Molly wanted a Hamburger Cake for her birthday. We trolled around the Internet and looked at lots of photos and ideas. This is what we came up with. It might look like something difficult but let me be the first to tell you-I am not much of a baker and if I can put this together anyone can! I don’t have any photos of the cake in progress.

I bought 2 cake mixes-1 yellow and one chocolate. I made the chocolate in a 8×8 brownie pan-square patty like Wendy’s burgers!

I made 2— 8 inch rounds out of the yellow cake but filled one with more of the batter (bottom bun smaller-top bun larger.)

After they cooled I trimmed the patty to make it nice and flat as well as trimming the bottom bun. Then I took the extra chocolate cake and added it to the top of the top yellow cake bun to make it more dome like. Make sense?

I bought 3 cans of frosting 1 chocolate and 2 white

We took some frosting out  and divided it into 3 bowls for condiments and added food coloring –red for ketchup, green for lettuce and yellow for mustard. You don’t need much. After you reach the desired color put each into a plastic bag and squeeze down to one bottom corner. set aside.

Take more white frosting into a bowl and add color to look like American cheese—use this to frost graham crackers to look like cheese slices on the burger.

Take the other can of white frosting and make it bun colored-we added a bit of the chocolate frosting for some color plus some food coloring.

Now to put it together

bottom bun cake first with burger patty (chocolate cake) next. Frost the chocolate cake with the chocolate frosting-making the edges look burgery!

 To that we put the graham crackers already frosted on the edges of the burger cake-hanging over a bit. We didn’t go all the way into the middle of the burger with these I wanted it to stay stable and thought this might make it tippy and too sweet. We did use more of the cheese frosting between the graham crackers and on the edges to look like melting cheese.

Then top with top bun. Use the bun frosting to glue the dome shape together. Try to smooth the frosting out as much as possible. Now get your condiment frosting’s and cut a tiny bit off the corner (a little larger for lettuce) and pipe lettuce around the bottom edge and squeeze squiggly ketchup and mustard on the cheese frosting.

We added a few slivered almonds on the top for seseme seeds.

This really wasn’t too hard. And it was surprisingly good. I thought it was going to be way too sweet-but it wasn’t. It was a little hard to cut but no one seemed to mind!

This soup is so yummy and so simple with only a few ingredients. I am pretty sure this is a Martha Stewart recipe but I got it from a friend.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

cut up 1 to 2 heads cauliflower into medium size pieces, toss with a few teaspoons veg oil and sprinkle of salt

roast at 450 for 20 to 30 minutes on a baking sheet

(try not to eat all the cauliflower at this point-once you roast, you’ll never go back to steamed!!!)

cut 1-2 onions and sautee in a Tablespoon or 2 of veg oil  or butter-I use oil and add a pat of butter for flavor.

add 1-2 teaspoons curry powder and roasted cauliflower

add 4-5 cups or 1 carton veg broth cook for 10 minutes

puree in blender–add more broth or water to make it as thick or this as you like.

note-My handy dandy very old vita mix is still kickin’!!

add salt and pepper to taste

I added a few pita chips on top…delicious!!!

Need I say more??????  I cut this recipe out of our local paper.

Brownie Waffles

makes about 10 waffles

preheat waffle iron

Melt 1/2 cup butter in pan. Remove from heat. Stir in 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa. Then add 3/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 1 T water, 1/2 t vanilla. Stir in 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/4 t salt.

Pour a generous Tablespoon of batter into each well of the waffle iron.  You want these to be cooked but not crunchy-less time than you would cook regular waffles.

As you can see I didn’t put enough batter in my iron!!

Now you can just eat these plain, with powder sugar, with ice cream in between or like us with strawberries and whip cream.

I am on a soup kick lately. I love soup and found a cook book of the same name, LOVE SOUP. I can’t say my family loves all this crazy soup making as much as I do. They are a chicken noodle bunch-but not me. Not this winter. This winter I am branching out!!

KALE AND SWEET POTATO SOUP WITH CUMIN AND LEMON

serves 6 generously (again thinking I have different serving size standards)

2 large leeks-white and light green part

1 large yellow onion

2 T olive oil

1 1/2 tsp salt

12 oz sweet potatoes

1-2 small white or yellow potatoes

12 oz kale

4 green onions

1 bunch cilantro

freshly ground pepper

2 or more cups of veg broth

1 T cumin seeds

cayenne

Coarsely chop leeks and onion.  Saute onion  in olive oil with a dash of salt, when soft add leeks cook stirring often for about 20 mins or until soft.

