I know I moved to a new state and had to get ready for college but I really didn’t mean to abandon the site like this!  My last post was in late May and it’s already August, I’m so sorry!

I kept meaning to post a reason for my absence but I got caught up with summer and my new surroundings.  So here is a little update on me:

I am moving OUT of my house on August 9th!  I am a little nervous for college but I am beyond excited.  I have stocked up on Vegan Friendly snacks and cereals and I’m pretty sure I’m ready to go.  If not, I always have that trusty debit card   My school should be pretty easy when it comes to vegan eating.  I have a two meals a day plan and I plan on using those for Lunch and Dinner.  My campus has a sushi bar, smoothie place, salad bars, and dozens of other areas to eat- it’s amazing!  I’ve met my roommate already and she’s really sweet and nice so I’m looking forward to living with her.  We are both moving in early so we can Rush!  I never thought of myself as a ‘Sorority Girl’ but I think it will be a great opportunity to branch out and meet a lot of people.

Again, I’m really sorry for leaving the blog without saying anything.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post in the future but I’ll always keep you guys in mind.

Take care!

-On a side note, I no longer count calories.  I read a book on Intuitive Eating and I have found that it really takes the stress off of eating right and it allows me to enjoy my food a bit more.  I have maintained my weight loss within a few pounds and honestly, I couldn’t be happier!

Here is my official entry for The Great Peanut Butter Exhibition.

Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana Panini.

Ingredients

• 1 tbs Smart Balance Light Butter Spread
• 2 Slices Ezekiel 4:9 Bread
• 2 tbs Natural Peanut Butter
• Banana
• Cooking Spray (Pam)

Action shot!

Instructions

1. Heat grill pan on high to medium heat and spray with Pam.
2. Slice banana and place on grill pan. Grill for 1 minute on each side.
3. Remove banana from grill pan.
4. Spray with Pam again and place both slices of bread on the pan. Before placing on the pan, make sure you brush the bread with melted Smart Balance.
5. While bread is grilling, spread 2 tbs of peanut butter on one slice. Place your grilled banana slices on top of the peanut butter.
6. Allow the bread to crisp up and get nice and brown with grill marks.
7. Remove from heat, place bread on top of one another, slice in half and enjoy!

• Calories- 475
• Fat- 22
• Carbs- 50
• Fiber- 9
• Protein- 17
  

For the past two nights, I have been craving two of my favorite things in the world.. Chocolate and Peanut Butter. 

These two bad boys called out to me, Trader Joe’s 100 Calorie Chocolate Graham Toucan and 1 tbs of Natural Peanut Butter.

Simple and delicious.  Eating this reminds me of when I was a little kid.  For a treat, we would have JIF peanut butter and sheets upon sheets of chocolate graham crackers.  Ah, to be young and naive about calories

I’ve been tagged by Natalie!

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names, linking to them.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

5 facts about me :

1. I am in love with photography! I took a photography class in high school after discovering that I had some natural talent. I have had a photograph featured in my school’s Fine Arts Festival, a photograph hanging in the school’s main office, and an offer to sell one at a silent auction! I didn’t go through with the auction because the rights of my photograph would have gone to a woman and not me! I took this two weekends ago in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s not much but it’s the most recent thing I’ve shot:

2. I am finally graduating from High School this weekend!! Our graduation is on Saturday and I cannot put into words how excited I am!!

3. After living in North Carolina for almost 11 years, I am moving. We are moving June 20th or 21st. I will definitely miss North Carolina but I am also excited to start the next chapter of my life. Like my Politics teacher said, “This is when real life starts.”

4. After much deliberation, I decided that I am going to go to school for Communications and Broadcasting. I am a great writer (If I must say so myself) so I might dabble in journalism as well. Tune into CNN in ten years and maybe you’ll see me

5. I got published!! A few of my photographs, poems, and short stories were published in my school’s yearly book. I am so excited!! I got turned down last year for a short story I entered so I went all out this year.

I guess it’s time for me to pass this along… I am afraid that most people have been tagged already so excuse me if I double tag you.

• Alice
• Jill
  
• Romina
  
• Carmen
• Tina

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!! I am having grilled mango and tofu with curried rice for dinner tonight!

Hello blog world! The past couple of weeks have been beyond hectic! I had my last ‘real’ day of school on Monday and took an exam today. I have one more exam tomorrow and then I am free for the summer! I worked out early this morning and figured I would use my spare time to do a little vegan baking! This is a recipe I created because I was in the mood for something sweet but not heavy.

Pumpkin & Raisin Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup Heart Smart Bisquick
• 1/2 cup Oats
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• Cinnamon and Stevia to taste
• 1/8 cup Light Soy Milk
• Mini box of raisins

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. In a large bowl, mix all of your ingredients
3. Spray a pan with PAM and scoop about 1 tbs of the pumpkin mixture onto pan.
4. Press cookies flat with a fork.
5. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes or until done

Yields 11 cookies at about 35 calories a piece.

