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Almost exactly three years ago, I decided to make Matt cupcakes from scratch as a treat for his birthday. After that, I became obsessed with homemade cupcakes– that delicious balance of butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla combined with many other flavors was so much fun to play with (and delicious, too).

After coming to terms with all of my food limitations, I realized I might never be able to have a cupcake again. This was a big “wah wah” moment, not only because I love cupcakes but also because I love to make them for people. They’re so cute and cheerful, and you can always taste when they’re made with love.

I refused to take my gluten/sugar/dairy intolerance as a no-cupcakes-ever sentence. I will not live my life without cupcakes! So after many hours in the kitchen, and several pitiful batches… success!

I took inspiration from Elana Amsterdam’s Coconut Cupcakes to make my own fructose-free version, and then used my original recipe for vegan/gluten-free/sugar-free frosting.

Coconut Cupcakes

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup shredded coconut
3 eggs
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup unsweetened organic applesauce
1/2 tsp liquid stevia

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and shredded coconut.

2. In a medium bowl, combine eggs, oil, applesauce, and stevia.

3. Add dry ingredients into wet and mix.

4. Spoon batter into cupcake liners (should make about 12 cupcakes).

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Vanilla Frosting

1 can full-fat coconut milk– refrigerated overnight
1/2 cup vegan butter
1/2 tsp liquid stevia (or more/less to taste)
1 tbsp vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt
optional: 1-3 tbsp arrowroot/tapioca starch to thicken

1. In a medium bowl add vegan butter, stevia, vanilla, and sea salt and mix.

2. Remove coconut cream* from the can and add the cream to the bowl and blend. If the frosting is too thin, add a little starch to thicken it.

3. Frost the cupcakes!

*When the full fat coconut milk is refrigerated, it separates into coconut cream and coconut water. The cream is a pretty thick consistency– somewhere in between whipped cream and cream cheese. I use the coconut water to mix in my protein smoothie as a treat after I make frosting!

When we first got our cat, Nassi, her transition to our home was a bumpy one. She hid under our couch most of the time, and when she was out, there were constant kerfuffles with our other cat, Bastian. She had a strange affinity for peeing in my shoes, not my husband’s, and on my things. In general, I didn’t see a lot of her but I certainly smelled it.

After about four months of this, I got pretty sick. I lay in bed with a fever for days, and through all of it little Nassi wouldn’t leave my side. She stayed on the bed with me and purred constantly. From then on, she was my confidant. My girlfriend. And the critter in the house I would give my “these guys are nuts” look to when the boys (Matt, Bastian, and Buster our dog) were in the middle of whatever shenanigans they were up to.

Over time, Nassi and I developed our own little rituals. When I came home from being out, she would jump up on the counter and I would lean forward as she touched her nose to mine. If I was laying quietly enough, she would jump on my lap and knead my legs into a comfortable pillow for herself. When she was thoroughly comfortable snuggling, she would put her paw on my hand and dig her claws in a little.

After a very sad terminal cancer diagnosis in February, Matt and I prepared ourselves for our inevitable farewell with Nassi. When we got home this Friday from our vacation, Nassi had taken an unfortunate turn. After a bittersweet four months of quality time with our girl, we said goodbye to her yesterday.

The boys (Bastian and Buster) are coping alright– leaning on each other in a way I’ve never seen them do before. Matt and I are heartbroken. I know that this will get easier with time, but I also know there will forever be a spot in my heart that aches for my little kitty girl.

Ah, the great outdoors. Land of fresh air, friendly people, and meaty/cheesy/wheaty/sugary foods. As of tomorrow afternoon, my husband and I are embarking on a few days of some much needed rest and relaxation in Northern Wisconsin. I spent many hours scouring the internet for restaurants where I could eat with very few results. Like… one.

We had, however, anticipated this and got a cabin with a kitchen! Thinking about what to pack, I realized I’m not about to pack up my wide array of gf/sf/v cooking supplies. So this evening I fiddled with a few new recipes to suit my needs for the next few days (along with preparing a little thank you to my mother-in-law for watching our crazy pup while we’re gone). When we leave tomorrow, we will be bringing snack bars, strawberry flax muffins, chocolate chocolate chip muffins, and peanut butter cups!

