Greek Style Couscous

This salad (originally found from a Kraft food magazine) is one of our kids' favorites.  It makes a good side dish, but is actually hearty enough that, if served with a side of garlic toast, you can actually have it as a main dish, which is great for those summer days when it's just too hot to use the oven.

2 cups uncooked whole wheat couscous (we generally just use plain)
2 cups cucumber slices halved or quartered
2 large tomatoes, chopped
8 oz crumbled feta cheese
2 tsp dried dill or 2 Tbsp fresh
1 cup Italian dressing

Cook couscous as directed on package, without the salt and butter. Fluff with fork. Place in large bowl; cool 10 min.  Add remaining ingredients and mix. Original recipe says to chill 1 hour, but we generally don't bother and just eat it right away.

Tomatillo Ranch Chicken

I'll admit that I was a tad wary of this recipe when I first saw it going around Pinterest.  I am very much not a fan of most Mexican food (and the original blogger over at Creme de la Crumb went on for quite a while in her introduction of the recipe about how much she loves Mexican food).  Still, the only ingredient involved that I'd never actually tried was tomatillos, and everything else looked pretty good, so since I'm always up for a new way to serve boneless chicken breasts, I was willing to give it a try.  I'm so glad I did- it was way easy to toss together and almost everyone loved the dish (though my 5-year-old wouldn't touch it- no surprise there.  He doesn't believe in sauces).  This one is definitely going to stick around in our regular recipe rotation.

Ingredients:
2 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup mayonaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 package buttermilk ranch dressing mix (we used 2 Tbsp of homemade ranch dressing mix, which basically follows this recipe)
2 cloves garlic, coarsley chopped
1 cup cilantro, chopped
3 tomatillos, husked and chopped
1/2 tsp lime juice
Hot cooked rice

Toss the mayo, buttermilk, dressing mix, garlic, cilantro, tomatillos, and lime juice into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour 1 cup of the dressing into a large bowl or gallon bag.  Place the rest of the dressing in a separate container and chill to top the chicken after it's cooked.  Add the chicken breasts to the 1 cup of dressing and make sure they're coated.  Marinate in the fridge for at least half an hour to overnight. 

When ready to make the chicken, preheat oven to 375º.  Drain chicken breasts and place them in a shallow greased baking dish.  Bake 25-30 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.  Serve over rice with the additional dressing spooned over the top.  We served this with cornbread and broiled corn and it made enough for 2 adults and 1 preschooler for 2 days worth of dinner.

Almond Coconut Cake with Dairy-Free Almond Frosting

 
Last week, Justin and I were planning on having a celebration for both our kids' birthdays down in the Salt Lake area closer to where our families are, and we stayed up late into the night making the cool airplane cake that Taliesin had requested. 

Unfortunately, Lionel woke up late that night with a stomach bug, which meant that not only did we have to reschedule the party for the next weekend, but also we had an entire spice cake with cream cheese frosting to finish off- and less than a month after having made Lionel's birthday cake.  Taliesin was adamant, though, that it couldn't be a proper birthday celebration without some kind of cake, so Justin and I decided that we would find an easy gluten free, dairy free cake so that we could be sure everyone would be able to have a slice, leaving us with less cake to have to take home (and our strategy worked- we only had two pieces left over).  This almond cake recipe from Bob's Red Mill fit the bill- it's not nearly as cute as the airplane, but it was much, much tastier than a box spice cake mix, and not actually much more work in my Kitchen Aid.  Making the almond flour and coconut flour definitely took some time, but it didn't require that much active attention, so it was surprisingly easy to do, and if you don't feel like making the flour yourself and don't mind spending an arm and a leg for it, you could obviously just buy the flour from the store instead of making it yourself. 

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
1/4 tsp almond extract
1-1/2 cups almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Frosting (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350º.  Grease a 9x13 pan with vegetable shortening and set aside.  Don't leave your butter softening in a bowl on top of the back burner while you're preheating the oven, though, or you'll find yourself having to re-solidify it in the fridge before you can make the recipe.  Not that I know this from experience or anything...

In a small bowl, mix together the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, around 7-10 minutes.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until fully blended after each one.  Add the milk, almond extract, and vanilla flavoring, and mix until combined.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and beat until creamy- but this batter is going to be much stiffer and much less smooth than a normal cake batter.

Spread the the cake batter out in the pan and smooth the top.

Bake at 350º about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center clean, and let cool completely before frosting.  Mine came out of the oven with a random hole in the middle for no apparent reason.

