{Recipe} Peanut Butter Protein Power Ball

After trying these at Jen's one day, I was hooked. If you like eating cookie dough, this will definitely be something you like, too!

In the past three and a half months I've made a version of this recipe three times. On my third try, I think I found my permanent version. :)

You can find the original recipe here and work out your own version, OR read on to learn my secrets! ;)

The ingredients come in quantities for about 4-5 batches. It's worked really well for me to make up a batch, split it into two bags, freeze one bag and take the other bag to work. I keep it in the refrigerator and pull one or two protein balls out when I need a snack mid-afternoon or some protein after a workout.

Pictured below is the finished product, the ingredients, and how much mess this recipe makes - you're welcome! :)

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Peanut Butter Protein Power Ball Recipe 

Ingredients:

1 cup Peanut Butter (I’m using up a huge jar I have from Aldi, but all natural would be better for you)

4 scoops of Protein Powder (I’d like to try chocolate sometime, but so far I’ve only used vanilla)

1 cup of Honey (Anyone know where to get local honey?)

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

3-4 Cups of the Following Ingredients:  

Almonds

Peanuts

Mini-Chocolate Chips (The first two times I made this I used regular-sized chocolate chips, but I think the mini will work the best)

Oatmeal

Flax Seed (ground)

Directions:

Mix the protein powder, honey, vanilla extract, and peanut butter together in a bowl. You can use an electric mixer or food processor if you want, but a strong spoon will suffice as well. If you decide to use granulated sweetener instead of liquid sweetener you may have to add a drop of water, just to thin out the mixture a bit. If you have used a particularly oily brand of natural peanut butter, you might need to add more protein powder.

Next add all remaining ingredients except chocolate chips to blender and blend for rough texture (I use whole almonds and peanuts and I prefer not to bit into a huge piece). Pour half of blended ingredients and all of the chocolate chips into peanut butter/honey mixture and mix together with large spoon or spatula. Add remaining blended ingredients and mix together until mixed thoroughly. If you have used all 4 cups of additional ingredients, you might need to add more honey.

Roll scoops of the batter into balls. Place balls onto wax paper and put in freezer for a 10-15 minutes. Store peanut butter protein balls in a Ziplock bag. Refrigerate or freeze them if you want them to stay round.

Makes approximately 30 balls about one inch in diameter.

 

Enjoy!!

 

{feed the hungry}

Our Evening of Packing Food

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Chicken, Veggies, Soy, Rice!!

It's very important to remember the order of the food that is placed in the bags!

Earlier this year we received an email at work about volunteering as a group for an evening of packing food for Feed My Starving Children. I signed up to go, but due to a late January snowstorm we ended up cancelling the event. They rescheduled for this past Tuesday and I got to go with Jess, Luke, Liz, and Morgen.

At the beginning of the evening we listened to a short, but sobering, presentation about 8 year old Omar who weighed 19 lbs because he was starving. After a few months of FMSC food he is healthy and thriving.

Clear instructions were given before we hit the sinks to wash our hands. Don't forget your hairnet! A few were volunteered to be warehouse workers - I think they do the hardest job - to carry refills to the different stations. Each of the 11 people per station were given a job in one of the two assembly lines: adding the ingredients to a bag, holding the bag, weighing the bag, sealing the bag, and then putting 36 bags in each box.

We packed bags and boxes of food for 53 impoverished children for a year. I believe it was over 500 lbs.

You can see from the pictures it was fun, but we were tired at the end (especially since we did this right after work).

I hope I get the opportunity to do this again sometime. I'd love to see our Young Adults do this as an activity or just get a group together and go pack! 

What about you? Would love to hear about your efforts to feed the hungry. Please share in the comments!

buBba

Yep, it's been a while so here's a start to updating my blog...

