loveliness.

Live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry.
loveliness.
  • Home
  • about
  • travel
    • Australia
    • Cambodia
    • Canada
    • Indonesia
    • Singapore
    • Mexico
    • Philippines
    • Thailand
    • USA
      • Arizona
      • California
        • Los Angeles
        • San Francisco
      • Hawaii
      • Montana
      • New York
      • Oregon
      • Washington
  • loveliness
  • books
  • favourites
  • Category: recipes

    • clementina

      Posted at 4:52 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 7, 2013

      I discovered this drink in a cute little restaurant in Zihuatanejo with probably the most amazing drink menu ever (who knew there was a drink called a snowball?). Each cocktail sounded more delicious than the last, but I went with a Clementina, made with vodka and lemonade with a red wine floater.

      They are seriously delicious and refreshing, and you know they must be good if I picked this over a margarita, again and again.

      Svedka, because I’m classy like that

      Also, I walk by this street every day on my way to work. Coincidence? I think not.

      Posted in recipes | 0 Comments
    • favourites

      Posted at 5:18 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 1, 2013

      Here are a few of the things that are making me happy right now:

      I finally bought myself these wedge sneakers I’ve been stalking for the last 3 months. I got a really good deal on them, and I absolutely love them. I get tons of compliments every time I wear them. A lady actually chased me down the street yesterday to find out where I got them, which is kind of ironic since I chased down a lady in the airport to find out where she got hers.

      This recipe for Nanaimo Bar Cupcakes. If you’ve never had a Nanaimo bar, stop what you’re doing and go visit my grandmother and get one, immediately. They are probably my favourite food, and the greatest things to come out of Canada since… well all the other great things that come out of Canada.

      When I saw this recipe online I was so excited I almost burst into patriotic tears of joy. I immediately decided to make a big batch of these for my birthday this month. Just for me though. I don’t know what everyone else is having.

      Also, this pile of gold sequins for a project I am working on.

      And:

      I bought myself flowers, just because.
      Posted in favourites, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged favourites, flowers, nanaimo bar cupcake recipe, sketchers sneakers
    • banana chocolate chip

      Posted at 4:34 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 28, 2013

      There isn’t much in this world I hate more than I hate bananas. Apparently (according to my mother) from the time I was old enough to eat solid food, I’ve had a unique hatred that borders on phobia, and refused to have anything to do with them.

      I personally think it’s a texture thing, since they don’t really have an overpoweringly strong smell or taste to them, and I was intrigued when I recently came across this recipe, and decided to test that theory.

      The basic premise is that you make pancakes with just one banana and one egg, rather than unhealthy pancake batter. I also added a little pinch of salt to add a little depth to the flavour.

      I wasn’t expecting much from this recipe (I also hate pancakes, and refuse to eat them except as a vehicle to consume large amounts of chocolate for breakfast) but it was actually really delicious. It didn’t taste like bananas, and the texture was very pancake-ish.

      It’s a very simple recipe

      Mash up the banana…

      Add one egg and a pinch of salt and beat

      Cook like you would a regular pancake, with a tiny bit of oil or cooking spray

      Add chocolate chips (or blueberries, nuts, etc) and flip

      Put on a plate

      Demolish in 5 seconds flat (with Derek’s help)

      I will definitely be making these again as a “healthy” snack or for breakfast. I also think they would be good with a dash of cinnamon and vanilla, and then served with sugar free syrup and a sprinkle of icing sugar, like french toast without the bread or the frenchness.

      Posted in chocolate, food, recipes | 0 Comments
    • quinoa salad

      Posted at 4:52 pm by jasminedesirees, on February 5, 2013

      Since I’ve been doing my cleanse, I’ve had to be a bit less discriminating about some of the things I’m willing to eat, if only out of sheer boredom. I’m kind of a picky eater, so there are lots of things that are probably delicious together that I just would never think to combine.

      My girlfriend turned me on to this recipe for a quick, delicious lunch, and as I was getting pretty sick of quinoa, tamari and veggies every day, I was excited to have a new option.

      You will need:

      2 cups cooked quinoa
      4-5 dried apricots (avoid brand with added sugar or preservatives)
      2 tablespoons dried cranberries
      1 handful of slivered unsalted almonds
      1 tblsp olive oil
      1-2 tblsp balsamic vinegar

      Chop up the apricots, then combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mix and serve.

      This salad can be served warm or cold, I’ve eaten it both ways and it is super simple to make, and delicious.

