Oat Bars: Peanut Butter Chocolate + Almond Cherry Coconut

Happy Friday! Thanks to everyone who entered this week's giveaway! Your outpouring of support for our blogoversary had me perma-smiling all week long :) I wish I could give a cookbook away to all of you, but stay tuned for more giveaways coming up! For the Rocco Now Eat This! giveaway, the winner is: Stephanie! Stephanie, please email me at theavidappetite@gmail.com with your address so I can get your goodies out to you!

This week completely flew by, but I'm not complaining! Meatless week is still going strong. Last night, I made a mushroom pizza and a peanut butter banana mousse that I can't wait to share with you - it's a chilled, pudding-like dessert that's actually healthy and delish. Sound good?

Meanwhile, in our quest to keep eating healthy and use up this ginormous canister of oats that Shaun brought home from the store for me (I love me some morning oats),

I decided to whip up some homemade granola bars.

Those Quaker ones just don't cut it in my book. They aren't nearly hearty enough and are so tiny that immediately after I inhale one, I'm still hungry. Not my favorite. So on Sunday, I whipped up two separate batches of oat bars, chocolate peanut butter and cherry almond coconut. And because they are so similar and super easy, I'm sharing 2 recipes with you today? Are you cool with that?

Almond Cherry Coconut Oat Bars
2 C oats
2 tbsp Splenda brown sugar blend
1/2 C dried cherries, chopped
1/4 C slivered almonds, chopped up
1/2C sweetened coconut
1/4 C honey
1 egg white

Preheat oven to 350 and line an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper, with the sides hanging over so that you can pull the bars out after baking. In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, splenda, cherries, almonds and coconut.

Pour in the honey and egg white and mix until entire mixture is thoroughly coated. Press into parchment-lined baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes or until edges start to brown. Let cool in pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. This is where the excess parchment comes in handy - simply (and v. carefully) lift bars out of pan and onto wire rack to cool. Once completely cool, cut into bars.

Though these are a bit crumbly and the edges may fall apart, they are so delicious! A perfect breakfast on the go or mid-afternoon snack to get the juices flowing.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars
2 C oats
1/3 C creamy peanut butter (I like Smart Balance)
1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 C honey

Preheat oven to 350 and line pan as above. Melt the pb in the microwave. Mix ingredients altogether until completely combined...

Press into pan...

bake for 20 minutes, let cool and cut into bars.

So there you have it. 2 super simple recipes that Shaun and I both love. The best thing about these is that you can get totally creative and add any chocolate chips, nuts or dried fruit you want! What do you think? Have you ever tried making your own unprocessed snacks? What's your favorite on-the-go snack?

*Note, our giveaway winner was chosen at random by random.org. I also wasn't perked for the Rocco book, I just really, truly love it and want to share the wealth with my fantastic readers and friends!

Black-Eyed Pea + Kale Soup

Don't forget to enter our blogoversary giveaway! You have until 6pm EST tonight! Enter to win a copy of Rocco DiSpirito's Now Eat This! cookbook, one of my personal favorites. And it has nothing to do with the many photos of an attractive-looking Rocco strewn throughout the book.

Shaun and I are still going strong with our meat-free eating. I’ve been downing lots of fruits, veggies and Chobani yogurt, not to mention very lightly salted fresh popcorn for snack. On the morning of day 4, I’m starting to realize a few things:

1. Today I’m heading to Philly for a business trip and was initially wishing for a Philly cheesesteak. I know Shaun is secretly hoping I’d bring some home for us.

2. I don’t really miss meat. You know, aside from the above.

3. I’m very hungry. I had zumba and pilates on Tuesday night (which rocked my world) but yesterday I was ready to chop up my desk and start downing it, Cookie Monster-style.

4. I have significantly less energy. Though I think this is caused by the overall lack of protein, aside from some beans and Greek yogurt. Whew! I knew I made a mistake by not accounting for the lack of protein I’d be getting, but I swear, getting out of bed yesterday I thought my legs were filled with lead.

5. I’m kind of into the less meat thing and once I get some of the kinks worked out (like wanting to nap all day long), I feel confident that this might actually work.

So that aside, I’m excited to share another delectable recipe that I got from my Food Network Magazine. It was chock full of great stuff this month!

I had been wanting to experiment with kale so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. It’s kind of like spinach but...different. Leafier. But tasty. I also love black-eyed peas (not to be confused with my hatred for actual peas). I whipped up this soup on Monday evening so that the man and I would have lunch for a couple of days. And guess what? It was good! And filling! And meatless! We all win! Hurrah!

