Pumpkin Ice Cream!

I had to improvise and adapt this recipe from 2 recipes... The recipe I was following called for eggs, but did not mention cooking them... I had never made ice cream before but had seen it done enough times on the Barefoot Contessa to remember... tempering eggs (cause it always scared me).

Pumpkin Ice Cream

2 cup Heavy Cream

1 cup Milk

2 Eggs

3/4 cup Date Syrup *** see recipe below

Cinnamon

Fresh Nutmeg

1 cup Pumpkin Puree

I whisked together the eggs. Then, in a separate container, I mixed the cream, milk, date syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. I put that on the stove until it was hot enough I thought to cook eggs. Then I took two ladles of the liquid and quickly whisked it into the eggs. Then I quickly whisked all the eggs back into the cream mixture on the stove and continued to cook until it got thick and coated the spoon.

Then I put it in my already pre-frozen ice cream attachment and mixed according to my Kitchen Aid directions. 

About 20 minutes later, scooped it all out into an old Chinese food container and stuck in the freezer.

** this is how I would make the recipe again. This is NOT how it went down last night in my kitchen... I'll spare you the dramatic details!

It was quite yummy! I sampled enough of the cream before it got mixed... and licked enough of the spoon to know that totally hard, this ice cream rocks! Not super sweet, but sweet enough for me. And NO CANE SUGAR!

***  Date Syrup

 Ingredients 
10 Medjool dates, pitted (or 20 normal dates, pitted)
1 3/4 cup water
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Place all ingredients in a blender and process for a few minutes until smooth and completely blended. Start off slowing to allow the dates to break up initially, and then build up the speed. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.

Chilled Rawvocado Soup with Coconut Water

Chilled Rawvocado Soup with Coconut Water, a photo by Petunia21 on Flickr.

I made this last night. It was reallllly good.
It tasted like liquid guacamole... which I'm so OK with. I thinned it out a lot with water. I thought I'd only be thinning in a little bit so I opted for water, just not to open a box of coconut water. If I would have known, I would have use the other box. I also added some salt and lime zest. Chilled, its like a refreshing dream!

Chilled Rawvocado Soup with Coconut Water

This recipe makes two servings.  If you want more soup, double the amounts accordingly.

Ingredients:
2 large, ripe avocados
1 cup coconut water (you could also use nut milk or filtered water)
juice of 1 lime (about 4 tablespoons)
½ cup cilantro leaves
¼ cup chives
1 shallot, minced
pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

1.     Cut open and pit avocados. Scoop out flesh, reserving a small portion of one half for garnish.

2.     Place all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend on high until smooth. If the soup is too thick, add more coconut water until the desired consistency is reached (it should coat the back of a spoon, but not be solid).

3.     Pour into a large jar with a tight-fitting lid and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Serve when cold. Garnish with avocado cubes and chives or cilantro.

I used the recipe from this article:
http://wholelivingdaily.wholeliving.com/2011/07/meatless-monday-celebrate-the-holiday-with-this-chilled-and-raw-avocado-soup.html

Pumpkin Yogurt

I had a big of a spelt pancake disaster on Sunday.  Perhaps "Disaster" is a strong word but... once I combined wet to dry... the batter tripled in size, with the elasticity of... pizza dough?

What I think happened, because it seems to be the only factor that has changed... is the baking powder.  When I wrote the recipe, I used... very old baking powder.  Looking back... 3 tsp of baking powder to 2 cups of flour DOES seem a bit excessive, even for my non-baking brain.

I recently opened up a new batch of powder and this is the second time it's happened. The first time I as camping and blamed it on the "elements".

I ended up adding some agave nectar to the batter, and threw it in a pan to bake off... not quite sure WHAT it turned into, its a mix between a pancake, a cake... and kugel.

So I opened up this huge can of pumpkin (to make pumpkin pancakes) and what to do with the remaining pumpkin?

WELL...

This morning I added it to my Greek Yogurt!

So I made Pumpkin Yogurt?

Pumpkin Yogurt

Ingredients:

pumpkin puree
Greek yogurt
date syrup
cinnamon
pinch of clove
Voila!

 

I'm quite pleased with the turnout!

BBQ Pulled Chicken

My mother in law sent me this recipe below.  I was super excited to try it out because a) I miss bbq sauce. 2) I missed pulled meaty bbq recipes!

I swapped out 2 tbs of honey for agave nectar as I noted below.

Brian gave it a 2 forks up.  So this one is going in my new cookbook!

8 servings

Active Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 5 1/2 hours

INGREDIENTS

• 1 8-ounce can reduced-sodium tomato sauce
• 1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles, drained
• 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon sweet or smoked paprika
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon ground chipotle chile
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced

PREPARATION

1. Stir tomato sauce, chiles, vinegar, honey, paprika, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, ground chipotle and salt in a 6-quart slow cooker until smooth. Add chicken, onion and garlic; stir to combine.
2. Put the lid on and cook on low until the chicken can be pulled apart, about 5 hours.
3. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and shred with a fork. Return the chicken to the sauce, stir well and serve.

