Carrot Cake Muffins (Paleo, Gluten-Free)

Happy Birthday Blog! One year ago on May 6th, I was having breakfast (Baked eggs in sauteed greens to be precise) in my sunny kitchen in Brazil and said “Screw it. I’m a-starting a food blog man!”. I was terrified to fall flat on my face and have people post awful comments on my page, but I was also feeling so jealous of all the food bloggers I was following. They seemed to be having so much fun. I wanted in on that. I was already cooking so much on a daily basis and wanted to channel that into something that could also involve writing and photography which I also enjoy a lot as hobbies. I of course did not know what managing a food blog actually entailed and had no idea how addictive food blogging was about to become. It really became a true passion and pushed me to improve my cooking skills every day a little more. For the first six months, I was photographing everything I cooked and ate. Even if it looked like meat loaf gone bad. I published recipes three times a week and tracked several times a day how many visitors the blog was getting or how many new facebook likes I could score. I still do that by the way so go like the facebook page here 🙂

Fudgy Chocolate Swirl Banana Bread with Pecan Streusel

This bread is AM-AZING, I just couldn’t wait to tell you. Oh-so perfectly moist banana bread with a decadent dark chocolate batter delicately swirled in and a caramelized pecan streusel sprinkled on the top. Oh my, look at that I’ve salivated all over my keyboard. I like long, extravagant recipe titles so this sounds more complicated than it actually is, trust me. The first time I had banana bread when I was a child was when we lived in New York, and my mom bought this divine banana walnut loaf, and I remember thinking that I had never eaten banana that way before but somebody was definitely on to something. Shortly after that, we moved back to France and that put an end to that – in fact we didn’t have oreos, pancakes, muffins, cupcakes, donuts, and lots of other American goods in France in the early 2000s. So nicely sheltered from the mass food industry as we swam in a sea of artisan-made cheese, cured meats and crudités. Anyways, when they started opening Starbucks coffee shops in Paris, I was pretty happy to rediscover banana bread and even set out to learn to make my own recipe. And then I stopped eating gluten. And THAT put an end to that, and a lot of the above-mentioned.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Mug Muffin 2.0 (Paleo, DF, Vegan option)

It’s no surprise that the most popular recipe on this blog is the paleo (and vegan) 5-minute Cookie Dough Mug Muffin that I published back in June of last year. It has gotten over 3,000 pins and is constantly at the top of the list of most viewed recipes. There’s nothing I can post that will take it down from first place. For a while, my Creamy Chicken, Cauliflower and Broccoli Bake was getting dangerously close to bumping it down and becoming number one, but the Cookie Dough Mug Muffin stuck on for dear life, showed everyone who was boss and let the Creamy Chicken Bake take second place. I’m always wondering if the next recipe I’ll publish will beat it, but nope. And to be fair to the mug muffin, it is a pretty awesome recipe, not to mention it’s adorable. It comes together in 5 minutes – preparation and cooking times combined! -, is the perfect comfort food without any added-sugar, and it tastes like cookie dough for crying out loud. Plus, it’s a single-serving recipe so it’s great for a little sweet craving without actually tempting you to go overboard like if you bake an entire batch of cookies. I should have known it was going to have that kind of mind-blowing success. The funny thing is that when I made it, I had absolutely no intention to post it on the blog. I just wanted to make a mug muffin for Freddy one rainy Sunday afternoon, adapted a  chocolate chip cookie recipe with what I could find lying around my cupboards and popped it in the microwave in a mug. It looked so cute, so I took a pretty lame picture, and it tasted so good that I ended up posting it as a recipe.

Cappuccino Pots de Crème

Well hello there January, my least favorite month of the year. People generally either hate January or September. Not very hard to understand why. Post-holiday blues, post-vacation stress, back to work, back to school, everyone’s all tired, the media are all talking about diets, there’s not much to look forward to for the next few months except maybe Valentine’s Day and that’s not even a real Holiday. And then there’s the pitiful weather, which is the worst whether you are in the Northern or Southern hemisphere. January in Brazil gets HOT. Not “ooh tropical breeze and sipping Mojitos under palm trees” kind of hot, no, more like “unsexy glistening face, I can’t even move my arms because it’s so freaking humid and tropical pouring rain” kind of hot. Bet that snowfall you’ve been having in the US almost sounds kind of nice now eh?

