(I have so much gratitude to give to Hungry Hobby for their savory oat sandwich bread recipe! It saved my newly minted and ongoing gluten-free life. I needed “bread” options, and this recipe is a life saver!!!)
Once again, I’ve tweaked and twinkled to get a delightful, nutritious, good-for-me yummy! I make it year round, but with the cinnamon and nutmeg and sweet potato … it makes me think of Fall, Thanksgiving/Gratitude-Giving and happiness!
It seriously takes all of a few minutes to mix, 5 minutes to sit in the baking dish to set, and 45 minutes to bake. Then devour!
Ingredients and How-To:
2 3/4 cup course oatmeal flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 can sweet potato puree
1/8 cup milk
2 eggs
Mix all the dry ingredients in your big mixing bowl really well. Add in all the wet ingredients. Mix thouroughly, and dump/spread into greased/sprayed loaf pan. Let sit for 5 minutes to set up. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes. Cool, slice, devour!
For those of you not ready to cut out sugar, you could add up to 2 tbsp of sugar. But … maybe try without first.
This sweet potato oatmeal bread pairs really well with a hot ginger cinnamon tea/milk!!! OMG! Also pairs really well with turkey breast … drooooooooooooooool! It will definitely be part of my Gratitude-Giving Day dinner celebration!!!
Now you can put all of this in a chopper/processor to get a finer munch … I do, sometimes … it helps me not have to chew for a hundred years, lol, plus, it provides for a unified taste, which I love! Or you can keep the seeds and nuts whole, which I also do, sometimes. Your happy choice!
From here, I add:
3 tbsp of cacoa nibs
3 tbsp of coconuts chips
a heapful of freeze-dried strawberries and/or blueberries
sometimes I add freeze dried banana chips
sometimes I add dried apples rings
the possibilities are endless.
It’s worth noting I mix up the ingredients of choice all of the time, swapping in any variety of nuts and seeds I like: walnuts, sesame seeds, etc. Sometimes, I make efforts to cycle my seeds for improving hormone balance, but sometimes, I’m just happy to gobble.
Just in case you’re wondering, seed cycling means eating pumpkin seeds and ground flax seeds in the first half of your cycle to support estrogen production, and eating sunflower and ground sesame seeds in the second half for progesterone production. Feel free to web search this topic … it’s quite interesting … and I’m all about giving my body nutrients it needs to do all the hard work it is doing for me!!!
Also, my love muffin, Pauli, thinks this is “dry,” and he hates “dry” foods … so if you want to wet it up, consider yogurt, froyo, a lightly sweetened vanilla pudding, etc. I make my own vanilla pudding and have combined them … so good. So options for you!!! Although, having mentioned Pauli isn’t about “dry” foods, he has come to love his daily nut munch, and eagerly asks me to make some for him, too (admittedly, tho, he requests mini chocolate chips and raisins in his, instead of the berries) … but my honeybun is eating healthy goodness, and that’s WON-DER-FUL!!!
And of course, because gluten-free is essential for me, this is a gluten-free dish!
Oh, and just a quick side note for those of you who might be freeeeeeeeaking out about the “fat” in this dish … worried it’s gonna “fatten you up.” I can tell you this. I eat a big bowl of this practically everyday, along with my anti-inflammatory minded daily foods (and lots of them, cuz when you’re eat’n healthy, for nourishment and wellness, you get A LOT of room to eat LOTS of goodness, all while reaping the exciting benefits of achieving healthy weight. … Meaning, I eat this big ol’ bowl of “fat” along with a ton of other foods (Pauli marvels at how much I eat and calls me a bottomless pit), and my weight averages about 119 lbs for a 5’5″ person. (And I’m not over here doing hours of cardio to burn it all off, either. I do my daily yoga, meditation, 2 minutes of gentle rebounding, and about 15 minutes of gentle walking or dancing [spiced up walking] … remember, I suffer from fatigue issues, so I can’t be marathoning anything!) So … eat well, and don’t worry about “fattening up” … you’re body will heal and seek healthiness naturally. … I don’t know if this reassurance helps you not be afraid, but I can assure you this is a really nutrient dense bowl of goodness to eat. Love you so big!
