Beet Hummus

Time spent in the kitchen is what makes the holidays.  The wonderful food we prepare to share with family and friends over laughter and love.

Tonight, Christmas Eve will be spent following the tradition of the past few years of going to my sister's house where everyone brings appetizers, desserts and drinks.  The kids all look forward to this evening as do we.

This year, I was going to make two dips.  Well, two turned into many.  I made fruit salsa, guacamole, baked eggplant dip, sundried tomato hummus and last but not least, beet hummus.  This is simply a beautiful dip and if you love beets, you will love this dip!

beet hummus

2 cups chickpeas (if using canned, drain and rinse)
3 medium beets, roasted 
    - To roast, wrap unpeeled beets in tinfoil.  Place on baking sheet in 400 deg oven for one hour.       
      Remove from oven and let sit until cool.  Remove from foil, peel will slide of very easily.
1/4 cup tahini
5 cloves roasted garlic
    - Put a whole garlic bulb in the oven with your beets, unwrapped.  Take them out when soft, 30-40    
      minutes.
3 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Put all ingredients in food processor and pulse until desired consistency.
2. Serve with chips, crackers, rice cakes or as a side to mashed potatoes...yum!

Thank you to all who read this blog in 2012, last week marked the 1000th view,  and that was very exciting for me!  I love seeing how people from all over the world can come across this site: Canada, USA, Russia, Australia, Germany, Poland, UK, France, Ukraine and Israel.  From my kitchen to yours,  Happy and Safe Holidays to you and yours....Monique xox

Cranberry Sauce



Sugar-Free Cranberry Sauce



Oh how I love the holidays!  Spending time with the people we love, and most certainly surrounded by delicious food! 

For people with dietary restrictions, the holidays can sometimes be a little daunting because we are around so much food and in general, they're not the types of foods that people like us eat.  I have found it much easier year after year to simply bypass the flour and sugar treats and just stick with the things I know won't make me feel sick.  I'm always the happier for it when I feel well at the end of the day.

That being said, I still enjoy some indulgences and just have to make them " my style"!  I've got a few tricks up my sleeve this year and this Cranberry Sauce is one of them!  I made a turkey dinner last Sunday, I called it my Pre-Christmas Christmas Dinner and had my in-laws over to share this delicious meal.  So many components of a traditional turkey dinner are naturally gluten-free, the turkey, vegetables, gravy(thicken with something other than wheat flour) and cranberry sauce.  Now the stuffing, I haven't converted over to gluten-free yet.  I'm so attached to the good ol' family recipe.  It's one of the very few things that I will cook that's not gluten-free. 

Now let's talk about that cranberry sauce:  I love cranberry sauce.  The canned stuff, I'll eat it, but it's no match for the home-made cranberry sauce.  Since I started cooking Christmas dinner, I've always bought a bag of fresh cranberries and followed the instructions on the bag: one cup water and one cup sugar, add cranberries.  This year, I was thinking, there's no way that I can possibly make this recipe anymore!  It seems so wrong to add a cup of sugar when there are so many alternatives!  So this is my recipe for sugar-free cranberry sauce. I made it, we ALL loved it, and agreed that we would prefer to eat this over any other cranberry sauces we've had in the past as it is sweet but kept some of the tartness of the fruit, which is really lovely!

cranberry sauce

3 cups fresh cranberries (I would imagine that frozen cranberries, thawed, would yield the same result)
1/2 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed (appx 2 oranges)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup agave syrup (or use raw honey)

1. In a medium saucepan, bring water and orange juice to a boil. 
2. Add cranberries and agave syrup.
3. Bring up to boil again and stir occasionally for 5 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and let sit to cool.
5. Once cool, put in refrigerator.
6. Take it out about an hour before serving to get it to room temperature.

Tips to a successful Christmas dinner:

I remember the first Christmas dinner I cooked for family.  I was in the kitchen all day, completely stressed out and didn't get to do any visiting.  I felt jipped!  Over the years, I've become much more organized and I keep it simple.  Here is some of the pre-work you can do the day before:

1. Make cranberry sauce, put in fridge
2. Peel and chop potatoes, put in pot of cold water, ready to cook, put in fridge
3. Peel and chop carrots, put in pot of cold water, ready too cook, put in fridge

If your vegetables are organic, no need to peel them!  Except for potatoes if you want to make velvety mashed potatoes!

***HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND ENJOY YOUR TIME WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS!***

Curried Rice Salad

This is one of the recipes I made this past weekend on one of my power cooks.   It was a productive weekend that resulted in healthy desserts, guacamole, soups, pakoras and this wonderful rice salad, in my fridge, ready to eat.  For a gal like me, spending hours in the kitchen is time well spent and enjoyed!  I realize not everyone enjoys cooking or have the time to spend hours in the kitchen:  this salad will take minutes(not counting cooking the rice) to make and you'll have this in your fridge ready for easy lunches or side dish to your meals.

I've been making this salad regularly for the past two years, and I still relish at the flavour of this dish.  I make a large batch and place in two-cup containers for easy lunches.  Mornings for most of us are already hectic enough.  Being able to go in the fridge and grab a couple of containers that contain my healthy breakfast and lunch to bring to work is worth so much to me!  I've never frozen this salad as peppers would get soft, but it lasts a good week in the fridge.  If using meat instead of almonds, which I've never tried, would shorten this time for sure.

curried rice salad

6 cups brown rice, cooked (2 cups uncooked)
1 cup roasted almonds, chopped (bake whole raw almonds at 350 degree oven on cookie sheet for 15 minutes)
1 cup celery, diced
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1/2 red onion, diced finely
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. In a large bowl, combine rice, almonds, celery, peppers, onion and cilantro.
2. In smaller bowl, mix lemon juice, olive oil, curry powder, salt and pepper together.
3. Pour dressing into salad mixture and stir well.
4. Taste and adjust seasoning to your taste(add more curry powder, salt, etc.)

Yield: 10 cups.  If this is too large an amount, especially when trying it out for the first time, just cut the ingredients in half!

Note: For nut allergies, try using 2 cups of cooked diced chicken instead of the almonds.

Roasted Vegetables

Roasted Autumn Vegetables

The reason I love fall so much is all the colours that come with it.  The colours are plentiful outside on our trees and shrubs that turn to their autumn colour.  We can also bring the beautiful colours of fall in our kitchen!  This time of year produces delicious root vegetables.  It's so easy to chop some up and pop them in the oven.  Here's just one of the many root vegetable medleys I've made so far this year.

This one has sweet potatoes, beets and onions.  I leave the skins on all my vegetables, it adds so much flavour to roasted vegetables.  I tossed them generously in olive oil, added fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, salt and pepper.  Baked in 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes, stirring them around twice.  Simply delicious!

Use whatever you have: butternut squash(I don't leave the skins on this one!), potatoes, yams, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, the possibilities are endless.  This way of roasting vegetables is no fuss!!!