no bake peanut butter cookies

I think it's no secret that I love peanut butter. When I started clean eating I was made aware of how much added sugar was in regular peanut butter such as Jif, Peter Pan and Skippy. I thought that having no added sugar peanut butter it would be bland and gross. No it's just as delicious and more nutritional. There are so many nutritious and delicious brands out there. When looking to buy a more healthy option look for NO SUGAR ADDED. All natural. I will warn you it's a wee bit more expensive but when it comes to your health I think we can just spend that extra few cents. We all want to live longer and lead healthy lives right? Even just small steps like this will help mold your path. 

I am in no way a nutritionist I am just letting you know what I've been learning on the way to helping myself lead a healthier life. 

Now for my no bake peanut butter cookies. 

1/3 cup all natural peanut butter

tbsp all natural almond butter

1/3 cup flax seed

1/3 cup dates cut into pieces

1/2 mashed banana 

(this is optional I have made them with and without the banana and both taste just as good) 

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/3 cup rolled oats

Mix it all together and then form small balls in your hand. 

Then flatten them out with a fork or knife.

You can refrigerate them or keep them in the pantry. They are a great for a morning pick me up or just something to snack on during the day. 

Let me know what you think.  Or if you have any healthy Peanut butter recipes give me a shout! 

Mocassins

I have been wanting to post this project for awhile but I couldn't figure out where I had found it. So if anyone knows where please let me know so I can give credit to the original source. Something tells me that I saw it over at A Beautiful Mess but I may be wrong. 

I had some left over wall paint but I'm sure fabric paint would have worked better and a real paintbrush not a concealer brush. This just goes to show you can make do with the things in your house :). 

Weekend wrap up

Staring the day with a cup of black coffee/Making cheesy heart shaped breakfasts for David/ Just being Adens/snuggles on the couch with Luna/ Making carrot, parsnip and celery stew/ Finding Davids faded vows looking like we got married in 1912.

Carrot, Parsnip, Celery stew

Two Carrots chopped
One large Parsnip chopped
Two Celery stems chopped
1/3 cup buckwheat
Green Thai spice
Pinch of Sea Salt
Oregano 


Bring all ingredients to a boil and let simmer until soft.
You can either leave pieces chunky or puree for a thick no lump soup/stew.
I let mine soak in all the water and then caramelise for added flavour and then added more boiling water.

Let me know what you think. Hoping everyone had a lovely weekend. 

Banana muffins

So since I did that clean eating challenge from over at Sometimes Sweet I was reading all different blogs and articles on eating healthy. I've tried to start taking recipes I love and tweaking them to a more healthier standard. Here I give my banana muffins. 

I used to mash the bananas into the mix but after making these last week I thought I'd give cutting them up a go. 

I absolutely loved the chunks of bananas as you bite into the bread. You could always add crushed nuts into the mix as well we just didn't have any in the house. 

It should have been bread but I do not have a bread baking tin so muffins it was. 

1 cup spelt flour
1 cup barley bread flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
1/2 cup grape seed oil
1/2 cup agave nectar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
 1 chopped banana

Preheat oven to 170 C degrees. Lightly grease your pan. Take all the dry ingredients and mix them. See all those wet ingredients? Let's put those in a separate bowl and mix them together.  Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry.  Now add the chopped bananas into the mix without over mixing. Pour into  pan and bake at 170 degrees for 25 minutes. Do always have a peak in the oven due to different oven fans etc. 

As you can see above Luna wanted a taste. How about yourself? 

Tell me if you try it and how they turned out :) 

My day in pictures.

 

While crafting one of the buttons fell on a magazine like this. It kind of made me giggle. Who knew Carey Mulligan liked to Clown around. Oh gosh I must stop. 

Craft.

Diva? I think so. 

Febphotoaday: inside your bathroom cabinet.

I spy Luna... and a mess? Don't worry thats um... supposed to look like that. 

 

                         Frizzy hair, favourite tee shirt kind of day. 

Love how the sun comes through the bathroom window of an evening. 

Happy Friday! 

snippet from my day

Febphotoaday: shoes

364

Soooooooo my hair is in like that awkward stage where you want to grow it because you feel like you hate short hair but at the same time cutting it and leaving it really short seems so much easier. I have this little cow lick at the back where the hair flips out no matter how many times I blow dry it or straighten it. So cool. I have no patience as I'm sure you have noticed over the past year. I was brown, very blonde, ombre, red, dark brown, cut my hair, cut it again and then again. Now it's in middle phase. Color and cut. 

I really genuinely wished I could just not care. I try and have these days where I just don't do anything. Don't wear make up and I feel good for about a total of 10 minutes and then I see myself in the mirror and I look tired and grey. It doesn't help that people usually say you look really tired on days that I don't wear make up. 

Either here or there I can't believe tomorrow I'll have been blogging for a year. 

We'll take a little trip down memory lane :) 

Have a lovely evening y'all. 

