By now, if you’re a blogger or have been reading healthy living blogs long enough, you’ve certainly heard of banana soft serve. If you haven’t, well it’s a delicious snack/ dessert made up entirely of frozen bananas that have been blended or processed and turned into a one-ingredient creamy, frozen soft serve magic. I personally am very familiar with banana soft serve (or BSS as it goes by in my house), and probably enjoy it on a weekly basis.

Sometimes, though, I crave change. Change is good! What is life, but change after all? (Alright, admittedly this is getting a wee bit deep here for frozen fruit, but roll with me!) So, I decided to change up my frozen fruit desserts/ snacks, and came up with this treat instead.

Vegan Frozen Strawberry Dessert (serves two)

• 1/2 pound frozen strawberries (eight ounces)
• 1/2 of a ripe avocado
• 1 teaspoon raw agave (optional – can use more or less to taste)

In a high power blender or a food processor, start breaking down the frozen strawberries. Once the strawberries look like strawberry gravel, add in your avocado half. Continue to blend, occasionally pausing to wipe down the sides, until an even, creamy consistency is reached. At this point, if you want a little extra sweetness you can blend in a teaspoon (or however much you desire) of raw agave, or any other sweetener you choose. Or, leave it as is and dig in.

There are so many potential variations! Maybe instead of frozen strawberries, try frozen mango? Or add in a tablespoon of cocoa powder (or raw cacao if raw is important to you). For a little extra fun, you can also top it with a little toasted coconut or a few mini chocolate chips.

However you make it, have fun with it and enjoy!

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Anyway, this smoothie is packed with easy, simple ingredients, tastes amazing, and is packed with nutrition. My professors would be so proud! Plus, it’s so good that I stopped working on a post for veggie enchiladas and decided you HAD to know about this smoothie first. (That says a lot guys. I love my routine and my schedule. Disrupting it takes something big. This would be it.)

Also – before anyone says this isn’t a really chunky monkey flavored smoothie, well, you’re right. For starters – this smoothie won’t make you so chunky. Also, homegirl here is allergic to walnuts so those don’t belong in my house. We use peanut butter instead. Chunky monkey = upgraded.

Nutritional stats? Well, you should make it because it tastes good, but you’ve got a serving of fruit and loads of potassium with your banana. You’ve got GREEN and VEGGIES in your sweet smoothie with spinach. Unsweetened almond milk because I like it better than cow’s milk and it’s low calorie. Peanut butter has a tiny bit of protein and fats that will keep my belly more satisfied than had I eaten carrot sticks and cucumber slices. Again. Dark chocolate for antioxidants and smiles.

Go make it! And while you’re making it, can someone try a minty green smoothie and leave out the peanut butter and add in mint leaves? Then mail me the leftovers? K, thanks friend!

Not-So-Chunky Monkey Smoothie (serves 1)

• 1 frozen banana
• 1/4-1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or whatever kind of milk rocks your world)
• big ol’ handful of baby spinach (technically speaking)
• small spoonful of peanut butter (1 teaspoon to half a tablespoon, depending on the ferociousness of your peanut butter-loving taste buds)
• 2 small squares dark chocolate (or I’m sure a few chocolate chips would work, too!)

Directions: Put in blender. Blend.

I know it’s really hard and uses really extravagant ingredients, but try it for me, please. And someone please try that natural minty vegan milkshake, k? I can’t wait to hear how it is!

Over and out.

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Baby Portobello, Champignon and Shiitake mushrooms with spinach, mozzarella and provolone cheeses with a tomato parmesan sauce on a wood-fired, thin crust made with Kashi 7 Whole Grains & Sesame™ and flax seed. Vegetarian.

Well, yum! Ross and I both enjoyed this pizza (please make sure to cook it according to the “crisp crust” standards or it won’t be as yum). However, I think this is something Meghann has commented before too, but it’s just not enough as is. Ross had 5 slices, I had three and that sounds like a ton, but it’s completely not. Make sure you either eat it with soup or salad…or be like us and go get ice cream afterwards.

Moving on to today!

I woke up with awful cramps, so we stayed home and watched a church service online at a church we used to go to (and loved!) in Orlando – Discovery Church. Amazing. Kinda miss that church! It was fun though, going to church in bed haha.

After my painkillers kicked in we hit up Winn Dixie for some awesome produce sales they had (fresh local blueberries $1 each; Bosc, Anjou, and Red pears $1/lb; and fresh green beans $1/lb). After dropping the produce off we went on our way to TARGET!!! Y’all know how I love me some Target. I feel like we’ve been going there a lot lately, but today we had an excuse – I had to pick up a prescription! Oh what? You can transfer prescriptions to different pharmacies? Oh? Well…maybe that was just an excuse… We had fun anyway!

