Well MY garden grows with veggies and herbs and flowers! I'm so grateful for the mild winter we've had in Missouri. I'm also grateful for the the Savvygardener newsletter because they tell me when I plant things based on our local climate. For example, a recent newsletter suggested some flower seeds that could be started in stages over the next month because it's been so warm. One of those was Snapdragon - which I had a packet of in my cabinet! All of my flower packets have seed starting either indoors before the last frost or outdoors a week after the last frost. If it weren't for Savvygardener, I wouldn't have realized I could start sowing now. So every Saturday through March, I'm going to sow another bit of Snapdragon. I really hope at least half of them turn out!
I planted garlic this season for the first time and it seems to be going well. I've never grown it before so I really won't know how well it's going until harvest time in July-ish. I have a friend who has had great results with his garlic and he's given me some awesome tips - none of which I applied this season. Sometimes even I don't understand myself.
A recent beautiful and sunny weekend had me outdoors sowing some Snow Peas and Snapdragon flower seeds. We're attempting edible landscaping in a large patch in front of the house. We established some pampas grass, lilies, and a sage bush last year. I started the garlic back in mid-October and they're in front of the tiger lily. I decided to plant the snow peas in a 3-ring circle between the garlic/lily & the pampas grass. I'll eventually need to put a teepee trellis up and thought it would look best near the back. The Snapdragon is in a row even with the back (behind the trellis if looking from the street). It's supposed to grow up to 3 feet tall so I'm hoping it will pull everything together in that area. I think I'll plant another 3-ring circle of peas in the opposite corner with Snapdragons behind it as well. Have a bit of symmetry going on.
I'm anxiously waiting for April, when I'll be starting a few seeds indoors which I will transplant to the garden in May. Here's my planting list for the 2012 season:
Tomato (cherry, grape, and large)
Green bell pepper
Jalapeno & Chili peppers (if I can find some seed for free)
Cucumber (both bush & trellis variety)
Snow Peas
Garlic
Carrot
Radish
Lettuce
Basil
Nasturtium (annual)
Alyssum as cover inbetween plants (annual)
Marigold (annual)
African Daisy (annual)
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Healthy Cookie Dough Dip
I had posted previously about trying the "No Sugar Cookie Dough Dip" from Chocolate Covered Katie. Today, I made the regular version Cookie Dough Dip with brown sugar. I also blended it longer. I came close to burning out the motor of our blender so I'd suggest others stick with Katie's recommendation to NOT use a blender!
The majority of this dip is beans. There's a titch of peanut butter, brown sugar, oats, milk and just a dash of baking soda, salt, and vanilla. I have read in the comments that someone prepared PB2 (the powdered peanut butter) according to package directions and it still turned out well - so that's an option if you want to cut the calories even further.
I strayed from the recipe on a few things. I had a bag of beans so instead of canned, I soaked & boiled 135g (the equivalent to 1 1/2 cups, which is what you get out of a 250g can). I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. I don't have a food processor but I do have a "handy chopper" so I pureed it in small batches and then blended it all in the blender on the "liquefy" setting while lightly tapping the top down with a spoon.
So how did it taste?
This batch was a lot less "beany" textured than last time because I took the extra step of liquefying in the blender. I really wish I had a food processor!
This batch also tasted more like cookie dough than the last batch. I didn't have any more graham crackers to eat it with so I just ate it with a spoon. Yup, it is that good! I ate 2/8 of the batch as soon as I finished portioning it out for the week. This will once again be my workweek 3:00 dessert and added bean intake.
Next week, I'm going to make Black Bean Flourless Cake
Sneak peak photo:
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| cookie dough dip |
The majority of this dip is beans. There's a titch of peanut butter, brown sugar, oats, milk and just a dash of baking soda, salt, and vanilla. I have read in the comments that someone prepared PB2 (the powdered peanut butter) according to package directions and it still turned out well - so that's an option if you want to cut the calories even further.
I strayed from the recipe on a few things. I had a bag of beans so instead of canned, I soaked & boiled 135g (the equivalent to 1 1/2 cups, which is what you get out of a 250g can). I used semi-sweet chocolate chips. I don't have a food processor but I do have a "handy chopper" so I pureed it in small batches and then blended it all in the blender on the "liquefy" setting while lightly tapping the top down with a spoon.
So how did it taste?
This batch was a lot less "beany" textured than last time because I took the extra step of liquefying in the blender. I really wish I had a food processor!
This batch also tasted more like cookie dough than the last batch. I didn't have any more graham crackers to eat it with so I just ate it with a spoon. Yup, it is that good! I ate 2/8 of the batch as soon as I finished portioning it out for the week. This will once again be my workweek 3:00 dessert and added bean intake.
