Margherita Pizza-Zucchini Style

Two weeks ago I was so very blessed to receive two bags full of beautiful veggies from a friends garden. She gave me an assortment of peppers, zucchini, eggplant, squash and tomatoes. As soon as I got home I washed everything up and started to brainstorm what I was going to make. The first thing that came to mind was an appetizer I had seen on none other than Pinterest for zucchini pizza bites. I am not a pork or beef eater so I modified the toppings and made my very own margherita pizzas.

I used a half of one zucchini, two tomatoes, fresh basil from my garden, pasta sauce of your choice and mozzarella cheese. You can add or remove any toppings to make it suit your taste buds.

Slice the zucchini about 1/4-1/2 thick depending on how think you like your veggies. Add 1-2 tablespoons of pasta sauce and top with 1 tablespoon of cheese per slice.

Add fresh basil and tomatoes followed by a tiny bit more cheese :)

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15-20 minutes

These were a delicious low calorie treat that took my mind off of the Mellow Mushroom pizza that I had been craving all week. Great as a meal, mid day snack or a party appetizer if served fresh.

Leave a comment if you have any questions. Happy Eating!

Brittney

Paleo Friendly Fruit and Nut Bites

Before my husband and I started our journey towards the Paleo diet he would eat some sort of packaged cookie or snack with a glass of milk after dinner almost every night. He has done as awesome job at cutting out dairy and cookies but I know there are always healthy substitutes out there. After doing lots of research on non-processes snacks and desserts I realized that several of them were fruit and nut based and super easy to make with the right ingredients.

I found this recipe for a starter and kind of made my own creation from there.

What you will need:

1 Lb of dates

2 Tbs nut butter of choice

1/2 cup crushed almonds

1/2 cup finely chopped dried coconut

First things first, my local grocery store only sells pitted dates. Bend the date in half and the pit will be exposed. Just pick them out and throw them in your compost pile.

Toss the dates and the nut butter in the food processor and start pulsing. You will probably have to use a spoon to move things around a few times.

If your dates start to look like a "hot mess" then you are doing it right.

Once they look like mush with small chunks then dump it onto a piece of wax paper.

Start to roll into small 1" size balls and then roll between the almond and coconut mixture. They are ready to eat now but I like to place in the fridge for about 3 hours so they can firm up a bit.

Tada! You have a healthy snack that is great for on the go people or for a late night sweet tooth.

My next yummy recipe that I will be trying are these black bean truffle balls.

Brittney

Pallet Garden

Before I was introduced to Pinterest I consider myself to be very crafty and creative but over the past few months of "pinning" I have found myself saying more and more, "why didn't I think of that?" My latest find was the awesome idea of pallet gardening. A few weeks ago my husband mentioned that he could get pallets from work for free and I made this wonderful wooden pallet table. That same weekend we started this fun garden project.

This was the tutorial that I originally found:

Via Gilannie

My husband and I live on just over .75 acres of land. It seems to be just perfect for our two dogs a nice inground pool and now a beautiful garden area. The main reason the pallet garden appealed to me was because we did not have access to a tiller and if you can see in the image below our area is covered in that horrible southern centipede grass and we had no way to break it up or get rid of all of the grass and weeds.

Here is what we did:

We used 4"x4"x8' posts and stacked them two high and made two rows to start. Make sure you nail them together at each end so they don't topple over when you add the pallets and soil.

I could have done the nailing by myself but it's always better to ask a buff shirtless man you help you!

While the buff shirtless man is working take pictures of any cute babies that you happen to find in your yard :)

Ok, so back to the part about not having a tiller. Newspaper is a great and semi free weed stopper. I know that eventually it will turn to compost but you can lay weed stop sheets or another form of weed preventative if you would like. Do not spray this area with weed killers because that can transfer to your veggies. I laid newspaper over the entire surface and sprayed with water to hold it in place and then we laid the pallets on top.

Once we got the paper down and the pallets in, this is what it looked like. We ended up making two beds that were 8x8'. Once you have everything in place you will want to remove every second or third pallet slat for the  area where you will plant your produce.

Go to your local nursery and get topsoil. One cubic yard of soil was about $33 and filled one of the 8x8 areas.

Sadly I don't own a dump truck or a hauler so I put my muscles and shovel to work. Fill the pallets all of the way with soil. Make sure you get all of the nooks and crannies or your soil will start to sink once you water your garden.

I purchased some plants, we started some from seeds and we ordered some from an online nursery back in the fall. Place them all where you want them to go and put the markers in the soil and plant them in the open areas of the pallet.

Once you are finished planting it should look a little something like this!

Roma  and big boy tomatoes

Strawberries

Bell peppers and banana peppers

Cucumbers

Raspberry plant and rosemary

Sweet mint

Mint can be very invasion so I planted a few cinder blocks worth of mint with the same newspaper on the ground concept that I used in the garden. 

Stevia

Two weeks post planting and everything seems to be doing awesome. I water the garden each morning and that is about all of the maintenance required at this time.

Brittney

So Yummy In My Tummy!

One of my friends recently posted on Facebook a Paleo friendly fruit crisp with these directions:

‎3 cups of fresh or frozen fruit (I used frozen blueberries), 1 egg, 1 1/2 cups almond meal, 2 tbsp coconut oil, 2 tbsp cinnamon, honey......oven@350, put fruit on bottom of pie dish and drizzle with honey, mix egg, almond meal, coconut oil, and cinnamon in bowl.......by hand crumble the mixture over the fruit, bake in oven for 35 minutes...I put about 1/4 cup of coconut milk in the bottom of my bowl and put my serving of the cobbler in the milk, it was excellent but next time I think I'll serve with frozen vanilla yogurt.

I decided that I had to try it because it looked so yummy. I modified a few things so here is what I did.

First of all I decided to serve mine with frozen banana yogurt. Simply take 3-4 bananas and cut them into 1/2 inch slices and freeze them for 2-3 hours until they are solid.

 In the mean time you will need the following:

1 cup Bob's Red Mill GF almond meal/flour

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

3/4 cup dehydrated chopped coconut(unsweetened)

2 cups berries of choice

3 tablespoons of coconut oil

 Chop berries and place in bottom of baking dish add 1/8 cup of the maple syrup and just toss around the berries.

 In a separate bowl combine 1/2 of coconut and all of the flour.

 Add melted coconut oil and 1/8 cup of the maple syrup. Mix together and it should resemble a crumbly fruit topping. Put the topping over the fruit and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.

Voila! It should smell amazing and look a little something like this.

After the time has passed for the bananas throw them in the blender or food processor and start pulsing. You will have to scrape the sides several times and move the bananas around. They will start to get crumbly looking. That is good.

Keep going

50 pulses or so later, the bananas should look a little something like this. I put mine in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes to firm it up a bit and then serve it with your fruit crisp.

 So Yummy!

There you have it. Paleo friendly, gluten free, vegan dessert. 

Brittney