Easy Vegetable and Seafood Paella

It's no secret that my husband is a picky eater. I cook a lot of dishes that he has no interest in eating. Luckily, I have the opportunity to cook dishes that I'm interested in eating during my lunch hour.  I have also been trying to cook from my pantry and freezer so that I use things up before shopping for more. Yesterday I spied a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer. Usually I make bouillabaisse, but I didn't want to make that for lunch. I rummaged through the pantry and decided that I would try to make paella. Since I'm trying to cut back on eating meat, I wanted to make it a vegetable and seafood paella. I also wanted to use up a bunch of veggies I had in the not-so-crisper drawer. I know that I totally did things out of order, but hey, it worked. :) Some will say it isn't a true paella if it isn't made with chicken, or with sausage. Oh well. I will go with my version of paella today and enjoy it.

Vegetable and Mixed Seafood "Paella"

2 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms (4 really large baby bellas)
1 cup arborio rice
1/4 c white wine
1 orange bell pepper cut in thin strips (use what ever color you have on hand)
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 can artichoke heart quarters, drained
2 cups frozen mixed seafood (shrimp, calamari, mussels, scallops)
2 cups broth
1 small pinch saffron
1 t smoked paprika
1 T garlic powder
1/2 t salt

Heat a large, heavy bottomed pan over medium high heat. When pan is hot, drizzle in the olive oil. After a minute the oil should shimmer. Add your diced onion and stir around. Cook until softened, about 2 minutes, then add in the garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring to make sure the garlic doesn't burn. At this point, I should probably have added the rice, but I didn't, I added the mushrooms. Feel free to do it in reverse order. I added the mushrooms and then the rice. Stir the rice to make sure it gets a light coating of the olive oil, and cook for about 5 minutes. Next, I de-glazed the pan with the white wine, stirring to scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pan. Stir in the bell pepper, diced tomatoes, artichoke hearts and the seafood. Pour in the broth and the spices, mixing everything together so that the broth is distributed evenly.

Turn down the heat to low and cover. I set the timer for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, I stirred the mixture to make sure the seafood was cooking evenly, covered it up and set for another 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I removed the lid, stirred again, raised the heat to medium to cook off excess liquid for a few minutes.  Before serving, check your seasoning and remove any mussels that didn't open.

I have a confession to make. For lunch, hot, it was delicious. For leftovers cold, it was even more delicious. When I was packaging the leftovers later I was eating more. Then I spied the muffaletta olive salad in my fridge. This is a mixture of marinated olive pieces, carrot, small bits of cauliflower that I get at the antipasto bar at Kroger. I've made "Spanish" dishes that had olives in it, why not this. So I spooned some in to my bowl with the cold paella. It was absolutely delicious. It added just the right briny kick to the dish.  Perfect. My second confession. I just had cold paella for breakfast. I'm a happy girl.

A Ninja, A Sweet Potato and A Waffle Iron Walked In To A Kitchen ...

Welcome to Trash The Kitchen Tuesday! Actually, I trash the kitchen most days, if I'm cooking. I like to cook. Cleaning up, not so much. And may I say, having a microwave oven that also works as an Advantium speed oven lets me trash the kitchen so much quicker!

Yesterday, for my #30DaysOfThankful I posted a picture of my kitchen. After reading Carla's post, Meet My Friend Melvin, I realized that I let way too much food spoil. Not everyone can, after paying their rent, their bills, their child support, etc, afford to feed themselves. This morning, pondering what to have for breakfast, I decide to use up some things that I had in the pantry and the fridge: two partial onions (one red, one white), half a poblano pepper that was on its last legs, two sweet potatoes that were growing alien tentacles, err, sprouting, and one regular baking potato. The first thing that came to mind was trying to make waffle iron hash brown/latkes, but I didn't want to do a lot of shredding. So, I washed off all of the sweet potatoes and threw them in the Advantium to bake. In the meantime, I chopped up the onions and minced the poblano. When I got the potatoes out, they were only partially cooked, so I scooped out what was soft and put the rest back in to cook more. I took the cooked potato and put it in to my new Ninja. Ninjas rock, by the way. I added most of the onion and half of the poblano, along with a splash of milk. I blended that until it was fairly smooth, then I cracked in two eggs and blended again until it was smooth, like a batter. (Oh, yes, that is savory jerky from Rachel Ray, another awesome Fitbloggin sponsor, in the background. I picked it up yesterday at the grocery store. The dogs love it.)

