Chocolate Garbanzo Cupcakes

photo (5)These turned out better than expected! I made some adjustments to the original recipe. For the frosting, I combined sesame caramel from Sofra with Teddie’s chunky peanut butter with flax and topped them with a sprinkle of espresso sea salt from the Filling Station. The texture of the cake is very moist and crumbly. In the future, I might play around with the dry ingredients to create a lighter/fluffier consistency. Also, I didn’t get 12 cupcakes, more like 9.

Chocolate Garbanzo Cupcakes

1 can of garbanzo beans (rinsed well and drained)

1/3 cup almond milk

2 eggs

2 flax eggs (1 T flax and 3T water = 1 egg)

2 T olive oil

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup sugar

In all honesty, I made this in my Vitamix. I blended the wet ingredients and then added the dry ingredients and blended until the batter was smooth. Bake at 350F for about 25 minutes.

 

 

Pork and Apple Pie with Cheddar Sage Crust

Pork, sage, apple meat pieFall is upon us! This pork and apple pie with cheddar sage crust pairs perfectly with a crisp autumn day. I was sent this recipe in a newsletter from The Meat Market, but the original comes from The Apple Lover’s Cookbook. You can find the recipe here.

I can’t take credit for this pie, I was just lucky enough to eat it. The flavors were wonderful and the crust was fantastic!

Chef’s notes:

I reduced the amount of apples from 3lbs to 2lbs. This seemed to be a more balanced meat to fruit ratio and a smaller pie pan could be used. I also did not pulse the meat in a food processor. Although, traditionally many of these meat pies were placed in a meat grinder until a coarse sand-like texture was achieved, I prefer the heartier pebble-like consistency that ground pork supplies.

With so many wonderful flavors in this meat pie, the sage crust can really get overpowered. When I make this again I would increase the amount of dried sage from 2 teaspoons to 3 teaspoons. Alternatively, you could add some fresh or dried sage to the apples while browning them.