Pasta salads are perfect for easy summer meals when it's too hot to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Serve with Grilled Chicken & Vegetable Kebobs for a balanced meal. I use a soy-free and egg-free avocado oil mayonnaise in my recipes, which can be found at your local health food store. Leftover cooked chicken or cooked chickpeas can be added to this pasta salad for extra protein if desired! 

Serve these grain-free paleo scones for brunch on a lazy weekend day! Or prepare a batch at the beginning of the week to pack in your child's lunchbox. You can replace the chocolate chips with raspberries, chopped cherries, or blueberries if you would like.

Serve this Thai noodle and vegetable salad on a hot summer day with a glass of iced herbal tea! If you would like to add more protein to it, try adding sautéed tofu or chopped cooked chicken.

Instead of using grains as a base for tabouli, try this recipe using raw cauliflower! It is refreshing and helps to upregulate detoxification pathways. Serve with breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Make this recipe on the weekend to have a nutrient-dense, raw salad to enjoy for quick meals throughout the week.

Poaching fresh berries is a wonderful way to use up some of the bountiful summer berry harvest! Use poached berries to top Homemade Creme Fraîche, Whipped Coconut Cream, plain Greek yogurt, or Overnight Steel Cut Oats. Other types of berries can be used instead of the blackberries. Try small fresh strawberries, marionberries, or raspberries.  

Serve these traditional Mexican street tacos with your favorite tortillas. Corn tortillas, cassava flour tortillas, or brown rice flour tortillas all work well! If you eat dairy, try sprinkling each taco with some crumbled cotija cheese! For more spice, set out a small bowl of diced or sliced jalapeño peppers. You can also make a batch of Pico de Gallo to serve with your street tacos.

This recipe is something my daughter, Grace, created. She makes a variation of this recipe frequently! Often she will add chopped chicken sausages to the mixture and omit the eggs. You can serve this with warmed corn tortillas, sour cream, and sliced avocados for a breakfast taco if you would like! This recipe is great to make on a weekend morning before a busy day with your children. The balance of protein, complex carbohydrates, and fats will keep them going for hours without getting hungry.

Banana bread is a great way to use up all of the overripe bananas in your fruit bowl! Cassava flour is a wonderful replacement for wheat flour in gluten-free and grain-free baking. Feel free to add chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, or chopped pecans to this recipe if you would like!

This quick and easy salmon recipe can be served with a simple green salad and your favorite dressing for a nourishing, anti-inflammatory meal. Be sure your sheet pan is large enough to accommodate the ingredients in this recipe. If you use a smaller pan, the veggies may turn a bit watery instead of cooking and slightly caramelizing. 

This recipe is a refreshing twist on traditional coleslaw. The fennel adds a lovely, light, and refreshing anise flavor. I prefer to use less mayo than most traditional coleslaw recipes so that the flavors of the vegetables shine through and they're not drenched in fat! For a creamier coleslaw, you can add about 2 to 3 more tablespoons of mayo.

Make this easy meat-free spaghetti on nights when you don't have a lot of time to cook! It is a great way to make use of the summer fennel and sweet onion harvest (I have both growing in abundance in my garden right now). Feel free to use any type and shape of pasta you would like here. Serve pasta with a green salad and a glass of white wine for a light summer meal.

This creamy dairy-free and low-carbohydrate soup gets its creaminess from the fennel bulbs and zucchini. To save time, use an immersion blender to purée the soup right in the Instant Pot! This nourishing and easily digestible soup is delicious served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

A kale and shaved fennel salad makes a nice alternative to a standard green salad for an evening meal side dish. Use a mandoline to very thinly sliced the fennel bulbs! Serve this Mediterranean-inspired salad with baked fish, roasted chicken, or a white bean soup.

Serve this refreshing lemonade on a hot summer day. The watermelon adds a natural sweetness, so no added sugars are needed! You can dilute this drink with extra water and add a few pinches of sea salt for a natural electrolyte beverage that can be used when hiking or exercising outdoors in the summer heat.

I have a large patch of vining blackberries and marionberries that grow up my fence and onto the support wires above. Each year they produce an abundance of beautiful berries that I need to freeze or use as they ripen on the vines. Grazing on these antioxidant-rich berries all day during the hot summer feels wonderful too. Some days I'll only eat the raspberries, blackberries, marionberries, and cherries growing on my property until dinnertime!

Use these healthy sugar-free candies if you are on a low-carb or keto diet and need a treat to help maintain ketosis. Coconut butter is the puréed flesh from the coconut, including the oil. You can find it at most health food stores. Use any shape of silicone candy mold you have, or use a muffin pan lined with paper liners and only fill them about a quarter of the way full.

Serve this low-carb kale casserole with seared salmon, baked chicken breasts, or pork chops. A light green salad on the side would pair well with these recipes to round out the meal. If you have any leftover chicken needing to be used, try stirring it into the kale and tomatoes before baking.

Serve this easy ground turkey and veggie meal over white basmati rice, long grain brown rice, or, for a low-carb option, serve over riced cauliflower. Serve with sliced fresh cucumbers and extra cilantro for an easy, nourishing meal. 

Wild blackberries grow everywhere here in the Pacific Northwest, but I also grow two cultivated varieties in my garden. Each year they produce an abundance of berries! This egg-free and gluten-free cake is made using raw buckwheat flour. It only takes a minute to grind buckwheat flour using a high-powdered blender! Serve this healthy cake for a weekend brunch or after a light, evening meal. It is delicious served with Whipped Coconut Cream and extra fresh blackberries.

