So I thought I'd take a few minutes to let everyone know about Nathan and my favorite past time and hobby =)..... discount grocery shopping!!! We are fortunate to live five minutes away from two small stores that sell partially damaged or slightly expired groceries. Nathan and I are very skillful deal finders... and when we see something we like, we buy lots of it =). At these stores there are usually healthy snacks and other goodies that you would often find at a health food store for lots-o-doe =). Some of our favorite purchases are Odwalla bars, Kashi cereal, Annie's Natural's mac and cheese, and our new find, Cherrybrook Kitchen's all-natural fudge brownie mix. (Brownies just happen to be my weakness - I'm planning on posting a chickpea brownie recipe soon that is healthy and sooo good!).

These pictures are from a particularly successful trip and we were very happy and excited! These stores really help us keep our grocery budget low, while enjoying products we would never pay full price for. Nathan and I also like the fact that we are purchasing things that would eventually go to waste. I would encourage everyone to see if there are any such stores in your area because they are wonderful =). Hope everyone has a great weekend! God bless!

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So it has definitely been awhile since I've updated and for that I am sorry. School seems to take up more and more time as the semester progresses, but I guess that should be expected. But today is different because today Nathan and I are skipping classes and relaxing at home =). I am a little bit ashamed to admit that it is after ten and we are still in bed, studying, having breakfast, and watching reruns of the Office. But I do happen to think that Michael Scott and green tea is a great way to start the day =). I have a lot of house work waiting for me outside of this room and I'm pretty much ready to get started, just thought I'd post since I'm laying here anyway.

Just recently we had a nice meal of seitan italian sausage =). We have really been into faux meats lately, Nathan is pretty much a seitan craftsman. The fact that recipe calls for steaming the "meat" made the most tender seitan we've had yet. I also made some hotdog buns from neverhomemaker. We sauteed some onions and peppers to top the seitan (Nathan's idea), and I made homemade baked beans that were quick and very delicious =).

As far as the mac and cheese goes, I definitely cheated and took the quick and easy route. Nathan and I found boxes of Annie's Natural Mac & Cheese at our favorite discount grocery store (just five minutes from our house). We looooooove shopping there and can often find lots of healthy snacks and other treats for at least a fourth of the price!!

The meal turned out great and was the epitome of comfort food! =) I put the links to the recipe at the bottom of the page. I'm planning on doing another post real soon about the discount store and some of our favorite finds! I hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather and having a great weekend!! God bless!

Seitan Italian Sausage

Sesame Beer Hotdog Buns

Yummy Baked Beans

So Nathan and I have definitely enjoyed our snow days - no work and no school, just cooking, cleaning, watching movies and occasionally opening a text book =). One particularly snowy night we decided to spend the entire evening in the kitchen preparing these monstrous sandwiches! I found the recipe (or basic guidelines) at (never home)maker.com. It is based off a sandwich that was showcased on Man v. Food (a great show, if we had cable I'm sure I would be watching it and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern all the time =) ).

The To Do List:

1. Make Seitan

2. Mix & Bake Sandwich Buns

3. Make Coleslaw

4. Cut & Bake a Sweet Potato into Delicious Fries

5. Cut an Onion, Bread & Bake into Onion Rings

As you can see this was a very ambitious project and I was very thankful that Nathan and I worked on it together. I began by finding a recipe for whole grain sandwich buns at Bliss Tree and let me just say that this is most definitely the best bread recipe I've tried so far. It is full of fiber and great nutritious ingredients (ground brown rice, flax seeds, sunflower seeds and oats to name a few). Nathan started with the homemade seitan (a common meat substitute made with vital wheat gluten). Neither of us have ever made seitan before and it turned out delicious - it actually tasted a lot like sausage, which was surprising =).

(delicious buns) (Nathan with his seitan sucess)

The baked sweet potato fries were simple and I finished those fairly quickly. The onion rings, however, were a different story, the recipe didn't work too well for us so we had to improvise a lot. In the end they were very good but not necessarily what we were expecting =). At this point we were almost done with our perfect sandwiches =). Nathan whipped up an improvised, mayo free coleslaw and we began to put everything together.

The sandwich was built as follows:

Bun, Mashed Avocado, Lettuce, Colelsaw,

Sweet Potato Fries, Seitan and Onion Rings

So needless to say these sandwiches were definitely worth all the hard work we put into them. They were delicious and it is probably obvious that one sandwich was plenty of food. =) (The last couple bites were hard for both of us to finish ).

