Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day
xoxo Ali & Mel

Valentine's Day Candy Bouquet

One year, for Valentine's day, I was trying to figure out a gift to give to my boyfriend at the time, but I wanted it to be unique and personalized. He loved candy but just buying candy was too easy and not very special and getting him flowers would definitely not get him as excited as it makes most of us girls. I finally came up with the idea of making a "man friendly" version of the traditional Valentine's day gift and made a candy flower bouquet using his favourite candies!

All you need are their favourite candies-I used sour soothers to make large, petal flowers and cherry blasters for roses, large skewers and a vase. I wanted to be creative for the vase so I bought his favourite pop (or soda if you are in the States) and put the skewers in the 500ml plastic bottle with the pop so he could drink it after eating the flowers.

(sorry for the really blurry pictures but I took them a few years ago on my phone and was rushing)

Cherry Blaster Roses

This picture's really blurry but I just wanted to show the full bouquet

-A

Valentine's Day Raspberry Pancakes

Valentine's Day is only two days away! Here's a fun little recipe for you to try out for Valentine's Day breakfast, or dinner, if you like breakfast food for dinner like me. This is a variation of the healthy oat and banana pancakes I made here a couple weeks ago.  My boyfriend and I don't really do anything too extravagant for Valentine's Day, we never really have, and I actually like it that way. Don't get me wrong though, the day is still special, but we don't really buy each other gifts, so this year I'm going to make him some extra special red valentine's day pancakes (although he may get them for dinner or the day before because we have an exam on Valentine's day). Whether you are looking for something to make for your significant other on Valentine's day, for your family or you friends, this is a really easy and healthy breakfast you could whip up for them!

^^ I was hoping they would turn out a little darker pink, but oh well! ^^ 

Here's the pancake recipe 

2 cups oats blended into oat flour (could substitute with whole wheat flour, quinoa flour ) 

1 tablespoon baking powder 

1 cup almond milk (any liquid will work) 

2 ripe bananas (easily substitute with 1 cup of other fruit or veggie - apples, pears, sweet potato, squash)  
Water (to your desired consistency, depending on how thick you like your pancakes) 

Coconut oil 
1 cup raspberry puree (heat frozen raspberries) 

Directions 

Blend the oats until flour consistency, place in mixing bowl and mix in baking powder. Blend your banana and raspberry puree with milk and mix with dry ingredients. Whisk all ingredients together and add water until you reach the consistency you like (the oats tend to absorb the water and bulk up so I sometimes need to add water half way through cooking the whole batch).  Heat a pan and use a small amount of coconut oil to oil the pan. Fry the pancakes the same way you would a regular pancake, they are ready to flip when you see bubbles. 

Strawberry Pineapple Sauce 

10-15 frozen strawberries (can use any fresh or frozen berry)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen pineapple

a little water 

1 tablespoon of chia seeds (great fibre!)

Directions

Heat the frozen berries and pineapple over medium heat with the water until they are soft and warm. Blend the mixture for a few seconds for a smooth fruit sauce. Then take off the heat and add the chia seeds and allow the sauce to sit for a few minutes. The chia seeds will absorb some of the liquid and firm up the sauce. 

**Since I knew I would be topping these pancakes with maple syrup I didn't add any sugar to the pancakes or the strawberry pineapple sauce. This is a great way to control the sugar content, and a great alternative to the sugary jams you can buy at the grocery store, or the traditional pancake recipes.**

This would be a great way to surprise your loved on on Valentine's Day morning ;) 

^^ all you need to make the strawberry and pineapple sauce ^^ 

^^ the raspberry puree ^^ 

^^ blend your fruit together ^^ 

^^ this batter is ready to go ^^ 

^^ once you remove your fruit sauce from the blender, mix with chia seeds a let sit for a few minutes ^^

^^ I topped these with the fruit sauce, plain yogourt, maple syrup and some dried coconut ^^ 

^^ I don't know how to make foam hearts, so I topped my espresso with a cinnamon heart instead ^^ 

Enjoy!
-M

Valentine Squash Brownies

Last year Mel and I came up with a no egg, no dairy, practically no guilt brownie that is packed full of zucchini (which contains antioxidants) and fibre! This was our first "Sneak Attack" recipe, as the majority of the recipe is zucchini. It took us five tries to finally come up with a recipe that had the perfect balance between sweetness and healthiness.
These are the perfect Valentine's day treat for your friends and loved ones as they taste yummy and are healthy! Since Valentine's day is a special holiday I topped them with icing so they can be extra sweet for your sweetie :P.

