Category Archives: food

Recipe: breakfast “cookies”

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Untitled

I came across this recipe (most likely on Pinterest), and I decided to give it some tweaks…it has quickly become one of my favorite things.

The original recipe has no sugar, as it uses mashed bananas. I eat bananas, but I don’t really enjoy banana bread, so I decided to replace them. As such, I did add a bit of sugar. I’m sure you could use your sweetener of choice (or none, if you prefer).

1 1/2 cups regular rolled oats
1/3 cup brown sugar (I like dark brown)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
a healthy amount of ginger, cloves, and nutmeg (to taste)
1/4 cup of ground flaxseed
1/2 cup mixed nuts, finely chopped (I used sunflower seeds and pecans)
1 cup dried fruit (I used 1/2 chopped apple bits, and 1/2 craisins)

*the original recipe called for a cup of coconut flakes. I don’t care for coconut, so I just left it out and tossed in a little extra of each ingredient. I also added a few scoops of protein powder.

2 eggs
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
around 6 tablespoons nut butter (I used natural almond and peanut. also, this measurement is not very precise.)
1/4 cup coconut oil (original recipe uses canola. there are lots of possibilities here)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together. Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Pour over dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

To bake these, I lined a regular-size muffin tin with cupcake liners and scooped in the batter evenly. Since these are thicker than the “cookies” in the original recipe, I bake for about 25 minutes. Of course, that may vary depending on your oven.

I used this chart to determine what to replace the bananas with. (I put the eggs in since I am not a vegan, and I have trouble getting enough protein.)

30 Day Challenge-Day 5

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Favorite Food

Again, I’m not sure I can come up with a single favorite food…so I’m going to post about two of my favorite meals. These are things I will never pass up an opportunity to eat!

#1 Chicken Muglai at Taste of India (or India Gate)

I *always* have it with naan. Sometimes, I get appetizers…I especially like the paneer pakora and alu tikki. Yum…I’m getting hungry just thinking about it! Indian tea makes a great addition to the meal as well.

#2 Bulgogi (barbecued beef) at Woo Chon Korea House in Williamsville

bulgogi_image_final

I like to get the mandoo gui (dumplings) as an appetizer, even with all the other stuff they bring out!

Photos (late!)

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Oopsy. This is what happens…I get lazy. 😉

valentine's cupcakes

I made cupcakes yesterday, just because. They’re devil’s food with homemade cream cheese frosting (colored pink) and finished with a cinnamon imperial heart in the middle. I sent them to work with Rand.

Also, I finally posted this in my etsy shop:

yellow scrabble journal

$10 plus shipping, if you’re interested!

Weekend wrap-up

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Grades are done! Whew!

Apart from the grading, this past weekend was fairly mellow. Friday night, Rand and I went out for dinner at Danny’s on Genesee Street. We like Danny’s. It’s comfortable and homey and they make really good food. I had an excellent fish fry.

Saturday, we met up with Dave Huth and another friend from Houghton–they had come to Buffalo to do some errands and we met them for a long lunch at taste of India. They all had the buffet, but I went with the Chicken Muglai. Unfortunately, I don’t think I got what I ordered. It wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t taste right.

When I wasn’t grading, I was working on various crafty projects (some of them are Christmas presents–shhh!) and even doing a tiny bit of baking:

toffee bar cookies

I went in search of a recipe using Heath bits, which I bought last time I went shopping. I found this. I thought, that sounds good, but I think it needs some chocolate. So I melted chocolate chips and spread them over the top while they were still hot. (drizzling proved to be unproductive.) I have to say, they’re quite tasty, and really easy!

HEATH BIT BARS

Recipe By : RADIS BGMB90B
Serving Size : 48 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Bar cookies

1 cup Butter
1 cup Brown sugar
1 Egg yolk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 cups Flour
1 package Heath bits — (6 oz) divided
1/2 cup Pecans — finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With mixer, cream butter well; blend in sugar, egg yolk and vanilla. By hand mix in flour, 2/3 cup Heath bits and nuts. Press into ungreased 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 ” jelly roll pan. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle remaining Heath Bits over top. Cool slightly but cut while still warm.

I got my grades done and entered yesterday, so yay. I also got all but one last batch of Christmas cards out…the rest will go out tomorrow. I ran out of stamps. 😉

Happy 6-days-till-Christmas everyone!

Thursday Thoughts

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Gonna be a short one tonight…it’s been a long day. Here it is, in bullet-point form.

A couple of wedding-related things, first:

  • My Skechers came yesterday, and now that I’m seeing them in person, I think they’re too dark. They’re more beige than the off-white they appeared in the picture. They do come in white…not that my dress is white, either, but I think the white might be a better match. I dunno, thoughts?
  • Also, I was browsing etsy yesterday for jewelry, and I found these pretty things. (That sort of mauve-rosy color is what I’ve been thinking about…)

Let’s see…what else…

  • The first marking period ended on Friday, so the last couple of days have been busy with entering grades and report card comments and the like. Report cards allow us to give up to two comments. There were one or two kids I wished I could give about ten. 😉
  • Lately, I’ve been completely addicted to the Italian Wedding Soup from Wegmans.
  • I’ll be attending the World’s Largest Disco next week, and I have secured myself an appropriately heinous dress to wear. What I do not have is appropriately heinous shoes. Any suggestions? (the dress is silver)

Busy (but fun!) weekend

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Rand and I had another busy weekend…first, our friend Randy came into town Friday night for a wedding on Saturday morning. We took him out to one of our favorite restaurants: Woo Chon Korea House. (We refer to it as Korean barbecue)

korean barbecue

All the tables along one side of the restaurant have grills set into them, and you cook the food right on the table! We always order the same thing: bulgogi (marinated beef) and duk bulgogi (marinated chicken). They’re served with big leaves of lettuce and rice. You wrap the meat in the lettuce (with some rice, if you like) and enjoy. It’s not graceful, but it is delicious!

