healthy cooking – Living My Best Life

Rustic Apple Tart

September 27, 2020September 28, 2022by nattysbestlife1 Comment

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
4 tbs unsalted butter
1/4 cup shortening (4 tbs)
4 tbs sugar
1/4 tbs salt
3-6 tbs ice water
4 large apples
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tbs cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg
1 table spoon confectioners sugar (powdered)

This is the BEST fall apple pie substitute I have ever made. Originally I wanted to try a peach tart but the peaches had gone bad so I had to find an alternative.

Tart crust: In a food processor combine: 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, 4 tbs unsalted butter, 1/4 cup shortening (4 tbs), 4 tbs sugar, 1/4 tbs salt and add 3-6 tbs of iced water as needed. Put the dough in cling wrap and chill for an hour.

The filling: peel and thinly slice apples and add: 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 tbs cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Assembly: Roll the dough out on parchment paper and start adding the apples in a ring working your way towards the center. Then carefully roll the edges over the sides. Lastly you are going to brush the outside with egg white and sprinkle powdered sugar on the edges. You are also going to sprinkle granulated sugar on the apple portion. Preheat the oven to 350° and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden brown.

I pre made this earlier in the day to serve, but I would let the tart chill for an hour before cutting into it.

This is a great FALL dessert, you can also pair it with vanilla ice cream or a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Mushroom Ramen

July 22, 2020August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

Ingredients:

1 container chicken broth/ veggie broth
Assorted mushrooms of choice (3/4 lb)
Dried shiitake mushrooms (optional- these are very strong
3-4 ramen packets
1 large onion
1 tbs fresh ginger/ ginger paste
1-2 garlic cloves (minced)
Garlic powder (unsalted)
Sesame seeds
Miso paste
Soy sauce
4 eggs
Green onions/ scallion (garnish)
Corn (fresh or frozen)
Butter
Red chili flakes
Sesame oil (optional)

1. Prepare the toppings

Soft boiled eggs→ bring water to a boil, put in the eggs, boil for 6 minutes, take out and put in a ice water bath, peel and cut in half

Chili garlic sesame oil → heat sesame oil (or vegetable oil), add chili flakes, sesame seeds and garlic powder stir (don’t bring it to a boil or it will burn)

Butter corn → heat the corn and add butter

Cook ramen →boil water, put boiling water into a large bowl, add ramen and let sit for 2-3 minutes. Rinse with cold water (you don’t want to overcook the ramen noodles)

2. Prepare the broth

Sauté the garlic, ginger and onion in oil until the onion shrinks. Add the broth of choice, chopped mushrooms, soy sauce (to taste) and miso paste (to taste). Bring to a boil, I cook it on low heat for 20-30 minutes.

3. Assemble and serve

Put the broth in a bowl, add the ramen end with toppings of choice and serve. You don’t want to add the noodles until the end or they will get soggy. You can always modify your toppings and get creative by adding: spicy miso paste, fried shrimp or tofu, meat of choice, takana, spinach, kimchee, bamboo, seaweed, bean sprouts ect.

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Knock off Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish Pizza (Lou’s Special)

July 22, 2020August 17, 2020by nattysbestlife2 Comments

I used a Lodge Cast Iron pan to make the deep dish pizza

Pizza dough ingredients:

4 tsp sugar
2 tbs active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
4 cups all purpose flour (or bread flour)
3 tsp salt
5 tbs vegetable oil

Other ingredients:

1 1/2 shredded mozzarella cheese
Fresh mozzarella cheese
Colby jack cheese
2 1/2 fresh spinach (chopped up)
5 cloves of garlic (crushed/ minced)
1 cup pizza or pasta sauce (you can also make your own like I did)
Butter

1. Prepare the Dough

Mix together 1 1/2 cups of warm water, 2 tbs active dry yeast and 4 tsp sugar and and let it sit for 3-5 minutes until it foams up/bubbles (this means that the yeast has activated- if you don’t get foam/ bubble you will have to repeat this step or your dough will not rise). Once the yeast is activated, add 5 tbs of vegetable oil into the mixture- this is your wet mixture.

Mix the dry ingredients together- 4 cups of flour and 3 tsp salt. Slowly incorporate your wet mixture into your dry mixture until all the ingredients come together. Kneed the dough for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth.

