Healthy Chocolate Cheesecake with Brownie and Adoption, is it for you?

Little souls find their way to you, whether they are from your womb or someone else.

Sheryl Crow

Oh my! This is embarrassing. You just caught me crying! I cry to almost anything. I even cried on the Gangnam Style song. Today though, I am crying for a reason - I am reading about articles on adoption.

Ever since, I am always touch with  kid or babies that are abandoned by their parents and there are so many of them now. So I had  considered the fact that I want to adopt. When my children were talking about having a new baby in the house, I said we will have one through adoption. I even told my husband about this yet he did not believe me. When I found this site today,  Be Inspired to Adopt, and when I read about the adoption stories, I was really touched thatI have this burning passion to do it and take a jump. But  when I look deeper, I currently do not have the emotional strength to do so. I am too busy with my children and I am emotionally drained disciplining and loving them that having room for a baby and giving the love that they deserve is just too hard for me right now. Am I too selfish here? or self absorbed? I don't know, that is what I am feeling. Truly, adoption is just a very big responsibility and one cannot do it half-heartedly. Please check this site I attached - this. Currently, my family is sponsoring children so please check this.

Who are qualified to adopt?

For me, I think one is qualified to adopt if he has the capacity to support the child emotionally, mentally and physically. In my case, for now, I am not in the right place emotionally.

It is also very important that one has the means to give the children their basic needs: like stable job and mental and emotional stability.

There are strenuous process involve in adopting. Paper work, financial requirements and lot of patience is one of them. Maybe you have all the qualifications and the capacity to save a child, please do check on the site I listed above.

My children are so lucky that they have parents who love them and wanted the best for them yet their are kids who are unfortunate and they do not have a good start. Usually a product of poverty and teen age pregnancy, these kids who may not be adopted or fostered are set to  future of  failure unless somebody help them. I thought giving a child a new lease of chance is a big gift we can give to society and one of the big form of service to God. The truth is, there are so many kids who need a family and  foster family. These children need a place to call home. Given this opportunity, there is a big chance for them to soar for greatness.

Reading those stories left me in awe of those  people who adopted and fostered. Some of them do this to serve and simply answer the call to be be compassionate and acting positively on those emotions. Some of us, like me, are not so brave enough. I feel incapable. So for now, I am just making you aware about this site and who knows adoption may be for you.

On a lighter note, I am  sharing another healthy dessert. We are making this healthy chocolate cheesecake. I love usual cheesecake, the one that have the real cream cheese, but I love this version  more because we can eat this anytime we want and not feel guilty about it. This is made of various nuts.  I got this recipe from chocolatecoveredkatie. I change the coconut oil to coconut butter because I still have left over  from making Healthy Oreos. Just like any cheesecake, there is no need for baking. Although you have to freeze this three times, I think it is worth it at the end.

Healthy Chocolate Cheesecake with Brownie Layer 

Brownie layer:

1 cup pecan
1 cup walnut
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup pitted date
1 tbsp sugar

Line small rectangular container or any pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

Mix ingredients in a chopper or food processor.
Then place half of the mixture in the lined pyrex ( any container will do ) and put  it in the freezer for 2 hour to harden the brownies.

For cheesecake layer:

1 cup cashews
1/4 cup milk/ I used Chocolate flavored soy milk
2 tbsp melted coconut butter
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp powdered sugar ( if it you think that it is not sweet nor creamy enough, add in more sugar)

Line small rectangular container or any pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

Mix ingredients in all the brownie ingredients in the chopper or food processor.
Then place half of the mixture in the lined pyrex ( any small rectangular container will do ) , press hard to flatten and strengthen the mixture.
Put  it in the freezer for 2 hours to harden the brownies.

In the meantime, make the cheesecake layer.
Mix all of the ingredients in a processor/chopper/Vitamix
Get the hardened layer from the freezer and place the cheesecake layer on top of the brownie layer.
Freeze for another 2 hours.
After this, place the remaining brownie layer on top and frozen cheesecake layer and freeze again.
After 2 hours, slice the cake into square and serve.

NOTE:

If you have smaller rectangular container, use that because I think I used a bigger container so the brownie layer was too thin making it soft when not in the freezer.

If you have left over, always keep it in the freezer for the cake becomes soft if you don't.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Self Discipline requires you to connect today's actions to tomorrow's result

Hello. Hello. Hello. I am so glad you came to visit me again. Let us take a seat and just chat.  I know, you just drove for a long time and maybe you are not in your best elements today. So you just relax. This may not be the right time to ask this, but I really have this burning question that I want to ask you. Who/ What  is the most important thing in your life that you cannot live without? What did you do with them today? If it is a thing, did you ever do something to make it grow or shine, or look attractive? If he/she is human did you give her some TLC ( tender, loving, care) today? I hope so.

