WIAW #36 + Paleo Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Hey friends! I hope everyone had an EXCELLENT Thanksgiving! 

I'm going to apologize right off the bat - I forget to take pictures of my Thanksgiving meal for WIAW this week. So, instead, you can read what I ate on Thanksgiving below!

Gardein's Holiday Roast...and some real turkey as well :)

Green Bean Casserole - The Post Punk Kitchen

Pumpkin Tiramisu - Chloe Coscarelli

Shredded Brussels Sprout Salad - FitSugar

Mashed Cauliflower 

Here's a look at some other things I ate this week.....

{Left to right} Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Cake (recipe coming soon...)

Paleo Chocolate Chip Pancakes (recipe below)

Lunch at the Cincinnatian Hotel (items in picture: chocolate mousse cake and moscato)

Chocolate covered bacon

So....these Paleo Chocolate Chip Pancakes.

The recipe is THIS ONE, slightly modified. The recipe is good on its own, but EVERYTHING is better with chocolate. 

Paleo Chocolate Chip Pancakes

{Ingredients}

1 banana

2 eggs

Chocolate chips

Strawberries + sugar {optional}

{Directions}

1. In a small food processor, blend banana and eggs. You can mash the banana if you want, but I think the food processor is WAY easier. 

2. Allow to rest for a couple minutes (this allows the batter to thicken slightly).

3. Heat a lightly greased skillet to medium-high heat. Place one ladle of batter into pan. Sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips on top.

4. Cook until you see bubbles forming on the surface, and the bottom is slightly brown. Flip to other side. 

5. Cook for about 30 seconds and then place on a plate.

6. {optional} Slice some strawberries and sprinkle with sugar. Allow to sit for a few minutes to create a sweet syrup. Spoon strawberries on top of pancakes. 

7. Enjoy!

Pretty straightforward.... right?!

Here are some things that will soon come to Passing Daisies! Get excited!

{Advent Calendar printable}
{More holiday gift guides}
{Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Cake}
{Whirlybird Granola review/giveaway}
{PASSING DAISIES BIRTHDAY LINKUP}*
{NuNaturals Review/giveaway}

*I'm looking for bloggers to participate in a link up with me and create a fun birthday recipe! I've got the details. EMAIL ME to find out more <3

Have a lovely week and let me know what you ate for Thanksgiving!

Successful Pinterest Recipes {Part 2}

You are all about to see just how obsessed I am with cupcakes by reading this post. 

On the bright side, you know all these cupcake recipes were successful and taste delicious, right?!

Cheesecake Strawberries (you can find a million recipes for this. all you need to do is fill a Ziplog bag with pre-made cheesecake filling and pipe it into a strawberry that's been cut open!)

Cinnamon Apple Chips by Delighted Momma

Raspberry Hot Chocolate Cupcakes by Your Cup of Cake

Pumpkin Ale Cupcakes with Maple Bacon Frosting by Gen Foodie

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes by Pixelated Crumb (my friend made these!)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes by Serious Eats

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes by The Girl Who Ate Everything

Honey Cupcakes from The Cake Blog

Love & Red Velvet Cake

I know it's a bit early for Valentine's Day, but bear with me.

Love is in the air!

Thinking about Valentine's Day makes you do one of two things: groan (if you're single) or have incredibly high expectations for your significant other (if you're in a relationship). I fall into the first category - that of being single. However, this year I'm not groaning.

Because this is the first Valentine's Day in a couple years that I'll be single, you'd think I'd be a little heartbroken and disappointed that I won't be receiving chocolates and roses. Yet I'm just the opposite. Why? Because the love of friendship is in the air!

It sounds cheesy, I know. But the 2012-13 school year, even with my massive breakup, has been one of the greatest years of my life because it has allowed me to develop close friendships with people that I didn't see often before. Especially within Navigators - the people I have become close to have inspired me to grow closer in my relationship with God and with other Navs members. I've been intellectually challenged by friends and, honestly, have probably learned more this year than ever before because of the people I hang out with. As I recently read in the book Imagine by Jonah Lehrer (I highly recommend it, by the way - go read it!), we intentionally place ourselves around smart people because we become smarter by hanging around them. And it's true - I've noticed myself doing that this year, and I'm incredibly excited about the level of my intellectual growth.  

So, that brings us to three types of love in the air - a love for friendship, a love for God, and a love for knowledge.

Who cares about being in a relationship, anyways? We should be satisfied with being on our own. Spending our time hunting for a boyfriend isn't how we should be living life. We should be engaging with others, developing friendships, seeing the world, learning, and having fun. God will bring us the right person when the time is right.

With that being said - be happy to single this Valentine's Day, and go bake yourself a cake! If you want to be specific, you can make the white chocolate cherry red velvet cake recipe below. It's delicious and it's pretty - what more could you ask for?

Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Cherry Frosting

Based on this recipe 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 Tablespoon cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups oil

1 cup skim milk

1 Tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 oz. red food coloring

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans.

Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside.

Place all the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk.

Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined.

Pour into cake pans and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

After about ten minutes, remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack. I also cover in plastic wrap while the cakes cool.

Then make the frosting.

White Chocolate Cherry Frosting

3 T. white chocolate chips

8 oz. cream cheese

1 stick butter

6 T. cherry preserves (or more to taste)

5 c. powdered sugar

Directions

In a microwavable bowl, melt chocolate chips. Allow to cool slightly. 

Beat together cream cheese and butter until combined. 

Add melted chocolate and cherry preserves and stir. 

Slowly add powdered sugar until incorporated. 

Frost cake and enjoy!

Product Review: Seeds 4 Peace

Hey guys! 

I apologize for my rather depressing post a few days ago. I'm all better now - we're both really happy with our decision to break up and we are staying good friends. In fact, we are even getting Yagoot (frozen yogurt) on Sunday. I call that pretty good, right? 

Other news - I'm in love with my internship. I know I mentioned that before, but seriously - I love it, and I would be ecstatic if it turned into a job after I graduate. Which - isn't that scary? The thought of college graduation? These four years have flown by. I had no idea they would go so quickly! What the heck am I going to do after I graduate!? Scary. 

Fun things I did this week: 

Wine & movie night with the roomies. I <3 Bradley Cooper! 

Made hot chocolate peanut butter pancakes with my bestie, Blake

Made peach & plum crumble

Ate free cupcakes at work 

Enjoyed the view in Downtown Cincinnati where I work

Clearly, it's been a fun week. And did I mention that Tess and I (the other intern at work) are going to an Ingrid Michaelson concert. How cool is that?! I'm so excited!

Alright, I have another product review for you guys. This is the last one for a while, promise!

Let's talk about Seeds 4 Peace. I met this company while in Washington D.C. at the Fancy Food Show with my last internship, and I loved their product. The company was really friendly, and they sent me some samples of their product. It's a brand spanking new company, and they got rave reviews about their product at the food show. Pretty neat, hm? THey sent me three tubes of each of their flavors - 3 each of the sunflower seeds, and 3 each of the pumpkin seeds. Here are the flavors: 

Sunflower Seeds

Sea Salt & Black Pepper

Chile Lime

Habanero BBQ

Pumpkin Seeds

Honey Mustard

Wasabi Soy

Cinnamon and Sugar

Honestly, I loved all of the flavors, but my favorites were the honey mustard pumpkin seeds and the chili lime sunflower seeds. Both are only 180 calories for the entire tube, which I think is pretty good for seeds.

I also really like that the tubes make the seeds easily portable. I throw them in my backpack and eat them in the middle of class when I need a snack and have been in class all day. My classmates always comment on how cute the package design is, which I totally agree. The package design is super fun! I highly recommend this company - since they are new, give them some love and order some for yourself!

Okay friends, I have to get up early for work tomorrow and I still need to shower, so I'm off. I love you all. See you soon! <3

Much love, 

May Foodie Pen Pal

It's my favorite time of the month - FOODIE PEN PAL REVEAL DAY! Woohoo! It was a great box this month, sent to me by Niki from Salt & Pepper. Thanks so much, Niki! Here is a look at what I received! 

"Powder Clouds" Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

Citrus Sea Salt

"Holy Chocolate" Hot Chocolate Mix

Nancy Drew card

Isn't it all super adorable? The cookies were delicious and were gone within a couple days. The powder clouds were similar to mexican wedding cakes (yum) and the peanut butter cookies were from Niki's favorite bakery in San Francisco - Miette. After looking at the website, it's no wonder it is her favorite bakery - it's adorable and the food looks scrumptious! 

I think my favorite thing in the box was the citrus sea salt. I have long been wanting to try flavored sea salts but never want to spend the money. Thanks Niki! I can't wait to try it. I still haven't tried the hot chocolate, either, but the package makes it look very appetizing! 

