Sock Bun

Dude, you guys.

You gotta try this. I know it's all over the internet...but seriously.

A sock. In your hair. That no one can see. That gives your hair amazing size and shape and sturdiness.
I can't help but brag about it to everyone throughout the day. I ruin the surprise before they even ask. Its totally ridiculous that I can't contain myself better....but its just so cool.

Chocolate Coconut Heaven Oats

I've recently been seeing lots of posts throughout the blog world for chocolate oatmeal. Stellar idea, in my opinion. Since I generally eat dessert after every meal anyway (no judgement please) I figure its best if I can incorporate it into the actual meal to maximize enjoyment (and healthiness!).

This may seem like just another chocolate oatmeal post...but its not. All of the chocolate oats recipes I've seen thus far have been choco-fied via a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder. But unfortunately, when I've tried this I've found it tastes, well...powdery.

This recipe choco-fies (if I use this word twice in one post that makes it real, right?) itself by using Silk Chocolate Soy Milk as its milk/water source.
Plus its vegan!

Don't ya want some?

Ingredients:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 cup Silk Chocolate Soy Milk
1 mushed up banana
1 tbsp shredded coconut

Try with:
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp coconut oil
optional: chocolate chips! It (obviously) adds a lot!

Procedure:
1. Throw all the ingredients you want into a microwave-safe bowl and stir 'em around.
2. Pop the bowl in the microwave and cook for about 2 and a half minutes.
3. Let it cool.
4. Eat eat eat!!!

Lunchbox #7

Good new, internet! My days have been much happier since my posting of Lunchbox #6. Who needs men, huh? Not when I had Halloween to look forward to, right?!

HALLOOWEEEENN!!!!

Excuse me. I can't help myself.
I love Halloween. I suppose it feels less exciting now than it did in my first couple of years of college. I guess getting smashed at parties is starting to lose its grandeur. Shame. Those were some good times.
Check out my costume...I'm Princess Peach!!

Ok, this was from a year ago. Sweet mirror pic, I know. Here's one from this Halloween night a few days ago. You can really see I've matured since last year:

Notice the crown is different. The pretty gold one in the top picture literally snapped in half while I was getting ready to leave for a costume party. Such is life. Luckily I have the best room mates in the universe who just happen to have a crazy kick-ass giant collection of costumes on hand at all times. Not mention their willingness to help me after I run down the stairs with the two pieces of broken crown and whine at them, "My crown broke. What do I doooooooo???" Both of them immediately took me back up stairs and found me the crown, which somehow totally matched my outfit. I am forever in their debt.

I won't lie, that story had nothing to do with my lunch. However, lunch sure was tasty. And that's what your here for...so check it out:

Top left: Spinach salad with sliced radish, cherry tomatoes, and champagne dressing.
Top right: A whole kiwi
Bottom left: Amy's Spicy Chili loaded with beans and a hearty drizzle of Sriracha.
Bottom right: Morningstar veggie corndog bites. Indulgent? Yes. Childish? Yes. Delicious? Hell yes. In my defense they're a pretty good source of protein too

Hope your Halloween was delightful and that you didn't forget to brush your teeth before bed!

When I grow up...

...My new goal is to move to Hawaii to marry Jack Johnson.
Here's why.
There. That made your day better, didn't it?

Eat well today and have fun!

More soon on Vegan Monday...

Lunch Box #6

Has it really been over a month since I last posted??

Being a student is insane. Ever heard the phrase "Good grades, social life or enough sleep. Pick two."? I don't agree. I think it's pick one. Which is why I get little sleep, minimal social time, and grades not quite strong enough to get me into the physician's assistant program I aspire to do one day. This stresses me out. 

And so this Friday night, while my roommates are away, I am happily listening to music loudly while pants-less in our living room, eating an incredible Nutella mug cake topped with some leftover cream cheese frosting from few days ago. Solo nights feel good sometimes.

Here I am whining about not getting enough of a social life...while sitting by myself on a Friday night. I'm confusing to me too. No wonder I can't keep a boyfriend. Now I want a beer.

