Pumpkin Almond Waffles

These waffles are both the product of my discovery that Costo sells Libby’s pumpkin puree ridiculously cheap in the “off-season” AND my current obsession with all things made with almond flour. I started buying Trader Joe’s and then making my own with almonds procured at, again, Costco. Waffles made with almond flour are both flavorful and hearty – I swear I stay full until dinner time after eating one of these.

Pumpkin Almond Waffles

makes ~ 6 waffles (depending on your waffle maker)

Ingredients:

2 c almond flour (I use homemade so it is coarse)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar (or your favorite sugar sub)

1/2 c pumpkin puree

4 eggs

1 c milk (I use almond milk)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon (alternatively you can use 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Preheat waffle maker. Mix together dry ingredients then add in wet. Once mixed, pour mix onto waffle maker (according to the manufacturer’s directions of your waffle maker – ours has a pre-measured cup that comes with it). I prefer my waffles on the “crispier” side so I put them on the highest setting.

Note: The number of eggs are important in this recipe. I initially tried with less and the waffles fell apart when I removed them from the waffle maker. Four worked perfectly. I don’t suggest subbing any alternative eggs in this recipe (flax or chia) as the almond flour needs the egg for binding. If you do, let me know how it works!

Additional note: We topped our waffles with “cinnamon cream” made with 1/2 cup non-fat Greek yogurt, 1 tsp honey and cinnamon & nutmeg to taste. It was delicious!

Enjoy.

Tuttorosso: Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup (Crockpot Recipe)

A few weeks ago Tuttorosso generously sent me a giftpack with several of their products and a few other goodies. The package arrived on my doorstep the exact day I had been planning on making some tomato soup, similar to a recipe I had come across on Pinterest.

Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup

slightly adapted from The Girl Who Ate Everything

Ingredients:

1 28-ounce can Tuttorosso crushed tomatoes with basil

1 large carrot, chopped

1/2 of a large onion, chopped

1 tsp dried oregano

1 T dried basil

4 c low sodium chicken broth (or vegetable if you prefer)

1 bay leaf

1/4 flour

1/2 butter

1 c grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese

2 cups 2% milk, warmed (or plain, unsweetened almond milk)

salt and pepper, to taste

Add tomatoes, chopped carrot, onion, oregano, basil, bay leaf and chicken broth to your crockpot. Heat covered on LOW for 5-7 hours. (Optional: I added in the rind from my parmesan cheese to the soup – I recommend doing it if you have the rind.)

With at least 30 minutes left before serving, puree vegetables with an immersion blender OR transfer to a blender and puree and then return pureed vegetable to crockpot.

Prepare your roux. Melt butter over low heat in a skillet and add the flour. Stir the roux constantly for about 5-7 minutes. Slowly whisk in one cup of the soup. Add another 3 cups until smooth. Transfer the soup back into the crockpot. Stir and add parmesan cheese, warmed milk and salt and pepper.

Cover and cook on low for another 30 minutes or so until ready to serve. Serve with crackers or bread, I served mine with some garlic naan.

Enjoy.

The Tuttorosso products were sent to me at no cost for review. In my honest opinion, I think that the product was of exceptional quality and contributed to this fresh and flavorful tasting soup. I am in no way receiving compensation for my opinions.

Homemade Cookie Butter

You’re rolling your eyes.

Yes, cookie butter is so last year, I mean, I really did post about it last year.

But you see, it’s a rare thing that I visit one of my best friends in NYC.

And it’s a rare thing that I find someone else in my small circle that knows what cookie butter is. Or sends me a picture of it smeared on her plate during the dessert course at every holiday meal.

She just gets cookie butter like I do.

Now I realize Biscoff is much easier to find these days (I’ve seen it at Christmas Tree Shop, Walgreens and the supermarket), and you can get the Speculoos spread at Trader Joe’s, no problem. But homemade is always more special.

Ingredients

• 1 package almond windmill cookies (Biscoff cookies or the like will obviously do)
• 1/3 c melted and cooled coconut oil
• 2 T Turbinado sugar (feel free to use brown sugar or molasses too)
• 1/2 t pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• 1/3 c unsalted cashews
• 2 t vegetable oil

Put your cookies and cashews into a food processor and process until they are a powder and no chunks remain. Add coconut oil (I melted mine to measure it and then let it cool for a few minutes – you want it in its liquid form), sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Continue to process until it starts to form a butter. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides a few times. Add vegetable oil by the teaspoon as needed to thin out the butter… I used 2 teaspoons but you may need more or less.

Note: You may need less coconut oil depending on the amount of cookies you use. You can add the oil gradually until the butter is the consistency desired.

As a rule, I store most homemade things in the fridge but know that the coconut oil will harden in there so you will want to remove the butter from the fridge about a half hour before using for ease of spreading.

Cookies + cashews…

Butter!

Put it in a cute little jar and give as a gift, or do like me and put it in a small Rubbermaid container.

Enjoy with fruit, in recipes (google cookie butter – you will find a TON) or straight out of the jar!

Broke

Two weeks after I wrote my last post, I did this…

Only, that, became this…

Full-shot, now…

I broke my hand, requiring not only surgery on the broken bone itself but also a bone graft from my wrist to “rebuild” said broken bone in my hand.