Once we got back I began my vegan baking bonanza!!! SO much fun, and I am so glad I got to play with vegan baking! Sundays are totally becoming baking days.

Round 1 was my rendition of these Vegan Blueberry Oat Muffins that Heather posted her rendition of yesterday. Yum! The ingredients I used were:

1 c. unsweetened original almond milk
1 c. rolled oats (Quaker old fashioned)
1 c. white whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp. baking powder
little salt (no where near the 1/2 tsp. they use)
ground golden flax egg replacer (1 T. ground flax + 3 T. water; sit for 1-2 min.)
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
3/4 c. turbinado
1 c. fresh blueberries (lightly dusted in WWW flour so they won’t sink to the bottom).

Please see the original recipe for instructions/ baking times and temp. Mine came out wonderfully!

Don’t you just love the beaming rays of light shining down on my muffin? I’m SUCH a nerd!!

Up next was my attempt to mimic Kashi’s GOLEAN Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Bars. My husband loves these, but they’re rather pricey in my opinion. I used this recipe as an inspiration/ basis for mine. Here are the ingredients I used:

1 mashed super-ripe banana
1 c. light brown sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1.5 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1.5 c. white whole wheat flour
2 T. ground golden flax seed
2 T. ground sesame seed
1 tsp. baking powder
salt (couple tiny shakes, not much at all)
2.25 c. old fashioned oats
3 T. water
1/2 c. roughly chopped raw almonds
1/2 c. raisins
1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds

I mixed everything according to my inspiration recipe (adding the ground flax and sesame with the flour and stirring in the almonds, raisins, and sunflower seeds at the end). Instead of making mine like cookies I made one giant square-ish blob on a cookie sheet and baked for 30 minutes.

I then sliced to bar-ish shapes:

And I left some plain and then drizzled some with white chocolate (non-vegan, guess those ones are just vegetarian!!)

And there you have it! LC’s Oatmeal Almond Raisin Bars! Aren’t they cute? Which hubs says don’t taste like the Kashi bars (well duh, they’re not them) but I think they taste better and way more natural!

Thus ends Vegan Baking Bonanza Sunday and began yucky-meat-rib-thing-fest-because-I-love-my-husband-so-much-and-he-says-I-never-feed-him-real-meat. I’m such a good lil’ wifey.

His:
Hers:

I cut some of the least fatty chunks off and kept them for myself. I only ate about half of the meat picture on my plate.

However, even though I wasn’t the world’s most happy camper during the experience, Ross LOVED it! He said my ribs blew so many others he’s tried out of the water (oh yeah, who’s the non-rib eating but best rib-making master!?! haha jk…). He wants me to make them again sometime, so here is my attempt to remember what I did.

Dry rub on the ribs – brown sugar, kosher salt, ground red pepper, garlic powder, paprika, thyme, oregano, marjoram, fresh ground black pepper. Smush in on both sides of rib, bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until meat reaches 160 degrees F.

BBQ sauce made separately – lotsa ketchup!, lotsa molasses!, honey mustard, balsamic vinegar, little apple cider vinegar, little BBQ sauce I already had, garlic powder, ground red pepper, marjoram, oregano, fresh ground black pepper, kosher salt, pineapple juice….think that’s it!

He loved it. Wayyy too much heat for my little tastebuds! Woo sucker, I gulped down some vino and jumped for mas agua!!

The green beans I made using a technique I read about on my friend Jamie‘s blog. She talked about marinating veggies, and I wanted to give it a try. I marinated my green beans in balsamic vinegar, garlic powder, kosher salt, and fresh ground black pepper for about an hour, then put them in a 400 degree oven for 7 minutes. YUM!!!

We also had a slice of my Hawaiian Oat Beer Bread on the side.

OK SUPER LONG POST DONE!!! Sorry y’all, I obviously just had a HUGELY productive afternoon in the kitchen!! Time for me to go chillax.

Also – PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO VOTE FOR THIS VIDEO AS MUCH AS YOU CAN SO IT CAN BE SHOWN AT THE GRAMMYS!!!!! I’m told Matt looks like Jacob in the Twilight movie?? (Haven’t seen it, I know, I’m nuts). Thank you guys so much for voting!!!!

http://www.cbs.com/specials/grammys/moment/video_player.php?vid=407

Have a great Monday tomorrow!!!

