Caramelized Apple Peanut Butter Biscotti

I have recently discovered that peanut butter brings on severe GI attacks. I know I'm not even supposed to be eating peanut butter since it's on my low oxalate diet "bad" list but I can't help it. My afternoon snack is an apple with peanut butter and cinnamon. Now I can only eat the apple :( It's frustrating because I experimented by eating a handful of peanuts--nothing; no attack. It's bizarre, and a mystery, what will set off my GI attacks.

Needless to say, I have been craving the apple/peanut butter combo. It took a few days for me to decide to try to make some kind of apple peanut butter biscotti.

It took a few attempts, but I finally tweaked the recipe just right.

Blueberry Walnut Pancakes

It’s Friday, which means (for us), tomorrow is pancakes day. These pancakes are a staple for us; I make them almost every Saturday, unless we have fried egg and cheese sandwiches.

Use this recipe as a base recipe. I change up the fruit on occasion, sometimes adding cranberries, sometimes banana, or any other fruit I have on hand. These pancakes are great because they are thick and fluffy. I love the texture of the rolled oats. The spices as well can be changed up based on what you’re feeling. Sometimes, I only add cinnamon because I’m feeling too lazy to grate nutmeg.

Homemade Granola Bars

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for awhile. I really like the idea of making my own granola bars. I’ve been on a muesli kick for awhile now, and decided it was time to make some granola. I usually keep granola bars in my purse when I have to go to the hospital for doctor appointments and tests, since I’m usually sitting around forever, waiting. I’m in love with the white chocolate macadamia Luna bars. These homemade bars are a much healthier option. I suppose I could have added some melted chocolate to these, but they are so good on their own. They remind me of the Two Moms in the Raw bars they sell at Starbucks and Nordstrom’s snack bar, I love the gojiberry one. Have you ever had one of these bars? They are delicious, and I'm so glad my granola bars taste very similar to them.

I'm glad to have another product that I can now make myself so I don't have to buy a prepacked version. Can you tell I'm obsessed about controlling what goes in my food? When you have abdominal issues, this becomes a must.

Another plus is how easy these are to make. I haven't had much energy the past couple weeks, but these came together rather quickly. These bars were plenty sweet for me, since I don't eat much sugar, but if you like things sweet I'd stir in more (up to 1/4 c brown sugar). I sprinkled brown sugar on top to give the tops of the bars a bit of a sweet, sugar crunch.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

I was excited to make these rolls. It's originally from Alton Brown and I like his simple, minimal-effort, yummy recipes. I have been planning on making them since November. I originally wanted to serve them for breakfast on Thanksgiving, but with all the other cooking I was doing these got pushed aside. The recipe has been sitting on the kitchen counte ever since, just calling out to be made. Finally, I made them. All I have to say is Wow! These are beyond incredible. So much better than Cinnabon, because they aren’t as sugary and they don’t give you an instant cavity.

It’s nice to be able to control the amount of sweetness. I added walnuts for additional fat, omega 3s, and slight crunch. Mr. Surly approved as well. We also liked that they weren’t too sugary-sweet and you could put as much (or as little) icing on as desired. I will definitely be making these again. It wasn’t a lot of work, just be sure to plan ahead to give the rolls time to rise overnight.

Roasted Sweet Potato Balls

Another dish I wanted to make for Thanksgiving was some kind of sweet potato appetizer. Not one that included lots of sugar and marshmallows. My body isn’t absorbing fat, so lots of excess sugar and fat makes me feel nauseous and sick. I prefer to sneak good fats into my diet to try to trick my body into absorbing it. So far it hasn’t worked; my body is too smart. But I’ll keep trying. Since I need the fat and calories, I use butter to grease my dish, otherwise I would just use non-stick coconut oil.

Anyway, back to the sweet potato balls. I didn’t follow any recipe, I just made it up as I went along. I think they turned out really well. I love bite-sized things, and these were perfect. I made these up on wed and popped them in the oven on thurs right before serving our appetizers. Simple and low key, just how I like things. Oh and they are healthy, too. If you’re not a fan of nuts the walnuts can be omitted. I added a lot of walnuts since they contain a lot of “good fat.”

I have other scrumptious recipes from our thanksgiving dinner, but I have no idea when I’ll get around to posting them. The medicine I’m on is really kicking my ass, leaving me really tired, drained and way behind in my posting. I’m really hoping my posts are at least somewhat coherent and my recipe instructions make sense.

Cranberry Nut Quinoa Salad

I have a bunch of quinoa I need to eat. I would, for some reason, buy quinoa each trip to the grocery store, forgetting I already had some. This happened for about 3 consecutive trips. I don’t have any excuse for this, other than quinoa sounded good when I saw it on the grocery store shelf, then I’d go home and discover I already had some in the pantry—oops. Desperate to use some of it, I tried to make looking for interesting quinoa recipes. I came across this recipe someone gave me last year during my gluten free/vegan elimination diet phase.

For a recipe with few ingredients this was so good. I served it in roasted acorn squash “bowls.” The quinoa was just as delicious for lunch the next day minus the squash. I love just about anything that includes balsamic vinegar.

This would be a nice, different side dish for Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I can't believe it's this week! I thought I had another week to prepare and plan. This is going to be a busy week in the kitchen. Is anyone else freaking out about Thanksgiving dinner?