You also get a variety of side dishes:

side dishes

This usually includes several types of kimchi, and various things I can’t name. 😉 Some of them, I like…others, not so much.

Yum, yum, yum.

After dinner, we exposed Randy to the wonder that is Patton Oswalt. Patton is hilarious. His standup is fresh and original, and I never get tired of watching/listening to him.

In the morning, I made a quick run over to the new farmer’s market in Williamsville, and picked up these:

fresh berries!

Mmm…perfect for the strawberry shortcake I’d promised for Samantha’s get-together.

We went out for breakfast, and then Randy headed off to the wedding. (I don’t know if they’ll see this, but congrats to the happy couple!)

I finished reading the Buffy Omnibus that Rand brought home for me last week, then got busy cleaning strawberries and making shortcake.

Around dinnertime, we headed over to Samantha’s. It was a nice, relaxing party with good food and good music. Dinner was hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill (with various side dishes), with several dessert options. John made yummy brownies, someone brought an ice cream cake, and then there was my strawberry shortcake.

shortcake fixin's

shortcake!

It’s my opinion that “real” strawberry shortcake is made with a biscuit, not a cake. (I use Bisquick.) And I whipped the cream myself! I used to be lazy and do Cool Whip, but there’s nothing like fresh whipped cream. *drool*

You can see more photos from the party at Samantha’s blog (the post I linked above!).

Oh, and a happy (belated) Canada Day to all my friends up north. 🙂

Peanut butter review

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There doesn’t seem to be any specific target date for the return of Peter Pan Peanut Butter to store shelves. The last release I saw said it would be at least June…and so, rather than mope, I set off on a quest to find an acceptable substitute.

The first thing I did was try the other two of the “big three”–Skippy and Jif.

(all flavors are creamy. I’m a creamy peanut butter kind of gal.)

Skippy has a good flavor. It’s peanutty and not too sweet. It is, however, a little on the thick side.

Jif is sweeter than both Peter Pan and Skippy, and it has a different flavor. This flavor, I’ve since learned, is from the molasses they add to the peanut butter. I don’t mind the flavor, but I find Jif’s consistency to be its main drawback. It’s thinner than the other peanut butters, and I think that’s what I like least about it.

Rand brought home some Jif w/honey, which isn’t bad.

Reese’s Peanut Butter has a good flavor and consistency, but it’s a little on the expensive side.

Smucker’s Natural peanut butter is actually quite tasty. It has the drawback of, well, being an all-natural peanut butter. You have the oil separation-stirring thing, and the refrigeration thing…making spreading this on anything nearly impossible. It’s great for eating off a spoon, or using in recipes that call for natural peanut butter.

So far, though, I’d have to say that the blue ribbon of peanut butters that aren’t Peter Pan has to go to Skippy Natural“.  It’s not natural in the same sense that the Smucker’s is–it has sugar and palm oil added, but it doesn’t have any hydrogenated oils or other chemical/artificial ingredients. It’s peanuts, sugar, palm oil and salt. It has a great flavor and it isn’t too thick. Skippy Natural wins!

Say “si!” to MexAmerica

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There’s a company based in my hometown called MexAmerica…they make tortillas and chips and the like. Their tortillas are good (and are available at Wegmans!), and I pretty much always buy them when I’m buying tortillas. In fact, I’m eating a fajita made with a MexAmerica tortilla right now. 😉 I heard that Mighty Taco uses their tortillas, but I can’t confirm that.

Anyway, MexAmerica used to sell fajita kits…just tortillas and a seasoning packet…it was the best fajita seasoning in the history of packaged fajita seasoning. I don’t know what it was…a sort of smoky flavor. Nothing else even comes close. (I’ve been using Ortega, which is okay, but…) A while back, they stopped selling it. This made me very, very sad. 🙁

I just sent an email to the company, but in the meantime, does anyone have a recommendation for me?

It’s Koo-ki!

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Hee.

Rand and I received this lovely little box of chocolate sushi from Stephanie and Matt:

Isn’t it adorable? 🙂

We haven’t tried it yet, but we’re looking forward to it! Thanks, guys!

Blogging-by-mail

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Demoiselle Differentielle received the fun package-o-Buffalo I sent out a while back, and it would appear that she enjoyed it! She did a pretty good job of detailing everything that was in it, so I’ll let you read about it there. 🙂

I’m very happy that she appreciated the CD of local(ish) music I included! Yay! (I say -ish because there was some Canadian stuff on there as well, but hey, it FEELS local to me!)

Wondering how you can get in on this Blogging-by-mail business? Visit my good friend Stephanie for the details! You can sign up for the holiday edition now!