Low Sodium Chili

You don't need to add more salt to a dish to add flavor, just add  flavor. To make chili less complicated, canned tomatoes, sauce, and beans are a great option. However, this usually packs your chili with sodium. It's unnecessary. Opt for "no salt added" canned goods instead and you will create a much healthier meal. Here is a great chili recipe that replaces all added sodium with a couple teaspoons of sea salt, and adds a pinch of sugar and spices to bring out a flavorful meal for cold nights.

You can make this quickly in a large pot on the stove top--it will take about 30 minutes to be ready. Or, you could simmer it for four to six hours in the Crockpot, whatever method suits your time and energy level. The taste is great either way. Use lean ground beef to make this recipe even healthier. It's more expensive, but worth it when it comes to eliminating excess fat from your diet.

Ingredients

1 pound 93% or higher lean ground beef
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 cans no salt added diced tomatoes
1 can unsalted tomato paste
2 cans no salt added kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup red wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon
1/2 cup water or low sodium beef broth
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 large yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
*add a diced serrano chili or two to make it hot! (optional)

Directions

1. In a large pan, sprinkle the black pepper onto the ground beef and cook until browned.

2. While the beef is cooking, combine the tomatoes, drained and rinsed kidney beans, tomato paste, wine, water, sugar, and spices, into a large pot. Set on medium high heat to start the boiling process.






3. Drain the beef of the excess fat and add your cooked ground beef to the pot.

4. While the mixture is heating, dice the yellow onion and add it to the large pan (lightly coat with olive oil spray to prevent sticking), cooking on medium high heat. Let the onion cook for two minutes, while dicing the peppers.  *(If making in the crock pot, skip pre-cooking the onions, peppers, and garlic. Just dice them and throw them in the crock pot!)

5. Add the peppers to the pan and cook for one minute, then add minced garlic. I used a garlic press. Cook for no more than 30 seconds, then add cooked vegetables to the big pot. 

6. Once the mixture starts to bubble, reduce to medium to medium low heat and cover. Cook for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally. If you make it in the crock pot, cook on low for six hours or high for four hours. Cuddle up with your loved one in a warm blanket and enjoy!

Dairy Free Buffalo Chicken Dip

I never thought I would be able to eat this stuff again! I mean, the main ingredients are three types of cheese. I used a combination of cream cheese alternative and non dairy cheese to make this highly addictive dip much healthier than it's original version. It's completely free of lactose, trans fat, and the only cholesterol in it is added by the lean chicken! It tastes so amazing and so close to the original version you won't even notice the difference! Even if you can eat dairy, don't eat the regular version of this dip again--this recipe eliminates so much of the fat and cholesterol that you should not be putting into your body. Trust me, this is good.

Ingredients

• 8oz This Is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese This Is a Tub of Non Dairy Spread from Trader Joes
• 2-3 tablespoons Franks Red Hot Sauce (depending on how spicy you want it)
• 5oz canned chicken
• 1/3 cup Daiya Chedder Style Shreds

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.



2. Soften the cream cheese alternative in the microwave for 30 seconds, then mix all ingredients together until well blended. It's easier to blend if you mix the cream cheese and Franks first.


3. Bake for 20 minutes to melt it all together and OMG the result is divine. Enjoy with some lime tortilla chips and tell me how much you love it.

Non-Dairy Creamer, or a replacement for Half and Half

I used to drink half and half in my coffee every morning. No sugar, just cream. It really made the perfect cup of coffee. And I am a huge coffee drinker. When even a little bit of half and half made me feel sick, I had a hard time handling it. At first I just dealt with it, then I tried to find other methods. I'm really crazy about the way my coffee tastes--working at a coffee shop will do that to a person.

Plain soy milk in coffee was just disgusting. Even Very Vanilla Soymilk didn't really cut it for me. I tried Coconut Milk Creamer--totally gross. I didn't want to do it, but for a long time I started using Coffeemate non-dairy creamer. That stuff is really terrible for you--it's like drinking trans fat. I tried all different flavors, and they were tasty. My favorites were the sugar-free vanilla, which tasted like marshmallow to me, the peppermint mocha, and original, which was the closest taste to half and half that I could find. But they completely covered the taste of the coffee as well, which is okay if you are drinking ground Foldgers, but not okay if you bought a new bag of fresh, whole bean Caribou Blend. What can I say? I love my coffee.