Fudgy Brownies Take 1

I adapted this recipe from the Whole Foods Dark Chocolate brownie recipe you can find on their website or here:

Butter and flour for pan preparation (I was lazy and sprayed olive oil spray)
6 ounces 88% bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup spelt flour

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a 9 x 9-inch baking pan. Set aside. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla and let cool slightly. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar on medium high speed until thick and creamy, and sugar is dissolved, about 10 minutes. I didn't feel like lugging out my mixer, can't find my beaters, so I used my stick mixer!

Gently stir in melted chocolate. Stir salt into flour and fold gently into chocolate mixture. Do not over mix. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread to smooth. Bake 20 minutes, then cover with foil. Bake additional 8 to 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted 1 inch from the center comes out clean. 

Ok, so after 20 minutes, my brownies were done... if not too done! I also used a smaller pan... small enough to fit in my toaster oven.  So perhaps I should have lowered the cooking time... opps.

They came out super yummy. More Fudgy than last weeks, but still chasing a fudge-r texture. I'm gonna alter the cooking time next time and see if that helps.

Flamer has gone Mexican!

Flamer, my 3 1/2 QT. Le Creuset Braiser has mostly played a key role in my Indian curries cookings.

But I was inspired by my friend Jeanna's Eetlust blog: http://eetlust.blogspot.com/  She just purchased her 2nd Le Creuset piece in just under under 8 days from buying her first one (I'm so proud of her...I swear, they multiply by themselves!). She blogged a few weeks ago about the frittata that she made with her new little LC frying pan.

I have Brenda, my 8 inch skillet that lives upon Sonny a 2 1/2 Qt sauce pan... but there are 2 of us here in this household, so I felt that the 8 inch skillet was not big enough for breakfast...

So, I decided to use Flamer, who was still drying from last night's Indian delight.  I opened up to the fridge to see who wanted to play this morning... and it was spinach!

We went to costo last week, and I have this enormous go to bag of spinach that is already pre-washed and ready to go! I cut up an onion and sauteed for a few minutes. Thew in 3 huge handfuls of spinach and let it wilt down.  then I added a few scrambled eggs some parmasan cheese, and then threw some mozzarella cheese.

Then I threw that puppy in the broiler... something I have YET to do in Flamer... or any of pans!  It was quite exhilarating! Once all the cheese was melted I took it out and voila! My first ever frittata!

 

 

Indian Saturday Night!

Yesterday morning, while eating our spelt banana pecan pancakes, Brian chose Pyaaz Murghi... Breasts of Chicken in an Onion-Turmeric Sauce out of our 660 curries cook book by Raghavan Iyer

 

This is how we normally how we go about finding the perfect weekend curry... Brian looks through, picks one, he reads the ingredients while I am standing at attention in front of the spice cabinet and fridge to see if we have enough ingredients to do it!

As he reads: canola oil, CHECK. Turmeric... CHECK. ..... Punjabi garam masala......... CHECK!  I was thrilled! I had made punjabi garam masala a few months ago.  The recipe I was using it for made more than what the day's recipe called for.  I had an extra small glass jar and labeled it and stuck it in my spice cabinet.  I knew I'd use it again one day, but was thrilled when I was able to pull it out so quickly!  Being organized helps to make life more manageable!

This is certainly a "during" photo. And I was too hungry to take an "after". But imagine a darker color yellow from the garam masala all sprinkled with green from the fresh cilantro and strips of julienne ginger. We put it over brown rice and served with some roasted cauliflower.  YUMMY! (almost zero leftovers!)

Spelt Brownies

Spelt Brownies... TAKE ONE!

INGREDIENTS -
3 eggs
1/2 cup coconut sugar
2 Tbsp of powdered stevia
2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup pecans, chopped (optional)

3/4 cup butter, melted

PREPARATION -

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a bowl beat together the egg, coconut sugar, stevia and vanilla. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl mix together flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and nuts
4. Mix together egg and flour mixture then add melted butter.
5. Scrape mixture into a 9" by 13" cake pan (grease pan or use parchment paper).
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Brownies are done when a toothpick stuck in their center comes out clean.

I halved this recipe since I wanted to play around with the sugar content.


They came out really good! I haven't had brownies on almost 3/4 of a year!  These are more cake-y, and I'd like to explore to make them more fudge-y.  But I have a starting off point.

Insanely Good Banana Nut Pancakes

Each weekend, I try to mix up and match my extracts and spices to my spelt pancake batter to see how create I can get...

This weekend's delight was inspired by 2 ripe bananas sitting in my fruit hammock...

As these babies were hitting the griddle, the husband asked "Are you baking something?"  They smelt wonderful!

You can notice the bits of walnuts in the pancakes!

 

One more to flip... they were smelling so good!

 

Say "CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE"

 

This platter will serve me for a week!

