I really love being able to toss ingredients into my slow cooker in the morning in order to have a meal ready to go later in the day, don't you? There's just so much less stress, and I feel so organized, with a clean kitchen going into dinnertime! This recipe for tomato-free, paleo slow cooked beef can be used in a multitude of ways. If you don't want to stuff it into baked sweet potatoes then you could use it as a taco filling for corn tortillas, Brown Rice Flour Tortillas, or simply served with sautéed kale and cabbage!

I have a very fun recipe for you today—one that your children will love to help make......gluten-free bagels! I've been making these ever since my oldest daughter asked me to create a gluten-free bagel recipe, about four years ago. I had just published the first edition of the Nourishing Meals Cookbook (2012), which contained plenty of amazing gluten-free and vegan bread recipes, but no bagel recipe! She encouraged me to test out my breadstick and bread recipes in bagel form and they worked great.

Learn how to make the most delicious, anti-inflammatory turmeric-ginger broth—one that not only warms your body, but soothes your nervous system and stimulates healthy digestion from the inside out. I love adding chopped fresh turmeric to chicken soup, but this recipe takes the turmeric content and bioavailability to a whole new level. I’ve created a richly nourishing broth that uses both fresh turmeric and dried, powdered turmeric, layered with warming ginger, healing aromatics, and nourishing fat to support your body’s healing pathways on every level. This isn’t just soup—it’s liquid gold for your gut, immune system, and soul.

This flavorful green soup uses simple ingredients to create a nourishing meal that can help support natural detoxification. It is designed for Phase 1 of our Elimination Diet, but of course is a wonderful addition to your weekly meal planning even if you are not on the elimination diet! The Elimination Diet is not a diet that tells you what is good for you and what is not. It is a process that helps you discover what foods work best for you. We are all unique. There is no one way of eating or one perfect diet that is right for everyone. Even Hippocrates noticed this well over 2000 years ago.

I've got an easy, nourishing main dish recipe for you today! These Nightshade-Free Chicken Tacos are super easy to prepare and perfect if you are following an elimination diet, nightshade-free diet, or another special diet such as an autoimmune diet. My children also love this recipe! The chicken taco filling is cooked in a slow-cooker making the prep time less than 10 minutes. I like to serve the taco filling with my Plantain Tortillas (pictured here) or my gluten-free brown rice flour tortillas. The filling is also wonderful served inside of a baked half of a kabocha or delicata squash, topped with greens and sprouts of course!

If you are looking for an extremely easy and super nutritious cranberry sauce recipe, then I have just the thing! I've been making this raw cranberry sauce recipe for a few years and I've shared it on Instagram and Facebook, but never seem to get around to getting it up on my blog....until now!

Sometimes when the weather cools it is easy to get into the habit of eating more dense, cooked foods. For some people this is just what they need. But for others, a balance between raw and cooked is best. We each are unique, and so should be our diets. This colorful and nutrient-dense salad provides some key ingredients to support healthy detoxification. The dressing is delicious and can be used as a dip for raw veggies or used to top your favorite salads! I've even used it to top steamed vegetables! In functional medicine, detoxification is often considered "biotransformation" because our bodies will transform harmful substances into less harmful substances and then excrete them from the body.

Happy fall! I have a delicious gluten-free shortbread cookie recipe for you today! I recently became friends with a new family that came to our school. I began to talk this beautiful mama a few weeks ago at a birthday party and we could not stop talking about food! As it turns out she cooks just like I do, and creates many of her own recipes....all gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free! She gave me a loose recipe for these shortbread cookies. I then tested it to create a recipe someone else could follow. I'm so grateful for this recipe as it can be used in so many ways!

It's not easy coming up with a whole food-based frosting that is as nutritious as it is tasty, but way back in 2010 I came up a sweet potato icing recipe based off of the ingredients I was using in the liquids for this Buckwheat Cinnamon Roll Recipe. I've made a number of different variations on this theme and included some in my cookbooks. I have even made this into a chocolate sweet potato frosting!

