This past week I was faced with a dilemma. What to do with no time, no money, lots of apples and a few random leftover CSA ingredients? Buy a can of chicken and use the crockpot!

I made this soup out of pure necessity. I didn’t want my green beans, apples, or onion to go bad, but I didn’t have any time to cook. I also needed to eat (I hear that’s good for your health). So I experimented with combining them all and adding chicken, quinoa and some spices that I normally wouldn’t combine together. I wasn’t going to post it on the blog because I didn’t think it was note worthy. But as soon as I tasted it, I pulled out the camera to take a picture. It was too good not to share…

Green Apple Chicken Soup

Ingredients:
2 medium green apples
2 cups water
1 can chicken breast w/’juice’
1/2 large onion (approx 1/3 cup)
1 cup chopped green beans
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 cup red quinoa
salt to taste

Instructions:

Peel and core the apples. Chop them into 1/2″ cubes or smaller. Add them to the crockpot with the 2 cups water. Turn it on high.

Chop the onion and green beans, adding them and the can of chicken to the crockpot. Mix in the ginger, cinnamon, and onion powder.

Leave covered on high for 6 hours.

At the end of the 6 hours, soak your red quinoa and rinse well (to remove the bitter outer layer). Add the soaked quinoa to the crockpot and continue it (now uncovered) on low for 2 hours.

It was perfect because the apples baked softly away into the water, forming a soupy texture. The onion and green beans also softened up perfectly. The chicken turned a lovely reddish brown color because the seasonings cooked into it. I gobbled this soup up! I had it for lunch a few days last week, and I even had it one day when there wasn’t a microwave. The verdict: just as tasty cold!

This recipe is linked to Pennywise Platter, Friday Favorites, Fight Back Friday, Foodie Friday, Friday Feasts, the Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap, Wholesome Whole Foods, and Food On Fridays.

It seems like forever ago now that I saw a recipe from Laura over at Hey What’s for Dinner Mom? that had portabella mushrooms stuffed in a similar fashion. It looked SO tasty. So I decided to make my own version!

Also, as a side note, I was living in the mushroom capital of the world for a whole year and I’m still pretty close to it. Nothing like local mushrooms all year round! I actually was also able to visit one of the premier mushroom farms in the country while I was there – you can read about it on my Horticulture By Heart Blog. I learned so much about mushrooms! (And some of them are really pretty :))

Anyway, back to the food. These are incredibly simple and really filling. You can see by the photos that I served them with baked potato slices, but I could hardly get to the potatoes. The caps and quinoa nice protein packed addition to any meal! (Or AS the meal in my case :))

Quinoa Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms

Ingredients:

2 large portabella caps
1/2 cup of quinoa grains w/water for cooking
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 small green pepper
1/2 medium white onion
2 romaine tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tablespoon spice blend (I used Bucks Seasoning, but any sort of seasoning you typically like would work here)

Instructions:

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Soak the quinoa grains. I always put the grains in a strainer and set the strainer in a bowl of water. This makes it easier to rinse after it has soaked. Set aside.

Cover a small baking sheet (preferably with edges) with aluminum foil. Add a small amount of oil or spray with a non stick spray. (You’ll only need it where you’re going to put the two mushroom caps).

Lightly wash the mushrooms so not to bruise them too much. Remove the stems. Place the top of the cap down so that the fleshy undersides show. Once the oven has preheated, roasted them for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook up the 1/2 cup of quinoa in a small saucepan on the stove. On another burner, add a large skillet and add the oil. While its heating up, coarsely chop up the onion, pepper, and tomatoes then add them to the skillet. Cook them for a total of about ten minutes on medium high, stirring occasionally. Also add the onion powder, salt, and your choice of seasonings as they are cooking. Once the quinoa is cooked, add that to the pan as well.

Once you’ve removed the mushrooms from the oven, let them sit as long as it takes for the veggies and quinoa to cook up. The last part is probably the easier. Scoop the veggie quinoa blend into the mushroom cap. I made mine without cheese, but I sprinkled cheese on for the one I made for a friend.

