Toddler Tuesday: A Healthy Dessert without Sugar

  Hello friends---toddler Tuesday is back!  We had a fabulous weekend with my brother, sister-in-law and niece in Chicago.  Now after a hectic month of traveling we have a few weeks off.  This has been one busy summer, but I love it.  

     On my mind today is sugar.  I didn't think very much about how much sugar I was eating until 2005.  Before then, I may have looked at nutritional labels for a calorie count or fat content, but really thought the most detrimental thing about sugar was that it gave you cavities.  I figured if I was diligent enough about brushing my teeth, I'd be okay.  Then in fall of 2005 my face was breaking out more than usual.  I went on a trip to my brother's house to spend a week babysitting while they went on a vacation.  My sister-in-law left food and recipes for me to follow--we even had fun desserts.  On this trip, my skin, which was already bad, got even worse.  

     When I got home I started doing research trying to figure out what I could do to calm the breakouts.  I found a book called Acne Messages that taught me to take a look at my lifestyle, the type and placement of my breakouts, to figure out the cause.  Treatments are useless until you find the cause.  I was surprised that the author suggested diet can be linked to breakouts. Everything I'd heard prior to reading this book was that studies have shown no correlation between diet and acne.  The author pointed out, however, that the reason it is difficult to show such a correlation is that the same foods don't cause the same reactions in everyone.  This made sense to me. 

     After looking at the lists of foods the author suggested can trigger acne in certain individuals, I thought about my diet.  Sugar was one of the listed offenders, and I realized I had a lot of sugar in my diet.  I also realized that on my trip to my brother's, I ate even more sugar than usual.  Many of my sister-in-law's dinner recipes included sugar, and we had sugary desserts nearly every night I was there.  

    The only way to be sure if it was sugar causing my breakouts, however, was to try an elimination diet.  I decided to cut sugar out of my diet completely.  I read labels and didn't eat anything that had added sugar for the next week.  No breakfast cereals, salad dressings, etc.  You'd be surprised how many things have sugar once you start looking.  By the end of the week, my face was noticeably clearer.  I continued the no-sugar for the next week, and my face was completely clear.  I was shocked and elated to have found the cause for the break-outs!  

   After this I was much more cautious about how much sugar I ate, and while I didn't completely eliminate it from my diet, I ate substantially less. Then in 2007 my mom got cancer.  Through my nutritional research, I discovered more and more about the detrimental effects of sugar.  It turns out that excess sugar consumption is linked to several major diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adult-onset diabetes.   Sugar is also an immunosuppressant, meaning it weakens our immune system.       

    After learning more about the horrible effects sugar can have on our body, I decided that it just wasn't worth it.  Since then I have been on a quest to find ways to curb my intense sugar cravings without refined sugar.  

     When Meghan was born, I knew I wanted to give her every nutritional advantage I could.  That has included limiting her sugar consumption.  At 21 months old, she's yet to have a piece of candy.  Her sugar consumption has been limited to a  few tastes of my ice cream that I was eating during a weak moment and a few bites of an oatmeal raisin cookie.  I don't give her the commercial fruit yogurt that's been sweetened with sugar; she gets plain that I sweeten with fresh fruit.  Instead of the regular sweetened applesauce, I buy her unsweetened and put some cinnamon in it for her.  Her first birthday cake was sweetened with pure maple syrup.  She doesn't know the difference and has learned to appreciate the natural sweetness of things like fruit and honey.  

   I have recently discovered a lovely blog, Choosing Raw, and found the most wonderful dessert recipe I have tried in quite a while.  I am seriously excited about this discovery.  She calls this fantastic treat "Banana Soft Serve".  This is a great name as it does resemble soft serve ice cream.  But get this:  it only has ONE ingredient.  How's that for whole food eating?  Just ONE simple, lovely ingredient.  A frozen banana.  All you have to do is freeze a banana (or two or three...) and put it in your food processor.  (Don't have a food processor?  Get one!  Even if it's just for this recipe.  Get one.)   

                                          

Let the processor run for about 5 minutes (or less), until you get a creamy, ice cream-looking substance.  

                                        

That's it.  You have a delicious dessert, without any added sugar or other yucky ingredients, in 5 minutes!  I have had this three times now; twice I ate it plain. like so:  

                                        

It is also good with a little chocolate topping.  I made the chocolate topping with 1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder and 2 T. agave nectar.  Very yummy.  We made this at my brother's this weekend and my sister-in-law and I both agreed that it would also be delish with a crunchy topping, such as nuts or granola.  

