WELCOME to my new and improved blog. I feel like this style of blog fits my personality and interests much better. I hope you enjoy the new format and let me know if you like to see anything changed 
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It has been a busy couple days… I have been working 11+ hour days, 9 hrs at work and couple hrs on this blog trying to get it to where I want it to be. Tonight I came home for a crazy day at work and decided to cook my dinner and Raymond’s, yes I made two completely separate dishes and baked Vegan-Gluten Free Banana Nut Muffins…. wooohooo and still have a lot of energy that I need to use up before I go to bed. So are you ready for some recipies?
For dinner I had;
Penne with Roasted Veggies
Ingredients:
- 1/2 Red Pepper
- 1/2 Green Pepper
- 2 Tomatoes
- 2 med Zucchini
- 10 Grape Tomatoes
- 5 baby Portabella Mushrooms
- 1 sm shallot
- 2 cloves of Garlic
- 4 oz Penne Pasta (measured dry)
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- Italian Seasoning
- Thyme
- Salt
- Parmesan Cheese
Cooking Direction: 2 Servings
- Cut Zucchini into small pieces, salt and let it sit while you cut other veggies
- Chop all veggies.
- Saute Shallot and garlic in 1 tbsp olive oil, add mushrooms and let it cook until soft
- Roast Zucchini in the oven for 10-15 (make sure it doesn’t burn) at 500°
- Toss the peppers in 1 tbsp of olive oil, Italian Seasoning and Thyme, add the pepper to the zucchini and let it broil at 500° until veggies are soft
- Cook pasta in boiled water per packaging directions
- Puree the tomatoes in Magic Bullet until completely liquefied, and then add to sauteed mushrooms
- In a bowl mix roasted veggies, mushroom tomato sauce and pasta
- Serve in a bowl and top with graded Parmesan cheese
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For Raymond I made,
Chicken with Roasted Potatoes, Steamed Veggies and Brown Rice
Ingredients:
- 1 cup brown rice
- 1 full chicken breast
- 1 cup small potatoes cut into quarters
-1/4 Broccoli crown
- 2 Carrots
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
- Italian Seasoning
- Thyme
Cooking Direction: 2 Servings
- Cook rice per packaging direction
- Season chicken with Italian seasoning and bake in the oven at @ 400° until the temperature inside of the chicken is at 165°
- Steam Potatoes until soft, but not too soft, in bowl mix steamed potato, olive oil, italian seasoning and thyme. Roast in the oven under broil at 500°
- Steam Broccoli and carrots
- Serve and enjoy
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Last but not least…. Vegan-Gluten Free Banana Nut Muffins
Ingredients:
- 2 cups White Rice Flour (or 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, if you are not worried about GLUTEN)
-1.5 tsp Baking Soda
- 0.5 tsp Salt
- 0.5 cup light Agave (or 0.5 – 1 cup sugar, depending how sweet you like it be)
- 0.5 cup grapeseed oil (or regualr vegetable oil, I used grapeseed oil since it is heart healthy)
- 0.5 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 0.5 cup Walnuts
- 0.25 cup Raisins
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- dash of Nutmeg
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
- 3 ripe Bananas
Baking Directions: Yields a Baker’s Dozen
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt together
- Mix agave (or sugar), oil, applesauce and vanilla together
- Slowly (couple spoons at a time) add the flour mixture to agave mixture, add walnuts and raisins. Make sure you don’t over mix
- Mash bananas in a separate bowl
- Fold in mashed bananas into the muffin mixture
- Bake for 25 min or until done
OH MY GOODNESS! These turned out AMAZING. I loved the rice flour in this mixture. Raymond thought it was a bit grainy but I loved the texture, it is really a personal preference. You can add a bit more applesauce if you like it really moist… to me it was just perfect.
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What do you think of the new blog?
