I crock pot, do you?

I love my trusty old crock pot…and when I say “old” that’s exactly what I mean.  This thing is seriously old, but still works like a charm.

I’ve been looking at newer crock pots, but darn it, this one still works just fine.  No, it’s not digital or programmable, but it does what I need a crock pot to do…effortlessly cook for me.  So, I’m going to hold on to this one for at least a while longer.

Today I decided to prepare vegetable beef soup in my crock pot.  Talk about an easy meal (or week’s worth of meals in my case).  I diced up some new potatoes, tossed in about a fourth of an onion, diced.  Grabbed a bag of stewing beef from the freezer ( I buy this when it’s on sale, divide the package up into two or three smaller packages, and freeze), plopped the meat on top of the potatoes and onion.  Then the really easy part…I went to the pantry and picked out a few cans of veggies…I choose green beans, corn, and tomatoes.  Sometimes I’ll throw in peas and carrots, I just didn’t happen to have any carrots today.  It doesn’t really matter which veggies you use, this soup is going to be good.  I did add one can of low sodium (I forgot to mention that all of the veggies I buy are low-sodium) low-fat  beef broth and enough water to cover.  Turned the crock pot on high and let it do the rest of the work for me.

I dipped this bowl out because I was starving (fancy that, I’ve eaten very little today and actually was experiencing hunger…wow!).  Then I added a handful of whole wheat orzo (sometimes I use rice, pasta, whatever…sometimes just the veggies and meat) and put the lid back on to cook some more…how’s this for a great way for me to eat my veggies?  This is one of the things I love about fall…it’s soup time again!

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 87

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I had a much better day today.  Oh wait, I had the day off work…that pretty much automatically makes it a better day…less stress, more me time, not getting up at 3:30 in the morning…well, I must admit, I did wake up at 3:30 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I decided to get up and try to catch up on my email…so I did that for about an hour, went back upstairs and read in bed until I got sleepy.  Then I turned the light off and slept until a little after 8!  Sleeping until 8…wow…luxury!!

I didn’t exercise at all today..what a slacker.  But my body was just so tired after working multiple 12 hour workdays in a row…ugh!  I just kind of took it easy today.  I made a delish vegetable beef soup in the crock pot.  Okay, I was thinking fall and it ended up getting up to 90 degrees today.  But the soup was still wonderful…and it’s supposed to cool off now, plus I ran the AC, so I didn’t really feel the heat.  I love eating soup when it’s chilly outside.  And now my entire house smells like someone’s been cooking…well, I guess someone has…me! 

I ended up eating only a little over 1300  calories for the day.  I just didn’t eat much, not because I was thinking about not eating much, but because I was doing other things (writing, mainly) and only ate when I realized I was really hungry…stomach growling kind of hungry.  That’s a good thing, right?  That’s how “normal” people behave…or at least how I imagine normal people behave…not sure I know too many normal people.

All in all, a good day.  A day to kind of rejuvenate.  I think days like this are necessary every once in a while.  Now to get ready to go in to work early again tomorrow and try to get all of the things done that need to be done. 

So…do you eat “normally”, when you realize you’re hungry?  Or do you eat out of boredom, emotionally, out of habit in certain situations?  I would sure like to experience more of that normal eating…not even really thinking about it.  Or am I just imagining that other people are that way with food?  Hmm…sounds like some good research material.

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On blueberry muffin hill

Blueberry muffins…yum!  Who doesn’t like a good moist blueberry muffin?  But don’t most of us also want something that’s at least somewhat healthy?  I try to make my muffins from scratch using whole grains and fresh fruit, but when time is short (or I’m feeling kind of lazy) I’ll resort to the boxed muffin mixes.  Fortunately I found this…

Is it as good for me as what I would make using one of my healthier recipes?  Mmm…no.  Is it better for me than something sweet and sugary from the vending machine?  You bet it is.

These muffins, baked according to the package directions, still have 210 calories per muffin.   I make them smaller by making 18 instead of 12 and that reduces the calories to 140 apiece.  This is just one more indication that what we now consider to be a serving size is much larger than it was in the past.  So I still get to enjoy a freshly baked muffin without going overboard on calories.

Can I make a lower calorie, healthier-for-me muffin?  Yes, I can.  But there are times in life where we make trade-offs, this is one of those times…calories for convenience.  I don’t do this all the time, but it’s nice to know I have the option.  Now I have a good supply of muffins in the freezer.  I can pull one out in the morning, put it in my lunch bag and it’ll be thawed and ready to eat for my morning or afternoon snack.  If that can keep me from putting that dollar in the vending machine, I think it’s worth it. 