I love super easy meals on busy weekday evenings, don't you? This recipe (including the variations below) is one of my go-to weeknight meals. I wanted to share it with you because we all could use more ideas on how to create doable, nourishing family dinners. I love to serve this baked chicken and potato dish with a big green salad or some sort of raw kale salad. I know potatoes have received a bad rap for years, but did you know that potatoes contain high levels of potent antioxidants similar to levels found in dark cherries, strawberries, plums, and apples? In fact, the darker colored potatoes like the purple varieties contain the highest level of antioxidants....not surprisingly!

Today I wanted to share a recipe from my Nourishing Meals cookbook with you—another kneadable gluten-free bread! Creating a recipe for kneadable gluten-free (and xanthan gum-free) bread took me years and years to develop.

Recipe 701

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What do you have to be thankful for? Family, friends, a warm house, a cozy fire, delicious food? There is so much to be grateful for; just stop and think about it for a minute.

This morning I slept in until 10am! Now that is something to be grateful for. The babies woke up quite a bit last night leaving me quite sleep deprived early this morning. Tom took all the kids downstairs, and, with the shades wide open and the sun shining in, I slept for an extra 2 1/2 hours!

This recipe will be a delicious addition to your next holiday feast. If you do not have a sensitivity to dairy, then try replacing the olive oil with organic butter. 

This dairy-free and refined sugar-free vegan buttercream frosting is not overly sweet and perfect for frosting a layered cake or a dozen cupcakes! To make it pink, add in one tablespoon of organic beet juice powder. I also like to add 5 to 6 drops of lemon essential oil to brighten the flavors. 

I created this recipe very late the night before one Thanksgiving. It was perfect for our large gathering of 20 plus gluten-free friends. They all enjoyed it and I am sure you will too. You can vary the ingredients in the filling. Try replacing the cranberries with dried cherries and the almonds with hazelnuts or cashews. The filling is dark and rich and not very sweet. If you would like a sweeter filling, then add a few more tablespoons of maple syrup.

Today I am going to share a favorite recipe for the holidays. It is a rich chocolaty tart meant to be shared among many.

Phase 1 is the most restricted and difficult phase of the diet so it is helpful to have more ideas. The green apple salad dressing recipe below is a creation of mine but some of the other ideas and recipes here come from a good friend who recently did the diet.

The other night Tom began preparing dinner by making his favorite Quinoa Black Bean Salad. I usually like to serve it along side some steamed winter squash for a light meal. However, it was quite chilly out and I was craving something a little denser, with more salt, spice, and fat! I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted. I always try to keep ingredients stocked in my pantry so I can create a recipe on a whim, and luckily I had everything I needed for my new, inspired recipe!

When it comes time for dessert how about celebrating the day with what's perfectly in season....pumpkins! I have a relatively new recipe to share with you that is super easy to prepare and always a crowd pleaser. A Pumpkin Spice Cake, cooked to perfection in a bundt pan.

The past few years I have made a delicious, savory, gluten-free wild rice stuffing for the big Thanksgiving Day turkey. We always use half of it to stuff the turkey, while the other half gets baked in a casserole dish. I have not had a recipe for this until today; I usually just toss it all together until it tastes just right. While preparing this at our holiday cooking class last week, I had a number of people ask me for exact measurements, which I just could not give. So today, I dutifully measured every ingredient before I put them into the skillet. The end result was perfection.

This morning we awoke to a hearty layer of frost on the ground. It was a beautiful sun-lit morning that beckoned me to go for a walk. I bundled the boys up in their fleece buntings and put them in the baby jogger. They fell asleep five minutes into the walk which left me time to daydream as I pushed the heavy jogger up and down the hills.

Today was a house-cleaning day. Lily (6-years old) decided to make a chore chart and put our names next to what needed to get done. She put all of our names (including the babies) on clothespins to attach next to each chore. She decided that Ben (10 months old) would be her helper for the family room and toy clean-up. She soon realized that having him in the room was a bit more work than she had intended. Well, you can only imagine what happened.

It's Friday night and Tom is dutifully doing all the dishes so I can write. Yes it's late, but our twins, now nearly 11 months old, have awoken twice already this evening. They are great at not sleeping, but somehow we survive on what little sleep we manage to get. I am hoping that by the time they turn one we will have them sleeping at least a five hour stretch at night.

