I'm Back!

Hello to all who happen to read this blog. If you have all given up hope and just two people are still checking in (and, yes, one of you is my mom and the other is probably my husband :), that's OK with me...I'm just so happy to finally be posting again :)

Here is what has happened with me/us in the last month or so:

• We went from a family of 2 to 5 overnight.
• We moved...yes moved our house... with three children, 4, 2, and 1!
• We started new schools, we chased down their identification info, we went to doctors appointments- at least 2 a week! for everything from lice to the flu to the dentist.
• I got sick, then my husband got sick, then I got sick again.....and the cycle kept repeating.
  
• We have been adjusting and despite all the craziness and the total life change, I wouldn't trade these three sweet kiddos for the whole world! I cannot believe how much I love them!

Thus, no blog posts in over a month!

So if you noticed, there is a picture of a yummy cake I made my husband for his birthday last night. His birthday is actually on Halloween, but since we will be joining the world of trick-or-treating tomorrow, we celebrated tonight. Baby girl helped me out with making his "birthday", which she really meant was his birthday cake because she likes to call the cake a "birthday". She most likely doesn't remember her birthdays being celebrated with a party and a cake so we are working on explaining that concept :) He loves apples and pumpkin, so I combined the two into one cake.

I hate that I have missed out on so much blogging during the month of Pumpkin! Given the name of this blog, you would think I would have monopolized on that :) I have a lot of new recipes...but finding time to share them and blog is a whole other story! Here's hoping to sharing more with you soon!

Apple Pumpkin Spice Cake

This recipe is vegan and gluten free.

Makes: 1, 9" x 13" cake pan

Ingredients
Wet

• 1 can of pumpkin puree or a scant 2 cups of sweet potato or squash puree (425 g)
• 1 cup apple sauce (240 g)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil (100g)
• 6 large medjool dates, pitted (soaked in warm water- if not using a high powered blender)

Dry

• 2 cups brown rice flour (or sprouted for a slightly sweeter taste, I mill mine in my vitamix from sprouted rice- 300 g)
• 1 cup almond flour (again, freshly ground and sifted is best- 150 g)
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp clove
• 1/8 tsp garam masala spice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

You will also need

• 4 small-medium apples cored, peeled, and diced small
  

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Sift the dry ingredients together to combine in a large bowl.
• Puree all the wet ingredients together in a blender.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry until just combined, then stir in the whole apple pieces
• Spread into a 9" x 13" greased cake pan.
• Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
• We served ours with some frozen yogurt, also would be good with this apple pie gelato or a yummy caramel sauce.
  

Happy Halloween,
Eryn

This recipe has also been linked up to:

Sweet and Spicy Thai Roasted Almonds

Well, my day was filled with a taste of what life will be like soon with three little ones in tow. We had our first overnight visit tonight, and it has gone really well so far. Surprisingly well, actually. I think we are in the "honeymoon" stage as a family :) I keep waiting for major meltdowns, then we all start crying, and we (me and the husband) just don't know what in the world to do! I know that time is coming, but at least for now we seem to be surviving.

These are a great meal replacement for a meatless dish. Also great for addictive snacking! As I mentioned in a previous post, I am more about making quick and easy meals and desserts these days. Hope you enjoy these quick and easy almonds.

Sweet and Spicy Thai Roasted Almonds

makes 2 cups

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp of coconut oil, melted
  
• 1 tsp of fresh grated ginger root (about a 1/4" piece if using a Microplane)
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced (I also use my Microplane for this)
• 1 tsp of apple cider vineger
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes (I like them on the fairly spicy end so feel free to adjust for less heat)
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp of sea salt
• 1 Tbsp of granulated (not liquid) coconut sugar (or sucanat, date sugar, sugar in the raw, etc. will work too)
  
• 2 cups almonds (I use sprouted almonds sometimes and that will work as well)

Method

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• In a large bowl, add all the ingredients except the almond and stir.
• Stir in the almonds to evenly coat them.
• Place them on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake at 325 F for 15 minutes, being careful to toss them frequently to prevent burning.
• Let them cool for 15-20 minutes before serving so that the sugar in the coating has time to cool down to a crunchy caramel, and eat!

This post has been linked up to:

Cheesecake Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookie Crumbles

I'm back!

So sorry to have been gone so long! I have some recipes that I have been wanting to share, just no time to sit down and blog about them. Our past couple of weeks has been spent preparing our home for 3 sweet children to come and live in it, visiting with those children, and also preparing for a move. Busy, busy, busy. I would say our first full day visit with the kiddos was a success food-wise. They ate up our "different from McDonald's" food :) They loved them some fruit to snack on and one is actually allergic to dairy as well so works out great for our fam!

But onto the recipe. I wanted to call it "Oreo© Cheesecake Ice Cream", or "Cheesecake Brownie ice cream" but some fine gentelmen already came up with that name and I didn't want to steal it :)

This recipe can be made vegan, and is, of course, already dairy free. Enjoy!

Cheesecake Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookie Crumbles

Serves: 4
Ingredients
For the Ice Cream

• 1 1/2 cans of coconut milk
• 1/3 cup of raw honey (or coconut sugar for vegan option)
• 1 Tbsp of lemon juice
• 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

For the Cookie/ Brownie Crumbles

• 1/2 cup nuts of choice
• 3 Tbsp carob or cocoa powder- I like using half of each
• 1/2 tsp coffee extract (not for coffee flavor, just to enhance the chocolate flavor)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 dates
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil

Method

• For the ice cream, blend all ingredients together in a blender and then pour into ice cream maker. Process according to your ice cream maker's instructions.
• For the cookie pieces, pulse all the ingredients in a food processor until they form a ball of dough and hold together when pressed.
• When the ice cream is mostly frozen, crumble half the cookie pieces to the ice cream maker. You may have to stir them in. Let the ice cream finish freezing completely.
• Serve in bowls and top with remaining brownie/ cookie crumbles.

This recipe has been linked up to:

Quick and Easy Peanut Butter Mousse...and some news

Yes, this is the last slice of Deanna's French Silk Pie that my husband made me for my b-day dinner.

This pie doesn't need any topping, but man this mousse made for a tasty-just-came-home-from-a-long-day treat!

This mousse is easy.

This mousse is vegan.

This mousse also has only 3 ingredients!

Not sure what is with me lately with wanting to use as little as possible ingredient wise. I'm in kind of a quick and easy phase as I get ready for a new phase in my life. I have hesitated sharing this news here on the food blog. Mainly since I have four times as many readers here as my personal blog, mostly read by my MIL and my Mom! But more people somehow makes the news more "real". So here goes:

My husband, David, and I are about to become foster parents! When we have the kiddos (yes that is plural :) at home I will share more. We are hoping this situation develops into an adoption as well. We are so excited and blessed and terrified!

Thus, my desire to streamline my recipes and use minimal ingredients- at least for now :) We have been crazy busy, preparing, filling out paperwork, shopping consignment sales with super serious moms who were consignment pros. We were not. We were the couple who was asking other parents, "About how old is your kid? 4? Ok, well when did they start using their own potty?" :) Sortof kidding. We did get strange looks from people who overheard our obviously naive and inexperienced conversations! But most were extremely helpful.

Back to the mousse... The pics do not represent how yummy and easy this is. Really, you just have to have remembered to put a can of coconut milk in the fridge a couple hours before you want to make it. Also, I used my not-so-great mini food processor because I was lazy and didn't want to move the mound of dishes in front of the Vitamix. If you use a Vitamix or Blendtec, this will be much smoother and creamy.

Quick Peanut Butter Mousse

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup peanut butter (can also use almond butter or sun butter for a peanut free options)
• 1/4 cup coconut cream (that rises to the top from a refrigerated can of coconut milk)
• 1-2 dates, or to taste

Method

• Blend all in a food processor or high powered blender until smooth.
• You can refrigerate for parfaits or use right away for a snack or a pie topping- if filling a whole pie I would at least 4x the recipe :)

This post has been linked up to: