Category: Comfort Food

Earl Gray Lavender Cheesecake

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Recipe #17 is not only delicious but lovely to look at, as you can see.  I decided to play with my passion for cheesecake this weekend and whip one up.  However, I didn’t just want to make any old cheesecake.  I wanted to come up with a slightly more unique flavor combination than the usual offerings one finds with cheesecake flavorings.

I have been using lavender a lot lately, especially in my pancakes.  One of my most raved about recent pancake varieties is my blueberry lavender recipe.  So naturally, all this lavender I have been working with as of late sparked a bulb when considering cheesecake possibilities.  I have also heard of all things earl gray flavored being a trendy as well as simultaneously rather timeless flavor, especially in combination with recipes involving creams or sweets.  So I put two and two together and that set the course of my experiment.

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I am excited to report rave reviews from the handful of people who sampled it.  This recipe is refined sugar-free as well as gluten free.  Its not lactose-free.  Personally, I don’t think a cheesecake is cheesecake unless its made of cream cheese.  While I have sampled some excellent raw cheesecakes which are dairy-free (and I plan to attempt one for this very website at some point in the near future ;-)), I had to go with a legit cheesecake (aka, with dairy) for this particular recipe (just minus the sugar and gluten).

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Bombastic Buckwheat Pancakes

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Recipe #15 is another top contender for me.  I make these far too often.  You can customize this one flavor-wise to your hearts content.  The sky is the limit.  So for a playful and creative cook, this is an especially sweet recipe to add to your repertoire.  The other awesome news?  These are gluten-free, sugar-free AND lactose-free!

Pancakes.  As those of you who have read my previous entries know, pancakes hold a special place in my heart.  I adore them.  I would eat them every day if I could.  For me, pancakes evoke images of cozy, leisurely breakfasts crowded around a cramped table full of friends, lots of laughter and stories filling the air between all of us.  Or, of a lazy brunch having rolled out of bed in the golden hours of late morning with a lover, getting ready together and strolling down the street hand in hand, leaves wrestling in the grates as as we huddle against one another and push inside the cafe.  We sink down into the comfortable booth, scanning the worn menu but already know what we want (or at least I do).  A plate of towering pancakes, warm, syrup dripping down the sides.

Fun fact: these guys are made with buckwheat flour, which is actually a fruit seed.  Its not a grain at all.  It comes from the same family as rhubarb.  And, did you know that buckwheat is awesome for you!?!  Its good for your cardiovascular system, helps control blood sugar and may lower ones risk of diabetes, helps prevent gallstones, and has health promoting potential that is equal to or even higher than that of some fruits and vegetables.  How cool is that?

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Superb Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake

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Alright, people.  Recipe #12 is a major gift.  This is, hands down, my personal favorite recipe to make and eat on a regular basis.  It is DELICIOUS.  One would never guess that this cake is chalk full of good-for-you ingredients.  It tastes like a fudgy, decadent, dense, rich chocolate cake.  However unlike a typical chocolate cake which is loaded with sugar, calories, bad-for-you fat and all sorts of things that are terrible for your body, this one is gluten-free, refined sugar-free and lactose free!!  It hits all three health points.

For about a month, I was whipping up this bad boy every weekend.  Its that good.  On second thought, you might not want to try out this recipe.  It will change the way you eat chocolate cake forever.  The recipe may sound and look slightly complicated to initial onlookers.  Dont worry, its not.  After making it twice, I have the process memorized.  Its super easy to throw together.  And then you have the awesomeness of a healthy chocolate cake in your house for enjoying alongside of your tea and coffee for the next week.  You’re welcome 😉

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Light Shrimp & Rice Dinner

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Recipe #11.  This one is an oldie but a goodie.  This photo was taken in my rookie period, during which I had ZERO experience with photographing food and was just beginning to get my toes wet.  So please excuse that this food photo isn’t quite up to par with my other ones.  That aside, this dish is simple but really manages to hit the spot.

Its gluten-free and sugar-free. It can be made lactose-free by omitting the cheese (though that would really change the nature of the dish).  You could substitute in goat cheese which would probably taste pretty good.

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Pumpkin Cheesecake

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Recipe #9 (get excited, its a good one).  It doesn’t get much more “New England” than this.  And being a born and bred New Englander myself, this is one of the many things I have longed for since having moved to Europe.

When a beautiful thing called autumn comes along which results in an fiery explosion throughout the trees (Google: New Hampshire during autumn.  You will see what I am talking about), the temperatures dropping steadily, consumption of hot drinks growing ever so enticing, boots, plaid and wool jackets coming out in abundance, scarves wrapping enthusiastically around necks and roaring fires beginning to occupy ones home hearth more and more often as the weeks continue to pass, one more stellar thing happens.

A massive onslaught of all things pumpkin flavored begins.  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin pastas, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin muffins and cookies, pumpkin pancakes (wink, wink) and yes, pumpkin cheesecake.

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Home Style Macaroni and Cheese

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Recipe #7.  Ok, I admit it.  This one doesn’t easily fit into the categories for my websites premise.  This dish is a bit of a special case.  The only claim I can make for it right off the bat is that its definitely sugar-free.  And you can absolutely make this dish gluten-free by purchasing gluten-free pasta!  By nature of the title though, its of course not lactose-free.  Not even close.  However, I can tell you that its more than worth it.

This was, hands down, my favorite dish for years growing up.  I would beg my Mom to make it multiple times a week.  She appeased me on this one pretty regularly (though thankfully not as regularly as I begged her for it), making it roughly once a week much to my child or teenage delight.  Whenever we had this for dinner, it made my entire day.  A smile remained plastered on my face for the rest of the evening, in my comatose state after consuming this deliciously cheesy dinner  (Yes, I was easily pleased and excitable as a child.  Some things don’t change much as we become adults, eh? ;-))

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