On that note, now that I've shown my awkward weirdo reality involving anti-social behavior and cake in cup, here's the lunchbox I've been meaning to put up for weeks.
Man, was it tasty.

Top left: Farmer's market grapes. Those somehow disappeared from my fridge in about 48 hours. Maybe it was the snacking I couldn't resist every time I entered the kitchen for those 48 hours...
Top right: Mango, kale and pumpkin seed salad. This is an amazing combo.
Bottom left: Barbecued tofu. One of my all time favorite tofu manipulations.
Bottom right: Two think hunks of smoked sharp cheddar cheese and a handful of cherry tomatoes.

Speaking of "awkward weirdo" moments, the one I've been suffering from recently is involving my most recent ex-boyfriend. Who I have classes with! Four. Days. A week.
Let that sink in. He broke up with me on a Tuesday, and I had class with him Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Can't I have a get out of class free card or something?
How could I not act like a weirdo in class with so many paranoid and one-directional thoughts swirling around in my head? He hurt my feelings, now we're not talking, and all I get is a stupid little wave and half smile.

Oh well. 

No more whining. Thanks for listening, internet. Time for me to forget the venting and go have a good day.

Lunchbox #5

Ah, Mondays. Longest day of the week in my opinion. Lucky for me I only have two classes on Mondays! Stupid of me, I did nothing to progress my studying over the weekend so I had lots to do today. I ended up being at school (mostly in the library) from 8-5. Got my environmental ethics reading on. Wrote a paper. The usual college stuff. 
But anyway...
Today's lunch was delightful, but a little small. I felt like a genius last night when I attempted to make a non-sloppy, lunch box-friendly, sandwich version of ants on a log. To my dismay, it was an utter failure. Pretty hilariously so, actually. There was more peanut butter on the lid than in the celery and the raisins were clustered in a little corner, as far as they could physically be from the celery. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. 

Top left: Mixed greens salad with sliced farmer's market radishes, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and a side of (my favorite!) light champagne dressing. 
Top right: Leftover Indian spiced lentils with vegetarian sausage. So so good. 
Bottom right: Baby carrots and green grapes.
Bottom left: Ants on a log, sandwich style: celery, peanut butter, and raisins. 

Let me tell you bout them grapes. Those grapes used to be "Sour Patch Grapes", meaning they were covered in Cherry Lemonade flavored Jello powder as was suggested by Pinterest and about a million other healthy food blogs. They were, to say the least, gross. The Jello powder was gritty and too sweet and after a few days in the fridge became wet and soggy. That is definitely a DO NOT recommend. That said, the fix is easy: rinse them off with water and voila! Back to normal, tasty, and very well washed green grapes, ready for my lunch and belly. 

Have a great week! 

Lunchbox #4

This morning I had my Ecology class at 9:30. Earliest class all week :) I am starting my fourth year of college and I have never experienced life without 8 AM classes. I don't think I'll have a hard time getting used to this. 

Unfortunately now that I'm getting into the schedule of waking up later than usual, I was still rushed making this lunch. I enjoyed it and I didn't even finish all of it. Maybe next time, less nuts. Yummy nonetheless!

Have a great weekend friends!

Top left: Whole sandwich of Good Seed bread with sharp white cheddar cheese slices and red pepper hummus. 

Top right: A mixture of raw walnuts, raw cashews, and dark chocolate chips. 

Bottom right: Lots of fresh blueberries.

Bottom left: Five ripe cherry tomatoes and some baby carrots. 

Lunchbox #2

Alright so this may seem like a big lunch (I don't know, does it?), but it was meant to last me from 9:30 to 7 at night. 

Top left: Half of a sandwich with Good Seed multi-grain bread, a few slices of sharp white cheddar cheese, and a smear of red pepper hummus, homemade by Corrina. 
Top right: A hard-boiled egg and two Lara bar balls I made. Those tasty little balls were made of cashews, walnuts, dates, dark chocolate chips, cocoa powder, raw cacao nibs, shredded coconut, and about a half teaspoon of coconut oil. Is your mouth watering yet? 
Bottom right: Plain Chobani yogurt with blueberries and a substantial squirt of honey.
Bottom left: Spring mix and spinach with baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and a side of balsamic Italian dressing. 

