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Before we go about our little protein spiel, let us explain how we came up with this recipe. While searching for breakfast recipes high in protein, we came across this recipe. It took about a month or so, but we finally tried it. They were pretty good, but we really don’t like cottage cheese and thought they gave the pancakes a weird texture. We decided to try the recipe again with some changes. We used greek yogurt instead of the cottage cheese, bananas instead of blueberries, cinnamon instead of vanilla, and added some almond butter. We have to say we were very happy with the results! This recipe made 16 pancakes, so we plan on freezing the rest and enjoying them the rest of the week Each pancake has approx. 8 grams of protein. We usually eat 2, so thats 16 grams of protein to start off our day.

Most people don’t know that one of the crucial types of foods we should be eating is protein. Before you can eat protein you have to know what protein is and how much you should eat. Protein is one of the basic building blocks of the human body, being about 16 percent of our total body weight. Muscle, hair, skin, and connective tissue are mainly made up of protein. More importantly, protein plays a major role in all of the cells in our bodies. Although our bodies are good at recycling protein, we use up protein constantly, so it is important to continually replace it. Unlike fat and glucose, our body has little capacity to store protein. If we were to stop eating protein, our body would start to break down muscle for its needs within a day or so. The amount of protein that our bodies require is dependent upon how old we are, how big or small we are, and how much exercise we get everyday.The standard method for the minimum requirement is to multiply .37 by per pound of body weight. If you workout you should multiply that number between 1 and 1.8 (depending on the intensity). We hope we were able to teach you something new today and that you will begin to monitor your protein intake.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

12 Egg Whites ( I used 1 carton of organic egg whites)

2 1/2 cups old fashion oats

1 1/2 cups greek yogurt

2 Tbs. Almond Butter ( you can substitute Peanut Butter)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1-2 Tbs. Agave Nectar or Honey

Pinch of salt

2 Bananas, sliced

Directions:
In a blender combine egg whites, oats, yogurt, almond butter,cinnamon, agave and pinch of salt. Blend until smooth.
Meanwhile, heat 8-inch non-stick skillet over medium heat. Spray  skillet with non stick oil spray. Pour batter into skillet in batches. I used a 1/4 cup measurement. Sprinkle a few sliced bananas on batter before you flip the pancake over. Flip and cook other side.
Transfer to a plate, add more bananas if desired, and drizzle with a Tbs. of pure maple syrup. Enjoy!

The days are starting to get shorter, it’s getting chilly outside and it just makes you want to curl up on the couch and hibernate for a few months. Living in Chicago, we know exactly how you feel. We guarantee that if you make this Stir-Fry it will brighten up your evening and give you plenty of energy.  Stir-fries are fast, use little oil and are loaded with vegetables, three excellent reasons to make a stir-fry part of your weekly repertoire. They make delicious one-dish main courses or you can even stir-fry your favorite vegetables for a great side dish (a great way to use up any leftover veggies in your refrigerator). We love making stir-frys for dinner because its a great way to get in all your veggies for the day! Look how colorful all these veggies look. We try to make our meals as colorful as possible, that way we know we are getting  a variety of nutrients. Maria’s husband loved this stir-fry and said it’s the best one she’s made so far!  We decided to use carrots, cabbage, mushroom, zucchini and red bell peppers and decided to go with chicken for our protein.

• 4 chicken cutlets, cut into 2 inch pieces

A few summers back, while we were in Italy, we stopped at a random restaurant on the way home from the beach. Little did we know that we would have the most amazing pasta ever!! The dish consisted of linguine, zucchini flowers and saffron. The flavors were subtle, but melded so well together.

This is Maria’s first year growing a garden, and its doing very well! When we were at her house the other day we picked a dozen zucchini flowers, we knew we had to try and recreate “that” dish. I have to say we came pretty close! It was good…..but not as good as the one we had in Italy. As soon as Maria gets more zucchini flowers we are going to try it out again. Look at how beautiful the flowers are!

Here is how we made it. Let us know if you have any suggestions!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp EVOO

12 zucchini flowers, sliced

1 shallot, diced

1 tsp saffron

2 ladles of pasta water (approx.)

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese

1 tsp corn starch

1 lb. whole wheat linguine

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Heat EVOO in a medium pan. Add shallots and cook for a few minutes until translucent. Remove pan from heat and add 2 ladles of pasta water. Next add the zucchini flowers and saffron. Add the tsp of corn starch and simmer until mixture thickens up a bit.  Season to your tastes.  Drain pasta and add to sauce mixture. Top with parsley and parmesan cheese.

]]> http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/07/16/pasta-with-zucchini-flowers/feed/ 0 http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/07/01/fortune-cookies/ http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/2010/07/01/fortune-cookies/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:39:02 +0000 admin http://www.theartoftwotarts.com/?p=693

So you might be asking, “why did they make fortune cookies?” Well, it was for a good reason and luckily they game out pretty darn good.

We have some big news people! Our brother, Carmine, proposed to Laura last weekend! We had the honor in helping him propose to our future sister-in law. A few months ago we all started brainstorming for a neat idea. We can’t remember who thought of the fortune cookie idea, but we all loved it. Carmine had the idea of ordering chinese take out at his house to have a nice relaxing dinner for Laura’s birthday. At the end of dinner he was going to offer her a fortune cookie, but little did Laura know what her fortune was going to say that night. She was definitely surprised!! We both love Laura and can’t wait for her to be a part of our family!

How cute are these fortune cookies? Yea they didn’t brown too even, but they still look pretty and tasted great.

The cute engaged couple looking all happy. CONGRATS!

You guys are both such an important part in our lives and we love you both!

