Orange Desserts

Orange Cupcakes

Tuesday night was a crazy night. Somehow I missed 2 ingredients I needed for the beef curry, so I had to pull some food out of the freezer. Luckily I had cooked up some brown rice to go with the curry. Dinner turned out tasty, and very healthy, but not what was planned. We ate homemade chicken soup with brown rice and a delicious salad with homemade dressing (a basic vinaigrette).

I don't like having to pull food from the freezer because it means there is less in there for times when we really are having a food emergency, and it pulls from the lunch supply. It also means that I have to somehow make more food for the freezer out of the recipes for the week without going over budget.

Last night we finally had the curry, but I used green bell peppers in place of the red bell peppers. Since it was a Thai red curry the red bell peppers would have been tastier. Silly me also went to the grocery store yesterday and forgot the fresh basil for the dish because I didn't write it on the board. I ended up using dried. The meal still tasted delicious, but it certainly wasn't pretty enough for me to think of taking pictures of it.

I used the green bell peppers because red ones aren't in season here yet, and the ones the grocery store had are from Mexico and didn't look ripe enough. I know that green bell peppers are simply unripe red peppers, but I had just been listening to "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and so I also would have felt rather guilty buying peppers from Mexico when there were perfectly good looking green peppers from Hawaii sitting right next to them.

As you can see from the picture at the top of the post I am not a food photographer, but there was something worth taking a picture of. In fact, there will be two pictures in this post. The picture at the top is from Tuesday night. I whipped up some orange cake cupcakes from Karina's Kitchen. Silly me didn't want to wait for the cupcakes to cool, nor did I chill the frosting, so it just slid right off. It didn't even completely act like a glaze. However, the icing was so good that it didn't end up in the garbage. In fact, I ate 3 the night I baked them, bargained for half of one from the Nerd after lunch yesterday, and had one last night. When there are gluten-free baked goodies around I can't help myself. It's probably a good thing that I don't bake that often or else I might turn into a giant cupcake.

The recipe can be found here, along with a much prettier picture.

Karina's Kitchen- Recipes from a Gluten-Free Goddess: Orange Creme Cupcakes - Vegan and Gluten-Free

Last night's dessert was beautiful, delicious, and healthy. The Nerd's sister brought over 2 medium size pumpkins which I should have taken a picture of. They were allowed to sit for nearly 10 months after being picked, so the flavors really had time to develop and the pumpkin sweetened nicely. The pumpkins were supposed to become a side dish for the curry, but I decided to make a second dessert out of them. This was probably a good idea because the cupcakes were very sweet, so it was a good step up from spicy curry to super sweet cupcakes.

Pumpkin Puddin'

Pumpkin Puddin'

by AmandaonMaui

Dairy-free, Gluten-free

• 2 medium sized pumpkins, smaller than basketballs
• 1/2 cup of soy milk
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Unsweetened Coconut Flakes (optional)

Cut around the stem on the pumpkins and remove the top.

Cut the pumpkin into smaller, easier to handle chunks.

Scrape the seeds and stringy parts off of the pumpkin flesh. Discard, or save the seeds for roasting later.

Chop the large chunks into 1-2 inch pieces, leaving the skin on.

Put the pieces into a large stockpot and cover with water, at least one inch over the pieces.

Place the pot on the stove and bring the water to a boil over high heat.

Once the water reaches a full boil, lower the temperature to medium and let simmer until the pumpkin flesh is tender.

Drain the water off of the pieces by using a large colander.

Let the pumpkin pieces cool for a few minutes until they're still warm, but cool enough to handle.

Take each piece by the skin, and scrape off, or squeeze the flesh off of the skin into a blender or food processor.

Continue this process with the rest of the pumpkin. This should equal about 4 cups unpacked cooked pumpkin.

Blend the pumpkin until it starts to become a smooth consistency, and add in a little of the milk at a time, continuing to blend after each addition, until the pudding is at a consistency you like.

Add in the rest of the ingredients, and blend until all of the ingredients are well incorporated.

Pour into a large bowl and chill until dessert time.

Serve in dessert cups or wine glasses, or whatever you have available.

Top with unsweetened flaked coconut, crushed pecans, or whatever toppings you like on pumpkin-y treats.

