Category Archives: flavors

The Border Between Habits and Routines

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Since the theme of WIAW is “Fall into good habits” I figured I may as well talk about some of the habits that I have formed recently. Although I can’t guarantee they are necessarily good habits, nor can I can guarantee that they are the true definition as they are somewhere on the border between habits and routines.

To start off with breakfast, I am getting into the habit of making unsuccessful pancakes when I attempt pancake making on a weekday…

Breakfast:Chocolate pancakes turned out a bit too crumbly. I guess the greek yogurt was just screaming to be dressed.

Yet I have gotten into the habit of successful pancakes when I attempt pancake making on a weekend. As a side note: I think there should be a verb for pancake making. Maybe panamaking?

Breakfast: This recipe make 5 large pancakes

So here is that pancake recipe using coconut flour I talked about on my Monday post:

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Cocoa-Coconut Pancakes

Makes 1 serving (5 pancakes)

Edible Ingredients:

  • 1 tbsp coconut flour
  • 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 tbsp protein powder *
  • 2 tbsp Teff Flour
  • 1/4 cup eggwhites
  • 1/2 cup liquid **
  • 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • dash of salt
  • Extract ***

*I used 1 tbsp unsweetened whey, and 1 tbsp vanilla vegan proteins
**I used half almond milk, and half cold brewed coconut tea (couldn’t taste the mint)
***I used Capella Boston Cream Pie Flavour Drops

Engineering Instructions:

  1. Cook like a regular pancake (surprised?)
  2. Note: I like my pancakes cold, so I stick them in the freezer for a few minutes before eating

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You didn’t think I would leave you without a texture shot?

Let’s get back to those habits. I am getting into the habit of successfully eating mini baguettes the perfect way while walking.

Step 1: Purchase baguette on way to work. Feel the fresh warmness. Let out a sigh. Break in half.

Step 2: All while walking: Eat the hot insides. Scoop in some laughing cow. Spread. Enjoy

Not only have I formed the habit of eating a mini baguette on the way to work (not every day mind you), I have also gotten into the habit of eating my lunch on a stroll. I can’t sit at a desk for 9.5 hours without a meander!

Beans, dressing, peas veggies. A blob of hummus hiding under my computer (peeping out)

On the other hand one this that is not becoming habit, but more of a rare “to heck with it” moments: onion dip. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE onion dip, but onions give me some crazy digestive pain, so three hours after the snack I am not a happy camper (it was delicious though).

Snack: Sourcreme dip. With Hi I’m Skinny Corn Sticks

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What types of habits have you formed recently? What type of routines have you formed recently? Do you ever have something you know will upset your stomach?

A Weekend Wouldn’t be Complete Without…

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So it had been awhile since I skipped a regular post, as I have stuck to my Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule like a fly sticks to sticky fly trap paper. But last Thursday night as I sat down to write my Friday post, the fly got unstuck from the trap and I decided to skip the post as I was more preoccupied with other things. Nothing outrageously exciting, but more exciting that forcing Freddy Fingers to type out a post I just didn’t have the motivation to write. Call it writers block, or food block, or picture block. I just needed a break. So break I did, but now I am ready to share with you a random compilation of thoughts about what my weekend needs to be complete:

A weekend would not be complete without a new foodie find.

Since mustard is one of my favorite dressing ingredients this new Wasabi mustard was not only delicious but a beautiful color. I love the shade of wasabi green!

Stub’s Wasabi Mustard.

A weekend would not be complete without some new foodie experiments.

Like sun-drying tomatoes…

Sun drying tomatoes

Just kidding! The fly’s would get to it, and I’m sure my method would be quite unsanitary. This just happened my accident when the cherry tomato (fresh from the garden) fell off my plate and I forgot to bring it inside. Thus it became sun dried.

A weekend would not be complete without something happening to Holly.

Like getting stung by a bee on the eye…

Holly’s Bee Sting

A weekend would not be complete without harvesting something from the garden.

It has been a great year for our cucumbers so far! The cherry tomatoes aren’t as plentiful as they were last summer, but they still have loads of green fruit on them, so I’ve just got to be patient.

