Goat Cheese Coconut Cheesecake Frozen Yogurt

Ok, so I know that title is a mouthful, but really, what part of that was I supposed to leave out?!  How about the fact that this is ridiculously easy to make, SUPER creamy, delightfully tangy, subtly sweet, and STILL healthy... :)  It really doesn't get much better than this!

I was looking through Pinterest at various blog posts for "Goat Cheese Cheesecake", and "Greek Yogurt Cheesecake", when I thought to myself... "Why couldn't I make a Goat Cheese AND Greek Yogurt Cheesecake"?  And then I thought, "And what if I didn't have to bake it?  And what if I froze it into icecream?!"  Once in a while I do have a moment of genius.

Ingredients:

For the Yogurt:
6 oz. Goat Milk Cheese
1 cup Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt
1 can (13.5-14 oz.) Light Coconut Milk
2/3 cup Xylitol (you could use regular sugar)
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
dash sea salt

For the topping:
2/3 cup Granola (use your favorite)
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
-OR-
1/4 cup Almond Meal
2 tsp. Xylitol
1/8 tsp. Cinnamon
dash sea salt

For the Yogurt, leave goat cheese out to soften.  When softened, combine goat cheese, greek yogurt, coconut milk, Xylitol, vanilla, and salt in a bowl and mix thoroughly until smooth.  Pour into icecream maker and follow manufacturer's directions for freezing.

While the yogurt freezes, place granola and cinnamon in a blender and blend until it resembles graham cracker crumbs.

Once yogurt has frozen, serve in a dish and top with granola crumbs!  Enjoy!!

Hippie Homemade Toothpaste...

Ok, so I've bought just about every kind of toothpaste the store has to offer.  Every "WHITENING" toothpaste just left my teeth even more dingy and yellow looking, and I started to notice that the inside of my mouth felt burned quite often.  I was even having the skin on the inside of my cheeks and lips peel off throughout the day.  Gross.

I finally settled on Tom's of Maine as my favorite because it didn't have fluoride or many of those strange mystery ingredients that all other toothpaste has.  What's more, the kind I was buying, which made no claims to teeth whitening, started making my smile whiter and brighter!  Imagine that!!  But...$4-$5 for a tube of toothpaste was beginning to take it's toll on my pocket book!

It began innocently enough.  Reading the ingredient list on the back of my Tom's while brushing my teeth one morning.  I noticed that the first ingredient was CALCIUM CARBONATE.  Having just watched an awesome episode of Myth Busters where they used calcium carbonate to blast open the door of a jail cell, I knew right away that this was the primary ingredient in antacids.  I kept reading... GLYCERINE - well, I still had some of that from a failed batch of handsoap I had tried to make, WATER - yup, plenty of that around, SODIUM BICARBONATE - good ol' baking soda.  I quickly realized that I had most of the ingredients already in my house!  So I set off to create my own.

Admittedly, the first few batches didn't turn out so well.  Sure they did the job, but they tasted simply awful, and my kids wanted nothing to do with the stuff.  Then today I came across this super helpful blog post and even though I didn't use her recipe, the last few pieces fell into place on my own recipe.  You could absolutely use some essential oils to make the flavor better, but I just opted to use some peppermint flavored antacids to save a little dough.

Ingredients:
40 tablets Calcium Carbonate Antacid (I bought the Equate brand because it was cheap) - choose whatever flavor sounds good!
2 Tbls. Organic Coconut Oil
1 Tbls. Xylitol (you could use Stevia instead, though I haven't tried this)
1 tsp. baking soda

Crush the antacid tablets.  (I used a well cleaned electric coffee grinder to crush those things into a fine powder.)  In a bowl, mix the crushed antacid, the coconut oil, xylitol, and baking soda.  This should make a good paste the same consistency as the store bought stuff.  Pour into a small condiment container, or even a travel shampoo bottle, it just needs to have a screw-on lid with a hole so you can squeeze the toothpaste out.  There you have it!  Homemade hippie toothpaste with no fluoride, and at a fraction of the cost of the store bought stuff!  Happy brushing!

Coffee Infused Almond Milk...

