Well, I must say there are times I’m pretty happy with the results of my experimentation, and this is one!

To start with:
My husband and I have had a wee bit of life changes since my last post. My oldest daughter wrote and produced her first EP album (check her music out: Here), moved to Denver and became an interior designer. My youngest graduated college, fledged the nest and is now working in the computer coding field.
Both are totally ‘rockin’ adulting.
In July hubby and I celebrated our 30th anniversary with a 12 day trip cruise along the Alaska inner passage. We lived in a teeny tiny space w/ 1 suitcase of clothing for 12 days. It was a bit of a revelation for me that I could happily live in a small space with so little, for an extended period of time. (Don’t judge me if you are already a minimalist, I have lived in our home for 20 yrs!)

Liberating actually.

With a fresh mental frame of reference, returning back home to a beast of a house and yard, I had the itch for change, and a desire to have the freedom to pick up and GO! Also, hubster has been bearing the brunt of a horrific commute from our little sleepy suburb into the city. While that commute has increasingly become unbearable for him, I won’t lie, I was terrified of change. However, the wonderful house I enjoyed raising my daughters in and entertaining many friend with now felt like a giant burden of maintenance and work.
With that mental ‘shift’, I proceeded to spend the next 3 months purging and prepping the house for sale. Fortunately my husband travels often, because it was a whirlwind and I was a crazed woman on a mission.
In the process I discovered WOW! We have accumulated a whole lot of CRAP in 20 years!

We had a buyer straight away with a request for a (less than) 30 day closing. We agreed and made arrangements to put the bulk of our stuff in storage and move into an apartment until we could decided what we wanted to do.

So Now:
Here I am. In an apartment. It’s just me, hubby, and our two furry kids.

It is a teeny tiny space, so I have very little to clean and maintain, best of all…no yard! With so much time freed up, I have the the luxury to reacquaint myself with the things I used to love, but became yet another chore: cooking and baking.
Our unit has a tiny but efficient kitchen with a gas stove. The layout is the perfect cooking triangle and with a step stool always at hand to reach the very high cupboards, I’m learning to make use of the most basic of equipment and tools to craft meals.

Hubby took off this weekend for a boys outing, so I invited my daughter to come and have a sleepover.
We went to the local apple orchard and got fresh baking and eating apples. We stopped at the store to get ingredients for a GF/DF Pizza as well as to make an apple crisp. While we were waiting for the crisp to bake and the pizza dough to rise, I made her a ‘snack’ of honey crisp apple slices and yes….a dairy free caramel sauce!

I was skeptical that I could make it work, but wow! I was so pleased! It was really, really, REALLY good!
I’ve always loved Nigella Lawsons Sticky Toffee Sauce from a decade ago. Its super easy and hard to mess up, but it is made with butter and cream.  I used her recipe as a platform to springboard off of for my DF caramel sauce.
I’ve raved about the Miyokos Vegan Butter in previous posts, but let me tell ya, if you can tolerate cashews its’ a real game changer! It is a worthy substitute for the butter. Dairy cream was replaced by coconut cream and no, I don’t mean the stuff from a carton. I mean the firm layer of solidified coconut that comes from a can of coconut cream. (Do not use the liquid at the bottom, nor stir it together, only use the solid ‘cream’.)
My daughter in the photo is dipping while it was still warm. It thickened up properly after it sat for a good hour.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think. I think I’ve struck gold on this one, and I will be using it on homemade GF/DF cinnamon rolls, ice ‘cream’, and in our caramel apple cider in the future.

Dairy Free Sticky Toffee Sauce

3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 c Lyles Golden Syrup (there is no substituting this, but it is now easy to find)
2 tbsp Miyokos Vegan Butter
1/2 C coconut cream (the solids from the can, not the liquid, see notes in post above)
splash of vanilla

Melt the sugar, syrup and ‘butter’ in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring it to a boil and let it bubble for 3-5 min. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.
Add the cream and vanilla, remove from heat and stir until combined.
It will thicken as it cools.

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!
(And don’t forget to check out my daughters music – Here!)