I am not sure of the exact calories, I just estimated that number in my head! They are perfectly chewy and dense. I really think the raisins make the cookie. I had two and my mom had two cookies as well! I put the rest in the freezer for later lunches this summer!

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I’m sure a lot of people who stumble upon this site have visited KathEats.com.  Well, for a little while now Kath has been in search of the perfect scone!  Reading about her scone experiments really made me want to make some!  Today on her site, someone posted a Scone recipe from Hungry-Girl.com.  Out of curiosity, I checked out the recipe and….. it was vegan!  I also had all the ingredients on hand so I knew I was destined to make them

Hungry Girl’s Snazzy Blueberry Scones

I made a few slight modifications so my scones came out to 106 calories each.  The recipe was beyond easy to follow and you can check it out here!

Review: The blueberries gushed when you bit into the scone and exploded with flavor!  Just like the recipe states, these scones are warm and doughy.  They are not crumbly at all but the flavor is fantastic!  It has a slight sweet undertone and the blueberries are perfectly proportionate with the scones.  It yields four scones so I’ll definitely have a great snack for the next couple of days!

And finally, my scone!

Our baking bananas were starting to get really ripe so I decided to use them up and make some delicious muffins!

Mini Banana Oat Muffins

Ingredients

• 124 g (1 cup) Whole Wheat Flour
• 40 g (1/2 cup) Quick-Cooking oats
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tbs milled flax seeds + 3 tbs water
• 248 g (3 large) ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup Splenda For Baking**
• 1/3 cup Applesauce
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. 
3. Line mini muffin pan with tins and lightly spray each with PAM.
4. Fill up tins about 3/4 of the way.  I used 1 tbs for each muffin
5. Bake for 9-11 minutes- check if done by inserting a toothpick.

Yields 30 Mini Muffins

• Calories- 35.5 g
• Fat- .33 g
• Carbs- 7.5 g
• Fiber- .43 g
• Protein- .83

These muffins are so moist and are a great way to use up extra bananas!

** I usually hate splenda but I’ve had a sample of Baking Splenda forever and decided to cut down the sugar.  If you want to use normal sugar, replace the splenda with 1/2 cup sugar.

It feels so foreign to be typing this post!  I can’t lie, I’ve missed you guys!

Today’s post is just a quick smoothie I whipped up today.  Also, try to spot something that doesn’t belong in the picture

Banana Mango Smoothie

Ingredients

• 100 g Banana or a Medium Banana
• 90 g frozen mango chunks (thawed) or about a Handful of Mango Chunks
• 1/2 cup Almond Milk
• 1/2 cup crushed ice
• Sweetener (optional)

Directions

• Cut up your banana into medium slices and toss into your blender.
• Pour in your almond milk and blend for 1-2 seconds, enough to break up the banana.
• Add thawed mango.  I use thawed mango here because my blender will not break up frozen chunks, it just makes a lot of loud noises!  Blend until the mango is incorporated.
• Add crushed ice and if your using a sweetener throw it in here and then blend until smooth.

I was going to add some Vanilla Protein Powder to mine to jazz it up but I checked the pantry and I am completely out.  This isn’t a surprise since I haven’t had protein powder since last September!

My smoothie was 170 calories, 2 grams of protein, and 4 grams of fiber. It’s a tasty base so you can definitely add some more nutritious add ins.

Since it’s so light, this is a great drink for a Summer Lunch or even Dinner!  The banana and mango go great together and it’s so pretty to eat!

I’ll be posting a lot more often guys, this past week was pretty loco!

Mini Banana and Oat Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oats
• 50 grams banana
• 1/4 cup almond milk or other milk
• Sweetener and Cinnamon To Taste
• 1 tbs Milled Flax Seeds
• Sprinkle of baking powder

Instructions

1. Mash Banana with a fork.  Leave a couple chunks in the mix.
2. Add sweetener, cinnamon, flax seeds, and baking powder to mashed banana.
3. Incorporate oats into mixture.
4. Add almond milk and stir until the liquid is equally distributed
5. Form into mini pancakes and cook in a non stick pan until browned and then flip and repeat.

Yields 5 Pancakes the Size of Sand Dollars

235 Calories, 7 grams of protein, and 7 grams of fiber.

These actually taste like little bites of Banana Bread!

My dear readers,

I have had a fantastic time ‘meeting’ all of you and getting to know you through my comments and through your own blogs.  However, running a food blog is a lot of work, a lot more than I could have imagined.  I commend those of you who can keep posting meal after meal and never lose slack.  I on the other hand have felt a great deal of stress from blogging.  At first, it was fun but now it’s become a chore.  I love blogs and i will continue blogging but not everyday.  Some weeks I may post a couple times and others maybe just once.  I’ll post recipes and dishes I find too good to keep off the Internet!

Thank you so much for your support and I hope you don’t mind my decision to switch to more sporadic posting.