You are in for a real treat today! The other night I had an early morning dream of these cupcakes with the recipe clearly spelled out for me. I was in sort of a lucid dream-like state and knew I needed to write it down. But alas, I have been exhausted caring for my children who have the chicken pox (and Tom who apparently did not have them as a child). So I fell back asleep with them playing on the bed. The next time I awoke I had the recipe in the forefront of my now awake mind. I asked my seven year old, Lily, to run and get me a pen and paper.

I received an email last weekend from someone who has our book and also has a toddler about the same age as our twin boys (who are 15 months now). She was asking about snacks to take on outings and play dates. I replied to her and mentioned the obvious for us: green smoothies, nori, rice cakes, fresh fruit.

Although life seems to have eased up a bit now that our twin babies will be 15 months old tomorrow, the pace has begun to ramp up. Most days I feel like I am herding cats! For example, the other day I was out for a morning walk with the boys while the girls were in school. The boys really enjoy walking for part of it and if were up to Sam, he would walk for miles without stopping. As we neared the duck pond on a wooded trail near our house the boys began to merge onto the trail that leads down to it. I stopped the baby jogger and rounded them up like two footballs under each arm.

I like food. I love the contrasting colors, pungent flavors, and good feelings that come from it. And eating these naturally delicious whole foods is really just as wonderful when eating gluten-free.

For those of you who have just begun the process of switching to a gluten-free diet, I offer you these suggestions for making wrap style sandwiches work with gluten-free tortillas.

Sound too good to be true? Here I present to you a fabulous-tasting chocolate layer cake. Moist and delicious. Tender and rich. Chocolate at its best. Allergen-free. No gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn, or sugar!

Seriously, you just can't go wrong here.

Love is in the air now, can you feel it? The girls and I have been making Valentine's for over a week now. There is glitter all over the house!

What do you do to celebrate Valentine's Day?

I know for most of us chocolate is involved. Maybe roses, a massage, a nice dinner. These are all wonderful things, but what about love?

So you want to eat nutritious, healing foods AND need to eat gluten-free? Look no further. Having simple, easy-to-prepare recipes like these can make this type of lifestyle very doable.

I have this recipe that I created a few months ago and I thought I would share it with you. It is one of those recipes that is so delicious and so perfect that you don't want to give it away, or share your secret. But here it is! A gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, sugar-free delicious and nutritious little muffin, the Teff Breakfast Muffin.

After a temporary break of much needed spring-like rain, summer is back! We spent the day at the beach. The kids waded in the ocean and found purple and orange starfish in the tide pools. The boys were happy to dig in the sand for a few hours. And me? Well I got to lounge in the sun and talk with a friend while I ate this refreshing summer salad.

Here I used English cucumbers and basil from the Farmer's Market, and local heirloom tomatoes from our food co-op. Add shaved parmesan cheese or fresh mozzarella cheese if you tolerate dairy products!

Summer BBQ's, potato salad, layered jell-o salads, fireflies, and sparklers flashing through the humid July night sky....these are my 4th of July memories growing up in the Midwest.

Since layered jell-o salads just aren't in my cooking repertoire anymore I have devised something even more delicious...and good for you!

Yesterday I was standing in my kitchen at 5pm, with four hungry children underfoot, wondering what to make for dinner. I made the usual rounds to the pantry, fridge, and garden. Something spicy, green, and with noodles was brewing in my mind. A green curry sauce, over noodles, with tempeh, broccoli, spinach and zucchini. Hmm, and how about roasted cashews too? Every now and then I make a simple Thai Green Curry Sauce. Yesterday evening I took note of the ingredient amounts to be able to share it with you.

Just in time for summer BBQs comes an easy recipe for homemade barbecue sauce! It is sweet and tangy with a nice kick from the chipotle chili powder. I don't shop around much for barbecue sauce and therefore am not on the up-and-up with ingredients and allergens commonly found in sauces. Many barbecue sauces contain soy sauce or tamari and, therefore, potentially wheat as well. Barbecue sauces are often also hidden sources for refined sugars or high fructose corn syrup, and some contain other types of processed ingredients that most of us would like to avoid.

What to do when the weather gets warm? Make ice cream. We've been making "ice cream" quite often lately. Last week the temperature lingered in the low 80's for most of the week. This week has been beautiful too...in the 70's.