Carrot Cardamom Birthday Cake (Allergy-Free); Gratitude, and a Bonus Recipe

What a birthday I had yesterday (the 28th)! I feel so blessed. So many dear friends from all over the world and all over my life history contacted me on Facebook, and I was so glad to have the opportunity to think of each and every one. We had a poetry group meeting, which is always a highlight of the week in which it falls, and our hostess this time made her gorgeous living space so festive and party-like for the occasion. In the evening, our wonderful friends and hosts extraordinaires, David and Olga, hosted a limerick party for my birthday! Everyone had to bring an original limerick--that was the "admission ticket." I loved that idea: a way to honor my love of poetry so that absolutely everyone could participate.

When I came home from my poetry group to get ready to leave for the limerick party, there was a message on the phone telling me that a poem of mine won second place in the Statewide Poetry Contest! What lovely news to get on my birthday!

Now that I've exceeded my monthly allocation of exclamation points, let me share some food cheer. That up there is my birthday cake: a carrot cardamom cream cake--that's what the carrot juice in my last post was for.

I made it up as I went along, but it was a real winner, so I'm going to share before I forget what I did!
This makes one ten-inch cake, but it's not a super-tall one--which I like: the slices aren't so overwhelmingly big.

Carrot Cardamom Cream Cake (gluten and dairy free, vegan, low sugar)

Crust:
1 cup pecans
1/2 cup golden flax meal
1/2 cup carrot pulp (from making carrot juice)
~3/4 cup chopped dates
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder

In a food processor, pulse the pecans into crumbs, then add the flax meal and carrot pulp and pulse a few times to combine. Then, with the processor running, gradually add the dates until everything starts to come together. Press into a ten-inch springform pan.

Filling:
1 cup carrot juice
1 1/2 soaked pili nuts, drained
1/2 cup young coconut pulp (I used frozen pulp)
1 cup thick irish moss gel
3/4 cup erythritol
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 inch fresh ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
pinch ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon stevia
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2 tablespoons lecithin granules

In a Vitamix or other high-powered blender, blend all but the last two ingredients until smooth. Check the taste and add more cardamom or sweetener if it seems necessary. Add the coconut oil and lecithin and blend again until very smooth.
Pour over the crust and freeze for a couple hours until set.

Here's the crust...

 And the filling ready to rock'n'roll...

 And you can see here that it's not awfully tall up the side of the pan.

 I decorated it with some leftover frosting from our anniversary cake (a different kind of carrot cake!)

There's not much left, so it was thoroughly enjoyed! I love how the irish moss and the young coconut make it not quite so 'heavy,' but it's still delightfully smooth and rich.

Bonus recipe: Sweet Potato Puree with Roasted Garlic

We had an "orange" theme going in the food for the limerick party--also my influence. This is super-simple and extremely delicious; another off-the-cuff concoction.
I roasted several heads of garlic--350 degrees for about an hour in the oven.
I boiled up 4 medium sized sweet potatoes, took the peels off and drained the liquid.
I added about 2 teaspoons of coconut oil, and a whole head of roasted garlic cloves, and pureed with a hand-held blender.
It was delicious, and almost shockingly sweet--roasted garlic is darn sweet too!

The rest of the carrot pulp went into these brownie bites--perhaps I'll share the recipe for those next time.

Abundant gratitude and love to everyone--thank you.

My Birthday Party--and Pushing Myself

Happy March with rainbow sunsets and spring in the air!

There are so many thoughts, concepts, ideas and threads that I want to share on here, and then 'real life' has its own rhythms and events, and so this blog becomes a 'backlog!' To wit, yesterday was my birthday, and so my PUFA follow-up must wait until I've shared some delicious aftermaths of our little party yesterday and some thoughts and intentions that I'm working on for this 'new year' of mine.

