Carrot Cake Confessions

 

I have a carrot problem .

There, I said it .

I buy too many carrots. I eat too many carrots. But I never really bake with carrots.

I was considering making an apple cake but was inspired to try something different . This recipe is a mesh of about 4 recipes. It is so altered ( as are most of my recipes ) because I am too stubborn to go to the store for ingredients I don’t have ,  that there is no point in linking to the original recipes . It would only cause confusion.

Make this when you have the urge to bake but are living in a chocolate free ( and sad ) house

Make this when you need something different on your counter and on your fork

.

I let this cake cool over night and iced it with a basic cream cheese icing. It makes one layer of a round cake pan or a small square. You could easily double the recipe to create a layer cake.

This cake is too delicious for me to explain .

But the proof is in the pictures. I was so eager to taste this cake , I forgot to photograph it until I had already sliced into it. Unfortunately I do not make Pacman shaped cakes on purpose.

 

 

Carrot Cake

• 1 cup peeled , steamed and pureed carrots  
• 2/3 c. margarine or butter
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/2 c. packed organic brown sugar
• 2/3 c. white sugar
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. cinnamon

METHOD :

Preheat oven 350

1/ Peel and slice into large hunks a few carrots. I used about 6 large ones and ended up with about 1 3/4 cup . I fed the leftover to the dog

Place in steamer basket . When soft, remove and puree. Set aside.

2/Cream together butter , pureed carrots and sugars. Add vanilla and water.

3/ Mix in cinnamon, salt , baking soda, baking powder and flour. Do not over mix.

4/Spread into a greased or cooking sprayed pan ( 8x8) I used one 8 inch round cake pan and bake 15-25 minutes ( depends on your pan ) .

Day of Eats and Dinner For One

I think this is my first day of complete eats. Not completely sure, but anyways, this is everything I ate today.

I started with Starbucks Dark Roast something or other , brewed with love by the bf and added Hazelnut Coffeemate and sweetner.


And then took various pictures of it , rather than drinking it.



Lunch/breakfast, was this luscious bowl of oats.

In the Bowl:

1/2 cups Bob's Organic Old Fashioned Oats ( yey i got more. Steel Cut oats are NOT the same)
3/4 cup of water
1/2 a banana save a few slices for on top
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla

I was not lazy this time and cooked it on the stove top . I cooked most of the banana save for the slices on top, with the oats.
It made ALL the difference.
Stove top oats are so much better. I do hate washing the extra dish/pot though.

I topped these oats with a few fresh blueberries, some Blue Diamond Almond Butter and a couple slices of banana, and some PC Omega 3 Granola.


Blue Diamond Almond Butter is not my favorite but I am trying to eliminate nut butters before I purchase even more, and it's ok for oats. Definately not spreadable.
These oats were soooo creamy and delicious, yet chewy and not liquidy and such which i hate !

I purchased these items yesterday at the teensy health food store at the mall.

Vega Wholefood Smoothie packet, and a Berry Crush and Acai Energy drink packet . I love the berry one for after yoga or mid lecture. Even though I only have about 4 lectures left before I' m done school !
I also grabbed a Banana Larabar.



Loved it.

So far I love : Coconut Cream, Pb and J and Banana .
Hate : Cocoa Chew, Apple Pie, Cherry Pie

While making dinner I "made" Banana Soft Serve in my sad excuse for a blender.

It may be a ghetto blender but it crushes ice and it never lets me down.

Random Fact : No appliance in my house ever has near the correct time.

I missed the part where the banana is meant to be frozen?

So i blended for nothing and then when i realized it was far too easy , it was too late. Its in the freezer now but I am doubtful.

I even had frozen banana in the freezer but I guess my head was just not in it.

This was dinner.

2 tortillas , folded in half for sturdiness.

1 :

pasta sauce : vine ripened tomatos, garlic, onions, mushroom and spinach w/ marble cheddar and spinach

2: PC organic salsa w/ marble cheddar and spinach

And on the side the other half of the batard (?) from last nite's dinner, spread with i cant believe its not butter light and garlic powder pre toast over bake.

It was gooey. I could not manage to eat it all unfortunately .

What's your favorite dinner for one?

Puppy and Dinner

As usual I'm not sure where I left off so I'll go with the contents of my camera card.

Pizza happened on Thursday night.