Then I realized that when I ordered a soy mocha or soy latte at Starbucks it tasted amazing. So why didn't my coffee taste amazing when I added vanilla soy milk? The answer was in the steaming. I don't really know why, but heated soy milk in coffee tastes ten times better than cold soy milk in coffee. Especially when that soy milk is very, very sweet. The sweeter the better.

So after all of my experiments and attempts to find the perfect healthy replacement for half and half I have finally found the answer, and I wanted to pass along my knowledge, which is actually a small recipe.

Ingredients
8ounce cup of coffee
1/3 cup Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk
1 packet of Splenda

Directions
1. Mix the soymilk and Splenda in a microwave safe mug and heat for 30 seconds.
2. Pour in the fresh, hot gourmet coffee and find your happy place.

New Tip
You can also substitute vanilla soy milk with soy vanilla ice cream-it's also a great cream alternative to your coffee, and helps it cool down as well.

Olive and Pimento Cream Cheese Alternative

I really miss cream cheese. I have cravings for it all the time. When I lived in Pittsburgh, PA, one of my favorite places to go for breakfast was Bruegger's Bagels, where they had a delicious selection of cream cheese to choose from, including strawberry, pumpkin, and, my all time favorite, olive and pimento.

I used to make my own flavored cream cheese when we first came out to California and had great success with pumpkin, blueberry, and olive pimento, but when dairy started bothering me I stopped. I've tried to come up with cream cheese alternatives, first by using creamy goat cheese instead. I mixed it with raspberry preserves to make raspberry cream cheese, and it was a great option, until goat cheese started bothering me as well. I thought about trying Toffuti cream cheese alternative, but I could never bring myself to buy it--it's made with hydrogenated oils and therefore contains trans fat. Why put that stuff into my body?

Then, when I was a Trader Joe's the other day, I found a container of cream cheese alternative called "This is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese This is a Tub of Non-Dairy Spread." Yeah, that is literally what it's called. It is made out of coconut oil, sunflower oil, soy protein, and lots of thickeners. It is cholesterol free and also free of hydrogenated oils. The only problem with it is that it tastes nothing like cream cheese. It just looks and spreads like cream cheese. So I went to work to try to make it edible. I figured that adding strong flavor to it would really make a difference, so I mixed in some green olives and the spread became really something to be happy about. I devoured the two halves of my mini bagel with olive pimento spread and needed more. So I made another one. And another. It's almost like eating cream cheese again! Definitely worth a try. I would love to try pumpkin next.

Ingredients
1 container This is Not a Tub of Cream Cheese This is a Tub of Non-Dairy Spread
1/2 cup Manzanilla olives stuffed with minced pimentos.
1 teaspoon Manzanilla olive juice

Directions
1. Dice the green olives with pimentos still inside.


2. In a small bowl, thoroughly mix the diced olives with the cream cheese alternative and the olive juice. You can easily add more olives if you want. The more olives added the more it tastes like green olives and the less it tastes of the spread.


3. Spread it on your favorite toasted bagel and watch it disappear before your eyes!

Sweet and "Creamy" Pumpkin Soup

I've always been disappointed by ready to serve butternut squash soups when I read the label and find out they are made with milk or cream. Recently I found one at Whole Foods that was made with soy milk, but I have to say it was a little bland. The taste of soy took away from the delicious sweetness of the butternut squash. So I had a go at creating my own "creamy" soup, and I used canned pumpkin since it was so readily available. The vanilla soy milk I used made it so thick and sweet that my husband and I devoured it! The sage and black pepper balances out the sweetness so it doesn't taste like you are slurping pumpkin pie. It makes a great compliment to an entree of chicken or turkey. I will probably make this again for our Thanksgiving dinner feast!

Ingredients
1 15ounce can pumpkin
1 1/2 pumpkin cans of Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk
1 teaspoon ground sage
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Directions
1. Empty pumpkin into at least a 2 quart saucepan and place burner on medium heat.
2. Measure the soy milk in the empty pumpkin can. Slowly stir in Very Vanilla Soymilk until evenly blended.
3. Add sage, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and sea salt and heat until almost boiling, stirring often.
4. Ladle in a bowl, sprinkle with ground sage, and serve with buttery crackers. We like Social Snackers from Trader Joes; they are dairy free and contain no hydrogenated oils, yet still maintain that buttery taste that is so addicting.

