Mocha Java Smoothie

Hello!  It's been a while.  We went on vacation to Atlantis in the Bahamas, with a stop at Universal Studios, FL.  It was a lot of fun, but I'm really sick of restaurant food!  There were some amazing things I would love to recreate... notably, the coconut french toast I ate for breakfast every day, a "super high fibre" muesli, and Bobby Flay's blue and yellow corn muffins with flecks of red jalapeno from Mesa Grill.  But by the end of the trip, I was craving homemade food and dying to cook for myself.  So I'm glad to be back home in my own kitchen.  Things will be a bit busier now that school has started, but I've whipped up a few easy things so far; everything else has come from the freezer (for which I am very grateful).  For one lunch I made Greek Salad Pitas with Feta Spread and Turkey from Ellie Krieger's book So Easy.  I don't have a photo or anything, but they were tasty and easy and I'm fairly certain I'll make them again.

The focus of this post, however, is the Mocha Java Smoothie from the same book.  As you can see from the photo, it is creamy and delicious and was a fabulous breakfast.  As the recipe notes, it's your morning coffee AND a filling breakfast.  The banana gives it substance while remaining in the background flavor-wise.  The coffee and chocolate are more prominent, but next time I'd love to do a double shot instead.  Best of all, this is one of those recipes you can prep for the night before.  You can put all the ingredients in the blender, sans frozen banana and ice, and have breakfast in mere minutes.  I love to make smoothies and take them in a to-go cup - I have one with a lid where you can fit a straw perfectly through the drinking hole.  When I'm done I can toss the straw and close the cup, if need be.  My smoothies in the past always focused on the fruit, with little in the way of protein, but I'm really liking Ellie Krieger's smoothies with milk and yogurt.  This one is my favorite so far (and probably will be overall), but I look forward to making up a few of my own as well.

Cherry Vanilla Smoothie

Today's breakfast was the Cherry Vanilla Smoothie from So Easy.  It tasted pretty good, but as-is, I feel like it's more of a dessert.  It tasted like cherry vanilla ice cream to me.

I'd make a ton of adjustments to the recipe.  First, it was too sweet, so I'd cut down on the honey.  Maybe take it out entirely if still using the vanilla yogurt.  Second, I think it's really strange that the vanilla is so prevalent here, but was completely lacking in the oatmeal - I think it could use a bit less vanilla here, maybe even none with vanilla yogurt.  Ken suggested just a drop of honey and plain yogurt, and he usually likes things sweeter than I do.  Finally, I think the serving size is too large.  Maybe you need a piece of almond butter toast or something to go with it, but I'd cut down the serving size.  For comparison, the serving size is equal to the mid-size cup at Jamba Juice - 2.5 cups or 20 ounces.  Way too much!

Vanilla Spice Oatmeal

We're going on vacation in a few weeks, to a warm place where people wear bikinis, and after trying some on at the mall, I realized it was time for a little calorie-cutting.  I went through Ellie Krieger's books and picked out a bunch of recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and even a few for dessert.  I'm also planning to try to work out every day from the day after my last final to the day before I leave for vacation.

For breakfast yesterday, we tried the Vanilla Spice Oatmeal from So Easy.  It was easy, but it wasn't very vanilla-y or spiced.  I probably should have trusted my instincts and added more of the vanilla and cinnamon, especially since those wouldn't contribute much in terms of excess calories.  I used currants instead of raisins, and those plus the chopped toasted pecans are what gave the oatmeal its flavor.  I like how oatmeal is inherently creamy anyway, but it did need a bit more flavor.

I'm not sure whether I'll make this exact recipe again, but I like the formula it presents.  Oats and water, plus a dried fruit, a nut, and a spice.  This could go in many directions!  I'm already thinking of flavor combinations.  Apricots and pistachios come to mind.  Dried cherries and five-spice, too.  So I look forward to playing around with my oatmeal flavor profiles.

Pork and Mango Stir Fry

I love Asian food, mostly Thai, but I get the occasional craving for Chinese as well.  I also love stir fry, but every time I try to wing it, it comes out disastrous.  When I saw this Pork and Mango Stir Fry recipe in So Easy, I had to try it.  When I saw that one of the ingredients was Chinese five spice powder, I was even more intrigued.  I had first heard of it when my next door neighbor used it in her cookies for my mom's annual holiday cookie exchange, and I hadn't heard of it since.  I was curious to see how an ingredient in cookies would work as an ingredient in stir fry.

The first bite was interesting.  I tasted a lot of spice and a lot of flavor.  I wasn't sure how I felt about it.  A few bites later, though, I was really enjoying it.  The recommended portion size of 2 cups was HUGE and filled me to the brim.  When I ate the leftovers I had less to save some calories.  (You can also save a bunch of calories if you skip the rice altogether.)  I thought the leftovers were actually better!  The flavors kind of mellowed out, particularly the spice.

This was really delicious, and I will definitely make it again.  I might try it with pineapple instead of mango sometime too.

Walnut-Dried Cherry Bars

I can't believe I haven't posted about the Walnut-Dried Cherry Bars in Ellie Kreiger's book So Easy.  I make these all the time.  It's painful for me when I take the last one out of the freezer.  They are perfect for before or after a workout, or for breakfast, or for an afternoon snack when you are craving something sweet and baked.

I have been meaning to mess around with these.  I want to try reversing the flavors - instead of dried cherries with apricot preserves, I want to try dried apricots with cherry preserves.  But I like it too much to mess with it like that.  If there are none left in the freezer, I can't bring myself to do it.

Today I finally tried something at least a little different.  I did not feel like removing everything in the refrigerator to get to my whole wheat flour, which is also almost gone, so I reached for something else instead.  Near the front of the shelf was the multigrain flour mix I made from Kim Boyce's book Good to the Grain.  I have been substituting this in many places in an attempt to make things more interesting.  It worked out great in the oatmeal sandwich bread, and it lightened that up a bit, so I thought it would be good here.  Lucky for me, it was great.  I always have to eat one of these, because I make them when I am already craving them, so I got to try it with the multigrain flour and it came out really well.  It was lighter than the whole wheat but didn't stand out too much in taste.

If you like to take snacks with you to work, school, etc. this is a perfect recipe for transportation.  I wrap mine in wax paper, then store them in ziplock bags in the freezer.  I grab one before I leave the house and when I reach for it 2 hours later it's completely defrosted.

As I mentioned above, I'd like to try reversing the flavor combination, but I would also like to try some completely different flavors as well.  Any suggestions?