Ingredients:
1 Cup Organic heavy whipping cream
8 oz Mascarpone cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Monk Fruit (or another sweetener such as Swerve)
1 to 2 shots Coffee Concentrate from Trader Joe’s – chilled (OR you can use espresso)
1 tablespoon Cacao Nibs (for decorating)
1 tablespoon cacao powder

1- In a large bowl, whip the heavy whipping cream with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Place in the refrigerator to keep it chilled
2- In a separate bowl, with the hand mixer, mix cheese, vanilla, sweetener and coffee until smooth.
3- Incorporate the whipped cream by folding into the cheese mixture (I used a wooden spoon)
4- Place in a clean plastic bag, cut a tip and squeeze mixture into small serving jars.
5- Sprinkle cacao nibs and Cacao powder on top of each jar.
6 – Chill, until ready to serve.

For the vegan version:
Mascarpone cheese:
1 1/2 cup raw cashews soaked overnight
1/2 cup Coconut Cream (comes in a can)
Juice of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt

Place all ingredients in your Vitamix (or another high-power blender) and blend until smooth.

For the Tiramisu:
1 cup Coconut Cream chilled for 1 hour in the fridge

Whip the Coconut Cream with a hand mixer until peaks form. Then follow the directions for the rest of the recipe, using 8 ounces of the vegan Mascarpone instead of the regular cheese.

I have been following the 131 Method for a few weeks now, which is a diet-phasing program, meaning, you follow a specific diet in cycles. I am LOVING it.  My digestion has never been better, my sleep has improved drastically and I am preparing delicious recipes that my whole family enjoys. The program is designed with our health in mind. Restoring health and restoring whatever imbalances we have in our body created by stress, bad diet or simply eating foods that don’t agree with our body.

One of the recipes that I have enjoyed the most is this Flaxseed Focaccia Bread which is not only low-carb, but the flaxseeds are incredibly beneficial to our hormones. The best part? This recipe is fat-burning and is extremely simple!

My family says that I’m an expert at taking an unhealthy recipe and creating a healthy one that tastes the same. I’ve always thought that eating healthy doesn’t mean we have to eat bland foods. I stand by that statement.

My daughter’s birthday was approaching and I’ve been truly focused on following a specific plan to step up my healing – including balancing my hormones as well as my gut which has been a work in progress for me. One of the things that I have noticed is that when I eat certain foods, like wheat, I tend to not sleep well and feel bloated. In order to avoid this, I decided to experiment a bit with this recipe and created one of my daughter’s favorite cakes: A carrot cupcake! The best part? Not only is it wheat-free, it’s also ketogenic, it has NO artificial sweeteners and no sugar.

So what did I use in place of sugar? I used monk fruit! Monk fruit is a natural sweetener, it has no calories and doesn’t affect blood sugar levels (since it’s low in the glycemic index). It’s also safe for children and pregnant women AND has other health properties as well. Monk fruit owes its sweet flavor to something called mogrosides. A 2013 study concluded that mogrosides reduce oxidative stress (so it works as an antioxidant)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup monk fruit
• 3/4 cup grass-fed butter, softened – you can also use coconut oil or ghee
• 1 tbsp Maple flavored Monk fruit syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large Eggs
• 2 tsp gluten-free baking powder
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Sea salt
• 1 1/2 cup  blanched almond flour
• 1 cup Tiger nut flour.
• 2 1/2 cup grated carrots. Make sure to measure them loosely after grating.
• 1 1/2 cup walnuts – use 1 cup for mix, save 1/2 cup for decorating (you can also use pecans)
• Cream cheese frosting (recipe below)  – you can also use coconut cream frosting

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• In a large bowl, mix the monk fruit sweetener along with the butter and vanilla until it has a creamy consistency. Then add the eggs one by one while continuing to mix. Set aside
• In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients (tiger nut flour, almond flour, sea salt, cinnamon, baking powder.
• Once well combined, stir the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Then add the carrots and stir. Fold in the 1 cup of walnuts. Setting aside 1/2 cup for garnish.
• Pour the batter into greased cupcake molds (fill to half)
• Bake for 30 – 35 minutes or until the middle of the cupcake is completely cooked (I use a toothpick to check)

Pull out of the oven and allow the cupcakes to cool, about an hour. In the meantime, you can prepare the frosting:

Ingredients:
1 package cream cheese (from grass-fed cows)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup Monk Fruit
4 tbsp heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp butter (softened, cut in cubes)

Mix all ingredients together with a mixer. Add more whipping cream if needed until you have it at the consistency you’d like. Refrigerate until you’re ready to decorate your cupcakes.

Garnish your cupcakes with the whipping cream, add walnuts to garnish (I chopped mine and left a few whole walnuts to garnish). Serve and enjoy!

