friday foodzzzz

i'm not quite sure why i'm not sleeping right now... i've been up since 4am and it's past midnight.

body, we need to talk. insomnia is SO 2009.

i didn't toss and turn or anything. i was just up and at 'em at around 4 something. it was a good thing, however, because shortly after my little sister got up to leave for her spring break. she and her buddy are driving to tampa, florida!!! when i was 18, there was NO WAYYYYY my mom would have let me do that. but i'm happy for her :)

some of her swag i picked up from wf...

cashew cookie larabars, justin's maple almond butter (!), ener-g brown rice bread, and cream of buckwheat. you know, normal stuff.

to send her off right, i made her some banana bread millet:

½ c millet

1 reaaaaally ripe banana (not sad to see him go!)

3 prunes

1 packet stevia

1 c milk

sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg

splash vanilla extract

how I did it, and what you shouldn’t do
I toasted my millet in the bottom of my pot first. That was all well and good. But I got the crazy idea (hey, it was 5am!) that it would be a good idea to go ahead and boil the milk in the micro so I could just add it right to the toasted millet. Sounds good, right? Well apparently I’m the only one who didn’t know that hot pot + hot liquid = hot explosion on your countertop.

it does.

after I washed the milk foam from all over hell and back, I brought the millet back to a boil, then cut it down to simmer for years and years… ok, more like 25 minutes or so. She loved it, so that’s all good.

because i'm a terrible blogger before sunrise, no pic. but here's another egg wrap to add to my growing collection:

1/2 c egg whites, pinch salt and pepper, garlic and onion powder, sauteed mushrooms.

sex on a plate!

after breakfast, my mom and I were supposed to go on a walk in our nice weather (it got to 85 here in Richmond!!), but she didn’t sleep much either, so we rescheduled until tomorrow. I went to the gym and started reading some new james patterson book. I got about 5 pages in, got bored, and talked to my friend zach for the rest of the time on the elliptical. today was an easy cardio day, so not too worried.

upon my return, i promtly snacked my face off on what else? cottage cheese oats!

1/2 c cottage cheese

1/2 c old fashioned oats

packet stevia

1/2 tbsp liquid crack (a.k.a. white chocolate wonderful!)

also, i daily consume about 10932043 cups of this:

deeevinee.

I threw myself at the bed for an hour after eating. It was gooood...

Eventually I reemerged, then went to California pizza kitchen for lunch with the boy!

 I hadn’t been in ages, and I totally forgot to take a picture because I was so hungry! the line to get in was CRAAAZY long today because of the nice weather, and the boy and i were not pleased. I got the grilled vegetable salad…

credit-o. because i was too hungry.

omg – it’s heaven. It has pretty much every grilled veggie you could ask for! grilled corn, asparagus, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, and avocado. I didn’t even need salad dressing it was so good.

The boy and I shopped in urban outfitters and levi’s for a bit before he had to go back to work. I got a scarf!

And I wore it. Obviously.

... still squinting from that flash.

and i finally got to wear sandals!

After that, I pretty much sat inside on this gorgeous day like a bum.

But… I won my first giveaway!!! Tropical traditions coconut cream concentrate!

If you guys have any ideas on what to use it for, please share! Thank you to Stephanie!

Later, mom and my older sister and I got a girl’s night out! We graced Tara Thai with our presence.

 It was fantastic, as usual.

i ordered the plah goong - cashew shrimp in lime-chili sauce!

i get it everytime. i try so hard to pick something else, but it's just that good!

and now, food porno, friday style :)

we're pretty heavy drinkers, us three.

mine.

mom's.

kristen's.

sense a shrimp theme?

us too.

right before that, i was totally vanna white-ing my plate, but mom couldn't get the camera to work.

so now, i'm just cheesin'.

and my nightcap:

trader joe's berry blend, sprinkled with stevia.

so good frozen.

well i'm finally hittin' the sack. hope you guys had a great friday!

tomorrow i am going bikini shopping (eek!), then to a friend's house for a little pre-easter dinner.

i also have a post planned on soy... stay tuned :)

