Banana Ice Cream

No it's not summer, but you know what? The cold never bothered me anyway... Okay, sorry not sorry about the frozen quotes, I'm still kind of in love with that movie. And it's not true, the cold does bug me. Quite a lot actually. I seem to be continually wearing warm sweaters, wrapping up in fuzzy blankets, sitting in front of fireplaces and complaining about the cold. I really am a summer person, and yet I live in Oregon... Oh wait, I don't anymore actually. I live in Washington now. :/ Still in denial about that. I'll just keep telling myself I'm in Oregon, it's close enough. ;)

But the other day, I found myself craving something yummy, sweet, healthy and cold (yes, I crave healthy things, weird right?). I knew I didn't want ice cream and that is just too sweet and much too much dairy. I never feel too great after eating that much sugar and dairy together. Which is quite sad as I love, love, love ice cream. So that got me thinking, there's got to be a non diary, no added sugar substitute for ice cream. And sure enough there is!

The secret? Bananas. No seriously, just bananas, nothing else. The great thing about this is it can count as your fruit for the day, not have a bunch of added sugar, and still be quite yummy.

All you do is slice a banana into thin slices, freeze it over night and than puree it all together in a food processor. And voila! All done! That simple. Is it as sweet, creamy, and mouthwatering as real ice cream. No, not quite, but is anything? Is it a quite good substitute for vegan, dairy free, and/or no added sugar people? Yes!

I must admit I was actually quite surprised at the texture. It was surprisingly like ice cream. If you want it a little more solid and frozen (haha, frozen pun again XP) you can put it back in the freezer for a while, but when I made it I wanted to eat it then, not later. And it was quite good just like that. :)

~Alyssa <3

My New Obsession

Guys I want to introduce you to my latest obsession: coconut water. This stuff is amazing I'm telling you. It's even better than coconut milk. If you don't know the difference, coconut milk is made from pressing the juice out of the coconut meat while coconut water is found in the center of the green coconuts.

I'm kinda majorly obsessing over this stuff. Why? Because it's hydrating, good for you and tastes amazing. Also since I don't drink soda, energy drinks, sports drinks or sweetened tea, and only drink minimal coffee I often miss having something besides water (or tea) to drink. Will this satisfy your sugar craving? No. Is that a bad thing? No. It is slightly sweet but far, far from the overly sickeningly sweet taste of most "mainstream" drinks.

Health benefits? Yes. Coconut water is much more effective at hydrating than sports drinks or energy drinks as it has high levels of potassium and electrolytes.

Down sides? It's kind of expensive.  And some people may not like the taste. I was told it was an acquired taste, I acquired it very quickly...before I even drank any actually. But I can't promise everyone will like it. I can only say you should give it a try. It's oh so tasty and satisfying.

~Alyssa <3

"No Ingredient" Cookies

Okay, okay, they have some ingredients just not most of the 'normal' cookie ingredients. No wheat, dairy, eggs, sugar, chocolate. Okay not all cookies have chocolate, just the best ones do. ;) But yes, these cookies are really made without any of these ingredients. Wow, right? I agree.

I've tried several different recipes and I wasn't really pleased with them. They never tasted good enough. The first ones I tried were mainly oats and just didn't taste good enough. They were okay, but more like granola bars not cookies.

So after much trial and error I finally found a recipe that was pretty good, changed it a little bit and than it was perfectly splendidly wonderful. The first batch I made I ate in like two days. Bad, I know, but oh so good.

Because of the oats these cookies may or may not be gluten free. If you want them gluten free just make sure you are using gluten free oats. I didn't bother as they were all for me and I'm not gluten free, I just tend to shy away from eating lots of wheat.

Yes, they are also vegan. No, I am not going vegan but I do find the idea fascinating. I find most weird diets/foodstyles fascinating though.

