Chillin' in the Kitchen: Healthy (Secret Ingredient) Spinach Dip

I'm on a salty/savory kick these days when I look for a snack. Cookies and chocolate aren't doing it for me at the moment - but put a bag of chips or popcorn in front of me and I can't stop snacking! Seeing as how I'm trying to be good and watch what I eat, that's not very conducive to my plan. I figured I needed to find some healthy choices or I'd undo any good for the day by snacking through an episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (I am not afraid to admit that I love that show. It's too crazy not to!)

I've always been a huge fan of dips. I gravitate towards them at parties, I bring them with me when I'm visiting people - it's a happy food. I love the versatility of them and how everyone has their own version of a dip no matter what kind it is. My favourite is usually a spinach dip - if it's served with pumpernickel I'm a goner. I may or may not have made that a staple dinner when I was in university. Unfortunately, most dips are ridiculously high in fat and calories because they're heavy with mayo/sour cream, etc. This recipe for Healthy Spinach Dip is amazing, and you will never guess what the secret ingredient is: tofu! Crazy, right?? It tastes like a regular dip but I've cut out the fat, the calories and loaded it up with protein. It's so healthy you can eat it as a meal (and you should. It's that good). We have been eating it with everything under the sun: homemade baguettes, homemade crackers (pictured), cut up veggies - even topped on our burgers - mmmmmm it's all good! I promise you, no one will be able to tell that it's healthy - and you can eat it guilt-free! The best part is that it takes about 5 minutes to prepare, so you really have no excuse not to whip up a batch at all times.

Healthy (Secret Ingredient) Spinach Dip
makes approx 3.5 cups

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Chipotle Nutella Chia Seed Pudding

I am in love with chia seeds. I eat them every day - in smoothies, in oatmeal and even as part of a sweet treat. They are good for you and super versatile. Plus, unlike flax seeds, they don't need to be ground up to be enjoyed. Once they are mixed with water, they expand and create a gel-like substance, so if you have a problem with the texture (similar to tapioca) you can zip them through a blender or food processor to smooth it out.

In my search for healthier choices for sweet snacks, I discovered chia seed pudding - it makes for a great dessert or late night snack, but it's healthy enough you can eat it for breakfast. The beauty of it is once you get the base of it down (chia seed + liquid) you can add whatever you like to it to give it flavour. I've made a few different versions (peanut butter & coconut milk, maple syrup and walnut, coconut and berries, etc.) and they all turn out great. Use your favourite flavours and make it as complicated or as simple as you like!

This is our current favourite flavour - Chipotle Nutella Chia Seed Pudding. The chipotle gives it a smoky spicy kick and the Nutella gives it just the right amount of sweetness. Jeff likes it blended to smooth it out, but I prefer it whole. Either way, it's delicious!

Chipotle Nutella Chia Seed Pudding
makes 1 serving

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Super Soft & Chewy Oatmeal Cookies (No Butter)

I was speaking with a friend recently and the topic of oatmeal cookies came up...and that got me really, really craving some. I also have an obscene amount of oats on hand (we eat a lot of oaty things, what can I say) so I welcome any excuse to dig into our stockpile.

One of the things I dislike about baking is the use of butter - mainly because there is never any butter in our house because I always forget to buy it, or I'm too lazy to soften butter in advance of baking when I want instant gratification and don't have the patience to wait. If it's a one-bowl, one-utensil recipe, it earns even more points. I am proof you can be lazy and still make delicious food!

My favourite kind of Oatmeal Cookies are ones that are soft and chewy - I don't particularly care for the super flat ones that are crispy. These cookies used coconut oil since that's what I typically have on hand, but you could use olive oil or canola oil - or even try doing half oil/half unsweetened applesauce. The nice thing about coconut oil is that it makes the house smell super coconutty but you don't really get a coconut taste.

You can do so much to this simple starter recipe but I like it with raisins the best. Chocolate chips/chunks, nuts or other dried fruits would go really well too. Whatever you do, try not to eat all of them in one sitting (unless you have a lot of really cold milk on hand...then, you should definitely eat them all.) :)

Oatmeal Cookies
makes ~28 cookies

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Zucchini Bread

Recently, I've gotten into the habit of making love-loaves on Sunday. What's a love-loaf, you ask? It's basically what I call the loaves of goodness that come out of the oven, because I love them so much. (You can stop the eye rolling now!) I like baking something over the weekend that we can grab quick breakfasts throughout the week, and lately it's been a quick-bread of sorts - either banana or pumpkin, etc. (though I have made muffins or breakfast "cookies" as well...it just depends on what's in the pantry and how lazy I am).

