Kale chips

I feel bad that we haven’t been on here sharing recipes. To be fair, we have a lot on our plates. We are both working a lot. The little guy has also been very hands on play oriented lately, which is fun but time consuming.

ANYWAYS, we promise we will start sharing more, especially since this low grain (just the occasional meal with quinoa or rice based pizza crust) is new to us and we’d like to share our discoveries with our friends and family.

So, today, I’ll share one of our new favorite snacks – COCONUT CURRY KALE CHIPS! Yes, all caps was necessary. They are that good. Ask my friend Estelle, she’s always happy to have some when she comes over to visit. ;)

I make my kale chips in my food dehydrator at 115 degrees so they stay “raw”. :) You can cook them in your oven though if you want. I’m not putting down amounts because it’s not a precise science. Customize it to your preferences!

Ingredients:

  • Curly kale
  • Raw cashews (chopped)
  • Coconut Oil (Raw or Unrefined – I prefer the Artisana brand)
  • Macaroon Coconut (or super finely shredded)
  • Curry Powder (I use a sweeter, Chinese based blend.)
  • Salt
  • Agave or Honey
  1. Wash and chop kale into pieces. Curly kale works best, but other varieties are fine.
  2. Put into a bowl, throw in some raw cashews and coat both in coconut oil.
  3. Once leaves are coated, drizzle a little agave or mild honey. Stir to spread throughout. Then sprinkle on salt, curry powder, and macaroon coconut. Stir it around as much as you can so that a little bit is sticking to almost every piece.
  4. Cook! As I said, I use my food dehydrator at 115 for about 6-8 hours.

Let me know what you think. :) Sorry, no pictures. These do not last long in our house.

October 2, 2011 | michelle | Tags: , | Comments Closed

Tri Tip Roast with Kale and Zucchini

I know I know. I’m terrible about updating this blog! Life is so busy. Between being a mom of a crazy toddler, voice acting, reading/reviewing books and doing a book podcast, I’m swamped. We’ve been sugar free for awhile and now we’re almost 100% grain free, except for the occasional rice-crust pizza from our favorite pizza chain, zpizza. It’s been a great transition though. We both are feeling so much better and have even lost a little weight. At first, we were a little bored with our food choices, but now we’re branching out, eating new foods, and making more unique recipes. It’s so fun! The hardest part so far about our new lifestyle was going on vacation. It’s hard to not have your regular ingredients at your finger tips! We also found it was hard to keep our mouths shut when we saw our families eating things that were bad for them. Sorry family!! We just love you and want you to lead long, happy lives full of healthy and delicious food.

Anyways, with that said, let’s get on to the delicious food! Last night, I made a tri-tip roast for the first time (not my first roast, but my first with this cut of meat). It turned out AMAZING. The core of the recipe was from the “A Year of Slow Cooking blog”. Here’s the recipe. I’ve noted where I changed the original recipe.

  • 2 pounds of tri tip
  • Sun-dried tomatoes (she used the jar kind, I used ones in a bag from Trader Joe’s) – I used a half bag.
  • Feta cheese – I used about 1/4 cup (a lot less than the original recipe)
  • 1/3 cup white wine
  • 1/3 cup water (not in the original recipe)
  • 1 small onion (not in original recipe)
  • One large bunch of curly kale (not in original recipe)
  • 2 zucchinis (sliced, not in original recipe)
  • Basil (to your taste, not in original recipe)
  • Garlic powder (to your taste, not in original recipe)
  • Salt (not in original recipe)
  • Parmesan Cheese (not in original recipe)

1. Slice onion into 4-5 large flat pieces, put on bottom of crock pot and place meat on top. Pour wine and water over meat. Toss in feta and sundried tomatoes on top of meat, sprinkle on some salt and desired amount of basil. Let cook on low for about 6 hours.

2. Now… for the kale & zucchini part. At about 5 hours in, make a bed on top of the meat with the kale. Put the zucchini on top of that and then let it cook for another hour. The kale bed should protect the zucchini from getting super mushy. Sprinkle with salt, parmesan cheese, and a little basil & garlic powder.

It’ll be ready to eat after cooking on low for 6 hours or so. I let mine cook a little longer and it didn’t hurt it. I wish I had a photo, but it was too yummy to wait. Mm! Enjoy. :)

August 4, 2011 | michelle | Comments Closed

Grain Free Granola

I’ve been working hard over the past couple weeks to perfect a grain free, cane sugar free granola that is delicious and granola like in texture. My first batch, while yummy, tasted waaaay too much like grain free Rice Krispie treats!

