Tag Archives: Recipe

Vegan Pumpkin Muffins

September 13, 2009

Ciao! Another loooong weekend is down. It was either blog in the mornings or get in a workout and the workouts won out. Many meals were consumed at work.

Veggie burger with spinach and garlic flavored laughing cow cheese wedge

Veggie burger with spinach and garlic flavored laughing cow cheese wedge

Herbed salad greens with apples, craisins, walnuts, and feta

Herbed salad greens with apples, craisins, walnuts, and feta

Veggie burger with lettuce and cranberry mustard

Veggie burger with lettuce and cranberry mustard

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Apple slices with White Chocolate Wonderful PB

Leftover lentil stew with Kashi multigrain crackers

Leftover lentil stew with Kashi multigrain crackers

Remember back when Pepperidge Farms came out with their own version of Arnold sandwich thins but they had included HFCS? I had been avoiding them because of this but when my grandfather bought me a pack I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they no longer add it in! I still prefer my Arnolds though for some reason, these seemed smaller and flatter.

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I’m happy to report that I did find time to make my pumpkin pancakes (using this recipe). Of course I added some walnuts and drizzled a little maple syrup on those bad boys to make them even yummier.

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Besides pancakes, I also had time to make some pumpkin-carob chip muffins. I brought them into work for my girls with some pumpkin pie flavored coffee.

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I’ve mentioned before that one of my coworkers is allergic to corn so these had to be corn free. She can’t eat eggs because chickens eat corn so they turned out to be vegan muffins.

Vegan Pumpkin Muffins

SDC14601Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1 banana, mashed
  • 1.5 cups whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • carob chips, walnuts, or raisins

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray muffin pan with nonstick spray.
  2. Mix pumpkin, water, applesauce, banana, and sugar together. In separate bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add to wet mixture and then stir in carob chips (or walnuts or raisins).
  3. Fill muffin cups 2/3 and bake for 20-25 minutes.

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What’s your favorite fall food? I think mine’s kind of obvious!

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All-time Favorites

August 14, 2009

Happy Friday! Unfortnately for me, I get to look forward to a weekend of work. Boo!

I was so caught up in my Dorney park trip yesterday I completely forgot to post Wednesday’s lunch and dinner. Not that they’re anything too special but I like to put everything up in case you guys need a dinner idea or something. That’s one of my favorite parts of reading your blogs – meal and snack inspiration!

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For lunch I diced up some onions, eggplant, and tomatoes and sauteed them until soft. I put it in a whole wheat tortilla, sprinkled some mozzarella and italian seasoning on top and warmed it in the skillet until melty. All I needed was some marinara sauce for dipping!

Dinner was a tomato, cucumber, and red onion salad that was mixed with balsamic vinegar. On the side I had the world’s smallest flounder fillet (baked). This is a really tiny plate!

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Today the boyfriend and I woke up at 8 and I got a bowl of Barbara’s shredded oats with soy milk and white peaches. Yes, those are peaches! It really confused me at first because as I was cutting them I was wondering if I actually grabbed some sort of fuzzy apple.

I did some blog reading and then convinced the boyfriend to come back in bed and lay under the covers for a few minutes cause I was cold. We ended up falling asleep and not waking up again until noon! I went home and made myself my all-time favorite salad: Strawberry-walnut with feta.

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After talking to my Dad for a bit (he told me he made his first green monster!), I got on the stationary bike for 45 minutes and then went up to my room to do about 15 minutes of arms. Since I had such a tiny lunch, it was time for lunch part 2 after my shower.

You might not believe this, but I’m actually out of peanut butter right now! Completely out! I think a trip to the store is in order for today but it gave me an excuse to open my sunflower seed butter. I only like to have 2 jars of nut butter open at a time, one at Mark’s house and one at mine. Do you have any rules for your food?

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With my sunflower seed butter open, I got to make my all-time favorite sandwich. Seriously, this is the best sandwich ever!

Sun-Carrot Sandwich

SDC13781Ingredients:

Arnold Sandwich Thin*

1 Tbsp Sunflower Seed butter of choice (I like Once Again)

1 small carrot, sliced into pieces of about a 1/2 inch thickness

1/2 tsp flax seed

1/2 tsp honey

*You can use normal bread but I like using the sandwich thin because it has the perfect surface area for the tbsp of sunflower seed butter.

Directions

While the sandwich thin is toasting, slice carrot into moderately thin pieces. Spread sunflower seed butter on one side of the sandwich thin, place carrots on top, and sprinkle with flax and honey. Top with other half of sandwich thin and enjoy the 3 minutes of bliss you’ll experience while eating it.

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Ciao!

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I’m a Rock Star

August 8, 2009

Or I’d like to be…

I took the day off yesterday because I joined a band and was practicing allllll day.

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Ok, so it’s not a real band but if anyone has every played the video game Rock Band before you’ll know it feels like you’re actually rocking out :) There was Mark (or Hydro) on the drums, Mark’s cousin Paul (Koake) on guitar, Mark’s sister Melissa (Mello) on Bass, and me (Stina) on vocals with the microphone. Yes, we all made rock star names because we’re that cool.

At first I was all self conscious to be singing out loud but by the end  I was belting out tunes. Omg, so fun! We were touring the world until 3am last night – I wish I got a pic.

Between all that rocking, I did manage to eat some food. Gosh, actually I don’t think I’ve posted since I worked Thursday so here’s my meals since then:

Breakfast

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Banana with peanut butter and flax (my second breakfast before I went to work on Thursday, I also had an egg and english muffin earlier)

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Since I’ve been gone, my kitchen has been replenished with fruit! Peaches, blueberries, sugar plums, bananas, shredded coconut, sliced almonds, cottage cheese, and flax.

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Peanut butter, cinnamon, flax, and mashed banana on Arnold Multigrain Whole Grains bread, toasted. I swear I don’t work for Arnolds, I just love their breads! This one had all the little seeds on the sides, sooo good. And I had a plum on the side.

Lunch

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I brought an Amy’s Especial burrito for lunch to work Thursday. This one was MUCH better than the first one I tried. It had good flavor! I had baby carrots and Tribe Baba Ganoush hummus on the side.

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Salted and Cinnamon-ed sweet potato chips (roasted in the toaster oven) and romaine lettuce topped with grilled eggplant, zucchini, tofu, feta, and herb flavored vinegar.

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While on the stationary bike today I put on Viva Daisy! on the Food Network and she was making this delicious looking mango black bean salad. I recreated it in my own way:

Black Bean & Fruit Salad

Ingredients:

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 small diced apple

1 small thinly sliced red onion

1 diced peach

1/2 cup blueberries

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Whisk together the cilantro, oil, and vinegar in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients, toss gently, and serve!

Dinner

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Salad that included:

  • broccoli
  • tomatoes
  • zucchini
  • sliced almonds
  • feta
  • green peppers from the garden
  • Bolthouse Ceasar-Asiago dressing

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Salmon burger on an English muffin topped with a tomato slice with a side of steamed zucchini (sprinkled with Italian seasoning).

Snackage

There wasn’t much time for snacking since I’ve been singing up a storm but I did manage to make myself a banana with cinnamon and cashew butter.

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I also had an unpictured bowl of Raisin Bran Crunch with Barney butter and soy milk but it was at like 12:30am and I totally forgot to be a photog.

Today I’m going to attempt to be more productive than as of late, which means I should be spending more time on my job search! See you all tomorrow :)

Do you ever recreate the meals you see made on the Food Network? And if you were in a band, what would your rock star name be?

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