Flourless Gluten-free Mushroom Pizza

* Just a note on this pizza - if you want it to be 100% gluten free, you have to use oat flour that's gluten-free. Because many factories process wheat and gluten products in the same place that oatmeal is processed, the oats could possibly be contaminated with gluten. *

I was looking through recipes on the internet today, and came across this one on www.food.com. It is so delicious and loaded with protein and fiber.

For my toppings I added some tomato sauce, 1/3 cup of part-skim mozzarella cheese and as many mushrooms as I wanted. It came out absolutely amazing - I don't feel like I'm missing out on your normal processed white flour pizza at all. In fact, I like this better! I would definitely recommend this pizza crust recipe over the previous cauliflower crust recipe that I posted. Definitely check it out!

Oatmeal Crust Pizza

Banana-Coconut Chocolate Chip Waffles

Sunday morning is definitely a time when I crave some delicious breakfast food. I love waffles, french toast, pancakes, you name it - what I don't love is feeling sick after I eat them because of the grease, and processed ingredients. This morning, I fixed that problem. These are the best waffles I have ever had, and they are so good for you.


This recipe makes about 4 belgian style waffles.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
1 banana
1 3/4 cups skim milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 egg whites
handful of ghiradelli dark chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your waffle maker before you get started. I sprayed mine with some coconut oil to prevent the waffle from getting stuck to it.

Put the whole wheat flour, oat flour, and baking soda into a large mixing bowl. Mix them together until they are uniformly combined.

Next you'll want to mash up the banana in a separate bowl. Add the coconut oil, milk, egg whites and vanilla to the mashed up banana. Mix them together and add that to the dry ingredient bowl.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients until most of the large lumps are gone. This batter will be a bit more lumpy than normal waffle batter because of the banana. Once it is all mixed together, add the chocolate chips if desired. Let the batter sit for 3 minutes before continuing.

Pour some of the batter onto your waffle maker and let it cook until it stops steaming.

I added some of my almond butter, and some raspberries and strawberries to my waffles. This was a great balance between the sweetness of the fruit and the waffle, and some savory from the almond butter. These waffles are an great source of healthy fats, protein, carbs, and fiber. I strongly urge you health conscious breakfast lovers to try this recipe, you won't regret it!

Shrimp Salad with Avocado and Strawberries

This salad with shrimp is one of my favorites. It is loaded with deliciousness and a lot of different flavors!

Typically I use Trader Joe's Wild Blue Shrimp. I have found it to work very well, it is easy to handle and it is delicious. It is a frozen product and you can find it in the fish section in their frozen aisle.

I usually use four shrimp for a salad. They are pretty big pieces and this salad is super filling. I heat up a little olive oil in a pan and add the shrimp. I season them with a little chili powder, garlic powder and salt, and I cook them for 3 minutes on each side.

Now for the salad part! I typically use Trader Joe's Organic Power Greens for this salad. This mix includes a delicious combo of baby kale, baby chard, and baby spinach (they should pay me to advertise for Trader Joe's). I use about 1/3 of the package. 

To this mix, I also add 1/2 an avocado, 4 large strawberries, 1 medium tomato, and half a cucumber. Just slice all of these up and place them on your salad. Place the shrimp on top and enjoy! You also need a dressing for this obviously, and I use my homemade white balsamic vinaigrette. The great thing about this dressing is that it is packed with flavor, and you only need to use a little to go a long way. I will be posting the recipe for that soon! 

Almond Butter Recipe

Almond butter has been getting increasingly popular lately. It is delicious and has a lot of different health benefits - it is a great source of monounsaturated fats or healthy fats, vitamin E, protein and fiber. It also happens to be absolutely delicious, and very easy to make.


I like to make roasted almond butter. All you need is a bag of raw almonds, a cookie sheet, foil or parchment paper, an oven, a food processor, a spatula, and a container to put the almond butter in once it's done.

