I know, I know, there is no substitute for bacon.  And these types of recipes go over much better with my family when I just call it roasted carrots instead of carrot bacon.  Which I get.  If they hear bacon, they will spend the whole meal making comparisons;  but if they are eating roasted carrots they’ll just enjoy the fun flavors.  And talk about yummy; tahini, honey, soy sauce, Dijon mustard and liquid smoke.

Carrot Bacon – www.skinnyms.com

I didn’t get them cut quite thin enough to really crisp up, but they still tasted unbelievable.  I chopped them up and used them as a topping on a cauliflower rice vegetable stir fry.  “Yes, mom, we ate all of our vegetables today.” 🙂 

I mean really, with a recipe name like this, how can you not make it? 

I love balls.  Good, now that that’s out there. 🙂 I do not discriminate – pumpkin, cacao, peanut butter.  An equal opportunity ball taster I am.

But all kidding aside; balls are super easy to make, can really pack a nutritional punch and are so versatile.  You can get really creative experimenting with different ingredients in the quest for the perfect ball.  

Here is the recipe for Brain Balls that I followed, and the video is a must watch too!

Brain Balls – www.drlibby.com

So, let’s be honest, I am not a recipe creator. No matter how much I wish I was, I’m not. I’m so envious of people who know what ingredient is missing, just what to add, or what should be left out – just by taste. But, alas, maybe there’s hope for me after all.

It started with a much needed pantry purge. And just like the well known squirrel reference, I found myself making granola. WITHOUT a recipe! This is scary and uncharted territory. And then this wild hair that I wanted to experiment with what type of sugar would taste the best. Four different types later and I’m pretty proud of my results.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Mix together in large bowl

• 8 cups oats
• 2 cups sunflower seeds
• 1/8 cup pistachios
• 1/4 cup peanuts
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1 1/2 cup macadamia nuts
• 1/2 cup 50% less sugar Craisins
• 1/2 cup hemp hearts
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Separate the above mixture into fourths. Melt 1 cup of butter over low heat on the stove. Mix 1/4 cup of melted butter with the following sweeteners :

• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup garlic honey*
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup molasses

Mix each liquid with the divided out dry ingredients. Spread out evenly on baking sheet. Bake for 90 minutes.

Note: this required 2 rounds of the oven, plus the toaster oven to get all 4 baked.

*I made the garlic honey a while back from this funny man’s recipe!

Fermented garlic honey – www.skillet.lifehacker.com

Cheers 🙂

*Update- I was short on time tonight for dinner, but really wanted to have this for dinner. So I converted the recipe for my Instant Pot. Was nervous because I really didn’t want to screw up dinner, but you have to start somewhere, right?

First I used the saute function to cook the onions and garlic, because no knew wants hard onions. After they softened I just dumped everything else in and used the manual mode to set it to high for 25 minutes. The one thing I’ve found with the Instant Pot is that cook times are significantly longer than recipes state because of the time it takes to get up to pressure. For example, I started my rice about the same I started the Instant Pot. The rice, which takes 45 minutes to cook, was done before the black eyed peas. Because of our time crunch I did the manual release. But, I am happy to report they turned out really good. Will definitely do this again!

Happy New Year!

Having only eaten black eyed peas one other time and remembering that they’re eaten on New Year’s Day for good luck sent me on today’s food crusade. I found a Crockpot recipe that was super simple.

Black Eyed Peas – www.budgetbytes.com

My family and I all really enjoyed them, they were surprisingly flavorful and had a good consistency.

And as an added bonus I read to them why they’re considered lucky. One story dates back to the Civil War when black eyed peas were actually considered animal food. But on one occasion when Union soldiers raided the Confederates they left the black eyed peas. When the Confederates discovered what had happened, they ate the black eyed peas and considered themselves lucky to at least have this.

#prosperityfornewyear 🙂