Carrot cake cookies

In the winter I tend to crave soup a lot more. It's comforting to have a nice warm bowl of soup. So I decided to make a butternut squash soup. I used part of my butternut squash for a risotto that I made. I cut up the other half of the butternut squash, shopped up a small onion, 2 carrots, and sauted them in a pot with a bit of olive oil, then I added homemade chicken stock that I made a while back, and let it come to a boil and then cooked on medium heat until the butternut squash was soft. I then used a hand blender and pureed it all. I also added a touch o;vf salt, some pepper and some nutmeg. This gave me two lunch size portions which was perfect, and it was really good. You can of course use vegetable stock but I really needed to use up the broth since it has been in my freezer for a while.

I also decided to try out a new recipe from the thud kitchen cookbook, I tried the carrot cake cookies, here's the recipe:

1 1/2  cups of flour (whole wheat, pastry or white) - I used spelt
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger (I used fresh ginger)
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup plain almond or other nondairy milk
1/4 cup olive or grapeseed oil
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins or chopped candied ginger

Heat your oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ground ginger. Make sure there are no lumps of brown sugar hanging around in there. In a smaller bowl, mix together the shredded carrots, milk, and oil. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir all that until there are only a couple dry spots. Fold in the nuts and raisins and stir until there aren't any dry spots. Scoop spoonfuls of the dough onto the baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake until the bottoms are golden brown. 18 to 22 minutes.

My hubby doesn't like raisins so I left those out since I didn't have or wasn't interested in added candied ginger. They were really good! I would for sure make this recipe again, but next time I'll try it with coconut sugar to make it healthier.

Christmas is just around the corner, so I think my next post might only be in the new Year. I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Christmas, and Happy New Year!

New cookbooks

I got another early Christmas present. I won't be seeing a good friend of mine this year over the holidays, so she sent me my gift by mail which was 2 cookbooks, Thug Kitchen and 100 days of real food.

I already looked through both of them and there's so many recipes I want to try out. Thug Kitchen is vegetarian cooking, which is perfect for me, especially since I have been cutting back on meat, and 100 days of real food, is also amazing, with so many great recipes in there. For the first recipe, I chose to make the slow cooker flank steak fajitas. I know it's meat, but it looked so good, and I'm working on cutting out meat, since during the holidays it's a little harder to stay away from certain foods, especially since we will be visiting a lot of people. Once the new year hits, I'll be more strict with cutting out meat and going gluten free, so I can feel a lot better with having less pain.
Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 1/2 pounds grass-fed flank steak
2 tbsp soy sauce (preferably low sodium)
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4-5 bell peppers, any color, cored, seeded and sliced
1 onion, sliced

In a small bowl, combine the chili powder, cumin coriander, salt and pepper
Rub the spice mixture over all sides of the flank steak, place it in the bottom of the slow cooker, and add the soy sauce
Top the flank steak with the jalapeno, garlic, bell peppers and onion. There's no need to add any water or other liquid
Cook on high for 5 to 6 hours or on low for 9 hours, or until the steak can easily be shredded with two forks
Thoroughly drain the meat and peepers, shred the meat and serve with the fajita fixings of your choice.

This was so easy to make and it was delicious! She's right about not needing any liquid because the vegetables give out a lot of liquid. We enjoyed this with salsa, guacamole, sour cream, shredded cheese, and lettuce on a whole wheat wrap.

Thank you again Dallas for these two wonderful cookbooks. She hasn't gotten my gift yet, but it's on its way. I didn't do any baking this past weekend, I was busy with Christmas shopping. Still a few more gifts to buy but just about done. I may not write as many posts this month, but will do my best.