Healthy Carrot Cake cooked in a Slow Cooker

It's Cooking with Food Storage Monday!

When I was at the radio station on Saturday, I got to try some of my friend Jan D'Atri's Crock-Pot Carrot Cake.

Photo courtesy of Jan D'Atri.com 

It was remarkable and moist and just a really cool way to cook a carrot cake. I especially loved the concept of being able to bake a cake anywhere with a crock pot instead of having to have an oven! This opens up a lot of capabilities for catering and off-site cooking! For more information, read  more about Jan's cake here.

 Jan issued the challenge on the radio show to me to make a healthy variation of the cake, and I'm going to share that with you here today. Anyone who knows of my affection for  carrot cake and carrot cake pancakes will understand my logic in wanting to make this new recipe from Jan into something I can eat without feeling guilty. The weight-loss challenge is ever in my mind and I'm not about to give up. By the way, it isn't just to "look good", obtaining a healthy weight is just a remarkable step toward long-lasting good health. 

To make it a healthier version this is what I did:

• In place of a big portion of the fat with  dehydrated refried bean flakes (this also added fiber and protein to help with blood sugar levels and digestion). Refried Beans glycemic load is a low 13.

•  I replaced  small portion of the oil with organic coconut oil to add succulence.
• I used cholesterol free eggs in the form of powdered egg white for heart health.

• I used organic non-gmo whole grain Kamut ® flour, and because it is whole grain I needed a lot less flour for a rich cake. By adding this, and knowing that it is a higher protein flour I normally use for bread, I did keep the mixing to a minimum. Over-mixing this batter can make it tough. Thus the addition of the coconut oil as well, it will aid in keeping the cake tender. The Wheat flour glycemic load is a low 44! That's great for keeping things regulated!

•  I eliminated the sugar and replaced it with natural granular erythritol, eliminating a big portion of the calories!

Chef Tess' Healthy Carrot Cake in a Slow Cooker
yield 8 servings
1 cup dehydrated refried bean flakes
1 cup hot water water
1/2 cup organic coconut oil
1 cup natural granular erythritol or sugar-free alternative
2T powdered egg white
1 cup Kamut ® flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp Chef Tess Wise Woman of the East Cinnamon and Spice blend
2 cups grated carrot ( nutritional facts on carrots)
2 tsp pure natural Madagascar vanilla-bean paste or Princess cake and cookie emulsion

Combine bean flakes with hot water. Hydrate 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and mix well, but being careful not to over-mix. About 50 turns. 

 Place in greased 6 quart crock pot.  I have a Nesco Electric-Programmable pressure cooker  that has a "slow cooker" setting. The good thing about that, is that it replaced my crock-pot, pressure cooker and electric pot.  I use it twice a week or more!  Now...with cake!  Cover and cook on high 2 1/2-3 hours, leaving covered the full time.Take care and watch carefully since every crock-pot has a different temperatures and it can burn around the edges. It is possible to be done in 2 hours instead of 3. 

 Mine was done in 2 hours flat.   Allow the cake to cool 20 minutes in the pan. 

 Remove cake with spatula or invert it onto a serving tray. If you greased you crock correctly, it will come out just fine. I love that my cooker has a metal removable insert so it is actually as close to a cake pan as I could have ever asked to have! Cool completely.

 Serve with fresh whip cream or fruit if desired. 
Nutritional information without cream:
serving size, 1 slice. Serving per recipe, 8. 
per slice: 218 calories, 14 g fat, 19 carbohydrate, 5 g fiber, 5 g protein (14 net carbohydrate)

There you go!
Always My Very Best, 
Your Friend Chef Tess

Vegan Kamut® whole grain Seitan Scaloppine with Caramelized onion and red bell peppers

Early-on when I started this glorious blog, I shared a great way to go meatless and save money that I had used for a few years using vital wheat gluten and savory stock or broth to make a meat replacement. That was the  Meatless Wonders Seitan (Wheat-meat)Tutorial. Today, after being on the Jan D'Atri radio show for 2 hours with the famous David Cherry...well known vegan TV star here in Phoenix I promised to give a full tutorial on how to make the seitan scaloppine we enjoyed. Making a seitan from the gorgeous and well known organic non-GMO grain Kamut® is a little more work than just using a powdered vital wheat gluten.  The results are fantastic and meaty! 

