Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

September 19, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Even though it’s not officially fall, let’s face it, it’s time for all things fall. I love everything about fall. The weather, the leaves, the football, but most of all, the pumpkins. Yes, everyone goes gaga over all things pumpkin and pumpkin flavored this time of year, but my love for pumpkin is year round. I have a stock of canned pumpkin in my closet and all my pumpkins on display all year long. Most of the candles I own are pumpkin scented and I may have 3 things of pumpkin hand wash stocked up. With this adoration of pumpkins, I thought it was time to put up a pumpkin cookie recipe. These are easy to put together and taste like fall in cookie form. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookie

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown rice flour (could also use coconut flour)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup tahini (ground sesame seeds)
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp coconut oil
heaping 1/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350

2. Mix together all the dry ingredients ad set aside. In a separate bowl. mix all the wet ingredients until well combined. Add the wet to the dry and use a spatula to combine.

3. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat, drop a teaspoon of dough on the sheet and flatten lightly with your fingertips. The dough will be sticky so be gentle.

4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cookies are brown around the edges. Let cool on the sheet for a few minutes and then move to a cooling rack.

You’re about twenty minutes away from a delicious fall dessert! Feel free to add in raisins, dried cranberries, walnuts, or even chocolate chips if you wanted. Just mix them in after the dough comes together. These could even constitute as a healthy breakfast cookie and who can say no to cookies for breakfast?

You thought I was kidding about the pumpkins

How To Start Cooking

September 17, 2014 / ktbuchs87

I am a big supporter of making your own meals. There is no better way to know exactly what you put into your body than to make a meal yourself. The home cook is starting to make a slow comeback. Things like food network and celebrity chefs, have helped make it “cool” to get back in the kitchen. I’m all for this, no matter what your reasoning to cook might be. Some of you though still avoid the kitchen like the plague because you just can’t cook. No matter how many times you try, you just can’t get a meal together. You never learned how to cook or you just never had any interest. But I am here to tell you, if you have decided to eat healthier, you’re going to have to learn how to cook. The good news is that it really isn’t that difficult. I’m going to give you a few tips on how to feel confident in the kitchen and put together some simple, tasty, and healthy meals all on your own.

Start Simple

You don’t have to be able to make elaborate dishes. You don’t have to spend hours performing complicated cooking techniques to put a meal on the table. Start with very basic meals. Things like dried pasta, grains, salads, and baked chicken are all very easy to make and very healthy. Try spaghetti and tomato sauce. All you have to do is boil some water and cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. For the sauce, all you need is a can of tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, and some simple seasonings like oregano, basil, garlic, and salt and pepper. Heat that in a small saucepan until it bubbles and voila, you have a super easy meal that even a beginner cook can handle. The slow cooker is also the new cook’s best friend. It is easy to add the right ingredients and then let your slow cooker do the rest. It’s hard to mess up and you usually end up with a delicious meal. By choosing meals like this, you can start to build your recipe repertoire and start to feel more at ease in the kitchen. Once you get a handle on these simple meals you can start to expand to more complicated ones or start to play with different flavors and ingredients.

Watch Food Network

Watch any cooking show really. Many of the things I have learned how to cook, I have watched on cooking shows. One of my favorite shows is Alton Brown’s Good Eats. Each episode focuses on one ingredient or technique and then goes into simple ways on how to prepare that food. Alton really does a great job teaching the average Joe how to master some really simple dishes. If you don’t have cable, you can find a lot of cooking shows on YouTube or Netflix or Hulu. Find a show that you can watch and take some notes from the pros on how to cook some really delicious food.

Talk To Other Cooks

You don’t have to start going around to restaurants and bugging the chefs for their secret recipes, but start talking to other people who cook a lot. Start with people in your family who tend to be the ones preparing the meals, whether it’s your mom, grandma, uncle, or cousin. Ask them what they like to cook and how they do it. Watch them prepare a meal and ask to give them a hand. Not only will they most likely appreciate the help, you can learn a TON from watching others cook this way. Almost all of the basic cooking skills I have are from watching my mom make dinner for our family. She wasn’t a 5-star restaurant chef, just a mom who wanted to feed her family well. She stuck with simple ingredients and meals that she knew we would like and to this day her food gives me comfort. Being around other people who cook can help you with your own kitchen adventures, so start talking!

