Pumpkin What?

That’s right, pumpkin croutons. They were a perfect topping on our salad. But, more about that in a minute….

I decided to dedicate last night’s dinner primarily to the yummy pumpkin. Why you may ask? I think it has to do with the fact that I heard it’s like some kind of super food! Also, I really like the taste, and I had 4 cans of pumpkin in our cupboard!

For dinner we had salad with pumpkin croutons, bread with pumpkin butter, pumpkin soup, and pumpkin crisp, of sorts! It was great fun! Sadly though, I think the only real keeper are the croutons. Nic gave me a complete thumbs up on them. He said the soup was good, but could use a little more salt, and a little more substance. He said that there was too much broth and not enough chunky things in the soup. I don’t think he used that exact phrase, but you get the idea, and I agree! He liked the pumpkin crisp, but it wasn’t my favorite, not as good as pumpkin pie. Nic didn’t comment at all on the pumpkin butter, but I REALLY liked it!

Today I’m going to be a baking feign. I have to because I’m trying to make a lot of food that I can take on our trip. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but Nic and I are heading to the Big Apple, and I would like to save money on food!

Here’s an aside, right now my patience is being sorely tested by my two dogs! First, they were biting each other, and they know that’s a “No-No!” Now, Mercy is biting my pajama bottoms and Belle is biting my sweater! Gee, golly! If anyone ever wants to see me get upset just get these dogs going….

Anyway, today I’m making muffins and cookies, tomorrow I’m making bread and possibly crackers! I’ve decided to bake while I’m full, that way I can’t be tempted to eat my creations. Everyone please pray that I won’t fall into temptation, and taste everything I bake. Nic and I devised a plan at breakfast, I will text him when the cookies or muffins go in the oven, I will tell him exactly how many cookies/muffins go in….hopefully, that way I’m accountable and won’t give in….

You know what? Today is going to be a glorious day, because I’m going to be so very thankful about all that I have. My husband told me about his morning devotion, and it humbled me very much. He’s reading in Hosea (I’m not really familiar with Hosea, so I’m glad Nic’s teaching me), and he told me that he’s in a part where he learned (paraphrasing, of course) that everything we have is God’s, and we should be  thankful! I’m especially going to be thankful for healthy food today!…and fun, energetic, loving dogs!

Blessings and Yum-O to all!

Chocolate Banana Cake with….

I wasn’t sure if I was going to bake today, but I just had to! I ended up baking a chocolate banana cake with marshmallow cream frosting. The base ingredients I got from Elayna’s book, but I added and subtracted some ingredients, too!

The cake called for chocolate chip chunks, instead of those I chose to just add 1/4 of cocoa. I also topped it with marshmallow cream, that recipe is in Elayna’s book. It was real tasty. Nic said that he liked the first chocolate cake I made better. I think I liked this one better, but I like banana flavor a lot.

I’m really tired, so my brain feels like mush…I hope this post makes sense.

One thing that I’ve noticed lately…my belly looks a little larger…I think 4 desserts a day could be doing it!

I told Nic that tomorrow we will have to go down to 2 desserts a day! I wish I didn’t like to bake so much sometimes because I really like to stay in shape, too! Oh dear, I’m going to get through this!

Blessings and Yum-O to all!

Brownies

So I thought I was going to refrain from baking for a few days, but I just couldn’t. I have some intense desire in my body that feels lost without a day of baking. I really think I should pray about this, I don’t want it to become an obsession!

A note to my husband: I think I might understand your love and desire for flying airplanes and trying to learn as much as possible about them. Baking & Airplanes, probably the farthest desires from being alike, yet God gave them to us…I hope he will use our desires for His glory and to continue to bring us closer together! Thanks for being so supportive, Nicolas!

