Super Protein Parfait

Alright, I'll admit it, this post is not a Pinterest copy.  This is a delicious meal that I decided to make one day as I wanted some protein after going to the gym.  What I really wanted was some of Blogilate's Banana Pancakes, but, after I chopped up the banana I realized I didn't have eggs.  So this left me with chopped up bananas and a grumbling tummy.  I thought I could make a parfait, with the greek yogurt, but I've got to be honest here.  I don't really like greek yogurt that much!  It's just so bitter!  I ussually put some stevia in it to make it a little tastier.  Then I was thinking that I wished Nutella was healthy and that I could put that on my bananas.  THEN IT HIT ME.  Chocolate protein powder... in my greek yogurt?!  So I did it.

Alright, so it doesn't look terribly appetizing, but I swear it was!  A quick and easy snack/meal with a whopping 39 g of protein.  That's 86% of my protein intake for the day (If not exercising my protein is 45g a day.  I use MyFitnessPal to figure out the changes when I do exercise - Add me! )  

But then the next day (Tuesday)  I had to do something even fancier.  I had to go to the next step.

Now that looks tasty!  Same thing, I put 1 scoop of chocolate flavoured protein powder in with 3/4 cup of greek yogurt.  Only this time I added a strawberry layer, a banana layer, and raspberry topping.  Yum!  

You don't have to do just chocolate either!  Today I switched it up and did raspberry protein powder, and put it in a mason jar to bring to school with me.  This may be a new staple in my diet!

Learning from kitchen mistakes

I think breakfasts are the biggest issue for me.  I used to have a toasted bagel with a melted slice of cheese on it for breakfast everyday.  It was delicious, but 1) it wasn't very nutritious, and 2) it was kind of boring.  Then I switched to oatmeal, but then I got tired of that too.  I wake up early in the morning though, and I'm ready for work in 15 minutes.  Thus, I don't have much time for anything all that tasty.

Remember the Breakfast Quinoa and the Baked Oatmeal posts?  Well I made both of those on the same day, and I also made a Spinach and Egg White Frittata  (which actually wasn't all egg whites thanks to my inability to read the box right!).  

So now I had ALL of these premade breakfasts!  And it as a pretty good system.  I could just come downstairs, grab a jar, and go get ready.  And if I didn't finish it all before I had to leave for work? No worries, as it was already in a transportable container.

But herein lies the issue.  There are 12 jars there.  That's almost 2 weeks worth of breakfasts.  I don't know about you, but when something's been sitting in my fridge for that long, I start to get worried.  I just don't trust it.  So the point of the post isn't so much about the delicious egg white frittata (which is full of protein and super tasty!) but more in the issue of waste.  I had to throw a couple of these jars out (though all the breakfast quinoa was eaten lickity split ahah!), and that's just wasteful.  It's a waste of both my money and my time.  we all make mistakes, there's no doubt about it.  The key is to learn from them and, in this case, remember in the future to half my recipes!  If you have a family to feed, then 12 breakfasts is nothing, but when it's just one mouth, it's a lot!

Baked Oatmeal with Strawberries, Bananas, and Chocolate Chips

You know how sometimes you see something that just looks amazing, that makes you drool just looking at it?  Well, when I saw Inspired Taste's Baked Oatmeal with Strawberries, Bananas, and Chocolate Chips I knew I had to have it.  It just looks so scrumpcious.  

So I pulled out a bowl and went to work.

Lined everything up to be just as pretty as Inspired Taste's.

And set it in the oven while (im)patiently awaiting their finish.

And loaded it up in Mason Jars for my breakfasts.  In behind is breakfast quinoa, which is TO DIE FOR.  I'll make a post on it later!

Looks can be deceiving though.  Maybe I did something wrong, maybe it just doesn't taste great when not eaten right away.  I'm not sure.  But these tasted kind of bitter.  I'm going to try adding some stevia on top, in hopes that will help, perhaps with some milk too, but on it's own it just didn't live up to my hopes and dreams.  I do know I did one thing wrong though, which may account for the taste.  The recipe calls for MELTED butter, but I just threw in normal butter and tried to mix it as well as possible. I thought it looked kind of odd, but figured it was supposed to melt into the casserole while it was baking. 

Chunky bits of butter.  It's not supposed to look like this!

All in all I think I'd try this one again, but I'd do a couple things different.  First, I'd melt the butter, haha.  Secondly, I'd split the amount of brown sugar and use Stevia in place.  With the brown sugar 1/6 of the casserole has 18g of sugar, which is more than half of what I aim my daily sugar intake to be!

