Blueberry Morning

Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes with Dark Chocolate Berry Soft Serve 

For some reason this weekend I was itching to do some baking. These days I normally hate to bake.

The funny thing is that baking is how it all started for me. I've heard the story a zillion times: Dad sleeping, mom and siblings out, me smiling sweetly asking daddddyyy can I do an speriment? answered with a grunt. My three year old self dashes to the kitchen-- grabbing butter, sugar, flour, maybe a few eggs: starting my very first baking venture.

This was followed with mint cakes dyed green (my sister and brother forced a bite down, eyeing the other with helpless expressions of concern and worry), endless chocolate chip cookies, friends spending the night and instead of watching our non-existent cable getting busy in the kitchen: cream cheese brownies, 3 layer chocolate cake, strawberry pie, pumpkin muffins...I could go on forever. I loved baking from age 3 to probably 20.

 During my second year of college I moved into a house with a kitchen (no more dorm living! thank goodness) and this is when I found my real love for cooking. No need to measure, mix exactly right and if it doesn't taste quite right add a few more spices and you'll be somewhere just as good--if not at the exact place the recipe had in mind. This is when my love affair with baking ended. Who wants to spend so much time going back and forth from the computer to make sure the measurements are right: this much vanilla, flour and sugar?

So this weekend started with a full forced memory of why I still hate baking. Yesterday afternoon I decided to try out a Black Bean Brownie Recipe. And, yes that sounds gross, but I've heard so much about them I wanted to try it out. I looked around and combined a few recipes, but mainly followed one pretty closely. However, I just couldn't bring myself to add 2 1/2 cups of sugar. So, I cut the sugar in half, added extra cocoa to make it dark chocolate, added coconut and almonds to make it a Dark Chocolate Almond Joy Brownie. Well as good as it sounds, GROSS. And, the worst part is that I made them in mini-muffin tins and I kept trying them because I thought surely this one will taste better? No..well maybe this one? 1000s of calories later, a tummy-ache and lost of wasted ingredients I threw them all away. Wasteful, yes, but much better than keeping them around and making myself sick.

Black Bean Brownies in Trash

So this morning to redeem myself I woke up wanting to try again. I decided to make some Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes served with Dark Chocolate Banana-Berry Soft Serve. DELICIOUS! They were filling and perfect for a beautiful Saturday morning. If you've never tried making Banana Soft Serve, you must. It is a great ice cream replacement. I made extra today, popped it in the freezer and in hopes that it will keep me from buying the $5 coconut ice cream this week.



The rest of the day was spent cleaning house and getting organized. The biggest change was in the screened in porch, so I will show the before and after of this room only. As things throughout the house get better I will keep sharing! (Some rooms I forgot to take before pictures though, but just imagine great house with lots of dust and a dark color scheme.)

Glass Castle: Before

After: And Don't Ask How I moved the Swing or Table Alone..I just did.

I ended the day with yoga: 40 people, 105 degrees and lots of sweat...I needed a smoothie for dinner and fast! Delicious Summer Melon Smoothie to replenish and replace those electrolytes: 10g Protein, 8g Fiber, 108% of VitA, 62% VitC, 32% Calcium, 10% Iron and 23% Potassium. 

Summer Melon Smoothie

Summer Melon Smoothie:

• 1/4 cantaloupe 
• 1 nectarine
• 1/2 cup almond milk, unsweetened
• 1/2 cup coconut water
• 1 t agave nectar
• 2 cinnamon 
• Ice