Experience Nutrition

Tag: gluten-free

Experience Nutrition: Extra Bananas in Your Kitchen? Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Bread WOW!!!
Since so many people are buying many bananas during our Coronavirus stay-at-home, I decided and am excited to share an incredible banana recipe with you.
Enjoy this incredible vegan, gluten-free banana bread with walnuts, dehydrated citrus, and edible flowers. This banana bread is so delicious all I can say is Wow! I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy mindfully preparing this bread and enjoying it as a breakfast break or snack. – Melanie Albert

Enjoy the Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Bread Video…for the step-by-step cooking process.

Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Bread Recipe

12 Servings

Simple Ingredients
- Wet Ingredients
  - 3 ripe bananas
  - 1/3 cup coconut oil, liquid
  - 1 cup coconut sugar
  - 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
  - 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Dry Ingredients
  - 1 ¾ cups gluten-free flour (blend of sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, sorghum flour, tapioca flour, xanthan gum)
  - 1 tsp baking soda
  - ½ tsp baking powder
  - ½ tsp sea salt
  - 1 tsp freshly ground cinnamon
  - 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
  - ¾ cup walnut pieces
Banana Bread Ingredients
- Garnish
  - Edible flowers and dehydrated grapefruit and blood orange slices.
Simple Steps
- Mise en Place
  - Gather your ingredients and organize your mise en place – get everything in place before your start cooking.
- Bake the Cake
  - Preheat oven at 350 degrees F.
- Process Wet Ingredients
  - Place sliced bananas (about 3 cups) in food processor.
  - Process until smooth.
  - Taste. Add extra banana if desire sweeter taste.
  - Liquefy the coconut oil by placing oil in small bowl in a larger bowl of hot water.
  - Stream in coconut oil. Process again.
  - Add coconut sugar, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla extract to the food processor.
  - Process until smooth.
- Mix Dry & Wet Ingredients
  - In large bowl, place flour, baking soda, baking powder, sea salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
  - Stir until mixed.
  - Pour the banana mixture into the bowl.
  - Fold the banana mixture into the flour mixture, until well mixed.
  - Fold in walnut pieces.
- Bake the Banana Bread
  - Pour the batter into a parchment-lined pan, 9” x 7”.
  - Place several walnuts on top of cake.
  - Bake for 40-45 minutes.
  - Cake is ready when toothpick comes out dry.
- Plate and Enjoy
  - Garnish with dehydrated grapefruit and blood orange slices, and edible flowers.
  - Enjoy for breakfast or a snack.
Vegan Gluten-Free Banana Bread. Dehydrated Citrus. Edible Flowers.

Enjoying the incredible Banana Bread with our beautiful Arizona sunset.

By Melanie Albert, Plant-Based Cooking Leader, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition in Phoenix, Arizona. Award-winning cookbook author, speaker, corporate wellness, team building, retreat leader, and caterer.

Visit us on www.facebook.com/ExperienceNutritionAZ, Instagram: @experiencenutritionaz and #experiencenutrition
April 19, 2020
Experience Nutrition: Aromatic Apple Berry Crisp: Delicious Plant-Based Desserts by Melanie Albert, Part 3 of 4
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author
Excited to share with you the Aromatic Apple Berry Pie to enjoy creating with your family and friends. This dessert is an incredible aromatherapy culinary experience with hand-grinding spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom.

We created this dessert with 4 different varieties of apples at our hands-on Holiday Dessert cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain, and it was “perfect”. Such a beautiful, warming fall / winter dessert.

Links to the other plant-based dessert recipe prepared at the class:
- Super Berry Cashew Cream Pie
- Chocolate Goji Berry Cream Pie
- Raw Carrot Cake (coming soon)
Aromatic Apple Berry Crisp with Freshly Ground Spices

This apple berry crisp is one of my all-time favorites. From mindfully hand-grinding and enjoying the aromatherapy of freshly ground warming spices, along with the aromatherapy of the apples sautéing in the spices, to memories of eating pies when I was a child, this dessert is outstanding. Enjoy the process of setting up your mise en place, cooking, and enjoying this dish with your family and friends.