I decided to bake brownies today after I looked in the refrigerator and saw that there was only one lemon bar left in the refrigerator. Oh, the intense fear I felt upon discovering that! Nic and I absolutely need a dessert to go with our meals, right? I made the brownies called “Spicy Macadamia Nut Brownies.” These brownies had real ginger in them. I didn’t have macadamia nuts, so I just left out that ingredient! I guess they should just be called Ginger Brownies. The recipe called for 1 cup of agave, I tried 3/4 cup to cut down on the sweetness, and because I was trying to see if I could go all week without going to the store to buy more agave. It doesn’t matter now, I will have to go. If anyone decides to try these brownies, please, go with the 1 cup agave. They aren’t bad (with 3/4 cup), but could be sweeter. I think I might try to slather on some marshmallow cream frosting, this recipe is also in Elayna’s book. It is really tasty, and super sweet! Nic says this frosting just keeps getting better each day it sits in the fridge!

I also plan to make some Cinnamon Apple Muffins. I just conveniently have these ingredients sitting around my house. I’m being totally honest, plus we ran out of blueberry banana muffins this morning. Nic needed a small snack before he went to P.T. at the crack of dawn, and I was more than willing to let him have the last muffin so that I could bake another kind.

You know what? Nic told me today that I should write a cookbook! I was so thrilled. If anyone (like you Aunt Linda or Grammie or Mom or anyone else that I don’t know) wants to help me with this cookbook that would be awesome! I think the only stipulations are: no gluten, dairy/casein/refined white sugar or anything else not too healthy.

Aunt Linda, I would love for you to invent some coconut flour recipes, I will try to invent some, too!

Gram, Invent anything you like.

Mom, I would love for you to invent some recipes, too! Cakes, muffins, breads or main courses!

Blessings and Yum-O, to you all on this fine day! I’m so pleased with this beautiful day in Georgia.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight!

Proverbs 3:5-6

Leftover pizza…Yum-O!

Just here to report on the pizza Nic and I had last night. We totally recommend the crust for most people. I suppose I could picture some people not enjoying the taste or the texture. To be completely honest,  I didn’t enjoy it quite like a delicious, hot, melt in your mouth piece from Pizza Hut, or one of the many famous pizza joints in New York City(bro-I suppose I envy that you live near those mouth-watering pizza joints that haunt my thoughts when I’m tempted to have a real piece of pizza!)…my knees go week just from the thought!  Not eating ”real” pizza is probably one of the hardest things about being a new gluten freeer! I might say that about a lot of things, but now it’s pizza, and I crave and fantasize about it….Just kidding!

Elayna Amsterdam does do a really nice job of making up recipes that help people feel not so deprived of the things they used to love.

DISCLAIMER! I do want to make sure everyone knows that I did REALLY like the pizza, it worked just fine, especially with the toppings (I’ll just need to adjust to this new pizza) Nic and I had on it! We had: spaghetti sauce (from a jar), olives, ham, green pepper, pineapple (on my half of the pizza) and goat cheese (on Nic’s half)! Truly delicious! This pizza would probably only serve about 2 1/2 adults. I suppose that would make 2 adults and 1 child. or 5 children….The possibilites are endless. We have a few more pieces to eat tonight, plus we are going to make one more (we had leftover goat cheese!), the fact that we’re making it again tonight should let everyone know that it’s a keeper!

I don’t know if I’m going to make anything new for the next couple of days. Since I’ve been on a baking/cooking frenzy my refrigerator is overflowing with food, and there’s only two of us in the house, 3 1/2 if you count our dogs. Our 3 lb. yorkie barely counts as a half a person, but anyway, they don’t eat a lot of human food. Nic and I did give them a special little piece of human chicken this morning!

One more thing to report. Nic and I are consistently late showing up to the new church we now attend. The congregation probably doesn’t think twice about us walking in late. I can just read there minds, “Here come the Zee’s again….they need to get a new watch, or leave their house earlier…Just kidding, I don’t think anyone thinks that about us. But, the point to the story has to do with the fact that the fault can’t be entirely blamed on us this week. We took a wrong turn (what’s kind of funny is the fact that Nic and I have gotten lost each week trying to find the church…see…not our fault…they should put the church in a place that’s easier to find. What is strange is the fact no one else complains about getting lost…the other church goers that do get lost ((because there has to be more)) are probably too afraid to admit it…those people probably leave their house like an hour before church begins…but, I digress, please forgive me!?), so Nic decided to park about 2 football fields away after seeing the church in the very far distance. Which meant that we had to go through tall grass, walk through the mud (with nice shoes on) get barked out by a VERY ferocious dog that would have eaten us (I’m sure of) if there didn’t happen to be a fence surrounding him/her, then we had to compose ourselves enough to look like we hadn’t just run a marathon before church…all of this in less than 5  minutes…all I can say about that experience, is that fact that I’m glad Nic and I ate our almond flour biscuit for breakfast before we left so that our energy was sustained throughout the entire mad dash to church and through the worship service! The almond flour deserves much praise!

Most importantly, though, thanks be to God! He truly is wonderful!

Blessings and Yum-O to All!

Cookies and applesauce

I wanted to post a few recipes from Elayna that I got from her website that weren’t in her cookbook.

I made chocolate chip cookies that called for almond flour and grapseed flour. I had no idea there was such a thing as grapeseed flour. Did anyone else? Anyway, I didn’t have grapeseed flour so I used coconut flour. Nic and I really liked the cookie with the “Amber twist.” He thought it could use more agave, that’s my husband, he has such a sweet tooth. I do to, but this cookie suited me just fine with the original sweetness. Another change I made to the recipe involved the chocolate chips. In all of Elayna’s recipes where she calls for chocolate chips, she recommends using 73% cocoa chocolate chips. Ididn’t have any of that either, so I used a 100% cocoa baking chocolate bar (more health benefits-not quite as sweet as 73%, obviously), and broke it into pieces. I thought it was very good! Nic recommends more agave, and if you want a sweeter treat, I agree. We’ve enjoyed these as an after lunch snack for the past couple of days!

I also made homemade applesauce. Elayna calls it raw applesauce. The only ingredients: 3 apples, 1tsp. cinnamon and 1 Tbsp. lemon juice. Put all the ingredients in a blender, and Wa-Lah! A really wonderful fruit to go with dinner. The only minor adjustment Nic and I could think of was using a little less cinnamon.

I said that I would comment on the biscuits I made for breakfast and decide if they were versatile. Yep, they are! I had ham and mayo on mine, and Nic had ham and ketchup. I asked Nic what he thought about using the biscuits as bread, and he said “Dem r good biscuits!” I love Nic!

If anyone wants any of the recipes just leave me a comment and I will send you the recipe requested!

Peace to All!

Aunt Linda- We’re so much alike…

It’s been such a long time since I blogged, which means I have a ton of recipes to talk about! Don’t worry, they’re all keepers! Remember that I was supposed to make my way through the book without making any changes to the recipes? I’ve totally failed, but not without some good results to boast about! I will eventually make all the recipes in this book, hopefully using only her ingredients, but some I will just have to add an Amber twist to!

This very morning I made Classic Drop Biscuits. The recipe called for 1/4 cup agave nectar so I thought that they would be real sweet, but not so, they taste very similar to a regular biscuit. I tried to invent my own gravy to go on top, but I failed miserably and had to dump it out. I tried to use coconut milk for the base. The gravy recipe wasn’t in the cookbook. Instead of gravy, Nic and I slathered the biscuits with apple butter. I think they will be versatile enough to use with any toppings. Today for lunch I think Nic and I add mayonaise and meat to the biscuits, I’ll let you know how we like them.

I’m going to go backwards through my week telling everyone what I made. I made another loaf of almond flour bread, but with an Amber twist. The very first loaf of bread called for 1 Tbsp. ground flax meal, I didn’t have it so I just omitted that ingredient. This time when I made the bread I added 1 Tbsp. of coconut flour. The bread came out fine, it didn’t seem to rise as much this loaf. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the measly 1 Tbsp. of coconut flour. What does everyone think? I did take a couple of slices of the bread over to my neighbor and she said that she enjoyed the flavor.

The chicken fingers I made were a very favorite in Nic’s eyes. He raved about them. He said that he would have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will probably just stick to lunch and dinner when I serve them for people. I usually don’t make fried anything, but I think this was a healthier version of fried chicken fingers. Dip the boneless, skinless chicken breast in egg, roll in almond flour put in the grapeseed oil that is sizzling on the stove…Enjoy! I think I will enjoy making these for my kids someday (Lord willing).

