I’m sorry for the delay in today’s post and my general absence for the last week. I’ve been dealing with some blog related drama and I’m trying to iron out some kinks before I share it with you!
Let me just admit that we were pretty terrible eaters last week. I generally take a week off after racing, so there was no exercise on my agenda and nothing even remotely clean on my plate. Today is like a giant reset. I’m heading back to hot yoga for the first time in weeks and I had watermelon for breakfast instead of Chick-fil-A. Talk about dramatic turnarounds?!We have managed to try a few recipes that I wanted to share with you. Two were spot on and we will definitely be revisiting them. The other was meh and I think I need a little help to figure out what went wrong!
On Valentine’s Day, I boasted about cooking these flour-less brownies for dessert. Everyone was a little skeptical about making brownies using black beans, but y’all — they were actually really good! It is more of a cake texture than a brownie, but the taste was really good and there wasn’t even a hint of beans to be found. I don’t eat beans or peas of any kind, so my endorsement should make it obvious how good these really are. It was only after we ate them, that I found myself wishing I had added a scoop of coconut ice cream on top! Josh has lovingly referred to them as “spanish brownies” because of the beans, so I’m guessing the name is going to stick. Next time I’ll cut the recipe in half since my girls don’t really do desserts.
The next recipe we tried were an oatmeal chocolate bar that I found on Facebook. There wasn’t a source to link back to and we made a few editorial changes, so here is how we started.
INGREDIENTS: 3 mashed bananas, 2 cups of oats, 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup of vegan /gluten free chocolate chips, 1/4 cup of almond milk, 2 tablespoons of flaxseed and 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon and vanilla extract.
Would you believe me if I told you I just realized the problem with this recipe as I’m typing it all out. I discovered that my almond milk was expired and tossed it in the trash after taking the above photograph. Then it was thirty more minutes or so before the girls were ready to bake. Do you want to know what I didn’t do before we got started? Get more milk out of the fridge! I’m not sure that it would have completely resurrected this recipe, but it might have helped. I’m guessing I need to try these one more time.
In any event, we mixed up our ingredients and put them in greased cookie sheet and baked for 20 minutes at 350*. I flipped them onto some wax paper to cool and then cut them into bars with a pizza cutter. I actually thought they tasted pretty good straight out of the oven. The banana wasn’t too strong and the chocolate chips were perfect!
I tried cutting them with metal cookie cutters, and while it looked adorable, it took WAY too long. The problem occurred after the bars were cool. They were really rubbery and the texture was weird. I’m not sure if the milk would fix all of the problems or if the recipe needs a little more love. Have you ever made oat bars like this before? Any suggestions?
Despite the healthy snack failure on Saturday, Sunday’s lunch hit it out of the park. No, orzo isn’t the healthiest thing in my pantry and, Yes, it is wheat-based. We could have, and should have, subbed brown rice but it turned out pretty yummy either way!
INGREDIENTS: 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken (cut into 1 inch cubes), 2 cups chicken broth, 2 large lemons (juiced), 1 cup of orzo, 4 ounces of goat cheese, one large broccoli stalk (cut into tiny florets), salt and pepper.
Add chicken broth and lemon juice to pot and bring to a boil. Cover uncooked chicken with salt and pepper and add to your broth. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes or until tender. Remove chicken and continue cooking sauce for 5 minutes. Add orzo and cook, covered, for 10 minutes or until pasta is cooked and almost all of the liquid is absorbed. Add in chicken, broccoli and goat cheese, season with salt & pepper, and stir until cheese is melted.
This only took about 30 minutes to cook and was so good! The broccoli still had some bite to it and the goat cheese and lemon flavor was perfect together. My only revision would be to cook the chicken ahead of time in the slow-cooker next time. I don’t typically love chicken cooked that quickly and it can get rubbery if you’re not careful. I think you could put it in the slow-cooker with the broth and lemon juice and then move the liquid into your boiler when you were ready to cook the pasta. Recipe adapted from here.
What is on your menu this week? We’re having pot roast and roasted veggies tonight, slow-cooker chicken fajitas tomorrow and I have a paleo chocolate-chip cookie recipe up my sleeve for later in the week!
