Black Bean Salsa Quinoa and Super Healthy Banana Oat Cookies

Before I starting off this post, I want to say Happy National Peanut Butter Day! I love peanut butter. It's delicious, especially on sandwiches or with bananas. I even ate a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast today. It's full of protein and has heart healthy fats in it. Just make sure to choose the kind that have no trans fat!
Anyway, back to what I originally wanted to talk about. So, yesterday, I said that I'd be posting a quinoa recipe. Well, here it is (I'm also posting a super healthy cookie recipe). It's Mexican inspired because, of course, the salsa. I love salsa.  Just make sure that the salsa is lower in sodium than the other brands and that you can actually read and understand what ingredients are in it, meaning, make sure it's just plain regular ingredients you know. You can also make your own salsa instead of buying it from the store! Anyway, here's this delicious recipe.

Servings: 4
Calories: ~260 calories
Protein: ~ 11 grams of protein

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 can 15 oz black beans, drained 

Directions:

1. Cook the quinoa with the water. 
2. Once the quinoa is done cooking, mix in the salsa and black beans. Make sure the black beans have no salt added or low sodium. Even though draining and rinsing the beans removes some of the salt, it's better that it says low sodium or no salt added. 
3. Serve and enjoy. 

If you guys want to make it non-vegan, you can add 1 cup of shredded cheese and some cut up cooked chicken breast. It'll up the protein a lot. For vegans, you can add tofu or non-meat protein you want. 

Super Healthy Banana Oat Cookie Recipe

So, this recipe is from blogilates. Cassey, the creater of blogilates, created this recipe and it's alright. I have a similar recipe on my blog that I like better. Here's the link

These cookies were a bit dry but I guess it's because I used a smaller banana. Anyway, here's the recipe. 

Servings: 12

Calories: ~44

The entire recipe has 530 calories. 

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 1 cup oats
• 1/3 cup craisins

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
2. Mash the banana and the oats together. 
3. Mix in the craisins. 
4. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and place on a baking pan. 
5. Bake for 10 minutes. Enjoy. 

They are really healthy and filling. You guys might enjoy it (along with adding dark chocolate chips to it!). 

And, now I have one more food review. It's the LaraBar Chocolate Coconut Chew. 

Texture wise, it's like any other larabar. I like how it had real pieces of walnuts in it. The downside of this bar is that it barely had any sweetness to it. It was a bit bitter and I barely tasted any coconut. I did taste the walnuts though. Not my favorite. But, I would choose this over the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor. 

What types of food do you guys like? 

Have you tried quinoa before?

Quinoa Sushi Salad and Elf 4 Health Recap

Hola, todos.

How has your guy's weekend been? Mines have been alright. The weather has been cold and a bit rainy but I started off today with a run around the creek with my parents. It was really nice. And yesterday,  I went shopping and bought a new sweater. I also bought a Gingerbread Latte (soymilk, no whipped cream) from Starbucks. It was delicious! It seriously tasted like a Gingerbread cookie. It's my favorite!

What I also did  yesterday was make Quinoa Sushi Salad. I adapted the recipe from the blog Making Good Choices.  I didn't have any seaweed at home, so I decided to make it into a salad. It tastes pretty good. Here's how it looks:

I would have added avocado and other things like carrots but I didn't have any at home. This still tastes pretty good though. Here's the recipe.

Serving: 4

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon mirin
• 1 tsp salt
• fake crab meat

Directions:

1. Cook the quinoa with the water. Wait until it boils and then cook it on low for 15 minutes. 
2. In a bowl, mix together the vinegar, sugar, mirin and salt. 
3. Pour the cooked quinoa into a large bowl. Pour in the vinegar mixture. 
4. Cut up the fake crab meat and mix it in with the rice. 
5. Serve and enjoy. 

Now that I've given you guys the recipe, it's time for the Elf 4 Health Recap!

Monday was tracking my water intake. It was so hard to track because I've been so thirsty lately. I just keep drinking water and other liquid beverages. I also had finals that day. I know for sure I drank at least 100 oz of water.

Tuesday was clean out your fridge and pantry. I looked through everything and I found some items I forgot I had. I found some canned cut sweet potatoes and some protein powder. I've yet to eat the potatoes but I did make some cookies with the protein powder. I also talked to my Elf Arlene, who helped me stay on my meal plan. I also helped her with her Atkins diet.

Wednesday was eating veggies at every meal. That was easy.

Thursday was buying a Pay it Forward Day, meaning, we paid for the coffee for the person behind us. I was unable to do that until yesterday.

Friday was workout with a buddy. I did some stretching with my brother on Friday, but I ran with my parents today. At Friday at work, people were in the festive mood. I ended up eating a Gingerbread Man cookie since my co-workers insisted. I love Gingerbread man cookies, but I didn't want to mess up my meal plan. But then, I remember my Elf, Arlene, say "One and done." So, I only ate one cookie, but I couldn't stop myself from eating Hershey's Peppermint Kisses. They're so addicting!

 I ate the head off first! My co-worker told me to do that because he did that. Hey. That's how you feel the less pain, right?

The weekend (Saturday) is to donate to a holiday charity. I donated a few canned goods.

I'm really liking this Elf 4 Health Challenge. Here's the link to Lindsay's blog post about Elf 4 Health, who is directing this with Elle.

I do have food reviews, but that'll be for my next post.

What's your favorite Starbucks drink?
Are you a coffee person?
What's your favorite holiday food?