Cherries!

 I can't believe it's August already, gosh, summer flew by so fast! Is it still cherry season? Oh well, fruit seem to be in stores 24/7 now...Don't those cherries just look so plump and juicy? Anyways sorry for the randomness, but I'm going to tell you a super duper ultra short story...

 So there once was a little cherry. He lived happily among his other cherry brothers and sisters in their glass bowl home. One day, he wanted to stand out among his fellow cherry siblings. So he turned himself into a dessert. But not just any dessert, a cherry crumble!

 What do you think of my efforts at creating a story about a cherry? Lame? Well that may be so, but this cherry crumble was definitely not! The recipe came from Eating Well, so it must be healthy, right?

 And the story goes on...but ends once he's eaten! The End.

Butterscotch Blondies

These bars remind me of one of my favorite bodywash/shampoo by Philosophy. Actually, I love all of them, except for vanilla and sugar cookie. They just smell strange. Their butterscotch bodywash smells warm and buttery. It makes me crave these bars! Wait, can a body wash smell warm? Thinking, thinking....Definitely. I currently am using the Coconut Frosting bodywash, but my all time favorite is their cinnamon roll bodywash. It's amazing! Even better than a cinnamon roll. Oh, and did you know on the packages they print recipes. I've never tried making any, have you?

Butterscotch Blondies
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Adapted from Smitten kitchen
Ingredients
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup butterscotch morsels

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F and butter an 8×8 pan

2. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
3. Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in any butterscotch morsels.
4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or until set in the middle.

Mutant English Muffins?

When I saw Sarabeth Bakery's recipe for English muffins I knew I just had to make them. I love english muffins and they didn't call for first cooking them on the stove top then baking them. I have english muffin rings (I've been meaning to make the real thing) but they weren't tall enough to use in this recipe. Rather than buying some more kitchen tools I'll only use a couple times...I baked my muffins in a popover pan.

The final product didn't remind me of an english muffin at all, but they still tasted great with some fig jam!

English Muffin

From Sarabeth Bakery
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
1 cup water
2 ½ tbs butter
2 tbs gran sugar
1 tsp salt
3 ½ tsp yeast
1 egg
4 cups flour
butter for rings
½ cup instant polenta
 
1. 4 hours before making muffins, bring milk, water (3/4 cup), butter, sugar, and salt to a simmer. Transfer to a stand mixer and cool to room temp
2. Sprinkle yeast over reaming water. Whisk to dissolve. Add to stand mixer. Add egg. Beat with paddle attachment. Gradually beat in flour. Once a stiff batter forms, increase to high speed and beat for 30 seconds. Refrigerate for 4-8 hours.
3. Butter the inside of 12 entrement rings (3 inch diameter 1 ½ inches tall). Coat insides with polenta. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and arrange rings on it. Sprinkle approx ¼ tsp polenta in each ring
4. Stir down batter, and fill rings using a 2 ½ inch scoop. Sprinkle with remaining polenta
5. Proof for 1 ½ hours
6. Preheat oven to 350˚F bake for 25 minutes, let stand for 5 minutes, then remove rings.

The sweet stuff....FINALLY! :D

I know the past few posts have all been pretty healthy, so I'm going to sweet stuff. S'mores. Yes, the all time favorite summer camping treat. But who has time to go camping? Or really, who wants to have to do their business in an outhouse? Ew, sorry that was a little gross. Anyways, I'm not much of a camper, I do like to go on hikes and all, but really, that outhouse porter potty thing is just too nasty. So I set out to turn my favorite flavor combo (marshmallows, chocolate, and graham cracker, or sweet, sweeter, and sweetest) into a dessert that can be enjoyed and made in the comfort of my home.

What do you think? It was a graham cracker layer topped with a chocolate chip marshmallow cookie dough and then studded with Hershey's pieces. YUM :)

S'mores Bars
Bottom Layer:
5 ounces graham crackers * May need a little bit more (6-7 oz) to cover bottom of pan
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup butter, melted

Top Layer:
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup mini marshmallows
3 regular sized hershey bars, broken into pieces


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325˚F. Butter a 13 x 9 inch pan lined with aluminum foil.
2. In a food processor, pulse graham crackers until crumbs are evenly fine. Add in brown sugar and process to combine. Drizzle the butter over the crumbs and pulse until mixture is evenly moistened. Press into bottom prepared pan. Bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Cool on a rack while making top layer. Do not turn off the oven.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars. Add in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt. Mix into the butter mixture. Fold in chocolate chips and marshmallows. Evenly spread the dough over the cooled graham cracker layer. Bake for 15 minutes. Take out and press Hershey squares on top. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes.
4. Allow to cool on a wire rack before cutting.

Recap and a cool new oil!

Hey guys! So, what did you think of the 5 grain salads? It's a healthy start, right? Well, since I've been bombarding you guys with healthy stuff, well, I thought I'd take a break and maybe share some of the sweeter items I've made lately. (Actually, it's a little healthy.) But first, a little recap of the 5 Days of Grains.

Day 1: Quinoa. It's the new superfood, right? Plus, it tastes great.

Day 2: Couscous. Whenever I'm in a rush, this is my go-to grain.

Day 3: Scarlet Quinoa. A red version of the super healthy superfood? Yes!

Day 4: Israeli Couscous and Scarlet Quinoa Salad. Cook and easy, sign me up!

Day 5: Barley Salad. A new grain, one that I wasn't really sure how to cook, but nonetheless tasty! Agh, I keep spelling it barely, not barley. Oops o.O

Now onto a sweeter note....these Cranberry Almond Oatmeal Cookies. They're vegan and made with coconut oil! First off I want to say Coconut Oil smells AMAZING. No coconut body lotion could ever smell as good. It's not that fake coconut fragrance, but the true authentic coconut oil smell. I don't think I can do the smell justice, but trust me on this, it smells out of this world! Also, it makes a pretty darn good cookie. My dad said they taste more like oatcakes than cookies, but that's okay because he said they're still extremely tasty. I may have baked the cookies a little too long (hence their oatcake-like-texture) but they were really tasty. Even after baking they smelled and tasted faintly of coconut.