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| Nutritional Info as entered on Sparkpeople.com |
Next week, I'm going to make Black Bean Flourless Cake
Sneak peak photo:
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Eating Beans As Dessert?!
A few weeks ago, my boss sent a newsletter from our health insurance and one of the featured articles was how certain beans can help lower cholesterol. I was intrigued so I did more research on it. High on the list of good cholesterol-lowering beans was kidney, navy, pinto, black, chickpea (garbanzo), or butter (lima). Only a cup of any of those beans a day is said to lower cholesterol by as much as 10 percent in 6 weeks!
So off I went to search Pinterest. Usually, I would just Google recipes but I've found that Pinterest is pretty good about showing me stuff that other people have already tried and liked without having to wade through pages of comments in multiple recipes. What I stumbled across multiple times was a "No Sugar Cookie Dough Dip" and a Cookie Dough Dip from Chocolate Covered Katie.
The first few times I saw it, I figured someone had just mistyped when they pinned (which happens so irritatingly often). The third time though, the caption on the pin explained that the dip was made with chickpeas. What?! A dessert snack made with beans? I had to try it.
I decided to try the "No Sugar" version first. I was so happy when I read through the recipe to see that it didn't use Stevia or some other "sweetener". It used dates. The majority of this dip is beans, dates, and chocolate chips. There's a titch of peanut butter and just a dash of baking soda, salt, and vanilla.
I strayed from the recipe on a few things. I had a bag of beans so instead of canned, I soaked & boiled 135g (the equivalent to 1 1/2 cups, which is what you get out of a 250g can). I used regular chocolate chips instead of the sugar-free option of cocoa nibs. I also didn't add oats or milk. I don't have a food processor but I do have a "handy chopper" so I pureed it in small batches.
So how did it taste?
It does not taste like cookie dough but it is so sweet. The texture is a little "beany" but that is more than likely a result of not using the food processor (which she warned about). It was good though, and eaten with 2 graham cracker rectangles, satiated my 3:00 dessert craving every day. I ate 2/8 of the batch as soon as it was finished and had some pretty severe stomach cramps for a little bit. I entered the recipe into Sparkpeople.com and found out I'd eaten 18 grams of fiber within 30 minutes. No wonder I had stomach cramps! I portioned the rest of the batch out to 6 servings for the rest of the week. It's an easy and delicious way to incorporate more beans into my daily intake!
I'm going to make it again tonight for this week's dessert cravings. This time though, I'm making the other version which uses brown sugar as sweetener - and I'm thinking that will make it taste more like cookie dough. I think I'll go ahead and throw the oats & milk in there too. I'll be sure to post next week and let you know how it went!
So off I went to search Pinterest. Usually, I would just Google recipes but I've found that Pinterest is pretty good about showing me stuff that other people have already tried and liked without having to wade through pages of comments in multiple recipes. What I stumbled across multiple times was a "No Sugar Cookie Dough Dip" and a Cookie Dough Dip from Chocolate Covered Katie.
 |
|
| "No Sugar" Cookie Dough Dip | cookie dough dip |
The first few times I saw it, I figured someone had just mistyped when they pinned (which happens so irritatingly often). The third time though, the caption on the pin explained that the dip was made with chickpeas. What?! A dessert snack made with beans? I had to try it.
I decided to try the "No Sugar" version first. I was so happy when I read through the recipe to see that it didn't use Stevia or some other "sweetener". It used dates. The majority of this dip is beans, dates, and chocolate chips. There's a titch of peanut butter and just a dash of baking soda, salt, and vanilla.
I strayed from the recipe on a few things. I had a bag of beans so instead of canned, I soaked & boiled 135g (the equivalent to 1 1/2 cups, which is what you get out of a 250g can). I used regular chocolate chips instead of the sugar-free option of cocoa nibs. I also didn't add oats or milk. I don't have a food processor but I do have a "handy chopper" so I pureed it in small batches.
So how did it taste?
It does not taste like cookie dough but it is so sweet. The texture is a little "beany" but that is more than likely a result of not using the food processor (which she warned about). It was good though, and eaten with 2 graham cracker rectangles, satiated my 3:00 dessert craving every day. I ate 2/8 of the batch as soon as it was finished and had some pretty severe stomach cramps for a little bit. I entered the recipe into Sparkpeople.com and found out I'd eaten 18 grams of fiber within 30 minutes. No wonder I had stomach cramps! I portioned the rest of the batch out to 6 servings for the rest of the week. It's an easy and delicious way to incorporate more beans into my daily intake!
 |
| Nutritional info as entered on Sparkpeople.com |
I'm going to make it again tonight for this week's dessert cravings. This time though, I'm making the other version which uses brown sugar as sweetener - and I'm thinking that will make it taste more like cookie dough. I think I'll go ahead and throw the oats & milk in there too. I'll be sure to post next week and let you know how it went!
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