The Fountain of Fair Fortune- Universal Studios Orlando

Butterbeer. It's sweet, like cream soda, butterscotch soda. The cream on top, like melted vanilla ice cream that's been whipped to barely soft peaks. I like it cold and frozen. I didn't get to have it hot sadly. It's perfect to grab and wander around the Wizarding World and get lost.

At the bottom of this post is the Pumpkin Juice which taste like a spiced apple cider and pumpkin spices. It was way too sweet for me.

Three Broomsticks- Universal Studios Orlando

One of my favorite places is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. It's absolutely magical. I could spend so much time just walking around and soaking it all in. There's so much to see and do. I'll admit food inside Universal isn't as great as Disney food but the foods I do enjoy are in the Wizarding World. 

Pumpkin Cream Churros- Disney World

I haven't blogged in forever, but iceI've got so many yummy food posts from Universal Studios Orlando and Disney World that I can't wait to share with you all. I wanted to ease into it by sharing these Pumpkin Cream Churros. 

In general I do not eat Disney Churros (or most Churros). If I want  Churros I go to a Churro shop in my home town where they pipe them fresh and fry them to order. Even then I don't eat a whole one. They tend to be sweet and greasy.  My children ordered Churros  at Marimoto for dessert and they were meh, better than most but not really that great.

Maple Almond Bacon

I recently went to brunch and they have Maple Pecan bacon. It was so yummy. My oldest can not eat pecans so I thought I would recreate that bacon at home for her with a nut she can have. This is very simple to make. The salty sweet crunchy flavors and texture combined is satisfying, the almonds and bacon both get a little caramelized from the maple syrup.  This bacon is great for breakfast, brunch, on top of a salad, on top of a creamy soup, or served as hors d'oeuvres. 

Isalean Shake Recipes (Isagenix)

Isagenix Isalean Blueberry Cake Shake.

Hello everyone! It's been a while. School is back in session and I'm already behind on posting school lunches. I have a bunch uploaded and I'll get that post up soon. I hope you all are doing well. Is anyone else sending packed lunches to school? I'd love to see them. Today I'm sharing some shake recipes so keep scrolling...

Non-Dairy Creamer, Paleo Coffee Frappe

Non-Dairy Creamer that is Whole30 and Paleo compliant.

If you've been following my Instagram (@peasknees), you know that I recently finished my first round of Whole30. I had a whole month where I didn't drink any coffee. I drank tea twice with this "creamer" like this, and the rest of the time I drank my tea plain. I have to say I really missed my cups of tea in the afternoon with half and half and sweetener - which is normally one dehydrated Stevia leaf. I still miss sweetener but I found something I really enjoy in both coffee and tea. Cold or hot.  This doesn't taste dairy half and half. But it makes drinks creamy and adds flavor. It's really good.

Geang Phet Thalei (Red Curry Seafood Soup)

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I wasn't sure what to call this so I names it Geang Phet Thalei, which is spicy seafood soup in Lao, or literally geang "soup", phet "spicy", thalei "sea". Sounds legit right? Let's roll with it. This is one of the quickest, yummiest Whole30 lunches I threw together so far. The beauty is that it has 3/4 can of coconut milk so I didn't even have to add a plated fat. If I had more/different vegetables I would have thrown them in. I don't really consider mushrooms a vegetable but, let's just go with that also. They are really good though. A creamy pumpkin would be so yummy in this though. I ate this whole recipe like a soup. By myself. I suppose it's two servings if you serve it with rice, cauliflower rice. with a sweet potato. But nope. I. Ate. It. All.

Fantastic Five Grain Porridge

Instant Pot Five Grain Porridge

I'm on a porridge, congee, steel cut oats kick. I think it's the cool weather. Someone mentioned Pret a Manger the other day and how they had the best porridge. So I looked it up on their site and they have a five grain porridge, the site lists the grains, but not the recipe, though they have recipes for other things on there. The grains are what I had on hand so I set off to find a recipe or at least some clue on what to do. My search lead me to Bon Appetite. They have a recipe for this 5-Grain Porridge Bee Pollen with Apples and Coconuts on their web page. It has brown rice, quinoa, millet, wheat bran, and amaranth. Well I didn't want rice. I love steel cut oats. I didn't have millet. I don't really like bee pollen, I used to take it as a kid for allergies, so it's just not my thing now. I still wanted to pull grains from my pantry and see if I could make a mix of my own up. So you should use any grains you have also, just like the Bon Appetite recipe says, "Use what you have". Just pay attention to cooking times and water ratio.

Five Grain Porridge.

Glazed Carrots

Glazed Carrots. There are a few recipes, well, methods for these here on Give Peas A Chance. All the methods are easy. Pick one, season with what your family likes, and DONE. The one's I'm posting today are Green Goddess Glazed. You can use a Green Goddess seasoning, like Penzey's which we really enjoy. OR if you have them, use the herbs and spices from this post HERE.

