Summer Dessert Idea: Healthy Banana Splits

Here's an idea for a summer dessert that "pears" up two tasty dishes to make a yummy dessert that's double the fun:

This Mother's day, instead of opting for our family's traditional cake, frosting, and fresh fruit dessert combo, I went a little crazy and made some healthy banana splits by combining two recipes from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook.

I made both the Coconut Pear Ice Cream and the Almondy Carob Dip early in the morning to cut down on prep time later on and when it was time to eat dessert, we piled the ice cream over some bananas, topped it with chocolate/carob sauce, sprinkled on some chopped pecans, and garnished the masterpiece with a cherry.

The result? A yummy and super easy dessert that everyone loved. I'm already dreaming up some more possibilities for this dessert combo: ice cream bars (with a creamy, almondy, chocolatey, caroby coating), a layered fruit salad style dessert, and more.

Go try this!

As a side note, thank you to all those who attended our book signing at Chapters in Fredericton yesterday. We had a great time and handed out a ton of yummy cookies (Those of you who haven't been to a book signing before- keep on the lookout! We always have a blast.)

Au revoir,

Aurelie
aurelie@aurelieshealthycuisine.com

Guilty Indulgence or Heavenly Treat?

Reading the Luann cartoon in the newspaper last week, I laughed at the story line.

In the comic strip, Luann, just having finished writing her list of resolutions, is feeling cocky and is reading them all out loud to her friend. Her friend bursts her bubble by insisting she'll never keep them. They debate this for awhile until Luann snaps and dishes up a sarcastic, unkind replique to her friend, thus breaking all her resolutions: be kinder, stop being sarcastic, keep my resolutions.

Most of us, even though we've barely surpassed that first week of January, have probably already broken or at least bent one of the resolutions we swore we'd keep.

From the pic above, it's probably evident to you that somebody broke their resolution, huh? Maybe even a few somebodies, considering the mountain of cookies in that cookie jar, right?
Or did we?

Cookies are usually considered to be unhealthy little nuggets crammed full of sugar, trans fat, and who know what other poison, but these Cranberry Apricot Cookies are just the opposite- they're filled with whole grain flour, dried fruit, and millet (an acient grain that adds crunch and replaces the more traditional nuts) and with their perfect combination of spice, they are downright angelic.

Too cool, right? Cookies that are good for you! But no, it's true!

These Cranberry Apricot Cookies are from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook and were (notice the past tense) for an impromptu book signing we held earlier this evening.

While we won't be making these cookies for our upcoming presentation(s), we have lots more where they came from (in The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook), so come see us at Sequoia store (132 Weldon street, Moncton, New Brunswick) on the 15th and 17th of January from 3 to 6 and 1 to 3 in the afternoon, respectively, to try the food out for yourself.

And to tide yourself over meanwhile, order a book at our website (http://www.aurelieshealthycuisine.com) or visit one of the retailers who carries our book (see http://www.aurelieshealthycuisine.com/cookbookorders for an updated list).

Dining at New Year's

How was everyone's New Year? Hopefully good!

Today I thought I might share with you what my family and I chowed down on the 1st. Below is Curried Carrot Soup from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook, which we ate for supper on the 1st, along with a green salad made with romaine lettuce, carrots, and cucumber as well as with a few yummy nibblers- carrot sticks, cucumber slices, and marinated artichoke were among the spread.
For dessert, after eating our soup, we had some of the blueberry pudding below. This is pudding is basically a few cups of frozen blueberries simmered in about a half cup of apple juice concentrate, then topped with half a recipe of Vanilla Muffins, from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook. The pudding is baked for about 30 minutes and then cooled, and then eaten. (A family of four celebrating the New Year alone, we ate all of this minus one small slice within the evening.)

Going back in time now... Supper on the 31st, the last day of 2008! We celebrated elaboratly- afterall, publishing a book and starting a business is something that doesn't happen every year! To head off the meal, we ate a few nibblers and salad before moving onto the good stuff...

Namely, Cruise Ship Pasta from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook. We love to serve this dish at special occasions! For one thing, it's easy to make, thus simplifying things when entertaining. Reason number two is that it's pretty and tasty, thus leading our guests to believe it was much more complicated to make than it appears. Lastly, it's a pretty healthy dish, being made up mostly of whole grain pasta, green bell pepper, tomatoes, olives, and pineapple.

To finish things off on the 31st, we also enjoyed another of our favorite recipes from The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook- Pretty Pecan Pie. This pie is always a big hit. The date puree, nut butter, flax, and apple juice mixture that fill the pie is creamy and sweet, with a texture that actually resembles that of a traditional pecan pie. The crust is wheat-free, making it suitable for those with allergies to wheat and if you use gluten-free oats, also suitable for some celiacs as well.

Sneaking Those Veggies In...

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well and that you had a wonderful holiday season. Since I missed my Christmas post, I decided to make up for it with a super long New Year's resolutionesque post about sneaking vegetables in to dishes. We've heard alot about sneaking healthy foods in the past year, but most experts have agreed that there isn't much benefit to it. Since that's an accomplished fact, I thought I might try to find out if there was a way at all to make sneaking vegetables into dishes be beneficial.

About 6 months ago, when two “sneaky” cookbooks called The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious first graced the bookshelves, the debate broke out over whether these methods of eating healthy foods were really effective or not, since so such a small amount was added to one dish and since children (for whom these books’ recipes were aimed at) would be tricked into eating vegetables. Many experts were afraid that this would lead children to believe that eating vegetables was undesirable or that their parents were lying to them.

