These are Maggie’s cookies, but she won’t eat them.  She likes baking more than she likes eating baked goods!  I get requests from her to make a cake…. and we will.  And then she’ll have two bites and then be done… leaving an entire cake just sitting around asking to be eaten. Trouble.  She had a blast making these little peanut butter cookies: rolling the “dough” into balls, flattening them, and especially pressing the fork into the dough.  I had left the kitchen to grab something from somewhere, and when I cam back, she had prepared a bunch by her self. So cute.

Anyway, these are suuuper easy and delicious.  Unless you don’t like peanut butter, which apparently Maggie doesn’t!

• 2 cups organic peanut butter, no sugar added
• about 2 cups sweetener of your choice,  I used xylitol and only used about 1 1/2 cups.
• 2 eggs
• dash of vanilla
• any other little goodies, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, mini M&Ms…!

preheat oven to 350° F, combine all ingredients, roll into small balls, flatten, imprint with a fork, bake for about 10 minutes until brown.  they will be soft when coming out of the oven, leave to cool on wire rack. i loosely covered them over night in cling-film and they were crunchy in the morning.  with a glass of almond milk, that’s a pretty awesome breakfast.

• 1 large pumpkin, pureed, or two large cans of pumpkin puree
• 1 pack of maple smoked bacon
• butter or olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 5 large leeks, mostly white part, chopped and rinsed
• 32 oz chicken stock, plus more to cover vegetables for cooking
• salt and pepper
• cinnamon
• ground cloves
• nutmeg
• almond milk, or heavy cream for stirring in at the end

Almost everything I cook is pretty rustic— meaning I don’t follow a recipe and just add a lot this and that.  Soups are perfect for this type of cooking… I like to blend this one up in to a rich and smooth soup, that is perfect drunk straight from a mug.

This one starts off with frying together the bacon, onions, garlic, and leeks.  Then add the stock, salt and pepper, pumpkin and simmer until cooked.  Add the spices.  It blends easiest with a stick blender; you can use an upright blender as well, but you may need a bit more stock to get things going. Stir in almond milk or heavy cream…. gulp it down or savour… and then go outside and enjoy autumn before the snow comes!! (we might have a snowy halloween here, that doesn’t sound like a good omen to me…. hmmm)

makes 4 small, dense, cake rounds (recipe easily doubles)

• about 1 cup or small jar of hazelnut butter
• 3/4 cup of honey (or your sweetener of choice)
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil or butter
• 1 extra-large egg
• 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Green & Black)
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla
• 4 ounces of  dark chocolate, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

1. Combine hazelnut butter, melted chocolate, eggs, coconut oil, honey, baking soda, sea salt, and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
2. Add the cocoa powder and combine well, avoiding lumps. At this point, the batter will taste like Nutella. It is criminal not to have a taste.
3. Stir in chocolate chunks/chips.
4. Spread into 4 3″ round baking molds (or the mold of your choice).
5. Bake for 15 minutes. Check if a toothpick inserted comes out mostly clean. Larger pans will take longer, you want the edges dark and the center just a little bit soft.

For the topping: I have made these with or without the “frosting”.  It adds just a little more decadence and another flavor.  Basically just mash strawberries and mix with coconut oil or butter. Yeah, it looks sloppy, but it sure is yummy.

Maggie and I are headed to the seaside…

Will be back next week with a recipe for chocolate hazelnut cake. YUM!

These almond flour crackers are inspired by the everything bagels– you know, the best ones, with onion, poppy seeds, & sesame seeds.  Elizabeth, Karina & Elana, who all have similar versions.  I made up my recipe as I went a long, so if you’re looking for a recipe, click on their names.  They are pretty simple, but delicate.  I made mine without egg and rolled the dough very thin to keep it extra crispy.

The basics are ground nuts, grated or finely diced  onion and garlic, poppyseeds, sesame seeds, oil, salt and pepper. Mix all the ingredients til they are bread crumb like consistency, then roll out between parchment paper slice, bake on parchment paper or silpat for 10-20 minutes @ 350F/175C or until golden brown.

for 2 dozen muffins, or 1 dozen muffins and one thin cake, or 1 thick cake.

• 6 very ripe bananas
• 3 organic eggs
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 200g or 1& 3/4 cups ground almonds
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• half a bar of dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 a cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• oil for the pan

preheat oven to 180 c/350 f. mix all the wet ingredients, add the dry ingredients. combine well, fold in chocolate and nuts. pour into a lightly oiled muffin tin or cake pan and bake for 30 minutes til golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. will be soft, let cool before removing from pan to cooling rack.

these are perfect if you find yourself indoors on a cold and rainy summer day.