This past week I had a couple of zucchinis sitting sadly in the fridge that needed to be used, so I thought I'd make Zucchini Bread. One of my favourite kinds of bread, this loaf is light and moist with an almost savory taste. It's not overly sweet, and the zucchini really shines through due to the citrus accent. I replaced some of the fats with unsweetened applesauce to make it healthier and it still tasted amazing. The key is in draining the zucchini of its moisture as much as possible - so don't skip that step or you'll end up with a dense, gummy loaf! A warm slice of this beauty with a drizzle of honey and a hot cup of milky tea...makes any morning a good one!

Zucchini Bread
adapted from The New Best Recipe
makes 1 9-inch loaf

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Quick Soft Pretzels

Do you ever get those cravings that just won't go away? I read somewhere once that a craving only lasts about 10 minutes. To this I say, HA!! Mine last...days? Weeks? Sometimes I'm eating what I am craving ... and I'm craving it at the same time. Mind blowing, I know.

I got hit with a craving for soft pretzels recently and they were all I could think about. There used to be a soft pretzel place in the mall I worked at in high school, and I'd eat it for lunch every time I worked. There's something so good about soft, fluffy bread covered in salt. I mean really now, how could you go wrong? It was a sad, sad day in my teenage life when the pretzel place closed. These days, if I see a soft pretzel place - you know I'll be running over there to order up a tasty treat.

It's hard to have cravings like these and then having to figure out how to make it while we're up here. Especially when every recipe I came across talked about waiting for the dough to rise, followed by a million steps that all sounded complicated and time-consuming. It was a weeknight and I was in the mood for a pretzel, STAT. I ain't gots no time to wait for yeast to activate and dough to rise! This was a pretzel emergency!

Then I found it. A recipe that promised Quick Soft Pretzels in the same amount of time it takes to bake a batch of cookies. A short list of ingredients that were already in my pantry and I was up and in my kitchen faster than lightning. Under an hour later, I was happily munching on soft, fluffy pretzels and life was perfect. Try these. Eat a million of them. Make more and then eat those too! They're that good!

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Pickled Jalapenos

We *love* spicy food. When we first started dating, Jeff's idea of spicy was Frank's Red Hot and we laugh at that now since he barely gets a tingle when we use it these days. I grew up eating fairly spicy things, so after years of being together, Jeff's tolerance has naturally increased as to how much heat he can handle. It is not uncommon to go through our kitchen and find a variety of different hot sauces and other spicy things that we consume regularly.

I've always liked the idea of pickled peppers since I like the flavour combination of spicy and sour/sweet mixed together. Unfortunately, any pickled peppers that I tried in the past were overly sour, not at all spicy and generally quite soft and mushy. When I came across fresh jalapenos at the store, I got it in my head that I was going to make Pickled Jalapenos - so I did! Oh. My. Goodness. After making these at home, we are never going back to store-bought again. These are quick to make (not your "real" pickling with brine and sitting for long periods of time, etc.), crispy, the perfect combination of sweet/sour and have a whole lot of kick. It tastes like fire...a delicious, addictive, put-it-on-everything fire. I've made them a couple of times now, and a jar doesn't last long around here - but these will keep beautifully in your fridge if you can stay away from them long enough!

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Homemade Focaccia Bread

We are bread-lovers in this house. Actually, anything from the carbohydrates category is going to fly over incredibly well here. Unfortunately, there are no real bakeries in town, so if we want fresh bread I'm going to have to make it at home. Thankfully, I've found a couple of fool-proof recipes to add to my repertoire and we can enjoy a nice piece of bread anytime we want. As a side note, I scored a really amazing deal on a bread maker a couple of months ago but it's still sitting forlornly in its box because all the recipes I've used in the past didn't need a bread maker and we like them so much that I haven't tried new recipes using our machine yet. Jeff says it's another gadget gathering dust, but I swear I'll use it one day! :)

I recently stumbled across a recipe for Focaccia and it is *so* easy to make, that I've made it a few times now - each time doing something differently - and it still turns out perfectly every time. I even let a friend try it and she said it reminded her of the bread she used to get from an Italian restaurant. Talk about ego booster! :)

This is the perfect recipe if you've never made bread, or are afraid to try making bread. It really is fool-proof and comes out delicious no matter what you do. I've tried it mixing herbs inside the dough as well as just on top, and you can't go wrong either way. Super light and airy on the inside with a crisp outside, this bread is perfect for anything from sandwiches to soaking up stew. It really is our new favourite bread!