This garden cucumber had a hole done the center

A weekend would not be complete without a fun info graphic find…

If you follow me on pinterest you may have noticed that I love info-graphics. Information and graphics are two of my favorite things (separately) so once they are combined it’s like magic! One I found this weekend was a tool that allows you to see which Olympic athlete best matches your body type. You can see it here. Although this may be triggering to some who struggle with comparison, I found it quite interesting and motivational to start trying to build muscle again!

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What would your weekend not be complete without?

Have you harvested anything from your garden?

Do you like mustard? If so what is your favourite flavor? (I love horseradish mustard!)

Take Your Pick

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Thank you all for your suggestions on dealing with this period of not wanting to cook. It is great to know I am not alone! Since time is of the essence, I am going to keep this weekends post short, and just share one of my favourite microwave snack recipes: flax bread.

The great thing about this recipe, is that it can be made sweet or savoury.

Savoury add ins: Curry, tumeric, mansala, salt. I use unsweetened protein powder, and Fired Up Fennel for the liquid.

Favourite toppings: goats cheese, and ketchup!

“Sweet” add ins: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin, extracts, or subbing unsweetened protein powder for sweetened protein powder. My favourite combination is cinnamon, waffle flavour drops, and Creme Brulee tea for the liquid.

Favourite Topping: Peanut Cream Cheese Icing

So there you have it: a fast, versatile, and high protein microwaveable snack! Now, if you will excuse me I am off to enjoy the weekend weather before any of these roll in:

Although, if I were to be honest, I don’t mind the odd summer storm that brings in the humidity. It just makes the air smell so…good?!

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Do you like storms?

The Unsweetened Truth

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While most students would go out with friends to celebrate the end of a term, I spent the evening cleaning my office and bookshelf. In the past I would have been mad at myself for not being “normal”, but now I realize that I really do enjoy spending some time alone, and what better to do than organize! So in fact I truthfully enjoyed myself.

Speaking of normal, I’ve been wondering: what is the  normal amount of fake sweetener one should use?

100% dark baking chocolate (UNSWEETENED)

I feel that false sweeteners are something that a lot of healthy living bloggers do not write about. Something that just gets swept under the carpet, or purposely omitted from posts.

However, since January I have slowly cut out ALMOST all false sweeteners. The only time I do have it is when I don’t have time to grab my own protein snacks and grab a protein bar (such as the quest bar).

This is becoming something tastily edible

At first unsweetened dark chocolate, unsweetened oat bran, and unsweetened protein cakes didn’t seem quite right. Now they taste wonderful, all without any sweetener!

A chocolate cheesecake frozen cookie treat (see recipe below)! Since my exams are officially done I figured I would point out my engineering ring. In case those in the other countries don’t know: In Canada all engineers get an Iron Ring that they where on the pinky finger.

So when my recipes have absolutely no sweetener or sugar in them…

I love these Capella flavor drops: Milk Chocolate Toffee. These drops are favour concentrations, not sweeteners.

….that is because there truly isn’t, and I like it just like that. In fact now I think that sweetened things taste too sweet, and I can actually enjoy naturally sweet things (like fruit) so much more!

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Do you use false sweeteners? Is sweeten a word? Do you sweeten your baked goods or have them unsweetened? If you write a blog, do you ever purposely not talk about adding false sweeteners? 

Hot Baked Bread Oat Bran

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The other day I teased you with the following breakfast picture:

Since I myself am one that enjoys trying new things in my breakfast, I decided to post the recipe as soon as possible.

I know technically the yeast isn’t going to make the oat bran rise like it does in bread. The reason I add it is because it gives off a great hint of hot baked bread.

If you don’t have pea fibre I would suggest substituting with a tbsp of flour, or an extra tbsp of oat bran. After the mixture sits in the fridge over night the texture turns into a perfectly thick and firm consistency. My favourite part is the top, so I like to make this in a wide dish rather then a bowl.

My favourite flavour combinations so far:

•Banana Bread: Using buttercream tea as liquid, banana extract, and Banana Cream Pie Jello Pudding Mix
•Carrot Cake: Using carrot cake tea as liquid, rum extract, and flax seeds
•Coconut Cream Pie: Using coconut tea as liquid, coconut extract, and chia seeds

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Do you like changing your breakfast combinations or do you stick to the same thing? 

