Addicted to trail mix?

For those of you who have not tried this...

you don't know what you're missing! 

I sincerely believe I am addicted!! I could eat it all day long. However, I like to pick out the almonds, raisins, and cashews. At the end of the bag that leaves an overwhelming amount of peanuts and m&ms left. 

Instead of taking up space in the cupboard, why not make some cookies??

Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookies

1 1/4 cups oat flour

1/4 cup ground flax

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups oats

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 Tbsp vanilla yogurt

2 eggs

2 heaping cups trail mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a seperate bowl, mix all wet ingredients. Especially make sure to add the vanilla yogurt, it adds alot to the cookie. Then add this wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until well combined. Lastly add the trail mix and stir until combined. Place tablespoonfuls of dough onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, til golden brown. 

These are definately a lazyman's cookie. But even the day after, they are nice and moist (thanks to the yogurt)

They're not pretty, but they are a tasty treat!

And they store great!

So pick out all the tasty bits of that bag of trail mix, and leave the rest to make some tasty cookies!

Brown Nanners

A weekend away left my counter plentiful with many brown bananas. This honestly made me quite excited...nothing I love more than a good banana loaf. This time I decided to switch things up by adding a little PB!
For those of you who know me well, not a day goes by without some form of peanut butter overconsumption. Even Aston has caught the bug...poor pup didn't stand a chance with me as a mom, she now sees the green lidded jar and the drool begins to pool on the floor.

This peanut butter banana bread comes from a recipe I adapted loosely from  Cooking Light.

Peanut Butter Banana Loaf

(makes 1 9x5 loaf)

2 mashed ripe bananas

1/3 cup vanilla yogurt

2/3 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter

1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups oat flour (oats ground in the magic bullet)

1/4 cup ground flax

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan and set aside. 

In a large bowl, mix together the oat flour, ground flax, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. 

In another bowl, mix together the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, peanut butter, melted butter, and brown sugar. Blend until smooth, and then pour this wet mixture into the dry oat flour mixture. 

Pour this batter into the greased loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes and until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

A Weekend Away

So this week has been hectic to say the very least. We headed to the island VERY early Friday morning for our friends Dustin and Hayley's wedding. The wedding wasn't until Saturday but Mark was a groomsman so we headed over a day early to help set up. Upon arriving to the island we decided that lunch was going to be somewhere local with a patio. We came across The Local Kitchen.

If you go to Victoria you must go here! The first day for lunch I had the tuna tataki.....YUM!

We enjoyed it here so much, us girls went back for lunch a second day while the boys prepared for the wedding. This time I knew I'd be eating a ton at the wedding for I opted for the garden salad (minus the garbanzo beans)

After lunch we got ready and headed to the wedding!! 

My dinner plate got a little out of control to say the least...

But it was delicious and I almost ate it all! By the time desserts arrived, well we'd all had a few drinks and I was apparently too busy capturing other photos to take one of the massive dessert buffet! 

All in all, a beautiful wedding and a great time had by all, but it leaves me with much cooking to catch up on! 

Congrats Dustin & Hayley!

Blueberry Bars...& Another Close Call

Mark has been away for a few weeks, and is gone AGAIN...but it's okay because I get flowers!

It's really not okay, but the flowers are so pretty in the house so they do make it better, plus I just couldn't resist taking a picture of them.

I baked some blueberry oat bars, super similar recipe to the rhubarb squares I last posted, being as they are very very healthy, but they are filled with juicy delicious little blueberries. Which over the past few days I think I have consumed about 2 pounds worth....I'm truly turning blue. But I couldn't resist these!

Blueberry Oat Squares

Ingredients

- 2 1/2 cups rolled oats

- 1 cup oat flour (use a magic bullet and grind some oats!)

- 1/2 cup brown sugar

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 2 Tbsp ground flax

- 4 Tbsp milk

- 3/4 cup non-fat plain yogurt

Filling:

- 1 cup diced strawberries

- 2 cups blueberries

- 3 Tbsp water

Mix together all the dry ingredients and whisk until well combined. In a seperate smaller bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients. Then combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in the large bowl. Mix this until well combined. 

In a saucepan, heat the blueberries, strawberries, and water until they come to a boil. Then reduce the heat and let simmer until it begins to thicken, about 10 minutes. Then take this off the heat and allow it to cool for about 5 minutes (it will thicken even more). 

