Gingerbread Brownies! (Gluten-Free)

We originally set out to make gingerbread cookies, well gingerbread men to be exact. And we fell upon Jody Vassallo's recipe for Gluten-free Gingerbread on JamieOliver.com. We originally thought this was a recipe for cookies but were pleasantly surprised of the result! It ended up being a ridiculously delicious chewy gingerbread brownie type thing! And it's "almost grain free," there is a little bit of flour to bind everything together, but all in all a very healthy gingerbread holiday treat!

There's apparently this new food trend I was reading about called the "crownie???" which is a cookie/brownie that involves almonds and is gluten-free. Well I guess this is just like that!

Everything is in grams, we used a scale but you can easily convert to cups :)

100g butter 

100g brown sugar (we used dark)

150g honey

100g molasses

2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

2 tablespoons water

1 tsp baking soda

100g gluten-free flour

1 tsp baking powder

250g almond meal

3 eggs, lightly beaten

Heat butter on low in a sauce pan until melted, stir in brown sugar, honey, molasses, ginger, and spices. Combine dry ingredients, then combine with melted butter/sugar mixture. Once combined you will have a batter like consistency, pour into a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake at 340F for 25-30 minutes. It should be spongy and dense, leave to cool. Cut out shapes and ice with royal icing if desired.

This is just the best thing! In between a cookie and a cake! It's dense and chewy like a brownie but tastes like a spicy gingerbread, which is why we're calling them Gingerbread Brownies. Yum!!
Thanks Jody for the inspiration!

Spicy Sticky Tempeh (Simple 5-Ingredient Sauce!!)

Oh my goodness! This is the tastiest little marinade, it reminds us of that sweet thai sauce with the chili seeds in it. Usually we just soak our sliced tempeh in soy sauce or just pan fry and season with salt and herbs and call it a dinner. This sauce makes it extra special and can be used for tofu, tempeh and meat proteins as well as veggie stir-frys and as a dipping sauce! When you fry or bake with it it gets sticky and sweet, with a tangy and spicy flavour! Yum!!

1/2 cup organic ketchup
2 cloves garlic sliced/chopped
1/4 cup tbsp honey/agave
4 tsp soy sauce
4 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 pinches black pepper
Chili flakes or fresh chill sauce (to taste)

Simple right?! And so delicious! Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, set aside. NOTE: You'll have lots of sauce leftover if you're only using one block of tempeh. This recipe is enough for two blocks of tempeh or one block plus leftovers for another recipe. If you don't want leftovers just halve the recipe. :) The only thing is you may not have sauce to reserve for frying at the end, in that case add a little extra ketchup/soy sauce mixture to act as the "reserved sauce."

You'll also need:

Tempeh (1 block)
Rice
Veggies (any kind will do!)

Next you're going to slice up and marinate your tempeh!

Leave in marinade/sauce for at least half an hour. Reserve extra sauce in a separate bowl (2 tbsp worth)

While you're waiting, make the rice! My new favourite way to cook rice: Add rice and water in a pot, add a little extra water (about 1/4 cup) and add in your favourite veggies to cook! (I used chopped carrots) Once rice is done, drain in a strainer and serve! You're only using one pot and it reduces clean up!

Next fry up your tempeh with some chopped white onions (this is where you use your reserved sauce, right at the end to keep the tempeh from drying out). You may need to add some water or veggie stock to cook the tempeh more thoroughly before adding reserved sauce.

Set up the rice:

And serve tempeh over top! Yum! This is seriously one of the best tasting tempeh recipes I've ever made. If you like extra spice, add some chill flakes or hot sauce.

'Tis the Season for Nog! (No Dairy)

I have fond memories of President's Choice egg nog in those festive looking cartons. Egg nog, hot chocolate and cookies were the reasons to get up on a cold winter's morning. I would drink a glass of egg nog, even diluted with milk and still get heavy stomach pains, it's just so much sugar and fat at once.

I decided to make a dairy free version, that still has that egg noggy taste! It's lighter and not as sweet but  the flavour is so good you don't need a lot of sweet anyways. I was inspired by Rule of Yum, a youtube channel run by Ken who focuses on low carb Paleo friendly eats.

I've posted about Almond Breeze's coconut/almond milk before, it is my absolute favourite type of non dairy milk, it's richer than almond milk but lighter than actual coconut milk. If you haven't tried it definitely do it works in place of any non-dairy milk.

If you're weary about consuming raw eggs, guess what there's an alternative!.........Bananas! They have to be frozen though and thawed slightly. In this recipe you can replace 4 egg yolks with 2 small frozen bananas, or 1 1/2 large frozen bananas.

3 cups sweetened coconut/almond milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp evaporated cane juice (to taste)
Pinch of salt

Just treat this like a smoothie recipe, combine all ingredients in a blender, blend on low for a few minutes and voila! You can add your alcohol (brandy/sherry) after blending too.

frothy frothy

extra points for drinking it from a mug!

bird's eye foam, garnished with nutmeg

Chocolate Mug Brownie! (GF)

I've been meaning to make a chocolatey, (convenient) and magical mug cake for some time now. And guess what it's as easy as you've heard it to be. And it tastes amazing too (if you follow directions to a TEE).

We got this recipe from Glutenfreehelp.info, recipe link here.

It used sweet rice flour which we used for these delightfully adorable dumplings. The recipe said mug cake, this was more like a mug brownie, which was fine on our watch! It tasted kind of like easy bake oven, the flat chocolate cake disc, oh the sense memories!

Definitely give this a go if you're on the gluten-free train or if you're just curious about mug cakes (like we were :))

The best thing is you mix everything in the mug! Minimal mess!

Our roommate let us use her Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter oh my gosh! We're in love.

1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
3 tbsp almond milk
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter or regular peanut butter

Mix everything in a 16oz mug (should fit 2 cups or water). Cook in microwave on HIGH for 3 minutes or until cake is cooked through (we have a microwave literally from 1950 so we cooked ours a bit longer.)

The cake didn't puff up to the top like we saw in some images, that's why we're deeming this more of a mug brownie.

Sprinkle with organic icing sugar :)

It's fudgey and dense as well as chewy around the edges. Mmmm!