I was lazy and when I even mention take out , the bf takes pizza delivery and runs with it.

These are the remains of 2 pizzas.

Mine had double cheese and bacon.

His had every vegetable known to man kind.

I slept horribly Thursday night. Woke up to rainy mopey weather . The only saviour was that it was Friday and my bf was off, so he took me to class

Got out of class early , came home and fell asleep.

The result of a nap, was breakfast for dinner.

The above plate is the boyfriends.

Toad in the hole x 2 ( the little circles are the cut out bread )

Bacon

Hashbrowns

My plate :

French toast w/ cinnamon and real maple syrup

Bit of hashbrowns

Bacon!


I slept amazing last night and woke up to this happy girl.

The sun was right on her,hence the odd lighting .

Last night was the first night this puppy didn't sleep in her locked kennel ( it could fit a camel so don't feel bad for her ) .

We decided to see how she would be if we just left her sleeping on her blanket in the living room last night .

She was fine . We woke up to her sleeping on the couch !

Perched on some pillows ( excuse the laptop cord ) and daddy was nice enough to put a blanket on her. Lily adores blankets and feeling confined ( by her own accord).

Aww i love when she makes this almost bashful face. I wish the lighting wasn't so tho.

Such a hard life.

Had to get in on the cuddles.


Went grocery shopping this afternooon and after making some spectacular unpictured sandwiches , I made these.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies !

I bought a very large bunch of bananas at the grocery store today and had a few less than yellow ones on the counter and an abundance in the fridge, so I wanted to bake something to lessen the stash.

Unforuntately this recipe only used 1 banana, fortuntely they are delicious.

You can find the recipe here.

The only modifications I made were to use I Cant Believe Its Not Butter Light in place of butter and I doubt I used as many chocolate chips as the recipe called for.

The dough is very thin and not like normal cookie recipes. Do not fret. The baking soda and baking powder take care of it . So don't be tempted to add more flour.

So good!

What have you had for dinner lately?

Random Facts and Dog Food

Hey :)

Yesterday's afternoon eats started with this :

Some of my new favorite peanut butter and a sliced banana.

Random fact #1 : I cannot eat a banana unsliced. Freaks me the hell out.

Unfortunately , or fortunately, depending how you look at it . There was far too much drizzly peanut butter in ratio to the amount of sliced banana. So I used some of the homemade granola from the other day, trying my hardest to not eat any raisins.

Random Fact #2: Raisins remind me of potato bugs and I despise them.

When I say this peanut butter was drizzly, I do not lie.

While we're on the subject of peanut butter , I would like to discuss this exhibit above the text.

Behold an empty jar of Maranatha's Peanut Butter. Notice the emptiness of said jar.

I do not know how you people ever get to consume oats in a jar because when my jar is empty , it is EMPTY!

Moving along.

Random fact #3 : There are approximatly 5 jars of nut butters in my fridge and cupboards currently, yet I really really want to buy another jar of the Maranatha's PB . It was so good. I really love the texture of it .

Bf and I took Lily on a walk this afternoon near the lake ( Ontario). I took this picture from above and shortly after while trying to get to the lower area where bf and Lily were, by way of one of those rocky clif like things you see in the picture, I slid down .

Damn flipflops.

Thankfully it was just a scratch, a sore ass and a wet and sandy pair of capris when a soaking puppy came to my rescue.

Random Fact #4: Some bull dogs cannot swim. It's pretty much 50:50 as far as whether they will be able to swim or not.

After the walk, Bf went and purchased new tires for the truck and brought us back and unpictured lunch from my favorite deli style restaurant. I had the usual , turkey club, hold the tomatoes, mayo on the side with fries and gravy and he got his usual, the roast beef dip with onion rings and stole my gravy and ate my coleslaw.

Random fact #5 I hate coleslaw and cabbage entirely.

After eating we went to Petsmart where I spent far too much considering I went in for food. Lily got a new girly collar and matching leash along with a stuffed duck, purple and girly colored rope, equally girlie colored giant tennis ball and a bag of Blue Buffalo Dog Cookies. She is spoiled.

Apparently this was too much for her because she promptly passed out on the couch person style for the remainder of the afternoon.

To those that have asked , Lily is an American Bulldog :)

Aww. Bf trying to get Lily to stop wiggling or something.

Does Lily like treats?