Meanwhile, peel sweet potato and chop both types potatoes into 1/2 inch dice. Chop kale and combine with potatoes in pot with about 5 cups of water and teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil then simmer 15 mins (or less)

Add the leeks and onions along with sliced green onions, cilantro and lots of freshly ground pepper. Add as much veg broth as you need to give soup a nice consistency.  Simmer about 10 minutes

Lightly toast cumin seeds in dry pan just until fragrant and then grind with mortar or spice grinder. Stir in cumin and a spoonful of lemon juice.  Add more salt, red pepper and lemon juice to taste

ladle into bowls-add a heaping spoonful of tangy cheese-I used goat  chevre and a heavy sprinkle of red pepper flakes

Excellent!!!

Sorry for the lack of posts but I’ve been having computer issues. Hopefully it’s all fixed now!

This recipe may seem a bit time consuming, but once you make the curry paste it’s smooth sailing! And the curry paste recipe will keep for months in the fridge so next time you want to make this it will be even more simple!

Both of these recipes came from my new favorite cook book FEEDING THE WHOLE FAMILY

Homemade Curry Paste

makes 2 cups

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 lb onion finely chopped, 1/4 cup whole cumin seeds, 1/4 cup whole coriander seeds,       1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds, 1 teaspoon whole cloves, 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, 2 Tablespoons whole mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons allspice, 1 teaspoon cardamom, 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon,  1/4 cup turmeric,               2 teaspoons cayenne, 1/4 cup peeled, finely chopped ginger.

whew-that’s a lot of spices!!

Heat the oil and saute the onion until very soft.

While the onions are cooking, grind the following whole spices to a fine powder in a coffee or spice grinder— cumin, coriander, fenugreek, cloves, peppercorns and mustard. Add to the onions along with all the other spices and ginger. Let cook for 5 minutes while stirring.

Store in sealed jar in the fridge for several months.

OK now on to the GREENS IN CASHEW CURRY SAUCE

1/4 cup cashew butter (I made this real quick in my food processor), 1 Tablespoon homemade curry paste, 1 Tablespoon tamari or shoyu, 3/4 cup filtered water, 2 cups quick boiled greens.

Blend cashew butter, curry paste, tamari and water in blender until creamy (I used my food processor)

Combine greens and blended sauce in a pan and gently heat before serving.

I chopped up a bunch of kale, chard and raabini and added it to about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of boiling water in my cast iron skillet with a top on it for a few minutes to steam.

Then I added the sauce.

I had some left over quinoa and added that to the greens and sauce.

I ate this for dinner several times this week. And now that I have 2 cups of homemade curry paste in my fridge, I can just whip this up real quick!

OOps I see it’s been a week since I last posted. We have been busy skiing, cooking and eating and trying out some new homeschool classes. I have been spending way too much time in front of the computer changing email addresses and joining a new blog group (more on that soon).  I hope to post more projects in the coming weeks.

We have been eating this for breakfast and dessert this week. It tastes like a home baked treat but really it is healthy enough to enjoy any time of the day. Or even multiple times!

Apple Crumble

You will need a 9×13 pan and about 10 apples

In a food processor puree 1/2 cup of raisins (I used 1/2 dates and 1/2 raisins), 2 lbs apples (about 10 small apples) with skin on, 1 tsp cinnamon

Line the pan with this mixture

For the crumble process 4 oz almonds, 5 oz pecans, 4oz oat groats soaked 8 to 12 hrs and 2-3 oz honey or agave. Add more dry oats if this is too wet.

Crumble over top of apples.

For the banana ice cream break up 4 frozen bananas into the food processor and blend until they reach a creamy consistency. This will take a while so be patient.

We added 1/2 a scraped pod of vanilla beans and a few squares of dark chocolate for chocoalte chip ice cream. Even my picky, junk food loving, husband like this ice cream!

I have seen many different additions to this ice cream–chia seeds, nuts, fruit–frozen or dried, carob powder or almond butter. I think next time I will add some mint leaves to make a mint chocolate chip.

This ice cream is really smooth and creamy and the banana flavor is not overwhelming at all.

This is so easy it’s ridiculous and so simple that it’s hard to believe it could be so good!

Spinach and ChickPea Casserole

serves 4 (or me two times)

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

about 2 cups cooked of chick peas

3 large garlic cloves

1 (heavy handed) teaspoon tomato paste

1/4 cup of water

salt and pepper to taste

2 lbs spinach

Pre-heat oven to 400

In large casserole dish/pan heat the olive oil in the oven

In a bowl mix all other ingredients except the spinach

Add to the hot oil

Cover and cook about 15 minutes

Add the spinach, gently stirring it in (you may need to add a bit more water)

Cook until spinach has wilted–about 15 minutes