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!

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.

Alert–if you are looking for a healthy or raw recipe-look somewhere else this week!

If you are looking for a special occasion cake or need something impressive( or just want to go into a diabetic coma)…look no further!!

I recently found out about Apartment Therapy. What??? How did I not know about this site??!! It is awesome and could keep me glued to  my computer screen ALL day! What else is out there you are not telling me about???

Anyways, it was while going through each and every back post of Apartment Therapy that  I found this Epic Rainbow Cake. As soon as I saw it I knew we had to attempt it! So I borrowed 6 cake pans from my Mom and my neighbor Abby

and set to work.  I followed Whisk Kid’s cake recipe but could have bought boxed cake-it’s not like we were baking for health here! Note-these cakes are very thin so don’t be intimidated by a 4 foot high cake-it wasn’t that big. My family likened the taste of the cake to sugar cookies, which was really good I might add.  It was really 1 or 2 cake batter recipes divided between six pans.

The cake recipe I used is as follows

2 sticks butter, room temp
2 1/3 c sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9” cake pans you have.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites (I cracked them all into one bowl) and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls—I used a large soup ladle, It was about 2 and a half scoops per bowl. Then add the food coloring and mix WELL.

Pour into cake pans and bake 15 minutes-or more or less according to your oven.

I tripled a buttercream frosting recipe. It made a ton of frosting but we ended up using every bit of it. This cake was super sweet and ends up being like a slab on a plate because it is so heavy with frosting. You could cut down on the amount of frosting if you choose-it is super sweet. Also-I might add this cake tastes better chilled.

This recipe frosts two 9 inch cakes–I tripled–my mixer was full of frosting(I was in heaven)!

1/2 cup of butter

3 1/2 cups powder sugar

4 to 5 Tablespoons of liquid—milk, creamer, water   I used Snowville Creamery 1/2 and 1/2

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Molly did a bit of decorating

And we all did some eating!!!

Note-my cake looks much less professional than Whisk Kids-but sure did taste good!!!

Oooo these were so good and so easy!

I don’t have exact measurements because I threw this together.

Throw some raw cauliflower into your food processor and process until it is like grains of rice. Then do the same for a few large carrots.

Next I threw about a cup of raw sunflower seeds into the processor with a large handful of parsley and the tops of the peppers that I was stuffing. Mix all together.

Now for the sauce:  I used all the ripe cherry tomatoes I had, but could have used more!

Process them with a few cloves of garlic, 1/4 to 1/2 of a purple onion, some (1/4 c?) olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, cayenne.

I added a few spoonfuls of sauce to the stuffing mixture and then stuffed the pepper spooning more sauce over the top.

Really good stuff!

Do you have a recipe to share? Leave a link to your recipe post in the comments!

Well that was fast…it’s apple time again! Recently we visited our favorite orchard for the first pick of the season (jonafree, scarlett o’hare and liberty).

We filled ourselves with apples and raspberries while we were there and brought a few bags home.

Now what to do with all those apples that are sitting on my counter?! Pies, drying, cake, sauce..the list goes on and on! This week  I am going to re-post a raw apple pie recipe that I plan to make tomorrow (for potluck)!  I have made it several times and every time it is delicious!!

You will need both a blender and a food processor. Because, I guess you can’t put liquid stuff in the food processor or it will seep out of every crack and crevasse..nobody told me that!

For the crust you will need

2 cups almonds-plus a few more for dusting the bottom

2 cups dates

1 teaspoon salt

Put a few almonds in the food processor and line your pie plate with almond dust

Next process the almonds dates and salt until they make a sticky mass. Dump them into a bowl and make it into a ball with your hands, try to form it into your pan shape as best you can-it will be crumbly-press itinto the bottom of you r pie plate.

For the Filling you will need

6-8 apples chopped-or thinly sliced

1 cup raisins and or cranberries

2 Tablespoons cinnamon

Combine in a bowl

For the Syrup for the filling you will need (this can be doubled-I did, because I lost most of it when I tried to make it in the food processor instead of the blender!)

1/2 cup of dates

1 large orange

1/4 cup of water

Blend this all up until smooth and pour over your filling.

Be sure to pit all your dates!!!

This was so delicious!! I even ate it for breakfast the next day and it was even better because the apples had softened a bit.

Try it you’ll like it!!!

If you have a recipe to share, leave a comment with a link to your recipe post!

“Cheesy” Stuffed Peppers

From the book EAT SMART EAT RAW

Trying new recipes has helped me to realize that I really don’t like food that is puree’d -like baby food. I know I have texture preferences. I hate pudding, I like to chew my food.  I like the taste of this recipe, just not the texture. So next time I will only blend up part of the ingredients and leave some to stir in.

13oz of corn (I used frozen-thawed, technically not raw, so this is a better recipe for summer time!)

1 1/2 carrots

small bunch of parsley

1 T ground flax seeds

2 T extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp miso

2 T nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp red chili

2 garlic cloves

1/2 onion

4 oz orange juice

2 large peppers

I put everything except the peppers and OJ into my Vita-mix. I puree’d all and then gradually added the OJ. Only use as much juice as you need to. You want this to be thick but no lumps. Fill the peppers.

OK so I would reserve some corn and parsley, onions,  chilis and maybe some of the pepper  to chop up and mix into the puree to add some crunch to the filling.

Cheesy stuffed peppers and kale salad Mmmmm!