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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Healthier Red Velvet Pancakes and my week

I love red velvet cake. Don't you? They're so delicious, especially since there's that hint of chocolate with it. I love chocolate.
Yes, I've made red velvet cake before, a long time ago. But, I never took pictures of it because it was my first time. My classmates actually liked it and said it's hard to make red velvet cake taste good. I was surprised. I'll post my recipe once I make it again and take pictures of it. I just never got around making it again since my family prefers ice cream cake.
Anyway, I've been having cravings for red velvet cake but I knew that I couldn't make the whole cake. Also, it's so unhealthy! So, I decided to make these healthier red velvet pancakes. They're quite delicious (but a little high in sugar). The finished pancakes are a bit sticky but that's how they are. I like that kind of texture. If not, then you can just reduce the greek yogurt and add more almond milk. Also, you can bake these if you don't like to make pancakes with them. They'll be like red velvet cupcakes but a bit sticky. A picture of the cupcakes are posted below the recipe. So, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1 1/2 cup greek yogurt
  • 1 egg
  • 2 or 3 drops red food coloring
  • a dash of salt
Directions:
  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt. 
  2. Mix in all the wet ingredients. 
  3. Heat a non-stick skillet and spray with cooking spray (such as PAM or something like that). Mine is the olive oil spray. You can use butter as well, if you like the taste of butter. 
  4. Take about 1/4 cup of the mixture and pour it onto the skillet, pan or whatever you are using to cook the pancakes. Once bubbles start to form, flip the pancakes. I warn you, it will be a bit hard to flip them. 
  5. Cook on that side for about 1 minute and the pancakes are done. 
  6. Serve and enjoy!
  7. If you would like to bake these instead, then pour the batter into the cupcake tins and bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. 
  8. They will deflate once you take them out. Let them cool and enjoy! They will stick to the paper liners (if you're using them). I highly suggest you spray the tins with cooking spray so that it won't stick to the tins. 









 I hope you guys enjoy these pancakes or cupcakes. 

So, my week has been quite busy! Here's what I've done this week. For one thing, I went grocery shopping. I love grocery shopping. Here's what I got. 











I bought the Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, Van's Whole Grain Waffles, non-fat vanilla greek yogurt, two ProMax Bars (one of which is the ProMax Lower Sugar Chocolate Fudge) , 1 Clif Bar and the Kellogg's Double Chocolate Crave Cereal.

Both of the cereals were delicious. I'm definitely buying the Peanut Butter Panda Puffs again or the Koala Chocolate Crisp one.

What's cool is that I also went to Dollar Tree and bought these two healthier snacks. So, yes, you can buy healthy foods cheap!

Glories Sea Salt Sweet Potato Chips and the Sugar-Free Peanut Butter Cakes. The chips were delicious and everyone in my family loved them. The peanut butter cakes were small and tasted decent. They weren't bad, at least. We finished them all on the car ride to Stanford yesterday (which I will talk about later in this post).

On Wednesday, I went to campus to work on my debate outline. I bought this to drink on when I was working on it. It's the No-Calorie Lemon Brisk drink. At least I ate a healthy lunch of my asian black bean burgers and steamed vegetables.
After working on the outline for a couple of hours, I went to volunteer at the hospital. I bought this for my early dinner at their cafe before volunteering.


I bought the Napa Chicken with Avocado Wrap and Mint Dark Chocolate M&M's. The wrap was decent but I wish I bought the regular dark chocolate M&M's. These were just TOO minty.

I met a volunteer that was volunteering at the same department as me. He's been volunteering there for a year now and gave me some advice. His name's Antonio. He also attends the same uni as me. While volunteering, they had an apple brandy cake for the workers and volunteers to eat. It was so good. I have to make that one day. Well, once I get the brandy, I'll make the cake. It was a pretty easy day for volunteering though.

Friday was work and it was pretty much a good day. A lot of typing and filing. It was fun. Also,  I bought the Black and White Mocha from Fluid and it was delicious! I go to Fluid every week when I go to work. I've been tempted to buy their burritos but I always end up buying a baked good instead. Their whole wheat chocolate chip cookies are the best!

Then, yesterday, it was a busy day. We went to Redwood City to do some stuff. Then, we went to visit Stanford University. My mom always wanted to go visit there, so, we finally did since it's close to Redwood City. Here's some pictures of Stanford (and me there). Just to let you know, I normally don't post pictures of others. Only of myself. Most of the time, my friends and family don't want their pictures posted, so, I respect that.








The campus was so beautiful! I mean, I visited Stanford before, 2 years ago, but it was cloudy that day and it was rainy. But, today, it was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was perfect too. It was a lot of walking but a great workout too. My dad took these pictures.

Also at Stanford, I saw this 20th Century propaganda during the wars.

I just had to take a picture of it since I'm learning about this in my history class.

Anyway, we ate those sweet potato chips and peanut butter cakes on the car ride.

After, we went to San Francisco and went to a shopping mall. I've been wanting to go to the Asian store, Yes Style, for the longest time. I tried going last year around this time, but they were closed. But, yesterday, it was open. I was so happy! The store is on the 2nd floor, located next to Macy's. The store is small and the prices aren't that great. But, the style is from Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong. I looked through their dresses and some of them were actually cute! I ended up buying the 59 Seconds Lace Panel Keyhole Back Skater Dress. It's a Hong Kong brand. The dress is so cute. Here's the link to the website.

Here's my failed attempt at taking pictures of my dress.




Then, we went to the food court to eat some dinner. I went to California Crisp and bought the BBQ Chicken Flatbread. It came with this past salad.

The flatbread sandwich tasted pretty good. They even make it fresh. I didn't eat much of the pasta but it tasted okay.

I also tried making a mocha drink with instant coffee. I added half a hot chocolate packet, a teaspoon of instant coffee, hot water, almond milk and a packet of stevia. It tasted alright but I'm going to perfect it one day.


Sorry for this long post.

Anyway, how was your week (and weekend)?
Did you go to my friend's band's performance last night?

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