yummy things

Just a few things I'm totally loving right now...

Barefoot Contessa's chocolate chunk blondie mix. Oh. My. God. I found it at Sobey's Urban Fresh a few months ago and took the finished yummies to a bbq. Everyone was devouring them and I didn't have it in me to say it was a boxed mix! No one asked, honestly, or I would have divulged my secret. Here's why they're so good-- all of the ingredients in the mix are real things you can actually pronounce and basically have in your pantry:

malted wheat flour

sugar

molasses

vital wheat gluten

salt

natural flavour

baking soda

semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Then, you just add 1 stick of unsalted butter and an egg. I'm telling you, this is such a good treat. I won't tell you how many calories though! This is obviously not as good as baking from scratch. But if you're in a pinch, I think this is a great thing to have on hand.

.....

I'm also somewhat addicted to smoothies right now. In particular, a variation of one from the November/December issue of Clean Eating.

Here's what's in it:

3/4 cup almond milk (I just discovered this but skim milk works too)

1/4 cup coconut milk

1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder (I'm sure it would be ok without, maybe with a splash of vanilla extract instead)

1/4 cup frozen strawberries (about 3 medium or 2 large)

1/4 cup frozen pineapple (about 5 large chunks)

I've been buying canned pineapple and freezing it and also freezing 1/4 cup portions of the coconut milk to make it easy. I've also tried adding a tablespoon of ground flax which doesn't change the flavour too much and gives that added boost of Omega-3. You just blend it all in the blender and voila! Delicious! It's sort of like a pina colada actually, but the strawberry and pineapple flavours aren't too strong, which makes it refreshing without being over the top fruity.