Roasted Chickpea and Tahini Sammies

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I love chickpeas. They’re fantastic. They add delicious texture to salads. Tired of boring old lettuce, no problem, just add a few chickpeas. Tada! They make a delicious salad on their own, with a little bit of balsamic vinegar and red peppers.

Oh and they are the main ingredient in hummus. Which is DELICIOUS! But did you know that you can roast chickpeas? Yes, you can just roast up a can of chickpeas and pop them as delicious little snacks.

OR, even better you can roast them and use them to fill a delicious sammy. Dress them with some tangy tahini and fill up a warm pita and they make a delicious sandwich. It’s like hummus, but undone. Deconstructed. And crunchy.

Happy Eating!

~Nikki  [Read more...]

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Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins

April 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I love oatmeal. I love it so much I eat it everyday. Okay almost everyday. Eventually you would think that this would get boring, but man, oatmeal is so delicious and versatile! And it keeps you feeling full and warm on cold days. It even taste good on hot days! I’m not talking about your soggy, pasty instant oats either. No, it’s gotta be real rolled oats. They’re just so good for you and delicious!

Anyways, a few months ago, I started to think about how I could change up my morning oatmeal routine. Every morning, I cook a bowl of oatmeal and add a few chopped almonds. I’m boring, I know. But I don’t like the uncertainty of  trying to decide what I’ll eat in the morning! But then I got adventurous. I started adding cinnamon. Vanilla. Apple slices. And these were born. Sometimes I toss in some chopped nuts. Some times a few pieces of dark chocolate. What ever tickles my fancy on Sunday night might go in the mix. These are like apple pie for breakfast. Guilt free apple pie.

The best part is not only are they delicious… they are healthy to boot! Yes! No oil, no added sugar! I even toss in a few tablespoons of ground flaxseed to make them EXTRA healthy. Make a batch on Sunday night and put them in the fridge for easy to grab breakfast of snack all week.

Happy  Eating!

~nikki

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Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins
Cuisine: Breakfast
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 10-12
 

No added sugar, no added oil, Not even any flour! Just delicious healthy apples and oatmeal. Good for you AND tastes like apple pie for breakfast. Or any time you decide to have one!
Ingredients
  • 2 cups rolled oats, divided
  • 2 medium to large pink apples (I use Gala or Fuji)
  • ½ cup hot water
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (optional)
  • **Also chopped nuts like almonds or walnuts are yummy in these and sometimes I skip the cinnamon and add two tablespoons of cocoa powder instead.***

Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 350 F.
  2. In food processor or blender, grind 1 cup of the oats for 1-2 minutes.
  3. Core and roughly chop the apples. Set about ½ of an apple aside and chop it into slightly smaller chunks. You won’t want puree these bits, so add them last.
  4. Add the remaining apple and hot water to the oats in the food processor. Blend for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is relatively smooth (you aren’t looking for applesauce smoothness here, just not chunky).
  5. Add egg white, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and flaxseed. Mix until well combined.
  6. Stir in remaining 1 cup of oats and the ½ of an apple you set aside. Don’t blend this! Just stir until well combined.
  7. Spoon mixture into muffin tins. I find it’s easier to just do unlined tins, but you can line them with paper to make them easier to travel with.
  8. Bake for about 25 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from tins. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week.

 

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Carrot Cake for Two

February 4, 2013 By 1 Comment


It’s not my fault. It just happened.

One minute I was slicing up veggies to make lunches for the week and the next thing I knew there  were two carrot cakes in the oven. I blame the carrots. I was chopping away and I started thinking about how sweet and delicious those carrots were going be be when they were all roasted up with the broccoli and the cauliflower. They were begging me to make them into a dessert. So I may have accidentally on purpose left that one really big carrot in the sink and then packaged up all of the other veggies. And the apples were out too, waiting to be baked into oatmeal breakfast muffins, so I needed some of that in there too.  [Read more...]

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Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

November 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I swear, I don’t bake desserts all the time. Truly. Sometimes I make dinner. Last week I made spicy black bean burgers and the week before that enchiladas and the week before that a delicious black bean, quinoa and avocado salad that I keep meaning to share with you.  But last week J kept going on about how he really wanted to make cinnamon rolls.

He found some “easy recipe” to make them with refrigerated croissant dough, but that costs $10 a tube here so he didn’t. I offered to make him real cinnamon rolls. He declined. Then this weekend we went out to check out the Christmas lights and displays on Orchard Road (ps the display was amazing!)  and in the Christmasy mood we stopped at Starbucks for some latte’s because it was a nice cool 80 degrees out. While we were waiting J started to ogle and drool over this giant slab of coffee cake. But he wouldn’t get it!

[Read more...]