Cranberry Apple Walnut Crunch

I know I have talked about how my doctor has requested me to eat lots of sugary, fatty dessert and how I have done my best to follow this. But eating cakes, tartlettes, ice cream, etc gets old pretty fast when you’re eating them every day. Plus, I have to prepare and bake all these treats. Thank goodness it’s now Halloween season. I loaded up on candy and have been snacking on that all throughout the day. I bought one of those fun, plastic jack-o-lantern trick or treat holders, and I keep it on the table beside the couch so it’s near me and I can reach over and eat some candy whenever I want. But this post isn’t about candy, nor my snacking on it; it’s about me finally getting in the kitchen and baking something.

Our weather temperatures are starting to drop to a comfortable mid-70 degrees, so it’s actually starting to feel like fall (at least in the mornings and evenings). Trying to get into the spirit of the season, I thought I’d make some kind of fall-ish dessert. I love cranberries and decided to make some kind of dessert using them. I didn’t really follow a recipe, I just looked at some recipes I had for fruit crisps, cobblers, and crumbles and kind of combined some of them to make this. It turned out so tasty. I wish I would’ve have made some whipped cream or bought some ice cream for topping, that would have made it even better.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins with Walnuts and Chocolate Chips

We go through a lot of bananas each week. I usually eat a banana in my oatmeal at breakfast and Mr. Surly adds a banana to his breakfast smoothie. I detest ripe bananas; I prefer to eat bananas that still have green on the tips, a bit under-ripe. As soon as any brown spots begin to appear on the banana I won’t eat it. Mr. Surly is the opposite--he likes them ripe, no trace of green. We buy our bananas a bit green, and I eat them for about 2-3 days, until there is no more green and brown spots appear; I don’t eat them at that point. Then Mr. Surly finishes off the bunch. If, by the weekend there are any left, I use them up in pancakes.

Well, this past week we ended up with almost a full bunch of overripe bananas. I was in and out of the hospital for various tests my GI doctor ordered, all of them requiring fasting. Therefore, I had to skip breakfast 3 days. As a result I was left with 5 bananas at the end of the week that were brown and dangerously close to becoming overripe; no way Mr. Surly would be able to finish them all. I decided to make some banana bread to use them up. I don’t have a favorite go-to recipe for banana bread, so I went onto Tasty Kitchen to find a highly rated recipe. I saw this was the highest rated one, and it sounded good and relatively healthy. I’m not an avid fan of banana bread (nor do I dislike it), so I can’t really say how this compares to other recipes. All I can say is that they are good; moist, light, and not overly sweet. They tasted even better the next day.

I added ground flaxseed and walnuts for fiber and omega 3’s. I love ground flaxseed; I sprinkle it on and in many things—oatmeal, pancakes, smoothies, most baked goods, etc, so I always have some in my fridge. I wish I had waited to add the chocolate chips to the muffin tins instead of the batter. I fear that the chocolate wasn’t evenly distributed among the muffins; some might have a lot, other muffins just a few. I use Ghiradelli dark chocolate bits, which are larger than chocolate chips and therefore might not disperse as evenly due to their size. If making these again, I would add the batter to the muffin tins then sprinkle an even amount of chocolate chips into each well, ensuring that all the muffins have an equal amount of chocolate (I can’t help it; I’m a Libra and I like things to be even and equal). Of course you could skip this step and simply add the batter to a loaf pan and make bread. Or even better, maybe you aren’t OCD like me and won’t be bothered by one muffin having more chocolate chips than another.

Lime Laced Mexcian Wedding Cookies

I remember the first time I had these cookies back when I was in junior high. My older sister was taking Spanish class and one of her class assignments was to make these cookies. We loved them instantly. Avid bakers often make these cookies around Christmas, sometimes calling them Russian tea cakes. Whatever you call them, no doubt about it, they’re divine. I have a bunch of limes and thought I’d experiment and add some zest and juice to the recipe. It made the finished cookie a bit softer and less crumbly and gave them a nice hint of lime flavor. I’m embarrassed to admit these cookies almost didn’t make it until Mr.Surly came home from work. Lucky for him my abdominal pain kept me from eating the entire batch.

Baklava

This past week I finally had an appetite—yay. I was craving Greek food for some reason—pitas, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tzatziki sauce, etc. I’d had this baklava recipe marked for a long time, I just never felt like making it. But when I decided to make a Greek themed dinner, I had to include baklava for the dessert. I admit I was nervous about making it, I really love baklava and I was worried my homemade version would not live up to my expectations. I couldn’t have been more wrong…..

Oh my goodness, this was delicious. This was my first experience with phyllo and it went well. I had a couple of tears, but nothing too terrible. When eating, the top phyllo layers didn’t want to stay together, but most baklava is messy to eat. The taste is unbelievable. I’m glad I halved the syrup recipe (though this is probably the reason my baklava top was so flaky) because it was really sweet. I thought about using agave instead of honey but I worried agave would make it too sweet. (I personally think agave is sweeter than honey, and therefore when I substitute agave for honey I usually reduce the amount). Initially I was worried that even a half batch would yield more than the two of us could eat, but Mr.Surly liked it so much he’d eat two pieces at a time. Needless to say, it didn’t last long (thank goodness). I don’t know why I was so nervous to make this; it really wasn’t hard at all. Next time I might add some almonds to the mixture.