Even though it’s me, Maria, blogging today, Lisa’s taking a break, we’re both really excited about this post. It’s  not often that we get a chance to bake with our nephews from start to finish. I promised to babysit Frankie and Freddie on Wednesday night and knew I could keep them busy with baking! Both of them LOVE sugar cookies, so I knew they just had to make them. I searched for what I thought would be the best sugar cookie and decided to use the recipe I found here. The buttercream frosting recipe I used can be found here.

The cookies came out perfect! Frankie (in the blue) described the cookies as crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside! I thought they tasted just like the Mrs. Field’s sugar cookies. This recipe is DEFINITELY a keeper!

Ha! I caught you!

The quietest part of the baking was when we iced the cookies. They were really concentrating on making their cookies look perfect! I think next time we should just frost cookies all night! =)

Here’s a nice shot of Frankie!

Freddie being silly and proud of his cookie!

So this is what cookies look like after they are decorated by  6 and 11 year old boys….. Not bad! (Okay I did the pink sprinkled ones)!

They definitely wanted them to be colorful.

The mess they left me with after…. They couldn’t decide on just one color frosting!

So I have to say baking with my nephews was successful. The highlight of my night was when in the midst of icing the cookies my nephew Frankie said, “Auntie Maria, thanks for baking with us.” It was so sweet and sincere it really touched my heart. Those boys can be rowdy at times, but they were on perfect behavior for me. They really gave me and my husband some big laughs, especially when Freddie had his first bite of the cookie, all I could hear was, ” mmmmm, NOM, mmmmm, NOM, mmmmm.” HAHA too cute! Love those boys. Next on the agenda is to bake with my other nephew Nico and my 3 nieces!

Are you always in a hurry in the morning like us? Many times, we have to grab something quick and these muffins are a great choice. You can make a batch, freeze some and defrost them as you need them! It’ll make choosing a healthy breakfast much easier! To be honest these muffins are part of our annual detox before our Birthday. This way, we can eat as much cake as we’d like!

Many of you probably don’t know that our birthdays are right around the corner (tomorrow)!  Since we will be posting a couple  recipes for our birthday that are fat and calorie bombs, we thought we would be nice and post a healthy recipe before we do so! We know it’s getting really close to bikini season in the Chi, so we must continue to eat pretty healthy. We eat a lot of sugar, but we balance it out with eating 3 healthy meals per day. That way, we can have our cake and eat it too! (Especially on our birthdays)!

We have made healthy muffins similar to these before, but these were MUCH better!

We came across this recipe on Hannah’s blog. We love her blog so definitely check it out! The only thing we changed is that we used dates instead of raisins just because we LOVE dates. Feel free to use whatever you prefer.

They truly were yummy! You can curb your sugar craving with these and not feel guilty doing so. We will definitely be making these as often as we can!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup dates, chopped
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
1 large apple, peeled, cored, and grated
1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup wheat germ
3 large eggs
2/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup orange juice
sugar for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line 18 muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, and wheat germ, if using. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, applesauce, vanilla, and orange juice. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Stir in the dates. Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan, filling almost to top. Sprinkle with  sugar.

Bake for 23 to 25 minutes, until domed and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.

Today is Maria’s nephew’s 7th birthday. Last week Gianfranco was asked if he would like cupcakes or cookies for his birthday and he requested cookies. So, I thought what better to make him than a cookie cake?! We love baking for anyones birthday, but we especially love baking dessert for people who love dessert as much as us! This might be an under statement, but Gianfranco LOVES dessert! I love it how he connects together, Maria = dessert. I’m not sure if he is happy to see me when I come over, or because he knows there will be dessert, haha! Not only do I love him because he is my dessert buddy, but he truly is the sweetest little boy! The ladies are going to be lining up for him when he grows up!

Look at how adorable he is!

Being as sweet as he is, he thanked me numerous times for the cake and said he liked it a lot. So the cookie cake was a success!

The cookie recipe I decided to use is a oatmeal-coconut chocolate chip cookie, that we recntly came across on Jane’s blog, thisweekfordinner. We have fallen in love with it! The coconut keeps the cookie soft and chewy for days. We chose a vibrant blue and green to decorate his cake, and loved how the colors popped.

The recipe is as follows.

Ingredients:

- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1 C brown sugar, packed
- 6 T sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1 C flour
- 2 1/4 C oats
- 1 1/2 C cocnut
- 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chunks (2 cups) (I prefer mini chocolate chips – they really make the cookie oh so delicious, in my humble opinion)
- 3/4 C chopped almonds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F. Beat butter and sugars at high speed until fluffy. Add eggs and beat till blended. Beat in vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Add flour and mix at low speed until blended. Stir in oats, coconut, chocolate and almonds.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Line bottom on a 10′ spring-form pan with parchment paper. Press cookie dough into pan using spatula. (You might have some extra dough left over depending on how think you want our cookie cake.) I doubled the recipe and make 40 smaller cookies and froze the rest to use for the cookie cake.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars with an Oatmeal Cookie Crust and Crumb Topping. WOW. Now that’s a mouthful! Lisa went ahead and created these up herself this past weekend. She put these together using her most favorite flavors and created this fruity, chewy, creamy, sweet, tart, and buttery treat.  This recipe is definitely one that you want to try. Seriously. There is nothing more to say.

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter, chilled and cubed

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup granualted sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2  cup plus 6 TBS  flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 and 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raisins

• 12 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla paste (or extract)
• 1 pint fresh blueberries

**These taste their best when chilled completely and eaten cold.

Christmas is definitely the time of the year where we bake the most! We have so many favorite christmas baking recipes that we love and wanted to share them with you.

Day 1 will be on Thursday December 10. Starting then, each day for 12 days, we will post a new Christmas baking recipe.

Stay tuned because there are going to be some AMAZING recipes!

Here’s a sneak preview!