Alert about Bananas for Vegans!

http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/why-bananas-might-not-be-vegan-anymore

Just thought I ought to share this! Know what you are eating!

A Plethora of Pumpkin

School starts this week, and I cannot believe it! People always say that summer flies by... but they's be right about that. It's a sad, sad story for those of us who want that extra time outdoors in the sun, getting tan and eating ice cream at the beach (by now it's back to being too cold for good old Long Island Sound).

But I'm still excited. I mean, it's my Junior year! Okay, so I'm about to become one BUSY girl between XC and AP homework, but this is going to be the year when you really start to have fun at school: prom, spirit week, SATs, and just being an upper classman! But I'm nervous to see how I do keeping up on the blogging. It's a lot of fun, so I don't want to give it up.

I just hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.

What was I doing to prepare? Oh, you know... cooking.

Lots and lots of cooking.

I figured I could make a plethora of freezer meals/ already cooked oatmeal that will get super thick and creamy in the fridge so I will have another 5 minutes here and there to do other things. It better be worth it...I was cooking for 4 hours. (Who am I kidding? I loved every minute of that four hours. It was like my little present to myself. OF COURSE it was worth it!)

One of my favorite flavors, next to chocolate and peanut butter, would have to be pumpkin. Especially since school is starting up, I can finally say that it's "fallish" enough to start putting the pumpkin in just about everything. Plus, I was trying to be economical by buying the GIANT 40oz can, only to realize that most recipes don't call for more than 1/2 cup or so...

Oh well. All the more pumpkin-y items to make!

Here are the recipes that inspired my little pumpkin party:

• Powered Up Pumpkin Oats by Lindsay at 'A Pinch of Yum'
• Pumpkin Muffins  by Katie at 'Chocolate Covered Katie'
• Pumpkin Protein Pancakes by Julie at 'Peanut Butter Fingers'
• Apple Cinnamon Chobani Bread (which I made pumpkin!) by Kelly at 'The No Sugar Sweet Life'

And best of all... I still have about 1/3 of my can of pumpkin left! Looks like there will be more baking in store for today! Now the awful dilemma as I decide what I want to make... (I'm trying to make things that will keep well or can be frozen so I can heat them up for a speedy pre-school breakfast or workout snack! See my post about what makes good pre-workout fuel here.)

Here's what I did to adapt the recipes:

• Doubled the Pumpkin Oats Recipe so I could eat it TWICE, it was THAT good. Also, substitued 1/2 cup Kashi GoLean for the bran flakes to give it some more clusters, added 1 tsp dark chocolate cocoa powder in at the end, and substituted brown sugar with honey. Also, by leaving it in the fridge overnight, it got MUCH thicker and creamier, so I added another 1/2 cup almond milk before heating again and it was AWESOME. Even better than before, if I do say so myself. You could also eat cold as a pudding and I bet it would be great.
• For Katie's muffins, I actually quadrupled the recipe so I could make 4 muffins and freeze them. Instead of chocolate chips, I added raisins, chopped walnuts, and coconut flakes. As a side note, I had to bake for longer because there were more muffins (about 20 minutes instead of 12).
• For the Pumpkin Protein Pancakes, I subbed Greek Yogurt for the cottage cheese and also added 1/2 scoop vanilla whey protein powder to the mix. I added 1/2 tsp baking soda because I wanted my pancakes even fluffier (it worked!) and then, because I'm a naughty girl, I added chocolate chips to the batter (no measurements here!)
• The Chobani Bread was slightly more work to recreate since I was totally changing the flavors, but I proceeded with as much confidence as I could muster. HA! Recipe, you shall not phase me! Instead of cinnamon, I used pumpkin pie spice (if you don't have this on hand, combine some nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger). I subbed the agave with molasses for a different, deeper flavored sweetener (I used 1/4 cup). Instead of apple cinnamon yogurt, I used plain with 2 drops stevia, and then instead of the applesauce I used 1/2 cup pumpkin puree. I STILL used the softened apple in the bread because pumpkin-apple is actually a very nice combo and it gave the bread the extra lightness a midst a more dense cakey-part. As an attempt to be creative, near the end of the bread's baking I mixed together 1/4 cup oats, 3 T. chopped pecans, and 2 T. brown sugar and took the bread out to sprinkle these on. I then turned the oven to broil and waited to get a nice crust on top. Yumm!

Phew! Well, now you know how I spent a good portion of my day. How was your Saturday? Do you ever get really caught up in the kitchen just going around like a whirling dervish and trying to make 10 things at once? Tell me your story!After all, as I had to remember when trying to make adaptations:

IT IS BETTER TO DO THE WRONG THING THAN IT IS TO DO NOTHING.

What do you think of today's quote? Tell me!

First Practice of the Season

XC has finally begun! I am officially in season! Woo Hoo!

Well, I'm going to start off with some nice tips about running in honor of such a glorious day. Because the sun is shining, I've already done my workout, and I'm just feeling AWESOME. Do you ever get those days? Where everything is just, well... AWESOME. I'll say it again. That's how today is for me.

If you haven't figured it out by now...I'm a sarcasm machine. And I love little humorous pictures like this :)

TODAY'S TIP: Pre-Workout Fuel

Let's be honest: this has us all a little puzzled sometimes. You want to eat enough so that you're not passing out with exhaustion at mile 2, but you don't want to feel like there's a rock in your stomach. (Or that you're about to throw up...) So what do you eat? Especially if you're in a time crunch, as I was this morning, rolling out of bed at 7:30 for a practice beginning at 8:00.

My tips:

• No matter what, you need some carbohydrates.  If you can not scarf down anything else, JUST GET THE CARBS. Try and get a mix of just a few simple sugars, but you want more of your carbs to be complex. This will help sustain you over the miles. You want a few simple sugars, however, to give you available energy for bursts of speed or just to get going initially. Too much sugar, however, can upset your stomach or will be burned off more rapidly than you would wish, and you will start to feel sluggish later on.
• Get some easily-digestible protein. Foods with lactose are NOT going to be your go-to's at this time, despite their easy to chug down nature and good protein content. I steer clear of the milk and yogurt before a run. Aim for something with a small amount of fat, also, as this helps it 'stick to your ribs' and allows you to absorb more of the available nutrition.
• Drink something! Before you run, especially if it's in the morning, you need to be hydrated. Even 1 8oz glass of water can be enough for a 3 or 4 mile run. I find that if I don't drink something, I get achy, sweaty, and develop a huge headache. This 1 glass should not lead to any cramps as it is more for hydration purposes. DO NOT overhydrate (ie, chugging down a 20oz water bottle): this will only make you feel nauseated and will lead to cramps.

A Couple of Good Pre-Workout Snacks

• 3 Fig Newtons and a small handful almonds
• Packet of Nature Valley Bars
• Banana (extra good because of the potassium) with 1 T. Peanut Butter on top of a slice of toast
• Scrambled Egg in Half a tortilla
• Trail Mix!
• Dry Cereal with Coconut Flakes, Chocolate Chips, Craisins, and Nuts
• Raw Veggies with Ranch Dip and Ritz Crackers
• Graham Crackers with Nutella and PB
• Protein Bar- Check the labels!

None of this was super revolutionary, I realize that, but I think it's a helpful tip from someone who has tried the whole gambit of running foods to optimize my performance. Which is NOT to say that I am a professional...diet wise or running wise. As you can see...

Daddy's Birthday Dinner

Okay, so it's not REALLY his birthday yet, but it's close enough to cook him a new creation, right? Plus, since I have to go back to school the same day as his REAL birthday, it works out pretty well to just make something now while I've got the time on my hands. And maybe, quite possibly, it's my not-so-subtle attempt to coax him into getting a new food processor. But I'm not saying anything. These are all speculations, of course.

Today just felt like a lazy day. Despite much caffineated bliss, I didn't really feel like doing anything but sitting at the computer and drooling over blogs. Working out? Well...

But ALAS! Be proud of me! I got on that elliptical and sweated it out for 30 minutes before deciding I had paid my dues. It was time to get fancy in the kitchen.

So I looked all over my newly cleaned cupboard (hooray!) and figured I'd make a nice, spicy Indian dish for my Dad. He LOVES Indian food. Me? Sorry folks, I've never been able to get on that bandwagon. Curries are NOT my thing. It's blasphemy, I know. Do I get kicked out of the vegetarian blog world now? (Please NOOOO)

Anyway....

PUNJAB PATTIES

( on SALTED QUINOA FLATBREAD with CHILLED YOGURT)

Serves 2-3

For The Patty

1/4 Cup Homemade Chickpea Flour (I finally used it up!)

2 tsp. Kebab Paste

1/2 tsp. Djion Mustard

1/2 tsp. Flax Oil

Pinch Cinnamon

Pinch Cardamom

5-6 Sweet Potato Chips, Crushed

For Quinoa Flatbread

1/4 cup uncooked Quinoa + 1 cup water for cooking

1/4 Cup Flour (can even use Quinoa Flour again for GF)

1/4 Cup Water

1 tsp. Almond Oil

Kosher Salt

For Chilled Yogurt Sauce

1 HEAPING Tablespoon Plain Greek Yogurt

1 Tablespoon Water

Pinch Curry Powder

Pinch Garam Masala

Pinch Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Kebab Paste

Extras:

Lettuce and Tomato

More Kebab Paste for Sandwich Spread

1. Mix Up all your ingredients for the patty. You may want to add some egg white depending on how dry your flour is... mine was still a tad moist so I didn't need to.
2. Heat up small skillet with oil and lightly pan fry patty until golden and beginning to dry out a little bit. OR if sweet potato chips begin to blacken. Flip and repeat on other side until cooked. Set aside. Mine started to crumble all over but it still worked fine as long as you get those crumbles out of the pan.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook quinoa: (boil water, add quinoa, stir, reduce heat to medium and cover. Leave alone for 5 minutes before returning and fluffing it with a fork. Cook until water mostly absorbed, though still damp.
4. Mix all other flatbread ingredients, except salt, then add cooked quinoa when it cools. Allow to stand for at least 5 minutes.
5. Grease a baking sheet and insert into oven for 1-2 minutes to heat it up. This will help the flatbread to not stick. When it comes out of the oven, lay your 'batter' out in small rectangle, about 4 inches by 10 inches or so (thickness should be maybe 1/4 inch). Put back in oven and bake 9 minutes until it starts to bubble. Take out, flip over, and cook additional 5 minutes if still gooey on other side.
6. When fully cooked, cut in half and toast each slice. Put aside.
7. Mix everything up for your yogurt dressing. Chill at least 5 minutes, or if you make it right ahead of time, there's no need :) Just be sure it's cold when serving.
8. Put everything together; spread a little bit of yogurt sauce and additional kebab paste (if desired) on the bread. If desired, also use lettuce and tomato. Fill with patty/crumbles and top with other bread slice. Serve warm (except for yogurt sauce. If reheating, leave that out of sandwich while heating other elements and then add on).

ENJOY!

P.S. I will continue to be stalking drooling over reading all your blogs out there! Thank you to everyone for making such delicious recipes!

Question of the Day: Do you ever have a 'lazy day'? What's YOUR favorite thing to do when you get in that mood? Mine used to be curling up with a book and then going on Pinterest for hours. (Now it appears to be salivating over blogs. Same difference)

First 4F Challenge: a Healthy Coffee Coolatta

Breakfast today was a fail. I tried making some Overnight Oats last night, because my oatmeal obsession is still going strong, but they remained liquidy and kind of tasteless. I even tried adding some yogurt pre-overnighting and it didn't help. Anyone have any advice? Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. And since the oats lost, something else could win...

An awesome mix of strawberry Greek Yogurt and Delicious Kashi GoLean for protein, fiber, and staying power! (I also had an apple, because I love them, and some fruit seemed to be needed for this meal.)
Plus, the good thing is I am really lazy today could put my cereal straight in the yogurt cup and had NO CLEAN UP! After yesterday, I was in no mood to clean (though I could go for another cauliflower pizza today!)

So I mentioned in yesterday's post that I wanted to start another Foodie Blogger Challenge. THE 4F!

'Fast-Food Fantasy Friday' ('for foodies'. Maybe the 6F?) That's right. Take a favorite dish that you like to get out at a restaurant, preferably a fast food or at least a chain, and then remake it so it is more economical, healthful, and maybe, dare I say it? TASTIER. Try and post nutritional information and cost for both original and your versions for a comparison. And if you do take on this weekly challenge, please link back to me or at least post a little gadget thing (I'm working on designs!) Thanks to everyone!

