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Recipe ReDux: Citrus Chia Pudding
A Spirited ReDux: From plain Jane vanilla extract to fancy-pants elderflower liqueur, we like to keep a little liquor in the kitchen. Show us how you like to cook, bake or mix-it-up with spirits, extracts and other alcohols. A splash of vodka makes summer sauces shine – and liqueurs brighten desserts: What’s your healthy recipe with spirit?
I’m about 1/3 of the way through with moving to a neighboring state right now, so all my kitchen utensils, ingredients, etc. are partially here and partially there. I’ve actually been surviving on fruit, smoothies, free lunches from orientation (+ leftovers from said orientation lunches), and protein bars for the past 1.5 weeks, because…not only am I in the middle of a move–I also happened to lose my wallet somewhere in the mess, so I have no credit cards/debit cards to speak of (they’re in transit, I hope)! Yayyy… My new location actually has my bank in the state! There’s only 1 branch (which is still an improvement from none), but it’s 5 hours away, so clearly, I’m not going there. Life has been interesting.
Before all of this happened, I had these grand aspirations to unearth the super awesome vanilla extract I obtained from my medical service trip to the Dominican Republic, but that’s…somewhere in the basement(?) at the moment. (Using the shaoxing cooking wine I managed to find at the local(!) Asian market was also a thought, but I’m not sure that counts as a liquor since it’s wine? …Can you tell that I don’t drink?)
Anyway, this is what I came up with yesterday night when I finally got back to location #1. This is more on the tart side of the spectrum, so feel free to sweeten with honey, agave nectar, maple syrup…whatever your choice of sweetener happens to be! :]
Citrus Chia Pudding
Ingredients:
-1/4 cup chia seeds
-2/3 cup orange juice
-1/2 tsp orange extract
-1/2 tsp pineapple extract
-fresh or frozen fruit, diced (optional; I used cherries + blueberries)
Instructions:
1) Pour chia seeds into a cup or bowl.
2) Stir together the orange juice, orange and pineapple extracts. Pour over chia seeds and stir well. Cover and refrigerate overnight (or at least wait for it to soak for ~30 minutes!).
3) Top with fruit and mix!
As the first and only recipe challenge founded by registered dietitians, The Recipe ReDux aims to inspire the food lover in every healthy eater and inspire the healthy eater in every food lover. Thank you for visiting. We hope you enjoy!
(Please note that this is a closed link-up for Recipe ReDux Contest entries only. Any links added to this collection for non-ReDux posts will be deleted.)
Apple Butter Yogurt Cheesecake
This is another one of my let’s-clean-out-my-fridge-before-I-move-out recipes, and conveniently happened to fall in time to celebrate a friend’s birthday. :D Recipe adapted from here! I made this about 1.5 months ago, but it feels like it’s been several decades. Funny what a life of studying and nothing (no need to get dramatic here, Farrah!) little else will do to you! :O
Apple Butter Yogurt Cheesecake
Ingredients:
-1 package light cream cheese at room temperature (you need it at room temp to have the right consistency!)
-2 tbsp unsweetened vanilla almond milk
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-2/3 cup 0% Fage Greek yogurt
1/4 cup apple butter
-12 vanilla wafer cookies
(Topping)
-crumbled coconut bars
Instructions:
1) Put cream cheese, milk and vanilla in a blender and blend/beat until very smooth. Add yogurt and apple butter and blend/beat until smooth.
2) Put vanilla cookies into a food processor/high power blender and process until they’re fine crumbs. (If you have a lot of anger in you/no food processor, you can stuff em’ in a ziplock bag and beat them with a rolling pin.)
3) Pour cookie crumbs onto 8″ pan and spread evenly over the bottom.
4) Top the cookie crumbs with even portions of the cheesecake filling and smooth it over with the back of a spoon.
5) Sprinkle crumbled coconut bars over the top and let chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. (I kinda wanted to stick it in the freezer for an hour to see how it’d turn out, but there was no space. If anyone tries that, please let me know how it goes!)
We stuck an umbrella on it to make it extra-fancy.
This was a DDT Featured Favorite! :]!
And lately, because no post is complete without some kind of randomness. Here’s one of my daily pop quizzes from my friend! She usually writes them on my whiteboard, but was out of town to take her exam, so she emailed it to me instead, telling me to be sure to answer it before 10:30 a.m. As it turned out, we weren’t allowed in the building because the fire alarm went off (thanks, we really needed that ;_; ), and I am slightly ashamed to admit that I was so intent on getting back into the catacombs to study that I completely tuned out and didn’t even realize the fire alarm was going off. -1 for survival skills. :[
- Carpal tunnel syndrome, effed up median nerve, Phalen’s & Tinnel’s (or nerve conduction study)! If it’s not treated, more pain/numbness/tingling down lateral side of forearm/hand, atrophy of the thenar eminence, possibly double crush if shit really goes down.
- Large intestine stuffs, small intestine(?), and I’m sure I’m forgetting one of the sexy-time parts but I haven’t gone over the levels since the OPP final. :x will look at it today! Dry and ropy would be chronic, but if there’s edema and erythema at L2, I’d go with acute and more large intestine-y or prostate-y stuffs.
- Pons houses CN 5, 6, 7 and 8, so you’d have effed up sensation to the face, facial expressions, loss of taste to anterior 2/3 of tongue, maybe some vertigo and hearing issues.
I WOULD STILL STUDY BECAUSE ‘TIS MERELY A FLESH WOUND; I must fight on!
The internet is being shitty, so I’m waiting for the meme to load still.