 If you missed the show, you can listen to the podcast:

02-09-13 3PM
· Click Here to Download MP3
In the Kitchen goes vegan!
02-09-13 4PM
· Click Here to Download MP3
Jan and Momma try more Vegan treats and find out what toxins are in our food.

If you've never heard of this amazing form of ancient grain, you really need to visit my friends at Kamut ® International. In order to carry the name Kamut®, there are very remarkable purity standards involved. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find a grain of this quality. 

Tess' Vegan Kamut® grain Seitan 
with roasted red bell pepper and red onions

Ingredients for Seitan:

7 cups Kamut ® flour

 3 1/2 cups water

3T vegan broth seasoning or very reduced vegetable stock

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup vegetable stock

2T grape juice

2T fig balsamic vinegar

½ cup olive oil (1/4 cup of it being a basil infused or garlic infused)

2 cups white button mushrooms (sliced)

1 cup sweet red onion (finely chopped)

1 cup diced roasted red bell peppers

1 tablespoon fresh Italian flat leaf parsley (finely chopped)

1 cup Kamut ® flour (for dredging)

¼ cup vegetable  broth (if needed - or water)

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or sea salt)

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Directions: For seitan, combine the Kamut ®flour and water and knead in an electric stand mixer  7-10 minutes on medium speed. 

 Remove from mixer. 
Rinse fists-full of dough under slow running cool water until all the starch has been removed and the protein is only present.

It will be an almost grey sponge-like mass. 

 This will yield about 1 lb of seitan dough. 
 Squeeze all excess liquid out of the seitan and season well with stock or veggie seasoning.

 Roll into 2 tight tubes of foil, as you would a candy roll (see Meatless Wonders Seitan (Wheat-meat)Tutorial. ). 

 Simmer in hot water in a crock pot 3-4 hours or pressure cook 25 minutes (according to manufacturer's directions). 

 Cool and remove from foil. Slice into 1/2 inch medallions. 

Dredge each piece in flour.
In a large saute pan, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When the pan is hot, add the dredged scaloppine of seitan a few pieces at a time.Do not overlap pieces. Brown each piece quickly on both sides, about 30 seconds per side, making sure the heat is on high.

  When all pieces are browned, add onions, bell pepper and mushrooms. Cook 3 minutes. Gently add vegetable stock, grape juice and vinegar. Turn down to medium heat and simmer. Add parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Place seitan medallions over a bed of rice or quinoa. For more flavorful rice, cook rice in chicken broth instead of water. Serves 4 to 6. Serve with fresh vegetables as a side.

There you go my darlings! Now you can isolate the protein and make seitan from scratch. Enjoy!

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

Making whole-grain flour at home in 3 Easy steps! Turning Wheat into Bread!

 After 13 years of using an older hand-me-down grain mill, I finally have saved enough to get the electric grain mill I've had my eyes on for 2 years. Yup. We do practice delayed gratification at my house. I realize I could have bought it sooner...but I really wanted to be sure it was in the family budget after other debts were paid off. So. Enter the new grain mill. Eeeek! I'm so excited!  This is the NutriMill. I'm totally in love. Today we used 50lbs of whole KAMUT® ancient Egyptian wheat. It is organic, non-GMO and 70% of the people who have issues with modern wheat can tolerate this form of grain. With this mill, we made 50lbs of flour in about 20 minutes. That might be a record for making flour around here. In fact, my kids usually moan when I say, "It is flour making day!" However, this new mill was so easy to use that they ended up being asked repeatedly to stop making flour! I LOVE that! Love it!

 Here are the basic steps to making flour:

Step One: Assemble the grain mill.

 The first thing I noticed about this new NutriMill.  was how easy it was to assemble. I was worried that my giant-little brain wouldn't be able to get it to work.

 The instructions were pretty clear.

 Step 2: Follow what the NutriMill owner's manual says about the first time you use their mill. This means you need to mill 2 cups of wheat and then discard it. This will eliminate any contaminants the mill may obtain in the manufacturing process. Make sure the grain you use is clean! 

Mill that first 2 cups of wheat according to the mill instructions. This one says to unplug the mill, add the grain to the top. Then plug in the mill and turn it on. There is a knob on the front that is easy to adjust for how fine or large the grains are that are going into the stones to be ground.

