sweet-salty cinnamon pecan brittle

Hot diggity dog. It's Saturday night and I just made cinnamon-salty-sweet pecan brittle from Elana's Pantry. Pecans, egg white, honey, cinnamon, and sea salt. Heaven on parchment paper.

savory-sweet roasted rosemary figs

My sons and I are working on a cookbook together, and as we were researching recipes to include, I came across this rosemary fig delight that I'd been wanting to make for ages (not necessarily to include in our cookbook, but just for fun and taste-bud happiness).

Well, I didn't have any figs, and I hadn't seen any in the stores lately so I assumed they had already gone out of season. I was bummed.

But LO AND BEHOLD, one of my neighbors pops round this afternoon with a box of four lovely local figs that her friend had given her. Yippee!

I don't know if you believe in God, but I've been having a rough week, and I knew these figs were a sweet present from him, a little box of "I love you" to me.

So I made the rosemary figs. They'd work great next to a meat dish, for sure, but my younger son, who is into all things Italian at the moment, made Italian-style meat-stuffed peppers with me for dinner, so I put these together for a mini dessert.

This recipe is from the book Practical Paleo.

You'll need:

• figs, quartered and with the stems lopped off
• fresh rosemary, minced 
• extra-virgin olive oil
• coarse sea salt

Do this:

Preheat your trusty oven to 425 F or 220 C. 

Gather a roasting pan, put your quartered figs on, and sprinkle with the rosemary. Roast for about 10-15 minutes until the edges are a bit browned, then drizzle on a little olive oil and sprinkle a little sea salt.

These are a fantastic treat: warm, sweet, salty, soft, crispy. 

fried-tofu pizza crust

One of my neighbors has a thyroid specialist who gave her a recipe using fried tofu instead of a wheat crust for pizza. I didn't ask for the specific recipe, but I decided to run with it.

We have a tofu delivery lady who drives through our neighborhood every Friday evening, and I mentioned this idea to her. I told her that I don't eat dairy, but I wondered what she thought about using the tofu "cheese" that I sometimes buy from her. She was skeptical, but I told her I would try it anyway and let her know how it went.

So I purchased fried tofu and the tofu "cheese" from her, and made the unorthodox pizza for lunch today. You can see my husband's pizza on the left with dairy cheese, and the tofu version in the top photo and on the right in the photo below. It didn't melt, but it tasted spectacular. All four of us agreed that the tofu "cheese" version was the best. 

You'll need:

• fried tofu
• pizza toppings of choice (I used Canadian bacon, sliced boiled eggs, cheese (dairy or tofu), black pepper, parsley, and a squiggle of ketchup)

Do this:

Grab some olive oil and heat it up in a frying pan. Cook the fried tofu till crispy on one side, then flip. Add your toppings till heated and if you're using dairy cheese, it's melted. 

Plate it up and eat with a knife and fork. Then tell your tofu delivery lady that her skepticism was unwarranted, and show her the photos to prove it. Don't forget to thank her for her delicious tofu in all its various forms.