Eating During Quarantine

As of yesterday, the state of California has issued a mandate, and now people are now being mandated to do what they’ve always done – stay at home and avoid society. Of course there’s always that minority who will miss the gyms and the face-to-face conversations (OK maybe most of us). If this describes you, then you’re probably wondering “can I still stay healthy during quarantine?” and, “is it humanly possible to binge-watch the entire Office TV show for the fifth time before quarantine is over?” To the latter, I’m not sure, but for those worrying about their health, I’d like to comfort you by explaining that it isn’t quite as hard as you think.

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Protein Popsicles

We’re finally warming up here, at least in Southern California, so now’s the time to pull out your frozen treats and cool drinks! Most of the time, though, your frozen treats may be things like Otterpops, which are little else than a mixture of corn-syrup and food coloring, or like Kool-Aid, which has ingredients that are impossible to pronounce, and also has food coloring. Sometimes your healthiest option is to make your own, and in this post, I have a recipe for Protein Popsicles! It’s exactly what it sounds like – popsicles with protein powder in them.

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Summer Break! Eat for Health

Summer break is upon us! It’s time to start evaluating the way we’re eating, and start making healthy and sustainable choices. This is more important than it may sound; the food we put into our bodies affects our health directly; our stress levels, our mental health, our energy, and our whole physical well-being.

It’s time to fuel your body properly for all your summer activities!

Often it is very time consuming to prepare entire healthy meals three times a day from scratch, while also making sure you’re getting all of the numerous nutrients your body needs to function at its peak.

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Salmon w/ Vegetables

I recently found a solution to this via a nutrition program that offers complete meal shakes, specifically balanced with all the nutrients your body needs in each one. Each complete meal shake ends up being under $3.

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I take two of these each day, leaving myself with one regular food meal per day to prepare for myself, as well as healthy snacks in between. What I like about this program is that its not a diet; it’s simply a program that showers your body daily with pure nutrition, which naturally aids in the building of lean muscle, and weight loss.

If you could spend under $3 for each of your meals, with no prep and no shopping, while also losing 10-20 pounds in your very first month, would you do it?

Check out all the information on my program’s website, and contact me if you have any questions!

 

Garlic Mushroom Gnocchi

Merry belated Christmas! Christmas baking is done for this year, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – New Year’s is just a few days away, and more cooking must be done. An amazingly cheap and fast dinner that the whole family can enjoy is Gnocchi, in all of it’s related recipes.

This particular Garlic Mushroom Gnocchi is extremely time-and-cost efficient, healthy, and full of flavor. Gnocchi takes only 3 minutes to boil, and don’t cook it too long otherwise it will get chewy and harder to consume.

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Beer Bread

Beer Bread is one of the quickest bread recipes out there, with a distinct flavor and an awesome moist texture.

Beer has rising agent in it already, but most store-bought beer will not have enough of it to make the bread rise; for this, most beer bread recipes include baking powder, which reacts with the beer to lets the bread rise and develop air pockets. Because of this process, Beer Bread is certainly a ‘quick bread’ – the recipe consists of mixing the dry ingredients together, then mixing in the melted butter & beer, then baking right away. There are no rising times or kneading.

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Apple Cake

The holidays are just around the corner, and this simple sheet cake is a great way to celebrate with baking. It doesn’t need much apples, and besides slicing, coring, and peeling the apples, the rest is easy and the result is a perfectly moist cake full of apples and cinnamon flavor.

 

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Apple Cake recipe – – – – PRINT

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Breakfast Egg Muffins

These Egg Muffins are an awesome way to have a quick and healthy breakfast. You can also make these ahead of time, and plan out a few mornings worth.

They are relatively easy and quick to make and require basic ingredients like hash browns, lots of eggs, cheese, and sausage.

Enjoy!

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Breakfast Egg Muffins recipe – – – PRINT

Breakfast Egg Muffins recipe picture

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Blogger Recognition Award

I’m excited today to respond to Blogger Recognition Award that I received (actually a while ago) for the first time since starting my food blog in October. I will also nominate 15 others for the award.

First off, the rules for the nominees:

  1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link their website.
  2. Write a post to show your award.
  3. Give a short story of how your blog started.
  4. Give 2 pieces of advice for new bloggers.
  5. Select 15 other bloggers that you would like to nominate.
  6. Comment on the blogs and let them know that you have nominated them, and make sure you provide a link to the post you made about it.