I have what I consider a very exciting post coming up soon!  I can't wait to share it with you :)

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!

Once upon a time a pale, freckled, redheaded girl moved to North Bay for school.  No, not Pippi Longstocking or Anne of Green Gables!  That scared girl was me!  I had enrolled myself in Nipissing University's sociology program, and moved myself and all my worldly possessions 4 hours away from my home to start on a new journey.  It wasn't as easy as I thought though, and I found myself skipping school more and more, and spending my time at home.  Here I baked often, cookies, cakes, you name it, I'd bake it!  I tried my hand at mini lasagnas, tiered cakes, and even fondant!  I baked and baked, and my roomies loved coming home to find me baking (or cleaning!).  Alas, when I transferred back home and moved back in with Mom and Dad, the baking came to an end.  In North Bay I'd dance around the kitchen blaring my music and singing at the top of my lungs, but back at home I couldn't  do that anymore, because my mom worked from home.  This also meant that while I was baking, and generally making a mess, Mom would often come down and begin rampaging through the kitchen making a fuss about the flour on the counters and floor, and the batter splattered on the walls.  Baking lost it's appeal with a mother breathing down my neck.

I know, that's a lot of writing, and no one asked for my life story, right?  There is a point to this, I swear!  The thing is, I could, at one point, bake!  And I was darn good at it!  Times have changed.  I may have lost my touch.  I baked 3 different kinds of cookies today, and I'm not as pleased as I wish I were!  Granted, I was always more of a cake person, but cookies still shouldn't be so hard for me!  Well, I'll fill you in on all my mistakes in due time.

Game plan!

First up, Banana Rainbow Chip Cookies.  These cookies caused the most problems, simply because of my own absentmindedness.  I forgot the eggs!!  As I rolled them into balls, and patted them into cookies, I thought that they didn't feel moist enough, but I had followed the instructions, so it must be right!  I had them in the oven for about ten minutes, and they still weren't looking like cookies, so I double checked what I had written down, and, sure enough, I had forgot to write down to add 2 eggs!  Despite what my mother suggested (which was to throw the whole batch out!) I decided to dump the slightly cooked cookies back into the bowl, along with the ones that hadn't been cooked yet, and put the two eggs in, mixed them up, and tried again.  It actually worked out alright!  I overcooked the second batch by a little bit though, I forgot that they needed to cool down a bit in order not to break apart...

Piggy Joe thinks the batter's quite tasty!

But it wasn't quite right - it wasn't nearly moist enough.  Oh ya! Eggs!

Crinkled cookies

Overcooked batch on the left, good batch on the right

Next, Cake Batter Pudding Cookies.  This recipe calls for yellow cake mix.  I don't know about you, but I have never seen yellow cake mix, and, to make matters worse, I forgot to write it down on my shopping list, so this morning I was running around town trying to find some!  First I went to Shoppers Drug Mart, where they only had white.  Then I went to BulkBarn, where, once again, they only had white.  Then I tried the Superstore, which was a feat in itself seeing as I try to avoid that place as much as possible due to the long lines and the fact that their debit machines are usually broken.  ANYWAYS,  ranting aside, I found golden cake mix, and assumed that that was the Canadian equivalent to yellow cake mix.  This recipe made quite a few!  Here they are all piled up.

Perfectly baked, slightly golden!

Last I tried my hand at these Strawberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies.  This provided me with another Canadian obstacle though... I've never seen strawberry cake mix!  I wanted these cookies though, so I had to find a way to improvise, and I came up with the idea to mix a box of strawberry Jell-o with a box of white cake mix.  I had no idea how it would work, but I had high hopes.  Just think about the possibilities if this recipe works!  Grape cookies! Blueberry cookies!  Any Jell-o flavour could now be a cookie flavour!  And it worked!  It really did!  I'd probably add more white chocolate chips in the future, but the cookie itself turned out!  A word to the wise, though, these cookies expand like crazy!  They get huge!

I loved the color, the Jell-o really made for something special!  I wish

I had a little girl to bake for!

And then it expanded and they all stuck together!  They did come apart

after though, thankfully.

All in all, I was in the kitchen for a good couple hours but, really, there's nothing better than seeing people enjoying something that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into (well, your eggs, milk, and vegetable oil).

Alright, so I have an addiction to Piggy Joes.  And now you also

know that I can't make a good shaped cookie patty.

Cookie pile!

As a bonus I made some Rice Crispies, because, well, who doesn't love Rice Crispies?