Grain-free, gluten-free, "paleo" granola; yummy, healthy treat!

Cranberry Walnut Paleo Granola, from Cook Eat Paleo

I cannot believe I've never posted a link to this recipe for Cranberry Walnut Paleo Granola from Cook Eat Paleo! I discovered it more than a year ago, and it's one of my favorite low-sugar, grain-free treats. I'm not doing the whole pure paleo thing, but there are components of the diet that line up with my nutrition philosophy, so I find paleo food blogs a great source for recipes.

I've made my own variation of the original Cranberry Walnut Paleo Granola version (notes below). I haven't made the Cinnamon Raisin Spice Paleo Granola, but it sounds incredibly tasty, too!

This would make a great sugar-free Christmas goody giveaway. (I've also put together a list of 12 Homemade Christmas Treats That Aren't Sweets.) It has no processed sugar, and is sweetened with a small amount of maple syrup, making it vegan-friendly, too.

And here's my version...

Cranberry Walnut Paleo Granola Recipe

I have halved and tweaked the original recipe. This fits nicely on a 10 x 15" cookie sheet; and the 4-cup measuring cup works perfectly for a mix-and-pour bowl.

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/2 cup coarsely chopped almonds
1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds without hulls)
1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut - larger flakes are better
1/8 teaspoon table salt (or 1/4 t. sea salt or kosher salt)
1 T. coconut oil, melted
1.5 T. maple syrup
1/2 cup dried cranberries and/or other dried fruit; I like to use these pre-chopped prune bits called "Amazins"

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Prepare a rimmed cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper, or lining it with foil that's oiled or sprayed.

Combine nuts, pepitas, and coconut in mixing bowl. Mix together coconut oil and maple syrup until well combined, and stir into nut mix.

Spread the mixture evenly on the prepared cookie sheet. Optional: sprinkle with 1/4 t. kosher  or sea salt.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until coconut is just lightly browned. (Your oven may vary.)

Remove from oven, add the dried cranberries and/or Amazins, and toss to combine. Cool completely before serving.
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Disclosure: links go to my Amazon store, but you can find them at your local grocery.

7 roasted sweet potato recipes (including the most beautiful sweet potato dish ever!)

I've never been a fan of the traditional sweet potato topped with marshmallow dish -- even as a child. But sans all that sugar, they are quite healthy, and delicious to boot! I love to make simple, stove-top mashed sweet potatoes, with a little butter, maple syrup, and cinnamon added at the end. Try it along with a salty and/or spicy pork chop - yum!

So I'm looking for some oven-roasted sweet potato recipes that recreate that same flavor profile for Thanksgiving this year, and I thought I'd share my research. Here are a few. (Spoiler: I'm saving the most beautiful one for last!)

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey and Cinnamon

By Tyler Florence, on Food Network. 5 stars, over 140 reviews.

Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes

By Ellie Krieger on Food Network; 5 stars, over 160 reviews. -- I like that this one goes light on the honey.

Cider Roasted Root Vegetables

By Elise at Simply Recipes. I always consult this site when looking for a new recipe; I have never had a bad dish here! This version sounds delicious. 

Branching out from straight-up roasting...

Crash Hot Sweet Potatoes

By Creekside Cook. The author says, "this post on my old blog was responsible for over 1 million hits." And I can see why! It sounds amazing. "Spicy, sweet, crunchy outside." But also a little time consuming. I probably won't try to pull these off for Thanksgiving, but they may get a chance on a less hectic day.

Here's an easier option...

Easy 15 Minute Roasted Sweet Potatoes

By Layers of Happiness. This recipe uses the microwave -- which I would totally do for an everyday meal! But I might try this same method in the oven for a special day.

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes with Chipotle Cream

by Chez Us -- The description on this one won me over: "After I baked the potatoes, I scooped out their flesh and mixed it with some fried pancetta, sauteed green onions, a little butter and sour cream and a handful of freshly grated Gouda. After re-baking the stuffed potato skins until warm, I topped each one with a slight dollop of chipotle sour cream."

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And here it is: this year's winner of the annual "Most Beautiful Sweet Potato Dish Award"! (Okay, that's not a thing, but when you see this, shouldn't it be?)

Crispy Sweet Potato Roast by Smitten Kitchen

Here's the author's summary:

You thinly slice a whole lot of sweet potatoes [you can use a mandolin or food processor] and arrange them in a butter and olive oil-brushed dish, and brush them with even more. ...slide slivers of shallots between... shower the whole thing with salt and black pepper... bake it covered long enough that the insides get tender, and uncovered long enough to get the tops brown and crispy.

