Homemade Lara bars!

In my quest to keep myself from eating every cookie on the planet, I am trying to find some things that I can eat that have ultra-nutrition as well as enough sweetness to conquer the cookie monster that lives inside the Mad-Art Teacher!  I have had some wonderful suggestions from my good friend Tanya over at The Sunday Baker.  The one that is linked here is to the 2 flavors of Lara bars that I made tonight.

I have come across quite a few reasons lately to buy myself a new food processor, so I did this past weekend.  YAY!  I was thrilled with the way it works, it wasn't super expensive, and isn't super big, so it will work out well, once I figure out where to put it.  This recipe was one of the prime motivators that led me to this purchase.  I hope it lasts for a while!

I made the same 2 flavors that Tanya had blogged on her site, because you know, chocolate and peanut butter-- it just doesn't get any better than that!  The ingredients in these bars are very simple and are just plain good food.  The dates have no added anything- no sugar, no anything, just like the raw almonds, cocoa and peanut butter.  The chocolate bars have some mini-chocolate chips in them, but I certainly can live with it!  :)  The calorie count for these is around 150 for an eighth of the recipe.  The peanut butter ones are slightly more than the chocolate.  I have just gone ahead and doubled the recipe that Tanya had posted. I want to make enough to have in the frig or freezer.

This is a messy little process and it is hard to get pretty pictures- so forgive me!

Break out your food processor kids and let's get going!!

First- take your dates and blend them into a paste in the processor.  Remove them from the machine, and put the almonds in.  Process them until you have  finely chopped nuts but not powder!  At this point for the chocolate ones, you add the cocoa to the nuts and blend.

Blend the dates

Add the nuts and chocolate mini chips  to the dates and mix. I found that really you should just forget about a spoon and use your (washed) hands.  Press into a pan or dish, refrigerate and cut into pieces.

For the Peanut Butter ones, process the dates, vanilla and natural peanut butter together and then process the almonds and mix into the date mixture.  SIMPLE!  and REALLY good!

Chocolate Lara Bars

1 cup unsweetened dates
1/2 cup raw almonds
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Process the dates in a food processor until it is a paste.  Remove from machine and set aside.

Process the almonds in the processor, finely ground, but not a powder and add cocoa powder and blend.  Pour nut mixture and mini chips into dates and mix (with your hands works well).  Press into flat dish, refrigerate and cut (into 3 large or 6 - 12 small, depending on how big you want them.

Peanut Butter Lara Bars

1 Cup of dates
6 Tablespoons natural peanut butter (no added sugar or salt)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup raw almonds (or another raw nut- cashews, peanuts, walnuts, etc.)
Process the dates, peanut butter and vanilla.  Remove and set aside
Process the nuts and add to dates.  Press into flat dish or pan, refrigerate and cut into pieces.

 If you want to see prettier pictures of the finished bars, go to Tanya's blog.  My chocolate ones were pretty pathetic this time! They didn't hold together as well as hers did, but that is not going to stop me from eating them!  :)

ENJOY!!


****Tanya also makes an awesome oat ball "cookie" that is out of this world! And so many variations.
Here is a link to one of the variations- lots of possibilities there!

Fruit Salad and Muffins!

I have been doing a little cooking and baking lately. I have been trying to make things that only involve a small amount of heat, however, considering the weather and all.

So, over at the Sunday Baker, my dear friend Tanya recently made berry muffins that were flourless.  Now, I have nothing against flour, really, bread type things are a serious weakness of mine!  But these sounded really good, especially considering it has so many wholesome, clean ingredients in them.  The other thing I made was a Quinoa Fruit Salad.  This is prime fruit season and I have recently been on a quinoa kick.  Quinoa is a grain that has a lot of protein in it, and it is different and blends well with a lot of flavors.  And the dressing of lime, honey and mint sounded so refreshing, had to try it out.

