Trading Up Downtown

Last week, I bought a new type of flour to experiment with in the kitchen: almond flour!

I have to admit after trying a few recipes with it, I’m nuts about almond flour!

Of course, as soon as I got home, I went to look up it’s NuVal score. It turns out that Bob’s Red Mill Finely Ground Almond Meal/Flour scores a 77 . Not too shabby! But, when I looked in the NuVal database for the score of whole wheat flour, I realized that it scores higher than the almond flour. King Arthur 100% Organic Whole Wheat Flour scores a 91, for example. Interesting, right? I thought the almond flour would score higher, but calorie for calorie, the whole wheat flour has more fiber, less saturated fat and a lower energy density than the almond flour.

Trading Up Downtown Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered this week’s giveaway! Here’s your winner: 7!

Congrats! Please email me at thaupert@nuval.com with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize!

I’m so excited about this giveaway! My friends at Back on My Feet offered to giveaway two copies of the Back on My Sweets on CNC! Back on My Sweets is a cookbook of Back on Feet’s favorite muffin and cupcake recipes. My recipe for Banana Butterscotch Muffins is included in it!

Artists and bakers from around New England collaborated together to create an amazing cookbook that showcases over 30 illustrated muffin and cupcake recipes. There’s even a doggie muffin recipe as well as a gluten-free one. The best part (besides the delicious muffin recipes) is that each page of the book is visually beautiful. You can preview the cookbook here. It’s really adorable!

To enter: Just leave a comment on this post about your favorite type of muffin. I’ll randomly pick a winner tomorrow morning.

Good luck!

The other day, my husband came up with the brilliant idea of purchasing unfinished furniture to save us some money. We like doing home improvement projects, so sanding and staining new furniture isn’t a hassle at all for us. Plus, we’re all about saving money where we can!

On Monday, we headed to a local furniture store that specializes in unfinished pieces. We found all sort of great stuff, and our trip was a huge success because we bought a new TV stand (below), a desk, and a cabinet for my office for hundreds of dollars less than we planned to pay at one of those big furniture stores. And the quality of the pieces was excellent. All three were built well with beautiful (real) wood. Woohoo!

Trading Up Downtown Giveaway

Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s giveaway! Here’s your winner: 60!

Congrats, Jillian! Please email me at thaupert@nuval.com with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize!