Theirs, Mine, and Ours

Posted in Sophomore Year, WIAW by Madison @ Eating 4 Balance

Before I even jump into today’s post, I want to express my sincerest thanks for all of your comments on the vlog that I posted Friday. I cannot even tell you how hesitant I was to share it, and then how much I dreaded my decision in the few hours after. Where you all called me “cute” I saw myself as “flighty.” Where you said that I seemed so “relaxed” and “real” I thought rather that I was “rambling” (as I appropriately indicated in my post title for the day). I still think that most of you were just being nice, but all the same I appreciate you taking the time to watch it. I have no idea when I will make another or IF I can even gather up the courage to make another, but I’m glad I bit the bullet and did a second one (my first was all the way back in October 2012, more than a year ago!).

Also, another note before sharing some delicious food pictures with you all, I’m going to be blunt and admit that I have no idea how much time I will be able to spend blogging this semester. Right now in fact I should be reading for one of my classes but that will come in due time and staying up just a little bit later is definitely worth it.

At the start of 2014 I had all of these big plans for Eating 4 Balance including finally getting a self-hosted site, upgrading to a new theme, working on more professional pictures/recipes. Yada yada yada. Oh, and being more faithful with comments too. I know that January is not even half way over yet, but can I just say MAJOR FAIL? Sorry everyone. I’m going to do my best. It’s not really an option for me to quit entirely or take a break because blogging IS MY BREAK. Really, reading blogs and blogging is my relief from college life and classes. Take that away and you have a Madison ten times more strung out and scattered than you saw in my video (I think beginning to refer to myself in third person may be a sign that the craziness has already begun? Is there no hope of turning back?!!! 😉 ).

With those hundreds of words put out there, this WIAW will be probably less wordy and more picture-heavy than normal.

I called this post “Yours, Mine and Ours” to represent the variety of food that I made over the holidays and am about to unload on you. There are some pictures of food that I made for my parents and/or brother (theirs), some food that I made for myself (mine*), and the food that I made for both (ours).

*Although as noted on Friday, I have basically backed off of trying to add anything new. Simple is the name of the game once more as I try to go back to how I felt before the holidays. Meat and veggies here I come… Already feeling much better though thankfully!

THEIRS

Gluten-free buckwheat pancakes inspired by Gluten-Free Goddess

Homemade macaroni and cheese

Whole wheat pasta, organic cheese and milk

Pumpkin oatmeal with granola and almond butter

Oatmeal with pears, almond butter and maple cinnamon pecans

Quiche inspired by Meghan

Made with an almond flour crust, eggs, milk, cheese, seasonings, onions, squash and broccoli

Puppy chow for my brother’s New Year’s Eve party

MINE

Gluten-free and vegan biscuits

Oh so moist, flavorful and crumbly!

Homemade ice cream with goat’s milk and stevia

Gluten-free, vegan, and sugar-free pancakes

Sweet gluten-free and vegan pancakes made with potatoes

Potato pancakes topped with New York maple syrup

Whole Foods salad bar: red quinoa, grilled chicken and cucumber slices

Chocolate pudding: cocoa powder, pumpkin puree, tapioca starch, water, stevia and frozen blueberries… yum!

Goat’s milk yogurt with stevia and frozen blueberries

OURS

Alright, so we didn’t actually share THAT much food-wise over vacation

Paleo pumpkin chocolate chip cake with a chocolate frosting (I just ate some of the frosting. It was amazing and tasted like a rich chocolate pudding.)

I do have plans to share some of these recipes eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later! 🙂

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Questions for you:

Can you guess what inspired the title of this post?
Do you make food that is just for someone else, yourself, or even both?
What is your favorite food to make? Obviously mine is pancakes!

21Aug2013

Ignore the Burn Marks (WIAW)

Posted in Summer 2013, WIAW by Madison @ Eating 4 Balance

Right now I’m watching What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It’s the split screen scene where Cameron Diaz and Matthew Morrison are talking about circumcision (don’t worry- that’s not at all where this post is going). On the one side you have Diaz eating a banana and on the other is Morrison staring at a plate full of donuts. For some reason I find this really backwards and hilarious. If I don’t have food allergies whenever I am in the process of growing a life inside of me, I hope I have the restraint to bypass the donuts and pick up a banana instead.

Ha. Who am I kidding. I will never leave the house because I’ll be baking out the wazoo. Some women send out their significant other to buy bags of cookies and chips… I’ll send mine out for flour, coconut oil and carob powder.

Okay, so now Chace Crawford just handed Anna Kendrick a tin of homemade caramels. I think I seriously just “awwed.” Not because he made her caramels, but because he made her caramels AND he did so despite the fact that he knew he would burn his hand in the process. Dude- I can so relate. I need me one of those fancy bandages whenever I get flicked with scalding liquids while cooking chili or accidentally banging my forearm against the inside of my oven while removing a fresh sheet of cookies.

You know what I’d really need? A t-shirt that says: “Ignore the burn mark shaped like a donut. Hungry mother in the kitchen.”

Seriously. That’s a best selling idea right there.

Boy oh boy. I’m not even sure how I got onto that train of thought. In case you were wondering, no, I’m not pregnant. This is just a really cute movie and I obviously am horrible at multi-tasking. Thank goodness I wasn’t writing a term paper on astronomy or something like that. But how fun would that be to find out if there really is a connection between full moons and birth rates (didn’t expect me to find a way to connect those two, did ya? 😉 )

Speaking of pregnancies, how great are all of these pregnant bloggers doing? Especially our lovely hostess for the week, Jenn. I just loved her bump post this past week. Too cute!