For tonight’s recipe-share, I thought I’d post my tweaked version of Elana Amsterdam’s breakfast bars with homemade chocolate chips (I’ll include the recipe for these also).

Snack Bars
(adapted from Elana Amsterdam’s Breakfast Cereal Bars)

1 1/4 cups blanched almond flour (I used Honeyville)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 flax egg (1tbsp ground flax and 2 tbsp water)
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 tsp liquid stevia
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8×8 pan. I usually grease my baking pans/dishes with melted coconut oil, but use whatever you like!

1. Prepare the flax egg and set aside.

2. In a medium/small bowl combine almond flour, salt, xanthan gum, and baking soda.

3. In a large bowl combine coconut oil, flax egg, applesauce, and stevia.

4. Slowly mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.

5. Fold in shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, and chocolate chips.

6. Spread into baking pan– you may need to smooth out the top or press the mixture down to get it to spread evenly.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes.

Homemade Chocolate Chips

Just a heads up, this melts MUCH quicker than regular chocolate. I generally keep it in the freezer when I’m not working with it.

1/2 cup cocoa butter*
1/2 cup coconut oil
1-1 1/2 tsp liquid stevia (more or less, to taste)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cocoa powder
1-3 tbsps full fat coconut milk (optional)

*Cocoa butter is crazy expensive and tough to locate, so if you’re out of it you can either substitute extra coconut oil or vegan butter/regular butter. Just keep in mind the more coconut oil in the mix, the more easily it melts.

1. Prepare all ingredients and whisk in a double boiler till it’s a liquid mixture. Seriously, it’s that easy.

2. Take a baking dish of your choice (the smaller the dish, the thicker the chips) and lay a piece of parchment paper down.

3. Pour chocolate into the dish and shake the dish a bit to get it to even out.

4. Pop it in the freezer for about 20 minutes.

5. When the chocolate is solid, take a large knife and cut it into small squares… Or just eat it as you please

I use this mixture to make anything where I would normally use chocolate chips (peanut butter cups, peppermint patties, cookies, etc) and it keeps the chocoholic monster inside me at bay.

Traveling has changed quite a bit for me this year. It can be a major bummer having to be so careful when I’m on the road. At the same time, it’s so much easier to be present and grateful when I feed myself well.

When trying to decide on a sugar-free/gluten-free/vegan dessert for father’s day, I realized that my dad gravitates toward apple crisps when we go out to eat. So in honor of his day (and his concern for limited gluten and sugar) I decided to make my own version. This dish was so popular, I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it!

Cobbler:
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup coconut oil
15-20 drops of liquid stevia
1 tbsp applesauce
3 peeled, cored and chopped apples
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. Melt coconut oil and vegan butter together and set aside.

2. Combine apples, arrowroot powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, about half of the melted oil/butter mix, and about 10 drops liquid stevia (to taste). Place this mixture in a casserole dish.

3. Combine coconut flour, remaining butter/oil mix, applesauce, vanilla, and 5-10 drops liquid stevia (to taste). Place this mixture on top of the apple filling and put the dish in the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until the top begins to brown a little.

Ice Cream

Two cans of coconut milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp nutmeg
15-20 drops of liquid stevia
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix ingredients in a pot over medium heat and refrigerate.

2. When mixture has cooled, follow the instructions on your ice cream maker and enjoy!

After coming to terms with the fact that my Udi’s gluten free bread had nine grams of sugar per serving, I decided it might be time to start making my own.

The tough part is, gluten-free/sugar-free/vegan baking is incredibly frustrating. Even the sugar-free recipes have agave which I can’t do because of the high levels of fructose. So I’ve started tweaking recipes to fit the bill. After two failed tries, I’ve made (what I think is) a great coconut flax bread recipe. It’s pretty dense, but a great breakfast bread. I spread a little bit of almond butter on it and felt full and energized all morning!