Pumpkin Scones (grain-free, Paleo)

Everyone’s celebrating Thanksgiving and making pumpkin pie and leftover Turkey sandwiches, getting into the Winter holidays spirit with mulled cider and hot cocoa, baking Christmas cookies and lighting their chimneys…. and I’m sleeping in the starfish position in my bed without the sheets on because it’s getting hotter and hotter around here. Aah yes, Summer is upon us in Brazil. And it just feels awkward when I’m strolling down São Paulo’s big Paulista Avenue with my flip flops and sunglasses on and there’s a gigantic inflated Snowman standing there with a scarf on and Santa Clause’s just cruising along with his reindeer pals. It just feels… wrong.

Vanilla Spice Poached Plums (Pressure Cooker)

Delectable little plums poached with vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves in the pressure cooker, ready in just 15 minutes. This recipe can be used to serve warm on top of a fruit cobbler or cake, mixed with yogurt or eaten as is!

I’ve had the strongest urge to poach things lately. Eggs, meat, fruit. And actually it’s not just poaching, but also braising, steaming, stewing. Yes those are different things. Wanna know why? I know you do. Because I gots me a pressure cooker, that’s why! Woop woop. My very first kitchen appliance investment! And I already buy a lot of different kitchen items, stocking our kitchen pretty well with colorful-looking mugs, wine glasses, little jars for our spices (but of course I did), a julienne peeler, a measuring cup, cake pans, baking dishes, knives… I’m kind of the only person to use most of that stuff, but I know the roommates are happy to have those things on hand when they need them.

Apple Spice and Maple Scones (Gluten-Free, Paleo)

I’m SO excited! Think 5-year-old-on-Christmas-morning-with-ADD-and-a-sugar-high excited. And in fact, Christmas came early. My package from Vitacost finally arrived!! Let me rewind a little. On August 28th, exactly 45 days ago, I placed a big order on Vitacost.com for a couple of things I absolutely can’t find in Brazil. Roasted almond butter, Rapunzel organic vegetable broth, raw 100% cacao nibs (weird for such a big cacao producer like Brazil), Chicory root coffee, Green Chai Yogi Tea (I finally have my Yogi Tea sayings of the day back!). Yes, it was a little out of my budget and the shipment was almost as much as the total value of the products, but I decided to not guilt-trip myself over it, after all I’ve worked hard and deserve to indulge a little. Plus, it’s not like I’m buying an umpteenth pair of shoes, I’m paying for healthy stuff here. 

Banana Flambée Panna Cotta (Dairy-free, Paleo, Vegan option)

Oh no I didn’t. Did I put a banana flambée in a Panna Cotta dessert AND make it dairy-free too? Why yes I did. Thank me later, try it first. I know in English they’re called Banana Fosters but I just feel so posh saying “Banana Flambée” and that’s the way I’ll keep saying it in this post because I’m French so I’m allowed to use fancy snobbish culinary words. Plus I just can’t picture myself serving this dessert saying “Aaaand for dessert, Bananas Foster!”. Yes, I have to picture myself serving my desserts at a White House Fundraiser to decide on the recipe title.

Chewy Banana and Cashew Butter Cookies

The official title of this recipe should be Chewy Banana and Cashew Butter Cookies with Toasted Honey-Cinnamon Cashew Bits on Top but a title that long is just recipe marketing suicide. I stuck to the short version but I did make sure that the long version was right there in the first sentence of the introduction that way you’d really get the whole drool-triggering story from the beginning.

Rhubarb Clafoutis (gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo)

I love rhubarb but I’ve never been inspired to do anything with it. Then a few months ago, Jamie Oliver, my beloved, started putting a whole series of mouth-watering rhubarb recipes out on facebook which had me salivating one after the other. Stewed rhubarb with yogurt, rhubarb muffins, rhubarb cocktails, rhubarb with custard, even rhubarb eclairs for the love of god. What a brilliant man.  Always a source of inspiration. In turn, I decided to make my own beautiful rhubarb treat.