Good sweets and not so good sweets

             Recently I've been on a baked good kick which I'm going to kick in the but and actually cook (I just ordered my rice cooker!) but for now it's been fun... and sweet!


I had some puffed rice which I needed to use and I had made the rice treats from The Kind Life but I wanted to change it a little bit. So in these there's puffed rice, oats, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, ground flaxseed, banana and peanut butter. They're a good alternative to granola bars and no sugar!

Then I wanted to turn it into a healthy oatmeal cookie, so I looked at a couple other recipes and made my own. They're pretty yummy and guilt free since they also have no sugar, but are still just sweet enough.

The "wet" ingredients include almond butter, applesauce, soy milk, vanilla, ground flaxseed, brown rice syrup, and agave nectar. Then the dry is whole wheat flour, oats, flax seed, baking soda, cinnamon, chopped almonds, and chopped apple pieces. 

(Pre-oven)

Look at all that wholesome goodness

Now for the not so good ones. These are delicious but by no means healthy. I was just craving something chocolatey and peanut buttery so this is what I came up with. Its just dark chocolate mixed with peanut butter and melted in the microwave. Then I crushed some pretzels and covered them in the mix and added some more dark chocolate chips and unmelted peanut butter to make it all stick together. Let them sit in the freezer for a little while and then you have a very tasty treat!

So hopefully that will end the sweets and I can make some good for you good food! :)

           Graduation was yesterday! Woo, Big sigh of relief! It was so nice to have so many family and friends here to celebrate with me. Being all together laughing and enjoying each other just makes me want to smile. But of course when families get together there has to be, you guessed it...FOOD. And lots of it. My mom is an amazing cook and made the most wonderful meal, however me being a vegan, limited it a little. Just a little, because there was so much good food I could eat and boy did I! Between the veggies, bean dip and pita chips, salad, bread and gazpacho (and then some Oreos and peanut butter later.. shhh) I had quite the belly full. And I indulged a little in some ginger ale and cranberry juice, which added to food baby that was growing inside me. I went to bed feeling very large and in charge and woke up to some disagreement going on in the tummy. And then the guilt sets in and I wanted to say to heck with it, I'll just eat Oreos all day long! Needless to say I didn't, but the indulgent mind set was still there through out the day, hence the GIANT Slurpee at the movies. 
        
           But through out the day I felt my body sort of fixing itself and calming back down. It got me thinking to how our bodies were made to work for us and feel good. We're not meant to feel sluggish and bloated all the time and we shouldn't just go on accepting it or trying different aids to quiet that feeling. We need to look at the whole picture, all the things we do, and everything we put inside of us for the crux of the problem. Sometimes it blows my mind how people continue to get sick and feel bad and don't see the correlation between that feeling and the double bacon cheeseburger they eat for lunch everyday. But anyways that was a little different direction then what I wanted to say... 

         My point was that even though I went a little crazy last night and indulged a little too much, my body wants to get back to balance. God in all His wisdom created this awesome machine that knows its job, I just have to treat it the right way. It's okay to indulge every once in a while, but we have to take care of ourselves and let our bodies to it's job before going crazy again. I must also add that the food was delicious but I didn't think the feeling all of it gave me was so awesome. I want to wake up everyday ready to take on whatever that day holds in store for me, not feeling sluggish and bloated. 


       So, writing this and sipping on my white tea, (and letting my body do its work if you know what I mean ;o ) I feel so much better and excited all over again about not only being a vegan, but learning to care for myself and feel amazing!

Dinner at Grammas!

          I actually cooked my first vegan meal last night! (With a little help from my Gramma, she was the Su Chef) ;) I've made little things like rice and beans, but this an actual recipe that we sort of followed. I should have read the instructions the whole through first, but lessoned learned. Any who I got the recipes from Ina Chandra Moskowitz's book Vegan With a Vengeance. We made Mango-Ginger Tofu, Sweet Potato Fries, and Quinoa with a giant strawberry for desert. It was so much fun to cook it! And Improvising was interesting too. The tofu was suppose to be marinated for over an hour at least so we nixed that and just fried the tofu and turned the marinade into a sauce to put on top by not adding all the juices. And we cut the sweet potatoes more like suns instead of fries but I'm sure they tasted the same. Put the tofu and sauce over the quinoa (if you want to) and gobble it all up! We did! 

Can't wait to cook more! Especially from Ina's cookbooks, they're awesome!