Memorial Day Weekend Part I- Picnic at the Falls

This Memorial Day weekend, I decided lots of mountain exploration was going to be on my agenda.  The destination for Saturday: Brevard, NC, self-proclaimed Land of Waterfalls.  I've also been getting into the Farmer's Market scene more and more, so I had the idea in mind that we should get up early, hit up the local market, and scrounge up a locally-sourced picnic.  The Boyfriend had a better idea though- why not check out the markets in Asheville on our way up through the mountains?  So, we blindly chose two that sounded like the most interesting and ventured forth!

First stop was the Asheville Tailgate Market, which was in a lovely little shaded area of the UNCA campus (and for that reason, it will be the one I'm most likely to return to).

"Eat No Evil!
....I've slowly become mostly vegetarian, but I do eat a little evil still, sorry.

We scarfed down all the free samples we could manage (becoming quite a weekend trend for us), picked up some divine rosemary fig goat cheese, and I actually tried some sausage.  Vegan sausage.  And loved it! (note: I'm not vegan, and sausage is one of my most-hated "foods.")  Too bad we had no way of cooking it or a way of getting it home safely before it might go bad.  Next time perhaps.

We headed over to check out the Asheville City Market next, which had many of the same vendors, but there I was lucky enough to find the Turkish Delight goat cheese that was sold out at the tailgate market.  We found some suitable bread, a dessert, then stopped by the local Whole Foods market for things we were still missing and hit the trail, adorable picnic basket and all.

Triple Falls was our first destination.  The day was a bit more overcast and cool than we had expected, but those are ideal conditions for pasty ginger people, so we weren't complaining.  Boyfriend still put sunscreen on.

Mmm, what could be in this little basket?

TONS of goodies! (Sammich meat not pictured)

We picked up this lovely rye bread from The Simple Bread booth at the Asheville City Market, and the guy running the booth was kind enough to toss in a tiny loaf of sourdough for us, since my boyfriend was so enthusiastic about it.  It made for pretty awesome sandwiches!

I was a bigger fan of the rye and Turkish delight goat cheese though....

....even better topped with some Strawberry Basil Sally's Greatest Jam.  Sally herself was at Greenlife (Asheville's Whole Foods market) when we stopped in, and I was freakishly excited to see that she was setting up a tasting booth with all of her jams!!  I circled the store a billion times until she had it all ready to go, and she was kind enough to allow me to sample all of it, which completely made my day.  I HIGHLY recommend all of them! She has so many unusual combinations, all of the loveliest things, like Blueberry Lemon Thyme, Peach Mint, and Fig Sweet Onion Rosemary.  I told her I know I'll have all of them eventually, and I'm definitely trying out the recipes on her website.  Stay tuned...

The grand finale: Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin by the The Herban Baker.  Completely delicious.

"Where is mine, Mommy and Daddy?" Char asks.  She got some turkey; don't worry.

 After our little lunch, it was time to explore/carry Charlotte up the waterfall to reenact a certain Disney movie scene.

Charlotte was totally thrilled about this, as you can see.

We wore our swimming stuff, but, uh, that water was just a touch too cold.

Next was a short trek down the hill to check out Hooker Falls, which was pretty meh compared to the other waterfalls, but the water was calmer and easier to wade into.

It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Char to go in...

"Nope, nope!  No thank you, Daddy!  Let me out of this stuff!"

Char is not much of a water dog, disappointingly.  I'll blame it on all the time she spends with the cats.

The second part of our plan was to wander around the White Squirrel Festival in Downtown Brevard until one of my favorite bands, Scythian, was to go on stage around 9 pm.  Our plans were ruined upon getting there and seeing "no pets allowed" signs barring the festival streets, however (boo-HISS-really?? It's an outdoor festival!).  So, not wanting to leave Charlotte in the car for hours, we just flitted through the festival quickly and made our way home.  Maybe I'll catch you next time, Scythian....

We did get to see one of the festival namesakes at least- a real white squirrel!

50 Calorie Chocolate Miracle Muffins

These are by far my favorite "diet" recipe that I have given a whirl, and actually what inspired me to start recording the recipes I've tried, edited, or created.  These are so freakin' good that they made me want to share them with the world!  People have laughed at me, rolled their eyes, and don't for a second believe that a 50 calorie muffin could taste like anything better than soggy cardboard.

And unlike the diet coke brownies from my last post, these are not only low calorie, but also have nutritional value!  They've got protein, are pretty darn low carb considering this is a chocolate muffin, and aren't high in fat or sugar either.  This is mostly accomplished by substituting out the usual unhealthy culprits in the ingredients list: oats in place of flour, unsweetened applesauce in place of butter, Splenda in place of sugar, and egg whites in place of whole eggs.  I'm typically not a fan of artificial sweetners such as Splenda, but for the results, I can deal with it.

The recipe I used can be found here:  Joe and Sue's Double Chocolate Muffins

This time, I actually highly recommend following the recipe as is.  The only adjustment I've made is using Hershey's Dark Chocolate morsels, the ones that are slightly larger than your typical chocolate chips.  I just prefer dark chocolate, and the larger chips make for more of a fudgy bite than normal sized chips, even if you are using the same amount of chocolate in the end.  The bigger gooey pockets are nicer and pack more flavor than the smaller ones.

Before baking...

...and after baking.  Yes, they look almost black before they cool.

What I'm most amazed by is that the nutrition facts actually check out!  So long as you're using about 3 tbsp of batter per muffin, they're going to be around 50 calories.  Of course, this also depends on how generous you are with sprinkling the chocolate chips on top.  I stuck to five per muffin, but I think 3 would be fine.

Nutrition facts (per 1 muffin- recipe makes 24):
Calories: 50~60ish, depending on size and amount of chips
Protein: 2.6g
Carbs: 7.8g
Fiber: 1.8g
Fat: 2.1g
Sugar: 3.2g

Things to potentially try: replacing the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips.  The results of this weren't bad, but they had a distinct coffee flavor (I have no clue why), and I am not a fan of anything coffee flavor.  My best friend enjoyed them at least!

Things not to try:  editing this into a lemon muffin recipe.  We tried.  It was a monstrous failure.  Even though the results look pretty ok here....they weren't.  We just tried to salvage the batter any way we could, and mini lemon pancakes resulted.  Still yuck.

At least The Boyfriend Food Disposal System still took care of them.