Cinnamon and honey plantains

I did an impulse buy in the grocery store last week.

Plantains.

Tonight I fried them in butter with fresh ground cinnamon and sprinkles of vanilla.

Then right before I took them out of the pan, I drizzled them with local honey.

Weight training smoothie

It's 9:20 a.m. and between the cold weather, the everyday aches and pains of this body and PMS, my diet has consisted of too much Halloween candy and too many potato chips.

My fitness goals have been challenged by the cold snap and my unheated work out space coupled with ankle pain that may be related to my cerebral palsy and/or preliminary phases of arthritis. 

So today I brought some weights inside. I did 20 minutes of yoga for abs and 15 or so of lower body yoga. I'd never done that routine. The results were indeed awkward. I added to that 15 minutes of upper body free weights while watching an old episode of ER and ended up getting more reps than usual in because I enjoyed watching TV.

I "rewarded" myself with a breakfast smoothie, vegan:

 It's sweeter than I expected. I used 4 ounces coconut water with pulp, 4 ounces very vanilla silk soy milk, one tablespoon unsalted organic almond butter from Wegmans (a friend hates it and passed it off to be knowing I do love almond butter in all shapes, sizes and varieties), a banana, and Biochem Sports vegan protein powder in vanilla.

Makes me feel stronger already.

Zoku pops

First attempt 

Strawberry smoothie

Oooooh so good!

- one serving strawberry rhubarb Noosa yogurt
- about 4 ounces very vanilla soy milk
- Carnation essentials vanilla flavor
- 4 fresh strawberries

Blend.

Oh yum!

Homemade deluxe nut butter

So, child and I embarked on our first nut butter adventure in a hand-me-down food processor with a cute French name.

I had roasted my raw almonds after a hearty soak. The cashews came roasted but unsalted.

This yielded almost a quart of nut butter. I was surprised at how much it made!

Child and I ground everything in stages, constantly scraping down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula when the blade began to struggle.

- one cup cashews
- one cup almonds
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla
- 2 tablespoons local raw honey
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- about four tablespoons water (toward the end)

Scrumptious. Perhaps to heavy on the honey. Texture reminiscent of Cream of Wheat.

Perfumed Pineapple Oat Crumble

This is a favorite from the French cookbook my friend Jessica brought me. The original attempt (with way too much butter after the conversion from metric and translation) is here:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/perfumed-pineapple-crumble-crumble.html?m=0

I did some alterations today, trying to make it heartier/healthier.

Ingredients:
- 2 small pineapples
- real vanilla
- brown sugar
- butter
- flour
- oats

Cut the pineapple and 'perfume' with about 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Grease dish with butter. I used my Le Creuset skillet today.

Sprinkle with brown sugar. The original suggests 3 tablespoons. I didn't measure.

Arrange pineapple in the bottom of the dish.

Make sandy crumbs with remaining ingredients. The recipe suggests 2 more teaspoons vanilla, 2 cups flour and 2 cups brown sugar. And butter -- at room temperature.

I tried:
- vanilla
- one cup unbleached flour
- one cup oats
- one cup brown sugar
- 1/2 stick butter

Cover pineapple with crumbs and bake for 45 minutes at 350.

Creamsicle icing

For the icing on our lemon filled Starlight cake, we made creamsicle icing!

We started with Betty Crocker's creamy vanilla frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- about 2 tablespoons milk

Except we used 4 tablespoons of juice from clementines instead of milk and added about 2 teaspoons of their grated peel.

Iced tea and leftovers

Last week's green tea with berry turned awesome. This morning I'm making Stash vanilla nut cream decaf with a regular lipton bag, too. I forgot last week that I do have a glass jar to make sun tea. I bought it on clearance last summer at Wegmans.

For breakfast we had scrambled eggs and fresh blueberries.

For lunch we had leftover pasta from the restaurant last night (my dad took us out to dinner). Can you believe I ate pretty heartily last night, and still had enough of my meal leftover to split it three ways for the family for lunch.

That's when you know portion sizes are out of control.

Silk Pure Almond vanilla milk

So, today I went to Target and I say Silk Pure Almond milk in original and vanilla. I had to try it. It was $2.99 for the half gallon.

Now, I bought the vanilla and it tastes delicious. BUT unlike soy milk, it doesn't offer protein. Just 1 gram per serving. Part of the reason I use soy milk is for added protein. Sigh. And because flavored soy and other alternative milks don't have high fructose corn syrup and preservatives like commercial chocolate milk.

So, here's the nutritional content on 8 oz.:
90 calories
2.5 g fat (all unsaturated)
no cholesterol
150 mg sodium (that seems high)
150 mg potassium (4 % RDA)
16 g total carbs (3%) (1g as dietary fiber 4%)
Vitamin A 10%
Calcium 30%
Iron 4%
Vitamin D 25%
Vitamin E 50%
and Riboflavin, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Zinc, Copper and Manganese

Blueberry Crumb Bread Pudding

My daughter seems to have the plague we've all been harboring, so I gave her some trail mix with extra cashews and dark chocolate powder-coated almonds to tide her until I got something hot and comforting whipped up.

This is what I thought I'd make, the apple crisp bread pudding, but with blueberries as we have a big bag of frozen blueberries from the warehouse club. Here is the original recipe:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/11/apple-crisp-bread-pudding.html

But, as one should anticipate, I have a tendency not to read the entire recipe before cooking... I ended up improvising more than I thought and what should have been a nice 11 x 13 pan of pudding ended up filling a cake pan.