- r

cake wrecks

sometimes in the kitchen, you gotta make a few disasters before you appreciate a product that comes out gorgeous.
that is the story of my week this week. in fact, i got so frustrated i didn't hardly take pictures of my recipes. at all. but i will thrill you guys with the written word this week... :)



first recipe - made for my little sister who is allergic to practically EVERYTHING. she just got allergy tested again and discovered a few more things she needs to cut from her diet (namely: sesame seed, cinnamon, ALL grains + oats, and most nuts). she's actually the reason i started cooking (shoutout to my girl rach!), so i owe her thanks. her only request after ten years of eating as a nut-free celiac?  PIZZA!
p.s. - this was the ONE recipe this week that didn't fail.. but i've made it before! (cheating? nahhhh)

the gluten-free goddess's millet-buckwheat wraps 

(used as pizza crusts, i got 16 small crusts)

Whisk together the dry ingredients:
1 cup millet flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour (i used brown rice because i was out... oops)
1/2 cup arrowroot or tapioca starch
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon minced onion
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (i doubled this because we're garlic addicts)
1 teaspoon thyme
(i also added in a few spoonfuls of flax to bump up nutrition... maybe 3 tbsp?)

Add in:
3 tablespoons olive oil (i used two)
1 tablespoon honey or raw agave nectar
1/4 teaspoon light tasting vinegar (i used apple cider vinegar)
Ener-G Egg Replacer for 2 eggs whisked with 4 tablespoons hot water (i just used 2 eggs)
1 1/2 cups hot water
1/2 cup hemp milk (or non-dairy milk) (i used regular milk because she can have dairy just fine)


directions: beat the wet ingredients into the dry mix until the batter is smooth. It should look and feel like a thick pancake batter (though it appears strange and goopy at first, keep beating).

rebekah's directions: i heated up our pancake griddle and made these just like pancakes. the batter was reaaaaaally thick, but i wanted them to be to make a heartier crust. to make her pizza, i headed up our pizza stone, topped the "crusts" with her favorites, and baked them for about 10 more minutes. she loved them, and they are flexible enough to use as pitas for sammies!




second recipe - last weekend was my nephew's 4th birthday party! isn't he adorable?

my sister requested a mickey mouse cake for his party, so naturally i stepped in. i picked out a recipe i KNEW could never fail me... one from Smitten Kitchen! she's pretty much a baked-goods god, so how could i go wrong? i had made this SAME EXACT cake probably 938409324 times before, so i thought it would be fine. WELLLLLLL i had a hard time figuring out how many times i needed to double the recipe to have enough batter for mickey's two layers. as well as the two layers for BOTH ears... 6 cakes in all. seems like simple math, but with the different size cake pans... it wasn't so simple (at least, not to this nutrition major!). after multiple hours of getting pissed off at lava-cake, i ended up just making one big layer cake with mickey candles (with mom's LIFESAVING help! thanks mom!). my frustration aside, it tasted great, and logan was thrilled. so this is a half-fail.

deb's best birthday cake

(bastardized by storebought frosting)

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)

2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.


(the fail-lava cake part was no fault of deb's! love her! and logan handled the chocolate frosting juuuust fine)

happy 4th, lolo!

third recipe - once again, this was for my lovely little sister. she goes to swim practice in the mornings before school, so she needs a quick boost of energy she can cram in her mouth on the way out the door (at 5am!). i adapted this recipe a lot because of all her food allergies, but it would be delicious as-is (elena uses almonds, coconut oil, and tops it with chocolate (!!!)) the texture when i make them is similar to a larabar. the recipe wasn't a fail, but it took me about 65 times as long as it should have because my brain apparently decided to VACATE my head and i kept forgetting where i put things, measuring wrong, etc. so really i was the fail!