Don’t Be Afraid To Mess Up

If you have never really cooked before, chances are you’re going to have a few mishaps in the kitchen. That is totally fine and most home cooks will tell you they have had their fair share of whoops moments. But it’s good to have those mistakes because then you know next time what not to do. Sometimes, you’re just going to make a meal that is totally inedible. That’s ok! Don’t give up after one bad meal. Keep trying and soon you will be able to avoid most of those missteps. Although, every once and awhile you will do something silly like try to steam vegetables without any water and wonder why your pot of broccoli is smoking. I swear I have never done THAT before….

Read Recipes

I know that I am probably a little bit of a weirdo, but I read cookbooks like they are novels. Sometimes there are tips and tricks written in the description of the dish that most of us skim over. By reading the whole thing, you might learn how to better prepare the meal. Take the time to read everything that goes along with the recipe and get everything you can out of it.

Don’t be intimidated by the kitchen, no one is expecting you to be the next Iron Chef. Getting some basic techniques down like cooking grains & meat, or roasting vegetables can be enough to get you started cooking your own healthy meals. Many of the recipes that I post here on the blog are simple enough for a beginner to handle and offer a lot of wiggle room for learning. Give any one of them a try and start getting more confident with your cooking!

Simple Soy Marinade/Glaze

September 5, 2014 / ktbuchs87

When Adam and I first started dating he was the primary cook for himself and his roommate. He is actually a fairly decent cook, but I would have to say he had two main specialties. One was his mostaccioli and the other was his stir fry. While I liked that mostaccioli (pretty sure he fed my roommates a few times with that dish), I loved his stir fry. More specifically, I loved his stir fry sauce. It was like restaurant quality sauce. Growing up we had stir fry, but we usually used those little packets of stir fry seasoning that you add to water and then pour over the meat and vegetables. So I was amazed when he suggested stir fry and then started making his own stir fry sauce. It’s the little things for me…. Anyway, one of the main ingredients in his sauce was hoisin sauce. I don’t know if you have ever seen or used hoisin, but it isn’t the healthiest thing to be eating. I made it my mission to make my own healthy stir fry sauce without the use of hoisin. After many tries, I think I finally got it down in taste and texture. While it might not taste exactly like restaurant quality stir fry sauce, it comes pretty close and you won’t have to worry about any of the ingredients!

Simple Soy Marinade/Glaze

1/4 cup liquid aminos, tamari sauce or soy sauce (coconut aminos would work too)
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp chinese five spice
1 tsp garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger, minced
1 tsp tapioca starch

Mix everything except the tapioca starch together. Add in the tapioca starch and whisk until fully incorporated and there are no clumps.

You can use this as a marinade for fish, chicken, or pork. You can use it as a sir fry sauce, just cook your meat and vegetables and then add this sauce in at the end and cook until it has thickened up. You could also use it as a glaze. Just heat the sauce up in a small sauce pan over medium high heat until it thickens and then pour it over whatever you would like. You can make this ahead of time just store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

Also, if you guys have any requests for recipes that you would like to see on the blog, let me know in the comment section! I want to make sure that you are getting what you need/want from this blog, so please tell me. Have a great weekend!

Avocado Chicken Salad

August 29, 2014 / ktbuchs87

A few weekends ago, Adam and I went to a cookout for his grandpa’s birthday. It was great, full of family, friends, and food. Oh was there food. Now let me say that Adam has quite a large family. Nine aunts and uncles, plus their spouses/significant others, plus all their children so there needs to be a lot of food. Along with all the appetizers and side dishes, there was a mountain of chicken. I am not exaggerating. There were three different kinds of wings, grilled chicken, marinaded chicken, smoked chicken, chicken chicken… You get the idea. Long story short, we were sent home with a bag of chicken. After adding chicken to stir frys and frittatas, I wanted to come up with a simple and tasty chicken dish. Because it was uber hot, I went with a chicken salad. It came together quickly and hit the spot on a hot summer night, plus it’s healthy! So if you are loaded down with chicken, give this recipe a try!