Ingredients include applesauce, maple syrup, fruit and oats.  I opted not to use the white chocolate chips that is in the original recipe

I used 2 whole eggs for the extra protein

MY FAVORITE breakfast item in the world!!!

Mix all ingredients except for the fruit

 I found a cool, easy way to skin a single peach or two.  MICROWAVE 3 cups of water until it is boiling, about 4 minutes.  Drop the peach into the water and leave it in there for about 3 minutes.  Remove from water and slip the skin.  I found when I did the second one that you need to reheat the water to boiling again.  2 peaches makes about 1 cup.

Slip the skins form the peaches

Divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups

Bake until golden

Peach Oat Muffins

This recipe has oats, applesauce, yogurt and maple syrup as the main ingredients.  You can change the flavor of the muffins by changing the yogurt and fruit!!  Tanya's muffins --HERE-- are berry, I had peaches and peach yogurt so that was an easy decision!

2-1/2 c. quick or old fashioned oats

1 (6 oz.) container Chobani (or other brand) Greek Yogurt

1/2 c. pure maple syrup

1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce

2 eggs

1-1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder

1 c. chopped peaches (or other fruit)

  

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners. In a food processor, add all of the ingredients except for the peaches (berries). Pulse until it becomes a thick, malt-like batter. Pour into a mixing bowl.  You can also mix the whole thing in a mix master.

2. Stir in the fruit, reserving a small amount to add to the tops for a pretty touch, if desired. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling almost to the top.

3. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a soft golden color. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to cooling racks. 

I put these in the refrigerator overnight and they are YUMMO cold with a glass of almond milk for breakfast....

Quinoa Fruit Salad

This fruit salad was originally posted at one of the blogs I follow, called Two Peas and their Pod.  They have some really great food on here, worth a look to see!  I pinned it on Pinterest recently, and there was a lot of people interested in how it turned out.  It was really tasty. 

The dressing for this salad is simple, honey, lime and mint.  SO good, so refreshing.  I used agave syrup as I had no honey- weird but true.  Agave syrup is great too!  It is after all the made from the same  plant as my buddy 1800

Red quinoa- simple to make in the microwave

Dressing with mint and lime

Fresh Fruit-I used peaches strawberries and blueberries

Fruit with quinoa underneath

Lovely with a little mint garnish

 Quinoa and Fresh Fruit Salad with Honey Lime Dressing

1 cup of red Quinoa- cooked according to box directions.  Rinse several times first.  Will make 2 - 3 cups of the grain, cooked.

Fresh fruit of your choice- about 3 cups total.  Can add more.

Honey-lime-mint dressing:

3 Tablespoons honey (I used agave syrup)

1 lime, squeezed

2 Tablespoons fresh mint

Stir together dressing ingredients.  Add fruit to quinoa and dress the salad.  Tastes wonderful right away or the next day when the flavors blend a little.  You could halve the recipe for a small family.

2 more great ideas for a vegetarian way of eating- or not!  

2 more joyful things to make!!

Where to start..... (Quinoa salad)

I've got a lot of posts lurking in me!  There is one for the Olbrich gardens in Madison, my trip to Eden Prairie, an elf door, some yummy foods, oh my goodness, lots of things!!

I have had a really good June so far, so many little things I have done and seen.  People I have visited and talked to ....  I am wallowing in the joys of summer.  I want to enjoy some time at home now, I have a lot of work to do around the house, but don't want to spend my days stuck in here.  So, I am trying to strike a balance of doing useful things and doing joyful things.... and doing healthy things.  Today, I went for a 4 mile run, edited a boatload of pictures, cleaned up my hallway and made the piano accessible.  woo hoo!  Plus I made a nice quinoa salad for myself- so that is where I am going to start!

