Lately our lives have been one adventure after another. Not only have we been dealing with our day to day lives and everything that usually comes with it, but we made a hugely insane (but fantastic) decision to move ourselves out of the Pacific Northwest and back to sunny Southern California!

Seriously.

We made the “decision” to move early in the year, and I say that with quotation marks because we made a decision but I honestly didn’t think it would work out. There have been so many “decisions” that we’ve made over the years but they never panned out. But as I type this blog in warm and sunny California I would say it panned out!

We made it happen, threw all of our belongings into a moving truck and storage container with a hope and a prayer that everything will work out.

It’s been a bit of an adjustment for the both of us since 95% of our belongings are in storage and we are living with a very generous family member. I’m still trying to learn where she keeps everything in the kitchen, and there are so many of my kitchen things I would love to break out but there is either not enough room in the kitchen for my huge amount of kitchen crap, or I can’t find it because its buried in the abyss of the storage unit..

Mostly it’s all buried. Always an adventure.

With all the insanity and not being settled in my own space, I was starting to really feel out of sorts. Cooking this seemed to help me feel a bit more normal.

This is one of those recipes where there isn’t really a recipe. It started when I was browsing Trader Joe’s one day (I love just walking around supermarkets, weird I know) and after picking up some regular pesto I saw this jar and suddenly got a hankering for some Sun Dried Tomatoes. I really had no idea what I was going to do with them but I had to have them.

Then I decided to throw them in a pan with some garlic and pepper to make some pasta. The husband was leaving for some sort of geeky get together and just before he left he tasted my creation.

He started to leave but then came back and stared at it until I gave him another bite. He was actually upset that he was leaving because he wanted to steal my dinner from me.

Nope. Sorry. MINE!

A few days later I made this pesto version of the same pasta. He loved it. He’s not a huge fan of the big chunks of tomato so I threw everything in the food processor instead of chopping it. It’s much easier then chopping the tomatoes and quicker too.

I find that putting the garlic in and pulsing for a few times first is better than just putting everything in together because I am not a huge fan of large pieces of garlic. This way I can make sure I get the tomatoes to the chunky level I’m looking for and not choke on garlic.

The nice thing about this jar of tomatoes is that once the pesto has been made it will all fit nicely back in the jar! I’m all about reusing the container.

I like to cook the tomato mixture for a little bit to get the bite out of the garlic and soften the tomatoes a little before adding the chicken.

Its just what I do.

There is no set amount of chicken per pesto ratio that needs to be adhered to. I only used two chicken breasts this time but they were large, and roughly half the jar of pesto. I like a lot of tomatoes.

When the chicken is fully cooked I liked to liberally sprinkle the chicken with Parmesan. There is no real reason why I wait until the end, I’m sure you could add it to the food processor and it wouldn’t make a big of difference. I generally don’t salt the chicken until the parmesan is mixed in, the cheese is salty enough that I don’t normally feel the need to add anymore salt to it once I have enough cheese.

Lots of cheese. Mmm cheese.

There are two options with the pasta. It can be added directly to the pan and mixed up that way, or what I normally do is add a serving of pasta and a serving of chicken to the bowl and mix it there. That way Husband and I can have our desired amount of pasta, he usually doesn’t take as much pasta as I do.

Like I said this is not really a “recipe” because it’s one of those “fly by the seat of my pants, lets throw it in a pan and see what happens” recipes. And awesome enough this is one of the Husband’s favorite dishes.

I also think this would be a great sauce to make to put on chicken parmesan also.

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta
Makes up to 4-6 servings for the whole jar of tomatoes, but only use what you need for a meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 jar Trader Joe’s Sun Dried Tomatoes (I like these because they are conveniently in oil, I use the oil for the sauce)
• 5-6 cloves of garlic (this is for the whole jar)
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• Parmesan cheese to taste
• Boneless skinless chicken breasts diced
• Pasta of your choice (I chose spiral because it grips the sauce nicely)

Directions:

1. Cook the pasta until it reaches the desired state of doneness.
2. Peel the garlic and pulse in the food processor until it is in small chunks.
3. Add the entire contents of the tomato jar and pepper. Pulse until at the desired consistency. I prefer mine in the slightly chunky realm but a full puree would work too.
4. Add several scoops of the pesto to a hot pan over medium heat. Cook until the garlic becomes fragrant, then add the chicken.
5. Cook until the chicken is fully cooked. If it looks like it needs some more pesto at any point, throw some more in the pan and make sure the garlic cooks a bit. It’ll be delicious.
6. Mix in the Parmesan cheese. Add a few tablespoons at first before tasting it. Add more as needed.
7. Serve over or mixed with pasta of your choice. Yum!

