A Recipe and A Review

Hey guys! guess what I found out today? The state vegetable of Utah is the ONION!!

How appropriate. For me, anyway. So glad I live in a place that gives love to one of my favorite things!

Out of curiosity, I looked up Wyoming to see if it had a state vegetable, but sadly, it doesn't I should have known--nothing grows in Wyo except for sagebrush anyway, which probably isn't so tasty. Not that I wouldn't try it! ;) However, I DID learn that another one of my favorite states, North Carolina, own the SWEET POTATO as their veggie of choice. Awesome! just another reason to love the "old north state!" So... a little random trivia there!

In other randomness, I decide to forgo both Freaky Food Friday and Sammie Saturday this week, and mix it up a bit instead with a recipe and a restaurant review, hence the title!

So, ALL WEEK, I have been craving one thing: a brownie and a Diet Coke. Odd, I know, and it sounds like such a "dieters" snack, but that certain combo makes me quite nostalgic for my mama in a round about fashion. Explanation: growing up, we would always have an afternoon snack on the weekends, usually consisting of yep, a piece of chocolate something or other and a delicious diet beverage. Usually this would occur after my mom woke up from her nap, which happened after reading the weekend comics, which happened after a scrumptious pancake brekkie made by my dad, which happened after my weekly father-daughter bonding grocery shopping trip with him. So you see, quite the string of happy flashback memories for ya there!

A lady at work actually brought in brownies which is what kick started my chocoholism, but I DID taste one and they were kind of yucky. They just tasted like margarine. Icky. Of course, I know it is perfectly fine to indulge in a real brownie every now and again, but I knew I could make a healthified sub in the meantime.

I have been totally eyeing everyone's microwave creations lately--see Tina's cookie and April's protein cakes--but I created my own combo by modification a recipe I found on the Eggland's Best site. Introducing the Brownie Batter Puffcake!

Whisk together 2 egg whites, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. powdered stevia ( I used two NuNaturals packets), 2 tbs. pumpkin puree and 1 tbs. almond milk. Once thoroughly combined and egg whites are frothy, stir in 2 tbs. flour and one heaping tbs cocoa powder. Mix well to combine, and pour contents into a microwave safe mug sprayed with Pam. Microwave for 2-3 minutes, and plop out to let cool.

Cake will be very moist and almost souffle-like in texture. It's almost like pudding at the bottom, which is where the name comes from--pudding+cupcake/muffin+mug=Puffcake.

Top with sprinkles (obviously) if you want to be extra fancy, and a dollop of vanilla yogurt and serve alongside Diet Coke for a trip down memory lane.

OR, throw into a bowl of cottage cheese and top with Sunbutter for a super delicious start to your Saturday morning.

Decadent. I may mess around with this and try adding wheat bran instead of flour to up the fiber content and make it a little more filling. You surely could sub in protein powder, but since most brands have soy in them, that is not a good option for me. However, this still has pretty good stats, clocking in at right around 100 calories, 3 g of fiber and 10 g of protein.

Even after that delicious start, my day got better! It is my bro-in-law's birthday on Tuesday, so we drove down to Provo, which is about half an hour away from us to celebrate early. I LOVE birthdays! I don't care who's they are, I just think they're great! But, they are even better when they belong to people I love :) Speaking, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SUSAN TODAY!!!

Anyway, Ollie is a vegetarian, and I knew the perfect place to please everyone's discerning palettes. Guru's used to have a location in SLC before I lived and I would visit all the time with my sis. Now they are just in Provo, but it is sure worth the drive! Guru's has a great philosophy about first nourishing our bodies so we and then nourish our lives, and nourish we did! After pouring over an extensive menu packed with great, healthy options, with everything from noodle and rice bowls to wraps, pasta, even breakfast, I finally chose a blackened salmon salad with raspberry vinegar.

Not even an oily vinaigrette--they actually had gourmet vinegar! It's like they knew I was coming! My salad was a lot of lettuce, but also had feta cheese, tomatoes, onions, snap peas, and the salmon was out of this world!

Ollie had a veggie and tofu cilantro lime wrap that came with tortilla chips and salsa.

And Dustin had a good-sized burrito, stuffed with juicy pork, rice and black beans then smothered in cheese and pico di gallo.

I must say, everyone devoured their food and loved every bite of it! Everything I saw come out of the kitchen looked seriously amazing, and there are tons of yummy menu items I would love to go back and try! the decor is fun and hip, the service was good and I'm definitely giving Guru's my two thumbs up!

Another thing I'm giving a thumbs up--Ollie's super sweet new look courtesy of some of our hilarious birthday presents to him. Rockin it!

Happy Birthday Olls! Love ya!

Hope everyone's having a great weekend and is eating as much yummy food as I am! check out Guru's menu and tell me what YOU would try next. It's all killer! xoxo

Omar's Rawtopia

I've been so excited to share my first real raw food experience! Hubby's been out of town for the week, so my sister and I got together to hit the only raw food restaurant in town, or in Utah for that matter: Omar's. As you'll recall, I have tried cuisine from this place once before, but I wasn't down with the food choice, so I was super pumped to go and order what I thought would be interesting to try. My sweet sister agreed to share a few items with me, so we got:

Hummus Pizza ...
Hummus topped on pizza crust with veggies, avocado,
and seed cheese, and love

Falafel Bowl ...
Live tahini dressing over a bed of mixed greens, topped
with zucchini, tomatoes, onions, celery, olives, avocados,
our famous nut/seed falafel biscuits, and love.

