Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake

When I think of the Superbowl I think of good friends and good food. Who really cares about the game anyways? (Ok, I know people do, because I hear them screaming in the background while I am chatting it up with the other people who really don’t care about the game.) This year we are having tacos at the party we are going to.  So, what do I want to bring to go with tacos? Cheesecake! Really it doesn’t matter what else you are eating, can you ever go wrong with cheesecake? No, no you cannot.

I’ve actually been itching to have a reason to make another Paleo cheesecake.  I hate how making one desert makes me want to make another. Now that I made this Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake, I started coming up with great ideas for other flavors. So, I will itch again to find a reason to make another cheesecake.

Blackberry Swirl Cheesecake

Crust

2 cups raw pecans
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup pure maple syrup, grade B
1/8 teaspoon salt

Cheese cake

2 cups cashews soaked over night

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup pure maple syrup, grade B
4 tablespoons coconut water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup zucchini (peeled & diced)
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar (If you don’t have coconut palm sugar just use another 1/4 cup of maple syrup for a total of 1/2 cup)
1/4 teaspoon salt
The juice of one medium lemon

 Blackberry sauce

1 package frozen blackberries (about 2.5 cups)

1 TBS arrowroot powder + 2 TBS water

1.       Make blackberry sauce. Thaw berries then heat over medium heat berries and their juices in a small sauce pan. Stir frequently. Allow berries to come to a boil. Mix arrowroot powder and water in a cup. Turn heat to medium low then slowly pour arrowroot water into the berries, and cook until thickened, about 5-10 minutes. Strain sauce in a fine mesh sieve to remove all the seeds, gently press it to get all the sauce. Put sauce in a baggie and store in the fridge.

2.       Make crust. Place the pecans in a food processor, mix until pecans are a fine meal. Add the salt, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Mix until well blended, it will form a ball. Wrap a spring form pan in saran wrap. Press the crust mixture into the bottom of the lined pan. Freeze crust while you work on the rest.

3.       Drain and rinse cashews. Mix cashews in a blender or food processor until they are very broken down. Pour in the coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and coconut water. Blend until smooth. Blend in zucchini, coconut sugar, salt and lemon. Results should be completely smooth.

4.       Pour half of the cheesecake mixture in a bowl and set aside.  Pour half of the blackberry sauce in the remaining cheesecake mix (snip the end of the baggie for easy pouring).  Blend until mixed. 

5.       Pour half of each of the regular and berry cheese cake mix over the crust, kind of blob them in piles so the colors are separate. Use a skewer to mix the colors.

6.       For the second layer pour in the cheesecake mix, placing the purple on top of where white was and white on top of where purple was. Mix this with the skewer.

Yeah...opps, I had more purple than I did white.

7.       Put the rest of the blackberry sauce on top and mix in. Freeze for at least 4 hours. Allow to thaw for about an hour before serving. Cut with a hot knife. Store the leftovers in freezer. 

Thanks to McCartney Cabinets I had a beautiful kitchen for this slice photo! This was a beautiful black and white kitchen with a farmhouse sink that I was gaga over.

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Paleo Homemade Mayonnaise

 I’ve got a couple of things I have going right now at once. I am working on a side dish for a family reunion, and a desert for a Superbowl party. I will have a busy day tomorrow pulling that together along with all the other things I already have to do.  I know I won’t stop much tomorrow if I’m going to actually finish everything. For that reason I am putting this recipe on here now. This was requested by Josh’s aunt.

Mayonnaise

2 eggs, room temperature (one whole, one just the yolk)

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1.5 – 2 TBS fresh squeezed lemon (or vinegar)

1 cup light tasting olive oil

1.       In a blender or food processor mix whole egg and yolk, lemon and Dijon mustard.

2.       Keep blender running and SLOWLY  pour in oil.

3.       Stop blender when mayonnaise has thickened. Refrigerate immediately

Seem too simple? Well, while it sounds so straight-forward, there are tricks to this. Your eggs must not be cold, if you don’t have time to wait for them to come to room temperature, drop them in a cup of warm water for a few minutes. Also, when I say pour the oil slowly, I mean slowly. You will feel like you have been pouring oil forever. The measurements for oil are not exact, if it’s still runny with one cup, keep adding more oil. If it seems like it has gotten nice and thick with less oil, don’t feel obligated to use more.  After making this a time or two you will have a feel for how it should look. When you pour the oil in, it should be like a thread stream. Make sure your oil is very mild, you don’t want it to add any flavor.Good luck!

