These Italian Pine Nut Cookies are soft in the center and crispy on the outside cookies are a classic Italian treat found in traditional bakeries all over Italy. These sweet morsels originate from Sicily and sing with the flavors of sweet almond paste and nutty pignoli (pine nuts in Italian).

Strawberry and rhubarb make the perfect marriage of flavors, the juicy sweet meets the tart. Add on a crumbly topping and you have yourself the perfect summer dessert.

The direct translation of “panna cotta” from Italian to English is cooked cream. This recipe, however, my dear friends is vegan, made with coconut milk. I love using coconut milk to give dishes that creamy and fatty mouth feel, it is a staple in my kitchen for soups, sauces, curries, ice cream and in Matcha Tapioca Pudding, you can find HERE.

These warming, comforting, and health-giving baked apples have been my go-to breakfast and snack for these last days of winter. They are so simple to make and have no added sugar. This recipe is an Ayurvedic recipe, so it is balancing for all three Doshas or constitutional types of Ayurveda, Pitta, Vata, and Kapha.

A version of these cookies was first featured in my Chronicle Books 2009 book I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas. They were super tasty but full of gluten and sugar. Here in the Amalgam Kitchen, we decided to turn the recipe on it’s head and make them not only Paleo but almond free, I explained in my last post, I recently became aware I am allergic to almonds. We developed this new version with my ultimate grain-free baker’s blend and added some dried cranberries and boy, am I telling you, we have a winner here. It’s half way between a short bread and a chewy cookie and packed with sweetness from the cranberries and crunch from the walnuts with a distinct maple over tone. This cookie is a must add to your holiday baking and dare I say it should stick around until winter’s end, guilt free.

Fall brings cooler, crisper weather and shorter days as well as a beautiful host of seasonal fruits including pears, apples, pomegranates and my favorite, persimmons. This bread uses Hachiya persimmon, which are great for baking because as they ripen, their flesh turns very soft and purée-like, which is great for incorporating sweetness and adding a rich darker color to your bread batter. Dates and walnuts are perfect companions to the persimmon in this delightful fall quick bread, perfecting suited for with an afternoon cup of tea.

The sumptuous, sweet, luscious sensuous fig is at the height of it’s glory at this moment. But blink and the season will be gone. This smoothie is sweet but not too sweet, creamy, and packed with plant protein from Mikuna, made from the the low-lectin, regenerative crop Choco and is only one ingredient. It is truly one of my favorite protein powders.

It’s official, popsicle season is here. Nothing like a refreshing, juicy and sweet cold treat to beat the heat. Strawberries are still in season, shining stars at the moment but run don’t walk to your nearest farmers market as they are peaking now.

I originally developed this recipe 16 years ago for my cook book Anna Getty’s easy Green Organic. It was one of those recipes I tried over and over again to get it just right. It is by far my favorite quick bread, over the Gluten-Free School-Is-In Banana Bread and my Sweet Potato Bread with Walnuts and Cranberries, and those are both really really good.

One of my most favorite things about traveling to Britain is the afternoon tea service. Complete with cucumber tea sandwiches, petit-fours, a tea pot with hot tea and scones with jam and Devonshire clotted cream. The service is decadent and such a beautiful ritual to share with good friends and family.

I have been a fan of Coffee Cake for a long long time, however, it is normally made of gluten and filled with refined sugar and so I don’t eat it. I love the moist cake and the thick layer of the crunchy crumble topping.

I drink a Matcha Latte almost daily, made with home made nut milk and ceremonial grade Matcha tea. My mother-in-law used to teach green tea ceremony from Japan and gifted me, years ago a large can of ceremonial grade matcha. It is difficult to drink anything else. So naturally when I thought about creating this tapioca pudding dessert, I used the same tea. But honestly, don’t feel the pressure or necessity to use ceremonial grade, I am sure other matcha’s will do the trick

I have always loved the crumbly and buttery shortbread-like texture of a Mexican wedding cookie, the melty and soft sensation of the powdered confectioner’s sugar in my mouth, has carried me to new heights. The reality now is I can’t really eat flour, sugar, butter, as a combo deal, not if I don’t want to feel crummy later. Behold the challenge of how to achieve this mouth sensation dairy, gluten and sugar free. I am certain we have achieved an as close as you can get to the real thing cookie and maybe even better then the real thing.

Last year I lent this recipe to the lifestyle site Flaura Wellness, so many of you missed seeing it. And with the growth of Amalgam Kitchen I have decided to post it here on the site for you to enjoy this year, because it is just so darned good.

Nothing speaks to the holidays more than pumpkin pie. I am a sucker for a good pumpkin pie. And now that I don’t really do gluten flour or refined sugar I have struggled. What to do when one does not want to bake a pie? When one craves a grab and go pumpkin pie kind of situation? A sweet treat days before Thanksgiving? Well you bake pumpkin pie bars.

I find figs to be such a sensual fruit, juicy with robust flesh. In the 16th Century Baroque master Caravaggio’s painting Basket of Fruit there are four figs, all four plump, luscious and bursting with ripeness. They are the fruit of the ficus tree which to my surprise is part of the Mulberry family. Cultivated for centuries, the fig, historically, symbolize unity, truth and universal understanding.They are on my list of top 5 favorite fruits, they satisfy my occasional sweet tooth craving, since I have cut out refined sugars from my diet. I snack on fresh figs often when in season and love to include them in an arugula salad with walnuts and fresh goat cheese.  Figs are high in fiber, so they make a great natural laxative.