By this time, the rest of the potatoes were cooked well enough, so I scooped them out and put them in to a bowl, along with the rest of the chopped onion and poblano pepper. Using a fork, I mashed the mixture until there were only small lumps.

 In went the Ninja batter, along with a pinch of salt, and I mixed everything together.

Next, I added a cup of Bob's Red Mill GF Flour Mixture (feel free to use regular flour), half a cup at a time, mixing to incorporate the flour and leave no lumps. I looked at it and thought, this would be really  nice with a side of bacon. I don't have bacon. :(  Oh, wait. YES, I HAVE BACON!! Thank you, Costco. I had a bag of bacon crumbles in the freezer. Forget having bacon on the side. I'm having bacon IN my sweet potato waffles.

I let the batter rest while the waffle iron heated up. My finger can attest that it heats up very quickly, thank you very much. I drizzle a little olive oil on the waffle iron and spoon in the batter, spreading it out fairly evenly. Pressing down, I anxiously await the light to go from red to green. Yay! It worked!

Breakfast dilemma solved, and I didn't let foods go to waste. Savory sweet potato waffles, topped with a little butter. To make it even more sweet/savory, after I took this picture, I spread a little bit of my maple butter from Raymond Sugarhouse in Hartland, VT.  If you love all things maple, and like to support small businesses, please consider ordering from them. Everything I have tried of theirs (maple syrup, maple candy, maple butter, maple cream, maple crunch peanut butter and maple crunch peanuts) are amazing.

Pizza For Breakfast

I know what you're thinking. Who hasn't eaten pizza for breakfast. Cold pizza is awesome. Yes, yes it is. That's not what I made though. I made breakfast pizza!  Last night on FB, TJ posted a picture of pizza she made for dinner. She mentioned that it was a Greek yogurt crust. ??? I had to find out about this. It's one cup of greek yogurt, one cup of self rising flour (plus more for kneading), baked at 450 for 15 minutes. Well, I don't have self rising flour, but that's easy enough to make, and since I was making it myself, I'd make it with a gluten free flour blend. Since I only had vanilla Greek yogurt, I figured I might as well make a breakfast pizza.

My hands got seriously messy making this.

 Here it is, patted out on my pizza stone. Note to self: USE PARCHMENT PAPER UNDERNEATH THE DOUGH NEXT TIME.

 I used more of my vanilla greek yogurt as the "cheese" for my pizza, and topped it with lots of  berries.

 15 minutes later, browned and crispy pizza!

Okay, so here's why I need to use parchment under the dough next time I make this. I totally had to scrape the pizza off of the stone. So, it was messy. It was still really tasty!

Back To Basics - Starting With A Healthy Breakfast

Yesterday I shared my limerick about a patio swing breaking because Sparkie and I have gotten fat. Her for the first time, me for, um, not the first time. Granted, the swing has been out in the Texas elements for 8 years, so it's a bit worse for wear, but it's not entirely to blame for the incident. So this morning I dusted off some of my healthy living books in anticipation of getting back to basics. (Side note: when someone tells you it's harder to lose weight when you're in your 40s, believe them.) To start my journey back to healthy living, I made breakfast. Not any breakfast. A healthy breakfast.

Baked Swiss Chard and Kale Eggs (serves 2-4, depending on how hungry you are)

4 slices bacon, cut in to bite sized pieces
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 10 ounce bag of chopped swiss chard, big stems removed
1 container baby kale 

1/2 can diced tomatoes
1 T hot sauce
Splash of red wine (optional)
1/8 t grated nutmeg
1 cup plain yogurt
1 t black pepper
4 eggs
Sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350

Note: I partially cooked my bacon in the microwave because I got it out of the freezer. I transferred the bacon to the pan with just a little of the drippings.

In a large pan, cook the bacon over medium high heat until crispy. (I like really crispy) Add in the sliced onion and cook until the onion has softened. Add in the chopped swiss chard and the kale, stirring well, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the greens have wilted down. Next, stir in the diced tomatoes, hot sauce, the splash of wine if using, black pepper, nutmeg and yogurt. Mix well, so that the yogurt is blended in. Simmer for about 5 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Spoon mixture in to a baking dish. Make in "indentation" in the vegetables and crack an egg in to each. Sprinkle with the cheese and back for 20-25 minutes.

