A new adventure!

So, yesterday I signed it. I am now a Pampered Chef consultant. Yep, that means I get a bunch of cool, new, spiffy kitchen gadgets that I can take to your house and use to make yummy food! Yay! I admit that the business aspect is kinda intimidating. Supposed to get people to buy as much as possible? How I'm going to encourage that when I'm so frugal with my own money is a question I've yet to answer. I just hope to find people who are willing/want me to come over and cook and put on a little show for them! I'm so excited for that! And I'll be aiming for food allergies and issues like that-you know, celiac, lactose intolerant, vegan, diabetic, etc. ^_^ So if that somehow seems interesting to you, leave a comment and we can chitchat about it.

Last night I hosted a Pampered Chef ladies night, and my friend came to show her wares and make us dinner. (spicy beef and broccoli stir fry, most excellent!) She was a good sport, letting me change a few of the ingredients she was using. (Corn starch? That's a no-no here with me in the house, so I subbed that with arrowroot. And the soy sauce that's in your kitchen has wheat in it, but the soy sauce I have in my kitchen is wheat-free. And the only brand of wheat-free soy sauce that is currently out there!) So she made dinner, and me, being me, had to have something else to snack  on/call dessert. I had been debating long and hard over this, but then I had the perfect solution. Some type of baked good! (surprised? I didn't think so.) It was just narrowing it down to what kind of baked good that was the difficult part. Bring in SCV freecycle to help with that problem!

What is SCV freecycle? Well, the city we live in-Santa Clarita Valley-has a little thing going on, that if you have something in good condition, that you don't want anymore, you can post it online, and those of us who ARE interested in it, can claim dibs and pick it up. For free. This is how I recently aquired my new salad spinner. A lovely gal friend of mine knew I was wishing for one, saw it on the listing and brought it to my attention. Later that day, I was the happy owner of my own salad spinnner! Yay! Well, similar thing happened yesterday. Except, it was a listing for zuccini. Yep, for zuccini. Three zuccini, "small, medium and large". Well, small was twice as big as what you see in the store. Medium matched the length of my elbow to my wrist. And I could've used the large zuccini to kill someone! The large zuccini did not fit in my fridge, that's how big it is. (I personally would've said, three zuccini, large, huge and monsterous) But hey, three zuccini for free! I'll take em!

So I had a brilliant idea. How about, I, the girl who LOATHED zuccini bread, how about I make zuccini muffins and bread? Growing up, zuccini was alright. I like how my Mom would cook it-steam it, add a bit of salt and butter, and serve.Simple and delicious. That, I liked. Zuccini served in an unnatural way, (ie, baked goods, fried zuccini, zuccini IN foods...) that was disgusting to me. So, for me, who as of yesterday morning didn't even know if I liked zuccini bread yet, the fact that such an idea came to me and I thought it sounded good?...that says something. This food thing is really changing my perceptions and my likes/dislikes. Yeah.

I looked online, searched for a couple gluten-free recipes, and found one that looked good. Yay for Gluten Free Girl and the Chef! They have yet to fail me. ^_^ I did make a few alterations, but that's just a normal thing for me. What recipe don't I tweak to some extent?..

The ladies enjoyed the zuccini muffins. *huzzah!* And I found them overly addicting. I think I more than 10...but I stopped counting after 4...so...yeah... Thankfully, they are fairly healthy and not crazy carbs, but that's also because I made them small. Which is a very good thing, considering how many I packed away!

So here's my new favorite recipe. I think I'll be making a LOT of these this week!


60 grams teff flour
60 grams quinoa flour
60 grams brown rice flour
240 grams sweet rice flour
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
2 eggs, at room temperature, beaten
1 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups fresh-grated zucchini
2/3 cup (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Options- chopped pecans, carob chips, cranberries, cherries, sunflower seeds, you-want-it-you-add-it..

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Sift the flours together, and add remaining dry ingredients.
3. Combine eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add the zuccini and melted butter, and stir together gently.
4. Sprinkle the soda and salt on the mix, and incorporate. Add the flour slowly, until its fully mixed.
5. Here's your options. Make into little muffins. Or make into bread. It'll make two 9x5 loaves, or about 50 some mini muffins. Your choice. Choose, and grease the appropriate pans.
6. Here's your next choice. Straight up zuccini bread? Or something else added to it? I split my dough into four separate bowls yesterday, and made a variety. One regular batch of zuccini muffins. One batch with chopped pecans. One batch with carob chips. And one batch with chopped cranberries. All are good.
7. For bread, bake it 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 20 minutes before flipping. For mini muffins, about 20 minutes is suffient bake time. I cooled them for 10 minutes before flipping.

The recipe gave me about 55 mini muffins, and for a regular batch were 73 calories and 11 carbs. So good!

Zuccini mini-muffin with cranberries and butter-YUM!

Who knows the rain dance?...

...can they teach it to me please?

Finally. A chance to sit down and write! I have quinoa millet bread in the oven to rise, dinner is already planned and ready to go, and now, finally, a wee bit of time to blog! Huzzah!