After our dinner of chicken fingers, Nic and I were in the mood for a yummy dessert, so I pulled out the cookbook and began to bake. We decided that some lemon bars would be perfect for our sweet tooth. We were right, they were so tasty. The only thing I hadn’t counted on was the fact that I needed to let them sit for 30 minutes after taken them out of the oven and then transfer them to the refrig for another two hours. I asked Nic what he thought, he decided to be patient, so we waited about 5 minutes…then dug in! They were so good warm! Another Nic note, he said they were better the second day- again!

Lastly, for this post, Nic and I are having pizza tonight, so we need a crust. The crust in this book looks easy. I will post later and let everyone know how it tastes.

Aunt Linda, I hope you enjoy these recipes. Please give me some of your yummy recipes to try! Let me know if you want the banana blueberry muffin recipe. Only fruit sweetened! With Love!

~May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.~

Blessing to All!

Mom “G” this one’s for you!

 Mom this first blog is solely dedicated to you.

The reason being is that I was supposed to make my
way completely through this cookbook not changing any
ingredients.  A little background for the people reading this blog that don’t know about my tendency to change ingredients in a recipe. There is some odd hidden drive in my body that refuses to let me stick 100% to the recipe I’m attempting to bake or cook with. I think the real reason happens to be that my mind, brain and heart know that I’m going to be a world-renowned baker/chef someday, and to use recipes verbatim would be positively ghastly OR illegal…if I ever want to claim on my menu that I’m the genius behind the recipes…

Anyway, Mom, do you know how hard that would have been? After today, hopefully, I will try to restrain myself and not change one ingredient. I will have to pray very hard about not wanting to add my creative touch to everything. (My creative touch that never quite works…but someday all the practice will pay off, I’m almost sure…) Like I said, I already failed today, but I had a VERY good reason. I ordered the correct almond flour last week but it didn’t come in the mail, yet. I had to improvise because Nic’s b-day is today (he’s 23), and I invited some of the neighbors over for cake. Nic specifically asked for this cake.

So I had to run to the store today and get the very same almond flour that Elana Amsterdam said not to use in these recipes while baking through her cookbook! Honestly, I didn’t have a choice, it was the only kind available at Kroger’s. I forgot to mention the reason for this blog. Is everyone familar with “Julie and Julia” the movie? If not, real quick-like I will explain. It’s about a girl that is making her way through the famous Julia Child’s cookbook in a year, and she blogs about her experience. So, I thought it would be fun, too!

 The almond  flour that I bought was like $10.00 a bag…Are the health benefits worth the price? YES, at least I think so, and my wonderful husband doesn’t mind! Elana totally recommends buying almond flour and bulk, that way you save a ton.

Who is Elana Amsterdam you may ask!?
She is the author of “the Gluten-Free Almond Flour cookbook.” She
is a very popular blogger, so most of her recipes can be found online at
www.elanaspantry.com.

I really like Elana’s choice of basic ingredients that she uses in
almost all of her recipes: almond flour, grapeseed oil and agave nectar, just to name a few.

She uses almond flour because it is high in protein and very healthy. She uses grapeseed oil because she likes the taste, I like grapeseed oil because it is an oil that isn’t damaged when heated to a high temperature. Lastly, agave nectar is used as the only sweetener in all of her recipes because it doesn’t spike blood sugar like plain old sugar.

Today I knocked out 4 of her recipes, and Nic says that they’re ALL keepers! If Nic likes them, then I know I succeeded! He’s such a pal!

Since it was Nic’s birthday he got to choose the menu: pancakes with blueberry sauce. We had that meal for lunch! Super tasty and healthy. The pancakes had an awesome flavor, but they were a little flat. I have a
feeling that was because of the brand of flour I used. The blueberry sauce was a hit. The only ingredients: blueberries, cinnamon, arrowroot powder and water. A perfect, healthy topping for pancakes! It didn’t taste healthy…so I feel totally pumped!

To go with lasagna tonight, I made almond flour bread, it’s great! Oh yeah, I suppose I did change this recipe a little, too. I really didn’t mean to. I didn’t know I was supposed to buy roasted almond butter, I bought/used raw almond butter instead. It still turned out great.
 
