All posts by Lauren Bolanos

Drinks

Beet and Carrot Juice

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beet-carrot-cucumber-juice

This juice made from beets, carrots, and cucumbers is my all time favorite to make. I wanted to make some juice recipes for my blog, since one of my resolutions is to use my juicer more. It’s a great tool to easily consume and absorb a ton of nutrients at once, but there are down sides too. Like too much sugar, no protein, and it can be a hassle to set up, dissemble and clean, especially compared to how easy the Vitamix is to use. I’ve also had issues with certain foods getting stuck (celery I bitching about you).

This recipe is one of my favorites because the hard carrots and beets juice up easily. I use a cucumber as well, as a base to get in more liquid. Carrots, beets, and cucumbers have natural sugars that I find sweet enough, so I don’t need fruit. Plus, the end result is still sweet enough that it tastes delicious.  This recipe just fills up one juicing pitcher at four cups, making this my all time favorite juice.

The benefits of the veggies in this juice are surprisingly similar. Beets are amazing for a lot of things including blood pressure, stamina, detoxification, inflammation, and they also help prevent cancer. Carrots have similar benefits for the heart, detoxification, inflammation and cancer prevention. Cucumbers are also great for detoxification, brain health, inflammation, and heart health. I’m actually pretty obsessed with cucumbers and use them as a base for liver pates, chicken and tuna salads, and as a snack with a little sea salt when I’m craving crunchy and salty food, which is all the time. Basically they’re my healthy substitution for chips and crackers. On that tangent, I hope everyone had a great holiday and New Years, and I hope you are as excited as I am to get back to the healthier stuff!

Beet and Carrot Juice

Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes
Yield: 4 cups

Ingredients

  • 3 large beets
  • 2 lbs bag of carrots
  • 1 seedless cucumber

Cooking Directions

  1. Cut vegetables into pieces small enough for the juicer
  2. Juice vegetables alternating between beets, cucumber, and carrots.
  3. Strain through a nut milk bag.
  4. (optional) Refrigerate or a half hour. Then drink up.
Health & Wellness

Popular Recipes of 2014

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Thank you for making 2014 such a great year! This year has been really busy for my blog, which is actually pretty new. I started it Blogger in 2013 as a way for me to keep track of my recipes, and have been trying to improve it ever since. This year, I moved it from Blogger to WordPress, and from taking pictures with a camera phone to a DSLR. I’ve redesigned my site myself, and learned a lot in the process … including how to cook 🙂

I wanted to share with you my popular recipes of 2014. The Pesto Zucchini Pasta was a favorite on Pinterest as well, so I’d like to do more veggie noodle pastas for 2015 …

1. Pesto  Zucchini Pasta

raw-pesto-zucchini-pasta

2. Slow Cooker Oxtail Soup

oxtailsoup

3. Steamed Apples with Cinnamon

Steamed Apples - Healing and Eating

4. Broccoli and Breakfast Sausage Quiche

Broccoli and Breakfast Sausage Quiche - Healing and Eating

5. Chicken and Avocado Salad

chicken_avocado_salad_v03

Snacks

Baked Pepperoni Chips

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baked-pepperoni-chips

Merry Christmas! These baked pepperoni chips were a hit at Christmas Eve. Plus, they are really easy to make. These chips make a fun snack food for those avoiding carbs, grains, and gluten. But they are pretty salty and spicy on their own, so be sure to serve it with some festive drinks, and don’t add any additional seasoning! Trust me, they don’t need it.

I hope everyone had a yummy holiday! I know I sure did.

Baked Pepperoni Chips
 
Author: Lauren Bolanos
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cook time: 8 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 1 lb sliced pepperoni
Instructions
  1. Line cookie sheet with foil.
  2. Place sliced pepperoni on cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.
  3. Let pepperoni drain on a paper towel, and the oil dry out a bit before serving.
Desserts

Mexican Wedding Cakes

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mexican-wedding-cakes

I altered a family Christmas cookie recipe to make it dairy free and gluten free. It tastes like the original, which was my goal. However, this recipe isn’t sugar free. You can easily substitute a natural sweetener, but the cookie will not taste the same. I still haven’t found a good replacement for the flavor of powdered sugar (aka confectioners sugar). Here is the original recipe to reference:

Original Recipe

Ingredients
  • 1 cup of butter
  • 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of finely chopped nuts

Directions: Cream butter, confectioners sugar and vanilla. With a spoon, blend in the flour. Add nuts; shape into 3/4 inch balls, rolling in palm of hand. Place 1/2 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets and bake in 300 degree oven 25-30 minutes or until cookies are a creamy color. Remove to rack until just warm; rol in confectioners sugar. Makes approximately 3 1/2 dozen.

