Chocolate peanut butter muffins

Oh my, I love how these muffins are smelling right now. I could eat peanut butter anytime! My favorite cookies around Christmas time is peanut butter cookies. I was thinking of peanut butter fudge last night. It was too late to make fudge, not to mention I don't think I had the ingredients. I do for these delicious muffins so I settled on making this recipe.

Recipe:
2 1/4 cups of flour
2/3 cups dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
6 tablespoons of melted butter
1/2 cup peanut butter, chunky or smooth
1 cup of milk
3/4 cup semi sweet chocolate, I used chopped, mini would be cute.

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk eggs, butter, peanut butter, and milk until combined. Add to dry ingredients and mix until almost incorporated and lightly fold in chocolate. Scoop batter into lined muffin tin. Bake in 375 degree Fahrenheit.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as we did!

June Menu and a Great Veggie Burger Recipe

It's hard to believe we've already reached the end of May - but the calendar rarely lies so here we are.  Our June Menu is pretty similar to last month's, but I did put the homemade lumpia I made on it (woohoo).  The only downside to lumpia is they are 6 points each - and it is impossible to stop at just one (I may or may not have eaten 4 before I looked at how many points they were - oops).   

The other thing I added were cheeseburgers/veggie burgers.  Eric doesn't like cheeseburgers, so for a long time they were my guilty pleasure when I went to restaurants.  However, he does like veggie burgers.  The problem is even though they sound healthy - a lot of the options in the stores have unnecessary ingredients (including caramel color - which is on Eric's "wont eat" list due to reports like this.).  So one day I suggested we make our own - and after looking at a few options we chose this recipe.

Veggie Patties:

Ingredients:
2 tbsps olive oil
3 tbsps diced red onion
2 tbsps diced black olives
2 tbsps diced red bell peppers
1 1/2 tbsps diced garlic
1/2 cup black beans, drained
1/2 cup chickpeas, drained
1/2 cup white beans, drained
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp minced fresh parsley leaves
1/2 tsp red chili flakes
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp ground sage
2 tbsps seasoned bread crumbs
1 egg

Combine the red onion, black olives, bell peppers and garlic (Instead of chopping each thing individually, I guessed the amount for each item and used the food processor to dice them).  Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and saute the veggies.  Remove from heat and place in a large bowl.

Add all of the beans to the food processor and pulse to the consistency desired (your choice how chunky you want your patties).  You can either add the oats to the beans and pulse, or leave them whole and add after they are done.  Mix the beans, oats, bread crumbs and herbs with the cool veggies.  Add the egg and combine thoroughly.  Form 4 patties and place in refridgerator for 30 min.

Heat remaining oil (plus more if you want/need), and cook the patties until browned on both sides.  Serve immediately.
 
The first time I made them, I followed the instructions and didn't mash the beans.  Eric liked them, but they were super crumbly.  So the second time I made them, I put them in the food processor and they were a lot more like a patty.  I think I might even be able to put them on the BBQ this summer. 

Also, I think I will add the jalapeno's the next time I make them, which wont be for awhile.  After I tried the recipe and got 4 patties, I had tons of beans left (I had to buy cans for all of them and it only called for about 1/3-1/4 of each can).  So I made the recipe again and tripled all of the ingredients - I now have about 12 patties in my freezer for future use :) 

At this point you might be wondering - where's the picture that will make me want to make these right now?  Well, I forgot to take pictures of the first time I made these - then I made them a second time to take pictures (which I still forgot to do!) and now I have kind of been banned from making them until I either find my sandwich grill, buy a new BBQ or have a ventilation system installed.  Since I was only making one patty last time the pan had a lot of unused space, and it took longer to cook because it was frozen, and the oil kind of smoked a lot, and we don't have a fan over the stove (unfinished kitchen, remember?) and Eric's office kind of filled up with smoke since it is upstairs...so yeah I wont be making these for at least a few weeks.  Go ahead and laugh - it's okay.

If you would like to see a picture - follow the link above. Trust me, if you like veggie burgers this is a great recipe to try!!

Homemade Pancake Syrup

I keep forgetting to buy our favorite pancake syrup, so I have been putting butter and jam on pancakes and french toast. It's really good, but I sure do love my pancake syrup! For the longest time I was using Mrs. Butterworth's - I knew it wasn't very good for us so I switched to Real Maple Syrup. I really didn't like it, I felt like I was licking a sweet tree! I finally found plain ol' pancake syrup at Trader Joe's and it is so good! However, I have shopped there a couple times and still forgot to pick some up. I thought surely there would be a recipe - so I went on a search and there are so many kinds. I like simple (not just because it's easy, but because I like the flavor of simple). When you throw too many flavors in, you forget what you're eating. This recipe is as simple as it gets.