I'm not sure how it happened, but I got Bubba all by himself for a day & night. Jen dropped him off and we hung out for a while, then we headed to meet the Virginia Ave girls for brunch. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was yummy! Ethan liked the pancakes! The sausage, not so much. He still had his cast on from his broken arm which didn't seem to phase him at all. I think we both enjoyed our time without the older siblings... :)

weekends of MoCarEth

At My Place

My niece and nephews spent the evening with me while Jen & Eric went out to dinner for the evening. My small apartment got even smaller as the evening went on, but we had a good time hanging out and watching "noovies" :-)

Mo'gen & Carsten spent the night. The next morning I took them to a bakery down the street from me since Morgen requested donuts for breakfast (and as only a good aunt would do, I complied!). I didn't use the word "bakery" when we talked about going to get donuts and when we got there I asked if they knew where we were. Morgen said "Yes, a bakery." When I asked her how she knew that she pointed to a shop window and said that was how she knew it was a bakery. She was pointing to the barber shop pole! Gotta love 'em!!

MoCarEth Weekend

Sunday Dinner Out

For the sake of my sanity, I really try not to do this very much b/c of the quantity of kids, but one recent Sunday I decided to go to lunch after church with Markgrafs, Frenchs, & Emslies. Here's a few pics:

Qdoba

sunday dinner fun

This was just fun. The Sunday after Jess & Luke's wedding, Mom, Dad, Anna, Jen, Eric, Morgen, Carsten, Ethan & I all met at Macaroni Grill for lunch. We had planned to go to another restaurant, but found out it was closed. No worries! we just went to Macaroni Grill right across the way.

While we were waiting for our food and after we ate we entertained ourselves with a little art/coloring:

Sunday Dinner with Mom, Dad, Anna & Markgrafs

this and that...time to catch up, continued

As promised I'm working on posting some pics and happenings that I'm very late in blogging about:

Kitchen Happenings
Back in April, I think, I was cooking dinner for me and Jess one night. When I glanced in the oven where I had chicken baking, I noticed a shadow in the middle of the pan, but didn't think anything about it really...until I took a second look, that is. Here's what I found:

From Pampered Chef Stone

Note: this large bar pan is a stone from Pampered Chef and is generally under warrenty, but of course, I've had the pan longer than the warrenty covers... :( I did end up ordering another one since I've been lost in my kitchen without it! I used it for everything!!


More to come!

list maker's success story

I got to cross off two major things from my TO DO list, all in one weekend!

My weekend started out by leaving work on Friday and meeting my new landlord to sign the lease. Yep, you heard me: I signed a lease for my new apartment! This is exciting news considering it was about 10 days ago that I made the call to see about availability and probably two weeks ago that I started digging around the internet for leads on a new place. In case you forgot, or don't know, I have to move b/c my sister's getting married!

I didn't end up needing the internet's assistance b/c I got a sweet deal of a place with Christian landlords and neighbors to boot! In fact, it's b/c of my SIL's sister Lindsay! that I found my new place. Lindsay! shares one of the upstairs apartments with another friend from church (Elizabeth) and my hairdresser (Megan) and another church friend (Sarah) share the other upstairs apartment. Now we just need someone we know to move across the hall from me! So do we have any takers out there?! Yes? Maybe? OK, at least think about it, will ya?!

The apartment is in the same area that I currently live, so that is reassuring to me. The one-bedroom apartment is just my size. The nice living space with an open kitchen/living room area has lovely hardwood (or hardwood-like) and tiled floors. The kitchen will have a new counter top by the time I move in and there's a small bathroom and plenty of closet space (I hope). I can't wait to decorate! Oh, and there's a laundry area just next door to my apartment. I'm used to having the washer/dryer just outside my room so I'm not really giving up anything here!

So my weekend continued with an evening of celebrating by myself. Jess was coaching at a basketball tournament so she was a little preoccupied. Then on Saturday I enjoyed sleeping in until I had to go sing for four hours. Yes, 4 hours! My Deo Cantamus group has a concert the end of March so we have lots to work on (German, Latin, etc.). We did break for lunch and I joined a new(er) friend, Char, for lunch at D'amicos & Sons. D'amico's is a place I had never been. We each had the salad sampler and of course it was delicious. We didn't have time to enjoy all of it b/c we had to hurry back to our practice. A fellow singer had already given us a hard time about probably being late so we felt a little guilty, but not much!