Topping

Simple Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ½ cup almonds, walnuts, or pecans, sliced
- ¼ cup maple sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
- 1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
- 1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
- 1/4 cup grapeseed oil
Simple Steps
- Hand-grind cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.
- Mix all dry ingredients for topping until well combined.
- Pour in grapeseed oil and mix.
Filling

Simple Ingredients
- 5 apples, sliced
- 2 pears, sliced
- 1 cup raspberries
- 1 cup blackberries
- 3 tbsp grapeseed oil
- ¼ cup maple sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon, fresh ground
- 1 tsp nutmeg, fresh ground
- 1 tsp cardamom seeds, fresh ground
- ½ tsp cloves, fresh ground
- 1 orange, juiced and zested
- 1 lemon, juiced and zested
Simple Steps
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place sliced apples and pears in a large sauté pan.
- Turn heat to medium and add remaining filling ingredients.
- Cook apples and pears for 15-20 minutes until slightly soft; stir occasionally.
- Pour cooked apples with sauce into 8-inch by 8-inch baking dish.
- Top with oats topping, raspberries, and blackberries.
- Bake on middle oven rack for 30-35 minutes.
- Plate and enjoy!
So glad Nathalia from Brazil was in town to capture some fun photos from our Dessert Cooking Class at The Farm. Thanks!

The beauty of the apples…and, all the mindful chopping…

The zesting and juicing of the lemons and oranges.

The aromatherapy of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom…And, beautiful teamwork!

A few additional fun photos from the class…

Apple cutting knife skills with Melanie Albert.

More cinnamon aromatherapy.

The beautiful apple crisp, and a batch of hummus…ready to be enjoyed.

Thanks to Natural Awakenings AZ magazine for featuring my Plant-Based Chocolate Pie on the cover and Plant-Based Dessert recipes in the January 2019 issue.

Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019

Natural Awakenings Arizona, January 2019. Start the New Year Off Right

Join our Simple Daily Plant-Based Eating Tips Facebook Page

Purchase Melanie Albert’s award-winning cookbook, “A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”

PUBLIC COOKING CLASSES IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Phoenix friends…hope you or your kids can join us at one of our hands-on intuitive cooking classes this season… Vision Board & Appetizers, Foods for Addiction Recovery, Spring Farm-to-Table, Raw Farm-to-Table, and Kids Food Art.

Purchase Tickets for the Get Clear for the New Year Vision Board & Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Saturday, January 12, 2019, 1-3pm

Purchase Tickets for Whole Foods for Addiction Recovery with New York “Spiritual Adrenaline” Author Tom Shanahan and Phoenix cookbook author Melanie Albert. The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday, February 17, 2019, 11am-1pm

Purchase Tickets for Spring Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Intuitive Cooking with Melanie Albert and Soil & Seed Garden Farmer Billy Anthony. The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday, March 3, 2019, 10:30am-1pm

Purchase Tickets for Raw Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Intuitive Cooking with Melanie Albert and Soil & Seed Garden Farmer Billy Anthony. The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday, April 7, 2019, 10:30am-1pm

Purchase Tickets for Farm-to-Table Kids Food Art Cooking at The Farm at South Mountain with Melanie Albert, Sunday, February 10, 2019, 11am-noon

Purchase Tickets for Farm-to-Table Kids Food Art Cooking at The Farm at South Mountain with Melanie Albert, Sunday, March 24, 2019, 11am-noon

Happy Cooking!
December 31, 2018
A New View of Healthy Eating: Daily Healthy Recipes by Melanie Albert: Superfood Sweet Potato Brownie
by Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, speaker, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
This week I had the wonderful opportunity to lead an amazing Cooking Challenge Team Building with Visit Phoenix. For dessert, I decided to prepare the Sweet Potato Brownie and jazz it up with a raw cacao sauce and goji berries. This dessert is full of so many healthy ingredients, the sweet potatoes, raw cacao, and Arizona Medjool dates. It’s plant-based, gluten-free, and dairy-free. And, it tastes great. Not too sweet. Chocolatey. Just right.

PHOTO CREDIT: www.facebook.com/cassiescouture

Excerpt from my book, “A New View of Healthy Eating”

Chocolate Sweet Potato Brownie

Delicious vegan, gluten-free chocolate dessert made with a sweet root veggie, the sweet potato. This brownie is always a favorite at kids’ and adults’ cooking classes. It’s one of those desserts we can even eat for breakfast!

