Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

My wonderful sister in law sent me this recipe. They turned out great! Dan ate two as soon as they were out of the oven :) Here is a high in fiber, low in fat and high protein muffin recipe! Thanks Claire!  Here's what you need:

2/3 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup mashed bananas

3/4 cup plain yogurt

3 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup sunflower seeds (optional)

2 tablespoons unsweetened strawberry conserve, or jam. (I used our apple cinnamon homemade jam..we didn't have any strawberry)

peanuts for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven at 400 degrees. 

Grease 12 muffin cups

In a bowl mix together peanut butter, bananas, yogurt or buttermilk, honey, vanilla and eggs

In another bowl combine the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and baking soda, stir together and add to wet ingredients.

Stir in sunflower seeds.

Half fill the muffin cups, top with a teaspoon of conserve, then top with remaining batter and sprinkle with peanuts and sunflower seeds.

Bake for 20-25min until golden brown

Happy Tuesday everyone! (Sorry for posting a day late!)
Be ready for next week! I will be sharing some great Christmas baking!
xo
- Britt

Creamy Cauliflower soup with Bacon

I know, I know...lots of soup this week. I actually made 4 soups this week...haha. I was also feelin the bacon this week, so here we go. This soup rocks. Super good and everyone loved it. I used a really great recipe that I will share with you guys. The only thing is that I didn't use leaks. Instead I just chopped up an onion and used that. I encourage you to try it with the leaks because I am sure it's delish!
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/969/creamy+cauliflower+and+potato+soup+with+bacon
I also kept all of the peels on the potatoes. Once you blend it all up you can't even taste the peels. You should keep them in the soup so you don't lose out on the nutrients :)

There is nothing better than sharing food with friends!

xo

Greek Quinoa with Avocados

I love quinoa. It's a great side dish and it is so good for you! We had some ripe avocados so we found this recipe and loved it! Just last night Dan asked if I could make it again....sadly we didn't have avocado so it didn't happen. Here is what you need to make this yourself..tonight!

-1/2 cup uncooked quinoa, with 1 cup of water. Cook as directed on bag. Make sure you rinse the quinoa before cooking.

-2 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 cup of chopped fresh spinach

-1/2 cup finely chopped red onion

-2 tbsps lemon juice

-2 tbsps olive oil

-1/2 tsp of salt

-2 rise avocados , chopped

-1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

Step one:

-Cook up the quinoa as directed on the bag.

-Put your tomatoes, spinach, red onions and avocados in a medium sized bowl.

Step two:
Once the quinoa is cooked add it to the bowl with the veggies.

Step three:
-Add the lemon juice, olive oil and salt.
-Stir it all up and add the feta cheese! yesssss

Enjoy this with a yummy meal. We ate salmon and asparagus!

xo

Bacon, Sweet Potato and Broccoli Soup

This soup is yummy. It def has a different taste than the traditional cream of broccoli soup. If you enjoy sweet potato and all of it's greatness..then this is a good soup for you! It is an interesting colour to say the least. It looks somewhat like baby food! haha Don't let that fool you. It serves 4 to 6 people. Here is what you will need:
-2 heads of broccoli, chopped
-2 medium sized sweet potatoes(I used 1 and 1/2 large sweet potatoes), chopped
-4 cups of reduced salt(msg free) chicken stock
-4 strips of bacon, fried up and chopped
-1/4  cup of cooking cream
-1/4 cup of skim milk
-one onion, chopped
-3 garlic cloves, crushed
-salt and pepper to taste
-1 tbsp of olive oil

Step one:
-In your large soup pot put 1 tbsp of oil, your garlic and onion. Fry it up nicely.

Step two:
-Add your chopped sweet potato, and chopped broccoli.
-Add your chicken stock(water)
Bring it to a boil. Then reduce heat and cover. Let the potato and broccoli cook until very soft.

Step three:

-Once the veggies are cooked drain out the liquid. Keep it because we will be adding about 1/2 of it back to the soup.

Step four:
-Put your veggies in a food processor or blender. You will probably need to add some of the liquid you have put aside into the blender to help it blend.

voila, your weird coloured soup!

Step five:

-Pour the soup from blender back into the pot.

-Add your cream and milk.