Silly me.

Now that it’s Tuesday I can finally say it’s Tuesday Tea Time!



Today I am drinking the Sour Apple herbal tea I ordered from Adagio. I’ve gotten this before and I honestly forgot how much I enjoy this stuff. The last time I ordered I only got the sample, and that’s enough for someone to figure out if they like it.

Well I didn’t like it, I LOVED it. So this time around I got the bigger 3oz (85g) size.

When I was ordering I wasn’t quite sure how much tea it would actually be since the old sample tins didn’t say how much tea came in a container (the new ones do), but it turned out to be a bit more than I expected. I put the entire contents of the bag into a measuring cup and it came out to be roughly 1 1/3 cups of tea.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this bag is the smell. It is VERY strong, and soon the entire room smelled like a tart and earthy apple candy. There are a lot of dried apple pieces in the mix and those are what hit you first, then comes the earthiness from the hibiscus and the rose hips.

It makes my mouth water just smelling it. I am a huge fan of granny smith apples and that’s what it tastes like to me even though packaging says that its crab apple. I’ve eaten a few of the apple pieces after brewing and they’ve got that nice tart punch that a granny smith has. I think one of these days I’m going to have to try a crab apple.



After it’s been steeped (7 minutes with boiling water) the tea comes out a nice and vibrant reddish orangeish color. Sometimes the tea comes out a little darker depending on how much hibiscus and rose hips get into the tea, since there are so many apple pieces they tend to take over. Either way it turns out delicious.

The name of the tea makes you think it would be a very sour tea, but it’s not. If you ever bite into a nice slice of granny smith apple and love that slightly sweet but tart flavor that hits your mouth, you would love this tea. But its even more complex than that, if you let the flavors sit on your tongue you can also tastes hints of citrus (from the rose hip I believe) and even something that is slightly similar to a fresh blackberry picked off the bramble. To me it has a bit of an underlying sweetness, but to others it might be too sour. I think by adding some honey or agave nectar it would help to tone down that initial tartness.

Overall I would give this one an A+, it’s one of my favorite teas and I really have enjoyed drinking this just before bedtime.

*Disclaimer: This is not a paid advertisement for Adagio Teas, the opinions are my own and I bought the tea myself. Their company has no involvement in these reviews.*

Granted, they are my favorite since they are the only people I have really ordered tea from online. However, I have yet to be disappointed.

If you remember before, I posted about some samples a few years ago about my very first order from Adagio. I decided I needed to clean out my tea cabinet and found the little sample tins again. Sadly, I used up all the herbal ones and only had the caffeinated ones still. I had to really cut caffeine out of my life and so those are not going to get used.

It’s rather a good thing that I didn’t use them anyways since they were 4 years old! Loose herbal or mixed teas should last about 6 months according to my research, and up to 12 months for good quality pure tea.

They are long past their use by dates! Yuck. I’m sure they would be perfectly safe to consume but who knows.

So I ordered my tea and had to wait all the way to the weekend for it to arrive. I admit to going a little crazy with the ordering, but I was so excited to finally spend money on myself that I just couldn’t resist getting ALL the samples that I’ve been curious about plus larger sizes of the teas I loved from last time. I was so excited when the husband and I went to pick up the mail.

However I was not so excited to see this big rip in the box.



Luckily all of my tea was inside and nothing appeared to be missing or damaged. I wasn’t so sure at first since the inside of the box faintly smelled of fruit, but that could just be the bags themselves or maybe some scent from the warehouse? Everything is perfect and in order. Yay tea!



So here’s what I got:

Herbal Tea:



I re-ordered two of the samples from the last order, Berry Blues and Sour Apple. Fantastic teas. These I ordered the size up from the sample, which is 3oz. Now how much exactly is 3oz of tea? I believe it varies from type to type since its based on weight, but in this bag of fruit pieces is 1.3 cups of tea. When you think about it, that’s a lot of tea since you generally use 1-2 teaspoons of tea per serving. I think these are going to last a little while.

I also ordered lots of samples of other herbals.





Berry Blast, Blood Orange, Dewy Cherry, Lemon Grass, and Mango Melange. They all sounded delicious, you have no idea how excited I am.

Decaf Black Tea:

Since I have officially given up caffeine (except in the event of a very rare migraine) I really have missed having my delicious Chai in the morning. I haven’t been able to find that one great decaf Chai that I know is out there, but I figured I could also take my hand at trying my own. I really hope the decaf has little to no caffeine in it, and not like decaf Starbucks coffee that is just toned down a bit from the regular.





The samples I ordered are Vanilla, Spice, Ceylon and the random wild card of Peach. I think of peach as a wild card since I have never had a fruit flavored black tea. The others I think I will like, especially with milk and sugar.

White Tea:

Very sad, I only ordered one lonely sample of white tea.



White Pear intrigued me, I recently have started eating fresh pears and figured why not. I previously ordered a white peach, and I think I remember liking it. The only thing I’m iffy on is the fact that it’s not decaf, though white tea has such little caffeine that it might as well be classified as decaf. I’m going to try drinking this in the mornings and see how it affects me.

I’ve noticed one huge difference in how Adagio sends their tea out. The previous samples I ordered came in little tins. Now the samples have all come in little resealable bags.



Now this change is not really that bad. I did love getting the little tins because they would stack nicely and didn’t take up a lot of room. The only bad thing about those tins were actually getting the tea out. The tea was packed in so tightly that it was hard to get a proper scoop. These bags are nice because you can get a great scoop out of, but they don’t stack as nicely or look as cool in the tea cabinet. It’s really not a huge deal, but I prefer tins. I’ll have to go and get some tins so that I can store these lovely teas better.

I’m hoping to start a tradition of Tuesday Tea Time, I have lots to share of my other favorite teas and tea gadgets/stuff and life seems to be calming down a bit so writing should happen a lot more often.

Cheers!

*Edit: It wasn’t until hours later after publishing this post that I realized it’s not Tuesday, and I got a little over excited about my tea and published it early. Oh well, I have plenty to talk about on Tuesday also! I’m blond, it happens.

I’m giddy to be able to say “last year” and put all of 2013 in the past. It was a rough year and being able to officially put it in the past makes me much happier.

During 2013 I don’t think I really accomplished much other than making copious amounts of caramel corn, drank way too much moonshine, mourned my sad and dead computer, and spent way too much time playing on my new iPhone.

Those darn iPhones are far too addictive.

Normally I don’t get out much, I tend to just stay in my house and not go anywhere fun or entertaining. So this year it was a real treat that we actually got invited to TWO potlucks in the same weekend!

The only bad part about having two in the same weekend is needing to make two different dishes. I knew I was going to want to make a dessert or something baked, but trying to think of two things to make and not screw them up was really starting to stress me out.

Then I remembered this bread! It’s not really quite a dessert, it’s more like something you would have for breakfast or at a brunch, but I figured why not? It’s delicious and I get both parties taken care of at the same time!

I didn’t realize how much I missed baking bread until I started making these loaves. The smell of the yeast, the kneading of the dough, and just the homey-ness that fresh bread smell creates.

I haven’t really baked bread in several years, or even really baked anything beyond a box mix.

Scandalous really.

Though at the time I was rather regretting making this recipe, not because it’s a bad bread but because it was torture smelling it bake and not being allowed to have any. By the time we got to the first party the anticipation was killing us.

I originally got this recipe off of The Fresh Loaf, but Floyd made it originally with blueberries but since I’m not a huge fan of the blue, I went for the raspberries instead.

I really want to try this recipe with apples as well. Can you imagine that? Warm and spicy cream cheese bread with apples in the morning, or even pumpkin would be delicious!