Reserve 3/4 cup of the oat base. Press the remaining oat mixture into a greased 8x8 pan and make even. Then pour the cooled topping over the oat base. Sprinkle the remaining oat topping evenly over the berry filling. If you like coconut, do what I did and sprinkle the top oat layer with a hefty coating of shredded coconut. 

Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes or until golden. Let cool and then cut into squares.

As I let mine cool, you can see we almost had another close call with these squares... (note the cooling bars directly above her on the counter)

Apparently the fact that she just got spayed and has to recover in this massive cone does not stop her from wanting to devour some delicious baking. Luckily this time, I caught her before she had a chance to act.

Well I'm off to enjoy another night alone again! But it won't be as bad, so long as I've got my glass of white wine and tasty little blueberry bars to keep me company!.... oh, and Aston in her cone.

Rhubarb Bar Mishap

For those of you who don't know her yet, this is miss Aston

Well this was her about 5 months ago when Mark & I first got her. Needless to say she is MUCH bigger now, and figuring out that with her new size there is much to be discovered. 

Mark has been away for work for the last 3 weeks, so with just me home alone I haven't been spending much time in the kitchen because he isn't home to eat the creations. He came home the other day to spend the night, so I thought what better a time than to use up the rest of my frozen rhubarb from my grandma's garden. I decided to make some strawberry rhubarb crumble bars from a recipe I kinda adapted from others and created as I went. 

Fresh from the oven! 

Strawberry Rhubarb Oat Crumble Squares

Base:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups oats (I used Quaker quick oats)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 Tbsp milk

Filling:

1 cup strawberries diced

1 cup rhubarb stalks diced

3 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350F and grease an 8x8 baking pan. Heat the strawberries, rhubarb, and sugar with water in a pot until they begin to boil. Once they begin to boil, simmer until thick about 8-10 minutes. Once you remove from the heat, allow this mixture to cool for about 10 minutes to it has time to really set and thicken up. 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk. In a seperate small bowl, mix all the wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Add this wet mixture to the large bowl containing the dry mixture. Stir this together until just combined. This mixture should be fairly thick, but crumbly. Save about 3/4 cup of this mixture to crumble over the top. Press the rest of this into the greased baking pan and press down firmly. Pour the thickened rhubarb strawberry mixture overtop of this base and spread out evenly. Then sprinkle the remaining oat mix evenly over the top of this filling layer. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden. 

However, once it was cooling time for my lovely little bars.... I cut them each into their own respective size after cooling in the pan, and laid them out on the counter on top of this cutting board. I proceeded to carry on doing things around the house while these were out to cool.... 

And from 16 squares...I came back to this many remaining. Now Mark being gone for a few weeks 

was definately excited for treats....but not THAT excited.

Turned around to find the culprit...

Yes, she has discovered with her new size that jumping up to the edge of the counter and using her paws to swipe some human treats is a fun time. 

At least Mark & I still got to eat the remaining 4 squares, and they were delicious!! And from the sounds Aston's tummy made for 2 days and the fact that she didn't touch a bite of kibble for 2 days after the fact, I'd say she learnt the hard way to keep her grimy little paws off the counter.

A Sunny New Start

So as promised, I am back in full force with my posts! To celebrate my "new start" to blogging, I thought a muffin perfect to start a sunny morning would be a great place to start.

These muffins were my Auntie Pat's who recently passed away. My grandma and I baked a batch the other day from my Auntie Pat's original recipe, but I thought it would be fun to go home and try my own healthy take on them! The original recipe is relatively healthy to begin with, but uses ALOT of oil to moisten them, so here is my take!

"Sunnier" Rise & Shine Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup or agave syrup
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
2 cups chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1 cup applesauce
2 tsp vanilla

Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then add fruit, followed by eggs, maple syrup, applesauce, and vanilla. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes. Allow them to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

My favorite thing about these muffins is that they freeze so well! And they come out so moist and fruity! A great reason to "rise & shine" if you ask me!

Just Too Busy!!

So it seems as though I started my blog at a bad time. I started it and then life just took over and got so crazy (ie: new job, etc. ). However, I have still been doing a ton of baking and picture taking...just not making the effort to get my posts up! But I assure you that this is all about to change... starting tomorrow, I am back on board 110% and will be posting daily!


In order to make it easier to fit into my life, I am no longer just going to be posting baking recipes, but also my cooking recipes and just general recipes I make. This means however, A LOT more healthy posts haha as everyone who knows me knows I like to go a little overboard on the healthy eating. But don't worry, there will still be plenty or butter-laden baking recipes to follow ;)

I'm off to get some rest so I can be full force back to the blog tomorrow!!