Black-Eyed Pea + Kale Soup
*Adapted from Food Network Magazine
3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 small onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, chopped with ribs & seeds removed
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Kosher salt
Black pepper
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoon paprika
2 14 oz cans low-sodium vegetable broth
1 pound kale, ribs/stems removed and roughly chopped
1 can black-eyed peas
Parmesean cheese, for serving if desired
Brown rice, for serving if desired

In a large pot (I used my big stockpot, though an oversized saucepan would work too), heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the flour and mix until combined and golden brown, about 2 minutes. Add the onion, pepper, celery garlic, 3 tbsp water, ¼ tsp kosher salt and few hits of black pepper.

Continue cooking on medium heat until the veggies are very tender, about 7-8 minutes. Add the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and paprika, stirring to combine. Add the 2 cans of vegetable broth and mix altogether, scraping up the brown bits of delicious on the bottom of the pot. Bring to a boil.

I used this opportunity to rinse and chop up the kale. I simply ran my knife along both sides of the stem to remove the leaves and then bundled it all up to give it a nice rough chop.

Add it to the soup along with a can of drained black-eyed peas. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover with the lid slightly ajar so that steam can escape. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

To make the rice, I simply cooked it in some veggie broth and put a little scoop into the soup to serve. Shaun had the idea to put a few parmesean shavings on top.

So there it is a soup-er dish. Did I take it too far? It's not overly brothy, so if you want it that way, I recommend adding more vegetable broth during the cooking. In the shot above, most of the broth sunk down over the rice - but it was pretty fabulous this way. So what do you think? Have you ever tried kale? And any tips to share about getting more protein sans meat?

Mushroom + Onion Frittata

Don't forget to enter our blogoversary giveaway! Enter to win a copy of Rocco DiSpirito's Now Eat This! cookbook, one of my personal favorites. And it has nothing to do with the many photos of an attractive-looking Rocco strewn throughout the book.

So as you know, Shaun and I are going meatless for a week. So far, I've been cooking up a storm for our lunches and dinners (we typically don't include meat at breakfast, so no change there) and I'm psyched to share some of my ideas with you. I think I found a good one.

I knew that to keep us on track, I'd have to arm us with all the tools to keep our food fun, exciting and most importantly, delicious. So on my day off for MLK day, I made a loose menu plan, a big list of goodies and went shopping. I am happy to report that 75% of my shopping cart was filled with fruits and veggies. Booyah! So to kick things off, I eased us into dinner with a little frittata with a side of sauteed broccoli and cauliflower.

Hold the phone. Eggs...for dinner? Yep, I went there. And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

I have one word for this dinner: yum. Though I had never tried one in the past, I've seen many a frittata made on Food Network by some of my faves (Giada, Tyler) so when I came across a delectable looking version in this month's Food Network magazine (obsessed much?) I knew this was a must for meatless week. Not to mention that Shaun loves all things eggs and requests them every Saturday and Sunday morning. Personally I prefer pancakes, but eggs are ok too :) Anyhow, the point of my story is that this frittata is light, delicious and even easier than scrambled eggs if you can believe it.

Mushroom + Onion Frittata
*Adapted heavily from Food Network Magazine
3 eggs
4 egg whites
1 C smoked mozzarella cheese, grated (or cheese of choice, but smoked is recommended)
2 C sliced mushrooms, I used about one package of baby bella's
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, cut in half and sliced
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tbsp parmesean cheese + more for dusting
splash of skim milk
olive oil
light butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a non-stick oven approved skillet, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a little scoop of light butter. Add the onions and cook on low heat until they are soft and browned, stirring occasionally. Low and slow is key here - don't let them burn! Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Season with kosher salt and pepper. Once combined, whisk in the mozzarella, parmesean and basil.

Add the garlic and sliced mushrooms to the onions and continue cooking just until the mushrooms start to soften and break down. They will continue cooking in the oven, so don't overcook them here!

 

With a silicon brush, I coated the sides of the pan with olive oil. Pour in the egg mixture, evenly over the mushrooms.

 

Cook over medium heat, without mixing or touching it in any way, until a crust starts to form in the pan, about 2 or so minutes. Run your rubber spatula around the edges to make sure it has set. Transfer to the oven for 7-10 minutes or until lightly cooked through.

Cut into wedges and serve that bad boy up! We enjoyed this along with a bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower that I sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil and season with salt, pepper and parmesean cheese. Belissimo.

Though the original recipe called for cottage cheese, I, of course, did not read the entire recipe before food shopping and forgot this ingredient. I don't know what it would taste like with the cottage cheese, but I don't need to find out. This was pure perfection without it. The smokiness of the cheese coupled with the earthiness of the mushrooms was a fab flavor combination all on its own, if I do say so myself.

So there you have it. Our meatless, eggy dinner that Shaun immediately said he 'hated' (our inside joke for when something is over-the-top yum) which also lead to cleaning his entire plate and going back for seconds. And taking another serving for breakfast today. So what do you think? Do you believe in eggs, or any breakfast, for dinner? I personally think it rocks my world!