halloween-inspired treats.

I'm not the scary Halloween type - I'm more the "let's make halloween-themed desserts and decorate the house with huge spiders, witches, ghosts, and pumpkins so I can pretend I can handle scary" person.

Hence these desserts came out a little cuter than planned. Nonetheless! I made a vow to make one themed dessert for every week of October, and I was able to mostly stick to it. Below are a couple examples that of what I made to celebrate Halloween.

carrots, with black sesame + ginger.

I made up a new diet plan.

I know there are tons out there - Atkins (do people still do that?), Weight Watchers, low carb, low fat, high-protein, low calorie, Whole30 ... that last one strikes me as really controversial. I understand all of it except for the no legume/soy thing. No peanut butter?!?!? C'mon.

Anyway, my diet is called: the don't be lazy diet. It has 2 rules: Don't be lazy. Cook your own meals as much as possible, and only eat what you cook.

mango vanilla pastry cups.

I had this one dessert the other day. Its simple novelty stuck with me.

It looked like a teeny layered parfait. The very small glass was half-filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with tiny cubes of cake, strawberry pie filling and then sweetened whipped cream.

I loved how perfect it seemed for summer. An upcoming BBQ was the perfect excuse to recreate them myself.

pina colada bars (using cake mix).

I posted a recipe for snickerdoodle cheesecake bars some time ago, also using cake mix. Although homemade baked goods are favorable most 100% of the time, cake mix does have its role in baking. Oftentimes for bake sales, you don't want to spend a lot of money. Or there's just not enough time to make from-scratch dessert.

For these instances, cake mixes work wonderfully. One of the reasons they work so well is not just because they're pre-packaged, but because they're versatile! I Googled extensively on how to manipulate cake mixes into interesting creations. I didn't find as much as I expected. 

In order to increase the doctoring-cake-mix database the Interweb, I thought I'd start adding some of my recipes. I made these pina colada bars for a friend's bake sale, and apparently they sold out first, if that says anything. 

vanilla strawberry chia seed pudding. (paleo, gf, vegan)

Have you heard of chia seeds? I reviewed them before. They have an insane amount of fiber, and make their presence known by texture more than taste. Dry chia seeds are crunchy. When soaked, the seeds absorb the liquid and develop mucilage - which just means they get a little polysaccharide gelatinous coating.

This property is vital in order for chia seed puddings to work. In all the variations I've found, chia seeds are mixed with a non-dairy milk (probably to retain the vegan aspect), and let sit, with occasional stirring. After a couple hours (or overnight), the mixture has thickened substantially, forming a "pudding." Fruit, purees, nuts, and flavorings are added afterwards.

(three-ingredient) spinach smoothie.

I am FINALLY finally finally blogging about these smoothies. I've been making them pretty regularly for at least a year, and make it a point to buy spinach and steal bananas from the dining hall purely for this.

Green smoothies are nothing new at this point. It feels like between every 10-12 butter laden or themed food items on foodgawker, there is a new green smoothie recipe. Well, here's another.

It might be sad to admit that I am really fond of these. They're just too healthy and easy. There was a period of two weeks where I had one everyday. Then I stopped because spinach was expensive that week ... and I think my digestive health was a little too healthy.

snickerdoodle cheesecake bars.

Big things are coming! In life, that is. Graduation in a few months is not even in my mind - there are other important things to do first.

Have (survive) a successful Dance Marathon.
Finish my thesis. (LOL. SOS.)
Run the half marathon 8K I signed up for.

And THEN, a mere few days after the end of finals period, I can don my cap and gown, stumble down the aisle to pose for a quick candid shot for my parents, and head back. A 2-minute walk and 2-hour ceremony to mark the end of my four years of higher level education.

pumpkin pie bars.

Let me tell you about a fantastic baked good I recently had. I would say it is the best pumpkin item I've ever had.

Okay. Imagine a homemade yeasted bread. Sort of like really fresh bakery bread. It's not too sweet, which works in this case. Now imagine a ton of crumb pieces the size of ping pong balls (maybe a little smaller, but not by much) embedded on top of the bread. The crumbs are brown sugary, cinnamony, and buttery. What with the crumbs and dusting of powdered sugar, you don't notice the inside until you cut into the loaf. What do you find?

Swirls. Thick, massive indulgent swirls of straight up pumpkin pie, in the bread. Sometimes you get a slice that is more pumpkin pie than bread. You find that good things finally happen to good people.

sesame ginger noodles.

Why are people so wary of self-reflecting? I enjoy it .. it's not like I do it every second I get and look forward to it with longing, but if I find myself, say, on a 5.5 hour bus ride, with nothing but my iPod to accompany me, I let my mind wander.

And eventually, after thinking about how excited I am to bake again, speculating on my relationships with people, and still trying to get over the $14,000 on-campus apartments at BU, my mind turns to me. I don't know about everyone else, but I like seeing how much I have changed and the amount of experiences I've gone through for the past couple years. It makes me more appreciative.

one-bowl toaster oven chocolate chip cookies.

Despite the heat, I still keep using the oven. One day when I had a hankering for something sweet, but didn't want to flood the house with waves of heat rolling out from the kitchen, I decided to use the toaster oven.