I myself have a coffee weakness. I love the stuff black, but also in iced form with oodles of sugar and milk. Particularly Dunkin' Donuts "Coffee Coolatta" (although I wouldn't snub my nose at a Starbucks frappacino or a Peet's Blender either. Or a DQ moolatte... the list goes on on and on.)

It's an interesting story, actually. The idea for 4F came up a while ago, but I wasn't actually intending to make my submission when I was creating this marvelous little beastie. I wanted ice cream. I wanted Katie's Vanilla Frosty (seen here)

Well, I didn't have the tofu, so then I decided I was just going to change it to one of her ice creams. HA! Luck was against me again. Because I can be a little bit ditzy (and because I had no option- I have no ice cube tray. What is this madness?) I froze all the milk in a LARGE dixie cup. I took it out and I have this HUGE, 16 oz frozen milk cup. There was no way my little blender could handle that. So dutifully, I began to try and mutilate cut it into smaller cubes.Not really working out either. At last, it thawed enough that I was able to take the knife and 'shave' the whole thing. Like an icee or a slushie in consistency, if you will. And it probably took a good 25 minutes. But during that long stretch of time, it came to me. This milk-mistake was not meant to be ice cream- although that would have been lovely. It was meant to be my first 4F, forever something near and dear to my heart. It was meant to be...

DUNKIN' DONUTS COFFEE COOLATTA- 4F

ONLY 3 INGREDIENTS!

2 cups non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened almond)

2 packets instant Hazelnut Coffee, or any flavor variety for a variation

3-5 Packets Zero-Calorie Sweetener

In the mixin' bowl

1. Freeze the nondairy milk. I DON'T recommend doing it all in one cup as I did, because the shaving will be hard. Try doing it in several small ice cube trays.
2. After at LEAST 2 hours, or when frozen, take out your milk and 'shave it'. This can be done if you have one of those Italian Ice Shavers, or I bet you could use a food processor also. What I did was take a large, very sharp knife and kind of 'grate' the sides of the ice so it sort of peeled off. You could also do some chopping up if you chop it very fine. (Those chunks in my picture? Not good)
3. Throw ice milk shavings in a bowl or large measuring cup (see Pyrex in background of picture). Do this as you go so that your ice shavings don't melt completely all over the place.
4. Pour in instant coffee and sweetener to taste. Mix it all up and let it melt just the tiniest bit so there is a coffee brown liquid, and then stir again to re-coat everything. This gives it that optimal melty slushy thing that DD and the Bucks have going on.

DUNKIN DONUTS Small Coffee Coolatta: 350 calories, 22g fat, 40g carbohydrate (35g sugar), 10% DV Calcium, 3g protein. Cost: $2.75

Sarah's 4F Coffee Coolatta: 70 calories, 3g fat, 5g carbohydrate (4g sugar), 90% DV Calcium (I used the extra calcium almond milk.), 3 g protein. Cost: 80 cents

TASTE? AMAZINGLY COMPRABLE!!

Today I found an amazing quote that I thought I'd share, for running and for life: 

SUCCESS ISN'T HOW FAR YOU GOT, BUT THE DISTANCE YOU TRAVELED FROM WHERE YOU STARTED. -Steve Prefontaine (if you don't know who he is...well, look him up. Probably greatest American Distance Runner ever. A hero of mine!)

So think about that next time you're considering whether or not you succeeded. No, you didn't meet your 7:30 split at the 5K. No, you had to walk that last mile because you thought your shins were going to give out on you. But metaphorically... you've traveled beyond your past limits, and THAT, my friends is success.

*Other note- official XC practice starts tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!!*

Question of the Day: How far have you come in YOUR journey towards success? And what would you say being successful is?

Cauliflower Pizza and Cleaning the Cupboard

Hooray! I did it! My OCD has been temporarily assuaged, until another family member comes along and moves something, of course, but I'm hoping that doesn't happen.
Just like Sonia and Heather challenged today, I reordered my kitchen cupboard. It looks a ton better and should help me cut down on some waste from buying extra packages when I already have some lying around!

