Side Dish Alert!! Garlic Roasted Broccoli

I tend to focus on main dishes on here, but last night as I was making one of my faaaaave side dishes, it hit me: why the heck haven't I posted this on my blog??? Perhaps I find it "too easy" to be blog-worthy. Maybe I make it so much that I've completely overlooked it as being something people would be interested in reading about. But, I decided, let me give this thing the "15 minutes" it deserves, because it's definitely my favorite way to eat broccoli. Since my sister-in-law showed me how to do this a while ago, I actually don't think I've made broccoli any other way! It's crazy easy, delicious, and healthy. There really is no going wrong here.


Garlic Roasted Broccoli


Ingredients:

2         crowns of broccoli, chopped into florets
3 - 5    cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 - 2    tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

If you don't have a garlic press, get one! 

Broccoli cut into florets. Nomnomnom... I love broccoli!

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix salt, pepper, olive oil and minced garlic in a small bowl.

2. Put broccoli in a foil-lined baking sheet (I only use the foil for easy clean-up).

3. Pour oil, salt & pepper, and garlic mixture over broccoli. Massage mixture into broccoli florets, making sure you get those yummy garlic pieces in between the "branches" and the "canopies" (lol).

See the garlic on the branches? Don't let any of the garlicky goodness just sit in the baking dish.

4. Spread broccoli out on baking sheet. Pop in oven for approximately 30 minutes.

I love the edges a little crispy.

Are you wondering why the broccoli looks more scant than in the first photo??? Well, when I asked my husband to take the broccoli out of the oven, he decided to eat a quarter of the broccoli straight off the baking sheet. I guess that's a good thing??? Lol

Blueberry and Strawberry Almond Flour Muffins!

Everyone loves a snack every now and then. And, though you're eating all clean now, it doesn't mean you should only munch on carrot sticks and edamame. No. You deserve something baked. Like a fudge brownie....
BUT, let's not get ahead of ourselves!

I recently discovered the versatility of almond flour. I've made pancakes with it before, and stumbled upon a blueberry muffin recipe on Pinterest (where else?) using almond flour. I followed the original recipe for the most part, but made a few changes to the it so that I could reduce the amount of sweetener I add to the muffins, as well as omit the oil.  Each of these muffins only adds up to 59 calories!! Whoop whoop!

Blueberry Almond Flour Muffins

2 C          almond flour
3              eggs
1 1/2 Tbs  brown sugar
1/2 tsp      baking soda
1 Tbs        apple cider vinegar
dash        salt
1 tsp       vanilla
1/4 C      overripe banana, mushed (about half a medium banana)
2 Tbs      applesauce (unsweetened)
1 C         blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin pan or use muffin pan liners.
2. Mix together almond flour, baking soda, brown sugar, and salt
3. Add in apple cider vinegar, eggs, vanilla, mashed banana, and applesauce. Mix until smooth.
4. Fold in blueberries.
5. Evenly pour batter into muffin tin.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.
7. Try not to singe your tastebuds off by eating a muffin right out of the oven.


YUMMY, right? Now this one I proudly came up with by myself, using the blueberry recipe as a base.

Strawberry Lemon Almond Flour Muffins

2 C         almond flour
3            eggs
2  Tbs    brown sugar
1/2 tsp    baking soda
grated peel from 1 lemon
juice from that one lemon
dash       salt
1 tsp       vanilla
1/4 C      overripe banana, mashed (about half a medium banana)
2 Tbs      applesauce
1 C         strawberries, chopped (fresh! don't use frozen or it'll come out soggy!)


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin pan or use muffin pan liners.
2. Mix together almond flour, baking soda, brown sugar, and salt
3. Add in lemon juice and peel, eggs, vanilla, mashed banana, and applesauce. Mix until smooth.
4. Fold in strawberries.
5. Evenly pour batter into muffin tin.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.
7. Try not to singe your tastebuds off by eating a muffin right out of the oven.



I had used frozen strawberries, because that's what I had on hand, so my muffins ended up a bit on the soggy side. They were deeellliiicioouuuss, but I will definitely use fresh strawberries next time! You can have these as just a snack during the day or make it a part of your breakfast. I'll continue to come up with more almond flour muffin recipes, as I really enjoy the simplicity of these.

Crustless Spinach Zucchini Pie

As usual, I was sitting innocently on my couch one morning, writing my daily to-do list, and I got an instant craving for something: spinach pie. I've never made a spinach pie before, but I knew that they tend to have crust and I definitely didn't want that. I'm making a more conscious effort to exclude refined carbs from my diet, and also excluding carbs where they're not needed. So I googled: crustless spinach pie. After several recipes that looked very "blah", I found one that seemed good enough to satisfy my craving! While getting the spinach from the veggie crisper drawer, I saw a stack--yes an actual stack--of zucchinis that I bought a few days ago. Not exactly sure what I intended to do with all of these squashes, but I decided they'd go just fine with my spinach pie!

Here's the original recipe.


Spinach Zucchini Pie

1 1/2 C     Spinach, chopped
1/2 C        Zucchini, chopped
1 C           Ricotta cheese
2              Eggs
2              Egg whites
1/4 C        Parmesan cheese, grated
1              Small onion, finely chopped
2              Garlic cloves, finely minced
 Salt & Pepper    (Use your judgement here on how much you want. I used about 1/2 tsp of salt)
1/2  tsp     Tabasco or other hot sauce
1/2 tsp      Nutmeg
1/4 C        Mozzarella cheese, shredded


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook spinach and zucchini in pan until wilted, let cool.
3.  In a bowl, mix ricotta, eggs, egg whites, parmesan cheese, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, hot sauce, and nutmeg until well incorporated.  Add spinach and zucchini to bowl.
4. Spray pie pan with cooking spray and pour mixture into pie pan.
5. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.
6. Bake for 40 min or until knife comes out clean.


Yield:  8 slices
Calories per slice: 95 measly calories per slice!

Mm... bubbly cheesy goodness...

Seriously, thats it. It's THAT easy. Now you have a yummy breakfast, or brunch, or lunch for a week! You're welcome.  :)

Served with chopped avocado and tomato salad