Mexican Wedding Cakes
 
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Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ¾ cup powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
  • 1¼ cup arrowroot flour
  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 1 cup organic palm oil (or vegan butter)
  • 1 cup chopped hazelnuts
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, mix palm oil (or vegan butter), powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.
  2. Then slowly add in almond flour and arrowroot flour.
  3. Gentle mix in finely chopped hazelnuts.
  4. (Optional) Refrigerate dough for a half hour.
  5. Roll into small balls about ¾ inches wide.
  6. Line baking sheet with parchment paper, and bake for 25 minutes at 300 degrees.
  7. (Optional) Roll them in powdered sugar when warm or sprinkle them with powdered sugar when cool.

Health & Wellness

Tips for Traveling with Whole Food Supplements

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tips-for-traveling-with-whole-food-supplementsHere are a few tips, when traveling with whole food supplements to stay healthy away from your kitchen. This holiday, I will be taking my Perfect Supplements sample pack, which I was lucky enough to get sent for free to try.

1. Include Probiotics.

In the past, I’ve used Orac-Engery Greens, which I really like mixed into smoothies or coconut water, but the probiotics found in the Orac-Energy Greens are a supplement, not a fermented whole food. That’s why I was really excited to try the fermented kale powder. There are a lot of benefits to choosing fermented food over a supplement. This includes getting a more diverse range of healthy bacteria. The fermentation process also helps predigest the food, making it more bioavailable. So you will be getting even more benefits from consuming this kale! Plus, eating fermented kale isn’t fun. I’ve actually made it once, and since kale is bitter, and fermenting food sours it, the combo of bitter and sour doesn’t taste good. If you want to consume fermented kale, I recommend sticking with the whole food powder by Perfect Supplements.

2. Get Some Seaweed.

I’ve brought sheets of nori on trips before, and the Orac-Energy Greens has a nice mix of spirulina and chlorella. I wanted to take with me on my trip some ocean greens, to combine with my fermented kale greens to make my own green powder mix. I love chlorella. I have an article about Chlorella and Pain Relief that talks about how helpful the detox benefits are for a person in chronic pain. Perfect Supplements sells a broken cell wall chlorella supplement that is organic, vegan, fairly traded, and contains no added fillers or additives.

3. Include some Protein.

I know protein is a sensitive and controversial topic for a lot of people. So I’m going to give your some options. If you’re vegan take a high quality protein powder. When I was vegan I used Opti-Cleanse GHI by Xymogen. It tastes awful, but was recommended to me by an Integrative Doctor after blood work. It doesn’t contain, gluten, corn, yeast, soy, animal or dairy products, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, artificial colors, artificial sweeteners or preservatives. Judging by taste, I’m not sure there are natural sweeteners either, but the supplements used are of a really high quality. For my paleo people, you can take some Collagen Hydrolysate or Gelatin from Great Lakes, or you can take some grass-fed Desiccated Liver from Perfect Supplements. Or take both with you for even more health benefits.

Have a safe and healthy trip! 🙂

Natural Living

DIY Olive Oil Lip Balm

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diy-olive-oil-lip-balm

This olive oil lip balm was extremely easy to make, and only uses two ingredients – olive oil, and beeswax. You can add essential oils to this recipe if you like, but I wanted to keep this recipe as basic as possible. I love olive oil bath and beauty products. Maybe my Italian background is showing, but for me, olive oil reminds me of high-end health-oriented spa products. This recipe make a little bit more than one tube, and can easily be multiplied to make lovely little gifts for friends and family. I bought the beeswax pastilles from Mountain Rose Herbs and I used California Olive Ranch Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I like this brand because it’s made it California and is certified extra virgin olive oil by the California Olive Oil Council. This insures that  will be exactly what it claims to be: 100% pure extra virgin olive oil.

DIY Olive Oil Lip Balm
 
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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 1 lip balm
Ingredients
  • 1 tsp beeswax
  • 1½ tsp extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
  1. Place a heat-resistant glass pyrex measuring cup in a pot with a couple inches of water. Put on heat at a low setting so you start to see steam.
  2. Add beeswax and olive oil to measuring cup, and mix with a popsicle stick or bamboo skewer until they are both melted.
  3. Pour mixture carefully into a lip balm container.
  4. It should cool very quickly, but to be on the safe side, wait five minutes before using.