Two Kitchens, One Passion

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE pumpkin??  It really does work in almost any kind of recipe.  These savory cakes had a nice subtle flavor of pumpkin that tasted great with a hint of garlic and basil.  I also had some left over beets from the Christmas "cheese"cake that I decided to roast with a balsamic glaze and use as a topping for the cakes.  The flavors all worked great together, and I even got my dad (who hates beets!) to enjoy them.  :) Paleo Pumpkin Cakes  Adapted from  Against All Grain Yield: About 10 small cakes

On the outside, persimmons look a lot like an orange tomato: Not exactly what I would anticipate to be a very sweet fruit.  However, when I tried this fruit for the first time at home over Christmas I was amazed by how unique it was!  The consistency of the fruit inside is almost like a jam and it has the perfect level of sweetness.  I could easily eat this fruit plain, but the consistency worked perfect for use as a pudding as well. There are 2 common kinds of persimmons that you are most likely to find in the grocery store, fuyu and hachiya.  For this recipe, I used hachiya persimmons.  The interesting thing about this kind is that you can't eat it until it feels like it is extremely overripe.  Trust me, even though it will feel like it is rotting, it most definitely is not.  I don't know from experience, but everything I read on the hachiya persimmons warns that if you try eating one before it has become fully soft, it will taste extremely bitter....

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas! Now that I'm finally finished with grad school I can use my extra time to start posting more recipes again. Hopefully this "cheese"cake will make up for the recipes I've been neglecting to post! Being dairy-free, I used Enjoy Life brand chocolate chips as a topping. Even though I used to love regular chocolate, these chocolate chips taste even better! This recipe does require some prep work with the cashews. In order to get that creamy cheesecake texture, they must be soaked in water before blending. I soaked them overnight, but at least 4 hours should work just as well. After they are done soaking, rinse them before blending with your other ingredients.

Here's a quick peek at my first gluten-free Thanksgiving meal! I'm still catching up after the holiday break, so I'll post recipes soon! Menu: -Gluten-free stuffing -Roasted turkey -Gluten-free gravy -Healthy mashed potatoes (with cauliflower!) -Tomato and zucchini gratin -Gluten-free pumpkin pie

Since going gluten free, sweet potatoes have become one of my favorite foods. The are delicious, packed with nutritional value, and are versatile enough to be used in both sweet and savory dishes. In a pinch they can also be cooked in the microwave in less time than it takes to make rice or pasta. Another thing I have learned is that complex meals can be made quickly as long as one or two of the components are either prepared ahead of time and kept on hand, or are store bought in the prepared form. For instance, I used a store bought frozen bag of seasoned corn for this recipe, but made everything else fresh.  This might be my favorite sweet potato recipe to date!

Since becoming gluten free, I had yet to find an acceptable solution to pizza. With a lot of the long triathlon training sessions I do I often crave salty foods, and in terms of getting a decent mix of carbs, protein and fat, pizza fits the bill (homemade the healthy way at least!). Most of the gluten free pizza crusts I had attempted in the past either ended up too crumbly, or too hard and left my pizza craving unsatisfied....until this time using Bob's gluten free pizza crust mix! I normally opt for making things from scratch rather than using pre-made mixes, but this will certainly be an exception to that rule.

I came up with this dinner idea while trying to find a way to use up some kale and sweet potatoes, and incorporate the batch of hummus I had made from a couple days prior. The end result was delicious and the recipe can easily be altered to incorporate any flavors you would like!

Some mornings I just crave hot oatmeal..Today was one of those mornings.  I like making my own and adding in a variety of toppings, but I'm posting my favorite combination if I'm looking for something just a little bit sweet.  I use plain oats so it doesn't have all the added sugar that the packets do (the only sweeteners I use for oatmeal are honey or agave nectar).  This recipe is quick, simple, and tastes delicious!  It's also easy to adjust the amounts of ingredients based on your own preference too (I don't always go for the cocoa powder, just honey, almond butter, and banana tastes great too). Chocolatey-Nutty Banana Oatmeal

Dan and I were thinking of just cooking an easy dinner last night, so he came up with making Spanish-style rice.  We bought some fresh vegetables for the salsa, and he cooked up the chicken with a delicious combination of a spice blend from a spice shop in Chicago, some Sriracha sauce, and whatever other special ingredients he put in there.  He also cooked up some brown rice and we just made our own combination of rice, chicken, and salsa.  The only thing that really took time was chopping everything up for the salsa, but it tasted great and super fresh when it was all finished!  Below is the recipe for the salsa that we used, so just cook up some chicken and brown rice and you'll be able to put this dish together for an easy weeknight meal (With a food processor for chopping the vegetables it would be a super quick meal too)!