Well, I sure hope you will give this a try, because, it is truly delicious and ridickerously good for you!
Sending you my biggest love and most gigantic hugs!
Here it is! My recipe for Cherry Dessert Danish, as promised! This is one of Pauli’s favorite desserts, and every person I’ve ever made it for giddy claps for it again and again, so I hope you love it!!!
I’ll walk you through this easy peasy, uber yummy for your taste buds and tummy dessert … with pictures the whole way through.
Overall, you’ll need 4 main parts to bring your dessert Danish together:
1 tube of Crescent Rolls (Yep, I cheat on this one, lol. But we still buy organic to make these fully organic for Pauli.)
Ooey Gooey Cherry Filling
Yummy Tummy Streusel Topping
Sweet Kiss Glaze
First up. The Ooey Gooey Cherry Filling.
Ooey Gooey Cherry Filling:
1 bag of frozen dark sweet cherries
2 tsp of cornstarch
small sauce pan
spoon
measuring spoon
cutting board and knife (optional)
Now, of course, you could use any ol’ can of cherry pie filling you want if you want … but really, this is fast and easy, and way better scratch-made!
I personally like to cut up my cherries into small little bits (thus, cutting board and knife), but I’ll leave that up to you and your preference. You don’t have to cut them up. I just do it because I like the bite sizeyness of it!
So I cut up my cherries into lil bits, and add them to my sauce pan. Add in 2 tsp of cornstarch, and start stirring over medium heat until the cherries thaw, heat up, and the cornstarch thickens the juice into a pie filling like thickness. (You do not need to add any water, as the cherries will thaw and juice naturally.) (Also, you could add sugar if you want – like a can of store bought cherry pie filling. But honestly, you don’t need it. The cherries are already sweet and yummy all on their own. And it’s a place you can omit the sugar, and you won’t miss it. Your body will thank you!!!)
Heat up bag of frozen cherries with 2 tsp of cornstarch over medium heat until thickened … about 5-ish minutes.
Here’s what your cherries look like when they are all yummy gooey’d up!
Next up, Yummy Tummy Streusel Topping :
½ cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup softened butter
Small bowl
Spoon
In small bowl combine 1/2 cup flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon, and 1/4 cup butter.
Here’s what the crumble topping looks like all mixed up: flour, sugar, cinnamon, softened butter.
And last to premix/premake before assembly, let’s make the, Sweet Kiss Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tbsp of milk
½ – 1 tsp of vanilla to taste
Small bowl
Spoon
In small bowl, mix together 1 cup of powdered sugar, 2-3 tbsp of milk (enough to get drizzle consistency for the glaze), 1/2 – 1 tsp of vanilla (to taste). Yep, it’s that easy. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the glaze mixing step. Just mix until smooth and drizzle-worthy.)
Assembly Time!!!! PREHEAT OVEN TO 375 degrees F!
Pop open your can of crescent rolls and separate into 2 “columns” of dough on your baking sheet. (I recommend lining your baking sheet with baking paper for easier cleanup as this assembly will get a little, but happily, messy.) The crescent triangles might try to separate a bit; if so, just gently smoosh ’em back together.
Using either a knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough with matching slices on each side of the column. You’ll be folding them over after you put the cherry filling in.
What your crescent roll dough should look like after you cut it. When you are making the cuts, just make sure NOT to cut all the way through to the other side. You want fold-able flaps, not strips.
Next, spoon about half of the cherry filling down the center of each Danish column.
Adding the cherry filling down the center of the Danish dough columns.
Now you can fold the dough flaps up and over the cherry filling. The flaps can touch, but they don’t have to, and most likely won’t for the whole Danish strip. It’s okay. It’s how it works!
Fold-able flaps can touch or not. You don’t have to feel like you need to stretch them or anything. Just gently lay them across the cherry filling.
Now the excitement starts to kick in … you can start to see how the Danishes are coming together when you sprinkle the crumble streusel topping on. Simply, gently spoon on the crumble streusel topping (roughly half for each Danish). It’s okay if the topping crumbles off to the sides a little bit. You can try scooping it back on, but sometimes it just wants to fall onto the pan. Let it go. It’s okay.
What your unbaked Danishes look like after you spoon on the crumble streusel topping.
