feel food club

Diet-Specific

Fall Harvest Salad (V, S)

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Fall is officially here and the temperatures are going down. Although the weekends are still super nice and sunny, you know that fall is here as soon as the leaves start to turn red, brown, and yellow and the first chestnuts are lying on the ground. Fall is such a great season, such beautiful colors and beautiful landscapes. So beautiful. Fall also means comfort foods to me and hot soups. But only because the season changes doesn’t mean just eating unhealthy comfort foods. There are so many great seasonal foods you can pack into super delicious salads. 

With this salad I tried to bring all of the beautiful fall colors into one bowl. The orange in the pumpkin, the red in the pomegranate seeds, the yellow in the pear, the brown in the almonds, and the green from the spinach. It is like eating the rainbow. A lot of people see salads as summer-food but I think that they are a great way to switch up things and not only eating soups and heavy dishes. This one is super refreshing because of the dressing but still really hearty because of the war roasted pumpkins, and the nuts. 

I used Delicata Squash because I think it works great in Salads and or roasting. It has a slight sweet taste and is not quite as dense as for example Hokkaido pumpkin. It is super simple to bring out the flavor and it roasts for only 20 minutes which I think is really great. I seasoned it very simply because I think that otherwise it would overpower the flavor of the rest of the salad. You can use any pumpkin you like but the roasting time will vary depending on the type of pumpkin. 

As a base I decided to go for baby spinach because of its mild flavor and it soaks up the flavor of the dressing easily. I simply love the slightly buttery taste and texture. If you do not like spinach you can go for anything else, lambs lettuce would work great too but I would not recommend kale because it needs more heartiness in a dressing to taste really good in a salad. You can also do a mix of different ones, it would work really great too if you decide to make it a little fancier! The pear on top adds some sweetness and soft butter-like texture, which goes really well with the salad base and the crunch of the toppings. 

For a little crunch I added the pomegranate seeds and the almonds. You can buy prepackaged pomegranate seeds but I like to to buy a whole pomegranate and take them out myself. It is a little work, takes maybe like ten minutes but you do not need unnecessary plastic packaging, they are fresher, and they last for longer, which I think is great. The almonds just give the whole salad some richness, healthy fats, and protein. I really like the heartiness and kind of dryness of almonds as I think they pair very well with the soft, juicy roasted Delicata Squash but some walnuts would work really well in szuch a salad too! Walnuts are a great seasonal food in fall and also regional here in Austria but I unfortunately did not have them on hand when I made this salad.  

For the dressing I decided to use Tahini because it is my favorite ingredient when it comes to salad dressings. It makes it so incredibly creamy and tastes so good! Also Tahini is a great healthy fat and contains a lot of vitamins. I mixed it with some Dijon mustard, lemon juice, a little olive oil, some of the pomegranate juice that ran out when I took out the seeds, and a tiny splash of maple syrup. Just mix it all up and voila, so delicious!

I really like this salad to enjoy as a light lunch and making it fresh but it also works great as meal prep if you store the dressing separately. It comes together really quickly and simple and is such a great healthy fall dish! If you decide to recreate it, make sure to tag me on Instagram with @uneptcuisiniere or with #unepetitecuisiniere! I hope you will enjoy and like it as much as I do.

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Fall Harvest Salad

A healthy and delicious salad to enjoy al of the seasonal foods that fall brings us.

Course Main Course, Salad, Side Dish
Prep Time 20 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 25 Minuten
Servings 2 people
Calories 379 kcal

What you will need

For the Salad:

  • 200 g Baby spinach
  • 1/2 Pear
  • 1/2 Pomegranate
  • 400-500 g Delicata Squash
  • 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil
  • 30 g Almonds

For the Dressing:

  • 1 tbsp Tahini
  • 2 tbsp Pomegranate Juice
  • 1 tbsp Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 tbsp Olive Oil
  • 1 tsp Dijon Mustard
  • 1/2 tbsp White wine vinegar

How to

Thats how it works:

  1. Cut the Delicata squash into about 1cm thick slices. Remove the seeds and place them in a bowl. Generously salt and pepper them and mix the with the Olive oil. Place them on the baking tray and make sure that they do not overlap. Bake them in a preheated oven at 180C for about 20 minutes.

  2. While the pumpkin is baking, wash the spinach and the pear. Plcae the salad into a bowl and cut the pear into about 1.5cm large cubes. roughly chop the almonds. Cut the pomgranate in half and take out the seeds. I believe it is easiest to carve them out with a fork into a bowl and then take out the parts from the shell thaat came with it. Add the two fruits to the spinach along with the chopped up nuts.

