June 21, 2020
Each Sunday, I share three recipes to get you through the week: one baked bite that can be devoured any time of day, one dinner option, and one scrumptious dessert!
This week we have carrot cake guaranteed to give you nostalgia for childhood, Indian flavors that can replace takeout any night, and truly THE BEST healthy chocolate chip cookies EVER! If you try the recipes, make sure to send me a picture- and don’t hesitate to email me any questions while you’re baking.
Here are my recommendations for the week of June 14:
The Baked Bite: Sweet Laurel’s Vegan, Paleo Carrot Cake Muffins
Carrot Cake is a favorite in my family, so I wanted to find a way to eat the delicious treat as a healthy breakfast or snack! This recipe makes a moist, chewy muffin that can be devoured as an on-the-go breakfast or snack. To up the ‘sweet factor’, make sure to add the icing.
Tip: There is an ongoing debate about raisins in carrot cake- it’s a must for some but a travesty to others. You can omit the raisins in this recipe if you fall in the latter category!
The Dinner: Gnom-Gnom’s Butter Chicken and Low-Carb Naan
If you’re craving delicious Indian food but want to impress your family by making it yourself, try this recipe! The naan is easy yet delicious, and the butter chicken is hearty yet healthy.
Tip: If you don’t have a food processor, use a blender to pulse together the ingredients in the naan. Also make sure to watch the naan closely when its on the pan- you want crisp patches but do not want it to burn all the way through!
The Dessert: Liz Moody’s Best Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite food, so I am always looking for ways to eat them for breakfast without feeling guilty. Liz Moody’s version is the best healthy CC cookie recipe I’ve encountered. They have been featured on Goop and in Us Weekly - so you know they’re celebrity-approved.
Tip: MAKE SURE to let the cookies cool for at least 15-20 minutes after you take them out of the oven. They firm up CONSIDERABLY!
The Modifications:
Before hopping into this week’s dietary modifications, I thought it would be useful to go over a popular vegan replacement for eggs. If you mix 1 tablespoon of ground flax, flaxseeds, or chia seeds with 3 tablespoons of water and let sit for about ten minutes, you get a gelatinous mixture that often works as an egg substitute. This week’s carrot cake muffins call for a flax egg, and you can make the chocolate chip cookies vegan by subbing a flax-egg for the egg.
**Notes for The Baked Bite: To go the low-carb route, replace the maple syrup with monk fruit sweetener. However, if you do so, I recommend using 1/4 cup monk fruit + a dash of water and using an egg instead of the flax egg. Sweet Laurel suggests just swapping the 1/3 cup maple syrup with 1/4 cup monk fruit + 1/3 cup water, but I found that this method yielded very soggy muffins that did not come together in the oven and were impossible to remove from the pan. If you use my low-carb method, you’ll get more traditional looking muffins (see picture on the right, below). Matt actually much preferred the low-carb to the vegan, paleo version, though I thought both were super yummy!
The Ingredients:
Sweeteners
Lakanto Golden monk fruit sweetener (Low-carb replacement for coconut, granulated, and brown sugar)
Coconut sugar (Paleo and refined-sugar free replacement for granulated or brown sugar)
Flours Etc.
Almond and coconut flour can be purchased at any grocery store or on Amazon (any brand works)
Oils & Fats
Full-fat coconut milk (comes in a can, not in a milk container)
Add-Ins
Stevia-sweetened chocolate chips (Keto/Paleo friendly chocolate chip substitute)