Gluten-Free Cashew Power Bars

(original recipe from elena, adapted by yours truly)

2 cups trader joe's salted cashews
2 tbsp hemp seed
2 tbsp chia seed
½ cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
½ cup cashew butter
½ cup almond oil (i wish i had coconut oil!)
1 packet stevia
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vanilla extract


1. process cashews, seeds, shredded coconut, and cashew butter in a food processor for 10 seconds
2. gently melt almond oil in microwave, then mix with stevia, honey, and vanilla
3. add melted oil mixture to food processor and pulse until ingredients form a coarse paste
4. chill in refrigerator for hour, until mixture hardens up some
5. spoon heaping tablespoons into plastic wrap, portion, and freeze until snackin' time :)

elena suggests it makes 20 bars, but i got 14 good portions out of this. gluten-free, nutritious, tastes like cookie dough, and around 200 calories. perfect in the mornings with a banana out the door.

in the end... this was NOT a fail! :)

after a LONG recipe recap and blogger absence, i present to you: the EATS!

kashi bar - eaten on the run to logan's party. i bought these for my sugar-junkie dad a while ago in an attempt to help him manage his blood sugar. i think he thought they were ok, but not sweet enough.

duh.

i kinda thought the opposite - they just tasted like nuts and oats glued together with sugar to me. but i'm not a big bar fan. other than larabar = love.

mama and i at the party, after cutting the DRAMATIC FAIL cake (see above).

we're both pretty wiped out.

and now,

i have a confession to make. i have an obsession. it's a healthy one! sorta. but when is an obsession ever healthy? isn't that the definition of obsession is that it's not a healthy relationship!?!

ah, i digress.

y'all, i'm obsessed with egg wraps. like, no joke. i cannot get enough. i eat one everyday! i would eat more than one if i could affort to buy all those cartons of egg whites from costco.

love love love.

here's one...

with my new peach and mango salsa! more on that tomorrow.

and with avocado... omg.

with salt, pepper, and laughing cow garlic and herb flavor.

'gasm.

as the lovely miss katie would say... the money shot.

prob with laughing cow and garlic powder.

why not!?

and another obsession/habit/love of mine:

cottage cheese, stevia, and annie's graham bunnies.

my version of cookies and cream ice cream (my absolute fave when i ate sugar)

love them.

and a really REALLY dumb question:

what the heck is this???

i bought it at whole foods SOLELY because i had no idea what it was. it rang up "mango" on the receipt, but i've never seen a yellow mango? the only one i've ever seen here in va is the green/reddish mangoes, but i may just be an ignorant fool.

that's highly likely, actually....

the only thing i know is that it tasted incredible. like i-wanna-snack-my-face-off incredible. fruit from heaven!

phew! and lastly:

QUESTION FOR YOU BEAUTIES!

when you make a recipe and it fails, what do you do? quit? try again? revamp/modify the recipe? pick a different recipe!?

- r

i'm already a bad blogger, and old favorites revisted

hey all!
i have a confession to make - i'm already a bad blogger. in my first week.
i'm already forgetting to take pictures! i was doing so well too.

so, today i am going to exercise my literary voice and thrill you guys through the written word. deal?

eats eats eats (all that really matters, right?)

yesteeeddaaayyyy - i had the BEST food today, and wish i had good pictures!

here's first breakfast:

amazing tj's sourdough bread with biggest loser protein mixed with hot water to make....

CHOCOLATE SAUCE! make. this. now. please.

i also had two fig and cashew laraballs (my effort to eat raw foods!)

i did a quick back, lower back, and abs strength training sesh, followed by a little biking workout (to stretch from monday's killer lifting).

second breakfast: blueberry/raspberry/flax smoothie.... om nom nom. then i grabbed a handful of slivered almonds on the way up to shower.

 

i did well until this point. mom and i went to tjmaxx looking for her china and then to whole foods for lunch (!!!). i even got excited about getting to take food bloggie pics at wf but i forgot to! mom and i were chatting too much.

buutttt - i had the vegan black bean soup (my fave!) and some roasted curried eggplant and tomatoes. heaven.

 

for second lunch i had a whole wheat wrap the size of my head stuffed with the last of my roasted veggies from sunday. booooooooooo i hate it when i eat all my good food. i poured about half a bottle of salsa in with it. for good measure and stuff.

 

i also roasted quinoa to add to my sister's gluten-free granola, but forgot to take pictures, obviously. it was pretty good, but i need a dehydrator (helllooo manufacturers? help a sister out!??). i have a growing list of things i want to put in there (that's what she said).

 

and because clearly you guys don't know what my salads look like, here you go. more pictures.