Have a safe trip, an awesomely relaxing day, and you shall kick all the butts tomorrow!!! <3!
In case you wanted to know what the meme was. heh heh heh.
Recipe ReDux: Matcha Ice Cream
May 2014’s theme is…
Cooking with Tea: Tea cups around the world are bubbling up with bold new flavors: From cardamom chai and sencha green to bubble teas and veggie teas. We wish we could attend the World Tea Expo the end of this month – but in lieu of a plane ticket, we’ll be cooking and baking and stirring up tea-inspired healthy dishes.
So I realize that this may not look the most appetizing, but I’d been lusting after green tea ice cream for ages. (This theme could not have come at a more appropriate time. :O ) Unfortunately, I happen to live in the middle of nowhere, and the closest Trader Joe’s is approximately 2.5 hours away. (Let’s not talk about how far away the closest extensive Asian market it, or I’ll just sink into a deeper depression.) As such, on my super-quick “vacation” back to California, my friends and I gathered to make matcha ice cream. The picture at the end of this post is probably going to convince you that I do not in fact have any friends, but…I swear they exist.
This recipe is super, super simple and highly versatile. Our particular version only called for 3 ingredients, but you can change it up by throwing in all sorts of variations (e.g. frozen berries, frozen mangoes, soy milk, almond milk, avocado…).
Matcha Ice Cream
Ingredients:
-1 cup chopped + frozen bananas
-1 tsp matcha powder
-1/4 cup light coconut milk (you can use whatever kind of milk you prefer)
Instructions:
1) Blend in blender.
2) (As my friend puts it…) BAM. YOU HAVE DELICIOUSNESS.
We cooked up a feast–sushi burritos, a trough of turkey, greek yogurt mashed potatoes, gluten-free crackers with hazelnut bean dip + cucumber greek yogurt dip, steamed broccoli…
As the first and only recipe challenge founded by registered dietitians, The Recipe ReDux aims to inspire the food lover in every healthy eater and inspire the healthy eater in every food lover. Thank you for visiting. We hope you enjoy!
(Please note that this is a closed link-up for Recipe ReDux Contest entries only. Any links added to this collection for non-ReDux posts will be deleted.)
Banana Pudding
I had a box of reduced fat vanilla wafer cookies that I got for 59 cents some time ago, so I decided to make banana pudding to go along with it! I’ve been contributing to church potlucks in an effort to be less of a freeloader and also so I can empty out my apartment a little more speedily.
Banana Pudding
Ingredients:
-2 12.3 oz boxes of organic firm Mori-Nu tofu
-4 ripe bananas, mashed
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-4 tbsp coconut butter, melted
-dash of salt
Instructions:
1) Melt the coconut butter and blend everything together in a food processor or blender.
2) Add milk of choice if you want a thinner pudding consistency!
3) Serve with vanilla wafer cookies!
No-Bake Coconut Bars
Historically speaking, I haven’t had the chance to spend actual-Mother’s Day with my mom in many years (hooray for attending a school that’s across the country), but on the plus side, we did get to go out for food last week as an early celebration of sorts, and I got to call and talk to her yesterday (after I’d waited long enough to be sure that she was most likely awake; hello time zones). <3
I spent yesterday here with my “adopted mom.” (I think I’ve been ridiculously blessed in that I have really amazing people in my life, many of whom I’ve pretty much adopted as second families.) :] My original plan had actually been to treat her to brunch or dinner, but before I could ask, she intercepted with the very reasonable statement that there were lines everywhere and asked if I wanted to have huevos rancheros for breakfast. (Yes, yes I did. But now what was I gonna do? :[ )
My friend had already picked up flowers and wine for her, and since I knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of sweets, but loved coconut, I decided to make some coconut-y dessert. I was majorly pressed for time though since I’d studied most of the day away. There were a number of amazing-looking recipes, but many of them required baking, soaking things overnight, chilling for several hours…and let’s face it, ain’t nobody got time for that when it’s already 6 p.m. and dinner’s at 7:30 (+ you need to fit a grocery trip in there somehow). :O
So I did an adaptation of this! I brought along gelato (caramel cookie crunch!) just in case it didn’t turn out the way I hoped, but everything worked out quite well. :] If you don’t have 2 hours to let it sit in the fridge, you can stuff it in the freezer for 25 minutes like I did (and spend those 25-30 minutes folding/putting away clothes, washing dishes and speed-cleaning the apartment).
No-Bake Coconut Bars
~104 calories, 13g CHO’s, 5g fat, 3g protein, 2g fiber, 25mg sodium!
Ingredients:
-2 cups rolled oats
-4 tbsp sweetened coconut flakes + some more for topping
-1/4 cup Peanut Butter & Co. White Chocolate Wonderful
-1/4 cup natural almond butter
-1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
-2 tbsp honey
-1 tbsp hot chocolate powder
-1/2 tsp vanilla
-sprinkle of sea salt
Instructions:
1) Combine oatmeal + shredded coconut in a mixing bowl and set aside.
2) Combine peanut butter, almond butter, almond milk, honey and hot chocolate powder in a sauce pan. Cook on medium heat while stirring until well combined. Heat until mixture is fragrant + thickened (~5 minutes).
3) Turn off stove + stir in vanilla and sprinkle in some sea salt.
4) Pour mixture into oatmeal mixture and mix until well combined.
5) Pour into non-stick baking dish and press down until evenly distributed. Sprinkle with extra coconut.
6) Let sit in fridge for 2 hours, or in the freezer for 25-30 minutes.
fairyburger 