Man, I think I need to lay off the Lupicia teas for a bit. Another one that isn’t amazing in my book. I tried to make it look pretty though. This was super artificial but at least it tried to be true to strawberry and chocolate. It smells great but I feel like I’m drinking junk food. Oh well, I need to get back into some more natural teas right now anyway.
– April 7, 2014
I’m not participating in this #SundaySupper so I thought I would make a recipe from one of the past challenge! Lisa has a very cool blog, Cooking With Curls and posted a recipe for Baklava Cookies.
I used regular granulated sugar since I didn’t have any coconut sugar but I think I should have made it half brown sugar and half granulated. However, the cookies were still awesome and the husband loved them. I didn’t find them sweet enough but I think that’s because I had sticky sweet baklava stuck in my head. It’s not like we didn’t fight to get the last few for ourselves, so don’t worry about that. A great easy recipe to try out when you want a cookie that isn’t intimidating but a little different.
– April 6, 2014
Grape-Nuts and prunes. I really like both of these things. I’m so darn old. However, I ate all my prunes (because they are awesome), so when I saw this recipe for Grape-Nuts Energy Bars I was bummed.
So I bought some more prunes for the recipe. And then I ate them because I forgot why I bought them. Hey, I can’t keep track of everything I want to try! Found the recipe again flagged to bake but I wasn’t up to going to the store again. I used dates and raisins instead.
Yep. I’m brilliant some days. Anyway, since the prunes would have been a bit more sticky I soaked the fruit and it worked out fine. The hint of chocolate was great (not like I measured, it was probably too much) and these were nice easy bars to make and snack on.
– April 5, 2014
So let’s be a bit more positive on the blog today! Last week was my friend E’s birthday and I’m a pretty crappy friend. I missed baking for her last year because I had a flop and I never got around to redoing the recipe. 364 days later I delivered some Banana Nut Butter Cupcakes to her house, just in the nick of time.
These cupcakes were so easy, and only have agave as the sugar so totally appropriate for breakfast. Plus, the whole frosting recipe only has 1/2 cup of powdered sugar for 12 cupcakes. Healthy right? At least birthday healthy in my book. These were great with of course a strong banana taste but I wasn’t expecting the peanut butter to be such a good match. I probably added more peanut butter to the frosting than called for but that’s a good thing. Sprinkled peanuts on top and called it a success!
– April 4, 2014
I wanted to write how much I loved this tea but I think it is a dud. It’s kind of flavourless believe it or not even with the Cassis and Blueberry. I really like black currant too, hrm. The only saving grace is that it was a black tea, and you could taste the black tea. I guess. It smells okay, it just doesn’t really carry over when sipping. Not a good way to start my Thursday that’s for sure!
– April 3, 2014
I am so very over taking a photo of everything I eat. Seriously. Going back to once a week will help my sanity. However, this did stop me from putting random food in my mouth, so that’s a plus. Wednesday started with toast. I went out to lunch with a vendor, the sandwich wasn’t all that, I was kind of bummed. I made a healthy stir fry for dinner and then made cookies for dessert.
Thursday started with oatmeal and then I had a Trader Joe’s salad for lunch with some pretzels and hummus. Nothing was really filling me up so I had a clif bar. When I got home I sampled some of the Jimmy Bars I wrote about. Dinner was a huge salad and quesadilla with Daiya cheese, beans, and broccoli.
Friday was okay I guess. Toast again, getting kind of boring on the breakfast front but I made a lentil salad for lunch. Snacked on some almonds on my way out the door. We rode to dinner and I got a falafel plate where they drowned my falafel in tahini for some reason. And pickles. I felt SO horrible after this, it wasn’t the right choice (but it was MY choice in restaurants, oops).
Saturday was a rainy day so no tennis. Had beans on toast for breakfast and started baking. Had a bar and then some bread fresh out of the oven. Yum. I dragged the husband to Half Moon Bay so I could get Mushroom Nabeyaki with veggie broth. Perfect rainy weather treat.
