Pumpkin Spice Chia Bread

A Few Hungry Girls

If you read my post from a few weeks ago called "Cha Cha Cha Chia Seeds" I promised a few recipes with chia seeds and finally I delivered! Please excuse the subpar pics, I didn't have my good camera charged and I promised a few people I'd have the recipe up tonight! 

I've been wanting to make a pumpkin bread this month and I needed to incorporate chia seeds into a recipe. I did some research and found that you can actually use chia seeds to swap several ingredients in food! These food swaps include: oil, eggs, and thickeners for smoothies and shakes! In this recipe I swapped out oil for chia seeds.

Whiskey Apple Crisp

A Few Hungry Girls

 

My inspiration for this recipe was pure whim. I bought apple pie spice about 2 weeks ago for no good reason likely because I really needed pumpkin pie spice and it was right next to it and on sale. Originally I was going to use Honey Crisp apples until a sale associate at Publix introduced me to SweeTango apples. They are a hybrid mix between Honey Crisp apples and Zestar apples, they aren't as large or shiny as our beloved Honey Crisp but I actually thought they tasted better plus they were $1.69 per pound cheaper.

I really love apple crisp and I personally think a brown alcohol almost always pairs well with apples. So I whipped about a shots worth of whiskey in my apples AND my whipped topping. Oops hope no ones gets too tipsy, just kidding after baking the alcohol gets cooked off and all that remains is the flavor profile. Let me tell you something... I really did my thang with this dish! Here's how I made it...

Ingredients: 

5 Sweetart apples

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar 

1/4 cup agave nectar 

1 tablespoon apple pie spice 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter 

3/4 cup flour 

1/4 cup white sugar 

1 shot + 1 tablespoon whiskey 

1 tub fat free whip cream 

Easy Pesto in a Presto

A lot of folks I meet are scared of pesto, between the green goop and complexity of its flavors I can see why. In fact I was one of those folks...

It wasn't until about my 10th trip to Bonefish (the best bread on the planet) did I finally say "hey, I can make this".  So I looked up all these recipes which all called for pine nuts. I had no idea what a pine nut was and honestly I still don't. I'm guessing something to do with a pine tree **Kanye Shrug**. Then I saw the price of a baby bag of pine nuts, the recipes only called for a tablespoon or so. I thought $7 for a teeny bag of nuts was crazy... I still do which is why I developed a recipe without them and it takes about 10 minutes start to finish. AND you can store it for later use!! 

You can cook all fancy in a snap!! 

Ingredients: 

3 cups fresh basil (don't smush them just to make it fit!)

1/4 cup Olive Oil 

3 garlic cloves 

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese 

1 tablespoon lemon juice 

Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions: 

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor. 

(I got a small one for about $20 or less and it works just fine if your budget friendly like me!)

2. Blend until smooth. Basil will likely remained slightly chopped. You don't want to make soup! 

3. Spread on bread, cook with chicken or pasta, or place in air tight container and refrigerate it! Lasts a few weeks... 

I used this recipe for my White Chicken Pizza! 

Stay hungry my friends...

Ray B. 

Quickie Semi-Homemade Cinnamon Bacon Rolls

Got this idea last night while watching Netflix! This recipe was designed for a quick, creative, and tasty brunch/breakfast meal! Anyone can do it, trust me...anyone! Obviously, we could make our cinnamon rolls from scratch and get the kitchen all dusty from flour, but ain't nobody got time for that (hehe). 

This is perfect if you need to make for a large crowd or something easy to do with the kids! Plus, it has bacon in it... You can never go wrong there unless your a Veggie. Then I apologize you can't enjoy this as much as we did! I suppose you could use veggie bacon though!! 

Ingredients: 

1 can of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls (you want to use the larger rolls that are actually rolled not the small ones that are flat) 

1/2 pack of Bacon (we used maple) 

Instructions: 

1. Brown bacon in a skillet on medium heat. Do not cook until crispy, you won't be able to roll them later. 

2. Pre-heat oven to temperature as instructed on package. 

3. Once bacon is cooked but not crispy, place on paper towel to cool and drain grease. 

4. Open cinnamon roll package and unroll each biscuit. Place one strip of bacon along biscuit and begin to re-roll them back up. 

5. Place each roll in a greased baking pan. I used a circular cake pan but use whatever you have! 

6. Cook as directed on package. 

7. Once browned and cooked, immediately pour frosting over cinnamon rolls. They'll get all gooey this way! 

8. Eat! I don't really allow to cool that much, about 5 minutes because I want to eat them warm and gooey! But please don't burn yourself!! 

Enjoy this semi homemade recipe! 

Stay hungry my friends... 

Ray B.