This debate has now cooled off and the case has been rested, but without a true solution. Sure, sneaking ridiculously small amounts of cooked, pureed vegetables into food and tricking your children aren’t the best ideas, but is there a better idea when it comes to hiding vegetables? After pondering this question and doing some experimenting in the kitchen, I have come to a solution.

From what I have seen, the reason for being “deceiving” when adding vegetables to a dish is to keep picky eaters from having a biased opinion of the dish before eating it. So really, to keep from being seen as a liar, all you really have to do is postpone your announcement of what’s in the dish until everyone has finished eating.* This way, the picky eater tries out the dish without being set against it to begin with and after being told of the healthy foods it contains, will slowly come to realize that healthy food can taste good.

*To continue on with this idea, you should try to apply the “I won’t tell you what’s in it until you’ve eaten it rule” all the time (even when it’s unhealthy food) in order to keep your family from becoming sceptical when you occasionally won’t admit the contents of a dish.

Now that we’ve gotten the ethical issue off our chests, it’s time to tackle the issue of the healthy foods. The question is, sure vegetables sneaked in to a dish can pass unseen, but can you really add enough of them to significantly boost the nutritional value of a dish? After a bit of experimenting in the kitchen, I have come to the solution that yes, you can, but not with every dish…

There seems to be 2 requirements for a dish to be good for sneaking vegetables a) The dish must have a powerful flavour showcased (tomato is one of the best, although it is technically a vegetable itself…) and b) The dish must be mostly liquid. Sneaking squash into a grilled cheese, an idea the author of Deceptively Delicious recommended, will only give you a few tablespoons of veggies while you can sneak a ½ cup or more (equivalent to 1 food pyramid serving) of vegetables into a soup or pasta sauce.

Besides the 2 main requirements I have also discovered a few other small things to do in order to make things better…

*Puree the vegetables you want to add to a dish first and then gradually add the “powerful” flavouring ingredient to the vegetables until you can no longer taste or notice the vegetables easily. Make sure you stop adding the flavourful ingredient as soon as you possibly can.

*Don’t forget to add a bit more salt and seasonings than usual. Since vegetables are very low in sodium and most of the dishes we are used to eating are very high is sodium, although I don’t usually recommend adding a salt to a dish, I find that here a bit of it is absolutely necessary in order for things to like usual. You may also want to add a bit more seasonings than usual, since vegetables need a bit more to bring out their delicate, natural flavour in a dish.

*Don’t cook every vegetable you want to puree. Some vegetables can be pureed raw, such as roughly chopped bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini. By adding these raw purees to your dishes, you can conserve a bit more nutrients.

I'd like to close this post out by pointing out a few of the recipes in The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook (which is now available for preordering, http://www.aurelieshealthycuisine.com/) which "sneak" in vegetables: Sneaky Butternut Lentil Soup, Spinaci Pesto Cream Sauce, and Savory Beanballs.

The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook is here!

Woo hoo! The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook is here! Not officially so, (we will still be "preordering" the cookbooks until January instead of ordering) but we recieved the books Wednesday and have since been busy, busy; delivering copies to stores (Sequoia and Gifts Galore in Moncton and Cover to Cover books in Riverview) and doing a book signing/food sampling at the Riverside Albert Wellness Signing (more on that later). Just wanted to show you a spur-of-the-moment author pic before my holiday posts.

Cheers,

Aurelie

aurelie@aurelieshealthycuisine.com

Quinoa Granola

My granola craze first started a few years ago when one morning, at 10 o'clock, I decided I was going to eat granola for breakfast, regardless of the fact that I had never made granola before, didn't really know how it was made and didn't have any that was already made on hand. Besides my lack of knowledge on the subject, with a little help my first batch turned out fine. It even convinced me to make another batch the next week. And then it was off. I made granola every week for about 3 to 4 months straight. Everyday, for breakfast, we would eat granola. Everyday. This lasted until my family got fed up of eating the same thing every morning. After that, I started making granola a little bit less often and expirementing a bit more with it. And so my newest granola creation was born...

...Quinoa Granola, it rhymes does't it? This a creative granola that's composed of mostly quinoa. The inspiration comes from granola bars made with different types of whole grains. Here it is served along with a pitcher of rice milk.

This granola contains another rhyming word too... bananas! They add sweetness and flavor to the granola and help it form clusters. It does make the clusters a little bit more moist than crunchy, but at our house we like it just find that way.

Brownies

Mmm.. Brownies!And especially these brownies. The above, simply titled Brownies in The Healthaliciously Good Cookbook, are made with carob*, yet are just as tasty as any chocolate version. They also contain walnuts (because what are brownies without walnut?) and use flax as an egg replacer, making them rich and omega 3 fatty acids. Guilt-free brownies, that's what they are.

Sneaking flax into baked goods is one idea, but I also give plenty of others in the book. They include substituting a little olive oil for flax oil in salad dressing and when drizzling over dishes, mixing flaxmeal into various dishes (think burgers) and sprinkling it over oatmeal. Oh, and using flax seeds to make a delicious pecan pie... Got your attention? Stay tuned for tonight's post.

*Carob is a chocolate-like substance that you can cook with as you would chocolate, only it is free of caffeine, naturally sweeter and contains more of certain nutrients. Its taste could be described as sweet like milk chocolate yet strong like dark chocolate.

Aurelie
aurelie@aurelieshealthycuisine.com
Copyright 2008 by Aurelie Pare