Time to Bake, and then Glaze!
Now, it’s time to bake these tummy yummy Danishes. Bake the Danishes at 375 degrees F for 11 – 14 minutes until the dough looks lightly golden brown.
You don’t have to wait, but I encourage you to let the Danishes cool for about 10 minutes, or even more, … so that when you drizzle on the glaze it doesn’t completely melt away.
Once your Danishes have cooled a little bit, using your spoon, drizzle on your glaze. I do crisscross back-n-forth motions up and down each Danish until I’ve used up all of the glaze. Pauli’s mouth waters the whole time, while he has to wait. Once we get to this stage, he starts pouring his very large glass of milk! LOL, but for realz!
From here, you can slice your Danishes into whatever serving size calls your taste buds, tummy, and heart. Pauli like 3 1/2 – 4″ wide slices. Once the Danishes are fully cooled, we freeze whatever he doesn’t eat the first night. That way, he has snacks on demand whenever he wants.
Danishes complete! YUMMY!!!! Gobble to your heart’s content!!!
And that, my sweet lovely honeybuns, is how you make Pauli’s Cherry Dessert Danishes! So easy! Soooooooooooooo YUMMY!!! If I could still eat gluten, I would gobble these up, and Pauli and I would race to eat the most! LOL. As it is, those days are in the past for me. Awww, boo face. But it’s okay. If you missed my Cherry Crumble a la mode recipe, that’s how I get my gluten-free fix now – and it’s truly delicious as well!
Pauli and I hope you enjoy your Cherry Dessert Danishes to the yummy in your tummy max!!!
Until next week …
Loving you Big Time and Hugging you Tightly!!! Would love to see a pic of you gobbling up your new dessert!!! Feel free to write me at marykate at loveandbighugs.com.
Love and Big Hugs,
More Happiness from Mary Kate
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Flu/cold season is here. A day doesn’t go by that I’m not reading about one of my peeps falling down to a mean bug of some sort. Ugh! I hate being sick!!! So let’s talk about one of the most healing foods you can ever eat:
Chicken Bone Broth!
Why is chicken bone broth so healing? Well for starters, it’s chockful of helpful, healing proteins like collagen and gelatin. These help your intestines, skin, and joint health.
Your intestines are Super Important for your immune system, so if you keep your gut healthy, it will help you stay healthy and fight illness and injury better. Which is wonderful and amazing!!! Plus, who doesn’t love glowing, healthy skin, and joints that move?
Additionally, if you add salt to your broth while cooking and/or to taste afterwards, the salt and the hydration provided by the bone broth will help maintain and restore your electrolytic balance, which can get wonky when you’re sick. Have you ever had achy muscles and spasms while sick? That’s often your body telling you your electrolytes are wonky, or that you are dehydrated. I used to drink sports drinks to help, but they’re filled with sugars and artificial colorings. Bone broth is a healthier choice!!!
Also, the hydration helps heal damaged membranes, and SUPER BIG TIME,the hydration helps you flush the bug out!!! YES, PLEASE!!!
The warm broth and salt can help soothe a sore throat, too.Also, I add table pepper while cooking, and to taste at the table. This helps loosen congestion big time. I love this for helping with my allergies, too. I gobble my soup and keep the tissues handy. I love when I can breathe freely again!
So with that, I just want to add … don’t think bone broth is just for kicking bugs to the curb.
It’s SO MUCH MORE!
Bone broth is a super anti-inflammatory, healing food. When you need to heal from illness, injury, stress, life, etc., bone broth is my go-to and at the top of my healing list along with blueberries, walnuts, broccoli, and sustainably, wild-caught salmon. Help your body heal, so you can feel better faster!!!
Let’s talk recipe!
My bone-brothing method of choice: the slow cooker. I love tossing everything into the pot, and letting it do it’s thing.
My recipe will take you veggie prep time + 12 hours of cooking time + rapid cooling time, and an overnight chill.
Here’s what you’ll need: (I have an 8 qt slow cooker, but I’ve also used a 3 qt. I’m going to put the quantities for the 3 qt cooker in (parentheses), so you can still make it easily if you’re going small batch.)
