Coconut ice cream cake with fruit and a "brownie" bottom

I made ice cream today with no special machine.  I had help from Thing 2 (the girl twin), she was so proud to serve it to her family tonight!

I copied the recipe exactly from this rawsome vegan life.  I dare say it is to be considered a healthy dessert.  You can serve it for breakfast, any snack and dessert.  It's chock full of good things and just a touch of sweet.

Mine even turned out pretty!  THAT's quite an accomplishment for me.  SEE:

 

 

 So, I lined the smallest glass mixing bowl I have with plastic wrap and had Thing 2 dump in some various frozen fruit we had in the freezer (sweet cherries, mango, sliced strawberries, whole raspberries and blueberries) then poured the ice cream mixture we made on top of the berries, let freeze, press on a "brownie" crust and invert onto a big plate to serve!  So easy and nutritious.

Before serving, let it thaw in the fridge a bit, maybe about 30 minutes to soften but not melt.  A plastic bowl would have made it a bit easier to unmold.  The bowl should be able to hold about six cups.

Here's the recipe!

Coconut ice cream cake with fruit and a "brownie" bottom
from this rawsome vegan life
Ice cream:

1 can of store-bought raw coconut milk 

1/4 cup raw cane sugar or preferred sweetener, to taste (I used granulated sugar, maple syrup would be fabulous)

1 banana

Brownie crust:

1/3 cup walnuts

1/3 cup raw oats

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

2/3 cup dates (or more)

Fruit:

Whatever fresh or frozen you have or like, about 2 cups

Prepare the cake vessel: find a bowl that can hold about 6 cups, or use a small dome cake pan and line it with plastic wrap, tin foil or whatever. I used a dome shaped colander and plastic wrap, it worked fine. Alternatively, you can just make this using a normal cake pan.  Line the sides of the pan or bowl with your chosen fruit. 

To make the ice cream: blend all ingredients until smooth. Pour into your pan or bowl and put in the freezer until solid, about 3 or 4 hours. 

To make the brownie crust: put the walnuts, oats and cacao in your food processor and pulse until they become a flour. Add the dates and process until it starts to stick together. Press onto the "top" of your ice cream cake (it will become the bottom when you flip it later). Put in the fridge for about an hour to let everything set. Then carefully flip your cake onto a plate and take off your lining - voilà! Decorate as you wish and let thaw before eating. 

 

So pretty, it's a party waiting to happen!

I think I'll be making this again and again this summer, the kids all liked it so much!  I think I'll use the ice cream recipe with fruit in popsicle molds or tiny plastic cups with a stick in it.  The brownie base could be made into an energy ball-type thing.

Fast Red Lentil Soup

When I open my Essential Vegetarian that my Mum gave to me a while ago to make the Chickpea Curry, I usually whip up a batch of this soup at the same time.  It is quick to throw together, I usually have all the ingredients in the house, it freezes well and we all love it. 

I add (almost) whatever veggies I have in the house - peppers of any colour, carrots, a bit of celery, a potato, sweet potato, a bit of turnip (not much).  I add the finely chopped or diced vegetables at the beginning with the onion.

Not going to win any photgraphy awards, but here are the bowls lined up for my family's supper -
three wees and three bigs!

I also usually double it, I'm already chopping, so what's a bit more?!

Fast Red Lentil Soup
directly from Essential Vegetarian
1 onion, chopped finely
1 Tbsp olive oil
any vegetables you choose
1 cup red lentils
1 - 14oz can of diced tomatoes
4 cups stock or water (you'll want to add some seasoning if you use water, like a bouillon cube)
- fry onion and any vegetables you are adding in a bit of oil until soft
- add lentil, tomatoes and stock (or water and seasonings)
- bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.  Serve topped with a small dollop of sour cream.

 

You can also add some quinoa or rice (brown or wild) to this soup.  If you have some of these grains already cooked, throw them in.  If you are adding them uncooked, add extra water or stock so the grain can absorb it (thoroughly rinse your quinoa first).  Keep in mind that these grains will continue to grow and absorb the liquid so I prefer to only add them to the batch I am serving and will consume, not to the batch that is destined to be frozen.  Freeze your cooked grains along with the soup in a separate baggie or container so you will have some to add for next time. 

Homemade Wheat Thins

What goes well with soup?  Crackers!  Who didn't have any in the house?  We didn't!

Until, that is, I made some.