But before I get to food. It needs to be said. TODAY'S WEATHER IS AMAZING!!! It is overcast, it is cloudy-I had SPRINKLES on my windshield this morning! I love autumn! I wish we had a real autumn more like this more often! (woah, I hope that last sentence made some sense...) Anyways, its rare to have actual weather here in southern california, and today is a gorgeous day. No bright sunlight, no obnoxious heat, no sweat.. ^_^ Someday we'll move to Seattle or somewhere with seasons...

One of the things that had bothered me with my new diet is that I can't have granola bars anymore. Which, even now, is true. I cannot have granola bars. Granola has oats. I cannot have oats. But I CAN have a yummy little energy bar that's a meal replacement type bar. These are healthy, these are tasty, these are actually rather satisfying! I created them completely and utterly on my own, and I have to say, I think they're pretty darn good if I say so myself. (of course, my hubby also thinks they're pretty darn good, otherwise I'd hesitate to post something about them!) For lack of a better name, they are currently called millet/flax energy bars. I will happily take suggestions on more clever names! Please, throw name ideas my way!

I actually had one today for my little lunch. When out and about on the road, they come in handy. Granted, this recipe I'm posting is not yet perfected. I need to make a batch again and tweak a few things so they'll stick together better. They can be rather crumbly if room temperature. We keep our bars in the freezer, and they are stupendous when freezer cold! I have crumbled a few bars and toasted them to make some granola to go over yogurt. That was good. Mmmm, yes, that was good. It's a versatile recipe. Play with it, make it into something of your own. Enjoy it.

2 cups crunchy flax (found in the gluten-free section as a cereal)
1 1/2 cups millet (not the flour!)
1/3 cups diced almonds
1 cup hemp seed
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 TBSP flax seed
1 TBSP cinnamon
1 tsp sea salt
1 1/4 cup almond butter
1 cup honey
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup applesauce

I plan to add next time:
1/2 cup quinoa flour
1 egg
2 TBSP flax meal

Mix the dry ingredients together first. Blend the wet ingredients together, then add to the dry. Mix gently. Pour into a pre-greased baking sheet, and smooth the top so it's flat. Pop into a pre-heated oven set at 350. Bake for roughly 20 minutes. The edges should look golden brown, and the center will look just done. Allow it to cool for a bit, and once its not baking hot, pop it into the fridge until it's completely cool. THEN cut into it and enjoy!

Makes 40+ servings. 170 calories and 17 carbs a serving.

The larger pieces are crunchy flax. The smaller, finer meal
is the millet. Just in case you were wondering.

Yay for almonds!

Done!

This one I added some carob frosting to. Mmmm..

And this is how it without the frosting. So insanely good!

Last night as TBG and I were laying in bed and talking, the topic somehow turned to food-strangely enough-and sweet potato's were mentioned. And after discussing sweet potato's and how awesome they are, we fell asleep. I dreamt of sweet potato's. I woke up this morning, craving sweet potato's. So what would any normal, sane, hungry woman do for her family's breakfast at 5am? MAKE SWEET POTATO'S, of COURSE! *maniacal laugh*

My one dilemna was that I had no idea what I could do with sweet potato's for breakfast. I did a bit of googling, did a bit of thinking, and I finally decided. KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Yep, at 5am, and with experimenting, we'd start simple. Somehow, it just seemed wise. (and I think it IS wise at that hour!) So I just used one sweet potato, 4 eggs, a glug of coconut milk, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 bacon, some diced onion and a few pinches of salt. It was lovely.

Here's what I did: cleaned the sweet potato really well, and then wrapped in foil. Tossed that baby into the toaster oven for a couple minutes to start softening it up. Let it cool a moment or two. Peeled it. Cubed it into small cubes. Cooked the bacon while the sweet potato was heating. Mixed up my eggs with the milk, chili and salt. Ripped up the bacon into small little pieces. Tossed the cubed potato and some diced onion into a buttered pan. Sauteed for a bit, until the potato was tender and the onions were carmalized. At that point I added the bacon and then poured the eggs over. Cooked and stirred until the egg was done, then served. Yummy! TBG and I were rather pleased with this "winner" of a recipe. Yay for successful experimentation at early hours of the morning! ^_^

Before I added the onion, I added a tiny amount of water
and put the lid on the pan for about 3 minutes. Smelled soo good!

Just added the egg. The smell of it cooking was divine!

A horribly lit image of what we enjoyed this morning. Mmm..
Thank you Lord for taste buds and such a lovely
variety of foods for our dining pleasure!

And one add on for today. Super simple apple dessert recipe. Here's what you need:

Green apple (tart!)
Maple syrup
Cinnamon
Maple pecans

Slice the apple thinly. Lightly toss with cinnamon until lightly coated. Place in small oven/microwave safe dish. Drizzle maple syrup over. If in a hurry, cook in microwave on high for about a minute, or until apple is tender. Or bake in oven at 350 for a couple minutes until apple is tender. (you can make this with as many apples as you want to make as much as you want) Chop pecans into small pieces. Add to the top and bake for an additional minute or two. Serve hot. If you can eat dairy, enjoy some with ice cream.

TBG and I love this. It's so super simple, and tastes great! It's a fairly healthy recipe too-it just depends on if you decide to drizzle or drown your apples in the maple syrup. ^_^

This dessert was inspired by apple pie during a fierce Skip-Bo match one night. ...my brain cells are always thinking about food. I admit it.

Good simple dessert