Ingredients:
3 cups shredded coconut
2 Tbsp flax powder
6 Tbsp water
1/4 cup NuNaturals baking stevia
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325. Place flax powder in a small bowl and add water and stir. Refrigerate flax mixture for a minimum of 15 minutes. In a larger bowl, with your hands, massage together coconut, baking stevia, vanilla extract and completed flax mixture. Form into 12 balls and bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 20 minutes.
I sometimes try and find creative ways to have dessert without resorting to dark chocolate. In this case I loved the result…but still added chunks of dark chocolate bar after a few sips 
Ingredients:
1 baked sweet potato
meat and water of one young coconut
1 dropper NuNaturals stevia
1/4 tsp orange extract
ice (optional)
dark chocolate chips or cacao nibs (optional)
Blend all ingredients adding chocolate chips when smooth.
Filed under Potatoes, Squashes, and Starchy Things, Recipes
Two weeks of being (almost) completely sugar-free have come to an end. I confess I had a few tough days with very limited options (major flight delays anyone?) but the whole of my two weeks went very smoothly. I’ve done a lot of sugar cleansing in the past and didn’t feel a terrible need for it but really appreciated the opportunity to get creative in the kitchen and branch out beyond my standard dark chocolate. You will see an example of that here 
Interestingly what I have been feeling pulled towards is a more raw and vegan style diet. I can’t say my mind is easily on board with this, I love, love, LOVE my goat cheese and occasionally being able to have some wild fish or free-range egg dishes…sadly, it has not been loving me back. I’ve done a lot of focused cleansing in various forms over the last couple of years and I’ve watched as my body often asks me to step it up before I emotionally want to. But alas, here we are. I’ve decided to join Marlena (again) in her vegan challenge for the month of July. I hopped on board last year with the Vegan Month of Food (Vegan MOFO!!) and concluded at the end of it that veganism just wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to admit how incorrectly I was doing it though. I used my vegan month as an excuse to dive head first into baking again and try out how my body liked beans, and grains, and tofu…it didn’t. I got puffy, put on some weight, and just felt tired. No good. These days, I find I’m naturally leaning into meals centered around big avocado salads with baked squashes or greens with delicious nut butter dressings, or the rarer meal that includes fruit or a small dish of quinoa. I continue to juice, implement my various cleansing tools, and this is feeling much nicer for me. I also, for the first time in my life, even though I was raised a vegetarian and played with veganism, feel drawn to it for ethical reasons as well as health. I know there are a million arguments out there but it’s started to feel kinda strange to bite into an animal, especially when it isn’t a need for the particular body that I live in. On the other side of things, I’m having a hard time with the idea of ever embracing a labeled way of eating or living. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and I’m excited to once again embrace a new avenue of kitchen creativity and experimentation in the coming month!
This is obviously NOT a vegan recipe and I realized I had to get it posted before next month 
Ingredients:
2 free-range eggs
NuNaturals Vanilla Stevia
sea salt
cinnamon
goat feta or chevre (optional)
Heat a small pan on medium high and melt a pat of organic butter into the bottom. Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk together with vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt. Pour eggs into pan and let cook thoroughly on one side before flipping to the other. Once both sides are cooked, slide out of pan and top with cinnamon and feta or chevre.
Filed under eggs, Goat Cheese, Recipes
When I was in New York, Natalia gave us plenty of opportunity to ask questions outside of class so I brought up Britney’s healthy eating transition! Since she’s not a crazy detox-freak like me and just wants to get rid of some nagging issues, colon cleansing is not at the top of her list. Natalia suggested easing away from the fruit and grains as they could be having an inflammatory reaction and mentioned that we should try aloe and Natural Calm as aids. I’m personally not a fan of Natural Calm but Britney was open to it so gave it a shot. It turns out neither of us really appreciate the Natural Calm Experience. To be fair, I have heard many positive experiences. Now to order some aloe!
Cutting out fruit (for now!) has been an adventure since breakfast has been a green smoothie almost every day! Casey and Megan have been very helpful with their collection of sugar-free smoothies and I also came up with this tasty beverage which has become a favorite! I don’t use this maple syrup often or in great quantities as it’s made with xylitol (a sugar alcohol rather than an herb like stevia), however it’s so delicious and you don’t need much.
Ingredients:
1 cup nut milk
2 Tbsp raw almond butter
2 Tbsp Nature’s Hollow Sugar Free Maple
1 handful baby spinach
1 handful ice
Blend and drink!
In other news…I’m engaged!! I’ve been absolutely itching to announce it but we wanted to make sure that all of our family and close friends knew before announcing it all at once on the interwebs
About a month ago Britney took me to the coffee shop where we had our first date nearly four years ago and asked if I would be her wife. Happy tears were shed and we’ve been giddily sharing the news! We’re planning on a wedding next year, I’ve been going a little crazy with my wedding Pinterest board and I’ve also been inspired by Lauren’s (Nutrition Savvy) Dream Wedding. We’ll see how detox-friendly I can keep our menu
Filed under beverages, Dessert, nuts and seeds, Recipes
Back to normal posting! I forgot for the first part of the day that I’d be posting this so there is no juice picture but I did manage to snap up the rest.