These were easy and not messy to make and quick to go from recipe to table.  All qualities I value in the middle of the day when all the kids are up.

These homemade crackers are so much like the box version, yet so much better.  There are no preservatives in them at all, but who needs them when we gobble them down so fast anyhow?  These would make a good munchie for movie night, they go well with soup, they'd stand up to a dip (I'm thinking a Mexican 7 layer dip), they'd be impressive at a potluck and they're great for lunch boxes... I'm always on the hunt for things to put in lunch boxes.

The dough was easy to throw together and was a dream to work with.  Even the scraps could be reworked so there's no waste. 

Roll the dough as thin as you can, don't be afraid.  Thinner dough = crispier cracker; a thicker dough = slightly chewy cracker, but still delightful.  You choose, try two different thicknesses on two pans to find out what you like.

I rolled it out on a floured surface, slid it onto a baking sheet and cut it with my pizza cutter on the pan.  I didn't spread them out at all, just baked them in that form.  It went really well that way, they cooked evenly and didn't stick together.



Once they were cooked, they cooled on the baking pan on a cooling rack.  When they were perfectly cooled I put them into a big mason jar for storage. 

I found three blogs with the exact same ingredients and proportions, so I figured it was a sure-shot.  Here is one, and another, and another.  Happy reading.

Homemade Wheat Thins
from the three blogs mentioned above
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus extra for topping
1/4 teaspoon paprika
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (or Earth Balance)
1/4 cup water (you might need to add a little more)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
- whisk dry, cut in butter to homogenous and crumbly
- add water to vanilla and add to flour mixture.  Start to combine with a fork then get your hands in there and work the dough, it should not be sticky.  If you find it won't hold together, add a drop more water until it does.
- divide in four balls (easier to work with) and lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.  Roll out thin, aiming for 1/16"
- slide the sheet onto a cookie pan, cut into desired size and shape, sprinkle with kosher salt if desired.
- bake at 400F for 8-10 minutes, watch closely
- store in airtight container

Giveaway warm-up

I have a giveaway on it's way! 

In the meantime, I'm going to prime you a bit for the big moment. 

I received a big tub (a quart? 960ml, anyhow) of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil (That's a Lot of Caps) in the mail this week for free!  They want me to give one away to a reader as well!  Ha!  How much fun is that?!  I'm just reading the fine print of the giveaway to ensure I do it correctly and everyone is happy, that's my delay.

In the meantime, I'll tell you what I've done with my coconut oil so far.

Well, as soon as I opened it and stopped dancing around the house with a stupid grin on my face, I put a good amount in a separate container for personal use.  I love it on my hands and face, it's very softening and I generally have rough and very dry hands.  In fact, this morning I was putting some on my hands and put my fingers through the Middle Girl's hair and it really brought her ringlets together and they stayed that way all day!  Not appetizing but I'm telling you because it works for me and maybe you too. 

So far I've made Tahini Oatmeal cookies using only raisins.  Soooooo good!  I brought them to a playgroup and one girl just kept coming back for more!  Guess they were her thing!

Then, I made French Toast and used it to fry in the pan in place of butter - that went over really well.

I've made a batch of chocolate chips for Brown Sugar Blondies tomorrow for weekend road trips.

I had a batch of Lazy Granola in the oven yesterday. 

That's it so far and there's lots more oil to go through.

This is not the giveaway question, but what would you do if you won it?  I'm just curious, that's all.

Homemade chocolate chips (or carob)

I've made my own chocolate chips a few times now and enjoy them.

Here is where I found my inspiration.  Here is another site to read if you're in the mood.



The ingredients for homemade chocolate chips.

Homemade chocolate chips

1 cup cocoa (slighly rounded, just not flat) or carob powder
1/2 cup coconut oil or butter (or a combination of both)
1/3 cup granulated sugar (white sugar) (more or less to taste)
quick dash salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
- in a glass bowl over a small pot of simmering water, melt all the ingredients together. It takes about 10-15 minutes of heating and a few stirs to let the sugar dissolve completely but this is important for both texture and flavour of the final product.
- once sugar is dissolved, pour into a parchment lined 9x9 dish and let harden either in the fridge or freezer. Remove and hack at it with a knife until you get the size pieces you want.

You can also use 1/4 tsp peppermint extract if you are looking for mint chips.

Store these in the freezer or fridge.

They can be used in a trail mix, though be aware they will probably melt before a commercially prepared product, whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you to decide.

Lovin' it, sunbutter

I absolutely love my sunbutter.  If you haven't made any yet, you may want to consider it to change things up a bit.

Sunbutter is "butter" made out of sunflower seeds - as peanut butter is made from peanuts.

Here is the recipe on my blog (click on the blue word "here" at the beginning of this sentence).  It's so good and stores well at room temperature.  Give it a little stir before you use it, but it's not as hard to deal with as many natural peanut butters.

Vegetables

A new week, a new start.

My diet was lacking in vegetables last week and my crisper shows it; my fridge is chock full of vegetables.  They have not gone bad yet so I need to act fast. 

It was also lacking in sweat and activity, so I'm going to add a bit of that to my schedule as well.

I'm really looking forward to eating this soup today and this week.  It's so satisfying and so good for my family and I.  I'm going to freeze some of it and I'll be throwing different things in it all week to switch it up (beans, tofu, spices and who knows what else).

I made vegetable soup, clubhouse sandwiches and served them with potato wedges a little while ago, remember that?  So good!

Fresh Vegetable Soup
from the WW site

	2 cloves garlic, minced
	1 medium onions, diced
	2 medium carrots, diced
	1 medium sweet red peppers, diced
	1 rib celery, diced
	2 small zucchini, diced
	2 cups green cabbage, shredded
	2 cups Swiss chard, chopped
	2 cups cauliflower, small florets
	2 cups broccoli, small florets
	2 tsp thyme, fresh, chopped
	6 cups vegetable broth (or chicken)
	2 Tbsp parsley, or chives, fresh, chopped (I'll be using chives from my garden!)
	1/2 tsp table salt, or to taste
	1/4 tsp black pepper, or to taste
	2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, optional

- put all into a large soup pot. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to low and simmer 10 minutes.

Banana coconut pineapple (tofu) smoothie

Made one of my best smoothies for snack this afternoon, as rated by the Big Kid.  He loves smoothies and knows when one stands above the rest.

I made Healthy Lemon Squares (post to follow) this afternoon and instead of just making more of the filling, I ended up with some silken tofu left over.  I also had a can of coconut milk open in the fridge to use up.

Here's what I did.

Banana Coconut Pineapple smoothie (with tofu - but you don't have to tell your kids)
1 yellow banana
1 can (14oz) pineapple in chunks with juice
1/2 box Mori Nu silken tofu (red box, 240g) (approx)
1/3 can Thai Kitchen coconut milk (red label, 400ml) (approx)
3 Tbsp sugar
- dump all ingredients into blender and blend away
- serve as is or chilled.  If you are smart, you can use a frozen banana and it will be colder (you may cut up said banana and freeze it ready for smoothies or 1 ingredient ice cream, which I have not tried yet)

Photos to follow this evening, just had to tell you now while it's still hot out and you want a snack.

Another banana bread

Tonight, I was in the mood for Tostitos.  So I made banana bread.  I'm not sure how one led to the other but let's keep going. 



I made a recipe based on Chocolate Covered Katie's Coconut Breakfast Cake.  It is neither breakfast time nor do I think of it as a cake nor did I go with the coconut theme.  I used her substitution idea of bananas for pineapple this time.  I'm going to make it again going with the pina colada idea.

Here's what I did to achieve my evening bliss.

Banana Bread with coconut milk
based on CCK
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs (or flax egg substitute)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 bananas very ripe and brown speckly, mashed
1/2 cup full-fat canned coconut milk **
- mix dry
- mix wet (add brown sugar here)
- combine just to moisten dry ingredients
- grease bread loaf pan, bake at 350F 35-42 minutes.  Knife inserted in centre should come out clean when done, don't underbake, if anything go over by two minutes.
- remove from pan onto cooling rack as soon as you can so the crust stays nice.  Best to let it cool before you cut it, or at least almost cool.
** I used Thai Kitchen (red label) and when I opened it there was this beautiful thick cream at the top and that's what I used in the banana loaf.  Then, when it was (barely) cool enough to eat, I slathered this thick coconut cream straight out of the can right on top of a piece of banana bread and it was VERY GOOD.

You could use 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained, in place of the mashed banana

You can add in some optional ingredients: chopped macadamia nuts or walnuts, shredded coconut, rum extract.

See the can I used?  Yummy.

This is a blob of the coconut cream straight outta the can and on a
piece of slightly warm banana bread, it melts just a bit.

This is going in the freezer for lunches next week.  Well, whatever's left after I go have another piece right now.

