The Baker Blues

Wow, where did the time go? Somehow it got away from me. Last week was a productive week, if you count baking as productive. The baker inside me just couldn't be contained any longer. I love to bake (and eat said baked goods) and I just couldn't take it any longer. So, I made delicious lemon cupcakes. They were so light and fluffy with just a little kick of lemon. I served them with no icing - they just don't need any. Then I had bananas that were turning a wee bit brown and I just couldn't throw them out, so I turned them into banana nut bread. I have a great vegan recipe for banana nut bread that I just love. Besides bananas and flour and the other requisite stuff you put in to make banana bread, it has applesauce and maple sugar. No eggs, no white sugar. It is moist and dense and oh so good. By this time it was Friday and I needed chocolate. I just happened to have a box of brownie mix stashed in the back of the pantry so we had ooey gooey brownies for dessert Friday night. A lot of baking, I know, but I just enjoy it so much. It is almost therapeutic for me. It lets me take my mind off of the everyday worries that life brings and just concentrate on making something delicious. 
I did manage to eat relatively healthy during the day. I made this hearty Lemon Quinoa Garbanzo Salad (I used Daphne Oz's recipe from The Chew as my inspiration). It is really tasty. The crunch from the quinoa and the slivered almonds really go well with the beans and the feta. The chips are Trader Joe's Black Bean and Quinoa chips. They are crisp and satisfying. 

Of course, eating healthy during the day isn't near the problem that eating healthy in the evening is. I figure if I can eat at least two to three healthy meals a day (and most days it is three) then if I splurge a little bit now and then it's okay. Some evenings dessert is healthy (fruit and such) other evenings it is nonexistent, and other evenings it is an all out sugar fest. But even when I splurge on dessert it is usually homemade. As I type this I am seriously contemplating making a chocolate cream pie for tonight - I mean, it is the last day of summer before school starts and one should celebrate these occasions, right?  

Confession Time

I must confess that I have not been very good this week. Monday was good - stuck to the plan, but it kind of all  went down hill from there. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I ate my healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but after dinner I was bad, very bad. I made chocolate chip cookies for a friend of the family and of course I kept some for the kids. So.... on the previously mentioned days, after eating my nice, home cooked healthy dinner I succumbed to temptation and had two chocolate chip cookies and a half a glass of wine while watching TV. There is just something so relaxing about having a little dessert and some wine while watching one's favorite shows and/or football game. Well, there you have it. I cheated almost every day this week, but I ate so healthy during the day (that's how I justify it to myself). 

Now it's Friday and I just took my homemade vegan chocolate cake out of the oven and am getting ready to make my vegetarian pizza dippers for dinner (which will be accompanied by a very nice Chianti). Here's to the weekend. Will start over again on Monday :-) I hope everyone has a very enjoyable and safe weekend. Take care.

Tuesday, Tuesday

Tuesday again. Somehow I missed writing on Monday. So, here it is Tuesday. I kind of like Mondays in the sense that they are almost like do-overs. Every Monday you get to start again. A new week. I started Monday looking forward to a day of fresh, whole food. I had eggs, Ezikiel toast, berries, and tea when I got up. For lunch I had a nice spinach and romaine salad with feta and tomatoes followed by a few banana chips. Dinner was very tasty. We had corn on the cob and spinach with red onion and cannellini beans. For dessert I had fresh peaches with a little Greek yogurt and some homemade granola.

Tuesday, otherwise known as today, I started out with fresh berries, Greek yogurt, granola, toast, and tea. For lunch I scrambled some eggs with soyrizio and made a taco with corn tortillas, a bit of cheese, and some salsa verde. This afternoon I made chocolate chip cookies for my son's friend for his birthday. I had to taste one just to make sure they were edible and all. I only ate one (which is quite an accomplishment). Now, as I spend the evening watching television those stupid cookies (we had some left for the family) keep calling to me. I am pretty sure that I am not going to be able to resist much longer. I guess it is true, if you don't have the stuff in the house you can't eat it, but if it is there you will. I am trying really hard to convince myself that I don't want those cookies, but I really do. 

Welcome Weekend

Hello fellow foodies. The weekend is upon us. Happy day!! Went out of town Thursday and as we rarely go out of town, we kind of went off the healthy eating wagon. Started out the day with a healthy breakfast and then had El Pollo Loco for lunch, but we stayed somewhat healthy right up to the flan. I had a rice, bean, and cheese burrito, sweet potato fries, and some bbq black beans (which were amazing), and then split a small order of flan, so all in all, not too bad. Stopped at Panda Express for dinner and had brown fried rice, chow mein,  mixed veggies, and a vegetable spring roll. Shared the meal so it wasn't so bad. No stops in between eating. No snacks. No DQ. No Starbucks. So all things considered, I think we did pretty good.

Friday night is pizza night at our house. This week we used the Schwans starter crust and topped it with spinach, red onion, green pepper, and pineapple - very delicious. Of course we ended the evening with cheesecake and wine (hey, it's Friday night).

Tonight I a made a Micheal Symon inspired dinner: zucchini pasta with basil and tomatoes. It was very light and yummy; perfect for a summer evening.

Hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing and fun filled weekend. I can't believe how close summer is to being over. Soaking up every moment of the free time. Until Monday. Take care.

I Failed!!

Hello friends. Yes, I failed! I failed horribly. I made it through the day eating well, but the whole National Cheesecake Day thing took me down. We went to the store and rented not one, but two movies, and bought an amazing cheesecake and a bottle of wine. The cheesecake was so delicious. I savored every bite. I took the tiniest bites, dragging out the rich and creamy pleasure as long as possible. We watched both movies and to my surprise finished off the bottle of wine. It was a very enjoyable evening (even though I was cheating). We spent some family time together and I thoroughly enjoyed my cheesecake and wine and even the movies weren't too bad.

So, here we are a new day and a new start. Began the day with some berries and yogurt, and toast and tea. Had a nice crisp salad with the best avocado I have had in a long time for lunch. Props to my wonderful hubby for picking out the perfect avocado. And now I am very excited about dinner.... we are having veggie kabobs!! We very delicately skewer fresh pineapple, mushrooms, tomatoes, green peppers, and onions and then lightly coat them with some teriyaki sauce before grilling them. I love them so much!! 

Today I have not eaten between meals and I have not been famished like I usually am - maybe I really will be able to make this a life style change that I can embrace.

Happy National Cheesecake Day!!

Hello friends. Hope all is well in your corner of the universe. This morning I debated between the usual berries, egg, and toast for breakfast or trying something different like oatmeal with berries and yogurt. I ended up taking a different road all together. I toasted a piece of Ezekiel bread and fried an egg (hard). I cut the toast in half and placed a half slice of provolone cheese, my fried egg (cut in half and stacked), a couple of tomato slices, some spinach, and the other half of the toast. It made a most delicious breakfast sandwich. I will definitely be having that again. And as an added bonus it kept me quite full until lunch time. 

Dinner was a bit of an adventure and the family, although very polite and appreciative, was, shall we say, a little less than excited about it all. I find dinner the most difficult meal to prepare using just fresh and/or whole ingredients. We have been a family of pasta, potatoes, and rice for so long that not having those items on the menu makes dinner a challenge. Anyhow, tonight I prepared cauliflower poppers, steamed cauliflower and carrots, lightly sauteed asparagus (I like mine crunchy) and some cannellini beans with diced onion. It all came together rather well and I don't think anyone left the table hungry. 

Now, my biggest dilemma of the evening is dessert. I have fresh cut peaches chilling in the fridge, which I know will be sweet and delicious. But.... today is National Cheesecake Day and as such I am really craving some cheesecake and red wine. It is taking all the will power I have not to hop in the car and go get a cheesecake and a bottle of wine!! I am going to try really hard to not leave my house this evening and save the cheesecake and wine for the weekend. Wish me luck!!

Hello Monday!

Hello fellow foodies. Hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe weekend. I enjoyed my weekend just a little too much. After eating so very healthy for four full days, I fell off that wagon hard. I began Friday morning with some amazing homemade chocolate peanut butter crepes filled with bananas and topped with bananas, a mini Reeses, and a drizzle of chocolate syrup.

It was just downhill after that. I enjoyed every bad thing I ate over the weekend though and savored the flavor just that much more, knowing that beginning Monday it was nothing but healthy eating for me.

I began today by going to the store to pick up some fresh produce for the next few days. Made a list and took limited funds. I was able to get spinach, asparagus, cauliflower, strawberries, blueberries, bananas, grapes, a nectarine, a peach, a green pepper, and a couple cans of beans. I have to confess I like the challenge of shopping on a budget and trying to figure out new and interesting, not to mention tasty, meals for during the week. My next goal is to try to figure out fun and satisfying meals for the weekend that are quite so far from the healthy food that we eat during the week. Don't get me wrong, there will be chocolate on the weekends, but maybe not quite so much sugar and processed foods.

Hope everyone has an amazing Monday!!

Feeling Better

Hello again friends. Doing better today. I wasn't nearly as hungry all day like I have been and the craving to have chocolate or die wasn't quite as bad. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait until tomorrow (Friday) when I get to have some of the things I love, like pizza, chocolate, and maybe even a little ice cream. 

