In the Kitchen: Granola, Protein Bars and a Pressure Cooker Full of Eggs

I’m in my kitchen today because we are finally done with travel for the foreseeable future and in dire need of meal prepping. We’re determined to get back into our healthy habits, despite the cost of eating healthy right now. Our hidden secret? Cutting corners where we can and making a lot of our high protein snacks at home. We’re both really good at sticking to a routine so long as we don’t have anything in our way. That’s one of the reasons we’re boiling up a pack of 18 eggs today. If we have to stop and think about a snack, we’re done for. That’s when we eat everything in sight. 😄

A few items I recently picked up to get back on schedule:

Egg Steamer Rack for Pressure Cooking
Egg White Powder
Large Wall Calendar with Habit Tracker
Floral Academic Planner for tracking meals and workouts

Alright let’s step into my kitchen!

Table of Contents

Chef Amy’s Granola: No Refined Sugars

Many of you don’t know this but in my early twenties I lived in Virginia and worked at a restaurant. As a parting gift, the head pastry chef Amy was so incredibly kind and sent me home with her famous granola recipe. 🥹

This recipe always brings back the best memories of that time in my life. The only issue is that it has a lot of sugar in it and right now I’m focused on cutting that back and substituting with all natural alternatives, like maple syrup, coconut sugar, and agave instead.

I love making an autumn version in September. For this batch I’m inspired by summer though. I’m trading out the cranberries for dates and dried mango and keeping everything else since we found unsweetened raisins.

I won’t be sharing the full recipe because it’s not mine to share, it belongs to Chef Amy, and it also has a lot of meaning to me personally. But I will say it’s the kind of recipe that makes your whole kitchen smell like a big ol’ hug.

Granola Results

This turned out almost perfect. It’s just sweet enough because of the honey but my only complaint is that it didn’t clump together enough for my taste, which is definitely because I skipped the sugar. Next time I’ll try replacing it with coconut sugar instead of agave and I’ll also add in pumpkin seeds and flax seeds. The good news is that future Mr. Trip Side is very excited to have this as a topping on his low fat Greek yogurt tomorrow morning.

High Protein Bars Made with Egg White Powder

Last month I attempted to make high protein bars from a YouTube recipe. They turned out okay but I couldn’t eat them because of the whey protein powder. Ad liked them but had a lot of notes. A few weeks ago I tried the same recipe using egg white powder for natural protein instead and they tasted, no joke, like homemade Snickers bars. Ad was over the moon. The only issue is they were incredibly difficult to make and they broke my food processor!

The reason we make these at home is simply because protein bars at the store are insanely expensive. We can also pack in significantly more protein. This time I’m hoping to make them less sticky by adding finely chopped almonds as a binder, all without a food processor. Fingers crossed!

High Protein Bar Results

These turned out way better than expected! I skipped the edamame because the only ones we had were already seasoned and I didn’t think that would pair well with chocolate. They bound together much better this time and all without a food processor. The trick was simply going slow and adding water gradually rather than following the instructions on liquid. I also added chia and flax seeds which helped hold everything together beautifully. I think adding chopped or ground pumpkin seeds would be a great addition next time too.

Into the freezer they go! These are Ad’s favorite treat with his morning coffee. He already stole one and declared they taste just like before: a Snickers bar.

Pressure Cooker Hard Boiled Eggs

The hardest part of this recipe is not getting hit with ADHD and wandering away from the pressure cooker. I need to be there at the 4 minute mark to release the valve and get all 18 eggs into their ice bath immediately. I then dry them off and peel half of them for the week. If they go fast I’ll peel the rest in the next few days.

This is a great hack for anyone who is impatient about boiling water or never quite sure if they’re doing it right. These come out perfectly every single time. My machine has an egg button which is always set to 4 minutes because we both don’t love an overdone hard boiled egg.

Egg Results

Quick, easy, and perfect as always! I love using the pressure cooker for eggs. This was my first time using all 18 slots since we normally make 6 at a time but we’re both back on our egg kick. These are perfect with a little salt, pepper, paprika, and thyme.

A final thought – as you guys know, I received my pressure cooker as a gift but I will not be buying from this brand again due to political reasons. When this one breaks I will either buy second hand or I will buy the Cosori due to the reviews/wallet friendly budget OR the gorgeous Dream Cooker by Our Place. 😍

Thank you for joining me in the kitchen this week, friends! That was exhausting but worth the prep. Next month I’m hoping this slot will be filled with a sourdough recipe. I’d love to pick that back up and see how long we can keep a starter going. If you have any good tips or tricks, please share them below!

xoxo