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Sunday, February 26, 2012

100 Calorie Whole Wheat Brownies

Hey everyone! How are you guys doing? I've been doing okay. I've just been stressed out with school. However, I did get my Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. Delicious!
Anyway, I made brownies this weekend! I love brownies. What's even better is that these brownies are a lot healthier. There's whole wheat and it's only 100 calories! My little brother hates it when I try to make desserts healthy, but he didn't even notice with these. He actually likes them.
These brownies are cake like brownies, but they're still really good. I guess if you want less cake like ones, add less liquid and don't add as much baking powder as I did. I just like mines really thick in size.
My uncle compared these to the Fiber One Brownies, which are 90 calories. He says that mines taste a lot better. :) He said for me to send them my recipe. He's funny. Anyway, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 cup cocoa powder*
  • 2 tsp baking powder (can use less if you want)
  • 2 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup fat free milk
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup water (optional)
*If you want to use 1 1/2 cup cocoa powder, you have to add the water. 

Directions: 
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
  2. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan and some cupcake pans. 
  3. In a bowl, combine the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar. 
  4. Next, mix in the wet ingredients. 
  5. First, pour the batter into 12 cupcake molds. Then, pour the rest into the baking pan. 
  6. Place the cupcakes on the bottom of the oven and the baking pan ones on top. Bake for about 30 minutes. Use the toothpick test to make sure it's cooked all the way through. 
  7. Cut the brownies into 24 squares. There should be a total of 35, including the cupcakes. This will make it 100 calories each. Enjoy. :)

















Saturday, February 18, 2012

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oat Bars

Hey everyone! How are you guys? I missed doing a Valentine's Day post. I'm so sorry about that. I've been busy.
Anyway, my week has been okay. Valentine's Day was just like any other day. The only thing different was that people brought all these balloons, teddy bears and what not just for the special day. It's crazy carrying it around school, but it's a really sweet thing.
Now, let's get back to baking. As you know, I love granola bars. LUNA bars, Clif Bars, Larabars, you name it. I guess I just like any kind of bars in general. So, I decided to look for a delicious, healthy bar recipe that uses simple ingredients that everyone has on hand. The sad thing is that, I didn't have any chocolate chips on hand to make chocolate chip bars, but, at least I had peanut butter, the next best thing. I also have tons of oatmeal. So, I decided to make Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oat Bars. You can add chocolate chips to it too. I will next time. Here's the recipe. Enjoy. :)

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 cup fat free milk 
  • 1  1/2  cup brown sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla or banana extract
  • chocolate chips (optional)
Directions: 
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
  2. Butter a 9 x 13 pan. Or, cover it with aluminium foil. 
  3. In a bowl, mix the peanut butter with the sugar. Mix in the vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the oats, flour and baking powder. 
  4. Mix the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture. 
  5. Mix it until combined. The dough should be crumbly. 
  6. Pour in the milk and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips. 
  7. Place the mixture into the pan and spread it evenly. 
  8. Bake it for about 30 minutes. 
  9. Take out, let it cool and then cut it into pieces. It will crumble if you cut it when it's hot. 
  10. Enjoy. 






Sunday, February 12, 2012

紅豆沙 Red Bean Soup

 I love eating anything red bean. I think I've said that before. So, I was so happy when my mom decided to make 紅豆沙, red bean soup, today. It's been a long time since I have eaten it. It's delicious.
I remember when I was younger, I used to not care for this dessert. I don't know what I was thinking. My mom would try to get me to eat it, but I refused. Now, it's my favorite. Red bean is awesome.
The restaurants make it a bit differently then my mom does, in that they don't add many nuts and beans and that stuff. Usually, restaurants just have the soup, red beans, rice and occasionally some weird pearl stuff. Theirs is also sweeter. I like mines sweet but not to sweet. Also, when my aunts make 紅豆沙, theirs is twice as sweet. Literally, since they add twice as much brown sugar pieces than my mom does. Me and my mom don't like it too sweet and it's also a bit unhealthy adding all of that sugar. So, if you guys like things sweet, you can add more sugar than stated in the recipe. Also, there are no exact measurements for this recipe. Enjoy.


