Tasty Treats for my Tri Team...aka Recovery Cookies

If you give a triathlete or tri coach a cookie, word will get around. And then everyone else on the team will want some treats. Which is fine with me! I have a food blog, and I need eaters! I hope I've found some. 

So, word got out that I was a bit of a baker. ie I made some cookies for my coach and one of the other lab assistants, and some of the guys on the team found out. They were all like "where are my cookies?" and I was all like "well, I'll get you some."  So here they are.

Why hello bowls of deliciousness. These bowls hold the mix ins for my version of the Momofuku Milk Bar Compost cookie. Everyone knows this recipe, its been floating around. I got my recipe on Amateur Gourmet. I used chopped up Milky Way, Twix, Kit Kat, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, M&Ms and Resses pieces as my chosen favorite baked goods. For my snack food mix ins, I chose pretzel sticks and graham crackers.

As you can see, they spread a bit. All my cookies spread. I think its my baking sheets, or baking soda not kept in an air tight container or something. But these turned out decently thick. I thought they were a little salty, so I'll probably omit the kosher salt next time. But they were still just crazy good. And my coach said they were "really delicious" which is high praise from him. Other people were eating them, and seemed pretty excited. I missed the last two big group rides tonight, so maybe they'll be more response later this week.

I also made healthy vegan chocolate cupcakes. I made these because I know at least one of the women on the team is vegan. I was inspired by a recipe my mom makes for cupcakes using chocolate cake mix, pumpkin pie filling, and chocolate chips. These I made with chocolate cake mix and lite applesauce. They turned out AMAZING! I used cinnamon apple sauce, so they're really light, fluffy, moist, appley and cinnamony. And pretty healthy. I've calculated that they're about 108 calories a cupcake, low in sugar and fat, with some fiber and vitamins.

 

Finally, I made good ol' sugar cookies in team colors - GREEN! I got the recipe off of Cookie Madness, and they were pretty good. A little crumbly, but with a good taste. 

Not only did I give them to my tri team, but I made an assortment for the guys that work in the bike shop. I'm trying to butter them up, and get them to talk, or smile, or do something besides scowl silently. 

Hopefully everyone liked my baked goods, so I'll have a big group of tasters for all my future baking endeavors!!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Up-side-down cupcakes!!!

This latest baking adventure began when I cleaned out my Grandma's fridge. I guess it's my Grandpa's fridge too, but he doesn't really use it. Sure, it holds food that he eats, but of the meals my Grandpa eats at home, my Nana makes 90% of them. The others involve Grandpa either pouring his own shredded wheat, or assembling his own turkey sand which.

So, back to the story. When I cleaned out my Grandma's fridge, I found five jars of peanut butter and 6 jars of jelly. Wow. For two people that I have never in my life, or in the nearly year I have been living with them, eat peanut butter and/or jelly, that's a lot of PB&J. Turns out, Grandpa baits his humane traps for backyard critters with peanut butter. Still not sure how we ended up with that much jelly. But all the better for me!

I decided to make peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. They sounded delicious, and I got to use up some peanut butter and jelly. Now, I successfully emptied 4 mostly empty jelly jars (Smuckers Strawberry Preserves, Smuckers Simply Fruit Strawberry, and some yummy Pomegranate jelly, and some freezer preserves strawberry jelly from a restaurant my parents got them). Unfortunately, there is a lot of peanut butter in one jar. I think between this recipe and the other peanut butter recipe I whipped up, I used almost one jar. But that's ok, because its spring, and those moles and chipmunks will need trappin' again soon!

Now, I was a little nervous when I whipped up this batter. Sure, it was delicious, and a perfect cupcake batter consistency. But, I was concerned it wouldn't hold up the jelly.

Sure enough, when I pulled them out of the oven, they were oozing. When I pulled them out, they all had craters in the bottom! The jelly had sun though!
They look like flat topped jelly volcanoes. Now, I discussed this with my Grandma, and she said "well, they're kind of like pineapple upside-down cake." And thus, a name was born. Peanut Butter and Jelly Upside-down cupcakes. Its a mouthfull, but hot dang, these are delicious cupcakes. REALLY DELICIOUS. Like, hoard them in your basement freezer and take them out when you need a little bit of happy delicious.
Sadly, they also made messy dishes. Good thing I love my Pam.
See, they look so pretty from the top!
Peanut Butter and Jelly Upside-Down Cupcaks
Now, if you're going to make these, I would suggest maybe laying off the milk, or definitely reducing it, to make these more of a muffin consistency so they hold up the jelly. This is a cooks.com recipe, shame on them! Also, the recipe said not to use natural-style peanut butter, or the muffins (they tried pretending these were muffins. HA!) wouldn't rise.

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c. granulated sugar
• 1/4 c. packed brown sugar
• 1 tbs. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 c. skim milk
• 1/3 c. creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup egg substitute (I just used like one egg I think)
• 2 tbs. melted butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• PAM!!
• 1/4 c. strawberry jam

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Mix everything together (except jelly/jam) It says to stir just until moist. Yeah, the wet ingredients in this recipe make a really wet cupcakes consistency batter. I would mix everything except the milk, and then probably add milk slowly until you get a thick, sticky, muffin type batter.
3. Fill pre-greased muffin cups 1/2 full with the batter. Spoon 1 tsp. jam into each cup. Spoon remaining batter on top to cover jam. This recipe makes 12, but as you could see, mine were giant cupcakes. Next time, I'll make more than 12, so they're not so big.
4. Bake at 400 for 20 min or until muffins are light and springy. Cool for 5 min in pan, then cool completely on a wire rack.
   

Making dinner for my Grandparents

The other week I finally got around to making another dinner for my grandparents. The first I made months ago, and it was Yakitori chicken kebabs from my Cooking Light everyday favorites cookbook. I try to make healthier things for my grandparents, because its good for them, especially my multiple heart attack surviving Grandpa (including 2 just this past January).

So I used a recipe I found on 101 Cookbooks as a base, and took off from there. Its basically the same except I left out the lemon zest and almonds, doubled the cheese and added tomatoes and mushrooms, because I love them. I love spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes anytime. It was a pretty great casserole. It needed a little more flavor, but we ate almost all of a 9"x13" of it (we are not light eaters around here). Next time I would use a more flavorful cheese though. Mozzarella is great and gooey and all, but its just so bland.
I also made a delicious Apple Crisp from joyofbaking.com. It was super tasty. I used unpeeled fuji apples though, for fiber and yummyness, no nuts (I don't like them too much) and margarine in the topping, again for my grandparents. The topping wasn't as crisp and good as usual, and I thought the margarine gave it a funny smell, but it tasted great.
Yummy apple crisp close up. You can tell we didn't like it at all, as there is just so much left over, haha.

I love Fattoush salad dressing, mushrooms, and quinoa. So, I decided to combine them into a delicious delicious lunch. This recipe is also super easy, especially if you already have some cooked quinoa on hand (I didn't, I made some fresh). Its also easy if you have some Fattoush dressing on hand. I am too afraid to try to make some, because I love the kind I get from my favorite restaurant, and there are so many recipes online, I don't want to waste time making one I won't like. That's not very brave of me, but maybe someday I'll make some fattoush dressing.
Yummy Middle Eastern Quinoa Mushroom Bowl
A generous scoop of cooked Quinoa
Freshly Sauteed Mushrooms
Fattoush Salad Dressing

1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and enjoy!!
2. I added a 2 because this recipe was so easy. I love quick, easy, healthy recipes. This was a great lunch on a busy day.

This is the food processor I used to make these yummy brownies. It belongs in a museum as the oldest food processor still in use. I couldn't find the plunger, which was fine, because my veggies kept getting crammed into the corner and "mushing." Notice the carrot and zucchini confetti around the counter - yeah, that's what happens when your food processor is not enclosed and you have to just aim for the bowl. Needless to say, after this experience, a food processor is on my wish list, underlined and in bold.
So, I currently live with my grandparents, due to being a poor post-grad student, which is sometimes a downside. One of the downsides is they think I'm a freak. I exercise all day long (according to them), constantly dashing off to the next tri training session. Or, I'm constantly buying groceries and cooking things. Not really constantly because my Nana runs her kitchen with an iron fist, and gets antsy when I'm in there. Also, my grandpa comes in and hovers and watches and makes comments, which just makes me nervous. SO, since they're out of town watching my brother swim, I'm going on a crazy cooking spree! Thus the sweet potato burritos yesterday, and a bunch of other things that I will blog about in the future.

