Grinders

Hooray for another weekend!

Fun plans are on the agenda, so I’m ready to get it started.  But first …

Grinders

This Wednesday night, we spent some time with a group of friends from church picking up trash in the Crossroads area of KC, and then all ate at Grinders.

Erik and I have ordered their pizza several times, but I’d never actually been inside.

Grinders is located in the Kansas City Crossroads Arts District consisting of “Grinders” and “Grinders West”, located right next door to each other.

Grinders has been featured on Food Network’s Drive-ins, Diners, and Dives, and in the summer, they host a lot of concerts and events in their outdoor space. The have a lot of random artsy and funky décor pieces that I think are pretty neat too!

We started with some hummus.

 

I think someone in the group really liked it

Among many other menu items, Grinders serves New York style pizza (and we all know Erik is a New York style pizza snob!)

Erik and I shared a margherita pizza.  It didn’t have much flavor last night, and they lost points with Erik for having the cheese on top of the tomatoes, ha.

But it’s normally really good, especially when we get plain cheese, so we’ll just stick with that! It’s still one of our go-to New York style pizza places in Kansas City.

All that being said, it was a fun night!

What are your weekend plans??

Local goat yogurt

I’m glad you guys enjoyed the icee idea … I’m still LOVING it.  I’ve had kombucha icees the last three days.  It’s a perfect afternoon treat!

Local Goat Yogurt

Today I tried goat yogurt for the first time: I enjoyed it on a piece of local whole wheat toast topped with peanut butter and strawberry preserves. It was delicious!!
  The yogurt is from Nannie Cheese Goat Products in Maysville, Missouri. Love Grown Foods

As I previously mentioned, Love Grown Foods was kind enough to send me a package full of their granola to try out on Lesley Lifting Life. Cocoa Goodness:
  Sweet Cranberry Pecan:
  Raisin Almond Crunch:
  I really loved them all, and I’m not sure if I could even pick a favorite.  Though I must say, the almonds in the Raisin Almond Crunch were perfect!!

They’re all highly recommended. Thanks, Love Grown Foods.

Originally Organic Vending

We recently had a taste testing booth at an event of one the KC YMCA’s that our vending machines are in.

A couple months ago I was contacted by Build-A-Sign offering to review some of their products.  I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to have Originally Organic Vending signs for taste tests such as this! They were extremely helpful, and it was a very pleasant experience working with them.  The signs turned out perfectly! We shared a table with another vender who had a tablecloth, so we just propped the sign up next to us and our food.
 
Though the machine has been there for a few months now, it was very funny to hear how many people didn’t realize they had even gotten a new vending machine, and it was a welcomed surprise to them.

We got a lot of positive feedback, which is always great to hear! Thanks, Build-A-Sign!

P.S. A related giveaway may, or may not be pending!

What’s your favorite way to eat granola??

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one." — C.S. Lewis

Disclaimer: I received the granola, and signs for free and my opinions are honest, and all my own.

Easter brunch, Icee Izze

Hey, all! Hope everyone had a great Easter full of celebration!

We started our Easter at church, followed by a brunch full of delicious food! Erik and I, of course, contributed to that food.  But first …

Ice Cream Maker, Meet Izze As I was reading through the ice cream maker recipes the other night, I saw icee recipes! Basically, you can use any drink that contains sugar (they suggested Kool-Aide and Pepsi, ha, and I think we all know I’m not going to use that). 

Enter: Izze! Sweetened with fruit, and no added sugar, and considering how much I love Izze, it was the perfect choice.
  Simply put the drink into the ice cream maker, turn it on, and let it spin for about 15 minutes.

It was so good!! I’m a kid at heart, and I’ve always been about the icy drinks, always.  Easter Brunch

Now back to Easter.  We had a brunch at church after service, and here’s what Erik and I contributed:

Thumbprint Cookies
  I used a recipe from 101 Cookbooks.  They ended up tasting really good, but the batter was too wet, and the cookies spread more than they should have while in the oven.  Oh well!