Frost with your favorite frosting, or use the recipe below for a dairy-free almond flavored frosting that went smashingly.  I decided to adapt a butter frosting recipe I that had to use coconut oil and coconut milk so it would be a dairy free frosting that didn't use shortening (I don't like the flavor of shortening) but if you aren't trying to make your frosting dairy free, you can feel free to use margarine or butter and regular milk.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup coconut oil
4-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup coconut milk, plus additional coconut milk to desired consistency
1 tsp almond flavoring

Place the 1/3 cup coconut oil in a mixing bowl and refrigerate it for 5 minutes or until relatively solid.  Trust me- you want to do this step.  Originally, I only made a half batch and just used the coconut oil straight out of the cupboard.  My frosting was oddly grainy and very thin- even with a bunch of extra powdered sugar added in.

Once the coconut oil is mostly solid, beat on medium speed until fluffy.  Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well.  Slowly beat in the 1/4 cup coconut milk and almond flavoring.  Slowly beat in remaining powdered sugar.  Beat in additional coconut milk, if needed, to reach a spreading consistency.

If desired, tint with food coloring, and spread over the cake.

Homemade Almond Milk and Almond Flour

I made this homemade almond milk and almond flour using these instructions from All Sorts of Pretty's blog.  My point was actually to get almond flour in order to make a gluten free birthday cake for my kids that my in-laws could both eat, but the almond milk is a handy byproduct if you want to drink it.  I like drinking it with chocolate milk powder added. :)  The recipe is super simple to make- and the only equipment required is a blender, a strainer and a flour sack towel or cheese cloth.  Two cups worth of almonds made me close to 2 mason jars worth of almond milk plus about 1-1/2 cups of almond flour.  The instructions I followed actually used about double the water I did, and you would obviously get more almond milk that way, but the thickness of the milk I ended up with seemed closer to what I remembered getting the couple of times I've bought almond milk from the store.

Ingredients:
2 cups raw almonds
4-6 cups water to soak plus another 4 cups water later.
1 tsp salt

Instructions:
Place the 2 cups of almonds into a large bowl, and cover with the 4-6 cups of water.  Add the salt, and let sit for at least 12 hours.  When you're ready to make the milk, drain the almonds and rinse them off.  Line a strainer with a flour sack towel or cheesecloth, and place over a large bowl (I like using the flour sack towel because the tighter weave means you don't have to try to pick bits of almond pulp out afterward).  Place the almonds into a blender with the water, and blend on high for 3-4 minutes or until you can see that it's creamy looking and the almond is blended into very tiny bits, then dump into the towel-lined strainer, so that the almond milk drains into the bowl.  My blender isn't big enough to hold the whole thing, so I had to do mine in two batches- I put in 1 cup almonds plus 2 cups water, blended it up and dumped it in the strainer, and then blended up the second batch.  Then, squeeze the pulp that's inside the towel over the bowl to get out as much as much of the almond milk as you can (don't throw the pulp away when it's squeezed dry!).  Put the contents of the bowl into whatever storage containers you're going to use for the milk and you now have coconut milk!

For the almond flour, dump the blended up pulp onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Preheat your oven to about 175º.  Spread the pulp out into a thin layer on the cookie sheet, using a fork to break up any large lumps, and cook in the oven until completely dry.  If you touch the pulp and feel any moisture at all, it's not quite ready.  It took my almond pulp about 3-1/2 hours to dry completely.

At this point, the almond pulp will still be very lumpy and not quite flour like:

Once it's cooled, toss in the blender, and blend on high speed for several minutes to make the texture more flour-like.  Unless you have a more impressive blender than mine, this is not going to be the flour powder that you'll find at a store, but even with a bit of graininess, it worked perfectly fine for the recipe I used it in.

Two cups worth of almonds gave me somewhere close to 1-1/2 cups of almond flour (you can see that the half cup measuring cup in the picture above is not quite full, but it was pretty close).

Homemade Coconut Milk and Coconut Flour

I made this homemade coconut milk and coconut flour using these instructions from All Sorts of Pretty's blog.  My point was actually to get coconut flour in order to make a gluten free almond birthday cake for my kids that my in-laws could both eat.  This coconut milk seems to be rather thinner than the stuff you get in a can from the store, so I'm not sure I'd use it to cook with it, but the coconut milk is a handy byproduct if you want to drink it.  The recipe is super simple, and all it takes is two ingredients:

2 cups coconut dried flakes (The recipe calls for unsweetened, but I used sweetened, because that's what we had in the pantry)
2 cups water

Place the coconut flakes and the water into your blender and let it soak for at least 2 hours (I let it sit there while running errands, so mine was closer to 4 hours).  

