Friday Food Frenzy 15

So as promised, I returned to the kitchen this past week --- after two trips to the grocery store to remember all the ingredients to a recipe I've been eyeing up that I found on Pinterest several weeks ago.

I stumbled across the fabulous website, "And They Cooked Happily Ever After". This newlywed couple (they were married last year) has a wonderful blog sharing all the fun recipes they've experimented with --- and there are definitely several I plan on trying from this website (they have many "Weight Watchers" friendly recipes, plus gluten free (just to name a few of their recipe "categories"). The first one I wanted to try was for Apple Cinnamon Quinoa Bites. I've tried quinoa a few times so far and just haven't been able to get into the craze. But these bite sized snacks looked like a perfect pre-workout snack for my early morning workouts. They were cooked in a mini-muffin pan and only 38 calories per bite. Perfect!

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It was an easy recipe to follow. To be honest, I still am not a quinoa fan. These baked perfectly and they were a great texture. I want to try to make these again, but with more cinnamon (the recipe only calls for 1/2 teaspoon). I think that would have made a big difference for me with this recipe. It just needed a little more sweetness (again, I have a sweet tooth). If you like quinoa, I do think you would love these.

I'm trying to phase out diet soda. I did well not drinking it for quite awhile last year (during pregnancy and the months that followed). But I started drinking it again earlier this year. So now I'm trying to figure out how I can phase it out. I found flavored sparkling water at my local Wegman's this past week. I figured it would be worth a try. I splurged and bought 2 cases of their canned sparking water --- one in mixed berry and one in mandarin orange. I love these... they're not a Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi but they're helping me get that fizz fix that I seem to need. It's all natural flavors, there's nothing artificial in it which is a huge plus.

I'm hoping I have some fun food to share next week --- I'm going to be prepping for my daughter's first Birthday (AHH!! No idea how that happened so quickly!!) so my apologies in advance if it's not super exciting. I am going to try though!! I hope you have a fabulous weekend!