Delicious Experiments

This week has been full of cooking and experimenting. I started by making a dish my mom makes quite a bit, it doesn't have an official name but it is made with soba noodles, edamame, tofu, apples, bean sprouts and usually red onion. Unfortunately, I had to make many modifications when preparing this dish. I couldn't find the typical soba noodles at San Marcos HEB so I had to use thai rice noodles, I also didn't use a red onion because they didn't look to great in the store (which they haven't for awhile). I added peanuts to my dish and played with the sauce to make the recipe my own. It really turned out delicious. After the ingredients were combined and marinated for a bit I separated everything into individual portion sizes. Literally, I could eat the entire bowl if I didn't portion it!

 The next little experiment was homemade nutella, and let me just say... this stuff is pretty darn phenomenal. At first I was concerned because I roasted the hazelnuts and the first bite or two of the prepared nutella kind of tasted burnt. After it sat in the fridge for awhile the flavors blended into a wonderful cocoa-hazelnut flavor. Yesterday I ate it with a half an apple I had left... I also decided to add it to a blender with some frozen strawberries and blueberries I had left over from a couple weeks ago. I need to remember to freeze fruits, they last so much longer this way. I'll have to go back to the store here in a few days to find some other ingredients to dip in my nutella. :)

Another great recipe from this week is the green muffin tin smoothie recipes I ran across on pinterest. The recipe comes from muffintinmania.com, a site devoted to cooking food in muffin tins. This smoothie is loaded with ingredients:

• Celery
• coconut water (which I am a huge fan of these days)
• Spinach
• almonds
• orange
• frozen mangos
• honey 
• mint 

The smoothie is so light and fresh, and is super healthy. The best part about it is that you combine all the ingredients in a blender and then pour them in muffin tins to freeze them. The recipe fills 12 average sized muffin tins. You throw two of the frozen muffin greenies into a smoothie the next day and add some water or coconut water and you are set. I've had this delicious drink two days in a row and I fell like I could drink it all day long. So refreshing. 

 Another foodie experiment of this week was my usual, what do I have leftover to create something delicious... celery, spinach, cilantro and some baked brown rice topped with a little siracha for some spicy flavor. I paired this with some green tea with fresh mint and some target six grain chips. What a light refreshing lunch. 

Man i'm good.