Foodie

My friday started out with a smoothie and steel cut oats and half a banana and pb.

To save some time since we have a busy saturday of just "saturday stuff"- I am just going to highlight a few things...

I had Steamed Brussel Sprouts with green cabbage and some goddess dressing- Let me say, this was SO delicious! I actually had another bowl of this with some cheese on top!


I made another version of blondies based off on Veggie Girl's Fig Almond Blondies and also inspired by my not so greatest -latest version of Bourbon Blondies.

This batch came out very very tasty and very cake like. Here is the recipe I used:

** Adapted from Veggie Girl's Fig-Almond Blondies ( click to get her recipe)

(** which she had brilliantly adapted from the Raspberry-Almond Blondies recipe from Martha Stewart's cooking website**)

• 6 ounces nonfat greek yogurt (I used Trader Joes)
• 1/4 cup Smart Balance Oil
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup ( I don't have molasses but it is in the brown sugar so I decreased the maple)
• 1.5 cups flour (I used Organic Whole Grain All Purpose Flour)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup almonds, finely-sliced
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
  • Milk of choice, added to the batter as needed
  
  Get-It-Made:
  
  Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly coat an 8x8 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
  
  In a large bowl, add in the yogurt, oil, sugar, vanilla extract, and syrup. Mix well.
  
  In the same bowl, add in the flour, baking soda, sliced/slivered almonds, chocolate chips, and oats. As the mixture starts to thicken up/combine, add as much of the milk as you need (I used less than 1/4 cup) so that the batter is mixable.
  
  Pour mixture into the pan ( I used an 8 x 8 , coated generously with nonstick cooking spray).
  
  Bake for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the blondies comes out clean.
  
  The result:
  

I really liked this version but they did remind me more of coffee-cake. Still fabulously delicious, and yummy, but worth more experimenting to get to more of a blondie-texture....


Saturday Morning Breakfast:
Banana's Foster French Toast!

I had a comment ( Thanks Dori!) about this when I made it quite some time ago, you can check it out here at Banana's Foster Stuffed French Toast , so I remembered how good that was, and definitely was inspired to make it this morning.

Two slices with leftover egg mix scrambled. The "stuffing" is just a little Cabot Cottage cheese and cinnamon and bananas.

For "Banana's Foster" or also on here I refer to them as "fry pan bananas": I slice up the banana into a pan heated to medium. That is it- flip em after about 2 minutes. If the bananas are ripe enough ( not green at all, some brown spots)- Their sugars are more readily available. Thus, when you slice it into the pan- those sugars caramelize on the sides of the banana. You could of course add brown sugar and some rum to do a true "banana's foster". I prefer without because you get all that flavor and sweetness in a little bit healthier way.



Off to enjoy the weekend- Hope everyone has a great weekend and STAYS WARM!! It is 24* here! brrrr, but much better than -10 !

B_Healthy's Bourbon VeggieGirl Blondies

I completely support anyone who chooses or needs to be on gluten free diets, vegan, vegetarian etc. Even though I do not personally take part in any of these, I find VeggieGirl's creations quite spectacular. I find it even more spectacular because with those restrictions, I can imagine how very hard it can be to find foods or make foods that support it let alone be delicious! So I thought I would try out a delicious blondie recipe from VeggieGirl herself with some of my own adaptions to her adaptions!

I have been itching to make these and came home to realize I had no dried fruit, and almost out of frozen fruit! I had leftover heath toffee pieces from xmas baking. I also had leftover marshmallows from Chocolate Windows and rice krispie cereal, which will never get eaten! So I made LOTS of adaptions!

• ** Adapted from Veggie Girl's Fig-Almond Blondies ( click to get her recipe)
• (** which she had brilliantly adapted from the Raspberry-Almond Blondies recipe from Martha Stewart's cooking website**)
• 6 ounces nonfat greek yogurt (I used Trader Joes)
• 1/4 cup Smart Balance Oil
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons maple syrup ( I don't like or have molasses)
• 1.5 cups flour (I used Organic Whole Grain All Purpose Flour)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup almonds, finely-sliced
• 1 cup marshmallows
• 3/4 cup Crisp Cereal
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate toffee pieces
• Bourbon!! I had about 1 tablespoon left
  • Milk of choice, added to the batter as needed
  
  Get-It-Made:
  
  Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly coat an 7 x 11 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
  
  In a large bowl, add in the yogurt, oil, sugar, vanilla extract, Bourbon and syrup. Mix well.
  In the same bowl, add in the flour, baking soda, sliced/slivered almonds, marshmallows, krispie cereal, and toffee. As the mixture starts to thicken up/combine, add as much of the milk as you need (but not too much) so that the batter is mixable. ( Mine was very mixable/gooey if you will)
  
  Pour mixture into the pan ( I used a 9 x 13 by mistake but wish I had used a slightly smaller pan) (coated generously with nonstick cooking spray).
  
  Bake for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the blondies comes out clean.
  
  
  The result:
  
  Oooey Gooey delicious Blondies!
  I have no idea how they came out as delicious as they did! I feel as though mine were Kitchen Sink Blondies and Veggie Girls "base" is just a fantastic blondie recipe in general! I most certainly will make these again, but I will use a smaller pan ( that was in the directions I am just silly) and probably not use dried fruit and chocolate chips instead of the toffee/marshmallow.
  
  I will update the review tonight after Jeff's family have a taste...

Sunday Funday

Body:
I rested after we got home and I felt SO excited about monday morning and going to workout!

Mind:
So I read through several articles and have a few more sources/direction for my metabolism paper- Good news.. it only has to be 6 pages!!! So I really can focus on one particular topic- not sure if I want to do increased insulin resistence in skeletal muscle or Beta cell failure. ( which gradually gets worse and thus increases insulin resistence) . I think I might do both, but either way I feel much better about getting that done in a week and getting my other paper done in a few days, and getting my project analyzed for Dec. 5th.
Wow.

Soul:
Jeff looked over at me about 8:30 and declared that he wanted cookies ( we had been seeing cookie commercials on TV). So we both went into the kitchen to figure out what kind we could make.

We decided on blondies and we worked together so perfectly! It was so sweet and fun- This is him pouring the batter into the pan...

The Final Dish
mine with pumpkin butterI suggested I make salads to go with the cookies because I truly wanted a veggie-full salad after all that fried fish at lunch...

Best Salad Ever! Fresh bell pepper, a pickle, TJ American mix with romaine, carrots and raddichio (you can't see the edamame and egg whites for protein)

This was such a WONDERFUL Day! The fish we caught, baking blondies together, and after this we watched a movie together ( Jeff recorded it so we could watch it together from the beginning)
Transporter 2... it was pretty good and I havent even seen the first one... apparently there will be a third!