Tips- I have used vinegar before, I just prefer the flavor lemon gives. I used 2 TBS for this; it makes the lemon flavor just slightly stronger.  I used a little less than a cup of oil, but I always have a bad habit of stopping the blender just a little too soon, I could let it keep going and make my mayo thicker, but where I stopped was ok.

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Removing Color That Bled in the Laundry

29 years. Almost 30, really. 29 years I have gone without turning a white shirt pink in the laundry. Well that winning streak is officially over. Stink!

I would have never guessed that a pink sweat shirt could have caused so much damage, but it did. Little Bit's new shirt came out of the wash quite pink. So I did a quick search on the internet and found this solution.

The stained shirt soaking in baking soda water.

Fixing Color Runs in Laundry
You will need: 1 or more ruined white item of clothes, baking soda, and bleach.
 Fill a container that your laundry will fit in with 1 cup of baking soda and cold water. 

Add your stained laundry. Let it soak overnight
Put the wet laundry in the wash, wash on cold with some bleach added.
Repeat the wash if needed.

It's kind of hard to see, but this is the pink in the seams.

I had to wash three times because the seams were still pink. I think that may have been lint but I wanted to be sure it was clean before I dried it.

The results were a shirt that was nice and clean and restored back to a crisp white. 

And a happy Little Bit! 

What is going on with me?! Two cleaning posts in one day. I don't know why but I have been crazy cleaning lately. I even organized boxes of stored stuff.

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Clean Oven and Stove Drip Pans With Ammonia

My oven shames . There is never a point when I would ask a guest to remove anything from my oven. Yuck. They probably would not be willing to eat anything they knew came out of it.

Ok, truth: not really. It’s not that bad, but it is kind of gross. I have been putting off really cleaning it. The last time I did clean it I tried something new to me then. I had sprayed the whole inside of the oven with a squirt bottle of plain water. Then I sprinkled baking soda all over. Then it sat overnight and I wiped it up in the morning. Did it work? Yeah, I guess. Was it a breeze? No. Maybe it was too dirty for that, I don’t know. What I do know is it took a lot of elbow grease and I still never got all the spots off. Beyond that, it took me 3 days of adding more water and baking soda after scrubbing it down over and over.  

So this time I am trying something different. Ammonia. Yes, it reeks, but boy that stuff has some cleaning power. I have already cleaned my burner drip pans with ammonia. I thought I lost my mind when they got so clean and beautiful with very little work.

To clean stove drip pans, just put each drip pain in a large ziplock baggie with a splash of ammonia, seal it and let it sit overnight. In the morning remove the drip pans and wipe clean. Yep, easy as that, even the worst cooked on spots, the ones you thought would be the bane of your kitchen forever, come right off!

After hearing the angel’s sing around my sparkly drip pans, I knew I needed to clean my oven with ammonia. So I will bear the smell of a thousand rancid litter boxes if it makes my oven sparkle.

To clean oven you will need: 2 heat-proof bowls, ammonia, boiling water, Dawn dish soap, rubber gloves, a scouring pad,  and a nasty oven.

Preheat your oven to 200°.

Put some ammonia in one bowl and boiling water in the other bowl.

Turn oven off, put bowl of water on the bottom rack and bowl of ammonia on the top rack. 

Close the oven and let it sit overnight.

In the morning open oven and remove bowls, don’t dump the ammonia, though.

Mix ammonia with 4 cups of water and about 2 tsp  Dawn.

Use the ammonia mixture with the scouring pad to scrub the oven. Don’t forget your rubber gloves here. This will require a bit of elbow grease sometimes.

Wipe down the inside of your oven to remove cleaning mix. Spray with water and wipe again to be sure you got all the ammonia and Dawn out of your oven

Listen for the angels singing “Hallelujah” at the sight of your freshly clean oven.

*Disclaimer, I did not thoroughly clean my oven.  You might wonder why, since I went through all the bother. Because my tiny kitchen was doing quite the assault on my body while I tried to reach all the crevices in my oven. There is only 4.5 inches on one side between the oven door and the fridge and only 8 inches to the cabinet. I stretched and reached and hung upside-down just trying to wipe out that darn oven.  All things considered I am pleased with the results This is worth doing about twice a year I think. Next time I will do it in nicer weather so I can really open all my windows to ventilate that horrible smell.

Here is my oven with the ammonia in the top bowl and boiling water in the bottom bowl.

Dirty oven door. Eww.

Clean oven door.

The left half of the rack is cleaned and the right half is not.