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins (Fat Free!)

Eating healthy doesn't mean that you have to give up your desserts - and this recipe is the perfect example of how being mindful of what you put into your body doesn't mean you have to miss out on tasty treats. I love when a recipe comes together and this is probably one of my favourite recipes in my arsenal! It's a perfect way to use up bananas (which we always have an abundance of in this house), and you'll likely have the majority of the ingredients sitting in your pantry.

Super moist and fluffy, not only are these Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins fat free and low calorie, but they also happen to be vegan. Not that I try to live a vegan lifestyle by any means, but they're extra bonuses if you need more incentive for a delicious snack. This recipe also yields the best rising muffins of all recipes I've tried - so they look exactly like muffins from a bakery! One of my biggest eye-rollers is complicated healthy recipes. I find in baking, things can get really complex with hard-to-find ingredients or specialty items that I don't typically have around the house. The fact that these muffins use regular ingredients I always have on hand means I can have a tasty treat in my belly in under 30 minutes flat.

Indvidually wrapped, you can freeze these for later or they should keep for a few days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. They're so good though, they hardly last that long in our house. I've been known to eat them fresh from the oven and slathered in butter right from the muffin tin.

If you want to add more goodness to it - try adding ground flax, hemp hearts, wheat germ and/or chia for a healthy punch.

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Vietnamese Fresh Rolls

When the weather turns warm and summery, all I crave is fresh fruits and vegetables, which can be a bit of a challenge living in the arctic! It's even better when I don't have to cook them, but that means finding the freshest produce possible - again, it can be challenging when all of our food gets flown in. Warmer months aren't as sparse as the winter months for freshness, but you still need to keep an eye out on the things you buy...I swear, certain things like strawberries, look perfectly fine in the store and 10 minutes after I get them home they start to go bad. It's a strange phenomenon that's part of the northern charm.

Vietnamese fresh rolls are the perfect meal because they're interactive, quick to make and customized however you like them. I usually explain them as the Vietnamese version of fajitas since I put out all the "toppings" on the table and we just make our own rolls however we like. Just use whatever ingredients are in the fridge at the time - the more vegetables, the better! I didn't have a lot of produce in our fridge because I hadn't gone shopping for the week yet, but I pulled out what we had and we still had a lovely meal. Paired with a white wine spritzer and it was so light, fresh and crisp you wouldn't have guessed we were in an arctic tundra.

On this particular night I had some steak strips and surimi shrimp - an imitation shrimp made primarily from fish. (it was a new item at the Northern and they were cheap so I thought I'd give them a try. They weren't bad for $5 for a big bag, but I started calling them "scrimps" because we were "scrimping and saving" by eating them...come on, that's funny!!). They were okay, but real shrimp would be much better in these. Paired with the steak, they sort of turned our meal into surf and turf rolls. Any protein will work for these rolls; we've also had chicken, fish, tofu, pork...or just make them vegetarian rolls and don't even worry about the protein. Lots of fresh vegetables are the key to the texture and flavour, though, so don't be afraid to load them up with whatever produce you've got laying around. They're that versatile! It's all delicious after you wrap them up and dip them into the amazing sauce!

Chillin' in the Kitchen: Baked Oatmeal with Lentils & Berries

I've had readers ask if I would start posting some recipes of what we eat while we're here in the north and I thought that would be a fun idea! Contrary to what some people may think, it is very possible to eat healthy, from-scratch food without sacrificing taste! Our produce selection at the stores really vary depending on season/weather, so I find it helpful to have frozen and/or canned fruits and vegetables on hand to tide us over in a pinch. Our menu planning is generally centralized around the goal of 5-10 produce servings a day, so I try to make things that use different fruits and vegetables often. I also try to make recipes that keep well in the fridge for a few days, or freeze really well for quick meals later!

Today I'll share with you one of our breakfast favourites, Baked Oatmeal with Lentils and Berries. I'm on a kick where I'm trying to incorporate whole grains into our daily diet - and regular oatmeal every day gets tiring. This recipe is so versatile because you can add whatever you like in it (chocolate chips, different fruits, nuts, fresh fruit or frozen fruit, etc. - everything comes out so good!). The lentils add healthy protein and fiber and you don't even know they're in there. We serve ours warm with a splash of milk and more fresh fruit on top (bananas or fresh berries, sometimes both!). Leftovers reheat perfectly, and you can also freeze and thaw as needed.