Delicious Flourless Cake

My daughter, age 12, made this cake for our dessert tonight. No, it is not vegan. Yes, it is gluten-free. It is soft, moist, and delicious. We used sugar cane crystals (unrefined sugar) rather than white sugar and carob rather than cocoa. Makes it a little healthier, but I'll have to tell you that the finished product is not a health food product. It is just tasty.


You can find the recipe here.

Full Plate Thursday - Gluten-free and No Carbs Cheesecake

Please visit Full Plate Thursday with Miz Helen. Lots of good recipes there. Today I'd like to share a new dessert I made earlier in the week: Gluten-free and No Carbs Cheesecake. I took a recipe for New York-Style Cheesecake with Lemon Essence found in Suzanne Somers' new book, Sexy Forever, and revamped it to suit the ingredients I had on hand. The cheesecake is gluten-free and carbs free, which makes it a great dessert for both my husband and me. I can have it while detoxing!

© Yantra - Fotolia.com

Gluten-free and No Carbs Cheesecake

Two 8-ounce packages cream cheese (Neufchatel cheese is ok)

1/4 cup Agave Nectar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (not imitation flavoring)

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

3 cups sour cream (full fat)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Grease a 9x12 baking pan with butter and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese with agave nectar until very smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and salt. Then beat in sour cream until just blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Turn off the oven without opening the door and let the cake sit in the oven for 1 hour. Remove to a rack to cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Serves 8-10

Granola - Homemade and Gluten-free

 This week I decided that I wanted to make granola - I can't find any gluten-free varieties without spending a huge chunk of our grocery budget on it. I did not follow any  specific recipe.

The first thing I did was preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, I began putting ingredients that I like and that are gluten-free into a mixing bowl. I used:

About a cup of rolled oats (old-fashioned)

Honey - 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Cashews - 1 - 2 cups

Almond Butter - 1 -2 TBSP

 Almost 2 cups of dehydrated bananas and dehydrated cranberries

 A cup of unsweetened applesauce

When mixed together, it looked like above.

I put it all in a lightly oiled (canola oil) cookie sheet and baked for about 40 minutes. The result is below.

Once the granola was cooked, I put it all in a large bowl (after eating some, of course). It keeps well and tastes delicious. Be sure to put a lid on the bowl :)

You can find a lot of wonderful recipes and food ideas at Full Plate Thursday.

Yogurt

I am thankful for the many ways our family has been blessed this winter. From unexpected checks in the mail to friendships to "angels unawares", we've seen them all. This week we enjoyed something that was lighthearted and fun, not to mention tasty. General Mills has a program called "My Get Together" and I am a member. They had mailed a prepaid VISA to use toward purchasing Yoplait yogurt and other food. I was to host a home party, you see.

The fun thing about this home party is that I didn't have to sell anything, as I have had to do in the past (i.e. Pampered Chef, Tupperware, etc.). With the pressure off, people are free to enjoy the party. I enjoyed the party because it didn't cost me a ton of money - Yoplait had paid for most of it with that prepaid card.

I prepared Raspberry Trifle - the hands down favorite of the night, Southwest Taco Dip, crunchy tacos, and Chocolate-dipped Fruit Wreath. We also tasted some different flavors and varieties of Yoplait yogurt. Yoplait is gluten-free but the raspberry trifle, sadly, is not. It is prepared with angel food cake so I couldn't eat it. My friends and family, however, love it. It smells wonderful.....

As for other thankful things, we did not get much of a winter storm way up here, though not all that far south of us the blizzard raged. My family back in Indiana are safe even though they were blasted by it.

God is good.

This post is linked with Thankful Thursday and Full Plate Thursday. Please visit each of these if you can.

*I received free product from Yoplait to host this party.*

Homemade Noodles and Sicilian Supper

Today I made homemade noodles for one of my family's favorite dishes: Sicilian Supper. It's not hard - just takes time. I should point out that I made a separate pan of it with Ancient Harvest gluten-free noodles for Amanda and me. The recipe below is made with wheat flour.

To start the noodles, I put two cups of unbleached all-purpose flour in my Kitchen-aid Mixer bowl. I add 1/2 tsp. salt and stir. I then make a well and put in it: 2 beaten eggs, 1/3 cup water, and 1 tsp. or so of canola oil. I mix with setting 2 for about 10 minutes or until it's well mixed and springy. I turn it out onto a flour covered surface and cover. It should rest for 10 minutes. After that, I divide the dough into thirds, rolling the first third into a long, thin rectangle. I try to roll the dough as thin as I possibly can. You can't get it too thin when you roll it by hand.

Then, I let the rolled portions dry for about 20 minutes so they don't stick together when I cut them. Once I'm ready to cut the noodles, I roll the long sides and slice into my desired noodle width, shake them out, and place them over towel covered chair backs.

 

They dry for several hours that way before I boil them in salted water.

This is Sicilian Supper before it goes into the oven for about 30 minutes or just until very hot. It's very good, especially when made with homemade tomato sauce! You can find the recipe for Sicilian Supper here.

I am joining Full Plate Thursday this week with this entry.