Persimmon Pudding

This year I got a bunch of persimmons in my bountiful basket and wanted to make something very traditional with them. So I did a search on old fashioned persimmon recipes and came up with a persimmon pudding.







The recipe looked very simple and really yummy.  I gathered all of my ingredients.
































 




































I was worried that the persimmons wouldn't puree very well, but after peeling and cutting them up I tossed them into a blender, they pureed up just fine. :)

 

 The rest of the ingredients get mixed up and folding them all together was a real easy and smooth process. I did not need a mixer at all, I could have even pureed the persimmons by hand too if I wanted to. They were very ripe and soft. :)










After mixing up the batter I sprayed a bunt pan and filled it with the batter. I actually had some left over and made a loaf pan as well. The recipe would have either made a very big bunt cake or 2-3 loaf cakes. 

It came out very spongy and moist.    While it was baking, I tried to think of a good way to top this moist cake.  I decided to make a buttered rum glaze.  

I heated the butter and the rum together in a saucepan and then stirred in the powdered sugar and made a glaze.  It worked very well on the cake. :)

 

While peeling the persimmons I made a rose for a friend of mine. :)

Let me know if you try out this recipe and how you liked it.  Me and my friends and family that got to try it really liked it. :)

Happy Eating!!

Allergy Free Breakfast Tacos

I hate to use the term "Allergy Free" because everyone has different allergies, but to keep my title short, that is what I went with.  

I was tending a little 3 year old that is allergic to peanuts, egg, milk, and soy. (whew, right?)  So I made these breakfast tacos.  They were pretty darn good!!

I am sorry for the crazy fuzzy pictures, they looked fine on my phone, but then when I moved them to my computer they were not so grand, but by then all the tacos were gone. :(\



 First I chopped up some green peppers, mushrooms, white onions, turkey sausage, and bacon and sauteed them until they were nice and brown and smelled yummy.

While I was sauteing that I was boiling some rice. I love the long grain boil in a bag rice, but you can use any kind of rice you'd like.

I then added the rice and some black beans to the pan.  I use no salt added canned black beans and then drain and rinse them thoroughly first. 





Then I put them in a corn tortilla and top with some tomatoes.  (shown above)



I like to make sure that the corn tortillas are just corn meal and not corn treated with lime. Unfortunately the store I was at last night preparing for today did not have that option.  It makes it a better quality tortilla and besides, who the heck wants to eat lime???  (not lime the citrus fruit, but Lime the chemical.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_%28material%29)

 


After I fed the little one I scrambled up some eggs to toss the rest of the mixture into. 
(no offense little guy, but I wanted to taste it that way too) 

And for the record: I really liked the plain one with no egg or cheese. Would be better if I had added a slice or two of avocado, but didn't think of that until later. 

I topped this one with some tomatoes and cheddar cheese.  It was Fabulous!

Again, I should have gotten out some avocado.  But next time I will. :)











Let me know in the comments if you tried this one and how you liked it. 

Have a Great Tuesday and

HAPPY EATING!

 

Mincemeat Pie

I really have been on this old fashioned cooking kick. I have been looking up old recipes, and hand me down reciepes from "way make when" and trying them.  This one I got from Harry Potter. I kept seeing the little pies and wondered what they could be.  The few british people I know all said that they were mincemeat pies.  A festive dish.  So I set out to try some.  I went looking for some homemade recipes, but there were many mentions of this brand Nonesuch that makes a few comparable filling.  So I decided to give it a try.  :)



 I got some roll out dough from the store as well. I had decided that if i was going to just buy a filling, I would pick up some pie crust and save me some time. That way if I do not like it, then I wasn't out much. :)








I used a mini muffin pan and cut little circles from the dough and put them in the cups, then filled with the mincemeat pie filling.











Once they were all filled, I started cutting the left overs into little strips to make some tops for them.

No one wants to make tiny lattice work on pies, so I just did a simple star on each.  Made it pretty simple.  








I think they are pretty good. They are different and have some more spice then I think I would have used if I had made it from scratch, so the first bite is pretty intense, and then by the time you are done with the pie (for me that is 3 bites) then you are wanting more. :)  They are different, but pretty good.   I had to save some to take with me for the Holidays to share this traditional little pie with everyone!  

Happy Cooking! (and Baking)

On a side note, I am very sorry that there has been such a gap in my posts. I misplaced the power cord to my laptop and didn't want to abandon or start over on a few pretty technical posts. One is the natural sodium contents of fruits and veggies, and the other one is the casein in sausage and how that effects the people with milk sensitivities.  So I kept putting off doing anything thinking that I would find the cord, but it still hasnt shown up.  So thank you to my wonderful husband for letting me use his laptop while he is at work to do all this, and Now for playing catch up of all the things I have been baking and hopefully my cord shows up and I can get all that work off my laptop.  

Salad fusion.

Not to pat myself on the back, but *pat pat pat* this is one of my best ideas yet! 

I came back from a 1 hour fat burn fusion class followed by a 15 minute cool down stretch then a 30 minute core workout and I was starving! I wanted something healthy too.  I felt too good to want to ruin it with crap food. 
But I came across the problem that I was torn between some eggs and a salad.  So I figured why not have both?  People eat boiled eggs on salad all the time. But I didn't want to boil eggs, that takes too long. So I thought "hey, a cooked egg is a cooked egg, right?".
Light bulb. :)
So I started dragging out all the ingredients for the best salad ever!
First the iceberg/romaine salad mix. It has carrots, radishes, and purple cabbage.
Then spinach, cherry tomatoes, avocado, and an egg.  Then another light bulb.  I got out ham, onions, mushrooms.  Then another light bulb, and out came dries cherries and some cheese. 
Heated my pan, added a little olive oil, then the onions, mushrooms, ham, and dried cherries. After they were all browned and smelled good I cracked one egg into it and scrambled it all up.  Then in a bowl I had the salad mix, spinach, Cherry tomatoes, avocados, and cheese.
I topped it all off with the scrambled eggs.  No dressing needed. ;)
A slice of wheat toast with a little butter and this was one of the best lunches ever!  :)

HAPPY WEDNESDAY EVERYONE!
Happy eating! 

Chocolate pudding trial!

So, i had to try out that recipe that I posted for the allergy free chocolate pudding.

Here is how it went:


I gathered all the ingredients.

I put the honey in the coconut milk, cut up the banana and the avocado. (it was scored in the skin) then had my cocoa and my lemon. 
















I mixed it into the blender because most people do not have a food processor and I wanted to see how easy it would be to do it the "normal" way. 
I blended up just fine.
once it was a consistent and smooth texture I poured it into 4 cups.

Put it in the fridge and waited until the girls got home from school and it was snack time. 

I told them that it was chocolate pudding, nothing more, nothing less.


Everyone took the first bite, and they all went, YUM!, 
Then the second bite and they said "This is weird".  
Then the third (very tentative) bite and they all said "mommy can we have something else?"


Sadly, this recipe got 4 thumbs down from us.

But since this is for someone with many allergies they will have a very different palate then we do.  We know what chocolate pudding tastes like and this is just too different to sit right, but for the kiddos that have never be able to have chocolate pudding, then this will be a sweet treat for them. :)

But if it makes you feel better......

This is what I had for breakfast.   ;)

HAPPY EATING!  

And if you try this out please let me know what YOU thought. ;)

Who said meatloaf had to be beef??

I was trying to clean out my fridge tonight so I could go grocery shopping tomorrow and ended up making a dish that I really liked.

Here's how it went.

One carrot diced small
One celery stick diced small
White onion diced small (about equal to carrot/ celery mixture)
About one tablespoon Roasted red peppers diced small.
Put in a bowl and mix in 2 tablespoons apricot jam and 2 tablespoons coconut milk. (What I had). :)

Then mix thoroughly. 
Heat skillet.
Dice up one big chicken breast

Add veggie mixture to hot skillet and mix.  Toss In chicken.  Mix in some more coconut milk if needed to moisten chicken.

Take off heat and put it back in the bowl, then add 2 eggs and one piece of toast cut into small diced

Put mixture into pie pan. (9 inch)
Then bake until firm and slightly brown. 

I paired it with the pepperoni green beans and enjoyed it!

Happy eating!!

Bacon, schmacon.

I know how much everyone loves bacon and green beans. I get asked for it a lot...but when you are on a diet or need to cut down your cholesterol, etc. Most people just leave it out.  But for all of you that just hate doing that, I have found a solution that I think I like even better then the original. 

I made turkey pepperoni and green beans.  Weird sounding, I know, but its what I had in my fridge. (Which, if you haven't noticed, is the main reason I do most of my combinations for the first time.). 

I just put a dab of olive oil in a saute pan and let it get hot, then tossed in the frozen green beans. (You can obviously use fresh green beans too, but like I said, its what I had tonight.)
Then I cut the pepperoni into strips and tossed them in too. 
Add some salt, pepper, and garlic to taste.

Happy Eating!!!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust.

This is AWESOME!  ;)

 It only has 3, yes 3, ingredients.

1 head of cauliflower, shredded
2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 eggs

(so this pizza crust is grain and gluten free!)

Shred the cauliflower with a box grater. I was going to try the food processor on half of it to see how it would compare to the box grater, but I didn't want to dirty up my food processor and all its pieces tonight. :)  
(at least I am honest, right?)






UPDATE!!  I forgot to add that I put Italian seasoning into the mixture as well.  I just added by sight, so I am not sure how much I put in there, maybe 1-2 tbsp.  But you can add as much or as little as you like.







When it is all mixed together it looks kind of crumbly, but I just pressed it into a cookie sheet that I lined with foil and sprayed for good measure.  Which turned out to be a good thing because it really stuck to the parts of the foil that didn't get sprayed.

This is what is looked like all toasted and lightly browned.  I cooked it for about 18 minutes on 350 to get it browned lightly before topping it. 













Topped the girls side with turkey pepperoni, Canadian bacon, and black olives. 

