Recipe Category Archives: Breakfast

Favorite Smoothies Recipes. Smoothie Bowl Variations

By on February 14, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Vanilla Bean Levana Nourishments

smoothie

Many smoothie joints have recently sprouted all over the city.

But none will whip up a smoothie as delicious, nutritious, inexpensive and quick as you will.

Scroll down for Smoothie bowl Variations

Use frozen fruit in your smoothies!

Why use ice, when frozen fruit will keep all your flavors intense and undiluted, and your smoothies nice and cold?

The only exception is the chocolate smoothie, which needs ice because all ingredients are at room temperature.

Bananas got too ripe? throw them in the freezer, and when ready to use them, just run your warm water faucet over them, the peel will come right off!

Smoothie Bowl: An ideally nutritious and complete meal.

smoothie bowl

 

 

Follow the recipe guidelines below, and add in your blender whatever good stuff you might have on hand, varying each time and getting an exciting variation each time:

– A handful of green leaves (kale, spinach, lettuce, parsley, mint etc…)
– Avocado, green apple, celery, cucumber, cauliflower, lemon (skin and all) etc…
– A scoop of nut or seed butter (almond, peanut, pumpkin, sunflower, cashew etc…)…
– Yogurt or buttermilk… dairy or dairy-free
– A scoop of raw oats

Use fruit juice sparingly if at all, as it will set you back with lots of unwanted sugar and calories.

Now play with your toppings:

Sliced fruit, berries, granola, coconut, cacao nibs etc…

 

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Chocolate Chip Magic Health Bars Recipe

By on February 14, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Cocoa Coffee Levana Nourishments

chocolate chip magic health bars

Health bars are a delicious nutrition-packed mini meal

You may never again get anywhere close to the commercial worthless unhealthy health bars perplexingly and inaccurately marketed as healthy and good for you; Made with high fructose corn syrup and soy protein isolates: Healthy? Ugh, I don’t think so! Not enough people are aware of the dangers these two ingredients pose. Please read my blog post on the subject, What Price Protein: Beware of Those Protein Bars! 

My Magic Health Bars are loaded with super healthy ingredients:

This places them in an ideally enviable position, both as a healthy dessert and as a healthy small meal: Hence the Magic in their name. The other part of the magic is, well, my Magic Health Bars live up to their healthy name, plus they are fabulous, vegan, gluten-free, nut-free-adaptable, soy-free, crunchy and very moderately sweet. The bars will travel better than their Magic Cookie first cousins (exact same recipe, cookie shapes), compact and snug as they are: the perfect on-the-go food!

 

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Gluten-Free Muffins Recipe. All Variations

By on January 23, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Vanilla Bean Levana Nourishments

gluten-free muffins

Perfect gluten-free muffins takes a little practice!

And the good news is, with each new batch, your gluten-free muffins will get more delicious, and you’ll soon look like a pro.

Use this Gluten-Free Muffins Recipe as your guide, and take it places!

For these gluten-free muffins, one of the flours I used was almond flour, which imparts a wonderful flavor and delicate texture. But of course if you are dealing with a nut allergy as well as a gluten allergy, double up on other flours. Let me start by listing my gluten-free recipe exactly as I made it, using my favorite flours (almond and oat), then discuss other flavor and flour options.

Here I am giving you a recipe for a single recipe of Gluten-free muffins, but I should tell you I always make a double batch, why not, just as long as all ingredients are out and I got that oven going, plus my gluten-free muffins freeze perfectly.

Tapioca flour or arrowroot flour are very nutritious, and are easy to procure in health food stores

If you intend to bake gluten-free muffins, bread and other treats on a regular basis, it really pays to buy larger containers of gluten-free flour, in price clubs or online, as I do, as smaller containers can really err on the expensive side. I prefer to make my own gluten-free flour mixture than buy gluten-free flour mix, but of course if you come across a gluten-free flour mix brand that uses all healthy ingredients, go ahead and use it in your recipes, a total of 4 cups (including the tapioca, which the mix most likely includes).

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Flax Oat Gluten-Free Banana Bread Recipe

By on January 22, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Vanilla Bean Levana Nourishments

gluten-free banana bread

 

My newborn gluten-free banana bread just hit a home run!