So, here goes:

In a large skillet, combine

• 3 cups blueberries
• 1/4 cup blue curacao
• 3 tablespoons butter

Let come to slow boil and reduce heat.

Now, I used a good 14 cups of bread chunks, because I started with a two-day old baguette from Wegmans, ran out, and used the remaining breadchunks I had in the freezer... the same ones I used for my homemade stuffing.

I buttered the bottom of my cake pan and sprinkled with about 1 tablespoon sugar. Then I added the bread hunks from the baguette. I poured most the blueberry mixture over this and spread it around as best I could.

Then I added the frozen bread to cover it and sprinkled about 1 cup of frozen blueberries on top.

Now, the custard:

My custard was...

• 7 eggs (it was what I had)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup 2 percent milk
• almost 2 cups vanilla soy milk

Whisk until a nice even texture. Pour onto bread, pressing down with a spoon to make sure the bread absorbs the liquid.

Now, the oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. I layered a thin layer of brown sugar on top and then added about a cup of my mother-in-law's pie crumbs on the very top. She always makes extra when she makes a pie and usually throws them away, but I freeze them.

Bake for 40 minutes or until set.

I hope it works...

We had the first serving after 40 minutes in the oven and it was incredible! I put it back it for another 15 minutes because it didn't seem quite set enough...

More of an update:
Now what? I have made a ridiculous amount of bread pudding. This is where 'cheap' comes in. We each had about 1.5 cups for breakfast. It accounted for about 1/6 of this pan. I scooped an equal amount into a Tupperware container for tomorrow's breakfast.

There are several approaches for the rest...

1. Eat until we are disgustingly full. (Wouldn't be cheap or healthy.)
   
2. Share. (No one really to share with)
3. Store.

I opted to freeze. Bread pudding is already mushy, so it shouldn't affect the texture too negatively to freeze it. And I placed approximately three servings in each one quart freezer bag. So each bag will serve my whole family for breakfast. I ended up with four bags, which I will place inside a large freezer bag once the little ones cool. I have them in my unheated mud room so it shouldn't take long.

Now, a dessert that required a lot of eggs, bread and blueberries will serve a family of three for six comfort food breakfasts. Serve with a side of vegetarian sausage and I think that's a great start for a winter day.

Fruity Baked French Toast

I can't find my recipe for baked French toast, but this won't stop me. I'm combining the vegan recipe for French toast, my imagination and my leftover homemade bread from Thanksgiving...

• 8 slices homemade white bread
• 8 slices homemade multigrain bread
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup homemade applesauce
• 1 banana
• juice of 1 clementine
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Okay, so the jury is out on whether this one will "work." In a bowl, I mixed: the eggs, applesauce, banana, juice, milk, honey and vanilla. I dipped the bread into the mix and layered it into my greased (with butter) 11x 7 casserole dish. Then I added the cinnamon and the nutmeg to the egg mix and poured over the bread. (I had two layers of bread.)

I'm baking and 350 and then I figure I'll broil it depending on how much of the liquid gets absorbed.

After 20 minutes at 350, most of the liquid absorbed, but it was still mushy, so I rearranged it a bit and increased heat to 420, for another 10 minutes...

As the pieces got crispy, I served with cream cheese and my mother-in-law's blueberry topping.

Now, if you'd rather try a recipe for vegan French toast, here you go (from Eileen Bresslin):

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 slices stale bread
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon

Mix soy milk and orange juice, dip bread in mix lightly (do NOT let bread get soggy) sprinkle with cinnamon and fry in oiled skillet.

Naughty. lazy mommy!

I should go into the kitchen and make myself a nice scrambled egg with some sort of toast. I have about an hour before I leave for class. I vacuumed. I did the dishes and even made some iced tea.

But I don't want to make a nice breakfast with real food. I want one of those special K protein bars that I bought at the warehouse club. I mentioned last week that they taste like rice krispie treats covered with chocolate. And I'll wash it down with very vanilla Silk soy milk.

Now I believe the per unit cost of these bars were 43 cents each. Each one has 180 calories, 6 grams fat (3.5 saturated, which is a lot), no cholesterol, 230 mg sodium (again, a lot in my mind), 5 gram fiber (that's good), 15 gram sugar (lower than I expected), 10 grams protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, vitamin D (4%), Vitamin E, Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folic acid, Vitamin B12, and zinc.

Brownie Sundaes

Warning: The following blog entry contains items that are not good for you, are not homemade, and are not necessary. But they may have saved my marriage.

I wanted brownies. Then my daughter and my husband started screaming at each other. Okay, he was screaming and she was crying. She was trying to play in the drain with the chemical drain cleaner. So the yelling was warranted. The commotion, and a very long day, screamed "warm brownie sundae."

My husband volunteered to go out for the goods.

"Vanilla?" he asked.

"Vanilla bean," I specified.

Then he called me an ice cream snob and reminded me that he remembered my ice cream idiosyncracies.

"What's my budget?" he asked.

"Thirty bucks if you're using the MAC card."

Out the door he went. My cell phone rang ten minutes later.

"They don't have anything remotely brownie like," he said and then described the contents of the bakery department. "The only thing that looks like something you'd like is a tray of brownies, but it's like nine bucks."

"How many brownies?"

"Seven on the top row."

"Buy it," I said. He laughed.

It had 16 brownies. We ate four (two each, warmed in the microwave with the ice cream on top). We kept three aside to enjoy as a family tomorrow. The remaining nine we wrapped individually in wax paper and taped shut and packaged into two freezer bags.

Total cost: $13.07 and that included half and half for our coffee.