Avocado Chicken Salad

2 to 3 cups cooked chicken, shredded
1 large avocado, diced
1 tbsp mustard (I used spicy brown mustard)
1 tbsp tahini (sunflower seed butter would work well too)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tbsp almond milk
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp parsley
salt and pepper, to taste
corn kernels/celery, optional (but they add a nice crunch!)

1. Shred your chicken and set aside. In a large bowl, mash up your avocado pieces. You want this to be fairly smooth, so make sure there are no large chunks. Add in the rest of the ingredients, except corn/celery and chicken. Mix together well.

2. Add in chicken and corn/celery and stir to coat everything with the avocado. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. You can serve this right away or let it cool in the fridge.

Pretty easy, right? This goes well over lettuce, in tortilla shells, or on your favorite type of bun. Don’t like chicken? Try it with canned tuna or salmon. Don’t eat meat? Make it with chickpeas or your favorite kind of bean. It’s a pretty easy recipe to adapt to your tastes. It is also a good one to make a big batch of and share at a party or gathering. Enjoy!

How To Make Your Own Snacks

August 27, 2014 / ktbuchs87

Snacks can be a very important part of a lot of people’s daily diets. They tide you over to the next meal, fuel you for your workout, or give you extra energy when you hit that late afternoon slump. While I don’t snack much myself, I am a big supporter of snacks as part of a healthy lifestyle. I’m not a supporter though of most of the snacks that we normally reach for. I’m talking about the ones you find in a vending machine or on store shelves. The pre-packaged, processed snacks that we often eat are not doing your health any good. Believe me, I get the appeal of these snacks. They’re easy, most of the time portable, and they taste good. They are just so convenient, but they are also taking a toll on our health. The good news is that it is really easy to make your own versions of most of the snacks out there, except these will be good for you, provide nutrition, cost less, and taste just as good if not better!

DIY Snacks

Trail Mix- This is a tricky snack item in stores. They seem like they are good for you with all their claims of organic and natural, but most of the time they are filled with sugar and other not so healthy ingredients. It is much better to make your own, plus the DIY version will cost you a lot less. Buy things like nuts (peanuts, almonds, pistachios, walnuts), seeds (sunflower or pumpkin), dried fruits with no extra sugar (cranberries, raisins, cherries), and dark chocolate chips. Then just dup everything into a big bowl, mix it together, and portion it out into snack sizes. Now you have a quick and healthy snack that you can grab and go! If you can, buy all your components in bulk and that help keep the cost down.

Granola Bars- These are another one of those sneaky snacks that can seem healthy but in the end are not much better than candy bars. Luckily, it is really easy to make your own and there are a ton of recipes out there on the internet. You can make your own Nutragrain bars, Larabars, or chewy granola bars. Make them in big batches and freeze them so that you have a bunch ready to go
Chips & Dip- Chips are a popular snack because no one can resist the crunchy and salty taste! But those chips can quickly add up and soon you’re downing a whole bag along with dip. You can make your own simple potato chips using my recipe here. You can also make your own tortilla chips. Just buy some corn tortillas (I like the El Milagro brand because of the price and short ingredient list), cut them into triangles, lay them in a single layer on a baking sheet, spray with a little olive oil and salt, then bake at 375 for 12 to 15 minutes. Dips are also really easy and much healthier to make on your own. Try my avocado cream, some salsa, or another one of my favorites, hummus!
Roasted Chickpeas- I have seen a few versions of these in stores, and while some of them aren’t too bad, I’ve always found it easier to just make my own. It is a lot cheaper and you can choose whatever flavors you want! You can find my recipe here.

Don’t forget about things like fruit or vegetables as a snack too! It is really easy to buy things like celery, carrots, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes, then cut them up and portion them out at home for a quick snack. Fruits like bananas, oranges, or clementines are really easy to transport because of their skins. And who can resist one of my favorite snacks, sliced apples and peanut or almond butter. Hard boiled eggs are also a great snack that travels well.

There are a ton of simple and healthy snack ideas that you can make yourself. You don’t have to rely on store bought snacks to get you through the day. Take a little bit of time to plan and make your snacks for the week and when it come time to rush out the door in the morning, you can feel good that your snack will help you stick to your healthy eating plan!