Coconut Flax Bread
6 Flax Eggs (1 tbsp ground flax seed to 2 tbsp water per “egg”)
3 tbsp organic applesauce no sugar added
5-10 drops of liquid Stevia*
1/2 cup of coconut oil
3/4 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking powder
Optional: Add 1/2 tsp of Apple Cider Vinegar
*If you would prefer honey, substitute one of the tablespoons of applesauce for a tablespoon of honey.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a small bread pan with warm coconut oil.

1. Prepare flax eggs by combining water and ground flax seeds, and let sit.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, combine applesauce and Stevia (or honey).

4. Melt the coconut oil and add it to the applesauce/stevia mixture, then stir in flax eggs (if adding vinegar, add it here).

5. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. The batter should be pretty thick.

6. Spread the batter into the pan firmly (it will not rise/spread very much), and put the pan in the oven.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. When ready, let it cool and enjoy!

My birthday is coming up, which usually means a delicious cupcake or cake from somewhere where the frosting has dairy, and the cake is made of wheat flour. So now, if I want to eat some birthday cake… I have to bake it.

I’m a big fan of baking, but Stevia is tough to get right! The texture is different than sugar, and I often end up having things be a little too puffy, or dry… it’s just tricky. So I experimented this evening with an old favorite recipe: vegan lemon cookies. To sweeten them up as naturally as possible, I made them coconut lemon cookies.

Here is the working recipe for those who are interested:

Coconut Lemon Cookies (or puffs) with glaze

Cookies:
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1/2 cup nondairy milk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups gluten-free flour (I used Red Mill all-purpose)
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unrefined coconut oil
2 tablespoons stevia extract (play around with this, not all stevia is created equal)
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 tablespoon shredded coconut

Glaze:
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons stevia (again, to taste)
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. For flax mixture: In a cup, stir together water and flax seeds; set aside. For buttermilk: In another cup, stir together nondairy milk and lemon juice; set aside. Heat the coconut oil and combine it with the stevia.

2. In a bowl, combine flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. Add flax mixture, lemon rind, buttermilk mixture, and coconut oil stevia misture. Slowly add in dry ingredients.

4. Drop from a teaspoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. While baking, mix together the lemon glaze to be brushed on the cookies while cooling.

Optional: sprinkle the shredded coconut on top of the glaze while cookies are cooling.

Everyone who lives, or has lived, in Chicago knows that winter can be pretty brutal. With this in mind, my girlfriend Sarah and I headed down to Florida last week to bump up our Vitamin D and enjoy some sunshine.

After the horrendous ordeal United put us through (three delays, a hotel voucher to a hotel with no shuttle, a cab driver trying to gauge us, and lots of unforeseen small print on our rental car) we arrived at the condo where we were staying. During this time, I had to find food that I could eat. Being on Candida is tricky enough, but when you’re voluntarily vegetarian and allergic to pasteurized diary… yikes. I ended up having a salad, several soy lattes, and some chips. Not so healthy.

When we got there, the food was incredibly limiting for me. If it was vegetarian, it had cheese/bread. If it was dairy-free, it had meat. Sarah and I did some scouting and found several places that were alright, but I was missing my Chicago options. Sometimes I forget how spoiled we are here– the food is outstanding and reasonable most of the time.

Even grocery shopping was tricky– I had to read every label twice, and even then I missed things. I ended up getting kinda sick a couple of times from ingesting dairy in something that I thought was fine. I felt so limited, and almost sad that I had to work so hard just to eat. Fortunately, Sarah was incredibly patient and supportive throughout the process (otherwise I think I would have lost it).

Our scenic and delicious breakfast of fruit and organic cereal!

So now, for future travel plans, I think I will have to do a lot more research in advance. Make sure there are vegan options and plot them out on a map (although technically I’m an ovo-vegetarian). Bring my own protein powder and back-up food, or have it shipped to my location.

I have all the logical steps to take next time, but I can’t help feeling a little jealous of people who can just walk into a restaurant and order whatever they feel like. I guess, as stated in all the literature I’ve read on the topic of limited diets, this is a bit of a grieving process. Time to get out the tissues and move on.