I purchased all my nuts from Trader Joe’s. I got a mix of dry roasted, regularly roasted and raw nuts to add some yummy flavor dynamics. I’m going to list what I purchased, but you can modify this to fit your preferences.

Mix up the following nut blend in a bowl:

  • 1 bag (8 oz) dry roasted sliced almonds (this is important – gives it an oat like texture)
  • 1/2 cup roasted unsalted cashew pieces
  • 1/4 cup dry roasted pecan pieces
  • 1/4 cup raw walnuts pieces (I leave these pretty big for fun texture.)
  • 1/4 cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds (I always add a little more than 1/4 cup.)
  • 1/4 cup raw pepitas (I always add a little extra of these too.)

Sauce Ingredients:

  • 4 tablespoons pasture fed, cultured butter (Organic Valley works nicely.)
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1/4 cup coconut sugar
  • 1/4 cup honey (I use cold processed sage.)
  • Vanilla, cinnamon and any other flavorings you’d like to add

Melt together the butter and coconut oil. Add sugar and honey. Stir constantly and cook until it gets frothy. Pour mixture into nuts and stir. Add vanilla and cinnamon to your own personal flavor preferences.

Optional: I like to add about a 1/4 cup flax at this point to help everything stick together a little better and for added nutrition.

Pour onto a greased (I use walnut oil for added fun!) cookie sheet with raised edges. Cook at 300 degrees for 15 minutes or so until liquid cooks off a bit and nuts are roasted. Take out and let cool slightly on pan (not too long or it’ll stick!). There may be some separation (coconut sugar is kind of a pain that way) so be sure to stir it on the cookie sheet if needed. Move to your storage container. You’ll need to leave the lid off for awhile since it’ll still be hot. Use a fork to stir every once in awhile to break apart granola. You don’t want it to become a delicious brick.

Optional: I also like to stir in raw chia seeds and coconut once it’s in the container for more yummy nutrition and flavor!

Let me know how yours turns out. :) I love this on some Greek yogurt with strawberries and blueberries.

June 21, 2011 | michelle | Comments Closed

Sugar free and now GRAIN free (or low grain).. plus a recipe!

Yeah, so Jacob and I just aren’t content being normal eaters. What can I say? We want to live long healthy lives. Not that you guys don’t, of course, but we like the way we eat. Call us crazy if you must! So, we’ve taken everything another step further and now we’re eating minimal grains too (except for the occasional gluten free pizza or homemade pasta). I’ve been nauseous off and on for awhile now and have had tons of tests done. Cutting back on my sugar helped a lot, but it still wasn’t completely gone. I then cut dairy and guess what? still there! So I tried cutting rice after reading online about how some people can be grain sensitive and about the advantages of avoiding grains. Guess what? It’s RICE and GF OATS! We were already avoiding corn, soy (unless fermented), gluten, sugar, and anything processed/nasty. At first, I was really upset. I was eating brown rice almost everyday (which was why I was nauseous and bloated!). I’ve adjusted now though and I feel amazing. My stomach isn’t crazy bloated anymore (unless I eat grain). It’s glorious.

Jacob just read Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. This book has a lot of valuable information about the science behind our country’s obesity problem. It is really eye opening, well documented/researched and with great information. This is actually the “dumbed down” version of his original book Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage). I’m not a big non-fiction read and I’m enjoying reading it. I definitely recommend checking this out.

I could ramble on and on, but how about I share a recipe now? :) I made this delicious treat for Jacob’s birthday this week.

Almond flour Strawberry Shortcake

The recipe for the biscuit/shortbread is from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. It’s a lightly sweetened biscuit, add sliced organic strawberries and then top with.. dun dun dun.

Mascarpone Creme Fraiche Topping:

- 4 oz creme fraiche

- 4 oz mascarpone

- a quick squirt of agave and a dash of vanilla

Blend the two dairy products together with a handmixer until thick. (Be sure to mix in a chilled pyrex for extra thickening power!) If you’re having a hard time, add a little more mascarpone. Once blended, add in a touch of sweetener (honey or agave) and a little vanilla for flavor. Use the handmixer to blend it in. Enjoy!

