Don't jump to any conclusions. I know this recipe may sound weird. I thought so too at first. I was motivated though to create an alternative breakfast option. A friend of a friend and I started exchanging Xocai chocolate recipes. I regularly drink the [insert flashing product placement alert here!] Xocai Extreme Chocolate High Antioxidant Shake for breakfast. Usually I have it naked. Sometimes I add kale. Sometimes I add strawberries or bananas. But sometimes I want to eat my breakfast with a spoon. I also like keeping things raw. This recipe combines speed, rawness, chocolate, and a spoon. Awesome, right? The oats soak up the liquid so they don't need to be cooked. The result is kind of like pudding, but it's under 250 calories. It's a great afternoon snack too.

Gluten-free Overnight Oats

1/3 cup Gluten-free rolled oats. I use Trader Joe's.
2/3 cup almond milk (or whatever you like to use as a milk thing)
1 Tablespoon powdered peanut butter (PB2 or Just Great Stuff both make it)
1 scoop (1/4 cup) Xocai Extreme Chocolate Protein Powder

Thoroughly combine all the ingredients in a cereal or other small bowl. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight, giving the oats enough time to soak in the almond milk and soften. Eat chilled for a fast breakfast or a delicious and healthful afternoon or evening snack. Makes one serving.

245 calories, 6 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber. Eat it. Love it.

These are definitely treats for a long holiday weekend. They violate my usual code of fast, easy, and few dishes. They were none of the above. But because Jenn specifically asked for a coffee cake-like treat, how could I say, "Nah. Too much of a bother."? She makes very few culinary requests. Luckily they turned out great and thus, blog-worthy on the first try. 

They are very moist, probably because I went ahead and used a full stick of butter rather than cutting it in half and adding applesauce. The butter was probably also the reason they didn't stick to the muffin papers. So, once in awhile, maybe it's okay to stress the "happy" and "gluten-free" part of Happy Healthy Gluten-free and know that "healthy" is found both in eating these in moderation and at your next meal in the form of a nice salad or plate of greens.

These muffins DO have two advantages: 1) because they are muffins, the portion control is built right in, and 2) they have the benefit of Xocai healthy dark chocolate which boosts your antioxidant intake and adds a nice sophistication, making them a little less than over-the-top sweet. 


The creation of these muffins has a number of steps, and my younger son Scott had a great time helping out. He measured, mixed, scooped batter into the muffin tins, unwrapped and inserted the chocolate squares, spread and patted down the topping, and more. So though they weren't particularly fast to make, it was good quality time in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

For the cake part:

1 3/4 gluten-free flour blend (I used Arrowhead Mills, which has xanthan gum built in. If your favorite gf flour blend does not, add 1 ¼ teaspoons of it for this recipe.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk (or the milk-like product of your choice)
3/4 cup sugar
1 stick of melted butter
2 eggs
12 Xocai Power Squares or other dark chocolate squares

For the topping:

1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup gluten-free flour blend
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon Cocoa Powder

Preheat the oven to 350. Thoroughly combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. Combine the milk, sugar, butter and eggs in a big bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the milk-sugar-eggs and mix well. Spoon the rather sticky batter into a lined muffin tin. Worry that it may be too dry. Insert the chocolate squares upright in the middle of the muffin batter. 

For the topping, combine the flour, sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl. Cut the chilled butter into small pieces and combine it with the dry ingredients. Use a pastry blender, two knives or your fingers (I used my fingers) to mix until course and crumbly. Spread it evenly over the muffins and pat them down a little. Bake for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick inserted (but not in the middle of the chocolate stripe) comes out clean. Eat them warm! Though room temperature was good too. We froze some of them to keep us from devouring the whole pan in one day. Keep your face over your plate. Oh wait, that's what I say to Scott.

My sister-in-law Kim told me about cauliflower crust pizza awhile ago, but I just hadn't gotten around to trying it. I did look it up on the internet, and I noticed that a number of examples shown in photos had quite crispy edges. I must confess that I've had one too many gluten-free pizza crusts that were a bit burned around the outside, and I don't particularly like the carbonara flavor. I decided to try something crazy and make little tartlets in a muffin tin using foil liners so that they could be a bit better contained and maybe reduce the likelihood of becoming too crispy. I'm also in the middle of reading Joel Fuhrman's book Super Immunity, in which seeds get lifted up as a must-have in any super-high nutrient diet. I had picked up some roasted pepitas earlier in the day, and I decided that grinding them and adding them to the crust would provide some healthy fat and let me reduce the amount of cheese in the crust.

Success! These little babies are delicious! I could even have used less cheese, and they would have been fine. The crust was a little puffy and nicely crustly, with no burnt edges. I had several for dinner, but these would be pretty fun as a party food too. You can't really tell from the picture because of the cheese, but two of them have mushrooms, one of them has mushrooms and tomatoes, and two are just plain cheese. I liked every combination.