Soy Milk Pumpkin Pie

Soy Milk Pumpkin Pie

For my husband's birthday I usually make him a pumpkin pie instead of cake, since he considers it the best dessert ever created. I was an expert at making a creamy, melt-in-your mouth pumpkin pie. Now that eating anything made with 12 ounces of condensed milk is out of the question for me, I thought I would take a shot at making it lactose intolerant friendly. There are a bunch of dairy free pumpkin pie recipes out there, but I think you'll find mine particularly tasty. My husband loves it!

Ingredients
1 refrigerated pie crust
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs, 1 egg white
15oz can pumpkin
1 cup Silk Very Vanilla Soymilk


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.



2. Mold the pie crust into a pie dish and trim excess dough from the edges.



3. Mix sugar, salt, and spices in a small bowl until thoroughly blended.




4. In a large bowl, beat eggs and egg white. Stir in the pumpkin and then the sugar and spice mixture.



5. Gradually add Very Vanilla Soymilk and stir until completely blended. Pour into pie crust.



6. Bake for 15 minutes to set a crispy crust, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 40 minutes. To check if the pie is done, stick a knife through the middle and see if it comes up clean. If there is a layer of pumpkin on it, you may need to bake for an additional 5-10 minutes. Serve with dairy-free vanilla ice cream if you want to go all out. Happy Fall!

Pesto Chicken with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Pine Nuts

Relief for the Lactose Intolerant:

One of the saddest parts about being lactose intolerant is the inability to eat cheese. I really miss it. This is especially difficult when favorite foods contain cheese, like pizza for instance. Fortunately, there are options! My love for pizza and other cheesy recipes has led me to discover many delicious modifications that, though they will never be the same, are still good replacements that leave me quite content. 

Soy cheese is a great discovery, although the soy flavor is too overpowering to enjoy by itself. When it is combined with other flavors, however, it makes a great cheese replacement. I have some amazing pizza recipes coming up that use a mixture of soy mozzarella cheese and goat cheese crumbles to replace real mozzarella. It is more than delicious and also a much healthier option, since much of the fat from the cheese is eliminated. It's practically grease-less pizza! Goat cheese contains less lactose than soft dairy cheese, and when used sparingly (or with the help of a Lactaid), can be digested without any problems.

Also, lactose intolerant people can handle small amounts of Parmesan Cheese, and other hard, aged cheese because most of the lactose is broken down in the aging process. Actually, the harder the cheese, the older it is, the lower the lactose. It's even better if it's aged goat cheese! So while a piece of cheese pizza leaves me in agony for hours, a piece of eight month old Parmesan cheese or Aged Goat Gouda is just fine, and helps to satisfy that cheese craving. That being said, it is okay for lactose intolerant people to use Parmesan or Parmigiana Romano Cheese in their recipes, as long as they don't overdo it. Pesto sauce is acceptable, as long as it is not mixed with butter and cream, which some recipes call for and many restaurants use.

This Pesto Chicken recipe only contains a small amount of aged Romano Cheese--store bought pesto sauces usually contain it. You can make your own pesto sauce without cheese, but if you are a busy girl, you don't really have the time or patience to do this. I do have a simple homemade pesto recipe, but I would much rather use the already made, digestible,  and conveniently available Classico Pesto, which you can find at your local supermarket.

Pesto Chicken with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Pine Nuts

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts, sliced in half to make four thin pieces
Pre-made Pesto Sauce
1/2 cup julienne cut sun dried tomatoes
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 tablespoons pine nuts


Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 
2. In a small bowl, drench the sun dried tomatoes in the olive oil and leave them to soak for a minute.
3. Line a large glass baking dish with foil, and place the sliced chicken breasts so that they do not overlap.

4. Use a basting brush to brush each side of each chicken breast with a generous teaspoon of pesto sauce.

5. Top each chicken breast with the olive oil soaked sun dried tomatoes.

6. Cover the dish with foil, and bake for 25 minutes.


7. While the chicken is baking, toast pine nuts in a small pan over medium heat for five minutes or until light golden brown. They will toast quickly, so be careful not to burn them, and you also may want to make more, because you will eat them as you are waiting for your chicken to cook.


8. When baking time is up, remove foil and top the individual chicken breasts with the toasted pine nuts. Serve with a green vegetable or a serving of pasta. Simple, healthy, and delicious!