Cake For Dinner!!

Yay

This reminds me of the Bill Cosby joke..Daddy's great giving us chocolate cake!! When he gave his kids cake for breakfast because it had eggs, flour, milk, all in one item figuring it would be prefect. Haha.

Well how about cake for dinner too! Sign me up! Well you may want to know what type of cake before you join me in line. ;]

Savory Quinoa Butternut Squash Kale Cakes

1/2 cup cooked kale
1/2 cup butternut squash puree
1 cup flaked quinoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon corriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1-2 tablespoons water (if necessary)

salsa and guacamole (to serve)

Preheat the oven (I use my toaster oven) to 375 degrees. Spray mini cake pans with nonstick cooking spray.

this has some nutritional yeast added to it

Mix the squash puree with the spices.

Add in the quinoa flakes.

Mix in kale and if it is too dry add in a few splashes of water.

Place batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes

until they are golden brown. You can top with a frosting of guac or some salsa.

as you can see I didn't top mine with the guac or salsa

I have also been playing with flavors for cakes but just haven't been taking pictures of them. One batch I made was pumpkin and spinach. Another was sweet potato and kale with walnuts and oats (along with quinoa flakes) topped with cinnamon apple cashew butter. Super good!! You know me any time I can eat cinnamon I'm trying it.

So the recipe above was from a few weeks ago and I just haven't been able to post it.

Right now I cannot eat any solid food =[ I just got my wisdom teeth out (yup all 4) and I have been on a liquid/soft foods diet. I had some canned tomato soup last night and today I made some oatmeal.

may not look special

I don't even know the last time I had oatmeal but it was amazing!! I just cooked up some regular oats, added a super ripe mashed banana and peanut butter powder.

not that appealing looking but tasted great

And for dinner I had some left over kale that I didn't want to go to waste and my friends dad grew asparagus and gave me some so I made a quick soup out of them. I also added some canned butternut squash to make it thicker (yes I have had a lot of canned squash around my house lately, I have been obsessed with making those squash quesadilla).

So until I can actually eat again...

Avocados

Who doesn't love them?? Cause you are crazy!

Yes the lovely green fruit is creamy, buttery, and fresh tasting and that some people don't like it... at all. It is just so versatile- dips, smoothies, add it to salads, heck I could just eat it straight out of the skin with a spoon (not that I have before or anything).

But my post today wasn't really to talk about avocados completely I just wanted to share with all of you how I celebrated my Cinco de Mayo- with a bunch of avocados. =] I think the best way to celebrate any thing is with tons of avocados! (Good fats people!)

What I did really want to share with you is yet another pumpkin recipe (one of these days I will stop eating it all the time, I promise).

Pumpkin Black Bean Dip

1/2 can of black beans, rinsed
1/2 can of pumpkin
1/4 teaspoon chipotle spice blend (or just chili powder)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 cup chopped parsley or cilantro

Mash the black beans with spices.

Add in the pumpkin.

Mix in the parsley and serve!

Quick and easy. Feel free to double or triple the recipe and add more or less spice to your taste.

Dip what ever you like, me on the other hand dipped plantain chips yum!
Happy belated Cinco de Mayo!!

I believe some vegan, raw cheesecake recipes will be to come or cookie dough hummus...

Millet's Not Just For the Birds

Ha I am truly becoming what my brothers have always told me I was- a bird. They would always make fun of the food I ate saying it looked like bird food, well I have now proved them right. But Hey lots of people (vegan and vegetarians everywhere) eat millet all the time. It is a gluten free grain, sweet like corn, and is great when combined with quinoa.

I've been wanting to play around baking with the grain, so finally did it. I've been a little crazy with the lemon berry flavor combo lately so I decided to make a twist on a berry corn bread that I have seen on a few blogs that I follow. Instead of corn I used millet and for the berries I used blackberries. Yum!!

Millet Lemon Blackberry Bread

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 cups millet flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, prepare a 8x8 inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Add lemon extract to the mashed bananas and nutmeg.

Fold in all the dry ingredients, when almost combined add the berries.

Pour into the pan and bake for 30 minutes turning the pan halfway during baking.

It has a corn bread-esk taste and the way it crumbles. Love it!

I also tried this new "cheese" made from almonds:

It is actually really good. I made a salad with it. A type of salad I use to make all the time but just haven't in a long time. It had tomatoes, olives, parsley, sauteed onions, garbanzo beans, hearts of palm, and quartered artichokes and the cheese with some lemon juice as a dressing.

Love it all together and marinated over night!