Pushing Myself
I'm feeling the need to 'push myself' a bit, in a loving way: to move outside of my comfort zone at times and to show myself what I can do.  At one end of things, that means that today, I spent the whole morning "de-cluttering," accepting that even with the limitations of two fairly messy people living in a tiny cabin, clutter can be a sign of stuck energy and that attending to it might feel good. On a different note, remember that very tall (60ft) dead spruce tree we have, where the eagles like to perch, that's featured on here a few times?

Phil climbed and sat on top (right where that eagle is) around sunset a couple nights ago, and I decided that it was time I climbed it again: it's been ages since I did. So, I climbed most of the way up (didn't feel the need to dislodge Phil from the top), I stayed up there and watched the sunset, I got cold, I climbed back down again. But the rest of the story is that I was SCARED! I was aghast at how afraid I was, and a bit ashamed too: by the time I got back to the ground, my legs were shaking. It didn't help that I was cold and it didn't help that a half hour earlier I'd fallen on my butt hard on the ice, but sheesh--I used to climb coconut trees! I used to zip up this tree with no problem. What happened to me? On the other hand, I'm glad that I did it anyway: interesting how we can train ourselves out of fears, but when out of practice, they can resurface.

Other 'de-cluttering' and 'loving upheavals' include updating my resume, a writing class later this week, and more audio learning: I've been listening in to the Tapping World Summit these past days. I knew very little about Tapping before but I can tell that if I stick with it, it has the potential to be a very powerful transformational tool.

Party with 'Ela-Friendly Foods' Focus!
Our lovely friends and family suggested that the potluck theme for my party should be a plethora of 'Ela-friendly' foods! I was a little apprehensive at first, as I didn't want anyone to feel alienated (even vegetarianism is 'way out' here, let alone my further parameters) and so I was glad that there was a big pot of chilli with cheese and sour cream for those who need that kind of thing--but I didn't manage to take a picture of it!

Here's what we had:
a delightful Thai-spiced vegetable soup--it was so good...

...a beautiful green salad with lentils that were just delectable (I realized just last year that lentils may be my version of 'comfort food,' being what I was raised on, etc)...

Something I put together: wild rice soaked overnight, lightly cooked, tossed with a little coconut oil, peas, carrots, olives, fennel, lime juice and a little salt...

...a quinoa salad...

...two kinds of cornbread, one gluten free, one not (I was so spoiled for choice, I just had a crumb of the gluten free one, and it was good!)...

...and of course, I brought one of my green salads: this time with grapefruit, mung bean sprouts, avocado...

But best of all, of course, was dessert!

Mint-chip cheesecake from Sweet Gratitude. I had so much fun making this earlier in the day! I made it pretty much per the recipe, unusually for me, except that I used coconut nectar instead of agave, and added a little peppermint extract because I was using spearmint leaves and think peppermint is a better 'dessert' flavor. Oh, and I used mac nuts in place of almonds in the crust. That's really as close as I ever get to following a recipe!
My thriftstore cake pan is a little warped, and whaddaya know? I was gifted a set of three springform pans! I have some observant friends...I was also given an icing bag, and look forward to playing with that soon. And speaking of observant friends, I often bring a crockpot full of goodies to potlucks, and have arrived splattered with the contents after driving bumpy roads--well, I was given a 'portable crockpot' with a gasketed top and a special closing mechanism, so that it will be both more energy-efficient and portable without mishaps! Much gratitude...
Back to dessert, I finished the cheesecake with cacao nibs around the sides...

This piece was cut in half after the photograph was taken--everyone was already full! There were seven of us and we barely ate a third of the cake! Come over anytime...

Sweet Gratitude was an appropriate source and energy: I felt so sweetly grateful that everyone was so willing to accept and enjoy my arena of food choices, felt accepted, appreciated, loved and 'seen.' Thank you, everyone! I also want to thank my Mum for being my Mum: for my birthday last year, I wrote a post specifically thanking my Mum and acknowledging what an inspiration she is, and that's just as true this time around.