      My only word of caution would be to add the balsamic vinegar a little at a time, I added too much once and it was NOT an enjoyable experience.

      Enjoy!

      Apparently I need a new cutting board

      Posted in food, nutrition, recipes | 0 Comments
    • smooth operator

      Posted at 5:45 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 31, 2013

      I’ve been doing a “cleanse” for the last 8 days (more on that tomorrow) but I’ve been starting the day with a fruit and veggie smoothie. It’s only been just over a week, but I can already tell I’ve lost weight, and most importantly, the reason I decided to try this in the first place, I just feel better.

      It’s kind of hard to explain, I just feel lighter, never bloated or full or “gross” as I like to say, and I don’t get “starving” anymore. One of the things I read before starting this was that it can put you back in touch with the real feeling of hunger, because you aren’t eating for cravings, or out of boredom, and there is nothing really “fancy” to eat, so you are just eating basic food that you need to not be hungry, and to get vitamins and nutrients.

      I still have almost 2 weeks left, so I’m excited to see how I feel in a couple more weeks, and if I can find any really noticeable changes.

      Here is my morning smoothie recipe:

      2 cups coconut water
      1 large handful of kale
      1 sprig of fresh Parsley
      1 tsp coconut oil
      1 tsp ground flax seed
      1 tblsp chia seeds
      4 frozen peach sections
      1 handful of frozen mixed berries

      Combine coconut water, kale and parsley in blender, blend well to break up greens. In a separate glass, mix one tblsp chia seeds with 1 tblsp coconut water, set aside. Mix remaining ingredients into blender. Lastly, pour in chia seeds, which will have combined with the coconut water to make a gel. Blend and serve.

      Soaking chia seeds
      Yum

      I’ve been making it every morning for over a week now, and I like to play around with the ingredients a bit. Sometimes I omit the mixed berries, and instead add in 1 whole peeled kiwi, which is really delicious. I also want to try mixing in other veggies, like cucumber.

      Sometimes I will add a little bit of Naked juice Green Machine for a some extra fruit, but just a splash or two.

      Posted in food, nutrition, recipes | 0 Comments
    • stuffed

      Posted at 5:00 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 17, 2013

      Stuffed mushroom are probably one of my favourite things ever. Really what’s not to like? Cheese, bacon, sundried tomatoey deliciousness? This has been a staple recipe in my family for years, I hope you enjoy it!

      You will need:

      1 8oz package of cream cheese
      3 cloves of garlic (this time I decided to try adding 2 tbls Philadephia Cooking Cream in Garlic, it was really good)
      4-5 sundried tomatoes
      Roughly 1 cup of real bacon or bacon bits (feel free to add more as you desire)
      1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
      Fresh cracked black pepper and salt
      2 packages of mushrooms

       
      Mix ingredients together, a food processor or blender works well for this, or else you can just chop the sundried tomatoes really finely, and mix it all together by hand.
      Pull the stems out of the mushrooms and stuff. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees approximately 20 minutes, or until juice from mushrooms begins to evaporate and harden onto cookie sheet.
      Enjoy!
       

      I want to be in  you
      Posted in food, recipes | 0 Comments
    • skinny soup

      Posted at 3:28 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 4, 2013
      Whenever I feel like I’ve been overindulging and I need to get my eating back on track, I make skinny soup. It came into our home as one of my mom’s old Weight Watchers recipes, and has evolved from there. Whoever makes it adds their own ingredients, and basically wings it, as to the best of my knowledge, the recipe has never been written down.

      The holiday season this year was a bit rough for me, I basically ate anything I wanted, in any quantity, and in Mexico I subsisted almost entirely on margaritas and snack food, so it was definitely time for a pot of skinny soup.
      The great thing about this soup is it is delicious, totally full of fiber and protein, and about 800 servings of veggies per cup, and it actually fills you up for hours so you aren’t tempted to snack between meals. Also, it’s really easy to make.

      Here are the ingredients (if you want to make it even healthier, omit the potato):
      1 LB extra lean ground beef
      1 medium onion, chopped
      1 large cube beef bouillion
      1 can black beans
      1 can kidney beans
      1 can chick peas
      1 can lima beans
      1 large can crushed tomatoes
      1 small can diced green chili’s
      1/2 of a small can of diced jalapeno’s
      1 can Rotel diced tomato and green chili’s
      1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
      1 cup chopped carrots
      1 small, or 1/2 of a large potato, cubed
      Water
      Salt and pepper to taste

      Brown the onions and ground beef in a large stockpot. Once meat is cooked through, drain any grease from the meat, and transfer back into the stock pot. Open and rinse all of the beans and add them into the pot, along with the crushed and diced tomatoes, the can of green chili’s, and half the jalapenos.

      You can add the whole can of jalapenos if you like it super spicy, I only add half the can and it still has a really good kick to it.

      Let the mixture simmer while you chop carrots and potato, and add them in. Add in the beef bouillion cube, and approximately 3 cups of water, enough to fill the stock pot up almost to the top. Add in some salt and pepper to taste, and let it simmer on low to medium for at least 2 hours, or until carrots and potatoes are soft. The longer it simmers, the better the soup will be.

      Serve.

      This mixture makes a lot, so I make a huge pot of it, and eat it every day until it’s gone. It’s so hearty and delicious that you won’t feel deprived, and the mixture of protein and fiber will keep you full for hours. You will be back in your skinny jeans before you know it.
      Posted in food, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged food, healthy, recipes, skinny soup, Weight Watchers
    • puppy chow

      Posted at 4:14 pm by jasminedesirees, on December 11, 2012
      It truly isn’t Christmas for me if I haven’t gotten at least 3 stomach aches from overconsumption of puppy chow. This week I made a massive batch so I can give some out to people that I like.

      Only 4 ingredients, that means it’s healthy, right?
      Or keep it and eat all of it myself, I’m still on the fence. I used this recipe. If you’ve never made it before, try it.

       

      I want to be in you
      It’s very simple, extremely delicious and addictive to the point of worry. It is food crack, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t wait for it to cool and ended up with a pretty severe chocolate burn on my fingers.

       

      Enjoy!
      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments
    • fiddle diddles.

      Posted at 6:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on December 5, 2012

      It was such a miserable weekend that I needed a hefty dose of chocolatey goodness just to make it through, so I decided to make some Fiddle Diddles.

      I used this recipe, and these cookies are so fudgey, chewy and yummy that I’ve been eating these pretty much to the exclusion of everything else since Saturday.

      Here are some of the best food quotes ever to get you through the rest of the day.

      Posted in chocolate, food, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged chocolate, fiddle diddles, haystacks, macaroons, recipes
    • deliciousness

      Posted at 4:18 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 23, 2012

      There are very few things that I love as much as I love cheesecake. It is one of the most solid and lasting relationships of my life. A friend once said to me “If you ever meet a guy that you like as much as you like the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, you better marry him immediately”.

      Well I actually was lucky enough to meet someone I like just as much as that cheesecake, and I did marry him immediately. You can’t force somebody to love you, but you can stalk them until they panic and give in.

      With the recent addition of a spring-form pan into my life, I’ve been planning to spend a great deal of my time baking and consuming different kinds of cheesecake, although I’ve demonstrated amazing self control thus far, when the time came to make something for our Thanksgiving potluck it took me about .3 seconds to decide to make chocolate raspberry cheesecake.

      I found this recipe online and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately I do not have a double boiler, and decided that melting the chocolate chip in the microwave would work just as well.

      It didn’t. I burnt the chocolate chips, and when I took them out of the microwave and set them on the counter, the bowl basically exploded, oozing burnt chocolate all over my counter top and leaving a bowl shaped scorch mark on the counter-top. Luckily my husband has not noticed it yet.

      Having been myself for 25 years now, and knowing the kinds of things that tend to happen to me, I had anticipated just such an occurrence, and bought double the chocolate chips I would need, so the cake did make it in the oven after all.

      Once the cake was cooled, I topped it with chocolate ganache and raspberries, and it was really delicious. As one of my co-workers said “I’ve never been to Heaven, but I have had Jasmine’s chocolate raspberry cheesecake.”

      Posted in recipes | 0 Comments
    Newer posts →
    •        
    • Follow loveliness. on WordPress.com
    • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    • Popular Posts

      • biking through bali
      • about
      • oz
      • back packed
      • tips for traveling indonesia
      • gone girl
      • writer's walk
      • chang
      • favourites
      • phi phi
    • Recent Posts

      • half dome: part 2 (the climb)
      • half dome: part 1 (before)
      • favourites
      • queretaro
      • white sands
      • orange county
      • life update
      • news21
      • land’s end
      • big sur
    • Instagram

      No Instagram images were found.

    • Categories

    • Archives

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • loveliness.
    • Join 323 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • loveliness.
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar