Wow is right…you would think that with all of this time off from work I would be bombarding you with blog posts! Quite the opposite! I seem to have spent the majority of my time in the past week searching on Pinterest and working on fun home decor projects! So…no post since last Wednesday! Yikes! Besides having lots of fun refinishing, framing and painting, all of that time on Pinterest has also inspired me to get busy in the kitchen! There were so many recipes I wanted to try – and this week I have started checking them off the list. I’ll share some of my favorites and some link love further down this post. But first – Words on Wednesday. Since today is all about food love, I thought I would share a collection of my favorite Julia Child quotes.
“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”
“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.”
“A party without cake is just a meeting”
“I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a Valentine as you can give.”
“Always remember: If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?”
All of this Julia Child talk is making me want to bust out one of my favorite movies “Julie & Julia” – sounds like I’ve got a movie night in the works!
Ok…on to some of the food I have been creating in the past week. None of these recipes are my own, so I will be sure to give credit to where I found it. I did make a few changes to some of them – duh. I can’t bake/cook 100% by the book, because what fun would that be!?
First of all, I realized it was finally time to start experimenting with coconut flour. I would love to have some baked good options that were grain free, and because I still try to avoid nuts, coconut flour is a great option! I found a GREAT deal at Vitamin Cottage before I moved for 2lbs of organic coconut flour for $2.99! What a steal!
On “Pancake Sunday” – while my husband made our tried-and-true pancake treat via Chocolate Covered Katie (those oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes are something close to heaven I think) – I tested out a coconut flour based recipe for myself. After searching the world of Pinterest for a little while, I settled on a recipe from the Foodie Fiasco blog – first of all…holy cow this girl is 15 years old! Check out her stuff!
There are two versions of the coconut pancake recipe…I chose the the second (egg-free) version. The only change I made was to use rice milk in place of almond milk. I also made a blueberry-lemon sauce to top it off. I just use a cup of frozen blueberries, the juice of 1 lemon, a splash of vanilla and a packet of stevia. I cooked it until it reduced down to a syrupy sauce. Overall, I loved the pancakes. They were light, cooked evenly and had a mild coconut flavor. The blueberry sauce really topped it off. They were a little grainy, but I’ve heard that is common in baking with coconut flour. I will keep working on it. Overall, my first coconut flour experience was a success!
After my initial success, I jumped right into another coconut flour recipe I had been itching to try. This one is from one of my favorite blogs The Detoxinista. I swear, add “ista” at the end of any word and it makes it so much classier and cool. And cool she is. Check out some of the awesome recipes on her site!! I tried her “Banana Coconut Muffin” recipe. My changes: instead of 4 over ripe bananas I used 3 (that’s all I had) and subbed 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce for the last banana. I also used agave instead of maple syrup, again, because that’s what I had. They turned out great! It kind of reminded me of a cross between coffee cake and banana bread. It felt good to know I could enjoy a warm, sweet treat without filling up on grains that don’t always make my tummy happy. My pictures didn’t turn out so hot – but there are some great ones on the recipe site so go check it out!!
I am loving my new-found baking ingredient, and can’t wait to keep working on recipes that use coconut flour!
I have been lucky to have time to cook dinner every night, and don’t mind if things take a little longer than usual – so it has been the perfect time to test out some new recipes. Our two favorites this week? Baja Fish Tacos and Yamburgers! Cooking gives a lot more wiggle room for making changes, but I made very few in these two recipes. The Fish Taco recipe comes to you courtesy of Simple Awesome Cooking. I seasoned the fish with cumin and chili powder instead of Old Bay, and made a side of black beans and Spanish rice to round out my meal. My hubby was so excited about it he made his plate extra pretty!
Mine looked more like a pile of mush…so you get to see the picture of his.
The yamburgers were also a favorite this week, and one we will definitely be making again soon. It comes from the blog “Will Cook For Friends” – the name itself makes me love the site. I like to think that my cooking and baking can make me, or keep me some quality friends. To throw in another Julia Child quote…“people who love to eat are always the best people.”
The recipe makes a lot of the sweet potato “dough”?”filling”? “meat”? Whatever you call it. It was delicious none the less. Instead of cooking them all up as burgers, I saved some of it and made stuffed peppers the next night. For the Cilantro Cream – I subbed avocado for the nuts, and used roasted red peppers instead of chipotle. 5 stars for the YAMBURGERS! Yum 
Finally – I spent this morning trying a new gluten free bread recipe (so much for grain-free living, right?) This one may top the charts. I inhaled two pieces fresh out of the oven with a slather of Earth Balance on top. Wowza. Try this. Seriously. Forget about the garlic breath. It’s totally worth it.
Savory Spinach + Roasted Garlic Quick Bread via edible perspective. It’s probably sacrilege ..but I didn’t roast the garlic. I had minced garlic in my fridge and no whole cloves, so I just used what I had. If it’s this delicious without roasted, I can’t imagine the glory of roasted garlic. I promise I will try it next time. Which might be tomorrow. The only picture I got was post-devouring-two-slices….so this is all you get:
Whew! Did you make it all the way to the end of this post? This is what happens when I wait a week to blog I guess. I have had so much fun trying out these recipes I found on Pinterest…seriously what did we do before this site? If you want to follow me and see all of my other inspirations – go for it!
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What about you?
Do you bake with coconut flour?
How many hours a day do you spend getting inspired/wasting time on Pinterest?
What about you?
