Remix- Ice Cream Sandwich?

I found this intriguing recipe on one of my new favorite blogs: http://www.theleangreenbean.com
Lindsay ( aka the green bean and an RD!) cooks on the weekends and preps snacks, grains, breakfast foods etc like us to make the week easier and healthy choices seamless. Whole real foods and grains- we’ve made the one ingredient ice cream before and LOVE figs and dates, so I went for this. I adapted it a bit from the original so if you like to see what change check out this awesome blog! And go ahead and make this, they are so so good. The chia seeds are optional but I like that it adds a crunch and nutrition to boot, if you want to use figs rather then dates you’d also get the same crunch and Yum….
Recipe adapted from http://www.theleangreenbean.com

Makes 8 bars

Ingredients
1 cup Dates
1/2 cup cashews
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 teaspoons chia seeds
3 teaspoons water
3 frozen bananas, in chunks
1/4 cup Almond milk

In a food processor, pulse dates, cashews, peanut butter, cocoa, chia seeds until combined and a crumbly mixture forms. Add water by teaspoon if mixture is too dry.

Transfer mixture to a Saran covered jelly roll pan and flatten to about 1/4″ thickness trying to maintain a rectangular shape for uniform sandwiches; about 12″x16″.

Cover and freeze for two hours.

Meanwhile, clean food processor and combine bananas and almond milk. Pulse and process until smooth creamy consistency. Store in freezer until ready to assemble.

To assemble cut with pizza cutter in to 16 equalish rectangles. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of banana cream on one piece, top with a second, wrap in Saran to store in freezer- repeat to complete and enjoy!

 

Sneak Peek: Our Vegetable Garden

This summer, we finally have a real deal backyard and are so so excited to plant a garden!  This is just a quick post to let you know what we’ve got going on- and we plan to do future posts on how we built our very own raised garden and the progress of our growing seedlings.  Here is a list of what we planted:

In the Raised Garden Box:

Red Pepper

Green Beans

Cucumber

Zucchini

Beets

Carrots

Spinach

Italian Lettuce

In the beds along the fence/ garage:

Rhubarb

Jelly Bean Tomatoes

Rosemary

Hydrangea

Lavender

Butterfly Flowers

Petunias

Rosebushes ( existing)

In the pots:

Basil

Thai Basil

Parsley

Chives

Cilantro

Oregano

Tomato Plant

More Flowers

 

 

 

Mexican Style Mussels

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  We should’ve grilled out buuuuuut instead we spent the afternoon planting our raised garden beds and wanted to keep it simple for dinner- enter Mexican Mussels!  Perfect fast easy dinner, delicious served with very good sliced bread.  Mussels were $4.99/ lb ( at WHOLE FOODS!) so these are also budget friendly.  Here is a great link on how to clean your mussels and also make sure that you aren’t eating bad ones.  This recipe is an original so let us know what you think- we loved every last slurped soaked bead bite.

1.25 lbs mussels, cleaned and sorted

1/2 cup chopped shallots

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 sup chopped red pepper

4 tablespoons butter

1.5 cups dry white wine

1/4 cup cream

2 tablespoons lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounces chorizo

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1 baguette, sliced

Avocado for the side

In a large dutch oven style pan, heat your butter over medium high heat.  Saute the shallots, garlic and red pepper for about 5 minutes.  Add in the wine and let cook for about 6 minutes.  While that cooks, in another pan cook your chorizo through breaking it up in to bits.  Transfer to a paper towel lined plate and set aside.  Once the wine is cooked out, add in the mussels, chorizo, 1/4 cup of the cilantro and salt and pepper.  Place the lid on your pan and cook mussels gently shaking the pan to coat with the sauce.  They are cooked fully when they pop open; about 4-5 minutes total.  Remove from heat, squeeze lemon juice on top, the cream ( if desired) and the rest of the cilantro, season with more salt to taste.  Serve hot with sliced baguette and avocado.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting

Who doesn’t love cupcakes?  I know I do, but I also don’t want to undo all my hard work at the gym.  This recipe comes from a fun blogger fitfoodiefinds.com that makes some really inspiring healthified desserts, a fellow sweet tooth after dinner like us 🙂  It’s the first real recipe I have followed from her blog so I didn’t make any changes- these are so yummy, the cake was moist and spongy and the frosting was to die for- I love raspberries!  Some updates for next time:  I would use the stand mixer to beat the cake batter for 2 minutes so it’s less spongy and more cakey- flavor was perfect!   Also, using 4 ounces of cream cheese and 1/3 cup yogurt for the frosting, mine was a little runny even after refrigeration.  It also made extra frosting, so you could 1/2 the recipe for that entirely, and have enough for all 12 cupcakes.   Follow original link for the original recipe, or trust us and make it with our updates, they are delicious!
Recipe adapted from: Lee Hersh at Anytime Health

Makes 12,  175 calories each

Ingredients

• 1 cup nonfat milk
• 1 egg, large
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Then, lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
2. In your mixer, combine wet ingredients, beat on medium speed for 1 minute
3. In a small bowl combine dry ingredients
4. Add dry to wet, mix to combine on low speed then beat on medium/ high for 2 minutes
5. Fill each cup about 2/3 of the way full with the batter.
6. Bake for 18 minutes or until set. Test cupcake with a toothpick
7. Let cool completely before applying the frosting- 30 minutes

While your cupcakes are in the oven, prepare your Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting. The frosting will need to sit in the refrigerator for about an hour before piping.

Lighter Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 4-ounces neufchatel cream cheese
• 1/3 cup non fat Greek yogurt
• 1 cup confectioner sugar, packed
• 1 cup fresh raspberries, cleaned and dry

Instructions

1. In your stand mixer bowl, combine cream cheese, yogurt- Mix until there are no lumps. Slowly add in the powdered sugar till combined then beat on medium/high for 1-2 minutes till smooth.  Then, add in fresh raspberries and mix again, breaking up the raspberries.
2. Let sit in the refrigerator for about an hour.
3. Once completely chilled, transfer to a piping bag ( or zip bag with corner cut off) and pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. Place a fresh raspberry on top for garnish.

Store in the refrigerator for no more than 5 days ( if they last that long!)

 

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Food

Look who got Instagram!  The filters and quality of images is a lot of fun to do quick pictures of our food on the fly rather than setting up a studio every time we want to document.  Obviously those pictures are much better, but then we blog less!  There’s no real recipe here, just inspiration to get outside and grill.  We made guacamole  fresh salsa and grilled chicken tacos with fresh cilantro and green onion.  Check out this post for fresh salsa with the grill