Real Food Nutrition, Recipes From Scratch & Natural Living
This gluten and refined sugar free cookie recipe is inspired by my favorite granola. Filled with oats, nuts, seeds and raisins these cookies are hearty, delicious and make for a healthier cookie recipe. Each week I aim to do a little bit of meal prep…
Simple home canned beef & vegetable soup is an easy to pressure can meal in a jar recipe to stock the pantry with. One of the most used items in our canning pantry are the pressure canned meal in a jar recipes I like to…
The best homemade chili recipe! This from scratch chili is loaded with plenty of garlic, peppers, beef & kidney beans for a hearty and healthy meal that is a staple through the cooler months.
This from scratch chili recipe is my absolute favorite and I have been meaning to add it to the blog quite literally for years. As soon as I perfected it I wrote it out and emailed it to myself to make sure it wouldn’t get lost in my notes app, and ever since I’ve sifted through my emails every time I am making up a batch. Safe to say, this post is long overdue.
Chili makes for the perfect meal any time of year, but it’s the ultimate comfort food come the cooler months. From a nutrition standpoint, it’s packed full of veggies, filled with fibre thanks to the beans, and loaded with protein from the beef. It really is the perfect meal.
Change up the meat. I love to use ground beef, but feel free to substitute ground bison, venison, or turkey. All work well, but red meat has the best flavor.
Switch out the beans. I like to use kidney beans, but pinto beans or a combination of the word also is great.
Add in raisins. Hear me out. I’m sure most of you that read this will be skeptical, but adding 1/2 cup of raisins adds the perfect touch of sweetness. The inspiration for this comes from The Best of Bridge cookbook. I don’t always add them, but I do love this addition. It’s one of the few ways I do like raisins.
Heat a dutch oven over medium low heat. Add onion, garlic, and peppers and cook 3-5 minutes until they begin to brown. Add ground beef and brown, breaking up with a spoon as it cooks.
Once beef is mostly cooked through, add chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder, and brown sugar. Continue cooking until beef is cooked through.
Add tomato paste and cook 2 minutes longer. Stir in tomato sauce, broth, and kidney beans.
Bring chili to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Taste and add salt and adjust seasonings if needed. Cover with a lid and allow to simmer at least 30 minutes, ideally 2-3 hours until thickened.
Some of my favorite chili toppings include sour cream or greek yogurt, shredded cheese, green onion, cilantro, fresh or pickled jalapeños or cowboy candy.
This homemade chili will store 4 days in the fridge. This does make a large batch, so we typically freeze half of the recipe. This freezes really well, just add to an air tight container with an inch of headspace and store for up to 3 months in the freezer.
The best homemade chili packed with garlic, onions, peppers, beans and beef for a hearty and healthy meal.
Top with any combination of sour cream, cheese, green onion, cilantro and jalapenos.
Crockpot Creamy Chicken & Veggie Soup
Gluten Free Chicken Noodle Soup
Creamy Chicken & Rice Chili Soup
This harvest kale salad with sweet potato, apple and quinoa combines plenty of fall flavours into a healthy and hearty salad that lasts in the fridge. As much as I love all the fresh produce we bring in through the summer, fall flavours will always…
This delicious, fluffy gluten free pumpkin muffin recipe is made with oat flour, and refined sugar free with pure maple syrup. As a bonus, these one bowl muffins make for quick and easy clean up. It is fall, we are having some cooler temperatures which…
Homemade ketchup is easy to make and better for you without high fructose corn syrup. Learn how to can homemade ketchup with this recipe.
I have wanted to make homemade ketchup for years now. We grow a lot of our own produce here on our small homestead and can most of our tomato products with the exception of ketchup. It has been the one tomato product we buy at the store so I am glad to have found a recipe to replace it and reduce our grocery list.
In the height of summer when I can’t get to processing all of our tomatoes, many of them end up in the freezer. I simply core them and throw them into freezer bags so I can use them at a later time. The great thing about this is as you thaw the tomatoes, a lot of liquid drains off which helps tomato products thicken up faster and it also saves me time when I am busy. I still have tomatoes in our freezer from last summer, and we are well stocked on other tomato products we use frequently, so I thought it was the perfect time to experiment with homemade ketchup.
Yes, it is safe to can homemade ketchup if you are following a tested recipe. Everyone has different comfort levels when it comes to adapting tested canning recipes, and I am confident in the safety of this recipe. This easy ketchup recipe is adapted from this tested ball canning recipe. I adjusted the recipe to fit the amount of tomatoes I had to use and the seasonings to our preferences to make this a copycat Heinz ketchup recipe. I kept any ingredients that affect the acidity the same, and only adjusted the seasonings. Here is some information on safely adjusting canning recipes.
Tomatoes
Onions
White Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar (must be 5% acidity)
Start by adding the tomatoes to a large pot. You want the tomatoes to be cored, but it isn’t necessary to chop them. You can use fresh or frozen and I prefer to use frozen then thawed tomatoes for convenience sake.
Bring the tomatoes to a boil over medium high heat and then reduce the heat to medium low and use a wooden spoon to mash the tomatoes up a bit. Allow to simmer for 30 minutes, then add the onions and simmer 30 minutes more.
