Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew

December 13, 2011 By 4 Comments

This is a perfect meal for a cold, winter day. I had this tasty recipe at a friend’s house several months ago, and have made it several times for myself since then. I believe it originally came from Real Simple. I like that it has many ingredients that I never would have thought to put together. In fact, I hadn’t tried chickpeas before this recipe and this stew renewed my love of raisins!

Start by cooking onion in oil until soft. I also added a little minced garlic, it just seems automatic to start a recipe with onion and garlic.

Onions

Add cumin, ginger, salt, and pepper and cook. Stir until fragrant, plus one more minute.

Spices

Add tomatoes, chickpeas, cauliflower, raisins, and a half cup of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer. Stir occasionally until veggies are tender and liquid is slightly thickened.

Ingredients

Fold in spinach and cook for another minute or two. I actually use both frozen cauliflower and spinach in this recipe. And since the other main ingredients are canned, I can always have everything I need on hand for when I need a quick or last minute dinner.

Spinach

The stew can be served over rice or is also great on its own. It’s perfect for the holidays because it looks kinda Christmassy!

Stew

Here’s the recipe:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion
1 1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. ginger
1-28 oz. can tomatoes
1-15 oz. can chickpeas
1 head cauliflower, cup up
1/2 cup raisins
1-5 oz. package of spinach
rice to serve over
almonds to sprinkle on top (optional)

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: , , , ,

Nana’s Shortbread Cookies

December 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

My great grandmother’s shortbread cookies are a must-have Christmas treat. When we were kids we had so much fun getting to decorate these cookies with tons of icing and sprinkles. We cut shapes of snowmen, candy canes, and holly. So when I finally gave in and bought special, wheat-free flour this recipe was at the top of my list to try.

These cookies are SO good and the recipe is SO simple. As you can see this recipe card has been well used through the years.

Shortbread recipe

The jury is still out on the flour until I try it in a few more recipes. I’m using it very sparingly since the package of flour was so expensive. I only made half of the recipe, just to see how they turned out.

Namaste flour

The only thing I noticed was that it didn’t bind together as well as normal flour does. So I had to add a bit more butter than the recipe called for. This changed the taste of the cookies slightly, but they weren’t bad. Extra butter rarely makes things bad. 😉

Cookie mix

Since all I had was circle cookie cutters, I thought I could make the cookies look like tree ornaments. I decorated them with my soy-free chocolate chips before baking.

Decorating

I sampled a few and the rest went into the freezer to savor throughout the season. Since I only made a few, I don’t plan on sharing! The rest of family will have to eat the ones made with normal flour. 🙂

Finished cookies

These are super easy and fun… give them a try! Enjoy!

Filed Under: Allergies, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,

Enjoy Life Foods: Seed and Fruit Mixes

November 21, 2011 By 2 Comments

Enjoy Life Foods has done it again! They’ve made another great product… that I will be hooked on. I just love how great their snacks taste and I love that they are all made safe for people with food allergies. I was so excited when Enjoy Life Foods sent me a package of both varieties of their no nuts, seed and fruit mixes to try.

Seed and fruit mixes

These mixes make a great snack whether you’re on the go or just need something to munch on after dinner while watching television. I’m actually not even allergic to nuts, but I will still buy these again for sure since it’s hard to find a mixture that doesn’t have something I’m allergic to in it. These have a great mixture of salty and sweet, crunchy and chewy yummy-ness.

Each variety had a great mix of flavors, but I have to say that the Mountain Mambo was my favorite. It has a mix of sunflower kernels, pumpkin seeds, raisins, apples, chocolate chips, and cranberries. I could seriously eat the whole bag in one sitting if I let myself.

The second flavor is called Beach Bash and was also very tasty. I was surprised at how different it tastes despite having mostly the same ingredients. This one was a mix of sunflower kernels, pineapple, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and apricots. This one lasted long enough to try out another one of the recipes on Enjoy Life Foods’ recipe page… Beach Bash Brittle.

Recipe

I started by mixing sugar a water together and heating it in the microwave to dissolve the sugar. I made only half of a recipe since I only had half of the trail mix leftover.

Heating sugar

I continued heating the sugar until it was a dark amber color, like the recipe directed. Then I mixed in the trail mix.

Mixing trail mix

Working quickly, I poured the mixture onto a cookie sheet as soon as it had stopped bubbling.

Poured onto sheet

After allowing it to cool completely, I then broke it into bite size pieces and transfered to a serving dish.

Ready to eat

This came out great! Being that this was my first time making a candy-like treat, I was a little nervous that I might end up with my spoon hardening onto my measuring cup or something like that. But this was super easy to make, and such simple ingredients too. What a yummy, sweet snack!

Thanks to Enjoy Life Foods for yet another great, allergy-free snack that I can enjoy!

Filed Under: Allergies, Food Reviews, Recipes Tagged With: , , ,