After how successful my first batch of Larabars was, I wanted to try out another flavor.  I have had the actual lemon flavored Larabars before and loved the flavor, so when I came across a recipe for them I knew I had to make it!  The flavor in these is great, but the dough was super sticky coming right out of the food processor.  Stick them in the fridge and they will start to start less after about an hour or so. Lemon Larabars Adapted from  Spark Recipes

Yet again, another Paleo dessert has taken me by surprise.  Despite containing NO dairy, this "cheese"cake really did taste like an actual cheesecake (even Dan said so too!).  I wasn't able to get the consistency for the filling quite right (I think because I did not soak the cashews for long enough), so the next time I make this I will be striving for a silky smooth filling.  Feel free to top this was any fruit or sauce that you enjoy as well, but it does have an excellent flavor on its own too!

Since I still had some leftover polenta, I decided to mix up my own creamy polenta dish for breakfast.  The hot sauce definitely made this dish come together but adding just enough spice and extra flavor. Creamy Polenta and Fried Egg

I still love avocados, but I recently decided to try out some cooking with sweet potatoes and have discovered how awesome this root vegetable is as well.  You can pretty much do just as much with a sweet potato as you can with an avocado (I've found plenty of both sweet and savory sweet potato dishes).  Here are the first two recipes I've made with sweet potatoes.  I can assure you there will be more to come (especially since I still have over half a bag left!).

Since I had a few slices of grilled pineapple leftover from our salads the other night, and I also had a couple avocados that needed to be used, I thought hmm grilled pineapple mixed in with guacamole?  Turns out this is a popular recipe!  I found lots of recipes raving about the great flavor the grilled pineapple adds to the guacamole and this turned out to be completely true!  I served the dip with some sweet potato chips, making it a complete gluten free snack/appetizer.  I found the original recipe on the blog  Paleomg , which is one that I definitely recommend you check out!  Juli has some great-looking Paleo recipes (many more of which I need to try out!). Grilled Pineapple Guacamole Adapted from  Paleomg

So, this was officially my first time cooking steak..The flavor turned out well, but I will admit that I overcooked it a bit.  At least now I'll know for next time!  Because of this, I am not going to include directions on how to cook the steak, just cook it whichever way you prefer.  You could also easily substitute the steak for another meat, or tofu if you're looking for a vegetarian meal.  The original recipe also calls for peanut butter, but I substituted this for unsweetened raw almond butter.  I also omitted the white miso paste from the original recipe, but I am going to include that in the ingredients because I do think it would add a great flavor to the dish.  The only miso paste I found in Wegmans was a huge container that I didn't want to have sitting in my fridge for months or going to waste.

Yes, it's true...I have found a Paleo recipe that both looks and tastes like cereal!  I am sure for a lot of you that have converted to the Paleo diet, cereal is definitely one of the foods that is missed.  I have always enjoyed having a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and it is still possible while being Paleo!  The recipe does include hemp seed, which I am still not 100% sure on if it is truly Paleo, but I did find several sources that said this seed is accepted on the Paleo diet (so I'm going with that!).  Also, I know that fruit juice is also not allowed on the Paleo diet, but I was lazy and didn't want to go through the process of making my own apple juice so I purchased Wegmans Food You Feel Good About Organic Apple Juice .  However, if you really are trying to make this 100% Paleo, here is a link for  Making Your Own Apple Juice  (Just don't add any additional sugar or sweetener at the end). The taste of this cereal was awesome, but the bat...

This morning I decided to try using up some leftovers that I've had in the fridge the past couple days.  I love having eggs in the morning and since I had leftover polenta in the fridge I thought it would be interesting to use polenta cakes in place of an English muffin for a nice breakfast sandwich.  Guess what, it worked (For the most part, the one egg ended up being a little big for the size of the polenta cakes so it was easier to eat with a fork and knife)!  I also had some leftover pesto in the fridge so I chose to use this as a topping in place of cheese.  I also added a little bit of hot sauce on top for some additional flavor.

