Paleo Brownies

I'm not even sure what to call these other than "FABULOUS"!!! These are entirely sugar-free and Paleo-friendly! So yummy!

1/3 cup coconut oil (solid)
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 vanilla bean, scraped
1 egg
3 mashed bananas
2 heaping tablespoons cacao powder (more or less to taste)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tsp baking powder (more or less optional...will be a bit denser without it)
2 tbsp arrowroot powder (optional…use a bit more coconut flour if you omit this)
1 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup coconut flour (more or less…didn't measure)

Preheat oven to 350*. Grease a muffin tin with coconut oil.

Beat the coconut oil, honey, vanilla, applesauce and egg until well blended. In another bowl, mash the bananas, and mix in the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, arrowroot powder and cacao powder. Add to the coconut oil mixture. Add coconut flour 1/4 cup at a time until batter reaches desired consistency (think thick cake batter). Stir in almonds and cranberries.

Fill muffin tin half way with batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted half way between the edge and the center comes out dry. They will be heavy for their size, but so unbelievably good!

Pina Colada Granita

I should preface this post by saying that this "recipe" is really probably not worth blogging. We all know how to make a granita, right? The hardest part is waiting for it to freeze so you can eat it. haha!! That said...here we go! :)

What you will need:
1 fresh pineapple--peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt (optional, helps with creaminess)
1/2 cup of rum (I used Sailor Jerry's)
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or about half the guts of 1 vanilla bean)
coconut sugar to taste (more or less depending on how ripe your pineapple is--taste as you go!)
a pinch of kosher salt

Mix it all up in your blender and pour into a glass baking dish. Cover with plastic wrap (push it down on to the surface of the liquid to prevent a "skin" from forming), and freeze until solid (likely overnight).

When you are ready to serve it, remove from freezer and scrape the surface with a metal spoon to achieve the "shaved ice" look and texture. Serve in a pretty martini glass and garnish with a sprig of mint....or be like me and just throw it in a cereal bowl and hand it to your husband. ;)

Cheesecake Bark

Ya know the best thing about barks? They take like no time, and almost no ingredients, but everyone always goes nuts for them, so they make awesome gifts. This one is stupid simple because I made it with leftover cookie ingredients (haha), but like all barks, you can dress it up however you want, really.

This one is super simple as I just did a white layer, but you could TOTALLY do a chocolate layer if that floats your boat, too.

What you need:

1 bag white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped toasted nuts (whatever you have...I had some walnuts and almonds, so I used those)
1/2 cup broken graham crackers (not crumbs, but little broken pieces...Golden Grahams would be good, too...)
2-3 TBSP Cheesecake flavored dry instant pudding mix
1-2 TBSP oil

That's it, really. You can add whatever filling you want, but try to limit it to about a cup per bag of chocolate chips--and that will be a *LOT* of stuff, so if you like less stuff and more candy, then use maybe half a cup total.

Toast the nuts, melt the chocolate, yadda yadda. Mix the chocolate with a bit of oil to make it smooth, and then mix in the pudding mix. You're best bet is to mix in the "stuff" in the bowl and then spread the whole thing out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet as thin as you can get it (use a second piece of parchment on top and smoosh it around with your hands). Let cool until hard--about 10-20 minutes in the freezer if you're in a hurry.

Variation: Want a second layer? I would melt a bag of milk or dark chocolate chips and mix the nuts in with that and then spread it out, and then put the graham crackers in the white layer with the pudding mix and immediately spread that out on top of the dark chocolate layer.

French Coconut Pie

If you've never listened to me before, listen now.

You must make this pie. I mean it. You MUST. MAKE. THIS. PIE.

It is that awesome, and it only takes about $5 worth of ingredients.

I didn't do a photo-by-photo tutorial, because the bloggers over at Tasty Kitchen did it already. :)

French Coconut Pie on Tasty Kitchen's Blog

Holy yum.

Strawberry Shortcake

This is more of a rewrite of a post from my old blog, so all of the photos are old. So why am I posting it? Cuz it's another use for the basic white cake recipe I posted the other day. :)

No ingredient photo, sorry. Not sure where along the line that photo got separated from the pack, but it's gone now, no use dwelling on it, right?

You'll need 1-2 lbs of fresh strawberries, about a cup of sugar (maybe more, maybe less), a tub of cool whip (or you really could whip up some fresh whipped cream, not real necessary, though), and a package of cream cheese. Oh, and a cake of some kind. The basic white cake recipe I linked to above works AWESOME for this. But you could just as easily use a frozen pound cake, or an angel food cake from your market's bakery, or I GUESS you could use some of those really nasty tasting little sponge cake cups that markets always seem to have on a shelf right next to the fresh strawberries. (Have you ever eaten one of those things? Gag. I'll eat the strawberries by themselves with a spoon first, thanks.)

Yummmmmm! Start by rinsing your strawberries. Cut off the tops and slice them up however you want. I normally slice them into quarter segments.

Then sprinkle them with about a cup of sugar and mix it all up. More or less, depending on how sweet your berries are and how sweet you like them to be. Yeah, you'll have to actually taste one to know. Cooking is so unpleasant, isn't it? ;)

Put the bowl of sugared strawberries into the fridge for a couple hours. This is a very necessary step. Why? Because you are macerating the strawberries. That sugar is not only going to make the berries sweet, but it is going to pull SOOOOOO much juice out of them and make a yummy 'sauce' for them, too! :D And yup, the photo of the finished strawberries apparently ran off with the ingredients photo. Oh well.

Meanwhile, bake your cake and make your cream. Put the whipped cream and the cream cheese in a large bowl and mix them up until smooth and totally combined. You can do this by hand or use a mixer...doesn't really matter. Hand mixing is better for your arm muscles, though! ;)

I really miss my red spoonula...I think it disappeared with the rest of the photos for this post. Its blue and green brothers are still in my drawer, though....*tears*

When you're ready to serve, put a slice of cake on a plate, and top with a few spoonfuls of the strawberries. Make sure to include lots of the juice to soak into the cake!

Put your cream mixture into a Ziploc bag and trim off a corner and pipe some of it over the strawberries.

Top with a few more strawberries, and make sure to spoon lots of the juice over the whole thing.

NOMMMMMMMMM!

Basic White Cake

Pretty basic recipe for white cake. I didn't write it, and I don't remember where I got it, honestly. I've been using it for about 6 years now, though, and it rocks. :) It's amazingly light, yet substantial. It's sooooooo utterly moist (although if I recall correctly, I edited the recipe to include milk, because the original was almost the texture of cornbread). You can alter it in any number of ways, and it's always perfect.

Sorry, no photos, as I haven't made it plain in a couple months. I'll post some follow-ups to this recipe in the next few days with a few other ideas that work well with this recipe. :)

What you need:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine (I really think the original called for butter? But I use Country Crock for almost everything, so....)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (add more if you'd like. I never measure, so I'm sure I always do. LOL!)
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease and flour an 8x8" or 9x9" baking pan, I use a Pyrex.

Cream the sugar and margarine together. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine the two mixtures, and then mix in the milk till combined.

Pour into the pan, and bake for 30-45 mins, or until a toothpick inserted half way between the edge and the center comes out dry.

*Edited to add: I found photos that I posted on my old blog when I posted Strawberry Shortcake the first time!*