Lunchbox #3

Yes my lunches are starting to become repetitive already. But what's a girl to do? I have absolutely no excuse to buy the variety of produce I would like to when I'm only feeding myself. Alas, I'll have blueberries and carrots for most of the week. Oh well, can't have too many carrots. :) 

Top left: Sharp white cheddar cheese slices and All Bran Multigrain (and high fiber too!) crackers. 

Top right: Hard-boiled egg and a Morningstar sausage patty broken in half. 

Bottom right: Baby carrots and blueberries (as promised). 

Bottom left: The prettiest apple slices you'll ever see, plus some all natural creamy peanut butter for dipping. 

Lunchbox #1

I am so excited to be back in my college town and apartment. Moving from a home with seven people to three is definitely a change for the better in my mind. It's basically always nice and clean are there are less competing opinions on how to arrange the posters around the living room. It's quiet, the fridge isn't so full, people do their dishes, and our home is happy place. 

I'll be honest though. As much as I was looking forward to a clean house, that amount of excitement was nowhere near my excitement in coming home to a brand-spanking-new lunch box sitting on my bed! I literally looked forward to making my lunch all day and now I'm looking forward to eating it tomorrow! It'll be a delicious start to my first semester of my fourth year (wow!) of college. 

Top left: Leftover Ma po (no clue how to spell that) tofu, broccoli with garlic sauce, and white rice.

Rop right: Inside out carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting filling-made by my housemate and  best buddy Corrina. She tossed it into my lunch box while wishing me a "Happy first day of school!" What a sweetheart.

Bottom right: Fruit salad of blueberries, grapes, and three cherries. 

Bottom left: 50/50 spring mix and spinach salad with cherry tomatoes, walnuts, and light champagne dressing on the side. I'm planning on packing some feta crumbles under the lettuce for some extra yum. Pretty sure the odds are against me for remembering...wish me luck! 

Stir Fry Eggs with Onion

The camp I work at this summer is unique in that it hires many people from outside of the country. This particular weekend I've been lucky enough to have some of the international staff stay at my house for their time off. We've got Tony from Mexico, Michael from England, and Yang from China residing all on the same dog-hair-ridden couch. Yang, as a token of appreciation for the free housing, decided to cook some of his favorite dishes from home to share with us. Of course in China most people eat meat, so the first dish Yang decided to make was Chicken Wings. Lucky for me, he was kind enough to make some additional vegetarian egg dishes that I could eat too!
Here's my favorite of the two that he translated the best he could as "Stir Fry Eggs with Onion".

This dish was so great because it didn't taste like eggs. It tasted like China. Or at least what I would want China to taste like. Soy saucey, gingery, garlicy, and of course, oniony.

Here are Yang's instructions for making this dish.
1. Heat vegetable oil in a wok.
2. Add in chopped garlic, onion, ginger and green onions. Cook for a few minutes.
3. Add in the eggs and cook until about 80% done.
4. Add more oil, ginger and garlic.
5. Cook another minute until done. Add soy sauce and salt.

Fun fact: Apparently the term "wok" means nothing in Mandarin. We silly Americans basically just attached a "Chinese-sounding-word" to a fancy, deep-rimmed pot.

This is a great recipe. I've never eaten a dish that transformed the flavor of an egg so much. I highly recommend giving it a go.

Make sure to thank Yang with your thoughts for his delicious and authentic cuisine.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

I found this recipe via Pinterest on this girl's blog. The fact that her URL said to "love veggies and yoga"served as a very quick message to me that this blog was going to hold some treasures. Sure enough, these cookie dough bites are to die for! They are such a great way to get a little taste of dessert in your chomper while not having to feel bad about filling up on butter and sugar and oil. Plus it allowed me to play with my new CuisinArt that I love oh-so-much. Seriously, I've been seeking out recipes solely so that I can use my food processor more often. Is that weird? Doesn't matter. Anyway...

Here's what's in these babies:  

Does that look deceptively healthy to you? Good. Because they are! 

