Super Easy PB&J Cookies

WooHoo! It's almost Friday! I'm so ready for the weekend.

Last night Tom and I went to a local bar and grill to watch WSU play UW in men's basketball. If you missed it, it was a really good game!  When we eat out I try to eat according to what will least make by belly hurt, but sometimes my eyes are more powerful than my brain and I end up ordering what looks good without regard for my tum-tum.  I ordered myself a pair of super-tasty (breaded and fried) fish tacos. I almost always get them and they almost always hurt my belly. I know it's the damn sauce they put on them: a spicy ranch-style sauce.   But it's sooooooo good! I know that most restaurant sauces inevitably contain milk, soy or both. I've worked in food service enough to know this well.  I also know that soy turns me inside out.  It's the devil incarnate. Does that stop me from ordering those delicious saucy tacos (this needs to be the name of a taco truck, stat)? No. Needless to say I'll be taking a few probiotic capsules to get my gut back into shape. I'm in ouch-town. Boo.

Anywho, gut problems aside, one thing I've been trying to master is tummy-friendly desserts.  Not just any desserts though: EASY desserts.  I'm talking only a few ingredients, minimal steps and few dishes to clean.  I am far to lazy for complicated recipes, as you may have noticed.

A few weeks ago I spotted a pin for peanut butter cookies and decided to fiddle with it.  After three attempts I got it mastered, taste-test approved and ready to share.

Here's how it goes:

In a medium bowl add: 1 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup maple syrup and 1 egg. Mix with spoon (or whatever).

My favorite peanut butter is Adams crunchy.  It is less viscous and has a great, clean flavor.

Add 1 teaspoon baking soda.  Stir it up.

This addition/tweak makes all the difference: add 1/2 cup raisins. Stir.  They add a freshness to the cookie that is awesome! Almost PB&J-like.

Scoop out onto foil-lined cookie sheet one heaping tablespoon at a time. No oil/grease needed.  I always use foil to minimize dish washing. Again, I am lazy as all get-out. Shortcuts are my friend. 

Put on top rack in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Let cool completely before removing from pan.

This recipe yields 12 cookies that are light, slightly chewy, cakey and fully addictive. So stinkin' easy to make! Seriously. Make these now. You can thank me later.

Gathering Day

I wanted to start sharing my Monday shopping hauls, costs, and weekly meal plans.  When we first decided to go paleo I thought I new what I was doing.  But knowing and doing are totally different things and I searched the internet high and low for shopping lists and budget-friendly grocery stores and found very little.  So now I want to pass on my knowledge of where and what to buy and any tips I've learned along the way along with anything new that will help anyone who is just starting out with paleo or who needs fresh ideas.

Every Monday I meet with my Mom and we hit up Costco. I think I'm addicted to that place.  For reals. These days I have been trying to keep to organic and 'clean 15' foods and  avoid the 'dirty dozen'.  This means I often shop at a variety of stores to complete my shopping list.  It's a bit of extra work, but worth it to know that my food is as close to 'natural' as it can be.

I must mention that I have an extremely lazy high-tech system for determining our weekly meals that involves picking 5 popsicle sticks each out of two jars; one filled with entrees the other with side dishes (only 5 meals  are pulled because Friday is Date Night where we eat out and Sunday is leftover day).  Genius, right?! I loathe meal planning, so I took all my favorite recipes from my brain and Pinterest page and put them on sticks in a jar.  Now fate chooses dinner for me. Boom.  Thinking is for losers. Just kidding. Sort of.

Up this week:
Pork Loin w/ wilted greens
Mini Meatloaves w/sauteed mushrooms & onion
Brinner! w/sliced baked potatoes
Kebabs w/mashed potatoes
Grilled chicken thighs w/ sweet potato fries

Some of the ingredients I already had, but the following is what I gathered yesterday to make the plan happen!

Costco:

Purchased:  2 bottles of wine (don't judge me), maple syrup, chicken thighs, pineapple, spinach, 2 bags of baby carrots.  Not pictured: Bag each of clementines and grapefruit.

Spent: $81.96 ($59.02 without the wine, but what fun is that?)

Fred Meyer:

Purchased:  dill, bananas (gotta get that potassium), sweet potatoes, red and yellow pepper, metal kebab skewers.

Spent: $18.83 ($15.84 without the skewers)

Whole Foods:

Purchased: 1lb dry rub bacon, 1 pork tenderloin, 9 kiwis, cantaloupe, 2 1lb containers of strawberries. (And, yes, that is a giant vase full of wine corks in the background. Again, no judging.)

Spent: $43.67 - this place costs more than the others which is why I leave it for last to gather the remaining items on my list.

Grand Total: $118.53 (without wine or kitchen tools).

Happy gathering!!

My Refrigerator & Grocery Shopping Tips

Why can't Seattle be sunny more often?  Yesterday we had an extremely rare sunny Saturday (for March anyhow).  It was fabulous! I was able to get some pruning done in our jungle of a backyard.  It's been almost 100% neglected since we moved in in November. But yesterday I got out there with my loppers and shears and filled the yard waste bin (you know you live in the city when...) with errant branches and dead twigs.  It is interesting to think of how the back garden came to be; the previous owners (who were here since the '60s) planted the trees, bushes and flowers to their taste and bringing them back to their intended glory is my goal. I think a few of the Rhododendron's need to come out - they are just too tangled and disorderly.  It's too bad because I love Rhododendron's when they bloom.  So pretty.

Tom and I went to lunch yesterday and gave in to our cravings and had ourselves a cheat day: real pizza from Zeek's.  It was amazing.  I don't want to elaborate too much because I'll get hungry, but it was a super-fun treat.  I'm so lucky to have someone that rolls with my food choices and various kitchen experiments without complaint. We both weren't feeling well afterwards, but cheat days are needed.  I'd go nutty without them!

I love Pinterest. I get so many of my ideas from it. It's especially fun to find a recipe, tailor it to our eating habits and create something delicious.  One thing that does get to me, however, is the amount of 'diet recipe' pins that consist of ingredients that are awful for you.  Lots of non-fat dairy this, and diet soda that.  To keep my food rant to a minimum and as a rule of thumb: 'non-fat' = sugar added to make up for loss in flavor from fat and 'diet' = chemical crap-storm. Drinking diet soda is like smoking 'low tar' cigarettes: not any healthier. And like smoking, the best thing to do is quit.  Stay away from this stuff; it's not good for you and, for me, exacerbates tummy troubles.  

One thing that took me a long time to realize when we changed how we eat was this: forget about trying to find packaged or pre-made foods that fit our healthy, whole foods eating plan. And contrary to what most people think, meals made of whole foods don't take any longer to make than throwing a frozen lasagna in the oven for 45 minutes.  Many of my meals take much less time, in fact. I wanted to therefore share what my refrigerator looks like and what a typical shopping trip brings home.

My refrigerator, as I've joked before on Facebook, looks like a mini-produce stand.  I like to keep everything open and accessible.  I take baby oranges and carrots out of their bags and cut the top of the strawberry and grape clam shell packages off for easy grab-n-go snacking.  And I buy a lot of these easy snacks because, lets face it, who has become unhealthy from eating too many fruits and veggies? Plus, fruits and veggies fill you up better than any bread or cookie-based snack ever could. Win-win in my book.

I've also used clear drawer divider bins from Bed, Bath and Beyond (they are cheaper than the refrigerator ones and achieve the same result) to make everything look 'pretty'.  When things look nice and organized they also look more appetizing.  It's all about presentation folks.  Each week when I get home from shopping I toss anything that has gone off and wipe out the bottom shelves and bins.  And, yes, the bottom-most shelf is where the 'beer drawer' used to be, but I got rid of it and use it as added storage.  I don't like drawers in general - if I can't see it, I will forget about it, and forgotten fruit/veggies are not a pretty sight once they are remembered a week after they should have been. Ew.

.

A typical Monday shopping 'haul'.  Very little meat protein and lots of fruits and veg. The cans in the right-hand photo are Alaskan salmon - emergency protein I take for lunches when left-overs are not available.

                                                                         

Costco is my go-to and fantastic for large packages of fruits, salads, and meats.  Not everything is available here in an organic option, however. More recently I have limited my shopping at Costco to only organics and those foods that are on the 'clean 15 list' and I get the remaining items on my list in the organic sections of either Whole Foods, Fred Meyer or my local Red Apple.

All in all my message is this: eat clean. Get it out of your mind that you are going to find packaged or processed foods taste good and are truly healthful. There are exceptions to this that are tasty, but they are expensive and hard to find.  Stick to the stuff that nature has provided, your tummy will thank you.

A Day In My Lunchbox

So I am super mad that daylight savings is making us 'spring forward' on Sunday. Ugh. That means that 5:30am will now really be 4:30am and the morning light that has been so amazing the last few weeks will be gone.  'Daylight Savings: plunging you back into darkness since the 1970's'. Jerk.