Wednesday Food Goodness:
16 oz. spring water
24 oz. cucumber/romaine/cilantro/ginger/lemon/lime juice with lemon stevia
32 oz. Pumpkin Pie in a Bowl with ginger and fennel plus half a box of cherry tomatoes.
Dinner was veggie wraps made with cabbage leaves, asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, chives, fresh corn and apple cider vinegar mustard.
We had planned on going to a raw potluck but my dish ended up a bit of a disaster due to leaving my food processor at my other place. I ate several of the disastrous treats anyways I made the crust with coconut instead of pumpkin seeds to keep them well combined.
In other news, Ana has invited me to join her 14 day Sugar-Free Challenge and we’d love for you to join us as well! I’ve had really good experiences in the past removing sugar from my diet for periods at a time and even in my day-to-day I’m quite conscious of it. After all of my indulgences in New York though, this is just in time! Ana has outlined the dietary details for us:
Avoid: most grain and grain products, all fruit, sugar sweetened treats such as dark chocolate and Laloos Ice-cream, caffeine and alcohol
Bask in the glory of: veggie juices, greens, raw and cooked neutral veggies, sweet root veggies (yes, they are “sugary”, but low glycemic),”fruit-veggies” such as cucumbers and tomatoes, avocados, young coconut meat, lemons and limes, daily mediations, morning pages, yoga, rebounding, dry brushing, saunas, baths, regular bowel cleansing, Candigone, probiotics, 3% Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide, tea and stevia!
Include moderately: cooked starchy vegetables such as sweet potatoes and winter squashes, mushrooms, organic young coconut water, small amounts of raw organic nuts and seeds, cocoa powder and raw cacao.
I’m looking at this as a time for indulging in new recipe ideas (maybe playing with the extra ideas I had when creating my Sugar-Free Dessert E-book) and taking bars of Lily’s or Coco Polo stevia-sweetened chocolates to work.
If, as Ana says, you’ve been dealing with skin issues, stubborn weight, brain fog, lethargy, sleeplessness, reproductive problems, moodiness (especially when you are hungry) and cravings, then this is a great jolt in the right direction.
Leave either of us a comment or an e-mail if you’d like to join us and be looking forward to our updates and recipes over the next couple of weeks!
Filed under what i ate
I have a heap of exciting things to announce today but first…I’ve discovered goat cream cheese. I may have hyperventilated a little when I saw it. I know I’m not the only goat cheese lover here so if you swoon a little over your cheese of the goat I would suggest getting yourself to a Trader Joe’s. Note: it is pasteurized, but wonderful for a treat and perfect for todays recipe!
Frittata Ingredients:
2 free range eggs
1 cup of loosely packed carrot pulp from making carrot juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/16 tsp sea salt
40 drops or about 2 dropperfuls liquid stevia
Cinnamon Cream Cheese Ingredients:
2 oz. goat cream cheese
20 drops or about 1 dropperful liquid vanilla stevia
cinnamon for sprinkling
For the frittata:
Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk. Add carrot pulp, cinnamon, nutmeg, stevia, and salt and mix together. Lightly butter a small pan and heat over medium heat. When pan is heated add the egg mixture and cover. Leave until cooked through.
For the cream cheese:
Mix cream cheese and stevia and spread over cooked frittata. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
This recipe, I’m thrilled to say, is going to be one of thirty-one sugar free dessert recipes coming out in my new e-book this New Years! I’ve been feeling really wonderful cutting back on the refined sweet stuff and have felt inspired to create a collection of recipes like this one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who will appreciate a little sugar break after the holidays! I’ll also be joining up with the Detox the World Guided Rose Cleanse to start off the New Year and I’d love to hear from any of you who will be a part of that as well
and finally…
If you peruse the NOMalicious recipes you may notice my enjoyment of obsession with NuNaturals stevia. It is, in my opinion, the only good tasting stevia out there and I use it with wild abandon. Well the lovely folks over at NuNaturals could not have chosen a better day to contact me. Alongside the announcement of my upcoming e-book (about sugar free desserts no less) I’m able to offer a special stevia discount for Veggie Centric Kitchen readers AND give some goodies away!
What you get if you win:
FOUR blog readers will receive a 50 count box of NuStevia Packets and a 2 oz. bottle of NuNaturals Vanilla Stevia Liquid.
How you enter:
“Like” The Vegetable Centric Kitchen on Facebook
or
Subscribe to Veggie Kitchen Posts (on the top right of the blog)
or
Leave a comment below sharing your favorite way to use stevia.
You will be able to enter until Wednesday, December 14th and I will announce the four winners on the 15th.
and on to the special deal…
From now until December 31st the Little NOMsters (oh dear, I call you all that in my head…Lady Gaga fans anyone??) will be able to use the code BLG1211 at the checkout of any NuNaturals order to get 15% off your total order. There is also free shipping if you’re in the continental U.S. and spending more than $35. 
I’ve taken advantage of this offer myself when some of my favorite bloggers have offered it. In fact, last year I won Marlenas giveaway and got myself all hooked up with some awesome freebies
Hope you’re having a great week – fill me in on your favorite stevia uses!
Filed under eggs, Goat Cheese, Recipes
