You need a little sweetness in your life

Isn’t this a beauty?  Even with New Years resolutions and goals to finally lose those 15 lbs you do need a little sweet now and then, right?  Especially when you got something healthy and gluten-free going.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim is not into having people deprive themselves, or never touch anything sweet ever again.  She knows that is not realistic for 99.999% of the population.  So Dr. Tae Yun Kim set out to create a cake that’s so delicious, yet at the same time very healthy for you.

We talked about the health benefits of Seabuckthorn in my last post.  Once again, 1/4 cup of the flour was included into the batter.  The basic batter comes from my dear friend Shirley and you can see the recipe right here.

Usually, I double the recipe because, well, because there are plenty of eaters around that if I only made one batch it would disintegrate the minute it comes out of the oven, and I do need time to set up and take pictures.  So…..

Dr. Tae Yun Kim also likes to use the bounty of the land, and especially the healthy gifts mother nature provided.  So not only did blueberries get to jump into the batter, (a good 2 cups of fresh ones) but also about a cup of Madrone berries that had been soaked in Vodka for a couple of months.  Madrone berries have been used by Native Americans for centuries, to make use against stomach cramps and pains and to help with skin irritations of all sorts.  They provide vitamins and minerals in the winter when not much else in the cold, snowy woods is available.

To make this cake, double the recipe mentioned above, but instead of all gluten-free basic flour, use half almond flour and half the basic gluten free flour.  For the sugar we always use the raw organic turbinado sugar, and that is why the cake comes out a little darker.  Dr. Tae Yun Kim raises her own chickens, so no worries about the quality of the eggs.

The berries were folded in at the very end, very carefully to not smash them.  If you don’t have any Madrone berries you can add some dried cranberries that you can soak in brandy or vodka or a couple of hours.

The result?  Deeeeee-licious!  Give it a try and see if you agree!

 

 

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The carrot cake redemption

I found this on the counter one night when I came home from work.

No, this isn’t an evil sign.  Someone very creative was asking for some carrot cake!

Dr.  Tae Yun Kim, my Martial Arts teacher, is fully embracing an all organic and gluten-free life style, and as a result I have been cleaning up my diet as well.

There are countless carrot cake recipes out there, but good gluten-free ones are hard to find.  I found a great recommendation on Shirley’s blog, http://allglutenfreedesserts.com/dreamy-carrot-cake-gluten-free-spinner/

If you want to make a really really good carrot cake, follow the recipe.  It is the best I ever made.

All went well.

had the eggs ready…

Mixed all the dry ingredients together

mixed the wet ingredients together

and put it all together.

Then, after it looked like this

I baked it until it looked like this

So far so good!

But then, when I cut the cake into two layers – disaster struck!

The top layer crumbled all to pieces!  O no!

After taste testing some of the stray crumbs, I realized that yes, this was indeed a most outstanding carrot cake.  But what to do now?

Well, I thought about a quote from Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim:

“People and events can shape someone for good or bad.  But you alone have power over these things, more power than you realize.  It does not matter how bad circumstances may seem.  What I discovered was that how I dealt with circumstances was much more important than the circumstances themselves.” (Seven Steps to Inner Power, p xxi)

So, next step – I made the frosting.  Except instead of all that sugar, I used orange blossom honey.  I carefully used it as glue and it worked for holding it all together.

But it sure didn’t look good!

This didn’t help much either!

But then….I had some fruit in the fridge, and this happened:

End result: the best carrot cake indeed!

HE CAN DO, SHE CAN DO, WHY NOT ME!

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Learn from your mistakes

So I saw this tempting brownie recipe online, that seemed like it would be perfect and exactly what Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim has been teaching – healthy foods come in all different shapes and formulations!  This one was for brownies made with avocados, so perfectly healthy and a Jung Suwon style health food.

Immediately I set to work to surprise Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim with this delicacy.  Here is a picture of it:

Looks great, right?  I thought they were kind of “vegetably” when I tasted them, but still was so excited to surprise Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim – but when I saw the look on her face after the first bite, and the Jung Suwon students that happened to be with her, I realized, this was not a winner!  Sometimes no matter how healthy or good a recipe looks – it’s just not right for everyone!

So, I went back into the kitchen to make up for this mistake – and I know that Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim and all my family love apples and nuts – so I made these wheat and gluten free apple sauce muffins

Bingo!  Only crumbs were left – success!!!  As Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim always tells us – learn from your mistakes!  Don’t be afraid to make a mistake – just learn from it and don’t repeat it!

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Jung SuWon style cake pops

 

I know.  I said this wouldn’t turn into a cookie/cake/cupcake type  blog, and I promise again, it won’t.  But just see here what Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim has to say about being flexible in mind and spirit:

“I have to plan, “you may say.  “I have to think about what I am going to do ten minutes from now, or tomorrow, or it own’t happen.”  Yes, you should make plans in the present moment.  You don’t ever stop thinking, but be watchful to keep yourself open to new incoming ideas that may change what you plan.  Th epoint is to be aware every moment of what you are thinking, because whatever is going on now is on the way to manifesting.  How important it is, then to keep everything you don’t want out of your moment to moment consciousness.  how can you do that if you are not focused here, now?”

See?  So this is perfectly all right to blog about cake pops even if you never planned on doing so.

Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim teaches about healthty foods, and also states that healthy can include, once in a while, healthy sweet treats.  And these little goodies, are as healthy as sweet treats can be!  First offf, they are gluten free.  Secondly, they were made with lots of love, one of the most important things to consider when prepareing food, Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim says.

If you feel like making these, start with a home made gluten free pound cake, I prefer this one from Shirley.  Once cooled off, break it apart into little pieces.  Now comes the fun part.  You can either use any type of frosting/filling for the next step, my favorite is to take a block of cream cheese, and blend in a generous amount of nutella.  Or, blend in some strawberry jam into cream cheese until it’s perfect.  Use a little frosting at first and add until you can roll cake pops of the size you prefer.

For the chocolate ones, I used a glutenfree brownie mix and as the “cement” I used the above mentioned cream cheese with nutella.  But go ahead, try your own creations!
You are creative energy!  As Grandmaster Kim always says!

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Celebrate every living breath

Today I would like to say a few words in honor of my mother.  She passed away 2 years and 2 days ago.  She was, at 72 years of age, full of life and vigor, and enjoyed every moment of her life.  She always said that when it would come her time to go, she wanted people to still be happy – because that’s what she was all about – being happy and making people happy.  At my Martial Arts school, Jung SuWon Academy, Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim always says, “celebrate every living breath as if it was your last breath” – and that is what my mother did. thoroughly enjoying every moment of her life.

Being a full on Austrian, to her, making people happy, always was connected with food.  When I grew up we never had a lot of money.  In fact we went through some pretty rough spots.  But we never had to go without food.  Somehow she managed to come up with something to feed us. 

 Here is one of the most quintessential Austrian desserts my mom made for us a lot, because it was very cheap to make, and we loved it.  She always tried to make us happy.   Nowadays its more considered a delicacy  because of it’s down to home goodness, comfort, and just plain out ofthis world taste.  It’s not a diet food, and if you are worried about too many carbs, this is definitely not for you.  However, I can vouch for the fact that this is worth evrey single calorie it contains.  The recipe is very very simple:

Ingredients:

• slices of bread – Jewish Challah is great for this, but any sturdy white bread with raisins will do – but if you don’t have any, just use whatever bread you have – while not authentic it will still taste good
• Powidl  – this is a very dense kind of plum jam, looks and acts like a paste.  If you can’t get this try for some other kind of sturdy plum jam.  Do yourself a favor and forget about the sugarless stuff you can get – just get the best plum jam you can have and go for it.  If you really absolutely cannot get plum jam – use any kind of dense jam – it’ll still taste very good.  You can also mix a little brandy into the jam if you want to really do it up
• a couple of eggs, beaten
• some butter for frying, and yes, do use butter.  It’s important for the authentic taste.  For heaven’s sakes don’t use olive oil for this one.  Like I said, this is not a health food….

How to put it together:

put a thick layer of powidl on as many slices as you want to eat, or serve, and top it with another piece of bread.  Squeeze together a little bit and then coat it with the beaten egg.  Fry in melted butter until it’s nice and brown on both sides.  Serve hot with a little powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Enjoy!  And then go to Jung SuWon to work it all off again!

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