mango pudding pops.

MANGO POPSICLES!

I mentioned in a post a while ago that I had come back from a run & had some inspiration.

That inspiration and desire for something cold and refreshing resulted in popsicles! I had one of those homemade popsicle tray things from .. whenever my mom got it. Probably since forever. Actually, I saw an exact replica of mine in a museum in New York, dating back to 1955. So yeah, this is historic art, folks.

tell me about: kefir!

About two weeks ago, I decided to make chicken fatayer. More about that later though, in an upcoming post about tons of flour and the untrustworthiness of online recipes.

Chicken fatayer is Arabic, and when I was shopping for the chicken, I saw kefir on sale. And since my mom wasn't there to reign me in and sanely point out to me that kefir is pretty much drinkable yogurt (not gogurt, gross.), I bought the vanilla flavored kind to heighten the Arabic-ness of that night's meal. And oh boy, it was too good.

I liked it so much, in fact, that I spent too many hours searching where to buy kefir grains online and how to culture it at home.

Don't shake your head at me, I'm sure you do equally useless things in your free time.

special k cereal cookies.

Back in February, one of my suitemates did the Special K challenge. For two weeks, she consumed mainly Special K products & tried to eat well on the one free meal she had. She was determined, despite the remaining four of us who, like terrible people, tried to sway her from her diet. She was strong and stuck through with it, ignoring us. However, at the end of the two weeks, she could not bear to look at, nonetheless eat, another Special K product again.

And that was how I came to find this beauty on my desk at the end of school.

zucchini bread: makeover.

What I like:
making & eating quick breads.
zucchini.
being healthy.
bran. (don't tell me i'm weird.)

What I like even more:
all of the above combined into one delicious loaf of bread.

What I like most:
instead of one gorgeous loaf, the above bread in five mini loaves. cute and ready for consumption in no time. yes, i partook in this deliciousness. read on to see how.

oatmeal pancakes: pictures.

I recently made oatmeal pancakes. I took a lot of pictures of the process, and rather than flood the original post with them, I thought I would just create a separate post. Keeping it short, here. None of my usual blabber ... I know you guys are sighing a breath of relief.

ghee + molasses

rice krispies.

I just ate a Chewy Bar. And let me tell if you, if I had access to the fresh, not even day old rice krispies sitting in my kitchen right now, I would not have had to eat a Chewy bar.

What's my problem with them, you ask? Well for one, they don't hold together. I mean, this is supposed to be a convenient, on-the-go sort of food, and how can that be possible if all the mini chocolate chips keep falling off? Also, they taste so packaged and fake. I would rather eat my homemade clif bars than this gooey bar thing.

oatmeal pancakes.

Maybe I should have blogged about these on Father's Day, when I made them. About how wonderful my daddy is and how lucky I am to have him as a father. Honestly, he has gotten so far in life by following his two most important principles: working hard and being honest.

For as long as I can remember, he has never lied. Even about something small that doesn't matter, because you know what? It's still a lie. And it can still come back and bite you somewhere unpleasant.

And as long as I remember him telling my brothers and I to always tell the truth, I have memories of the many times he pushed us to never give up. Be it a game of cards or studying for a social studies test given by the strictest teacher in history.

Be honest. Never give up.

Oh and make these pancakes.

(For more pictures, click HERE!)

tofu sprout lunch.

I decided I would just say what I ate for lunch instead of trying to come up with some fancy pants name. Why was this such a difficult solution to come to? I am not sure.

I have been loving this Thai place I have been to a few times. It serves authentic, absolutely delicious Thai food.

I enjoy their food and its flavor so much that I have tried recreating it at home. I went ahead and impulsively bought bean sprouts from the grocery store, even though the bag was huge and I had no idea how I'd be able to finish them all.

orange cranberry loaf.

Yes. I am aware that it is 82 degrees out. I did my, what is becoming more common, 4.2 mile run around noon, and got a sense of what the weather is like. I also got visibly more tan in the fifty or so minutes I was outside.

That is why, immediately after returning from my run, I made popsicles (more on that later). Right after drinking some cold water, and before taking off my shoes, showering, or even wiping my face.

Despite all that, I did, a few days ago, make what is traditionally a fall and winter staple: orange cranberry walnut loaf.

overnight oats.

Ever since I got a job ( ! ), I have been having to think of creative breakfast, lunch, and snack ideas.

Breakfast for the first week was the easiest it could get - whole wheat toast with trusty old peanut butter and a glass of milk. Not old peanut butter like rancid or rotten ... actually, peanut butter is never present for long around me, so I have never even considered it could go rotten. Wow, that's a weird thought.

Anyway, here's what a really easy breakfast like toast did for me:
1) I had more time to sleep / get ready.
2) I could eat at red lights while driving to work.

However, recently, due to certain reasons, my mom has been driving me to work. Also, it is now the second week of me working. This means two things:
1) I am trying to have a variety of breakfasts.
2) I can eat more complicated things in the car as my mom drives.

Monday, I had yogurt with granola in a plastic cup (easy disposal). Then, while on tastespotting, I saw a picture of overnight oats. And so Tuesday's breakfast was decided upon.

homemade clif bars.

Yesterday I ran for 50 minutes straight. Well, jogged.

I haven't continued that long without stopping for ... a very, very long time. The whole route was about 4.2 miles, according to my Google Maps calculations. So that's not fast or anything, but considering there were slopes, the scent of roasted garlic wafting out of nearby Italian restaurants, and my overall terribly out-of-shapeness, not too bad, I guess.

The run also reminded me of the 5K I promised to do with two of my suitemates this upcoming September. And how I will probably not be able to do it because I am so slow.

LOOK AT ALL THAT HEARTY GOODNESS. 

But that got me thinking of pre and post - workout fuel. That raised my spirits! I immediately thought of energy bars. And that reminded me of the energy bars I saw for sale at the gym where I recently got a membership. And how the bars cost $1.50 - $3. Um ew.

almond bundt cake.

I've been making a lot of things with almonds recently. Good thing I can pronounce it now.

I bought two Solo Almond Cake & Pastry Fillings a while ago because they were 2 for $5. That was actually a good deal though, I know sometimes two-fors are meant to drag people in and make them buy things they don't need simply because it's on sale. I think that sort of thing has gradually, in this consumerist nation, turned into human nature. The quality has joined the ranks of greed and eating as much as possible to store food for possible hibernation should any future disasters occur. And it's hard to fight human nature. Just ask my waistline. (just kidding)

creamy almond & walnut face exfoliating mask!

I think my toner is making me break out. That, or Revlon Colorstay. Or both.

Or none of it, and my bad diet is the cause behind all my woes.

I dunno.

Oh yeah, this isn't a food post, if you haven't gotten already. But if you're looking for a way to use items from your kitchen to help your skin, keep reading!

"almond joy" pie.

Hello, dear friends. I am not a fan of fibbing when it comes to food. If I'm minding my own business on tastespotting and see some tender vanilla cupcakes topped off with an orange-tinted frosting, I get excited and think, oh maybe it's mango frosting! what a novel idea! mango? in frosting form?! that sounds amazing! And the hype continues for the entire 1 second or so it takes for the page to load & for me to scroll down and see that my hopes & dreams have been shattered by reality. Because in reality, that frosting was neither mango nor papaya. It wasn't even orange. It was artificial coloring that allowed cream cheese frosting to masquerade as something so much more than it actually was.

I hate that.

And so I'm going to keep it real here & tell you from the beginning (I would say "get go," but I am entirely unsure of where that phrase originates/what it even means) that this pie is not some fabulous translation of a favorite candy bar into a delicious pie.

Let me rephrase that. This pie certainly IS fabulous. But it is very loosely based around the idea of an Almond Joy.

quick lunch update 4 - sandwich.

I need a new name for these so badly. I was thinking of abbreviating "quick lunch update" and just saying QLU, but that may be difficult for new readers of my blog & it is neither cute nor catchy.

Why is there a spoon in the below picture? Not sure.

Anyway, my mom and I were making a quick visit to A&P for some dinner ingredients when I saw this rosemary focaccia on sale. It was on sale because the sell by date was that day. However, I was convinced that my family (of EIGHT) would be able to finish the bread quite quickly. There were only a few pieces left for the next day, and it was with two of these pieces that I built the foundation for my lunch.

monkey bread.

Ever since being back home, I have not been particularly inspired enough to make interesting things. Yes, I have baked some new things and increased the number of new recipes in my recipe book (really just a composition book where I record a lot of recipes I have tried), but I haven't been inspired.
However, that pull-apart bread I made the other day really got me hooked to working with yeast. It's not easy, which makes me love it even more. I want to eventually bake up some loaves of good, crusty bread and experience the delight of freshly baked bread. But until then, I need to be satisfied with pull-apart loaves & monkey bread.


Yes, I made monkey bread. And trust me, in no way did I settle by making it. A couple friends came over a few days ago, and it was almost obligatory that a baked good be offered. I decided upon monkey bread for a few reasons.

quick lunch update 3 - tuna sandwich.

Today I ate a tuna sandwich. But I didn't use mayo. Impossible? NOT AT ALL.