Well, I have officially began a 6 week elimination diet based on no gluten and also no dairy.  This should be an interesting month and a half!  I still don't feel quite ready to go totally Paleo and cut out all rices and other grains, but I'll see how I feel at the end of these next 6 weeks and go from there! With this recipe, I learned just how awesome grilled pineapple is on a salad.  The dressing recipe was interesting (healthy since it's completely oil free), but if I was going to make it again I'd definitely make a couple more adjustments.  I would omit the red onion from the dressing, since it is added raw on the salad anyway, and I would also make a much smaller amount.  The recipe made a whole lot of dressing, which I am now struggling to figure out what to do with.  Cutting the amounts by 1/4 would probably be a decent amount to make.  For your benefit, I will put these adjustments in the recipe below.

Growing up, I would enjoy sharing an avocado with my mom or dad, eating it right out of the skin with just a dash or two of salt.  However, it was not until more recently when I discovered the true versatility of this superfood and my obsession was spawned.  I have incorporated avocado into a number of the dishes I have made, from salads, to pasta sauce, and even desserts!  Not only are avocados extremely healthy fruits, they can be used in almost any dish and add an amazing creaminess as well.  Why use heavy cream when you can use a raw avocado instead!  Here are several of the avocado-based recipes that I have made and my notes on their success as well.  In my mind, you really can use avocado for anything and everything!

After realizing how fast my fiance and I were going through store bought dips (i.e. hummus, salsa, etc.) whenever they were in the house, I decided to start making them myself instead. I can make all 4 in about 30 minutes and then use them throughout the week for snacks/appetizers and incorporate them into meals. Not only is this significantly cheaper, but tastes much better too! Plus you can adjust the flavors/seasonings however you would like - all you need is a food processor.

While I was at Trader Joe's the other day, I picked up a package of their organic, precooked polenta.  I had never used polenta before and was very interested to try it out (granted, purchasing it precooked certainly made it much simpler to prepare).  So, like usual, I began searching through recipes that incorporated polenta into the dish.  I chose to modify/combine a few separate ones that turned out to work great together!  Unfortunately, I did forget to take a picture of this one..so I guess I will just have to make it again and add the picture onto this post.  I was also able to use up some of the leftover pesto that I still have from the Paleo pizza the other night.  This added some color and just the right amount of flavor on top of the baked polenta cakes. Romesco Roast Salmon

For tonight's dinner I decided to try a healthy, and gluten free, spin on a comfort food favorite, macaroni and cheese. I used gluten free rice shells for the pasta and created a lower fat and calorie cheese sauce utilizing cottage cheese as the base. For added flavor and color I included fresh vegetables in the mix. The result was a delicious yet light dish that I will definitely make again!

After a lot of searching for Paleo pizza recipes, I finally found a combination of crust/sauce/toppings that I wanted to try out.  I saw various recipes that used a Meatza crust, but I decided to go with a cauliflower and almond meal based crust.  The flavor turned out really nice with some nuttiness from the almond.  However, I do want to purchase a pizza stone for the next time I make this  crust.  The cookie sheet gave the crust perfectly crisp edges, but the middle was a little too soft to pick up a whole slice with your hands (or maybe this was because of all the toppings we added!).  Despite having to eat it with a fork and knife, the toppings all added great flavor to the pizza..The homemade sauce was nice and fresh, the ground beef was a good choice for meat, and the pesto I made may actually be my new favorite pesto recipe.  I also had a leftover leak and some olives to use up which ended up adding some great flavor as well, plus additional co...

Welcome to our cooking blog!  I am going to start off with a post on one of my first complete Paleo meals that I cooked earlier this week.  Both recipes turned out delicious and the flavors in both complemented each other well. Peeling the zucchini for the pasta was an interesting task.  The only kitchen tool I had that was even close to being able to produce a "noodle-like" form was a vegetable peeler.  It took a couple tries, but once I got the hang of it it wasn't too bad.  Just peel long enough strips to give it a thick fettuccine-like shape.  However, I do think that I will soon be purchasing a mandolin to make this task faster and easier. This was also my first time cooking with coconut oil.  I was surprised at how much coconut oil was left at the bottom of the pan after the zucchini had finished cooking.  I decided to drain the extra oil as the sauce already had enough oil mixed in to make it the appropriate texture. Feel free to add ...