Noelle likes Good Food

*update: I also wrote an article for the detox and got published in a magazine!! Click on the link to see the article :). OR Today - Kombucha Detox Chris and I are doing a two week detox together!! We will be starting Monday, Jan 6th and we want to welcome anyone that wants to join us. Today I will be going over the basics of what to eat and what not to eat. As well as some recipes that we plan on using and other suggestions to aid in the detox process. So, lets jump in! First of all, starting a detox is a big step and shouldn't be taken lightly. It can be a wonderful opportunity to reset your taste buds and help you start the new year eating more mindfully and intentionally. I shared with you in a previous post how much I enjoyed doing this detox in November and this time my husband is doing it with me :)! For the detox there are a few food guidelines that we need to go over. We will start with what not to eat. DON'T EAT: Pork, Conventional beef, Processed meats, Da...

Hey everyone! Again it has been way too long since I have written. I feel like I have so much to tell you. The last several weeks have been full of cooking, preserving garden harvests, giving my husband a surprise birthday party, making cookie cake for 300 people, and lots of work and school. Speaking of, school is almost done for the semester! I have 1 week of classes left before Thanksgiving break and after that I just have finals. So many happy things :). I will talk about all of that later, but for now I want to tell you about my detox. Last Friday I started a detox with my friend, Jaime. It was all her idea and I am so glad we are doing it! We decided to cut out dairy, ALL sugar (refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, fruit, honey, stevia, etc), corn, gluten, soy, caffeine, alcohol, pork and processed meats. My friend is also cutting out red meat, but I decided to keep eating beef. We have a freezer full of grass-fed beef, and organic chicken and wild caught fish are way o...

I wanted chocolate for breakfast. So I made chocolate pancakes.  Mission accomplished. Dark Chocolate Pancakes (Free of Gluten, Dairy, Refined Sugar, and Eggs) Makes enough for two pancakes 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp Brown Rice Flour 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (I used Hershey's Dark Cocoa) 1/2 tsp Cinnamon 1 tsp Baking Powder pinch of salt 1 Tbsp Coconut Oil 1 Tbsp Honey 1/4-1/3 cup water (add a little at a time until you get the right consistency) Mix dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients. Heat up a nonstick pan, add a little bit of butter, pour half the batter in. Flip and wait until cooked through. Repeat with the rest of the batter. Enjoy with your topping of choice.  I spread a little bit of peanut butter and drizzled some honey on top. But I also think that some blueberries or strawberries would be amazing. I like very dark chocolate so I barely sweetened the pancake. If you like something a little sweeter you can add some stevia or a little more honey. I thought these were...

Happy New Year! I can't believe it is already 2011. This new year will bring many great opportunities. I will be starting college in 2 days. I will be taking a weekly ballet class starting next week. I am going to get certified to teach Zumba next weekend. I will also be starting a new job next week. It will be a year of learning and growing and more than likely a lot of change. But that's what life is about, right?  To bring in the New Year we had some good friends of ours come over. Whenever I am going to have people over I have the hardest time coming up with a menu. I tend to over think and over stress trying to come up with something everyone will like. I had been going back and forth for awhile, and ultimately one of my Christmas presents made the decision for me.  My dearest husband gave me a wok. He did his research and got a flat bottomed one because of our electric range. It is hand hammered, and he even watched a youtube video on how to season it and did that for...

I have already told you about my twin sister Nicole who lives in Mexico. She only comes home to visit once a year around Thanksgiving and she is home right now! I stole her away from the rest of our family for a few days to spend some time with me up here in Homer. During her 4 day stay here we exercised, cooked lots of food, ate said food, and spent hours at thrift stores and bookstores perusing shelves of books. It was perfect! We actually are very similar and our time spent showed our equal love of literature, fitness, and food :). A highlight of our culinary creations were waffles. We tried several different varieties, but our favorite was one we created with cornmeal, beets, and coconut milk. It is naturally gluten free, as well as dairy and sugar free. We decided to make it savory and topped it with avocado and tomatillo salsa. Nicole wanted to add the extra beet on top for presentation, but it didn't go too good with the salsa. We just picked it off before eating the rest....

