Cooking frenzy

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at making tortillas. I found a good recipe on allrecipes.com and used spelt flour to make the tortillas. They actually turned out pretty good although I'm sure white flour would have been fabulous :-) I used olive oil instead of shortening. They cooked quickly so I had to keep an eye on them. The recipe is so simple--spelt flour, olive oil, a bit of water, salt-I think that's it. So for lunch today I made a bean burrito;-) Quite tasty especially with homegrown tomatoes. I've added a few photos here to show the tortillas in various stages. The first part you have to roll them into a ball and let sit for an hour or more. Then roll them out and fry them. The interesting thing is you don't put oil in the pan--you just heat the pan med-hi heat and throw the tortilla in. Fun stuff!!!!

I also made the eggplant parmesan from Elana's new cookbook. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of that. It turned out pretty good although I'm not sure I totally agree with the not taking the skin off. It does make it easier though. Frying the eggplant covered in egg and almond flour is key. I browned the eggplant in grapeseed oil. Tasty;-) Then proceeded with the recipe. It was fast to make and turned out ok. I probably wouldn't have this frequently but every now and then for a change is good;-)

This evening I decided to make chicken pot pie from Elana's cookbook. First I had to make the almond flour crust. Then I made the stuff to go on the crust--browned onions in grapeseed oil, added carrots, celery, mushrooms, peas and lots of Mrs. Dash;-) Then added chicken. Finally, I made a slurry of arrowroot powder and chicken broth, poured it into the pot and heated up until it was thick like gravy. Then I poured all of that on top of the cooked almond flour crust. My father-in-law gave it a thumbs up!! ;-) This is the second time I've made this recipe so it is certainly on my 'to make again' list;-) Oh...and we dug into it before I took a photo so no photo of this either. Definitely recommended though;-)

I was on the roll with the cooking frenzy so I decided to make pumpkin custard from Elana's website. Simple recipe--except I used canned pumpkin because I didn't have the real thing (not to mention didn't want to take the time to deal with the real thing;-). Basically the recipe is ground up cashews in boiling water (so similar to cashew milk), agave nectar, vanilla, a bit of gelatin (her recipe called for agar flakes which I didn't have), ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, a bit of lemon juice and pumpkin. Blended it up well and poured in little containers to put in the fridge. I also make a cream made out of ground up cashews, water, vanilla and then heated it up with arrowroot powder--interesting flavor, tasty and a great substitute for cream. I put a spoon of that on top of each pumpkin dish.

This recipe also got approval from my husband and father-in-law--whohooo!! I thought it was ok---I prefer chocolate based desserts though;-) I think it would have been great with regular whipped cream;-) But it was good and I'll probably make it again especially now that fall is here.