Holiday Yummies

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever you prefer.  I wish all of you a joyous holiday season and may you be blessed all year with good friends, family and yummy FOOD!

I've had to miss a couple of days of work due to some bad weather.  In fact, my flight to be with my family for Christmas was cancelled, so I'm spending the holiday with friends and hoping that my rescheduled flight on Boxing Day doesn't get cancelled. 

On the bright side, being snowed in and stuck at home leaves lots of time to bake some old favorites for our guests. 

I made a batch of Almost Sugar-Free Peanut Butter Cookies subbing in almond butter...

And I made some of Dreena's Chocolate Mint Melties.  These are soooo good.  If you've never made them, you must find any excuse to do so.

And I also made a carrot cake.  I had an abundance of carrots from my weekly produce bin (Green Earth Organics) so carrot cake was the perfect way to use some of them.  I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's website and made a few substitutions.  You can refer to the original recipe here, but I'll list it with my substitutions below:

  

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tbsp ground flax + 6 tbsp water

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 cup finely shredded packed (about 2 medium) carrots 

Quick Glaze, or confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly oil an 8 inch round baking pan and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk flax/water, sugars, almond milk, and oil until smooth. Gently mix wet mixture into dry ingredients until moistened; mix in carrots. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes (if browning too quickly, tent cake with aluminum foil). Cool in pan, 15 minutes. Turn out of pan, remove paper, and cool completely on a rack, right side up. Apply glaze, or dust with confectioners’ sugar. 

 Right now I've got a batch of Lavash baking, and I'll be making some lemon-dill hummus to go with it.