  3. Add all the ingredients for the dressing into a bowl and mix well until combined. By now the pumpkin should be cooked through, so take it out of the oven. Mix the dressing with the salad, divide it onto two plates and top it with the roasted squash. Serve and enjoy!

Easy and healthy Vegan Cookie Dough Sandwiches with Fig Ice Cream

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So summer is basically over, but who says that you only can have ice cream in summer? Well, I definitely don’t! I think you can have Ice cream all year round! Well, at least these really delicious healthy, vegan ice cream sandwiches. 

In summer there are soo many ice cream sandwiches at every corner. And they are delicious. But if you eat one of them every day that (unfortunately) can’t be too healthy. But they are so delicious, right? So that’s why I made this healthy version of cookie dough ice cream sandwiches so you can indulge with your sweet tooth but still nourish your body. And they are really delicious! They are sweet, chewy, and really delicious.

Just to tell you, the cookie dough does not exactly taste like the one you would have when baking cookies with butter, eggs and white flour. But it tastes similar. And really delicious. And it is healthier, way healthier. These super delicious bars are even keto & low carb. I just really like every single bite I take of them and they are so addictive. Like so. I feel like you can always eat them no matter what time. They are just so quick and easy to grab which makes a perfect snack. Simply store them in the freezer and you can just get one whenever passing by.

The cookie dough is made out of simple ingredients. I used dates for sweetness, which are really high in fiber, antioxidants, other health benefits, some almond butter, for some creaminess and healthy fats, vanilla extract, to get that cookie flavor, apple sauce for sweetness and texture, and coconut flour to reach a cookie consistency, and flavor but still get some protein and fiber. So good. And so simple to make. Just blend it all up, so simple, no?

The filling is even easier. It’s 4 ingredients. It’s just frozen bananas, coconut yoghurt, vanilla extract, and figs. The vanilla extract does make such a difference in it as it turns the ice cream from average banana tasting nice cream into vanilla ice cream which is sooo good in-between the two layers of cookie dough. The fresh figs just give it some freshness and fall – like feeling but you can leave them out or substitute them with any other fruit if you don’t like figs. I just really like their sweetness and think they work so well in it.

To give everything the cherry on top I dipped the frozen sandwiches into melted chocolate and drizzled some extra on top. So good!! I used my favorite brand of all time, which is HU Chocolate. It’s so simple ingredients without any refined sugar, or preservatives, just simple and wholesome ingredients. They have so many different flavors but I went for basic sea salt as I think the sandwiches are already really packed with awesome flavor! I hope that you will like this super easy dessert/ snack and it will help you to find an excuse for also being able to eat ice cream in winter. If you do recreate it be sure to tag me with @uneptcuisiniere or with #unepetitecuisiniere!

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Healthy Vegan Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwiches

Perfect dessert or snack (not only in summer!!) and so good!

Course Dessert
Prep Time 20 Minuten
Freezing 9 Stunden
Total Time 9 Stunden 20 Minuten
Servings 16 slices
Calories 156 kcal

What you will need

For the cookie dough

  • 9 small dates about 200g
  • 3 tbsp almond butter
  • 140 g coconut flour
  • 150 g apple sauce apple butter works too
  • 30 g dark chocolate

For the Ice cream

  • 3 bananas sliced up and frozen
  • 1.5 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • 80 g coconut yoghurt or any non-dairy yoghurt

Other

  • 70 g dark chocolate or chocolate chips

How to

Thats how it works:

The dough:

  1. Cut the chocolate into small chunks.

  2. Take out the cores of the dates and place them in the food processor until they create a sticky paste. Then add the almond butter and the apple sauce and blend to combine. Add the coconut flour and chocolate chips and pulse until well combined and having a sticky-like texture.

  3. Take a loaf pan and lay it out with parchment paper. Press half of the cookie dough into the pan, on the bottom to create a flat layer. It should be about 7mm thick. Place it in the freezer and store the remaing cookie dough in an air tight tupper ware in the fridge.

The Ice cream:

  1. Place the frozen bananas in the food processor or high speed blender (it has to be a really strong one because otheriwse it wont break the frozen pieces apart. Add some of the coconut yoghurt, but not too much to start with as you can still thin it out as you go. Lastly add the vanilla extract and blend until creamy. if too thick add more yoghurt.

  2. Take the cookie dough out of the freezer and pour the ice cream on top. Put it back and let it freeze for at least 6 hours to overnight.

To finish:

  1. Once frozen, place the remaing cookie dough on top of the ice cream layer and freeze for another 2-3 hours. Then take them out and cut them into 16 equal slices.