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Quinoa corn cakes

I had completely forgotten how truly tasty this meal is until I was browsing recipes at SparkRecipes.com.  When I came across this one I knew this was what I was going to prepare for my lunch for work for the first part of the work week.  Because this recipe is so basic I already had everything I needed on hand.

Quinoa, whole wheat flour, an egg, skim milk, onion, frozen corn, salt, pepper, and water…how much more basic can you get?  Here’s the link to the recipe…

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1207271

Okay, this doesn’t look like much before you cook it…

But look at this with a little fresh salsa on the side…yum!  Tasty, filling and about 200 calories for lunch…can’t beat that!

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What in the world am I going to do with all of this zucchini?

I’ve been gardening long enough to know that even one tiny (?) zucchini plant can provide you with more zucchini than you can possibly eat.  All week long I’ve been saying I was going to do something with the zucchini on my one plant.  The abundance of zucchini on my one plant.  After being shamed (thanks, Patti) for not following through with my zucchini plans, I decided to tackle it today.  I only picked the two largest fruits on the plant, knowing full well that those would be more than what I needed for my purposes today.

So the plan was to bake a loaf of healthier zucchini bread and freeze the rest of the shredded zucchini in 2 cup freezer bags..then I can have zucchini bread all winter long.  I had printed a recipe for a healthier type of zucchini bread from backtoherroots (thanks, Cassie), so figured I’d give that a try.

So I set about shredding those monster zucchini, ended up with enough for the bread and three bags to put in the freezer.  I had some left over and decided to try oven “fried” zucchini.

The bread recipe was easy to follow and used ingredients I already had on hand…I love it when I don’t have to buy special ingredients for a recipe, don’t you?

Now on to the oven fried zucchini…when I was a kid, we ate a lot of fried foods.  That’s something I’m trying to get away from in my quest for a healthier lifestyle.  But fried zucchini sure did sound tasty to me.  Soooo…how can I get that taste and texture without all of that fat? 

I bought Panko bread crumbs a while back and had yet to open the box…so that’s where I started.  I read the box and saw a recipe for baked breaded shrimp…figured that would probably work for zucchini too. Why not?  Took a couple of eggs and beat them in one bowl.  Mixed some flour, salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese in another bowl.  Then poured some of the Panko into another bowl…Dredged the zucchini rounds through the flour mixture, then dipped into egg, and patted Panko crumbs over that.  Placed on a baking sheet, baked in a 350 degree oven.  I checked them after 10 minutes, decided to leave them in for another five minutes.  Then I turned them and put them back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

I can not believe how seriously good these things are…crispy, tasty and so not fried…wow!!  Will I be making these again?  You betcha!!

I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do with my zucchini…that and more today…I’ve got a lot of little zucchini on that one poor plant…there has to be more oven fried zucchini in my future!

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What can you do with over ripe bananas?

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I had some bananas sitting on my kitchen counter for several days.  Every time I noticed them, I thought I should do something with them…but I didn’t. Usually I’ll just peel them, break them up and freeze them so they’re ready to throw into a smoothie.  I guess I must have been lazy last week.  The bananas just kept sitting there, looking worse and worse.  Finally, this morning, I decided I was going to do something with them…went online and started looking at recipes (yes, I have a huge collection of cookbooks…love the Gooseberry Patch ones….but it’s so much easier to just do a search).  Wow…there’s a lot you can do with those icky looking, mushy bananas.  Cakes and cookies…dessert  bars and pies..and about a million recipes for banana bread.

I finally decided to go with banana bread, making one loaf of bread and a dozen muffins.  I like to freeze the muffins so I can keep them fresh, pulling one out of the freezer to take to work whenever the mood strikes me.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not the best recipe follower in the world…I’m always replacing things, adding things, whatever.  This particular recipe (http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/banana-bread/51427396-6764-4b0a-a73a-78c683c703d2/?p=1) called for 2.5 cups of regular old white flour.  I decided to try to make the recipe a little healthier by replacing some of the white flour with whole wheat flour and reducing the amount of salt by about half.  I thought about adding some applesauce in place of some of the butter, but didn’t have any applesauce (what?  better add that to my shopping list), so used a stick of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in place of the regular butter…then totally negated the whole healthier thing by adding a handful of mini chocolate chips…

Have you ever noticed that quick breads or muffins don’t really look like much before they’re baked?  And honestly, who in the world first decided to use rotten…I mean, over ripe… bananas in anything that they wanted to eat?  How does that thought process come about?  Did they say to themselves, “Hey, I’m really hungry and all I have left is this bunch of rotten bananas and some flour and eggs…what can I do?  I know, I’ll mash the bananas up and make kind of a cakey bready thing.”  Well, however and whoever, it worked.

They look good and taste good…these will be a great morning snack for work over the next few weeks…and a few chocolate chips never hurt anything.

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