Father's Day Cake

Does it have to be Father's Day to make this cake? Nope! It's just a chocolate cake that is not terrible for you! HA. This is my dad's favorite cake, and it's not even my recipe. I'm sharing with you a recipe from The Unrefined Kitchen. I call it Paleo Chocolate Cake.

If you haven't baked Paleo things, I'm not going to lie to you, you probably won't have these ingredients laying around your house. Take the ingredient list and hit up Whole Foods or somewhere else that has all these different flours that the cake calls for. You won't be disappointed. It's one of my favorite desserts.

A couple things I change in the recipe...
1. If I'm not making the frosting (dad doesn't want any frosting), then I add a little more honey to the batter.
2. That's actually all I change, but it's fun to have a number 2. ;)

Also.. seriously...let your cake cool COMPLETELY.

I am NOT the most patient person in the world. Naturally, I decided the cake was cooled "enough" and started putting the icing on. Um...HELLO, coconut oil melts extremely quick at low temperatures. Needless to say, I had a huge mess on my hands (pun intended) and was dabbing the cake with paper towels after I scraped the top of the cake clean. Learn from my mistakes.

My fatha also likes to go non paleo and put whipped cream from a can on top of it. Baby steps.

Chocolate Cake Cake Ingredients (for a 8″ round cake* about 1 1/2″ thick):
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup arrowroot
1/4 cup  almond flour
1/4 cup cacao powder or cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup honey
3 eggs
1/3 cup coconut oil or melted butter
2/3 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cake Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8″ round cake pan* with parchment paper.
2. Combine coconut flour, arrowroot, almond flour, cacao, baking soda, salt and baking powder in a bowl and whisk to combine.
3. Add honey, eggs, coconut oil or melted butter, almond milk, lemon juice and vanilla to the dry ingredients and mix well. (I use a stand mixer.)
4. Pour cake batter into parchment paper-lined cake pan*. Bake at 350 degrees for 17-22 minutes. Remove from oven when toothpick inserted comes out clean. Try not to overbake!
5. Cool completely and frost cake with chocolate frosting (below), if desired. You could also skip the frosting and serve with berries or Vanilla Coconut Cream Ice Cream.

Frosting Ingredients (double or triple if you make two or three cakes):
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup softened butter
2-4 Tbsp. honey (depending on how sweet you like it)
2 Tbsp. cacao
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

Frosting Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients and whip together with electric mixer. (If the frosting is too runny due to liquified coconut oil, place in fridge for a short time and re-whip.)
2. Spread on cooled cake and enjoy!

*You can also make this in an 8×8 square pan. The baking time is slightly less.

And if you mess up, that's ok. I know the feeling of wasting time, effort, and money, and it sucks. To lift your spirits and make your day just a little funnier here is a picture of one of my terrible disasters after which I swore off baking:

Yeah, those are cookies.
You're welcome.

~Ariel

Quinoa Bowl Dinner

You’ll find in this blog that I’m all about quick and easy eating. I just happen to be all about being good to my body too. This next recipe is one of my favorite go-to meals because it’s healthy, high in protein and nutrition, fairly quick, and not to mention easy. (Can you tell I’m time efficient (cough) lazy!) ;)

I love meals that are all in one. You can also put it anything that you like! Personalized. Which I also love. I call this the Quinoa Bowl. If you haven’t heard of quinoa, you’re missing out. Read up on the benefits here. (It’s like rice except WAY healthier for you. You can even buy it at Target. I shop mostly at Whole Foods even though some say it’s too expensive. I appreciate that target is starting to supply healthier food, but I like supporting the store that’s been pioneering healthy lifestyles.)

I won’t be putting any measurements on this recipe because it really depends person to person on how much you want in your bowl. The overall cook time is maybe half an hour. It’s so fast and simple, but extremely tasty and filling.

Ingredients:

Quinoa

Coconut Oil (or butter)

Your choice of meat (I normally use 1/2lb grass fed beef)

Peppers (I use 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper)

Onion

Jalepenos

Spinach

Or whatever else you’d like in the bowl

Directions:

READ WHOLE THING FIRST

1: Chop up your peppers/onions/jalapenos and set aside (I use a jar of jalapenos when I don’t have any fresh ones on hand. If you’re using the jar kind, skip all the jalapeno steps and add them onto your bowl at the end)

2: Follow the directions on the box/bag of quinoa to cook it. Be careful on how much you use. One of the recipes I followed said 2 cups of cooked quinoa. I was over here like, “What am I a psychic??” I also doubled the recipe. Quinoa grows, ok? 4 cups of uncooked quinoa came out to about 3 weeks worth of quinoa. Once the water has gone down, you can add some seasonings to it. Taste test it as you go. Salt, pepper.

3: As the water for quinoa is boiling, get started on your meat. Like I said, I use grass fed beef because I like my meal to be a Taco Quinoa bowl. (I’ve also done it with chicken using coconut oil for the oil, and it’s delicious.) I season with salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, paprika, and some chili powder. 

4: Put some coconut oil in a pan and let it start to melt. Once it is melted, add in your pepper, onions, and jalapenos with some salt and pepper. You want to cook those until the onions are translucent and your peppers are at your desired crunchy/softness.

5. Once quinoa and peppers/onions/jalapenos are done cooking, dump your peppers/onions/jalapeno/coconut oil mixture into the pot that has your quinoa and mix them in.

6. Start layering your cooked ingredients in your bowl. I start with quinoa as the base. First layer I put Pepper/onion/jalapeno quinoa, then a layer of spinach, top it with beef, salsa, organic sour cream, tomatoes, feta, and then anything else you’d like!

Special Note:
If I'm out of quinoa, I make everything else and do healthy nachos using non-gmo xochitl chips. It's freakin' delicious. After the meat is cooked and the heat is turned off, I put some raw cheese that I've shredded on top and mix it in before the pan has lost all it's heat. (I've done this with just meat, cheese, salsa, and organic sour cream.)

Enjoy!

~Ariel