Today I want to share with you a little story to illustrate how I cook…

Lately we have been trying to pay off some debt and my contribution has been that about once every third week or every other week I cut our food budget in half and we get by on very limited fugal meals for that week. I’m looking forward to not doing this anymore, but it works for us for now. So, a few weeks ago was one of these weeks. As we neared the end of the week I had very little in my fridge and cupboard. Basically we had the stuff we needed for meals and a few stock items, but not much else. I was hungry and desperately craving something sweet. Usually I’d try and ignore that craving and pour myself a glass of kefir or something like that instead. But, I was all out of Kefir and on this particular day I felt like indulging.

I wanted to bake something, but I didn’t have any butter left, no lard, no coconut oil, no milk, and no eggs either. So, how was I to make the cookies or cake that I was craving without a good heat stable fat and without eggs or milk? I got on-line, read some recipes, and then just started mixing stuff together. I cheated a little and used olive oil for my fat (something I try to avoid using for high heat cooking like baking). In the end, I created this yummy Olive Oil Cake. My intention was that it would be cookies, but I was too lazy to make cookies so I just stuck the dough in a pie pan and make it cake instead. I’m glad I did. I personally thought that this was delicious! So, good in fact we ate it in just two days… well, when I say we I really mean that my husband had two small pieces and I ate the rest!

Olive Oil Cake:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour (I used a bit of wheat flour and a bit of white flour – I think 1 cup of each)
• ¾ cup unrefined cane sugar (Rapadura)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 Tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (I actually used a cap full of the vanilla lid, but I think it’s about 1 teaspoon)

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together and pour into a greased pie pan or small cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees F or just under 200 degrees C until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (roughly 10 minutes or so).

This is great served with tea and I bet it would be excellent with a drizzle of honey over it or some fresh fruit preserves as well.

Rejoicing in the journey - Beth Stedman

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