Sunday… bread, bread, oatmeal… yep. That’s how I started my day before and after yoga. Went to E’s for lunch and she had a crazy awesome spread. I missed taking a photo of the chocolate cake and small hot cross bun I ate but we’ll all survive. I also made a coconut cake and it was a hit. Dinner was Indian and I was totally done with taking photos.
– April 2, 2014
Butterscotch doesn’t intimidate me anymore after making my own butterscotch chips. I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Butterscotch Bars and it already looked like a winner. I only had to substitute the butter (margarine), a single egg (I used egg replacer) and of course butterscotch chips. Easy peasy. I actually used store-bought butterscotch chips this go around (Liebers brand), I was lazy.
I actually read the recipe for a change and yet still screwed them up. They came out of the oven all pretty and awesome looking but strangely the chips didn’t melt much. And then I threw on the peanut butter icing. Right away. It says to do it when the bars are warm… not hot out of the oven. The icing made a huge sink hole and gave me a lot of grief. I eventually got it okay after it started melting but it really deflated the bars. Oh well, they tasted good, they were just a bit compact.
– April 1, 2014
I found JimmyBars at the fancy food show. They are from Chicago and have a great product. I get burnt out on bars and I’m glad there is a lot of options out there for portable snacks that aren’t messy in my bag. Plus, they are gluten-free, dairy-free and two of the bars are vegan. The other two have honey, that’s a pretty good ratio for a natural product line. These are drier bars which I’m really liking because I find date bars and bars with a lot of chocolate melt and get squished in my bag. These have been in my bag for a week (I kept forgetting to pull one out) and they stayed intact and bar shaped. That’s a good thing.
After sampling my weight in bars I was given a Super Hip Chocolate Chip and a No Bluffin’ Banana Muffin bar to take home. I really like these as they aren’t too sweet with dates so I can eat them even when I’m not craving sweets, or use them just to get over that “I think I need something sweet but not decadent” hump. I love the brown rice crisps in them. I actually preferred the banana over the chocolate. The banana taste is spot on but I feel like the dates take over the chocolate variety. Anyway, I’ll be looking for these on the shelf at Gluten Free Grocery right by my work!
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– March 31, 2014
Spring has really sprung. It’s been raining here quite a bit which is great for the plants, bad for the motorcycle riding, but hey, I’ll suck it up so I can get some awesome produce this year at the market. Today is rainy so tennis is probably off. That’s another bummer too so why not treat myself.
You know I have a problem with raw balls. They are just so damn easy, store in the fridge and when you just want “something” they are right there. Healthy and delicious. You have a recipe you want me to try? I’m all for it, send it on! This Chocolate Pistachio Oatmeal Cookies recipe from The Simple Veganista had pistachios!
Pistachios always remind me of my one friend Sarah. So I dedicate this spring treat to her. These were tasty as is but missing something. I think they could use a bit of spices but to be honest they were okay plain. Probably because they had chocolate. That’s hard to get wrong. I didn’t chop the chocolate enough, nor the pistachios but I made it work. PS: don’t toss the extra toppings that you rolled the balls in, it’s great in yogurt!
– March 29, 2014
Well, my lemon tree is going crazy, so time for cookies. I bought liquid stevia for something so I had some to use in this Sugar Free Lemon-Poppy Seed Shortbread Cookies recipe. Pretty healthy looking, gluten-free if you eat oats.
The dough was SO very hard to work with. A crumbly mess to be honest. I forced it to work though. When I cut it out of the fridge it just crumbled, I guess I just needed more liquid. I did use some lemon juice in addition to the other liquids so I thought it would be fine. I doubled up on regular liquid stevia and to be honest I couldn’t eat them. They had that bitter stevia taste to me. It might be my brand but full on liquid stevia in this baked good didn’t work out for me.
– March 28, 2014
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