Kirsch-Streuselkuchen - German Cherry-Crumbcake

Here is a secret: My husband is a 3-time Weld County Pie Champion blue ribbon winner. I am not! I don't do pies. It's not a German thing. In fact, when we first started dating, we always argued about the usage of the word cake and pie. I'd call his pie a cake, and he 'd be very offended. "It's not a cake! This is a P-I-E! A cake is something different," he woud yell in frustration. Yet the ladies at the fair would ask every year upon turning in the pie: Did he really make that pie?" They could not believe that a guy could make better pies than the old blue haired ladies...

Well I am not a champion pie maker. And I have never won any of the baked goods competitions at the Weld County Fair. It's just too intimidating with a husband like mine...But here is a really great recipe for an amazing German style cake!

You can make it with sour cherries or any other kind of tart fruit ( apples, red currents, any berries really, or apricots)

Ingredients for the batter:

1 stick unsalted butter
3 eggs
125 grams sugar
vanilla (powder or liquid version)
200 grams flour
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

for the topping
1.5 cups sour pitted cherries

for the crumbs:
a little over half a stick of unsalted butter
75 grams sugar
150 grams flour

1.cream the butter with sugar, add the three eggs incorporating one egg at a time mixing it for about a minute, add vanilla flavoring 

2. mix flour, baking powder, and salt together.
3. add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients one tablespoon at a time.
4. butter a sprinform
5. spread the batter in the springform evenly
6. put the cherries or other fruit on top and spread it evenly




Cake before I put it in the oven

 Make crumbs:

1.cut the cold butter into a small bowl
2.add the flour and sugar to it
3.gently work the flour and sugar with your fingers into the butter
Remember: you are not trying to make dough here! Just a lumpy mixture to spread over your cake!

Bake for about one hour at 375 Fahrenheit in preheated oven. Check with a toothpick for doneness...

Last piece...the cake disappeared before I could take a picture of the whole thing...=)

This cake is really a piece of cake to make! I have been doing it since I was a young child in Germany! So don't be afraid to try it and let me know how your's turned out.

Pumpkin Spice Bread—Heck, Veggie Spice Bread!

We are primal in our house, meaning that we don't eat grains of any kind, and we try to keep our foods as whole as possible. It's hard for the kids though who tend to be snackers and grazers, and with a busy family schedule we need some "to go" foods.

This recipe is one that I make all the time. It's easy, quick and I can use pumpkin, sweet potato or zucchini, what ever I have on hand.

Pumpkin Spice Bread

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp pumpkin spice blend or spice

6 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven 350. Combine dry ingredients and mix. In bigger bowl combine wet ingredients and blend well. Mix all together. Grease pan with coconut oil, and bake 25-30 min, or until done.

Hope you enjoy making this easy recipe with your kids!

Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups

This lovely recipe was brought to us by Stephanie of Elemental Handcrafts.

Stephanie writes:


These little sweeties were created as an alternative to the traditional candy found at an Easter egg hunt we were attending. With a child who has food allergies, I'm always searching for, finding and changing recipes so they will suit our needs. These were quite the decadent dessert and took no time to make.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 5-6 T dark cocoa powder (Hershey's makes one)
• dash sea salt
• 3-4 T agave nectar or other liquid sweetener (to taste)
• almond butter or other nut or seed butter

Melt 1/4 cup coconut oil in a pan for a moment or two to liquefy. Remove from heat. Whisk in half of your cocoa, a dash of salt and a couple tablespoons of agave or other sweetener, until you are happy with the taste. Mixture should be syrupy. Spoon about a teaspoon of the mixture into mini baking cups and place in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Once set, remove from freezer and spoon about 1/2 teaspoon almond butter into each cup.

Make the coconut oil mixture again with the remaining ingredients and spoon over the top of the almond butter to fill the cup almost to the top. Refrigerate until set and serve.

Heaven in a mini cupcake paper!

Please, don't forget to visit Stephanie's lovely Etsystore!

Wild Greens Leaf Patties: A Recipe from Israel

Today I bring to you this a lovely recipe from Israel. It was sent to me by NaturalKids Team member Dria Peterson. I hope you are as excited as I was when I looked at this neat recipe for the first time. Just looking at the photos makes me want to visit the beautiful country where Dria resides...

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Green Leaf Patties (by Dria Peterson)

Have you ever thought to give the weeds around you a second look? Fact is that many of the plants that are considered a nuisance are actually edible.

Think about it – instead of paying good money for organic greens, or laboring hard to grow them in your garden, you can just go outside and pick healthy iron rich greens for free! Now isn't that a great gift from nature!!