I think the reason that the recipe turned out so delicious and had such a great flavor is because of how many times I had to let the dough rise. First it was the sponge that needs to rise, then add the rest of the dough ingredients and rise, deflate and rise over night, then rise again just before baking.

I don’t think people realize how much work I put into my baked goods. This one actually does take two days and a lot of planning to make! Just make sure you aren’t like me and forget how much rising it has to do and start to make it at 9pm the night before your big party.

Then you’re up late at night, grumbling about the stupid bread and cursing yourself for not making sure to manage your time wisely. You’re telling yourself that you’re going to try to remember to do it at a better time next time, but in reality you’re going to forget again.

Because that’s what happens.

There is no better compliment than going to an event like a potluck with people that you’ve never met before, and having your dish disappear quicker than any of the others.

Saturday was at my coworkers house, and he made sure to hide the last piece for breakfast the next day.

On Sunday, my bread was the first thing gone.

I wasn’t really surprised at this since the husband and I can tear through most a loaf on our own. You really won’t regret making this bread.

Cream Cheese Raspberry Bread
Makes: Makes 2 braids
Originally found on The Fresh Loaf by Floyd

Ingredients:

Sponge
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup warm milk
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter

Berry Filling
2 cups berries (I used frozen raspberries)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Egg Glaze
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk

Cream Cheese Filling
1 cup cream cheese
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon egg glaze

Directions:

1. Make the sponge: mix the sugar, yeast, and flour together in bowl. Pour in the warm milk. Beat until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 1/2 hour.
2. Add the eggs, salt, sugar, and one cup of the flour to the sponge. Beat until smooth. Add the butter in small chunks and beat well. Add the remaining flour a little at a time and mix in until a soft dough is achieved and the butter thoroughly incorporated.
3. Knead the dough until it is smooth and satiny, about 5 minutes. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Deflate the dough, recover the bowl, and refrigerate overnight.
4. The next day, make the fillings before shaping the loaves.
5. Berry Filling: combine all of the ingredients except for the corn starch in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat while stirring constantly. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the corn starch, then remove from heat and let cool.
6. Egg Glaze: combine the egg and milk in a bowl and beat until combined.
7. Cream Cheese Filling: combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined
8. Once your filling has cooled off, take the dough out of the refrigerator and gently deflate it. Divide it into two pieces. Use a rolling pin to shape each piece into a thin (1/4 inch) rectangle on top of a large piece of lightly floured parchment paper.
9. Spread the fillings in the center of the dough with the cream cheese mixture on the bottom, then covered with the berry mixture.
10. At an angle, slice the sides of the dough into tabs approximately 1 inch wide. Alternating from side to side, fold the pieces in over the filling. When possible, gentle press on the tabs to seal the folds.
11. Using the excess parchment paper, lift the braids onto your baking sheet (you will need a big one!). Trim the sides down a little bit but keep them big enough to help you remove them from the pan later.
12. Glaze the braid with the egg wash. Cover loosely with plastic and set aside to rise until doubled in size, approximately 45 minutes. While it is rising, preheat the oven to 350ºF.
13. Glaze the braids again with any remaining egg wash. Bake on the center rack of the oven for approximately 35 to 40 minutes, rotating once after 15 minutes. You can go one step further by lifting one braid off the pan and moving it to the opposite outside of the pan so that the inside that was close to the other braid is now facing outward. This is a completely obsessive compulsive step that is totally optional.
14. Continue baking until golden brown and delicious. Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for at least half an hour before slicing.

Sometimes I shock myself with the random things that I do. They really make me question just how completely awesome I am. I know I’m pretty awesome at cooking, sewing, wielding the camera, and navigating the overall strangeness of life, but there are things that I am NOT awesome at.

Like I am not awesome at keeping myself from doing stupid things. The stupid things that I’m talking about include being so frustrated because I cannot find my car keys and later realize I was holding them in my hand all along, or losing my shoes in the morning (my husband loves that one, its almost a daily occurrence). Even forgetting to take my seatbelt off before getting out of the car and ending up flailing my arms as I’m tangled in my seatbelt while hanging half out of the car.

That was pretty awesome for those watching, I assume. However, as of the other night I have a new “awesomeness” I can add my long list of weirdness.

I set my oven on fire.

Yes oh yes I did. Six inch flames and smoke billowing up from the bottom of my oven. And the odor was horrendous. It was like a mix between burnt marshmallows and soy sauce. This is not the odor you want in your oven as you’re trying to make a double batch of your super awesome cookies for the company picnic on Saturday.

So what makes this odor and which lead to flames? Roasting a sweet potato.

Yep, stupid sweet potato.

I was trying to roast some sweet potatoes ahead of time so I could make some hash in the morning and not spend a whole lot of time on it, but since I’ve been having trouble getting my smaller russet potatoes to cook all the way in the oven, I wrapped the much larger sweet potatoes in some foil to help them steam a bit inside (a trick I’ve done previously for making baked potatoes). One and a half hours later this horrible smell starts coming from the kitchen. The sweet potatoes ended up turning to a pudding-like consistency and dripping sticky sweet liquid out them and onto the bottom of the oven.

Fail.

We scraped out the bottom the oven and got enough off the bottom that we didn’t think it would be an issue, but boy were we wrong. While the oven was preheating for cookies I noticed the smell again. I opened the oven and on the bottom were these giant black foamy looking things where the remaining sweet potato liquid was.

Right in the middle of the heating elements of the oven. Crap.

So I turn the oven off and grab my spatula to knock down the blobs from the elements and of course, they catch on fire in the mean time.

Sigh. Just my luck.

Luckily I don’t even think of freaking out. All I think is “you stupid flames!” and proceed to whap at them with the spatula until the flames die out and all I’m left with are the burning charcoal embers of evil sweet potato goo. I pick them up with the spatula and fling them, red glowing embers and all, into the sink. I then proceed to pout and grumble as I wait for the oven to cool down before I scrub it out with some baking soda and vinegar (awesome oven cleaner, but wait until the oven is cool, hot vinegar sucks to breathe in).

The funny part? My husband was oblivious. He had shut himself in his office and was making phone calls while listening to music. He didn’t even find out until much later in the night after he started smelling the cookies cooking and came to investigate, only to find a rather disgruntled and tired wife in the kitchen.

This whole drama pushed back my cookie baking time by over an hour, but the good thing about doing a vegan cookie recipe is that the batter won’t spoil or the butter won’t get too melty and ruin the batter if it sits on your counter for a while.

You can even eat it right out the bowl without any worry about salmonella since there aren’t any eggs to ruin your day. These cookies are almost idiot proof, unless you go and set your oven on fire…

The other nice thing about these cookies is that you can make them vegan or not so vegan. I don’t keep alternative milk in the house so I just used cows milk and they turn out great.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Vegan Cookies
Makes a few dozen, I didn’t count them, I was too traumatized by the fire.
Originally found at Neo-Homesteading

• 2 cups flour (whole wheat would taste great!)
• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cup peanut butter (chunky also would work, I used smooth)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup milk (cow or alternative work the same)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (cut in half if using vanilla flavored alternative milk)
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In one bowl whisk together the dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon) until combined.
3. In a second larger bowl beat the peanut butter and sugars together until combined. Add the remaining liquid ingredients and mix.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in two batches, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Add the chocolate chips last.
5. Scoop the batter into tablespoon sized balls and place 2″ apart on a lightly greased (or use parchment) cookie sheet.. It will be a bit crumbly but just smoosh it together to make it hold or they could crumble apart while cooking and look a bit funny.
6. Bake 13-16 minutes or until golden brown. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before moving them.

Well, do you count something as a failure if you’ve learned something in the process? The Whole30 (elimination diet) I talked about before actually became a Whole8 instead, mostly because I was feeling sicker and sicker every day when I was doing the diet. Most people start an elimination diet because they’re trying to heal what makes them feel sick, where it just plain old made me sick.

So after a week, I decided I needed to not be so strict and pick one thing at a time to eliminate instead of more than one. The dominant theory between my husband and I is that it was too much of a shock to the system. Oh well. I still think the Whole30 is a great program, I just couldn’t deal with feeling sick any longer.