We’ve disabled comments on here right now until Jacob has time to put up captcha since we get so many spammers. So annoying! :) If you like it though, let me know via Twitter.

June 12, 2011 | michelle | Comments Closed

Sugar sugar sugar.. in all its shapes and forms.

So, let’s talk about sugar and sugar substitutes, shall we? I have been doing a lot of sugar research lately since we decided to go sugar free. I think it’d be fun to share with you some of the great articles I’ve found.

Well, let’s start off with the good stuff, our frienemy sugar.

  • Is Sugar Toxic? (NY Times) – this article discusses Dr. Lustig’s hypotheses regarding sugar. He believes it is actually a toxin and is the cause of not only our increase in obesity & diabetes, but also cancer, heart disease, liver problems, etc! While I think Dr. Lustig makes some good points, I have to say I’m with the critics on this one. Giving rats extremely high doses of pure fructose is very different than eating a tsp of agave nectar or even refined sugar. I agree that there may be long term effects of sugar consumption that we don’t know about yet, but a lot of what he says is pretty extreme and he’s stating things as facts when they are merely hypotheses. Enough of the alarmism already. Does everything need to be made into an extreme just to get people’s attention?
  • “The bitter truth about fructose alarmism. This is a response to Dr. Lustig. The article’s main point is that Dr. Lustig’s argument takes this out of context. He doesn’t consider the dosage or the context. Some very well cited points are made.

Let’s move on to agave. Agave has been getting a LOT of negative hype lately. It all comes down to three big “food” people rehashing one guy’s “findings”.

  • Better World Blog brings it down. This article is AWESOME. Complete with diagrams, this article breaks down the science of sugar and why agave is not the devil of the sweetener world. VERY well documented stuff here. If you have ever worried about agave, then you should read this. You will feel better. Promise.
  • Breaking down and responding Dr. Mercola’s article line by line. Please realize that this article is written by someone who owns a beverage company that uses agave.
  • Agave – Good or Evil? – This article is nice and simple. The main point being that not all agave is created equal.

Palm or Coconut Sugar:

  • The palm sugar article at NaturalNews.com discusses why organic palm sugar a new popular sugar substitute choice.
  • This blog entry has a little background on coconut sap collection and its composition. It also has a delicious recipe!
  • This stuff is DELICIOUS. It has a really awesome “brown sugar”-esque flavor. I absolutely love it in my earl grey tea.

Stevia – a zero calorie NATURAL sweetener? Neato!:

  • This article is awesome. It really breaks down the history of stevia and its use. It also discusses the controversy that surrounded it being sold in our country.

I haven’t given stevia a shot yet (just ordered some liquid vanilla stevia from NuNaturals though!) so I don’t have much more information on it as of right now. I am looking forward to giving it a shot though. Maybe next year, I’ll plant it in my garden! :)

In the meantime, check out some of the recipes from Simply Sugar and Gluten Free. Her cookbook is awesome and most of the recipes are online! I am in LOVE with the healthier version of carrot cupcakes. Mm. So yummy. I think this weekend I might try making Triple Berry Coconut Cake.

I am finally starting to push through these withdrawal symptoms. The groggy headache is gone. The cravings are a bit intense today, but I’m making it through. I know this is going to be worth it. It’s just going to take time. :)

April 22, 2011 | michelle | Tags: | 1 Comment »

Day 1 – COMPLETE!

Take that sugar. I lived without you today. I don’t need you anymore. I know that I have some friends who are thinking of doing this too, so when I can, I’m going to document what I ate that day (not EVERY day..that’d just be obnoxious) to give you all ideas.

Today’s menu:
Breakfast:
- Organic Whole Milk Latte w/ a small amount of Wholesome Sweeteners Raw Blue Agave
- Leftover gluten free corn bread with raw cultured butter
Snack:
- Organic Pink Lady apple
- Pecan crackers (Blue Diamond) and English cheddar
Lunch:
- Leftover chili with organic sour cream and cheese
Supper:
- Green Soup with Sage & Sweet Potatoes (“Love Soup” cookbook)
- Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (“Simply sugar and gluten free cookbook”) – these are AMAZING. There is barely any grain (sorghum) and almost all carrots. So yummy. Agave based recipe. I don’t like stevia.
Snack:
- Popcorn (baby rice, popped in a wok)
- Another bowl of chili with organic sour cream & cheese

Wow, I need to cut back on my dairy, which will be more of a challenge for me than sugar. One step at a time though. I’m going to focus on sugar for now. Well, I’m off to watch Jaime Oliver’s Food Revolution. LOVE this show. I’m not usually a fan of reality TV, but food education is so important. I am so happy to see a show like this on a major network.