Put them back into the oven and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Then they’re ready to serve and eat!

This recipe is linked to Just Another Meatless Monday, Meatless Monday, Mouthwatering Mondays, Tasty Tuesdays, Tuesday at the Table, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, and Gluten Free Wednesday, Delicious Dishes, Two for Tuesday, Tuesday Twister, Real Food Wednesday, Wholesome Whole Foods, Food on Fridays, Friday Favorites, Friday Food, Vegetarian Foodie Friday, Foodie Friday, and Fight Back Friday.

I’m calling these cupcakes instead of muffins because in truth; they tasted too sweet to be a muffin! But at the same time, the only sweet ingredients in these muffins are dates and stevia. So I suppose it would be the taster’s call. This is my opinion though: in regards to health they’re muffins, in regards to taste they’re cupcakes :) No frosting required! Although I think that some honey whipped cream from Shirley over at GFE would be just divine on these! (I need to try that pronto :))

For some reason the ‘mini muffins’ were lighter in color than the large muffins. They both tasted great though!

Sugar Free Date Muffins

Ingredients:
3/4 cup finely chopped dates
1 1/4 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 cup date sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 drops liquid stevia

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a heat safe container, place your chopped dates. Bring 1 1/4 cup water to a boil. Into that container, also add the baking soda. There will be a small reaction, so make sure you have a large enough container to manage any bubbling. Pour that mix onto the chopped dates. Cover (I used a kitchen towel) and set aside.

In a small bowl, sift all your flours, cornstarch, and baking powder so they are well combined. Set aside.

In yet another bowl (this should be a larger one), lightly beat the egg. Add the corn oil while beating and mix in well. Whisk in the date sugar, vanilla, and liquid stevia. Once that is mixed well, add the flour mix. While mixing these too together it will be rather resistant. Keep mixing!

Finally, add the water, baking soda, and date mix. Combine well.

Spray your muffin pans (or if you use muffin papers like I did). It’ll rise almost double, so fill accordingly. You can use either regular size or a mini muffin tray. I actually did both and they both turned out great! I will note though, I found it slightly strange that the smaller mini muffins were a lot lighter than the larger muffins. They both tasted great though, so I’m not sure what all that was about.

Bake larger muffins for approximately 20 minutes. If you use a mini muffin tray, they should be done just shy of 15 minutes.

These truly are for dessert, but they don’t come along with all the unnatural sweeteners, just dates and stevia!

This recipe is linked to Food on Friday, Foodie Friday, Friday Favorites, Wholesome Whole Foods, Friday Food, Fight Back Friday, I’m Lovin It Friday, Vegetarian Foodie Friday, Family Food Fridays, and the Grocery Cart Recipe Swap.

It’s been a great week in Upstate NY! I’ve had a great time with my family and friends. One of my closest friends tied the knot with her long time beau, which is always a beautiful thing (plus I got to wear a really fancy dress! :))

(One of The Parental’s and Me)

This week I’ve been bad. 20 percent of the recipes are actually mine. But I looked back over some of my top ten recipes from the past and there were two where I skipped myself. (So you see how my brain works now… if I can find a way to justify something, I’ll likely roll with it! :))

*Please note that the pumpkin and basil muffins are not gluten free – but it’s such a cool recipe that I want to try it GF!

My Fav (Top 10) Recipes from

Last Week (6-22 to 6-29)

Meatless Loaf
(Donna from Fab Frugal Food)

Pumpkin and Basil Muffins
(Sherilyn from Muscovado Lane)

Quick Salmon Patties
(Angie from Cashews and Hummus)

Polka-Dot Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Almond Butter Frosting
(Starlene via Shirley at Gluten Free Easily)

Blackened Black Bean Burgers
(Shirley from Gluten Free Easily)

Firecracker Cucumber Salad
(Fayina Girl from Gluten Free Vegan Family)

GFCF Soy-Free Egg-free Chocolate Mousse and Bon-Bon’s
(Sea from the Book of Yum)

Dairy-free Apricot Carob Blondies
(Amy from Simply Sugar and Gluten Free)

Tropical Vegan Nut Burgers
(Me from Living Free)

Pasta-less Turkey Lasagna
(Me from Living Free)

Do you have a recipe that I didn’t list that I might have missed? I’m happy for you to leave links to any recipes you’d like in the comments section. Maybe I’ll add them next week! :)

I hope you all have a week full of sunshine, smiles, and blessings from above!

