Ambitious New Recipes

Tonight I had planned to do a sunset hike in Vail. However, summer monsoon season ruined that idea, so I decided to go grocery shopping (today was pay day!) and try some of the 50+ new recipes I printed off the other day! 

Sooo first off I tried stuffed dates. They are high in B vitamins - which I think I'm lacking in anyways. So they are stuffed with pistachios and orange zest and juice. Surprisingly delicious! A tad time consuming, but great for a future appetizer...I think I'll hang on to this recipe...

 Then I tried this almond flour chocolate zucchini bread. you can see how well that turned out.. sigh. I think by using flax seed eggs, I need to cook LONGER than the suggested time. I think I'll puree the zucchini shreds next time. This isn't very sweet - not a big deal.. and it's pretty moist, so that's good...I think I'll keep the recipe. Throw in some chocolate chips...I like that chunkiness in the bread when there are chocolate chips. Or maybe I just like the chocolate chips ;) So much for cutting down on sugar :-/

 Now THIS is pretty exciting. This is a salad of garbanzo beans, cucumber, purple onion, and green and black olives. I'll let it marinate longer in the fridge, but I'm pretty darn excited about this one. Except...it made a TON. So much for rotating my foods every few days...

 This is a broccoli/mung bean/cilantro salad with a peanut chili sauce (from almond butter). Umm... it's not bad...the mung beans are kinda earthy tasting... so perhaps I'd leave them out next time. It too needs to marinate but I think there is potential. It's another way to eat veggies, so I'm happy for that!

 Coconut flour blueberry muffins... When the recipe says makes 12...I have no idea how the author extends the batter that far. It made 7 small muffins. Maybe that's b/c of flax seed eggs instead of regular eggs (calls for 6)...and that would have expanded the batter more? These aren't too bad...but not extremely exciting and bursting forth with flavor either. The jury is out if this is a recipe worth keeping. At least now I have some food in the fridge.

I have another handful of recipes to try tomorrow... I'm pretty excited b/c I found several recipes for "oatmeal" for breakfast, using quinoa... I found several breakfast bar recipes...and muffin recipes...and sausage recipes. This is a very big deal b/c currently I only can eat two things for breakfast. One of them is a sausage that is $2/sausage. That is SO expensive. So I"m excited to be finding some new things... 

But that's it for tonight. I'm tuckered out from cooking... and I think that I've had too much sugar, as I'm stating to feel aching in my hands and feet :( NOOOOO I don't want to have to do the repair diet again... boo. So hoping it goes away and I can cut out the sugar...