So I know you have all been waiting with baited breath. I told you I was going to reveal to you today what I used my coconut butter for. Are you ready? I used it to make homemade coconut dark chocolate. If that doesn't make your mouth water, I don't know what will. It was a work in progress that took a few days. But I definitely learned some things along the way, and I will share with you what I learned. I based my first attempt off of a recipe I found on the internet. I used the double boiler method by placing a bowl with the ingredients over a pan of simmering water. The three components are cocoa powder, coconut oil, and sugar (I used stevia instead). Once they were melted and mixed together I tasted it and it was bad. I don't know if it is because I used the Hershey's Dark Cocoa Powder but it was chalky and nothing like the creamy chocolate I was looking for. I thought pouring it into a pan and letting it solidify would help things and they didn't. It just t...

We have this ongoing debate at our house about tortillas. I like corn tortillas and Chris likes flour tortillas. I have made them both from scratch before, and Chris doesn't even like the homemade corn ones. Crazy, right? I was trying to find an alternative that is gluten free and corn free to try and compromise on our tortilla differences.  Then I came across this incredible blog called Book of Yum that has gluten-free recipes from around the world. I love the passion that she has for other tastes and cultures, and I want to try so many of her recipes. She has a recipe for an indian roti or flat-bread made solely out of sorghum flour. Sorghum is a source of protein, calcium, and iron and naturally gluten free. You can go and check out her blog and look up some of the great recipes at Book of Yum . To view her sorghum flat-bread tortilla recipe with detailed instructions click here .   The dough is made out of sorghum flour and water. The technique for this is similar...

Today has been another stressful day. I have been trying to apply for college to start classes spring semester.  My case is a little special because I was home-schooled and I also qualify as a non-traditional student; meaning it has been five years since I graduated high school and I don't have to submit SAT scores. I emailed the admissions office almost a month ago and asked them if I had to submit SAT scores because I was home-schooled and they said no. So I haven't been worried about it. I have submitted everything else and today I found out that I do indeed need to submit them because I was home-schooled. It is too late to take the test again to be able to still be accepted for the spring semester. So I called the SAT place and they will send my old scores, but they are in the archives and it will take them 2-4 weeks to find them and send them out. I don't know what to do, but I am going to be really disappointed if I can't start classes because of it. Any suggestio...

This came to be quite accidentally, and I thought it was super tasty! So I thought I would share the recipe with you. I know Chris has been wanting potato salad lately and I had a plan to make it for dinner last night. I am not a big fan of mayo and so my thought was to substitute it with plain yogurt. However, when I was at the store the other day, it had to get cut because I was didn't want to go over budget. I have recently been taking a calculator to the store to help me stick to my budget and it has helped SOO much! Alas, I did not bring any yogurt and I refused to use mayonnaise. I wanted it to have a good flavor because I was going to mix in some sweet potatoes and I don't really like sweet potatoes. Consider this one of many recent attempts to get myself to like them. Yes, I realize that they are super good for me and a lot better than potatoes, but I can't seem to get past that they are sweet and mushy. Hmmm.. So I used some olive oil, garlic, and some dried he...

I like sauces. I like dressings. I like condiments. I like dips. Anything that I can scoop into, dip out of, spoon from, or be squeezed out is a friend of mine.  I was looking for a way to use up some black beans I had cooked up last week. Given my love of anything dip related, this recipe practically jumped out at me. It was a recipe for mexican layer dip from my Clean Food Cookbook. The 'sour cream' was made out of tofu and it was completely gluten and dairy free. I thought I would give it a try and put in my own few twists. The recipe called for 16 oz of bean dip. What I had were unseasoned black beans. I would give you the recipe for how I made my bean dip but I am not sure the exact amounts. I know I started with two cups of black beans, 1/2 diced onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tsp pepper, 1 chili in adobo sauce. I blended and tasted. It was bland but spicy. Eck. So I added 1 tsp chili powder and 1 tsp. salt. I tasted it again and realized I put in WAY too much salt. (Thi...

Don't we look so patriotic. Dad is in the background waving the flag. The day before the 4th of July we spent with my husbands family. I always have a wonderful time hanging out with them. One of the highlights of my day was going to the neighbors yard to pick blueberries. We picked two big bowls and they generously gave them all to me. I couldn't help myself and ate half of them yesterday. But today I knew I wanted to put them to good use in pancakes. I have been experimenting with a 'blender-style' GF, sugar-free, and dairy free pancake recipe. The concept is to take whole grains like rice and millet and blend them with water and some type of acid let them soak overnight. I found the original recipe here . I have loved the recipe from the beginning but I like to experiment and see what I can do to make it different. An awesome find at Kroger today. I have been wanting to try it and found it marked down to $.99. Jackpot! The taste did not disappoint either. The first...