Crispy salad and easy cupcake topping

Sometimes I get to the end of the week and it just seems impossible that a whole week has passed. I know we've been eating but I can't think what we ate. The weekend was just as hectic with more company than we usually have in 3 months, and everyone knows you shouldn't try out new recipes (especially if you're making them up) on company. Noooo. So all the food has been familiar old stuff.

I did throw together a new combo of ingredients (for me at least) for a salad dressing and it was quite delicious. I had to be creative at the last minute because the dressing I was planning to make depended on ingredients that I didn't realize I didn't have. Instead, I used fresh squeezed orange juice and one of the wonderful vinegars I purchased a while back at Vom Fass. It was a Waldburg balsam cherry vinegar. I'm not expecting anyone to actually have this vinegar on hand — just use a mild fruity vinegar of your choice, or a plain rice vinegar, which I would have used if we'd had any. To go with the dressing, I made a salad of mostly finely shredded cabbage with a handful of baby greens and assorted other stuff, and it was so fresh and spring-like. It went perfectly with a mildly spicy peanut stew. I also came up with a new ULTRA EASY cupcake topping that worked amazingly well. And if it appears anywhere else on the Internet, I don't even want to know. I want to feel clever at least for a little while longer.

Mixed salad with orange-Waldberg cherry balsam dressing

• baby greens
• finely shredded red and green cabbage from a bag (about 1 part baby greens to 3 parts cabbage- use enough for 4 people)
• shredded carrot (1 large)
• 1-2 thinly sliced green onions
• crystallized ginger bits (about 1/4 cup)
• kalamata olives
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts (raw ones toasted in a pan)

Dressing (4 servings)

• Juice of 1 small orange (about 3 ounces)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons Waldburg cherry balsam vinegar
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• pinch salt

Mix the salad ingredients, including half the walnuts, together. Add the dressing and toss thoroughly. Toss the remaining walnuts on top.

Easy cupcake topping
Take the cupcakes out of the oven and remove from the tins. With one hand make a ring shape with your thumb and third finger and place atop a cupcake. With the other hand drop a bunch of vegan chocolate chips into the ring. It takes about 3 seconds for the chips to adhere to the warm cake. You can give them a gentle press if you think they're not sticking. Do all the cupcakes, and then go back and stick individual chips in spots you think need a few more. The chocolate chips will soften but they won't lose their shape. As the cupcakes cool, the chocolate chips will harden again. That's it. They looked so cute I wanted to kiss them!

Quick post about cupcakes

I've been experimenting a little with my coconut flour, and I made cupcakes using this easy recipe with a slight change. I traded two tablespoons of wheat flour for two tablespoons of coconut flour and I added an extra three tablespoons of water. The recipe usually makes 11 smallish cupcakes but this new version made 12 high-rising cupcakes. In fact, they rose so high I was afraid I wouldn't be able to use the cheater-frosting trick of putting chocolate chips on the warm, just-out-of-the-oven tops and then giving the melted chips a swirl. (My apologies to those who pipe those gorgeous frostings onto their cupcakes. I admire them to death, but I'm too lazy and too sugar phobic to attempt those perfect swirls myself. A nice little topping of melted chocolate works for me.)


They were tasty little cakers even though I over-baked them! Next time I'll do it right.