No sugar needed!

First off, I apologize for the crappy picture quality, I didn't feel like lugging out the good camera...

Anyway, sweet tooth strikes again, and this whole no sugar thing throws a damper on that, but I came up with an amazing solution.  I say no sugar needed, because this is plenty sweet on its own.

Preheat your oven (or toaster oven if you have one, no sense in heating up the whole oven just for this) to 350.

In a bowl, combine a handful of cherries (pitted), blueberries and 1 banana, sliced.  Drizzle with some extra virgin coconut oil (I seriously cannot get enough of this stuff!!  Just ordered 2 jars from Amazon for a great price).  Sprinkle with some unsweetened shredded coconut and a few shakes of cinnamon and nutmeg.  Stir to get the coconut oil over everything.

Next, get a piece of aluminum foil big enough to hold everything and put the fruit in and loosely wrap it (make sure the sides are closed!) and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the bananas are tender (they will probably take the longest to bake, they were still pretty firm after 10 minutes).

The result?  Warm, sweet, rich dessert with no sugar, no chocolate and virtually guilt free!  I'm trying to watch my fruit intake this month but I figure with the heavy lifting I did earlier some extra carbs aren't a bad thing ;)

Serves 1

Got berries?

So it's July here in Michigan and that means blueberries are abundant.  Everywhere I'm at lately I see blueberries on sale, 2 pints for $3 or 2/$4 so last week when they were $1/pint I bought 3.  I've never been a big fan of blueberries, I didn't mind them in a fruit salad or something but since switching my diet, I love things I never really cared for (like blueberries).  Unfortunately, one can only eat so many berries before they go bad and when I bought 2 more pints when I still had another in the fridge ready to go bad, I started wondering what to do...

Blueberry compote came to mind.

Unfortunately, most recipes for compote have you adding half a cup of sugar (or more!!) and during the 30 day challenge I'm doing, no sugar.  Fear not, if you get some super ripe berries like I did, you won't even miss the sugar.

• 1 pint blueberries
• 1/4 cup of water (or less, I used about 1/4 cup and it was a bit too much, made it a little too thin for my taste)
• Several dashes of cinnamon (maybe 1/2 tablespoon?)
• Few dashes of nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, gradually bringing to a low boil, and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until thickened to your liking.  You can mash some of the berries (I used an avocado masher that worked well) but after the berries heat up, you can easily mash them up with a rubber spatula.

Now, what to serve it with?  I think this would work really well in some homemade ice cream, or mixed in some yogurt, or just to dip some apples in, but I used it on the almond berry pancakes I made (the exact recipe is in the cookbook but you can find a very similar one here).  Perfect when you want something sweet.

Makes about 1.5 cups

Anything goes slaw

Just like the title says, anything goes for this dish.  I picked up a head of cabbage from the store and when my original recipe didn't quite work out, I played the "let's scavenge in the fridge" to come up with a dish.

First, assemble your ingredients.  I used:

• 1/2 head purple cabbage (about 3-4 cups)
• 1 large cooked, diced chicken breast (about 1-2 cups)
• 1 diced mango
• 1 diced granny smith apple
• Chopped sundried tomatoes (about 1/4 cup)
• Blueberries

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix.  For the dressing, I just used equal parts of extra virgin olive oil and blueberry pomegranate vinegar.  I thought about adding a little bit of honey but the mangoes and blueberries added just the right amount of sweet, and the cabbage and apples gave just the right amount of crunch.

This will make about 5-6 servings as a side (I'm guessing, really didn't measure it out, as usual!)