Fro-Yo

I have fallen in love again. with pints of Ben and Jerry's Fro Yo. for those of you who don't know, fro yo is frozen yogurt, all of the usual lovin' from ice cream with much less fatness. i usually have to leave my house and drive to jp licks, white mountain creamery, or pinkberry for a delicious cup of fro yo. but no longer. i have discovered the selection at Whole Foods, and am blown away. My absolute favorite is black raspberry chip. i was turned on to this after buying a super premium pint of this at a farmers market. the Ben and Jerry's version is delicious too. mounds of dark chocolate chunks with velvety smooth raspberry ice cream. B&J's (Ben and Jerrys, duah) also make a great Chocolate Brownie fro yo. it can be too chocolaty some times, but if you are in the mood it is perfect. fro yo is even better than light ice cream, because after compairing pints in my freezer, the fro yo is actually much lighter. (who knew!). overall, i dont think a bad pint of fro yo exist because what can be bad about ice cream that makes you less fat?

breakfast, lunch or dinner.

this is delicious. an epic combination of sausage, eggs, veggies and hash browns; beautifully layered and lightly browned in a skillet. first take a sausage, i used a sun dried tomato chicken sausage from whole foods, but any flavor will do. cook it for a little bit in a big skillet, until the outside is brown and you can slice it into 1/2 inch thick slices. (handle slicing the sausage the same way you would handle preparing raw chicken) while the sausage is a'brownin', slice up a few veggies. for this one i used 1/4 of an onion and some celery. but you could get more creative and throw in some peppers or mushrooms, just whatevers lying around. throw the peppers and onions in with the sliced sausage into the skillet thats on medium heat. now, when i was making this, my mom had just finished a big pot of hash browns and because i love hash browns, at this point in the cooking i threw a handful into the skillet with the veggies and sausage. now, my moms uses the frozen hash browns and just heats em up on the stove. if you have them lying around, then great throw them in, otherwise dont worry about it. mix everything around in the skillet until the sausage slices are cooked through. then whisk together 2 eggs in a separate bowl and pour on the skillet. turn on a low heat and sprinkle with cheese when the eggs are almost done. slide the wonderful egg thing onto a plate when the eggs are done, and enjoy. i find it to be particularly good with maple syrup, but then again, what is not good with syrup.

Lincoln Street Coffee

I love coffee. its an addiction. if it involves caffeine, im obsessed. but sometimes, one grows tired of star bucks and needs a change of scenery. thats when its time to hit up the independent coffee houses. Lincoln Street Coffee is my personal fave. they take coffee to a new level dunkies, starbucks or peets cannot reach. the lattes are beautifully foamy and the iced coffee is orgasmic. times 10. their blended mocha is 10 times better than any freshen i have ever bought at starbucks. (and i rarely have anything bad to say about 'bucks). i was once waiting for my blended mocha when someone brought out a tray of cookies, and i immediately bought one to have with my mocha because they smelled and looked so beyond delish. and there is an extremely comfy couch for me to sit on to enjoy my coffee. the tea is also great quality, not quite Teavana, but the best i have ever seen at a coffee shop. yay coffee!! {~dedicated to jenny-poo, i love you!}

B-A-N-A-N-A BREAD!

Banana bread is times 10 delsh. all you need are a few brownish bananas, few basic baking ingredients and a oven. it makes a great dessert when mixed in with chocolate chips or a breakfast snack when mixed in with nuts. it only takes about 15 mins to mix and it bakes for an hour. so you could study for the hour and reward yourself for all the hard studying with the bread (or you could spend 45 mins on facebook and study for 15 but its your choice). i use my kitchen aid mixer because i just have to dump everything in the bowl and turn it on, but you can use a hand mixer if you please. or even use your hands, it would be like playing with a giant dough stress ball.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Crisco, margarine, butter or shortening. (whatever one you have on hand)
2 eggs
2 brown bananas, (it needs to equal a cup when mushed up)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts) or chocolate chips.
put sugar and butter in mixer and blend until they are at a creamy consistency. crack 2 eggs into a separate bowl and put 2 bananas in that bowl as well. use a fork to mush the bananas up and whisk the eggs. you want the bananas nice and mushy otherwise there will be big chunks of 'nana in the bread. add the egg/banana mixture to the sugar and butter. mix until well blended. add the dry ingredients, buttermilk and nuts or chocolate chips (or both) and mix to dough consistency. pour into a loaf pan, bake for an hour at 350'
be sure to stick a fork in once it comes out, there is nothing better than warm, soft, mushy bread.

