Friday Feasts! – Almond Butter Bread

I found this recipe a few years ago and made it a few times. Recently I’ve been trying to cut back on carbs and eat more homemade foods, so I dug up this recipe and man has it been hitting the spot! I like it even more now than I did when I first came across it.

Whether you’re trying to cut out grains, eat less carbs, or just find a simple and easy bread to bake at home, this recipe from paleogrubs.com delivers:

http://paleogrubs.com/sandwich-bread-recipe

How I made it:

This bread bakes sort of like zucchini or banana bread, but not as sweet. The mixture that you pour into the pan is more like a batter than a dough, which is awesome because you don’t have to knead it or wait for it to rise. Just combine ingredients, stir, and bake! And when it’s all baked through, it has a texture more like a soft wheat or oat bread.

My bread loaf pan is 8x4 on the bottom and this recipe doesn’t fill it completely. So my loaf came out a little short for sandwich bread. That’s okay because I mostly like to spread it with butter, jam, and/or cheese, so the size and shape don’t matter. But you’d probably want to use a smaller loaf pan or increase the recipe to get bigger slices for sandwiches.

                               Top view!

Julie Tweaks:

I’ve tried a few different grain-free bread recipes and this is by far the best I’ve found. However, like all the recipes I’ve tried, it does come out tasting a little “eggy”, due to the large quantity of eggs usually called for in these recipes. Normally you can cut out some of the eggs, so I tried this recipe with 4 eggs instead and it’s perfect! 4 eggs are enough to keep this bread moist and delicious, but not taste eggy. I’m guessing it’s because this uses a decent amount of almond butter (3/4 cup is about half of most jars, so, if you’re lazy like I am, you can just use half a jar instead of measuring it out separately), it keeps it softer than most recipes that use a combo of almond meal and coconut flour.

I also tend to prefer ghee as my oil source, so this last time I made the recipe, I swapped out the coconut oil for melted ghee. I don’t think this makes a huge difference, but I like it a little better this way.

I’ve been pretty obsessed with this bread lately. It’s great with some room temperature Kerrygold butter and raspberry jam. It’s also great with brie and sliced strawberries. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have something healthy on hand that you can quickly snack on and feel satisfied.

Check it out and let me know how you like it! I’m thinking of trying to bake it into rolls and other shapes in the near future 😊

Friday Feasts! - Balsamic Dressing

I'm almost as in love with this cute little bottle I found at Homegoods as I am with this dressing. As you can see, I loved it so much it's almost gone! 

It often feels like my entire life has been an ongoing effort to eat healthier, which is really hard because Dr Pepper and Doritos are freaking delicious. But I’m hopeful that if I keep at it long enough, eventually all the good, nutritious food I’ve discovered and incorporated into my diet will crowd out the junk.

As part of my latest efforts, I’ve been experimenting with making my own salad dressings. A lot of store-bought options are made with unhealthy oils and other ingredients I prefer not to eat. My go-to recipe has been an Olive Garden copycat Italian dressing (which I’ll share in a future post). But the other night I was making a salad with gorgonzola, walnuts and honeycrisp apples – some of my favorite toppings! I didn’t think the Italian dressing flavors would work as well with it, so I googled “balsamic dressing” and one of the first recipes that came up was this one from epicurious.com:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/balsamic-vinaigrette-234241

How I made it:

This recipe was so easy to make and SO delicious. I put all the ingredients into a tall, plastic cup and emulsified them with my stick blender, which turned it into a rich, creamy, dressing—while saving my wrist from all that whisking. But if you don’t have a stick blender, you can certainly make this with a whisk, as the recipe suggests.

The mustard and the garlic make it taste far more complex than you’d expect out of a 5-ingredient dressing. And—bonus!—those 5 ingredients are all things with long shelf-lives that I regularly have on hand, making this a great salad dressing to whip up in a pinch.

Julie Tweaks:

Even though I’ve been cutting back on sugar, I do add a pinch or two of organic sugar or a splash of real maple syrup to this because I prefer my vinaigrettes a little sweet. So if the taste is a little too strong and vinegary for you, maybe try adding a small amount of sweetener. I’m not usually much for artificial sweeteners, but I’m curious to try a little Stevia in this and see how that tastes.

I work from home and rarely need to be presentable, so the pungency of the garlic isn’t a problem for me.  But I think you could easily halve the garlic in this recipe and it wouldn’t be as strong. That’s what I’m going to do anytime I serve this to guests – which I intend to do! Because it’s so good, it needs to be shared!

Try it out and let me know what you think! And if you’ve got another go-to dressing recipe you love, please share!

My favorite fall salad of romaine, honeycrisp apples, gorgonzola, walnuts, & this dressing