Cinnamon Quinoa Bake

It seems like I am always rushing to work and I don't have time to make breakfast, so I resort to the same couple of grab and go items everyday, which is getting really boring.  I've seen a lot of pins that say make this on Sunday and have breakfast for the whole week.  Sounds amazing, right?  So, I decided to try one of those recipes

 

Here's the Pin description:
Chowing down a big bowl of quinoa is a satisfying and delicious way to de-bloat. Not only is quinoa protein-packed and rich in fiber, but it's also chock-full of potassium! If you want to mix up your typical bowl of quinoa in an oatmeal setting, then opt for this creative spin that has metabolism-boosting properties. A cinnamon quinoa bake is a sweet, protein-packed treat to start off your day.

Here's the description of the recipe from POPSUGAR:
This sweet take on quinoa is perfect for breakfast or a midmorning snack. It's even better with a dollop of nut butter and a cup of tea!  Recipe from Gabby's Gluten-Free
  

Ingredients you need: 

2 1/2 cups quinoa, cooked and cooled
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup vanilla soy milk
1/3 cup maple syrup (optional) (I left this out since I don't like maple syrup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF and place the quinoa in a large mixing bowl. Line an 8-by-8-inch baking pan with lightly greased parchment.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, soy milk, vanilla extract, and cinnamon until thoroughly combined. Add maple syrup (if using) and whisk.

 

3. Add egg mixture to cooked and cooled quinoa. Stir with a large spoon to combine. Pour into the parchment-lined baking dish and spread it around to ensure that it’s even.

  

4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until set and golden.

  

5. Using parchment, remove bake from pan as soon as possible so that it doesn’t steam.

 

6. Cool completely and cut into squares. Serve with a dollop of nut butter. I put Trader Joe's cookie butter on it!

 

The bake tasted good, but was not sweet enough, probably because I opted to skip the 1/3 cup of maple syrup.  I added the cookie butter rather than peanut or almond butter to add some sweetness, and it worked.  I want to try it again with some agave syrup in the batter to sweeten it up. 

Bottom Line: LOVED IT! 

Zebra Striped Cake

One of my best friends, Megan, loves zebra print everything, so when I stumbled across this pin to make a zebra striped cake, I knew this was totally happening for her birthday!  Here's the site the pin lead to, and here's the site with the detailed description on how to make zebra stripes.

First step, make the cake batter. The tutorial page said they used Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake and Duncan Hines French Vanilla.

We chose these because they don’t have pudding in the mix (like Pillsbury & Betty Crocker, which can be a little thick for this project–although I love them for anything else). We made slight changes to the box directions: French Vanilla Cake– We used 1 cup plus 3 Tablespoons Water rather than the 1 cup that it calls for. Devil’s Food- We used the box directions, no changes

I chose to make my cake from scratch.  Here's their advice for that:
 
As a side note, if you would like to try this cake with a scratch recipe, you can choose your favorite white or yellow cake recipe and then divide it approx. in half– you can stir approx 3 tablespoons or so of dutch processed cocoa powder into one of your bowls of batter to create chocolate batter.

Here's the recipe I used.  I read the recipe on the unsweetened cocoa powder box for a chocolate cake said to use 3/4 cup of cocoa powder.   I gradually added the cocoa powder and tested the batter.  I ended up using the whole 3/4 cup.  

Here's my finished batters:

 

Then...

We started by dropping 1/4 cup of vanilla batter into the middle of our 8″ pan.  It will spread a little bit. Then...Measure out a 1/4 cup of chocolate batter and pour it in the center of your vanilla batter. Repeat this process, continuing with 1/4 cup scoops of alternating flavors, each flavor of batter dropped into the center of the previous circle of batter. The batter is thin enough that it does not take long at all for the batter to spread out a little bit.

My cake batter was too thick:

 

I added 1/4 cup more of milk, and it started spreading better...but not well enough.  Looks like I need to use thinner batter to make this work better:

Time to bake the cake.  This was how it turned out.  I was really nervous to cut into it...

But, it came out with stripes and the birthday girl loved it: 

 

My cake's stripes were thicker than the picture from the tutorial, but it still looked cool.  Maybe using 1/8 of a cup of batter at a time would have been better since my batter was on the thick side.

Overall, it was a success.  It was definitely time consuming to make two batters and layer them, and it was frustrating since my batter was thick, but it worked!  The cake itself tasted great, and would be a great cake to make for an occasion instead of using a box mix that contains trans fat.

Bottom Line: LOVED IT!

Crescent Pizza Rolls

If you read my blog, you can tell what my favorite foods are...one of them being pizza! Here's another pizza recipe I stumbled upon on Pinterest and tried. 

You only need 5 ingredients: 

1 can refrigerated crescent rolls (I used Walmart brand since they contain NO trans-fat!)

40 slices turkey pepperoni (but any kind of pepperoni would work)

4 pieces of mozzarella string cheese, cut in half

garlic powder

pizza sauce

And it's super easy to assemble:
Unroll crescent rolls and separate into 8 triangles.  Place 5 slices of turkey pepperoni on each crescent roll.  Top pepperoni with string cheese half and roll up.

 All rolled up:

Then,
Sprinkle crescent rolls with garlic powder.  Place rolls on baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.  Serve with a side of warm pizza sauce.

Here's my finished product.  The cheese was a little messy:

 

 So, next time I know not to put the cheese too close to the edge and to fold the sides up after rolling! I guess I missed that little technique.  

These rolls are not only super easy to make, but super tasty.  I love pizza so anything with bread, cheese, and sauce is usually okay in my book.  The one complaint I have is that there's a lot of bread and not enough filling, so next time I would try to either put more cheese and/or turkey pepperoni.  

Bottom Line: LOVED IT!