This was posted six days ago, and as of today, it has 150 comments. Readers have been quick to share their own improvisations on the basic recipe. Here are some of the best (IMO)...

Reader tips and variations:

Add fresh rosemary and a splash of pure maple syrup towards the end.

I sprinkled feta and toasted pine nuts on top, instead of the salsa verde. It was amazing!

I crumbled feta cheese in the gaps and added some chili and lemon juice to the salsa verde and the result was great.

Very delicious. Sprinkled za’atar on top and made a sauce of yogurt, tahini, lemon, and a bit of salt.

I’ll be making this – with the addition of crisp pancetta and fresh thyme!

I am going to [replace] the scallions with poblanos and make a little chimichurri sauce to drizzle on top.

I usually do my holiday sweet potatoes with maple, chipotle, ancho, smoked paprika -- and fresh italian parsley on top after roasting.

The way I’ve been making them for years is in a gratin with a ton of garlic and salty butter and parmesan and breadcrumbs, the thinner the layer the better, b/c the top gets all crispy, crunchy with the parmesan and buttery breadcrumbs.

Have you ever tried chipotle chili powder with sweet potatoes? Life changing!

I made this tonight and topped with some leftover creme fraiche, it was great! The texture turned out perfectly. I used only 2 lbs of sweet potatoes and scaled everything down accordingly, but used all the same cooking times, 45 mins covered, 10 uncovered.

This was EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD! And reheated the next day in the toaster oven? Nom nom nom!

I made this tonight and it was GREAT. I added a bit of fresh thyme both underneath and on top! I halved the recipe and put it in a 1-quart oval dish. I also found that with really large potatoes I halved the slices and put the curved side up and they fit really well in the dish. At the end my oven didn’t brown it very well so I tossed it under the broiler and watched it like a hawk!

I made this with a mélange of sweet potatoes and russet, and added a teaspoon or so of dried sage, salt and pepper to the remaining butter/olive oil mixture… divine!

I topped it with thinned Mexican crema mixed with minced chipotle in adobo. It was a hit!

I have used a food processor to slice potatoes, and it works very well. You just have to buy potatoes whose diameter will fit in the tube, and then guide them / stabilise them with the pusher.

Also culled from the comments, a few extra tips from the author:

Cast iron does seem to give food a nice crisp... but I used a Pyrex baking dish last time I made this and it crisped up just fine.

In reply to reader's questions: "Do you do everything and bake it completely and then just reheat day of? Or do you arrange everything and bake the day-of?" — Either way will work.

Re, thin slices — Yes, I use a mandoline.... Re, protecting your fingers, I have one rule: the last inch isn’t worth it! I just don’t use the slicer for the last inch of whatever I’m cutting. I’ll hand-chop it. All of my fingers are intact, so I’d say this system is working out for me. :)

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All images by the respective blog owners.

Chai Tea for Two (latte, if you like)

I  remember the first time I tasted chai, in a friend's kitchen. The creamy texture and slightly spiced flavor took me by surprise. "Oh wow!" I said. "This is like drinking pumpkin pie!"

image: livesimply.me

Since that first taste, I've loved chai, but I don't drink it often because if you make it with a purchased mix or buy it in a coffee shop, it's usually loaded with sugar. However, inspired by this recipe for Chai Tea Latte from Live Simply (and modified to reduce the syrup), I've been making this the past couple days, and it's the perfect cold-weather pick-me-up when you want something richer than plain tea. (The original recipe makes enough for four servings, so you can enjoy one right away and then keep the extra on hand in the fridge. Smart! I love make-aheads!)

It uses maple syrup for the sweetener, but you can substitute the sugar or sweetener of your choice. I also replaced the half-and-half with culinary coconut milk; the canned kind; not the thinner stuff that comes in quart cartons. But you can use half-and-half, or another dairy substitute that you like. I've also streamlined the process a bit because, well, I'm impatient! I use a ready-made spice mix. And I use the microwave, and just let it steep for two or three minutes. But if you're patient and have the time, you can let it steep the full five minutes at each step.

Chai mixture:
1 cup water
1-1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice or apple pie spice*
1 tea bag or about 1.5 teasp. loose tea -- any unflavored black tea will do
1 TB pure maple syrup
1 or 2 grinds of freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Latte additions:
1/2 cup milk of your choice     

    (recommended: something rich and somewhat fatty, like coconut milk or half-and-half.)

maple syrup to taste

Put the water and spice mix in a glass measuring cup or other microwave-safe container and heat until it steams. Take it out, and let sit for at least two and up to five minutes. Cut open the tea bag and pour the contents into the hot water. Add a couple grinds of black pepper if you like. Return it to the microwave and heat again till steaming. Let it steep for three to five minutes.