Now that the tomatoes and onions have softened, put them through a food mill. This will remove the skins and seeds to make a smooth ketchup.
Add the tomato and onion mixture back into the pot with the sugar, vinegar, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, celery seed, cayenne, mustard powder, ground cloves, and all spice then stir together and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium low and allow the ketchup to simmer for 3-4 hours or until thickened. If you are using fresh tomatoes it may take a bit longer.
Prepare the pint jars and canner. Fill clean, hot pint jars to 1/2 inch of headspace and remove any air bubbles, a chopstick works great for this. Adjust headspace if needed and wipe the rims well with white vinegar or hot water. I like to use white vinegar when I am canning anything that might be greasy or sticky to ensure I get a good seal, but you can use hot water. Place lids and rings on the canning jars to finger tip tight.
Place jars in the canner ensuring that they are fully covered with water then bring the canner up to a boil, and process for 15 minutes. Make sure to adjust processing time as necessary based on your elevation, information on this can be found here.
When the canner is done processing, turn off the heat and remove the lid. Allow the jars to sit in the canner for another 5 minutes. This slowly brings the temperature down which helps avoid siphoning in the jars.
Remove jars from the canner and allow to sit undisturbed for 24 hours and then remove the rings and check the seals. Clean the jars well and store.
Homemade ketchup is better for you with better ingredients than store bought!
If using fresh tomatoes, it may take longer to reach the desired consistency.
This homemade marshmallow recipe is made with egg whites for extra protein and is the perfect addition to hot chocolate or coffee. These fluffy homemade marshmallows are a healthier alternative to store bought options. Marshmallows are delicious, but most options at the store are packed…
Learn how to switch to clean beauty, and why the products we use on our skin is so important. Beauty products are often filled with endocrine disruptors, known carcinogens, and other harmful chemicals that can be disruptive to our health. This post contains affiliate links,…
The best fluffy gluten free banana muffins made in one bowl. These oat flour muffins can easily be made into a loaf of banana bread. This recipe is naturally gluten free and will be your new go-to recipe.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
Banana bread is such a classic, and it’s something I grew up on. It was my moms staple to bake, and they were on the counter pretty often. They have always been a favorite of mine.
This recipe for banana muffins using oat flour has been a go-to of mine for several years now. We make my banana muffins with oat flour at least a couple of times a month. Often times we make this recipe into a loaf of banana bread instead of muffins. They are the perfect healthy snack, plus they freeze really well! They never last long in our home.
These muffins are perfect for any occasion. They are the perfect addition to a weekend brunch, and they also make a great grab and go snack. Regardless of what you make them for, I can guarantee they will be a hit! We love them with chocolate chips, but the options are endless when it comes to add ins. Blueberries, chopped walnuts, or pecans are also some of our favorites.
Oat flour is my long time favorite flour for baking. Not only is it cheap, but you can make it at home in just a minute. All you need is some rolled oats and a high speed blender.
The best part about oat flour is that I find it bakes up similarly to wheat flour, unlike most other gluten free flour options. Most gluten free flours can yield a very crumble-y result, even when you use extra eggs. I find that oat flour holds together very well. It also produces a lighter result than other gluten free flours.
Many gluten free flour blends on the market have a long ingredient list, not all of which I love. I like making my own oat flour because it narrows down the ingredient list to just one and I find that it is easier to digest for most people. Oats also have a great fiber content, where as the gluten free flour blends are generally lacking. Oats make for a much more nutrient dense alternative flour.
Not all recipes are created equal, but these banana muffins are definitely healthy! I like to use greek yogurt in my muffins for some added protein. This recipe uses just oat flour, so no weird fillers from gluten free flour blends are present. I also love that by using oat flour these muffins are whole grain. This recipe itself is pretty low fat, so I love to spread on a little bit of grass-fed butter. That makes them especially delicious, even more so when they are still warm from the oven.
These banana muffins make a healthy snack. I like to pair them with a hard boiled egg for some added protein. Alternatively, you could add a few scoops of collagen peptides to the batter to bump up the protein even more!
These muffins also make a great healthy breakfast when paired with scrambled eggs.
In a large bowl, mash together the bananas, eggs, greek yogurt, cane sugar and vanilla. For a super smooth batter, you could alternatively blend this in a blender.
Add the oat flour, baking powder, sea salt, and cinnamon to the wet ingredients.
Stir together very well to make sure the ingredients are evenly distributed. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Evenly distribute batter into a muffin tin with muffin liners. This recipe will fill 12 muffin cups. Alternatively, you can pour the batter into a parchment lined loaf pan.
Bake for 30 minutes for muffins, or 60-70 minutes for banana bread.
Enjoy!
The best fluffy gluten free banana bread or gluten free banana bread muffins made in one bowl. This oat flour banana bread is naturally gluten free and will be your new go-to recipe.
Chocolate chips can be substitued for chopped nuts or blueberries.
This gluten free oat flour sandwich bread recipe will be your new go-to gluten free recipe. With just a few simple ingredients you will have a loaf of bread ready to go in less than an hour. As an Amazon Associate I make a small…
