It's over 100 here in Southern California, and I've been cooling off with some sugar-free treats made with real fruit.
The cantaloupe mousse (above) is moussier, while the watermelon is more like watermelon jello. Both can be served frozen or just chilled.
Cantaloupe Mousse
1/2 cup raspberry liqueur
1 1/2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 medium canteloupe, seeds removed and scooped out of the rind
2 teaspoons pure stevia extract
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Pour the liqueur into a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the gelatin over it,
then bring to a boil, stirring in the gelatin. Boil for about a minute,
then set aside to cool. In a blender, mush the melon (sorry, couldn't
think of a better term. :) It just needs to be mushy, not melony. What
can I say?) Add stevia, yogurt, and gelatin mixture and blend. Pour the
mixture into serving-size containers and chill for a few hours. You can
either chill it in the refrigerator for a pudding-like consistency, or
in the freezer for something more like frozen mousse.
Watermelon Mousse
1/2 cup lime juice
1 sprig mint
1 1/2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 seedless watermelon, scooped out of the rind
2 teaspoons pure stevia extract
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Pour the lime juice into a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the gelatin over
it,
then bring to a boil, stirring in the gelatin. Boil for about a minute,
then set aside to cool. In a blender, mush the melon. Add stevia,
yogurt, and gelatin mixture and blend. Pour the mixture into
serving-size containers and chill for a few hours. You can either chill
it in the refrigerator for a gelatin-like consistency, or in the
freezer for something more like frozen mousse.
Loyal reader Krista told me awhile back that she makes cake from a mix using pumpkin instead of the usual eggs and oil you are supposed to add. If you are a regular reader, you will know how much I LOVE pumpkin, so I jumped at the chance to try it out in a new and simple way. Basically, you combine a 15-ounce can of pumpkin with a box of cake mix, then follow the baking directions on the box. I did this with gluten-free vanilla cake mix, added a little nutmeg and cinnamon, and iced it with some dairy-free frosting (with almond milk instead of soy milk). Mmm... I ate a piece (Yes, even though I am not supposed to eat sugar. Then I took a nap. The sacrifices I must make for this blog!) Then left the remainder at home alone with my burly Alaskan husband. It was gone the next time I checked.
Have trouble finding cake mix? 1-2-3 Gluten Free will ship a variety of cake mixes that are friendly to all kinds of allergies. (They don't pay me to say that. They just make good cake mix.)
Every year for the last 5 or 6 years I've made hazelnut truffles for friends, co-workers, etc for Christmas. Last year, I couldn't eat them but I made them anyway. Yes, I was that much of a martyr, and no, I am not going to do it again. Fortunately, I have found that there are ways to make truffles without dairy or cane sugar. Yeah, I know those are like 2 of the 3 key truffle ingredients. Trust me, though, when I say these pumpkin truffles are even better than the hazelnut truffles I used to make. And it's not all in my chocolate-deprived little head. Everyone who has had them is raving about them!
Ready? Here's the recipe:
Pumpkin Truffles
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 tablespoon minced ginger root
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 cup pumpkin puree, (about 1/2 15 ounce can)
3/4 cup honey
Break the chocolate into chunks and put the chunks in a metal bowl.
Heat the pumpkin and the honey in a medium saucepan over medium high heat, stirring regularly to keep it from burning. As it starts to heat up, slowly add and stir in 1/4 cup of water. Add the spices, and raise the heat to high. Keep heating until the mixture starts to bubble. Pour it over the chocolate, covering as much of the chocolate as possible. Allow it to sit about 2 minutes to give the chocolate a chance to soften.
Whisk the truffle mixture until all the lumps are gone. Put the bowl in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours until the mixture is fairly firm. Using a melon baller, scoop up balls of the truffle mixture and roll them into nicely-shaped 1/2" balls. Roll them in the coating of your choice:
-Toasted and chopped nuts
-Ground cinnamon
-Ground dried ginger (if you use this, I suggest leaving it out of the recipe)
-Powdered sugar (good, although it kind of defeats the point of not having cane sugar in the recipe)
Where I grew up in rural Ohio, the county fair was a big deal. I didn't raise animals, but a lot of my friends did, so I'd go check out the animals and maybe catch the demolition derby. The Los Angeles County Fair down the road from where I live now, is a bit, um, different. (More couture, less manure.)
Regardless of where you live, there is something about fair food that gets everyone salivating. I saw a photo of one popular fair food this year--the deep-fried chocolate strawberry in waffle batter-- and thought I HAD to try it. Here's a wheat-free, cane-sugar free version.
