Pink coleslaw for your Sunday chicken - what the heck is that?

Do you know what coleslaw is? This typical sweet and creamy salad is one of our US neighbor’s favourite side dish for fried or barbecued chicken. It’s one one my favorite ways to eat cabbage and I wanted to give you a healthier version. Who would have guessed? :-)

This coleslaw is pink because of a surprise veggie that joined ingredients’ list: beets!

I really love beets, and lately I’ve been eating it raw a lot. It’s really good! It’s also a good way to sweeten your veggie juices or homemade morning fruit juices.

Even if it’s a summer’s classic recipe, cabbage is more of a winter vegetable so why don’t you try it as a side dish for your Sunday roasted chicken?

Ingredients (serves 4)

1/2 white cabbage

2 carrots

1 beet

Sauce:

2Tbsp mayo

2Tbsp colza oil

1Tbsp nut oil

1-2Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Salt & pepper

Optional: 3 chives

Preparation

Finely chop the cabbage. Peel and grate the carrots and the beet. In a big salad bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce then add the vegetables. Mix all together, add the chives if you feel like giving an extra zing to your coleslaw. Store in the fridge to chill for one hour before serving. Regularly mix the salad so the sauce is evenly spread.

If you prefer a more classic version don’t add the beet. For a sweeter taste, you can add rehydrated raisins and nuts.

Bon appétit!

Gingerbread cookies, gluten free, sugar free, lactose free and vegan!

In Belgium, gingerbread cookies (better known as speculoos) are all the rage in Christmas time. With Saint Nick's children day (on December 6), where children are supposed to leave him some speculoos by the chimney so he can have a bite to eat while he leaves the presents, the start of December is the start of speculoos season! The rest of the year, speculoos are mostly offered with coffee or tea at coffee places.

I discovered these delicious and spicy cookies the very first time I came to Belgium, some 17 years ago... They've been part of my biscuit regulars ever since. I can't live without them! At least until I wasn't allowed to eat them anymore because of my food restrictions... But that was until two days ago!

I wanted to try out a new recipe for gingerbread cookies that would be gluten, lactose and sugar free. They also happen to be vegan, so that's also nice. And I loved them! They have nothing to envy to their sugary and gluten packed counter-parts.

Try them out!

Waffles! But candida free, gluten, lactose and sugar free

You'll be amazed by the taste of these healthy waffles! I got inspired by a recipe I took from the candida free diet I've been following for the past year and a half. The author of this diet, the food therapist Cécile Ellert, doesn't forget to give us in her book "Anti-candida Balance", some tasty, sweet-like recipes to handle the sweet cravings.
These waffles are from her book. I adapted the original recipe because I found those from the book too dry for my taste.

For those of you who have to follow a strict no gluten, no lactose, no sugar diet, I hope you'll enjoy this sweet breakfast (or afternoon snack).

Pear, vanilla and coconut milk ice cream

And here it is! The recipe for the pear, vanilla and coconut milk ice cream! It was one of the pictures I published last week on my Facebook page when I asked you to choose which recipe you would like to see published first. The votes were close but the ice cream won by a clear majority. I'm guessing the hot weather we had last week help you in making your decision...
On top of everything, it's a lactose and sugar free recipe! Pure happiness.

I'm glad you chose this one, because I wanted to present it in a competition organised by Sarah from the blog Cro'K'Mou on the theme Summer recipes. And what resonates more than ice cream with summer, tell me huh?

Gluten, lactose and sugar free cookies with an orange twist

I've tested a recipe for some scrumptious french cookies called "sablés" that I really love because they melt in your mouth. These ones happen to be gluten, lactose and sugar free! I love that.
I took the recipe from a cookbook named "Cuisinez gourmand sans gluten, sans lait, sans oeufs..." written by Valérie Cupillard. It's in french and has a wide collection of recipes without gluten, lactose or eggs.
Honestly, I just love them, I think I made them three times already this week! I've had them with tea and with vegan ice cream (I'll share the recipe with you later) or just nibbled on them while surfing the internet...

If you want to make these "so-good-I-can't-stop-eating-them" cookies, check down below.

Ingredients

250g of rice flour
60g of vegan butter
1tbsp of olive oil
60g of powdered stevia
60g of mixed Brazilian nuts (or blanched almond flour)
2 large eggs
The zest of an orange

Preparation

Take your vegan butter out of the fridge and let it warm up to room temperature.
In a big bowl add, in that order, vegan butter, stevia, Brazilian nuts or almond flour, rice flour and eggs. Mix until you get a crumbs-like texture. You don't want to over mix it.
Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Add the spoon of olive oil and the orange zest and mix some more.
Make a ball with the dough and roll it on your floured counter. Cut the dough in the shapes you like and carefully place them on a baking sheet.
Bake them for about 15mn and remove them before ether start getting a brown colour. Don't go over the time, they really do cook quickly!

Eat them with a nice cup of tea, coffee, as a sider for your ice cream or just for the pleasure of eating them.

What are your favorite cookies? Chocolate chip? Sablés? Shortbreads? And so on. Tell me in the comments!

Bon appétit!

The fighter's pancakes

Pancakes... Oh how I love this word. It rhymes with maple syrup... Well, not really, but I really love the sound of them together.
Even if I can't have them anymore, because of the gluten thing (article in french). You could argue that there are gluten free flours now. I agree, but they are all refined and I can't have any refined flour. So I get to play around with naturally gluten free flours with no additives or preservatives. And sugar is completely excluded, not even for a little treat. And maple syrup without sugar is like cough syrup and who would like that?
You probably wonder why it's more restrictive now. Because I've been fighting a candidiasis for a year and we've only ascertained that it was a candidiasis about six months ago, so I've had to adapt my diet since (if you want to know more about the candida, here are some information in english)

As you can guess, it's no walk in the park. Almost everything contains sugar, gluten, and let's not talk about lactose! So I've been trying and testing for the past year, trial and error, sometimes disasters and new discoveries. Speaking of which, I discovered a new way of feeding myself and my family with nutritious food full of flavor. And that's what I want to share with you today: my fighter's pancakes!
The flour I used is a special candida-safe flour recipe I found in "The candida free cookbook" published by Shasta Press, which I already used to make waffles and pie crusts.
Delicious!

Candida-free pancakes topped with agave syrup and blueberries