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?

Brown Rice arroz con leche

Hey everyone!  I'm finally happy that the weather is so much warmer today. It's such a nice change from Friday. It was winter weather on Friday. 

Anyway, I told you guys I made brown rice arroz con leche. So, I'm going to give you guys my recipe. But, first, I have to tell you about my day. 

Well, I actually went to a neighbor's birthday party. It was pretty fun. We ate, did karaoke and ate chocolate ice cream cake. It was delicious! Karaoke was fun too, even though I didn't know most of the songs. Apparently, my musical taste is very different from other peoples. Anyway, I had a pretty busy weekend, as you see. The party was also an unplanned thing for the day. We didn't even know about the party until they told as today. As you see, some last minute things can be pretty fun. After the party, I decided to try making banana protein muffins. And, guess what! They're only 50 calories each. They taste good too. I'll post the recipe some other time. Anyway, here's the recipe for arroz con leche. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry brown rice
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon 
• 4 cups water
• 4 cups fat free milk
• 1/2  cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a pot, boil the water and the ground cinnamon. Then add in the rice. Cook uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
2.  Drain the rice. 
3. Add in the milk, sugar and vanilla extract. 
4. Bring it to a low boil and let it simmer for 30 to 45 min, stirring occasionally so the rice won't stick to the pot. 
5. If you like the rice cold, let it cool in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
6. If you like it warm, the mixture will be liquidity. 
7. Garnish with some ground cinnamon or fruit if you want. 
8. Enjoy

 Do you like arroz con leche?
Do you like hot or cold food?
Do you like karaoke?

Brown Rice Horchata (horchata de arroz integral)

íHola! How are you guys today? Estoy bien. Pero, no me gusta el clima hoy. Hace frío. Hice Horchata y arroz con leche hoy con arroz integral. Arroz integral es bueno para la salud. 
Translated: Hi! How are you guys today? I'm good. But, I don't like today's weather. It's cold. Today, I made horchata (rice milk) and arroz con leche (rice pudding) with brown rice. Rice is good for the health.
So, the weather is unusually cold for this time of year and I don't know why. It's strange.
Anyway, the reason why I made horchata and arroz on leche is that we have milk that needs to be used up. And, arroz con leche uses a lot of milk. I'll be posting that recipe later. Anyway, horchata is my favorite Mexican drink. I remember drinking it for the first time in May. It was rich, creamy and delicious! However, for the horchata I made, I had to improvise since I did not have cinnamon sticks. Instead, I had ground cinnamon. It still worked out fine. I also made it healthier by using skim milk. Anyway, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice/ 1 taza arroz integral
• 4 cups water/ 4 tazas agua
• 1 cup milk/ 1 taza leche
• 1/3 cup sugar/ 1/3 taza azucar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract/2 cucharaditas de extracto de vainilla
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon/ 2 cucharaditas de canela en polvo    

 Directions:

1. Combine the cinnamon with the rice. Soak in water for at least 8 hours. 
2. Mix in milk, sugar, and vanilla. Blend for 5 minutes.  
3. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Discard the remaining pulp. 
4. Pour into a pitcher. Refrigerate. 
5.   Now, you can pour into glass cups and enjoy. =)

So, do you guys like horchata or arroz con leche?
Do you like to healthify recipes? 

Dulce de leche

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I finally get to eat dulce de leche! I've been craving it so badly, especially eating it as alfajores. I haven't eaten them for a year a so and same with dulce de leche. It's so rich and sweet, but boy, does it taste so good. I finally made it a couple of days ago and I'm here to share the simple recipe with you.
It's simple because you don't have to use the stove top method with all it's separate ingredients. I tried that before, but it never thickened up to my liking. It tasted delicious though, but it took at least a couple hours, tons of gas for the stove top and a hot kitchen.
Anyway, here's the "recipe". It's so simple and the results are good. Eat it with toast, ice cream, apples, chocolate chip cookies or even make peanut butter dulce de leche sandwiches with them. Go make alfajores with them too, a great Argentine treat.

Ingredients:

• a can of sweetened condensed milk (you can use up to 2 cans in a slow cooker, if you would like more)
• a slow cooker
• water

 Directions:

1. Remove the label from the cans. 
2. Place the cans in the slow cooker. 
3. Fill the slow cooker up with water, making sure the water is at least 1/2 inch above the cans. I think I did 1 inch. 
4. Set it to low and let it sit there for 8 hours. Do 10 hours if you are using 2 cans. 
5. Take the cans out and let them cool before opening the cans. 
6. Enjoy. 
7. Take note that if you place the dulce de leche in the refrigerator, it will get thicker (which I like). You can place it there before using it. 

 So, do you guys like dulce de leche?
How do you usually eat it?

Guacamole

íHola everyone! Cómo están ustedes? Hice guacamole y es muy delicioso. Es muy rico. Yes. This guacamole is really yummy and rich. What's also good about this is that it's really healthy! It's really low in calories. It's around 40 calories for 2 tablespoons. That's barely 10 calories more than Trader Joe's. What's cool about this guacamole is that it's made with nonfat greek yogurt. It tastes great just the way it is.
I decided to make this because last weekend, I ate some Mexican food at Six Flags and then I started craving this. But, I wanted a healthy version of it. So, I decided to make this. Here's the recipe. I eat it with the naan I made and you can eat it with whatever you want.

Ingredients:

• 3 avocados
• 7 oz salsa verde
• 3/4 cup nonfat greek yogurt
• 1 lime, juiced
• garlic salt

Directions: 

1. Rinse the avocados. Cut it in half and then peel it out into a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients. 
2. Pulse it until it's a smooth paste. 
3. Enjoy. I ate it with naan and in sandwiches. 

 

Yea. I know the color i different, but it still tastes amazing. 

Do you guys like Mexican?

What's your favorite?