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Pumpkin Round-Up

November 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I didn’t realize that I had a pumpkin “thing”. I guess maybe I did. I knew that I was buying a lot of pumpkin. I guess I thought it was a new development. And then I started looking at this and seeing all of the pumpkin related posts. Yeah, I’ll admit it. I love that big orange squash. It’s just so versatile and yummy! Sweet, Savory it can be anything! Bread, pasta, cakes…yay! So now that Thanksgiving has come and gone and you still have an extra can of pumpkin puree hanging around, why not  use it sooner then later. Here is a round up of some of my favorite pumpkin treats you can try!

If you haven’t tried it already, Pumpkin Whoopie Pies are my new favorite treat. They are delicious with chocolate filling.

Or just as delicious with a cream cheese filling. They are also delicious on their own, with no filling, if you’d like to pretend you’re starting a holiday diet.

If you are tired of Turkey leftovers you could make a delicious vegetarian lasagna with this Pumpkin Lasagna recipe. It’s one of my favorites, but please forgive me! I took the picture with my Iphone! I promise it taste much better than this picture does justice.

If you’re interested in trying something new, try pumpkin ravioli. These combine sweet and savory for a delicious autumn dinner.

If it’s cold outside, whip up a Pumpkin Latte and snuggle up on the couch while all those crazy folks head out for black friday deals. If you live somewhere were it isn’t cold out (like me, in Singapore where it’s muggy and rainy!) turn up the AC, grab a blanket and pretend that it’s cold out while you curl up with one of these.

Happy Eating

~nikki

Filed Under: Beverages, Desserts, Entrees, Holiday Baking, Snacks Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

More Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (with Cream Cheese Filling)

November 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I know. I already shared the recipe for mouth watering, delicious, can’t believe that I ate four of these pumpkin whoopie pies. So why are we talking about them again? They are just that good. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but in this case, toot toot! I made these little treats originally for J and I. And they were so popular that I made them again for a Canadian Thanksgiving gathering with friends.  (Did you know those Canadian’s celebrate Thanksgiving in October? Before Halloween? Whaaat? Some excuse about it’s colder up north…) And then I made them for my family when I went home to visit and even my super picky 4 year old nephew loved them. So I’m sharing them again for you, with a little Thanksgiving twist.

Make these delicious treats a little more festive by shaping them like tiny little pumpkins and filling them with cream cheese frosting.  Follow the original recipe for Pumpkin Whoopie pies but to make them this cute pumpkin shape just spoon the batter into a piping bag (or a big ziplock bag with one corner cut off) and pipe them onto a pan. You can do it free hand or if you want to make sure they are all the same size make a template. [Read more...]

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Hummus with Pine Nuts

November 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the awesome things about living in the UAE was the abundance of hummus (or hummos, or hommos you can spell things however you’d like when you live in the UAE but that’s another story entirely!). If you don’t like hummus and you move to the UAE you’re going to start eating enough of it that you will learn to like it.

J didn’t think he liked hummus before he moved. I’ve met many people who are afraid of this middle eastern treat. Why? It’s strange and foreign and something that hipsters eat in the states while they drink craft beers and talk about being vegans. I’m only guilty of the first three of these so I am, therefore, obviously not a hipster but rather a lover of hummus and delicious beers.  I digress. Hummus. 

Fast forward to month 4 (wow time flies!) in Singapore and J and I both are lamenting how we miss our beloved “Hummos with Pine” from one of our favorite restaurants. It was delicious. It was cheap. It came on  big giant plate with a huge helping of pitas and salad to dip in it. We’d get it to go…after we’d already had a helping with our meal and take it home to enjoy the next day.  [Read more...]

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Soft Chewy Pretzels

November 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

yummy soft and chewy pretzelsI never thought of pretzels as being the kind of snack you could make at home. I don’t mean the hard, crunchy ones that you buy in a bag next to the chips and pretend they are healthy as you eat them dipped in creamy dressings at holiday parties or with giant dollops of peanut butter. I mean the big, soft, chewy ones that they sell drenched with butter or coated in cinnamon and sugar in the mall.

When J and I were in Germany last year we couldn’t help but notice that these soft delicious pretzels were sold, like, everywhere.  Often split in half with a nice smear of butter inside. Oddly however, they were usually served cold. What? No microwaves or toasters in Deutschland?  However, they were still delicious. And when we got home it wasn’t long before we were reminiscing about delicious a big soft pretzel would be right now (particularly if it came with a big, cold german bier, ja?) So I was flabbergasted to find how simple it is to make pretzels a home. [Read more...]

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Macaroni and Cheese Cups

September 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What is it about things that are miniature that makes them infinitely more appealing? Is it their little tiny details? Is there something whimsical about miniature? Is this an ailment that affects only women? Men seem immune to the pull of things miniature. Yu’ll never catch  a group of men cooing over how adorable that miniature kitchen set is.

The lure of the miniature can apply to just about everything. Really. Shrink anything so that it fits on the tip of your finger and try to deny it becomes instantly cuter.  I am partial to mini things. Puppies of course fit into the mini thing category as well. Babies however, I’m not so sure about.

