Art of Natural Living

Enjoying the Green Life

Hot Fudge Sauce—No Corn Syrup

By Inger Oct 4, 2025 Cooking & Recipes, Desserts & Snacks, Vegetarian Recipes 9 Comments

Thick, rich & chocolatey, this easy, one-pan hot fudge sauce is perfect to top desserts or ice cream sundaes. Honey sweetened even.

I love it when I discover a new recipe by accident. This time, it started when I needed a chocolate fudge sauce to top a dessert.

Remembering a delicious hot fudge sauce from my childhood I decided to grab something from the grocery store. This was not a good decision.

The store-bought sauce had almost no taste of chocolate… perhaps because the first two ingredients were corn syrup, then high fructose corn syrup.

And so I made my own–which turned out to be super tasty and easy! It was so good I tossed the whole purchased jar into the trash. So good, in fact, that I immediately made a second batch so my husband could have it with ice cream. Read more

German Lentil Soup (No Hambone, No Problem)

By Inger Sep 27, 2025 Cooking & Recipes, Soup 3 Comments

Comfort and nutrition come together seamlessly in this German Lentil Soup, with rich ham stock, tender lentils and meaty ham chunks.

When I was growing up, German food and Gemütlichkeit were everywhere. This warm and flavorful heritage was a happy perk of living in Milwaukee, a town with one of the country’s largest German-American populations.

So, for this already food-obsessed youth, a fine dinner out might be at a nice German Restaurant like the now closed Karl Ratzsch’s. Here dishes like Crackling Pork Shank, Burgandy Red Cabbage and Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing warmed you physically and spiritually.

And this also included today’s German Lentil Soup, which is based on their recipe. Warm, hearty and surprisingly easy to make, it’s a dish that manages to combine a large dose of comfort with some healthy touches like legumes and carrots.

How good is that! Read more

Norwegian Apple Cake

By Inger Sep 20, 2025 Breakfast, Desserts & Snacks 20 Comments

Cinnamon spiced, with walnuts and apples, this Norwegian Apple Cake is a tasty fall treat that’s a big crowd-pleaser.

What says fall more than (Norwegian) apple cake! Dense and sweet, with crunchy walnuts, it’s a perfect seasonal dessert or snack.

The cake is typically served with whipped cream or even ice cream. But I can testify it was good enough plain so that I kept slicing off thin slivers for… just one more taste. Read more

Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup with Spinach

By Inger Sep 13, 2025 Soup 4 Comments

As tasty and warming as chicken noodle soup, Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup is an easy comfort food, perfect for dinner or a starter.

Let me share a little secret. I absolutely love soup–all year round. But there’s something about the chill of fall that makes it feel almost like a necessity.

And… another true confession… I’ve never been especially fond of your basic chicken noodle soup. But instead of skipping, I flavor it up. With sage and cream in my Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup with Sage. Or with fun gnocchi like my One Pot Chicken Gnocchi Kale Soup.

Today’s Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup with Spinach is the next in my series of (ahem) souped up chicken soups. I love the flavor from the Italian seasoning, and the chew from the tortellini. Not to mention the extra nutrition from the butternut squash and spinach.

Yes, comfort food season starts in 3… 2… 1! Read more