If you do decide to do this type of diet, you will learn a LOT about yourself in the process. Here are a few things I learned in one short week:

• My cravings for sugar will go away quite quickly once I stop feeding them.
• Eating out while eliminating is almost impossible, it’s easier to eat at home and know what you’re eating than take the chance on messing yourself up.
• Pre-cooking, or just even preparing in advance, is essential to keep up with that kind of diet. You don’t have to really know how to cook, just having a plan of attack helps.
• Bigger breakfasts without refined carbs (cereal, toast, ect.) will keep me full until lunch. My favorite breakfast included sweet potato hash, two fried eggs, and turkey sausage.

Out of all the recipes that I’ve done for that week, my favorite has to be the turkey sausage. Normally my body does NOT like sausage. I think it might be the overall fattiness that sausage generally has. I love the flavor, but it does NOT love me at all. There are other people in my family that has the same problem so at least I’m not alone in my suffering.

Stupid genetics.

I like the turkey sausage since I can buy the leaner turkey and control the fat content (which is probably what bothers me) as well as the spices.

Since the recipe was an experiment, I just kept the sausage mixture in a plastic tub in the fridge and scooped it out as needed. It even tastes great when added to my sweet potato hash. As an added bonus, the husband likes it as well.

I had to google recipes for sausage to find a starting point, mostly because I had no idea what type of spices even went into sausage! I used that as a general guideline and put my own spin on it. Since I used turkey, it seems sage is generally the dominant flavor but I also added some extras to give it more depth of flavor. I added an egg thinking that it will hold the mixture together more into patties, but I think that is actually optional so don’t add it if you’re not eating eggs. (Just be more delicate about flipping!

With my next batch I’m tempted to cook up a whole bunch of little patties and freeze them so that all we have to do is heat them up during the week.

So tasty!

Turkey Sausage

• 1 pound lean ground turkey (I prefer 93/7)
• 2 teaspoons dried sage
• 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon granulated onion
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (or add less if you’re looking for low salt)
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 egg (optional, but holds the mix together more)

1. Add all ingredients together and mix well. Cook as either patties or crumbles

I feel like I’ve gotten away from that and haven’t been actually making that effort to truly create a better life and better relationship with food. Right now my relationship with food rather sucks. I’ve had an up and down relationship with food. Sometimes I’m doing really good and treating my body right with good foods, and other times I’m going off the wall and eating anything and everything in front of me.

I’ve gotten away from my healthy lifestyle and I need to make that change. So what am I doing? Elimination Diet aka Whole 30.

I’ve looked into a lot of elimination diets and thought about doing them for quite a while, and they are mostly used to help figure out if there is a food causing whatever health problems you have (in my case skin problems of acne and psoriasis/eczema) but will all the things you have to get rid of its rather terrifying. I’ve told a few people that I’m doing this plan, and I’ve gotten two different responses: “Really!? Yay! Fantastic!” or “You’re doing WHAT? And why the heck are you doing that!?”

Sigh.

Luckily my husband is being very supportive of me and is willing to try eating what I make for this eating plan. I know it’s going to be difficult, mostly for the whole going out part. We love to go out to eat, and eat far too much of it actually, but it’s going to be so difficult to find places that I know will not use all the things that are on the “Not Allowed” list.

So what’s on this dreaded no-no list?

Soy and all soy products
Wheat/Gluten
All other grains (no rice, quinoa, oatmeal, ect)
Dairy (except clarified butter or ghee)
Added sugar or sweeteners of any kind
Alcohol
Legumes
White potatoes
MSG or sulfites

Now what are you going to have for breakfast? No pancakes, toast, home fries, muffins, oatmeal, cereal…? I think this is what stumps most people, but as long as they take time to plan then it doesn’t actually seem all that bad, especially when you stop looking at what you can’t have and look at what you CAN have.

My dear friend Marcy is a nutritionist and she looked over the plan for me with two thumbs up.

So I’m doing it.

Starting tomorrow.

Crap.