April 20, 2011 | michelle | Tags: | Comments Closed

Going sugar free

So, my husband came from work yesterday and said to me “I want to go completely sugar free”. To which I replied, “um, we’re through”. ;) Haha. After negotiating, we have decided to go refined/cane sugar free first. We’re going to rely on organic raw agave from Wholesome Sweeteners and local honey to start with. We may branch away from doing that and try using fruit juices, but let’s not to get too crazy. I like my sweets.

Today is our last day of sugar. I’m making some awesome cookies tonight for a dinner party that are modified from this recipe. After that, I’m boxing up all the sugar in our house (which is a lot since we buy in bulk on Amazon!), giving away the vanilla sugar I made, and just using agave and local honey (raw, cold processed honey).

Crazy, right? I think we can do it though. We’ve been cutting back on sugars a lot lately, despite my compulsive baking. We love Elana’s Gluten Free Almond Flour cookbook. (I’ve preordered her cupcake cookbook that comes out at the end of this month!) I think the hardest part is going to be giving up my morning vanilla whole milk latte. I like honey lattes though too and since we roast our own coffee beans, I use very little sweetener. The beans are just that amazing!

Some people might pop in here and go “But OMG I heard agave is WORSE than HFCS?! How could you do that to yourself?!” While it is true that SOME agave is more processed than HFCS, the fact of the matter is that not all agave is created equal. Seriously, if you’re food conscious at all, you know that not all apples are equal. Organic, local ones are far superior… right? So why can’t that be the same with agave? I was having this discussion recently with a worried friend and I sent her some really awesome links. Rawmazing.com – Agave – Hero or Villain? really goes into depth about how agave is made and hits on some of the fallacies out there. The owner of BraintonIQ’s also posted an interesting post that goes through line by line the article that got everyone all up in arms about agave. You can find his post here.

We’ll see how this goes. I have been really bad this year about exercising and cutting back on my sweets. I need to take better care of myself. I know I know, some of you think I’m a crazy health nut already, but trust me. I could do much better. I’ve barely been exercising (light walks! that’s it.) and I’ve been indulging my sweet tooth a LOT lately. This has to end. I have to get control. :D I’m really looking forward to this challenge.

Below are some of my favorite gluten free, refined sugar free resources. I just got the “Simply sugar and gluten free” cookbook. We’ll see how it goes. :)

April 19, 2011 | michelle | Comments Closed

It’s not as hard as you think to eat healthy

Heirloom Tomatoes from Tutti Frutti Farms

A comment we hear a lot from our friends is “Well, I admire your tenacity to eat good food, but I just don’t have the time to eat healthy like that.” or “Oh I can’t afford to do that.” Eating healthy is much easier than it looks, trust me. Here are some helpful tips and recipes to get you started eating healthier.

I’m going to warn you ahead of time that this blog post gets a bit preachy. I’m just really passionate about food and eating healthy. It breaks my heart to know that people I love don’t think they can eat healthy because they don’t have time or money. It is doable, I promise. It just takes some time to adjust your way of thinking!

1. Meal plan – this is the easiest way to eat healthy on a budget and be efficient with your time. Plan your meals out on Saturday or Sunday for the rest of the week. Take note of preparation times and what ingredients you’ll need. Only buy what you need instead of having a cupboard and refrigerator stocked with options. Chop up veggies the night or morning if possible and store them in your fridge. For example, when I make beef stew, Jacob and I chop up everything but the potatoes the night before so I just have to worry about potatoes and cooking. First thing in the morning is another time to get prep work done. The baby is eating in the high chair, and we have a few minutes to get some carrots chopped!

2. Ingredients – Prioritize and buy organic when possible! Check out the Environmental Working Group’s Shopping Guide to help you prioritize your choices if you can’t afford to buy organic for all your produce. If you have the money, keep good, quick ingredients (like organic beans, frozen pasture fed meats, etc) in the house so they can be there for you if you have a change of plans. Otherwise, plan ahead and stick to your shopping list to avoid buying too much.