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Happy first day of summer! :)

Not to brag or anything… but I’m sitting here eating one of these burgers right now  (not that the time of post and time of write are the same… but still :)) It’s a rare treat (unfortunately rare) for me to have the time to cook AND write up a post all at the same time. But it certainly makes it pretty impossible to NOT go into detail about the soft yet dense texture or the slightly spicy hot inflection at the end of each bite. Or the citrus-y sweet yet savory kick at the beginning of each bite.

But I digress :P

These burgers were created because I wanted to participate in a burger challenge. And although I have some ground turkey in the fridge, I wanted this one to be a little more challenging. I actually just ran out of Beet Burgers in the freezer (I was hording them and trying to make them last as long as possible! But alas, I ate them all :-/) and so this recipe is my ‘yay, its pretty much summer‘ version of beet burgers. Although, if you were to compare the recipes they have minimal similarities. But I assure you, the beet burgers I’d made not too long ago are the inspiration for these! And seriously… how can you go wrong with millet, pineapple, and nuts? These burgers are my new favorites :)     

p.s. Don’t be scared about the list of ingredients. Most of them are spices and they can easily be made to be whatever you want!

Tropical Vegan Nut Burgers

Ingredients:

1/2 cup whole grain millet
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup peanuts
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup pecans
1/4 cup green raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/4 flax seed meal
1/2 medium green pepper
2 large green onions with foliage (but no roots :P)
1 cup crushed pineapple in pineapple juice (keep the juice!)
2 tbs canola oil
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried lemon grass
1/2 tsp dried orange peel
2 tsp dried sweet basil leaves
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp white chia seeds
1 tsp poppy seeds
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Start by cooking the millet in a small saucepan. 1/2 cup of millet with 1 1/2 cup of water should do the trick. I cooked it on medium until all the water was completely cooked out, about 15 to 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Next coarsely chop the peanuts, almonds, pecans, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. I used a pampered chef chopper. Then I added the pieces to a small electric coffee grounder until the pieces started to thicken a bit (like if you were to keep going you’d make nut butter!) I put all the ground nuts in a large bowl and stirred in the flax meal. Set aside.

Coarsely chop the pepper and green onions. Add them to a food processor (I used my Salsa Express) and chop them up to a medium coarse texture. Add to the processor the crushed pineapple. I said about 1 cup in the ingredient list; I had basically a half a can of crushed pineapple in pineapple juice (no sugar). Pulse and pour into a large mixing bowl. To the pineapple mixture add the cooked millet and combine. Add the vinegar and the canola oil. Set aside.

To the nut mixture add the salt, pepper, and spices. Then combine both mixes well. Spray a large baking sheet. I used 1/4 measuring cup to scoop out the batter and put directly on the pan. I wet my hands and then shaped the burgers to be a typical bun size (not that I’ve eaten this with a bun yet! I like them plain best :D); so about 1/4″ thick and 3′ in diameter.

Bake for 20 minutes and the carefully flip over, spraying the pan while you have the patty sitting on your ‘flipper’. Bake on the second side for 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool for at least 15 minutes. I ate two after the 15 minutes but left the rest (makes approximately 16 burgers) on a plate to completely cool before moving them t ziploc bags for the fridge and freezer.

Although I didn’t want to (cause they’re just too tasty to give up), I shared these with my mom and her husband and they really enjoyed them too! They’re a bit different than traditional vegetarian burgers, but if you like sweet, spicy, and savory all at the same time, these babies are for you :D

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This recipe is linked to My Meatless Monday, Just Another Meatless Monday, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table, Delicious Dishes, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesdays, Gluten Free Wednesdays, Food On Friday, Wholesome Whole Foods, Share your Fav’s and the Grocery Chart Challenge.