Ingredients:

1 cup grated cauliflower (I used a cheese grater, and it went pretty fast)
1 egg
2 tablespoons roasted salted pepitas, ground (I ground them in my coffee grinder. If you don't have this around, double the cheese in the crust to 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup cheese for crust, plus ~1/4 more for topping
1/2  teaspoon Herbs de Provence (I used this because we were out of dried basil and the oregano was at the back of the cabinet, but you should use whatever pizza seasoning you like)
~1/4 cup pizza sauce (I used jarred sauce from the pantry)
Pizza toppings (I had fresh mushrooms and some grape tomatoes on hand, and Joel Fuhrman likes them too)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450. Line a muffin tin with 6 foil muffin cups and spray them with non-stick cooking spray.

Grate enough cauliflower to have a cup of it (around half a head). Put it in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it for 4 minutes. (Almost everyone else on the interwebs says to nuke it for 8, but that's WAY TOO LONG in our microwave. I also saw a recipe that didn't microwave the cauliflower at all, so I split the difference and went with 4 minutes.) Let it cool for a couple of minutes so that when you add the cheese and egg it doesn't get weird. Stir in the ground pepitas, cheese, herbs, and egg and combine thoroughly. Divide evenly among the 6 muffin cups until it's evenly divided.

Bake for 10 minutes, until the crusts are a little puffy and starting to brown on the edges (but not too brown!). Remove from the oven, turn the oven up to broil, and while it's heating, top your crusts with a spoonful of sauce, toppings and cheese. Put under the broiler until the cheese is bubbly.

Remove. Let cool for a couple minutes to let the cheese set up, then pop the tarts out of the foil cups. Enjoy!

I've just completed my first week with a dark chocolate protein shake breakfast, replacing my former non-chocolate protein shake. I've also eaten 2 little squares of dark chocolate a day, one around 3:00 pm and the other after dinner. It's too early to be sure if this will be a long-term sustainable strategy, but the first week's results are encouraging. I'm down two pounds and my pants are a little roomier. It could be solely because of my increased attention to diet in general - sort of a placebo effect. Still, it's nice to see movement in the right direction.

The other encouraging indicator is my energy level. With the exception of last Tuesday (following a Monday dinner that included a couple of slices of bread), I've been feeling really amazing. This is notable because I generally just feel pretty good. It was almost like a light switch being thrown. Again, I can't be completely certain it's the chocolate, but that's the main thing I'm doing differently.

Given these early successes, the research will continue!

Healthy Choco-PB Dip

I created this single-serving dessert which is totally guilt-free. It combines healthy dark chocolate with powdered peanut butter, inspired by my friend Robin's "dip strawberries in dark chocolate" idea and my friend Lisa's recent enthusiasm for powdered peanut butter, which has only 22 calories per tablespoon and 85% less fat than regular peanut butter. This choco-PB dipping sauce has only 55 calories, plus the caloric value of the fruit you are dipping into it. Nice.

Ingredients

1 6-gram square of dark chocolate (I used a Xocai Power Square)
1 teaspoon of powdered peanut butter (I used Just Great Stuff Organic)
1 1/2 teaspoons hot water

Directions

Put the chocolate in a microwave safe dish and heat it until soft but not hot. Boil some water for tea. (You'll want a hot drink to go with dessert, right?) Add the peanut butter powder to the chocolate and pour the hot water over the top of both. Stir until combined. It will be the consistency of brownie batter (less water for thicker, more water for thinner.) Dip your cut up fruit chunks -- banana, apples, pineapple, berries -- in the choco-PB sauce and eat up! Lick the dish when you think no one is looking. Show restraint and don't go make a second one. Console yourself with the knowledge that you will be able to do this again tomorrow.

Since my big weight loss 3+ years ago, I've gained back 15 pounds from my target weight of 125. It's winter. It's cold out. I'm not running as often. I've been following the same eating plan for the last year. I need a change. As Matt Cutt says, if you want something badly enough, you can do anything for 30 days. If you are a regular here, you know I've written about this before.

One of my new year's resolutions was to replace some of the coffee I drink with green tea. I've kept up with this, and have been drinking anywhere from 1-3 cups a day, some regular, some decaf. Green tea is better for you -- lots of antioxidents, weight loss support and loads of good stuff to support overall optimal heath (more about that here.) I have to admit that I don't actually like it. I mean, it's okay, but I never actually say "Ahhhh, green tea," like I do with coffee.

Not long after I started my tea resolution, I met up with a friend who began eating dark chocolate years ago for the same reasons I started drinking green tea. If you know me, you know I haven't eaten chocolate since the "Heaven From MANNA" truffle incident of 1994, when I came to believe that I do not have an effective chocolate off-switch. But my interest was piqued. After a bit of research, it looks like my issue may have been with the fat and sugar of the chocolate I was eating, and not the cacao itself, which is loaded with antioxidents and other healthy stuff.  I want to try something different, so I'm going to try dark chocolate for 30-days. I'll keep a log and I'll keep you apprised. If I find myself sliding off the edge in the presence of the chocolate, I will definitely pull the plug.

Today I started with a dark chocolate protein shake. I'll have a 30-calorie square in the afternoon to keep me away from the salted mixed nuts that I gravitate towards at work. I'll replace my after dinner raisin graze with a square of dark chocolate. I took "before" pictures and measurements (not sure I want to share that yet, but I will when my "after" pictures and measurements demonstrate my amazing transformation.) I'll let you know how it goes.