Sweet Potatoes Stuffed with Tomato-Coconut Braised Collard Greens with Chickpeas

I gave up meat nearly ten years ago, telling myself I'd give it up for a few weeks but pretty sure I'd come back to it. I'd grown up enjoying medium-rare steaks, crispy bacon and hamburgers. I can't remember what the last bite of meat I had was, but I remember the day, months later, when I sat in the school cafeteria and realized I hadn't craved meat in months.

That's not to say that I never craved a piece of bacon. I certainly have. But overwhelmingly I haven't missed meat in my life.

I'm delighted, three weeks in, to be feeling that way about omitting dairy in my savory cooking. Maybe it's because it's still new and novel. I'm loving experimenting with new recipes and discovering the myriad of ways I can use coconut milk. Maybe it's because I'm still allowing myself some leeway and ordering food with dairy if the mood strikes when I'm out. Or maybe it's because I've felt healthier for the past three weeks than I have in a long time.

Regardless, I'm excited for this year's dairy-free cooking challenge. Particularly if it means discovering dishes like this one.

I roasted sweet potatoes until they were just tender inside. I stuffed them with a tasty mixture of onions, chickpeas and collard greens, braised with coconut milk and diced tomatoes until tender.

The filling came together easily while the sweet potatoes roasted. I stuffed the sweet potatoes generously with the collard green mixture, which meant I got a little bit of everything delicious in each bite.

I ate one immediately, and then I pre-stuffed the remaining sweet potatoes and packaged them away for lunches for the week. They reheat beautifully, and they've provided me with weekday lunches filled with color.

Breakfast Quinoa with Coconut and Avocado

Are you sick of the typical breakfast? Are you over bagels and cream cheese, toast and peanut butter, oatmeal, and cereal?

If so, there's a chance that this could be the breakfast for you.

I say a chance because this is certainly an unusual breakfast. Here, quinoa, simmered in coconut milk, is topped with toasted coconut flakes and bits of avocado. I left the quinoa unsweetened because I'm not one for extra sugary dishes before work.

What you get is a unique bowl of food, loaded with protein and healthy fats, that will keep you fueled until lunchtime or beyond.

Of course, avocado is just one way that you could top this dish. Wouldn't it be delightful with bananas and pineapple? Fresh cherries? Whatever fresh fruit you have? Sweetened a bit with honey or maple syrup?

The possibilities are endless, but if you're up for it, I would give this combination a try. It's a lot of fun and certainly unique.

Raspberry-Chocolate Macaroons

I, sadly, am a cook without a food processor. Living with roommates for years allowed me to avoid getting some of those tools that you really don't want to go without in the kitchen.

Several of them I replaced quickly. I had to have a saute pan and a pot large enough to cook noodles. A surprise housewarming party provided other essentials: a tea kettle, a lemon juicer, an ice cube tray and even a can opener (yes, moving to my own apartment left me short one of those as well).

At my old apartment, I used my roommate's food processor for everything. It made pizza and pasta dough making a snap. Pestos ground up in a matter of minutes. I no longer needed to chop chocolate for hours to make chocolate babkas. Hit "on" and the chocolate was chopped in seconds.

Though I've certainly adjusted to life without a food processor, there are just some recipes I can't make without it. I've had Deb's raspberry coconut macaroons bookmarked for months in anticipation of a visit home and access to my parents' food processor.

The wait was certainly worth it.

These macaroons are sweet and tangy at the same time, and you get a little bit of bittersweet chocolate in each bite. The simple coconut base allows all the flavors to shine through.

I can usually successfully keep my distance from cookies after I bake them, but I brought these on the airplane with me over the Christmas break and found myself cracking open the lid to the container again and again.

Happy 2013!

Zucchini Carrot Coconut Cream Cheese Muffins

Blue Sky Bakery has me spoiled. I used to think a really great muffin could be just one flavor.

Blueberry. Pumpkin. Lemon. Chocolate. Chocolate chip.

Not anymore.

Every Blue Sky muffin has at least three different components to it. On any given day, they'll have blueberry-pineapple bran muffins, pumpkin-apple walnut muffins, and chocolate chip, peach and raspberry muffins, to name just a few favors I've seen (and tried).

They're unique and complex, and they're certainly worth the lines on the weekends. The only downside is, they don't open until after I'm at work on weekdays.

So I had to attempt a muffin of my own that Blue Sky would be proud of.

Here it is: a zucchini and carrot muffin, stuffed with barely sweetened cream cheese and topped with toasted coconut flakes.

Every bite has something a little different to it, either with taste or with texture, and I think the appearance is just delightful.

Best of all, I froze all of these muffins after baking them, and they reheat in the microwave in about 45 seconds. That means they fit into my breakfast schedule.

Salted Brown Butter Crispy Bars with Samoas

I didn't like rice crispy treats much as a kid, probably because they were missing chocolate. And because most of the rice crispies I had were the pre-packaged, factory-made kind.

I probably hadn't had one in years, and I certainly hadn't missed them.

I should have just left it at that. I should have known better.

Because now that I've experienced these brown butter rice crispy treats, I'm addicted. I've had four rice crispy bars in the past two days alone.

I started with brown butter, which gave the bars a nice, nutty flavor. A pinch of sea salt creates that perfect contrast between sweet and salt.

I should have stopped there.

But, there were Girl Scout Samoa cookies sitting on my dresser, just calling my name. I opened the package and started chopping.

I lined the bottom of the pan with the rice crispy mixture, and then I topped it with a generous layer of chopped Samoa cookies. That received another layer of rice crispy mixture, followed by a final layer of Samoa cookies.

They're to die for. Each bite has a bit of sugar, a bit of salt, and some coconut and chocolate thrown in for good measure.

Be warned.

And, be sure to visit Deseret News to see their post about 30 different ways to bake with Girl Scout cookies, which includes this treat!

Quick Coconut Bread

This is the quick bread for those of us who despise the taste of bananas. It's also the quick bread for those of us who don't really plan ahead. Don't have the time to wait for the bananas to ripen? Don't want to grate zucchini for long periods of time?  No worries.

When my roommate left for the grocery store one block away, I hadn't even pulled the ingredients for this bread out of the pantry. By the time he returned with a small bag of groceries, I was slipping the bread into the oven and cleaning up the dishes.

And the results? Delightful. The bread had just the right amount of sweetness in it, and it didn't crumble too much when sliced. The crust was delightful golden. A light taste of cinnamon wove through each slice, catching me by surprise, and the coconut was a perfect textural contrast.

It was delicious eaten fresh from the pan, and it was an even bigger treat toasted with butter for breakfast. For the ten minutes this took to make and clean up from, this bread will be made regularly.