Let the dough rise until the dough doubles in size- you want to place the dough in a warm dry area to rise or in a warmed oven (turn the oven on for a few minutes and turn it off).

2. Assemble the Pizza

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Once the oven is preheated, heat the empty cast iron pan (12″) in the oven for 3 minutes. Once the pan in heated, butter the pan. Take 1/2 of the prepared dough, form a ball and place it in the center of the pan. Slowly press the dough into the pan and up the edges until the dough is uniformly spread. Lightly butter and salt the open face of the dough, and put it back in the over for 3 minutes.

Remove from the oven, put down a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese, top with fresh mozzarella cheese, layer of spinach mixture (sautéed garlic, spinach, salt until the spinach shrinks and squeeze out excess moisture once it cools), add a layer of sauce, top with a mixture of mozzarella and colby jack cheese, at the end add thinly sliced tomatoes (lightly salt the tomato slices).

3. Cook the Pizza

Cook the pizza at 425°F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Take the pizza out of the oven and let it cool before using a spatula to remove it from the cast iron pan- this should be very easy since he pan was buttered. Optional step: put the pizza back into the oven for 3-5 minutes to become crispy.

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Air Fryer Zucchini

June 1, 2020August 7, 2020by nattysbestlife1 Comment

Ever wish you could have yummy warm fried zucchini without the guilt of eating deep fried food? Now there is a solution! I LOVE my air frier- I can honestly say, most of the things I make in there actually taste fried! I recently upgraded to the GoWise Air Frier and have no complaints.

Ingredients:

Zucchinis (thinly sliced, I use a Nutri Chopper to make long thin slices)
6-8 oz of soda water
½ cup all purpose flour
4 tbs cornstarch
1 tsp Kosher salt
¼ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp garlic
¼ tsp oregano
3-4 cups panko
1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp Romano cheese (optional- I don’t always have this cheese on hand)
½ tsp chopped parsley (optional)

The secret ingredient is the soda water- this makes the zucchini very crispy after it comes out of the air frier!

Combine ½ cup flour, 4 tbs cornstarch, ½ tsp kosher salt, ¼ tsp pepper, ¼ tsp oregano, ¼ tsp garlic (I use dry unsalted garlic), and add to 6 oz soda water and whisk together – do not over-mix (you don’t want the soda water to lose all of its carbonation. Batter should be the consistency of thin pancake batter- if it is too thick, soda water can be added.

Next step, dip the zucchini slices in the batter, then into the panko. Lay all the zucchini on a baking sheet until you are ready to air fry it.

Air fry the zucchini at 400F for 10 minutes, or until the zucchini is crispy- I think the cook times depend on the type of air frier used! Garnish the zucchini with the Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese and chopped parsley. I promise they will be the BEST you have ever tried!

Personally, I love to pair the zucchini with lemon aioli sauce.

Ingredients:

½ cup sour cream
½ cup of mayonnaise
1 lemon- juice and zest to taste
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs finely chopped parsley
1 tbs finely chopped chives
2 cloves of chopped garlic
¼ tsp dry mustard
salt & pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients together, and serve with the warm air fried zucchini! ENJOY!

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Quiche Galore

November 19, 2018August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

I have always been a fan of quiche, but have never tried making it myself. I read a bunch of different recipes before improvising and creating my own!

I started with Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust (you can always make your own pie crust, but I wasn’t feeling ambitious enough to do that). I think if you want to make a more healthy quiche, you need to make your own crust. I’ll definitely be experimenting with an oats/wheat based crust next time. I pushed the pie crust into a 9″ pan, made holes on the bottom with a fork, and let the crust cook for about 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

I made two different fillings:

Spinach Mushroom: 1 frozen slab of spinach (thawed and water squeezed out), half a container of fresh mushrooms (cooked on low heat for 3-5 mins), 1 cup milk (I used 2%, feel free to use a heavier milk if you want something more rich), 1-1½ cups of shredded gouda cheese, 2 eggs, 3 egg whites, salt and pepper

Veggie: 1 tomato, 1 white onion + 1 jalapeno (cooked on low heat for 3-5 minutes), 1 cup milk, 1-1½ cups of shredded cheddar cheese, 2 eggs, 3 egg whites, salt and pepper

I poured each of the mixtures into the cooled pie crusts and put them back in the oven at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. I took it out right before it started browning because I was taking it to a potluck. Then before they were served, we warmed them in the oven again. This made the pies a little crispy at the end, which was perfect.

