Pumpkin Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thanks so much to My Baking Addiction Blog. I accidentally made some other version of this last week and was like wth? But then realized that I needed to get back to this recipe. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies YIELD: 16 large cookies INGREDIENTS: 1 cup canned pumpkin 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 egg 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon milk 1 tablespoon vanilla paste (extract will work just fine) 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips DIRECTIONS: 1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. 2. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well. 3. Add vanilla and chocolate chips. 4. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm. (I baked these at 360°F for 12 minutes) adapted from allrecipes

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

From Phil Adams: Pound cake in the oven. Memories of Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House. Am I ever glad that we bought that cookbook, even just for that one recipe. So simple! Three sticks of butter, 8 oz. cream cheese, six eggs, I T. vanilla, 3 C. sugar, 3 C. cake flour. bake in an non-preheated 300 degrees oven for two hours. No peeking, or it falls!

Chicken Happiness Soup

Once back when I was in graduate school, I made Nigella Lawson's Happiness Soup. It was pretty good, but it didn't seem grounded exactly, so I made some additions. Here's the recipe: Meat from one whole roasted chicken Zest and juice from one lemon 3T olive oil 2-3 yellow squash not peeled but minced 1t tumeric half a teaspoon cumin half a cup of Basmati rice 4+ cups chicken stock salt to taste Heat the oil in a pan on medium. Add the zest and the squash. Let cook for five minutes until soft. Add the spices and lemon juice and stock. Let simmer for a minute. Add rice and let simmer for 10-20 minutes until the rice is cooked through. Done! It's so good to eat it room temperature. I highly recommend that.

Homemade Chicken Suizas

Oh. Man.

 I'm moving away so I had to think about how to re-create my favorite dish at Mexico in Atlantic City: The Chicken Enchildas Verde aka Chicken Suizas. I saw some very elaborate recipes. Here's the one I came up with. It's gluten free, hormone free, soy free.

1 large roasted chicken breast (organic) shredded (or veggie burgers inside, or black beans)
a package sprouted corn Ezekial corn tortillas
one package Applegate Farms Monteray Jack Cheese slices
one large jar green salsa or green enchiladas verde sauce (somehow I like the salsa better than the Frontera green chile sauce, but it's totally fine too).

 Heat oven to 350F Pour some of the sauce in a glass pie plate.

Roll some shredded chicken and part of a slice of the cheese in a tortilla.
Put it seam side down in the plate. Make six total.
Pour the rest of the salsa/sauce over the rolled up tortillas.
Put the remaining cheese over the top. (I think somehow that particular package of Monteray Jack is the exact right amount of cheese. Last night I tried a 12 ounce package of shredded Monteray Jack--"Hormone Free"--and it's a bit saltier and well, it's just too much cheese.)

Put the plate in the oven for 30 minutes. Let cool for 10.

I ate this for dinner. Then I ate the rest for lunch. Good with beans and rice, or eat a salad for Pete's sake.

Thyroid Sources

A Gluten-Free diet made my antibodies go way down, very quickly, after I was officially diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Better Batter flour is the best alternaflour I've found. I buy it off amazon.com. Kale salad is pretty tasty. Actually, I just steam organic kale, throw it in a bowl, put some Celtic Salt on it, lemon and olive oil and some of the dried kale powder from the health food store. Makes me feel good! Read this and I like what it says about adrenals being connected to the thyroid. Restoration and self-care are good ideas too. Another thing to think about is the ecology of your digestive system. If you take anti-biotics pretty regularly, it just doesn't help your digestion. I drink kefir almost every day (no sugar) over fruit or with some nuts in it. That's what I got for now. I'll post more as soon as I come up with something tasty.

Chicken and Kale in Tomato Sauce alla Pappligna

1-2 grilled chicken breasts in lemon and olive oil, diced (or a can of garbanzos)
half a head of organic kale, ripped into bite sized pieces and washed
1 24 oz can tomatoes chopped
one small onion, diced
olive oil
bay leaf
basil
pinch of sugar
pinch of Celtic salt/regular salt

Organic brown rice

Now that I'm on this infernal thyroid health diet, I've had to get clever. And what is annoying is that I'm having an allergic reaction to this meal, but I usually eat all of these things with no effect except I've never eaten this organic rice before. Gah.

Brown the onion in a generous amount of olive oil (3T) until clear.
Add the can of tomatoes, the juice from the can, the bay leaf, the basil, pinch of sugar and pinch of salt.
Let stew for a while.

Add the chicken (or can of garbanzos) and let it all cook down for about 20 minutes.

When you are about two minutes from eating, add the kale and let it wilt a bit until it's bright green and soft.

Serve over brown rice. This is really tasty. I wolfed it down when I was feeling really bad. Now I feel good, but itchy.

Piggy Rice

Rice recipe from a very amazing poet...Conrad! This makes so much, you will need tins to put it in and freeze it.

1 very large (or two small) garnet sweet potatoes
1 very large regular potato
4 carrots
4 large yellow onions
1 head of cabbage
1 lb. sauerkraut
4 C short grain brown rice
8 C water
4 TB rubbed sage
2 TB dried spring onion
1 TB Hungarian paprika
1 TB dried cayene
1 TB black pepper
1 TB dried rosemary (powdered)
1 TB dried celery seed (powdered)
2 sticks of Earth Balance vegan butter
3 LB of vegan sausage
Toasted pepitas

Night before cooking: dice sweet potato and regular potato into small cubes. place in bowl. sprinkle half the sage on top. then pour the juice of the sauerkraut on top. then lay the sauerkraut on top. leave on the counter over night.

Next day add rice and water to a large pan, let soak for at least one hour.

On low heat one stick of Earth Balance. then add diced cabbage and onion.

in another pan on low heat the other stick of Earth Balance. then add the vegan sausage and black pepper.

When starting to cook rice add the potatoes, but NOT the sauerkraut juice or sauerkraut, that's for later. bring to boil, then turn down to low heat.

When cabbage and onion are cooked down add ALL the other herbs and spices. THEN add the sauerkraut and its juice. Continue to cook on low heat.

When everything is done cooking combine in a GIANT pot. Let sit covered for 15 minutes.

Citrus Fruit Salad

This is vegan and gluten free and I made it up off the top of my head.

2 blood oranges
2 naval oranges
2 tangerines
2 regular oranges
1 heaping T powdered sugar (or less)
juice of half a lemon
grated nutmeg
grated lemon peel
dashes of cardamom
3 T coconut or to taste

1. Peel the fruit, get as much pith off as possible, pull apart sections and cut into thirds. Put in a bowl.
2. Add remaining ingredients. Mix well.
3. Garnish with lemon zest or coconut.

Mmm!