*Movie just ended*

Now that that’s over, time for me to actually focus on this post 🙂 Today I don’t have any recipes to share, but a bunch of pictures of food that I’ve been making since coming home late Friday night. I have about two days to pack up before heading off to school for the year and you can count on a lot more deliciousness being cooked up in the meantime (and hopefully no bandages required!).

One of the recipes that I am most excited to share actually was created by someone else. Lucky you all, you can see how to make it today. The recipe comes from 17recipes.com and is called “My Best Paleo Waffle Recipe.” The name is quite fitting actually. Even though I wasn’t able to actually taste the waffle, it certainly smelled and looked like the real deal. I doubled the recipe and gave one huge belgian waffle to each of my parents. My mom topped hers with peaches (wish I had gotten a picture of that because it looked insanely good) while my dad went the old-fashioned route with just honey.

Another recipe that I am anxious to share, but you all will just have to wait for this one! Remember how I brainstormed some potential spin-off ideas for my coconut flour cinnamon rolls? Well, I just couldn’t wait to try one of them out and proceeded to make a new batch this past weekend. With apple chunks. Yes, you will want to check this out. Dare I say that they were even more beloved than the original?

Next up is quite a simple recipe. Not even sure if it needs sharing really. Basically it’s just some fish that I coated in ghee and seasoned with salt and pepper before baking. Served with a side of cooked peas, this was a meal for my dad. Mine looked just the same minus the ghee and peppers. Simple and it just really hit the spot. I made some fish last week too and just couldn’t get it off of my mind!

This past Sunday was my dad’s birthday and of course I had to make him a cake! The cake itself I probably will not share the recipe for because it was a little time consuming and didn’t turn out as well as I had expected. It wasn’t that my mom and dad didn’t love the taste. They gobbled it up. It’s just that my mom thought the cake was supposed to be chocolate cake. However, there was not a lick of cocoa powder in sight in the cake recipe. It was supposed to be yellow actually, but both parents swore up and down that it was chocolate. Um, no. There was carob in the frosting though, and I’m quite pleased with how that turned out so I will be sharing the recipe for that one pronto.

Now that wraps up WIAW for the week. Make sure to check out all of the other link-ups that Peas and Crayons has for today (maybe some of those bloggers were nice enough to provide you with actual recipes and not just pictures 😉 ). Either way, check back on Friday where I promise to post at least one of the recipes that you see on here today!

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Questions for you:

Have you ever watched What to Expect When You’re Expecting? This was probably my second or third time watching it. No award-winner or anything, just a good make-you-smile movie.

Do you ever burn yourself while baking/cooking? I don’t too often!

Who is ready for summer to be over? I’ll get back to you on that one…. Tough question.

3Jul2013

My Brother’s Birthday Party (WIAW Edition)

Posted in Recipes, Summer 2013, WIAW by Madison @ Eating 4 Balance

Some of you may have seen my taunting pictures on Monday and have waited to see the inside of the fabulous cookie dough cake that I made. Well, you are going to have to wait just a little longer (read: middle of this post for all of you desperate cookie dough lovers). 😉

This weekend we finally got to hold my brother’s birthday party since we had to cancel the original date on account of him being sick.

I spent most of Saturday making the birthday cake, doing some last minute shopping with my brother for ice and frosting, and doing a little tidying right before all of the teenage boys came!

For supper on Wednesday we ordered pizza. Lots and lots of pizza. Not for the faint hearted either with double pepperoni and bacon.

Later on that night after it stopped raining all of the boys went swimming while my mom and I snuck upstairs to watch some Netflix.

When they were done outside it was time for cake!

Cutting the cake… Almost there…

And finally the inside, complete with an amazing thick layer of buttercream frosting and cookie dough balls.

Setting up an assembly line my mom sliced the cake, my dad plated them with forks and I… took pictures 😉

Just one more shot.

Okay. One more…

After the cake my mom and I watched another video, this time Rookie Blue, one of my favorite tv shows ever.

Soon after I hit the hay but I’m pretty sure a majority of the house stayed up much later. Doing what exactly? My guess- watching horror movies and playing video games.

The food of course didn’t end with cake though. As soon as my parents were up we got to work on breakfast.

My dad cooked up the bacon on our griddle.

My mom baked the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.

And I helped my mom cut of the bottoms when said cinnamon rolls got burned. 🙂

All turned out well though!

And that wraps up this special edition of WIAW!! Thanks to Jenn for hosting.

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For those of you interested in making the cookie dough cake (and why shouldn’t you be? 😀 ), here are the basic pieces:

1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake from Something Shiny Blog

Butter Cream Frosting from Betty Crocker

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Tollhouse

Cookie Dough Filling from Something Shiny Blog

Here are a few suggestions for those with food allergies:

Cake- Egg/Nut/Soy/Milk-Free from Love Living Simple and Grain/Nut-Free from Artistta

Frosting- Dairy/Soy/Egg/Grain-Free from Delia Creates and Paleo/Egg/Grain-Free from Real Food Forager

Cookies- Egg/Nut-Free from Liv Lives Life and Gluten-Free from After the Ivy League

Cookie Dough- Grain/Egg/Dairy-Free from Texanerin Baking and Nut/Dairy-Free from A Dash of Compassion

Mini Chocolate Chips for topping- Nut/Egg-Free from Nestle and Top 8 Free from Enjoy Life

And here are the basic assembly instructions: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake

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What is your favorite birthday party food? Before my allergies I would definitely have said cheese pizza!

What is your favorite kind of birthday cake? White sheet cake, strawberry, funfetti… Or this cookie dough cake I imagine if I was able to actually take a bite! 😀

How do you celebrate your birthday these days? Mine was spent at school. Nothing fancy whatsoever.

Have you ever been to a birthday party where either the host or guest had food allergies? I have never, but as an allergic girl myself I’m of course curious!