I’ve been a little lax with the posts for a week or so, but for good reason! I had to spend a little time doing some Mexican food research 🙂
Snacks
Buffalo Cauliflower Bites
I know that within my own lifetime, food has gone from being a good thing that people generally like and are happy to have around to being SUPER TRENDY. I don’t know who first coined the term “foodie” or published the first food blog, but at this point, everyone knows that food is cool. The icing on the food cake for me was probably the way that Pinterest suddenly made all these foodie websites so available. The result: there are so many amazing food blogs that I’m subscribing to that I can barely keep up with all of them, and I keep discovering new ones that I want to follow! This post is my attempt to reproduce a recipe published by Whole Living Lauren. Buffalo Cauliflower Bites! 
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cocoa Dusted Almonds
It’s about time we discussed Valentine’s Day! Grab your chocolate.
Honestly, I don’t care that this is a holiday designed to promote consumerism and concoct romance where perhaps none exists. I’m still enamored with it, and my unapologetically girly side is infatuated with every pink and red cookie recipe and DIY craft on Pinterest.
Homemade Energy Bars
Have you noticed that the term “energy bars,” is just a nice way to say “high calorie treats?” Well, it is. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love them. I just think of them as slightly healthier cookies. And conveniently, if you happen to really need to squeeze more calories into your diet, they’re an efficient way to do just that.
All natural peanut butter, honey, oats, and coconut make these vegan treats addicting little rewards.
Deliciously Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
After being woken a tad early this morning by my puking dog, I felt that I might as well use my time to finish my next blog post!
In any case, I might have lied. I said the pumpkin hand-pies were the last “pumpkin” recipe for a while, and technically they were the last one that used the pumpkin puree itself. HOWEVER, these pumpkin seeds were also a product of the pumpkin roasting expedition. I’m a firm believer that no pumpkin seed should ever go to waste. What a shame to roast and harvest a whole pumpkin and then just discard the delicious seeds that pumpkin worked so hard to produce.
This is a new recipe that I made for the first time this year, compliments of my future sister-in-law. I’ve made plain salty toasted pumpkin seeds before, and I’ve always enjoyed them, but the little extras on these seeds – some Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder, made them WAY better.
The cumbersome part of making pumpkin seeds is definitely cleaning them off. I like to start by dumping all the pumpkin guts in a big bowl.
Then I fill the bowl with water and use my hands to rinse off and pull out the seeds, leaving the gunk behind. Feel free to let me know if you’ve found a better way. Obviously I find this process so irritating that I require a glass of wine to get through it.
Once all your seeds are separated, give them a once-over to check for extra pieces of pulp. Then use paper towels to make sure they’re nearly as dry as you can get them. Damp seeds will take longer and struggle to get nice and crispy in the oven.
Mix about 2 cups of the seeds with approximately 2 tbsp of olive oil (or melted butter), 1/2 tbsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, and 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. Then bake them at 300 on a foil lined baking sheet for about an hour or until they start to turn a little brown.
Commence eating your seeds…
If you’re lucky enough to have some pumpkin seeds on hand today, do please enjoy yours – I have long since scarfed all of mine down.
Apple Pie Chips
I have a fall birthday.
Maybe that’s why I like fall so much, but it’s hard to say. Because I think it’s equally plausible that loving fall is a universal human trait. Perhaps the only people who don’t feel that way are the ones who haven’t experienced it the right way.
The Bahama Llama 