I posted the links to all the recipes at the bottom of the page (except for the baked onion rings and coleslaw since they were mostly improvised) I hope that everyone has a nice weekend,

God bless!

Nutritious Whole Grain Rolls

Sausagey-Seitan

Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries

So I know that the holiday season is over, but that doesn't mean everyone just stops craving chocolate =). I myself will probably never grow tired of something dark, rich, and crunchy. These yummy chocolates are a healthy treat and also very easy to make. You can chop the dark chocolate and toast the almonds and coconut ahead of time, making them easy and fast to assemble. I found this recipe on the blog 101cookbooks (one of my favorites), and have made it several times, and they are always a big hit! The coffee adds a real decadent flavor (I used a french vanilla flavor). The link is at the bottom - I hope everyone enjoyed being snowed in, I know we did! God bless!

Yummy Healthy Chocolate Treats

Hello =) I can hardly believe that a week has gone by since my last post! With studying, cooking, cleaning, waitressing, and spending quality time with my husband =), weeks are just kind of flying by! I am most assuredly not complaining - God is good and has given me many blessings and I am thankful to be kept busy =)

But anyways, onto one of our favorite things to make and eat (devour really) - homemade pizza! I have always been fond of thick and buttery crusts, but I understand there is certain limitations to making a healthy homemade pizza crust that maintains those qualities. So it was my wonderful husband who suggested going the opposite direction for our crusts, making them thin and crispy. I found a wonderful recipe online that has made this my new favorite type of crust =). This recipe uses whole wheat flour and is very versatile. For this pizza below, I threw in some rolled oats and flax seeds just to amp up the nutrition, and it still turned out great. The dough is very hard when you go to roll it out, but don't worry, it doesn't crack or break easily. I'm definitely not picky about the shape of our pizzas, so the edges are usually quite jagged =).

I also found an easy baba ganoush recipe with added chickpeas. The flavor was not near as strong as normal baba ganoush. It was more like hummus with some extra flavor! I put together this loaded baba ganoush pizza and stuck in the oven for fifteen minutes. As we took our first bites Nathan looked at me and said, "We eat good!" =) This is our favorite type of pizza so far and I'm sure once eggplant is on sale again we will be eating it again. The links are at the bottom of the page, Enjoy!

Yummy Baba Ganoush

Thin Crust Whole Wheat Pizza

Wow, this blogging thing is not for the faint-hearted =). I am forever impressed by those who update their sites weekly, even daily! I wish I was so disciplined. The recipes and pictures keep piling up, and I am definitely ready to share =). For instance, this homemade ketchup and vegetarian meatloaf was made a couple weeks ago, but that doesn't make it any less delicious =). I found the meatloaf recipe on (never) homemaker.com and the ketchup recipe on the blog deliciouswisdom. It was snowing the afternoon I made this and I was pleasantly surprised when I was called off work because of the weather. I would really recommend this ketchup recipe to anyone - it is so delicious. It filled our kitchen with its sweet tomato aroma and was lots of fun to make! Before I put the meatloaf into the oven I spread the ketchup all over the top and put the leftover in the fridge. I served the meatloaf with a sweet potato and kale side from my new Moosewood Cooking for Health cookbook. (It is wonderful =) ) Nathan and I both really enjoyed the meal, and we agreed that the ketchup added quite a lot. As usual, I left the links to the recipes at the bottom of this post. I hope that everyone has a blessed week, maybe soon my posts will not be so few and far between. =) Enjoy!

Vegetarian Meatloaf

Homemade Ketchup

I'm really excited to make these delightful crackers again =). They are not only delicious, but also fairly unconventional. There is no flour involved, and most of the cracker is made from brown rice and a seven grain mix. It was just really fun to mix these up, roll them out, and bake them at a low temp for forty minutes. I'm sure that you could add any type of seed, grain, or seasoning you like - there are many possibilities! =) I got this recipe from a real neat blog I found called (never home)maker. We tried both of the cracker types on the site, but I think I'm just going to make the sesame curry ones next time because they were my favorite =). I'll probably also add some flax seeds for extra nutrition. I hope everyone had a lovely christmas! God bless!

Healthy Brown Rice Crackers