Experimenting With Almond Flour

Almond flour... photo shamelessly stolen from http://www.elanaspantry.com/why-almond-flour.

Hello people...

So... it's been a while since my last post. Yup, I got really behind. And busy. As much as I like blogging, school always comes first.

And boy, have there been changes. Since my last post, I passed my prelims, defended my Master's Thesis, and applied to law school.

Because of this, the focus of my blog has now changed from being about astronomy to something more casual. I can post whatever the heck I want now, and that's more than ok with me. I've decided to hijack this blog to post cat photos, food photos, and other things I'm generally too embarrassed to post on facebook.
I mean, as much as I like my cats, I'm not overly fond as being known as a crazy cat lady.

So... the first thing I want to talk about is almond flour. I bought some from Trader Joe's a while back on a whim. I baked some things with it, but now that I'm slated to move soon, I wanted to use it up. I shopped around on Pinterest and found some easy recipes that I already had the ingredients for.

Now, a bit of warning. I am a newbie at cooking.

And I'm not very good at it.

As a high school student, I wanted nothing to do with such a "feminine" activity (you know, something about breaking out of gender roles). Now that I realize that health comes from learning how to cook, I've since reassessed my previous attitude towards cooking. However, that means I have a lot of lost time to make up for, ha ha!

So the first thing I made was almond flour crackers. Here's what they looked like:

My very own crackers! Yay!

 They were so easy to make! The recipe I followed is here, but I decided to use herbs I had on hand (thyme, basil, and garlic). They go great with almost anything because they have a delicate taste (if not a little nutty, but I love that!). You can put any sort of cheese or meat on them. I've put raw tomato paste on them with a drizzle of pepper.

Don't ask why I like pure tomato paste. I just do.

Next, I made some almond bread. However... I had a much larger pan than the recipe called for, so my bread came out weird looking (and not at ALL like how the pic in the recipe looks, ha ha!). No matter, it still tastes delicious!

 My weirdo bread. I just eat it like a muffin... and just like a bran muffin, these things clean out your colon.

The bread is so think and filling, I think of it more like a bran muffin than anything else. It's nutty, slightly sweet, and buttery (although no butter was used in making it). I did make some blackberry butter to use as a spread, which was absolutely delicious! Although, how can you go wrong with butter, honey, and blackberries?

So yup! Those two recipes depleted my store of almond flour. Both taste delicious and were very easy and quick to make. I think I spent more time on clean up than on actual cooking, which is great for a lazy cook like me!

Finally, I just wanted to say that these recipes are great for people cutting out gluten. I personally don't care about going gluten-free (I've never had any medical problems from eating wheat), but these recipes tasted good on their own merits. So... people with gluten sensitivities... feel free to try these! Maybe yours will turn out better looking than mine, ha ha!