Come Play In May - Day 3: Cook a Thing. Do or Do Not... there is no Try

 

Woo Hoo! Now this I know how to do. I can cook things. Not always successfully, but I can cook all of the things.

This morning I did a 5k, and I wanted something quick to eat before the race. I'm trying to cut out wheat again, so I needed to make something gluten free. The new Runner's World cookbook has some great ideas. I call them ideas, not recipes, because I rarely follow a recipe. They're jumping off points. The recipe for Sweet and Savory Corn Cakes sounded interesting. I'm more a savory girl myself, but the sweet or savory comes from the toppings. Eh. Butter is topping enough for me.

Here's our cast of characters. I added the garlic powder and the McCormick's Fiesta Citrus Seasoning. Hey, it's almost Cinco De Mayo, so why not add a little extra.

1 can creamed corn
1 c cornmeal (I almost rebelled and used white cornmeal instead of the yellow their recipe calls for)
1 egg, whisked
2 T olive oil
1/2 c flour (I used gluten free blend)
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t McCormick's Seasoning
1 T garlic powder
1/2 c water

In a pan, heat up the creamed corn. When it's warm, stir in half of the corn meal. When combined, add in the whisked egg, water, and the olive oil. 

In separate bowl, mix together the remaining half cup of cornmeal, flour, and baking powder.

Stir the creamed corn mixture in to the flour mixture until combined.

Heat up a frying pan over medium high heat. Drizzle a bit of olive oil or spray with cooking spray. Drop large spoonfuls of the batter on to the pan, smoothing with the back of the spoon. Cook for about 4 minutes per side, or until they are golden brown.

The batter makes about 12 corn cakes. I bet these would be tasty, if you didn't use garlic powder and fiesta citrus seasoning, that is, with maple syrup. I know for a fact that they're really good with butter. My test kitchen companions, Mitzi, Sparkie, Bear, and Tessa, all approve of this recipe.

You know I burned my fingers eating one of these bad boys, straight out of the frying pan, don't you?

Messy Meatballs

The other day, I saw a picture of some breakfast meatballs on the ever changing Book Of Face. I frequently eat leftovers for breakfast, so the idea of breakfast meatballs appealed to me. If you think about it, meatballs have the potential to be the perfect eat at your desk finger food. Since I already had breakfast, I set about to make these lunch meatballs. During my lunch hour, too. Perfect. The original recipe called for shredding and then re-shredding the sweet potato in your food processor, followed by the onion, followed by the mushrooms... Ain't nobody got time for that. I'd be starving until next week. I remembered what the demo guy at Costco said about using a Vitamix to finely chop veggies (You add a lot of water, blend them, then drain), so I tried it. It worked really well. To a point. I really should have drained the veggies longer. The mixture was really moist (I hate that word) so I added in two whisked eggs as binder. Hmm. Still to wet. What absorbs liquids. Ding ding ding. Chia seeds. So I have extra goodness in the form of chia. And they tasted really good, too. Win-win-win.

Messy Yummy Meatballs

1 sweet potato, finely grated
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup mushrooms, finely chopped
2 cups baby spinach, blended
3 Italian sausage links (mine were mild), removed from casings
1/2 pound lean ground pork
6 slices of bacon, cooked very crisp, crumbled
2 eggs, whisked
1/4 cup of chia seeds
1 T garlic powder
1 T Worcestershire Sauce

Preheat the oven to 375.

Cook the bacon strips until they're super crisp. Crumble and set aside.

Next, shred-chop-blend the peeled sweet potato, onion, mushrooms and spinach. I blend-chopped and drained the peeled sweet potato, the onion, the mushrooms and the spinach, then combined them in a large bowl.

Next, add in the sausage and the ground pork, mixing well. Whisk the eggs and work in to the sausage and veggie mixture. Mix in the chia seeds, garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce and the bacon crumbles.  

Form in to 1 1/2 inch meatballs and place on a foil covered baking sheet. You may like to spray with non-stick cooking spray to make removal easier.  Bake the little yummies for 30 minutes. 

I didn't bake up the entire mixture, but I plugged the recipe in to my My Fitness Pal account so that I could track lunch. Estimating that the entire batch would make 8 servings, the per-serving nutrition comes out to 261 calories, 12 grams of carbohydrates, 18 grams of fat, 16 grams of protein, 390 grams of sodium, and 4 grams of fiber.


Enjoy!

What's the story, morning glory?

Muffins. Yum. What's not to love about muffins. I was inspired by a tweet to make these by Josie after she raved about a muffin she had with carrot, coconut and dates. Hmm. Sounds like morning glory muffins to me! And glorious, they are. At 7 WW points +, they aren't freebies, but they are jam packed with healthy stuff. You can reduce the points by substituting apple sauce for the oil.

Morning Glory Muffins (makes 14)

3/4 cup chopped dates
2 cups white wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
1/4 t salt
2 cups grated carrots
1 large granny smith apple, peeled, cored and grated
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup Egg Beaters
1/3 cup canola oil
2 t vanilla
3/4 cup POM pomegranate juice

Preheat the oven to 375 and spray your muffin pan with non-stick spray. (I made 12 but there was leftover batter, which I kept in the fridge).

In a medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the grated carrots, apple, coconut flakes, walnuts and flax seed.  In a large bowl, beat together the Egg Beaters, oil, vanilla and juice. Stir in the flour and carrot mixtures, stirring until they are well combined. Finally, stir in the chopped dates.

Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Breakfast Treat

A while back I picked up the WW Power Foods recipe book. I figured, since I'm going back to the Simply Filling technique, that I'd look through the book and see what struck my fancy. What struck my fancy was the Dutch Baby recipe. (They call it a "blueberry" Dutch Baby, but even I can clearly see the blackberries in their picture) First, I'll say that the recipes use power foods, but aren't only power foods. This means that I can't count them as power foods when I track what I eat, since the entire WW +points amount would come out of my weekly points total. To get around this, I just logged the components of the recipe, so only the non-power foods points came off of my total. If you're going for straight points, this came to 4 points, because I didn't use any confectioner's sugar on top or serve it with fat free Greek yogurt.

Three Berry Dutch Baby

2 t butter
1 cup of fat free milk
3/4 cup AP flour
1/2 cup Egg Beaters
1 t canola oil
1/4 t ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
3/4 cup of frozen mixed berries (I think I used closer to 1 cup)

1. Preheat oven to 450. When it's come up to temperature, but the butter in a 9 inche glass pie plate. Place in oven for 2-3 minutes, or until the butter has melted.

2. While oven is heating, combine the milk, flour, Egg Beaters, canola oil, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt in your blender. Blend until the mixture is very smooth, making sure you have no flour clumps hiding.

3. Remove the pan from the oven, swirl until the butter has coated the bottom and just up the sides of the pan. Pour in the mixture. (The butter will move up the sides of the pan, around the mixture) Sprinkle your berries evenly on top. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the Dutch Baby is puffed up and lightly browned. When you take out of the oven, it will be very puffed up, but it will drop as it cools.

4. Enjoy! (The book calls for you to sprinkle with 2 t confectioner's sugar and serve with 1/2 cup of fat free Greek yogurt. This will at 1 point to the total). I served with a drizzle of sugar free syrup one morning, at it plain (and cold) the next. Delicious either way.

(Oh, and for my WW check in, I didn't do very well this week. In fact, I regained what I'd lost the week before... I was totally expecting it, so I'm not concerned)

A Tale Of Two Sweet Potatoes

I don't recall ever eating sweet potatoes when I was younger. I was probably in my late 20s before I tried one (I'm not counting sweet potato casserole at a relatives house for Thanksgiving, either). Darned shame, if you think about it. Sweet, savory, healthy goodness rolled in to one convenient package. Usually I roast them in the pan, along with regular potatoes for The Aussie, when I roast meats. A trick I learned from one of my Donna Hay cookbooks is to place the meat on a rack above the pan. The potatoes cook in the meat drippings. Sweet potatoes get browned on the bottom but are still soft. The white potatoes turn golden brown and crispy all over. Totally drool-worthy. A while back, one of my foodie friends mentioned curried sweet potato hash. Curry+Sweet Potatoes=Awesome. I've tweaked my version a bit to use what spices I have on hand. Served with a fried or poached egg on top, it's nothing short of delicious.

Curried Sweet Potato and Two Pepper Hash (6 servings - 4 WW+pts/serving)

2 T of oil (use 1 T for sweet potatoes and the second T for the spices)
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2 " cubes
salt/pepper to taste
1 t cumin seeds (or fennel seeds, your choice)
1 t coriander seeds
1/2 t ground coriander
1 large onion, diced
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1 t curry powder
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T grated ginger root
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced into 1/2 " pieces
2 poblano peppers, seeded and diced into 1/2 " pieces (and by the love of all that's good and decent, don't rub your face or eyes like I did - they were much hotter than I expected)
juice of half a lemon
fresh cilantro to garnish (optional)

Directions:

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat for a minute. Add 1 T of oil and swirl around to coat the pan. Add the sweet potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cook the potatoes, try not to stir too much since you want some brown on them, until they're just getting softened. This may take about 10 minutes or so. Remove the potatoes from the pan and set aside. Scrape any stuck bits off the pan with a spatula or paper towel.

Return the pan to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add in the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds to the pan and cook for a minute. Add in the diced onion, red pepper flakes, ground coriander and the curry powder, stirring well. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is softened.

Stir in the garlic, ginger, red bell pepper and poblano peppers and cook for a few minutes. Add back in the sweet potatoes, mixing them with the peppers. Squeeze in your lemon juice and stir. Turn the heat down and cover. Cook until the potatoes are fully cooked. This may take about 8 more minutes.

While the hash finishes cooking, heat up a skillet to fry some eggs to serve on top of the hash. When the hash is done, spoon out on to plates, top with the eggs and garnish with cilantro. This is delicious and filling and works for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Salud!

Eggy Cups - Or What To Do With Leftover Veggies

My favorite Thanksgiving side dish that I love to indulge in is stuffing. Specifically, Pepperidge Farms herb stuffing. I didn't make much, so the leftovers are already gone. (dipping cold stuffing in cold gravy is my favorite way to eat it!) I did make a lot of veggies yesterday - a bag of steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, and a tray of roasted asparagus. I made a batch of my Eggy Cups with spinach yesterday morning after I got home from the Turkey Trot, and they got polished off very quickly. This afternoon I made another batch, this time with the leftover veggies. At 1 Weight Watchers Plus Point each (17 points for the entire dozen), these are filling and healthy.


Eggy Cups with Sausage and Veggies (makes 12)

12 wonton wrappers
2 Jimmy Dean turkey sausage patties, diced
1/2 cup chopped, cooked asparagus
1 cup steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, chopped
1 cup Egg Beaters
1/2 cup shredded fat free cheese
PAM cooking spray (olive oil)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray each wonton wrapper with cooking spray, using your finger to evenly coat wrapper if needed, and place in muffin tin cup, spray side down. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

In a small skillet, heat up the diced turkey sausage and chopped veggies. My broccoli, etc., was very over cooked, so it became more of a mush. Attractive sounding, right? Add in the Egg Beaters and stir until well mixed together and eggs are almost set. Add in the shredded cheese and mix in. Fill the wonton cups. These can be seved hot or cold.

Recipe request

Last week I tried out a new slow cooker recipe that I saw, in all places, the November Woman's Day magazine. This one for coconut rice pudding, which, of course, I have tweaked a bit. It's meant to be a dessert, but it make a tasty breakfast, too.

Coconut Rice Pudding (serves 6)

2 1/2 cups reduced fat milk
1 14 oz can of light coconut milk
1/4 cup of Splenda (You can use sugar if you want. Recipe calls for 1/2 but coconut milk is sweet)
1 cup of arborio rice
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

In a 5-6 quart slow cooker (I'm not sure what mine is, it's big. This mixture only came up part way) whisk together the milk, coconut milk and Splenda. Stir in the rice and cinnamon stick.

Cook, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours. Add in the chopped apricots, re-cover, and cook for another 30 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

Eureeka!

Some times it's three strikes you're out. In this case, it's third times a charm. You see, I've been attempting to bake a clean, or reasonably so, pie since I saw the recent issue of Clean Eating magazine.

First attempt was the cover recipe: banana chocolate freezer pie. Meh. Not successful, in that I don't like eating shards of ice in my pie. Might as well just stick to my breakfast smoothie for those flavors.

