If you read this blog at all regularly, you know by now that I love pancakes. I usually whip them up a couple times a week, but once in awhile, I'm more in the mood for waffles than pancakes. This was the case a couple of weekends back, and so I broke out my waffle maker. But I wanted to make not just any waffles -- I wanted to make decadent-weekend-treat-for-breakfast waffles. In staring at my fruit basket, the idea of bananas foster came to my head. I haven't had the scrumptious dessert of vanilla ice cream topped with bananas cooked in rum, banana liqueur, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in quite a long time -- too long I would argue! -- and so I decided to recreate the dessert with waffles as a most definitely delicious, kinda sorta acceptable breakfast (we can pretend ... [Read More]
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Vanilla Peanut Butter Cinnamon Smoothie
Now that it's spring and half the world is starting to get out of freezing temperatures and polar vortex slumps, smoothie season is getting underway. I know what you're thinking: I live in California and can pretty much drink smoothies year-round. But the truth is, here in the south bay area, the temperature swings are pretty nutty. It'll get up to 75-80 degrees during the day, then drop down to 35-40 degrees at night. Literally, the temperature doubles most days! When I first moved here I couldn't believe it. While I drank smoothies somewhat often during winter, my smoothie habit wasn't nearly as frequent as it has been the last few weeks and will be probably until late fall. You see, the house I'm living in stays really cool - as in, it's 80 degrees out but I'll work from my office ... [Read More]
Banana Pumpkin Muffins with a Cinnamon Brown Sugar Topping
Hi everyone, happy Sunday! I have a few updates for you all on the blog front. I've updated my recipe pages to include all of my latest kitchen creations. I also updated my workout page, which now includes a new section for my hiking spot posts. Lastly, I added a 'travel & fun' page so that all of my travel posts, restaurant and winery experiences, as well as random adventures are in one place. Fun stuff! And now onto food - banana pumpkin muffins to be precise... After a morning yoga session, running errands, and going hiking with my hubby and puppy yesterday, I came home and decided that a bit of baking was in order. Since I had an open can of pumpkin and some ripe bananas ready to be eaten in my fruit basket, and I've been loving muffins lately, I whipped up some tasty banana ... [Read More]
Banana Apple Cinnamon Mini Muffins
Lazy Sunday mornings are the perfect time to play around in the kitchen. After sleeping in late today, I decided to procrastinate cleaning my house by first doing some baking. Ever since I nabbed a mini muffin cup tin a few weeks ago, I've had mini muffin ideas floating in the back on my mind. The recipe started with a ripe banana and Granny Smith apple... Hi, how cute are these mini muffin cups?! I couldn't resist snapping a picture with a few of the sunflowers I picked up at the farmers' market yesterday for $3 [FABULOUS]. I love the idea of mini muffins because they're small enough as a baby snack or part of breakfast, but big enough in size to be a nice little dessert to satisfy a sweet tooth, and also easy to grab on-the-go. I love the combo of apple, banana, and cinnamon, and so ... [Read More]
Banana Pumpkin Pie Bowl
Hi friends! Hope that your weekend has been great. Here are the highlights of my past couple of days: My Friday morning began with a quick hour hike with Harley at our favorite nearby park. The hike became a bit adventurous when we found ourselves in a standoff with a fox - and I must say, my dog looks a lot like a fox! We all stared at each other for awhile, and then the fox ran into the fields and crouched down. I wasn't sure if it was planning on attacking us or if it was just scared himself, but I didn't want to take any chances, so we turned around. I snapped a grainy pic of him with my phone: The park is crawling with ground squirrels that Harley has always been interested in, but ever since she caught one a few weeks ago and it squeaked for its life, she's OBSESSED. It's annoying ... [Read More]
Honey Peanut Butter Banana Bowl
Hello and Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there, especially mine! Wish I could be with you today dad, but I'll be seeing you in just a few weeks! When I popped into the health food store in my town last Friday, I left with a couple of goodies, including this flavor from Peanut Butter & Co: Peanut butter blended with honey? Yes please. I also nabbed a couple of speckled bananas. Even though they were about to be too ripe, bananas are a staple in my house so I figured I'd grab a few anyways. As I was walking out, the man working at the store asked me if I wanted to take more bananas for free, since they were going to go bad soon. I obviously couldn't turn down free produce or let them go to waste, so it's been a weekend full of banana eats. I put most of the ... [Read More]