  2. Melt the 70g of chocolate and dip the sandwiches in it with one side, then place it back in the freezer. Continue until all of the slices are covered with chocolate on one side. .

  3. Store them in the freezer and they will last upto one month.

Açai Bowl

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A friend of mine is from brazil. And she always tells me about all the delicious acai bowls she eats when she is there. Every. Single. Time. We. Meet. This makes me so jealous! I absolutely love Açai Bowls but it is so hard to get one (and if you get one, to get a good one) in Vienna. Now I know one place that makes really delicious ones and that is Superfooddeli! But unfortunately this one place that actually has them is 1 hour away from my home with public transport 🙁 !

Since I am a really huge fan of these bowls and do not want to spend 2 hours reaching that place and coming back I decided to make my own one. I bought Açai Packets from that store and made it at home. Absolutely delicious! And so easy. I really haven´t expected it to be that easy! The clue to making a good Açai Bowl is having a good blender. If your blender is not very strong, it is going to be hard for it to blend everything up smoothly and there will remain chunks in the smoothie.

I love having such a bowl for breakfast or brunch or even as a light lunch! It is prepared so quickly and really delicious. If you are off heading somewhere you can just pour it into a Tupperware and take it on the go! I love this dish!

Isn´t it a ton of Sugar?

Although I love making smoothie bowls, an issue I have with those kind of meals is that I am usually eating tons of sugar. Bananas, berries, mangoes, acai, … whatever. They are really delicious and full of vitamins but sadly also full of sugar. If you blend all of them up, I believe that you eat more fruit pureed than you would normally eat as a whole. To still get a delicious, creamy, and sweat bowl but not consuming to much sugar I decided to add some veggies to my meals. And believe me, this was the best decision!

I could not taste the vegetables at all, I couldn´t have told that they were in there. My 2 tips to adding vegetables to your smoothies are:

1st: freeze them before adding. You not only get a creamier and thicker consistency but you will also taste them less. I do not know why, but it absolutely is worth it.

2nd: use vegetables that do not have an intense color. In this case, it doesn´t matter too much since the smoothie bowl is pretty dark anyways but when making a bright smoothie bowls, e.g. a mango one and you add a dark vegetable like spinach, the whole meal will get a darker color and will look less appealing. If you want to make a green smoothie though, this is something different, the go ahead and add all the spinach and kale. For my Açai Bowl I used celery and zucchini, which I have peeled before a froze it.           

What about toppings?

When it comes to the toppings you are absolutely free and can decide according to your desires! If you prefer fresh fruit, whatever fruit you like, something crunchy, something frozen, something creamy, the possibilities are endless! For me, I believe that toppings are the best part of any smoothie bowl!

As delicious as they are, you can easily go overboard. When adding tons of nut butters, chocolate chunks and sugar loaded granola you can easily turn a light and healthy meal into something rather heavy and dense. For my topping I like to use some more fresh fruit, like mango and berries, some homemade healthy granola, coconut chips, goji berries, hemp seeds, a spoonful of nut butter (I absolutely love almond butter with this!), some cut up banana and some edible flowers.

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Açai Bowl

A low sugar twist on our all time favorite smoothie bowl

Course Breakfast
Cuisine brazilian
Prep Time 12 Minuten
Servings 1
Calories 465 kcal

What you will need

For the smoothie

  • 100g g frozen Acai
  • 1/2 Banana frozen
  • 2 stalks Celery frozen
  • 1/2 Zucchini frozen
  • 100 g Blueberries frozen
  • 100 ml Almond milk more/ less depending on how thick you want it

For the toppings

  • 1/2 Mango
  • Blueberries
  • 2 tbsp Granola
  • 1/3 Banana
  • 1/2 tbsp Goji Berries
  • 1 tbsp coconut flakes
  • 1 tsp almond butter or any other nut butter

How to

Thats how it works:

  1. The night before making the bowl peel the zucchini and cut it up along with the celery and banana. Freeze an Açai package and the berries.

  2. Add all the ingredients for the bowl to the blender and blend it up. Start with a little nut milk and work your way up adding a little a time, depending on how thick you want your bowl to be.

  3. While you are blending the smoothie, take the mango and cut down the half. Peel it and place it with the flat side down on a cutting board. Finely slice it into really thin strips. The thinner the easier to make the rose. Once you have cut it, carefully slide them slightly apart, so it is a long strip. Take an end of the long strip and start rolling it so it will turn in itself so it turns into a rose. Cut up the banana into slices.

  4. When the smoothie is blended well, pour it into a bowl. Top it with the mango rose, the banana, the granola, the berries, the goji berries, the coconut, almond butter, and edible flowers. 