I have some time now, and since I have been eating vegetarian for the past 2 months I need to figure out some things to make for myself.  While in the Twin Cities, I went to a Whole Foods Store (for the first time ever) with a "Loseit" friend of mine and we bought a few salads for lunch after a nice walk around Lake Harriet.  There were a badillion vegetarian choices and it turns out that Whole Foods posts their recipes online!  Which is awesome, and I will make something from that website soon.  The point is that I was inspired to go online and search for some salad recipes and found a bunch that I posted to Pinterest.

I use Pinterest as a way to save things that I find online.  I am trying not to save the most sweet, decadent sounding things found on the face of the earth, I am trying to stay in the mostly healthy mode. I found this and adapted it to some of the things I had on hand and for my tastes at the moment.

Grilled Zucchini Greek Style Quinoa Salad

I happened to have zucchini on hand, and a friend of mine had just told me about Greek seasoning, which I had picked up last week.  So, this recipe was a good place to start.  I cut up some red peppers and zucchini, rubbed them with a little olive oil and sprinkled with Cavender's Greek seasoning.  I put them on my electric grill- unfortunately had a couple of them fall through the grate (grr) but managed to save the vast majority of the veggies!

Grilling the veggies

Meanwhile, I had started the cooking process for the quinoa! Our local supermarket has the kind of quinoa that you do not have to rinse first, it is prerinsed.  Yay.  I love quinoa, it reminds me of brown rice and is so easy to make and so good.

While those were all cooking I cut up tomatoes, added the olives, feta and chopped celery and mixed them with some light balsamic vinaigrette, with an extra splash of balsamic!

Ingredients for fabulosity

After the veggies were lightly grilled, I cut them into pieces and added them to the vinaigrette mixture, and chilled the whole thing for a short time.  I also took a serving of finished quinoa and chilled it as well.  I know I should have made the whole thing earlier, but hey!  I didn't feel like it before- I was cleaning!  OK??!!

The "Greek" zucchini salad

Ingredients:

1 medium zucchini
1 red pepper
Cavender Greek seasoning (or any Greek seasoning)
Olive oil

Olives
celery
feta cheese (I used black pepper flavor)
cherry tomatoes
Balsamic vinaigrette
Balsamic vinegar

Quinoa

Cook Quinoa according to directions.  I make extra to have on hand.

Rub cut peppers and zucchini with olive oil and sprinkle with Greek seasoning.  Lightly grill, flip veggies, grill some more.  Until the veggies are to the consistency you like.  Cut into bite size pieces.

Mix you choice of ingredients for the salad- I used olives, celery, feta, tomatoes....  cucumbers bother my stomach, so I don't use them.  They would be great in this though!!  Marinate for a short time in vinaigrette.  I used balsamic, because I luuuuuuuuuv it, but you might prefer a more traditional one.  It would be a little more tart, which is fabulous, but I had this on hand and it was divine.

I spooned some quinoa in a bowl, stuck it in the frig to chill and then topped it off a little later with a couple scoops of salad.  YUM!!

Approximately 400 calories using about 3/4 cup quinoa.

THIS was good!  I would like it with a more tart Italian dressing or I might make my own next time.

While I like the simple food I usually eat, this kind of thing makes me very happy!  You might say it gives me a lot of joy!




***  I always think of my favorite friend/food blogger when I make healthy things like this!  A shout out to my buddy Tanya at The Sunday Baker- you girl, are a big inspiration for me!  Her blog is so worth checking out!!

Just Peachy!

It has been a busy few days here of birthday month!  One of the things that I have been really busy doing is dealing with a couple boxes of peaches.  Actually it was more like 4 boxes of peaches, as my dear friend Jane and I canned up all 4 of them.

Nice apron, right??  Lol

Every July a truck arrives in good old Park Falls from Georgia, laden with peaches and this year, blueberries as well!  I have  been participating in this event for the last 2 years.  It yields some wonderful fresh tasting fruit that we really enjoy during the long, cold winters up here.  Totally worth the 4.5 hours of work that it involves.

The day began with me arriving at the Strand summer kitchen, a lovely place to hang out.  Jane and I had a great time catching up on the events of our lives during the past 4 weeks.  We had picked up the fruit and laid them out on a rack for nice even ripening.  