The base is oats and cashews with just a little of the agave, maple and vanilla. 

I don't think I can lie to you and say there aren't a lot of chocolate chips in this recipe...but is that really a bad thing? It's definitely not to me. If I'm going to eat dessert, I'd prefer that it has a nice healthy dose of chocolate.

I also think you should know: the only important change I made to the Averie Cooks recipe is that I used mini chocolate chips. As small of a discrepancy as this might seem....you're wrong and it's not. I'm sorry. I'm getting defensive. The mini chocolate chip idea feels genius to me though. You get quadruple the chocolate-per-bite, thus making it feel more dessert-y and less health-foody. 

Isn't it a pretty little bite? 

The only other difference between mine and Averie's recipe is that I doubled her recipe and made 22 balls. Her single batch made 17 balls. I suppose by nature I like to make desserts with chocolate in large portions. More like 5-10 little bites instead of 2-3. Your balls are your balls though, and you can make them as large or small as you choose!

Makes 22 balls

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup raw cashews

2/3 cup oats

4 tbsp Agave

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Procedure

1. Combine cashews and oats in food processor and blend until a fine powder (like flour). 

2. Add agave, maple, and vanilla into the food processor and continue to blend until the mixture forms itself into a moist ball of dough. 

3. Remove from the processor and mix in the chocolate chips on a cutting board or wax paper. I used a plastic spatula to the mix in the chocolate so that the dough wouldn't stick to my hands. 

4. Roll the dough into little balls and store on wax paper in a tupperware. Refrigerate and eat when hungry. :) 

What's your favorite kind of cookie? I'll try to make more recipes like this in those flavors!

Stuffed Shells with Mushroom, Spinach and Shallots

This recipe is great because it makes SO much! I made these for dinner one cold, rainy school night and shared it with several of my roommates and friends, then continued to stick 3 in tupperware every day for a week to eat at school for lunch...and was disappointed when they were gone. This is one of those recipes where having a lot of a good thing is so not bad. Even better to share with your family or at a potluck! 

I will admit this recipe is relatively putzy. (Putzy. Can't believe I've inherited that word from my mom!) The prep works takes a solid hour, but none of the work is difficult or easy to mess up. Definitely a keeper. 

Serves: a bunch!

Ingredients

1 box jumbo pasta shells

1 (15 ou.) container ricotta cheese

2 shallots, diced

8 button mushrooms, diced

3 cups fresh spinach
~1 tablespoon butter

1 (28 ou) jar tomato spaghetti sauce
1 bag of pre-shredded mozzarella cheese


Procedure
1. Cook your shells according to the instructions on the box. Meanwhile heat the butter in a pan. Once its melted, add in the shallots and mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes, then add the spinach. Heat until the spinach is totally wilted.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 
3. Mix the mushroom mixture into the ricotta cheese. 
4. Spoon about 1/4 of the jar of spaghetti sauce into the bottom of the 12 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish and spread it around to cover the base of the dish.
5. Now grab your shells and start stuffing a couple of tablespoons of the mushroom-ricotta mixture into each of the shells. As you go, place the shells into the baking dish on top of the spaghetti sauce. 
6. Once the dish is full (you'll probably have extra leftover pasta shells) cover the shells with as much pasta sauce as you'd like and finish it by sprinkling the mozzarella cheese on top. Make sure not to skimp on the mozzarella! 
7. Place the dish in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and starting to brown. 




Do you have a favorite go-to potluck dish? How about a favorite dish to eat as leftovers? 

A Successful Sick Day

I've decided today that the only way I can reasonably expect myself to reach my 50 blog post goal this year is by being more flexible with what goes into each post. Even though this is not a recipe per say, I wanted to share this meal with the world as it was just that fantastic. What was the occasion you ask? A gnarly summer cold that got me free from the Fantasy themed Friday Funday at camp. As excited as I was to take part in the festivities (that was sarcasm, if you weren't sure) I had a great day finishing my book (Room by Emma Dougherty, I highly recommend it!), napping, and walking to Whole Foods to sit out in the sun while I eating this uber healthy lunch. 