Spicey Spectrum Saladz

so this is colorful, spicy, delicious, healthy and pretty. and if you feed it to people, you will look smart for knowing about a different kind of pepper! a poblano pepper! its a little hotter than a bell pepper, yet still delish. so lets start off with the dressing first shall we, whisk together
juice of 1 lime
juice of half of a lemon
drizzle of EVOO (until you have enough liquid there to call it a dressing)
few drops of Tabasco
finely chopped cilantro leaves.
once that is all nicely whisked, chop up equal amounts of yellow bell pepper, cherry tomatoes and poblano pepper. (it exist, if you cant seem to find one at your local super market, then your stupid. ask the guy there in the apron to help you find it). pour the dressing over the chopped veggies in a bowl and pepper (cracked pepper, ya know the one that's married to the salt) and cheese till taste. i also decided to throw some lettuce in because i like my salads to contain lettuce. the end!

Guac Muffins?!?!

so this week, i got a new oven! YAY. to break it in, i decided to bake avocado muffins. think carrot cake, then carrot bread, then avocado bread (it exist, i have had it) and then putting the avocado bread dough into mini muffin pans. that is how you end up at mini avocado muffins. the avocado is actually really good and you dont need to add butter, making these healthier. yay healthy breakfast!
you need:
3/4 cup mashed avocado (its one avocado, unless you have really small or really big avocados, and i mean like abnormally sized)
3 eggs
1 cup EVOO (or vegetable oil, but i prefer the extra virgin olive oil)
1 tablespoon maple syrup (the recipe called for vanilla but i couldn't find any, and i love Vermont made things soooo)
3 cups flour
1.5 cup sugar
1 tablespoon allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
walnuts or some other nut.
mash up the insides of the avocado, and mix it together with the eggs, EVOO, and syrup until you have a nice blend going. then add all of the dry ingredients one by one. fold in the nuts if you desire. spray a mini muffin pan with nonstickkkz sprayzz and drop spoon fulls of dough into the muffin hole. bake for about 20 mins or so, when they look done, take em out, there prob done. enjoy your vegetable based baked good and go brag to your friends about the cool thing you did, if only it was college app worthy....

Good Fat Salad

now, why would the words "good" and "fat" be in the same sentence ever? because all of the ingredients in this salad contain to what is referred to as good fats. i dont know what it means or why some fats are good or bad, and i am no hurry to get a degree in nutrition to find out. this salad is possibly the most DELISH thing ever, if you dont like salad you mind is about to be changed. this is great if you want to impress people with your culinary talent or you haven't had a solid meal in a few days. you need:
2 spoonfills grainy mustard (teaspoon if you are just making salad for yourself, tablespoon if for more people etc)
6 spoonfills EVOO
3 spoonfills balsamic vinegar
2 spoonfills maple syrup
1 avocado
crasins (cranberrys in rasin form, if you are unfimilar with the word)
pine nuts
and spring lettuce mix or romaine
in a bowl, whisk the grainy mustard, EVOO, balsamic and maple syrup together until they have the consistency of dressing. (your making a salad, and this is the dressing, you want the consistency of dressing for the salad now dont you?) Hold the avocado in your left hand and pick up a knife in your right. (other way around if your a lefty). stick the knife deep into the avocado and drag it around the 'cado in a circle. pretend the 'cado is a globe and you are drawing a horizontal line across it with a knife that connects to the other side. open the avocado and take the pit out. now, hold one half of the "cado in your hand with the green soft part (the part you eat) facing you. cut the avocado up into chunks while it is still in the skin. (drag the knife through the 'cado deep enough to touch the skin, but not poke through it.) then try turning the avocado inside out over the bowl you are planning on eating your salad out of. if done right, the avocado chunks will pop out into the bowl, otherwise epic fail. take out a small skillet and pour a handful or so of the pine nuts in it. toast them over medium heat. they are usually done when you can smell them or start turning brown. toss them around in the skillet a few times so there is an even toasting. while the nuts are a brownin' wash the lettuce and put in same bowl as avocado. also begin to sprinkle the crasins to taste over this epic bowl. to top off this magnificent ensalada, sprinkle over the luscious warm pine nuts and drizzle an ample amount of dressing as well. prepare for deliciousness times 10.