Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

I made this cake, based off of this recipe and it was delicious, but not very photogenic.

Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Ingredients

Cooking spray
1/3 cup fat-free caramel topping
2 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith apple (about 10 ounces)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (about 5 1/2 ounces)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup applesauce
5 tablespoons olive oil (not extra virgin)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract



Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray. Drizzle caramel over bottom of pan. (Caramel will not completely cover bottom of pan.) Arrange apple slices over caramel, overlapping slices slightly.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt and baking soda in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine buttermilk and applesauce in a small bowl. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until blended. Pour batter over apple slices in prepared pan. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack. Place a plate upside down on top of cake; invert onto plate. Serve warm.

I would add more apples, I only used 1.

Ultimate Baked Macaroni and Cheese

There's nothing like Macaroni and Cheese to feel like comfort food. My Mom would always make hers on the stovetop with stewed tomatoes added. I like this recipe because it reminds me of hers and I love baked macaroni and cheese. I always add some reduced fat parmesan to the roux and I make this with 2% sharp cheddar cheese. I use the chopped tomatoes with basil and oregano and add some "Italian Seasonings" to the roux. I wanted to take a picture of it plated but the batteries were charging at the time. I served this with some steamed broccoli. YUM!

Whole Wheat Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

I found this recipe on Recipezaar and decided to try it....The pancakes are light and fluffy, so delicious. Not a vegan recipe, but soy milk, agave or maple syrup and egg replacer could be used to make them vegan. I had sugar free Carter's Mountain Apple Butter and Sugar Free Maple syrup with them.

I made these again and had them with apple cider syrup... very thick syrup, delicious. I made mine with apple cider instead of apple juice as the recipe states.

Pumpkin Apple Muffins

These are quite possibly some of the best muffins ever. Pumpkin Apple Muffins Made these with some Fuji apples as noted, I actually had them saved from dinner at Panera Bread. I found that I needed to add soy milk to make this into a batter, and instead of using all of the different spices listed, I used about 4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice. I used to make these back in the day and I think that I used 1/2 cup egg beaters instead of the ener-g as noted and this may be why I needed so much more added liquid than what was called for in the recipe. In any case, you should make these muffins, they are so delicious and fat free too. Sweet apples, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, how can you go wrong? LOL

Peach Cake!

Oh my goodness this cake is all kinds of good and it is hard to believe it is fat free and vegan. I am of course talking about Susan's cake from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. Peach Upside Down Cake Wow, you can taste the peaches, then the soft cake with ginger and lemon zest, this cake has the most amazing flavor. I made mine with 2 yellow peaches and 2 white peaches, I did this by mistake as I was just going through the bins at the grocery store, looking for the ripest peaches. I did the more sugar option and I used light brown sugar. I am going to use this same cake recipe to make an apple version maybe with some apple pie spice instead of the ginger or maybe just cinnamon since I went and picked apples over the weekend and have a ton of apples to eat.

Apple of My Eye

I went up to Charlottesville to pick apples at Carter's Mountain this Sunday. I hadn't been in a while and it was so nice to be in all of that fresh air. I took a lot of pictures and picked some apples.....They even let you use these long poles with a "apple picker/catcher" attached because most of the apples were at the tops of the trees. Their apple cider is the best I have ever tasted, if you are in VA or are going to visit VA in the fall, you should definately check this place out.

Have a Guinness Day!!!!!

No, I am not an alcoholic and I don't even drink Guinness but when I found this cookie recipe on Have Cake, Will Travel called Double Chocolate Stout Cookies, it was all over. My mouth watered. Celine, these are so awesome! Mine aren't as pretty as yours but they were so delicious! I can't wait to share with the people at work tommorow!!!
Double Chocolate Stout Cookies

I told the people at work about these so doubled the recipe. I knew that I would have a considerable amount of beer left over so I am also making a Seitan and Guinness Stew Dark Beer Stew

Today was my day off so as per my custom, I stopped at SHEETZ for a diet soda to drink while I was at the park and I decided to pick up the Guinness for the cookies (and the Seitan Guinness Stew). As I approached the cash register I realized that I must look like an alcoholic as the cashier raised her eyebrow at me as she rang up my purchase. It was 9:30 in the morning :D Hehehe. But I digress, here are the photos...... BTW, I used the seitan recipe from Post Punk Kitchen,

Homemade Seitan

it is so good and so easy to make, I highly recommend it. The stew is very earthy, you can definately taste the Guinness in it, not sure if I would be making it again. But it was worth the $3.00 for the Guinness for these wonderful cookies!!!!!



No, I didn't let my cat have Guinness but this is a funny photo!!!!! He likes sleeping in this Airwalk box for some reason and I even have a bed for him. Go figure, LOL :P