363

Although he did enjoy my pancakes, it wouldn't be Pancake Tuesday with out his English pancakes. 

I personally think they are a poor excuse for pancakes. Thin as paper and topped with sugar and lemon? 

Nah I'll pass. 

How did you have your pancakes? 

363 of 365. 

Two more days? 

Wow this year has flooooown by. 

Pancake Tuesday

Happy Pancake day Y'all. 

I saw this  Buckwheat and Banana Pancakes over at Whole Family Fare's blog. 

I really wanted to try it and conveniently I saw yesterday that today is Pancake Tuesday. 

How perfectly fitting. 

Now we couldn't find Buckwheat flour but my lovely mother in law helped me gather some Spelt flour and grapeseed oil. 

I also tweaked it a bit by of course; wait for it, adding cinnamon. 

I also made the first batch with Barley flour instead of the Buckwheat but they weren't as nice as the second 

batch that I made with all Spelt Flour. 

Ps. How adorable is the packaging for the Vanilla Extract and Spelt flour? 

As lovely as it is though, I'm thinking when it runs out I want to make my own. 

Make my own you ask? Why yes head over to A Beautiful Mess and learn how.

                                 

I really liked the sliced bananas in the pancakes they were nice and cooked. They tasted extra good when I put a little almond butter across the top. I mean almond butter and cinnamon all in one bite. Perfect way to start the day 

I would also like to state  that no I did not eat all of these and also no I have not perfected making round pancakes. Hey who wants to be like everyone else? Not these guys. 

Maybe all that different flour palarva isn't really tickling your taste buds. 

How about this Chocolate Malt Pancake recipe or this Classic Buttermilk one over at Food Coma. 

Next I personally want to try Clean Eating Recipe's  Quinoa Pancakes.

What are your favourite Pancake recipes? 

How do you eat yours? 

Pinterest inspired

Since the moment I saw this picture on Pinterest I have been wanting to wear a check top with a black bow. I just have been lacking the right check shirt. So when my mother sent me a care package recently with a check shirt in it. This image popped into my mind. So here is my Pinterest inspired outfit. 

Check top: Old Navy

Sweater: H&M

Jeans: Zara

Shoes: Topshop

Bow: Handmade

Can you tell me who I'm trying to be in the following Picture? 

Yes in my spare time I imagine myself as Kirsten Dunst. You know from Elizabethtown.... 

This was inspired from my early post which reminded me of the beginning of David and I's relationship. When we used to Skype and send each other pictures constantly. This was one of our favourite poses. 

feb photo a day: handwriting.

362: Dinner. Zucchini, Sweet Potato, Broccoli, Mushroom and Buckwheat. Yum!!

Hope you've had a good Monday. 

One day closer to the weekend :)

It might never happen

These are the exact words someone once said to me. That someone is now my husband. You never know if things will work out, but wouldn't you rather know that you tried and just followed your heart whether be for love, career, hobby, or just even whether to have orange juice or apple juice for breakfast. You wouldn't ever have to think WHAT IF I had done that. You will have known that you did try. You lived a little. I had more people not believe in and try and talk me out of moving to England. You won't know anyone, you won't have a job, You and David have only been going out for a few months. The list goes on of reasons WHY I could have stayed put in little ole Fayetteville, Arkansas. I chose to just close my eyes and followed the wind. The wind took  me to rainy grey England. I didn't arrive like Mary Poppins with her umbrella nor did I fly here like Wendy followed Peter Pan. Was I scared it wouldn't work out? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. Who isn't scared? Love is a scary thing, but it's also the most beautiful thing in life. Love is literally what keeps the world going round. Not just love for each other, love for anything. It's what keeps people thriving for work. The love of it. Of course not everything works out and sometimes we leap and we might break an ankle, but it's nice to know for that brief moment you were flying. You gave it a chance. Next time you might do things differently and it might happen, but it also might never happen. Thankfully for me it did work out. It was the best decision I have ever made. I'm sure there will be things that come my way that just might not. I still will always leap. All I really wanted to say was if your ever in a dilemma about trying something new, making a big move, taking on a new career, starting a business,take a trip, fall in love, etc. JUST DO IT!  People might think your crazy, there might be a million and one reasons on why you might fail. Prove them wrong. Beat the odds. Go out into the world and LIVE. When you come to your last days of living you want to look back and know you really cherished every moment. There isn't anything you SHOULD have done. It's easy to think about doing things, then tomorrow comes and then next thing you know twenty years have passed and now the opportunity has gone. It will become a distant dream that you once had. It's so hard to think you could lose everything but hey it's life. Tomorrow could be the last. Let's all make the best of it. 

photochallenges.

 361: Little mirror love with the family. Absolutely adore these two. 

febphotoaday: Something I hate doing. Blow drying and straightening my hair. 

Too much hassle. If only air drying my hair didn't make it look like I stuck my finger in a socket in a humid rain storm. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a nice lazy Sunday. 

Let the week commence.