WIAW #15 Sweet Potatoes With Peanut Butter: What Have I Been Missing!?!

Holy peanut butter and bananas, Batman, this PB Crave peanut butter with sweet potatoes is outstanding! I’ve been seeing PB Crave peanut butter posts across the foodie blogs lately and I finally have the opportunity to try it myself. PB Crave sent me a jar of each flavor to sample and I’ll have a tasty review along with a giveaway posted in the near future. Please check back often!

Really, I have never tried PB with sweet potato until this weekend and wow, I can’t believe what I’ve been missing. I first tried the combo with plain, fresh ground PB and cinnamon which delighted my mind, body, and soul mouth. Ok, maybe soul too; who knows? Then I took it a step further by using the PB Crave Coco Bananas peanut butter and knew there was no going back.

I’m hooked; sweet potatoes and peanut butter will become a staple for me. Have you tried this combo yet? Have you tried it with bananas or PB Crave Coco Bananas? If you answered “No” to either question, do it, and do it soon!

Needless to say, for June’s What I Ate Wednesday “Sensible Snacking” theme, sweet potatoes and peanut butter have taken over. Also, veggies aren’t a problem as I thoroughly enjoy them cooked, raw, blended, or whole, but I’ve trying to eat less packaged grain foods at work lately.

Luckily, Zilks Foods sent me several of their healthy hummus flavors to review and I’ve been able to have this with cut veggies for snacks. I usually steer clear of buying packaged hummus because more ingredients than necessary always seem to be added. Not the case with Zilks, it’s the same thing (real food) you would use at home. Plus I’ve been delighted with each flavor so far. Check out their site for ingredients and nutrition information, and then get some if you can. Keep checking back for my Zilks review too.

Review Coming Soon! This is one of my favs!

Snacks are just fun to eat, and if you choose, healthy, wholesome snacks, they can become your meal! Eating snacks for meals means you get to have several different and delectable things to eat at once. I don’t see a problem with this at all. Do you?

I have a few reviews to post in the coming weeks, and so far, I’d say they are all good ones. I hope you come back often just to see what’s going on and if the next review is up and ready for you to read.

Now, lets have a look at What I Ate Wednesday…..
*Update* I just realized I haven't been mentioning the person who makes this weekly event possible.  Thank you, Jen @ Peas and Crayons for putting this all together!!







B-Fast: Sweet potato with plain Chobani Greek yogurt, natural pb, and cinnamon (I wanted to just split it like a baked potato, fill with yogurt and pb, then pick it up to eat like a burrito; but I used utensils only b/c I was at work); French press vanilla coffee with a splash of milk

Snack: Raw carrot sticks and Zilks Roasted Red Pepper and Jalapeño Cilantro Hummus (2 different flavors) mixed with tuna for dipping. The combination of sweet red pepper and fiery jalapeño was a flavor party in my mouth….that’s a good thing!

Lunch: One more superior product I have the opportunity to review; Fig Foods Kabocha Squash Soup with my own addition of mozzarella pieces and green onions. Side of Zilks Hummus with Real Bacon (amazing, try asap) and mushrooms underneath.

Have you hear of Fig Foods? They are only in the Whole Foods in my area, but looking to expand soon. They support green living and also happen sell soups with only whole foods, beans in aseptic containers, and other unprocessed products. Kelley had the Split Pea and Potato; she gives it 2 thumbs and 2 big toes up…….I concur!

Kelley's Soup

Snack: Green tea mixed with herbal Yogi Tea; Jay Robb Whey protein shake (yes, another future review; a good one too) before leaving work to workout.

Dinner: Giant salad topped with roasted Brussels, mushrooms and Zilks Salsa; cold barley cereal mixed with dry roasted pistachios, Chobani Greek yogurt, cinnamon, and a few drops of stevia; another sweet potato with Chobani Greek yogurt and PB Crave Coco Bananas peanut butter (can't get enough!)

Really, can this mix ever get old? Doubtful!

Phew, what a day, and we’re only half-way through the week! Boo. It seems like I have a lot on my plate (literally) to sample and review, but no complaints here! As long as the products have clean, wholesome ingredients, I say bring’em on! How else can a healthy foodie, be a foodie and have good food to share and mention to others?

Q: Do you get or would you like to have multiple products to sample? If I get to select what companies provide the samples, I’m always willing. If it’s McDonald’s trying to send something, they can just toss it instead.

Happy WIAW!!

It's Future Friday! Time to make plans for next week...

Whew! A cold front just blew in here in Texas; a 20+ degree drop within minutes! And I was ready to call it an early Spring……oh well. The good news is that it should warm back up to upper 70’s by Monday; just in time for work…..yay.

What a week! It felt like it was longer than it was, and the weather was all over the place; it still is. We finally received our heavy bag and pull-up station, and I hope to have it up and ready on Saturday. I expect this will be a fun addition for Kelley and me to have for a great workout and supplement to strength training. Not to mention the stress relief it will provide!

I don’t plan on cooking that much this weekend. I want to spend more time with Kelley; the kitchen usually keeps me from doing that, and it will be a nice break. Since we don’t go out for food, I’ll just get a lot of frozen bean and veggie mixes to steam, season, and put in containers for work lunch. Oh yeah, our friend from work really liked the sample of quinoa pilaf I gave him, so I’ll make a big batch of that again so Kelley, our friend, and I can all have it one day next week.



Of course, a veggie filled frittata is pretty good and quick to make...hmmmmmm


Can you believe there are still a lot of people that don’t know of quinoa? I get so stuck in my “foodie world” that I don’t realize how behind the general population is on food. Maybe if more people shopped for their dinners as opposed to always relying on restaurants to serve them, we’d have a healthier and more informed world. I know it’s just a dream, but I’ll do my part and try to spread the good word on food to all who will listen. I enjoy sharing the quinoa with someone who never tried it before, hopefully it sticks and he will make some for his family.

Since I try to avoid packaged snack foods, I try to keep a stock of homemade healthy snacks I cooked or just in the form of cut up veggies. I need things that don’t need me to keep a close eye on, so I think I’ll make good use of the food dehydrator; I love making dehydrated okra, but maybe I’ll try beets and bananas again too.

These things were tiny after being dehydrated.  The beets made a great crunchy salad topping and the bananas were good mixed into yogurt with other cereal.

Baked overnight oats are another favorite and don’t require a lot of prep time, so I’ll make a batch or two of these.

I should be taking them out instead of taking a picture; these are perfectly brown and crispy!!

I'd like to cook a batch of scrumptious protein pancakes one morning though; Kelley really likes this and it's a great way to start the day.  Not because of food, but because I'l have a happy wife!

With crummy weather looming all weekend, it will be a great time for indoor projects. Besides cooking and setting up the punching bag station, Kelley and I are going to install hardware on all of our drawers and cabinets in the kitchen and work on other small projects as well.

Once the good weather comes back (and stays), we are going to build a nice herb garden that will house my pet box turtle, Hector. The poor guy has been hibernating in a large plastic box all winter while we lived in an apartment waiting for our house to be built. I know he’ll love it being on real land again, and we’ll have a great time putting everything together for him.

Hector's old home in the back yard of our old home.  The little basil plant took over this thing within weeks; it smelled wonderful!

There he is, Hector on the hunt for grub.  Or maybe he's just posing....

Do you ever have cut back weeks where you just do little or nothing at all to keep stress levels in check? What are some things you like to do when the weather is uninviting and you’re stuck inside?


Reminder: Check out my review of NuNaturals Stevia and enter to win some goodies from this great company. Contest ends next week on Friday, March 16, 2012.