Bean Burrito ...
Beans consist of a purée of Tahini and sunflower seeds mixed with Mexican herbs, and spices. Topped with macadamia nut sour cream, sprouts, and served wrapped in collard greens,
or with crackers, lettuce, cabbage, and love.

(This was a combo plate of the falafel and burrito)

Ginger Aid A lemonade blended with ginger, Goji berries, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and love.


Ok, first of all, the macadamia nut sour cream was the bomb. It was light, slightly lemony and majorly delicious. I asked our server what was in it and he said besides macadamia nuts, there was just Irish moss and spices. Of all the things we ate, it seriously stole the show!

The hummus pizza was the second best thing we ate, and sis and I both agreed that we would order this again, even though she likened it to "salad on a cracker."

Well, it kind of is....but I think that's the point.

Anyhoo, you can see that it was beautifully layered with tomatoes, red peppers, olives, avocado and sunflower sprouts. The hummus was made from almonds, instead of chickpeas, so it carried a more subtle flavor, not as smoky or thick as chickpea hummus. It didn't taste anything like pizza, but had it's own very unique flavors to enjoy.

The sunflower sprouts were definitely another yummy adventure. They tasted almost exactly like a sunflower seed, only fresher and more "green." I would highly recommend these for a nutty flavor addition to any salad.

I liked the bean burrito as well, but it was super messy to eat! I must need to hone my kale rolling technique!

I cared for the falafel bowl the least. The falafel was just tiny dry flakes on top of a salad with a creamy avaocado dressing. I didn't care for the dressing, and I thought the falafel flakes were very salty and cinlantro-y tasting, which is one of the few spices I absolutely do not like to experiment with!

Oh, and I loved the ginger lemonade too! It was super tart and spicy from the cayenne--it kind of reminded me of what that Master Cleanse stuff must taste like. I liked it anyway, but as a beverage only, not as a meal plan :)

It was kind of funny by the end of the meal, my sister and I each had little miscellaneous piles on our plates of things we had picked off our food (olives for her, avaocados for me)--we almost had enough to make another little raw entree of our own :)

All in all, I really enjoyed my "raw experience." The food was fresh and beautifully presented with obvious pride in the product. The food did take a while to come out, but I think that's all the more indicative that it is prepared to order and with "love," as the menu states. It was rather pricey, but I think it truly allowed a bite out of the raw lifestyle and an encouraging window for new experiments to come!

Rib City Grill

As previously mentioned, the one of the three things preventing me from becoming a hard-core raw food vegan is that I LOOOOOOOVE barbeque (the other two things are that I am a cheapskate and I'm afraid of large doses of fat, even if it's healthy--I mean those peeps live off of avocados and nuts for Pete's sake!).

I think when my husband and I retire, we would like to go on a barbeque tour of the U.S. How rad would that be? We could start in Texas somewhere and then head through Memphis and Kansas City and everywhere else in the country with a hole-in-the wall BBQ joint. We could totally die happy then!

Anyway, we've decided to start our 'Que Adventures now, and we grub at new BBQ places every chance we get. A few weekends ago, we headed to the Rib City Grill to try it out. We ordered the sampler which was enormous. It came with pork, beef brisket, a rack of ribs, half a chicken, two potato choices, baked beans, garlic toast and I got a side salad ( I have to pretend like it's healthy!).

The meat was all very moist, which is good for most people--I like mine a little drier. Hubs liked the ribs enough to polish off the whole rack. I tried a bite, but they were too fatty for me. The Pork and beef were both just ok, but the chicken was way good. I actually thought the baked beans were the best part. Good blend of sweet, tangy and salty. I think I ate all of mine and a spoon of Dustin's ( I wanted more but I was just too stuffed.) The garlic toast was rockin', too. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but it was made from nice thick slices of Texas toast and slathered with just the right amount of butter. I usually stay away from bread at restaurants in anticipation of better things to come, but the crust on this was just calling my name.

They had 3 BBQ sauces: Signature, Mustard and Sweet. They busted out the Secret Extra Hot from the back in the kitchen for us,too. That one was the best, and I loved it mixed with the Sweet (yeah, I like to make my own--that's Experimentarian style, baby).

We were totally ravenous when we sat down to eat, so I forgot to take pics until we'd already started, so I promise I'll do better next time. Overall, the food was about average on the BBQ scale, defintitley better than some we've tried, but not as good as our most favorite Sugarhouse BBQ. Seriously, we ahve not yet had anything champion that place. We had a ton of food leftover, and I was way stoked for leftovers, but we left our box at the restaurant. Boo! Oh well--I guess another trip to somewhere BBQ will have to be in the near future!

U Food Grill

In additional to our lovely shopping expedition last night, we also went out to dinner at a place called the U Food Grill. They have several of these franchises across the country, but this is the first one in the Salt Lake Valley. The premise is that of healthy, fresh food--fast, and they specialize in such items as "UnFries (oven baked french fries)," sandwiches, wraps and tart yogurt smoothies. We had coupons, and as you know, I'm a sucker for the latest and greatest in "healthy," so we headed out to give it a shot.

I had the Chicken Portabella Chicken with Broccoli Bowl, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: chicken, balsamic-marinated portabellas, broccoli, and tomatoes.



It's usually served with brown rice, but I opted for extra broccoli instead. It was really good and super filling. I'm a pretty big eater, but I ended up taking enough home for lunch later on during the week. I would for sure order it again, even though I could probably make something very similar in my own kitchen.

While I enjoyed this restaurant quite a bit, it would probably satisfy all the self-professed "unhealthies," too. My husband got a lean burger with the famous UnFries, and ate it right up. True confession: I had a couple of the UnFries, too, and they were majorly yummy!