Sunday, May 27, 2012

Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs

I have been baking like crazy lately. My sweet tooth is back and I'm trying to satisfy it with somewhat healthier dessert options. ;) The problem with trying to bake healthier- using honey instead of sugar, making things gluten free, etc, is that you get a lot of failed attempts before hitting the jackpot. You can't just follow the recipes exactly how they're written like with "normal" baking. But I thought I'd share with you how to make Reeses Peanut Butter Cups...they are so easy and a hit the first time!!!

1/4 cup of peanut butter (I've been getting the kind from the co-op where the machine has roasted peanuts and you flip the switch and it literally grounds it up right there. Nothing else added to it)


1/4 cup powdered sugar (I didn't have any "good" kind of powdered sugar at home so I used the regular...but you certainly can make your own or buy an unrefined one)
2 tblsp cocoa powder
2 tblsp coconut oil (Zach thought it tasted a little too coconut-y so next time I will try using 1 tblsp coconut oil and 1 tblsp melted butter)
2 tblsp raw honey...from the farmer's market :)


Mix the first three ingredients and shape into Reeses eggs. Now I shaped them to be the same size as if I had bought them at the store. But that only made 5 Reeses eggs. The recipe says to make 6-9 eggs and if you did that, each egg only equals about 55 calories. So it's your call if you want to make them bite sized and as a low calorie sweet treat, or the regular size to satisfy a Reeses egg craving. ;)


Freeze the dough until they are firm. I just did about 15 minutes. While they are in the freezer, mix the rest of the ingredients together. Dip each one into the chocolate and put back into the freezer. Isn't my little helper pretty cute?




Because we had extra chocolate, I cut up a banana and topped with chia seeds for Elliott. Plus, I didn't want to have to share. lol


Because of the coconut oil, they should harden pretty quickly. Then eat and enjoy!! You can store them in the freezer, but you might want to let them thaw a bit before eating them.

I wasn't able to get a good picture because of my cheap camera and poor lighting when they were done, but here's a picture from the blog I got the recipe from! (Mine were darker than hers because I had the special dark cocoa powder.)

peanut butter eggs

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Summer Workshop


(Didn't Zach do such an awesome job for the flyer??? ^_^)

For those of you in Las Cruces, come join us for the two workshop dates to learn about herbs- what they do and how to make a couple tinctures- and what natural living means. How to avoid chemicals in your household and body products? Make your own! We will learn how to make things like sunscreen, toothpaste, natural stain removers and household cleaners. Everyone will be taking home everything we make in class plus instructions on how to make it again yourself. I hope you can make it!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

We've Moved!

Phew! It's been a busy week with us moving from the apartment we've been in since we've been married into a house. And I have to say, I am loving all this space....closets, 2 car garage, backyard, three patios, and so much wall space for pictures and decorations! (I've been going crazy on Pintrest.) Even though we had a month to move everything over, I was just too excited to have a house to stay in the apartment any longer and we got it all done in a day. Once those 14 stairs to get to our apartment were starting to get annoying, I just reminded myself of the fantastic workout I was getting basically going up a stair stepper all day long and it gave me the motivation to finish it up. HAHA!


Elliott had a little bit of a hard time adjusting at first. He would get scared if left in any room by himself and didn't sleep too well the first couple of nights. He's a lot better now. He'll venture into other rooms to play by himself now, but always comes back periodically to check on me and see what I'm doing. He loves having a backyard. Every morning he wakes up and grabs his shoes and asks to go outside. The backyard is all fenced in and just rocks and dead grass so it's been so nice that I can let him go outside without having to watch him or worry about it. Here he is doing "the honey badger" on our bed. :)


I am so thankful and we are so blessed to have found this wonderful house to rent in the exact area we were looking to move to and that the rent was lowered to just what was in our price range. God is so good!

I am also sharing a recipe that we used quite a bit while our dishes were still in boxes and wanted a quick and easy clean up dinner.

Foil Fish
Frozen fish fillets (any kind- salmon, tilapia, cod, etc)
Foil
Spices (whatever you have, whatever sounds good)
Any vegetables in your fridge (we had a lot of carrots, zucchini, squash, and broccoli)

Basically you just throw it all together in a square piece of foil and wrap it up like this.


Bake at 400 degrees for 11-15 minutes. So easy and tastes delicious!