Pecans

Roasted Beet and Arugula Salad is healthy and delicious with maple balsamic vinaigrette, candied pecans, cranberries, and goat cheese.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pecan Turtles are a fun and easy treat for people of all ages to enjoy!  Made dairy-free, vegan and keto, these low-carb pecan turtles are a fun candy for sharing with friends and family or giving away as gifts. This is very atypical of me. You guys, I don’t make cute things. …

Stuffed Delicata Squash with Ground Beef, cranberries, pecans and green onion is a healthy, filling clean dinner recipe perfect for those looking for a nutritious meal! This easy recipe comes together quickly and is a great option for those following a paleo or whole30 diet.

Stuffed vegetables. Forever the rage!

I recently had a revelation that I could likely eat stuffed squash for dinner every single night during the fall and winter months and never get tired of it.

Just think of all the combinations and permutations one can come up with to create so many different meals out of stuffed squash! 

For starters, there are many varieties of winter squash, in addition to all sorts of proteins, grains, legumes, fruit, vegetables, herbs, leafy greens, cheese, nuts, seeds and more! 

Take, for instance, my Stuffed Acorn Squash with Ground Beef, Brussel Sprouts, and Kale, Spaghetti Squash Burrito Bowls, Turkey Stuffed Butternut Squash, Ground Turkey Stuffed Delicata Squash and my Stuffed Acorn Squash with Quinoa, Pears, and Pecans. 

So many possibilities!

There’s just so much pleasure to be had with stuffing winter squash with a variety of goofies if you ask me!

The Inspiration For This Recipe:

I’ve had delicata squash recipes on the brain since I posted my Maple Cinnamon Roasted Delicata Squash a few weeks ago. To me, it tastes like pure sugar mixed with adrenaline. 

Paleo Carrot Cake Banana Muffins made grain-free, oil-free, dairy-free with no added sugar! These healthy carrot banana muffins are studded with raisins and pecans for a perfectly sweet, texturally pleasing nutritious snack.

Carrot cake, meet banana muffins…banana muffins, meet carrot cake!

What a lovely combination we’ve stumbled upon here!

I mentioned a few months ago I’ve been sweetening some of my treats using solely bananas, which is what is going on here. Look at these like healthy carrot cake cupcakes…or banana cupcakes…or healthy banana carrot muffins. 

Whatever you want to call them, they’re here for your snacking, breakfasting, desserting pleasure. 

All things considered, these muffins are grain-free, dairy-free, oil-free, contain zero added sweetener, are paleo-friendly and are absolutely delicious!

If you’d like, you can do as I did and frost the muffins using my Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting recipe. This gives the muffins a cupcake feel for a more decadent approach!

Do note, that the cream cheese frosting is sweetened with pure maple syrup, so you would need to skip the frosting to keep these sugar-free, or use sugar-free sweetener in the frosting.

Let’s get down to business!

Dairy-Free Keto Pecan Pie is a sugar-free version of classic Pecan Pie. Made with grain-free almond flour pie crust and delicious sugar-free caramel filling with the most delectable crunch from the pecans, this healthier dessert recipe is a wonderful treat to share with friends and family.

Truth: I didn’t try pecan pie until I was in college because I was convinced I wouldn’t like it.

Boy oh boy, was I incorrect!

Pecan pie is one of my favorites, thought I don’t eat it often, because it contains ingredients with which I don’t mix well (lots of dairy and sugar).

Traditional pecan pie is made primarily of butter, cream, and sugar. And pecans. DELICIOUS! 

It is packed with nutty flavor and texture while boasting a gooey caramel-like appeal on top of a buttery crust. If you haven’t tried it, I highly encourage it!

Imagine caramel and a maple tree had a baby that exploded in your mouth with sultry bits of shortbread and softened nuts. That’s pretty much the experience you get with pecan pie. It goos so well.

In order to take a dairy-free and sugar-free approach, I swap all dairy with coconut oil and coconut milk (don’t worry, the pie does not taste like coconut), and a sugar-free sweetener. 

The end result is a pecan pie that tastes buttery, is nice and sweet, yet is grain-free, sugar-free and keto friendly. 

For those of you who don’t use sugar-free sweeteners (I didn’t for a long time while I was experiencing gut issues, because they aggravated my IBS), I have included an paleo option, which uses coconut sugar.

There are plenty of ways you can swap ingredients in this recipe to make it work for your diet. Just check out my Recipe Adaptations section to see all of the options!

Let’s investigate!

Paleo pecan chocolate chip scones are so simple and easy to make. Perfect for sharing with friends and family, these scones are grain-free, refined sugar-free, and can easily be made vegan and/or keto.   I went on a crazy scone bender earlier in the spring, starting with my Paleo Vegan Lemon Poppy Seed Scones, followed …

Moist, fluffy, grain-free and naturally sweet paleo hummingbird muffins make for an amazing breakfast or snack.