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Can I just say that after months of staying home alone each day, after having moved to a new city, searching and searching for jobs that it is just plain weird to think I’m working? Especially when it’s so fun! Working on this fundraiser is almost like planning a big corporate wedding. You have the fun things, the detailed nitty gritty things, but to me it’s all fun! And random, but I think by being out and about working today, interacting with people, and going on a fun date to a pizza parlor with the hubs tonight, I think I started to like our city a tiny bit more.

Now for my homemade applesauce post. (I’m sorry I didn’t post this recipe this AM! Please bear with me as I try to get myself into a routine schedule of work hours, working out, blogging, and life.)

Homemade Applesauce

I saw I had four rather mushy looking apples in my fruit bowl, and decided to make some homemade applesauce. I first peeled, cored and cut the fruit into bite size pieces and put them all in a medium sauce pan.

I then added 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (inspiration from the applesauce I saw Lindsay make around Christmas time!), 2 Tablespoons water, and a grating of fresh nutmeg. (You can use pre-ground nutmeg, but whole nutmegs are a recent obsession of mine, and are so wonderful in terms of flavor!) The below picture gives you an idea of how much nutmeg I grated.

In case you’ve never used a whole nutmeg, here’s what the inside of one looks like (I think it’s so pretty!)

I also added 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Then all you have to do is put the pan over low heat and let it simmer away until the apples are tender. You’ll be able to walk away for bits at a time, watch something on tv, read a blog, and just enjoy the wonderful baked cinnamon apple aroma as it fills your home.

Once the apples are tender, I let mine cool a few moments. If you want a chunkier applesauce you can use a potato masher, or if you want a smoother applesauce (like what I made) you can use an immersion blender or blend all the soft apples in a blender.

Once the apples have cooked down and you have blended them, it won’t make very much applesauce. I probably had about a cup, maybe a little over. However to me, this was the perfect recipe. Sweet but not artificial (only sweetness is from the apples themselves!), and pure comfort food level with the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. And I’m sure this can be made with any kind of apples you have lying around and you can scale the ingredients (apples, vanilla, water, nutmeg, cinnamon) to the number of apples you use.

Here’s the final product on top a gingersnap (great combo!)

So much better than store bought applesauce! Why buy it when you can do it yourself?

Well I’m off to go watch our weekend redbox movie rental! The Swing Vote is on the agenda for tonight, I hope it’s good!

What do y’all have planned for the weekend? For moi – a little shopping, nutriton studying, cleaning, running, churching, relaxing, yada yada yada. Maybe a free comedy show in the area Sunday night. And funny/ semi-downer – we were planning on a long weekend since hubs doesn’t teach on MLK day Monday, but now I have to work! I work!! God is so good.

Much love y’all!

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• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
• a few grates of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
• 3 Tablespoons orange juice
• 1 Tablespoon honey or agave
• 2 Tablespoons canola oil

1. Combine the oats, almonds, apricots and nutmeg in a large bowl. Stir in all of the liquids until all the oats are evenly coated.
2. Spread out the granola on a lined baking sheet (I use a silicone cookie sheet liner I have, but you can also use parchment paper or foil).
3. Bake granola in a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 15 minutes. Take the granola out and turn it, then bake an additional 10 minutes. *You want to make sure you remove the granola after a total time of 25-30 minutes, because the granola will continue to harden after you remove it from the oven.

The orange juice makes a great liquid substitute for extra fats and honey that would normally be found in other granola varieties, plus it carries a soft punch of citrus flavor throughout the granola. However, I do admit that if you are a fan of super crunchy, hard granola, you won’t like this lower fat and sugar approach! Because of the juice, the granola is a bit softer than “normal”.

Many other variations could be made based on this recipe! Here are some ideas below (just make sure all the dried fruit you use is unsweetened! You may be surprised to see how many added sugars are included in dried fruits).

• Pina Colada Granola (pineapple juice and dried unsweetened coconut – I can’t have macadamia nuts, but it seems like they would go well with this combo instead of almonds).
• Pomegranate Cherry Granola (pomegranate juice and dried unsweetened cherries)
• “Grape Nut” Granola (grape juice and raisins, with whatever nut desired)
• Many more!

You can also add a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed to any granola combination for some bonus healthy fats.

Also, I had a request for the redbox promo codes I posted a while back. I believe the codes breakroom and dvdonme are still available, and I don’t think they have an experiation date (they can only be used once per debit card though). If you go with a friend or a spouse you can both use your debit cards and get double the freebies! Also, a code just for today is H48MX2. I hope everyone is having a great Monday!

What’s your favorite granola variety?

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