Gluten Free Apple Crisp in the Slow Cooker

I think the last time I posted I mentioned this recipe be up within the week. Yeah right!!! And that last post was Thanksgiving. It is almost the end of December and just a few days till Christmas. I hope everyone been enjoying their holiday. Spending as much time with family and being around your favorite friends. In Las Vegas, November and December are pretty slow months when your job revolves around travel (IE. I work for a rental car company). Let me tell you, December has been so busy preparing for what is coming in 2013. I can’t wait for 2013 to get here because it is going to be a good year for Las Vegas! I can see it now.

In the meantime, I made the following apple crisp twice. I’ll probably make it again for Christmas. It makes your entire house smell like cinnamon apples and it is so delicious cold with plain Greek yogurt on top. The best thing about making your apple crisp in the slow cooker, no messes and you just dump everything in all at once and cook on high for 3-4 hours. I’d recommend cutting your apples into thick slices, that way they soften up and don’t fall apart easily. The first time around I went with thinly sliced apples and it was more like a chunky applesauce. If you need to make a larger batch, just double this recipe.

Gluten Free Slow Cooker Apple Crisp
By Fallon

Ingredients
3 large apples (granny, fiji, pink lady, honeycrisp etc)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon corn starch
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
2 tablespoons stevia
2 tablespoons walnuts, chopped
2 tablespoons blanched almond flour
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1/4 cup gluten free rolled oats
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
Dash of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled

Directions
Peel and slice apples into thick slices, then place into the slow cooker. If you’d prefer a more chunky applesauce texture, slice thinner.

Combine lemon juice,corn starch, pumpkin spice and stevia and mix into apples. In a small bowl combine walnuts, almond/coconut flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and cubed butter. With hands or fork, mush everything together until you get a course sandy texture. Place crisp on top of apples in the slow cooker. If you’d like, add some more walnuts to the top.

Place lid on top of slow cooker, set on high and cook 3-4 hours. It may cook faster so I’d recommend checking it out after 2 hours. Serve up with vanilla bean ice cream and call it a night!

I will try to check back in around Christmas, if not.. maybe before 2013.

Happy Holiday’s from Fallon’s Cucina!
Fallon

Happy Thanksgiving for TWO!

Hey Y’all! I am still around and thought it be nice to pop in and wish everyone (well if I still have any readers) a Happy Thanksgiving! This year I didn’t want to go anywhere. While I’m very thankful for our friends always offering my mama and I to come over, it just seemed right to enjoy this day with my mama. We worked out this morning, hit up Old Navy and Wholefoods (YES we had to do a little shopping!) and made our dinner together. We took a very easy approach to Thanksgiving and one I like because it is SIMPLE and you don’t have to feel guilty about gaining any extra weight.

We only eat white meat, the dark meat usually goes to my father or in the trash. This year we opted to buy a turkey breast on the bone, rather then a whole turkey. We stuffed it with fresh herbs and drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper. Instead of roasting the turkey in the oven, we did the slow cooker approach instead. It was DELICIOUS! Super juicy, very flavorful and easy clean up. We followed this approach when making our turkey.

I roasted the sweet potatoes, sliced in circles, olive oil, salt and pepper. My mom handled the green beans (steamed) and homemade cranberry sauce. We added 2 tablespoons white sugar, 2 tablespoons stevia, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, splash of orange juice and a dash of cinnamon.

For dessert, we used the slow cooker and I prepared a homemade apple crisp. It was gluten free and I made sure to just make enough (3 large apples), so we wouldn’t have a ton of leftovers. The house smelled amazing and this is something I’ll be making more often going forward. I will share the recipe with you next week.

Cheers,
Fallon

Baby meal!

Recently my best friend had her second child, baby girl Jenna! She is absolutely precious and I love getting to hold her. I wanted to do something for her and her family. I figured they could use help with a homemade meal. How does chocolate chip cookies and lasagna sound? Everything turned out great and they loved my lasagna. What can I say, when I cook it is definitely. treat ;).

Everything is courtesy of Trader Joe's. Their frozen chocolate chip cookie dough is pretty spectacular and they bake up so nicely. I cooked my own sauce for them, a little ground beef, garlic, onions, olive oil, san marzano tomatoes and a splash of red wine. I cooked it low and slow for about an hour. I used the lasagna sheets that you do not have to boil and you simply layer and bake. I made a ricotta cheese mixture with frozen chopped spinach and an egg to bring everything together. Lyssa told me everyone loved the meal and even Mason, their 3 year old son loved it!

Always,

Fallon

PS: All photos are from my new iPhone 5. Awesome quality right??? And if I wasn't lazier enough, I blogged from my phone too. ;)

The Secret Recipe Club: Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

September is here and there is a new installment of recipes this month for The Secret Recipe Club. Today is Group B’s reveal date and I had the lovely blog called Amy’s Cooking Adventures. She has a really fun blog and a lot of variety when it comes to recipes. She will share weekly photos of her family and the new adventures they are up too.

Out of all her delicious looking recipes her Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles intrigued me. I love chocolate and I love peanut butter. Well I use too but now I’m trying to make some changes to my diet. Having some issues (which I will not go into) and I’m trying to eliminate certain foods from my diet. I still included a little chocolate in my truffles because then they wouldn’t be truffles! I swapped out the peanut butter for almond butter instead. I tried to find gluten free pretzels but I sacrificed these truffles with some fun thin pretzels I found at Trader Joe’s.

I did have some issues getting the almond butter mixture to come together. I added a little raw honey to help bring it together because I kept adding more almond butter. Eventually I was getting annoyed that my jar of almond butter was almost finished and decided I probably should have measured out the pretzels. Oops. I spilt the mixture in half, added another spoon of almond butter and finally the mixture did not fall apart when I rolled them into balls. I used unsweetened shredded coconut instead of dipping into chocolate, to make it more healthier. With the rest of the mixture I had some leftover chocolate chips that I melted and added a little coconut butter to get a sheen. Added that mixture to the rest of my dry mixture and rolled that into balls as well and into coconut.

The end result of my changes were quite good. I ate a few but I know I can’t be eating them all the time. Even though I made some healthy changes, these are still delicious. Pretzels are great to mix with nuts and chocolate. It helps satisfy the salty and sweet combo, just like these truffles do!

My recipe below has both versions I made. Click Amy’s Cooking Adventures to get her original recipe.

Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles
Adapted from Amy’s Cooking Adventures

Ingredients:
4 cups thin pretzels
1 cup smooth almond butter and sea salt (save 1/4 cup for chocolate almond truffles), you may need additional spoonful's if mixture is crumbly
3 teaspoons raw honey
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1-2 teaspoons coconut oil/butter
Unsweetened shredded coconut

Pour pretzels into a food processor and grind down to coarse crumbs. You could also put them in a zip lock bag and smash with a rolling pin.

Divide pretzel crumbs into 2 bowls and set one aside. Stir in almond butter, 1/4 cup at a time until it is evenly blended. Drizzle in honey and mix. Refrigerate for 1 hour to let the almond butter firm up. If you need it to firm up quicker, place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of almond butter and honey to the bowl of crushed pretzels, mix and set aside.

This mixture was crumbly and addicting. I loved the clusters!

Line a 2 cookie sheets with parchment or wax paper.

Using a small cookie scoop or melon baller, scoop small balls of almond butter mixture and roll into shredded coconut. Place onto prepared cookie sheet and place into freezer to harden up.

In a small glass bowl, melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips in the microwave, 20 second intervals till chocolate is smooth. Add coconut oil/butter to make chocolate shiny. Set aside.

With the second mixture that has 1/4 cup almond butter, add most of the melted chocolate and combine. Save some chocolate if you’d like to drizzle on the truffles. Using a small cookie scoop or melon baller, scoop small balls of chocolate almond butter mixture and roll into shredded coconut. Place onto prepared cookie sheet and place into freezer to harden up.

Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

Chocolate Almond Butter Pretzel Truffles

Remove truffles from freezer after 5 minutes. If you have some leftover chocolate drizzle over truffles. These are best kept in the fridge and enjoyed right away!

Fallon

The insides……

The Secret Recipe Club: Flourless Chocolate Cake

I know this is late and I have a somewhat a good excuse but not the best. I was in California this past weekend for a funeral. A family member of mine passed away living with dementia for 5 years and now she is peacefully at rest. Definitely a sad moment but we all know she is in a better place.

There was just NO TIME for me last week to do anything it seemed and I kept meaning to get my post up and ready for The Secret Recipe Club.. Crunch time came and I decided to email Suzanne, tell her my situation and I ended up sending my pictures and writing a small post that she gladly posted on her website. Thank you again Suzanne and thank you Living Lou for such a wonderful recipe!
Click here to see my recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake.

Here are additional photos that I had taken to go with my post.









I love you chocolate.. I do I do I do ooooo!







Fallon

Coffee Ice Cream Dream Cake

IT’S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! haha I know what you are thinking right now. Fallon is pregnant? NO WAY! My best friend is expecting her second baby due sometime end of October and she recently found out she is having a girl!

Mason!! He is my pumpkin and I’m his cupcake. ;)

She already has a handsome son, now it only makes sense that she has a princess. One of each is the way to go, that way you get best of both!

My best friend is craving a lot of sweets. Something with her first pregnancy she didn’t, but with this little princess inside of her, she just wants sugar, sugar, sugar! I came across this recipe for Kahlua-Coffee Ice Cream Dream Cake from Bakeeat350 and I thought of my best friend. Back in the day we would go to Baskin and Robbins and she’d always order the Jamocha® Almond Fudge. I must say that flavor is pretty rocking. It brought back those memories and I knew this cake would be something she’d love. I had to keep it a secret from her though because I knew it was going to be a good one.

I did make some adjustments like nixing the Kahlua. Pregnant mommies should not be having any alcohol, hence the name Kahlua-Coffee Ice Cream Dream Cake. Then instead of using heath bits, I bought heath bars and wacked them into chunks instead. The best part was getting chunks of the heath bar in every bite of the cake. This cake was amazing and out of this world, except it lacked ice cream.

A corner piece. Where’s the ice cream?? Must of it was hiding right in the middle!

The 1 gallon of coffee ice cream I purchased wasn’t enough. There was too much graham cracker and not enough ice cream. This can easily be fixed, just purchase 2 gallons of ice cream instead. That way you have plenty of ice cream and will have more thickness between layers. With summer here and people getting together for grill, this is the perfect dessert to bring. Feeds a crowd and you can’t go wrong with coffee ice cream, toffee chunks and tons of chocolate!

   

I have a feeling I’m going to have to make this cake again soon, bummer!!! ;)
Get the recipe for Kahlua-Coffee Ice Cream Dream Cake here!

Yum yum,
Fallon

 

It’s a S’mores Party!

S’mores Fudge with Spiced Rum

I may not be around as much as I’d like to be but I couldn’t leave you guys out of this fun party. Bloggers are linking up their favorite S’more recipes and joining the party over at Cookies & Cups. I linked up a few of my recipes like S’mores Cake, S’mores Cookie Bars and S’mores Fudge with Spiced Rum.

Come check out the party at Cookie & Cups. If you have any fun S’more recipes you should join the party and also check out the other fabulous recipes while you are over there.

I really want to try out this recipe S’mores Snack Mix. Yummy!!

It is Friday but only my Wednesday!!! So I guess you could say it is Hump Day too? ;)

Always,
Fallon

The Secret Recipe Club: Rice Crispy Treats

      

Today is Group B’s reveal day for The Secret Recipe Club. I had no problem choosing a recipe from the blog assigned to me, Big Fat Baker. One thing we have in common is our love for dessert! She has some fantastic looking recipes but I went with the most simplest recipe on her site, rice crispy treats. She uses the basic recipe off the back of the cereal box to make her treats. She recommends to measure our everything exactly, so that way the treats come out super gooey and delicious.




You will need exactly 40 large marshmallows. I actually counted mine out and my bag had exactly 40. These treats definitely hit the spot for me. I even decorated them with the white chocolate M&Ms. Boy were they delicious. I took the rest of them to work and within an hour they were all gone!



Homemade Rice Crispy Treats
Adapted from Big Fat Baker

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
40 regular sized marshmallows
6 cups rice crispy treat cereal

Directions:
In a large saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir until completely melted.

Using a greased or buttered spatula, stir in the cereal. Stir until fully coated and mixed. Pour into a greased or parchment lined 9x13 pan and spread evenly. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

 

And if you want to spruce up your treats, add whatever mix-in you desire. I decided to go with the white chocolate M&Ms. These were the best and so good! My favorite part is when the treats were still warm and the M&Ms were warm, they just melt in your mouth. A bit messy but well worth it!

Always,
Fallon
PS: Sorry for the delay. I had to add in the blog hop and it totally messed up my entire post since I use Windows Live Writer.

Rice Krispy Treats with Almond Butter and White Chocolate M&M’s

 
Dangerous. White chocolate M&M’s are dangerous! These M&M’s have been popping up all over the blog world lately since Easter is right around the corner and all the holiday candy is out. They are too good to be true and I had to pick up a bag. What also is too good to be true is I also been craving rice krispy treats. Random right? My best friend makes the best kind that are super gooey. I wanted to make my treats a little different. I figured peanut butter and chocolate is always my favorite combo. With the white chocolate, almond butter sounded like the right pair for these treats. I cut back on the butter and added more almond butter when I was melting the marshmallows. Mix in the white chocolate M&M’s and you have a perfectly delicious treat. Great for Easter or just because they sound so darn good right about now!

Rice Krispy Treats with Almond Butter and White Chocolate M&M’s
By Fallon

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup creamy almond butter with sea salt
3 cups miniature marshmallows
3 cups crispy rice cereal
2-3 handfuls of white chocolate M&M’s

Directions:
Spray a 9 inch square glass baking pan with cooking spray, set aside.

In a large pot melt butter over low heat, stirring until butter is melted and brown. Stir in almond butter quickly, then add marshmallows stirring until melted and combined. Remove from heat and mix in crispy rice cereal until all combined and cereal is coated. Add a few handfuls of M&M’s and mix quickly to combine. Pour into a square baking pan and spread evenly. Cool completely and cut into 16 squares.

Even though you should let them cool completely, you should try them after about 10 minutes. The white chocolate M&M’s will melt in your mouth, since they are still a bit warm.

   

These are definitely going into work tomorrow!

Always,
Fallon