3 in 1

3 recipes in 1 post!

Amazing!

Aren't you excited??

Well... you should be!

I am.

Yesterday I whipped up a batch of Ultra Fudgy Brownies from Angela's Oh She Glows blog that she got from Sweet Freedom.

I swtiched up some of the ingredients though. The recipe calls for spelt flour, sucanat sugar, ground chia seeds or flax, and Himalayan sea salt.

Instead of spelt flour, I used 1 1/4 cup of gluten free All Purpose Baking Flour (Bob Red's Mill), brown sugar instead of sucanat, ground flax and just plain ol' salt.

For the complete recipe go HERE.

One word to describe these brownies--- AMAZING!!

I ate one today along with my lunch which was a bowl of Chia Cherry Pudding.

Yup, fat kid status.

Super delish though! I topped it with a tablespoon of equal parts almond butter to almond milk blended together and a drizzle of pure maple syrup.

Chia Cherry Pudding

Ingredients:

• 5-6 cherries, pitted
• 1 tbs. chia seeds
• 1/4-1/3 cup almond milk
• 1 tbs. blended almond butter (or regular)
• 1/2 tsp. pure maple syrup (optional)

Directions:

In a bowl add the cherries and lightly mash them up. Next add the chia seeds and milk, stir to combine. Cover and let sit overnight (if you are making these the night before) in the refrigerator or for 2-3 hours. Remove from fridge, stir the chia and cherry mixture to loosen up, if it's too thick add just about 1 tbs. worth of milk or water. Top with more cherries and the almond butter. Enjoy!

For the blended almond butter:

3/4 cup almond butter

3/4 cup vanilla almond milk (I used unsweetened)

Combine in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a container or the empty almond butter jar and store in refrigerator. 

**If you have more than a 3/4 of almond butter just make sure it's equal part ratio of almond milk to almond butter. 

I crumbled my brownie on top of my chia cherry pudding. YUM!

Lunch and dessert all in one! Score!

After enjoying my lunch outside, I walked around my backyard and took a few pictures.

It's FINALLY nice and sunny out! It's starting to finally feel and look like summer.

Tomato plant

Jack coming to see me

My baby booboos!

Today is a good friend of mine birthday, so I am saving the rest of my appetite for sushi dinner tonight! I can't wait to see everyone.

Oh and one last recipe!

Last night for dinner I made roasted balsamic eggplant and asparagus with quinoa. It's super easy to throw together and not to mention seriously good eats.

Roasted Balsamic Eggplant and Asparagus with Quinoa

Serves: 1

Ingredients:

• 1 small-medium eggplant 
• 5 stalks of Asparagus 
• 1/2 cup COOKED quinoa 
• Balsmaic 
• 1-2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil 
• salt and pepper to taste 
• garlic powder to taste 
• Small handful of spinach 

Directions: 
Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil. Set aside. Cut the egg plant into 3-4 slices, and 1/4 those slices and cut up the asparagus. Put into a medium bowl, drizzle with the olive oil, add the salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste, mix to combine. Add the eggplant and asparagus to the baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. Heat a medium size pan and add the 1/2 cup quinoa and spinach to heat through. Once heated through remove from stove and place the quinoa and spinach either on a plate or bowl. Once veggies are done cooking, remove from oven and add them to the quinoa and spinach mixture. Drizzle some balsamic over the top and garnish with some parmesan cheese (optional). Enjoy!

Chocolate Oat Bars and Stuffed Bell Pepper

Hello Ta-ta-Tuesday! (haha)







Went to class today and my campus finally has a Starbucks on site!! This made me very happy today because I absolutely love their Zen green tea. It's pretty much the only thing I get at Starbucks, hot and cold. Yuuuum.

When I got home from class today I put together some Chocolate Oat bars from a recipe I came across on Love Veggies and Yoga  and adapted it a bit. Super simple to put together and oh so yummy! My oat bars consisted of chocolate, almond butter, oats, chia seeds, agave nectar, raw almonds, dried cranberries and dried plums. I don't think I'll be able to eat these once I start my detox cleanse so I might as well now! Haha. (Don't kill me Jenna) I'm pretty sure if I nixed the chocolate out of these, I probably could. Right?? lol. I'll have to run it by Jenna. :)

Oooo wait!! All the ingredients except the chocolate chips are gluten free... bought at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. YEAAY!!

Okay, back to the making of the Chocolate Oat Bars:

First I melted the almond butter and chocolate in the microwave 

with 2 tablespoons of vanilla almond milk for about 30 seconds. 

Make sure to watch it so it doesn't burn. 

Then I added all my other dry ingredients in a bowl and poured the 

chocolatey goodness over. Stirred it all together to combine all the ingredients. 

You want this mixture to be fairly dry. If the mixture isn't dry enough add more oats one tablespoon at a time. Press the mixture into bars or into balls.

Pop in the freezer for about 30 mins, or until it has set up, and then enjoy! 

(After it sat in the freezer for a while.)

I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap then put them in a 

plastic zip top bag and back in the fridge.

Rice puffs would also work great with this. I'll have to try it out next time!

Here's the recipe for the Chocolate Oat Bars which I adapted a bit from Love Veggies and Yoga

Chocolate Oat Bars

Ingredients
1/2 cup of oats
2-3 tablespoons chocolate chips
2-3 tablespoons milk
*The ingredients listed below can be switched up and substituted with other items. :)
1 tablspoon chia seeds
~ about a handful of almonds
dried crandberries (eye ball it)
dried pitted plums, cut up.
~ 1 tablespoon agave nectar

Oh yea, and a stuffed bell pepper for dinner tonight. No biggie. ;-) It was a yellow bell pepper cut in half stuffed with quinoa, cut up red and orange bell pepper, spinach, mushrooms, and onions with garlic, salt and pepper (All the ingredients, minus the cut in half bell pepper, were cooked before stuffing the pepper). YUUUuummmmm! Threw it in the oven and baked it at 375 (preheat oven before hand!) for about 25-30 mins, or until the bell pepper is slightly soft but still somewhat firm.