First up for blogging about are YUMMY VEGGIE BROWNIES!!!!! I know, I know, they sound super bizarre. I got the inspiration for these brownies from various vegetarian and health food blogs. They're a little bit healthier than normal brownies because of the veggies and whole wheat flour.

Now, they were a bit of a challenge, because I used unsweetened apple sauce and cocoa, when the recipe I started from called for sweetened. So I added some sugar. I still think I could tweak this recipe to make these brownies more satisfying and healthy, but they're delicious now.

I recommend everyone try these brownies! They're thick and fudgey, chocolatey and moist, with an original texture. Plus, the added bonus of having veggies, apple sauce and whole wheat flour.
Ta Da!! They turned out well. And they look delicious.
Where are the veggies? I can't see them...
This picture was taken before I remembered my digital macro setting. You can see the top picture for a prettier picture, where I used the macro setting. Much better!

Yummy in my tummy veggie brownies!
1 large carrot
2 medium zucchinis
1 egg
2 c. whole wheat flour
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/3 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 c. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 c. semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350, grease up a 9"x13" pan
2. Stick the carrot and zucchini in a food processor and process until you get a finely grated salad of veggies. Use 2 c. of this in the brownies.
3. Dump it all in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
4. Bake for 25-30 min (I did 25)
5. Cut into 24 squares. Eat 'em up!!

Nutrition Data - from nutritiondata.com
(serving size 1/24 of recipe)
139 calories (not bad for a good sized brownie!!
3 g fat
1 g saturated fat
0 g trans fat
9 mg cholesterol
9 mg sodium Vitamin A 11%
28 g carbs Vitamin C 5%
2 g fiber Calcium 2%
18 g sugar Iron 6%
3 g protein

These are some darn tasty and pretty healthy brownies!

Today was a crazy day. Had to get up and get a leaky tire fixed (darn potholes!), then I ran to the grocery, and then rushed over to yoga. Yoga was kind of distracted today because we had a sub instructor, but I really liked her. Then I came home and made creamed spinach for lunch. Then a run in the glorius sunny weather, snack, and bike. PHEW! So I decided to make something yummy for dinner. Actually I decided that yesterday shortly after I hit the pothole and thought I had lost my tire and was going to have to go into debt (further) to buy a new one.

So, a while back I went out to dinner with my BFF from high school and her mom. We went to a nice little bistro where I had SWEET POTATO BURRITOS. At first I was like, EW, but I was intrigued so I ordered them. And LOVED them! I knew I had to make them.

Here is what I used: black beans, yummy yummy Garden Fresh salsa in Wild Mild, Sargento mexican cheese blend, half of that monster sweet potato, and those strange but delicious light olive oil and rosemary tortillas. I ended up ditching that spinach.

What you do is, cook up the sweet potato until its tender - I did mine in the microwave, because, lets be honest, I don't like to wait an hour to do it in the oven. Mash that sucker up with nutmeg, cumin and cinnamon. Spread it on a tortilla that has been Pamed on both sides. Actually, I made two burritos, so I used about a cup of mashed sweet potato, and 1/2 cup black beans. Put rinsed and air dried black beans over top, then about 1/4 cup cheese per burrito, and about 2 tablespoons salsa on each burrito. Wrap 'em up, put 'em on a Pamed baking sheet, and bake at 350 for 13 minutes. And there they are! So delicious. I devoured both of those burritos. My nutrition tracking program told me the two burritos were about 341 calories each. Pretty much making them both SUPER delicious and SUPER nutritious. A recipe well made and enjoyed if I do say so myself :-)