Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Quinoa Pizza Bites 03-19-2013

Well hello friends!
I know its been a while since I have sat down and shared any recipes.  I have been doing less baking and eating more salads.  Not too many exciting salads but I will share a few later this week.

One of the things I like to do regularly on weekends is food prep.  For food prep I generally make some type of treat, lately Amazballs from The Fitnessista  blog that I love reading.  I also cook up some chicken breasts, usually for my salads.  I have a salad everyday for lunch so I go through a lot of chicken breast.  Its easier to throw a few in the oven, slice and portion them out in one batch rather than do it daily.  I like to cut up my veggies for the week so they are ready to go.  Some of them I will pre-cook so its easy for dinner late at night after my trainer torture sessions.  Having cut and cooked veggies is perfect for quick meals like this omelet, topped with a little raw cheddar and mashed avocado.
The veggies I prepped also went into these egg muffins that I froze in individual servings for later use.

In the veggie mixture I used sun dried tomatoes, garlic, orange peppers and yellow peppers

Asparagus blanched then chopped into bite sizes
A jar of artichoke, strained and chopped
And last minute some tasty turkey bacon thrown in
All of this was thrown into a pan and sauteed until vegetables are tender
This is very handy to have in the fridge.  I have even thrown it on a bed of spinach, kale and arugula, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil for a lunch salad.

I know your thinking Where is the pizza??  Well, I found this recipe and have wanted to try it for bit now.  Well I of course can't simply follow a recipe so I made a few adjustments and they came out delicious!

Quinoa Pizza Bites
2 cups cooked quinoa
4 large eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped red onion
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp oregano
1 1/2 cups above veggie mixture and turkey bacon
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped
8 oz shredded raw cheddar cheese (I did this by weight not volume, the cheese I bought came as 8oz)

Heat oven to 350 F.  Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, this made more than I expected so use a big bowl.  The original recipe called for mini muffin tins, I tried one batch of them but even though I sprayed the pan they stuck....boo!

I had to spoon them out and now have a bowl of quinoa to eat instead of a bite.  They look great but if I do the minis again I will need muffin tin papers.  I only had the large ones so I did this instead

And it worked perfectly, please excuse the dirty pan it was my second batch....had to make sure it worked before sharing!  Place them in the oven and cook for 20 minutes.  Serve with marinara or pizza sauce.  I was actually out of my favorite tomato sauce so I bought this and its surprisingly pretty good.

What I liked about this sauce is while most tomato sauces are sweetened with cane syrup or sugar this one used agave, and its all organic.  Oh yea it tastes pretty awesome too!  I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Samoas 3-7-13

Good Evening friends!!

So I have come across a few recipes for some homemade samosa.  I  of course have been wanting to stuff my face with mass quantities of girl scout cookies.  I whipped these up based off this recipe that I found on foodie fiasco they looked the healthiest out of the few I have seen floating around the blog world and pinterest.  I made a few changes.  The took all of 30 minutes from start to finish and are delicious!







Almost Samoas

3/4 cup Almond Meal (I used what I had left over from making my almond milk so it was vanila and date flavored)
1/2 mashed banana
2 tbsp coconut oil
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 c Vanilla Agave
6 Tbsp Unsweetened Coconut
2 Tbsp Almond Milk

2-3  squares Ghirardelli 100% cacao
2 tbsp almond milk
4 packest Stevia

Throw all the first group of ingredients in the food processor and pulse until smooth.  Preheat oven to 325.  Makes 18 cookies.  Form into balls and smash down with thumb.  Bake 12 minutes.
While baking toss coconut, agave and milk in small bowl.  Microwave chocolate, stevia and almond milk 30 seconds and stir until smooth.  Top each cookie with a chocolate and sprinkle coconut mixture and drizzle the caramel sauce on top.  Place in refrigerator to cool.  The "caramel" mixture thickens as it cools.  Enjoy!!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Sitting in the Airport 03-01-13

Hello friends!
I know I have slacked a bit on the posting these days.  So since I had a few minutes waiting for my flight to leave for Phoenix I thought I would share a quick recipe since I whipped these up last night to take with me.  I know its a little weird that I cook and take food with me on my little trips but I know that if I do not have snacks on hand I will end up eating things that I 1) do not enjoy 2) fell crappy after and 3) regret eating.

With that said, in my luggage I have apples, pears, bananas, raw bars, and trail mix.  It is not a lot of any of them just enough so that while I'm wondering around Phoenix this weekend I have things to nibble on and avoid the hunger monster visiting leading to a full fledged binge on pasta or Chinese take out.

The bars I made are quick and easy to make, the thing that took the longest was forming them into bars.  If I am in a hurry I make large balls and that works too!

Raw bars
4oz almonds
½ cup sunflower seeds
20 dates
6 Tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp chia seeds
4 tbsp raw honey
2 scoops protein power
Place all ingredients in food processor and pulse until mixed thoroughly.  It should be thick and form into 15 bars.  Store the bars in the refrigerator.

Silly me forgot to take pictures but I will snap one when I am eating one this weekend and share.  These are great to take with you, just like the bars you probably pay 2$ or more for.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and wish me luck on yet another half marathon!!!