snack » Living Lou

Blueberry Breakfast Bars

I love blueberries, so when I was assigned Betcha Can’t Eat Just One for this month’s Secret Recipe Club I was ecstatic to find this recipe for Blueberry Breakfast Bars. I mean come on, how good do they sound? The best part about the recipe is how healthy and tasty they are. I loved the fact that they weren’t too sweet, because I don’t know about you, but I can’t stomach sweet treats in the morning.

Other than finding the delicious recipe, I was even more excited when I found out that Katie is a fellow Canadian food blogger! Blogging from the West Coast of Vancouver Island, which I’m sure is one of the most beautiful places in Canada. Many of her recipes, including this one for Blueberry Breakfast Bars are dairy and egg free, which meant that the fact that I had run out of eggs did not impact the making of the recipe. Yay!

I made a few changes to the recipe based on what ingredients I had on hand. The original recipe called for rolled oats and crushed bran cereal, but I just used quick oats and a little more whole wheat flour instead. I also only used baking powder and added in a touch more vanilla because I am a vanilla addict.

Blueberry Breakfast Bars (makes 8 bars)
Recipe adapted from: Betcha Can’t Eat Just One

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup quick oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp flaxseed meal
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup almond milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp canola oil
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line an 8″ pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.

In another bowl combine wet ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and lightly mix.

Fold in the berries.

Press into the pan and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the bars comes out clean.

Allow to cool and cut into bars.

Katie put a nice icing on her blueberry breakfast bars, but I found they were just as good with a dollop of cream cheese.

- Lou

Parmesan Popcorn

Can you believe that there are only nine short days of Feburary left! Feburary is probably my least favourite month in the year; it’s cold, it’s busy and it’s just not really much fun. It’s one of those months where you have to take the fun into your own hands and make something out of the month. For me this means celebrating a year in some great, hilarious, sad and terrible movies. There were some beautiful movies like Warhorse, highly anticipated, childhood ending films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as well as some wonderful performances like those in My Week with Marilyn, The Artist and The Help. We saw a year of entertaining films like Midnight in Paris and funny ones like Friends with Benefits. As always we had many romcoms, some wonderful like Crazy Stupid Love and others were not so wonderful. Who can forget the amazing laugh-out-loud hilarious film that was Bridesmaids? How about all the action movies, Captain America, Thor and Transformers 3 to name a few. I think all in all 2011 wasn’t too bad for film!

We’ve finally reached the end of our countdown: less than a week to go until The Oscars! This is the final recipe that I will be serving at my party - you can’t have a party celebrating movies without popcorn. This popcorn is on the savory side, topped with butter and Parmesan cheese means it’s a little decadent and so satisfying. I’m always looking for new ways to spice up popcorn since I watch so many movies.

Parmesan Popcorn
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1/2 cup popcorn kernels, popped using your favourite method
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp black pepper

Directions

Toss the popcorn with the melted butter.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and black pepper. Serve.

Who else is planning an Oscar Party? I’d love to hear what’s on your menu!

- Lou

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins

After those Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins a couple of weeks ago I knew that I had fallen in love with muffins again. And you know what this means, they are going to be getting baked in the Living Lou kitchen a lot more often. So when I was assigned the wonderful blog Busy-at-Home for this month’s Secret Recipe Club I was on the hunt for muffins.

Glenda, who is the face behind Busy-at-Home is such an inspiring person. I was so happy to be assigned her blog which is filled with recipes, such as these No Bake Peanut Butter Bars (which I have already made!) She also has great reviews and lots of fun giveaways. What I found the coolest about Glenda is how passionate she is about homeschooling. You may not know this about me, but I’m passionate about many things, so to see someone who is as equally passionate about something she believes in is so inspiring! What it boils down to folks, is that Glenda is a pretty amazing person and I just reading her About page brings a smile to my face.

These Cinnamon Swirl Muffins come out of her Cinnamon Roll Cake I took her delicious sounding cake recipe and adapted it into a Living Lou favourite – the muffin! These muffins are sweet and make a nice snack, not the healthiest, but made with whole wheat flour.