 Throw away that first two cups of wheat (about 4 cups of flour). By the way, this step only needs to be done the very first time you ever ever use the mill. From here on out, I'm good to mill and use all the grain I want without throwing any away.

 Step 3: Let the kids take over and make the bread. You think I'm kidding right? Not really but okay. I was there in the kitchen when they started milling the grain. They know how to use our hand-crank grain mill as well, but today we did electric. I wanted there to be full ownership in this bread. I am the Little Red Hen Mother. If they want bread, they get to help make it. Plus, this also gives me the extreme emotional and spiritual satisfaction of knowing that in any given situation, my boys will know how to make food from grain. Bread, porridge, crackers or anything that can be made from flour, they can make. I'm sick-in-the-head that way, but I get a weird sense of peace in knowing that they will leave my home someday with a full knowledge of how to work, cook, and contribute to society as a whole. So...starting with wheat and basic food is a good place. They could end up in a country someday that doesn't have flour. You think I'm kidding right? No Way. I'm thinking about being prepared for anything in life...anything! Will they be soldiers or in a refugee camp in the future? I don't know. There are not any guarantees in life.  If they only had wheat or any other grain, they'd be good to go! Heck yes! Rock-star cool! Yes, they are boys. So?!? If I had girls they'd learn the same thing. Boys grow up into men who need to eat right?! What if there isn't a girl around who knows how to make flour?! See...sick mother isn't so sick right?  So let us repeat the steps again:
1. Unplug mill and add grain to the top (hopper).

 2.Turn mill on & adjust the grind to the your desired texture of flour. Random side note. My son asked, "Hey does the wheat scream when it gets down to the part where it is all ground up?!" I laughed out loud as I remembered watching my grandmother's grain mill and the last straggling grains hold on to the edge of the mill's hopper before being sucked into the black hole at the bottom to be ground into the sweet and delicious flour that would be made into bread. Yes my son. They scream. Just like kids scream when they go down a water slide. It's fun! Or it is grain-o-side. Either way...it is for the greater good. Right? Try not to encourage slipping on grain-native-ceremonial-garb and doing some weird dances and chants while the grain is being sacrificed to the grain-mill-demi-god. I'm crazy but I'm not insane. Wait. Now that I think of it...the dancing would be just strange enough to do wouldn't it? If I can fashion the turmeric and paprika into a thick paint-like paste to rub on our noses...{I digress}.

 Hold on little grain and your life may be spared! Bwhahaha! Not today looser. Evil grin (as I flick the grain with my finger into the pit of despair)!

One thing I do with my grain is add 4 cardamom seeds to each batch of flour.

 I grind them with the wheat. The mill is not designed to grind spices alone (so keep that in mind and if you do add anything to your grain, keep it as pure as possible).  The cardamom will help the flour to retard bugs and other pests. I don't keep the flour around very long but it is a wonderful habit to have. Doesn't that seed mixed in with the grain look so much like a...nevermind.

 Little Man took his turn with the grain grinding as well. He's getting so tall! I don't know how much longer I can call him my Little Man.

 Each 25 lb bag of Kamut made 5, 5lb bags of flour. Simple math right?

 In the end, we made dough for 25 loaves of bread. We retained 25 lbs of flour for the bread class I'd be teaching soon.

It is beautiful stuff.

Step #3. Let kids make the bread. Or make it yourself. Whatever.
My son Face was anxious to make the bread now that he had made the flour.
4 cups hard wheat flour

 2 cups water. 1/4 tsp instant yeast.

 1 1/2 tsp salt.

 Mix until just combined. I'm not going to lie. This is his favorite part.

 The dough is so smooshy at first.

Once all the dough is smooshy, cover over with a lid and let sit 10-14 hours (usually for us it is about 12 hours before we get back to it). Dough will be ready to make into bread. The printable tutorial is below for how to make it into bread.

If you want the printable go to:

No Knead Wheat Bread Tutorial and Printable Instructions

There you go! Turn Wheat into Bread!
Save money and empower yourself! 

Legal blah blah blah: By the way...I paid for my mill out of my own pocket so this a totally unbiased review of the mill. The opinions expressed here on the blog are totally my own. Isn't that good to know? I don't make any money if you decide to buy a mill based on this review. 

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess