Summer or Winter

The weather can't make up it's mind around here. I woke up tuesday and it was snowing like mad out.. wait what??? And now they are saying in the 80's this weekend!

No matter the temperature outside, I'm always game for a slice of frozen hazelnut and PB pie :) This is a lighter version with all the flavor and tastiness of the full on version, seriously, go try it... you wont be sorry!


Light PB pie in the sky
recipe by steph chows

Beat together
1/2 cup Better than Peanut Butter
4 oz. 1/3 less fat hazelnut cream cheese (I got it from Panera)

Then stir in
1/4 cup splenda (or 1/4 cup white sugar)
1/2 cup skim milk

Then fold in
1/2 container fat free cool whip

Slop it into a graham cracker crust (chocolate or regular) and freeze for a few hours.

Let sit at room temp. for 15 minutes to slightly thaw.

As you can see in out picture... we didn't wait until it was totally frozen... we couldn't help ourselves!

Bulls Eye!!

A company asked me if I'd like to do a product review for them, they make parchment paper for cookies, but there is a fun twist...

No more guessing where to place your little dough balls for cookies, you've got a bulls eye to aim for! Let me introduce you to Bulls Eye Baking Company. As a target shooting archer I can totally get behind this :) And I know kids would have way too much fun placing out their cookies on these sheets.

Ready, aim, fire!!!

Not only are these things fun, they are totally functional. No need to greese pans, and I have to say the clean up aspect was wonderful! Wait, I don't have to wash a pan, or a silipad??? Count me in! These are perfect for when you need to bake something in a hurry and don't have time for clean up.

I say if you are in the market for parchment paper, give these guys a try!

mmmmm cookies... want to make these oatmeal spice cookies (no joke they have black pepper in them!!) you can check it out on cooking light here, or try an even healthy version I made up here.

Tulips

I've had some tulip picture requests... the ones the deer got...notice ALL the nubs in the background too... *sigh*


and the ones that survived!!!


:)

The Mustard Seed

Today I bring you a really random restaurant review from Watertown NY... what's in Watertown you ask?? Not too much that we found... except over a dozen cars with weird guys honking at us... either there are no women in Watertown... or the men folk are just VERY vocal!

Jeanne and I were meeting up half way between our respective towns (Ottawa and Rochester) Watertown is the midpoint... we met up at the library (1. since we both LOVE libraries, and 2. easy place to find people and something to do if one of us got there early!).


This library was beautiful... I mean just look at it!





After a quick nap... we walked over to the mustard seed (and proceeded to get honked at... a lot....)


The mustard seed is an organic shop which seems highly out of place, but that's ok, we didn't mind one bit! On the contrary we were super happy to find it between the taco bell and KFC! We both settled on the "macro vegan pad thai"


It wasn't the best we've ever had, but it wasn't bad either. That plus a little Honest Tea and we were powered for more walking and wandering :) The Mustard Seed is a must to check out though, you can grind your own nut butters, and their gluten free section would make most stores blush in comparison.

Thanks again for meeting up Jeanne!!

Oh deer

So the new house has a ton of tulips all over the place. I love tulips! We had a warm spell and all the buds were popping up and I was so excited to see what colors they all were... notice the WAS excited.

It seems the local deer were ALSO excited about all the buds and proceeded to come and use our front lawn as a buffet!!! So Mr Deer... this next recipe is dedicated to you... because if you come eat more of my plants you'll be the next nightly special!


Venison with peas
microwave some frozen pees... cook venison in a pan until cooked to your liking... serve... yup there really was no reason to write that down...

Watch your back Mr. Deer, I got my eye on you!

Bits from my weekend.. and muffins!

Hey all! Deconstruction of our house is going along swimingly... in fact one room is ALMOST totally done! Just need to put the electrical plug covers and heating grates on and we are good to go!


I really need to get better at taking before pictures... but before there was ugly paneling, and a disgusting old rug, and an ugly fan.... now we have freshly painted drywall, new thick comfy carpet, crown molding, baseboards, and a modern fan!

The next project was to deconstruct the master bedroom.
I'm a slave driver and make John work hard...


But don't think I didn't help!

(you know you love my crazy old jeans and adidas sweatshirt from the 80s)

Ahhh no more gross carpet and dead carpet pad

(gotta love the lone stereo sitting on the window seat... angry music makes ripping up carpet much more soothing)

This weekend was also the first time using my new stove and oven... what did I make... come on you know I had to make muffins!!!


Blueberry Yogurt muffins
by steph chows.

1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup splenda (or 1/4 cup white sugar)
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
dash salt
1/2 cup apple sauce
2 6 oz containers fat free lemon yogurt (so 12 oz total)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
1.5 - 2 cups blueberries, rinsed and patted dry

topping- stir together:
1/4 cup oats
1 Tbs whole wheat flour
2 Tbs honey or agave
2 Tbs chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 12 muffin cups with pam.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another bowl blend apple sauce, yogurt, egg and vanilla thoroughly. Stir the wet mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. The batter will be very thick.

Add the blueberries and stir gently. Divide the batter between the 12 silicon baking cups (or lined baking cups) (they will be very full cups) sprinkle with the topping mixture, and bake for 25 minutes, or until tester inserted into center comes out mostly clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

CHOW!

Bits from my weekend

Hey all! Sorry I've been a bum and lacking in posts as of late. You are all rock stars for being so supportive!! Love you all! Seriously I do!! I'm so thankful for all you readers :)


So a few bits from my weekend for you... (photos compliments of my wonderful sister)

Now would anyone like to guess where I was this weekend?

Nope, it wasn't our wedding yet...

hmmm what do we have in here...

it's a bridal shower! hooray for calphalon pans!!!! Yup I got 6 of the same pans due to a slight registry glitch.. love it


The cupcakes were seriously the most amazing I've ever had. If you live in Northern NJ and are interested in the contact info of the young lady who made them... let me know. She's just starting out and she's amazing. The cupcakes above are wedding white with a touch of almond, and the ones above them are PB cup. AMAZING!!! I may have eaten 6 over the course of the weekend... yup, that good.

The weekend also meant I got to spend some quality time with my awesome nephew... "Walton did you just pick a booger ...ewwwww... ok and time to hand you off to grandma!"

You can learn the best things from kids, like the fact no matter how busy and crazy life is, always take time to laugh play and smell the tulips :)

I'm Moving! Muffins

This post is brought to you by my awesome friend Jeanne! Who says "friends don't let friends lose their blog readers!" LOL she's awesome for helping me post while I'm so busy!

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Last August, I made a lot of jam. When I heard about Steph's jam exchange, I knew right away that I want to participate. I love jam. It brings back so many nice memories of my childhood. My mom makes the best raspberry jam! So, I was totally in for the exchange. What I didn't know was what kind of jam to make. So in the end... I just made LOTS. Strawberry, Strawberry/Rhubarb, Blueberry, Blackberry, Blackbery/Peach, Cherry.... Well... You get the picture.

Fast forward to the present - only the cherry jam remains. (No. I didn't eat it ALL. I gave lots away.) It tastes good, but is soooo thick it's impossible to spread on toast. So two jars of this jam have been sitting ignored on my shelf. But now I'm moving! And I'm moving far enough that things like jam are not getting moved! So I've been trying to use up/eat up everything in my cupboards and fridge.

So now I really have to figure out what to do with this jam! It didn't take long to come up with the obvious solution: Jam centered muffins. With a good and basic base (which used up some of basic ingredients I'm also trying to get rid of), the jam center is really nice.



I'm Moving! Muffins (makes 12)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 egg, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup veg.oil (Or apple sauce. I gave these to people at work, so I used oil. It was a good way to get rid of some of that too!)
lemon rind
thick jam

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Mix together all of the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients to mix the wet ingredients. After those are thoroughly combined, mix everything until just wet.
3. In lined muffin tins, put a small dollop in the bottom of each muffin. Spoon a generous helping of jam into each muffin, making sure to center it as best you can. Cover jam dollop with the remaining batter.
4. Bake for 18-20 min or until done.

Time to cook

It's somewhat ironic that I'm always saying... oh you can make time to cook it's easy... and yet this weekend I did not cook ONE single thing... no joke. Cereal for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, dinners out... easter at John's parents... mmm ham... HAM I say!! Come sunday night I realized the lack of cooking and baking and was feeling kinda bad about it, really I'm not trying to starve my soon to be hubby! (i'm just making sure he fits in his suit nice... i kid i kid!!)

So monday night after a trip to the new house to finish up painting the trim in my awesome new craft room... (the trim was black btw... previous owner of the room was a little high school punk rock girl, in case you are wondering... 2 coats of primer and 2 top coats will cover shiny black trim). Anyway, once I drove back to my condo I made a quick dinner (leftover ham with eggs and toast- YUM) and then got cracking on some granola for me, and some biscotti for John!

Granola is a staple in my diet it seems. I love having it with a little milk or over some greek yogurt, it's my go to mid morning snack to hold me over until lunch at 1. (and yes I do eat breakfast... I just chow a lot... come on people you know this by now) and biscotti is super easy to make plus I haven't made any for John in awhile.

For the granola hit up here.
For the whole wheat biscotti head here.

Darn I wanted to show you a before/after of the trim... but it's on John's camera... which is at his house and not mine... I'll post it once I have it... you'll laugh :)

Oh so wonderful!

Are you a pomegranate juice fan? I wicked am, didn't use to be, but those people at POM are pretty convincing. I mean just check out this graph about antioxidants... aren't graphs 100 times better than reading all the facts... I think so too! OK if you want to read about it go here.


The wonderful people (ha get it...) at POM sent me some more juice to try out, and I can't stop chugging it! I love it after a workout to give me a little fuel before I start cooking dinner. And it tastes great added to smoothies. I know I probably sound like a commercial but it's just too good to not talk about! :) If you haven't yet, go give it a try, you'll get hooked :)

So tell me, what way do you prefer to drink your pom? Mixed up, straight up??

Steak Sammie

It's good friday... and I'm posting a steak sandwich... ok that's just wrong on so many levels... but this is what I had scheduled and ready to go... so... sorry about that... make this another night, just not tonight :) ... unless you aren't celebrating good friday, in that case, go for it!


So you know how I love love love bread? Well I made my favorite loaf again the other night... and proceeded to eat the entire thing over the course of 3 days *sheepish grin* yeah... that's not so much on the moderation train huh... well you can't be good all the time :D


One of the nights I took a big ol slice and made a steak sandwich with some leftovers from the previous night, topped it off with some pesto and I was good to go.

If you haven't yet, go make this bread recipe NOW. I added a nice helping of red pepper flakes to this one... such a good kick of flavor!!