The Yum Yum Factor

Because I love a challenge, I agreed to accept a giant vat of BioSteel Whey Protein Isolate , which is their brand name for protein powder, in order to come up with some tasty, protein rich recipes. Protein powder is not just for body builders and NHL hockey players, you know. It can be a godsend for people who need more protein and moms trying to sneak a bit into their picky kid's diet but the problem lies in the quality of the protein powders that are out there. Many other powders can contain stuff like processed soy, artificial flavours and sweeteners, fake colour and synthetic nutrients that are not all that easily absorbed by our bodies. BioSteel was developed by NHL trainer, Matt Nichol, who was sure he could do better and BioSteel was born. If it's good enough for Mats Sundin, it's good enough for me. The classic way for mere mortals to use it is to throw some into a morning smoothie but that can get boring and not everyone likes smoothies so that'...

When Dorset Cereals offered to send out a box of samples to 15 members of the Food Bloggers of Canada I was all over that like a plump pug on poutine. It was an easy choice because I already know that I really like Dorset granola and, to be honest, I don't really want to be taking free stuff from companies that I don't already like because I hate having to say bad stuff about people's products. It's so much easier to just accept things that I like because I prefer to keep things positive as much as I can. Also, I am afraid that if I diss somebody's Cheesits they are going to send their Cheesit hit men out in the night to whack me. Easier to just accept good stuff and keep it real, right?

I didn't cook anything at all last week because between being out of town with family, a sick kid and then ending the week with a couple of 13+hr work days, there was no opportunity to spend any time in the kitchen at all, apart from making tea and smoothies. We ate a lot of toast and miso soup and spent lots of time in bed watching tv and then I was off to work, not eating anything to write home about apart from an old school Sheriff's lemon meringue pie that the food stylist had baked for the ad. We were shooting a commercial for Sheriffs (now owned by Dr Oetker) and I was instantly transported back into my mother's kitchen. Not being much of a birthday cake kind of girl, I asked for a lemon meringue pie every year as my birthday cake instead. I didn't realize until I was well into my twenties that my mother's famous lemon meringue pie was ALWAYS Sheriff's (much like pretty much every other mom from our generation) and although I make my own lemon c...

My son is so much like me in so many weird little ways. When I was a child, I would eat the same breakfast every day for months on end and then one morning, without warning, I would come to the table and reject my breakfast and ask for something completely different. That would become the new breakfast for the next undetermined amount of time until I would do it again, making my poor mother crazy. The Kid does this as well and he now has decided that his new favourite breakfast is a muffin and a fruit smoothie. For the last year or so, he has eaten one piece of french toast with a glass of soy milk almost every single morning. On occasion I can talk him into eating eggs but he is a creature of habit when it comes to his morning meal on school days.

It's almost the last month of school so I won't have to do this many more times until it starts up again in September. Maybe I will just arbitrarily designate one or two days a month snack day during the summer to keep me in the groove. I was too tired to make muffins last night and so I had planned to go pick up something and take it into school this morning but the dog woke me up at 6:45. Clearly she thought I was a being a lazy no good lay about mother and wanted to help me be better. What a nice dog. I will be honest. I typed in blueberry oatmeal muffin and this was the first one to pop up, it looked okay so this is the muffin I made. At 6:45 am of snack day I don't have time to dilly dally. Little Shack said they are bit a dry and I think he is right so if I make them again, I won't cut back so much on the oil and still add the apple sauce. It could also be a matter of over mixing as well because I wasn't expecting the batter to be as dry as it was. Thi...

Who would have thought that I would ever be the proud owner of a 12 year old boy? One day you are pulling him down off of the bookshelf and the next, you are buying him Axe deodorant and he is asking you if you think he will look good with a beard?

Tomorrow is our turn for snack day so the search for a healthy, tasty muffin begins. I must have bookmarked 20 recipes last night but when I woke up this morning, the only one that was still stuck in my head was  Smitten Kitchen's perfect blueberry muffins  . The only thing I needed to go and buy was a lemon but then they had blueberries that looked nice so I bought some and used those instead of the frozen blueberries I had intended to use. I stuck pretty close to the recipe with just a few changes - I added some whole grain flour and because my greek yogurt was as thick as cement (in a good way of course) I added a bit of vanilla soy milk so that my batter would not require actual kneading. Oh, I threw in some poppy seeds because I am all about the poppy seeds right now and those kids should be too. Blueberry Poppy Seed Muffins adapted from a recipe on  Smitten Kitchen Made 12 regular muffins 5 tbls soft butter 1/2 cup sugar (meant to use brown but forgot - w...

Tomorrow is Little Shack's turn for snack day again so that almost always means muffins. I had a ton of strawberries in the fridge and they were so ripe that they weren't going to last much longer so it was obvious that I would be making strawberry muffins. I found tons of great sounding recipes but they all called for stuff I didn't have on hand like buttermilk or yogurt and I wanted to make them using what was in the house. I came across this recipe on Thyme For Food  for a really basic strawberry muffin. With a little tweaking, I whipped up a batch and they are pretty good. Not very sweet at all and with the addition of some whole wheat flour, I could send them to school with a clear conscience. If I were making these for home, I would probably serve them with a bit of butter or some apple butter or something because they really are not sweet at all. Maybe next time I would also add a mashed banana. I thought that the vanilla soy milk would give enough sweetness to...

Tomorrow is Little Shack's snack day. Once or twice a month it is our responsibility to bring in the snack for the class. Luckily, there are only ten kids in the class so I don't have to feel like I just want to buy a bulk box of triscuits and a jar of no name jam to throw at them to avoid spending a ton of dough. I usually try to bake something to make up for the times when I get really busy and either forget snack altogether (like I did two weeks ago) or have to run out and buy a bag of clementines and box of crackers on the way to school in the morning.

Tomorrow is my son's turn to provide snack, which we all know means that it is MY turn to provide snack. Last month I made tatziki and brought that in with pita so this month I wanted to bake something. I like to keep them guessing and messing with their little heads by switching it up drastically. I don't want to be that mom who "always brings in cheese and crackers". I knew that I wanted to make something apple. Apple oatmeal was my original thought but then I stumbled upon this recipe for whole wheat apple muffins at smitten kitchen  and decided on making these instead: Whole Wheat Apple Muffins Adapted from King Arthur Flour These dark, crazy moist muffins will keep well for several days, and the brown sugar on top, should you not skimp on it like I did, adds a crunchy touch, perfect for those of you who know that the lid is the best part. Yield: They said 12, I got 18 1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour 1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon b...

 So, this is the first post of my first food blog so i probably should have picked something that is tried and true, something that i already know will wow the crowd but I have decided i have to use up that bit of sweet potato and those three rotting bananas so Sweet Potato Banana Muffins it is. It was either that or Sweet Potato Banana Chowder and that just didn't sound appetizing to me. (Just to be safe, I am also making Whole Wheat Boule with caramelized onions and old cheddar because bread is never terrible)   I searched the internet to see if there are actually any recipes for this and i was pleasantly surprised to see that i am not the first nut to want to pair these two ingredients. I decided to follow  this recipe i found on Noshings  with a few changes. I am going to use brown sugar instead of white sugar , i am adding some pumpkin pie spice because Little Shack is all hopped on all things pumpkin pie right now and i am adding some pecans for cru...