All week long I’ve been thinking about this week’s Meatless Meal challenge ingredient: raisins.  I contemplated baking something, but I knew I wanted something healthier.  I came up with this healthy broccoflower salad inspired by the more common broccoli salad. Originally I was planning on using cauliflower, but while picking up ingredients at the market, I noticed we had broccoflower.

Broccoflower is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.  It has the same texture as regular cauliflower, but it is slightly sweeter. When picking a broccoflower, make sure to pick one that has firm, tight florets and no brown spots.  You can store unwashed broccoflower in the refrigerator for about five days.  Broccoflower is a great source of vitamin C and folate.  And did you know, it has more protein than white cauliflower or broccoli?

Roasting the broccoflower allows for the caramelization of the natural sugars in the vegetable.  So make sure to cut the broccoflower in flat pieces to get the most caramelization possible.  The result is a light, refreshing, colorful salad. 

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For more great raisin recipes, make sure to visit Heather’s page.

Have you tried broccoflower?

Do you like yogurt-like dressings?

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you all know you are special and loved.  Not just on Valentine’s Day but every day.  🙂 Here are some of my favorite things this week.

 * Breakfast

I haven’t gotten my smoothie mojo back yet, so the next best thing is a bowl full of yogurt, berries and seeds to start my day.  Oh, and please don’t forget the honey!  This bowl will keep me full until lunch and I just love the pretty colors.

* Blogging Photography

You all know, I haven’t been blogging for very long.  In addition to that, I haven’t really used my DSLR camera that much or even gone to a photography class.  Yes, I really need and would love to go to one.  It’s on my list of things to do.  So, my photos on this blog have been a bit of a hit or miss.  As you can see here

and here.  My main problem with the pictures is they were either too dark or too yellowish.  Now, to be fair, most of my pictures are taken at dinner time so there’s no natural light coming in.  And yes, I could have used the auto setting, but I really wanted to learn how to shoot my pictures manually.

While surfing the internet I found Pinch of Yum.  She’s an amazing food blogger with even more amazing photography skills.  I had purchased another photographer’s ebook online before but let me tell you, Pinch of Yum’s is so worth it.  Since buying her ebook, I have seen such a great impact in my picture taking.  If you just got a DSLR camera and you don’t know how to use it, go check them out.  Here is one of the pictures I’ve taken after reading her ebook.  Yes, it was on the manual setting!  I know I have more to learn, but I’m pretty happy with these results.  Click here to visit Pinch of Yum.  

*Krazy Kup

I’ve been meaning to go to the new Coffee shop in downtown Plant City, Krazy Kup and I finally got a chance to go.  The space is really comfy and they have a few little “nooks” where you can just hide away and read a book or surf the internet.  They offer coffee, hot cocoa, pastries and even wraps.  We went in the morning so I grabbed some coffee for me and hot cocoa for the girls.  They insisted on crescents and brownies for breakfast. 😉  Before leaving the coffee shop I snapped this picture and applied my favorite new app, Waterlogue.

*Waterlogue

Not to be confused with Waterlogged.  It’s so fun.  You take a picture then the app makes a watercolor picture of your picture.  It works best with things like buildings and landscapes.  I tried it with a portrait of my daughter and I would not recommend that.

For more fun Friday Favorites, visit Heather at HousewifeGlamour!

What are some of your favorite things this week?

The first chocolate flourless cake I’ve ever had was a store bought one from Whole Foods Market.  That was probably seven to ten years ago.  Since then, we’ve had them on occasion, most recently we had it at the corner store. With Valentine’s Day approaching, I figured I would attempt to make one at home for the first time.  I’ve adapted Skinny Sweets Daily’s recipe for this cake.

I must say, this is the fastest and easiest “cake” I’ve ever made.  And definitively the cleanest.  No flour mess to clean up from the counters.  No need for a hand mixer either.  Just a little mixing and whisking and voila.  You get a perfectly moist, full flavor chocolate flourless cake.  This definitively turned out a lot better than the time we tried making a chocolate cake from scratch.  That was a complete disaster, but that’s another story.

While making this cake I realized I didn’t have enough cocoa powder.  The girls were comfortably watching Saturday morning cartoons, so there was no way we were leaving the house.  A quick search in the pantry and I discovered some Ovaltine.  As a child, I preferred Ovaltine to Nestle Quik.  To this day Quik is too sweet for me.  So, I went ahead and mixed it with the cocoa powder.

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Here are some links for other chocolate flourless cakes:

Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake

Flourless Chocolate Cake 

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Have you ever tried a flourless cake?

Do you have any special Valentine’s Day plans?