Posts Tagged ‘apples’

• Fruit and Nut Couscous

  Date: 2010.02.18 | Category: Side Dish, Snack, Sweets | Response: 10

  Please head on over to Chef It Yourself and vote for your favorite!  Voting ends February 24th!

  Earlier this month I signed up for this great food challenge hosted by a local Houston Foodie, Anamaris of Chef It Yourself. This is my very first Top Chef It Yourself Challenge and I was excited when I found out what the secret ingredients were; dates, ginger and couscous!! I’m a big fan of couscous but the family isn’t, well Alyssa likes it but no one else.  I knew I was going to make my recipe sweet but wasn’t sure what to do.  After thinking about it for a few days I finally had a recipe in mind and it turned out great.  I loved it and so did Alyssa.

  

  Fruit and Nut Couscous
  Printable Recipe

  Ingredients
  1 10 oz box of Original Plain Couscous *I used the Near East brand
  1 cup water
  1 cup apple juice
  3 Medjool Dates, diced
  3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, chopped
  1/2 cup *cranberry fiesta mix (dried cranberries, coconut, walnuts, pecans and almonds)
  1/4 cup honey, save a little to drizzle on top
  1/4 cup apricot preserves

  Directions
  1. Prepare couscous according to package using 1 cup of water and 1 cup of apple juice.
  2. While couscous is cooking, chop the dates and ginger.
  3. Move couscous to a large bowl, while it’s still warm, add the dates, ginger, craberry fiesta, honey and apricot preserves. Gently stir until well combined
  4. Serve warm with a drizzle of honey.

  *A little side note. I shop at H.E.B and they have this great healthy living section that has bulk containers of fruits, oats, nuts, just to name a few. You are able to scoop the amount of product you want, put it on the scale, weigh it and it prints out the barcode for you. I love this little section of my store. For example, Medjool dates were $10.99 for 1lb in the produce section, they were $6.99 in the natural food section. I didn’t need a pound I only needed a few so I bought four big fat dates and it was only $1.40, great deal!! I also bought the ginger and cranberry fiesta is this section. I bought .10 lb of ginger and it was $0.45 and I bought .31 lb of the cranberry fiesta and it was $1.70, take about great deals. I’m sure you could buy a trail mixer to substitute for the cranberry fiesta. I would have spent a lot more if I went straight to the baking section for everything.

• Chunky Apple Cake

  Date: 2009.10.24 | Category: Cake, Sweets | Response: 0

  Printable Recipe

  I have a confession to make, I do not like baked, apples. I think it’s the texture that turns me off. I do not care for apple pie, apple crisps, apple tarts, apple jams…nothing that has cooked apples. I like candy apples, I like the flavor of apples but I do not like cooked apples. My husband on the other hand does like cooked apples that’s why I made the cake to begin with. Now that I have made that clear I have to stay this cute little chunky apple cake might have changed my attitude apples. I found the recipe at Eat Better America and the reviews sounded promising so I thought I would give it a try. I did not change the recipe with was hard for me to do I normally change just able every recipe I come across. I’m glad I didn’t change a thing. This cute little chunky apple cake turned out better than I thought, considering I do like like baked apples. As it was baking the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and apples filled the house, the smell was tantalizing, I could not wait until the 45 minutes was up! The recipe says to serve warm so that’s what I did, I let it cool for 10 minutes before I sliced into this mouth watering chunky apple cake. My first bite was delightful and I couldn’t wait for the next bite! You must try this cake it was so delicious, next I might eat it with a scoop of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream! Give it a try and let me know what you think.

  

  Chunk Apple Cake
  Eat Better America
  Ingredients
  1 cup of flour
  1/2 cup sugar
  1 tsp baking powder
  1/2 tsp salt
  1/2 tsp cinnamon
  1/4 cup canola oil
  1 tsp vanilla
  1 egg
  2 cups peeled and diced apples

  Directions
  1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom and side of 8- or 9-inch round cake pan with shortening; lightly flour.
  2. In large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg until well blended. Stir in oil, vanilla and egg until flour mixture is moistened. Stir in apples. Batter will be very thick and chunky. Spread in pan.
  3. Bake 45 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack. Serve warm.
  High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Bake 35 to 45 minutes.