There are so may different ingredients you can put in a quiche. I am going to try making my own version of the Lou’s Special deep dish pizza next time.

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Guilt Free Apple Pie

October 30, 2018August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

I made an improv apple pie one morning without 2 key ingredients: flour and butter. Granted it wasn’t the best pie I’ve ever eaten, but it was definitely a healthy alternative!

Ingredients:

3-4 apples (honesty you can use whatever kind of apple you want)
2-3 cups of oat (whatever you don’t use to make the crust becomes the crumble on top)
brown sugar
sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg
lime juice
2-3 eggs
warm water

I first used my Ninja Blender to grind the oats into a fine powder. To the oats I added 3 eggs, a few teaspoons of water, and about a 1/2 cup of sugar. I then pressed the “dough” into an 8in pan and cooked it for 10-12 minutes at 375F. While the crust was cooking, I pealed and cut up 3 apples. Then added about 3 tablespoons of lime juice, a half a cup of both brown sugar and sugar, 1 tsp nutmeg, and cinnamon to taste.

When the crust came out, I filled it with the pie filling, and added the remainder of the oats as crumble on top. I baked the pie for about 30 minutes until it was slightly brown on top.

There were 2 great things about the pie: that it didn’t take long to make, and it was truly guilt free.

I definitely want to play around with this recipe and maybe try a different filling in the next few weeks!

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Vegan Gluten Free Pancakes

September 6, 2018August 7, 2020by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment

I love trying new recipes, and this was a crowd pleaser. I love a good pancake breakfast, but its not necessarily healthy so I decided to take a healthy spin on pancakes, and it was shockingly amazing.

Ingredients:

2 cups of Oats (blend to flour consistency in ninja)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I tend to add more because we love cinnamon)
2 large egg
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large banana

Just mix up all the ingredients, and cook them over the stove (1/4 cup of mix per pancake). Be careful though, they are harder to flip then regular pancakes, your first few may break.

The last step: enjoy guilt free pancakes!

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Healthy PIZZA?

July 7, 2018August 7, 2020by nattysbestlife2 Comments

Everyone is always looking for ways to incorporate healthier foods into their lives. What if I told you that you were eating a slice of pizza that was ACTUALLY HEALTHY because the crust wasn’t made of processed white flour, but instead it was made with quinoa! Skeptical at first, I was happy with the results of this recipe.

Quinoa Crust Precipice

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of dry organic quinoa (I use a the Kirkland Signature organic quinoa– definitely more cost effective then getting it from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs olive oil
italian seasoning to taste
dry rosemary to taste
unsalted garlic powder to taste

The dry quinoa has to be soaked in water for about 6-8 hours. Soak it overnight if you are going to be making the crust in the morning or all day if you are going to be making it for dinner. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Wash the soaked quinoa thoroughly and blend with the baking powder, salt, olive oil and seasoning. The consistency is going to be similar to pancake batter (not pizza dough). Take a 9″ cake pan and line it with parchment paper and coat it with olive oil. Pour the mixture in; the thinner you pour it the more crispy the crust will turn out. Bake it for 12 minutes, then flip the crust and cook for another 15 minutes. You can now either add the toppings or save the crust for later in the day.

Making my pizza crusts in the morning, I was able to use them later that evening for pizza night. I chopped up mushrooms, green peppers and onions and prepared a garlic oil to brush onto the crust before adding the toppings.

garlic oil: freshly minced garlic, olive oil, Italian seasoning and rosemary

I also made a homemade pizza sauce: 1/2 cup chopped onion, 2 tbs minced garlic, 2 tbs oil, 1 cup chopped fresh tomato, 8 ounces tomato sauce, 6 ounces tomato paste, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp basil, and 1 tsp pepper. Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil, once brown add all the remaining ingredients and let the sauce simmer over low heat.

When it was time to assemble the pizza, I brushed the crust with the garlic oil, then added the pizza sauce, vegetables, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and lastly the Italian blend. Then I baked the pizza for another 10-15 minutes until the cheese was melted.