Wonder Pudding (Healthy Chocolate Pudding)

Oh...MYgosh! This pudding is really good! 

Non-dairy, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, no artificial anything! Sounds like it would be disgusting right? Wrong. This pudding is full of the good stuff: chocolate, natural sugars, and good fats.

This pudding works for The Whole 30 lifestyle and for the vegan lifestyle. It's also a wonderful dessert for babies 8 months old or older (but don't take my word for it: please consult with your pediatrician regarding feeding your baby solid foods).

Story behind Wonder Pudding: My in-laws were coming over for dinner this past weekend and I wanted to make them a dessert that was in line with their fancy new Whole 30 diet. I found a simple recipe that called for bananas and cocoa powder. Bananas, love 'em. Cocoa powder, love it. So yea, this recipe seemed liked it would work. 

But then...I found a baby food recipe for chocolate pudding that seemed even better (@babyfooduniverse on Instagram). The recipe called for the bananas and cocoa powder, and also an avocado, dates, and fruit juice. I was a little skeptical about the amount of avocado and dates, and also about the fruit juice. So I made modifications and gave the recipe a try. I tossed the ingredients into the Vitamix, and boom: chocolate pudding!

I chopped some raw almonds and toasted them in the toaster oven. I served the pudding in martini glasses sprinkled with the almonds and garnished with a thin slice of banana. My plan was to get the in laws to "taste it with their eyes" first, just in case they didn't like it. 

Well, they were very impressed by the martini glasses and the banana slice, but most of all they loved the taste of the pudding. They ate every spoonful! Daughter-in-law win! 

I think they loved it even more than my baby girl did!

I hope you love it too! 

Wonder Pudding

Yield: about 4 servings

1/2 large ripe avocado

4 ripe bananas 

1 cup cold filtered water

5 pitted dates 

4 Tablespoons cocoa powder

Combine all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth, then refrigerate. Serve chilled, topped with roasted nuts.

Follow me on Instagram @howtogetawaywithcooking for more instructions and inspiration for cooking healthful and delicious foods.

Questions? Feedback? I would love to hear from you! Leave them in the Comments section below or you can email me at HTGAWC@gmail.com.

Baby Food: Turkey-Kale-Chickpeas-Roasted Carrots (10 months)

I have no idea what to call this. And let's just be honest, it's looks gross. But I'm posting the recipe because my baby girl loves it! It's a great combination of nutrient-packed foods. 

I made this for my baby girl when she was 10 months old. You might chose to offer this combination earlier or later than that, but please always consult with your pediatrician regarding introducing foods to your little one.

Ingredients:

Cooked lean ground turkey

Cooked organic kale leaves 

Roasted organic carrots

Canned organic chickpeas

How to:

I cooked my turkey in a little olive oil, boiled my chickpeas in water, steamed my kale in a steamer basket, and roasted my carrots with a little olive oil in the oven (along with several other vegetables that I'm using to prep my baby's meals this week).

I placed the ingredients in my Vitamix with purified drinking water and blended to my desired texture (baby girl likes it chunky). I started out with about 1/2 cup of water and added more as I blended. No measuring cups were involved in the making of this puree. I definitely recommend using your own creativity and your baby's preferences in deciding the ratios. That's the fun part!

Let's blame daylight savings time for my lack of detail in this post. I want my hour back! 

 

Anyway, have fun!

Follow me on Instagram @howtogetawaywithcooking for more instructions and inspiration for cooking healthful and delicious foods.

Or on Twitter @HTGAWC, even though I don't quite understand how to use Twitter...

Questions? Feedback? I would love to hear from you! Leave them in the Comments section below or you can email me at htgawc@gmail.com

Sweet Green Smoothie

Remember when you first got your turbo blender (probably for Christmas) and you pinned all those smoothie recipes on Pinterest and you were like, "I'm going to drink smoothies all the time" and you bought a whole bunch of fruits and vegetables and you felt so healthy and cool? What happened?

This smoothie helps me get back to that. This is my go-to smoothie. To be fair, it's actually my handsome husband's recipe. And since what's "his is mine" I like to think of this as my go-to green smoothie (see how I did that?). It's my go-to because it's easy, delicious, healthy, and I never seem to get tired of it. One of the things that makes this smoothie easy is that I get all of the ingredients from Costco and most of the fruit is frozen.

When it comes to making smoothies, easy is a must for me. If it's not easy, forget it, I'll just eat the fruit. Forget the smoothie. Bye.

Picking locally grown fresh organic fruits and vegetables at their peak of ripeness is a great plan, and I'm not knocking that at all. But my daily schedule doesn't allow for that most days ever. So what I love about this smoothie is that all I have to do is grab my frozen strawberries and mangoes from the deep freezer, pull the spinach and kale out of the fridge, peel an orange, and I'm all set.

By the way, this is my easy method of peeling an orange. For when you don't have time to grow your fingernails long enough to peel it the old fashioned way.

I use my Vitamix 5200 to make this smoothie. If you make a lot of smoothies the Vitamix is a wise investment. I highly recommend it. I also use the Vitamix to make baby food purees for my baby girl. This beast of a machine pulverizes all of your ingredients into a perfectly smooth smoothie, and it just makes the whole process so much easier. And like I said, easy is a must for my smoothies. But this smoothie can be made in any food processor, just follow the manufacturuer's directions.

Coconut water versus filtered drinking water...well the coconut water has tons of nutritional benefits. If you don't care for the taste of coconut water, I highly doubt that you will taste it in this smoothie. Your taste buds will think you just used regular old water, but your body will be able to enjoy the benefits of the potassium-powerhouse, hydrating, wonderful coconut water. If you don't have coconut water (which you can also pick up for a good price at Costco), don't let that stop you from making this smoothie. I never let it stop me!

Drink this smoothie for breakfast, as a snack, with lunch, with dinner, or whenever you want. I used to pour it in my blender bottle and drink it on the way to work. To prevent the ingredients from separating and to prevent the smoothie from becoming warm, drink it relatively quickly, in about 30 minutes or less. If this yields too much smoothie for you, just divide the recipe in half to make half the amount.

Sweet Green Smoothie

Yield: about 3 1/2 cups

2 large handfuls of fresh spinach

1 large handfuls of fresh baby kale

1 orange, peeled and quartered

1 cup frozen strawberries

1 cup frozen mango chunks

1 cup coconut water or filtered drinking water

Put water and loosely packed greens into the Vitamix and pulverize. Add the orange quarters and pulverize. Add the frozen mangoes and pulverize. Then add the frozen strawberries and pulverize. Add more water if needed. If you are using a machine other than the Vitamix please follow the manufacturer's directions for best results (and so that you don't break your machine!).