Sunday, January 29, 2012

Gluten-free chickpea chocolate cake

Recipe by: CCUMMINS
A very good high protein alternative to flourless chocolate cake. You need a food processor to do the mixing. Give it a try!
  Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes

 Gluten-free chickpea chocolate cake
Recipe by: CCUMMINS
AllRecipes
(12)
Saved as a favourite by 55 cook(s)

Easy
Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes
Picture by: TammyJ
A very good high protein alternative to flourless chocolate cake. You need a food processor to do the mixing. Give it a try!
Ingredients
Serves: 12

1½ cups dark chocolate chips
570g chick peas (about 1½ tins, drained)
4 eggs
¾ cup (185g) white sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon icing sugar for dusting

Preparation method
Prep: 15 minutes |Cook: 40 minutes | Extra time: 15 minutes, cooling
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and flour a 23 round cake tin.

Place the chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl. Cook in the microwave for about 2 minutes, stirring every 20 seconds after the first minute, until chocolate is melted and smooth. If you have a powerful microwave, reduce the power to 50 percent.

Combine the chickpeas and eggs in the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Add the sugar and the baking powder, and pulse to blend. Pour in the melted chocolate and blend until smooth, scraping down the corners to make sure chocolate is completely mixed. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake tin.

Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate. Dust with confectioners' sugar just before serving.

Provided by: Allrecipes
Last updated: 23 Oct 2012

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Egg & Honey No-Poo


















Okay I know this is not to eat but still it's a recipe. After years of scratching my scalp and my eyes until they are sore and having to wash my hair everyday because if I don' t it is a stringy mess I had to find something, commercial including so called natural shampoos had detergent, chemicals, drying alcohol, silicons just did not work for me.

I've experimented with washing with conditioner, still a stringy mess. Baking soda and water the itch feels relieved as soon as it is washed but my hair was brittle and stiff, it got worse the longer I used it, it seem not to rinse away completely.  Then I tried just water, well better than conditioner or Baking soda, but my hair did not smell as fresh as I wanted.

Well next I tried egg. Ooow I like. So next time I added 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, it was about the same but lemon is an astringent so I put it in anyway. the only thing I didn't like was that it was to watery, hard to keep on your head to massage it in more. Well honey is good for the skin, your scalp is skin right, so in it goes. Still not viscose enough so I put in a 1/4 of xanthan Gum and whisked it in. Tried that today. Almost perfect it did not run into my eyes and it was thick enough to give me the feeling of a shampoo or conditioner as I worked in.

So I have been using egg, along with the additions as I go along for 1 month now and I am very happy with the results. I fill up the tub climb in, rub it in to dry or wet hair and relax and let it sit for at least 5 minutes until the water is cool enough not to cook the egg, then I rinse it out and soak my body for a while more. My skin really like the extra goodies in the water it made my skin so soft.

I towel dry my hair, comb and fluff with my fingers and let it dry. It is soft, manageable and it does not get stringy or look like it needs a wash for 4 to 6 days (depending on my acvtivity level). What I love the most is my scalp and eyes no longer itch (at least not from washing my hair)

The next issue I get asked the most is, doesn't it egg make your hair smell. No it doesn't, not when washing it, not after and not even after 6 days; the egg is rinsed out with your dirt and oils.

Okay enough here is the recipe I use:

1 egg
1 tablespoon lemon juice (bottled is fine)
3 tablespoons liquid honey


whisk together.

Recipe can be doubled or tripled for longer or fuller hair. (my hair is short and fine)

Next I'm going to try rinsing it with Earl Grey Tea, I love the smell of Bergamont. Tannins are suppose to be really good for your hair also. If you have blond hair you might want to use a green tea variety as black tea can darken your hair











Friday, January 6, 2012

Chocolate Mint Cookies

All-Natural Thin Mint Cookies (even better than the Girl Scout version)
Girl Scout cookies will be on sale soon, but this drool-worthy Thin Mint recipe offers you a healthier option. (Plus, you can make them gluten-free.)

Chocolate Mint Cookies
from Mother Nature's Network














Thin Mint Cookies
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup of powdered unrefined sugar, such as coconut sugar, rapadura, maple sugar or sucanat.
  • 1/2 cup of cocoa powder (I use full-fat, high-quality, fair trade chocolate)
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon unrefined salt
  • 3/4 cup of flour of choice (see options above, I used a combination of rice flour and sorghum)
  • 2 cups chocolate chips, I recommend dark chocolate
  • 1 teaspoon mint extract
  • 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil
 
Directions
  1. With a hand mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar, and continue to cream. Add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla and mix until well combined and it is the texture (and flavor) of frosting. (It’s delicious. I won’t tell if you try a bit). Add the flour and mix until just combined. Gather into a ball and flatten into a disk. Wrap well and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.
  2. Put parchment paper on two cookie sheets. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the dough thinly (remember that these are supposed to be thin cookies), but not so thin as to make it hard to transfer, about 1/8 of an inch. Cut out with a small round shape (or whatever you desire. Place on cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes.
  4. Remove from oven and carefully slide the parchment paper with the cookies onto the counter and let cool completely.
  5. Place the chocolate chips, mint extract and butter or coconut oil in a double boiler (you can also use a heat-proof bowl that sits snuggly on the top of a pot). Melt over simmering water until chocolate and butter/oil is just melted. Make sure no steam gets into the bowl while simmering. Remove from heat.
  6. Put more parchment on the now-cooled cookie sheets.
  7. Carefully drop each cookie into the melted chocolate and spoon chocolate over the top of each cookie. Use a wide fork to fish it out and gently shake the fork to remove excess chocolate. Place on parchment paper. Repeat until all of the cookies are covered. I find that chocolate hardens much faster at a cold temperature, so I place my cookies in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
  8. Once hardened, enjoy. I double dare you to eat just one.