i love the yoga

Yoga gives me...

power...

energy...

strength...

peace....

relaxation...

flexibility...

spiritual awareness...

confidence...

HAPPINESS!

tasty salads

In the spring and summer time I don't like to make the apartment hot by cooking in the house. I enjoy eating lots of salads, smoothies and things I can grill outside. These are two recent salads I made with my findings from the Hillcrest farmer's market. This first one has mixed greens, chopped cucumber, avocado and seared ahi tuna with a homemade soy vinagrette.

This second salad I made with baby spinach, mixed greens, sliced strawberries, sliced almonds, and poppyseed vinagrette. This one was particularly good and the strawberries were nice and sweet.

"pankies"

No I'm not talking about hankie pankie here, "pankies" is what I called pancakes as a little girl. I was very fortunate to have a mother who made my sisters and I breakfast most every day of the week (including school days). Pancake day was always my favorite! She had 3 varieties that she would make, the ones from the Bisquick box, Mama Sue's Pancakes (my maternal grandmother's recipie, although not sure where it actually came from), and on the occassional weekend morning we had Swedish Pancakes (crepes).

Mama Sue's Pancake Recipie

3/4 Cup all- purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 TBS sugar

2 eggs

1 Cup buttermlk

2 TBS melted butter

Measure baking soda & salt into flour. Using a whisk, stir ingredients together to "sift" them. In another bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Add buttermilk & sugar and blend. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients. Blend slightly and add melted butter (don't use a whisk here). Stir until blended but not smooth batter, it is best if slightly lumpy!

Cook on pan at medium heat with butter or non-stick cooking spray on the pan. When top of the pancake starts to looks a little dry and bubbles start to form and stay open it is time to flip pancake. Pancakes are delicate when done. Can be served with syrup, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, jam, pumpkin or apple butter or whatever else you fancy. Enjoy!

Swedish Pancakes Recipie

3 eggs

1 1/4 C Bisquick

1 3/4 C milk

1/4 C melted butter

Blend together in a blender until smooth. Cook in a small skillet or crepe pan. Use enough batter to lightly coat pan for one pancake.

Any of my roommates who I have lived with over the years though college and beyond know that I still like my homemade breakfasts (especially pancakes) in the morning. Once while living in Baltimore, I made Mama Sue's Pancakes for some roommates and friends. A few weeks later, Mama Sue called my cell while I was around one of the friends present at the breakfast. After I got off and said that was my grandma, Mama Sue, my friend started laughing and said, "I didn't know that Mama Sue was a real person let alone your grandma, I thought she was like Aunt Jemima"! We got a great laugh out of that one!

I am always altering current tried and true recipies to see if I can make them better or searching the internet for new recipies. My favorite alteration and easiest is substituting the white flour for whole wheat flour. It usually just results in a denser pancake. I have also tried adding vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The worse that can happen when experiementing is that you will have to start over.

Has anyone seen that cool pan at Williams Sonoma that makes pancake puffs? I kept wanting an excuse to justify buying that unique pan but the expense and lack of necessity of the pan kept detering me from purchasing it. Lucky me though, one day I was shopping a the beloved Target and come across the clone of this pan in the "As Seen On TV" section of the store and even better it was only $9.99. Needless to say I snatched it up and was very excited to try out the pancake puffs at my next opportunity. The circular pan has little half circles domed into the pan so that after the dough starts to puff up you flip the pancake in the pan and the uncooked batter continues to puffs up and fill the dome again and make a full puff ball. The options for these puff balls are endless, you can even fill them with jam or fresh fruit. So far I have tried that basic pancake puff and this is the result topped with syrup!

under the sun

Back in January I headed over to Coronado Island (one of my favorite places to "escape" to in San Diego) with some friends who were visiting. Coronado Island is a must see for anyone traveling to San Diego! On this day we were snapping lots of pictures and although I did not take these photos I love them and think that they say so much! The stillness in this picture is just as it was in the moment with the playfulness of the children playing in the then very cold ocean and the sun shining through the fluffy clouds. San Diego is a very special place in that year round you can head to the beach; in the winter it may be with a coat and a cup of coffee (as it was this day) or like today in a swimsuit with a cold drink, sunscreen, and a good book. Now thats what I call the sweet life!

homemade hummus

Organic Peanut Butter Hummus

1/3 Cup Organic Lite Coconut Milk

1 TBS Organic Blue Agave Sweetener

1 Can Organic Garbanzo Beans, rinsed and drained

3/4 Cup Organic Creamy Peanut Butter

Using a food processer add rinsed and drained garbanzo beans, peanut butter, most of the coconut milk (leaving a little for the end), and the sweetener. Blend until smooth, and use the rest of the coconut milk to finish smoothing the hummus. Store in a glass container in the refridgerator. Tastes well paired with crackers and apple slices.

Sundried Tomato Hummus

1/3- 1/2 Jar of Juilanne Sundried Tomatoes (from Trander Joe's)

1 Can of Organic Garbanzo Beans, rinsed and drained

Enough of the oil from the jar to create a smooth hummus

Using a food processor combine rinsed and drained garbanzo beans, tomatoes and some of the oil from the jar. Continue to add more oil (supplement with olive oil if more is needed) until you achieve the texture of hummus you like. Great paired with fresh veggies or crackers.

layers of life

The Sweet Life is like these ranunculus, no matter which angle or how closely analyzed, it is still beautiful, colorful, and made up of many layers. This new blog I am beginning will be a compilation of thoughts and rambles, photography, recipies, and whatever else pops into my head.

I picked up these beautiful flowers from The Flower Fields in Carlsbad, where you can tour the fields of beautiful flowers or if you're like me just pick some already cut flowers and a boat load of super sweet strawberries. The strawberries seemed to dissapear much quicker than expected (hey I need something to keep my life sweet!) whereas the ranunculus are still going strong. When I purchased them I was told to pick out a bunch with a lot of tight buds and when I got home to put them in cold sugar water and replace this water every 3 days, and that they should last 2 weeks if I did this. I have done just this and they not only opened up very nicely and at great pace to be able to enjoy but they are lasting!

Life is just wonderful right now in sunny San Diego, it's warm and sunny out, my patio garden is planted (more on that later), babies are "cooking" (no not mine!), I've rediscovered yoga and it's wonderful benefits, and am starting to return to work in less pain than before! This is my favorite time of the year! My creative juices, desire to do more outside/travel and make my life better is always consuming my mind this time of the year. Stay tuned for more of Sara's Sweet Life, and enjoy!