Category Archives: Breakfast

Revenge of the Bees + Why I Do Yoga

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I just got stung by a bee in my backyard! OUCH! At least I think it was a bee – I’m really not sure since it stung my BOOTIE! Wow that really hurt. It’s a good thing you weren’t near me when it happened cuz I was cussin’ like a sailor! I bought a jar of honey this morning from Bees n’ Blossoms at the Reston Farmers Market - could this be revenge? Maybe this bee misunderstood because Bees n’ Blossoms treat their bees really well, using only organic and natural methods.

Eats

Anywho, this morning I had….a SMOOTHIE! Yes, surprising I know. Here’s what I had:

  • vanilla rice milk
  • banana
  • baby spinach
  • Spirutein vanilla protein powder
  • 2 tablespoons of Better n Peanut Butter

And just now I enjoyed my current rave for lunch:

DSC_0004DSC_0003That would be:

  • 1 cup cooked oatmeal
  • 3/4 cup fresh blueberries from the Farmers Market
  • 2 tablespoons Chocolate pb2 (you can see it peeking out of the top left side in the second picture)
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • pinch of cinnamon

SO YUMMY! For those of you who count, it’s 6 WW.

yoga

Yesterday I spent some time with a yoga teacher friend and she asked me “What do you want from your yoga practice?” I didn’t’ have an answer right away but I’ve been thinking about the question. During my practice this morning it came to me. I want to feel connection.

Connection with my mind.
Connection with my body.
Connection with my breath.
Connection with my True Self.

This is why I practice yoga.
During my regular non-yoga practicing hours, I move through my day running errands, talking on the phone, surfing the internet, teaching, cooking, exercising, eating, etc. My mind jumps from one thing to the next. I am not thinking about my body or my breath. I associate with whatever it is I’m doing in the moment – I’m a wife, I’m a daughter, I’m a yoga teacher, I’m a customer.

But during my practice this changes.
I quiet my mind and bring my attention to my breath, and I feel…whole and…happy.

Why do you practice yoga? Or…why don’t you practice yoga?

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ps: cool signature, huh? Get it for free here.

PBU LUV

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It is SO FANTASTIC to be healthy again! YAHOO!!!

I slept in until 7am today and then got up to make our morning smoothies:

  • Lite Vanilla Soy Milk
  • Kale
  • Spirutein Vanilla Protein Powder
  • Banana
  • Cinnamon + Vanilla + Salt

I know – boring!  I have some version of this every morning. It’s just SO YUMMY and it’s exactly what I want when I wake up. So there you go.

I walked the girls and then headed out to teach yoga at Beloved Yoga. It was kinda crazy teaching after laying around for three days – I actually felt out of breath a few times. I wasn’t too breathless though that I couldn’t go for a run afterwards! After class I ran 4 miles and walked 1 mile. It felt really good to be back :)

Anywho, lunch was another fruit salad with coconut and almonds – yummy! Like the morning smoothie, I’m not getting tired of fruit salad either! I also melted some mozzarella cheese on a warmed-up Ezekial Sprouted Grain Tortilla and rolled it up with some fresh baby spinach stuffed inside.

Afternoon snack: Amazing Grass Superfood in Chocolate mixed with 8 oz coconut water + an apple.

Dinner: another smoothie! DOH! I think I’m a SMOOTHIE ADDICT. A smoothieholic, if you will.

At some time during the day I was perusing the interwebs :) and stumbled upon a nugget of pure genuis: PBU!

PBU is the brainchild of Emily over at Curly Top. Plagued by stomach aches caused by fatty peanut butter and unable to find a suitable alternative, she created the answer to her peanut butter woes and hence PBU was born.To make PBU she mixes regular peanut butter with almond milk, and adds in any additional flavorings or seasonings such as sugar, salt, cinnamon.

I gave it a whirl tonight while watching “4th and Long” (don’t ask). When I used Emily’s ratios I came up with something that was quite runny. I added in more peanut butter, and, since I then ran out of peanut butter, I threw in some PB2. I also used a hand mixer. I unfortunately didn’t measure out the exact amounts of the ingredients I used but the the result I got is light creamy peanutty goodness.

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Of course I already ate a few spoonfuls! Tomorrow I’ll be trying it out on rice cakes, in Fage, and yes, in my smoothie :)

Do you love peanut butter too? What’s your favorite recipe or use for it?

Easy Bean and Veggie Salad Recipe

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Happy Sunday everyone! I just loved today :)

I got up at 645am and took the girls for a walk. It was so lovely outside that when we got back home I decided to go for a run. I ran for 40 minutes -not sure how many miles that was but I’m guessing around 4.25 – 4.50. It was perfect running weather – overcast and slightly cool. I listened to Achtung Baby, my favorite running tunes :)

Then I taught a yoga class at Flow Yoga – what a nice turnout we had! Again it was super hot in the studio and we were all dripping with sweat at the end. I LOVE practicing in the heat – not too hot though!

Then I got to hang out with my friend Ginny, one of my favorite people! We did some yoga together and then headed into town for lunch. Ginny is an AMAZING massage therapist. I told her my hip was a little sore and right away she said “well we can work on that right now!” (I love having massage therapist friends!) Well my hip feels 1000 times better. Thanks Ginny!

The food rundown for the day:

Breakfast: Smoothie

  • banana
  • spinach
  • homemade almond milk
  • touch of vanilla + almond extract + cinnamon + salt
  • Spirutein Cookies n’ Cream

Delish!

Lunch: Minestrone soup + curried chickpea salad + decaf soy latte at South Street Under.
The curried chickpea salad was AWESOME. I have to figure out how they made it!

Ginny gave me a small piece of Gnosis raw chocolate to try. It was so yummy that I went out and bought a bar for myself. They are really pricey ($10!) but you really just need a tiny piece to feel really satisfied. I got their Fleur de Sel Bar – these are the ingredients:

  • Cacao beans
  • Cacao butter
  • Agave nectar
  • Fleur de Sel salt Pink Himalayan Salt crystal
  • Manna blue green algae
  • Vanilla bean
  • Love

Isn’t that cute? I can’t wait to try it. :)

Dinner: Bean and Veggie Salad + home-brewed peach iced tea + Skinny Cow

Easy Bean and Veggie Salad Recipe

  • 15 oz can mixed beans – mine was kidney, garbanzo, and northern
  • 15 oz can black eyed peas
  • 1 pint sugar snap peas, trimmed and cut in half
  • 1 shallot, minced
  • 1/2 red pepper, diced
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1/2 zucchini, diced (it was leftover :) )

Dressing

  • 2 T white wine vinegar
  • 2 T extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 t dried basil
  • 1/2 t dried oregano
  • 1/2 t garlic powder
  • 1/2 t salt
  • freshly ground pepper to taste

This was a wonderful, light salad – just what I was in the mood for tonight!

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Best part of the day: D. suprised me with this when I got home!

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Isn’t it beautiful? I’ve never had an orchid before and I love it!

I’m listening to Blue Shoes by Katie Melua right now. What a beautiful voice she has!

Baked Vegan Donuts

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I’m so happy it’s the weekend! I found myself running around quite a bit these last few days and it’s so nice to finally have a day that’s completely free!

Today I woke up at 6am and took the pups for a walk. Then I made my usual smoothie:

  • vanilla Spirutein protein powder
  • spinach
  • lite vanilla soy milk
  • a little peanut butter
  • banana

Then I was off to teach yoga. Boy was it HOT in the studio! Everyone was drenched at the end of class.

When I got home I had a DONUT!

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Yes I made donuts again. If you remember I tried making them last weekend and while they tasted pretty good, they were flat! This time the donuts turned out so much better, yes? :) I used a different recipe that I found at Vegan Verve. Vegan Verve has a few donut recipes posted and I tried the “revised version.” It was a tad tricky to follow but here’s what I managed to come up with:

Vegan Verve’s Vegan Baked Donuts

Makes 20-24 doughnuts, depending on size.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups soymilk – plain or vanilla
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup canola
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar
  • 2 + 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 1/4 cup applesauce
  • 1 + 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 Tbsp salt
  • 4 + 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Directions

  1. Bring the soymilk, sugar, canola oil and agave nectar to a boil. As soon as it boils, remove from the heat and cool until it is about 110°F (this can take about an hour). Once it’s at 110 degrees, add the yeast and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
  2. Next add 4 cups of the flour and mix until fully incorporated. Let the dough rise to about double the size (about an hour).
  3. Once the dough has risen, add the remaining ¾ cup flour, applesauce, vanilla, and salt. Mix completely and let rest for at least 10 minutes. The dough will be  sticky.
  4. To make doughnuts sprinkle some flour on your hands and on the surface of the dough. Take a small amount of dough and work it into about a 6 inch rope. The width of the dough “rope” depends on how large you wish the doughnuts to be. Remember that the dough will expand to at least double the size it is at this point. When you have determined the size of doughnuts you want, attach the two ends of the “rope” and adjust the hole of the doughnut to the size you want. Place doughnuts on a greased cookie sheet.
  5. At this point you could let the doughnuts rise for about 30 more minutes then place them in a 350°F oven and bake for about 10 minutes. Watch them carefully and try to remove them before they start to brown OR…
  6. Lay towels or aluminum foil over the cookie sheets and store in your fridge overnight. The next day, let the trays sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the doughnuts can rise some more. Adjust the holes before you place in the 350°F oven and bake for 10 minutes.

I made some doughnuts right away (step #5) and some I made the next day (#6). I thought the next day doughnuts were lighter and better but D. liked the first batch better.

I made three different icings:

Vanilla Glaze

  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • 1 tspn vanilla

Chocolate Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 1/2 Tbsp vanilla soymilk
  • ½ tspn vanilla

Peanut Butter Icing

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup chocolate pb2
  • 2 ½ Tbsp vanilla soymilk

I applied the icing while the doughnuts were piping hot out of the oven. For some I applied the icing with a pastry brush and others I dunked the doughnut right in. Then I moved the doughnuts to a baking rack to cool.

The doughnuts are super yummy – just make sure you have enough people around to eat them! My batch made 20 large donuts!

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Homemade Soy Yogurt

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Today I experimented with making homemade soy yogurt.

I don’t think I ever blogged about this, but I tried making soy yogurt once before. I used my new Salton yogurt maker (for some reason, these yogurt makers are now being sold for about $100 – but just 2 1/2 months ago I paid $21.82. Inflation?!) and I used a recipe that called for agar agar powder. Well I bought agar agar FLAKES, thinking ok similar enough. Well, the yogurt ended up having a horrible texture. I threw it all out and decided to try again when I came into possession of agar agar powder, which hasn’t happened yet.

Then the other day I stumbled on what I’d call a very “casual” soygurt recipe on Have Cake Will Travel.  (This looks like an awesome blog by the way. Her current recipe for PB&J Pie looks amazing! I think I will follow the blog but OH NO WHERE’S THE RSS FEED SIGN UP??) So I tried the soygurt recipe today and gosh darn it’s looking pretty good!

Here are some (not-so-great) photos of my process:

Mixed together the ingredients and got this:

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After one minute in the microwave it looked like this:

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After another minute in the microwave:

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You really have to watch the soygurt closely to make sure it doesn’t foam over and mess up your microwave!

And finally, it looked like this:

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The recipe recommends adding in fruit and flavorings at this point but I am keeping it plain. This way once I’m ready to eat it I can add in whatever I’m feeling in the moment.

So the soygurt is going into the fridge to chill and thicken. The flavor is good, so we’ll see what kind of texture we get. I can’t wait to see what I have tomorrow morning! Stay tuned….

Do you have a great non-dairy yogurt recipe?

We took this picture of Marty tonight while we were out on our walk. She’s walking herself LOL!

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Amazing Grass Update!

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Today I tried Amazing Grass Pomegranate Mango Infusion and the verdict is…YUM!

AM_Mango175x366Again I mixed it with coconut water, but I think this would be great with vanilla almond or rice milk too.

I also tried the Original flavor, which I was told is the most popular. My thoughts?

amoriginalHey I gotta call ‘em as I see ‘em!

Have a great an amazing day!

My Stevia Nightmare and the Vegan Donut Comeback

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I decided over the weekend that I was going to go a week without sugar. I was off to a good start yesterday:

Breakfast: Smoothie with almond milk, vanilla Spirutein protein powder, banana, spinach

Lunch: Smoothie with almond milk, vanilla Spirutein protein powder, banana, spinach, peanut butter  + CARROT CAKE???!!!

Ok so that ended my week sans sugar. Oh well.  :)

But even though my Sugar Free Week lasted only four hours, I was nevertheless inspired to try baking with stevia last night. Stevia is an herbal sweetener that has zero calories. Sounds great, huh? I already use stevia in my hot coffee and tea and I really like it, so why not try baking with it?

I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Bars – the description under the recipe was “Sure to please.” The recipe included stevia, oats, whole wheat flour, lots of peanut butter, and an icing that included cocoa powder, more peanut butter, and of course stevia. Sounds great to me!

OK – they totally sucked. The stevia left a horrible aftertaste that I couldn’t get rid of, no matter how many peanut butter M&Ms I ate last night! (Yes at this point I was back in full sugar swing). So I’m not even going to bother posting the recipe or a picture – they don’t even look good. But I’m still curious about stevia – do you have a good recipe that uses stevia?

Somewhat miffed about the stevia but not defeated, I moved on to…DONUTS!

I found a donut recipe on line at Vegan Yum Yum that looked pretty good. The pictures look amazing! I made a few modifications to the recipe:

Vegan Baked Donuts
Make 8 Donuts

Dry Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 Cup Sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp Cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:

  • 1/2 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk
  • 1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
  • Egg Replacer for 1 Egg
  • 4 Tbs Earth Balance
  • Sugar

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350º F and lightly oil a baking sheet.
  2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients (not the sugar) in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should feel just slightly warm.
  3. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined to form a very soft, wet dough.
  4. Drop by 1/4 cup onto your baking sheet. Create a hole in the middle of each donut using your finger and an oiled butter knife.
  5. Sprinkle sugar on top and bake for 16 minutes. Mine looked like this before I put them in the oven:

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They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Cool completely on rack before decorating.