Finally, I laughed when I saw the Nancy Drew card - I used to LOVE reading Nancy Drew books when I was younger. This was great, and the card is adorable! I loved it. Overall, a great package and a great experience. Thanks again, Niki!

If you want to see what I sent to my foodie pen pal, Dena from 40 Fit in the Mitt, be sure to head over to her blog to check out my package! 

Wanna join the foodie pen pal fun? Here's the details - just email Lindsay to sign up!

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved! 

Much love,

WIAW #27: The Last Wednesday

Why is it the last Wednesday, you ask? 
Because it is the last Wednesday before I turn 21! YAY!!!! :) My plan for my birthday (which is on Monday) is to hang out with my close friends and enjoy a few drinks (I haven't decided where yet...). I'm excited for it. 
I spent this weekend in Columbus with Stuart and ate quite the buffet of food. For dinner at his 21st birthday party we went to Mezzo, a fancy Italian restaurant. They had an endless buffet of pizzas, deep fried risotto balls, cheeses, and fresh fruit. It was really yummy! Of course, I forgot to take pictures of my food over the weekend. However, I do have a lot of good foodie pictures I've taken over the past couple weeks (while forgetting to type up my WIAWs for those weeks, of course) so get ready!
Before I kick this WIAW off, something to get excited about and set your calendars for! 

Starting on June 4, PD will be hosting 21 Days of Giveaways - a new giveaway every day (and a new winner every day!) from people and products I love. You won't want to miss this - we have some exciting sponsors, including So Delicious, Skinny Water, La Tortilla Factory, Peanut Butter & Company, Honest Tea, and so many more! So don't forget and come back on June 4 to help celebrate my birthday and win free stuff! 

Now on to this week's eats!

Salad w/ Amy's veggie burger patty, stuffed grape leaves, banana "split" with yogurt & raspberries, banana split with yogurt & carob chips, and a GNU chocolate brownie bar

This is a good summary of how my weekend went. I hung out with my best friend whom I haven't seen in forever, went to the Taste of Cincinnati with Stuart (where I ate a ton of yummy food), hung out with Stuart's younger sibs, and...see the top right picture? That's a god summary of my Sunday night. Unexpected, crazy, and fun. Kudos to Wade (Stuart's roomie) for that crazy picture. 

Stuart's birthday cake that I made - chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate ganache topping!

Caramel cookie crunch ice cream!

Strawberries with chocolate chips

Homemade lettuce wraps - filled with a pineapple soy tempeh & veggie mixture :) yummy!

Cinnabon cinnamon roll

Sweets from Sugardaddy's - a bakery I found while in Columbus in Easton mall! So cute, and it sells blondes, brownies, "biscotti" (the edge of the brownie pan), ice cream, cheesecakes, and "brownie bombs". They beat Bobby Flay on an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay on Food Network with their Tahiti Blonde - pineapple, coconut, chocolate, cashews... yummy! I had one of those (it was divine) and some of their biscottis. They were definitely winners!
That's all for the food. Phew. Crazy amount of stuff, right? I seriously need to detox and eat healthy/less RIGHT NOW to lose the weight I'm sure I gained. Ha! But yummy pounds those were... 
One last thing. I am trying to sell a few items: 

Do you like Vera Bradley? The backpacks are basically new - I've worn them maybe once. Great condition. The red backpack on the bottom left has already sold, but the rest are available! I'm willing to haggle on prices, but I'm asking $20. The purple backpack in the top left is not Vera Bradley, but looks very similar. The bottom right is a small purse. PLEASE EMAIL ME IF INTERESTED!!!! :)
Have a lovely WIAW everyone! 
Much love, 

Product Review: The Bearded Brothers

I was recently sent two raw energy bars from The Bearded Brothers (Chris and Caleb) to review. 


A little about the company from their website:
Bearded Brothers is an organic snackfood company, located in beautiful Austin Texas. Most of our handmade energy bars are 100% organic, mostly raw, gluten free, vegan friendly and amazingly delicious. Just try them, we guarantee you will be back for more.


They even sent me stickers. See how nice it looks on my laptop?

Also, thanks to the brothers for being patient with me. It's been a rough week and I haven't had much time to blog, so this review is long overdue! 


First up: Bodacious Blueberry Vanilla.

