If I Dream It...

I don't know why - but the other day I started craving pudding. It's a sweet treat that I have always enjoyed but rarely have any more. One, I never want much of it and two, while I do enjoy my sweets - I am trying to eat more healthy sweets and less processed sugars. I have gotten better with this at breakfast - I've been having fruit smoothies every day for breakfast with about a tablespoon of agave nectar for sweetener upon occasion and have loved every one (though I do wish I had a better blender that actually blended in the seeds). The simplest, and one of the best is frozen pineapple chunks with coconut milk and a little agave. This reminds me of a pina colada and is just totally yummy :) I have no measurements as I blend in the cup I drink from. It's about 1 1/2 cups of fruit though and usually enough liquid to cover it. Milks make it thicker and juices/water thinner. Upon occasion I add chia seeds as well. Yes, I know it looks odd - but it's good! I

Some people love it, others hate it... I must admit I've never met anyone on the fence about their feelings for it... Tapioca. Personally, I love tapioca pudding. I have to be in the mood for it, but there's something oddly comforting about it. Many people don't like it - the ones I know say it's a textual thing...  I don't know why tapioca got me thinking about the drink Oribitz, but it did... so I'm sharing my trip down memory lane too... Much like some people's take on tapioca pudding, people didn't like the texture. And understandably, it seemed odd to have something semi-solid in a drink. For some reason though, I liked it - it was an odd treat in my book. I loved the fruit flavors and the odd little floating balls in each bottle. It intrigued me because it was so different. Granted, I will admit, when I think of a drink - that wasn't my idea of anything refreshing... it was more of an odd dessert than a drink. Sadly, to me, it didn'

When cooking with the crock-pot I've done a bit of BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, but I didn't want to do the same thing... however, I wanted BBQ... so while it's not a huge stretch, I did branch myself a little. And while I like the thought of a mango BBQ - I wasn't sure it was something I could get the hubby to go for (though I'm sure I'll try that one of these days too)... so what could be an easily accepted tweak that sounds yummy? BEER! That was it! So to make a simple BBQ beer chicken sandwich I went... And with the crock-pot, it really can't get much easier.  The beer and BBQ sauce by themselves impart a lot of flavor - so I didn't add a bunch extra.  And as per usual - the simplicity of the crock-pot is also wonderful for lazy days... so it was super nice to toss dinner together over lunch and then come home and dinner is almost ready... it's great.  Now I didn't make a bunch - I need to get a smaller circle crock-pot again s

Well I am a bit late in posting this, but better late than never right? :) So the other day, I was hungry and trying to think of lunch... however what came into mind was a a combo of what a friend had for dinner the other night and a recipe I had seen online... mind you I really had no clue what my friend had - just how it looked... but it looked good... so what was now stuck in my head, was something that would take some time, and would most likely be a great thing to make in the crock-pot... Since I didn't feel like putting the time in now and wanted to do it in the crock-pot - this wasn't a lunch recipe, it was a dinner recipe that I had in my head... since it sounded so good I figured I'd toss it together and then I'd figure out lunch next. I know that seems backwards - but the dinner recipe was now stuck in my head and since I wanted to do it in the crock-pot, it was time to put it together. So I pulled out the crock-pot, and started with some frozen chicken br

On a cold day nothing is as welcomed as a comforting warm drink. Generally hot cocoa on a snowy day comes to mind. Sometimes coffee or tea... and when fall comes we start thinking of ciders. With the wind starting to chill and the holidays approaching, I started to think of warm drinks. Ones I could easily make in the crock-pot and ones that would be nice and quick to fix a craving. Here are three warm drinks I've fallen in love with already: Peach Apricot Cider (spiked), CranCherry Apple Cider, and Warm Lemonade. So if your looking for something warm and comforting this winter - this one's for you :) Warm Lemonade: 1     Cup        Hot Water 1     Tbl         Honey 1     Tbl         Lemon Juice 1                   Cinnamon Stick Mix water, honey and lemon juice together - stirring with cinnamon stick. Allow cinnamon stick to stay in glass through up to 5 glasses (depending on how quickly you drink each cup). If you wanted to let the cinnamon stick flavor all cup

Fall is quickly approaching and the crock-pot has been on my brain... hence the back to back crock-pot recipes :) It's my best friend and for some reason it always gets more use as it gets colder :) I'm always looking for new recipes to try and the thought of waking up for breakfast is just as nice as the thought of coming home to dinner. I've never braved breakfast before though. I have found a few that said they could be done overnight, but they recommended less time so it didn't get mushy... so really, it may not be the best overnight breakfast.. However, after seeing several crock-pot oatmeal/porridge recipes I figured it was high time I tried it. I didn't brave the overnight version - I didn't even make the full one (just in case I didn't like it, I didn't want to be stuck with 4 - 5 more servings)... plus it gave the excuse to use the mini crock-pot I got last year that I've never used yet. It's a dip one that came with the bigger one