Dessert

Welcome to day four of the Sugar Free Challenge!

Breakfast: Eggs with sauteed spinach and roasted tomatoes. Vegan Option: Baked Banana Oatmeal

Lunch: Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Apples and Pecans

Snack: Crunchmaster Crackers (which one of you challengers will win!) with Simply Hummus.

Dinner: Gluten-free, Healthy Chicken Pot Pie

Dessert: Chocolate Fudge Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Frosting. Topped with Homemade Peanut Butter Cups.

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

We are almost halfway through the challenge! How are you feeling?

What has been your favorite sugar-free meal so far?

Welcome to day three of the Sugar Free Challenge! 

Here is today’s sample menu:

Breakfast: Grain-Free Pumpkin Pancakes topped with coconut butter.

Lunch: Lightly sauteed spinach, green peppers, black olives, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, onions, and black beans served on a grilled brown rice tortilla. Side of sliced cucumbers.

Snack: Bowl of High Protein Cookie Crisp Cereal.

Dinner: Hobos. Take a piece of ground beef and roll into a patty. Top with peppers, potatoes, onions, and carrots and wrap in foil. Bake at 375* for one hour. Tastes great drizzled with dijon mustard or Homemade BBQ Sauce. Vegan option: Two Cans and a Potato

Dessert: Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce:

Slow Cooker Cinnamon Applesauce

~This recipe is from my Apple a Day Dinner menu. Most homemade applesauce recipes contain added sugar. Apples are extremely sweet on their own, though, so they don’t need the extra sweeteners! Gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, grain-free, vegan, and, of course, sugar-free! 

Ingredients:

• 8 apples (any variety will do. I find that a mix of tart and sweet apples gives the sauce a better flavor)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, optional
• pinch salt, optional

Peeling the apples is optional. If you choose not to peel them, then you might want to consider blending the apples at the end in order to achieve a smoother consistency.

Core and quarter the apples and place them in your crockpot. Add water and salt (salt helps bring out the natural sweetness of the apples, but is optional) and cook for 6-8 hours on low or or 3-4 hours on high. Once the apples are tender, mash them with a fork and stir in cinnamon. Serve hot or cold.

Health Benefits:

• Apples: a flavanoid called phloridzin that is found only in apples may protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis and may also increase bone density. Boron, another ingredient in apples, also strengthens bones. The pectin in apples lowers LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and it supplies galacturonic acid to the body which lowers the body’s need for insulin and may help in the management of diabetes.
• Cinnamon: Studies have shown that it can help lower LDL cholesterol, help regulate blood sugar levels, has anti-clotting effect on blood, and it can boost cognitive function and memory.

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

Do you use your slow cooker a lot (or at all)? I just started using mine a whole lot more ever since we started renovating our kitchen. I have a few new crockpot recipes to share with you now!

Do you ever consider certain fruit a dessert on its own?

Welcome to day ten of the Sugar Free Challenge! Today is officially the last day of the challenge. I have had so much fun creating sample menus and helping you all with the challenge. A big thank you to everyone who joined! I hope you all had a great time learning (and eating!) sugar-free food. Maybe you found that it wasn’t as hard as you thought? Or perhaps you found you ate too much sugar before?

Here is today’s sample menu:

Breakfast: Mocha Oatmeal.

Lunch: Steak Salad. Sliced steak, spinach, cucumbers, red peppers, onions, olives, fresh strawberries all drizzled in balsamic vinegar and ground black pepper.

Dinner: Leanne’s Comforting Baked Mac n’ Cheese with Bacon. Goodness gracious everybody, this gluten-free, dairy-free mac n’ cheese tastes delicious! It really is comforting-nice and warm in my belly 😀

Dessert: Chocolate Almond Cookie Dough Bites.

Again, thank you all so much! I have had a wonderful time with this challenge. I hope you continue to eat at least low-sugar (if not sugar-free!). A word of warning: be careful going back to sugar this week and weekend. Don’t go over board because your body is not used to eating sugar these past ten days.

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

How was the sugar-free challenge???!!! Please tell me all your experiences and how your body feels! I would love to know!

Welcome to day nine of the Sugar Free Challenge! Tomorrow is the last day for the challenge. Are you counting down the minutes or has it been easy for you?

Here is today’s sample menu:

Breakfast: One Size Fits all Pancakes with fresh sliced strawberries and Peanut Butter Cream.

I also had some Iced Coffee. I had some fun taking these pictures and watching the almond milk mix with the chilled hazelnut coffee:

The almond milk slowly seeps down through the coffee…Kind of looks like a root beer float!

Mix! Mix! Mix! Look at that nice foamy layer on top!

Lunch: Baked Sweet Potato with almond butter and cinnamon.

Dinner: Steak, Corn on the Cob, Mashed Taters, and Fresh Watermelon!

Dessert: Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

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

Do you like your coffee or tea hot or cold?

Although I like hot tea and coffee, I have been craving iced drinks lately. Probably because it is so darn hot here everyday now!