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
- 2 medium to large sweet potatoes
- 12 Medjool dates, pitted
- ⅔ cup raw almonds, ground
- ½ cup brown rice flour
- 4 tbsp raw cacao
- 3 tbsp maple sugar
- Pinch sea salt
SIMPLE STEPS
- Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
- Peel sweet potatoes, cut into chunks, and steam in a bamboo steamer for about 20 minutes until they become really soft.
- Once sweet potatoes are soft and beginning to fall apart, remove from steamer.
- Mix sweet potatoes and pitted dates into food processor and blend.
Put remaining ingredients into a large bowl and stir to combine.
- Add sweet potato/date mixture to other ingredients and stir well.
- Place mixture into 8-inch by 8-inch parchment-paper-lined baking dish.
- Cook for about 20 minutes.
- Test doneness by pushing a toothpick into the brownie. The brownie is ready when a toothpick comes out dry.
- Allow baking dish to cool for about 10 minutes.
- Remove the brownies from baking dish.
- Cool for a few minutes and cut into squares.
- Enjoy!
I had so much fun plating this Sweet Potato Brownie for our guests at the Visit Phoenix Team Building Cooking Challenge. Add a swipe of raw cacao agave sauce, goji berries, and a few walnuts.

PHOTO CREDIT: www.facebook.com/cassiescouture

ACTION: Make a healthy chocolate dessert and share your creation with us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating

For more amazing simple healthy recipes, you can buy Melanie’s Book, “A New View of Healthy Eating: Simple Intuitive Cooking with Real Whole Foods”

PHOTO CREDIT: www.facebook.com/cassiescouture
January 21, 2018
Experience Nutrition: Hemp Seed Tomato Tabouli Healthy Recipe
by Melanie Albert, Nutrition & Food Expert, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Whole Food Cooking Instructor Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition.
Refreshing and full of flavor tabouli salad. Gluten-free and created with good fat, omega-3 rich hemp seeds. This tabouli is especially refreshing with farmers’ market fresh heirloom tomatoes, and can be prepared with a rainbow of tomatoes. Hemp seeds are a nice alternative to the typical bulgur wheat in tabouli, for those of us who are sensitive to gluten or have Celiac disease.

Hemp Seed Tomato Tabouli

Ingredients
- 2 bunches of parsley
- ¼ cup fresh mint
- ½ cup hemp seeds
- 1 large tomato, diced
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 TBSP organic extra virgin olive oil
- 2 TBSP green onions, chopped
- 1 tsp sea salt
Experience Nutrition: Hemp Seed Tomato Tabouli: Fresh Ingredients

Simple Steps
- Place parsley and mint in food processor and pulse several times until well chopped
- Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the hemp seeds, tomato, lemon juice, olive oil, onion, and salt
- Toss and serve
- Enjoy!
Experience Nutrition: Hemp Seed Tabouli: Simple Steps

Create your own Hemp Seed Tomato Tabouli and share your dish with us on Facebook.
November 14, 2015
Experience Nutrition: Organic Sprouted Spelt Flatbread Recipe
By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition Group, LLC. Nutrition and food expert, author and speaker. Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition and Whole Food Cooking Instructor at Southwest Institute of Healing Arts.
A few years ago I discovered that I was sensitive to gluten (the protein in grains like wheat, barley and rye). By exploring different grain flours, I’ve found that I’m not sensitive (no hives, no bloating, no headaches) to the Organic Sprouted Spelt Flour by One Degree Organic Foods. During the last few months, I’ve traveled with this flour and have made organic flat bread with 15 pounds of it. Have fun making your own flatbread.

