Drunken Plumb Spice Cake

I found a recipe with a unique take on Pineapple Upside Down Cake in Tosca Reno's "The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook 2." She created a wonderful plum upside down cake recipe which is delicious! However, being gluten sensitive I adapted this recipe and created a gluten free spice cake with my own twist.

Ingredients
1 cup of dark rum
5-7 small plums peeled,pitted, & sliced
2 TBS expeller pressed safflower oil
1/4 cup demerara brown sugar
2 TBS of molasses
1 egg + 2 egg whites mixed
2 TBS buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup light amber agave nectar
1 cup of almond flour ( I use Honeyville)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp Celtic sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ginger

Soak plums in rum overnight or up to 2 days covered in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9- inch GLASS or CERAMIC pie plate with safflower oil. Sprinkle sugar evenly over bottom of pie plate then drizzle molasses. Next arrange the plums on top of the sugar mixture then set aside. Mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer all the wet ingredients; eggs, buttermilk,extracts, apple sauce, and agave until well combined. In a medium bowl mix the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices together with a whisk until combined. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in thirds scraping bowl with spatula between each addition and blend until combined. Slowly pour batter on top of plums in the pie plate so as to not move the plums or sugar mixture too much. Bake for 35 minutes or until baked through. Test with a small butter knife in center of cake and make sure it comes out clean before removing cake from oven. Serve warm with low fat frozen yogurt.

Roasted Vegetables with Goat Cheese

My grandmother created a baked vegetable dish one summer when her garden produced an abundance of tomatoes and zucchini. It was layers of sliced tomato,onion, and zucchini with mozzarella cheese in between each layer.  Her dish inspired this little creation of mine. You do need to allow a two to three hour window to prepare this since this dish does include eggplant.

*To prepare the eggplant wash, slice thinly, place in a colander, and sprinkle with salt. Allow it to sit for an hour then rinse with cold water or you can simply soak the sliced eggplant in cold salted water for an hour then rinse and pat dry. This process removes the bitter taste from the eggplant.

Ingredients
*4-5 small eggplants or 2 medium sized washed and thinly sliced ( make sure you follow preparation stated above!)
1 large zucchini washed and thinly sliced
1 large tomato sliced
1/2 sweet onion thinly sliced
2 TBS Expeller Pressed Safflower oil
2 tsp Italian Seasoning
Salt & Pepper to taste
1/4 cup of goat cheese
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a small casserole dish with nonstick spray. Toss eggplant and zucchini in oil, italian seasoning, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix the two cheese together in a small bowl and set aside. Place one layer of eggplant mixture in baking dish then top with 1/3 of cheese mixture. To that top with a layer of tomato and onion then repeat process starting with eggplant mixture. The final layer should be cheese. Cover dish with foil and bake for 45 minutes or until desired tenderness.