If you put together sodium-free, gluten-free and vegan ingredients without any sugar, would you want to eat the result? You would if it’s a recipe from Maura “Mo” Knowles’s cookbook, The 12 Days of Morseliciousness. (Photo courtesy of Maura Knowles)
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By Debra Atlas
If you put together sodium-free, gluten-free and vegan ingredients without any sugar, would you want to eat the result? You would if it’s a recipe from Maura “Mo” Knowles’s cookbook, The 12 Days of Morseliciousness.
Knowles is the creator and founder of Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Treats, a collection of incredibly yummy “guilt-free” recipes she created to help her dad, a diabetic, make some big-time changes in lifestyle and eating habits after two heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery.
Knowles created her Morselicious Mix because she saw a need for a no-sodium, low-sugar treat with no chemicals or sweeteners. Knowles says her mission is to change the way people eat snacks and treats.“Parents want to give their kids a healthy cookie alternative,” she says.
Knowles also wanted alternative treats for her dad. “And few companies are going to create something like this because of the shelf-life,” she says. Her products contain no preservatives.
An admitted sugar-holic by nature, Knowles recognized that if you buy processed food, you are getting extra sugar and salt.
“You either learn to cook, to bake, or learn to read labels, and you probably can learn to do all three,” says Knowles.
Working with registered dieticians, she learned that if the body’s healthy, one does not crave sugar; the more one eats it, however, the more one craves it. If you learn to cook and bake with fresh spices, herbs, and juices, and fresh or frozen fruit, Knowles says “you satisfy your cravings.”
Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Mix contains no sugar. “Mo” Knowles has found a way to add spices that make it taste sweet, which is apparent when you pick up an unopened package of her mix and smell that incredibly scrumptious smell!
People add their own sweetener, Knowles notes. But she includes suggestions to sweeten her morsels by adding things such as applesauce, pumpkin, banana, more spices, or a fruit of choice.
Diabetes runs in Knowles’s family, so she has learned to change what she eats. When she craves something, she makes an unsweetened cocoa (see recipe below).
“It’s delicious heated or cold,” says Knowles, who drinks hers hot.
In business barely a year, Knowles says she had customers before she even had a business. She posts regularly on her blog, where she shares recipes two to three times a week.
Focusing on health and fun, Knowles has developed a different kind of blog “voice,” one filled with a sense of humor and a touch of sarcasm. She also has put a lot of love into her Morselicious Mix and her cookbook, which she considered calling The Spicy Confessions of a Morselist.
Her original plan was to create 12 recipes, mainly as a way to promote her morsel mix. As she began creating savory vegan, low-sodium. gluten-free, and low-sugar recipes, a friend suggested that she incorporate in the story behind “the Morselist.” Playing with her real-life story, she ended up with a story for every recipe—all 40 of them!
Her recipes feature fun, imaginative names, such as Eggplant Lettuce Cupaliciousness (an eggplant entrée in a lettuce cup) and Banana-na-na-na-na (a yummy banana nut bread or muffin recipe).
Like her easy-to-make Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious mix, the recipes are made with healthy, tasty ingredients. Recipes include cashew creams and amazing desserts, using only the sugar from the fruit.
“You can have healthy, tasty food—even on Thanksgiving,” says Knowles.
All the recipes use her Morselicious Mix, which can be found on her Web site.
As for her cookbook, by spending $38.99 at Mac-n-Mo’s (be it for either the yummy Chocolate Chip or Pumpkin Cranberry mix, the three-dozen pack, or the Party Pack six-dozen, mix-and-match set), you will get the cookbook, The 12 Days of Morseliciousness, for free.
“They make a great Chanukah [or] Christmas gift, a great health gift,” says Knowles. They also make a great Thanksgiving gift for people who do not want to overeat, she says. And that gift of healthy eating choices is something to be thankful for.
Morselicious Autumn Hot Cocoa
Mix together the following:
Most cocoa has tons of sugar added for flavor. The Scharffen Berger cocoa has only seven grams of sugar per three tablespoons. (Knowles uses only 1 tablespoon.)
For related articles, see: A Greener, Healthier Thanksgiving Feast White Christmas—How About a Green Thanksgiving? Gobble Gobble Green
Check out more articles by Debra Atlas.
© 2011 SCGH, LLC.
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