The Apple of My Eye

Hello everybody! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and for those of you that celebrate Halloween, I hope it was spooky!

The celebration started early for me with a bowl of pumpkin oats!

I think this bowl was too small to contain this porridge of goodness! I sliced a banana, dried cranberries, drizzled on some ginger syrup, and sprinkled a bit of pumpkin pie spice. My big glob of cashew butter just started sinking into the delicious abyss!

Can you make out the face?

I roasted some kabocha and filled it with random things! I saw a can of white hominy which caught my attention because I remembered wanting to try it when I read about on Mitri’s blog. I am now a fan of the big kernels! Seriously, since blogging I have tried so many new foods and I love it. Okay so what’s in this random mishmosh? Cooked cannellini beans, red onions, quinoa macaroni shells, white hominy, pine nuts, parmesan, and salt. Really simple and yummy.

Spooky S'mores Z-bar

Ran a bunch of errands with my friend before the nighttime festivities commenced!

I got two new dishes from Crate & Barrel when I went on my search for tights. Funny thing, I never found the tights I was looking for! But I was a happy girl nonetheless.

My new casserole dish!

When I saw the casserole dish I knew it’d be perfect to fit some of my meals. I made another random mix of things inspired by pumpkin pasta. I had some leftover quinoa macaroni shells, red onions, cannellini beans, kabocha, all sautéed and cooked with a splash of white wine, sweet basil, salt and freshly cracked black peppercorns. Then I topped it off with some grated parmesan. As I was enjoying this random mix, I couldn’t help but think how much more satisfying it felt eating from my new casserole dish and it was all for me! I also felt like calling my mom and telling her what I was having for dinner because it was so good! But we mustn’t forget the beautiful avocado on the side! I’m so glad I saw these were on sale. Sometimes when I go grocery shopping I make squeals of excitement when I see a great deal. You can imagine when I saw the kabocha on sale as well!

I was Prince John from Disney's Robin Hood

Alas, it was too late for me to go trick-or-treating, but before I headed out for the night I took Matilda on a walk in my costume. Maybe someone would think I was awesome and give me candy! That’s what I love about Halloween. You see things that just don’t make sense! How often are you waiting in line behind Darth Vader to pay for a pack of gum ? I ended up going to a hip-hop/hyphy show with some friends. Afterwards there was a “rager”, but first we had to go through the downpour that was going on outside. At least my apartment was close to the party so I changed from my soaking wet costume into some glam-clothes, but I still kept my crown on of course! So I danced the rest of the night away into daylight savings time. My Halloween didn’t end till 6 in the morning and I ended up falling asleep to the old version of “The Hills Have Eyes”.

Now on to other matters. Since my giveaway has all of the Prana Bar flavors I think it’s only appropriate to give you all a review of these babies; which the people at Divine Foods generously sent to me. First for some background information from their site:

“Divine Foods believes that satisfying our taste buds with healthy food satisfies mind and body. Divine Foods manufacturing facility is free of wheat, cane sugar, GMO’s, meat, eggs and peanuts ensuring our products are gluten-free, soy-free and vegetarian.”

So this makes it a safe bet for many different food allergies!

Look at all the ingredients!

Apricot Pumpkin: It was kind of.. floppy? It tasted good and very dense. You can definitely tell there’s date paste – which is interesting and I liked that. I liked the chewiness. It’s also 75% raw – not 100% but if you follow a high-raw diet then I think these would be suitable.

Apricot Goji: The apricot flavor definitely isn’t as intense as the Apricot Pumpkin flavor. I’d say this has a nuttier flavor. This wasn’t also wasn’t as mushy as the other one, so that makes me think that maybe I had the other one sitting in the sun on my desk for too long.

Cashew Almond: Not my favorite, but I did like the texture. Seemed more solid than the others.

Pear Ginseng: I always confuse ginger with ginseng so I was expecting something else, but I was delightfully surprised. Definitely not too sweet, but has just enough sweetness to make you want to save it for last!

Apple Pie:  Whoa mama! This really tasted like a slice of apple pie! The cinnamon and apple flavors really shine through in this bar. Is something that tastes like this really suppose to give me energy? Heck yes!

Coconut Acai: I think this was my favorite! Actually, it definitely was. I could taste the coconut shreds combined with the sweetness from the date paste and agave – delicious!

I hope this review was hopeful for you all. If you are drawn to any of the names of the bars, then you’ll probably enjoy them. But say, for example, you don’t like apricots, you probably won’t like the apricot flavors. As for availability, I haven’t seen these in stores as much as other health bars, but you can always buy them online from their site – which also offers a mixed flavors box. I also have another exciting review coming up from their other product, Boomi Bar. So far I have been thoroughly impressed with all the Divine Foods products I’ve been lucky to try. And yes, I do consider myself lucky. Speaking of luck…

And now to announce the apple of my giveaway’s eye!

Drum roll please…

Virginia from The Hot Dog Battle!

Congrats m’lady. I’ll be e-mailing you today to get your package sent to you ASAP.

I hope you are all starting your week off on a positive note. This past weekend was full of rain and clouds, but at least Monday’s weather is much better! I’ll leave you all with a little quote that may cheer you up.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  – Theodore Roosevelt