Throughout the year, Jewish holidays are wonderful times for gathering with family and friends. Although I’m not Jewish, I love all traditional cuisines. But what to do when someone in the family is on a special diet? Well, here are my favorite Jewish recipes re-invented for alternative diets. And the good news is that EVERYBODY loves them! These recipes are low in carbs, free of gluten and dairy, without glycemic sugars or processed ingredients. Yay! My favorites include Sweet Potato Noodle Kugel, Sweet Potato Latkes, Paleo Sour Cream Poppyseed Cake, Gluten-free Jewish apple cake, No-honey cake, Pumpernickel No-rye bread, Grain-free apple fritters, Instant Apple butter, Paleo Liver Pâté, Dairy-free cream cheese, and Authentic Borscht. Yum! For the perfect non-dairy topping, try my Instant Coconut Whipped Cream! The holidays are all about traditions, so why not start a new one with one of these clean-eating recipes! As always, leave your comments below.

 Jewish Apple Cake, Orange Caramel Glaze

There’s nothing more traditional for Rosh Hashanah than apples and honey. However this is NOT your grandmother’s apple cake. While enjoying familiar traditions, this gluten-free recipe integrates surprising methods and healthy ingredients, to yield a cake so moist and luscious, you’ll never miss the sugar or flour.

This flourless recipe uses coconut butter and oat flakes instead flour. Flours are highly perishable. I recently discovered that many of our flours are old and rancid, which causes free radical damage in the body. However flakes do not go rancid, and can easily be blended into a smooth and delectable batter. Coconut butter adds body and richness to the flourless cake. Oh boy, it tastes unbelievably tempting with Orange Caramel Glaze and Instant Coconut Whipped Cream.

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Sweet Potato Noodle Kugel

With Rosh Hashanah just around the corner, my inner child is already craving Noodle Kugel, that irresistible comfort food. I wondered, can sweet potatoes and coconut milk create the delirious joy of traditional kugel? The answer is YES and NO. Yes, my taste testers agreed this recipe is deliriously delicious. And no, IMHO it bears little resemblance to the mouth feel of authentic noodle kugel, which requires forbidden ingredients like white flour noodles, cottage cheese and sour cream. If your wish like mine is to celebrate New Year with healthy sweets, I highly recommend you try this recipe!

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 No-Honey Cake

Traditional Jewish honey cake called “lekach” is ancient, its rich flavor imprinted deep in my memory. I know honey is Paleo and natural, however it sends my blood sugar sky high! This unique recipe tastes just as satisfying as the original, but contains no honey at all! Instead of honey and refined flour, the surprise ingredients are chicory root sweetener, shredded coconut, almond meal, and sweet potato! Fluffy and flavorful, this is truly a guilt-free treat, low in those naughty sugars and carbs that cause weight gain – using zero carb sweetener, low carb almond meal and coconut butter instead of processed flours. Yay! This gluten-free, grain-free cake tastes even better topped with Instant Coconut Whipped Cream.

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Paleo Sweet Potato Latkes

Everybody loves Potato Latkes – But these babies are made with sweet potatoes. They’e free of gluten, grain, dairy, sugar and nightshades! Yay! The traditional recipe uses white potato (a nightshade) with egg and matzo meal (wheat gluten). Instead this easy Paleo-adapted version use sweet potato, egg, onion, and almond meal.

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Paleo Sour Cream Poppyseed Cake

I have a huge weakness for Poppy Seed Cake. This traditional Jewish Passover recipe comes from my friend Merle’s grandmother. It is Paleo-adapted to be completely free of grains, dairy, and sugar, but you will absolutely never guess. Instead of wheat flour, it uses shredded coconut, ground in a food processor. This delectable cake will not cause a blood sugar spike or weight gain if you use the suggested zero carb sweetener. Hooray!

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 Dairy-free Coconut Cream Cheese

Smooth, rich, and creamy, I thought a Vegan Cream Cheese was impossible until I invented this! A spreadable Paleo cheese, it tastes just like cream cheese and is delicious on Artisan Olive Bread. Make it in a blender with coconut milk, coconut butter and lemon for an incredibly yummy flavor without dairy, gum, or stabilizers. Hooray! Then chill and use it just as you would any Cream Cheese. These days many of us are dairy-intolerant. Myriad causes for this include pasteurization, processing, preservatives, chemicals, detergents in transport trucks, GMO’s, pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxins fed to animals. Commercial dairy-free cheeses are often filled with chemicals and stabilizers.  Here’s a clean alternative!

Hint: Freeze this in ice cube trays overnight, put frozen cubes into small bags for easy storage. Pull out of the freezer in small delicious doses!

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 Paleo Pumpernickel No-Rye Bread

If you’re a fan of authentic old-world breads, you’ll love the subtle flavors of this dark rye loaf. Pleasantly dense with hints of fennel and caraway, one bite transports me to Eastern Europe. Except it is 100% gluten and grain-free! This bread slices and toasts beautifully, great for sandwiches or your morning toast. Even better, it’s loaded with protein and whole-food nutrition. The secret to it’s perfect texture is chia seeds, which bind and give the impression of old-fashioned yeasted breads. Sweetener is optional—I suggest a bit of raw honey. Oh, try this bread toasted and spread with grass-fed butter or Vegan Cream Cheese! Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Or slice and freeze in an airtight container with parchment paper between the slices, for up to 3 months. Yield: One 7 x 3-inch loaf. Equipment: A food processor is helpful but not required.

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Paleo Apple Fritters with Caramel Sauce

These grain-free, gluten-free apple fritters are super-easy and the flavor is divine. Or are they flapjacks? They taste fantastic with Paleo Caramel Sauce, Maple Fruit Sauce, or Berrylicious Sauce. Super low in carbs, these pancakes won’t affect your blood sugar if you use one of the suggested sweeteners. They’re fluffy, moist and soft, as they contain whole apple, with a bit of egg and almond meal to hold them together. Look for tart apples, like Granny Smith, Fuji, or Pink Lady, which are low in fructose sugars. I don’t peel apples, as the peels are loaded with nutrients. Researchers at Cornell University recently found that in order to benefit from nutrients in fruits and vegetables, we have to eat them WHOLE. What a concept!

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 Paleo Liver Pâté

Liver is more than a seasonal delicacy. It is one of Nature’s most potent superfoods! This pate tastes rich and creamy, much like traditional pâté de foi gras. The main difference is you can make it in 15 minutes or less. I wanted a way to prepare liver with minimal cooking for a soft texture, and to preserve essential nutrients. This came out velvety smooth and luscious. Use any type of pasture-fed liver such as chicken, beef, duck, etc. Refrigerate up to 3 days. Or you can freeze in ice cube trays overnight; then transfer cubes to a zip-lock freezer bag, to enjoy a little at a time. One cube makes an economical, high-nutrition meal. The nutrient profile of beef liver far exceeds that of apple, carrot or red meat – See chart at bottom of page. To make this pate super-smooth, you’ll need a food processor or a high speed blender. Yield: 2 cups Paleo Liver Pâté.

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 Instant Apple Honey Butter

Easy homemade apple butter tastes great on pancakes or toast. This yummy spread is ridiculously easy to make – just blend and serve! Try it on Buckwheat Pancakes, Irish Soda Bread, or Amazing Sprouted Blender Bread! The secret ingredient to it’s luscious flavor and thick texture is pure coconut butter. Commercial apple butters and jams are loaded with GMO sugar and pesticides. But they can’t match the scrumptious flavor of this delicious spread! Makes about 1 cup apple butter.

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 Authentic Borscht, Paleo-Style

With its deep red color and satisfying Old World flavor, my Jewish friends said they’d never tasted a better Borscht. Well, I guess my old-world heritage is coming out today! It’s not just a traditional root veggie soup with beets and carrots. The surprise addition of sweet potato and rutabaga give this soup a novel flavor twist. Feel free to make your own changes, as it’s an extremely flexible recipe, and no two Bubbes ever make the same Borscht. After all, if you’ve only got root vegetables in storage, and winter that lasts 8 months, your options are limited, so you eat a LOT of Borscht. Like any soup, the delicious quality all depends on your broth. I made a rich chicken broth with my usual Paleo Bone Broth recipe, or use your favorite broth. Garnish with Coconut Sour Cream and chopped dill or parsley for a traditional meal that’s also dairy-free.

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 Instant Coconut Whipped Cream

Every dessert deserves a crowning touch. This topping is dairy-free, healthy, Vegan, and Paleo. It’s a luscious whipped coconut topping you can make in 1 minute, using full-fat canned coconut milk. I think it’s tastier than dairy whipped cream or any store-bought substitute. Just chill a can of thick, full-fat coconut milk in the refrigerator for 8 hours. Use it to garnish your desserts in moments.