We had fresh peaches last night for dessert and they were really satisfying and refreshing, although they did not compare to the chocolate eclairs they were making on Master Chef. Tonight we had a very filling and delicious dinner. I cooked some lentils with an onion and salt and pepper. I also roasted sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and a few garlic cloves with olive oil and salt and pepper in the oven. It was served topped with fresh, crunchy celery pieces and was amazing: soft, crunchy, sweet, and salty. It really hit the spot. 

I'm seriously considering making some chocolate peanut butter pancakes for breakfast in the morning (with a side of fresh fruit, of course). Would that be too over the top? I will have to sleep on it and make that call in the morning.

Four days of fresh, mostly whole foods, and I feel really good, mostly just because I made it. I will try not to indulge too terribly much over the weekend, but I do happily see some chocolate in my future :-)

I Need Chocolate!!!

I need chocolate!!! Friday cannot get here soon enough!! I have been sticking with the plan. We had veggie burgers with tomatoes and avocado wrapped in Romaine lettuce and cheesy zucchini rounds for dinner last night. It was really good and rather filling. I have tried to stave off the cravings with healthy snacks like pumpkin seeds, carrots, hummus, olives, fruit, and yogurt, but I just really need chocolate!! I guarantee you there will be chocolate come Friday. I know it has only been two and a half days, but for a chocolate loving person like me that is a long time. This is a person who has chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and justifies a cookie after breakfast because it has oats in it and it goes well with coffee. This is a person who has some kind of chocolate every day after lunch - a couple of Kisses, a few mini Reese's, a handful of M&M's, something. So, this has been quite an accomplishment for me to just get this far. I will hold out until Friday!!!! I will hold out until Friday!!! I will hold out until Friday!!!

One Day Down, A Lifetime to Go

Hello again. Made it through day one. I have to admit that I thought about food all day; the good and the bad. I thought about what I would have for lunch and then what I could have for a snack if I got hungry before dinner and I thought about what I was going to fix for dinner and I thought about ice cream and chocolate and all those things I am trying really hard not to think about, but I did it!! Dinner was really good. The corn on the cob was delicious and the spinach and cannellini beans turned out really good.

Then evening came and the movie started (The Avengers - always a good choice) and I needed dessert. I sliced up a few strawberries and rinsed off some blueberries and put them in a bowl with a little bit of yogurt and topped it all off with some crushed pistachios. It was surprisingly yummy and satisfied the dessert monster. I will probably have it again tonight. 

For breakfast this morning I had a couple handfuls of blueberries, one egg, and toast. I used the Ezekiel brand bread for my toast and it worked, but it was different. It is very dense and has, I'm not really sure how to explain it, a kind of bitter taste to it. I am sure I will get used to it, especially since it means I get to have toast with my tea.

This afternoon I decided to try to make some homemade granola with whatever ingredients I had in the pantry. I thought it might be good with yogurt or just as a crunchy snack in the afternoon. Anyhow, I had a bag of organic five oat blend that included flax seed, some pecans, dried cranberries, and raisins. I put all of it in a bowl and mixed in some cinnamon and honey. I popped it in the oven and it smelled delicious, then it smelled burnt. I took it out, let it cool, and yep, sure enough, it tasted burnt. Note to self: next time take it out while it still smells good. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as the saying goes. I will know next time. And there will be a next time because besides the slightly burnt taste, it is actually pretty good.

I really hope after a week or two that this becomes easier and just routine. I really want to make it work, if I can just keep my cravings at bay - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday should hopefully help with that. I know that it takes time for habits to form and for taste buds to change, so we will just give it some time.

Until next time, happy and healthy eating.

Monday, Monday, Healthy Food Day

As I sit here drinking a glass of white wine because my head is throbbing and the guest on Dr. Oz said do not take over the counter headache medicine (and yes, it is five o'clock somewhere, here to be exact), I will attempt to type something coherent. Did not make it to the grocery store yesterday, so breakfast had to be made with what we already had. I began with a couple of handfuls of blueberries and then had scramble eggs with mushrooms and spinach with a cup of tea. It was a good breakfast, but I really missed my toast. I love toast with my tea.  Note to self: check out Ezekiel bread while at the grocery store. 

We do not have any fancy smancy stores around here. No Trader's Joes, no Whole Foods, no Sprouts, ect... The first stop we made was at the local farm stand. I was able to pick up some beautiful zucchini, a couple of tomatoes, green onions, green peppers, onions, and what will hopefully be some awesome corn on the cob. Then we headed to our local Albertsons (the only choice beside Smart and Final) to see what we could find there. Strawberries and blueberries were buy one get one free so those definitely went into the cart. Also picked up some baby carrots, romaine lettuce, mushrooms, avocados,  apples, nectarines, bananas, yogurt, and a few other odds and ends. Oh and a loaf of Ezekiel bread which I am anxious to try in the morning.

For lunch I went with a romaine salad with carrots and red cabbage topped with a bit of feta (and I must confess a little bit of Italian dressing). I also had a handful of pumpkin seeds and a few strawberries. It was filling and hit the spot. Here it is five o'clock and I am not even hungry yet.

For dinner we are going to have corn on the cob and sauteed   spinach with red onions and cannellini beans. I think it will be good, but I know come seven - eight o'clock the dessert monster is going to strike. I think to appease both the dessert monster and our eating healthier plan, I will have some blueberries or strawberries or maybe both with a little bit of yogurt. It will be like fruit and ice cream, right? Well, I will let you know how that works out next time.

Unfortunately, that corn isn't going to shuck itself. More wine and shucking time :-) 

Those Two Nasty Little Words

Good day my fabulous foodie friends. It is grey and rainy here in my neck of the woods, which is very odd for July, but very nice. What two nasty words do I speak of? Diet and exercise of course. Diet and exercise. They go together like peas and carrots, Oreos and milk, peanut butter and jelly, well you get the idea. 

Diet. Who really likes to diet? I certainly don't. There are just too many really yummy foods out there to spend all of my time on a diet. Never eat pizza, pasta, chocolate... I don't think so. And diets don't work. As soon as you stop or pause the diet, whatever progress you made, is gone. One must make a life style change. One that isn't too drastic and one that is easy to accept. Maybe this life style change should be done in steps; you know, ease into it. I never really worried about what I ate or how much I ate until I hit that magical number 40. I never believed that it was true, but the pants don't lie. I refuse to count calories or weigh my food, so eating mostly healthy is the best way I can think of to combat the ever raging battle of the bulge. 

Exercise. I might as well just go ahead and say it, "I hate exercise!" First of all, I live in the desert where it is 110+ degrees five months of the year. I sweat enough without even trying. Why in the world would I want to sweat on purpose? Besides that, exercise just makes me hot, sweaty, and grumpy. And nobody likes it when I feel like that. I try to walk in the winter when it is nice outside and in the summer I try to play some Wii sports games, but that is about all the exercise that anyone is going to get out of this person.

Diet and exercise count as bad words in my vocabulary. So, I will continue to walk and play as much as the weather and time allows (and my desire to actually get up and go), but most importantly I will strive to eat healthy Monday through Thursday so that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday can be fun days (not that eating healthy can't be fun).

Tomorrow begins the first day of eating whole foods. Guess I had better get to the grocery store :-)

Captain's log, star date .... oh wait, wrong blog. Sorry. Food. That's what we are here to discuss. I will start by saying that I like food. I like to eat food, I like to cook food, I like to experiment with different food combinations, and all that stuff. I especially like baking. For all of the above reasons eating healthy can definitely be a challenge. I try to eat mostly healthy, but making cookies, cakes, cupcakes, scones, waffles, crepes, well, you get the idea, kind of gets in the way. We are not really junk food eaters. I haven't had soda in many years, I rarely drink coffee, and we don't eat those yucky, preservative filled, individually wrapped snack cakes from the store, but we do have the occasional donut and you will most likely find a bag of Oreos in my pantry (for the kids, of course).

 My family and I are kind of accustomed to a certain life style and that life style includes dessert. On a nightly basis. So, although I usually eat a somewhat healthy breakfast; usually an egg, toast, and tea and then an average lunch, and more often than not I do not eat between meals. Then the clock approaches dinner time. Because I have not eaten anything since lunch, my stomach begins to make noise and my mouth starts to water. To solve this problem I have an appetizer while fixing dinner. This usually consists of a little cheese, some fresh tomatoes, a few olives, and maybe some crackers and hummus. Oh, and a glass of wine. From there it is down hill. Dinner, dessert, TV... that is the rest of my evening. 

To combat this lifestyle that we have become so accustomed to, my family and I have agreed to eat healthy Monday through Thursday. By healthy we mean whole foods. I am sure this idea of what constitutes whole food will be an ever evolving issue. For now, we have decided that all veggies, fruits, and nuts will be allowed. Since my daughter and I are vegetarians beans, cheese, yogurt, and an occasional veggie burger (without the bun) will be allowed. We are not going to compile a list of the "not allowed" as that may leave us feeling a bit deprived. Instead we will concentrate on the positives. And of course this all must be done while on a tight budget, but who isn't on a tight budget? Well, except maybe Robert Downey Jr. and Channing Tatum, but we won't think about that.

This culinary adventure begins in just two days, so in the mean time, it's off to enjoy a bowl of ice cream :-)