Recipe:
1 cup of water
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 cup of brown sugar (I used dark, yum)

Flavor:
1 1/2-2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of maple flavor extract (this is so good) optional

That's it!

Put the sugar and water in a sauce pan, stir to combine. Bring mixture to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Take the mixture off immediately, or it will crystallize later on.*. Whisk to add flavor(s) and let cool. Store on shelf.

*You will have to heat it up every time you want some to break up the sugar crystals. Warm syrup sounds great but sometimes we just don't have time!

You can play with the flavors. Next time I think I'm going to swap out the flavor amounts. I really like the maple flavoring. Isn't that funny! I love maple ice cream and maple baked goods but not actual maple syrup!

I hope you enjoy!

Jogging?!



Aren't these cute?  Their Felicia's!  (Thank you for the picture save!)

Yep - jogging...I never thought I would find the energy/motivation to be a jogger - not that I think I am yet, but I'm getting there!  I think it was really the combination of several things happening around the same time which came together  - the 'perfect storm' if you will - I have been slowly increasing the amount that I walk over the last few weeks, I REALLY, REALLY want to lose weight by January, and we got new neighbors.  That last reason seems a little weird, but it was actually the one that convinced me to start jogging.  How you might ask - our new neighbors (and new friends) and Eric all jog, but I don't  didn't.  I know it's all in my head, but I felt like the odd man out :).  Most nights after work Michelle & I go walking, and sometimes the guys will go jogging together.  After a few weeks of walking, I decided that as long as we started slow, I would like to start jogging a few nights a week.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to do it long term (and I still don't) but I have gone on 3 jogs and I can still walk - so yay for me!  Now, don't think I just go out there and jog the whole time - there are a lot of walking breaks in-between the jogging - but I am trying to jog a little further and rest a little less each time.  Yesterday I did 2.5 miles of jogging on gravel with (smallish) hills and made it in around 35 min (I forgot to stop my tracker) - which works out to around a 14 min mile.  My goal is to make it to a steady 10 min mile.  Michelle is a great jogging partner because she is enough better than me to challenge me, but not make me feel like I am holding her back!  (She does a lot of circling back to me lol)  

Also, I lost 2 pounds in the last week since I started jogging - let's hope that keeps up! :)  Now I just have to figure out how to stop eating...

Have a great week!

      

Roast Beef Sandwiches..Yes Please

Oh my does it smell good in my house. I made a slow cooker roast beef. Using a 4 pound roast and 6 cups of water it sure does make a lot of meat and Au Jus. I will have to seal it in bags and freeze the extra. I remember my mom making the most delicious roast beef sandwiches. She would get the packets of Au Jus and roast beef from the deli. She would toast the hoagie buns with butter then make the sauce and when she was ready to assemble she would drop the roast beef in the sauce and then right back out and onto the toasted bun. She would serve it with Au Jus and cole slaw. It was so delicious. I think if I asked my mother for every tasty recipe she's made for me I would probably have a cookbook! But of course - they are all in her head. I'm slowly getting them out of her. She's still making great things! I could go on and on. Let's get back to the recipe. Like I said it's made in a slow cooker so it's super easy to make.

I got the recipe from here.

4 pounds of beef roast (I went for marbled roast, I like the flavor it gives.)
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs of rosemary (or 1 tablespoon of dried)
1 sweet onion quartered
1 tablespoon of minced garlic (I used freeze dried, worked great)
1 cup of soy sauce
6 cups of water

Place your roast in the slow cooker. Bundle with twine or if you have an infuser like this (I use it in my beef stew too) you can stuff your bay leaf and rosemary in this and put it next to the roast. Next add onion, garlic, soy sauce and water. Set your slow cooker for slow 8-10 hours.

When it's done cooking pull the meat out and shred. Discard the herbs and onions and strain the Au Jus. We like toasted rolls. I have toasted grilled cheese with mayonnaise on the outside before so I thought I would try that here. It's so tasty! I top the rolls with the shredded meat and drizzled a little of the Au Jus on top. I served it with salad. The link above suggest peppers and cheese. I'm positive that would be tasty. I might do that with the leftovers. This time I needed some memory comfort food.

I sure hope you like it as much we do!