Long Term Favourites

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Do you remember what your favourite flavours were as a child? This week for WIAW I enjoyed some flavours that I have loved since childhood!

Lemons:

A big Alligator Stew for breakfast made with cold lemon tea, and lemon extract. I’ve been over this before, so sorry to sound like a broken record but I love lemons, and used to eat them like the other kids ate oranges.

Cinnamon:

A perfect flying saucer snack but subbing the cocoa powder for cinnamon

Tomatoes & Cheese:

I used to always cut tomato into my Kraft Dinner (Mac’n Cheese).  My lunch was a combination of tuna, melted laughing cow, tomatoes, and kelp noodles.

Salt & Vinegar:

My favorite flavour of chips has always been salt and vinegar, and I prefer to dip my fries in vinegar over ketchup. Todays snack was baked salt & vinegar shrimp and cabbage. Baked cabbage may sound weird (I was running low on other vegetable options) but it turned out fantastic!

Cottage Cheese:

I don’t know many 3 year olds that liked cottage cheese, but I was one of them!

My apologies to all you sweet tooth lovers, today’s WIAW has been rather savoury. (NOTE: My day included apples and munchies)

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What were your favourite flavours as a child? Are the majority of your meals sweet or savoury?

Plugged Back In

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Remember the good old days when you used to talk on a telephone with a long curly cord that would get all rolled up and tangled?  Actually, not really the olden days, because I still use one. But my point is that to completely untangle the cord, you have to unplug it then unwind it. Well that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these past few days (figuritively not literally). I just needed to unplug from distractions (including blogging) and unwind.

Now that I’m all untangled I’m ready to plug back in and share some friends of mine. Meet my extract collection: {Vanilla, Almond, and Mint} I’ve always been a big fan of the chocolate-mint combo, so the mint extract actually gets used frequently. A little goes a long way though.

{Banana, Lemon, and Coconut} I use these ones most often in baking, I love all of them.

{Rum, Liquorice, Brandy}The Rum and Brandy are actually the exact same flavor with a different label. At least to my taste buds. I don’t actually know what rum or brandy taste like, but these extracts are amazing, they remind me of caramel. I don’t use Liquorice flavoring very often, it’s one of those flavors I have to really be in the mood for.

{Strawberries&Cream, Hazelnut, Gingerbread} These are all very strong extracts. I use them most often in flavoring oat bran, and find them too strong and overpowering in just yogurt.

{Waffle, Vanilla Cupcake, NY Cheesecake, Marshmallow}These are my top 4 favorite extracts from my collection. I use them for baking, yogurt, oat bran, french toast, and even for fancy hot drinks.

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So when you see a bowl of yogurt……you can bet that a few drops of one of the above extracts are giving it some flavor

Now that I’m all untangled and plugged back in I’m ready to catch up on all you have been up to. I will warn you though that my Google Reader is a zoo, and will probably not be tamed easily.

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Which extract from my collection do you think you would like the best? What is your favorite use of extracts?

WANTED: Advice

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WANTED: Advice. Needed to help me figure out to do with a developing situation:

Last term a friend sent me an email saying he had feelings for me. I DO NOT have feelings for him in the slightest, and it’s one of those friendships that I feel is just there for the sake of having someone to sit with in class. I feel as though he values the friendship a lot more then I do, which makes me feel like a horrible person. When he sent me the confession crush email last term, I replied saying that I don’t have feeling for him, and our friendship carried on as usual.

This term has already begun and I feel as though he is doing everything possible to be around me. Saving me seats in class, taking all my classes, switching to my tutorials…ect ect. It is really getting frustrating, because I am trying to meet new people. Today I got another email from him saying he still has feelings for me…UGH!

So what do I do? I’ve already tried the whole let him down nicely thing last term, and clearly that didn’t work. Google didn’t have any advice for me by the way. I started typing “what do I do if” and look what popped up:

Anyways since most of my thinking gets done over a big bowl of oat bran, I will leave you with a favorite flavor combo:

Iced Peanut Butter Cupcake Oat Bran

Edible Ingredients:



Engineering Instructions

  • The same as my initial oat bran instructions except add 1 tbsp of the peanut flour before cooking, and mix in 1/4 cup of the greek yogurt immediately after cooking. In the morning top with more greek yogurt and peanut flour sauce.