I also hate holiday cookies.  We had some in the office this past week and after everyone had their one cookie, the remaining cooks just sat there.  Staring at me. 'Eat Me' might as well have been written on each one.  These weren't crappy, tasteless sugar cookies, no, these were shamrock shaped shortbread cookies with colored sugar sprinkles.  I caved and had one. My lame-a$$ justification?: it was super-busy and I needed calories (and I forgot part of my snack from home).  All that sugar put my system in overload.  My heart was pounding and my head started hurting almost immediately. I instantly regretted that damn cookie.

Fast forward two days: still some cookies remained.  Staring.  Beckoning. I obsessed over them. Reached for one more than twice. Must. Resist. Sugary deliciousness! I was in Hell. See, I love sweets. LOVE. Mix that love with low self control and it's a recipe for disaster (believe me, that's where the 30 pounds I've worked so hard to lose - and keep off - came from in the first place!).  I was relieved to find that some office saint took the cookies away. Sweet, sweet relief. I can live to hate holiday cookies one more day.

That all being told I wanted to share with the world (or whoever reads these) what I actually do eat on a daily basis at work. Below is a picture of all the food I pack with me for the 8 hour work day.

From left to right: oranges and an egg, grapes, maple candied nuts, banana, morning juice, leftovers.  These containers are from Safeway but are NOT leak-proof.  I have since recycled these and purchased a set of locking containers from Costco.

First, I make myself a juice.  My morning juice consists of grapefruit, strawberries and carrots.  I drink this during my drive in to work (6:30 am) and throughout the morning until my first snack.  

Around 9am I take my first break and crack open my 4 oz container of maple candied nuts and a largish bunch of grapes.  Not pictured is my huge Nalgene bottle of water I tow with me that I crack open once my juice is gone - usually around this time.

I take my lunch break when I am next hungry. I don't think daytime meals should be planned. You should eat when you feel you need it.  I usually make an extra serving of dinner and take that with me for lunch as leftovers, but if I didn't make enough I will take a can of salmon with some Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning sprinkled on top.  Lunch also has a banana. I love bananas.

My last work break is met with a hard-boiled egg and two Cutie's oranges (I get these at Costco and they are by far the easiest to peel).  I am still figuring out how to hard boil eggs.  Mine are never over-cooked, but I can't figure out how to get the inner membrane to separate from the white of the egg!  Makes for messy, hard peeling. Annoying. Tasty, but annoying.

I realize this looks disgusting, but it is actually the highlight of my day. Soooo tasty.

When I get home I have another banana (told you I love bananas) with a few tablespoons of Adam's crunchy peanut butter and organic maple syrup. We eat a ton of peanut butter and I get mine at Costco.  I love that the ingredients of Adam's are peanuts and trace amounts of salt. That's it. Yum.

All this will hold me over until dinner.  I have no idea how many calories it all is nor do I care.  Like I said: I eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm satisfied (not 'full') and I know I am eating good, whole foods because I made/shopped for them. One thing I try to remember is to eat a protein with each snack whether it be nuts, meat, or egg.  This helps with my energy levels and keeping me satisfied longer.  

I am not a nutritionist and I imagine eating the same foods everyday is not ideal, but I leave it to dinner to mix up my meat and veggie intake and I am a creature of habit (most of the time) and love not having to think about what to take to work for lunch especially when I'm in grog-mode in the mornings!

Take care!
Kel

Hot Chocolate 15k

Betsy and I at the start line.

This weekend was the big race! If you didn't already know, 15k is 9.6 miles. And when you are running a 15k, it feels more like 20 miles.

I agreed to met up with everyone at 6am to head in to town.  I didn't wake up in time to eat skipped breakfast, threw my race gear in a bag and headed out.  I took one Honey Stinger gel packet and gulped that down 40 minutes from start time.

In retrospect it was not that bad, but the hills! So many gradual hills! I suck at running hills.  Like, me running a hill is just barely faster than an old lady walking the same hill.  So. Slow.

But the end came after an hour and forty minutes and then it was chocolate time! We got a cup of hot chocolate as well as special sectioned mugs with chocolate fondue in which to dip pretzels, rice krispies treats, wafer cookies, and anything else you could find.  I ate all of it.  I knew it was going to make me ill, but I earned it darn it! And, yes, my stomach still hurts as I am typing this. Worth it.

After the race I headed home and went back to bed and slept most of the day away.  Running and laziness: a match made in heaven.