Moroccan Red Lentil Soup

I can hardly believe I haven't posted this recipe before now!  I make this so often, I consider it one of our regular soups. 

Guess I forgot to add the peas before I took the picture.

 The ingredients are almost always in the house.  It's warming.  It's good for you.  It's easily doubled and freezes well.  The kids eat it!

Moroccan Red Lentil Soup ingredients.

I love the yellow colour of the soup with the bright green peas floating around.  It`s a jolly soup!

Moroccan Red Lentil Soup
copied straight from Canadian Living

These are the spices, aren`t they pretty?

2 2tbsp tbspextra-virgin olive oil

2 onions , chopped

4 cloves garlic , minced

2 celery stalks , chopped

1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 Pinch saffron (optional)
6 cups water
1 cup red lentils
1 tbsp tomato paste

2 potatoes , peeled and cubed

1 can (19 oz/540 mL) tomatoes

1 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup light sour cream
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

- In large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, heat oil over medium heat; cook onions, garlic and celery, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Add salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, and saffron (if using); cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes.
- Add water, lentils, tomato paste, potatoes and tomatoes, breaking up tomatoes with spoon; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 35 minutes.
- Add peas; simmer until lentils, vegetables and potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.  Ladle into bowls. Dollop each with sour cream; sprinkle with parsley. 
Tip 1: For a smoother texture, purée 2 cups of the cooked soup until smooth, then stir back into remainder of soup.
Tip 2: You can add a variety of vegetables to this soup.  For example, this particular batch has cauliflower florets in it.  You can add sweet potato, carrot, and cooked squash.
Vegan version: you can omit the sour cream entirely and it's still awesome, this is how we eat it most of the time, actually.

Microwave Brownie in a Mug (single serving)

Midnight snack tonight.

Not too much to look at, but you can see the ooey, gooey centre just slightly undercooked.
Yes, please!

Microwave Brownie in a Mug
adapted from Chow
3 Tbsp granulated sugar, slightly rounded
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp butter, melted
3 Tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla
A dash of salt
1 tsp Just Us! Espresso Blend ground coffee (optional, but highly recommended)
- In a small bowl or mug, mix sugar, cocoa and flour well.
- In a large mug (or small bowl), melt butter.  Add water, salt, vanilla and coffee, if using. Whisk.
- Add dry ingredients, whisk well.  Clean off edges of the mug with your clean finger, lick finger.
- Microwave for 60-75 seconds: 60 seconds for a molten bottom, 75 for uniformly done.

NOte on the coffee: you can use 3 Tbsp strong, brewed coffee (hot or cold) (and omit the 3 Tbsp water) to avoid the grits of coffee grinds in your cake, but I rather like the bits in my cake.

I cooked it in the microwave for 60 seconds.  (one measuring spoon and one button on my microwave!)

Perfection when served as is.

Then again, you could stick a small chunk of dark chocolate in the centre while hot, top with ice cream, whipped cream, Newfie cream (Carnation canned cream, like clotted cream I think), crème douce (whipping cream, heavy cream), or dust with icing sugar, or a ganache (nah, that's just too rich).

You can double (or more) this recipe. Then you can cook two at one time (I recommend two bowls) or use half now and store half in the cupboard for later... like later tonight when you're up with your toddler AGAIN and it only takes one beep of the microwave to cook it - One Minute button, thank you. Um, combine the dry ingredients and store those, then add the wet when you NEED CAKE FAST. I know what I'm talking about here!

EDIT: I have made it with cow's milk, soy milk, Earth Balance and applesauce in place of the melted butter. You take your pick.

If you have time to think and plan ahead, make a pan of these luscious brownies, they freeze really well and you can ship them across the country (though this costs a small fortune as they are dense and heavy).


SMALLER SERVING
It has come to my attention that the full recipe above is rich (yes, you're welcome) but perhaps too much for 1 person in one sitting.  Here is the math worked out for 2/3 of the cake above:
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp flour
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp butter, melted (or applesauce or Earth Balance, melted)
2 Tbsp water (or brewed coffee and omit coffee granules)
1/8 tsp vanilla
dash salt
2/3 tsp coffee granules
- mix dry
- melt butter in cereal bowl, add water, vanilla, salt and coffee (if using).
- add dry, mix well
- microwave 50 seconds to 1 minute


Did you share your brownie?  You don't have to, you know...
Did you add anything to it? 

Did you top it with something?