Continue reading "And you thought they'd already thought of frying everything already..." »
It's stinking hot where I live, so I've been trying to find a way to make popsicles that I can eat that aren't tooth-chipping blocks of ice. That can be a bit of a challenge, since sugar and dairy are the two things that make popsicles easy to bite into. I've finally found a couple that work, and I've got to say the chocolate coconut ones are my favorite food for this summer. They're like frozen Mounds bars. The other ones are good, too. They're still not as soft as pudding pops or some kind of ice cream on a stick, but they're softer than the other dairy and sugar free concoctions I've tried.
Chocolate coconut popsicles
1 can coconut milk
2 tablespoons pure cocoa powder (read the label--some cocoa powders have milk in them)
1/4 teaspoon pure stevia (again, read the label. Why must everything be mixed with milk??)
2 tablespoons dried coconut flakes
Whisk ingredients together. There will be little lumps of cocoa powder. That's okay. They are little bursts of chocolate flavor when you eat the popsicle, and if you don't like them for some reason, you don't have to eat them because wind up at the base of the popsicle.
Pour the liquid into popsicle molds or paper cups. If you're using paper cups, put craft sticks upright in the mixture. Freeze 3-4 hours, and enjoy.
Just Coconut Popsicles
Use the recipe listed above without the cocoa powder.
Choco Banana Pudding Pops
1 package sugar free banana flavored pudding
2 cups chocolate-flavored unsweetened almond milk
Whisk ingredients together and let the pudding solidify. It will be a little runnier than pudding is when you make it with milk.
Pour the liquid into popsicle molds or paper cups. If you're using paper cups, put craft sticks upright in the mixture. Freeze 3-4 hours. Run under hot water for 30-40 seconds, remove the mold or peel off the paper cups, and enjoy.
You can substitute whatever ice cream fits your diet. The topping is
cane sugar free (and actually pretty good by itself, I must humbly
admit)
1 cup port wine
1 sticks cinnamon
2 slices orange
2 cloves (optional)
1/2 cup dried cherries
1 pint vanilla ice cream
honey
Bring port, orange slices, cinnamon, and cloves to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove spices. Add cherries, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Pour over ice cream, drizzle with honey, and serve.
Another lovely photo by my friend Kellee.
When I was in college, I spent a summer in the Loire Valley of France. I used most of my money getting there, so I couldn't go running to all corners of Europe each weekend like some of the other students. Fortunately for me, the valley had a chateau and a winery around every bend in the road. I had some Wal Mart hiking boots and an aching desire to see the chateaux on my own instead of in the massive tour groups that roamed the countryside. My host mother thought I was kind of strange, hiking every which way in my cheap boots when I could just take a bus. She was even more taken aback by my appetite, always muttering in amazement to herself over how much walking I did and how much I ate. I definitely cost her more than the average exchange student, being home for so many meals and eating so much at each one.
I convinced a fellow student to take a weekend hiking trip to some nearby chateaux, and we decided to visit a goat farm en route that she had heard of. The enterprising farmer had dubbed it an "etape gourmande", a place for tourists with discriminating palates to stop and eat. We found it a few hours later in the day than we expected to, arriving dusty, sweaty, probably smelly, and extremely hungry. Maybe my ravenous hunger enhanced the taste, but we ate what I remember as one of the best meals I've ever had. In any case, it sparked what has become a life-long love of goat cheese.
One of the dishes I had there was some sort of grilled goat cheese with pineapple. How they grilled the soft cheese, I do not know. It even had grill marks on it, but I still had to eat it with a spoon. Maybe the grill marks were painted on. Maybe I was hallucinating from the sun and heat. Whatever the case, I have not been able to successfully replicate the grilled dish. I have crafted this dish, however, in homage to my formative experience at the farm. I would never have thought of goat cheese as a dessert ingredient if it hadn't been for that meal. The honey really cuts the sharper flavor characteristic of the cheese and brings out the sweet and creamy undertones.
Pineapple & Goat Cheese Dessert
1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 8-ounce log of soft white goat cheese (usually
labeled chevre)
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons almond milk, soy milk, or water
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal (optional)
2 tablespoons pistachio bits (optional)
Blend the cheese, honey, and milk in a food processor until the mixture is fluffy. (The flaxseed makes it a little fluffier and adds a bit of nutty flavor, but it is not essential to the recipe. If you do use it, blend it in the food processor with the other ingredients listed above.) Divide the pineapple slices between four plates. Put a dollop of cheese mixture on top of each serving and sprinkle it with pistachios.