Later this afternoon I headed to the mall to do a little bridesmaid* dress shopping. I wanted to get one attempt under my belt since this is not something I looked forward to and thought the final purchase would take several different excursions. Well, little did I know that I would find two options after trying only only four dresses! As they say in my country, "Sometimes JCP come through for you!"--right, Jess?! ;) I haven't tried on the dresses for anyone else, so I may need a couple of sister-opinions to seal the deal, but I'm just excited that I have options! :)

Tomorrow is going to be a full day as well. After church Lindsay! and I are heading to a farewell performance of Topel. Who's Topel, you say? Well, you didn't say if you are a Fiddler on the Roof fan**. As a young girl I watched Fiddler on the Roof many, many times. I don't think I could sit through the movie again (in one sitting), but I'm excited to see it live and in person! After an afternoon of singing***, guess what I'll do before our evening service? Yep, I'll be at choir practice! :)

All in all, a very successful weekend for one list maker who, this time, didn't even have to add things to her list in order to cross them off!

Edit Sunday, March 1: Lindsay! and I didn't get to attend Fiddler's as planned. When we got there the tickets were all sold out! We discussed how maybe if we had left right after church to go we would have made it in time, but then consoled ourselves with the fact that even if we had waited in line they still might have been sold out by the time we got to the front...

*Jess has given us 7 bridesmaids pretty much just one stipulation for our dresses: black.

**I'm not really a fan per se b/c I didn't know about it being Topel's farewell tour until after we made the decision to go see the performance...

***Did you know I liked singing so much?!

gala

AdvisorNet Financial 50th Annivesary Gala

My sister Jen & I attended a work function last night. The advisor networking group that my company has been associated with for 20 years is celebrating 50 years this year. In honor of their 50th Annivesary they hosted a gala, with a special video presentation and a four-course dinner at the Minneapolis Marriot Southwest. The program started after 7pm and a video presentation was mingled through out the four course dinner. The first course began around 8pm and we finished with dessert around 10pm. After the meal we took a few minutes to snap some pictures with my bosses and co-workers.

christmas lunch

this is where we're having our office christmas lunch today...http://www.zelomn.com/. Looks fancy, eh?! A little bit different than my old Welcome Center student worker Christmas parties at Jerry's North Bowl...

sunday lunch

Sunday lunch is usually spent with the Markgraf clan at a close-to-church restaurant or at our house. This Sunday we went to Dinos where we have been a few times before. The kiddos usually enjoy the dinosaur chicken nuggets and the rest of us enjoy a little touch of Greek food -- yummy gyros!

life on the lakes

Edit: A few email updates from last summer that I found...

Weekend Trip#1
To quote my sister quoting a favorite quote: "Let me 'splain...no, let me sum up!" --- Sun. Driving. Rain. Catching up with friends from far and farther. Alumni Weekend. Hanging out with the Chow's. Coffee Shop. Thoroughly Modern Milly at Fireside. More sun. Church. More driving. Sleep!