These tasted SO good!

Because I’ve been SO interested in improving my gut health and helping my clients do the same, one of the things I focus on is adding a lot more variety to my diet and my family’s diet. I never shy away from trying a new veggie or looking at what other things I can do to add nutrition-packed foods to my meals.

One of the MOST interesting things that I have learned along my journey is that the more flavorful the food is, the more nutritious it is. Our body was designed to identify nutrients by flavor. A common misconception is that in order to eat healthy, our foods are supposed to be bland. We have gotten so used to eating foods that are full of preservatives and flavors created in a lab (thanks to the food industry) with little to no nutrition, that many of us have bought into this marketing strategy.

I am hear to teach people that this is not true. The more flavorful your veggies and foods are, the higher the nutrient density. That’s how we have survived for so many centuries. And due to us straying away from this concept, we have high incidences of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity in this country.

i recently have started to use micro-greens from Hamama Micro Greens which are PACKED with nutrition (from 4  to 40 times more nutrients than their mature counterparts!) And the best part? They take about 10 days to harvest! If you’re as much as a researcher as I am, you can read about the benefits and nutrition content of micro-greens by clicking here

Now moving on to my recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 clove garlic minced
• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger minced
• 4 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 lime zested and juiced
• 2 tablespoons Bragg’s Aminos (it’s like soy sauce but it’s better for you) OR you can use coconut aminos instead
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons Avocado oil
• 2 cups chicken cooked and shredded
• 3 yellow squash (or zucchini) spiral sliced
• 1 large carrots spiral sliced
• 1 Medium size sweet potato spiral sliced
• 1 red pepper spiral sliced
• 1/3 cup fresh cilantro chopped
• 1/4 cup green onions diced
• chopped unsalted roasted almonds and lime wedges (optional as a garnish)

INSTRUCTIONS

Note: click on times in the instructions to start a kitchen timer while cooking.

1. Add the garlic, ginger, almond butter, lime juice and zest, soy sauce and red pepper flakes to a small bowl and mix together.
2. To a large frying pan add your avocado oil on high heat.
3. Add the squash, carrots, sweet potato and bell peppers to the pan and cook until just wilted, 3 – 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
   Add in the chicken, sauce, cilantro and green onions and toss together until all warmed through.
4. Garnish with almond slivers and wedges of lime if desired. (I topped mine with Micro Greens to add more nutrition). Serve and enjoy!

If you would like to purchase your own kit of micro-greens (super fun to grow these with your family too!) click here

And if you’d like to purchase your own spiralizer, the one I use is on Amazon, just click here to check it out. 

Kettle & Fire is one of my favorite products. Don’t get me wrong, I love making bone broth but there are times when I haven’t made any and I need it for cooking purposes. I often use bone broth in my recipes so having this readily available in my kitchen is helpful, especially after a long day at work and having to come home and cook.

I was so grateful when I received the two boxes of this awesome product in the mail. My birthday was coming up and I had decided I wanted to make some meals during the weekend that would taste delicious but wouldn’t take me hours to prepare.

Bone broth is NOT  a cure-all. That being said, I have found bone broth to be very soothing for the gut. It’s high in beneficial collagen which helps with joint pain. Your skin will also benefit by helping reduce the appearance of wrinkles. And the best part for me of course, is that it adds some delicious flavor to my dishes when cooking and makes my job a lot easier. Note: I used the Instant Pot for these recipes but you can also use your slow cooker if you don’t have one.

Here are a couple of my favorite recipes that I used:

Portobello Mushroom Chicken:
Ingredients:
1 cup Kettle & Fire chicken bone broth
1 cup of a good quality red wine (I used a Pinot Noir for this recipe)
1 whole organic, pastured chicken (thawed)
2  tsps. Bragg Organic Sprinkle Seasoning
1 sliced portobello mushroom
1 tsp avocado oil

Preparation:
Sprinkle each side of the chicken with the seasoning. Add the avocado oil to the Instant Pot and program to “sauté”. When the oil is hot, place the chicken in, breast side first. Brown for about 3 – 5 minutes then flip the chicken and brown the other side for another 3 – 5 minutes.

Add broth, wine and mushrooms. Turn sauté program off, close the instant pot and program to “poultry” cooking on high for 30 minutes. Allow a natural release on the Instant Pot. Carve the chicken and serve.

Drunken Steak and Olives

Okay I had a REALLY hard time naming this dish! It has 8 SIMPLE ingredients and is SO freaking easy to make but tastes like you’ve been cooking for hours. You will need a slow-cooker for this dish.