While it's steeping, prepare the milk. Heat it slightly in the microwave. Do NOT let it boil. 

Frothing the milk is optional -- but it's the thing that takes this drink from chai to chai latte. There are various ways to froth the milk. You can do this with a stick blender, or by hand, using this method, or just by holding a wire whisk and rolling it quickly between your palms like this: 

(The baby orangutan is optional.)

At this time, you can also preheat your two serving cups, to help the chai stay hotter. Fill them with the hottest water that will come out of your tap, and let that sit till you're ready to serve.

Once the tea is done steeping, dump the hot water out of your serving cups. Pour the tea mixture through a fine sieve into another container. Rinse the sieve, then pour through it again as you're decanting the tea into each serving cup. Top with even portions of the milk, and taste to see if you want more sweetness; sweeten to taste.

Then snuggle into a cozy chair and drink that pumpkin pie!

*If you don't have pumpkin pie or apple pie spice mix, you may use:
1 whole clove (optional)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
pinch ground nutmeg (optional)
pinch ground allspice (optional)

Emergency peanut butter cookies

Midnight: you've got a bad cookie craving. What to do? Making a whole batch of cookies is a recipe for waking up to regrets! This is perfect: a quick, easy peanut butter cookie recipe with a batch size of two.

Oh, and by the way, they're sugar-free. Sweetened with good ol' maple syrup! (Which is important for vegans, and those of us trying to avoid white or brown sugar. Learn more.)

This recipe is from Chocolate Covered Katie's blog, but I've neatened it up a bit.

Quick, easy sugar-free peanut butter cookies

Makes two cookies.

• 2 T. flour (I used white whole wheat)
• 1/16 tsp baking soda
• generous pinch of salt
• 1.5 T. peanut butter
• 1.5 T. maple syrup
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• optional: add some chocolate chips if you wish!

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a cereal bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix well and form into two blobs on a parchment-covered cookie sheet. Flatten into cookie shapes (use a fork, and wipe it clean between the first and second cookie). 

Bake in preheated oven for 8-11 minutes. Check at 8 minutes, and add one to two minutes at a time until it's lightly browned in some areas.

Let cool for as long as you can stand it. Enjoy with a glass of milk, if you like. Wake up in the morning with no regrets about having devoured too many cookies the night before!

Fructose is the new "Fat"

So, last night, I picked up The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease and perused it in the book store. It's by an MD and a PhD, and is backed up with lots of studies. In it, the authors explain why sugar, corn syrup and anything high in fructose are so harmful to our bodies in general and especially our heart health. The quick summary: because they're processed first by the liver. (This article by the editor of Harvard Health Publications provides a quick and easy to understand summary of the subject.)

Which isn't to say that ANY fructose is bad; it's just the over-prevalence in the modern American diet that is problematic. A meta-analysis published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reached the conclusion that "obesity and diabetes rates were low when total [dietary] fructose intake was in the range of 25–40 g/d [grams per day]," adding the caution that, "Conclusions as to the safe and prudent amounts of fructose consumption will require carefully controlled dose-responses studies in different populations...."

This has prompted me to do some research on fructose found in various types of sweet substances. Here are some things I've discovered...

Here is a University of Vermont study (See Table 1) which found that higher grades of maple syrup -- those that are lighter in color -- may contain lower levels of fructose than their darker cousins.

A short list of the highest offenders, from the Wheat Belly Blog by Dr. William Davis:

Where do you find fructose? Fructose can be found in (roughly in order from worst to least):

• Agave

• High-fructose corn syrup

• Sucrose (white sugar)

• Honey

• Maple syrup

Self Magazine's incredibly helpful nutrition database has a page listing more than 700 foods highest in fructose. 

And here's the opinion of one Paleo dieter, from a forum thread on PaleoHacks:

The monosaccharide form of fructose, which is found in corn syrup, is supposed to be the most harmful. Surprisingly, the honey has about 42gm of monosaccharide fructose per 100gm serving, while molasses has about 13gm and maple syrup has about 4gm (source). So with regard to monosaccharide fructose, maple syrup would appear to be the least toxic.
However, in the previous thread on honey, studies are cited which show that honey does not have the same harmful effects as other sweeteners, and may even be beneficial. This is probably because honey is a whole food whose ingredients have complex interactions that somehow mitigate some of the possible harm from the fructose.

(Update, 3/12/13) And here's a great post on Green Lite Bites, exploring the nutritional aspects of several natural sweeteners.

Probably more info to come...

I am not a health professional and this post is not intended to be professional medical advice.

photo credit: Wikimedia