Perfect for breakfast: minimally and naturally sweetened; it relies on the natural sweetness of the bananas.

I looked around me in my daughter’s kitchen, after the children asked me to make a banana treat. I was intent on making a very high fiber bread that would promote… regularity (a perennial quest, for many of us), even while it tastes fantastic.

My gluten-free banana bread may well be the answer to your lower carb prayers!

My daughter, and indeed, all my children, have a super healthy pantry, just as I do, so finding what I need to make the healthiest treats is no trouble ever.

I just threw all my ingredients in a bowl, mixed, poured, baked and prayed.

It’s the best! It is so nutritious that you can very easily make it a significant part of your meal: a nice slice of my gluten-free banana bread with a smear of butter, cream cheese or nut butter makes a terrific breakfast. And with a big salad or soup, it will make the perfect meal.

Both the oats and the flax give the gluten-free banana bread its hearty flavor and texture. Oat is the dream grain, in every respect. Flax is a nutritional powerhouse, with a mild and unobtrusive flavor, and very inexpensive. And the optional touch of cocoa gives it its deep dark color and added zing.

 

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Vegan Hollandaise Sauce Recipe

By on January 18, 2017 in

adapted from Levana Cooks, using Garden Vegetable Levana Nourishments

vegan hollandaise sauce

Vegan Hollandaise Sauce:

I am often told mine feels like a delicious blast from the past for all diners who cannot enjoy dairy products any more, as well as those trying to restrict their egg intake.

Gluten-Free to boot, without even trying! In one fell swoop, here is all my Vegan Hollandaise Sauce accomplishes:

  • It tastes fabulous. As close as humanly possible to the original Classical Hollandaise Sauce counterpart.
  • It is all natural.
  • It is whipped up in a minute.
  • It is missing only that stuff we want in minute amounts or sometimes not at all: Egg yolks and cream.
  • It is raw: None of the slavery associated with the making of traditional Hollandaise Sauce (double boiling, whisking, risk of curdling and whatnot. Please.)

Perfect example of where to use my Vegan Hollandaise Sauce:

Eggs Benedict. Eggs Benedict are a great brunch classic favorite, verboten both for our dairy-intolerant friends and for everyone who keeps kosher and can’t combine dairy and meat products in one meal, let alone in one dish. The classic Hollandaise Sauce is the savory counterpart of the equally rich and seductive Creme Brulee (Sigh. Another Parsha. For another day). People always tell me that Eggs Benedict are a wonderful splurge. As a nutrition purist, I decided to tinker with my own dairy-free, kosher-friendly, and best of all, lean and quick guidelines in mind.

With my Vegan Hollandaise Sauce, I turned the off-limits Eggs Benedict dish into a Natural Dairy-Free and Kosher treat you can actually afford to eat and enjoy quite often.

Just in passing, Kudos to smoked turkey breast, which can always be counted on for replacing ham and all smoked pork products, which is great news not just for Kosher diners, but for all diners eschewing pork products: Halal diners and many others, you’ll be pleasantly surprised! It has become increasingly easy to procure all-natural no-nitrates smoked turkey products, do look for them! Scroll down for my Eggs Benedict Recipe made with my Vegan Hollandaise Sauce!

What else can you do with my Vegan Hollandaise Sauce?

Plenty! Use it on asparagus, on poached chicken breasts, on baked or poached fish,  or as a dip with a little added curry powder, to name just a few treats. No one will ever know they are eating something that is so good for them! Never mind what the heavy-cream- egg-yolks Hollandaise Sauce aficionados will say: My All-Natural Raw Vegan Hollandaise Sauce works, and that’s what counts! A friend of mine, who has just undergone heart surgery, told me how delighted he was to be reunited with this great favorite food of his. Talk about going to one’s heart through one’s stomach!

Dairy-free yogurt. While it is not, in my opinion, good enough to eat plain (sorry!), it lends itself to many wonderful combinations and takes on the other great flavors it is paired with. I think you will be as amazed as I am! You will easily find soy or coconut yogurt in health food stores.

Eggs Benny: The lox version.

This variation uses smoked salmon instead of smoked turkey. No problem making the sauce with dairy yogurt if dairy is not problem to you.

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