Second attempt was a variation on their strawberry lime pie. I didn't want to use tofu in my pie (ask me about the tofu "cheesecake" my sister used to bring home from the hippie bakery in the 70s some time), so I used greek yogurt instead. It didn't set up, plus, I couldn't find no salt cottage cheese, so the flavors were off.

Third attempt was a variation of a no-bake berry cheesecake recipe. Eureeka. The pie set, it tastes good, and it's actually full of healthy, low fat, whole grain ingredients. In fact, with ingredients like fruit, oats, almonds, whole wheat, low fat cream cheese and fat free greek yogurt, I just had a slice for breakfast. ;)

Strawberry Cheesecake Pie

Crust:

1/2 c oat flour
1/2 c almond flour
1/2 c white whole wheat flour
1/4 c rice flour
1/4 c cocoa roast almonds, finely ground (I couldn't dig out my regular almonds from the freezer, and I had these in the pantry. Feel free to use regular almonds)
3 T butter, cold and cut into chunks
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t sea salt
1 1/2 t splenda (you could use 2 T agave or brown rice syrup in place of splenda)

Mix flours and other dry ingredients together in bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine. With processor running, add in the cold butter and process until it has the appearance of large crumbs. Slowly add in the water until the dough combines into a ball. If you need to add more flour because it's too sticky, now would be the time. (I originally started with 1/4 c white wheat flour, but needed a little more, which is why I put 1/2 c in the ingredients list) BTW, the reason I'm using white wheat flour and rice flour is because I don't have whole wheat pastry flour, plus I was trying to make this a lower gluten crust.)

Remove the dough from the processor bowl, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for about 15-20 minutes. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 375.

After your dough has chilled and the oven has heated, press the dough into your pie pan. You'll note that this is what could be termed a "short" crust. It acts more like shortbread than a stretchy dough that you'd roll out. Bake the crust for 20 minutes at 375. Allow to cool completely before you fill the crust.

The filling:

1 1/2 lbs strawberries, hulled and quartered. (1 pound goes into the pie, the 1/2 pound you'll cook down as a topping)
1/4 cup water
2 packets of unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 packages of low fat Neufchatel cheese (aka low fat cream cheese. I don't know why they just don't call it cream cheese... whatever...)
1 6 oz container Chobani fat free vanilla greek yogurt (this stuff is like crack, I tell you)
1/2 c. splenda (you can use real sugar if you want to)
2 packets of True Lemon lemon crystals or 1 T fresh lemon juice

Pour the 1/4 cup of water into a small sauce pan. Sprinkle the 2 packets of gelatin over the water and let it soften for about 15 minutes. Stir with a spoon, and over low heat, make sure that the gelatin has all dissolved and that you don't have clumps.

Put the cream cheese, greek yogurt, splenda and about 3-4 cups of the quartered strawberries in the bowl of the food processor. Process until well combined. You'll need to stop a few times and scrape the mixture off the sides of the bowl. When it's thoroughly mixed and you don't see streaks of cream cheese or yogurt in the pink mixture, while processor is going, slowly add the gelatin mixture in through the feed tube of the processor. Pour into cool pie shell. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Topping:

1/2 pound strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 t splenda (again, you can use regular sugar or even agave syrup if you like)
splash of orange juice (if you have, it's not necessary)

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, cook down the strawberries until they start to break down.

Here's the pie just after I took it out of the refrigerator this morning and removed the plastic wrap. As you can see, the plastic leaves marks in the top of the pie. It'll still taste great though, and you're going to drizzle strawberry topping on the pie anyway... ;)

And here, my friends, is the final product, mere seconds before I dug my fork into the pie. So, yogurt, fruit, almonds, oats... sounds like breakfast pie to me.

Burst Into Summer - week 1

The Shrinking Jeans Burst Into Summer bootcamp challenge is in full force this week. We started last week with a mini-challenge: hydration. It's been so stinking hot in Texas that hydration is super important. This week's mini-challenge is to make sure we eat breakfast every day this week. Also super important.

