BREAKFAST QUINOA BANANA CRUNCH

It is best to start the morning with some nutrition, and Protein is often forgotten amongst the typical boxed cereals and pancake breakfasts. This little treat is an excellent oatmeal replacer (for those allergic to oats) and is packed full of protein!

BREAKFAST QUINOA BANANA CRUNCH

1/2 cup (just under) Quinoa

1/2 cup Water

1 tablespoon Agave Nectar (or other sweetener)

dash of Salt

1/4 cup Rice Milk

1 Banana (optional)

Granola Cereal (optional)

Cook Quinoa as usual (bring water to a boil, add Quinoa and a little salt, let simmer for approx. 13 minutes). Add the Agave Nectar and Rice Milk and cook for another 2 minutes. Transfer contents into a bowl with some fruit of your choice to add a little sweetness to the Quinoa, personally I love Bananas in the morning. Now, remember that Granola Cereal Recipe? Well, grab a hand-full and mix it in for that yummy Crunch! ^_^ I also have flaxseed oil in the morning which mixes in nicely (p.s. do not heat the flaxseed oil). Voila, yummy protein Breakfast! ^_^ This serves one person--it is a big bowl though.

Pizza Pizza! Awesome Cheeseless FALAFEL PIZZA Recipe!!

Everyone loves Pizza. I'm pretty sure it's a fact. So when you get that pizza craving and you are faced with the fact you can't eat wheat, gluten, dairy...well mostly all the things that make up your average pizza, you're bound to get a bit upset. Do you give in? I think not. Get creative!! And once again, start from scratch! ^_^

CHEESELESS FALAFEL PIZZA:

Gluten/Wheat/Yeast-free Pizza Crust:

1 cup Brown Rice Flour

1/2 cup Cornstarch

2/3 cup Rice Milk

Egg Replacer equal to 2 Eggs

1 teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Italian Spices (not having this on hand, I used a mixture of oregano, basil, black pepper, thyme, & garlic powder)

Mix everything together in a large mixing bowl. As previously mentioned in another recipe, I highly recommend mixing the Egg Replacer mixture separately and then adding it to the rest of the ingredients to insure you get the "eggs" right. Note, this dough will look NOTHING like your regular dough, it will be runny! Pour into your pizza tray (make sure it has edges or else it will spill, remember it's runny ~_^! Bake at 425ºF for 20 minutes (sans pizza sauce and toppings).

Time to add the Toppings!! ^_^

FALAFEL & Toppings:

Whip out that Falafel Recipe in my last post. You won't need the entire recipe but because you need a can of chickpeas you will have left-over Falafel to get creative with. Maybe have it for lunch the next day or use it all and have a Very Falafel Pizza.

Choose a pizza sauce to your liking, layer it up with the uncooked Falafel Mixture as if it were cheese, and add any toppings to your liking. I added Black Olives to mine ^_^ or even without toppings this pizza is so yum you don't need em!

Bake in the oven at 300ºF for approximately 10 minutes or until Falafel has crisped a bit. Remember Falafel doesn't need to be cooked long.

Let cool & Serve! Enjoy Pizza that isn't pizza, and, oh yes, that's right, it's healthy too and packed with good protein!! ♥♥

No More Boxed Cereal! Whatever to do?!! Yummy Granola Recipe ^_^

The dilemma with a wheat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, oat-free Food Plan is that you really can't go out and buy Any boxed cereals. Even at your local health-food store the options are obsolete. However, when you love cereal as much as I do you're going to find a way around this apparent bump in the road. Fortunately not everything comes in a box (what? no way!) so we are back to the Recipe Books!