From their salad bar and hot foods bar I got a little slice of Sesame Tofu with an incredible thick and spicy sauce that I tried my hardest to spread out over some of the salad. The salad itself got a little crazy, as I added basically everything I could see that sounded either delicious or to-healthy-to-skip. Healthy greens mix, spring salad mix, sliced carrot, broccoli, quinoa with cranberries and chives, shredded zucchini, beets, jicama, soy nuts, teeny tiny cubed squash bits, red cabbage, the best croutons I've ever eaten, and most likely some other goodies I can't think of. Plus blue cheese dressing! On the side of course. 

I also got a Naked juice which tasted delicious, but I realized after purchasing that it is really just juice with minimal added health benefits. All the fancy stuff they put in the drink is listed in milligrams on the back. Sure 1200 mg of spirulina might seem like a lot... but when converted to 1.2 grams (which is slightly heavier than a paper clip) in the whole bottle, the "boost" seems less significant. Still tasty and refreshing though. 

For dessert I got myself a Chocolate Coconut Chew Larabar. I've been on a real Larabar kick recently. I eat almost one a day at camp for a snack, but am stuck with the 3 flavors that come in the Costco pack: Peanut Butter Cookie, Cashew Cookie, and Blueberry Muffin. Blueberry Muffin, if you were curious, kicks the other two flavors in the butt. I'd say Blueberry Muffin is about on par with the Chocolate Coconut Chew bar. I can't help but love anything chocolate flavored though. Next on my Larabar list to try are Banana Bread, Orange Float, and Coconut Cream Pie. Yum!

I like to think I made the perfect choice for a healthy lunch to strengthen my immune system and feel better after a tough week at camp. 

Today I will leave you with a picture of my favorite animal in the whole world. I only get to see him on the lovely occasion that I drive back into Fremont to stay at my parent's house. Meet Bug Henry Rufus De Stigter, who has been snazzified by the groomer with his mohawk haircut. My mom says next time she takes him back she'll get the mohawk dyed blue. Does she know how to make her daughter happy or what? 

 

Look at his little tail a'wagging!

He's such a handsome guy. :)


What do you like to do on your sick days to feel better? 

Shallot, Sausage, Basil Pizza

So this is definitely best pizza I've ever made. How many pizza's have I made, you ask? Well that's not the point. The point is that this pizza has mouth-watering caramelized shallot, fresh basil, and veggie sausage chunks lightly coated with Sriracha-the goddess of all condiments. 

Not to mention that its still got the basics: bread and cheese. Oh yeah, that makes you happy doesn't it? Me too. For the bread part I used this recipe and I highly recommend it. Alternatively, if you're feeling not-so-ambitious just grab a ball of dough from Whole Foods! Or even Boboli! Don't worry, I won't tell! :P 

As for the cheese, I used mozzarella, but am tempted to ask...does it really matter? I mean of course I wouldn't go with gorgonzola or brie...but if you want to throw on some cheddar or parmesan or asiago or goat (yummm) in addition to the mozz, I would say you are a wise individual. Couldn't you just talk about cheese forever? No? Ok fine, then I suppose I'll mention the sauce. It was not thrilling, but definitely did its job. A jarred pasta sauce will be what I use next time instead, I think. 

This pizza. It's seriously yummy. Go make it. It's a real crowd pleaser...and I'll actually be able to say that with some authority after I make it tonight for the boyfriend and his housemates! Austin and I have a deal going that while I'm cooking, he has to work on the enormous stack of dishes festering in the sink. Little does he know how long caramelized onions take to make themselves delicious ;) Booya! Maybe we'll actually have a mildly clean kitchen in this house full of 5 guys and me...it could happen...right?? 

