Almond Cherry Chocolate Scones

This recipe is brought to you by our local grocery, at which both of us stopped on our respective ways home, noticed $1.99/lb cherries, squeed, and brought home a large bag. I wouldn't dare to call these scones healthy - there are, perhaps, lower calorie lumps of dough that have been shaped and baked into things resembling scones, but those fluffy things aren't real scones, and you may as well make muffins if that's what you're going for. (I don't have opinions or anything.) However the use of almond flour and Greek yogurt at least make these somewhat nutritious and much more filling than the plain flour and milk variety, so I am eager for raspberry season when I can repeat this recipe with an abundance of those.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into small pieces
2 cups flour
1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk, buttermilk, or non-dairy milk*
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
generous 1 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup chopped cherries
3/4 cup chopped bittersweet baking chocolate
More milk or melted butter for brushing
Large crystal sugar (turbinado or demerara) for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a blender or pastry dough masher (or if you have to, a fork) to mash the cold butter into about 1.75 cups of the flour. It should have approximately the texture of cornmeal with no big chunks of butter, though tiny ones are ok.

Add the almond flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, and mix these in too. Stir in the milk, yogurt, and almond extract. Knead if need be (haha...) to incorporate all ingredients. The dough should be malleable and not overly sticky. If it's sticking to your hands, add the rest of the flour, a little bit at a time, and work it into the dough until you can pull your hand clean off.

Fold in the chocolate and cherries. Try to scoop them all up in the dough. Fail and eat a quarter of them as they fall out. Dump a whole bunch of flour on your counter, table, floor or other surface, break the dough in half, and plop one half on the floured surface. Give it a few good whacks until it's roughly circular and about an inch tall. Cut into sixths and transfer to baking sheet. Repeat with second half.

Brush pieces with milk or melted butter and sprinkle with crystal sugar. Bake about 20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick comes out clean. You can also hold off on the brushing and sugaring until about 5 minutes until the scones are done to help the sugar not just melt directly into the scones. But I don't trust myself with that.

*You can make buttermilk by adding a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar to however much regular milk you need. Will not work with dairy-free milk.

Raspberry Almond Chia Pudding with Coconut Crunch

For busy weekday mornings, getting out the door by 7 means there is no time or thought to spare for food prep. On the other hand, who wants to spend their whole weekend preparing food for the week? Enter chia puddings. I love them - not because it feels like eating dessert for breakfast. Not because they are full of nutrition. (Okay, partly for those reasons.) But mostly because they take FIVE MINUTES to prepare! Wooo! High five chia seeds, you are da bomb!

Ahem.

Anyway, raspberry and almond became a quick favorite flavor combination after I followed a recipe for raspberry ice cream made with marzipan. And it being the end of raspberry season, I finally have truckloads of raspberries to use up. So here we go.

Ingredients:
(makes four servings)
3 cups almond milk
2 tsp almond extract
3 TBS honey or agave, divided
1/2 cup plus 1 TBS chia seeds (or 9 TBS)
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup instant oats
1 cup fresh raspberries

Directions:
Takes ONE MINUTE: Combine almond milk, almond extract, 2 TBS honey/agave, and chia seeds in a one-quart container. Cover the container, shake vigorously for about 10 seconds and put in the fridge overnight.

Takes FOUR MINUTES*: Combine oats, coconut, and remaining honey/agave until sticky. (I didn't actually measure any of these things. It cut down on time and it's pretty forgiving.) Spread it into a thin layer on a piece of foil sprayed with cooking spray and stick it in a toaster oven at 350 for about three minutes, or until browned on top.
*If you do not have a toaster oven, you can use a regular oven - heat to 450 and bake 5 minutes or so. Obviously this means it will take a bit longer, especially since the oven will need to preheat.

Should look something like this:

Crumble loosely with your fingers.

That's it! You're done with the prep! All that's left is to plop it all in a bowl and top with a bit more honey/agave to taste! Or you can layer them and make them look fancy shmancy like I tried to do here, but if you're going to be eating this at 6:30am, chances are you don't care what it looks like. Unless you're one of *those* people who are good at mornings. ~Glare~

If I were do do this again, I'd probably blend the raspberries with the chia pudding and make it easier to gauge how much sweetener to add. But that would be more work and more dirty dishes.

Enjoy!

Strawberries and cream cereal with chocolate chips

Let's talk breakfast. I hate weekday breakfasts. On weekdays, breakfast is more about cramming food into my mouth like a starved velociraptor than it is about enjoying home cooked food. I am therefore likely to make a week's worth of breakfasts at a time and all the better if it can be done in 5 minutes. This recipe achieves the desired time restrictions, taste, nutrition, and isn't high calorie.

(This isn't very picturesque. Maybe if I put it in a mason jar.)

Ingredients:
5 cups almond milk (or your choice dairy)
Just under 1 cup cream of wheat cereal
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Sprinkle of salt
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced
Handful of mini chocolate chips
Scoop of yogurt (optional)

Directions:
Simmer together the milk, Cream of Wheat, sugar, vanilla, and salt until it starts to thicken. Dump in the strawberries and simmer two more minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool down and thicken more.

If eating right away, scoop some into a bowl, stir in yogurt, and top with a few chocolate chips. If eating later, refrigerate without the yogurt or chocolate chips, and in the morning, microwave a bowl full with a splash of water to thin it back out. The yogurt doesn't really affect the flavor or texture but the protein it packs will help you stay full longer - a necessity for those of us whose shift of running around like a maniac lasts 7 hours before a 20 minute lunch break.

Strawberry chocolate banana smoothie

This is probably the smoothest smoothie I have ever had and I made it by accident. I was just going to make a strawberry smoothie with the strawberries I had frozen from last year's harvest. But as I was putting them in the blender, I realized they were probably still pretty delicious on their own and I didn't want to chuck them in a blender like they were some crappy half-ripe ones from the store. So I improvised the rest. I think I will have to repeat this many times. The flavors are all subtle and meld together wonderfully.

Ingredients:

6 frozen strawberries

1.5 bananas, sliced and frozen

2 tsp cocoa powder

2 TBS agave nectar or other liquid sweetener (or sugar. Y'know, whatever.)

2 cups milk (I used almond milk)

Directions:

Combine everything except the milk in a blender and pulse till you have tiny chunks. Add the milk and whir it up to smoothie consistency. You may want to start with one cup of milk and work your way up - some people like their smoothies almost ice cream-like, while some people like a slightly thick juice, and I'm not here to tell you how to live your life. So add whatever amount of milk gets you to the consistency you like. This recipe makes it kind of in the middle, and makes two 12oz-ish smoothies.

Chocolate Chestnut Waffles with Cinnamon Chestnut Cream

Waffles!!!

What are three day weekends good for if not epic brunches? (Ok, there's sleeping in. That's definitely something a three day weekend is good for. But I don't think you'd find a sleeping blog very interesting.)

These particular waffles were inspired by a cake I made for Thanksgiving. The chestnuts take the place of some of the flour, giving it a more dense mouth-feel and helping you not digest them instantaneously because carbs.

I must say the most challenging part of keeping this blog so far is the quantities of ingredients to list. Despite my science background, I don't measure things. Evar. Measuring cups are such a nuisance when I can just add stuff till it looks right. But I did manage to measure everything this time so I could share it with you! I think I deserve a standing ovation.

Equipment note: If you have one of those blenders with multiple pitchers, that'll really come in handy!

Ingredients:
A heaping, divided 1 1/4 cup chestnuts (roasted and shelled - trust me, you don't want to deal with that yourself! You can find them in bags or sometimes cans.)
3/4 cup Greek yogurt (plain), divided
1 cup plus several splashes of milk (I use almond milk)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2-3 TBS honey, to taste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Mini chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:
1. Place one cup of the chestnuts and 1/4 cup Greek yogurt in a quart-ish sized blender pitcher and add a couple splashes of milk to help the blender puree. You should have a chestnut paste when it is done. If your blender doesn't like it and just throws chunks of chestnut back up the sides, scrape them down and add more milk.

2. If you can take the blades out of your pitcher, do that. Otherwise transfer paste to a bowl. Add flour, cocoa, sugar, and baking powder. Stir, cutting the paste into the flour. Add the vanilla, eggs, 1 cup milk, and another 1/4 cup yogurt. Stir it up.

3. Preheat your waffle iron and give it a really good spray with nonstick stuff. Even if it's already nonstick. I can't emphasize this enough - this batter is sticky!

4. While your iron heats, combine remaining heaping 1/4 cup chestnuts, 1/4 cup yogurt, tiny tiny tiny splash of milk, honey and cinnamon in small blender pitcher. (Or wash out the first blender pitcher if you have to. After transferring waffle batter to another bowl, obviously.)

5. When iron is hot, pour waffle batter into iron and sprinkle mini chocolate chips in the batter before closing the lid. Close and cook until done. Top waffles with cinnamon cream.

Makes 8 4x4" waffles.