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!

Eggplant burgers with Balsamic Veggies

It's Friiiiiday!!

The weekend is finally here!!

I don't have much planned for this Memorial Day Weekend. It definitely going to be a chill one, except for Sunday.

Ohhh I can not wait for Sunday! It's going to be a Sunday Funday outing with my girls and guys out to SF.  I'm not going to get into much detail about what we will be doing or going. I'll put up a post about it after we go!

I'll just tell you this one thing...

$7 bottomless mimosas.

Hells ya =)

To start my Friday off this morning, I had a bowl of hot oatmeal with a blob of almond butter and half of a banana cut up. It was super delish and filling. I was only able to eat half of it.

This was a 1/4 cup of oats, 1 tbs. ground flax with a 3/4 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, cooked on the stove top in a pan. Once cooked to my liking, I poured it into a bowl and topped with the bananas and almond butter.

I spent the majority of my day doing laundry... 5 loads to be exact. 

Ugh. I hate doing laundry... especially the folding and putting away. 

But I did it. Folded and put away.

That's only half of my closet! You can only imagine what the other half looks like, yikes! 

And yes, my closet is color coordinated. Makes it easier to find things!

I'm an Apple product FREAK! iMac, iPad2 and an iPhone. I also have their old iBook G4 that's not pictured. I'm a tech geek <3

Okay, back on track...

While I had laundry going, I got an early start on dinner. Well, I prepped the first half of it. I decided to make Eggplant burgers since I bought a large eggplant the other day. And since my dad wasn't going to be home for dinner, tonight was a perfect opportunity to make the eggplant burgers for my mom and I.

The first 2 paragraphs of the directions is what I prepared ahead of time and covered the bowl and placed into the refrigerator until I was ready to finish making them.

Eggplant Burgers

Ingredients:

One large eggplant

3/4 cup quinoa flakes (Bread crumbs would work as well. I suppose a GF oat flour, brown rice flour, ect. could work too. I'll have to try that next time.)

1/2 a medium onion chopped

1 Tbs. crushed garlic

1 cup cooked lentils (I used green)

1/2 cup cooked quinoa

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. dried sage

1 tsp. dried basil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. agave nectar 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and cover a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.

Remove the top of the eggplant and cut in half lengthwise. Place cut sides down onto your lined baking sheet. Place into the preheated 425 degree oven and bake for 25 minutes. The egg plant will be tender and somewhat sunken. Remove from the oven and place into a large bowl or dish. 

After the eggplant has had time to cool, dump any liquid and scrape the flesh away from the eggplant. Place the pulp or the insides of the eggplant into a food processor and pulse a few times until the mixture is a coarse puree. Place the mixture into a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients to it. Mix well to combine and let the mixture stand at room temperature for about 20 mins.

If you are preparing this ahead of time, cover the bowl with saran wrap and place into the refrigerator until you are ready.

Preheat oven again to 425 degrees and re-line the baking sheet with foil or parchment.

In a large non-stick pan, heat over medium to high heat and spray with cooking oil. Using a large soup spoon, scoop a pretty decent amount of the eggplant mixture and add to the pan. Flatten with the back of the spoon so the patties are about 3 inches wide and 1/2 an inch thick. I cooked 2 at time until they were lightly browned before carefully flipping them over to cook on the other side.

Remove and place on the lined backing sheet. Bake the eggplant burgers for 20 minutes in the oven until they are cooked through!

I served these along with some balsamic zucchini and orange bell peppers.

Enjoy!!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and Memorial Day! Lets take the time this weekend to thank our brave soldiers for all that they do and have done for our country!

XO Jen