She likes these ones :)

And thankfully I like the ingredients.

They are made by Holistic Blend . There were about five ingredients and they were all things I had in my cupboard. I grabbed these at Superstore before finding the Blue Buffalo health bar treats at Petsmart.

Random Fact #6 : I am an impulse shopper.

Do you buy on impulse often or do you plan and research before making a purchase?What was your last impulse buy?

Tell me a random fact of your own !

-A

Broccoli Salad And Things That Make Me Happy

Last weekend I went to the cottage.

The weather was far from tropical but it was peaceful mostly and it made me happy to be there.

Here are some other things that make me happy :

PICTURES ...

Clouds

Yellow labradors on decks , sleepy in the late afternoon . With sticks. Sticks are very important.

Sunsets .

Super simple salads that may not be the healthiest , but are so yummy that your bf eats cereal bowls full of it.

This isn't really a recipe persay. A classmate of mine brought it for a potluck we were having for some occasion I can't recall.

It didn't look that appetizing in the bowl and of course it doesn't smell like pumpkin pie either , but it is delicious and of course a broccoli lover, like me's dream .

I've attempted to health-ify it up a bit , but to be honest, there's not much hope unless you are willing to use Greek Yogurt, which I think would alter the taste a lot .

You can use as much or as little broccoli as you want. For 3/4 of a bowlful this size ( about 5 generous servings) I used a large crown .

Remove as much of the stem as you can. You really just want the floret.

Dice the hell out of it. Don't make it dust or anything though.

Add about 1/4 of shredded cheese of your choice ( the original potluck one had cheddar ) and generously shake bacon bits in . I have never measured the bacon bits so I couldn't tell you how much to use . I just go with what looks okay .

Add equal parts sour cream ( i used fat free because it makes me feel better about possible ass growth ) and mayo ( i used the light olive oil nonsense ) .

Then, and I know this is going to sound odd, but think of it like sugar in homemade pasta sauce, for some reason this just has to be done.

Add a scant teaspoon of sugar.

As you can see I am all about measurement, with my use of the word scant and the fact that I literally use a spoon for tea as a measuring device.

Then as the above picture demonstrates, you stir it up . It won't look lovely. Once you taste it , you won't care.

Refrigerate for 2-3 hours. The longer it sits, the better it is.

What's your favorite super simple salad?

Are you a broccoli lover?

-A

Apple Cinnamon Bread and PB Love

Hola : )

I am happy to say I have finished everything I need to get done for the week ahead ! Well I am still doing laundry but aren't I always.

Last night I got snack -y and dinner wasn't for a couple hours . So I decided to be silly.

Organic PB with 2 Cream Crackers.

I love these crackers. Of course they are made by PC but they are almost identical to ones I get from the British Import Shop. Cheaper too!

I didn't think too poorly of the peanut butter either. I caressed it with my cheek .

Please to be ignoring my lazy mode look.

This morning I had planned on brunch or lunch with bf but he had to go out for a bit , so I made something to tide me over .

A gigantic soft tortilla. Folded in half with some swiss slices inside. Popped into the toaster oven until it gets spots!

Looooove Swiss Cheese and so happen I have found blocks of it now for a reasonable price. I was buying 6-7 thin slices for around 6 bucks before. The brick is 4 dollars and a much better deal!

To celebrate being done with school obligations at a reasonable time for once, I baked!

I took my apple cinnamon muffin recipe , tweaked it a bit ( of course ) and turned it into a loaf. I've done this before ( untweaked recipe though ) and it turned out awesome.

I loved it with almond butter the last time I made it.

Heres the recipe :

Apple Cinnamon Bread or Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour ( I used the PC Organic stuff)

3/4 cup white sugar ( I used 1/2 cup of brown )

1 egg

2/3 cup of milk ( I used 2 %)

1/2 cup of butter melted ( I used evo)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon ( i just sprinkle a ton in )

1 cup of chopped apple , peeled ( I used 2 large -ish organic pink lady apples)

Mix together brown sugar, apple, and butter.

Add egg.

Add remaining dry ingredients and stir until moistened.

Spread into a greased or sprayed loaf pan or muffin pan .

Cook at 375 for 20-30 minutes. ( the time varies depending on how much apples you use).

Let cool for 40 minutes. ENJOY!

Well , that's all I've got for now. Hope your weekend was awesome :)

-A