first (and successful!) smoothie bowl

before i say anything, everyone has to listen to this song that i'm obsessed with. 

okay

i'm excited because this was my first ever smoothie bowl & my first actually healthy post on this blog. yay!

for those of you who haven't seen or heard of smoothie bowls, they're exactly what they sound like...but they taste even better. it's literally a smoothie poured into a bowl with some toppings. some other health bloggers get prettyyyyy artsy with layering smoothies and swirling in different granolas, etc. i kept it pretty simple with my bowl and decorated it with some carefully placed raspberries, pomegranate seeds (aka nature's candy) and a sprinkling of coconut. The crunchy coconut, tangy pomegranate, and sweet raspberries (so many adjectives) were the perfect compliment to my smoothie.

admire my poorly colored and probably oversaturated iphone photography

i'll admit, i bummed out on my couch and enjoyed to a couple episodes of Seinfeld. best show of all time. it was just what i needed on a saturday morning, the perfect marriage between healthy and delicious. fresh but filling, sweet but nourishing. i was also mostly just looking for an excuse to make something, and to eat pomegranate. i've been so obsessed with it lately i bring it to school, put it in smoothies, yogurt, and salads, eat it for snacks/dinner/lunch/breakfast/snacks. you get the idea. so besides christmas, pomegranates are pretty much the best thing about winter.

without further ado, i give you...my first ever smoothie bowl!

another iphone masterpiece

Smoothie Bowl

1.5 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk

2.5 cups spinach

1 frozen banana

1 cup frozen mango chunks

1 tsp vanilla

toppings of choice! i used 2 tbs pomegranate, a handful of raspberries, and 2 tbs coconut

blend the almond milk and spinach first, until it's completely smooth. break the frozen banana in half and throw it in, along with the mango chunks. when everything is blended how you want it, add in a teaspoon of vanilla. it's my secret ingredient, and really makes all the difference. introduces a whole new dimension of flavor. pour smoothie into a bowl, and go crazy with your toppings! enjoy with a spoon and feel like a health food queen/beyonce of the food industry

peachy peach pie & reminiscing about summer fruit

i love fall. i really do. the leaves changing, the air getting that tingle of a chill, the complete and pure joy of new sweaters, the sometimes nauseating smell of pumpkin-spice-EVERYTHING. i'd be lying if i said i didn't write a few too many poems about fall, and take way too many pictures.

utah is a beaut

anyway...

as i was sitting here wearing 2 pairs of socks and my bathrobe because my house is impossibly cold, i started looking through pictures from this summer. among the snaps of the beach and family were at least 50 pictures of fresh picked peaches and raspberries. i remember whipping those peaches into a pie and the raspberries into my greek yogurt. mmmm. 

pounds and pounds of fresh raspberries, courtesy of mom's friend's backyard patch

i just had to

gorgeous peaches ready for pie-making

see why this is making me so sad and hungry?! fruit = fabulous. especially summer fruit.

so, for anyone lucky who still has a few peaches hanging out, or is as excited as i am for next year's crop, i present...

peachy peach pie!

the recipe is this one from smitten kitchen.

tip one: make this pie dough. it's literally changed everything about pies for me. it's impossibly easy and ridiculously flaky, yet substancial. i've used it for all my pies for the past year, and it's 158% perfection.

tip two: DON'T boil the peaches to get the skin off. this was suggested in the smitten kitchen recipe i used, so i blindly threw my peaches into boiling water, oblivious to what i was doing to them. the skin peeled right off, which i was thrilled about. however, when they are in the boiling water, they obviously cook a little bit. then...they cook more in the oven. the result? soggy peaches that had a taste reminicent of canned fruit. not my favorite.

tip three: use an egg wash. if you're a pie baking veteran you know - egg washes amp up the beauty and flavor of the crust. 

tip four: get wild with the crust. it's fun and makes you feel super artsy. i wove my top crust, then used leftover bits of dough to roll tiny balls to stick on the intersections for decoration.

finished pie ft. flowers

that's it! make sure to use this smitten kitchen recipe, and enjoy! 

a (little) healthier pesto

another old post. last one, i swear. but now i'm really REALLY craving that pesto, and our basil plant just froze. what's a girl to do?! #roughlife

it's been a while! as in a-month-and-a-half while.

anyways

my mom has these MASSIVE basil plants in the backyard and i've been itching to whip up some pesto. so on this fine labor day, i decided to take advantage of my free time. first, i jammed to Ingrid Michaelson's new album...this song got repeated about 36 times. then, i got to work. i'd found a few recipes i was considering, but none of them seemed quite right. so i decided to wing it.

i grabbed a ton of basil, some almonds, parmesean cheese, garlic, and unpictured olive oil. (the bottle wasn't worthy of my photo) i also ended up throwing in even MORE basil/almonds/garlic. & some salt/pepper of course.

first i toasted a cup of almonds (i'm funny cause it was a cup measurement, and i took a picture of them in a cup...ha ha)

then i chopped up my garlic into about 5 chunks per clove. i threw the almonds, garlic, and parmesean cheese into the food proccessor and pulsed it until it was mostly all uniformly ground. make sure you don't let it go for too long or the almonds will turn into almond butter and heaven knows you don't want garlic-cheese flavored almond butter. trust me, i've been there. ew. 

next i added the basil in a couple handfuls at a time, with incorportations of olive oil each time. i pulsed it all until it was the pesto texture i wanted. it's a deeply personal matter, really. some people like the chunky pesto, some like the so-creamy-it's-almost-liquid stuff, and some, like me, prefer a happy medium.

i ground in a little salt & pepper to taste and voila! pesto.

the color is a little off-putting. toasted almond probs. but the flavor from the toasted almonds is worth the unphotogenic-ness. if that's a word. if it's not, it should be. 

anyways

the pesto turned out great. tastes like summer. it's super basil-y, with a definitive nuttiness from the almonds. which, by the way, are way cheaper than pine nuts. and have less fat. speaking of less fat, you'll notice by reading my recipe below that i didn't use much cheese. that was intentionally to keep it a little lighter. sometimes i eliminate it altogether. i just felt like living on the edge today. 

to be honest, a lot of it's already gone. i slathered it on wheat thins straight out of the food processor...we were out of bread...#lunch? and used it as red sauce on my whole wheat pizza for dinner. i might go back to school tomorrow with green hair or something due to excessive basil consumption. worth it.

a (little) healthier pesto 

5 packed cups fresh basil, washed

1 cup almonds 

about 1/2 cup olive oil 

1/4 cup parmesean cheese

4 cloves garlic, chopped roughly

salt and pepper to taste

lemon juice (optional)

toast the almonds on medium heat for around 7 minutes, or until uniformly golden. put in food processor with cheese and chopped garlic, and pulse until everything is about the same size of crumb. you're kind of going for the look of bread crumbs. start adding in the basil a couple handfuls at a time, pouring in a couple tablespoons of the olive oil with each addition. repeat until all the basil is incorporated. it could take more than 1/2 cup of olive oil, just use what you need for the basil to blend in. sprinkle in salt and pepper until it's perfect for you. add lemon juice if you're feeling zesty. (ha ha) 

store in fridge for about a week, freezer for up to 6 months.

yields around 1 1/2 cups pesto

-mads

macaron magic

reposting an old post cause i restarted da blogggg! (formerly kitchenbums...now just kitchenbum) this post is from back in july, when my friend maya and I made macarons with our friend rachel. let us begin! (again)

macarons are infamous for being the fancy, impossible to get right, french cookie. so, armed with egg whites (six, because SOMEONE ruined the first three), and determination, we set out to make them. we got lucky. really really really lucky. our almond-chocolate-ganache macarons turned out perfectly, with a foot and everything. 

shoutout to our friend rachel who shared a live saving secret with us - dip your finger in water and flatten the tips left from piping them, then let them sit for 15ish minutes before you put them in the oven. you want the top to harden a little. ours happened to sit for closer to 45 minutes because we forgot to turn on the oven...#oops. 

okay. let's take a moment to appreciate that chocolate ganache is a thing. it was my first try making it, and we didn't have heavy cream. so, i threw some half & half in a saucepan with about 4 kinds of chocolate and then stuck it in the fridge. it was the perfect compliment to the almond in the macaron.

thanks to whoever posted this recipe. you have brought happiness to our lives

click here for the recipe we used