Almond (or any type of nut) Butter

Dudes, look:

This is super creamy. So creamy, I poured it out of my food processor. And yes, into a former sour cream container. Don't judge. Or do, whatever.

Okay. Ready?

Ingredients:
Almonds

That's it.

Seriously. Just enough to about halfway fill your food processor.

Things you need:
Patience
A food processor
A cookie sheet

Okay. Step one, roast the almonds (or whatever nut). Do it! Don't skip. It draws out the oils and that is important. Roast them at 350 for about 10 minutes. Better to under roast than to over roast. If they smell hot and delicious, they're ready.

Then, dump them into your food processor. Now turn it on. Now wait about 15 minutes or until it is the desired consistency. Like I said, I like it really creamy. Like this:

See how it was pouring out? Amazing. But you have to wait! Just wait. If its like nut dust at first, great. Wait. Paste? Wait. Unless you want paste.

Reasons to make nut butter:
Cheap
Easy
Healthy

Reasons not to:
You don't possess patience or a food processor or are obsessed with chemicals in your food.

If you want sweetened nut butter, honey is great. Or sugar. But I like mine either with jelly, which makes the perfect sweetness, or on an apple. Same result.

Make it!

Fiesta Chicken with Corn Cakes

To me, this looks like summer:

I plan to try a recipe soon from scratch instead of using Jiffy corn cake mix, but whatever.

Ingredients:

1 box of Jiffy corn cake mix
1 3/4 tbs melted shortening (or butter, or margarine)
1 egg
1 1/4 cup milk (any fat content)
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
Chicken (I prefer thinly sliced boneless skinless breasts)
Some sort of lime-margarita-citrus something marinade
Salsa of choice
Avocado, sliced
Cilantro, chopped
Lime wedges
Thinly shredded cheese (a white Mexican cheese is best, mozzarella works well, too)

1. Marinate the chicken. The closer to an hour, the better. If they are frozen and you can somehow get them into the marinade as they thaw overnight, that is great, too.
2. Cook the chicken (in a skillet or bake it). Keep it warm while you make the corn cakes.
3. Combine the Jiffy, shortening, egg, milk, drained corn, drained beans, and diced jalapeño and mix until the dry lumps are gone.
4. On a hot griddle or large skillet, (greased if it isn't sufficiently non-stick) scoop about 1/4 cup of the corn cake mix on at a time. When there are bubbles coming up through the whole corn cake, it's ready to flip. You can watch the sides and edges to get a pretty good idea of when the other side is done.
5. Now you're ready to plate! Stack as follows: corn cake(s), shredded cheese, chicken, salsa, avocado, cilantro, then squeeze the lime over it and leave it on the plate for a garnish.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry White Chocolate Cookies or Cupcakes (yes you read that correctly)

Behold. Cookies first, cupcakes after.

Yes. They are delectable and extremely rich and horrible for you. Also very easy. 

Ingredients:

Cookies:

1 box of strawberry cake mix

Some white chocolate chips. I don't know, like, around 1/3-1/2 a bag. 

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

Ganache, for dipping:

1 cup chopped dark chocolate (any chocolate, really, I prefer dark)

1 cup heavy cream

1. Dump the cake mix, chocolate chips, oil, and eggs in a bowl and stir. 

2. Spoon them onto a cookie sheet (I use an ice cream scoop) and bake them at 350º for 12-15 minutes or until just the slightest bit brown. Let them cool ALL THE WAY. 

3. Make the ganache (heat the cream in a double boiler or a microwave, but not quite to the point of boiling and add the chopped chocolate and stir). Also let this cool quite a bit. If it is too hot, or the cookies are too hot, the cookies will just crumble into the ganache. 

4. Once the cookies and ganache are at acceptable temperature (the cookies should be room temperature, the ganache should be just warm), dip half the cookie into the ganache and return to a rack (if you want to dip the whole cookie, you can use a potato masher to fish it out of the ganache however they will likely break, just saying. The cupcakes that follow are better for complete dipping.) I sprinkled them with pearl sprinkles but those were just for looks. 

NOW, a cupcake variant. 

1. Make the strawberry cupcakes as the box directs. You can add white chocolate chips, but they don't work quite as well in cupcakes as they do in cookies. They just sink to the bottom.

2. If you used wrappers, unwrap them. If not, I trust you sprayed the pan, etc. 

3. Wait for the cupcakes to cool, and dip them in the ganache using a potato masher. It is the perfect size to scoop the cupcake out of the ganache with minimal contact and can gently push it down so that it is fully covered. Messy, but delicious. 

(I promise I unwrapped those, you can just see the little indentations through the shiny ganache.) 

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.