Here's the recipe for the:

Ingredients:

2 cups of spelt flour                               
½ cup of almond meal                           
¾  tsp of salt                                          
3 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp Cinnamon                                       
2 cups of room temperature milk   (1 1/2 cups for thicker pancakes)                   
2 room temperature eggs                           
2 Tbsp coconut oil room temperature (should be in liquid form) or canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract 
½ cup crushed, hammered, or hand squeezed walnuts
2 ripe bananas, mushed

Combine dry together. Then wet together. Then mix together.  I used an 1/8th cup measuring cup to make mini-ish pancakes.

These smell like banana bread fresh out of the oven!

Next time... I'm adding dark chocolate chips to them!

New Breakfast Delight!

I have been led to agave nector... agave is what tequila is make from... just saying.


I added the organic raw blue agave nectar to my plain yogurt this morning. It was DELIGHTFUL!  Tastes just like honey! Just at a lower glycemic index which won't spike my blood sugar levels as quickly as honey.








As an added bonus/crunch, I added some of my Nature's Path's Millet Rice flakes which are slighly (barely) sweetened with fruit juice, as a granola-esque topping, and it was again, quite delightful.


I'm tickled to have found a new protein filled, fiber speckled go to breakfast!


This is how I packed it for work today!

My Shredded Carrots

I am a bulk buyer... Love the "big warehouse stores".  Costco, would be a preferred name for a puppy.

I got a rather LARGE bag of carrots a few weeks back with "big intentions" of things to do.  I got as far as shredding them with my food processor.  But they sat... ready for sprinkling into salads, or into eggs, or what have you.  A few times, they actually made it into the turkey meatloaf I made last Monday, and some turkey burgers I made a few days before that.  But still, a bulk of the them sat in a mountainous pile in one of my best Tupperware.

I was looking yesterday on the web for "quick", "Easy", "Few" ingredients to make... But nothing really jumped out.  They all either required cooking (I don't really care for cooked carrots unless in meatloaf or turkey burgers), or they all had sugar.

So, I improvised...

I made this quick little salad up since I'm about to go to an impromptu bbq. I have found the best way for me to NOT suffer on my new eating plan, is to bring my own delicious food.

 

Ingredients:

shredded carrots

raisins 

apple cider vinigar

agave nectar

salt

cinnamon 

I tossed the apple cider vinegar, salt and agave into a bowl to dilute the nectar, and disperse the salt.  Then I tossed over the carrots that I already sprinkled with raisins.  Shook it up, then added a few shakes of cinnamon just for a little something different.

It COULD use a crunch... but I'm not there yet.  I already have some slivered almonds in another dish, otherwise, I might have thrown those in.  None the less, I think this tastes good on its own, or perhaps tomorrow, I can throw some of this into a bowl of romaine lettuce.

This taste good with some peanuts thrown in! I've been doing that at work! 

Ezekiel Tortilla Pizzas

Baked in a 500 degree oven for about 15 minutes 

(flipped 1/2 way through)

 +

that has been pureed with salt, pepper, garlic, dried basil and pizza seasoning

  +

 

 

shredded mozzarella cheese

+

 

 topped with pepperoni, diced red onions, and red bell peppers

+ 

back in the oven til everything is nice and ooey gooey

=

really awesome crunchy crusted pizza!

(can you believe that I don't have a photo of the finished product??? we ate them too fast!)

Spelt Pancakes part Deux

These are part 2 because this morning, I added way too much salt into the recipe. As I type this, I am guzzling seltzer water (because we ran out of water in our cooler). But I think I got it this time.  The almond meal adds both protein, and some body to the batter.

Spelt Pancakes

Ingredients:

2 cups of spelt flour                               
½ cup of almond meal                           
¾  tsp of salt                                          
3 tsp baking powder                                      
2 cups of room temperature milk   (1 1/2 cups for thicker pancakes)                   
2 room temperature eggs                           
2 Tbsp coconut oil room temperature (should be in liquid form) or canola oil
1 tsp almond extract
½ tsp vanilla extract 

Optional Add-ons - to be mixed in at the end
nuts (any kind)              
bananas                        
cinnamon
raisins
mixed berries 
chocolate chips 

In a medium mixing bowl, combine spelt flour, almond meal baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl,  whisk the milk, eggs, coconut oil, almond and vanilla extracts together. (if the milk is cold, the coconut oil will solidify.  If the milk is cold, stick it in the microwave for a few seconds before starting this combination.

Incorporate the liquids into the dry ingredients. Grease a griddle, and pour out ¼ cup servings. Flip when bubbles form around the edges.

**makes enough to feed both a Petunia and a husband with enough left over for another meal**

Lunch!

I made this Salmon and Lentil Salad Monday morning, after trying to get around to it for 2 weeks! Thankfully, the dill (which was the only thing that had a real expiration date on it) was still in good shape.

It's very tasty!

Click on the link if you want the recipe!

 

Lemony Lentil Salad with Salmon


I paired it with some spinach. The same spinach I had with my omelet this morning. Its even EASIER to make at work. I keep a jammed pack Tupperware full of it at my work fridge. And when I want some, pop it in the microwave and cook for like a minute. Sprinkle on some salt, garlic powder, and a drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive that I keep in my work drawer, and we're good to go!