                                      

This is a dessert that I can feel good about serving to Meghan.  I don't want her to ever feel deprived of good food; my goal is for her to develop a palette that can appreciate and enjoy naturally sweet foods. We shared a bowl of this last week and she loved it.  I know she doesn't feel deprived so far.  :-)  

Margherita Pizza on the Grill

   The grilled pizza last night was almost a complete disaster.  Thinking back, I'm not sure how I was able to salvage it at all.  Luckily, Tim had an errand to run while I was preparing dinner.  He doesn't do well with the craziness that ensued when I was attempting the pizza.
   I've been wanting to try pizza on the grill for a while now, but was inspired to do it this week when I picked up a copy of Food Network Magazine at a gas station on our drive home from vacation.   There was a recipe for pizza on the grill, but I didn't follow it 100%.  Since I had success with the recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes for homemade pizza crust before, I decided to use that one as my base. It was a simpler recipe than the one in the magazine anyway.  From there I followed the directions from the magazine, so I guess it was sort of a hybrid of the two that I used.  The recipe in 1,000 Vegan recipes calls for all-purpose flour, but last time I used half all-purpose and half whole wheat.  This time I decided to use all spelt flour.  This may have been my first mistake, but I can't be sure.   Let me just describe to you what happened step-by-step, and maybe some of you can help me figure out what my mistake was.

Here's the recipe I used for the basic pizza dough, adapted from 1,000 Vegan Recipes

Olive oil
1 cup warm water
1 (1/4 ounce) packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
pinch sugar
2 1/2 cups spelt flour

Step 1:

  Lightly oil a bowl.  Set it aside.

Step 2:

In another bowl, combine the water and yeast and stir until the yeast dissolves.

Step 3:

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until you get a soft dough.  At this point the dough was really sticky.  I knew it wasn't right, but wasn't sure if I measured the flour wrong or if it was because of the spelt or what.  I added a little more flour, carefully, but it didn't make a big difference.  I was worried, but still hoping for the best.   I decided to proceed.

Step 4:

Flour your hands and transfer the dough to the oiled bowl.  Turn the dough to coat with oil.  Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let it rise until it doubles in bulk, about an hour.

Here is my dough after about an hour.  It was doubled in size, but I was very concerned about its sticky appearance.

Step 5:   Flatten the dough a little, and recover it.  Allow it to relax for 10 minutes.
After I let the dough relax, it still looked too sticky.  My fears were confirmed when I tried to remove it from the bowl to my floured work surface.  Check out what was left in the bowl and you can see just how sticky it was:

Step 6:  Transfer the dough to a floured surface.  (Make sure your hands are floured, especially if your dough is as sticky as mine was!) Flatten the dough with your hands, turn it and flour it and work it into a rectangular shape.  This was extremely difficult for me because my dough was so sticky and ripped easily.   I kept adding more and more flour to my hands and the top of the dough and that did help.  I was nervous that I was going to overwork the dough; I had to keep reshaping it because I couldn't just lift it and turn it over.    I finally ended up with this:

Step 7:  Brush the dough with olive oil.  

                                      

Step 8:  Brush an inverted baking sheet with oil.  Lift the dough onto the baking sheet.  Ummmm....this was tough.  At this point I was seriously thinking of dinner alternatives.  I knew that just transferring the dough shouldn't be that difficult.  This dough was not normal. 

Step 9:  Prepare your toppings.  I used Mejier brand all-natural pizza sauce.  It only has a few ingredients, no crap ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, and is great for a pre-made sauce.  My other toppings were one tomato, thinly sliced, 6 slices fresh mozzarella cheese (My local grocery store makes fresh mozzarella and its so delicious), and some fresh basil.  Have your toppings on a tray or plate, ready to go.  

Step 10:  Heat the grill to medium low.  Lift the dough by its corners and lay on the grill, oiled side down.  This was so tricky.  Having Tim there to hold the pan while I transfer it would have been helpful, but with the dough I was working with it still would have been hard.  The dough immediately started slipping through the grill grates.  I had to try to lift it and reshape it as it totally lost its shape when I lifted it. 