Ingredients:

Raw Almonds 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Take your cookie sheet and line it with foil or parchment paper. Lay out your almonds on the cookie sheet and spread them out into one layer (I usually just shake the cookie sheet around a little until they spread out). Once your oven is ready, put your almonds into the oven for around 10 minutes - they should smell fragrant and delicious. Take them out of the oven and let them cool until you can handle the almonds with your hands. Place the almonds into a food processor and start it up. You will periodically need to scrape down the sides of the food processor. Keep the food processor going until the almonds have completely turned into almond butter - this usually takes about 10 minutes total. Place your almond butter in a container and enjoy! You can add salt if desired or other things like coconut oil or dark chocolate to give it a different flavor. You can use the photos below as a reference of how it's supposed to look! 

So you like pizza, huh?

Today I really, really wanted pizza. I was having a thousand italian food cravings - #1 on my list was a slice of deep dish pizza from Umberto's of New Hyde Park (those of you who've had it can back me up). It isn't time for my cheat meal yet though, it's too early in the week to waste my favorite meal on a silly craving. I have made a couple of alternatives to the typical greasy, processed dough pizza before, such as whole wheat pizza. It's very good, but I wanted to try something even healthier. I came across the idea of cauliflower crust pizza, and tonight I tried out the recipe. I found this recipe on www.gosupersisters.com and it turned out well.

In their recipe they use cauliflower, 1 egg white, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, garlic, coconut flour, light mozzarella and sauce. They basically tell you to put the cauliflower into the food processor until it turns into a rice consistency. Then, you nuke it in the microwave for about 5 minutes, and once it's cool squeeze all of the water out in a kitchen towel. Once that is done, you add all of the ingredients, except the mozzarella and sauce, to the cauliflower and make it into a ball. You press it onto a baking sheet and stick it in the oven for about 25 minutes total, including flipping it and putting the topping on. This was a good recipe but there are some things I would change. The flavor of the parmesan was very potent, along with the garlic, salt, pepper etc. I would have probably halved all of the seasoning ingredients, because once you add the toppings it is too much flavor. I would have preferred a more plain crust. Overall, this is a good recipe, but I do recommend being cautious with the amount of seasoning that they suggest, and maybe lessen it. Definitely try this recipe out, and check out the GoSuperSister's website.

Go Super Sister's Cauliflower Crust



I also made roasted asparagus with my dinner. I took the asparagus, put it in a ziploc bag and added some salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil (sparingly), fresh garlic and a little parmesan. I roasted it in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. The sweet and savory combination in this recipe really makes for a tasty dish. This is a great vegetarian meal, and an awesome alternative to your typical dinner!

Clean Eating Taco Turkey Burgers

I came across a clean eating turkey burger recipe that looked interesting and fun, but I didn't like the seasoning they used, so I decided to make it into a taco burger. This burger uses 99% lean ground turkey meat, and a delicious blend of spicy and savory seasonings.


You will need:
Frying Pan
Large baking sheet
Olive Oil Spray
1 & 1/4 lbs 99% lean ground turkey meat
1/2 cup non-fat greek yogurt
Seasoning:
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
3 gloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 & 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

First things first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Prepare a baking sheet with foil and a light spray of olive oil. Put the turkey meat into a large mixing bowl. Add the greek yogurt and all of the seasonings to the turkey meat, and incorporate them until they are evenly mixed - you probably need to use your hands for this, don't be afraid to dig into it. If you wet your hands first it helps to prevent the mixture from sticking to you.Take about 1/3 of the turkey burger mix and shape it into a patty, then place it onto the baking sheet. Do this until there is no turkey burger mix left. You should have 8-10 patties. Place the patties in the oven for 20 minutes. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly before doing anything else. Spray your frying pan with olive oil spray and place the patties in the pan on medium high heat. Sear on each side for two minutes.

Enjoy with guacamole and a lettuce wrap, or in a whole wheat pita or roll!

The great thing about this recipe is that it uses 99% lean ground turkey meat, but the burgers are juicy and moist because of the baking and the greek yogurt. Enjoy!