Ingredients:
4 Grass-fed Sirloin steaks chopped into long pieces
4 oz pastured bacon chopped in pieces (don’t forget to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water after handling the bacon)
16 black olives
1 cup Fire & Kettle beef broth
1 1/2 cup good-quality white wine
1 organic yellow onion chopped in big chunks
1 tsp Bragg Sprinkle
1 tsp nutmeg

Preparation:
In a pot, cook the chopped bacon thoroughly and set aside, leaving the bacon fat in the pot. Cook the onion slightly and quickly in the bacon fat for about 1 minute (so it won’t get translucent). This is just to add a bit of flavor to the dish and not overcook the onion. Set the onion aside.

Add the steak pieces and cook in the same pot for about 5 minutes on each side, allowing it to brown. Place the steak in the slow cooker. Add broth, wine, nutmeg, Bragg Sprinkle, olives, bacon and onion. Cover and cook on high for about 3 hours. This will allow all the flavors to set in

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Roasted Red Potatoes (In the Instant Pot)
Ingredients:
2 lb. red potatoes
1 tbsp coconut oil (you can use ghee if you prefer)
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (I have it in my garden)
1/2 cup beef (or chicken) Kettle & Fire bone broth
A dash of salt to taste

Preparation:
Wash, dry and then stab tab each potato with a fork. Set your instant pot on the sauté setting and add the oil (or ghee). Add the potatoes and stir to make sure that the oil coats each one of the potatoes well. Sauté for about 5 minutes. Add the bone broth, rosemary and salt. Close the lid on the instant pot. Shut off the “sauté” setting and turn on the manual setting on “high” for 8 minutes. Once the instant pot is done cooking, allow it to release naturally.

Ingredients:

6 eggs
3 tbsp raw honey
4 Tbsp. organic, cold-pressed, unrefined coconut oil (melted)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup coconut flour

Instructions:

Mix the first 3 ingredients together really well. Add the coconut milk, baking soda, salt, vanilla and coconut flour and mix lightly. Warm a skillet with coconut oil and when the oil is hot, then use a ladle to measure out the amount of batter to use. At medium heat, cook your pancake on one side for about about 2 minutes, checking the bottom side of the pancake frequently (as these won’t bubble). then flip. Allow to cook for another 2 minutes and serve. Enjoy with grass-fed butter and some organic pure maple syrup. For more awesome recipes, go to the Paleohacks website by clicking here.

So here is the recipe if you decide to make it from scratch:

Almond Milk:
2 cups almonds soaked in 4 cups water
Pure vanilla extract (with no gluten)
3 Tbsp. Raw dark organic agave syrup
Cheese cloth (or strainer)

Remember that when you soak the almonds, you can go on with your day. I left them soaking in the morning and ran tons of errands and then got home to make the almond milk.

Use a powerful blender and blend the almonds on high speed for a good 4 minutes. Add more water if necessary until desired consistency. We like our almond milk a bit thicker.

Once the almonds are completely blended, strain using a cheese cloth. If you’re using a strainer (like I did), you may want to strain it twice just to make sure that there are no tiny almond particles and just the liquid is left in the milk. Oh yeah, and the job is a bit messy!

Note: if you’re like me and don’t want to waste the almond “pulp” left, you can put it in a pyrex and bake at 250 degrees for about an hour and a half, until most of the liquid is absorbed. I use it for baking instead of flour and will post a recipe with that shortly.

Okay so let’s move on to the eggnog.

You will need:
4 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups almond milk
1/4 cup of raw dark, organic agave
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp rum extract
1 tsp pure almond extract
1 tsp ground nutmeg
A pinch of allspice
A dash of ground cinnamon

Set the egg yolks in a separate bowl. In a small saucepan, at medium heat, combine the almond milk, vanilla, rum extract, almond extract, allspice and ground nutmeg. Heat until close to boiling and then reduce heat to low. Whisk the egg yolks and add 1/4 cup almond milk very slowly, continue to whisk until completely mixed. Add more of the almond milk slowly and continue to whisk until about 1 cup of the almond milk has been added to the egg yolks. Add the mixture with the egg yolks to the sauce pan, increase heat to medium and whisk for 4 to 5 minutes. I strained the egg yolk/almond milk mixture once again. And then added the agave syrup.. you can add more agave if you feel that it’s not sweet enough. We don’t consume much sugar so this was perfect for us.

So… I LOVE my Mason canning jars and this is what i used to store my eggnog. I got 2 large jars just because for us, well… we like our almond milk and eggnog a bit thick. However, you can add more water if you wish. Just so you know, almond milk prepared at home will last about 3 days. I won’t lie, it’s a bit involved but it TRULY doesn’t take me much time between soaking the almonds, blending and straining. Pretty easy. I’m sure you can use a similar approach for cashew nut milk too!

Now I know better. I know that bone broth contains lots and lots of minerals like magnesium which is so beneficial for us. It also contains collagen and gelatin. Collagen is extremely healing to the gut, it’s good for your bones and for your joints.