-Add back 1/2 or more of the liquid you set aside. Add what you desire to make your soup the consistancy you like.

-Salt and pepper to taste.

-Add your chopped bacon

Serve and enjoy!

xo

Tomato Soup with Veggies

This week has been a flurry, cold week. SO I made alot of soup :) This was my first soup of the week. Easy, and yummy. This is the recipe:

• 
  
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1/4 cup chopped celery
• 2 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
• 3 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 tablespoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 drops hot pepper sauce
• 1 can of corn

 Instead of using the crushed tomatoes I used tomato chunks. We used our own canned tomatoes so that's the way they were..chunky! I liked the soup with the chunky tomatoes..so do as you wish:) The only thing that takes time in this recipe is the chopping. Soup is such an easy meal!

Step one:

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until onion is tender.

Step two:

Add carrot and celery; cook for 5 to 7 minutes until tender, stirring frequently. Stir in tomatoes, broth, Worcestershire sauce, salt, thyme, corn, pepper and hot pepper sauce. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Enjoy!

xo

Spiced Carrot and Flax Muffins

I found this recipe in a canadian living magazine and I couldn't wait to make it! I love flax and how great it is for us...I also love carrot muffins. This recipe promised me a good, yummy combination of the two, so I was excited. Also..you all know how crazy I am about muffins! ;)  So here we go!
(it has been modified from the original recipe...but not my much)

-1/3 cup olive oil
-1/2 cup packed brown sugar
-2 eggs
-1/2 cup of unsweetened apple sauce
-2 cups of grated carrots
-1 3/4 cup of flour
-1/3 cup of oats
-1/3 cup ground flax seeds
-2 1/4 tsp ground ginger
-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-2 1/2 tsp baking powder
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp salt
-pinch of ground cloves
-2 tsps flaxseeds

Step one:
In a large bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar. Whisk in the eggs and apple sauce. Stir in the carrots.

(Bowl with muffin batter, my compost bowl and the canadian living recipe open on my bucket of flour!haha)

This is the joyfull kitchen while in baking mode. I had 2 bowls of bread dough rising(on the stove) and I was making muffins too! I love days like these..

Back to the muffins>


Step two:
 In a separate bowl mix together the flour, oats, ground flaxseeds, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cloves.

Step three:
Stir into the carrot mixture just until combined.

Step four:
 Spoon into 12 paper lined muffin cups. I used Christmas muffins cups...because I'm feeling festive!  Sprinkle them with flax seeds.

Step five:
Bake at 350F (180C) for 25 minutes. Make sure the tops are firm to touch. Transfer to your wire rack and let cool! Enjoy!

xo have a great day friends!

Cupcakes for Two

Saturday night after a long day of working around the house, and eating our big bowls of fettuccine alfredo we wanted a coffee and a dessert. I was feeling some cake. There are only TWO of us and if I made a cake or a dozen cupcakes we would eat much more then we should...Then I would also have a cake and cupcakes to figure out what to do with. SO I typed in cupcakes for two on google and this blog popped up! It's the first one that shows up..I didn't do much searching around because this recipe sounded good to me. One bowl..and 12 minutes. Sounds good to me! haha. Here is the link to the recipe..
http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/03/one-bowl-vanilla-cupcakes-for-two/
I found my cupcakes took longer then she said...but it is probably just my oven.
I wanted to share this because I felt like its a great dessert idea! You can spice it up however you would like! I always have things in our freezer so I took out some chocolate I had in there...some strawberries and some cream cheese icing I had leftover from the red velvet cupcakes. Here is what I did with our cupcakes!
I microwaved the chocolate just a big and added some of the cream cheese icing to it to make a chocolate filling. I cut the cupcakes in half and filled them. :)

Next I warmed up the frozen strawberries, then drained most of the liquid out (we dont want the icing toooooo runny.) Then I added the icing the the strawberries. I poured it ontop and then we had a decedent piece of cake. mmmmmmm.

Enjoy a cupcake with your love..or friend!
Before this post is done I would like to take a second to show you what made us want to eat a bowl of fetuccine and cupcakes on saturday night! Check out the shelves Dan built for our basement! We finally have a super organized basement! I am super proud of him!

Happy Monday guys! xo -Britt