Life, Gluten Free

Coconut Bliss Dairy-Free Ice Cream

As the summer months overtake spring and the sun casts its powerful rays, we naturally crave foods that are cooler and lighter. Thoughts turn to ice cream, popsicles and lemonade. But for people with allergies and other dietary restrictions, those treats are often forbidden. Coconut Bliss offers an option for those who are dairy-free, gluten-free and soy-free. The ice cream is also low glycemic because it is sweetened with agave.The ingredients are organic and they use organic fair-trade vanilla extract.

Want to win a free pint of Coconut Bliss? Check out Coconut Gal's blog and enter to win a free pint of your chosen flavor!

I'm also really excited about the upcoming Coconut Bliss Bars. If you want a creamy, tasty and healthy alternative to dairy free ice cream, then Coconut Bliss is right up your alley! 

 Indulge yourself in a treat!

-heather

Easy Dinner Pilaf with Cumin

This dish is even easier to create if you have some brown rice already cooked and in need of attention. I made this dish in about 10 to 15 minutes and it was really good.

Easy Dinner Pilaf with Cumin

NO: gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, nuts

Ingredients:

3 cups of cooked brown rice

3 carrots

5 scallions

1-2 cups of fresh spinach

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon herbamare

sea salt to taste (if you need more salt than the herbamare provides, or if you don't have herbamare)

Preparation:

Chop the carrots and scallions and start sauteing them in olive oil. 

Chop the spinach and add it to the carrots and scallions. 

After the vegetables are almost done, add the brown rice. 

Stir well and then add the spices and mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

This goes well served with a nice side salad. After a weekend of festivities, I needed something simple and nourishing :)

-heather

Ener-G Pizza Crust Review

We made pizzas with the Ener-G 10 inch PIzza Crust. We also made some pizzas for Sophie with the Energ-G 6 inch Yeast-Free Pizza Crust. The yeast-free one doesn't have sunflower oil, while the one with yeast does.

There was a notable but nominal taste difference between the yeast and yeast-free pizza crusts. Both pizza crusts were a bit bland and needed salt, which is okay because you can lightly sprinkle some sea salt on the crust before adding your toppings. I recommend sprinkling a small amount of sea salt and herbs of your choice, like: basil, oregano, parsley, etc. The cheese for our pizza was dairy-free Vegan Gourmet.

Overall, it was a decent pizza crust and we would use them again. It is definitely chewable, unlike other crusts we have tried, where they are almost too hard to chew.

It was, as Sophie would say, "tastey."

Let me know if you've tried them and what you think. Got any other pizza crust recommendations? Leave a comment and let us know!

-heather

Potato Lasagna

Potato Lasagna

NO: gluten, eggs, dairy, nuts

Ingredients:  

6 large sized potatoes
1 pack tinyada lasagna noodles

2 medium sized tomatoes

2 yellow onions

2 cups frozen broccoli 

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon basil

Preparation:

Boil potatoes until done.

Blend potatoes with a hand mixer to make mashed potatoes. 

Add salt to taste. 

Add 1 tablespoon of earth balance (or your choice of butter or oil) and continue to blend the potatoes.

Saute onion and broccoli in olive oil and add to the mashed potatoes.

Add herbs. Taste and adjust to meet your taste buds!

Boil the lasagna noodles per the directions on the box.

In a glass dish, layer the noodles with mashed potatoes and diced tomato.

Spread earth balance or oil on top of the last layer of noodles.

Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes.

You can also top with cheese and add olives.

This is really good variation on lasagna. It is dairy-free but still creamy and good!

-heather