The undeniable appeal of things that are miniature of course applies to food as well. Cute … and delicious? Sign me up! Another great thing about miniature food is that it makes for fantastic party food. Individual servings are always a hit because they are easier to handle. You don’t have to worry about providing a spoon for a dish. Mini food is good conversation starter. Did I mention that they look cuter because they are miniature? These Mac and Cheese cups are no exception to the miniature rule. Make them in an ordinary muffin tin (with or without a muffin liner) and pop them on a cute tray to serve.

While you make these bite sized treats I’m going to start a list of mini things that I want.

A mini horse

Source: indulgy.com via nikki on Pinterest

 

A mini pig (actually I want a micro mini pig hybrid)

Source: krumcake.tumblr.com via nikki on Pinterest

A mini pug (okay, I had one of these already and she turned into a regular pug so I guess I’ll keep her.)

A mini whisk (they just look cuter!)

Source: qcidirect.com via nikki on Pinterest

 

A mini hedgehog (which is really a baby hedgehog)

 

A mini cooper

 

Happy Eating!

~nikki

 

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Macaroni and Cheese Cups
Author: 
Serves: about 18 cups
 

Individual Mac and Cheese cups make great party treats Inspired from Shine! on Yahoo
Ingredients
  • ½ pound elbow macaroni
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 cups milk
  • 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • salt and pepper to taste
Topping
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • ½ cup panko bread crumbs

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. On the stove top, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add about two teaspoons of salt the the water. Then add the pasta and cook according to the package directions. Drain the pasta, but don’t rinse it and set it aside.
  2. In a separate pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk the flour into the butter and cook for about five minutes. Keep the mixture moving and smooth, without lumps.
  3. Slowly, whisk the milk into the mixture and allow to simmer for about ten minutes.
  4. Remove from heat and stir in about ¾ of the grated cheese. Fold the cooked pasta into the cheese mixture, making sure that all of the pasta is coated.
  5. Add the beaten egg to the mixture and continue to fold the pasta to make sure the egg is well incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
  6. Spoon the mixture into muffin tins (I used a nonstick pan so I didn’t spray them with nonstick spray or use liners…but you could.)
  7. To make topping, melt remaining tablespoon of butter and toss the breadcrumbs to coat.
  8. Top the muffins with a sprinkle of bread crumbs and a pinch of the remaining grated cheese.
  9. Bake for about 20 minutes, until they are browned on top. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes (they’ll need to cool a bit to finish firming up) before removing from the pan.
  10. Serve and enjoy!
  11. Preheat oven to 350 F. On the stove top, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add about two teaspoons of salt the the water. Then add the pasta and cook according to the package directions. Drain the pasta, but don’t rinse it and set it aside.
  12. In a separate pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk the flour into the butter and cook for about five minutes. Keep the mixture moving and smooth, without lumps.
  13. Slowly, whisk the milk into the mixture and allow to simmer for about ten minutes.
  14. Remove from heat and stir in about ¾ of the grated cheese. Fold the cooked pasta into the cheese mixture, making sure that all of the pasta is coated.
  15. Add the beaten egg to the mixture and continue to fold the pasta to make sure the egg is well incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
  16. Spoon the mixture into muffin tins (I used a nonstick pan so I didn’t spray them with nonstick spray or use liners…but you could.)
  17. To make topping, melt remaining tablespoon of butter and toss the breadcrumbs to coat.
  18. Top the muffins with a sprinkle of bread crumbs and a pinch of the remaining grated cheese.
  19. Bake for about 20 minutes, until they are browned on top. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes (they’ll need to cool a bit to finish firming up) before removing from the pan.
  20. Serve and enjoy!

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Favorite Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

August 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If there is one thing you can’t live without,  it’s a fail proof, delicious and crowd pleasing cookie recipe. Wait, that’s not what you would chose? Oh, well, maybe it’s not the only thing you can’t live without. But it ranks pretty high for me. It’s the kind of recipe where you’re headed to a dinner party, a potluck at work or your book club and you realize the night before wait! I have to make something! And it has to be perfect so that my coworkers, friend * insert social group whose approval you want here* will believe that I am a domestic goddess who, along with all the many other things I balance, has spare time to whip up  mouthwatering treats with ease.  Really, you’ve never had this thought? Maybe it’s just me. These signature treats are the type of dessert that whenever there is an event that involves food your friends, coworkers, etc start to salivate thinking about and say “Oh, I hope *insert your name here* will be brining her famous cookies, brownies, bars!”  and you blush at the praise, oh they’re nothing special, just a little something I whip up, easy peasy. Right? You don’t bask in this praise? Oh, well maybe I have a problem with hubris.  Or maybe you just haven’t found the right cookie recipe. [Read more...]

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