To be more specific my weekend started around 11:15 a.m. on beautiful, sunny Friday. Using my 2nd free, summer 1/2 day, I headed out of downtown Mpls going the wrong way! Never fear, I found my way out of the city and on to WI. The trip was relatively uneventful until it started to rain about 10 miles from the WI Dells. I made it safely to Madison and joined Kim and Tricia, two college friends, for dinner at TGIF at East Towne. Kim just got back from Romania and Tricia is transitioning to a new job, so we had lots to catch up on. When I reached Watertown it was quite late -- for a working girl -- after a long week.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day as well! I headed up to campus to check out Alumni Weekend. If you remember, the football and soccer games were cancelled so not a lot of action was planned. Mr. Davis welcomed me to campus and gave me a tour of the new, very up-to-date coffee shop. I'm so glad I had a part in it! After the tour I was off to the volleyball game. The alumni had a good showing, but the Crusaders won. I had fun catching up with Pam and Mark. Little Noah made me smile when he greeted me with a huge smile and said my name! I was able to catch up with several more people at the Alumni cookout. I think everyone enjoyed the snow cones best! I hung out with the Chowanec crew for a while after the cookout was over. I left them planning to take a nap and then get ready for my evening. I made a quick stop at Speedway to fill up for my trip home and then got a call that my good lunch buddy was at the new coffee shop. I headed back up to campus to enjoy the atmosphere of the new coffee shop and catch up with my friends the Hibbs. I stayed until it was time to get ready for an evening at the theater. Sue and I headed to Fort Atkinson to watch a musical at the Fireside. Last Christmas Sue's mom had given us a gift certificate but we hadn't found time to go and/or a show we wanted to go see. Dinner was a five course meal and was very delicious. The show was amazing! I loved it! The evening was kind of long after such an eventful day and the long drive the day before.

Sunday I thoroughly enjoyed visiting my home church, Calvary. It was very refreshing to see everyone and participate in awesome congregational singing! I can't believe how well Calvary sings! Over the years I've heard people say that we have some of the best singing, but it really was evident to me this visit. Pastor also preached a great message that was both encouraging and challenging to me. After church I headed to the Upper Krust for lunch with the Lawsons, Chowanecs, etc. My long drive looming ahead, I decided to get on the road, but not before I contemplated a nap. Not wanting to get home too late, I decided to skip the nap and just drive. I made it to Madison before my weekend caught up with me...I had to pull over for a short rest. After dozing off for just a few minutes, I felt refreshed enough to finish the rest of my drive...4 more hours! Thankfully I made it back to the Cities without incident. I got back in time to meet Morgen and Carsten at McDonald's after church. Oh, Jen and Eric were there too :)

Weekend Trip #2
Because Jess and I have great bosses we were able to head out of town for the long weekend by 3:00 pm on Friday. Traffic in the Cities was not bad so we thought we could make good time to Indiana, maybe 9 1/2 hours instead of 10. We got on the road and were on the east side of Mpls when I remembered that I was in charge of brining the I-Pass (Jess loaned hers to a friend). Nope, I didn't bring it. We discussed how driving through Chicago without an I-Pass could add quite a bit of time to our already long trip. Then we had a revelation...I thought I had read online when I first set up my I-Pass about paying for missed tolls online. Of course I set up my I-Pass almost 2 years ago and couldn't remember exactly. We called one of Jess's friends who had Internet access right then and found out we could go through without our I-Pass and we would be charged later. Whew!!

We made it to Amish-ville, as we fondly call the area where my parents live, without incident, but it was about 2am. My mom greeted us with a yawn, a hug, and "Hi, glad you made it, brunch is at 10:30. Good night!" and we all went to bed. My dad was still out on his weekly ride-a-long as Chaplain (Nappanee Police and Elkhart Cty Sheriff Depts). He got in about 3am. We didn't hear a sound.

On Saturday Anna was there when I got up and we ate a delicious brunch prepared by mom. Sometime after noon we headed to Goshen to see Anna's new apartment. She got a sweet deal because she's an officer. She drives around the complex before and after her shift and gets a lot of money off her rent each month. We were all impressed! After the apartment tour Anna had to work so the rest of us headed to Warsaw to pick up 11 gallons of paint for the new condo (mom gets a deal from work at Sherwin Williams). We stopped at Lowe's and Walmart to complete our shopping experience that day. When we got back to the ranch we opened up the Flaming Salon: Mom and I highlighted each others hair. We think it turned out great! :) Mom then prepared us another great meal...lasagna.

We enjoyed a great Sunday: Church, Lunch, Nap, Church. It was good to be home! Monday was travel day and back to reality! Tuesday morning came too early!

Currently, no trips planned until Thanksgiving. You're welcome to come visit me in the Cities!