How Does Your Garden Grow

This spring the Mr and I suggested talked my mom into letting us build a planter bed at her house so we could have a summer garden. This then consisted of us building the beds and helping to plant them and then completely leaving all the water and maintenance to her. (See what we did right there!) I am happy to report that wiith all of our her hardwork the garden has done wonderfully and we (you know we have been there for harvest) have enjoyed many nights at her house of being able to go outside and pick almost everything needed to make a full meal.

To avoid being wasteful, I have started getting very creative in my cooking to make sure we use up all of those huge zucchinis that we grew. Here are some of the recipes that I have been making.

Zucchini Brownies

These came out so yummy, but are more like chocolate cake then a brownie. They ended up being great with some vanilla ice cream.

Paleo Zucchini Almond Muffins

I made these muffins this afternoon and I have to say that I wasn't to impressed. Maybe it is just me but these tasted really dense and were totally not sweet like a muffin.

I am dying to try this recipe for Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini

If I had more time, (I feel like I say that a lot here) I would totally love to can some veggies to have through the winter. We have also been busy with our wonderful jam making party. As you saw here, I inlisted the help of some great friends to pick blackberries and help me make homemade jam for our wedding favors.  I'll be back to give you a full tutorial on jam making and how the final product turn out.

Happy Wednesday!
Heather

Catching My Breath & Pintrest Cooking

Hi Peeps,

Sorry for the long delay in blogging this week. Seems like last week has rolled into this week in terms of motivation and lack of time. I have been trying to take a little more time to myself lately and enjoy where I am at in my life. Like spending time with these two...

Hanging out in our sweet spool!

(spool: a large spa and mini pool in one)

Celebrating this gals awesome bachelorette weekend. Yes, those are silver eye lashes and a camo do-rag. That's how we roll!

And stopping to check out the dinosaurs?! WTF? Yes, this was spotted on my drive to work. 

And in other news, I have also been busy making these and these from Pintrest. 



The Mr and I liked these Peanut Butter & Banana Power Bars. They consisted of:

1 1/2 cups quick oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup of milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 large mashed banana

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter  

Prep time was only about 5 minutes and it took 20 minutes to bake. Pretty simple and a great snack alternative. I think next time I am going to add some whole peanuts to the mixture in order to give it some crunch and add some more texture.

Funfetti Cake Dip

If you are a funfetti cake lover, your going to love this as a "skinny" alternative. At our house it is refered to as crack dip because once you try it, your hooked. The ingredients are again pretty simple consisting of:

1 box of funfetti cake mix

2 cups of plain fat-free yogurt

1 cup of fat free cool whip

Mix it all together and chill for 4 hours. We ate ours with graham crackers and vanilla wafers and it was awesome. Kelly over at Eat Yourself Skinny, can give you all the break down in terms of fat and calories. As I am trying to be a good and stick to my paleo diet hardcore until the wedding, I had a couple ten vanilla wafers and dip. Opps. I couldn't help it. It was that good.

What fun recipes have you made from Pintrest lately?

Heather