What You Need
- ¾ cup hot (not boiling) water
- 1 TBSP dry yeast
- ½ TBSP honey
- 2 TBSP organic olive oil
- 2 cups organic spelt flour
- ½ tsp sea salt
Simple Steps: Make the Dough
- Put 1 TBSP dry yeast into ¾ cup hot water, add ½ TBS honey and ½ TBSP olive oil. Let it sit for about 10 minutes
- Put 2 cups sprouted spelt flour in bowl with ½ tsp sea salt
- Add the water with yeast into the flour
- Blend with a fork a few minutes, then knead with your hands another few minutes. Only knead for about 4-5 minutes total. Otherwise the flatbread will be tough. If the dough is sticky, add more flour. If it’s dry, add more water.
Simple Steps: Dough Rises & Into the Oven
- Split the dough in half. Place 2 balls of dough into a bowl which has coated with organic olive oil, and cover for about 2 hours (to rise)
- Again, split the dough into 2 sections and spread it onto a pizza brick with your hands
Simple Steps: Bake & Enjoy!
- Pre-heat oven at 500 degrees with pizza brick in oven
- Bake for 5 minutes, check it, bake for another 3-5 minutes, as needed
- Enjoy your flatbread with olive oil and/or balsamic vinegar, as a pizza, or just plain
Come over to Facebook www.facebook.com/experience.nutrition.now and post your photos or ask questions.
August 22, 2015
Experience Nutrition: 9 Ways 90 Days: Top 10 Super Bowl Healthy Recipes: 5 Hemp Seed Tabouli

by Melanie Albert, Nutrition & Food Expert, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Holistic Nutrition & Whole Food Cooking Instructor Southwest Institute of Healing Arts, Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition.
Gluten-free tabouli. For those of us who are sensitive to gluten or have Celiac disease, hemp seeds are a great alternative to the typical bulgur wheat in tabouli.

Experience Nutrition: 9 Ways 90 Days: Top 10 Super Bowl Healthy Recipes: 5: Hemp Seed Tabouli

Ingredients
2 bunches of parsley
¼ cup fresh mint
½ cup hemp seeds
1 large tomato, diced
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 TBSP organic extra virgin olive oil
2 TBSP onions, chopped
1 tsp sea salt
Simple Steps
Place parsley and mint in food processor and pulse several times until well chopped
Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the hemp seeds, tomato, lemon juice, olive oil, onion, and salt
Toss and serve
Enjoy!

Post your Hemp Seed Tabouli recipes on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/9Ways90Days Top 10 photos will win free e-book, “Enjoy Food & Life,” featuring nutrition tips and recipes by former NFL players.

February 1, 2015
9 Ways 90 Days: Simple Organic Sprouted Spelt Flatbread Recipe

By Melanie Albert, Nutrition and food expert, author, speaker. Founder & CEO, Experience Nutrition Group

A few years ago I discovered that I was sensitive to gluten (the protein in grains like wheat, barley and rye). By exploring different grain flours, I’ve found that I’m not sensitive (no hives, no bloating, no headaches) to the Organic Sprouted Spelt Flour by One Degree Organic Foods. During the last few months, I’ve traveled with this flour and have made organic flat bread with 15 pounds of it. Have fun making your own flatbread.

Organic Sprouted Spelt Flatbread Recipe

·         What You Need

o   ¾ cup hot (not boiling) water

o   1 TBS dry yeast

o   ½ TBS honey

o   2 TBS organic olive oil

o   2 cups organic spelt flour

o   ½ tsp sea salt

·         Simple Steps

o   Pre-heat oven at 450 degrees

o   Put 1 TBS dry yeast into ¾ cup hot water, add ½ TBS honey and ½ TBS olive oil. Let it sit for about 10 minutes

o   Put 2 cups sprouted spelt flour in bowl with ½ tsp sea salt

o   Add the water with yeast into the flour

o   Blend with a fork a few minutes, then knead with your hands another few minutes. Only knead for about 4-5 minutes total. Otherwise the flatbread will be tough. If the dough is sticky, add more flour. If it’s dry, add more water

o   Split the dough in half. Place 2 balls of dough into a bowl which has coated with organic olive oil, and cover for about 2 hours (to rise)

o   Again, split the dough into 2 sections and spread it onto a pizza brick or silicon sheet with your hands

o   Bake for 5 minutes, check it, bake for another 5 minutes

o   Enjoy your flat bread with olive oil and/or balsamic vinegar, or just plain

Come over to Facebook www.facebook.com/9ways90days and post your photos or ask questions.

February 26, 2014