"No Ingredient" Cookie Recipe (Yes, I'm finally remembering to actually give you a recipe XP)

1 cup peanut butter
2 bananas
1/3 cup ground flaxseed
1/3-1/2 cup oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons coconut sugar (optional)
1/3 cup dried fruit (cherries, cranberries, raisins, basically whatever you want)

~Alyssa <3

Paleo Pesto Chicken

With Hannah home over Christmas break I thought it would be cool to try some of her weird paleo food and maybe clean my diet up a bit that way. So we started looking around on pinterest and other places and found a recipe for paleo pesto chicken. To be quite honest with you, I laughed. Right, we're totally gonna make pesto with no cheese. Haha, no. But well, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to try this. Yes, I was assuming it would be pretty pathetic, nothing can be nearly as good as real pesto. But for my weird paleo sister I would try it.

So we made the pesto with me shaking my head the whole time. I know pesto, and this, this was not pesto. But I mainly kept my skeptical comments to myself. It does not go well when you insult someone's eating choices I've found. So we whipped up our "pesto", cooked and cooled and chopped our chicken, mixed it all together and than came the important part: tasting it. Would it taste like pesto? Or was I just gonna gag? Hmmm, okay, not as good as real pesto, but ehh, still quite good. Worth eating. ;)

We served it on whole kale leaves with some toasted pine nuts sprinkled on top. Mmmmmm!

~Alyssa <3

Green Smoothie

A few months back I had a rather bad experience with green smoothies. I had decided to just make up my own with no recipe and hope for the best (typical me, right?). Well without going too much into detail, about two bites into the thing it was poured down the drain never to be mentioned again.

So after that experience it took me a little while to build up the courage to try again. But with trying to get in shape for my dance performance and just feeling like trying something different I finally tried again. This time with a recipe though. ;)
I decided to go with a simple, basic smoothie to start with. I know a lot of green smoothies have tons of veggies in them, but they also taste like it. I figured I would go easy on myself and start with something more...edible?
The recipe I found which I believe was called "beginners green smoothie" (perfect, right?) was made from only a few ingredients.

1 cup Spinach
1 cup Frozen pineapple
1 Banana
1 cup coconut milk
1 Tablespoon chia seeds (optional)

Literally all you have to do is throw it in your blender (in stages if your blender is as pathetic as mine) and blend it all up. Making sure that it's all well ground up, you don't want bits of spinach in your smoothie (eww).

Well let me tell you this IT WAS AMAZING. It didn't taste weird at all, in fact it just tasted like a normal smoothie, except better. I can't wiat to make these next summer with fresh fruits and veggies form my own garden. I guess that means I'll actually have to get my lazy self up out of my bed and plant a garden though...hmm...

Here are a couple pictures of my "green martian goo" as my dear little brother called my lunch. :)

~Alyssa <3

Birthday Cake

So  about a month ago I threw a surprise birthday party for one of my best friends and I needed a cake. A perfect cake. Something spectacular. So I started thinking of all the flavors that she likes....chocolate...nutella...oreo...coffee... Hmm, well that's something to work with. So I hoped on my computer (no not literally) and started looking for a recipe. To my utter disappointment there was no recipe that combined all of the flavors. What? Come on, we must have it all. I will not settle for mediocrity. So I found one recipe here, and one there and combined them all into one cake.

I knew the frosting was going to be pretty sweet so the cake had to be a slightly less sweet chocolate. None of that sickeningly sweet milk chocolate stuff for me. I needed a good dark cake.  I've always had a hard time finding a good chocolate cake. I find that almost every single recipe is either, not chocolaty enough, crumbly or just plain odd. So wish trembling fingers I chose one off the internet. Would it work? Would it be good? Would it be perfect? The struggle is real guys, you better believe it.

So chocolate and coffee, check. Now I need nutella and oreo. Well nutella frosting was kind of a "duh". Because come on guys, what's better than a little (maybe more than a little...) nutella frosting? No I had never tasted it before but I knew that it would be perfection. Call it women's intuition. And for once my intuition was spot on. Making that frosting was quite possibly the best decision I have ever made, unless making sure there was extra counts as a decision...