                                                 

Once the dough was on the grill, I was thinking about what else I had in the house that I could quickly make for dinner.  Part of me wanted to just take it off and give up, by my stubborn side told me to see it through.
Step 11:  Cook the dough until it puffs up and the underside is stiff and marked.  This should take about 5 minutes.  Flip the dough with tongs and add your toppings. Allow to cook a few more minutes. This part didn't go well.  A part of the dough that had slipped into the grill grates was burned and stuck to the grill.  When I tried to turn the dough, it broke off.  I was still undeterred and didn't give up, although many would have thrown in the towel at this point.  Here are my broken off pieces of dough: :-(

I tried a few pieces of the dough and thought it tasted a bit weird.  My guess it was just the different taste of the spelt flour that I'm not used to.  It wasn't terrible, but I couldn't help but think my picky husband wasn't going to like it.  Nonetheless, I moved forward.  Here is what the final pizza looked like, with part of the crust broken off:

                                       

  The rest of the meal included a spinach salad with sliced strawberries and sliced almonds.  This is my go-to salad.  I love fresh spinach and strawberries are the perfect match.  Not only do they taste great but because they are a vitamin C source they help our bodies to absorb the iron in the spinach.  I used a store-bought balsamic vinaigrette because I was in a hurry.  I try to make my own dressing more than not, but when necessary I use a good store-bought variety.

I also had extra tomato, cheese, and basil so I made a caprese salad as well.  I layered the tomato, mozzarella cheese slice, and fresh basil, sprinkled with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and drizzled it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

By the time Tim got home, the food was already on the table.  I was so nervous that the pizza was going to be horrible, but it wasn't.  The dough tasted much better with the sauce and toppings on it, and Tim had nothing bad to say.  He will definitely tell me if he doesn't like something, so after such a fiasco cooking I was relieved he actually liked the pizza.  Next time I will probably go back to a regular whole wheat and all-purpose flour combo as that seemed to work much better.  If I mess it up again I'll know its me and not the flour! :-)

Carefree lunches

   As I mentioned yesterday, we just got back from a two-week vacation.  We are barely going to get unpacked before we will be back on the road again as we are heading to Chicago for the weekend.  With such a short time between trips, I'm keeping lunches simple this week.  Meghan started out with a bowl of organic peas with a some butter.  (I used frozen so I just had to heat them up in the microwave for 30 seconds)  She ate the entire bowl--she really likes peas.  Here she is enjoying her first course:

   While she was eating her peas, I prepared her a classic grilled cheese sandwich, with a little sprinkle of kelp.  Kelp, or seaweed, contains nearly 30 minerals so I sprinkle it on certain foods whenever I can.  Just a healthy little add-on to boost the nutrition of a regular old grilled cheese.  Here's my kelp container:

I bought an empty spice container with a sprinkle top and buy the kelp from the bulk section of the health food store.  Here's the sandwich before I put it in the panini press.  (Using the panini press is so much easier than a pan!)  The swiss cheese I used was so holy I needed to use two pieces.  

And here's the grilled cheese:

Meghan only ate half of her sandwich, so I helped her out and finished the second half.  Last, she had three handfuls of organic grapes.  She was eating them faster than I could slice them in half!  

My easy lunch was the leftover quinoa salad from last night. 

 So yummy and very satisfying!

I have a confession to make:  I love Starbucks.  Love it.  I crave their yummy coffee drinks a lot, but try to only get them occasionally.  It's that darn sugar.  Grrr.  Anyway,  I was craving one after putting Meghan down for her nap.  Since my daughter was sleeping and slipping out to Starbucks was not an option, I decide to make my own, somewhat healthier version.  I wanted to make a Frappicino (sp?) style drink of blended coffee, but once I got all of my ingredients in the magic bullet, I didn't have room for 

ice! 

So instead, I just had an iced coffee drink.  I am sipping it now and it is yummy.  Here's what went into it:  1 cup coffee, 1 cup soy milk, 1/2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 T. agave nectar.  It turned out not too sweet with a subtle chocolate flavor.  And no refined sugar like the kind I would have gotten at Starbucks!  I made more than I needed, so the extra was put into the fridge.  

Well I am off to get the less fun things accomplished during the rest of Meghan's nap.  Tonight I am going to make my first attempt at grilled pizza.  I'll keep you updated on how it turns out.