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Craving a Good Cup 'a Joe

I have never really been a coffee drinker. When I do have coffee I need to doctor it all up to suit my tastes. Eating healthy is not always conducive to doctored coffee. However for the last month or so I have been really craving coffee drinks. And when I crave, I must indulge--Paleo style at least.

The Christmas before last Josh got me an awesome blender. He knows how I think, why pay full price if you don't have to. He got me a Blendtech, but instead of paying full price he got one that was used from Starbucks. (Cause lets be honest, as long as the motor is really strong, that's all that really matters.) So my nifty blender came with markings "coffee to this line" and "milk to this line." And guess what? I can totally make my own frapachinos! And they are good! And I don't even have to measure or guess! Sooo... yes I have indulged my craving with many a frapachino.

The recent bitter cold weather warranted a cup of something warm instead. Thus I made my own pumpkin spice late. This was thick and creamy and hearty. I like my drinks thicker, so feel free to adjust to your own personal taste.  Also I freeze the leftover coconut milk in ice trays, they are usually about 2 TBS per cube, I just thaw and use them when I need just a little bit of coconut milk.

Don't you just love the cup and saucer?!  Hot air balloon on the cup and mushrooms on the saucer. It makes no sense and yet, it makes me so happy!

Pumpkin Spice Latte
     1/2 cup coffee
     4 TBS coconut milk
     1 heaping TBS canned pumpkin
     1-2 TBS agave syrup
     1/2 - 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1. Mix pumpkin, coconut milk, agave syrup, and pumpkin pie spice in a small sauce pan. Heat over medium heat until warm.
2. Add in hot coffee and mix well. I blend it in the blender at this point to make it smooth and frothy.
3. Sit back, relax and ENJOY!

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Oh My!

I have gotten back into creating a weekly menu. I do this for multiple reasons: 1. It gets me cooking more because I don't have to just figure out dinner right before its time to eat. 2. It gets me cooking more interesting meals because I'm not resorting to the same old thing. 3. It helps me avoid eating out (something I LOVE to do but always hate that I spent the money when I could have cooked just as well). 4. It makes grocery shopping more efficient when I plan out everything we really need for the week. I used to go to the grocery store 3-5 a week. (I know, pathetic, right?) Now I can go once a week and be set.

With my menu planing I have had one desert per week. Each week I keep writing the same desert because I never get to making it. Lemon Mousse. Sounds good right? I don't know why I never got around to it, because I know I wanted it. I started working on it today. One of the ingredients in the mousse was a lemon curd. I have never had lemon curd and I couldn't just go out and buy it for a Paleo desert, the store bought stuff is all processed and filled with sugar and preservatives. Since it's a birthday in our house today I decided to finally make desert.

I used Empowered Sustenance's recipe. I will make the mousse tonight, so far it's just the curd. I decided the name needed changed, because OH MY! this lemon curd! I tried just a bit off the bowl. Then I devoured what was left on the bowl after putting it in a jar. I may as well have shoved my head in the bowl and licked like a dog. I couldn't get enough! (Don't worry, I was dignified and used the bowl scraper...err...and my fingers.)

Oh My! Lemon Curd

3 large eggs
1/4 -1/3 cup of honey
Grated zest of one lemon (I used about 1 tablespoon)
1/2 cup of lemon juice
6 tablespoons virgin coconut oil (or you could use ghee or butter).

1. In a medium stainless steel or enamel saucepan, whisk together the first three ingredients until light colored.
2. Add the the coconut oil, breaking it into small clumps as you drop it into the pot for even melting. Then add the lemon juice.
3. Cook, whisking over medium heat until the coconut oil is melted. Continue to cook until the mixture thickens and you start to see a few bubbles popping at the surface.
4. Remove from heat, and scrape into a fine sieve set over a bowl. Strain the curd, gently stirring if needed.
5. Refrigerate for several hours to thicken. Will keep about one week in the refrigerator.

The only thing I did differently was mix the first three ingredients in my stand mixer with the whisk on. I felt like it did a better job.

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Holy Sweet Potato, Batman!

Being winter and often crazy cold, the farmer’s market has not been in my radar much.  Today however, I was in desperate need of nuts and dates, so I ventured to the market; mostly because of the great Middle Eastern market with much cheaper nuts.

So I decided to see what some of the farmers had. This was pretty quick because there weren’t many there.  Then I hit the jackpot!  They were selling sweet potatoes 5 for $5. This is a good deal in its self when the sweet potatoes are normal. But when they are gigantic monsters of sweet potatoes, this is an amazing deal! 17 pounds of sweet potatoes for $5. What the heck?!

Just look at this monster.

5 lbs 11 oz. Wowee!

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