Contrary to popular belief, I am an introvert.  So is Matt.  For about the first year of dating, I tried to explain to Matt that yes, I am introverted.  He just didn’t buy it because I’m very good at faking extroversion, but man is it exhausting!  This being said, in the winter the two of us can have a tendency to turn into… well, hermits.

So last night, after a particularly gloomy Chicago sky and pouring rain all day, we decided to bust out of our cozy home and blissful comfort zone and go bowling.  Yes, of course we discussed just Wii bowling instead.  However, we really pushed ourselves and headed out to Waveland Bowl where we were greeted by a forty-five minute wait for an alley surrounded by screaming teenagers (today is President’s Day and we didn’t foresee all the kids with no school today).  We passed on that one.

After deliberating, we decided to try one more.  I don’t know whether or not there was a wait here, because we both turned into curmudgeons when we realized the no smoking ban was not enforced here.  At this point in time, we made a deal.  We are not giving in, we are BOWLING.  End of story.  Next alley had a two hour wait!  So we did the unthinkable, we drove for an hour to bowl in a semi-remote suburb.  And it was wonderful.

I feel very proud of this little victory for us.  We are both so happy to stay indoors in the cozy warmth of our home.  Snuggling with our sweet animals and each other.  While this is extremely comforting, we have a tendency to stay in our cozy comfort zone a bit too often.  Also, we both work at home and this can lead to camping out in our offices and working the whole time.  Our bowl or bust adventure kept us both entirely in the present, and what a fun way to cap off a rainy night!

Since my husband and I started dating, we have both protested with great fervor the gender roles that many people seem to fall into by default.  The hardcore feminist that I consider myself to be, I spent a lot of time explaining that I wouldn’t need any help thank you very much!

Now as we enter another year of marriage, things have gotten a little different.  I am incredibly happy with my job and career, but as a teacher there will only be a certain level of income I can achieve.  As a performing musician, the sky is the limit for Matt.  It makes no sense to be working so much to try to match his contributions to the family– it just won’t happen.

As we reach this impasse, I have begun loosening my death grip on being a financial equal to my husband.  We are both realizing that holding fast and true to the opposite of what we don’t want doesn’t mean that we’re getting what we want.  For such a long time, we both expressed our adamant dislike for traditional gender roles.  What we’re realizing now is that we adamantly dislike gender roles that are taken on without thought.  While we are falling into more stereotypical roles in our lives, we are happily doing so because it makes life so much easier

Every partnership has to figure out a way to make daily life as simple as possible.  Some couples both work full time and outsource the housework, dog duties, even groceries.  Some couples take on a more traditional stance where one person works and the other stays at home.

I look forward to our journey towards the perfect balance, but I have a feeling I will never end up being the “little woman.”

Valentine’s Day is coming up.  Which means, yet another day to eat lots and lots of candy.  And let’s be honest, the holiday candies always taste better than the regular ones.  Sweethearts, heart shaped peanut butter cups (especially wicked because the peanut butter to chocolate ratio is so much better), and just plain chocolates.  This is all a dream come true for a little kid at a Valentine’s Day school party.

As I continue my third year of teaching music full-time, I learn to dread these candy-coated holidays.  Not only because I have a hard time resisting– I totally do– but because my students have the least productive lessons.  After my first year teaching the day of the school Halloween party, I started to pick up on the trend.  Sugar equals a kid that forgets everything we’ve learned, and can barely sit still for our thirty minute lesson.

I’m excited to see what the difference will be this Valentine’s Day when I do not indulge in the sugar feast.  I have a feeling lessons will be more bearable, and I’ll be able to cope with the temporary lack of attention span.  I just wish that these days didn’t automatically equate to a week of setbacks in progress.

It’s during this time that I think about what I would want to do with my kids someday.  It seems a bit harsh to instruct a wide-eyed child not to have a piece of candy on a holiday.  At the same time, I have an almost perfect track record of guessing when a kid has had sugar before his lesson.

I still think treats are important, so my Valentine’s Day treat this year will be having my husband home from Australia, and that gives me a great high… without a crash.

For anyone looking for an alternative, here’s a link for chocolate made with agave nectar.