Busy BUSY bee!
Whew! I got a day off from class and work and quickly turned it into a jam-packed cooking/eating/playing day! My baking bonanza began Thursday night. Jenn, my best friend, who lives in Fort Collins turned 21 TODAY!! I, however, am still 20 and couldn’t join in any of the festivities so I promised to drive up and take her to lunch the day before. I wanted to make something special, soooo
Ooooh a shiny toy loaned to me from my mom
used to make these… (and yes my kitchen IS THAT green!)
Hidden Peanut Butter Balls (+ 2 more recipes that I used)
Popped these babies in the freezer for 30 minutes then switched to the fridge overnight.
Somewhere in there we ate this tasty margarita pizza on GHBC whole wheat pizza dough. Joey should not be trusted with the pizza slicer (nor should my dad who tries to use it to cut everything — he once used it to cut a king cake)
I was up at 7:30 to shower and dash over to Whole Foods for a few things I couldn’t find at the local grocery 😦 Thankfully, WF never fails to bail me out of my ingredient dilemmas.
Half an hour later, I was back home and cooking up a storm for Jenn!
I did TONS of tasting and needed some REAL food — Vegan Overnight Oats (VOOs)
Then back to baking
And mess making
All done!
I frosted half for myself, he he
And half for Jenn, with blueberries mixed in. I wanted a natural alternative to food coloring. This worked OKAY, but was more gray than purple 
I kept having to switch between having them on the passenger seat and on the floor to keep them out of the sun on the drive (it takes about an hour and 15 minutes) and BLASTED the air — I was so scared the frosting would start to melt!! Luckily, they were fine 🙂
We hit up Avogandro’s Number for lunch. I’d never been and was DYING to try their famous Tempeh Burger, yumm!
It was Free Fry Friday (try saying that 10 times fast!) so I tried a few and they were delicious! But nothing compared to the burger
The taste and texture were out of this world!! This totally lived up to the hype. Lunch was followed by cupcake consumption and giggling over letters we wrote each other in high school. I LOVE JENN ❤
Then it was back home for the Rockies game!
Can you tell I have allergies? My eyes have been so itchy and puffy, ugh!
One last meal, I promise!
VOO parfait!
Bottom to top: Just Bunches, VOO (oats, almond milk, chia seeds, vanilla + cinnamon), Banana Soft Serve (banana + blueberries blended in at the end), VOO, BSS, VOO, BSS, Just Bunches, PB. Run then scarf and emit sigh of relaxation.
HAPPY SATURDAY!
Fun with Fruit
I had thee funnest breakfast this morning!! And you will have to wait till the end of this post to see what it was, muahaha 😀
First, let’s talk dinner. Curry Chicken with Mango and to be perfectly honest I wasn’t really that excited. A main dish of meat has not sounded appetizing for quite some time now but due to boyfriend begging I gave in and served up some chicken.
The recipe instructs you to mix a few ingredients, coat the chicken and let stand in the fridge for an hour. This was perfect because it meant time for a quick run in between. I’ve been running in the morning, so the afternoon heat (even at 6 pm) was a bit of a shock. Despite the heat, the run was surprisingly pleasant and we clocked 3 miles at 29 minutes, my fastest ever!!
An hour later and dinner was served
Not to shabby. The sauce was mango blended with plain Greek yogurt, and I couldn’t stop eating spoonfuls of it! — this will definitely be eaten as a snack sometime soon.
Okay, okay enough about dinner. Let’s get to the good stuff! Anyone ever eat this as a kid??
It was BRIGHT blue and the eggs hatched into sea creatures when you added hot water. My sister, Hannah and I were just reminiscing about eating this as kids. I was so sad when it was quickly discontinued 😦 It was the inspiration for my oats this morning…
What do you see (besides a blob of blended blueberry goo)? It reminds me of the cover of my Jane Eyre.
All mixed in and topped with PB and Just Bunches
AWESOME, HUH??
Nothing like odd colored food to put you in a good mood! Hope you’re as entertained as I was. Oh, by the way, these tasted AWESOME! They were SUPER creamy because I made them with all vanilla almond milk, no water. It tasted like blueberry muffin batter, minus the guilt of eating raw egg and the sugar-induced stomach ache 10 minutes later. Eat your heart out, Quaker.
This idea came just in time for tomorrow, as I’m making a surprise treat for my best friend, Jenn’s, 21st birthday and wanted a natural way to dye frosting. Experimenting will ensure, starting bright and early tomorrow morning!
Happy Day Before Friday!
Blehhh
So.tired. Up.too.early.
No matter how early I go to bed on Tuesday night, 6 AM on Wednesday STILL feels super early 😦 And on top of that dinner last night and breakfast this morning were pretty blehhh.
Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe
I swapped the orecchiette for shells and the rabe for regular broccoli — I’ve never even seen broccoli rabe in the grocery store!
Believe it or not I found sundried tomatoes for $2 at Whole Foods, compared to $6 at my local grocery! I’ll admit the pasta LOOKS good but it was totally bland. The recipe doesn’t call of any kind of sauce, it’s just noodles, broccoli, beans and sun-DRIED tomatoes…boring. I ended up adding more parmesan than I wanted just to give it some taste.
I have mixed feelings about breakfast, hmmm
Overnight Oats (non-vegan) — why must this be so unappealing-looking in pictures? The tupperware does NOT help!
Blueberry close-up
I’ve never made overnight oats with yogurt but considering I just bought a tub of plain Greek, I thought I’d give it a try.
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 1/3 cup vanilla almond milk
- 1/2T PB
- 1/3 banana
- handful of frozen blueberries
- handful of Just Bunches (oops no picture)
It was wayyy thicker than the vegan version and the Greek made it sliiightly tangy but I could still taste a hint of the peanut butter. It wasn’t bad or anything and it was pretty fun to eat something purpley but the yogurt washed out a lot of the vanilla flavor 😦 Can’t I have non-vegan consistency with vegan flavor? I’ll have to mess around with this some more!
Hmmm let’s spice things back up with lunch, shall we? Kath’s Sweet Potato Gnocchi or Caitlin’s Quinoa Encrusted Sweet Potato Balls ?
I was craving sweet so I went with the gnocci!
Even though Kath’s recipe warns that the process is long, her directions were really easy to follow (and the pictures don’t hurt either). While I made the gnocchi I threw some kale in the oven for kale chips.
I may have eaten a few of these before they made it into the pot of water…
Uh oh, why are they looking like soggy dog treats? And this is when I realized I’d forgot to add the egg… But I finished out the instructions anyways and ended up with something edible if not perfect.
Drizzled with the sliiightest bit of honey (told you I was craving sweet!)
Hunger averted, now on to shopping 🙂
Lauren Loves Good Food 