It’s a great source of minerals. Your body absorbs them a lot easier when introduced in the broth as well. Bone broth contains:

• Calcium and phosphorous. These two minerals bind together to form crystals that make up bones and teeth. They bind together to strengthen our bones. Phosphorus is a critical mineral used to maintain acid-base balance in the body.
• Magnesium: Benefits include transmission of nerve impulses, body temperature regulation, detoxification, energy production, and the formation of healthy bones and teeth.
• Other Trace minerals
• The fats in bone broth are extremely beneficial to our adrenals and can help restore gut health which will help absorb minerals.
• Broth is a great source of gelatin and collagen: Gelatin and collagen help to heal the gut, support connective tissue, keeps our joints healthy.
• A great source of the amino acids glycine and proline.
  • Glycine helps regulate blood sugar and is extremely beneficial to the immune system. Supports muscle growth. Has anti aging properties. Supports hormone regulation. Read more about this incredible amino acid here
    Proline helps breakdown protein so it can be used to create healthy cells in the body. It’s essential to the development of healthy skin and connective tissue.

So how to prepare bone broth? It’s simple, really. I purchase a whole organic chicken or turkey. I roast it in the oven. Separate the meat from the bones so we can get several meals from them. I then refrigerate the bones until I’m ready to prepare my bone broth. Some people like to use their stove-top to simmer their bones. I prefer to make mine in the slow cooker. You can also purchase just the bones to make your bone broth (and yes, ANY type of bone will work as long as they’re pastured). When purchasing bones only, I like to get mine from US Wellness Meats. Click here to go to their website.

So here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 or 3 chopped carrots
1/2 large chopped onion
2 or 3 whole garlic cloves
Fresh ginger root chopped
1 tsp. dry turmeric
Thyme (I use fresh – 2 or 3 twigs) You can also use marjoram.
Parsley (or cilantro)
3 Bay leaves
2 organic lemons, chopped in half

Wash the bones. Then bring them to a boil. Remove the layer of fat that forms. Then transfer to the slow cooker and set on high. Add onion, garlic, carrots, ginger and turmeric. I usually allow it to cook for about 1 hour. Then I add the thyme, parsley, bay leaves and lemon. Allow it to simmer. Don’t cover it. You will want the water to reduce so you can get all the goodness of the broth. You can simmer the broth from 16 to 20 hours. Some people like to simmer it for 24 hours. Then strain to remove all the veggies and bones, so you end up only with the broth. Store in a canning jar and refrigerate.

Ingredients:
2 cups raw hazelnuts
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup agave syrup
3 Medjool dates (pitted)
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons almond milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation:
In a food processor, grind the hazelnuts to a fine consistency. Add the cocoa and the agave syrup and continue to blend in the processor until they are of the consistency of butter (about 10 minutes). Add the pitted dates and blend for another 3 minutes. Add the almond milk, vanilla, coconut oil and salt and blend until it’s completely smooth. NOTE: Mine formed into a ball. It was very, very smooth. If you don’t like this consistency, you can add a bit more almond milk. Store in a Mason Jar. I was able to fill 1 large Mason Jar

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Nutrition facts:
Serving: 20
Amount per serving: 2 tbsp.
Calories: 112
Total fat: 9g  –
Saturated fat: 2g
Monounsaturated fat: 0g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0g
Trans fat: 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 31mg
Potassium 134 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 9g
Dietary Fiber: 2g
Sugars 6g
Protein 2g

So first things first! You’ll need coconut butter for this recipe AND coconut oil. They are different from each other, so let me show you how to make coconut butter: 1 bag of Bob’s Red Mill unsweetened shredded coconut Blend the contents of the bag in a food processor until it has a buttery consistency and set aside. It took me about 10 – 15 minutes just so you know.  By the way, coconut butter tastes REALLY good on some Ezekiel sprouted raisin cinnamon bread.  Here’s a picture of what the butter looks like: For the Chocolate Green Almond Bites you’ll need the following: 1 small ripe avocado (about 1/4 cup avocado) 1 tsp almond extract 6 tbsp coconut butter 2 tbsp pure maple syrup Mash the avocado, place in a blender (or you can blend it with a Magic Bullet), add almond extract, coconut butter and maple syrup. Keep mixing or blending until completely smooth. Freeze for about 4 hours. Then scoop and form balls. For the chocolate shell you’ll need: 1/2 scoop Raw cacao powder and 3 Tbsp coconut oil – melted

Dip the balls one by one and place on wax paper OR  you can use silicon cupcake molds. Freeze for another hour or so and enjoy! (Remember that this is a treat and you should practice portion control with it. I only recommend having 1 to 2 maximum).