June Foodie Penpals

It's Foodie Penpal time again!!! Katie from Creature of Habit sent me my package for June. Check out her blog and be as jealous of her fabulous California Dreamin' life :)

My box showed up at just the right time. Our kitchen caught on fire the week before, our house is in total chaos and I didn't have any sweet, chocolate snacks in the house at all. The Fudge Mints TOTALLY hit the spot!

I haven't had the soy nuts separately before. Most of my trail mixes have them mixed in but I hardly notice them with all the other goodies. I love how crunchy they are all alone!

The Crispy Rice Bars are a great snack, or even a breakfast. The berries are just sweet enough :)

This GOLEAN bar is going to be great before one of my runs!

Want to join in the awesome monthly fun? Check out The Lean Green Bean's Foodie Penpal page to sign up: http://www.theleangreenbean.com/foodie-penpals/

Summertime Pesto

Holy Basil, Batman! I planted two plants and now I have a GIANT basil bush! So, what ever will I do with all of this basil before it get all dried up?? PESTO! Lots of pesto to freeze and use later :)

Now, whenever I have a project to do around the house I buy a new tool. You should see our basement...looks like a Lowe's. In order to make the amount of Pesto that I am going to, my little mini processor will not be big enough. NEW TOOL TIME! I got a nice Cuisinart, stainless and new.

 I picked 2 cups of basil leaves from the plant outside. After I washed them, they got dumped in the new Cuisinart with 1/3 cup of pine nuts. I pulsed them until they were evenly chopped. Then I squeezed in 3 cloves of garlic (yes, squeezed from that fabulous tubed garlic). As the blade was running, I drizzled in a 1/2 cup of good olive oil. After it was incorporated, I added 1/2 cup grated Parmesan.

After it got dipped into ice cube trays to go into the freezer for later use! 

Enjoy!

Chobani Cheesecake-ish Pie

Our strawberries have been growing great, but the raccoon in our backyard has gotten to them before us! Our only other fruit is from this little (hopefully to grow bigger) blueberry bush. 

The dessert for tonight is a take on the Rhubarb Custard Pie. I used the same recipe with these changes:

• Substituting 1 pint blueberries for the rhubarb.
• Eliminating the crumb topping.
• Adding the following to the original recipe - 6 oz in additional yogurt, 1 extra egg, 1 extra TBSP flour.

I used Vanilla Chobani Yogurt.

 So all in all you will use 12 ounces of Chobani yogurt, 5 TBSP of flour, 3 eggs, and 1 cup of sugar. Then add in the pint of blueberries. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the oven to 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Just whisk it all together and add the blueberries.

This bakes up like a cheesecake in a pie!

New Fun Finds: SNACKS!

The Rice Chocolate Bar is dairy free and isn't a bad chocolate bar, taste-wise. Nutritionally? About the same as regular chocolate.

The Sahale Snack have dried pineapple, cashews and black sesame seeds....awesome munchies!

The Sweets and Beets are made of sweet potato chips and beet chips. I dislike beets. This is probably from years of Senior Living food service and pickled beets. These beet chips....I LOVE THEM!

The Pretzel Chips come in a bunch of different flavors and are great with or without dip.

Enjoy!!

Fitness Friday: Recap on Running

....a slow week!

Blueberry Croissant French Toast Casserole

 I wanted to make french toast but all I could dream about was bread pudding...yes, dream about! I love bread pudding with caramel sauce :) I bought some croissants and used eggs, almond milk and blueberries that I already had.

I tore up all of the croissants and placed half in a PAM sprayed casserole. The blueberries were sprinkled in, then more croissants, then more blueberries. I whisked 3 eggs together with two cups of vanilla almond milk and poured it all over the croissants. Press down hard to allow all of the ingredients to be coated/soak up the liquid.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the center is firm.

Easy Appetizer

1. Pluck some basil from the garden.
2. Toothpick basil and mozz.
3. Drizzle balsamic on top.
4. Done!