Our vacation was wonderful! But there’s just something about being home that is comforting. There’s no place like home...Dorothy knows what’s up. :) 

It was our third time to Mexico, but our first time to Puerto Vallarta. The weather was HOT! I sunburned the first day there, even though I applied sunscreen every hour. Regardless there is nothing better than waking up, throwing on a bikini, and some flip flops and going downstairs to eat breakfast and sit by the pool all day. It’s so nice to not have an agenda, the only decision that I had to make was what I wanted for lunch and dinner. We spent our days swimming, reading, eating and taking naps by the pool, and we got to watch the sunset almost everyday. It was absolutely perfect.

We arrived home on Saturday evening, and on Sunday morning in an attempt to restock my sad empty fridge we went to the Mountain View farmers market to pickup some fresh produce. Peach and plum season is beginning so we picked up some of those because they are Ruben’s favorite. I also picked up some fresh thyme and oregano, along with broccoli, Russian kale, rainbow chard, round zucchini, purple cabbage, and apricots.

I also finally got the chance to stop by my local Penzeys spice shop. Let me warn you that if you decide stop by one of their stores that you will feel like a kid in a candy store. When I walked in the door I was so giddy! I sniffed so many different spices that I made myself a little queasy. Since the store was closing I didn’t get a chance to go through the whole store. But I was still able to pickup 4 spices. I of course picked up sunny paris seasoning because nomnompaleo has talked about it quite a bit on her blog. I also fell in love with berbere, the sweet french basil and I picked up some bay leaves because the ones I had at home were already old.

Hopefully I get a chance to go back and have enough time to go through the whole store. 

Have you been to Penzeys before? If so what’s your favorite spice?

We had a baby shower for my brother and his wife a few weekends ago. I had to choose a gender neutral theme since they don’t want to know the sex of the baby. So I picked a safari theme. It was super cute and fun. I am so happy with the results so I thought I would share a few pictures! (It was a dark gloomy day outside so sorry if the pictures kind of suck.)

I made 3 different centerpieces.

The zebras sat in wheat grass.

My favorite thing was the tree and giraffe cut out I made from cardboard. Isn’t it cute?

And we had TONS of good food and desserts.

I made this cupcake stand from cans and cardboard, the tutorial is over at annies eats. And I also made the cupcakes. The zebra cupcakes are chocolate with a nutella ganache frosting, and the giraffe cupcakes are a fluffernutter cupcake. It’s a peanut butter cake with peanut butter filling and a marshmallow fluff frosting. It was actually really yummy!

But now its over and all that’s left to do is wait for the baby!!! I am so excited! It’s the first baby in the family, so I get to be an aunt!

I hope you didn’t think I was just going to show you baby shower pictures, I have a recipe too! Today’s recipe was meant to be a breakfast bar recipe, but the texture was too soft for a bar. So I decided it would be perfect for a pie filling, so I slapped a crust on it and TA-DA!

This recipe is great for when you have leftover roasted sweet potato. But if you don’t have roasted sweet potato on hand than you can either nuke it in the microwave like nomnompaleo does or use canned sweet potato. I have tried the microwave method and actually really like it for when I am pressed for time.

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1  2/3 cups walnuts
• 3 tbsp. coconut sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup coconut oil-melted

Filling

• 1 large roasted sweet potato or 1 Cup of canned sweet potato (works great with leftover sweet potato’s)
• 1 tbsp. coconut flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 tbsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease a pie dish with coconut oil. (I used my 9.5 pyrex pie dish)
2. For the pie crust add the first 4 ingredients and pulse 2 or 3 times.  Next add the coconut oil, you want to pulse just until all the ingredients are well combined and the dough seems crumbly but will stick together when pressed between your fingers. If the crust seems too dry add a bit more coconut oil. ~ I like to have big pieces of walnuts in my pie crust so that it adds a nice crunch, so I only pulse the crust a few times.
3. Pour the crust into the pie dish and using your hands press the pie crust into the dish making sure all the sides are covered with crust and that its as even as possible.
4. Place the pie dish on a cookie sheet and bake in oven for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl and whisk all together until well combined. When pie crust is done take it out of the oven and raise the temperature of the oven to 425 degrees.
6. Once the oven reaches 425 pour the filling into the pie crust and bake it in the oven for 15 min. After 15 minutes bring the temperature down to 35o degrees and bake for 35 minutes. The edges of the filling will be set and the middle will look a bit jiggly.

I suggest serving it with a dollop of coconut whipped cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg.