Wow, what a gorgeous morning! It was already sunny and warm when I started out for my early run. Four miles and a fruit salad with coconut, sunflower seeds, and natural peanut butter makes for a good start to the day =)

And I would now like to take a brief moment and address an incredible weakness I have for my favorite dessert ever.... chocolate brownies. It really doesn't matter whether they are a heavy- labored homemade batter, or straight from a discounted card board box, as long as they are warm and gooey, I can't stay away. So you can imagine how excited and yet slightly skeptical I was when I found this recipe for chickpea brownies on deliciouswisdom. These brownies were really easy to make and I must agree that they did not taste like beans in the slightest! Since I used very dark chocolate bars the brownies were equally dark and rich. I can't wait to make these again, enjoy!

Really Yummy Brownies

Nathan and I love our trailer. Its the perfect size for starting out, and besides some possibly dangerous wall outlets and an ever-increasing ant problem, it is a wonderful home. A couple of months ago, even though we had been living here since August, the entire house had not been "put together." So I turned my attention to the small room in our trailer where all things without a proper place end up. Everything from boxes of childhood keepsakes to extra groceries that don't fit in our cupboards or pantry, ended up in this tiny room. After a day of hard work (which was actually very enjoyable), the catch-all room became our new music room, and as soon as Nathan finds his power chord he will fill our trailer with his talented key board playing =)

Before:

After:

Hello =) Once again it has been an annoying amount of time between this post and the last, but I am confident that one day, when papers and exams no longer exist, I will be able to regularly update =). A couple of weeks ago I went on a type of brief detox (after a wonderful vacation filled with great meals and lots of dessert!!). For one week I had no animal products, no salted or sugared packaged goods (my natural peanut butter was an exception), and only whole grains and foods for the most part =). It was actually lots of fun and only difficult to maintain a couple of times.

Towards the end of my detox Nathan and I went out to eat to a really cool little place called BAM Healthy Cuisine. We decided to get the vegan pizza so I could enjoy it as well and it was probably one of the best we've ever had! There was tofu and blackened potatoes and grilled mushrooms.... and the crust was thin and crispy, which is our favorite type of crust. =).

So it was only a matter of time before Nathan and I decided to recreate this delicious meal in the comfort of our own home =).

So here are some yummy pictures.... crust+asparagus+sauce+broiled tofu+roasted potatoes+sauteed chickpeas, onions, and zucchini+spinach = probably our best pizza yet!

See our awesome pizza crust recipe here.

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