If I ever make a coconut or haupia cake (which I hope I will soon) I plan to use this coconut oil. Yup, I bet it will bump up the coconut flavor even more YUM! :) I also used the coconut oil to make some spelt pancakes. But sadly I didn't take any pictures. Darn, I should've taken some because they were pretty tasty. And by that I mean I inhaled those delicious hotcakes! I'll probably make another batch this weekend, so hopefully I'll take some pictures.

Oatmeal Raisin

Adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

Ingredients:

⅓ cup soy milk

2 Tbs ground flax seed

⅔ cup brown sugar

⅓ cup coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla

¾ cup flour

½ tsp cinnamon

⅛ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ cups quick cook oats

½ cup dried cranberries

 1/2 cup almonds, toasted and chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven 350˚F

2. Beat together soy milk and flax. Add sugar and oil. Beat until resembles caramel

3. Mix in vanilla

4. Sift in flour, spices, and salt. Mix in oats, cranberries, and almonds

5. Drop tablespoons onto a cookie sheet, flatten slightly

6. Bake for 10 minutes or until very lightly golden. (For firmer cookies / oatcake-like-texture, bake slightly longer until golden brown)

 Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review in return for the free product.

5 Days of Grains: Day 5!

At first I didn't know what salad to post. Should it be simple with only a few ingredients or complex with a myriad of veggies and grains. In the end, it came down to the time I had to make lunch the other day. The night before I made some barley. Actually, it was more like I just boiled some water with the barley, covered the pot, and left it overnight. When it came to lunch time, I just threw some chopped carrots, shelled edamame, spinach, squirt of olive oil, and a dash of salt. It took almost no time to make, and in a matter of minutes I was sitting down chowing down on grain salad. Maybe this wasn't the most complex salad, but it did use a new grain, barley!

5 Days of Grain Salads: Day 4

Are you guys tired of these grain salads? Don't worry, maybe I'll do a five days of cakes one of these days. Anyways, today's salad incorporates some of my mom's homegrown veggies. Actually, it only uses her spinach, but it counts, right? It's great having a spinach plant in my front yard because whenever I want to add a little green to my meal I can just pop outside, pick a couple of leaves, add it to my meal, and ta dah a delish meal with a little green.

The grain is this salad is Israeli couscous. I wonder why they call it that? Anyways, the individuals round spheres aren't like their non-Israeli couscous friends. Israeli couscous is larger, lighter in color (or is it just me?), and perfect spheres. Oh, and I added a little quinoa for that added effect!

5 Days of Grain Salads: Day 3

I'm not sure if you can tell, but edamame is one of my favorite components of a grain salad. It adds a punch of green, as well as tastes great. Sometimes I like to buy the unshelled soybeans and eat them as a snack. It's a perfect healthy snack (if you're not interested in something healthy, why not try these chocolate donuts?!) and tastes delish.

This salad is mainly comprised of two components: edamame and scarlet quinoa. I used to call scarlet quinoa red quinoa, but once I saw it called scarlet quinoa at a restaurant I just couldn't go back. Doesn't scarlet quinoa just sound so classy? It's like, "what are you eating?" "Why, I'm eating a scarlet quinoa salad". Classy? Yes!

5 Days of Grain Salads: Day 2

Day 2 of my 5 days of grain salads! Today's recipe is similar to yesterdays (this one also has edamame, chickpeas, and carrots), but it uses couscous in place of the quinoa. Couscous takes less time to make, so when I'm in a rush I like to make this salad rather than a quinoa or barely grain salad.

5 Days of Grain Salads: Day 1

To kick start the healthy aspect of this blog, I've decided to begin with 5 Days of Grain Salads. Yup, you read correctly, five consecutive days of only salads. No, not those leafy green ones. I'm not much of a raw leafy green kind of person, though I do like to gnaw on a carrot stick once in a while. Instead, these are grain salads. Not plain 'ol grains like pasta and white rice, but supposedly "healthy" grains like quinoa and couscous.

So, today is day 1 of 5 days of grain salads, and the first salad is a quinoa salad with edamame, carrots, split peas, and chickpeas a.k.a a rainbow salad! Just letting you guys know, I love to incorporate beans into my grain salads, especially edamame (which will probably show up in every salad). Enjoy!

4th of July Dishes

I was originally going to post a dish that's uber healthy, but I just remembered this weekend is 4th of July. So I thought I would post a couple 4th of July dessert ideas from other blogs. Things are going to be pretty quiet around here, considering the ban on fireworks and all. :( But that doesn't mean I can't have a bbq or make some delicious desserts, especially if they look like these ones:

 Red White and Blue Raspberry Candy Bars from Cherry Tea Cakes

Don't those just look amazing? The minute I saw these I dropped off the couch and headed towards the kitchen to make these. Turns out I didn't have enough time to make these before I had to leave. Oh well, maybe tomorrow and hopefully in time for 4th of July.

Fourth of July Jello Shots from Bakers Royale

I don't think I would use the vodka (minor, remember!), but they layering is absolutely gorgeous!

Pink, white, and light blue ice cream cake

He he he, I guess I should've put my picture first since it's the lamest....But it tasted pretty good! Plus, it's the only 4th of July dessert I had. 

Fruit salad from Whole Foods

If you're not in the mood to turn on the stove or oven, then why not try this fresh fruit salad. Plus, if you top with some freshly whipped cream (yum, btw) it will be a refreshing summer dessert!