(2
lbs) 4 lbs chicken wings
(3)
5 carrots
(3)
5 celery sticks
(1/2
– 1) 1 medium/large onion
(1
½) 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Water
Salt
and Pepper
Here’s what you do:See pictures below for fun, happy visuals!
Clean and prep your veggies however you like. Some folks I know rinse and toss them in whole, skins and all. That’s not me. I’m a peel-my-carrots, cut-off-the-tops-of-my-carrots-and-celery, and peel-off-the-outer-skin-layer-to-my-onions kind of girl. You do you, and it will work out just fine!
Layer your chicken wings into the bottom of your pot.
Add in veggies.
Place chicken and veggies in slow cooker.
Add water, apple cider vinegar, salt, & pepper. Cover and turn heat on.
Fill with water (for the big pot, that’s about 18 –
20 cups of water. Can’t remember the
small pot. Maybe 8 – 10 cups?).
Add in apple cider vinegar!!!
If this sounds wonky, it’s not.
It’s IMPORTANT!!! You’ll never
taste it in the end – trust me. I have
the most sensitive taste buds you can imagine, and I can’t taste it. I’m the kid who’ll turn up her nose at
chocolate cake made with sour cream, cuz I can taste it … blehcky. So I promise you. You won’t taste the apple cider vinegar. But it’s necessary to help extract all that
healing bone protein goodness!!! So DO
IT!!!
Shake in some salt and pepper.
I add a couple of shakes to start here in the cooking process, but leave
the real seasoning for at the table.
That way peeps can control their salt intake better. Plus, some days I like more salt and pepper
to taste, and other days, I go mild. I
like having eating-time options.
Cover with the lid. Turn the heat on high until it comes to a
simmer. Turn heat to low. Cook for 12 hours!
After 12 hours of cooking.
Scoop out chunks and pour through
strainer into big bowl.
Spoon out big chunks, then pour through strainer to get smaller bits out.
Cool using an ice bath. Takes about 10 minutes. This step is a safety step. When I was researching bone broth recipes, I learned lots. And chefs are particularly dedicated to safe handling. They encourage using an ice bath to rapidly bring down the temp of the broth, preventing bacterial growth that can happen during slow cooling. Also, putting simmering hot soup straight into your fridge or freezer to cool, raises the temp inside your fridge or freezer significantly and can affect your other foods. So, again. You do you. If you have a soup making cooling method you love … go with it! Whatever works for you! I do the ice bath to especially not have to put the hot soup right into my fridge.
Remove from ice bath, then Cover and place into your fridge overnight.
Rapid cool in ice bath for safest cooling.
After overnight chill in fridge, gently scrape off solid fat.
Gently scrape off excess fat. You will reveal the gelatinous, happy, healthy, healing bone broth goodness!!!!
You can now heat up your portion and salt, pepper, and season to taste … and devour!!! I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE adding thyme to my soup! It’s my favorite, and I think it makes the most delicious broth. If you want to give it a try, I usually add a few good shakes to my bowl after I heat it up, and then I devour it!!! Thyme also has wonderful healing benefits – so added tasty, healing bonus!
The gelatinous goodness you see is your bone broth telling you did a perfect job! This bone broth is ready to heat, season, and serve, or turn into chicken soup to serve!
Okay. So. From the gelatinous state, you can totally heat, sip, and devour your chicken bone broth as is. Orrrrrrrrrrr, if you like, you can turn it into chicken/veggie bone broth soup! This is what I do almost every time!
You can add whatever you want: baked/boiled chicken chunks, veggies, noodles, rice, herbs, etc. I will say this, though, the closer you stick to broth, veggies, and herbs, the more you maintain the anti-inflammatory nature of the soup. Adding in chicken, rice, and/or noodles would minimize that effect a bit. For instance, all rice – organic, brown, wild, … all – has arsenic in it. There are tolerable limits for arsenic in your weekly diet (usually no more than 2 servings of rice per week), but if you are using the bone broth for its healing qualities, you may want to consider NOT adding in foods that diminish its awesome power.
