Strawberry French Toast

This is the yummiest breakfast you will ever eat. 

A few weeks ago, my family and I went to the Cafe for Sunday brunch and I ordered strawberry French toast. It was super delicious, but I kinda forgot about it until a few days ago when I caught a glimpse of the people on the Today's Show making French toast. All the yummy memories came back and I decided I HAD to recreate the recipe. I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself!

What does it mean when your dog has better self-control than you do?

Track and Cupcakes!

It's track season! Yaaaaaaaaaay! My favorite time of year! I even got cute sweatpants! I've envied these sweatpants for years, it seems like everyone at ICA has them. Most of whom don't do track... And I had nothing to show for my 4 years of dedicated, complaint-free participation. But now I have snazzy sweatpants to show off! And show them off I will... Look at my sweatpants!

Catching-Up

1. I went to Wreck-It Ralph last night and laughed my head off. I also "Awwed" a lot. The movie started with the cutest short film "Paper Man". Up started something with the 3 minute love stories without words. I  was able to watch a really cute, funny movie about video games which ended with this song:

A perfect song to dance/walk out of the theater to. I have a feeling it will be playing a lot in my house for the next few days.

2. Poetry is hard. I really like reading it, but it is so difficult to write! I am the kind of girl that rambles three pages off in my journal on a regular basis without saying much. Saying a lot in a 14 line sonnet is not good for me (actually it is probably really good for me, I just don't like it :P). It goes without saying that I will NEVER post one of my poems on here.

3. I am a crier. This is a new discovery I am making. I never used to cry much, only on very rare occasions when I thought my world was going to end. Now it seems like every emotion (or song) can bring me to tears:

So I just found this song this morning, it is really sweet...I like it a lot....

4. I have TWO new recipes! 

Oat Pancakes
Servings: About 4 pancakes

Ingredients 
1/2 cup oat flour (Just put a little more than 1/2 cup of oatmeal in your blender or food processor until it is flour consistency)
2 Tbs whole wheat flour
1 Tbs wheat germ
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 egg white
1/2 cup milk
1/2 Tbs unsweetened applesauce

Directions
Step 1- Whisk together flours, wheat germ, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
Step 2- Add egg white, milk, and applesauce. Mix with a wooden spoon  until thoroughly combined.
Step 3- Pour 1/4 cup of the batter onto a slightly greased skillet at medium heat.
Step 4- Wait until pancakes are bubbly on the outside then flip and allow to cook through.
Step 5-Top with your favorite fruit or syrup and enjoy!

Nutrition Facts (for the whole batch):
Calories: 287
Fat: 4 g
Cholesterol: 2.5 mg
Sodium: 1166 mg (for this you might want to leave out the salt, this would make the sodium 596 mg)
Carbs: 47 g
Fiber: 7 g
Protein: 17 g
Sugar: 7 g

The second recipe is entitled Breakfast Pockets and will be posted shortly.

Saturday Pancakes

Today is Saturday. That means sleeping in until 10:30, staying in your pjs, and eating pancakes. Well at least for me it does...

Today I woke up craving blueberry pancakes. Yes, not just regular pancakes, blueberry pancakes. So I turned to the only clean-eating blog I thought I needed, because it has EVERYTHING. But I was sad to discover it did not have everything; it lacked a recipe for blueberry pancakes. So, thanks to Google, I now have another fall back blog that will hopefully fill in the blanks and give me healthy recipes for EVERYTHING. Including a blueberry pancake recipe I plan to make very frequently.

Clean Eating Chelsey is a vegetarian and also makes her recipes gluten-free. But the recipe I am about to post has been altered to comply to my lack of healthy ingredients (find the original recipe here).  My high hopes were fulfilled despite the recipe change. I topped one with banana slices and poured a tiny bit of maple syrup over another one. Both were good, but I ate the last one plain and that was tasty too, so feel free to experiment or eat plain!

Blueberry Pancakes
adapted from Clean Eating Chelsey
(One delicious serving)

Ingredients 
1/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbs ground flax seed
3 Tbs warm water
1 and 1/2 Tbs unsweetened applesauce
3 Tbs milk
1/3 cup blueberries

Directions
Step 1- Prepare a "flax egg" by mixing 1 Tbs ground flax seed with 3 Tbs warm water band letting it sit for 5 min while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
Step 2- Mix together flour, oats, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.
Step 3- Add wet ingredients, including the prepared flax mixture
Step 4- Mix wet ingredients until combined, then fold in blueberries
Step 5- Pour equal portions of pancake batter on a greased griddle at medium heat
Step 6- Wait until pancakes are bubbly on the outside then flip and allow to cook through.
Step 7- Top with your favorite fruit of syrup and enjoy!

Monster Cookies

Yesterday I was called on to make cookies for Family Camp this weekend. My younger sister begged me to make normal cookies. Since it was a special occasion, I did. I had been craving monster cookies for a while anyway, so I decided to indulge.

Can you tell I'm not the clean-as-you-go baker?

The recipe I made produces 2 or 3 dozen GIANT cookies. I had to mix the dough by hand because our Kitchen Aid was full with just the sugar, butter, egg mixture. With so much dough I thought it unlikely a few snitches would be noticed, so I probably ate half a cookie before they were even baked. Then I went on to eat quite a few broken pieces. I learned monster cookies break quite  easily if you try to put them on the cooling rack too fresh from the oven. Eventually, I decided to make a bowl for broken bits to spare my tummy.

Monster Cookies

(2-3 dozen)

Ingredients

4 eggs

3/4 cup butter

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups peanut butter

3 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

7 cups rolled oats

1 cup milk chocolate chips

3/4 cup M&M candies

Directions

Step 1- Beat together eggs, butter, sugars, vanilla, and peanut butter.

Step 2- In a separate bowl mix together baking soda, salt, and oats. Add to the peanut butter mixture.

Step 3- Mix in chocolate chips and M&Ms.

Step 4- Drop golf ball (or larger) sized balls of dough on an un-greased cookie sheet and press down with the palm of your hand or glass (it helps to get your hand/glass a little wet so the dough does not stick).

Step 5- Press M&Ms on top of unbaked cookies, place in the oven and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. 

Step 6- Allow baked cookies to rest on the cookies to rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing enjoy!

Delicious!