Good day, good eats

We had a good day. Boo and I ran errands then went to the mall to ride the carousel, have lunch (I packed bentos for us), browse a little, and then she got to run around and climb in the toddler play area. As we rode the carousel, I looked at her and told her I loved her so much and she smiled really big, leaned down, and planted a bunch of kisses on my face. Soooo precious and sweet!

Speaking of sweet...I made pattycake's banana booty bars last night because my sweet tooth was screaming for something tasty and the bars did not disappoint. To quote from the recipe, these are "Oaty, chewy, fruity bars with a hint of spice and a walnut crunch". I used coconut oil plus added the optional orange zest and 1/4 cup of Ghirardelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chips. There were just enough chips to give it chocolatey goodness. I have to say, I do replace sugar with agave nectar in many recipes but that doesn't mean I don't eat it. I just replace it with a healthier option as much as I can so when I eat sugar, I don't feel as guilty about consuming it. :o)

For breakfast this morning, I made pattycake's blueberry spiced smoothie because I just happened to have all the ingredients. I promise, I'm not a stalker, pattycake! I just really love her recipes because they are healthy, fit my diet restriction, and are easy to make plus I trust her taste buds since everything I have tried have all been delicious.


I'm still in the cooking mood so was quite busy in the kitchen this evening. DB, who works from home, was able to come down at 5 to entertain Boo. I let her watch two episodes of Super Why prior so I was able to start cooking at 4. I had a lot going on - making an eggplant dish (that sounded good but ended up tasting as bad as it looked), a seaweed dish (that was too vinegary but I was able to salvage it), azuki bean paste, and was attempting to make a lotus root mini-cake but decided to make them tomorrow since the other two dishes flopped. I was trying to have vegetarian night but since things weren't going my way and it was already 5:30, I quickly whipped up a batch of the stewed tsukune dumplings (this time using lean ground turkey) with carrots that I made Monday. Things didn't turn out like I planned but it was still a good dinner.