I don't know about you, but I find that I really have to condition myself to make changes if I want to continue to treat myself properly. Maybe it's a helpful reminder to go fill up your water bottle. Or maybe it's a mini-challenge issued to make sure you grab something, a yogurt, a Larabar, just something, for breakfast. (No, just a cup of coffee doesn't count as breakfast). Since I started working out with my trainer, I find that I really need to eat every couple of hours. Sunday, I made the mistake, after doing 6 miles in the morning) of not having enough to eat and hit a wall when The Aussie and I were at Cabela's (the doggies gave him a gift card for Doggy Daddy Day). Luckily, they have a food area and I was able to get a salad that had smoked turkey and hard boiled egg. I was a wreck.

Another thing I've discovered about myself is that I really need to track what I'm eating. Some times I'll log the food into my BodyMedia account, but at the very least, I'm tracking what I'm eating and drinking in an excel spreadsheet. It's helping me see where I could fit in a few more vegetables with my lunch, or perhaps a piece of fruit along with some protein for a snack. And I've also discovered that my idea of breakfast is very flexible. Some days, like today for instance, a greek yogurt with a half a cup of granola is what I feel like eating. Other days, I feel like having leftovers from dinner, or a sandwich made with a bagel thin or sandwich thin, some smoked turkey and a Laughing Cow wedge.

Today is W1D2 of the bootcamp portion of the challenge. We're doing the kind of exercises that boost your metabolism and work your core. It's been a while since I've done sprint intervals, and I have to tell you, I forgot how much they kick my butt. In a good way. And the side plank dips and one arm tricep extensions are good and challenging.

I've needed to be challenged. I've needed to get out of my slump. I've needed to push myself off of the plateau I've been on for a very long time. I'm headed in the right direction: today's weigh in was 170.6. Definitely the right direction, and I'm going to keep moving forward. Go Team 10!

Quinoa "Rice" Pudding

I mentioned this morning on Twitter that the quinoa "rice" pudding I made for breakfast was actually quite good. I've been looking for easy pre-run breakfast ideas, and I like pudding, so I figured a pudding that's reasonably good for you is worth a shot. Since a few of you asked for the recipe, I am happy to oblige. I thought I found the recipe on Epicurious, but I haven't located it again. Anyhoo, I played with the recipe, which called for whole milk, and came up with the following:

Quinoa "Rice" Pudding

1 1/2 cups 2% milk
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 vanilla bean
1/4 cup real maple syrup
1/2 t cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 cup of quinoa - rinsed VERY well

Combine the milk, coconut milk, vanilla bean, maple syrup and salt in a heavy bottom sauce pan over medium high heat. Bring the liquid to a hard simmer, not quite at a boil. Add in the quinoa and the cinnamon. Stirring frequently, cook for 30 minutes. (I lost track of time and cooked it for 40 and it was fine) Once thickened, remove from the heat and let cool. You can top with berries, dried fruit, nuts, whatever you like. I heated mine back up in the microwave and topped it with more cinnamon. It was lovely.

What I'm Eating...

I'm toying with the idea of jumping on the "take a picture of everything I eat" bandwagon. We can blame the influx of new food bloggers on Mary!


Breakfast sandwich: 1 "everything" bagel thin, 1 1/2 hard boiled eggs (the doggies got the other 1/2), 1 slice of fat free cheese and 1 t butter; Iced decaf coffee with unsweetened vanilla almond breeze; water.

Blueberry Muffins

My fridge is full of all sorts of fruit, including 2 big containers of blueberries. What better thing to do than make muffins. This is my adaptation of the "Best Blueberry Muffins" recipe in the book Muffins by Elizabeth Alston.

Blueberriest Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

1/4 c butter, softened
1/4 c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c Splenda
1/2 c egg beaters (or 2 eggs)
1 t vanilla
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 1/2 blueberries (1/2 c mashed with a fork)
1 c all purpose flour
1 c white whole wheat flour
1/2 c milk

Heat oven to 375 F. Spray muffin tin, including area between cups, with cooking spray.

In a medium sized bowl, beat butter until creamy.

Add in applesauce and continue to beat for 30 seconds.

Add in Splenda and beat until creamy. Since I used apple sauce for half of the butter, it won't be that creamy.

Beat in eggbeaters, or eggs if you're using them.

Beat in vanilla, baking powder, and salt.

Mix in the half cup of mashed blueberries.

With a spatula, fold in half of the flour...

And half of the milk...

And the second half of the flour...