3. Get yourself a vegetable microwave steamer or buy veggies that you can steam in bags. – For those of you who are trying to transition over, do it slowly by buying pre-cut veggies or veggies that can be steamed in bags. Also, there are a bunch of easy to use veggie steamer options (even rice cookers have one!). Gradually work your way to using veggies from the farmers market or a CSA share (Community Supported Agriculture).

4. Eat less meat and when you do, buy local, grassfed and organic meat. I could go on and on about the importance of eating local, grass fed meats. Yes, they are pricier, but they are worth it. They taste better and are better for you and the environment. That corn fed, factory-butchered meat may have a cheaper price tag on it, but that price tag is subsidized up the wazoo! Watch “Food, Inc” or read “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan for more info. Seriously, nasty stuff. Mainstream meat is only cheap because the costs are hidden from the end user. It’s actually really damn expensive and we’re not just talking about the damage it does to the environment and our health that we have to repair.. but it comes down to even things as simple as corn subsidies. Where do you think the government gets that money? I could also go on and on about what goes down in factory slaughter houses. Go watch Oprah’s investigative report on it or again, watch “Food, Inc”.

5. Invest in a rice cooker – One of the best things I ever did was invest in a rice cooker with a timer (like Zojirushi NS-TGC10 Micom 5-1/2-Cup Rice Cooker). I can put water and rice in it in the morning and set it to have rice done by the time I get home. Then all I have to do is stir fry up some vegetables and voila – a yummy stir fry dinner! It makes eating brown rice so much easier. And if you forget to do it in the morning, it has a quick cooking option. It keeps us from eating stuff like instant rice, which don’t have any nutritional value. :)

6. Batch cook! - Thanks to my friend Marjorie for reminding me to mention this. Batch cooking or mass cooking can be SO helpful. Marjorie, who lives in the Midwest, cooks up large quantities of soups and homemade “fast foods” and freezes them. By the time winter is done and she runs out, it’s time for the farmers market to open back up again! Even in California, I do this with my favorite fruits and veggies that are going out of season or have a limited season (cherries, rhubarb, etc) so that I can have them year round without paying high prices. I also batch cook sauces and freeze them.  Thanks Marjorie!

We, as a nation, have become lazy and cheap when it comes to our food. We used to spend a large portion of our income on food and we SHOULD. It’s what fuels us. Sure, it takes some extra work to adjust your budget accordingly and do things like plan your meals, etc, but isn’t your health and your kids’ health worth it? Heck, the health of our NATION. I can’t believe how many times I hear “I can’t afford to eat healthy” or “I don’t have time to eat healthy”. Since going gluten free, I’ve found that it’s actually easier to eat healthy. It takes me waaaay more time to make a baked good or pasta (because I refuse to buy store bought cookies, pasta, etc) than it does for me to cook some rice in my rice cooker and stir fry some veggies. It just takes a major adjustment away from the mental fixation our nation has gotten on EASY junk food.

Stay tuned for more tips as I think of them. Sorry about getting so preachy. If you have anything you want me to answer, feel free to leave a comment. I’d be happy to answer specific questions about what Jacob and I do to eat healthy.

March 21, 2011 | michelle | Tags: , , | Comments Closed

Going gluten free

A lot of my friends come to me when they need help cooking for someone who is gluten free or if they are going gluten free themselves. Here are some helpful tips and products I’ve compiled. I’ve been gluten free for almost four years now. I was never actually diagnosed with celiac disease. I had been having digestive problems all my life and had thought that I was just lactose intolerant, but I noticed that I was still getting sick even without eating much dairy. So, I did some investigating and discovered that as many as two thirds of the American population may have gluten intolerance issues and not even know it! This article by Dr. Mark Hyman in the Huffington Post does a great job at describing the dangers of gluten intolerance and celiac disease. According to the article, 99% of the people who have gluten related issues don’t even know that gluten is the culprit!

I discussed my findings with my doctor and in lieu of going through all the testing (blood tests that can have false negatives, biopsies, etc), I just decided to go off gluten and see how I felt. After all, at the end of the day, if the tests said I did have celiac, that’s what I was going to have to do anyways! Why prolong the inevitable? So, I did and I have never felt better. I stopped looking perpetually bloated, having IBS issues, and mind fog. After a few months, I felt better than I had my entire life.