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Advice on my situation? Where do you do most of your thinking (eating, walking, at work, sleeping…)?

Chicory Dickory Dock

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My imagination has gone wild on me when making my alligator stews in the past. Now a days it looks as those logs have been added to my swampy smoothie! Doesn’t it look like there are mini logs in there? Well there aren’t! It’s: organic roasted chicory root, almonds, vanilla bean segments, natural vanilla flavoring.
This my friends is Chicory Dickory Dock tea from DavidsTeas. It brews a very strong, dark, and flavorful cup of tea. Not sure if you would like it? If you like coffee, you most likely will, on the other hand if you don’t like coffee you may want to stay clear.
It sure made a fabulous Alligator Stew Base, even better then the blueberry tea base of the purple people eater stew!

Edible Ingredients:

  • 1.5 cup cold Chicory Dickory Dock tea
  • Vanilla Protein powder (I use Genuine Health Proteins+)
  • 10 frozen strawberries
  • 8 ice cubes
  • 2 handfuls of spinach (or you can omit)
  • vanilla extract + sweetener
  • 7 ml (1 teaspoon + ½ teaspoon) Xanthan Gum

All blended together then topped with my favorite smoothie toppings: kamut puffs, cinnamon, and peanut flour sauce. I made the sauce with 2 tbsp peanut flour, 4 tbsp cold chicory dickory dock tea, sweetener, and salt.

Usually when I go and buy new tea, I don’t have anything specific in mind. Then when I get home I have fun looking up all the benefits of the tea leaves. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are many benefits of chicory root.

For example chicory root has Vitamin C, helps with digestion, and helps the body resist gallstones and kidney stones (source). All in one tasty mug of tea? Count me in!

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What are your favorite smoothie toppings? Do you eat your smoothies out of a bowl or cup?

A Definetly Delisious and Voluptuous Oatbran Trick

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I have a few confessions to make…

  • I can’t spell definetly
  • I can’t spell sandwhich
  • I can’t spell delisious
  •  I take all my photos on my Blackberry Torch
  • When I read/write that something is voluminous…I read/write voluptuous! Oops

Honestly I make those spelling mistakes EVERY TIME, I never learn. In lieu of those confessions I’ve decided to share my voluptuous oat bran trick, that is definetly delisious!

**NOTE: Hover over photos for extra captions, although most are self explanatory**

When I first started making oat bran, I was using Katie’s Voluminous oat trick but I soon learned a few chia and egg white tricks of my own to add to Katie’s wonderful discovery.

  • mix ⅓ oatbran, stevia packet, dash of salt and ¼ cup egg whites. Stir well

  • add 1.5 cup almond breeze or other liquid, add tablespoon of chia seeds mix well. mix well
  • let sit for at least 5 minutes. This is important I’ve found

  • microwave for 2 minutes
  • stir, microwave for 1 minute
  • let sit in microwave for 5 minutes

  • Let sit uncovered overnight
I’ve found significant consistency differences if I switch up the order of the eggwhites/chia seed addition. And I’ve found ENORMOUS differences if I’m inpatient and don’t let the chia sit before microwaving. Usually I clean up while I’m waiting, or pack my lunch. That way I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.

I always dress my oat bran up, because oats aren’t meant to be naked in my kitchen.

I almost always top my oatmeal with the same thing: a layer of greek yogurt, and a layer of runny peanut flour sauce. Of course I always enjoy my oatbran bowls with a big side of fruit, and hot mug of coffee. Because my morning would just not be complete without.

I’m pretty sure oat eaters have all adapted their OWN method for making oats just the way they like THEY like them. But I figured I would post my method just in case there is someone out there who hasn’t discovered the awesomeness of oats! I always use it to make my oat bran or rolled spelt, and I’m never disappointed with the outcome.

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Do you have a set way you always make your oats, or do you change it all the time? What type of oats do you prefer? (oat bran, rolled, steal cut…the possibilities are endless)

CyberChimps