And lastly, I made chocolate cake with marshmallow icing. The baking process didn’t go as planned. The guests were supposed to arrive at
7:00 and the cake didn’t go in until 6:00. It was supposed to bake for 35-40 minutes. When the timer went off the cake was overflowing down into the bottom of the oven (I will need to clean the oven out tomorrow), it was still incredibly gooey, so I put it back in for 10 minutes. I took it out then, and just called it done. The cake was supposed to cool for an hour before serving (and icing), our’s only cooled for about 10 min. It probably would have stayed together better after cutting it if I had let it cool the recommend amount of time. Can’t complain, it turned out nice and my husband loved it! The neighbors liked it very much!
I think we all agreed that is was rather rich (but aren’t rich desserts tasty?). Coincidentally, Nic and I read in the Bible that “…it is not good to eat much honey…” Proverb 25:27. Does that verse apply? Maybe eating too much agave nectar isn’t good….

 Hmm… I think instead of one cup of agave nectar I would like to use 3/4 cup next time. If anyone tries the recipe with that modification let me know!

*I did want to let everyone know that a few days later Nic and I were still eating off the cake. He said that it just got better each day it was in the fridge. He also cautioned that he doesn”t know if I should use less agave now that he got to try it again!

Lasagna recipe: For Ethan and Ellen (Not from Elayna’s cookbook)

-9 boiled lasagna sheets (I used brown rice lasagna noodles)
-8 0z. mozzarella cheese
-12 oz. spaghetti sauce
-8 oz. goat cheese
-1 lb. ground beef
Preheat over to 350

9×13×2 baking dish.

Spread 1/3 of spaghetti sauce on bottom of dish.
Place 3 lasagna sheets on top of sauce. Add 1/2 of goat cheese.
1/3 mozzarella. Repeat with 1/3 of sauce, 3 lasagna sheets, remaining
goat cheese and 1/3 of mozzarella cheese.
Add remaining lasagna sheets, spaghetti sauce and top with the remaining
mozzarella cheese.
Cover and bake for 30 min. Enjoy!

Matzo Ball Soup and Muffins

Today I whipped up Matzo Ball Soup, and blueberry-banana muffins. I’ve decided for each dish that I make that I will include a little quote from Nic getting his viewpoint on the dish. He’s the very best critic. Probably the nicest critic anybody could ask for.

The Matzo ball soup was very exciting because I’d never made anything like that before. It’s a Jewish dish, usually made with whole wheat flour. But, for gluten freers almond flour is the flour of choice in this dish-and all dishes that I will be blogging about. Nic said the Matzo Ball Soup was…hold on… he’s being licked by our 3 lb. yorkie and laughing hysterically…Ladies and gentlemen please be patient while I wait for my husband to give me a quote. He’s ready now. Nic said, “the matzo ball soup was good!” Isn’t that silly,  I made you guys wait for that quote! Just kdding, that was a fine quote!  Nic’s usually very creative, but tonight he said he isn’t feeling very creative, that’s okey doke.

The blueberry muffins were tasty. Guess what? They were totally sweetened by very ripe bananas. We’re so excited about very healthy muffins. We had a DFACS worker here today (she was doing a house inspection- we might be foster parents) while the muffins were baking. The aroma was wonderful. When the DFACS worker walked into our house, it was like being transformed into a 50′s movie. Nic’s was helping me clean dishes and sneaking a few kisses in between dirty dishes…while our dogs pranced around the house sniffing the air…just waiting for the muffins to come out of the oven! A perfect way to greet someone…Nic did comment later that it looked like we were very staged…I giggled, because it really did. Truth was, I had been dying to make my muffins all day long, that was the only chance I had!

Although, I was a little disappointed when I took them out and saw that the tops were very brown, so I might try 5 min. less next time. Or, it could have been the almond flour I chose.  The really good almond flour is coming in the mail soon. I’m so HAPPY! Nic’s quote right after he ate his was, “is that sweetened with agave nectar!” I had to tell him no! Isn’t that exciting that no refined sugar was used and my husband still thought it was sweet?!

Blessings to All!