Almond Cake

This cake has a delicious almond flavor; but trust me; it is not something that you want to make for a birthday cake. The reason behind this is because the cake is dry. I know, I know… if I know that the cake is dry why am I sharing the recipe with you? When I came up with this recipe I wanted a dry cake because we had planned to top it with pudding. When you top it with pudding, ice cream, or even yogurt the topping sinks into the cake and it is a perfect combination. Don’t believe me? Try the cake for yourself.

What You’ll Need…

1 Cup Almond Flour

1 C All-purpose Flour

1 Egg

¼ Cup Vegetable/Canola Oil

¼ Cup Honey

2 Teaspoons Baking Soda

½ Cup Milk

A Pinch of Salt

1 Tablespoon Almond Paste

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Pre-heat your oven to 350.

In  a small mixing bowl combine almond flour, all-purpose flour, salt and baking soda. In a separate mixing bowl combine the egg, oil, honey, milk, vanilla, and almond paste. Add the almond paste last because it is pretty solid.

Now, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and combine.

Once the batter is thoroughly combined pour it into a greased baking pan. I personally use a “brownie” pan, but you can use any size pan that you like.

Bake the cake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan on top of a cooling rack for 10 minutes before turning the cake out onto the cake. When ready to serve top with ice cream, pudding, yogurt, or anything you like.

Store any leftovers in a Ziploc bag, the cake stores well in the freezer.

Enjoy!

Creamy Mushroom Soup

If you like mushrooms, then this soup is definitely something that you’ll want to try. It does take a bit of time to make, but it’s worth it. Now, I’m sure you’re sitting there wondering, where I came up with the idea for mushroom soup. Well my husband and I were watching Food Network and Ina, The Barefoot Contessa, was making wild mushroom soup. It looked really good and Howard said that he wanted me to try to make it. I made a few changes to the original recipe to fit our tastes and the final result was a success.

What You’ll Need…

3oz Shitake Mushrooms

6-8oz Button Mushrooms

6-8oz Cremini Mushrooms

4 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1 Large Onion (Chopped)

2 Large or 4 Medium Carrots (Chopped)

1 Rib Celery (Chopped)

2 Cups Kale

2 Cloves Garlic

2 Cups Sour Cream

¼ Cup All-purpose Flour

1 Cup Chicken Stock

Salt (To taste)

Pepper (To taste)

2 Tablespoons Herbes De Provence

Parsley (To taste)

Start out by cleaning the mushrooms by wiping them with a dry paper towel. Separate the stems from the caps and slice the stems into ½ inch pieces. Slice the mushroom caps into bite sized pieces and set them aside for later. Also at this time chop the carrot, and onion into medium-to-large pieces.

Now, to make the mushroom stock, heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot. Add the chopped mushroom stems, ½ of the onion, carrot, and about 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Cook the stock over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes or until the vegetables are soft. At this point add 6 cups water. Bring the stock to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

While the stock is cooking chop the remaining 1 or 2 carrots, a rib of celery, 2 cloves of garlic and remove 2 cups of kale from the stems. 

In another large pot heat 2 tablespoons of olive and then add the kale. Allow the kale to wilt for about 8 minutes before adding the remaining ½ onion, carrot, and celery. Allow the vegetables to cook for about ten minutes, stir occasionally. After 10 minutes add the mushrooms and allow them to cook for 10 minutes.

At this point the stock should be done. Strain the stock using a mesh strainer over a bowl and reserve the liquid. You will have about 5 cups of stock. Do NOT throw away the vegetables that are left in the strainer, they are still perfectly good. Save them and sauté them up as a side dish for another meal.

Once the mushrooms have cooked for about 10 minutes add the ¼ of flour and allow it to cook for 1 minute. This will help to thicken the soup a little. After a minute add the chicken stock and stir the soup for about another minute. You can use win instead of chicken stock, and that’s what the original recipe calls for, but we don’t drink wine. 

Now, add the mushroom stock, Herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, and parsley and bring the soup to a boil.  Once it comes to a boil reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes. Lastly, add the sour cream and allow it to heat through. Do not let it come to a boil. 

Serve hot and enjoy!

General Tso's Tofu

As you all know, my husband and I have been on a healthier eating/weight loss mission. As part of that mission we decided to have at least one day a week where we don’t eat meat; some days we have seafood, some days pasta, and other days we have tofu.

I know, I know, tofu is a scary word. I had tried it once when I was littler and didn’t like it, so I didn’t think that I would ever eat it again. Well, a few months ago I was given a recipe that called for tofu and since then it is something that is always in our fridge.

For those of you that don’t know, tofu really doesn’t taste like anything; so it picks up the flavors of whatever you put it with. And that quality makes it in a way like chicken, and perfect for this recipe.

What You’ll Need…

1lb Firm Tofu

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

2-3 Tablespoons General Tso’s Sauce

Before you can do anything with the tofu you need to get some of the water out of it. To do so place paper towels on a baking sheet, place the tofu on top, and more paper towels on top of the tofu. Use something like a coffee can to press down, and allow the tofu to sit for about 20 minutes.

Once some of the water has been removed from the tofu cut it into bite size pieces, whether that is small or large bite size pieces is up to you. Now, pour a tablespoon of olive oil into a skillet and allow it to heat up. When the oil it warm add the tofu and allow it to sear on all sides. This takes about 10 minutes.

Once the tofu is seared add the general Tso’s sauce. Make sure that all of the pieces are coated. Allow the sauce to warm up and sink into the tofu, about 5 minutes.

 

Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Baked Sloppy Joe Pockets

I’m sure that everyone grew up eating sloppy Joes, but I’m sure that most of those sloppy Joes involved a mixture that came from a can. Well, these Joes have nothing from a can, jars and bottles are another story, though. The sauce is simple, delicious, and probably a lot healthier than that canned sauce.

I’m always looking for ways to make recipes more interesting, and I think I achieved that with these pockets. You don’t have to use the pizza dough and bake these Joes, you can just pile the mixture on hamburger buns and enjoy that way, but I think that they baked dough really gives the Joes something.

What You’ll Need…

1lb Ground Turkey (You can use beef or bison, or whatever you prefer.)

½ Medium Onion (Chopped)

1 Bell Pepper (Chopped)

1 Cup Ketchup

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

½ Tablespoon Vinegar

1 Tablespoon Stone Ground Mustard (You can use Dijon instead if you don’t have stone ground.)

1 Tablespoon Honey (You can always use sugar instead.)

Garlic Powder (To taste)

Chili Powder (To taste)

Herbes de Provence (To taste)

¼ Pizza Dough

As always, start out by chopping your vegetables. You can make the peppers and onions any size you like; I personally like a small dice. Once the vegetables are chopped set them aside and move onto the meat.

Now brown the meat in a large skillet for about ten minutes. Once the meat is almost cooked add in the vegetables as well as all of the sauce ingredients (this includes the spices). Once everything is added to the skillet reduce the heat to low and allow everything to simmer for about 15-20 minutes, stir occasionally.

 

While the mixture simmers move on to the pizza dough. Divide the dough in four and roll it out into rectangles of about 5x4 inches. Be careful not to tear the dough. At this point pre-heat your oven to 350.

Once the meat mixture is done allow it to cool for about five minutes. Once the meat is slight cooled spoon 2-3 tablespoons onto one side of each dough rectangle. Fold the dough over the meat mixture so that it forms a semi-circle. Fold the edges of the dough up and pinch so that that mixture stays inside while baking.

Place the pockets onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 350 for about ten minutes. 

 

Keep any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!