Some other ideas:

Maple and cinnamon

Dill and butter

Curry powder

Parsley

Ginger

Pumpkin Spiced

Chai Spiced

Freezer Tip: Tomato Paste and Yogurt Starter

How to freeze tomato sauce in bags do you can easily break of portions.

Quick freezer tip. When you have extra tomato paste or want to save small portions of yogurt starter for next batch of yogurt freeze it in a zip top bag. Then squish it flat. Score lines with a chopstick or wooden spoon. Freeze the bags flat until they are completely frozen. After that they can be stacked easily. When you need a portion just open up your bag and break off a piece.

This method also works for ground beef and other ground meats.

Roasted Winter Squash Seeds

I can't tell if I like the seeds of winter squash more, or the actual squash. I think it's pretty even. The seeds though, perhaps because there's less seed to squash ratio, are a huge hit around here. Recently I've been cooking squash and prepping some for our freezer. That means we're lucky to also have lot of seeds. I roasted these with salt and my Creole seasoning blend, which you can find in my Jambalaya post. 

2016 School Lunches 294-307

#294-296

Chicken Curry Pumpkin Soup

Persimmon

Golden Kiwi

Crackers

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bundt Cake

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bundt Cake

Sometimes you can cake, sometimes you want cheesecake. Sometimes you want both. This cake is similar to the Pumpkin Spiced Cheesecake muffins we love. Layers of pumpkin cake, a layer of cheesecake filling, topped off with a cinnamon streusal or a pumpkin spice glaze. Despite all the layers it's very easy to put together and bake up. This is the perfect coffee cake, Afternoon tea cake, or after meal dessert.

2016 School Lunches 271-280

I've been so bad about getting pictures of lunches lately. But here are the pictures I took last week.

Above is #271

Curry Chickpeas

Rice with Palak Paneer on top- I'll update with the paneer recipe I am using soon, I much prefer it and so do the kids 

Masala Chai

(Winter Squash) Pumpkin Puree- Instant Pot

Instant Pot Pumpkin Puree ready for the freezer.

It's Pumpkin season y'all! Before we go any further, I mean: it's winter squash season y'all! We are huge fans of winter squash around here. So many varieties to choose from, SO yes, make pumpkin puree. But don't forget all the other wonderful varieties which are great for both savory and sweet applications!

Any of these winter squash can be made in the Instant Pot, oven, or slow cooker.

2016 Lunches 228-236

#TakeitTuesday!
Here are some lunches from last week, I packed lunches everyday so far. So by count, I'm already behind. BUT here we are!!

Pumpkin Butter and Pumpkin BUTTA (Instant Pot)

Pumpkin Muffins slathered with Pumpkin Butta? Yes, please.

PUMPKIN SEASON IS UPON US! I love pumpkin. Love seeing those cute little sugar pumpkins pop up in stores and at the Farmer's Market. Not that I go to the Farmer's Market a ton. I love sweet pumpkin treats and like to have them year round. These two recipes can be made during peak pumpkin season and kept in the freezer to be enjoyed later.

Instant Pot Cheesecake

 Topped with Lemon Curd, this Cheesecake is AMAZING.

Cheesecake? In a pressure cooker? No way! I thought the same thing, but it really does make sense. Wet environment so it doesn't crack or get dried out. I recently joined the Instant Pot Community page on Facebook, it's the official Instant Pot page. There are some amazingly talented and helpful people on there. All the pictures of food are very inspiring. However, like I said, I wasn't sure about cheesecake. I like mine dense. With a little browned/dry heat crust on the top. I still wanted to try this method though. For one it takes about 40 minutes to cook instead of an hour+ in the oven. So I gave it a go. If you have ever made a cheesecake off of this blog before, you'll recognize this recipe. With a few changes, but go with what you know right? The biggest change is of course the cooking method. Also how cute a little 7 inch cheesecake looks. I mean really. It's just cute. 

You need to do some planning ahead to make this cheesecake. It doesn't take long to put it together or cook it, but the cooling time is essential to help it set and for the flavors to develop. I won't judge you if you decide to just scoop it out with a spoon but it may be jiggly and runny. But it's cheesecake, all cheesecakes need to cool completely. 

Blind bake for a nice crust that isn't soggy.

Free Friday Week 5/15-5/21 in Review

Happy Friday! Here's a recap of our week last week.

 So, last week was Starbucks Happy Hour. We didn't go often, actually we only went twice in the almost three weeks that they held the special. Still it was fun. Except that I ordered Decaf, and I'm pretty sure I was given fully caffeinated coffee. I'm shaking thinking about it!

School Lunches #50-55

Pretty sure if I had a "worst pictures ever" on this blog, this would be one of MANY. Still, here's what's in those Yumbox boxes, for lunches #50-52