And the rest of the milk

And then fold in the 2 cups of whole blueberries

These are seriously full of blueberries

Spoon into the muffin tins

And bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden on top. Let cool before removing from tin.

I was out of white whole wheat flour, so I used regular whole wheat flour. It's like I added wheat germ to the recipe and it has extra crunch. They're totally delicious!

Eddie made me do it...

The other day I was asked by Eddie (@damanlovett) if I did cool breakfasts too. I had to admit that I really didn't make many cool breakfasts. I like something that can be taken out of the fridge and eaten. Sometimes I get into making the whole diner style breakfast, but not very often.

So, research geek that I am, I started looking around for breakfasts that I could bake once and have during the week. Breakfast In A Cup sounded promising. Unfortunately, it didn't deliver on its promises. It was dry and too rice-y. (I know, rice-y isn't a word.) It would almost be better as a side dish for dinner.

Then I thought about muffins. I was first thinking of a muffin version of carrot cake, but then the talk in my Twitter group of pumpkin spice lattes made me think of pumpkin spice muffins. Thanks for the suggestion! They were delicious.

CRANBERRY PUMPKIN SPICE MUFFINS

2 cups whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat flour)

2 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

2 t ground cinnamon

2 t ground nutmeg (use fresh if you can - it's amazing)

1/2 t salt

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup splenda

2 cups unsweetened applesauce

2 T vegetable oil
1 t pure vanilla extract

1 cup craisins

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Set aside. (Note: These aren't overly sweet muffins, so if you like sweeter muffins, adjust the sugar/splenda)

2. In a large bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin, sugar, applesauce, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Slowly add the flower mixture to the large bowl until just blended. Mix in the craisins and the walnuts. (I should note that I "chopped" my walnuts in my silver bullet blender and ended up with ground walnuts with some larger pieces. I just dumped it all in the bowl.)

3. Spoon the batter into 18 non-stick muffin cups. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove muffins from the oven and let cool slightly. (I had no patience to let them cool because I was hungery. Please. Let them cool. They'll come out of the muffin tins much easier for you than they did for me!) Remove muffins from the pan and let cool completely. (I didn't wait for this part either. They were really good nice and warm.)

Good morning!

These past couple of weeks I've been working on the whole "healthy breakfast" thing because of the Fabulous Fatties Challenge. I didn't used to be much of a breakfast eater, but I've gotten much better. The Aussie can switch between oatmeal and Kashi waffles every other day and be happy. Not me. I want variety for breakfast. And thank you, but no. The idea of scrambled egg whites doesn't do a thing for me.

I recently picked up a cookbook that had a recipe for breakfast cups that sounded interesting. I made it, I liked it, The Aussie liked it (once I assured him it didn't contain tofu), the dogs liked it. Hmmm. Now that I know everyone likes it, let's see how I can completely change it!

One veggie I love is spinach. There are actually very few veggies I don't like. Eggplant and the awful little turnips I made for Easter lunch are pretty much it. (Our guests for that lunch very graciously ate them, even though I said they really didn't have to. I knew they were icky.) But I digress. Spinach. It's good in quiche. It will be good in little eggy cup thingys with cheese.

Florentine Quiche Cups (serves 3)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Egg Beaters

2+ cups baby spinach (will yield 1 cup cooked spinach)

2 Jimmy Dean turkey sausage patties

1 Laughing Cow garlic and herb wedge

2 T fat free cream cheese

6 wonton wrappers - the small squares

olive oil cooking spray

Heat the oven to 350.

Give each of the wontons a quick spray of cooking spray. With your finger, spread the spray to coat one side of the wonton wrapper. Turn over and put one wrapper in each muffin cup. Bake for 10 minutes or until light brown. Remove from oven.

While wontons are baking, wash spinach and sautee in non-stick pan until cooked down. Remove from pan and chop.

Heat turkey sausage (pan or microwave is fine). Chop into small 1/4" dice.

In a small bowl, combine the fat free cream cheese and the wedge of Laughing Cow. Microwave for 30 seconds. Stir together.

In non-stick skillet, scramble the egg beaters until soft. Add in the spinach, sausage and cheese mixture. Stir well to combine the ingredients. Cook for a couple of minutes more, or until done to how you like your eggs. Spoon into wonton cups and serve. These are good hot or cold. (As you can see from the first picture, I didn't wait to eat one before snapping the picture!)