Quick and easy lunch — and low carb, keto-friendly — of Caesar Tomato Tuna Melts. Just not terribly easy to photograph, but they tasted yummy. I could have served them with lettuce as more of a sandwich, but all out of lettuce. I used provolone as the cheese but cheddar or swiss would go nicely as well. Pantry/fridge friendly ingredients too.
Browsing Tag
sweets
I may have mentioned this before (in fact, I know that I have), but I very much enjoy florentine-style (i.e. very thin and crispy) cookies. These are particularly yummy. Often, this style of cookie involves nuts, but this time I merely went with oatmeal and some toffee bits to add to the crunch, and then I sandwiched two together to make Florentine-Style Oatmeal “Jamwiches” (instead of sandwiches). Sweet and crispy cookies, tart and juicy jam. Quite lovely, actually.
Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks
Sweet Cream + Lemon Brioche-style Danishes
Sweet Cream + Lemon Brioche-style Danishes
(Süße Quarkbrötchen) aka Heidi’s Cheese Buns
This post has a story, and the story is about my mum. You see, we as a family (translation: my mum) have been making these “Cheese Buns” for forever. In fact, back in the day, we has a stand at the Orono (Maine) Town Festival and boy, were these danishes popular. So what are “Cheese Buns”? They are actually what would be called Süße Quarkbrötchen in German: brioche-style sweet, soft buns, with a creamy, lemony filling. In Germany, there is a type of fresh cheese called Quark. Quark is like yogurt, but not, like cream cheese but not. You can find Quark in the U.S. but it is pretty hard to find (check the deli case), so the closest thing you might find in the US, that I have found at least, is “farmer’s cheese” (also available in the deli case, by the artisan cheeses). My mum used to actually make it herself. In this recipe, I use cream cheese mixed with quark, but you can also use a bit of sour cream. Any which way, they are a “family recipe” and one of my favorite childhood things. There are raisins — I know, I know, highly controversial in baked goods — but they are optional so omit them if you are anti-raisin. 🙂
Cookies, Sweet Snacks
Chickpea + Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chickpea + Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Small Batch, Vegan, GF + Dairy Free)
So, I am lucky that I don’t have to worry about being on a Gluten Free diet. I also choose to eat dairy, meat and eggs so I am not vegetarian or vegan. So, it never even occurred to me that you could make chocolate chip cookies without wheat flour, without dairy, or without eggs, but I did just that when I made these yummy Chickpea + Pecan Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are Gluten Free, dairy free (no butter, no eggs), white sugar free (do use honey and there are chocolate chips) and vegan. They do contain both nuts and nut butter (pecans, but you can use almonds or cashews as well. They are a bit crumbly and the original recipe called for a much shorter baking time (I upped it from -10 minutes to 14-16), but they do taste great and I don’t miss the things that it doesn’t have. The pecans are nice too. This recipe only makes a small batch (about 20 cookies) so you can test them out. Recipe can be doubled easily.
So you know how sometimes really crappy weather makes you want to hunker down and hibernate just a little while? Well, it’s April and New England is getting a Nor’Easter (which actually doesn’t mean snow necessarily, just wind direction, but the precipitation is still supposed to be yucky). So the bad weather got me thinking of wanting to be in the tropics, which got me thinking of citrus fruits, so I dug through my bag of tricks and came up with a jar of Guava Jam. Never had a guava? Well, it tastes a lot like oranges and peaches mixed together. Add in some macadamia nuts and voila, tropical inspiration to get over the Spring Stormy blues.