Natural Chow

Easy Homemade Bagels {Say What?}

December 1, 2013 by Margaret Anne 14 Comments

Bagels are something that my family loves with a passion. Sadly, when we started eating a real food diet, bagels from the store became no longer an option.

So what is there to do but attempt to recreate the favorite breakfast that my family so dearly loves. I suppose you could consider purchasing bagels from a health food store such as EarthFare or Whole Foods, but then you wouldn’t have gone through the awesome experience of making fresh, homemade bagels at home!

While these bagels are healthier and easier than the other bagel recipes out there, it still takes a while to make them. They are a yeast bread, therefore they take time to rise. Generally, I wake up at around 5:00 am to start making bagels. Take into consideration that after I mix all the ingredients together and knead for 10 minutes, I get to sleep for 1.5 hours before completing the next step. When the second alarm goes off, I get up again to divide the dough and shape into balls. Then I get to sleep again for 20 minutes. Usually, by the time I get the bagel bath going and the balls shaped into bagels, it’s about 7:00 am.

So you see, the bagel process is very, very easy. All you have to do is commit to waking up early for a few minutes at a time. Sound simple enough? [Read more…]

Easy Cheesy Spinach Quiche

November 22, 2013 by Margaret Anne 1 Comment

As a kid there was no way my mom was ever going to get me to eat spinach except by hiding it in puddles of melted cheese and under layers and layers of iceberg lettuce. I was just one of those kids that didn’t like spinach. To this day, fresh spinach just isn’t my cup of tea. But I know it’s healthy for me, so I’ll eat it.

As I try to incorporate more and more spinach and other healthy greens into my diet, I’m finding that the challenge is declining. Recipes like this one are one of the only ways my mom could get my younger siblings to eat spinach.

This dish is one that gets the house smelling all kinds of delicious and makes you so anxious for it to be done. The different aromas of egg, cooking vegetables, and the buttery crust underneath all of the goodness mix together in a magical way that will have the kids excited to eat dinner tonight.
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Vegan Chocolate Avocado Pudding

November 21, 2013 by Margaret Anne Leave a Comment

This vegan chocolate avocado pudding is not only SUPER easy to make, but tastes so delicious no one would ever guess it’s made with avocados!

You may or may not be able to get your kids to eat avocado. But odds are, you can get them to eat chocolate pudding. Growing up, chocolate pudding was one of my favorite things to eat. But obviously, pudding cups or mixes you get from the store can contain bad-for-you ingredients like modified food starch and all kinds of hydrogenated oils.

However this vegan chocolate avocado pudding is made with only 5 ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen!

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Scrumptious Bran Muffins

November 20, 2013 by Margaret Anne 1 Comment

Don’t they say a picture’s worth a thousand words? Well, hopefully this picture will invite you to make it with the couple thousand words embedded in the shot. Bran muffins. Hmmm. They can either taste “meh”, they can taste good, or they can taste outright beautiful. These…these are third one. There are all types of bran muffins out there, but it seems the most popular types are the kind with raisins and the kind with apple/pear chunks folded into the mixture. You could always make whichever tickles you fancy, but I’ll take mine plain, with maybe just a little bit of butter smeared on each half.

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Masa Harina Cornbread

November 5, 2013 by Margaret Anne 5 Comments

For the longest time, I used and depended on one recipe for cornbread and one recipe only. What can I say? I was in love. But its been a long time since cornbread had made its appearance in my house. I just haven’t gotten around to it. Either I didn’t have the time or I didn’t want to make it. Besides, my family has been trying to reduce the amount of bread that we eat. Two solid months with no cornbread; I about went mad.

When I did want to make cornbread the other night, I was fresh out of cornmeal. Plus it was six-thirty and everyone was getting cranky because supper wasn’t on the table yet. I was not just about to run down to the store and spend money. That’s a big no-no. Because if you don’t have the ingredients, you just don’t make it. Well, I had every ingredient but one. But I did have masa harina. I bought it a while back and never really used it for anything. For those of you that aren’t familiar with masa, its basically just corn flour but in literal flour form. But if you want to know more about masa, click here. It’s typically used to make corn tortillas, but I was determined to make cornbread out of it. While searching for the recipe, I also found a new blog to love. It’s called Whole LifeStyle Nutrition and I absolutely love love love it!

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