To celebrate our 4yr anniversary, I surprised Noah with a chocolate flavoured coconut ice cream. It’s dairy-free and only uses a few tablespoons of honey for a sweetener.

For the cream:

• 2 cans full fat coconut milk
• 6 eggs
• pinch of salt
• 4 tablespoons of honey (more or less to taste)
• 2 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used green & blacks)
• tablespoon vanilla
• teaspoon of nutmeg
• chocolate chunks (optional)

In a medium bowl, mix the honey, salt and cocoa powder into a paste, add the eggs and mix well.   Heat the coconut milk in a saucepan on medium heat.  When warm, pour it slowly on to the egg/honey mixture, a little bit at a time and whisking constantly (to prevent the eggs curdling).  Pour that mix back into the saucepan and reduce heat, add vanilla and nutmeg and keep stirring until the cream coats the back of a spoon.  Pour back into medium bowl, and cool in the fridge for about an hour.

That’s your base.  At this point you could throw it in an ice cream machine (lucky you!). Or go about it the low-tech, primitive way, but warning–this will take a few hours and you might eat quite a bit of the cream on it’s way to becoming iced. siiigh.  When the ice cream is almost solid and scoopable, add in the chocolate chunks or any other toppings/fillings you might like.  David Lebovitz has a great tutorial for making ice cream without a machine here.

frittata, originally uploaded by –Barbara–.

I love frittatas. like a crustless quiche– but even quicker to throw together.
This one is just fried pancetta, leeks, garlic and spring green onions. 6 organic eggs, scrambled, mixed with the goods, s+p and baked in a hot oven for a half hour. If you can tolerate dairy, top with parmesean cheese, and you’ll get a delicious crispy top.

—–

My mom is in town, and it is wonderful. It’s been 18 years since she has last been to London, we are going to revisit some of the places she took me as a young girl, and now with my daughter. What a treat.

I tried doing some pastry making for the first time yesterday… and it was a success! a very delicious one.  I used wholemeal spelt flour, and sunflower spread (a dairy-free margarine type thing), and the tart turned out light and flaky. perfect.

Here is the “recipe” I emailed to my mom yesterday… don’t want to bother with rewriting it when I should be cleaning!!

i dont know the exact recipe– i just made it up as I went along lol! umm.. .maybe a cup and half of flour, half a cup of fake butter, maybe a 1/3 cup of ice water and a pinch of salt.  mix flour and butter in a large bowl with a fork, so it looks like bread crumbs, and then add a little water at a time til it comes together, then  put it on a large piece of cling-film/plastic wrap and put another piece on top and roll it out to the desired size. put in an oiled pan, put plastic wrap back on top and stick in freezer til chilled. then bake in a hot oven (around 400 degrees F/200ish celsius) for about 15 minutes, take it out and then add the topping/filling. bake til it looks ready!

The tomato filling was super easy– one can of chopped tomatoes, drained, mixed with 2 cloves of garlic (minced), half of a small onion, finely chopped rosemary, salt and pepper, and one egg.  I added a little cheese to mine before baking. 

I love making things with just whatever you happen to have in the pantry and fridge, so with the leftover pastry dough, I made a little apple tart:  roll the dough on to a pan, grate a little apple on the dough, add some thinly sliced apples, some cinnamon, brown sugar, and  dab of butter. bake that little gem in a hot oven til its brown and carmel-y.   I think we will be eating tarts a lot more now.

homemade donuts made with leftover pizza dough. I must give credit to my two favorite tv chefs, Jamie Oliver and Giada De Laurentiis.

 I followed this recipe for the dough, (which made awesome pizza last night) substituting a mixture of wholemeal spelt and plainflour for the white flour.  I looooove his show Jamie at Home, where he cooks fresh food from his garden in England, and features an ingredient each episode.  The show definitely makes the whole process of eating what you grow at home more realistic–something Noah and I really want to do some day, but the thought of actually accomplishing it can be intimidating. (so thanks for the encouragement, Jamie!)

The first episode I ever saw of Everyday Italian years ago, Giada made simple donuts out of pizza dough.  I know I ’m a dork, but that show really inspired me to try cooking and baking–she made it look so elegant, yet authentic at the same time. instructions for making donuts here.  (so thoughtful of you to share, Giada!) ;)

I topped mine with a mixture of cinnamon/nutmeg/brown sugar, and even glazed a few with icing sugar and oat cream.  I also suggest pretending while you eat them that they are even somewhat healthy because of the wholemeal and the homemade factor.  But of course, anything deep fried in two inches of hot oil is not anywhere close to being healthy… I’m sure they were still healthier than krispy kremes?? Oh, well….they were delicous. And Maggie and Noah approved, so all is well.


these photos have nothing to do with donuts….but she is sweet, soft and yummy :)