Makes 1 pizza (about 8 slices)

Ingredients

1 cup freshly chopped basil

~2 1/2 cups grated mozzarella

1 large shallot, sliced

1 tbsp butter

4 Morningstar vegetarian sausage links

~1 1/2 tsp Sriracha chili sauce

1 (8 ou.) can tomato sauce
1 pizza crust

Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 
2. Toss your sliced shallots into a pan with 1 tbsp butter at medium heat and let them caramelize for at least 15 minutes, agitating them every couple of minutes. You want them to get nice and brown.
3. Cook the sausage links according to package instructions (I just nuked them).While they're still hot, break them up into either little sausage chunks or slices. Then toss them in a bowl with the Sriracha chili sauce.
4. Assemble! First spread out the tomato sauce on the pie, then add the cheese, shallot, sausage, and basil on top. 
5. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese and crust are golden brown. 


Enjoy!

Jalapeño-Paprika Hummus

Wow! Sorry about the hiatus, friends! Last few months were totally nuts! Finished my third year of college with flying colors, if I do say so myself. Even managed to snag a B in my dreaded Bacteriology class! Hallelujah! I also just celebrated my 21st birthday! My ID has been heavily scrutinized every time I've bought alcohol since the big day. I sweat a little bit whenever the cashier stares down my drivers license...despite there clearly being no issue in what I presented him/her. I guess that's what happens when you go 21 years of life not buying alcohol. Nevertheless I had a great time celebrating-went camping with friends and the boyfriend and drank lots of coconut Malibu and rum. I also baked some beer bread! And oh how delicious and legal it was ;) Plus I got to order a big 'ol margarita from the local mexican restaurant. What a great day...


Anyhow! Now that I've talked your ears off about my birthday, I've got to hurry up and get on my goal of 50 blog posts this year! What am I at? 7? 9? Pathetic. (Speaking of pathetic, sorry about these tupperware-ridden photos! I just wanted to get something posted!)


Despite these ugly pictures....this hummus is delicious!! Particularly if you like a sinus-clearing heat in your hummus like I do.

 This uber-dip has a fully-seeded jalapeño, garlic, and paprika for color and smoke. I omitted olive oil, as is usually used in hummus because, frankly, it was awesome without it. And who doesn't want to save a few fat calories? Especially in the midst of swimsuit season!

Like my chipped nail polish? I promise none of the chips got in the dip! (Ha ha!) 
I ate this straight out of the food processor with sugar snap peas and pita chips...you should eat it in any way that'll make you happy. Let me know if you come up with any great dippers! 


Servings: a whole lot!
Ingredients
1 can garbanzo beans
1 jalapeño (seeded, for the weak of mouth...just kidding!) 
2 cloves garlic
2 tbs tahini
~1 tsp paprika
~1/2 tsp cumin



Procedure
1. Throw all the ingredients into a food processor or blender and let that baby grind, grind, grind! You'll be amazed how yummy :) 

Baked Egg Boats

What a way to start the morning! Fresh fluffy eggs baked right into your own personal cheesy, meaty (veggie meat, of course!) bread bowl. Beware, this is more food than you would think...the boyfriend and I definitely ate til we couldn't anymore and still had about a third left of each of ours to snack on with lunch. This recipe is adapted from the blog spoonforkbacon.com, which I ironically have found several awesome recipes on, despite the fact that I haven't eat bacon in over 10 years! 

Making these hearty breakfasts is surprisingly quick and takes barely any skill to throw together...so if you're only half awake when you make them, all you should really worry about is not forgetting the oven mitts when you take them out!

Start by cutting a hole in your bread and scraping out the insides. As you can see I worked really hard to make pretty cuts on top...Not. I actually was so careless that I accidentally cracked the bottom on one of them, hence then cheese slices I placed on the bottom of each boat. Luckily that attempt at sealing the crack worked like a charm :) 

Beat together your eggs and toppings. (I used some veggie sausage, spinach, and grated sharp cheddar cheese!)

Next just sprinkle some more grated cheese on top and stick them in the oven!

 Then, after about 20 minutes, take them out and let your mouth water for 5 minutes before they're cool enough to cut into slices. Serve with a glass of oj and eat up!


Serves 2-3
Ingredients 

3 eggs 

handful of spinach

about 1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 tbsp milk

2 veggie sausage links, cooked according to intructions (I use Morningstar brand)

2 rolls (I used Safeway's Jalapeno Cheese Rolls, which were aaaaaamazing) 

Procedure

1. Slice through the top crusty layer of your rolls in a triangle or square shape. Tear the top bit of crust off, then scoop out the insides of the bread. Be sure to scoop around the edges of the roll too, and stop scooping about 1/2 an inch from the bottom crust. 