Here’s what they looked like when they were done:

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It looks like there’s a little Rosie on my thumb! LOL!

IMG_0735I mixed up a little pb2 + powdered sugar + almond milk and created a makeshift frosting for this last one. YUM! But I have to say I liked them plain too. I KNOW they don’t look great but they taste really good. I think I might have to get a donut pan if I am going to make more donuts! I also need to get better at photographing my products…any photography tips???

Waiting for Kombucha

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Hi there!

So it’s raining again today for the 1 billionth day in a row! Really it is crazy how much rain we’ve gotten. On the positive side I saw this outside my  house today:

flower

This morning I took Marty and Rosie for a walk and as usual they were FREAKING OUT with happiness as soon as I picked up their leashes. It’s so cool how they are completely jazzed about going for the SAME WALK that we went on yesterday, and the day before, and the day before!

I had my standard Smoothie for breakfast: banana, spinach, Spirutein vanilla protein powder, cinnamon, a little salt, vanilla hemp milk (unsweetened), and pb2. In addition to Better N Peanut Butter, pb2 is my other favorite peanut butter-type product. I even wrote about it on the Double Dog Blog.

For lunch I had another gigantic salad, this time with lots of cauliflower, tomatoes, and chickpeas and topped with Newman’s Own Low Fat Sesame Ginger dressing – YUM!

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I also had the other half of the deceptive Trader Joe’s muffin that I started yesterday. And an apple. I’m HUNGRY today!!

I just checked on my kombucha. Yes, I’m making kombucha from scratch! Kombucha is a fermented sweet tea – you can read all about it here. My friend Kristen gave me the starter kombucha mushroom (called a “skoby“) and besides that all you need is tea, water, and sugar. My first batch didn’t turn out so well (it didn’t taste great and it wasn’t fizzy like the kombucha you buy in the store) but I think I figured out what went wrong. I used decaf green tea and you have to use caffeinated tea. So this time I used a black Chai tea. I also learned that once it’s ready you have to bottle it up and let it sit on the counter for a few days before refrigerating it. SO…it’s fermenting on my counter as we speak and tomorrow I think it will be ready :) I’m really excited to try it. For now, it looks like this on my counter:

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Don't Forget the Edy's!

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Over the winter I gained about 5 pounds and I’ve been trying to get rid of them but they are sticking to me like glue!  I swear it gets harder the older you get. So I decided to go back on Weight Watchers, which is how I lost all my weight in the first place. I get a whopping 19 points a day! In case you don’t know, that’s not very much. So here’s what I had today:

Breakfast

Smoothie made with Spirutein vanilla protein powder, vanilla hemp milk, banana, lotsa spinach, cinnamon, and a dollop of Better N Peanut Butter*

Lunch

1/2 of a Trader Joe’s muffin. I was totally schnookered by the package that said “120 calories per serving” (see it? It’s on the right side). I LOVE muffins so I was pretty excited except when I got them home I realized that a serving is HALF a muffin! What a joke! So I had half a muffin today :)

Organic Moral Fiber

A huge salad with cucumbers, chickpeas, tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, radishes, and baby greens

Saladwith my homemade oil-free dressing

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And finished with an Edy’s Orange & Cream Fruit Bar (I love these)

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I felt pretty satisfied with my lunch. After a little time to digest, I headed out for a 6 mile run that felt AWESOME. I used my new Phillips headphones and they worked really well and didn’t slide off my head like other headphones have in the past.

So…dinner.

We made personal pizzas with Boboli crusts. Doug piled his high with cheese but I used less than 1/4 cup on mine and instead piled it with spinach and sauteed mushrooms. I’m trying to get cheese out of my diet all together but when it comes to pizza…

pizza

(The spinach puree is hidden under the sauce :)   (Sorry for the bad photo!)

I was surprised how good it was because I always thought you had to have a ton of cheese on your pizza. I think next time I’ll skip the cheese altogether and see how it goes.

I had a few other snacks today but I thought I was within my points. Then I realized that I forgot to figure in the Edy’s! So I was over by one point – but I figure that’s ok since I did run today! I’m trying not to get too hung up on the points thing anyway – it’s just a guideline :)

Time for beddie-by!

*Better N Peanut Butter is AWESOME! You have to try it if you haven’t already. It has half the calories of regular PB and 85% less fat than regular peanut butter. I use it in smoothies mostly – I haven’t yet baked with it but the BNPB website has some recipe ideas.