What to do with blueberries when they are about to expire?  Exactly. Make blueberry muffins.  And the same goes for apples. Just mix it all in a batter, bake and voila! And where can a girl get a to die for melt in your mouth muffin or cupcake that is both vegan and gluten-free?   I strive for my kitchen to be one of those places, although sometimes I really want someone else to bake for me.   Erin McKenna's bakery BabyCakes ...

Carrots are a typical go to veggie for baked goods and I wanted something different this time.  Shredded beets are so beautiful in salads that I figured they would be as lovely in muffins.   Reading through recipe books I found a great carrot muffin recipe in Flying Apron's Gluten-Free and Vegan Baking Book that I adapted quite a bit by replacing ingredients including the carrots for the beets.   The tahini icing is my own recipe...

Oh cupid, cupid where art my Romeo?  Well, my Romeo John is happy with his wine pears a few days before Valentine's Day.  I love the idea of Valentine's Day but with a two-year old mini Romeo bouncing off the walls our duo day is happily spent as a threesome and having a home cooked meal slinging pear across the dinner table.  We celebrated our Valentine's Day dinner during the impressive snow storm on Friday evening after anxiou...

After my morning yoga class and before picking up Gabriel from school today, I worked quickly to make these cookies and ate some of the batter along the way.  Bad, bad me.  The recipe should make 16 cookies but mine only made 12.  What a craving I had for these when I woke up today.  Luckily I had all the ingredients in the kitchen drawers so it was just a matter of putting them together.  When Gabriel got home he looked up on ...

Holiday Bread Pudding ~ I don't make this bread pudding too sweet  although I am a serious sweet monger.  The chocolate chips and raisins give it plenty of sweetness so much so that my husband and toddler love the resemblance of a chocolate chip cookie but in a bread pudding.  It's so difficult passing by the bread pudding sitting on the  kitchen counter without sneaking a bite...or two...or three... For the bread, I always u...

Low-Fat Spicy Hot Chocolate ~ Sweet, warming and less guilt than other hot chocolates.  What could be better than that on a winter chilly day?   Since I am using almond milk, it is lower in fat than regular milk or even soy milk.  I don't always love the taste of stevia so if you want to leave it out altogether just replace it with another teaspoon of agave.   I know, I know.  I always end up drinking all two serving portions s...

Blueberry Quinoa Pudding ~ Quinoa is such a versatile grain that you can make it as a first course or as a dessert.  My grandfather Pepe use to make cakes out of quinoa, among many other dishes, during a time in Peru when this grain was only fed to the chickens or eaten mainly by the Andean people in the mountains. Every years, Pepe made four cakes for my birthday, and we ate this one right after all the kids were done destroying the p...

In one of my first posts I mentioned how much I love quinoa. In fact,  I love it so much that I try to incorporate it into many different dishes, including desserts.    This pudding is rich and creamy and  thickened with Kuzu Root Starch, which comes from a fibrous plant used in China for more than 2,000 year.  Kuzu is a great thickener and it is soothing to the stomach.  You can also think of this recipe as a great way to satisfy...

These cookies are technically flourless since one of the main ingredient besides peanut butter are ground almonds.  You can buy these in flour form, which just means exactly: ground blanched almonds. Bob's Mill makes a reasonably priced bag found at most natural food markets such as Whole Foods. The blackstrap molasses in this recipe add calcium and iron and combined with the almonds, you have a super power cookie. Peanut Butte...

I Love creamy sweet things.  This pudding is a chocolate kiss in your mouth, sweet and irresistible and awesome for a spring/summer treat.  And my toddler loves it too!  You can substitute the coconut milk with any non-dairy milk that suits you best.  The coconut milk just gives it extra richness.  See two photos of pudding: first one shows the pudding after it has set in the refrigerator, and the second depicts how the pudding loo...