See Everything in disarray? The open packages? The similar items on TOTALLY different shelves? Well, it bothered me. It may not look so bad, but IT WAS!

 So, after an intense hour in which I took out empty packages, combined half-full ones, sorted goods by use and flavor, and cleaned some disgusting sticky/moldy junk out (yes...I know. It made me sick to think that was in our cupboard. Maybe take a peek at what's hiding in YOURS...) it was much better.

You can't tell that much has changed in this picture...but it has

The Canned Foods all sorted out

ORGANIZED!

Nuts and Nut Butters...

And a nice little section for the Asian Food!

 I also discovered some nifty things that I didn't realize we had. I'm going to have to find uses for them, obviously :)

Sour Cherry 'Spoon Fruit'

Tikka Masala Mix- okay, so not 'weird' but I could do so many things with this...

Well, after cleaning everything out, my stomach was telling me it was time for dinner. Something that had been intriguing me for quite a while was Cauliflower Crust Pizza. Since we had a head of cauliflower on hand, I decided to give it a try. HOWEVER, I neglected to check and see if we had every ingredient necessary (no eggs or cheese, which make up a good portion of the ingredients!) so I had to make some modifications. Surprisingly, they worked! I felt so proud and creative I almost cried. I'm learning how to actually cook! I never thought I'd see the day!

Not Your Momma's Hummus

Despite terrible nausea last night, I buckled down to a goal I set for myself: try something completely new in the kitchen. Which was easy to do given the plethora of new things I've bought in the past several weeks to make accommodations for vegetarianism and a blog... Over here Heather asked about what everyone's pantry looks like: well, mine is kind of a mess. (Today's mission...organize it!) I have beans strewn over several shelves, the flour and sugar are way in the back and I have to push through boxes of crackers to access them, there are duplicate open packages of things (arggghhh), the nut butters are in disarray... it's a train wreck.

Plus, it leads to those feelings where you walk up looking for a good snack, can't immediately see anything you like, and maybe end up heading over to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. Maybe. (My freezer's not working...no banana ice cream could be made D:  )

NEVER FEAR! Sarah is on the job! Or maybe I should say... Beanie is. I've already had a rant about his superpowers here, so I won't repeat, but let's just say that he's magical. Maybe even more so than Harry Potter. (Not than Hermione, however. That would be stretching it. Sorry, sorry, geek reference!)

My first new creation looked something like this:

HUMMUS!

Or, because we had nothing I could dip into it, like this:

A PARFAIT!

TO START, YOU NEED CHICKPEA FLOUR

HOMEMADE CHICKPEA 'FLOUR'

(Makes 3/4 cup of flour)...And WAYYY economical- half the price of store-bought!

*1/2 Cup Dried Chickpeas, rinsed and cleaned

*3 cups water

1. Cook the chickpeas! What was once 1/2 cup dried should now give you about 1+1/3 cups. Drain off all excess water and transfer chickpeas to small bowl.
2. Here's the annoying part... and probably the reason that most people would just BUY flour. Pop each chickpea out of its little skin and put in separate bowl. Throw skins away. Don't get too frustrated if you can't get every little piece of the skin off or if you slaughter smoosh the chickpeas when doing so. You'll have a chance to get skin off again later, and chickpeas need to get smooshed anyway.

Little Demons Chickpea Skins

3. After you've gotten off all or nearly all of the skins, mash up your chickpeas with a fork or the back of a spoon. Or even use a food processer (like everything else I own, mine seems to be broken). HOWEVER, I think the little chunky texture is good especially if you prefer a beany taste so I do recommend the fork/spoon method.

4. At this point, my 'flour' was fairly dry so I called it good. Remove any other visible skins you see. If you are really a perfectionist, however, or if for some reason your bean mash is still pretty wet, use paper towels to squeeze out the excess moisture.Makes about 3/4 cup flour. AND YOU'RE DONE!

*Note, you could just prepare an entire package of dried chickpeas (1 lb) to make more all at once. I didn't because, as I said, this was an experiment, and my Dad didn't want any waste in case it didn't turn out! 

*Homemade Flour (3/4 cup) - about 25 cents

*Store-bought Chickpea Flour (3/4 cup) - about 45-60 cents