These Dragon Fruit Muffins are adapted from my Homemade Muffin and Bakes category. The red hue is coming from red dragon fruit puree.
Basically, I used a foundation oat muffins recipe for this Dragon Fruit Muffins. Instead of mashed ripe banana that is usually added as natural sweetener, dragon fruit smoothie pack (100% dragon fruit puree) is used instead.
As there were no plans to stock up store-bought ice-cream this summer, I had to find ways to satisfy cold and chilled cravings on hot summer days. I could have made 1-ingredient Banana Ice-Cream again but let's try something different. First, is to use what is already in the kitchen, pantry or fridge. Greek yogurt came to mind, peanut butter as well. And banana as the natural sweetener.
Here comes Banana Peanut Butter Greek Yogurt Frozen Bites. Perfect.
Whole-grain oats is a great way to get soluble fiber in your diet. Research suggests that increasing your intake of soluble fiber each day may result in a drop in "bad" LDL cholesterol.
Rolled oats are usually incorporated as breakfast foods e.g. Homemade Granola or Muesli, High-Fiber Breakfast Oats with Milk. However, not restricted to morning consumption, you can also add rolled oats when making multi-grain rice for lunch or fish + oats egg frittata that tops a lunch protein bowl.
During the course of making these homemade healthy bakes such as Eggless Banana Cacao Oatmeal Cups, Banana Bran Muffins, Eggless Pineapple Cacao Muffins, Peanut Butter Powder Low-Fat Low-Cal Muffins, a personal baking-style has also evolved - call it easy, fool-proof style. Today's bakes returns to this basic, simple ingredients Rolled Oats Muffins - truly easy and fool-proof.
Traditionally, florentines are typically made from nuts (most of the times, hazelnuts and almonds) mixed with sugar melted together with butter and honey, then baked in an oven (Best Selling Smart Oven). However, modern day florentines have evolved to be healthier biscuits (or cookies) or more accurately, thin crackers formed from a mixture of nuts, seeds, egg whites, honey.
Our family version of florentines consists of a mix of sliced almonds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, sesame seeds, and in replacement of honey, date syrup (I used Organic Just Date Syrup, 1-Ingredient: 100% Organic Medjool Dates)
What's for breakfast or after-meal dessert (have you tried this One-Ingredient Ice-Cream yet)?
We enjoy breakfast homemade rolled oats muesli (low-sugar muesli/granola option available) with milk (dairy or dairy-free) topped with fresh berries. Feast like a king for breakfast, there is always add-on peanut butter bread paired with coffee.
In the hot summer months (right now!), high fiber breakfast oats gets amped up with bountiful fresh berries and stone fruits. When it gets to cooler months, we comfort ourselves with warm breakfast such as Black Sesame Oatmeal.
Recently, our family made use of a Prime Day offer and went on a Amazon Prime 30-day free trial, a great opportunity to test out some of the perks especially free next-day delivery without a minimum purchase. A 30-day trial is a good gauge to find out if Prime is FOR us, will it be relevant for our family needs or just an excessive "feature" - good-to-have but nothing lost if missed. The free delivery service (no minimum purchase vs non-Prime account holders who have to go by a $25 minimum purchase for free shipping) did come in handy when we purchased groceries such as organic rolled oats and organic chia seeds. Prime Day might be over but the Amazon Prime 30-day free trial is still available. Try it for 30 days and if it's not for you, cancel it before it expires.
Likewise, once in a blue moon (mood), I'll go experimental with cookies-baking, just like a trial.
I don't usually bake in restrictive manner but in this case, there is no butter, no egg, no added sugar, so it's vegan. Some skeptics may equate no butter, no egg, no added sugar with no taste but these cookies are great-tasting with natural aroma and flavor from coconut and sesame seeds.
Type "tiktok tortilla hack" in the search box and be overwhelmed by so many savory and sweet ideas, so many that you will soon run out of tortilla (whatever is already sitting in your kitchen pantry) to cover all grounds. To start with, I belong to one of those who did not even have readily available tortilla in my kitchen when the trend started few months ago; and I am also not one of those who will go out of the way to get tortilla solely for this purpose.
But guess what? I have my regular pita bread, so I am going to conveniently do this experiment. Sweet!
This is not apple pie because there is no butter bottom crust. It is also not apple cobbler because it has no butter crumble topping.
Does this French toast look like a popover? or maybe, again, resemble a muffin?
Another easy way to make individual servings French toast is to use a muffin tin or ramekin.
If you prefer to serve family-style, make French toast in a shallow baking dish, like a casserole.
No matter how they look, these French toasts are made from leftover French bread loaf after making Garlic Bread Toast. This is a great way to revive days-old dry bread and bring boring to life!
Besides spelt, buckwheat and quinoa flour, this higher-in-protein garbanzo bean/chickpea flour (1/4 cup is about 7g protein) is also one of the alternative "flour-bases" I have recently used in these healthy muffins and bakes.
I actually prefer baking muffins to cookies, because one or two muffins can fill me up as post workout-snacks (two cookies can't! ).
Muffins another day, let us make Chickpea Cookies today.
How is everyone doing? Wherever you are, I hope you are healthy and staying healthy especially in these unprecedented times due to the pandemic.
Here in California, our "shelter-in-place" or "stay-home" order has been in effect since middle of March and looks like it's not going to end anytime soon. Routines have changed and we are all adjusting to the new normal. A lot of us are finding ways to stay sane especially when we have to stay home most of the times.
Baking is definitely an activity that some of you find therapeutic. So let's bake the blues away with these Pineapple Cacao Chocolate Oatmeal Cup Muffins. They are perfect for breakfast, snacks or during these times - DESSERTS ! that lift up your mood!