Blend on high speed for 3-5 minutes, or until it's a creamy and smooth consistency.  Place a strainer into a bowl and line with a flour sack towel or cheesecloth, and dump the contents of the blender into the towel-lined strainer, to let the coconut milk drain into the bowl.  I like using the flour sack towel because the tighter weave means you don't have to try to pick bits of coconut pulp out afterward.  Then, squeeze the pulp inside the towel over the bowl to get out as much as much coconut milk as you can (don't throw the pulp away when it's squeezed dry!).  Put the contents of the bowl into whatever storage container you're going to use for the milk and voila!  You have coconut milk!  I ended up with a little bit more than half a mason jar full of milk.

For the coconut flour, dump the blended up pulp onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Preheat your oven to it's lowest temperature- for me that's about 150º.  Spread the pulp out into a thin layer on the cookie sheet, using a fork to break up any large lumps, and cook in the oven until completely dry.  If you touch the pulp and feel any moisture at all, it's not quite ready.  It took my pulp about an hour and a half to dry completely.

At this point, the pulp will be dry, but still very lumpy. 

In order to get it to a flour-like consistency, you'll have to blend it up, which I did using my blender for a few minutes.  The two cups worth of coconut flakes that I used yielded about 2/3 cup of flour.

This is not going to be the fine flour powder that you'll find at a store, but even with a bit of graininess, it worked perfectly fine for the recipe I used it in.

As I was looking around online, it looks like people who are regularly making their own coconut and almond flour frequently will buy a coffee grinder to get a better powdery consistency, so if this is something you'll be doing regularly, you should probably consider that.

Ginger Lime Soda

A couple months back, I suddenly noticed that the awesome Indian cookbook that I'd gotten for Justin as a Valentine's Day present clear back in 2008 had a drinks section in it that we'd never even touched.  As I curiously perused it, one of the things that stood out to me as something I'd love to try was this recipe for ginger lime soda, and once I'd managed to confirm that we actually could buy lime soda at the store (it was over with the Mexican and other "ethnic" foods), I decided to put it on the menu, and it turned out to be really tasty.  It's not something we'll make all the time, since we just don't drink much soda, but definitely a recipe to keep around.

The recipe calls for ginger juice, made by peeling and grating a piece ginger, and then squishing the grated ginger in a garlic press to make the juice come out.  It was actually easier to make than I thought it would be, though I do have the advantage of my awesome salad shooter that makes quickly grating the ginger a snap.  For the 2 Tbsp of ginger called for in the recipe, I used a piece of ginger that was a bit bigger than my palm: 

I thought that would be a bit too big, but it was actually just barely enough.

The recipe also calls for black salt (which, for some reason, is actually pastel pink):

We got ours at an Indian grocer during a trip to visit Justin's folks when they still lived in Maryland, but if you don't have an Indian grocer near you, you can get it (like everything else in the universe) on Amazon.  Black salt is salty, but also has a kind of sulfurish smell and taste reminiscent of egg yolks... judging by Amazon reviews, evidently it's a popular ingredient with vegans, who use it to give recipes an egg flavor without actually using eggs.  The taste isn't at all noticeable in the drink, so if you really don't want to buy the black salt, you could probably just leave it out or add a small amount of regular salt, but it would be missing that extra layer of flavor.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp ginger juice
4 tspsugar
1/4 tsp black salt
1 Tbsp lime juice
1.5 liters lime soda
ice cubes (we used about half a tray)

Add all ingredients to a blender; blend well.  If, like us, your blender is not quite big enough to hold 1.5 liters of soda plus the ice, you can just put most of the soda in with the ice and the other ingredients and put the rest of the soda in whatever container you have that is actually big enough to hold 1.5 liters, and the pour the contents of the blender in with the rest of the soda after it's all blended. :)

Honey Balsamic Roasted Beets

Growing up, I never really ate any beets- it's just not something that my mom ever made.  However, whenever we make the beet pasta recipe, we always end up with leftover beets that we don't really have anything to do with (since you can only buy beets at Walmart in bunches of 3, but the recipe only needs 1/4 cup worth).  So, since I discovered that they were actually pretty tasty on their own, I started to keep my eye out for interesting beet recipes on Pinterest.  This honey balsamic roasted beets recipe was inspired by this one on Simply Recipes.  I loved the idea of balsamic vinegar with beets, but I didn't have any orange zest on hand, and also I only had 2 beets on hand instead of 2 pounds worth.

Ingredients:
Beets
Olive oil
Honey
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 400º.  While oven heats up, slice the tops off the beets, peel them, and cut into large chunks.  Place into a greased baking pan, and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil (about 1 Tbsp for 2 beets), and a rather larger amount of honey.  Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and balsamic vinegar.  Stir around with a fork to make sure the beets are all coated with honey and spices.  Cover the pan with foil and roast for 1 hour, or until easily pierced with a fork, stirring about halfway through, and again at about 45 minutes.