I MAY have been a little too excited about this idea.  It MIGHT have actually kept me awake last night imagining all of the flavors in the cold brew coffee and the soaking almonds just down the hallway in the kitchen.  I DEFINITELY had to keep telling myself that it probably wouldn't be as good as I was dreaming.  But guess what?  I was wrong!  This turned out AMAZING!!

I started by following these super simple directions for cold brewing coffee.

Then I started soaking my almonds so that in the morning, when my cold brew coffee was ready, my almonds would be prepped to make this delicious recipe for homemade almond milk.

But here's where I mixed things up a bit...  I decided to replace half of the water for the almond milk with the cold brew coffee.  Let me just say, this is some of the creamiest, smoothest, most delicious coffee I have ever tasted.  Make sure you start with some really good coffee beans, because cold brewing those bad boys really brings out all the fullness of their flavor.  This recipe is somewhat time consuming, but you'll be glad you did it!

Ingredients:
1 1/3 C. fresh fine ground coffee beans
4 C. filtered water
2 C. raw almonds
4 C. filtered water (plus more for soaking the almonds)
1 tsp. vanilla

Begin by cold brewing the coffee.  Grind coffee beans and place in a glass container large enough to hold all of your grounds and 4 cups of filtered water.  My french press can just hold all of this, so that's what I used.  Cover the top with plastic wrap and set aside.  You'll want to let this sit out on the counter anywhere from 24-12 hours.

The night before (or 12 hours or so before) you want to make your almond milk place the almonds in a bowl and cover with water.  Place a good amount in there because my almonds absorbed a full cup of water during this process.  Cover and leave to soak.

In the morning pour the coffee through a filter.  I used my french press to pour the coffee into a glass container, and then I poured that through a paper coffee filter to get all of the silt out.  If you like a little grit in your coffee feel free to skip this step.  Set the coffee aside.  Drain and rinse the almonds and place them and 1 tsp. vanilla in a blender with 4 cups filtered water.  Blend water, vanilla and almonds for a good 5 minutes.  If you have a nut milk bag place it in a bowl and pour the almond milk into it.  If you don't want to fork out the money for a nut milk bag... place a clean t-shirt inside a colander.  Place the colander over a bowl and pour the almond milk into the t-shirt.  Allow to drain through, then gather the edges of the bag or t-shirt and twist and then squeeze the milk through the fabric and into the bowl.  The almond meal will stay in the fabric while the milk drips out.  Now that you have your concentrated coffee and almond milk, pour them into a pitcher and stir to combine.  Refrigerate and stir before serving.

If you want to make a ridiculously delicious mocha, add 1-2 Tbls. of chocolate syrup to 3/4 cup almond coffee, stir well and pour over ice.  Or you can blend the coffee and ice together.  Be aware that blending may cause the coffee to be more icy than smooth as the majority of the almond milk is water.  Enjoy!!

PS - SAVE THAT ALMOND MEAL!!   Spread it out on a cookie sheet and leave it in an oven on a low temperature for a few hours to dry it out.  You can use it to bake delicious gluten-free short breads and cookies, or to coat and bake chicken, or use it as a flour replacement in your favorite recipes.

Say good-bye to store bought chocolate syrup!!

I found a blog post about homemade chocolate syrup.  I'd come across it a few times before, but seeing as how we hardly use chocolate syrup in our house, and I've bought it only a handful of times during our almost 14 years of marriage, I quickly ignored it and went along my merry way.  Yesterday however, for some unknown reason, I saw this post AGAIN, and this time it just kind of struck my fancy.  Simple ingredients, minimal time investment, my kind of recipe.  So I decided to go ahead and give it a try, but I opted to replace the sugar with a Xylitol blend that I buy at my local Ralph's to make it a little healthier, and let me tell you, it's pretty fantastic!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C. Xylitol (or sugar)
3/4 C. Unsweetened Cocoa powder (I used good ol' Hershey's)
1 C. Water
dash of salt
1 tsp. vanilla

In a small saucepan, add Xylitol, cocoa powder, and salt.  Whisk together well.  Add water and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce the heat to medium and cook 1 min.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Cool and store in the refrigerator.