Ingredients:
13 tbsp (slightly less than a cup) semisweet chocolate chips
4 cups of shredded zucchini
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp chia seeds
3/4 cup sweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup cocoa unsweetened
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oat bran
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon

(we used different flours to make it healthier and more fibre packed, and we also found this proportion worked best, but you can alternate this for all white flour, quinoa flour or oat flour)

Directions: 
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Step 2: Use a food processor and shred around 4 small zucchini's to make 4 cups of packed zucchini, and put in a bowl.

Step 3: Add the chocolate chips, vanilla, chia seeds, apple sauce and oil to the zucchini and mix well, making sure the chia seeds start to form a gel.



Step 4: Add all the dry ingredients and mix well. At this stage you may think there is not enough of the wet ingredients, but keep mixing and it will eventually all become wet. *Tip: when mixing use more of a pressing action to get the liquid out of the zucchini

Step 5: Spread in a 9x13 inch pan and cook for 45 minutes. (For the Valentine's day hearts I cooked them in a circle cake pan)

Step 6: Cut into squares or for Valentine's day use heart shaped cookie cutters!

The icing didn't turn out as well as I wanted it to. It tasted amazing but I didn't use an emulsifying agent so the coconut oil coagulated and you could see white flakes in the red icing (all you pharmacy students can empathize with how hard those emulsifying labs were!). If I would have left it a white icing though it would have been undetectable!

Icing:
1 cup frozen raspberries
3 tbsp coconut oil
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Step 1: Cook the raspberries until completely soft. De-seed in a mesh colander or cheese cloth.

Step 2: Measure out 3 tbsp of the raspberry liquid (you can eat the rest that was left behind!) and put in a large bowl.

Step 3: Add the rest of the ingredients and mix it with an electric mixer. I then stored mine in the fridge for about 10 minutes then topped the brownies.

-A

Valentine's Day Raspberry Coconut macaroons

It's Valentine's Day week here on the peachy pear and I have a fun little gift idea for you to try out! If you're like me you're probably thinking...hmm maybe I should get my friends something small for Valentine's day, but what could I get them? Well I have been thinking for a few days about what I could get Ali for Valentine's Day. I wanted it to be something small, thoughtful and inexpensive as we're on a budget. I decided to make a mason jar with a chalkboard lid, the tutorial on how to make them is herePersonalize the lid with a little message, and fill them with a few of these delightful little raspberry coconut macaroons.

These macaroons are a new recipe for me, I've made them plain before (coconut alone, adapted from this recipe ) but I decided to flavour and colour them with some raspberry puree to make them pink for Valentine's Day. They are incredibly simple in terms of ingredients, they are made with dried coconut, maple syrup and raspberry puree, and they're pretty easy to make too! If you are looking for a quick treat to make for your friends and family this Valentine's Day, or any day really, these are a great idea.

Here's the recipe: 
3.5 cups of dried unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/2 cup of unsweetened raspberry puree
Blender or food processor needed
** They're actually very healthy for how decadent they taste - this recipe made 19 macaroons! **

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place 2 cups of your dried coconut into your blender or food processor with your raspberry puree (heat frozen raspberries) and maple syrup, and blend until smooth. Place remaining coconut in a mixing bowl and add blender contents. Mix well until combined. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and form equal sized balls with you coconut mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the bottoms are lightly golden brown. Drizzle with melted chocolate for an added treat.

^^ a blender or food processor will work to make the wet portion of the cookies ^^

^^ the wet ingredients - coconut, maple syrup and raspberries ^^ 

^^ add the remaining unsweetened shredded coconut to the wet ingredients ^^ 

^^ bake until bottoms are golden brown ^^

^^ I drizzled mine with dark chocolate! ^^ 

^^ they are soft and moist on the inside ^^ 

^^ the perfect homemade gift for your friends this Valentine's Day ^^ 

^^ personalize it with a cute message ^^
** I got too excited to write on this lid that I didn't wait long enough for the paint to dry, and I took some of the paint off - oh well! ** 

Enjoy!
-M

Valentine's Day Bracelets

Here are some bracelets you can make for your friends for Valentine's day

Heart Shaped:

Step 1: Measure each string to be slightly longer than your arms length and arrange like this

Step 2: Knot the 2 outer strings in

Step 3: Knot the two outer strings in; then knot the String 2 and string 7 one knot outwards

Step 4: Knot strings 2 and 7 inwards

Step 5: Knot strings 2 and 7 one knot outwards

Step 6: Knot strings 2 and 7 inwards then knot strings 1 and 8 inwards to complete the heart

X's and O's:

This is another cute pattern that you can make for your friend's for Valentine's day using the same basic knotting techniques:

-A