrying pumpkins as fruit. Not vegetables.

As a variation of my savory flourless-free crepe from Heather, I created a Healthy Pumpkin Roll!

Inspired by the back of a can of Libby’s Pumpkin:

Not-Your-Ordinary Pumpkin Roll

~This pumpkin roll can be used as a breakfast or dessert! It would be a perfect breakfast to impress guests during the Holidays. The recipe is flour-free, grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and of course, sugar-free!

Ingredients

Serves 1

  • 2 eggs
  • pinch baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon, plus more for garnish
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • Optional: chopped nuts

First, lightly grease a pan for the stove. I used a cast-iron skillet. Next, turn the stove on medium heat. Whisk the eggs, baking powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl, and pour the mix into the skillet. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes or until it is cooked through. There is no need to flip the crepe. Remove the crepe carefully from the burner and place on a plate:

Next, spread the pumpkin on the crepe. If you wish, you can heat up the pumpkin before spreading it. If you wish to add chopped nuts to the pumpkin, add some now.

Then, roll the crepe, and garnish with an extra scoop of pumpkin, cinnamon, and nuts (if using):

Delicious!

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

Have you made plans for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or another holiday you celebrate yet?

I am so excited to visit my aunt and grandparents in Arizona this Christmas. I haven’t seen them in two years, and am very excited to see them! I’m making them all gifts. I would tell you what they were, but I am afraid they might be reading this! Let me keep it a surprise!

Do you like surprises?

My sister is a big surprise person! She will not let anyone tell her what her gift is, and she will not tell anyone what she made/bought them. It is actually quite fun to tease her with this 😉

 

 

#9 Friends by Recipes: Whole Wheat or Bust!

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Day 9 of my Friends by Recipes Challenge, I give you one of Lauren‘s delightful recipes! Lauren‘s blog, Whole Wheat or Bust, is one that I visit very frequently. She is such a great gal, and her plethora of delicious recipes are so creative and innovative! She also recently went to Tibet, so it was fun to learn about what she learned in that country.

So anyway, she told me to look through her recipe page, and choose a recipe that was one of her “fave’s.” Soooo….I chose one that went she made recently. It goes with the season, and it is one she suggested for me (since she made it sugar-free!)

Spicy Sweet Potato Apple Bread

Lauren's Bread

So pefect for fall.

Recipe: Makes 1 loave

Dry ingredients –

1.5 cups whole wheat flour (Lauren, I substituted Brown Rice Flour to make it gluten free, and it turned out fabulously!)

2 tbsp dried sour cherries (optional, but awesome)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2-1 tbsp fresh grated ginger

Wet ingredients –

1 egg

1 cup 1% milk

50 drops liquid stevia

1 cup baked sweet potato, mashed

1/3 of a large, sweet apple, chopped into little pieces

1 tbsp real butter

Directions –

Place the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another. Mix each separately. Pour the dry over the wet and stir with as few swoops as possible. Pour into a greased 9×5 inch pan.

I had a really hard time with the baking times. I baked it for 80 minutes at 325 and it was still not quite done yet, so I turned it up to 350 and baked it for another 15. You could either do that or possibly just bake it at 350 for an hour or so. Follow your heart?

My Bread...I threw some pumpkin seeds on top for some decoration. Why not?

The insides…oooo…Yes, I used raisins, and not dried cherries. Don’t scorn me! That’s all I had!

Bravo, Lauren! Bravo! This was amazingly delicious, and it was a perfect breakfast for the next morning.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

If you live in the North, have you seen snow yet? Down here in Florida,  snow is definitely not on the ground, but the mornings and evenings are quite chilly! It is a brisk 50*, and there is a slight wind chill. I’m bundled up in sweats and am drinking some hot tea while I write this post!

 

 

Another Excuse!

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This is kind of a repeat of my Hallow-Excuses Post…But I have yet another excuse for not making more of your wonderful recipes!

Excuse: I’m out of Town!

No, my little hotel room does not have a kitchen. Just a mini-fridge! Sometimes it is nice to not have to cook your own meals…but I prefer making my own food because I then know exactly what is going in it!

But, I’ll take it as it comes and eat some hotel food once in a while 🙂

Hard Boiled Eggs...
Tomato Juice...
and a banana from those 'great', free, hotel, continental breakfasts!

I was also extremely lucky to have a Whole Foods nearby to stop for a quick lunch or dinner. I love their hot and cold bars, and their warm soups do wonders on a chilly day (like today!). I just tried their Pumpkin soup, and I highly recommend it! It was a creamy, non-dairy soup that warmed my toes 🙂

On another note, Spoonful of Sugar Free now has a Facebook fan page! All of my posts will be linked to the fan page, so you won’t have an excuse to miss any of my posts 😉 I’m not being pushy or anything….

Look on the right to see the Facebook button. Please click on it to access the fan page. Or CLICK HERE.

Another page I’d  like to bring you to is Udi’s Gluten Free Bread. They are giving away a year’s worth of free bread! Check out my entry, and sign up yourself HERE. I hope you like my “Bruschetta Burger Bagel” or “BBB.”

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What do you usually eat on the road? I usually try bringing snacks, and sticking to proteins and fruits and veggies. I have an upcoming post planned to address this topic of eating on the road, so stay tuned!

Also, are you plugged into Facebook? Honestly, I rarely update my status, and almost never log onto it. I will start logging on more now because of the new fan page!