This post is Sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. Check out more delicious healthy recipes, snag coupons and find stores near you at BobsRedMill.com!

Helloooo February!

Is it safe to discuss muffins yet?

If you did a Whole30 or a little paleo re-set in January, you may be ready as can be for a baked treat.

Well, great news! Not only are these muffins so incredibly tasty, but they’re actually nutritious and pretty great from a macronutrient standpoint. Meaning, you don’t need to feel guilty whatsoever about consuming them…not that we’re capable of feeling guilt ‘round these parts, right? Right!

What exactly is a hummingbird muffin? Hummingbird muffins include pineapple, banana, and pecans. While they traditionally are made with all-purpose flour and sugar, I replace the wheat with almond flour and simply omit the sugar.

We end up with a moist, naturally sweet, fluffy muffin that is perfect for breakfast or snack. They’re grain-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free, and oil-free…basically an epic win!

I use Bob’s Red Mill Finely Ground Almond Flour for these muffins. As you already know, the majority of my baked goods are made using almond flour – it’s simply my favorite of all the grain-free flours because the texture turns out nice and fluffy, and I thoroughly enjoy the health benefits of it!

Let’s bake muffins!

How to Make Hummingbird Muffins:

A clean and easy dinner recipe that happens to be whole30, vegan, paleo, and low-FODMAP. This spaghetti squash with roasted pecan pesto is a nutritious and super palate-pleasing meal for your busy weeknights.

You’re looking at one of those embarrassingly simple recipes that I make far more frequently than I’d like to admit..

But you guys, I believe you need this.

What we have here is an ultra simple dish involving only seven ingredients. The recipe is crazy easy to prepare and is one of those household staples you’ll return to time and again.

Salty-sweet and crunchy maple rosemary roasted nuts are the perfect snack or appetizer for entertaining guests. These warmly-spiced nuts are great as an edible holiday gift!

You guys know me well enough to know I have a difficult time writing posts about roasted nuts without making some sort of innuendo in the poorest of taste, so I’m going to skip the intro and get straight down to business before you unfollow me for life.

These maple rosemary roasted nuts are just what you need for entertaining during the holidays. They have that irresistibly sweet-salty-crunchy trifecta, and they’re just so easy to make!

Rosemary and cinnamon give the nuts this burst of flavor that keeps you wanting more. You can make these in bulk in advance (they keep for up to 2 weeks in a sealed jar!), and they’re quite the little crowd pleasers!

Creamy paleo pumpkin cheesecake made without flour, dairy, or refined sugar. This marvelous holiday dessert recipe tastes even better than the real deal!

 

Name your favorite holiday dessert. Annnnnd GO!

I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

Alright, okay, I’ll divulge…Pumpkin cheesecake has always been one of my favorite desserts for not just the holidays but all of fall and winter. I have a long-standing history of making it multiple times during the cold months.

This paleo pumpkin cheesecake essentially combines my No-Bake Vegan Cheesecake  with my Paleo Pumpkin Pie for that timeless creamy sweet cinnamony tangy treat.

Both the pie crust and the filling are prepared using a food processor or blender, and there’s no oven space necessary – a huge win when you’re preparing a big feast and oven real estate is in short supply.

Plus, you can make this recipe far in advance (up to 7 days) and store it in the freezer until your holiday gathering. Just note the cheesecake will take a few hours to thaw, so be sure to work thaw time into your planning process.

The pumpkin filling is made using soaked raw cashews (just like a vegan cheesecake), pureed pumpkin, coconut milk, coconut oil, pure maple syrup, fresh ginger, pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon. Blending all these ingredients together results in a silky-smooth, thick and creamy filling that tastes just like Thanksgiving should.

While I love using raw nuts (pecans and walnuts are my favorite) and dates for the crust, you can go with your favorite gluten-free or grain-free pie crust. I’m super into the nutty texture of the crust and think it lends amazing flavor to the pie.

This grain-free paleo pumpkin coffee cake is that ultimate cozy fall treat. It is moist, the perfect amount of sweet, and a marvelous companion to your steamy mug of coffee or tea. Coffee cake is an actual thing around here. I admit, I have an unparalleled obsession with baking coffee cake. The first coffee cake …

Moist, flavorful, delicious fluffy Paleo Peach Coffee Cake made with coconut flour and sweetened with pure maple syrup. This healthier take on coffee cake is an absolute delight!

Peach season is short for us here on the West coast, so I try to maximize my peach intake wisely each summer. Having experienced the absolute glory of ripe, drippy farm-fresh North Carolina and Georgia peaches, our bounty is sad state of affairs by comparison; but I will say, when baked up into coffee cake, you’re looking at a whole other type of delicious.