Berries, and Cashews, and Nibs, Oh My!

Hey everyone!

Today has been a good day so far. I took the doggies on a walk with my mom, which was really fun, but it was way hot! Now I need to get working on my school work, blah.

Anyway, here’s some random food for your viewing pleasure:

Lately one of my favorite snacks has been baby carrots + peanut butter (when DOESN’T my favorite snack include peanut butter?) + raisins. It’s really yummy, so I figured I would try an oatmeal version of it.

• 1/3 cup oats cooked in 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk + 1/3 cup water
• 5 baby carrots pulsed in my mini food processor, then cooked in with the oats
• handful of raisins
• 1 tsp sucanat
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter

Way good. 🙂

Sweet potato rounds with ketchup and 1/2 tbsp peanut butter + 1/2 tbsp coconut cream, stirred together.

Yummy salad made with romaine, cucumber, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, avocado, frozen corn (yes, frozen. I like the crunch :D), nutritional yeast and a crumbled veggie burger from this post.

More Mango Mousse. 🙂

Overnight pumpkin pie oatmeal, yum.

• 1/3 cup oats
• 1/3 cup Unsweetened Almond Breeze
• 1/3 cup plain pumpkin
• pumpkin pie spice
• 1.5 tsp sucanat
• small sprinkle each of granola and unsweetened shredded coconut

I tried my hand at making seitan..

I know it looks seriously gross, sorry. It was kinda weird. The recipe calls for soy sauce, but I didn’t have any so I oddly substituted balsamic vinegar. I think I’ll try it again sometime with soy sauce.

I made yet another Breakfast Pizzert.

I substituted 1/4 of the whole wheat flour with 1/4 cup peanut flour, then topped it all with two sliced strawberries, shredded coconut and a peanut butter sauce made with 1 tbsp pb + almond milk.

So very, very good. Also, I will be making that peanut butter sauce much more often. I got over 2 tbsp of peanut butter sauce for the calories/fat/carbs of 1 tbsp. What a deal. 🙂

Remember how I mentioned my upcoming trip to Whole Foods in this post? Well, I went! I used my giftcard to get some cacao nibs and raw cashews, and I have enjoyed both very much.

For those of you that are wondering, cacao nibs are plain, unsweetened cacao beans. They’re literally the pods off of the tree, broken into pieces and bagged. The average person probably wouldn’t like them, but thankfully as I mentioned before, my taste-buds have completely changed. I love them. 🙂

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We also picked up a big crate of produce from an organic, local farmer. It’s the same farm I went to in this post. Our crate included romaine, corn, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, red potatoes, green beans, green onions, garlic, beets, a whole bunch of zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, blackberries and a huuuge cantaloupe. I forgot to take pictures of the load before I put it all away, but it was awesome. I will definitely be having some veggie-lovin’ fun this week.

My breakfast this morning was amazing.

Sliced strawberries, blackberries, thawed cherries, 1/3 sliced banana all topped with cashew cream and cacao nibs. YUM.

This was my first experience with cashew cream and I’ve decided that I am definitely a fan! It was a little hard to get going, since I only used an ounce of nuts, but I eventually added more and it blended up better. Still, next time I will use at least a cup of cashews. Hopefully I’ll get a better, smoother result.

Last but not least, my lunch was a lovely, raw, summery salad/fruit mix. My salad consisted of romaine, cucumber, tomatoes, avocado, zucchini, sugar snap peas, tempeh and nutritional yeast, topped with Gena’s Zucchini Hummus. My mom loves hummus but can’t have chickpeas, so this recipe was perfect. Thank you, Gena!

Alongside my salad was a big plate of fresh, summery fruit. I had some of the huge cantaloupe, a big strawberry, a small handful of blackberries and some  grapes. Summer makes me happy.

Question of the Day: What are you most looking forward to about summer? For me, it’s the amazing variety of in-season fruits and vegetables. What fruits/veggies are you most excited for?

Thanks for reading!

Kelsey 🙂

P.S. I know I haven’t been very good about my comment goal lately. I’m sorry; I will catch up, I promise! 🙂