Serve this refreshing fruit salad on a hot summer day. It is hydrating, cooling, and anti-inflammatory! It makes a great mid-afternoon snack, or serve it with a light dinner of grilled salmon and a green salad.

My garden is overflowing right now with berries, arugula, mint, and lettuces! This summer salad recipe was born out of a need to use up my garden produce. The flavors are perfectly balanced with spicy, bitter, sweet, salty, and sour. Serve this salad with grilled chicken and grilled zucchini for an easy and nourishing summer meal. 

Homemade enchilada sauce is so easy to make, and once you try it you'll never want to use a pre-made sauce again. Use it with your favorite enchilada fillings and tortillas! This recipe makes enough to use for one 9x13-inch pan of enchiladas.

I first made this recipe when I had a whole house full of hungry teenage boys and I needed to make a large meal to feed all of them. Making an enchilada casserole is so much faster that rolling each tortilla with filling. Just layer everything in the pan and bake! I initially made this recipe with more filling and three packages of tortillas in a 10x14-inch baking dish. The sauce can be stretched further if need be for a larger batch.

Serve this flavorful salad for breakfast with scrambled eggs and arugula. It is also delicious served for lunch over a bed of lettuce with some grilled chicken on top.

These grain and veggie bowls are great to prep in the morning before you head out for the day with your children, whether to the beach, mountains, or parks. Just pack individual servings in glass containers and put them into a small cooler. They also make a wonderful lunchbox main dish for your child!

This grain-free and vegan berry crisp is a great way to use up some of your freshly harvested blackberries! The filling and topping are just barely sweetened, so the berry and almond flavors really shine through.

When your digestion is weak, it's important to have puréed and well-cooked vegetables and meats so your body can absorb and utilize the nutrients in the food. Using anti-inflammatory foods as well calms the gut and immune system down so you can begin the healing process. Using an Instant Pot creates easily digested meat and vegetables, similar to slow cooking. Plus, this meal is very easy to make! 

Serve this vegetarian spaghetti dinner with a large green salad for an easy summer meal. You can roast your own red bell peppers in the oven or buy a 12-ounce jar of them to save time. 

I like to make this refreshing smoothie throughout the summer with the kale and berries growing in my garden. Sometimes I will use strawberries or blueberries in place of the blackberries. The amino acid powder and collagen peptides provide quite a bit of easily absorbable amino acids to keep you fueled for hours. I will often have this smoothie as my lunch, especially if I plan on exercising in the afternoon.

Growing up, my mom would almost always have peanut butter granola balls in the fridge for us to take out and snack on when we were hungry. She used granola, peanut butter, honey, chocolate chips, and raisins. I can still remember the taste of these! My version below is a little different, but just as good! Pack one or two in your child's lunchbox, or pack them with you for backpacking or hiking trips. 

This nightshade-free beef bone broth is so nourishing and wonderful to use as a base for soups and stews, or just for sipping on! It's also a great way for me to use up the abundance of fresh herbs, celery, and onions that I have growing in my gardens during the summertime. Bone broth freezes very well, so you can make a few batches and stock your freezer. I use an Instant Pot to make this because I can just press a button and walk away from it!

This egg-free and gluten-free recipe uses cooked rice and plenty of vegetables and dried herbs to create a flavorful and tender allergy-free meatloaf! Serve with dairy-free mashed potatoes and sautéed kale for a balanced, nourishing meal.

Serve these nutritious grain-free and dairy-free blackberry muffins for breakfast with scrambled eggs and sautéed kale. They also make a great snack for your child's lunchbox! Other fruits can be used such as blueberries, raspberries, chopped pitted cherries, or diced pears. 

This warming vegetable beef soup makes the perfect meal on a chilly evening! You don't really need to serve it with anything, although a scoop of raw sauerkraut tastes great with it and helps with digestion. An Instant Pot cuts cooking time down significantly and makes very tender meat! Use a good homemade beef bone broth for best results. If the broth you are using is already salted you may want to taste the soup after it is cooked and add salt to taste if necessary.

Make a big batch of this chicken on a meal prep day to use throughout the week. You can make chicken salad out of it, top blended vegetable soups with it, add it to a garden vegetable salad, or use it in quesadillas with your favorite tortillas (my children love bean, chicken, and arugula quesadillas).

Serve these spicy, probiotic-rich vegetables as a condiment on top of stuffed sweet potatoes, scrambled eggs and avocado, or rice and black beans! They are very versatile!

This is a great way to use up an abundance of summer produce with a simple, classic soup that everyone will enjoy! Serve with finely grated parmesan cheese as a topping if desired.

Make this easy chipotle-spiced chicken salad with leftover chicken from making roasted chicken, poached chicken, or Instant Pot shredded chicken. Serve the chicken salad over baby arugula with sliced avocado on the side, or use it to stuff large avocados for an easy and nutritious low-carb lunch!

Several years ago I posted my gluten-free and vegan bagel recipe and promised to post my buckwheat cinnamon raisin version, but never got around to it until now! This recipe is nearly identical to that one, with a few slight changes. These bagels are boiled before baking, just like traditional bagels. You may want to make a double batch and freeze half of them. This way, your children can take one or two out at a time for a quick breakfast or after-school snack.

This recipe and these photos were done by my oldest daughter, Lily (at 10 years old). In her words: I like to pack these in my lunch or make them when I get home from school. My brothers and sister like them too!