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins (makes 6-8)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce

Cinnamon Swirl

1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 tbsp cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with paper liners.

In a large bowl whisk together whole wheat flour, salt, cloves, baking powder and sugar.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, vanilla and apple sauce.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, gently mixing. Do not over-mix! Scoop batter into muffin tin.

Meanwhile, in another bowl, combine meltedbutter, sugar, whole wheat flour and cinnamon. Spoon a little over a teaspoon of the cinnamon swirl onto the top of each muffin. Create the swirl using a knife, by drawing it through the batter.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until fully cooked.

Hope you’re having a great Monday!

- Lou

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

It’s been far too long since I’ve talked about muffins. These whole wheat pumpkin muffins popped into my mind on Sunday. I had picked up a can of pumpkin puree at the store and was in the mood for some fall baking; I’d already made Pumpkin Pancakes and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread so naturally, muffins came to mind. Now, these muffins aren’t your regular muffins, they are loaded with chocolate chips, pecans and topped with a cinnamon pecan streusel, all while remaining healthy. They are made with whole wheat flour and with no added butter or oil to the actual muffin (there is butter in the streusel topping).

These muffins make the perfect treat to bake over this last October weekend and the perfect snack as we transition into November and prepare ourselves for duh, duh, duh… The Holidays. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, or preparations for Christmas or Hannukkah, November and December are often two of the busiest months of the year. So if I were a doctor, I would prescribe you all to make some whole wheat pumpkin muffins, and munch on them while relaxing, whether it be watching a favourite movie or reading a book. Enjoy these last autumn days doing some fall baking and playing in the leaves with your kids and taking them trick-or-treating.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins (makes 8-10 medium sized muffins)
Recipe by Lou

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla

Streusel Topping (makes 1/2-3/4 cup)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

*Streusel Topping may be frozen.

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line or grease a muffin tin.

In a large bowl whisk together all dry ingredients including spices and pecans and chocolate chips.

In another bowl, whisk pumpkin puree, honey, eggs and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir together. At first, it may seem as though there are not enough wet ingredients, but stir and it will distribute evenly.

Scoop into lined or greased muffin tins, top with streusel topping and bake for 18-20 minutes.

I hope you enjoy these whole wheat pumpkin muffins and this last week of October!

- Lou

Olive Hummus

It’s that time again, time for The Secret Recipe Club – I have to say that participating in this exciting recipe exchange has been so great. It has introduced me to so many new blogs and has given me two of my favourite staple side dishes, Garlic Parmesan Orzo and Mexican Rice – both are so good! For this month’s recipe I’m finally veering away from side dishes and going for a healthy snack or appetizer.

For this month, I was assigned the blog My Emu is Emo written by Eilonwy. This blog is right up my alley, focusing equally on cooking and music, and experiencing them together. Seriously, I live for cooking and music. Eilonwy is very knowledgeable about both and I have to say that as someone who is always on the hunt for new music, I’ve found myself checking out new bands based on the reviews on My Emu is Emo -thanks Eilonwy! She has fabulous taste in music and I have to admit that I felt my heart patter a bit when I was reading about how she believes that Blondie’s cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” has nothing on the original. As much as I love Debbie Harry, I completely agree with Eilonwy. Seriously, does anyone have anything on Bowie?

When I stumbled upon her recipe for Hummus I immediately knew that was what I was going to make. Up until recently, I’ve never really had too much trouble finding healthy snacks, but these days it’s been tough. Nothing is catching my interest and all I’m craving is chips. Seriously? I don’t even like chips. So, I decided to give homemade hummus a shot and put a little bit of a Living Lou spin on the recipe by adding in some olives.

Olive Hummus

Ingredients
1 Can of chickpeas drained and rinsed
1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1 clove garlic
1/8 cayenne
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
4-5 tbsp water

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse, check for consistency and add more water as needed.

I have to say, that finding a healthy snack won’t be too hard with this Olive Hummus in the fridge!

- Lou

Blueberry Breakfast Bars

Parmesan Popcorn

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

Olive Hummus

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