Ingredients:

  • half a bag of red beans
  • 1/4 bag of mixed beans
  • 1/4 cup lotus seed
  • peanuts 
  • 1 cup rice (my mom uses Jasmine White Rice)
  • 1 bag Brown Sugar Pieces (Rock Sugar)
  • water



Directions: 
  1. In a large saucepot, combine all the ingredients EXCEPT for the brown sugar pieces. Rinse and rain them a few times. Then, let it sit in the water for half an hour to an hour. 
  2. Add water until the pot is almost full. Then, bring it to a boil. 
  3. Reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cooked uncovered for 1 1/2 hrs to 2 hrs. 
  4. Then, add in the brown sugar pieces. Stir until it melts. Taste the soup. If you like it sweeter, add another bag. 
  5. Enjoy. 




Friday, February 10, 2012

Quick Health Foods

Hey everyone. I have so many foods to tell you guys about. They are "healthier" packaged foods that you can eat while on the run. As you read on, you'll see that there's a "repeat" of the Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Cliff Bar. The reasoning is because the picture of the bars are a bit different, if you look closely. Anyway, enjoy the foods. 


 Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Cliff Bar: These bars were pretty good. There were enough chocolate chips and I definitely tasted the peanut. It kind of tasted like a really chewy oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip cookie.


The brown rice sushi is amazing. I got it from Costco. It really fills you up.
There is the sandwich thins that I love. 100% whole wheat and only 100 calories.
The Hawaiian rolls are delicious. It's good to indulge in white bread once in a while.


These taste like popcorn. Cheesy too. I like them, but they do make your breath smell.




 Boca burgers are my favorite. I always bake these for about 10 minutes at 350 F. They've vegan and they taste good. These are good if you want a veggie burger that can replace the regular beef patty.



These nuts tasted alright. They have protein, which is good. My favorites out of these are the chocolate covered soybeans and the pecans. I didn't like the almonds much though.


 These oatmeal squares weren't to shabby, but they have HFCS. Also, the white frosting tasted artificial. The bar itself was chewy, but sweet and had enough flavor. At least you get your whole grains from the oats.

 I love LUNA bars and I like peanut butter. These LUNA bars did the trick. I love the peanut butter taste and the chunks of peanuts it had inside. Right on.


 I love cinnamon rolls. I like my raisins too, but I don't want to eat all the fat and calories that come from cinnamon rolls with raisins in them. So, I decided to try this cinnamon swirl bread. It tasted decent for being packaged. There are a lot of raisins, which is a good thing, but the flavor was more in the middle section of the bread.


 The chocolate dipped coconut LUNA bar is one of my top two favorites for LUNA bars. It tastes amazing! It tastes like those Girl Scout cookies. The Samoas. My other favorite is White Chocolate Macadamia. But, for now, these "Samoa" Luna bars is my top favorite for LUNA bars.
The Activia yogurt is delicious. Strawberry, blueberry, vanilla, peach. All my favorite, as long as it's the light version.
Here's the repeat I was talking about earlier. Do you see the difference?

 These were decent. They actually tasted pretty good and were a lot sweeter than the Kashi trail mix bars. Especially because the bottom had a creamy thing that made it sweet.


 These are an old time favorite. Who can't go wrong with chewy bars, especially with Nick Jonas on them? ;)
 Sparking green tea? Infused with fruit? Amazing! I loved the taste.


 Comparing this to the other two "trail mix" bars I have tried before, it tastes the same. Pretty good though.
I love granola bars with fruit, nuts AND chocolate. Hopefully, I can find one with all 3.

 OMG! These just came out. They taste awesome! The sweetness of the honey with the salty pretzels make it to die for. Especially with the addition of peanuts. One of my top 4 for LUNA bars. Nutz over Chocolate is also on my top 4. Now, you guys know my top 4 LUNA bar flavors.
 These taste totally different from LUNA bars. Anyway, I like these too. I love the chocolate taste, though it's only at the bottom. You can really taste the peanut butter. This is a bit chewy though.



 As you can see, there is a Chocolate Chip Brownie  LARA bar, blueberries and a diet cherry coke. The first LARA bar flavor I ever tried was the Chocolate Chip cookie dough, and the dates overpowered the bar. So, I was hesitant to try this. However, I'm so happy that I did! These actually tasted like real brownies! Score. I also love how it's all natural ingredients.

I expected a lot from  this flavor, Caramel Nut Brownie LUNA bar. It did disappoint though. I mean, it was decent, but the flavor just seemed a bit off.

 So far, the Peanut Butter Chocolate LARA bar is my favorite flavor for LARA bars. It tasted like a chocolate peanut butter cookie! It was awesome!

I love the name, Fruit 2 O. Fruit water. It tasted alright. It can be better than drinking plain water. I liked it, but I liked the Green Tea better.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed my long review post.