Recipes...

This week I'm offering up a WLC-compliant dessert recipe that even Dennis ate with relish. Of course, he also slathered his portions with canned whipped cream, known to us as "Whoosh" for the sound it makes when being dispensed from the can.

I'd bought a bunch of pears and apples through the fruit truck that periodically comes through Opheim and is organized by Janet Bailey. (I thank her for continuing to contact me about it's schedule since I'm rarely around to avail myself of what's offered when it's here.)

Anyway, all the pears ripened at the same time and needed to be used. I wasn't up to trying to can them. Dehydrated pears are delicious, but I wasn't doing that, either.

Pear/Apple Crisp

• 3 apples, cored and chopped

• 3 pears, cored and chopped

• 3 Tbl lemon juice

• 1 Tbl coconut sugar

• 1 heaping tsp cinnamon

• 1 3/4 C oats

• 1/4 C almond meal OR flaxseed meal

• 1 C finely chopped walnuts (optional)

• 1/2 C maple syrup

• 3-4 Tbl coconut oil, room temperature

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1/4 tsp salt

Oven at 350. Grease a 9x9" pan. Combine the apples and pears with the juice, tossing gently.

Sprinkle with coconut sugar and cinnamon, toss gently again. Pour into prepared pan. Mix the rest (oats through salt) together and sprinkle over the filling. Bake 35-40 minutes. Cool 5-10 minutes.

I used a 9x13" pan, and held out the nuts. Those I sprinkled on top of only half the pan since Dennis doesn't like walnuts (or nuts in general in desserts). And I used flaxseed meal.

There are many traditional pear crisp recipes on-line if you don't want to be sugar-free. This recipe is great and is gluten-free and sugar-free.

You won't miss real sugar at all. I kept the leftovers in separate containers, marked D & M, so when I heated those up, he wouldn't be infected with walnuts. It heated up beautifully, too.

Those who read me regularly know that WLC stands for Whole Life Challenge, which occur periodically throughout the year. There are nutritional levels involving not consuming white sugar or wheat flours among other restrictions, and also proscribe consuming plenty of water and getting enough sleep each day, as well as ten minutes each of exercise and stretching every day. There's also a well-being practice that changes weekly. I do the kickstart level, which is the most lenient and that I can mostly maintain.

This second recipe is also WLC-compliant. It's for a sugar-free teriyaki sauce/marinade. Since I've been doing these challenges for a few years, I had all the ingredients on hand. The sauce was easy to make and worked really well to marinate my thinly-sliced chicken breast that I used for stir-fry. Half the sauce is in the fridge to use another time.

Sugar-free Teriyaki

• 1/4 C water

• 1/2 C coconut aminos (or soy sauce)

• 1 TBL rice wine vinegar

• 4 tsp erythritol

• 4 tsp coconut sugar

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1 Tbl fresh minced ginger (or 3 tsp ground)

• 1 1/2 Tbl arrowroot powder

• 3Tbl water

Combine the first 7 ingredients (water through ginger) in a small pan. Whisk over medium-high heat to a low boil. While this heats, whisk together the arrowroot with 3 tablespoons of water into a slurry.

Once at a low boil, whisk in the slurry, heating another minute to thicken. Remove from heat and cool.

You can substitute the soy sauce for the aminos, as well as regular white sugar for the erythritol, and brown sugar for the coconut sugar.

Cornstarch would be used instead of arrowroot. A friend asked me the other day what EVOO in my recipes stood for. Others may wonder as well. It's shorthand for extra virgin olive oil. I see it written that way in lots of recipes.

As far as "gardening" goes, I've only done a couple things outside this past week. One of which was to mow up the leaves again.

They're being deposited at the outer edge of the garden, alongside my raspberry rows. They'll work as a deterrence for weeds that will sprout there once we actually get any appreciable amounts of rain. The recent rains are small amounts and are almost immediately sucked back out by the strong winds.

I need to mow leaves again. The tree by the garden, that stole water there all summer, hasn't yet shed all its leaves. Neither have all the lilac bushes in my hedge.

The other outside work happened yesterday (last Thursday) afternoon when it warmed up above 60.

It was virtually windstill as well, a rare beautiful November day.

This work entailed shooting canned expandable foam inside and along the gaps that have appeared between the base of our "mobile" (it's not going anywhere) home and the skirting. It sounded a lot like the whoosh Dennis uses, but much is stickier and was a little tricky to use by this novice. (There's globs of it where I didn't intend for it to be. You won't want to hire me for this kind of work!)

It's similar to caulking around loose windows. Sealing those gaps should make heating our house this winter much more economical.