Tag Archives: grain-free

Broccolini and Corn Quinoa with Shrimp with Olive Oil Lemon Garlic Dressing

Have you ever noticed how sensual and alive whole, unprocessed foods taste – food that uses fresh ingredients – after eating lots of sugar and carb-heavy foods? It’s refreshing. All you want is a nice, simple salad; nothing fancy. All those checkpoints are met with this simple quinoa dish and it can be prepared and on the table practically within no time at all. It is an easy and quick dish to make.

When Amy (Simply Sugar and Gluten Free) invited me to participate in the launch of hers and Maggie’s (She Let Them Eat Cake) new website, Balanced Platter, I immediately said yes. As I started to think about what I could share, I thought what better choice – and more appropriate – than this recipe?

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Sugar High Friday, the Round Up

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Woohoo! We made it – today’s a special day, the one we’ve all been waiting for: the Sugar High Friday round-up. (Well, there’s another reason for today being a special day but we’ll touch on that next Monday or Tuesday. )

The theme for January 2011 was grain-free. The challenge was to cook or bake something that was sweet and without grains. I must say that the entries we have here are outstanding! It always amazes me how easy grain-free really is and also what can be made without grains, especially in the realm of baking.

A Sin-Free Chocolate Mousse from Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes. Sometimes you find the best things in the most unlikely places: Jacqueline found this recipe in a baby cookbook, yet that doesn’t stop it from being liked by older children and adults alike! It’s also a cinch to whip up.

Kaitlin of Whisk Kid presents a Pear, Almond and Coconut Flognarde – adapted from moi! Naturally, I am both honoured and flattered by this gesture. If you’ve heard of – better yet, tasted – clafoutis you will be familiar with flognarde, which is fundamentally the same but when it is made with fruit other than cherries, it is renamed flognarde. However, this distinction does not seem to be paid much attention to, at least here in North America. Whatever the name, it is a deliciously light dessert that’s something of a cross between a custard and pudding and suitable for all seasons.

For those of who like dessert and booze, perhaps a Bailey’s cocktail in the form of macarons is up your alley? Magpie of Magpies Recipes made Bailey’s Macaron Cocktails – or Mactails, based on a recipe from Tartelette. This just reminds me of my long wanting to make macarons – I’ve read more than I could list off the top of my head for a number of years, before macarons had even become all the rage they are now.

Deanna of The Mommy Bowl made Bossk Brownies inspired from a Star Wars cookbook – who wouldn’t fall for something like this? And who wouldn’t love to eat something named after a Star Wars character? (I happened to flip through that very Star Wars cookbook sometime last summer and thus can attest to the mass appeal it would have for Stars Wars fans and non-fans alike.) They’re also refined sugar-free and vegan.

Courtney of C&C Cakery made chocolate puddle cookies with a recipe adapted from 101 Cookbooks. They’re crunchy, chewy, and chocolaty – if you’re not avoiding refined sugar, these would be a treat for Valentine’s Day. From Courtney’s blog, C&C Cakery has “been making bizarre and unique cakes and treats for years in our Victoria home. Now that we’ve moved to Vancouver, we’ve decided to take our little hobby out into the world and share our tasty imagination with others.” I promise you’ll be lingering on C&C Cakery for a good while and emailing your friends – I know I was!

Melanie of The Grecian Garden made, in her words, a throwback to her grandmother’s old-fashioned butterscotch pie. With an almond flour crust, her version is also refined sugar-free with a dairy-free option. After receiving it in my inbox, I quickly bookmarked it for my to-do list. I made the filling to make butterscotch pudding and it was a hit!

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Almond Milk Banana Silver Dollar Pancakes (SCD & GFCF)

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I had lofty aspirations with these pancakes, nearly all of which fell flat on their faces. First, I’d wanted to make it egg-free: not using any egg substitutes as I have practically nil right now but quickly found that these pancakes do need that structure so these pancakes are no longer egg-free. Other than that, my only other thing was that I’d imagined the pancakes differently somehow but these ones turn out almost like the flourless banana pancakes. They taste like them, too, but with the addition of coconut flour and some other ingredients.

What I did like having the opportunity of though was that I could make itty bitty pancakes and put them here. I don’t know about you, but it almost seems that smaller pancakes are more filling or perhaps that’s just due to the perception that there’s more. Sort of like sweet petites: they’re small but just big enough to satisfy. The recipe that these pancakes are based off is from Cooking with Coconut Flour: a book that explains how to use coconut flour and is filled with a large number of recipes that use coconut flour almost exclusively and most are SCD friendly or are easily adaptable.