As always, I've kept baking very simple; adapting from my very own homemade healthy bakes such as Banana Cacao Oatmeal Cups and Banana Bran Muffins.
Many times, I find store-bought baked goods overly sweet for my taste buds (also because I don't have a sweet tooth). Typically, muffins and cookies from big-box stores are laden with processed ingredients we all want to avoid e.g. sugar, corn syrup, fructose. Even if natural and healthy bakes can now be found in specialty artisan bakeries, the bakes usually do not come cheap. $4 for a healthy muffin? Two such healthy muffins can be equivalent to a take-out meal! I will not splurge on baked goods unless there is a reason or occasion to do so.
Now, all fingers pointing towards - making (baking) my own!
It is still banana-based sweetened muffins today, with the success of these Bran Buckswheat Banana Muffins. Banana, because it is a convenient choice as we always stock up on bananas at home. You can also use apple puree or apple sauce) or sometimes dried fruits (e.g. raisins, dates) as natural sweeteners instead of using sugar or syrup.
The Banana Cacao Oat Muffins/Oatmeal Cups today are basic yet classic, just so because I love dark bitter chocolate (so much so that 85% dark works way much better on me than 72%). Instead of melting pieces of dark chocolate, I am going to use 100% raw cacao powder to up the "chocolatey" flavor in this recipe.
High-fiber-and-protein, low-fat low-cal snacks such as these No-Bake Protein Bars and Buckwheat Quinoa Flour Bran Banana Muffins are great on-the-go workout snacks.
Today's convenient and portable bite-size snack (or sweet) is Seeds-Stuffed Dates. Though walnut-stuffed dates are widely-seen as the similar, seeds are definitely a feasible (stuffing) alternative.
Besides bananas, Medjool and Deglet Noor dates are also good sources of potassium and a form of simple sugars that can be easily consumed after exercise to quickly replenish energy in the body.
Due to precise measurements involved, I don't usually bake. Unlike baking, I use my taste buds to adjust the flavors of the dish in the cooking process; and rely on palm-, fist-, sometimes finger-size, as a guide to estimate the quantity of ingredients - for example, vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower florets, sliced cabbage are, added by "handfuls" into the pan or pots.
Such a cooking-style does not apply to baking. This beginner/ newbie/ noob gets it. Therefore, when I bake, it ABSOLUTELY has to be basic, simple, and easy. A good example of simple and easy baking is the low-calorie, high-fiber, protein-packed Bran Buckwheat Banana Muffins.
Wake up to a healthy start in the morning and power up with this breakfast oatmeal (a combination of homemade muesli and milk, boosted by antioxidants-rich fresh fruits and BetterBody Foods Superfood Blend) and peanut butter on whole-wheat bread.
In our family, we have peanut butter on toast almost every day. Since it is a breakfast staple, a healthier peanut butter like PBfit Powdered Nut Butter - with 87% less fat than traditional peanut butter and 1/3 the calories - makes a great alternative.
Powdered peanut butter also means more versatility in usage; as peanut butter can now be easily added (no more sticky spoons or scoops!) to smoothies and your favorite bakes - cakes, cookies, and muffins.
Imagine...no more waiting (and waiting...) for the creamy peanut butter to drip down slowly the tablespoon, and no more trying to get the last bit wiped off completely from the spoon or scoop!
These muffins may look like regular muffins but they are not your standard wheat-flour, butter-filled sugar-laden muffins.
Using wheat bran, buckwheat and quinoa flour as the alternative flour-base and bananas as natural sweetener, these dense and moist Buckwheat Quinoa Banana Muffins are higher in fiber and protein, which make them healthier and more nutritious than regular muffins.
With coconut flour and coconut oil, these muffins also bakes out with a nice aroma. I definitely enjoy a dense, hearty, healthy and delicious muffin anytime. How about you?
As the name implies, this milk has turned golden with the use of turmeric. It has also turned "golden" because milk is now more precious, worth many anti-inflammatory benefits.
An Ayurvedic tradition - Golden Milk is a tonic that is meant to be nourishing, and good-tasting at the same time. Do you know that the compound - piperine found in black pepper enhances the absorption of turmeric? Don't forget its black pepper partner in harmony the next time you use turmeric in curries, pilafs, or even a salad dressing.
With the quick-cook mung bean cooking tip I came across online, cooking this heat-alleviating dessert has become so much easier, especially at the spur of the moment.
There are a few experiments on my to-try list and ice-cream is one of them. However, I am limited by the lack of an ice-cream machine, so ice-cream has been pushed back, again and again, became the second last item, to even the last item to experiment.
Ever since I got myself a Vitamix blender, ice-cream began to re-surface to top of the list again. Of course, technically this should not be called ice-cream as it has no source of cream (or dairy).
Just one ingredient + one machine. Ice-cream. Yes!
I had my doubts in the beginning but it worked!
We missed out on some of these fruits last November. So, this April/May trip in Taiwan, we had our fair share of in-season fruits.
Wax Apple 莲雾 - the peak season is sometime in February/March but we hopped on to the end of the season's harvest and enjoyed some subtly sweet, juicy and crisp wax apples. The texture is no where near to apples, instead something in between crisp-firm Chinese pear and crisp-soft watermelon.
Black-Pearl Wax Apple
There are a few varieties commonly found in Taiwan namely "Bullet-Shaped" Wax Apple 子弹莲雾 and "Black-Pearl" 黑珍珠. The fruit lady actually told me the elongated "Bullet-Shaped" Wax Apple is the modified version of the bell-shaped wide-base Black Pearl (shown above).