Jane beginning to scald and peel peaches, you can see racked peaches behind her.

We used her super fast dishwasher to clean and sterilize the jars- nice!  This is a super nice space to work in, so well organized and so easy to clean!  Very Jane!  Jane did the peeling and halving, I filled the jars, made the syrup (very lightly sweet), put on the lids and loaded them into the waterbath.  It sounds like I did a lot, but really the peach peeler did most of the work!  

Clean and sterilized jars ready to go

Cutie pie!  

Great space to work

Peaches almost ready for their boiling water bath!

A finished pot of peaches.

Some of the finished jars.  

I think we ended up with at least 45 jars of peaches.  I'll have to check for the final count.  We began the process about 9:30 and finished up a bit after 2.  It was a great day.

Then last night I made this:

Blueberry/Peach cobbler

Blueberry Peach Cobbler
From Cooking Light magazine

Preheat oven to 375

5 pounds of peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced
2 T. lemon juice
1 cup sugar/divided
3/8 tsp salt, divided
6.75 ounces flour (about 1.5 cups), plus 2 T.
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c. buttermilk
2 cups blueberries
2 Tablespoons turbinado sugar

Place peaches in bowl, toss with lemon juice, then 3/4 cup sugar,1/8 tsp salt, and 2 T flour.  Pour into 13 x 9 pan that was sprayed with cooking spray

Mix flour, baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt in bowl and mix.  Cream butter and 1/4 c. sugar in large bowl, beat until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mix well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla.  Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to butter mixture. just until combined.  Stir in blueberries.

Pour over peaches, even out, and sprinkle on turbinado sugar.  Place dish on foil lined rimmed baking sheet (in case of boil over) and place in oven.  Bake about 1 hour until topping is browned.

12 servings, approximately 303 calories for 3/4 cup

It is divine!!


Until next time, be a joy GIVER!!  And it helps to hang out with other joy givers as well!!  Right Jane?  :)

By the way, if you want to see a blog with REALLY great recipes, go to The Sunday Baker!  Tanya is a wonderful cook, writer, blogger and friend.  Check it out here!

Mother Nature, I'd like to have a word with you...

I am not the Mad Art Teacher today, or gardener or anything else- I'm just MAD.

What can you say about a day like this?  It is not like this is a big surprise- we know that winter in Wisconsin goes on for EVER, and does not like to relinquish its strangle-hold on us easily.  We frequently have big snow storms at the end of March, but come on!!  After all the work that went into this play (and all the little bumps we've had along the way THIS year), you'd think we could get in that last practice.  Certainly the stage-crew, lighting and sound effects people needed this practice!  Ach. I guess you should never taunt Mother Nature.  Yes, I taunted.

And this is what I got-

Oh Lola, you should not be subjected to another day like this!  I think winter has gone on long enough.

Lola is cold

Now before you feel sorry for poor Jacpot here, I want you to know he stands NEXT to his barn in the snow.  He can go in at any time he chooses!  He is not frozen, he is not upset- well, he was upset that I took an extra hour before I went out to feed him.  Looks like he had a tough night!  Lol, he was running around when he saw me.  He got an extra flake of hay for his troubles.

Really bad hair day

I think it is time to put the bitterness behind and start to enjoy the snow day!  Cookies?  Hmm, Tanya (The Sunday Baker) posted a great recipe just the other day.  Soup?  I have those pink lentils that I had been searching for, time to give those a soup pot to live in. PLANTS???  I have a "chicken gizzard" plant that needs cuttings made and transplanted.  That sounds like fun!  Wow, maybe the Mad Gardener is around!  Obviously the Mad Photographer is always here, and the Baker may be making an appearance.....

What am I still doing on the computer??  It is time to make the best of it!

So, until next time... be a joy giver!  Enjoy your inner snow day!  :)