Home made Dairy Free, Strawberry Ice Cream (and it's gluten free and vegan)

Last weekend I tried out a few new recipes – including home made non-dairy strawberry ice cream!

It’s really easy to make: 1 can of coconut milk, 2 cups of strawberries, ¼ cup of honey, and a tsp of vanilla. Blend together and let sit in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight.

Pour the mixture in the ice cream maker and voila! Awesome homemade ice cream without preservatives or dairy!

The texture is very similar to sorbet, very light, but loaded with strawberry taste. There is a hint of coconut, but nothing overpowering - if you are not a huge coconut lover.

You can freeze the remaining in a glass jar in the freezer and let stand for 10 minutes when you want seconds!

You could make this with any fruit I am sure – I think my next batch will be blueberries….

Namaste Brownie Mix - Product Review

I love anything chocolate - well ok, anything with sugar is fine, but chocolate is my favourite! I was excited to get my package in the mail yesterday with my Namaste Brownie Mix. I ordered from well.ca, and it was around $8 for the package which makes two 8X8 pans.

It's pretty simple to make - 2.5 cups of mix, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of oil, and 1/2 of water - mix in electric mixer and pour in pan.

The brownies bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes (give or take depending on your oven).

I always taste the batter because one, it reminds me of childhood baking, and two, it often gives me a good idea if the recipe is going to be fit to eat. I've found in my experiments, crappy batter = crappy products!

Once the brownies were finished baking, I had to wait 15 minutes for them to cool.....well, I may have sampled a small piece at the 8 minute mark.......

The taste was amazing! Chocolatey, gooey, and melt in your mouth happiness! If someone gave me one of these and I didn't know the difference, I would assume they were gluten-filled.

As with most baked goods, I freeze some so I can pop out a quick treat during the busy weeks!

You should try these - they are AMAZING! :D

Annie's Rice Pasta and Cheddar (aka Gluten free macaroni and cheese)

Mmmm, macaroni and cheese - always a good comfort food! The cheesy goodness and familiar blue Kraft dinner box reminds many people of their childhood.

While I was in Florida, I picked up a box of Annie's Rice Pasta and Cheddar. It was a little over $2 a box, and it retail here for around $4.

I do enjoy macaroni and cheese - however, I've found that gluten free pasta doesn't always cooperate when you are using it for baking (for homemade mac and cheese). I've been wanting to try this brand for awhile and yesterday I put it to the test!

The box says to cook the noodles for 10 minutes (I went with 8 due to the fact the noodles turn to mush if overcooked even a little), and mix the cheese powder with milk .

Once the noodles are drained, add 2 tsp of butter and the cheese mixture/milk, stir and enjoy!

So what did it taste like? Well, it was ok. I thought the noodles were a little large for box pasta, and the cheese flavour was fine, but not out of this world cheesy. It didn't taste bad, and I enjoyed the novelty of gluten free macaroni and cheese, but I'm not sure I would buy too many more in the future.

The product would be good for kids who like mac and cheese, or if you needed a quick meal or were travelling.

I know there are other Gluten Free varieties of Macaroni and Cheese out there so I'll have to seek them out~!

Gluten Free Double Chocolate Cookie by Green Table Foods

I recently purchased Double Chocolate Cookies by Green Table Foods from well.ca. It was a package of 2 and they were $1.99. The cookies were about the size of a Mrs. Field's cookie so it was a little larger than normal.

I was pleasantly surprised by the crunch and chewy ratio. It had a good crunch when with your first bite, and a nice chewy centre. I would place it as a hybrid of regular chips ahoy and chewy chips ahoy.

The taste was amazing, not too sweet, but packed a good chocolate hit. :)

This product does have soy (in the chocolate chips), but they use cane sugar instead of refined sugar.

 Each cookie is only 95 calories and has 4 grams of fiber! Even more reason to indulge in a quick treat!

Collard Greens Wraps

In this week's veggies basket there were lovely large Collard Greens leaves. They were just the right size for making wraps!

To improve the texture / ability to wrap, it's best to quickly place them in boiling water for 25-30 seconds until they turn bright green and then chill them in an ice bath before drying. For the extra wraps I didn't use, I placed them in a freezer bag and froze them until I needed them.

For the wrap "stuffing" you can literally use whatever you want. I had some purple onion, cheese, tomato, spinach and garlic scrapes which I mixed with salt and pepper, mustard and a touch of BBQ sauce.

Once I had the wrapping complete, I wrapped them in plastic wrap and cut in two pieces. For an added bonus, I purchased some organic roasted red pepper hummus to spread on them while eating.

These were delicious, healthy and quite filling!

Organic Greens (gluten free of course)

It's been a busy summer so far! The last couple of week I have been getting my organic veggie bag from a local organic farm. Tuesdays are always interesting because I have to figure out what to make out of the somewhat bizarre ingredients.

It's been pretty heavy on greens as it is still early in the season here in NL. Last week I had a bunch of mixed greens (also called braising mix). First I cooked bacon, then I sautéed onion, garlic and red pepper flakes in the bacon drippings, then boiled the greens for 35 minutes in chicken broth. It was very similar to this recipe.

The results were excellent! It tasted fantastic and also extremely healthy with the vitamins from the leafy greens :)

We have also been receiving salad mix which I love because summer is a great time for salads. As the salad mix is very delicate I usually just add red onions, tomato, and cheese. A great home-made salad dressing for these summer greens is a balsamic vinaigrette. Use 3 parts olive oil, then 1 part mustard and balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well.

Finally, we've had some napa cabbage, spinach, and broccoli raab. These are great in stirfrys - either veggie, chicken or beef!

Hope you are enjoying summer!