The hubby and I have radically changed our diets in the last few years. This year we're mostly eating fruits and veggies, plus some dairy and eggs. More on this in a separate post.
Our birthday party/brunch was different than any we'd attended before because we really wanted to keep our healthy diets. Here's how we did it and still made (hopefully) crowd-pleasing snacks:
We planned to serve fruit salad, "eggy muffins," veggie sticks with homeade hummus and paté, and salad. No crackers, breads, grain-based muffins, cookies, cakes, etc... it felt really funny to my raised-in-the-South mentality of entertaining, but the food we served was nutritious and delicious. (well, that was the plan anyway. Do read on. :)
We made a fruit salad the night before and mixed honey, orange juice and a dash of cardamom into it. The fruit salad was just four fruits, but other additions would have been fine. We used bananas, oranges, apples, and pineapple. We made a big salad bowl and had just about all of it left- or so it seemed. Everyone at some, but we might make a smaller one next time. On the other hand, we had it for several days thereafter, so it was fine to have extra.
The "eggy" muffins are one of my favorites for a go-to protein snack or quickie breakfast. They are made of just a few ingredients and without any measuring!
I mix the following in a bowl: about a quarter cup or so of flax, 5 or 6 eggs, a pinch of dulse (seaweed) flakes, some fresh-frozen & cooked spinach (squeezing water out first!), then pour it over a layer of oven cooked potato cubes (like hashbrowns) in the bottom of each silicone cup. I added shredded monterey jack cheese to some of them.
They bake about 425 degrees for around 15 minutes until there's a little bit of a golden color on top and they've pulled away from the sides of the muffin (silicone) pan.
We made long slices of carrot, cucumber, and celery to serve with the paté and hummus. The hummus was sprouted and cooked garbanzos, a dash of cumin, cayenne, salt & pepper, 2 Tbsp olive oil, a half lemon's juice, and 2 Tbsp of tahini, blended in our food processor.
The paté was homemade from local grass-fed beef liver. I love the farm it comes from and though I don't looove liver, I find this version really tasty. I cooked the liver with rosemary and thyme in grass-fed butter, then blended it in the food processor. For the baby, I augmented the recipe to use about a quarter cup of coconut oil instead of the bacon fat I added to our paté. They both turned out delicious. And yeah, since I needed bacon fat, we had a great reason to eat some bacon. Just eating bacon was pretty great, but maybe next time I'd wrap it around figs...
Two of our party guests offered to bring food, so we accepted. One brought a salad with lots of chopped veggies and the other brought two pies. She made a beautiful gluten free apple and pear tart with rolled oats and also a pecan pie- classic! The pecan pie wasn't our version of "on diet" but the apple and pear tart didn't have powdered grains or sugar (which are two of the things we try hardest to avoid), so it was a welcome treat. The pecan pie was totally a hit (and I tasted it- it was delicious.) Maybe I'll figure out how to make a pecan pie that doesn't have HFCS & sugar & wheat. Anybody have a recipe? Please comment if so; I'd love it!
Thanks for reading <3
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