I was in the supermarket today and every time I go there, I cannot help but see all these beautiful orchids' flowers that are so colorful and beautiful. They just stood there as if gallantly showing off their splendor. I just make do with admiring and browsing through them because they are  very expensive - $ 19.00 to  $ 34.00 each. As I went farther at the back of the isle, there is a one orchid whose leaves where dry and droopy. Its flowers lost its luster and it stood in the farthest isle that it can easily be ignored. I felt so sorry for the plant but when I saw the price, it was on sale for $ 2.00. I got a dilemma whether I should buy it or not. But for the price, I decided to take the risk.

When I arrive home, I placed my orchid on the side table  where it will get some sunshine. I also put some ice on its pot to water it. I was thinking, poor little thing, its life is doomed.

But I was mistaken. Look at "her" now. My little survivor orchid. She is a far cry of what she was before... look how elegantly she stood. Showing her beauty. There is pride and sense of hope in "her".These are the result of a little TLC I gave her.

 This TLC is applicable to every area in our lives as well. Have you given yourself some TLC today? Are you thinking good thoughts?  Are you making right decisions? Did you take a bath? Did you brush your teeth :) Did you give your  spouse some respect today, or you were just too busy trying to win the argument? Did you really listen deeply to your spouse? Your children, have you given them a hug before they left for school? Did you try to be patient with them?  Your colleagues, did you try to understand them? These are just few examples on little TLC that can make someone regain his/her luster. So how about today we give these freely.

So, are you feeling okey? I hope so. I want to share to you this chocolate chip cookie recipe. The texture of this cookie is kind of fibrous due to the wheat flour. But I really liked it.  If you want, you can  make this with me or you go ahead and chill as I show you how. Also check this and this for other healthy recipes.

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

1. 2/3 cups plus 1/2 cup wheat flour
2. 1/4 tsp salt
3. 1/2 tsp baking soda
4. 2 tbsp brown sugar 4
5. 1/4 cup walnut ( ground) 
6. 5 tbsp milk of choice ( I used vanilla soy milk)
7. 1 tsp vanilla
8. 6 tbsp cooking oil 
9. 1/4 cup chocolate chip 

Place ingredients 1 to 5 in a bowl. Mix the ingredients thoroughly using a wire whisk or spoon. Please do this because we want the baking soda to be completely mix with the rest of the ingredients.

Mix together ingredients 6 to 8 and add into the flour mixture. 

Preheat oven into 380 F

Combine the mixture using your hand. It will become crumbly but just keep on mixing and add in the chocolate chips.

Form into a small ball and flatten a little bit. Around 1/4 " thick.

Bake into preheated oven for 7 minutes and remove from the oven.

NOTE:

Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for 10 more minutes before you  remove from the pan. Doing this will continually cook the cookies.

Serve and enjoy.

5 Signs He's Just Not Into You and Classic Carrot Cake

I have been looking for you ever since I heard my first fairy tales

How can you tell if the guy is not that into you? 

We always want a happy ending in our love lives. We want our crushes to love or like us back. And when they do, we want to keep them no matter what. In my experience, when I was younger, I thought that love was blind. Now that I am older and armed with more experience and wisdom, I realized that love is not blind. I just refused to see back then. This blog is for the ladies out there who got their "prince" yet plague with uncertainty if their prince charming is willing to fight dragons and cross the seven seas to protect them ... so here's the list ladies! 

5 Signs He Is Not that Into You: 

1. You are the one writing letters, cards, messages
 Actually writing letter was during my generation, now it will be texting and e mailing. That time, I was writing letters to my man as thick as book and he did not respond with a nay or nah. No comment. This is a sure sign that he does not care. Sure sign that he is not thinking much about you. So what you do, you text some more and then he ignores you more.

2. You are paying for your dates 

Why is it that you are always putting in so much money in your dates, and your man ignores the tab? He thinks getting free stuff from you is a good excuse to be with you. I think that is a sign that he does not want to impress you or he does not want to invest in you. At the back of his mind, I can just hear him saying " We are not going to last, why would I spend this on you?" Also, dates should not be expensive. You do not want to be a freebie giver in your relationship.

3. He is always with his friends and it has been 6 months and still has not introduced you with his friends or his family .

He'd rather spend time with his friends than you. If he cares for you. He will allot more time to get to know you rather spend most of his time with his friends. And you have not met his friends either. It has been six months and you have not met his family. Is he hiding a secret? Maybe, he does not think you are worthy to meet his mother. 

4. You are always jealous
Jealousy is insecurity. What breeds insecurity in a relationship is when you are not sure if he cares for you or not. Then there you are, nagging, calling him unceasingly just to assure yourself that he invest more time and emotion on you. But jealousy is a big sign that you are not getting enough attention. You are insecure that he is not into you. You just do not see it as that.

5. He "beds" you.

I purposely put this last because this is the surest sign he is not that into you.

When a guy " beds" you, that means he does not care. He does not care that you will become a mother when  you are not prepared and he does not care that you put you dreams to a halt to take care of a possible baby. What he cares is to alleviate the heat of the moment. Poverty is one of the three devils. And poverty plagues most on those who drop out of school and teenage mother.

Please share you experience on how to tell when a guy  is not that into you. Please leave your answers in the comment section.

Today, I am going to share to you my recipe for carrot cake. This is always moist and it is not too sweet. I had some peaches and apples so I used them as decoration. In his recipe, I used egg less glaze but I do not recommend it to you because I though it was bland. So I included the cream cheese frosting recipe and use that instead.

Classic Carrot Cake 

Cake Ingredients:

1. 1 cup all purpose flour
2. 1 cup brown Sugar
3. 1/2 tsps baking powder
4. 1/2  tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 tsp salt 
6. 2 tsp ground cinnamon
7. 1 1/2  cups finely shredded carrot
8. 1/2 cup cooking oil 
9. 2 eggs

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1. 1 8 oz package cream cheese or you can cut this into half
2. 1/4 cup butter
3. 1 tsp vanilla
4. 2 cups sifted powdered sugar

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

In a mixing bowl beat together ingredients 1 to 3 until light and fluffy.
Slowly add in powdered sugar beating till smooth,
Spread on top of the cake.

Direction for the Cake:

Preheat oven to 325 F

Grease a sponge pan or 8 " or 9" round baking pan.
in a mixing bowl, stir together ingredients 1 - 6
Add in ingredients 7 to 9 and beat using electric mixer on low speed until combined. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes and turn into prepared pans.

Bake in 325 F oven till toothpick inserted in center comes out clean: 40 minutes 

Sesame Seed and Walnut Chocolate and My Husband's Wrinkly Shirt

People with good  intention make promises. But people with good character keep them

I saw my husband as he left for work today. The only bad thing when I did that this morning was I saw how wrinkly his shirt was. Oh Gosh! I am essentially the incapable housewife in the world.

I usually do my laundry every Sunday now, and I every time I do it, I make sure that I am around when the clothes are about to dry so that when that dryer beeps, I will be there to quickly hung his clothes are warm so that I do not have to iron his work clothes anymore.

Last Sunday however, I completely forgot about it and when I remember it, it was too late, I got an extremely wrinkled clothes. I went  ahead and hung them anyway hoping that by doing so, it will somehow iron the wrinkles. Obviously, that trick did not help at all. I am not sure if my husband noticed it, but the wrinkles were so clear to me that I feel so sorry for him. Gosh, he looks like a geeky engineer who can't be bothered by his looks. Or he looks like a geek who does not have a woman who cares for him. As of this writing, I still feel so bad about it. Why did I let him leave for work with his clothes as wrinkly as that...

Inspite of my husband's look today, he does have a woman who loves him. And no matter how wrinkly his clothing was, and people may think how lazy he was to not iron that shirt, my husband is the most hardworking person in the world. His clothes did not define him. So I hope people  will not be judge him by his looks. Just like this homemade chocolates I am offering you today. Do not judge these by their looks because it can fool you. Dive in and make this. Don't be like my kids who thinks these look like something... Nothing can make me soooo awake in the morning than crackles in my mouth because of the Sesame seeds incorporated in this homemade choco.

This is a different version of my Spooky Chocolate. I loved it so much that chocolate so much that I experimented and made this new version. I threw in sesame seeds and I used walnuts as main ingredients. You can use your bullet or processor to ground them and off you go. I added 1/2 tbsp sugar because the dried figs were sour. And I only used 2 tbsp of cocoa powder as opposed from the Spooky Chocolates which was 3 tbps. See the Spooky Chocolate recipe here

                         

                        

Sesame Seed and Walnut Chocolate

1. 2 tbsp cocoa unsweetened powder
2. 1/2 cup figs
3. 1/2 cup walnut
4. 1/2 tbsp of sugar or more
5. 2 tbsp Sesame seed to mix with the other ingredients

1/4 cup Sesame seeds to coat the chocolates

Direction

Place ingredients 1 - 5  in a processor until thoroughly ground and become sticky. Remove from the processor and form balls. Roll into Sesame seed that are place in a plate. Enjoy!

Enjoy!

Healthy Vegan BrowniesCopying Vitalicious Vitamuffins Brownies and Dreaming Again

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give the gift it away.

Joy .Golliver

One day, my son just randomly announced that when he grows up, he will not get married. I was very surprised when he said this,because he is only nine years old. I wondered, did I do something that made him be appalled about marriage? So I asked him curiously why is that,  and he said , "because I want to be like Greg's grandpa."  Who what? Greg's grandpa is one of the character of the book he is reading - The Diary of the Wimpy Kid. Greg's grandpa is named  Grandpa Heffley. about Grandpa Heffley

Grandpa Heffley is strange, unpredictable and ignorant. Obviously, he is enjoying life vacationing and just being goofy and he is not mindful on what people think of him. He lives in his own terms. Though he is married for a very long time to Greg's grandma, it looked like he is seizing his days living a "free kid and free of responsibility life," so he runs around town in his big motorbike and huge spectacles. For my son, he likes that kind of life. As he said, no kids to take care of and no responsibility, just riding a bike. When he said this, I was not sure if I should be mad or I should be happy that he is reading a book. But one thing I know I am glad about, at least he has a dream. 

When I became a housewife, I have become settled of being a wife and a mother that I just do not think of dreaming anymore. My focus has been on my family and there is nothing else. Dreaming was being shoved in the back burner and has became a burden. It just became a  fixture because motherhood is a very tough job that nothing else matters, even dreaming for myself is something that became a luxury. my schedule is so full that sometimes even, I can only think before I go to sleep. 

Proverbs 29:18 said that When there is no vision, the people perish. What a good way too remind me to dream again.

  

Currently, I am still in the phase where I say when I grow up, I want to be ... It feels like I am re- tuning my life and teaching myself to to find my dreams again. I think this is a wake up call for me because I had let myself go and just I led a life being tossed around by circumstances. No direction, just going with the flow. I gave away the free luxury of dreaming. I also felt that this is just an appropriate time because the kids are grown up now. 

I am almost in my middle age and re- directing myself on looking and finding my dreams again at this age can be a very difficult task to conquer. In my case, I have to try and test some waters and see some unknown  territories. It is scary and it is mentally draining and it is financially expensive. I feel so blessed that I have the luxury to try to find my path and I owe it to God for blessing me abundantly.

At present, I have not found that dream that I would die for and live for. Don't get me wrong, dreaming for a productive life  for my family and children are very important to me. But there is that "something" that I am looking for- for myself. That something that would energize me again and makes me feel so alive. That something I realized is passion...

Now, I am seizing the day as I wait for "THAT" passion to really ignite. And when I do,  my family will be more thankful because I will  become a better mother, a better wife and a better member in the society.  I will give it away wholeheartedly and use it for God's glory. 

I am going to end this musings with  Grace Coddington's, quote: "Always keep your eyes open, keep watching because whatever you see can inspire you." 

How about you? What is your passion? Have you found your passion? How did you find it? 

Today, I am going to share to you my version of Vitalicious Vitamuffins Brownies. This recipe was inspired from   Chocolate Covered Katie blog check here. I changed some ingredients depending of its availability in my pantry, but it is really, really good and it was also very easy to make. You cannot tell that it is vegan. This recipe yielded 8 pieces of little flat muffins. If you want a bigger batch, just use the whole can of pumpkin puree. The whole can is total of 2 cups. Just adjust the rest of the ingredients accordingly. This is the only brownie in my whole life that I happily munch and was not afraid to give to my kids. There was not guilt, just pleasure of the sweetness of the chocolates. I say it is YUM!  

Copying Vitalicious Vitamuffins Brownies

1. 2 tbsp milk of Choice ( I used Silk Choco)
2. 2 tbsp cooking oil ( I used Canola Oil)
3. 1/2 tbsp  vanilla extract
4. 1 tbsp black sesami seeds ( you can replace it with flax seed or white sesame seeds)
5. 1/2 cup pumpkin
6. 1/2 cup spelt flour
7. 1/4 tsp baking soda
8. 1/4 tsp salt
9. 1/2 tsp baking powder
10. 2 tbsp sugar/
11. 2 tbsp cocoa powder
12. 1/4 cup chocolate chips plus additional chips for decoration

Note: The batter tend to get sticky but do not worry. It is just like that. Do not be tempted to add liquid in it. Since I only used 1/2 cup of pumpkin, I used it to make pumpkin tart with peanuts. I will post it on Thursday.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease standard size muffin pans.

In a mixing bowl mix ingredients 1 to 5  and stir well. Add in ingredients 6 - 12 except the choco chips for decoration. Mix gently then use a spoon to scoop the batter into a greased muffin pan and put 3 to 4 choco chips for decoration. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes and let cool before removing from the pan.