But Mine had Spinach, mushrooms, black olives, cherry tomatoes, canadian bacon, roasted red peppers, and then both halves were topped with parmesan cheese. :)











Baked all up and dinner was ready!!


 





Once it cooled a bit it actually held together enough to pick up and eat like a regular piece of pizza! 

It was very filling so I ate less of it then I would have a regular pizza and it seems like it could be healthier.  Although it ended up having quite a bit of cheese on it.   :)

Happy Eating!!

Thanks for reading!

Let me know if you try this and if you like it!

Special thanks goes to Kryn!  

She gave me the idea, and the instruction to make this deliciousness!! 

CHIA Update!

Here is an update to the Chia post I had earlier. 

You can find Chia seeds in most whole food stores, and we even found some in our local Krogers, so I am hoping as the Health food craze kicks in that more places will be carrying it. :)

You can use Chia seeds as an EGG SUBSTITUTE!!  
Here is how:

1 Tbsp Chia seeds
3 Tbsp warm water
Let set for 10 minutes

It makes what is called a Chia GEL. 
Then you use that to replace one egg.  

I used that you replace the egg in cornbread and it was amazing!  It gave it a poppyseed sort of appearance with the little black seeds visible but it did not change the texture or the taste at all. (that was noticeable)   

From what I have gathered, the Omega 3,6,and 9 that are found in Chia seeds are NOT destroyed by cooking, and neither is the calcium.  It diminishes some of it, but it in no way takes it all away, so instead of the cholesterol and fat that the egg has you are trading that for basically no fat and no cholesterol of the CHIA gel and adding the Omegas and the Calcium. 

I love this idea!!  It was a great discovery.  I will be making my cornbread like this all the time. 

Next to try cake......  :D

Have a Happy Wednesday!

And remember,

Keep cooking and love what you eat!

p.s.  I also added 5 TBSP of chia seeds to my jug of Peach Snapple Tea and made something like the Mamma Chia at home. Little Arcee fights for all of it, she will steal her sisters cups while they are not looking.  But I love what it is adding to their diets and their health!  :)

Allergy Free Recipe! Chocolate Pudding!

One of the biggest requests I got was to do one recipe a week that is allergy free.  

So, here I go. This is from realfoodallergyfree.com, and there are so many good ones on this site, that I might be getting very many of them from it for a while. ;)

I will have to try this one tomorrow when I can get me some milk alternative for it, oddly enough, I have everything else needed. I will definitely let you know how it goes though. :)

 

Chocolate {Avocado} Pudding (dairy-free)

April 29th, 2012 Nancy

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Avocados, honey and cocoa?  It’s another one of those things like beans in pancakes that sounds disgusting but, trust me, it works!  No, it doesn’t taste the same as that box stuff, but I promise it’s good!  I don’t need to tell you how avocados are good for you.

Chocolate {Avocado} Pudding

Makes 2 small cups

Ingredients:

• 1 Avocado
• 1 Banana
• 1 cup Milk Alternative (we use rice milk or coconut milk)
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
• 1 tsp Lemon Juice

Directions:

1. Blend in a food processor until smooth and creamy.
2. Pour into individual cups and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Just a minnie birthday. :)

Sorry for the long pause. I hope you all missed me. :)
After a week of a sick kid, I had two days to pull together a birthday for my now 4 year old. :)
It was decided by her sisters that the theme should be minnie mouse, so off to the store I went late one night while daddy was watching them fighting bed time, and I gathered birthday supplies and cake supplies. I made cookies and cake. Mainly because one of Arcee's best friends is allergic to eggs, milk, soy, and peanuts, so he can surprisingly eat oreos, and I had seen a great little idea with oreos to make mickey and minnie mouse heads.  (we wont go into how disturbing it is that Oreos have no milk, or eggs, or soy in them...because I still like to eat them.) ;)

Then I scanned the web for pictures of minnie mouse cakes to get some good ideas, and when I found one I thought I could pull off in a day, I jumped on it. :)

So this is what I made:

 


I made the bows out of vanilla almond bark that I colored pink.  This allowed me to make them and then let them harden. Then I used some of the left over candy as glue to stick the ears onto the cookies and the bow onto the ear.















 


The cake was 3 circle pans that I cut and put together.

I then outlined in chocolate icing the face and the bow. I put a couple oreos as the center of the bow so I could make it a bigger bow. My original idea was to have a bow on the ear like her cookies, but after drawing that I was not happy with it, and changed it.

This is the chocolate icing done. My hand was cramping already at this point and I took a break, took a picture, and did some cleaning up just to give my hands a break from holding a piping bag. 

 The rest of it went really fast after that. The tan colored stuff was much looser of an icing then the chocolate and it was harder to get a good tip out of it, but it worked alright.












This was the cake and cookies at her party last night.  She had a blast!  Not to mention that she freaked out when she saw her cake! (I did all the decorating during nap time on Monday just so I could surprise her with her cake.)  

I think this is the best cake I have ever made for my kids birthdays. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARCEE!!  

My littlest lady is 4 years old now. :)