Happy Monday Everyone!! Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Our weekend was full of projects in the front yard, in front of our picket fence and trying to redo the design (landscaping) of the front yard. Next year, we will be redoing a new and improved picket fence, but we wanted to tackle the landscaping around the lawn/yard. As I knew it would be a busy weekend, I made a couple of different recipes. One of the recipes that I made was a chocolate bread. It was delicious for breakfast with fruit and tea/coffee. My favorite beverage is a nice hot cup of Teechino with stevia and almond milk creamer. There are many delicious flavors that give you the feel of coffee without the caffeine and side effects of coffee. (I don’t mind a good cup of high quality coffee at times, though). The chocolate bread was delicious as a snack throughout the weekend after too.

It’s still rainy here most of this summer, but this weekend was beautiful in the upper 70s/lower 80s and sunny. The evenings have been on the cooler side lately. We didn’t get a chance to sit around the fire like we wanted, as we were exhausted from all of the yard work, but we did get to binge watch some shows and catch up on some reading in our down times. I love those type of relaxing weekends.

The garden has been taking shape finally with a small but delightful harvest. The blueberries are almost done for the season and the raspberries season is over, but the next round of veggies are underway! I can see we’ll have a good amount of yummy apples by Fall too!!

Have a Beautiful week and Happy August!!

Chocolate bread:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa

1/4 cup organic cacao powder

2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour

1/2 cup Swerve brown sugar replacement

1/4 cup stevia

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup cacao chips, reserve 2 Tbsps to the side

2 large organic free range eggs

3/4 – 1 cup almond milk

1/2 cup (1stick) grass fed butter, melted and cooled

1 tsp real vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan with coconut oil and line with parchment paper with some hanging out of pan to create “handles” to easily lift bread out of pan when baked and cooled.
2. In a large bowl place the cocoa and cacao and whisk out the lumps. Add the flour, both sugar replacements, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk in.
3. Add the cacao chips, minus the reserved cacao chips set to side.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, 3/4 cup almond milk, melted and cooled butter, and vanilla until well mixed.
5. Add the wet mixture to the dry, folding with a rubber spatula, adding a slight bit more of almond milk if mix is too dry (adding that last 1/4 cup if needed only), just until combined.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and scatter the reserved cacao chips on top.
7. Bake bread for 50 minutes, til a toothpick inserted to baked bread comes out clean.
8. Cool on a wire rack still in pan for 10 minutes. Take out of pan and cool on rack out of pan for 5 minutes more. Serve warm for yummier results.

*You can reheat the next day in a toaster oven on bake at 300 degrees F for a few minutes to make warm again. Add some grass fed butter spread on bread to add to the gooeyness. Serve with a good tea or coffee, even add some whipped topping or cream for extra yumminess! Heck, even add dairy free vanilla ice cream later!! Enjoy!!