Now the day I made the cake I went to my supplies and realized I had forgotten to buy oreos. I quickly collapsed on the floor in a flood of tears. "It was a tragedy. I couldn't make the perfect cake. There was nothing to do. Oh woe to me.". Don't you dare call me a drama queen! I was being completely realistic. Humph! Luckily my darling mother came to the rescue. Would half a box of oreos be enough? We (praise the Lord) had those in the house. I fell at her feet sobbing out my endless gratitude and jealously ran off with my precious oreos. Preciousssss, my preciousssssss. ;)

Now was half a box enough for my plans? Well we'd have to see. In any case it would have to suffice. I very, very carefully, like a brains surgeon, cut them in half. Gently, gently, one false move and a crack would enter the rest of the cookie damaging it for life. And than I could be fired from the job...and possibly sued... not good. Due to my great skill, they all came through with no complications. They were safe.

After placing them around the top of the cake I had plenty left, so I crumbled the rest and put them all on the top. But the rest of the cake just looked bare. Something was wrong. Noooo! But I must remain calm, "can we fix it? Yes we can!" No Alyssa, shut up, you're not Bob the Builder. You're Alyssa the Amazing"! Okay...no that was worse. Moving on. I realized that I had plenty of cookie crumbs on top of the cake, so why not remove some of the and place them around the bottom of the cake? Much better, much better indeed.

Now, now the cake was perfect, or as perfect as a cake can get. But would it taste as good as it looked? Well I had to wait for my answer until later that night when I got to taste the cake. The first taste. The thought running through my mind? "And in that moment I swear we were infinite". Okay, no not quite, I didn't really fall in love with a piece of cake...I promise. No, I'm not that weird. Not at all.

But anyway, enjoy the pictures of that mouthwatering cake. I wish you could smell it. Someone really needs to invent that don't you think? Hmm...anyone want to start working on that for me? Oh and than while you're at it why not just make it so you can reach into the screen and pull out whatever food there's a picture of... Like wow, we're in the 21st century, you'd think someone would have invented that by now, just saying.

~Alyssa <3

I need inspiration...

...to be healthier. I feel like every time I have the urge to make something I end up making a sugary desert. Now this may sound good to ya'll and I know my family generally enjoys it. But my body does not. The more often I eat sugar the more my body wants it. And wow does my body want it. Every few minutes there's this little voice whispering "ohhhh, go find some chocolate, it'll make you feel better." or "hmmm, maybe if you baked some cookies it would warm you up". Thanks mind, so helpful. Looking over this blog almost every post has been about desert and that's only a very small percentage of the things I've baked. I only post about the interesting and new things. I've found that I have this thing for baking. If my day isn't going well, I'm sad, or anything else like that I just want to bake something. Or cook something. But sugar is comfort food so generally baking is better.
Have you ever had that feeling like you just have to make something? My mum always said that when they were younger my oldest sister had to create something everyday and my oldest brother had to build something everyday. Well, I seem to need to bake something everyday. And cooking some normal everyday meal just doesn't cut it. I want something new, fun and exciting. And so I turn to deserts because well, there seems to be an endless supply of amazing deserts to make. I've had this attitude for the past couple weeks, I'm not sure where it came from, "oh looks sugary, fattening food, eat it it won't make you gain weight!" Umm...ya...It does. Not sure why my brain thought it was a good idea... But it seemed totally rational at the time. Either that or I was just blocking my rational side and not letting it tell my brain what I really should be thinking. Well, I need to get back in shape. For my body and my mind. I've gotten much, much too lazy of late. "Exercise, what's that?" Ya, I know horrible right? But I've made a promise to myself! I will get in shape, lose a few pounds, stop eating desert and get my metabolism working again. And so, I will be baking fewer deserts for a while. But since I seem to need to make something I'm hoping to start cooking more. Actual food, not deserts. Maybe some alternative foods, not just normal foods. Some "healthy" foods, some "weird" foods. I'm not sure what yet. I keep finding different "diets" I want to try but I can't settle on one that I'll want to stick with. And so for now, until I actually find one I like I'm just going to do my own thing. If any of you ever run across a recipe you think I'd like please do send it my way. I can't promise I'll make it but it is highly likely I will. And if it turns out well I just might make it again for you. ;)
Hmm, I'm not sure what this post was really about...but I think my main reason in writing it was that I wanted to let ya'll know that I may not be posting as much or if am it will be about healthy stuff mainly.
Remember if you come across any recipes please send them my way! They will be much appreciated!

~Alyssa <3