Last Christmas my lovely Sister bought me the kick-ass Vegan recipe book "La Dolce Vegan" by Sarah Kramer. I highly recommend this and her other recipe books. She has a couple recipes in this one on how to make your own yummy Granola Cereal. Once again the daunting Allergies arise. So I took a few of her Granola recipes as a bass to start from and added my own twist to make them healthy and allergy-free! ^_^

Bianca's Protein Granola Recipe:

2 cups Barley Flakes

1 cup Quinoa Flakes

1 cup Puffed Buckwheat Puffs (or any other puffed cereal)

1/3 cup crushed Almonds

1/2 cup Flaxseeds

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/4 cup (just under) Agave Nectar (or 1/4 cup any other sweetener)

1/2 cup of Apple Juice or Water

1 cup dried fruit (optional..I have yet to experiment with this)

Preheat oven to 250ºF. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the Agave Nectar and Apple Juice and stir until well mixed. On two 9✗13-inch baking pans, spread out even amounts of the mixture on both pans and bake for 35 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Let cool and add dried fruit if desired. Store in an air-tight container.

I eat my yummy granola cereal with fruit and rice milk but feel free to eat yours however you'd like. ^_^

Banana Carob Oat Muffins

Up first is the recipe that got me started on the thought about making this Recipe blog.

Yummy Muffins that you can make adjustments too on which flour you'd prefer. I also use buckwheat oats in this recipe as my Hubby is allergic to regular oats.

3/4 cup of Brown Rice Flour
3/4 cup of Buckwheat Flour
1 cup of Barley Flakes (or any flake cereal of your choice)
1 tablespoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 cup Carob Powder (or cocoa powder)

Mix all these together in a large mixing bowl until well mixed.

1-2 Banana(s) (the riper the better)**
3/4 cup Rice Milk (or any other non-dairy milk)
1/3 cup Olive Oil (or any other oil or melted vegan margarine)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 teaspoon Cinnamon

**(I only used one when I just made these. But if you want extra banana flavour use 2 and use a tad less milk)

Blend all these ingredients together in a blender until the bananas are nice and pureed.

Add blended ingredients to the dry mix along with just under 1/2 cup of Agave Nectar (if you use a different sweetener use 1/2 cup...Agave nectar is much sweeter than other sweeteners).
Mix everything together until very well mixed. Pour in muffin tray and bake at 350 for approx 20mins. And voila Yummy Healthy Muffins!

About this Blog...

Hello to all my wonderful Followers (New and old), or to those just passing by.

I decided to start this blog because I know how difficult it is to find Healthy Recipes that are void of those pesky Common Allergens most of the world pretends aren't bad for you.

Yes, I'm talking about Wheat, Gluten, Dairy, and Sugar.

My Husband fairly recently got an allergy test done and the results were not all that surprising. Those Common Allergens were on his list, along with several others that we a bit surprising. We switched to his allergy-needs--I switched because I still suspect myself to be allergic to most of these and, well, it's just plain healthier.

Now, even more recently, my brother got his allergy results back. His allergies? Surprise! Matched up almost perfectly with my Husbands. My conclusion? These are probably allergies to a lot of people whether we realize them or not. Really it's not a big surprise that there are as many health problems out there as there are, what when we treat out bodies with such malnutrition.

Switching to this "diet" has been an adventure that I have fully embraced and enjoyed. The only limits are those we place on ourselves.

So in all the recipes I am listing here I will also be eliminating the following (although I will include a few in brackets, meaning if you are not allergic to them then they make tasty variations of the original recipe).

These include:

Oats, Cranberries, Spelt flour, Kamut, Coconut, Mushrooms, Yeast, Chili Powder, and Soy.

So, here is a collective of Recipes I've come across along my way that I think are worth sharing or Recipes that I have made from scratch or by changing certain recipes to meet healthier needs.

Again, making these food changes are only as difficult as you make them. You CAN still find yummy food. It might take a little more work--meaning you can't just buy it in a box. You actually have to cook from scratch! *gasp* I for one LOVE this! I always wanted to do all my cooking from scratch and now I have the right motivation to do so. And let me tell you, it's fun, it's adventurous, and it's reaaaally nice to know what you put in your body (as opposed to those ingredient lists with words you can't even pronounce!).

Enjoy my Blog & the Yummy Recipes, and if you have any recipes you'd like to submit please let me know ^_^

Love & Bruises

xo

~Bianca