Around where I live (in the hills of Galilee in Israel) spring is out in all its luscious leaves. In many an Olive grove you can see women bent over foraging and collecting wild green leaves to make cooked salads, stuffed pastries and other yummy food. Traditionally, these were special dishes available for only a short time a year, before summer sets in and dries everything up. Nowadays many people pick extra greens and freeze them for year round use.

The recipe I bring you here is traditionally made with the green leaves of a plant called Hubeza (Latin: Malva) which is a type of Mallow. In spring time my daughters love to go out and collect Hubeza leaves and help me make this seasonal delicacy.

But don't worry; these patties can be made with any kind of greens, wild gathered greens or cultivated greens such as Spinch, Chards, Etc. You can use one type of greens or mix a few kinds together

Of course, I don't know which wild plants are edible where you live. Around my house I can find wild Spinach, Stinging Nettles, wild lettuce, wild garlic, wild mustard, and types of alfalfa, Wild Chicory, Thistles, Dandelions and many more plants. I am familiar with the poisonous plants around where I live and know which ones to avoid (They are not many, by the way). If you are unsure, you can always take a small bite and see how the plant feels in your mouth. If it stings your tongue or the back of your throat don't eat it (this test is not a good way to determine if mushrooms are edible or not!).

I took a look in some of my books to see what edible plants you might look for in North America and UK: Chickweed, Cleavers, Clovers, Dandelion, Dock, Goosefoot (Lambs quarters) and Nettles.

There are many books about "Edible Wild Plants" out there, if you wish to study the subject thoroughly before popping anything into your mouth.

After this long introduction, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• A huge bag of leaves. It's kind of difficult to give an amount. I would say that you will need leaves that consume a space of at least 6 liters or one and a half gallons. This amount will produce enough patties for a family of five. Remember that after steaming, the leaves shrink down to a fifth of the volume they were when fresh.

• 3-4 eggs

• 1-2 cups of bread crumbs – I use whole wheat herb bread from my mother's bakery. I simply chop it up in the food processor till I have crumbs.

• 1/2 teaspoon of black or white pepper

• 1-2 teaspoons of ground cumin (optional).


Preparation:


Wash the leaves.

Decide which greens you want to steam. Leaves that are thick and coarse are better steamed first to get them a little softer. You can mix steamed and raw greens, too.

Place the greens to be steamed in a large pan with 2 cups of water. Cover the lid and cook for 10 minutes.

In the meanwhile, chop the bread in the food processor.

When the leaves have wilted and softened, pour them into a colander, and strain. Squash them with a wooden spoon to get most of the water out.

Pour the lump of cooked greens onto a cutting board, and chop coarsely 6-7 times.

If you are using raw greens, chop them to bite size pieces.

Put the chopped leaves with the bread crumbs, eggs, pepper and cumin in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.

Warm 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet. (You can use a different kind of oil if you prefer). The flame needn't be too high, not to burn the oil. Form palm sized patties with your hands and place in the skillet.

Note: if you do not want to fry, you can bake the patties in the oven - make the patties and place them on a sheet of parchment paper. Brush with oil. Bake for about 20 minutes in medium heat and flip over for another 5 minutes.

In this photo you can see a mixture of cooked and raw greens. Patties that are made only of cooked greens will look a little different.

Fry the patties a few minutes, and flip over when the patty is getting golden brown.

Serve with a few drops of lemon on each patty. Bon appetite!

I hope you enjoyed your virtual visit to Dria's kitchen and country as much as I did! Please, visit her beautiful Etsyshop here. I am sure you'll find her store just a lovely as her cooking.

Delicious Upcycled Cake Recipe: Rotweinkuchen

I am sorry but this recipe is not chock-full of natural or healthy ingredients. In fact, everything in it is probably quite bad for you. Isn't that the problem with a lot of good food to begin with? But life is tough at times and we must indulge ourselves once in a while...=)

Are you a fan of dark chocolate? Love the taste of red wine? I love both, but have found that, as I am getting older, I am prone to bad headaches caused by red wine. The only way I can consume it these days is in cooked or baked fashion. Luckily, I have a recipe combining these two wonderful flavors into one amazing dessert.

When asked what birthday cake to make for friends or a family member, they will always shout: Rotweinkuchen (translation: Red Wine Cake)!

This recipe was given to me by a friend in college many years ago. So, thank you, Nanette! I will always fondly remember those afternoons hanging out together in your Berlin kitchen and baking this delicious cakes.