 

(photo cred goes to mom.)

ok. so i had a dilemma. after my salad i was full, but i hadn't eaten near enough calories (for more on this, check out yesterday's post). so i waited a few hours, and made myself a peanut butter banana smoothie. still hadn't had enough, but i was closer, and did something good for my body.

and for today's goodies:

- carrot cake oat bran! very kath of me, no? it was heaven! 1/3c oatbran, water to cover, grated carrot, and two chopped up fig laraballs (instead of raisins - i like figs better, and hello they had cashews in them!). after cooking i mixed in some cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, and ginger. oh babyyy.

- i was still INCREDIBLY sore today but had planned on jogging some (trying to get back to running in time for spring weather!). i ended up walking and jogging intervals while talking to my buddy zach.

when i go home, i ate the last half of the pear from the other day, even though it was brown. kinda glad i didn't take a picture of this one.

question time! do you guys ever eat something even though it looks gross? what?

i usually don't eat pasta in public for this very reason... except I'M the one that looks gross, not the pasta!

- after my shower, i ate some quinoa i made yesterday with s & p, along with my new favorite tea,

bigalow's vanilla chai tea.

DRINK THIS!!! it tastes like graham crackers and vanilla ice cream.... but it's tea! apparently they have vanilla caramel, and i'm not sure how i don't own ALL the boxes of that. like last year.

ANYWAYS

- then i went to chipotle for lunch with a friend.

cred: chipotle website

i was super honored because he asked me to do a little nutrition consultation with him. how cool is that? sometimes i feel frustrated because nutrition is one time i know the answer to questions people have, but i don't want to step on anyone's toes, so i sit quietly (WHEN I COULD BE HELPING!!). not that i know all the answers, but i am passionate enough to find the answer if i don't!

and yes, i'm aware i forgot to take pictures. but it's ok, because as much as i adore chipotle, today i wasn't thrilled with what i ordered. honestly, i think it's because i'm so spoiled by my salads that nothing else measures up.

do you guys have something you crave you can make better at home?

- i had the veggie salad with black and pinto beans, roasted veggies (which were AMAZING!), and two salsas, over romaine.

- when i got home, i had a veggie wrap for the 1039840234th day in a row, but i added in trader joe's raw almond butter. i LOVE this stuff!

i'm trying to eat a lot more raw foods since i've cut out meat, and this stuff is the best. anyone else eat nut butter with veggies? AND the jar is almost empty so i can officially be a blogger and make OIAJ!

- since you guys know what oats look like, i didn't take a picture of my second bowl of oatmeal for the day, but can i just say how AMAZING IT WAS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

i am in the middle of transferring to mostly plant-based eating right now, but i was really craving egg, and i hadn't had any in days. i just used 1/2c rolled oats, pinch of salt, pinch of stevia, shake of cinnamon, and added in a serving of liquid egg whites, and holy cow it was bangin!

FOODIE REVIEW: KIRKLAND SIGNATURE

from costco website.

i can't believe i'm saying this, but i never liked the trader joe's egg whites. they just kinda held my veggies together in my omlette. no flavor or texture, really.

BUT THESE BABIES ARE HEAVEN.

really. i added them to my oats and it was the BEST oats i have ever had. ever. and i've eaten a lot of oatmeal! they are thick and creamy, and have the richness of egg yokes. even though they aren't. strange.

stats:

Serving Size 1/4 cup (2oz)

Amount Per Serving
Calories from Fat 0
Calories 30
% Daily Values*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 115mg 5%
Total Carbohydrate 1g 0%
Dietary Fiber 0g 0%
Sugars 0.5g
Protein 6g

Vitamin A 15% Vitamin C 0% Calcium 2% Iron 6%

i often add egg whites into my oats after cooking to add protein without fat before my workouts, but this took it to a new level. i want to eat this everyday.

vegans, any help here? any alternatives?

as of right now, that's all my eats, but i'm getting sushi tonight with a beautiful friend of mine, so you know they'll be more!!!!

i hope you guys enjoyed your day, and here's my questions again:

1) do you guys ever eat something even though it looks gross? what?
2) do you guys mix nut butters with veggies/savory foods? or just with fruit and toast?
3) vegans/vegetarians, how did you guys go through your transitions? what were your challenges?

happy hump day!
- rebekah