Real Food with Christine

Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite in our house. I have made many pretty good gluten free and dairy free versions over the last few years but none were exactly like the traditional ones I would make before we were gluten free. I made these yesterday as a test batch and when I got home from food shopping my husband had pretty much finished them! That's how I knew these were real deal chocolate chip cookies. He actually said "no one would know those were gluten free". I almost fainted. He is my toughest critic when it comes to chocolate chip cookies and when he asked if I was testing them out again today I knew he wanted more. I thought this would take a while to perfect, but since they are good enough for my toughest critic then I think you will all love them too. And, with the holidays coming these are the perfect treat! Ingredients 1/2 cup organic palm shortening 1 1/4 cups of evaporated cane sugar 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses 2 large eggs 2 cups Bobs ...

I know I've been missing for the last two months. Aside from some Facebook posts and shares, I haven't posted on here. The reason is that my oldest child started kindergarten! Some people may laugh at me, but this was the hardest thing for me to get used to (and I can't even say I'm used to it, I'm just realizing I can handle it). All of sudden you go from a few hours of pre-k to a full day of kindergarten...6 hours with your little one out of your sight! You have to have faith that she will be OK for the hours she is not with you. This was not easy for me to do, I felt like I never saw her! Getting home late afternoon and some after school activities, homework, dinner and showers and before I knew it days were flying by and my time with her was minimal. She's growing up :( I know it's only kindergarten and some of you may still be laughing at me but this was a huge eye opener for me. I have enjoyed all the time I have had home with her but still wasn...

Naturegirl Industries Protein Bars I hope you all had a great summer. Now that summer is coming to an end and back to school lunches and snacks are on our minds, I thought I'd share a great product I found. This product is great for adults and kids. To fill you all in a little, I've been thinking a lot about what water we should be using in our house, bottled, filtered, alkaline, etc. I tried alkaline bottled water but was not happy about it being packaged in plastic. I tried filtering my tap water but I felt it wasn't removing all the chemicals it should. Then I found  Phountain Water . You can fill up your glass gallon containers and choose what alkalinity you want. I use an 8.5. Their filters remove all chemicals and you are getting clean filtered, alkaline water, in glass bottles. I am happy! Now back to my amazing product find. While in there filling my water gallons, I saw these bars from Nature's Fuel . They had samples to try and I fell in love with them....

I saw  this instagram pic the other day from Jenni Hulet at The Urban Poser  and I had to try these. I have always loved chocolate covered strawberries and have even made chocolate covered raspberries but never blackberries. Today I went to the store and saw a nice pint of blackberries and I knew what I had to do. Here is the recipe, although it is not much of a recipe. You really need to try this combination! Ingredients Blackberries preferably organic 1/2-3/4 cup Dark chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life mini chips) 1 teaspoon coconut oil Directions Melt your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl on medium heat for 30 seconds at a time until melted. Stir in the coconut oil. Dip blackberries into chocolate and coat well. Place on a waxed paper covered dish and set in the freezer until chocolate has hardened. Remove from freezer. If you want to decorate them a little, drizzle a little more melted chocolate on top of the hardened chocolate and place back in freezer for a...

Ice cream is one of my favorite treats. Whenever the warm weather would come, my ice cream maker would come out and make ice cream at least twice a week. I would make all kinds of flavors, but chocolate was always our favorite. Going back to when I ate processed ice cream, my favorite was a flavor from Godiva called Chocolate with Chocolate Hearts. I don't know if the chocolate ice cream was even that good, but the dark chocolate hearts were amazing! My ice cream maker has been taking a break for a while. Since going dairy free I hadn't made too many ice creams. Not that I haven't tried, I have enjoyed some raw ice creams, you can check those our here  and here . I also found a coconut ice cream from Coconut Secret and it has a very clean ingredient list. They were good, but nothing satisfied that real rich, creamy chocolate ice cream that use to come out of my ice cream maker quite often. Any time I tried a recipe for dairy free ice cream using coconut or almond milk t...

I love smoothies, they are a quick meal or snack and can pack a lot of nutrition in one glass. I love giving smoothies to my kids for snacks too. I am always trying to come up with nutritious smoothies that also taste great so my kids will drink them. This one passed the test and all my kids loved it! It has a very tropical taste from the coconut and pineapple and is great for sipping outside on a summer day. Ingredients 1 cup unsweetened almond milk 1/2 cup frozen pineapple chunks 1/2 frozen banana 8-10 green grapes handful of baby spinach 1 teaspoon chia seeds 1 tablespoon coconut flakes 2 ice cubes Directions Mix all ingredients in a blender (I use the Vitamix) and blend until smooth.

I have always been kind of intimidated by spring roll wrappers. I thought they were very delicate and hard to work with so I just avoided them. Finally I decided to give them a try and I am so glad I did. Not only do they make a very healthy meal, but they are much more durable and easy to work with then I thought they would be. You can put almost any veggies you want in here, the possibilities are endless! Here is my version with shrimp and veggies with a homemade Gyoza sauce. This sauce is soy free but if you can eat soy you can replace the coconut aminos with soy sauce (use wheat free tamari if your gluten free). Coconut aminos are a great replacement for soy sauce in any recipe or on Sushi rolls too if you are soy free! This sauce taste just like the sauce you get from a Japanese restaurant with dumplings...yum :) For 8 rolls Ingredients for the rolls: shredded lettuce finely sliced carrot sticks finely sliced cucumber sticks 16 shrimp boiled and chopped into chunks 8 s...