 

Next, thank you so much, Nicolas for nominating me for this award! Nicolas is an amazing and talented chef who owns the food blog “Blogtastic Food” in which he posts delicious recipes with AMAZING food photography. So make sure to check out his website. I learned lots of things from him just by reading a post of his on Food Photography tips and tricks.

I started my blog just last October as a way to further follow my passion with baking–mainly desserts–and a bit of cooking. I started when I was 10 years old, and have continued ever since, eventually creating my own recipes, which you can see on my blog. Being a beginner, and an amateur, I’m trying to further my audience and become better acquainted with the language of Social Media. But for now, I create my own recipes for (mostly) desserts I love to make, shoot some pictures with my sister’s (she has a writing blog: http://www.ateawithtumnus.wordpress.com) dslr camera, and post both on my blog, and Instructables.com.

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Me filling in cookies with an Instructables apron 😀

Now that I’ve mentioned it, Instructables is a great way to get your projects out on the internet with easy step-by-step instructions that you create. In fact, I was posting on Instructables a full year before I decided to create my food blog; Instructables is a great way to get more traffic on your blog, especially for beginners like me 😀 I recommend you check it out.

Since I’m a beginner, I can’t really give my own advice to others on how to run a food blog, only things I’ve heard from more advanced bloggers:

1. Develop your target audience

2. Post consistently

3. Take at least decent pictures (the better the picture, the more likely someone will want to eat it!)

4. Do what you love to do

Not that I can really attest to having done all of these, but those are some things I’ve heard that helps a ton. And of course there are so many different things that go into making your blogging successful.

Now for the bloggers who I’ve nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award 3:

  1. Revolutionary Pie
  2. Sarah Vassallo
  3. Agatha Chocolats
  4. Lithuanian in the USA
  5. Artsy Teen
  6. The Grapefruit Glow
  7. La Cuisine d’Eli
  8. Cooking Without Limits
  9. My Yellow Apron
  10. Swetha’s Culinary Trials
  11. Simply Made Kitchen and Crafts
  12. Midwest Nice
  13. Frugal Hausfrau
  14. So Beautifully Real
  15. Absolutely Muffin

And there you have it! Be sure to check out this awesome food bloggers, and lastly, make sure to check out my blog at Michael’s Test Kitchen!

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Black Bottom Cupcakes are a simple but delicious type of muffin; basically comprised of a chocolate-muffin base, then topped in the center with rich cheesecake filling. They satisfy chocolate lovers and cheesecake fans alike.

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This recipe may be different than others in that I use coconut oil in the batter rather than vegetable oil. I recently read a Bon Appetit snippet that explained that coconut oil was better in chocolate cake than other options; that coconut oil in fact increases the moistness of the cake the longer it sits after baked, instead of drying out. So I thought that principle should apply to these muffins.

This recipe is also different from others in that I use melted chocolate chips in addition to the usual cocoa powder. I also used hot coffee instead of the usual water, and used the hot coffee to melt the chocolate chips in. Double purpose.

The result is a great combination of rich cheesecake filling with dark chocolate base, which rises beautifully in the oven, and tastes as delicious as it looks. See recipe below.

Enjoy! Also, for full step-by-step pictures, see my post of this recipe on instructables.

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BLACK BOTTOM CUPCAKES RECIPE  – – – – – – – – – – –  PRINT

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Apple Blueberry Crisp

Blueberries added with apples make a great twist on the classic apple crisp.

If you want the recipe to make more, then increase the amount of apples and blueberries, and put it in a 9×13 dish instead of the smaller pan.

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Ingredients:

Topping

⅔ cups flour

½ cup oats

⅔ cup brown sugar

¾ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup cold unsalted butter

Filling

4 apples

3 cups blueberries

1 teaspoon cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ cup flour

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons melted butter

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons milk

DIRECTIONS:

Mix together flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor, or bowl. Add in chunks of cold butter and process or manually cut in the butter until it is small crumbs. Set in fridge until needed.

For filling, core, cut, and peel apples, and put them a large bowl. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Stir flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, melted butter, lemon juice, sugars, milk, salt, and vanilla in a small bowl until combined. Pour mixture over apples, and toss to coat completely.

Place apple mixture in an 8×12 pan, and sprinkle all of the crumb topping over it, evenly, until completely covered.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 – 40 minutes until mixture is bubbling, and topping is brown.

If you are serving this recipe to more than 6 people, then add 3 more apples to the mixture, and increase the amount of blueberries, and then put the mixture into a 9×13 pan. Bake longer than usual.

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