Vegetarian Black Bean and Pumpkin Enchiladas in Tomato Based Sauce

Vegetarian Black Bean and Pumpkin Enchiladas in Tomato Based Sauce

AmandaonMaui

7 corn tortillas

1 Tbsp Olive oil for sauteing

1/2 onion, chopped (keep a little for garnish)

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped (keep a little for garnish)

2 cans black beans (or equivalent pre-cooked dried black beans) drained and rinsed

1/4 cup of water

1/2 can of pumpkin puree

1 cup of shredded white cheddar cheese (or whatever cheddar/Mexican shred blend, or cut some cheese off a block)

Enchilada sauce from lampuntomyfeetandalightuntomypath.blogspot.com

Preheat oven to 350F

1. Make the enchilada sauce. Make sure it's nice and smooth. Don't over reduce it either, because you're going to want quite a bit.

2. In a large saute pan add 1Tbsp olive oil and almost all of the onion and jalapeno peppers. Saute for a minute until the onions just barely start to turn translucent. Add in half of the black beans, and add a little bit of the water. Use the back of a large spoon, or a potato masher, to mash out the black beans until they start to look like chunky refried beans, keep adding water as needed to get the right consistency. This should take about 4-5 minutes.

3. Add in the rest of the black beans. Cook, stirring occasionally for another 2 minutes.

4. Into the beans mix the canned pumpkin, making sure there is even distribution of the ingredients. Continue cooking until everything is warmed through, about 3 minutes.

5. Pour into the bean and pumpkin mixture 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce. Stir it all together and keep it warm.

6. In a large casserole (9x13) pour in just enough enchilada sauce to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Spread it around.

7. Place a corn tortilla into the casserole and top it with some of the bean mixture. Roll the tortilla up and flip it fold side down. Repeat this step until all of your tortillas or mixture, or baking space, is used (whatever your limiting reagent may be depending on how much filling you use up per enchilada, etc.).

8. Cover your rolled tortillas with the rest of the enchilada sauce. Pour it over as evenly as you can.

9. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top of the enchiladas.

10. Garnish the enchiladas with the leftover onion and jalapeno peppers.

11. Bake in oven for 15 minutes, or the cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling.

12. Eat and say OMG, these are so good.

I am sitting next to a casserole dish with foil over the top, and I've eaten an enchilada and salad, and I am full, but I'm about to rip into that dish if I don't move it to the refrigerator right this second!

P.S. This dish could easily be made vegan if you switch to a vegan sugar in the sauce and use vegan cheese.

Oh, and it's totally gluten-free!

Eating Healthier

I'm trying to eat healthier and make my portions more reasonable. I'm from the south of the United States where portions are traditionally very large, and buffets are everywhere.

Having lived away from the southern US for a while now, I can't fork it down quite like I used to, but I can still out eat most everyone I know.

I was doing pretty well a while back, but I've fallen back into too much snacking and too large of portions (according to my mind).

I'm not in need of losing weight. Heck, I've not seen my belly this flat in years. However, I am trying to keep myself from developing unhealthy habits later in life. As I said in a previous post, I don't want to develop a multitude of health problems caused by a poor diet.

So, I am going to be working on that while I blog.

I did pretty well this morning. I had a smaller serving of Bob's Red Mill's Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal with one Kapalua Farms egg (cooked in cast iron without added fats) seasoned with crushed red pepper flakes (Did you know they're quite good for you? If eaten in the morning, according to YOU: On a Diet, they will help decrease your appetite, thus reducing your caloric intake.)

Later I had some Cultured Soy Yogurt by Nancy's, with some organic blueberries from Costco (I thawed them out last night).

For lunch I had some not so healthy Candy Chicken leftovers (see my previous post for the recipe).

I just finished my afternoon snack which wasn't terrifically healthy to me (but the bf thought it was fine) of organic tortilla chips and some organic salsa. I also munched on some leftover salmon- vegan light canola mayo salad with Blue Diamond Almond Nut Thins.

So much for portion control on the afternoon snack. I knew the chips and salsa weren't satisfying enough, and when I spotted the teeny bit of leftover salmon salad I couldn't resist.

Dinner tonight is the Enchiladas. I am thinking of putting some organic canned pumpkin in them for extra vitamins (and because I'm out of spinach, oops).

I'll try to get up a picture when they're fresh out of the oven. I need to go make the enchilada sauce now.