  5. Serve and enjoy!

No-bake Vegan Cashew Lavender Cake

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When it comes to making vegan desserts, I am usually not the first person to be asked. Don´t get me wrong, I do like desserts, although they cannot be too sweet, and I do like vegan food but I just have so little experience with making vegan desserts. I am all into that richness and creaminess of dairy products as cream, mascarpone and cream cheese. Especially in summer, when I do not want to turn the oven on but still have a slice of cake. 

This cake has definitely changed my mind though. I do not need the rich milk products (which are not necessarily healthy) in order to make a no-bake cake. A plant based version definitely is an alternative. It still contains a richness and a lot of flavor but is healthier and vegan! I do not want to call it a vegan cheesecake as others might do, because I do not believe that it tastes like cheese and in my opinion a CHEESE cake can´t be vegan. 

I made this recipe using a sugar free syrup and only sweetened it up with a little maple syrup because I wanted to make it a healthier and refined-sugar free version but also not have it too sweet. The coconut milk and the cashews already give it some sweetness so I did not believe that it is necessary to add a lot more. If you are a sweet person, you can add as much syrup as you desire!

For the crust I decided to use few ingredients and make it simple. It uses dates, for binding and natural sweetness, almonds, for texture and healthy fats, oats for carbohydrates, protein, fiber, and lots of vitamins, a pinch of salt to bring out the flavor, and lastly some coconut oil to bind it all together. I think that this tastes like rawnola, basically like a muesli and I loooove it. If you want to you can absolutely make the recipe for the crust and eat it with some milk or yoghurt or even form it into energy balls to eat them as a snack. 

The cream layer is made with full fat coconut milk, to keep that richness but still lighten it up a little )if that makes sense), cashews, that give the cake a sweet hint, add texture and creaminess and loads of healthy fats and proteins, some coconut yoghurt for more creamy deliciousness (I think b now you can tell that this is going to be a creamy cake!), some agave to sweeten, sugar free lavender syrup to add some flavor and agar to bind it all. If you cannot find a sugar free lavender syrup or a lavender syrup at all, this recipe works very well with any other syrup as well. 

If you are allergic, or do not like almonds you can substitute them with any nuts of your desire, which is the same for the dates. They can be replaced with any dried fruit you like, as apricots or figs or else something. If you want to get a little fancier with the crust and add some seeds such as chia, hemp, or sunflower, feel free to do that but I decided to keep it simple and use few ingredients. 

I like the cake most when it is enjoyed cold, straight out of the fridge. When it is frozen it loses some of the flavor so I would not recommend doing that. This cake works perfect if you have a group of friends over and some are vegan as this is a delicious desset for anyone vegan or non-vegan. It is pretty healthy as it contains lots of healthy fats, protein, carbs, and vitamins so it is a balanced and delicious snack. 

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Vegan Cashew Lavender Cake

A really delicious vegan dessert

Course Dessert
Prep Time 30 Minuten
Soaking & Cooling time 10 Stunden
Servings 12 slices
Calories 221 kcal

What you will need

For the crust:

  • 130 g Dates about 5
  • 50 g Oats
  • 80 g Almonds
  • 1 tsp Coconut Oil

For the cream layer

  • 115 g cashews
  • 1 can full fat coconut milk
  • 150 g coconut yogurt
  • 20 g agar-agar
  • 60 ml sugar free lavender syrup can substitute for any other fruit syrup
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup

How to

  1. Put the cashews in a bowl and let them soak for at least 6 hours or overnight.

  2. Blend the dates in a food processor until it forms a paste. Add the oats, almonds, coconut oil and a pinch of salt and blend again until it becomes firm texture. Line out an 18cm springform pan with parchment paper. Add the crust into the pan and press it to the ground and all the edges. Place it in the fidge.

  3. Drain the cashews and place them in a food processor. Add the coconut yoghurt, the maple syrup, and the lavender syrup and blend until smooth.

  4. Place the coconut milk in a sauce pan along with the agrtine. Bring it so a boil and let cook for 2 minutes. Add one tablespoon of the cashew cream into the coconut milk mixture and mix well. Pour it back into the rest of the cashew cream and mix it well (by hand!). It works best with a spatula. If you prefer it sweeter, add a little more lavender or maple syrup here.

  5. Take the springform pan with the crust out of the fridge and pour the cashew cream on top. Place in the fridge for at least 5 hours to overnight to let the agartine get firm.

  6. When ready take it out of the fridge and garnish with almonds, blueberries and some fresh lavender.

    Serve and enjoy!