I love the simplicity of ingredients in this recipe.  I topped mine with no sugar added strawberry preserves. Cold Pasta Salad It contained basically onions, carrots, celery, grape tomatoes, local pepper jack cheese, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. Blueberry Lime Muffins 
I didn’t know what to think of these at first but they’ve since grown on me.  I think next time, I would add a little more lime juice, and use fresh blueberries instead of frozen (I only had frozen).

Ingredients:
-- 1 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
-- 1 cup raw cane sugar
-- 2 teaspoons baking powder
-- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-- 1/2 cup low fat sour cream
-- 1/3 cup coconut oil
-- 1 teaspoon lime zest
-- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
-- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-- 2 large egg whites
-- 1 large egg
-- 6 ounces plain Greek yogurt
-- 1 cup blueberries

Directions:
-- Preheat oven at 350 degrees.
-- Mix together dry ingredients in large bowl, and the wet ingredients into a medium bowl.  Add the wet mixture to the dry, and stir together.
-- Pour mixture into muffin pan, sprinkle blueberries evenly overtop, and bake for 25 minutes. I decided I really like lime/lemon flavors in baked goods.  It always reminds me of my mom’s lemon poppy seed bread which I loved when I was little. What’s your favorite flavor or ingredient in baked goods??

Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.  ~Floyd W. Tomkins

Arcade Fire, Enchiladas, & Homemade fro-yo

I can’t believe the weekend is about here already! [But I’m not complaining].

Erik’s brother was in town this past weekend until Wednesday, and I’ve been working like crazy so this week has gone by fast. It’s also made me a very inconsistent blogger! Not to worry though, I got back in the kitchen tonight and did some cooking, and baking. But first …

Arcade Fire We went to an Arcade Fire concert with some friends on Wednesday night at Starlight Theatre here in KC, with The National as their opener. It was a really good concert!!

Spicy Beef & Sweet Potato Enchiladas I’ve come to absolutely love the combination of sweet potatoes and something spicy, like jalapeño or the tiniest bit of cayenne.  So tonight, instead of tacos, I decided to put a similar mixture into enchiladas. We won’t mention the fact that I accidentally put an entire tablespoon of cinnamon in the pan instead of chili powder, and noticed right after it was too late.Thankfully, it didn’t completely ruin the dish, just almost! 

I don’t know how I do that.  I’ve been known to accidentally put chili powder in my morning oatmeal instead of cinnamon.  Go figure.

Flourless Double Chocolate Cookies Tonight’s dessert was flourless chocolate cookies.  Very easy to make, and pretty tasty too!

Ingredients:
-- 1/2 c shredded coconut
-- 1/2 c sucanat
-- 1/4 c cocoa powder
-- 1/4 tsp baking powder
-- 1/8 tsp baking soda
-- 1/2 tsp sea salt
-- 1/2 cup peanut butter (mixed half of this with dark chocolate peanut butter)
-- 1/2 c unsweetened almond milk
-- 1 tsp vanilla extract
-- 1/2 c chocolate chips

Directions:
-- Preheat oven at 375 degrees.
-- Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl, mix wet ingredients together into a smaller bowl, and combine.
-- Bake for about 15 minutes on parchment lined cookies sheets.  Note: these cookies spread out a ton when baking, so leave plenty of room in between cookies!
  Just the other day, Erik and I decided to order an electric ice cream maker.  It recently arrived, and I was excited to try it out! I went with frozen yogurt with for the first try.  The mixture simply consisted of low fat greek yogurt, 2% milk, cane sugar, and some vanilla extract.

All I have to say is, I think this baby is going to get used A LOT! It wasn’t planned, but I quickly realized these cookies I had just made would go very well with the fro yo. 

I was right, delish!! You’ll be seeing a lot more homemade ice cream and fro yo around here

What’s your favorite kind of ice cream??