This bar was by far my favorite. It tasted like a delicious blueberry muffin! One thing that I thought was really nifty about this was the use of raw vanilla protein powder as an ingredient. Very cool! You can also see the chunks of blueberry in the bar. This is a winner for me. 


Next: Mighty Maca Chocolate. 

I'm always a little nervous about trying bars with raw chocolate - sometimes they are great, and other times they taste like perfume. Or roses. Luckily, this bar had a good flavor to it! Both the chocolate and the maca are strong flavors and very present in the bar. Much like the blueberry bar, this was chewy and delicious. 


Both bars resembled Larabars in look and texture, although The Bearded Brothers bars were much bigger. The only downside to these bars was the calorie count - 288 calories per bar. Since they are quite large, however, it's easy to save half for later and therefore save half of the calories for later! 


I loved the product packaging. They are recycled and have the awesome logo on the front. Plus, the bags are resealable - perfect for if you don't eat all of yours at once and want to save some for later (like me!).

Want to try some of these bars? Lucky for you, The Bearded Brothers is giving all Passing Daisies readers a   15% discount when you order online and enter the code daisybeard at checkout. All shipping is a flat rate of $4.95, no matter how much you order! Awesome!

The Daisy Rating

3.5/5 daisies

I recommend trying these bars for yourself! And thanks to the brothers for allowing me to review their products!

Much love,

Product Review: Cookiehead

Welcome to another fabulous product review! There will be quite a lot of these coming up in the next few weeks, including Zevia, Bearded Brothers, So Delicious, Snapz, Rush Bowls, Better Beans, Thunderbird Bars, and more! Many of those include giveaways - so be sure to keep checking back!

Today, I bring you Cookiehead products! I have to say, the Cookiehead line is much more extensive than I knew - the company features a wide variety of brownies, cookie, & muffins to enjoy. Each product is packed to the brim with whole grains and yummy, healthy-for-you foods, like sunflower seeds and spelt flour and flax seeds! Products are also full of fiber and omega-3s - how much better can it get?

I'll tell you. The packaging on the products are so stinkin' adorable! That was the first thing to catch my eye and draw me in.

Mmmm....don't they look yummy?

When Cookiehead agreed to send me some products to review - they were very enthusiastic, I might add! - I couldn't have been happier. They sent me a wide variety of things to try - and full boxes of each! Boy, I was excited!

Let's start with my favorite, shall we? Sprouted Grain Mini Brownies, made with sprouted spelt flour!

These are probably the best store-bought brownies I've had. They are so rich in dark chocolate, very moist, and only 53 calories a piece! I eat these like it's my job. It's a wonder I still have some left! They also have 8g of whole grains per serving, and are milk-free and kosher. I highly recommend these.

Next: Flax Snax Cinnamon Honey cookies, Dark Chocolate Chunk cookies, & Coffee Chocolate Almond cookies!

While I only got to eat one of the cinnamon honey cookies (my mother devoured the entire box in half a day...), they were yummy! They had a very unique flavor - I think I just wasn't expecting such a strong honey flavor, but it was definitely prominent. I also loved the hint of cinnamon, and the flax seeds were visible. Also, these cookies have 8g whole grains and over 1000 mg omega-3 fatty acids in each serving - amazing!

The coffee chocolate almond cookies were my favorite of the 3 cookies I was sent. The coffee is very strong, and with the chocolate, these cookies taste like a mocha you can bite into.  I also love that, in both these and the dark chocolate chunk, there is a nice crunch from the sunflower seeds. Which, I might add, I was definitely not expecting in a cookie! Still, it was a nice surprise, and I loved it. 

As for the dark chocolate chunk, well, they were just as stellar. You really can't go wrong with a chocolate chip cookie. All cookies were moist and contain 9g whole grains, 2g fiber and protein, and 250mg omega-3 fatty acids per serving. What healthy cookies!

Last up: Cranberry Orange Grainy Brainy Wakey Cakes. What a name!

I was a little disappointed that only two mini muffins weighed in at over 200 calories (I don't remember the exact number, but I believe it was 260+ calories?). Still, these were delicious. And totally worth every calorie. These had an intense orange flavor, crunchy sunflower seeds, and yummy dried cranberries. These, like the brownies mention earlier, are also made with sprouted grains. 

Overall, I applaud this company. Great work. Keep making healthy, kid-friendly products, and stuffing them full of nutrients! I highly recommend ordering some online if you cannot find them in a retailer new you! 

The Daisy Rating

5/5 daisies

Much love,