 I had some fresh peaches to use up recently and I had peach pie in my mind. I found this recipe for mini peach pies on a fellow food blogger's website, fortheloveofcooking.net and for some reason, mini peach pies seemed more manageable than baking a whole pie. (I'm not really sure why.) It's everything that I love about peach pie in a tiny, 4 bite version. (2 bites if you're Ben)  Mini Peach Pies 2 pie crusts (homemade or store bought) 5 peaches, peeled and diced 1/2 cup of white sugar 3 tbsp brown sugar 2 tbsp of cornstarch 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp cinnamon 1 egg + 1 tbsp water
Roll out the pie crusts on a flour surface then smooth them out with a rolling pin. Use a cookie cutter or a ramekin to cut 4 inch circles out of the pie crusts. We used a pampered chef press n' seal.
Scoop 2 tablespoons of peach pie filling into each tin.
Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Let them cool for 4-5 minutes. OK, so my crust didn't get so "golden." Not really sure why but they were good anyway.  My daughter thought these little pies would make great birthday "cupcakes." I couldn't agree more.
It goes without saying that these mini peach pies were a huge hit. If you are serving them to adults, plan on at least 2 per person because one just isn't quite enough.  Ciao!
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 Chicken fajitas are simple and easy and a great way to get more vegetables into your diet. I like to make them for my family because they are completely customizable - everyone creates their own unique combination of meat and vegetables.  Chicken Lime Fajitas 5 Tablespoons oil 1 ½ teaspoons brown sugar ¼ cup lime juice (2 limes) 1 serrano pepper (chopped) 3 cloves garlic, minced 3-4 boneless chicken breasts 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire 1/2 red onion, sliced 1 bell pepper 6 flour tortillas Combine ¼ c. oil, lime juice, garlic, Worcestershire, brown sugar, serrano, ½ t. salt in Ziploc. Reserve ¼ c. marinade and add chicken to bag. Marinate 15 minutes in refrigerator. Toss peppers and onions with 1 T. oil. Grill in basket.
Make sure that you grill extra chicken breasts as well. Eat them for healthy lunches all week. Wrap tortillas in foil and heat on grill. Create your fajita according to your own personal style. My fajita had chicken, avocado, pepper and onions and fresh salsa.  You can use this same recipe and substitute steak for the chicken if you prefer. You can also take the meat out altogether and make vegetarian fajitas. No matter what you choose, load up your whole grain tortillas with fresh vegetables and you will have a healthy dinner.
Ciao!  Well, the kids have been back in school for over 2 weeks and we are still working on our morning routine. We are all trying to get used to getting up early again and getting ready for school quickly and efficiently. Sometimes it helps them get out of bed just a little bit quicker if I have something yummy on the table for breakfast. If your kids need a little extra incentive to get out of bed in the morning like mine do , these breakfast cookies might be just what you need. The best part is that if they're running a little late, they can take one to go. (They'll be the envy of all the other kids on the bus.)  Breakfast Cookies 1 cup walnuts 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 1/3 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup ground flax meal 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 cup almond butter 1/4 cup canola oil 1/4 cup blue agave nectar 1/3 cup brown sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 cup dried cherries 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips Preheat oven to 375. Pulse walnuts in a food processor until fine. Add flour, oats, flax seed mill, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Combine almond butter, oil, agave, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Add walnut-oatmeal mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and cherries.
 Ever get the feeling that some recipes were just not meant to be? I was well into the process of making these breakfast cookies from allrecipes.com for the very first time when I discovered that I didn't have an important ingredient - almond butter. No problem, I could easily substitute peanut butter. Wrong again - no peanut butter in the house either. After some debate about whether to scrap the recipe altogether, I left everything on the counter - went to Wal Mart and bought a jar of Almond Butter. I am happy to say that I came home and finished my cookies but while I was uploading pictures, I accidentally deleted some that I had taken of the cookies. Seriously?
Don't be deceived by all of the hassle that I went through to make these cookies. They really were worth an extra trip to the grocery store. They were delicious and not just for breakfast. They make a great after school snack and post workout snack too. Ciao!  As you may or may not already know, I am obsessed with using up overly ripe bananas. I've blogged so many banana recipes that you can now search the label "banana" and pull up all of my recipes and creative uses of bananas. I recently found this recipe for Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread on loveintheoven.com. It looked so good and as fate would have it, I had 3 overly ripe bananas sitting on my kitchen counter that very same day.  Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread For the bread: 3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up 1/3 cup melted butter 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg, beaten 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp baking soda dash of salt 1 1/2 cups flour For the swirl: 1/3 cup sugar 1 Tbs cinnamon
The tricky part was getting it out of the pan because if I had flipped it over, all of the cinnamon topping would have fallen off. I let it cool completely in the pan and then carefully lifted it out with a spatula.  This bread was really good. (So good in fact that we ate the whole loaf in one day!) It was a nice change from my usual chocolate chip banana bread. The cinnamon ribbon really made it unique. This is a dangerous recipe because it was REALLY hard to stop eating it.  As a matter of fact, I made the recipe a second time and turned it into muffins.  Yep - Just as good as muffins!
Ciao!  These cookies might just change your mind about vegan, gluten-free baking. If you didn't know that they were made without eggs, butter or regular flour, you would never taste the difference. I fooled my family into thinking they were regular peanut butter cookies and I'm sure you will agree that they're delicious.  Vegan, Gluten and Dairy Free Peanut Butter Cookies 1 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup vegan butter substitute (I used Earth Balance) 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce 1 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon xantham gum organic cane sugar
Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.
These cookies were really good. They didn't get crispy like I had hoped but I think if I had added another 2 minutes onto the baking time, they would have been perfect. Nobody in my family really seemed to mind the fact that they were soft - they dove right in and gobbled them up. 
I spent 4 days riding the Silver Comet and I rode 150 miles. It was so much fun - exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I took a few pictures with my iPhone while I was on the trail so I thought I would share them will all of you.
There are walkers, bikers, roller bladers, joggers and big wheels on the trail. It's great to see so many people exercising outside..
Ciao! |
