My Nana passed away a little over a year ago and I wanted to celebrate her somehow. So, I started looking up places where the family could have high tea. After searching around a bit, I found Chado Tea. It was close by (we went to the Hollywood location), didn’t seem too pricey, and had good reviews. You may have seen some pictures from there in an earlier post. All in all, it was a good and fun experience.
Could you have a better combination of words? Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Cookies. Yum. Oh and don’t forget the no-bake part! What! I was so excited when I saw this recipe that I had to make my own variation! You may get that I’m excited due to the back-to-back exclamation points. This was an incredibly easy recipe. As I was putting it together, I kept thinking, is this really going to work? Spoiler alert: it worked and it’s damn delicious! There is no cooking time to these cookies and they are chock-full of protein! Often times, adding protein powder to baked goods can give them weird textures and flavors. Not this one! You wouldn’t even suspect that there was anything added to these cookies besides deliciousness.
To many Americans, porridge seems like it must go along with the words, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” As if it’s an orphan’s food or something similar to that. Not exactly in a bad way, but it’s kind of funny. In Commonwealth areas, like New Zealand, porridge is a wonderful, comforting breakfast that warms the soul. It may seem like an easy thing to make, and it is once you’ve got the hang of it, but there is an art to making porridge. It’s easy to overcook it, undercook it, or get it so clumpy it doesn’t resemble porridge anymore. I’m here to bring you the tips and tricks of the porridge trade!
I have continued my journey with the Ice and Fire cookbook (aka Game of Thrones for you tv-lubbers). Last time we dined at the Wall. Now we move to the South to Lord Caswell’s table. This recipe comes from A Clash of Kings. It’s been a lot of fun to try out different recipes, especially from this cookbook! This recipe is pretty easy to do. I’ve healthified it a little bit by using whole-wheat flour which increases the fiber and keeps your blood sugar from spiking like it would with white flour. I paired these as a dessert to the Healthy “Accidentally” Paleo Meatballs and they were a hit! This is an authentic medieval recipe, just altered to fit Hungry and Fit’s needs!
Hungry had a long day at work on a Saturday (yuck!) and I had a hankering for cooking, so I wanted to make him a nice dinner. I am a vegetarian while he is not, so I don’t cook a lot of meat dishes. However, tonight I would! We had some nice lean beef in the house, so I wanted to make scrumptious meatballs! However, we didn’t have any breadcrumbs…hmm… Luckily, I was able to find a recipe to base mine off of that lacked breadcrumbs. This actually turned it accidentally into a “paleo” recipe. Hungry and I are far from being paleo, but I know it’s popular right now, so maybe this will help you out!
Hungry and I aren’t big drinkers. Hungry especially isn’t. I enjoy a glass of wine here and there, but nothing over the top. In fact, I often forget to drink. It’s a weird way to put it, but there it is. However, we both enjoy a good sangria. What is a sangria? Traditionally, it’s a red wine mixed with fruit, spices, and another drink. However, since expanding from Spain and Portugal, sangria creativity has taken off! Get us at an Italian restaurant with some beautiful antipasto and a wonderful main course and we will finish a whole carafe of the stuff.
The sangria I’ve prepared for you today is white wine-based instead of red. It’s different from the traditional, but it’s honestly quite delicious. I love playing around with different ways to make my sangria even to the point where I’m not quite sure it can be called a sangria anymore.
Yay, a recipe post! We haven’t had enough of these lately, but we are coming back at ya! I recently started a project where I want to start doing at least one cookbook recipe a week and tailor it to fit my needs. Lucky enough and exciting enough, I started with A Feast of Ice and Fire (for the non-book lovers, this is a Game of Thrones cookbook!!). Hungry got this cookbook for me for Christmas and I seriously love it. The recipes are so amazing with a slice of text from the book that the recipe’d food came from! Most recipes also provide the medieval version (how they would’ve made it in the Song of Ice and Fire series) and also a modern version.
I chose to start with Applecakes. As you can see in the pictures below, Applecakes were something that the men on the Wall ate (like Jon Snow). The way they tie it back to the books absolutely makes it for me! Applecakes were basically like a medieval donut back in the day. I chose to do the Modern Applecakes recipe which resembles more closely to a muffin. I also healthified it! Less butter and less sugar. But let me tell you, these are absolutely delicious. The moistness that comes from the chunks of apple is wonderful. And you can just picture the characters eating them too, which makes it all the merrier.
Viserion paid a visit
Food Network was and still is the most-viewed network in our household. Over the course of 20 years, that hasn’t changed but the personalities and themes certainly have. While it’s not fair to say whether it’s for better or for worse because that would be so subjective, we can definitely say what we enjoy more or less. Everyone has strong feelings for Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, and all the baking contests, but there are just some shows that give you a little bit of everything. Cutthroat Kitchen is one of them.
For the longest time, we watched a lot of Chopped and we still do. It has its practical application. While the focus of most competition cooking shows isn’t being healthy, there are two major components that will make the life easier of the everyday chef, or the home chef. Those two factors are time and convenience. In most of these competitions, the chefs are only given 20-30 minutes to prepare a meal. That’s right, on Chopped they’re not making a single dish. They have to prepare four portions, which could be exactly how many you need to make for your family! Most of us don’t have hours every day to make fresh meals, so we often resort to opting for some not-so-fresh meals but that often sacrifices the health factor. Frozen food and fast food are time-friendly and have large portions, but typically are filled with unnatural ingredients, excess calories, tons of sodium, and a lack of nutrients. On these shows, top chefs show you how to save time.
We’ve done posts in the past about salt… lots of them. We also had a post where we talked about our unconventional uses of pickle juice. Everyone has their flavor of choice and sometimes, that is all you need to put a smile on someone’s face. In this household, vegemite, capers, olives, and pickles are more valuable than silver and gold… almost. A cracker with cheese, apple, vegemite, and pickle is a higher traded commodity than a filet mignon. That might be because Fit doesn’t eat filet mignon but nevertheless, flavor rules.
And no, we aren’t talking about a big slice of pizza. Have you ever been on the go, either running to or from a workout, work, an event, or ANYTHING and just wanted a healthy snack? Chances are you don’t have anything on you, and the closest thing around as a snack is either unhealthy or overpriced. I find myself in this predicament far too often. It gets especially worse with me because I get hangry (and it ain’t pretty). Sometimes, I just need a simple, healthy small snack to keep me going while I go from A to B. I am very grateful to finally have found something that fits this need.