At this stage for me, I’m definitely an “I eyeball it” kinda girl. For my big pot of stock, I usually add:
3 cleaned, trimmed, peeled, and sliced carrots
3 cleaned, trimmed, and sliced celery sticks
½ – ¾ diced yellow onion
1 tablespoon of the chicken fat I removed earlier (you can use a veggie oil if you prefer)
Salt, pepper, and thyme to taste, at the table
Make chicken soup! Gently heat veggies and oil over low-medium heat for about 5 minutes. Then add in gelatinous bone broth. Simmer on low for 30 minutes.
Here’s what I do:
I gently cook/soften the veggies in the chicken fat; over low-medium heat; for about 5 – 10 minutes.
Add in the gelatinous bone broth, 1 cup measuring scoop at a time. (There is usually a layer of fine particulate “sludge” at the bottom of the pan, which I do not use. It looks sludgy to me, and that gets my nose rolled up at it … I wash it down the drain. You can decide for yourself what you want to do with it. Use it or toss it.)
Bring to simmer. Cook for about 30 – 40 minutes.
Portion and serve. Add salt, pepper, and thyme to taste. YUMMO!!!
At this time, I usually portion all remaining soup into lidded, glass, individual-serving-size freezer bowls. And then I put all these extra servings in the freezer, making them quick gets for any time I want or need some YUMMO soup and healing power!!!
Season to taste – ready – DEVOUR!!!
Now that you are empowered to make your very own chicken bone broth, let’s talk about some thoughts and considerations that might be important to you:
Given that you are making bone broth in which you intend to cook down to the bone and extract the healthy goodness, it is advisable to use the best quality ingredients to fully enhance and ensure healthy goodness. Consider organic, free-range chicken and organic veggies, apple cider vinegar, pepper, and herbs.If ever there was a time to cook pesticide-, added hormones-, and antibiotic-free, this is it. Cooking down to the bone pulls these contaminants out even more, and that’s not in your best health interest. I have calculated my cost (using entirely organic and free-range ingredients) at $1 – $2 a serving (depending on how big of a bowl I want!!! Sometimes I eat a double serving, cuz it’s that good!!!) Even at $2 a bowl, this is not a lot to spend on healthy goodness (especially when you think of what you pay for a serving of fast food these days).
If you prefer adding in herbs or other veggies earlier on (things like bay leaves, garlic, leeks, etc., for instance), go for it! It’s your soup. Make it yours!!! For me, I like the delicious flavor of a simple broth enhanced with some thyme, salt, and pepper. That’s me. What do your taste buds want? Do that!!!
A 12 hour cook time is actually on the shorter end of cooking time for bone broths. My research found that you can actually cook chicken bone broth up to 72 hours. Duuuuuude! Like I’m gonna wait that long! LOL. Actually, there’s 2 real notes here.One, the longer you cook your broth, the more gelatinous goodness you will extract. This can definitely be a good thing!!! Two, if you cook your veggies longer than 12 hours, they will get bitter and mess with the flavoring of your broth. If you plan to cook longer than 12 hours, you can either try scooping out just the veggies (sounds miserable in even trying) or you could bind them in a cooking cheesecloth bag or something for easy extraction. Just know that if you desire to cook your broth longer to get more of the gelatinous protein healing goodness, you will want an action plan for getting the veggies out after 12 hours to avoid having the soup get bitter with the veggies.
I saw some recipes in which peeps blended up the cooked veggies to “add nutritional value and extra thickness” to the broth. I’ll leave this one up to you. What I can tell you is that after cooking the veggies for 12 hours, I tasted them to see if they were still “usable” and yummy. My answer is a resounding NO – they’re yucky!!! After 12 hours of cooking, I feel they have been used of all their goodness and are ready to be disposed of. To me, if you want to add new, fresh veggies for new nutritious and yummy goodness, that’s the way to make delicious soup from the broth.
A quick ice bath cautionary: when you fill up your sink or a tub with ice and water to make your ice bath, please note, that when you put your broth/pan into the ice bath, it might have buoyancy. Be prepared to hold it steady or have some help. It would totally suck to spill your broth into your ice bath after all that cooking.
And that should do it! You are bone brothing ready!!! Get in there and make yourself some happy, healthy, healing goodness to warm you and delight your taste buds!!! And heal you right on up!!!
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May you tackle this flu/cold season illness free! May your holiday season be filled with laughter, love, kindness, gratitude, and joy! Thank you for being here with me … I love spending this time with you!!!
