Maple Protein Pancakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese

According to Google, pancakes are awesome, healthy, and better than waffles. They are also made out of pancakes (?). Why is Google’s predictive searching so amusing to me? 

Anyway, my sister came home and visited for the weekend and brought home pumpkin cream cheese! Despite the fact that I still wish it was summer, it has been in the 60s in the morning (80s in the afternoon still) and there is pumpkin cream cheese cream in my fridge. This means that it is time for a fall-ish breakfast.

Normal people put cream cheese on bagels, but why limit yourself? Cream cheese is great on lots of foods, including pancakes!

Maple Protein Pancakes (serves 1)

• 1/3 cup oats
• 1/3 cup cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup egg whites
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t real maple syrup 
• lots of cinnamon
• pinch of salt

You can just mix and spoon on to pan if you want the texture from the oats. I really like it that way, but this time, I decided to blend all the ingredients in my Magic Bullet before cooking. Blending will result in a more  traditional pancake texture.

with pumpkin cream cheese

And then I decided to add almond butter and some Cascadian Farms Maple Granola, too!

YUM.

These pancakes are a great alternative to oatmeal and use pretty much the same ingredients. You just add egg whites, cottage cheese, and baking powder to the oats and cook on a pan instead of in a pot or microwave. Some of you may add egg whites or cottage cheese to you oats anyway. And pancakes are just as fun to add creative toppings to as oatmeal .

What is your favorite fall themed breakfast?

Shrimp Paella (and B-Day Recap)

Earlier tonight, I made a rockin’ shrimp paella. Seriously one of my best cooking projects as of lately. More on that later….

As of September 8, 2010, I am 23, which means I am really old to be living with my parents not even close to being 30! Heck yes .

Last year on my birthday, my boyfriend hand-crafted me an oak cutting board with my initial in a mahogany inlay.

vegetables not included

We had only been dating for about 3 months, and I had not talked about him on the blog at all. (He didn’t even find out about the blog for 5 more months. You can read his official introduction here if you missed it.) Even though he did not know about the blog, he did know about my passion for food and cooking (it’s pretty obvious for most people who hang out with me). The cutting board was the perfect gift. Talk about setting high standards for the rest of the relationship! (Did I mention he made it himself?!)

This year did not disappoint. We went to Charleston for a weekend long birthday celebration with some friends who live down there. Friday night, we had dinner at a restaurant downtown called FIG that had amazing dishes with local fish and local produce. Saturday, we went to the beach and then cooked shrimp and grits for dinner and drank lots of wine and champagne ! What we did not do was take a lot of good pictures, but there are a couple snapped by our friend on her i phone like this one:

the boy and me at FIG

Birthday 2010= Success!

Now onto tonight’s dinner.

I adapted this recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, but my version is neither fat-free nor vegan. I also did not follow her simple one pot instructions and made a huge mess in the kitchen. Here is a montage of my cooking process followed by the recipe:

Shrimp Paella (adapted from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen)

• 2 medium zucchini
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 large Vidalia onion (or other sweet yellow onion)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil for sautéing, if desired
• red wine, optional*
• 1 cup of peas
• 1 can artichoke hearts
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can of light red kidney beans
• 1 1/4 cup dry brown rice**, cook according to package instructions with either veggie broth or water
• 1-2 lbs of shrimp
• Old Bay seasoning (sprinkle on shrimp)
• ~ 1/2 t crushed saffron
• ~ 2 T paprika***
• ~1 t cumin
• a couple pinches of cayenne 
• salt and pepper to taste

*I added a couple splashes of Syrah to the veggies while cooking and enjoyed a glass while eating. Completely optional, but I highly recommend you do the same.

**Original recipe used quinoa, which would be delicious but less paella-like, IMO. Also, I did not have any quinoa, but I had plenty of brown rice.

***Original recipe used 2 teaspoons of smoked Spanish paprika. I only had normal paprika, which is less flavorful, so I added 2 tablespoons. Also, I doubled all the other spices b/c it tasted bland to me with the original proportions. Play around and see what works for your tastes.

As for the cooking process, you can either follow the instructions on the original recipe, or you can do what I did and cook everything how ever you feel like and throw it all together in the end. The end result will be tasty either way!

Are you a recipe follower or modifier?  I seem to be incapable of following a recipe exactly. I think of recipes as more ideas than instructions.

End of Summer Avocado and Heirloom Tomato Salsa

Summer is quickly ending, and I am not really ready for fall yet. Mainly because I am now taking physics as a grad school pre-req and trying to get my applications together as deadlines get closer and closer. Ahh! 

It may be fall in the food blog world with everyone breaking out the pumpkin, but here at Raspberry Runner, it is still summer. Technically, summer does not end until September 22nd anyway, and it feels like summer in Georgia well into October.

Summer produce is still very in season and very delicious where I live. Especially tomatoes. God, I love summer tomatoes. And Whole Foods had some gorgeous local heirloom tomatoes on sale, so I obviously had to buy them.

Ok, so that is a recycled picture from last year at a farmer’s market. But I bought one that looked just like that. Plus I bought a purplish-red one. And I used them both to make this:

Avocado and Heirloom Tomato Salsa (adapted from NY Times Health)

•  2 medium size heirloom tomatoes, chopped
• 1-3 jalepenos (1 for mild, 2 for medium, 3 for spicy)
• 1 stalk of white sweet corn
• 1 ripe avocado, diced
• small handful chopped cilantro 
• Juice from one lime
• Salt and pepper to taste

Chop tomatoes, jalapeno(s), avocado, and cilantro. Cut kernels off the corn. Raw summer corn is sweet and crunchy and perfect in this salad. Mix everything in a bowl with lime juice and salt and pepper. Let sit for at least 15 minutes in the fridge.

I served this over chicken breasts with kale chips and white wine:

This was my first time making kale chips, and they were great! I’ve been meaning to try them for at least a year now. So easy and delicious. I can’t believe it took me so long to try them! Chip ate them, but was not as impressed as I was.

We also shared a sushi roll as an appetizer. I don’t think a week goes by when I don’t eat any sushi. I’m slightly addicted .

This roll came with all my favorite fillings: salmon, tuna, and avocado. Plus lots of ginger on the side. Yum! 

Are you anxious for fall or still holding on to summer?