And lo and behold, one of the blogs I regularly follow had a recipe for toaster oven chocolate chip cookies! It was fate. I also hadn't made chocolate chip cookies in forever, and my brothers always appreciate a break from the random, creative, awesome sometimes unusual things I prefer to bake.

strawberry banana milkshake.

So much pondering going on lately.

Like whether I should buy hot pink lipstick (Persian Melon sounds so enticing). 

Why there are no science classes available next semester.

What to do for my RU Dance Marathon Board of Director presentation.

And about what to bake. I've finally been eating healthy on a more regular basis, which means not a lot of baked goods. As a result, I barely crave them anymore. Which technically is good, but so sad! I feel like I've lost my inspiration for baking. 

Milkshakes aren't baking, but I've been making them a lot recently. They're not your indulgent it's-really-just-melted-ice-cream with sugary fruit syrup drink. They're pretty light. And they're great for reasons more than just how they taste, too.

spicy sweet potato quinoa cakes.

Good food is so satisfying. Think about your best memories. Some of them must involve food.

That's how I remember most of my vacations, trips, events and stuff. Arizona I remember for the absolutely fabulous (virgin) pina coladas and from-scratch taquitos served poolside. Krakow is marked by my very first meal in Poland - hollandaise over fish, with rosettes of pommes de terre broiled to a golden crisp. I actually wrote a college essay on this one (and Rutgers liked it enough to take me). I have a memory of a wedding in which I literally remember nothing but the enormous dessert array arranged along the perimeter of the venue.

heart cupcakes.

Hi.

Did you have any delicious treats on Valentine's Day? Chocolate, maybe? I hope it was dark. 60% and above only, please.

I was treated to a lot of Reese's pb cups, Lindt orange chocolate, sugar cookies, and a hilarious valentine's card. I know it's a controversial holiday, but it's nice to see all you have to be thankful for. Your love doesn't only extend to a significant other! Remember your siblings? And the (brave, let's be honest) people who raised you? I'm sure they deserve your appreciation, too.

quinoa patties.

These are just the most delicious little things. I'm growing an affinity for quinoa. It's so versatile, and if made in big batches, it can be incorporated into a ton of things. You could make pilaf with quinoa, rice and lentils. You could toss them into soup for texture and protein. Or you could make quinoa cakes, or patties, like I did here.

I didn't follow a recipe, and I don't think you should either. I wanted something really healthy for lunch and figured these would work. They did.

single serving, guilt-free molten lava cake.

Have you ever had those mornings where you wake up super early, for seemingly no reason?

You're dreaming and then suddenly, you just drift into awakedness. You don't want to open your eyes for fear of losing your chance of falling back asleep, so you keep your eyes squeezed shut and try to think of the most boring things ever .. like taxes and school.

But eventually, you can't take the suspense anymore, because really, what time is it anyway? Is it acceptably late enough to wake up yet? So you open your eyes.

And it's pitch black darkness. You hear your dad in the shower, and you know your dad wakes up at 5:30am everyday. Damn it.

owl cupcakes! (+ other Halloween-themed ideas)

Do you have any plans for Halloween?

I'm not a fan of the holiday. My favorite part are those thick Reese's peanut butter cups shaped like pumpkins! And the candy corn. Brach's has my back. 

Despite my general aversion to Halloween festivities, I did think writing a piece on Halloween-themed finger foods for the university newspaper would be a fun idea! These adorable cupcakes were featured.

fall harvest salad.

Rainy days are so annoying. Unless you're sitting inside doing nothing all day, well then they're beautiful. You get to be lazy, bum around, and snack all day. It's pouring outside today, but I tried to make an effort to change up my usual rainy day diet of snacks and cookies.

mini falafel bites.

Ever have those times where you just want to eat everything?

I tend to be fine during the day, but as soon as night comes .. my ability to gauge proper food portions and my self-will are completely and utterly destroyed. Tonight is one of those nights. I just had chocolate cake with dulce de leche (excellent combo .. also, that dulce de leche is not going anywhere anytime soon, there's a lot of it), a huge thick chewy chocolate chunk (> chip) cookie, and whatever skim milk was left in the container. There's something liberating about drinking milk straight from the gallon carton sometimes.

Or maybe I just need to do more spontaneous things.

omelette crunchwrap.

HEY THERE. Want to hear about something awesome?

It's not the PS3 my brother just got. 

It's not my new favorite color from Essie that is not only a gorgeous coral, but is how my grandmother once lovingly described me. It's good to be "healthy" in the Indian culture. 

And it's definitely not the story about how I survived getting attacked by a deer on a golf course in pitch black darkness. 

roasted carrots with cumin + sea salt.

There's garlic because these carrots were meant to be something else ..

Thursday's over! Friday's tomorrow! Yay! You can come back from work or school, picking up some carrots & good crusty bread on the way home. Change into sweatpants or other comfy clothes, such as lounge pants, before plopping on a couch to take pleasure in senselessly whiling away your time online, on blogger, food blogs, and tastespotting.. oh wait that's just me. You can devour nibble on the dark chocolate covered pretzels your brother just got from a fundraiser while you watch youtube videos or TV shows. Fuel that oft-unquenchable desire to just do nothing.