Ingredients:

250 g butter
250 g sugar
4 eggs
1 packet Vanilla sugar, or if you can't find it in grocery store some vanilla flavoring
250 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking cocoa
125 g dark chocolate chips chopped into smaller pieces
1 scant cup of red wine

(Here is a conversion calculator for baking, should you need it.)

Directions

1. Cut up butter in small pieces and cream it together with the sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl.

2. Using a hand mixer, incorporate the eggs one egg at a time, blending for about a minute per egg.

3. Mix together the remaining dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon.




4. Incorporate dry ingredients into the egg butter mix adding a little at a time.

5. Add chopped chocolate chips.

6. Mix in the cup of red wine.




Bake in well-greased Bundt pan or loaf pan in preheated oven at 375 Fahrenheit or 180. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

No reason to polish off the rest of the red wine after a dinner party! Tell your guests you are up-cycling it and for them to come back the next day for cake! =)





Happy Baking!

Disappearing Carrot Salad

This delicious varation on a carrot salad was sent in by Eve's Little Earthlings. I can't wait to try it. But watch out! Don't let those carrots get away! They are rather lively...

Ingredients:
¼ cup walnuts
1 tablespoon grated coconut
2 cups grated peeled carrots
1 apple, cored, peeled and grated
½ lemon, juiced and zested
½ cup orange juice
½ cup raisins or currants
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons grated gingerroot

Directions:
Toast walnuts for a few moments in a frying pan on medium heat and add the coconut towards the end of the toasting. Be careful, coconut burns very quickly.

When I am in a hurry, I skip the toasting!

In a large bowl combine carrot, apple, lemon zest, lemon juice, orange juice, raisins, salt and ginger

Top with walnuts and coconut and serve, or chill in fridge until the next meal.

And here are a few carrots that escaped being grated today!

Perfect Pasta Sauce

I should probably let you all in on a few things about me before I start. I hate to cook and I hate following recipes even more. In fact, I rarely do unless I’m baking and the amounts really will matter. I also have a deep-rooted love for my Crock-Pot.

That being said, this recipe is right up my alley in that it’s a “throw it all in the pot and leave it alone” kind of recipe and there is no measuring, no specific amounts of anything that are needed, and you can vary the recipe to your taste and preference. Can’t get much better than that!

Start off with frozen chicken breasts. I recommend organic, or at least all natural and honestly local free range is the best, but what you've got is what you've got. I use 6 because if I'm going to cook at all I'm going to make enough for another meal. I have a family of 5 and we can eat this for 3 meals. My motto is, make a lot and freeze it. Just throw the breasts in the pot as they are, frozen and all.

Then, get your pepperoni on. Make sure it's the good stuff, uncured from your whole foods store. It's so much better for you and the taste is significantly better too. Don't get sliced, get the links, and cut it up in bite size pieces. How much you use is up to you, but I like a lot.

Next come the tomatoes. I like to do about 4 cups of diced first. Whatever tomato you prefer is fine. I fancy the Roma myself. Then, add your sauce. Fresh, frozen or canned is up to you. That's the great thing about this recipe, use what you have on hand and it still makes a great sauce. I fill up my Vitamix with Romas and set it on high then pour them into the crock. I didn't have enough on hand to do that today, so I used canned.

Next comes the flavor. I add a lot of garlic, around 4T since I adore garlic. I also add in Italian seasoning, sea salt (just a bit), fresh ground pepper, lots of chopped onion, and bay to taste. I've also been known to leave out the Italian seasoning and add cumin, chili powder, and peppers and make more of a chili with it. It's easy to adapt to your mood. Again, fresh is best, but if all you have on hand is dried herbs and spices, don't fret, just throw them in. I'm also a sneaky chef so I add in any puree I have on hand. I am partial to carrots and zucchini in this recipe and it's easy to add a lot and no one is the wiser, so if you have picky kids, make sure to add these too and the sauce will pack more of a nutritional punch.

By now your crock is full and ready to be left to its business. I like to do this in the morning and let it cook on low all day until dinner. Feel free to do it after lunch and cook it on high, it won't change a thing. Now, while it's cooking you might get worried that your sauce looks like the runniest thing you've ever seen. Don't panic, once it's done cooking you just shred your chicken with 2 large forks and it is perfect.

Pour over your favorite pasta or eat it like I do, just as it is in a large bowl with goat cheese crumbled on top. Enjoy!

Kristi Ashley

This recipe was brought to you by our new member Tickety Bu

The Place to get a Lovey Bamboo blankey for your Babe!