I won’t lie. The transition to gluten free eating at first was difficult. At the time, my husband and I were lazy cooks. We primarily lived off of pizza, pasta, and ordering Chinese food. Going gluten free became an incredible opportunity for us to learn how to cook. We found out that we love it and that we love eating healthy! We now primarily eat fruits and vegetables. We get almost all our food from the farmers market (and organic at that!), including our meats and eggs! It was a life changing decision and I am incredibly grateful. Only a year after having an 11 pound baby, I am already down to 15 pounds BELOW what I was in high school. I know that had I continued to eat gluten that this never would have happened.

Here are some of the products and cookbooks that made my transition to eating gluten free so much easier. There is a widget at the bottom that will direct you to Amazon, which has some of the best deals on gluten free products.

- Pamela’s – this is seriously the easiest and best tasting pre-mixed flour. I use their standard baking mix for just about everything and their flour mix to make bread in my bread machine (sooooo much better than store brought gluten free bread. That shit is nasty! This tastes like REAL bread.)

- Teff Flour – this is a speciality flour but it’s especially good for little ones as it is high in protein, fiber and iron. Peanut butter teff cookies are amazing. It also makes really good gingerbread and 1/6 of whatever amount of flour you are using can be replaced with teff to add extra nutrition to your food (which is important since rice flour isn’t super nutritious). I found most of my recipes for teff flour by just searching around the web. You can also make traditional Ethiopian bread (injera) with teff.

- Almond Flour – another nutrient rich GF flour. I recommend Honeyville’s Blanched Almond Flour. It is very fine and works best with the recipes in the Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook.

Cookbooks/Recipes:
- Gluten Free Vegan – I am not vegan, but this cookbook is great. It has a lot of unique and creative vegetable based recipes.
- Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook – One of my favorite cookbooks. Almond flour is super easy to work with and the baked good recipes in this cookbook are amazing. My favorite is the coffee cake!
- Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods – more traditional American foods. Not my favorite really because I hate that she uses things like egg replacer and we tend to eat a bit healthier than this, but there are some good recipes.
- The Pamela’s Products website (www.pamelasproducts.com) also has a crud ton of recipes! :)

As far as shopping goes, Henry’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, etc have a ton of options. The TJ’s gf pasta is really good and TJ’s is really good about listing gluten warnings for the most part. I buy a lot of my stuff in bulk off of Amazon, like my flours, my granola (udi’s granola is awesome and gf), gf oatmeal, Larabars, etc. Since I also am lucky enough to live in Orange County, I primarily shop at Mother’s Market which has great prices and an awesome gluten free selection.

Really, there are a lot of ways you can just eat gluten free naturally without having to use substitute products. Rice, vegetables, fruits, meats, etc are all naturally gluten free. You’d be surprised at how freeing it can be to discover new foods!

March 5, 2011 | michelle | Tags: | Comments Closed

Gluten Free Goat Cheese & Baked Apple Tart

Sorry, no photo on this one! It was gobbled up way too quickly to snap a shot. (Yes, it was THAT good.) This recipe was made up on the fly, so I didn’t measure. These are just estimates so be sure to taste test as you’re making it!

Tart Crust – this is a recipe from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. I absolutely love every recipe I’ve made from this cookbook. You should grab a copy today! The only modification I made to this crust was that I added cinnamon and sprinkled on a tiny bit of raw sugar.

Tart Topping –
Ingredients:

  • Granny Smith Apples (2) – peeled
  • Cinnamon
  • Ginger
  • 2 tablespoons of unsalted softened butter
  • 4 oz of softened chevre (unflavored, fresh goat cheese or substitute cream cheese)
  • 3 tablespoons of locally grown honey (I used Honey Pacifica’s Brazilian Peppertree Honey which has a little kick to it!)
  • Raw sugar for crunch

Part 1 - Chop Granny Smith apples into small chunks. Place in a lightly greased cake pan. Cover with cinnamon and a little ginger. Sprinkle on some raw sugar for a little crunch. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until desired texture. (I like mine to be slightly crunchy still!)

Part 2 - While apples are baking, whip together together honey, cheese, butter, and add cinnamon & ginger to taste. Apply topping and apples to almond tart crust once it has cooled. Sprinkle with raw sugar for a fun texture.

Let me know if you try this recipe. I’d be interested to see what others think! I know it was a hit in our house. :)

January 24, 2011 | michelle | Comments Closed
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