FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Big-Ticket Brownies

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Are you sick of hearing about Terry Walters yet?  Hope not, cause she has yet to provide me with an unsatisfactory recipe.  And the cocoa brownies I made tonight were no exception.

The amount of fruit packed into these bad boys is ridic!

Applesauce (or shredded apples), Dates & Bananas.

No refined sugar, no glutenous flour.

Minus the washing of the food processor (that’s still sitting in my sink), the recipe was super simple.

And you can help yourself to all the batter your little heart desires without fear of salmonella since this recipe is prepared sans eggs.

The downside?  And it’s a major one.  The ingredients for these brown beauties set me back a whopping thirty bucks, making them the most expensive brownies in the history of all brownies.

Sorta Pop, Sorta Flop

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If you recall, the non-food highlight of my Valentines day was being able to submit my itemized taxes.  As soon as I received notification that my return had been accepted by the IRS, I rushed out to buy this.

Did you know that you can use Bed, Bath & Beyond 20% off coupons at Macy’s??  Well, you can!  And on top of that discount, there was a $30 mail-in rebate as well.  Thank you Presidents’ Day (and Uncle Sam)!

What to make, what to make first…

I had planned on researching some sort of bread so I could utilize the dough hook, but…  I spent a good portion of  today in the sun (80’s and sunny = perfect pool weather) which made me a tad on the lazy side.  I opted to browse through the Kitchen Aid book to see if there was something I could modify that would use only ingredients I currently had in my kitchen.

Popovers!!!

Modified Popover Recipe

1/2 Cup Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour

1/4 Cup Water

1/4 Cup Tofutti Sour Cream

1/2 Tablespoon Earth Balance

1 Egg

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Mix ingredients together until smooth.  Pour batter into greased/floured, oven-safe ramekins until they are halfway full.  Set ramekins on cookie sheet and place in a non-heated oven.  Set oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 25 minutes.

My popovers didn’t exactly pop over.  This could have had something to do with either the modifications or preheating the oven to 350 prior to reading the cool oven instructions.  I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t look every bit as beautiful as the popover I had pictured in my head.

BUT!  These dense little flopovers were pretty darn good.   They reminded me of a cross between biscuits and French toast, which is a mighty decent combination in my book.  So decent, in fact, that I ate all four flops.

Chocolate Lover’s Tart

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In all honesty, I started the morning thinking the most exciting thing about V-day 2011 was going to be the submission of my itemized taxes.  Then I thought to myself, if Terry Walters (my foodie hero) has an easy chocolatey, Valentines appropriate dessert, I’ll allow myself to get in the holiday spirit.

It doesn’t get much more Valentines than ‘Chocolate Lover’s Tart’.

I read down the list of ingredients and determined I had enough like ingredients in my pantry for this to be a pretty cheap treat.

Gluten-free all purpose flour instead of brown rice flour, olive oil instead of canola oil, and peanut butter instead of cashew butter.  I also had cocoa powder, pure maple syrup, and vanilla on hand.

The only items left to purchase?  Tofu and pecans.

This recipe tops the list of most simple baked goods ever created in my kitchen.

And I bought this handy dandy tart form at Ikea for $7.99!

I knew it would be good because I couldn’t stop eating the tofu batter while the pecan crust was in the oven.  But… I waited til I arrived at Val’s house to test it out the finished product.  O-M-Geee!  So much chocolatey goodness!  This will be my go-to guest dessert for parties from this point forward.

Side note:  If you use gluten-free vanilla extract, you can add this recipe to your gluten-free recipe collection.

[Acorn] Squash with Quinoa, Apricot and Sage Stuffing

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I’ve had my eye on Terry Walters’ books for quite some time now, so I was pleased as punch when I found both Clean Start and Clean Food at Homegoods last week.

I also bought the beauty of a chopping block that’s hosting the veggies pictured below.

I literally walked between the acorn squash and buttercup squash about seven times before deciding to go with acorn.  Even though the recipe called for buttercup, the acorn was a sure shot, but it would have been nice to try the buttercup, but the acorn was such a sure shot.  See how that could be debate worthy?

As I was chopping shallots, celery, apricots, sage, and parsley, I realized I hadn’t used any of these ingredients in a while, and certainly not together.  I was excited.

So excited, in fact, that I skipped right past taking a picture of the quinoa folded into the veggies.

Soooo looks like this recipe will be the jump start to another quinoa kick.  The stuffing was so tasty!

What’s your favorite quinoa combo??