rainbow cake: part II

This post is for all those wondering how I made the rainbow cake for the princess castle cake I did last weekend. It really wasn't hard, just took some steps. After mixing up the cheapest some simple white boxed cake, I divided the batter into six bowls and mixed a different food colouring into each bowl. Take note that I didn't use your grocery store brand liquid food colouring, but the professional icing colour gels meant for cake decorating (like these). While I'm not normally a fan of food dye (especially for kids), there's just no way to get these kinds of vibrant colours with natural dyes.

They're even brighter when cooked. Serious.

these pictures weren't edited at all (not even white balance... ugh. sorry.)

It would've been better to bake each colour individually so I'd end up with six half cakes, but I only had to round pans and I didn't feel like spending all afternoon in the kitchen, pouring, filling, levelling, baking, cooling, removing, re-greasing, re-pouring... you get the picture. So instead I did two colours per pan. Below you can see a bit of the first colour peeking through around the edges.

Since two boxes of cake batter should have made four cakes, but I was only using three, I didn't want to fill the pans right up for fear of cleaning -albeit cheerfully coloured- cake batter out of the bottom of the oven. I used the leftover batter to make a square cake, pouring each layer into the pan as evenly as possible. I thought I might need this extra cake to build/repair parts of the castle, or if we needed extra cake for extra people, but ended up taking it to church where it was inhaled by some very excited, very amazed 3-9 year olds.

messy and pretty at the same time

The layers of rainbow cake made up the main body/section of the castle, while the towers were made of rice krispie treats. All in all, it was, yes a bit of work, but also a huge success. 

holiday snacking

Last Christmas, I received the book Nourishing Traditions as a gift from myself. One of the recipes/food preparation methods I've added to my kitchen routine is that of soaking and drying nuts. The issue with raw or dry roasted nuts, is that nuts have a high amount of enzyme inhibitors that make them difficult to digest. In nature, these enzyme inhibitors are useful as they prevent nuts/seeds/grains from sprouting and growing prematurely (ie, the middle of a Canadian winter). Unfortunately, the enzymes in our stomachs that digest our food are also effected by these enzyme inhibitors.

Soaking nuts in warm water with a little bit of salt will neutralize the enzyme inhibitors and also help to encourage the production of beneficial enzymes that will help our stomachs digest nuts AND increase the availability of many vitamins (especially B vitamins). The nuts become easier to digest, the nutrients more easier to absorb.

The basic method for soaking nuts:

• dissolve salt in water
• pour water over nuts (or seeds) with enough water to cover
• leave in a warm place (time varies for type of nut)
  
• drain and spread on a pan (stainless steal is preferable)
• place in a warm oven (no warmer that 150 degrees) for specified time
• turn occasionally until thoroughly dry and crisp

For pecans (my favourite!) the soaking time is at least 7 hours (or even overnight) and it can take between 12-24 hours to completely dry them out.  I know this is more work than just tearing into a bag of roasted pecans, but they are soooo good when soaked and dehydrated. Seriously. It's such an improvement. They're beautiful and buttery and DE.LI.CIOUS.

Nourishing Traditions also contains a recipe for what are called "Holiday Pecans", as opposed to the simple Crispy Pecans as described above. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the recipe and I didn't lug my copy of the book along to Regina. So this morning, I called Peter and asked if he would write out the recipe and email it to me. Here's what I found in my inbox this afternoon,

Holiday Pecans (makes 4 cups)

4 cups crispy pecan halves
3 egg whites
pinch sea salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Beat egg whites with salt in a clean bowl until stiff. Slowly beat in maple syrup and vanilla. Fold in pecans until well coated. Spread on 2 buttered, stainless steal baking pans and place in a warm oven (no more than 150 degrees) for several hours until the egg white coating hardens. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Save some for Peter.

Recipe to come... Holiday nuts coated in festive sack.

And my response?

I'm totally re-posting this on my blog. WHERE YOUR MOM WILL SEE IT.

Your loving wife, Amy

It's clear to me that, in the absence of my stable and calming presence, my dear husband has returned to his  pre-parenthood, pre-marriage, PRE-ADOLESCENT self sense of humour. Hopefully I won't have to put up with weeks of fart jokes while he reverts back to his grown up self.

thai lettuce wraps

(Thinking happy thoughts. NOT thinking about the centipede trapped in my bathtub. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts...)

Here's one of the meals from this week's menu plan. I didn't follow a recipe, but had an idea what I wanted it to taste like.

Thai Lettuce Wraps
Peel and shred 2 medium carrots, slice 2 stalks of celery and 1 red pepper. The picture below shows only 1/2 a pepper, but I later cut up the other 1/2. I'm glad I did. You will be too.


Saute 2 cloves of garlic in 1 Tbsp of coconut oil for a few seconds. Throw all the other veggies in and saute for a couple of minutes. You could use another type of oil, but coconut oil is all sorts of good for you and it tastes great in Asian cooking. It also remains stable at much higher temperatures than all other oils.

While the veggies are softening a bit, chop up your chicken and throw it in. The chicken is already cooked so you're just heating it through. If you were to use raw chicken, I'd stir fry it before add all the veggies. Since I'd roasted two chickens Monday night, this was a fabulous way to use up leftovers.

Add about 1/4 cup of Sweet Red Chili sauce (a bit more if you like it spicier).

Add a heaping spoonful of some sort of nut butter. I used cashew butter here, but peanut butter would be fine. Stir to combine and melt the nut butter. At this point, I also added a big splash of rice wine vinegar.

there's the chili sauce in the corner of this picture

Once it's all heated through, it's done. Serve by scooping into lettuce leaves (I used Boston Lettuce) and wrapping like a tortilla.

This was so quick and easy, and so amazingly good. It is hands down our new favorite way to use extra chicken. Simon and Liam ate so much that, once they were done, I made a second batch for Peter and I. We ran out of Boston Lettuce (note to self, buy two next time) so made little sandwiches out of baby spinach leaves. Still yummy, but didn't have the same crunch as the lettuce.

In review,

Thai Lettuce Wraps
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
2 stalks of celery, sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
3 cups of cooked chicken, cubed
1/4-1/2 cup of Sweet Red Chili sauce
1-2 Tbsp of nut butter
1-2 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Saute garlic. Add veggies to soften slightly. Add chicken to heat through. Add next three ingredients. Stir to combine. Serve with lettuce leaves. Wrap and eat.

Simple, no?