1 sandwich, 2 recipes, 3 miles (2024)

What a busy day this has been! And it’s not even 3PM

Despite the fact that I’m a food blogger (well, one of my many hats), I never seem to find the time to bake or do special food projects. When I write about food three times per day, the last thing I want to do in my free time is dirty up the kitchen again right after posting lunch! But I’ve been itching to be creative, so this morning seemed like a wide open window for dirtying dishes.

Especially dishes I could lick clean!!

My first project was a batch of Lemon Rosemary Biscotti!

Wayyyyy back in the day – two years ago to be precise – I won a batch of Earl Gray Biscotti from Sarah of Tales of Expansion. I’ve been thinking about them ever since!!

I tweaked the original recipe to include rosemary and lemon instead of Earl Gray, and they came out absolutely divine!

Lemon craving averted!

See Sarah’s original recipe here

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp any-kind-of sugar
• 2 tbsp herb of your choice (chopped fresh rosemary for me)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 chopped dates
• 1.5 tbsp cold butter, cut into pieces
• 1.5 tbsp canola oil

Pulse the dry together, add the wet, and pulse a bit more until a nice dough comes together.

It will be really dry and crumbly, so you’ll want to mash it all together into a ball before molding into a square snake. This was harder to do than it seems, but possible! Mine was tiny – only about a thumbnail cross section, so you can shape it however you like – or double the recipe for bigger pieces.

Wrap the snake in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

After chilling, slice biscotti and bake at 375* for 8-10 minutes.

The thumbnail squares are awesome, but the two BALLS I made are even better!! I’d recommend forming the dough into balls and baking for 10 minutes. Divine!

I had one after lunch!

Project #2: Honey Crunch Peanut Butter

Possibly the best peanut butter I’ve ever had!?! Gritty, crunchy, drippy, salty AND sweet. All in one!

I used a bag of Trader Joe’s Honey Roasted Peanuts as the base. This only cost me $2.99 – not bad for a completely customizable product – especially in texture.

Process:

• 3 cups honey roasted peanuts
• 1 tsp canola oil
• 1/2 cup more peanuts pulsed in at end for crunch

It’s too bad I don’t have kids to lick my bowls for me – I was forced to clean the pot myself!

After my kitchen projects, Matt and I went hiking!

Just 10 minutes from our house is Ivy Creek Natural Area – 6 miles of nicely marked trails. So cool this is so close to home!

Note that they said no jogging – guess we’ll be forced to walk!

We covered about 3.5 miles, but the up and down of hills was enough to make my legs pretty tired! [My blisters were fine with thin socks and wide tennis shoes, thank goodness]

We paused on this bench for a while to take in nature. I can’t remember the last time I just SAT and LISTENED!

Once back at home, we were hungry for lunch despite the peanut butter + biscotti snacking!

I attempted to re-create the tempeh sandwich that Faith had on Thursday at Sprout.

We mixed molasses and soy sauce (1 tbsp to 1/2 tbsp)

And pan-seared the tempeh slabs, topping them with the sauce at the end.

The sandwich was good – with sprouts and spinach – but not nearly as good as Sprout’s version!

Side of orange – shared with the husband

Time for a nice shower, laundry, grocery shopping and nachos!