thankful thursday

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you are having a wonderful holiday!  We definitely are!  The dogs are playing, and we are relaxing.  They are sweet together.  Hazel loves her cousin-dog!

What I've really come to talk to you about today is food.  Holidays are the hardest when you are trying to stay healthy.  However, it is doable!  I remember growing up.  We would go to my gramma's house, and there would be a giant spread of sweets.  They weren't there just after dinner, they were there all day/night long!  And they were delicious!  I knew this year, beyond having some sides that would be healthy, I wanted to make a dessert that I could safely indulge in.

I mentioned to my dad that I saw a crustless pumpkin pie on Instagram that looked good.  He did a little research and found me the perfect recipe, for mini crustless pumpkin pies!  They turned out wonderfully!  They are gluten-free, flour-free, and packed with protein.  The perfect treat!

I did not vary from Taralynn's recipe at all, here it is! 

Mini Crustless Pumpkin Pies

For pies:

1 (15oz) can of pumpkin puree 

1 egg white

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 scoop of vanilla protein powder

1 tsp baking soda

1tbsp baking powder

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

For frosting:

10 tbsp vanilla greek yogurt

1 tsp honey

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat to 350.  Mix pumpkin puree and egg white together.  Next, add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Fill muffin cups in pan a little over half way each.

Bake 20-24 minutes.

While they are baking, mix together the frosting ingredients.  Refrigerate until use.

And that's it!  Enjoy!

brookies with a side of twins

Today I learned a lot of valuable lessons...

1. Dump water on 11 year olds and the spray them with a water hose... you will get water ballooned.

2. You can hide stuffed animals in A LOT of different places.

3. You can put anything you want in a brownie and it will come out okay... well maybe...

I've been hanging out with my two favorite 11 year olds today, and I'm lucky enough to spend more time with them tomorrow and Friday!  It has definitely been fun and they create awesome games for us to play.  After playing in the hot sun with the water hose, buckets, and water balloons, they were hungry.  So they ate Bagel Bites.  But what I have learned about boys since I have been married is that they are ALWAYS hungry!  After playing in the water some more they came up with the idea to make brownies.  Specifically, brownies with cookies on top and M&Ms.

We went to Publix, everyone quickly ran for the item they said they would get and met at the register.  It was hectic, but very fast, just like they wanted.  We grabbed Ghirardelli Fudge Brownie Mix, Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, eggs, and the M&Ms.  I let them put their snack together all on their own (you will notice chocolate on their faces in every picture!)

This is how it went down...
We preheated the oven to 350.

We mixed up the box of Ghirardelli Brownies and added the M&Ms!

Then, after the boys and their friend snacked on the cookie dough :) we smashed them down and laid them on top to cover the pan.  They will spread out and together, so it is okay to leave space.

Put the brookies in the oven to bake, covered in tin foil for about 35 minutes.

They also watched the oven while licking the bowl before moving onto a stuff animal war.

And wala! The final product!

I was actually impressed with how nice the dish ended up looking.  It would definitely be something to consider taking to a party or get together if you wanted to do something fast and impressive!

The boys definitely enjoyed it! I couldn't even snap a shot before they gobbled it all up!

Brookies

1 box brownie mix

1 package refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough

Optional: M&Ms or nuts

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix brownie ingredients and fill the bottom of an 8x8 greased baking dish with mixture.

After sampling the cookie dough (which was the case for the twins), flatten the remaining cookie dough out and place it on top of the mixture.  Leaving a little space inbetween for the cookie to expand together.  Cover with tin foil and bake for 35-40 minutes!

homemade fro-yo

Every now and again I like to make the hubs something sweet to eat, because I don't keep sweets in the house.  Since I can't eat them, it's easier just to not buy them at all.  But I like to make him a little something special every few weeks.

While shopping for healthy sweet treats on Pinterest, I ran across a recipe for Peach Fro-yo.

Um... YUM.

When I read the recipe, I told David about it immediately.  He loves ice cream and I knew it would be a hit.  On top of that, we had all of the ingredients, except the peaches.  To spare a trip to the grocery store, we decided to use some frozen mixed berries we had.  This recipe is EASY and requires very few ingredients!  We would highly recommend it and will be making it again one day (maybe with a different fruit next time?)

Mixed Berry Fro-Yo

2 1/2 cups 0% Fage Greek Yogurt

3 cups of Mixed Berries

1/4 cup Honey

Optional: A few packets of Splenda

Instructions:

First, put all of the ingredients in the blender and puree.

We have an automatic ice cream maker, so we put the mixture into the frozen container and turned it on for about 35 minutes.  Or as long as it takes for the puree to start stiffening.

Once the puree is stiffening, but the container in the freezer for an hour or two until frozen.

Easy?  I know right!

We are nursing our precious pup back this week.  She will officially not be having babies!  For most of this week, she has been and will be our little cone-head.  Hazel's not enjoying it too much, but she's handling it like a champ!

Hope you are having a great week!

sweet treat

When I know David is going to have a rough week school-wise, I usually try to whip up some type of sweet treat for the hubs.

A little known fact about my hubby is how much he loves coconut or coconut flavored things. I'm not a huge coconut fan, so I knew it'd be easy for me to steer clear from them.

I saw a recipe for coconut macaroons in my first copy of Real Simple! I had everything but the coconut, so it was really easy! David has loved the macaroons, so I copied the recipe down for my box! He also said I should share it with all of you!

Coconut Macaroons

Makes 16

1 14 ounce bag of shredded coconut

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 kosher salt

3 large egg whites

Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes (or until golden brown!). Halfway through, turn the tray.

I hope you love them as much as the hubs did!