Lunch in the sun, Eden Alley & kitchen failures

What beautiful weather we’re having!

I’ve been anticipating nice weather for so long, now that it’s hear I don’t know what to do with it, ha. I love cold smoothies, flip flops, lunch outside in the sunlight, warm evening walks, etcetera!

KC Juice

I started my weekend with by going to World Market and picking up some new fun kitchen items (in which I’m sure you will be seeing in various upcoming blog pictures).  But first, I had some KC Juice.

 

I got my favorite smoothie, the “big apple” which consists of primarily apples, bananas, and frozen yogurt.  I was going to put wheatgrass in it but they were out of the powdered smoothie wheatgrass so I opted for a wheatgrass shot instead.  I always feel extra healthy after a shot of wheatgrass, ha.

Lunch in the Sun

A little later on in the day, Erik and I had lunch at Eden Alley, which is a vegetarian café located on the plaza in KC. They have an awesome menu, and incorporate local and organic ingredients into delicious vegetarian dishes that are also mostly soy free, and easily turned vegan.

Our sunny lunch started out with a cold glass of fresh juice.  I’m not sure what all was in it, but obviously the star of the show was carrots.

 

Their agave butter served with the bread is really good, especially when being melted by the sun.

 

I decided on the mandarin salad, which completely hit the spot!

 

The beets and mandarin oranges tasted perfect! Erik went with a pasta dish.  We smelled the garlic from a mile away, ha, but that’s just the way he likes it.

We decided that we don’t go to Eden Alley enough. We always love it there, and for their vegetarian menu, there’s so many delicious options!

Kitchen Failure

I hate it when things go wrong in the kitchen! It often makes me feel like a kitchen failure, but I have to realize that just comes with the territory.  Here’s two prime examples of things gone wrong:

We had homemade pasta again on Sunday night.  We decided to try out a penne type pasta with an attachment we had, and it didn’t work out too well.

Don’t let this picture deceive you.  It didn’t taste good.  The pasta was super heavy, and got dry quickly.  On top of that the meatballs were drier than a bone and way over seasoned.  We were troopers, and ate it anyways because when you're hungry, you’re hungry!

I then thought I could redeem this failed meal with a delicious chocolaty dessert made in my cute new little ramekins. MAJOR FAIL.

As you can see, they didn’t rise AT ALL, and the taste was nothing less than horrible. I mean, they were take-one-bite-and-immediately-throw-it-away horrible. It was a major bummer.  They sure looked good, ha.

I was attempting to make this recipe on Clean Eating Magazine’s website, and even followed the directions exactly. It made me feel better to see in the comments section that others had the same problem though … I’m not the only one!

I plan to go redeem myself just as soon as I hit “publish” on this post, with some trusty standby chocolate cupcakes, but with a little twist tonight. I know cupcakes won’t fail me!

What’s your biggest kitchen disaster?

Sweet potato time

What awesome weather we’re having this weekend!  It feels like summer, and I love it!

Addicted to Cupcakes

Apparently, I’ve become addicted to making cupcakes, because these are what our weekend started out with:

More chocolate cupcakes! After eating the vegan chocolate cupcakes, it made us hungry for chocolate sour cream cupcakes.  While the vegan cupcakes were really good, I think our heart still lies with these sour cream cupcakes.  They’re so moist, and so decadent!
But, hey, they’re chocolate cupcakes … I suggest making either variation Sweet Potato Time

I’ve been craving sweet potatoes lately! I told that to Erik the other night, and he cooked this for dinner: 
It was delicious! It included: black quinoa, black beans, celery, onions, and sweet potatoes topped with cheese. 

The dish was sweet in just the right ways with the caramelized onions and addition of agave nectar to the dish. Blue Bird Bistro

Friday night, Erik’s dad, Erik and I ate at Blue Bird … one of our regular local KC favorites!
  I munched on some hummus and cold soup with Erik before our entrée. I don’t even know what all was in the soup, but it had a carrot/nutmeg flavor to it.

And for my entrée, I opted for a stuffed sweet potato.  See?  I told you I’ve been craving sweet potatoes! The roasted veggies on top hit the spot! We’ve had a great weekend thus far which has consisted of enjoying the outdoors and eating delicious food.  More to come on that later.

What have you been up to this weekend??

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes, Random Things

It wouldn’t be the start of a blog post without a weather update … so I’m happy to report the 10 day forecast stays within at least the 60s and ranges up into the 80s … sounds good to me!

I felt like baking the other night, and chocolate sounded really good. Enter:

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
  This recipe is definitely worth sharing! At least our taste buds think so, we ate these in no time.

Ingredients:
-- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
-- 1 cup Sucanat
-- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
-- 1 TB vanilla extract
-- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
-- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
-- 1 tsp baking soda
-- 3/4 tsp sea salt

Directions:
-- Preheat oven at 350 degrees.  Mix together milk, oil, sucanat, and vanilla.
-- Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix together until smooth
-- Add batter to lined cupcake pan. Makes 12.
-- Bake for about 22 minutes

Chocolate berry icing:
For the icing on these cupcakes I mixed together:
-- 1/4 cup frozen organic cherries
-- 1/4 cup frozen organic raspberries
-- Generous squirt of agave nectar
-- 2 TB vegan chocolate chips
Place ingredients into microwave safe bowl, microwave until melted and can mix together, add on top of cupcakes when they come out of the oven, and let cool.  And for good measure, I blended some raw cashews and placed the flakes on top for some added color and flavor. Seven Random Things

Heather from Health, Happiness & Hope awarded me with, and tagged me in The Versatile Blogger award. Thanks, Heather!

