A post for the health nuts, or gluten intolerant. 

You will begin by preheating your oven to 350F, and mixing all of your dry ingredients in a large bowl:

Next, in a stand mixer or another large bowl, combine all of your wet ingredients:

1/4 cup of oil (there is nothing better than using coconut oil here, but you can use any oil)

Now, just combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl.

Mix well, then grab a spoon to taste and make flavor adjustments if necessary. (vanilla, honey, or cinnamon) 

Now, you have the option of mixing in some chopped chocolate, walnuts, dried fruit, whatever you like. 

Pour into greased muffin cups (the tin foil kind are best here) or a greased bread loaf pan. The muffins bake for 25 min and the loaves will bake for about an hour. 

Share with someone that you know who can't eat gluten or enjoy a protein packed snack for yourself that tastes great too. Enjoy!

-Kristen

I have tested and tried a few pumpkin scone recipes throughout the past few years and none really rivaled the Starbucks version, until now. 

Introducing the Better than Starbucks Pumpkin Scone recipe. 

For this recipe you will be putting together a dry ingredients bowl and wet ingredients bowl. 

Preheat your oven to 425F.

Mix it up in a large bowl, then cut up 6 TBL of butter and cut it in with a pastry cutter, until butter is the size of little pebbles.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and mix until it forms a dough ball. 

Please pardon the interruption while I stare at this adorable girl. I will just love her always.

Back to scone making...

After the dough has come together pour it onto a lightly floured surface and press into a circle disc about 1'' thick. Slice disc into 8 triangles or 16 mini triangles. 

Place scones onto a lightly floured baking sheet or use parchment paper.

Bake for 14 min in the preheated oven.

Once scones bake, allow to cool completely. If you are impatient, like some folks in my house you can put the whole sheet in the fridge to cool faster.

Get two bowls, because there is a white icing and spiced drizzle glaze. 

mix this into a glaze consistency, paint it onto cooled scones. You'll know that you're doing it right, when the glaze just slowly drips off the scone like this.

mix this into a glaze consistency and pipe for fancy lines, or drizzle on with a whisk.

Enjoy the weekend, make these for someone you love, and that someone can totally be yourself.

-Kristen

So, our little lady newborn eats like that guy who wins all the hotdog eating contest. Fast and often. This pretty much restricts us to staying in most all the time. Between the feeding and Kristen's recovery, we maybe get to make a 20 minute venture into the world every other day. Lots of home time. Brighten has been wanting to eat about every two hours. Which means every two hours, there is a 20-30 minute chunk of time where Kristen can't do anything but sit and hold the baby. After the first couple of days of just coo-ing and making eyes at each other, the boredom set in. Brighten just wants to close her eyes and focus leaving Kristen to entertain her own self. 

Enter Buddy Valastro, a.k.a The Cake Boss. In the last week we have burned through three seasons of the Cake Boss on netflix. For those who aren't familiar with the show, Buddy and his family own and operate a bakery in hoboken that has been open for 100 years. He makes a range of pastries from the famous Canolli with the families secret ingredient to the humble delicious cup cake. Each week, he takes on two or three outlandish cakes as a highlight of the show in addition to running the business. It is total TLC reality T.V. addictive junk programming, but it is WONDERFUL. Beyond just being entertaining to watch a kitchen full of highly talented people do what they do best, there is the drama of each cake they make, and then on top of that add in a twenty Jersey Italian family members.  I have been learning a lot about how family interacts in business, how businesses really can be a major part of a culture/community, and also a lot about cake.

So, feeling inspired to bake, I made these little beauties last night. They are super simple and the recipe is on the dang box. I'm not that adventurous yet, Ghiradelli brownies with the chips in them, add a couple of ingredients, and roll in powder sugar. Bake and enjoy. 

Serve with Milk -- HEY OOHH! bad joke. 

So, here is what I am looking for from you my readers, facebook friends, or just that guy at the library where I left my blog up on the screen, I am looking for a really good "made special just for you just because" treat for my family that would work well in these summer months and I am looking for my next reality T.V. addiction fix. What are you snacking on and watching while you snack?

Also, if you are interested in making some healthier summer time treats from Kristen's recipes be sure to check out THESE options.

All to say, it's important for me to at least have some healthy options easily accessible for quick snacking. So, about once a week I prepare lots of these snacks and pile them up in the fridge and pantry, for grab and go nutrition. 

I know many of you have busy lifestyles that require the same sort of munching habits, so I wanted to share some snacking inspirations.

This week the featured recipe is from one of my favorite food photographers. (yes, I have favorite food photographers) Hedi Swanson. Her photographs always feel like they are taken in the kind of kitchen I would like to eventually have.

This recipe is from her most recent cookbook Super Natural Everyday.

These carrot muffins are a really nutritious snack for you...without delicious cream cheese frosting, of course. But if you need a dessert that is not completely terrible for your body this will do the trick. They are also a delicious option for friends and family who have gluten intolerance, as they are made with almond flour in place of regular all purpose flour. And before all of you skeptics out there through the idea out of trying a muffin without regular flour in it, also know there are no added sugars as well. 

These are Tim approved too, which means they don't taste healthy:) So, without any other sales points on why you should give these a whirl, here is the recipe, compliments of elanaspantry.com. 

Ingredients:

-2 cups blanched almond flour or almond meal (can be found at out local health food store or   made from home.)

-2 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. sea salt

-1 Tbl. cinnamon

-1 cup of dates, pitted

-2 ripe bananas

-3 eggs

-1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

-1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

-1 1/2 cups carrots, shredded

her reipe also calls for 3/4 cup of walnuts, but I never add these, with the almond flour, just feels like too many nuts to me, but have at it if you like. 

How You Can Make Them:

1. In a small bowl, combine almond flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

2. In a food processor, combine dates, bananas, eggs, vinegar, and oil. (be warned processor may over flow, I've thought a blender might be less messy. 

3. Transfer wet ingredients to a larger bowl.

4 Blend dry ingredients into the wet until mixed well.

5. Fold in your carrots. (you would also add the walnuts if you choose at this point)

6. Spoon mixture into paper lined mini muffin tins. 

7. Bake at 350F for 25 min. 

*A note for the baker. My recipe has yielded 48 mini muffins (two tins worth) every time that I have made it. Although Elana's recipe says she gets about 18, so I'm not really sure why mine makes more. I use the small cookie dough scoops to evenly measure out my mini muffins. 

These will freeze well without the frosting, so if you make plenty and store some away, just let them come up to room temperature and enjoy.

These little muffins are great for school snacks, work snacks, breakfast additions, or as seen above, smeared with some homemade cream cheese frosting for dessert.