Recipalooza

I have been taking a break from creating recipes and checking out some recipes from the sort of blogs from people who don't like processed food and who believe we are still capable of using yeast to make bread, etc. I have changed my perspective on food quite a bit. I am also getting a little apprehensive of eating such processed foods, etc. That being said, I have tried some recipes for myself and am excited to not only direct you to those wonderful people's blogs, but to share my experience on making them.

I made chickpea avacado salad and it was fantastic. The recipe suggests you remove the skins of the chick peas after you strain them from the can, and while tedious, I do think it made a difference. Because of the lime juice, it also lasted several days!!!!! WOW! Delicious. I put it on these…

Whole wheat tortillas.  These were delicious and extremely easy. I actually read this entire blog and pinned several pages from it, including the whole wheat pizza crust I will comment on later. They are also the only thing I took a picture of, sadly.

My husband doesn't love whole wheat so I also made these regular tortillas. They were scrumtrelescent [thanks, Will Ferrel as James Lipton on SNL]. I did not use lard, goodness no, and it said to roll the dough into ping pong sized balls. I found those too small as I do not like my tortillas as thin. 

I also love these make ahead and freeze egg (mc)muffins. I do not (yet) own a jumbo sized muffin pan, but I plan to buy a muffie pan actually - I think it will also bake the correct size. Anyway so I baked the eggs in a regular muffin pan, and while it created the several bites with no egg and then BAM egg effect, my husband and I still love love love these. I made 6 at a time with some almost ready to go bad deli ham that I tossed in a skillet a few times, and I even used shredded cheese. I also wrapped them in plain wax paper and those go in the microwave just fine, too. Everything she says, though, is spot on. My few adjustments weren't deal breakers for this great idea. 

This blueberry banana greek yogurt bread is fantastic. Loved it. No complains, can't wait to do it again. It is unbelievably moist and delicious. 

I made this regular white flour pizza crust and the directions were great and were, indeed, fail proof. I used a big more flour than she suggested however it worked out well. 

Of course I also tried this whole wheat pizza crust and it was alright, but I have a few things I think will help. I think the dough should rise at room temperature. The white pizza crust recipe rose at room temperature and was supple and easy to work with. This rose in the fridge and was a giant lump of hard as a rock dough that my awesome friend had to use her sweet muscles to roll out (and she uses those same muscles to make amazing jewelry which you should check out here! ) and it was the shape of Africa. I had only used half the dough so I left the other half out, re-coated it in some olive oil, and let it sit at room temperature over night and tried again the next day and it was better. SO - I'd say, let the dough go a bit longer than you think in the food processor or mixer with the dough hook so that it is more doughy and well mixed, then let it rise at room temperature. Olive oil is your friend. 

I also tried cauliflower pizza crust and loved it. SUPER flavorful. Maybe double the recipe and make it a little thicker than you might think, and I think, as she recommends, a cookie sheet is best. I used a pizza stone and it was a little hard to get off. I'd use something you can spray or use parchment or something. But it tasted fantastic. 

These strawberries and cream muffins and everything you'd hope they'd be and freeze very, very well. Feel free to add a few extra strawberries if you wish. 

I love these homemade healthy fudgesicles. They were very easy to make and extremely delicious. I did, however, triple the recipe to use the entire can of coconut milk. Maybe making 2.5 of the recipe instead of 3 might make them a tad bit creamier, but they were fantastic using 1 can of coconut milk and tripling everything else. I don't have a popsicle mold, though, so I used a muffin pan and it was great. HOWEVER, it says that it makes 5-6 popsicles for one batch? The tripled version made 6.5 regular sized muffin sized pops. Whatever, they taste awesome and are still healthy even tripled and condensed to 6.5 servings rather than 18 (still not sure how that worked out, but okay). 

Being that I love biscuits, and I love sweet potatoes, I made these sweet potato biscuits. Mine turned out a little chewy because the dough was sticking to my hand like whoa. It was very frustrating. I think I added an additional 3/4 cup of flour in the supposed rolling out and cutting stage and still I had monster blob hands. Not sure of a solution, but they were quite tasty. Oh, I should mention I used whole wheat flour and they taste great and weren't completely ruined, however I do think I will roll them into a big log and then cut them into biscuits instead of rolling the dough out and using a cookie cutter. I will try this recipe again one day and comment further. If you have suggestions on less insanely sticky dough even after adding (and adding, and adding) flour, please let me know. 

Then I made spicy sweet potato patties. They aren't *that* spicy, really. And they do go very well with ketchup. However frying them took quite a long time and they didn't quite stay together for me, but I used flour to substitute for corn starch because I purchased corn meal by mistake. Haha. They were really good and easy to make, but not so easy to cook. I might try baking them after a quick sear or something like that. 

These buffalo chicken rolls were quite possibly my very favorite of all. I didn't put blue cheese in the rolls and they still tasted good, but I might try it next time (I'm cheap and don't love the stuff so I just got some blue cheese dressing for dipping). I then made my own variation of the recipe and made turkey taco rolls. I had browned some ground turkey with some cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper and put some more of the shredded cabbage (I just bought a bag of dry cole slaw mixed greens stuff), and topped it with salsa (home made pico for me) and shredded cheese, wrapped them up, and baked them just like this recipe suggests. The husband went bonkers. We garnished with sour cream. Super good and the variations are endless!

I tried this "carb free cloud bread" stuff and it was…interesting. Honestly it worked just fine but I was kind of grossed out by it. But I put homemade almond butter (roast the nuts, put them in a food processor, wait patiently, enjoy) and some jelly on them and they tasted good but still…weirded out. 

I made Alton Brown's spinach and artichoke dip and it was the easiest recipe of his that I've ever tried. I'd chop up the artichoke hearts a bit before making it. I made mine with fat free everything, and it was definitely sub par. Not to mention since then I've become grossed out by the way they make things fat free so, the husband is happy I'll be using whole fat things from now on. 

This hummus recipe is awesome. So easy, super variable, and way cheaper than purchasing it. Yes, tahini is expensive, but it lasts forever and you don't need much at all. I mean really. If you eat hummus, this is great. AND I froze it and it was awesome, I didn't even need to add olive oil. Seriously be creative with this. I had a random jar of guacamole mix (random stuff like some onion in it, some green chiles, whatever) and I just dumped it in and it was amazing. I also used lime juice instead of lemon, also no problem. 

I made this whole wheat pie crust and since it sat in the fridge, it was again a giant lump of hard dough when I tried to roll it out. Oy. I may search around, or eventually (*gasp*) attempt to solve this problem some other way and post my own recipe.

Now, on a totally unrelated to the wholesome eating note, I made Mother's Day lunch for my mother in law and her family and so I adjusted the menu accordingly. I can say, however, that these recipes work very well. I made Paula Deen's lasagna as well as her lemon meringue pie and they were both delicious, but not healthy, and not un-processed. I highly recommend this extremely easy (you don't even need a bowl) pie crust which is very salty so it pairs well with the extremely sweet pie filling. 

I hope this has been helpful! I have a few old recipes to add in the next few posts which reflect the more processed version of food, but then I will probably be mostly wholesome, unprocessed food. :)

Oh, and this… this from Pinterest works very well. But you have to use a BIG mouthed bottle. I used one of those Viamin Water bottles.