Ecozoi Stainless Steel Bento Box

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This year my Christmas gifts were incredible. There were several waste-reducing gifts and a book on climate change. It was quite the score. But this here lunch box took the cake for best gift. It was so perfect that I just sat admiring it for like a full 15 minutes after I opened it. The metal felt very good quality and like it would be hard to dent, but was still nice and lightweight. The box itself is two-tier and has a snack container that fits inside either tier. The top box is leakproof which is surprisingly hard to find on a steel lunch box. The bottom box and the snack container aren’t but they don’t leak unless the contents are very thin. The box also came with a free reusable cotton grocery bag!

I have used the box a few times and only had good experiences. I think that’s a win!

You can find the box here* from Amazon.

Thanks!

-Sara + H

*This is an Amazon affiliate link so if you buy it through my site you will be supporting Sara + H!

How to Make Yogurt Cheese

The recipe does make more than this but I just couldn’t wait for the photo lighting and I ate it. Oops.

Yogurt cheese. Not really a cheese at all, but oh, so delicious. And all that it is is yogurt with the excess whey drained off, so it’s safe for the candida diet!

I will warn you before you get so excited that your socks fall off, that this is not cheese, it’s more like really thick yogurt cream cheese stuffs. And if you add a little stevia and vanilla, and can, in fact, be a delicious cream cheese spread!

But back to the recipe. The only ingredient you will need is yogurt, but you also want to make sure that you have a cotton towel to drain the cheese.

Yummy Yogurt Cheese

• Servings: 1 1/2 cups (ish)
• Time: overnight
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

1/2 quart of plain, full-fat yogurt. It can be Greek but I like the flavor slightly less that way.

Directions:

• Line a small bowl with a clean, cotton towel, and spoon your yogurt into the middle. Gather up the edges of the towel and close with a rubber band.
• Now hang your little yogurt package from a hook or a cupboard handle and place a bowl underneath to catch the whey. Let drip overnight.

This is super good plain but I love experimenting with spices and flavors. Have fun with it!

-Sara + H

Gingerbread Cookies!

So I decided that I really would love to have some cookies for Christmas. I knew that it was a lofty goal to try to find cookies that tasted like, well, cookies, but that was, in fact, the idea. I spent an ungodly amount of time surfing the interwebs and looking for candida safe cookies. Candida isn’t that well known so searching was more like listing a bunch of things that I couldn’t have. Dairy free, gluten free, sugar-free, nut free… It was quite the frustrating venture. But here I am, a few failed experiments later, emerging victorious from the unfortunate quagmire of tantalizing candida-feeding cookies.

Victorious.

So, I found the recipe on the Keto Diet App website, but I did have to modify quite a few things to make it fit the candida diet. Still, if you want to see the original, it is viewable here.

Heavenly Gingerbread Cookies

• Servings: 15-20 cookies (depending on the cutter size)
• Time: 1 hr 20 mins
• Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup coconut flour
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup coconut butter (I use this recipe)
• 1 tsp stevia
• 1 Tbs pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup of water (if the dough is too dry)

Directions:

1. Mix up the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
2. Add the eggs and the coconut butter (melted) and knead with your hands.
3. Slowly add the water until your dough begins to hold together (still a little dry though). Don’t add too much.
4. Cover the dough and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 300 F and remove the chilled dough from the fridge and place on a sheet of parchment paper. Place another sheet on top and roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.
6. Use a cookie cutter to cut out as many shapes as you can fit. Place the cookies on a lined baking sheet. Repeat the rolling and cutting out until you have no more dough left.
7. Brush the cookies with a beaten egg yolk. this will give them a nice shine!
8. Place the cookies in the oven for about 25 minutes (or until golden brown).

Now I think these were really good just plain, but if you want to frost them you can do it with 1/4 – 1/2 cup of yogurt cheese mixed with 1/2 tsp of stevia and 1/4 tsp of vanilla. I have not tried fully frosting the cookies with this, but it is good as icing at least! 

To ice your cookies like mine, place your frosting in a piping bag or a plastic Ziploc bag with the corner cut off. When you are done decorating spread the cookies on a sheet and place in the freezer for at least 2 hours. After that time you can transfer them into a container to be stored in the freezer. Bear in mind that the ‘frosting’ on these cookies will not set like real frosting so once they start to thaw, it may become a little gooey. Best to eat them cold. Straight out of the freezer as a guilty midnight snack even.

Happy Baking!

-Sara + H

Coconut Noatmeal

There is this thing in the keto world called ‘Noatmeal.’ The idea behind it is wonderful. Oatmeal without the oats! In reality, though, none of the recipes I tried were that good. They got okay reviews though so maybe it was just me… Either way, I decided to make my own recipe, and here it is! This stuff is super yummy, but do keep in mind that it is heavier than regular oatmeal, so pay attention to how much you eat.

This recipe is also candida safe as long as you use alcohol-free vanilla and omit the toppings. (If you need a little more sweetener you can use stevia)

• Servings: 1-2
• Time: 5 mins
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of canned coconut milk
• 1/3 cup  of shredded coconut
• 1/3 cup of chipped coconut
• 2 tablespoons of chia seeds
• 1 tablespoon of flax meal (this is totally optional)
• 1 tablespoon of ghee
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of alcohol-free vanilla

Directions:

1. Add all the ingredients to a small saucepan and heat over medium-high. Stir until your noatmeal is the desired consistency.
2. Serve topped with coconut milk, berries or nuts. This is also good plain, but toppings can mix it up a little bit!

ENJOY!!

Sara + H

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

I LOVE this recipe. It came from Melissa Joulwan’s “Well Fed 2; More Paleo Recipies for People Who Love to Eat” and I adapted it to suit the Candida diet. (I also changed some of the cooking times from my experience.)

On top of just being downright delicious, this recipe freezes wonderfully. I like to freeze it in meal-sized portions and thaw for quick lunches.

This is 100% my go to Candida meal. Enjoy!

• Servings: 6-ish
• Time: 60 mins
• Difficulty: fairly easy
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Ingredients:

• 1 large head of cauliflower, about 3 lbs
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 1 medium onion diced
• 2 cloves of garlic smashed
• 2 cups of broth (I like chicken the best, but I would imagine that veggie works too)
• 1 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 cup of canned coconut milk

Directions: 

1. Wash and coarsely chop the cauliflower. The pieces should be about as big as you would cut them for a veggie tray. Set aside.
2. Heat a large pot over medium-high heat and add the coconut oil. when the oil is melted add the onions and saute until lightly golden. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant (do not burn!). Then add the Cauliflower and cook until beginning to brown (about 5 minutes).
3. Add the broth and water and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, until the vegetables are very soft (about 40 mins).
4. Now for the puree. I like to do this with my handy immersion blender but it can be done with a food processor. If you are using the immersion blender, just use it like you would with anything else until the soup is smooth. If you chose to go with method #2, just add the cauliflower and broth to the canister (only halfway full!) and process. Depending on the size of your food processor you may need to do this in batches.
5. Add the puree back into the pot (or not if you’re using an immersion blender) and add the salt and coconut milk. Heat at medium until warm all the way through. Serve topped with a drizzle of olive oil and a handful of pepitas.

ENJOY!!

-Sara + H