2. Beat together your eggs, spinach, cheese, milk, and sausage. 

3. Pour about half the mixture into each of the bread bowls. Sprinkle some more grated cheese onto the egg mixture. 

4. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until set. Let cool for 5 minutes, then slice into strips and serve. 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch (Rice Krispie) Treats

Although not an entirely original idea, these babies went fast in my house. So fast that I only got one crummy picture of the delicious, gooey treats. But thats ok. If you use your imagination, you can easily have some idea of how kick-ass these marshmallow squares are. I mean, what's honestly better than Cinnamon Toast Crunch? The list is short, in my opinion. Plus they're so so easy if you use the right utensils! 

Makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

4 cups marshmallows

5 cups Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal

Procedure

1. Slowly melt butter in a sauce pan. Mix in marshmallows over medium-low heat until completely melted. Be careful to keep stirring the whole time!

2. Take off heat and gently mix in cereal. Using a buttered spatula, quickly press the mixture into a parchment paper lined 9x13 baking dish. Make sure to be quick or else the mixture will harden up and become solid as a rock!

3. Stick in the fridge/freezer for a few minutes until completely cooled. Pull the treats out of the baking dish by picking up the parchment paper. Cut into squares and devour. 

Pistachio Cranberry & Pistachio Orange Biscotti

Alright folks, I will be the first to say that I am not normally a fan of biscotti. However, I am always trying to change my mind about certain foods or recipes that I don't like by making a kick-butt version myself. You know, one that suits my picky little taste buds. This is one of those cases that flipped my perspective on biscotti so violently that now, two weeks after making these cookies, I am still raving about them to my roommates. Really. Ask them yourself. 

I somewhat adapted this recipe from allrecipes and despite my utter lack of experience in making biscotti, they came out beautifully. I decided to make two kinds: Cranberry-Pistachio and Orange-Pistachio. Both kinds rock, so if you have a preference of flavor go with it! Although I will say I wasn't expecting much from the Cranberry-Pistachio myself, but sure enough I easily could have scarfed down five. My mother even sent me an urgent text message about their deliciousness the next day. Thanks Mama. 

So anyway, I'll quit my boasting and share the method to my madness.

Mix up all your ingredients (sans the orange zest and cranberries), just like you would any other cookie dough, and shape it into a log.

Let said log sit in the fridge to harden up, then cut the log in half and (here comes the fun part!) knead in the orange zest to one of the halves and the cranberries into the other. Don't be afraid to get your hands messy! (But if the dough starts getting sticky, just get your fingers a little wet and they will stick-no-more)

Next, form your two doughs into logs about 2 inches wide and smooth them out a little with your fingers and water. Make sure you use parchment paper! (The bottom loaf is orange and the top is cranberry)

Bake at 300 for 35-40 minutes until light brown.

Sniff the cookies (and start getting excited) then slice them into around 3/4 inch slices and bake at 275 for another 10 minutes until they are dry and crispy-looking. 

You will not be sorry you made these. Nor will anyone else who tries them. 

makes 1 and a half dozen cookies


Ingredients
1/4 cup light olive oil
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 tbsp orange zest
1 1/2 cups pistachio nuts


Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Mix together oil and sugar, then incorporate the vanilla extract, almond extract and eggs. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Gradually, combine the dry mixture into the wet mixture. 
3. Shape the dough into a log and let it sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes to firm. Cut the log in two then mix by hand the orange zest into one loaf and the dried cranberries into the other. Then shape these two separate doughs into 2 inch wide logs and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Bake the logs for 35 minutes until lightly browned. Take out and let cool for a few minutes (about 10) until cool enough to handle. 
5. Slice the logs into about 3/4 inch wide slices then place each cookie flat back onto the parchment paper. Bake at 275 degrees F for another 10 minutes until the cookies are dry, crispy, and delectable.