I haven’t done anything like this in awhile, so I decided it would be fun to include 7 random things about myself. Here goes: 

1. I’m from a small town in southwest Nebraska.  No offense, as I had a lot of fun growing up, but now I like Kansas City much better.
2. I love just about any TV police show, especially involving police dogs.  I’m pretty pumped about the new K9 police show coming to TLC!
3. Growing up, I used to rollerblade ALL the time.  I never met a large hill I wouldn’t go down at full speed.
4. I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.  It doesn’t matter where I’m at, or what’s going on around me.  If I’m tired, I’ll fall asleep in just a few minutes.
5. In person, I’m quite shy.
6. I’ve never eaten lobster.
7. Ever since I was little, at extremely random moments in time, I will sing the first part of the star-spangled banner for no apparent reason. But only around people I know really well … remember? I’m shy!

I hope everyone’s had a great week!

What’s a random fact about you???

Sunday-side up

Well, Sunday it was 93 degrees, which was awesome, but unfortunately, spring didn’t get the memo to stay that warm and today was cold and super windy!

One of these days it’ll remember how warm it’s supposed to be … one of these days.  Then I can take pictures like this once again with the sun shining warm on my face!Brunch in-a-hurry

Funny story …. we take turns at our church bringing brunch/snack items on Sunday mornings.  I had it in my head that our turn was the second week of April (but, of course, didn’t write it down!)  So Sunday morning, on the first week of April, I was sitting at my computer getting a little work done before church when Erik comes running in. His phone had died on Saturday, and he didn’t charge it and check his messages until Sunday morning, in which we discovered it was our turn THIS Sunday … as in two hours from that moment.

Thoughts of prepackaged foods and fattening store-bought donuts swam in my mind, but that just wouldn’t work …. after all, Erik reminded me, I have a healthy living food blog, and that’s just not who we are!

Erik and I quickly decided it was time to get creative, and fast!!  I started Google’ing muffin recipes and Erik scanned the kitchen for perspectives.  And somehow, with no time to spare whatsoever, we actually pulled off figuring out what to make, making three brunch dishes using the items we had in our kitchen, and getting ready for church all in under two hours! My kitchen was left in shambles!!Literally, that’s how we left it, ha.

My contribution ended up being two dozen mixed berry muffins:I whipped them together, stuck them in the oven, went and got ready at my all-time fastest pace, and helped Erik finish his brilliant creation.  Erik seriously comes up with the best ideas ever!  See how awesome his creation looks??And he thought of this in about 2 minutes.  I think he needs to be on Chopped!

Anyways … it consisted of a small toasted round piece of bread topped with cream cheese, a seasoned sunny-side up egg, a fresh basil leaf, and some caramelized onions. So good!
 
You can barely see it, but we also brought small pieces of bread to dip in an impromptu mixed-berry jam created by microwaving frozen mixed berries, and adding agave nectar.  It was a great combination!

Time to tackle the kitchen

After church, we grabbed a delicious lunch at Westside Local, and then we came home and I tackled the kitchen disaster.

Much better!!!
Fresh Juice

Kitchen cleaning in the 93 degree weather, with all the windows cracked open, was followed by a cold glass of fresh juice.
In the mix:

• 1 apple
• 3 large carrots
• 1 lime
• A large handful of spinach

I first juiced the carrots, apple, and lime, then added the juice to a blender with the spinach and some ice to make it more smoothie-like.Perfect Sunday afternoon drink! (Or any afternoon, really, ha).

Today, I got to play hooky from work because my friend who recently moved far away to CA was in town, and we got to hang out all day.  It was great seeing her!!

Have you ever had to make food in an unexpected hurry??

Homemade pasta

Good news … spring decided to show its face once again! Hopefully it knows it’s supposed to STAY this time!

Eat Local & Organic Food Expo, Take II

We had a great Saturday with this beautiful weather!  My old coworker and really good friend came to KC today and we went to the other Eat Local & Organic Food Expo that I talked about last weekend.
  This expo felt larger, and there were some of the same vendors as last week, and some different.  In the end, we left with some local organic whole red wheat flour, and a huge container of local honey. Homemade Pasta

So what’s the logic thing to do for dinner when you’ve just bought some neat flour? Make pasta!!

We’ve been meaning to make some for a long time now ever since we got a pasta maker awhile back, and finally tackled it.  It started simply with flour and eggs:
Mix, and kneed until it becomes dough: Wrap it up in plastic wrap, set aside for 20 minutes, and it’s time to make pasta!  
All you need to do is roll it out, throw it into boiling water for about 4 minutes, and you have ready-to-eat pasta!
   The whole process was actually a lot easier than we had envisioned.  It was a little time consuming, but I think the more we make it, the faster it would be.

Served with sautéed zucchini squash, carrots, celery, onion, and ground chicken cooked in an olive oil/vegetable broth mixture.  I think we’ll definitely be regularly making pasta now that we know it’s not too difficulty.

Operation Motivation

Operation Motivation this week was a success! I started Operation Motivation at the end of February, and my main goal was to get to regularly cooking/baking/staying active while adjusting to working at home. 

While it’s mostly turned into a baking/cooking focus, it’s definitely helped me get into a better routine.  It’s a lot easier to cook more exciting meals when I know I “have” to.  Either way … it’s going well, and it’s been fun to get “with it”.

That’s all for me! Hope you had a great weekend!

Have you ever made pasta?