I bought myself a new popsicle mold a few weeks ago, and I have to say I’m a bit obsessed. I decided that the little one that makes 4 is just too darn small, so I ordered this bad boy and had a little happy fit at work when it arrived. Not only are the popsicles bigger, but I can make 10 popsicles.

10!

That’s a lot of popsicles.

But in the time that I’ve been using it I’ve noticed that I never seem to quite fill all of the molds. I’m usually off by 2-3 molds, but that works for me since I can make a whole ton of filling and just see how far it gets me.

So I’ve had a bunch of grapefruits rolling around in the back of the fridge and decided they must become popsicles. It was a toss up between popsicles and hope made gummy bears, but with the hot weather coming I figured popsicles would be a better bet. Gummy bears to come later.

I did these the easiest way possible. Juice, add minute amounts of sugar syrup and freeze. I really need to start being more adventurous with my popsicle making, just straight fruit is not as much fun as some of the other ones I’ve spied online.

I didn’t add much sugar syrup (maybe a tablespoon) to the mix since I like the sour bite of grapefruit, but my husband gave me a sour face after a few licks of my pop. He’s just not all that in to grapefruit. I have to say they are very refreshing though and I feel very non-guilty when I eat them.

I’m thinking I need to add some different fruit to the grapefruit next time, they’re a bit on acidic side and maybe some strawberries would be delicious with it!

Grapefruit Popsicles:

Grapefruit juice (fresh or bottled)
Sugar Syrup

Sweeten to taste the grapefruit juice and pour into molds. Add a popsicle stick 1 hour into freezing so the frozen outsides can hold on to the stick. Freeze for 8 hours or overnight.

Sugar Syrup:

1 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar

In a medium sauce pan add the sugar and water. Heat over medium-high heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Let cool and pour into a glass jar or other container. Store in the fridge until needed. (Also works great for Margaritas!)

Sometimes you just get a craving and you have to have it. The other night I was craving pie. Not just any pie, but blackberry pie ala mode.

Sadly, I was just too darn lazy to go to a restaurant to get some pie, and had no motivation what so ever to start a pie crust. So instead I did the next best thing: cobbler.

After digging through my freezer I found a bag of frozen blackberries hiding in the back. Score. We still didn’t have any ice cream, but that’s easily fixed by sending my loving husband to the store. And he did. Brownie points for that guy.

I haven’t made a cobbler in so long that I couldn’t even remember how. Thanks to the internet and all of my cook books, I came up with a fairly good recipe. I think the topping needs a bit more oats to make it perfect, but it filled that obnoxious craving that wouldn’t leave and we had super yummy cobbler.

Normally when I make pie, I would do everything by hand. That’s just too much darn work. Now that I’ve got this little second hand food processor, I find myself using it for so many things, like making cobbler topping!

I liked that this recipe was so quick and easy. I’ve never made a blackberry cobbler before and I love how cooking the berries beforehand made it cook in the oven a lot quicker than a pie would.

I’m impatient and want my dessert sooner than later.

It was delicious. It was everything I wanted. Lots of berries, sweet crust and yummy vanilla ice cream. This will have to be a staple in my cooking arsenal. Easier than pie but tastes just as good!

Blackberry Cobbler
Serves 6

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into slices/cubes to make it easier
¼ cup cold water

1 bag frozen blackberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼-1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and butter/flour a baking dish. Not quite sure what size I used, bigger than 8×8 but not quite 9×13.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in 1/4 cup cold water just until mixture is evenly moist. (Or use your food processor, if you have one)
3. In a medium sauce pan, add the berries, lemon juice and sugar. Cook over medium-high heat until berries are defrosted and bubbling. Mix together the cornstarch and cold water, then add to the bubbling berries and cook until it starts to thicken.
4. Add the berry mixture to the baking dish and crumble the topping evenly over the berries. Put the baking dish on the foil lined sheet to catch the drips.
5. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until dough is golden brown.

Today is a big day for me. I hit a new decade in life.

Today I turn 30.

I am terrified of getting older, of having to actually be an adult. I know I can’t be a Toys R Us kid for the rest of my life, but 30? That’s huge.

Oh boy. Lets see how this goes.