cooking ala mel

healthy recipes and the occasional craft

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Chipotle Lime Guacamole

This week, the temperature outside has heated up to the point I had to turn on the air conditioning so that I wouldn’t get all hot and cranky to be around.  Weather like this causes me to want only refreshing things – fruity beverages, lots of citrus, cold, cold, cold.  We went out for food with a few of Alex’s friends, and I got a fruity, rummy beverage, and now I’m really excited to start making some fun cocktails this summer.  Alex’s mom got me a bunch of fun flavored brandies and schnapps for my 21st, which I’m sure will be lovely additions for lots of cocktails, as well as flavorings for baking!  I’ll probably wait till the weekend for the fun drinks, but in the meantime, I made a smoky guacamole that also fits the fresh category.

While not many people would consider guacamole “light” fare, the hefty dose of lime really makes it feel that way.  A nice bit of chipotle peppers in adobo adds a hint of smoke without overpowering the guacamole with spiciness.  I threw in a bit of onion and garlic for more flavor and a hint of crisp sweetness and finished it off with some salt and pepper.  Not very many ingredients, packed with flavor.  Just what I like in a good dip!

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Fluffy 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Remember that time I said I would only be making my own bread from now on?  That lead to some pretty tasty breads, one I didn’t end up writing down (although I did take pictures – go figure).  One I couldn’t quite get right, though, was a totally whole wheat bread, with no white flour at all.  I have one posted on the blog, but it didn’t rise nearly as much as I would prefer, although it was still tasty.  I finally found a reliable recipe with the right ratios, but it was a bit too crumbly once it was made totally whole wheat.  So I tried again.. and I think I’ve finally nailed it.

The key to getting rid of the crumbliness is adding just a bit of ground flax seed to hold it all together.  Since flax adds a decent little bit of a fiber, too, I was not at all disappointed about having to add it in.  I also found that giving it a bit longer of a rise time than your standard 1 hour or so for most yeast breads really ensures that you get the proper height in the bread.  All of this made for a wonderfully fluffy bread that actually holds its own for sandwich making.

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Cinnamon Apple Bars (Gluten Free)

Alex starts his first “real life” job tomorrow, so we spent the weekend rearranging all of the furniture in our apartment so that we now have a real office space for the two of us, instead of a desk in each bedroom.  There’s still a ways to go until I’ll be totally content with it, but it’s different enough for now; since Alex got a job in Buffalo with a company he’s been collaborating with at UB, he wanted to make sure that things felt new and different, rather than pretty much all of the same things, minus classes (and a new office location).  This morning, before I got back into the organizing (and I’ll be honest, I still haven’t really gotten back into it today), I had to do some baking.  With how much we’ve been moving around, something energy packed sounded good, so I made these apple bars that I had been eying up for a long time.

These apple bars have the flavors of apple crisp or apple cake without any of the guilt.  Sweetened only with dates and the apples themselves, you don’t have to worry about a major sugar high and crash later in the day.  Walnuts and coconut contribute healthy fats and fiber.  The bit of oats add in some of the apple crisp flavor, and a hefty dose of cinnamon rounds it all out.

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