Not Your Oridnary Apple Sauce

I picked up this applesauce at Target on clearance to give it a try. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! It is all naturally sweetened with fruit juice and without preservatives. The biggest thing that stands out for this apple sauce is that it is chunky, almost like eating apple pie. In fact it would make a great pie filling, tart filling, topping for pancakes, or just eat it straight out of the bottle with a spoon, which is what I did. I thought I would write more about good finds to have on hand, because let's face it we don't always have time to make everything from scratch, and in those cases it is nice to have healthy alternatives.

Whole Grain Buttermilk Waffles and Raspberry Sauce

Happy Fathers Day, Scotty!! Here is one of my Fathers Day gifts for my sweet husband, breakfast in bed. I chose waffles, whip cream, and berries, for Scottie's sweet tooth. I don't normally like to use a lot of dairy when cooking, but I made an exception for Fathers Day. The waffles had a yummy whole grain taste, that paired well with the light whip cream, and raspberry sauce. The waffles are really good, but a bit heavy, I think I will play around with the recipe a little bit more to get it perfect.

I added chia seeds and flax instead of eggs. I just taught a class for UVU, and we talked about chia seeds and how good they are for you so I decided to try them in this recipe. I have used chia seeds in breads and granola bars, and other baked goods and they make baked products rise and make them moist. Chia seeds are so good for you. They have more omega 3's than salmon, and more anti oxidants than blue berries. They also keep you hydrated longer because they asorb water in your body. Athletes use them for endurance.

I didn't cook the sauce to give the meal live enzymes to help digest the waffles. That is something I have been trying to do with all of my meals. Make sure that every meal has something not cooked to help with live enzymes necessary to digest food.

Here they are in bed, Isaiah with Daddy eating his waffles. He is so cute, whenever he takes a bite of something he likes he says, mmmm.

His jammies say handsome like daddy, which is SO true!!

Whole Grain Waffles

These waffles are pretty thick, if you want a thinner waffle, add more liquid to the batter. If you don't have flax and chia seeds, go ahead and add 2 eggs in the batter.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl:

2 C whole grain flour ( I used 1 C teff, 1 C oat, but 2 C whole wheat would work just fine)

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 C buttermilk powder*

Wet ingredients:

2 T flax or chia seeds ( or 2 eggs)

1 3/4-2 C water

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/2 C plain yogurt

2 tsp agave

2 T olive oil

Combine the chia seeds and flax in a blender with the water. Let them sit while you add and whisk the dry ingredients. Once you are done with the dry ingredients, add the vanilla and yogurt to the blender. Blend all of the ingredients well. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. The waffle batter is pretty thick, if you want a thinner batter add more liquid. Add the batter to a hot waffle maker, and spread it out (it is thick). Cook a little longer than the waffle machine says to ensure it is cooked all the way through. Top with whip cream and berry sauce.

*You can find buttermilk powder in the baking aisle. If you don't have buttermilk powder you could substitute 1 3/4-2 C of buttermilk instead of water. Or to cut out the dairy you could add 1 3/4 C nut milk and 1 1/2 T vinegar.

Agave Whip Cream

1 C whipping cream

2T agave

1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine the whip cream agave and vanilla in a cold metal bowl. Whip with a hand held beater until the cream makes stiff peaks.

Berry Sauce

3 C raspberries

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 C agave

Blend until smooth. You need a high powered blender for this to break down the rasberry seeds, or you could do it in a normal blender and just have little seeds, like jam.

Toasted Honey Granola

This granola is a request from Whitney. I have tried the rainbow of different granola recipes. Usually I know the base of what goes in granola and just kind of wing it with what I have on hand. I do have a recipe which I love but it takes a lot of honey and coconut oil, which are both expensive. So that recipe I only make it on occasion, or I will add a bunch more oats, and puffed cereal to stretch it, and to make it a little less sweet. This recipe intrigued me because it only had 2 T of oil and 1/4 C of honey, the other recipe is easily double or triple that. This recipe is from the Cooks Illustrated home cookbook.

A side note on the cookbook. I love this cookbook, I use it as a base for a lot of recipes, they are not the healthiest so I usually do quite a bit of altering, but I like it for a base. The only things I changed were to add coconut oil in place of canola oil, and I added a tsp. of maple flavoring because I like the maple syrup flavor. I also added dried cherries instead of raisins, and I added flax and chia seeds.

The intriguing thing about this recipe is that you toast everything first, which I have never seen in a granola recipe. That gives it a depth of flavor without having to add a lot to it. This granola is not very sweet but Scotty and I both really liked it. Even for his sweet tooth is was sweet enough. Without further ado....here is the granola recipe....

Toasted Honey Granola

1/2 C chopped almonds
1/2 C cashews
2 C oats
1 C shredded coconut
1/4 C sunflower seeds
2 T sesame seeds
2 T golden flax (optional)
2 T chia seeds (optional)
1/4 C honey
2 T coconut oil
1/2 C dried cherries, or any dried fruit that you want! blueberries would be good

Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Toast the almonds and cashews first for 3 minutes, or until they start to color. Stir in the coconut and oats and toast for another 2 minutes. Add the sunflower seeds and the sesame seeds and continue toasting for 1 minute or until the mixture is golden brown. Off the heat stir in the flax, chia seeds, coconut oil and honey. Spread over a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes stirring every five minutes or so. Stir in the dried cherries.

Note: this recipe is very easy to adapt. Add other nuts, fruit, maple syrup instead of honey. You could add cinnamon and nutmeg, or just make it how it is.

Sprouted "Grainola" with Strawberries

Here is what I do with the sprouts, I like to make breakfast cereal out of them. Sprouts can be kind of crunchy, so for the texture I like to take rolled oats and pour almond milk over them, then I add sprouts to the oats. I put a little honey on it, and dried fruit, chopped nuts, and there you have a really healthy, tasty, fast breakfast. In this picture I mixed applesauce in the with the sprouts, added goji berries, dried coconut, and strawberries. I just went to class on sprouting and she added applesauce to it, I thought it was a great idea. She also made crackers with the sprouts, I am going to try that next. I will let you know how it goes.