While it has been an uncomfortable and frustrating injury, I’m on the mend and hopefully with a lot of luck, and minimal PT, I’ll be up and going again (I was going to say blogging but we both know that that’s an empty promise.)

San Diego Photo Post 1

Back in July, Matt and I went to San Diego and I have yet to post about the trip but thought I’d share some photos until I can get around to writing a recap post.

{Gaslamp Quarter}

{Flatbreads at barley mash. Our favorite spot of the trip}

{View of Petco Park from our hotel’s roofdeck}

{Iron Fries: “The Far East Side” pork belly, grilled chicken, teriyaki sauce, green onions, celery, house made kimchi!, wasabi cream and toasted cashews… in other words, YES YES YES!}

{Harborside sunset}

{Granola waffle = lovely all day foodbaby}

{Tim Burton’s Electrifying Graden (temporary exhibit for Comic-Con 2012}

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Life. is. so. crazy.

Eat pancakes, for dinner.

With chocolate chunks.

And coconut butter.

And then get back to your crazy life.

Why is life crazy? Oh, let me count the ways…

I had 7 days, yes 7, off between grad school semesters. And I still had to work, all-day, every day.

Then my (rented) house went on the market, and in the midst of starting up with classes again (3 more credits than past semesters – what.am.i.thinking?) I have to temporarily relocate every few hours, every day.

Including today (I took a “vacation” day to get things done around the house which is now a bust since I can’t).

So I relocated, to the beach… (to read my neuro text, of course.)

And then to the gym.

And then made these before forced to relocate again.

Sweet Potato Pancakes (vegan)

Ingredients:

1/2 c coconut flour

1/2 c unbleached ap flour

1 scoop vanilla protein powder (optional—I used a sample of a vegan protein)

2 T turbinado sugar (this is a raw sugar—you can use brown sugar if you wish)

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1 1/2 t cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice if you wish)

1 1/2 c almond coconut milk (I accidentally bought sweetened, if yours is unsweetened you may want to increase sugar by a tablespoon or 2)

1 heaping cup of shredded sweet potato (I shredded mine in the food processor, did you know you could do that? I didn’t. No more hand grating for me!)

oil for pan

coconut butter, for topping (optional—but really not)

vegan chocolate chunks, for topping

maple syrup, for topping

Instructions:

Mix all listed ingredients through the almond milk, create “well” and add sweet potato. Mix thoroughly but don’t over mix (I don’t know why but that’s what the pancake pros say). Batter will be thick. Add additional almond milk by the tablespoon if you prefer working with a thinner batter but it’s not necessary.

Heat oil in your skillet (or whatever you use to cook pancakes) to med-high.

Drop batter by 1/4 c onto heated surface. You may want to use the back of your spoon to flatten a bit as the batter is thick and doesn’t spread on the pan. Cook pancakes until done, not sticking to pan and can be flipped. I usually “eyeball” the doneness of my pancakes but usually a few minutes on each side.

Top with a drizzle of coconut butter, sprinkle of dark chocolate chunks and syrup.

Serves 4.

Foodler

Though not a stranger to foodler.com, I wasted no time responding when Rachel of Boston Food Bloggers put a message up on facebook asking if anyone was interested in receiving a $15 credit at foodler to use in return for a review post. Two things I never turn down: free money and an excuse to order-in.

If you’ve never used foodler, it’s pretty straight forward. You enter in your address or a city and it returns a list of places that you can order from using the site.

Some of them are close by and others are not-so-much. You can narrow it down by distance… although some of those not-so-close-by will deliver for $10 or so. There are quite a few places in Quincy that use foodler so we’ve never had a hard time picking a place to order from. Another cool feature of foodler? It stores what you’ve ordered so you can look back (great feature because sometimes I can’t remember what I’ve tried… or if there was something I really liked, I don’t always remember what it was.)

As you can see by the star ratings, you can rate not only the restaurant itself, but each individual dish you ordered. I love this feature – I definitely use it as a reference when ordering something I’m unfamiliar with and to review what I ordered for other users. Yet another perk of using foodler? There are always coupons (for free items when you spend a certain dollar amount) or rebate offers (at least on your first order from a particular place – it’s usually between 10 and 20% and gets “refunded” back into your foodler account for a future order.)

On Friday night we decided to order from Sher-A-Punjab, a newer Indian restaurant in Quincy. This was our first time ordering from there but they had great reviews, for our entrees we went with:

And no Indian meal is complete without some naan, to mix it up we went with:

This was delicious… it is described as a tandoor cooked naan with pistacio and coconut. And of course, the “chips and salsa” of Indian food:

with a trio of sauces:

Everything truly was delicious and arrived via delivery faster than promised! You can pay using any major credit card and store different addresses – it remembers where you’ve had food delivered to so you don’t have to type everything in every time you order. You can also add any tip to the delivery driver right into your credit card transaction… or pay in cash upon arrival if you wish. Credit or not, we will definitely be using foodler.com again and again.

*Disclaimer, a $15 credit for use at foodler.com was given to me in exchange for this review. However, my opinions are completely mine and truthful.