Cherry Almond Macaroons

The cookies I decided to make last night… Cherry Almond Macaroons

Original Recipe from Cooking With Paula Deen, 2005 :

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup AP Flour

4 egg whites at room temp.

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup sliced almonds

3/4 cup chopped dried cherries

4 cups sweetened flaked coconut

B-Healthy Recipe 2008:

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup Organic Whole Grain Flour

4 egg whites, semi room temp. ( with impatience)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup sliced raw almonds

3/4 cup chopped Frozen Cherries (Thawed in microwave, baked for a few minutes, cooled, chopped. ), I didn’t feel like buying a $4 bag of dried.

3 cups Unsweetened flaked Coconut

Directions:
Preheat oven at 325, ( I used my toaster oven)… Nonstick spray my cookie sheet ( original says to grease or line w parchment).

Stir together sugar and flour.

In separate bowl, beat egg whites at high speed with electric beaters until foamy. Add mixture of sugar/flour 1 Tablespoon at a time while beating egg whites. Beat until stiff peaks form ( this never happened? I don’t know why). I gave up.

Folded in vanilla, almonds, cherries, and coconut.

Dropped mixture by tablespoon onto prepared cookie sheet.

Baked until edges began to brown. ( original called for 15 minutes oven time, but since I use my toaster oven as usual- the sheet is smaller so it took just over 6 minutes).

Cool on wire rack. (I took pictures and then ate all of them)

…..just kidding, I had a few bites of ones that stuck.

sooooo good… jeff hates coconut. oh well. i will have no problem “gettin em gone”

Blueberry Egg White Oats ?

I have no idea what made me come up with that. I wanted protein, and I wanted to use my egg whites for that. I didn’t want just scrambled eggies , wasn’t in the mood for it. I wanted something sweet and didn’t want oatmeal ( despite that I have four different types of oats and no bread left).

So I “messed up” before making the batter for french toast with blueberries http://runlmo1.blogspot.com/2008/12/semi-stuffed-french-toast.html – that french toast came out fantastic, but I didnt want to throw away the leftover egg-blueberry batter- so it came out very odd- like blueberry scrambled eggs but with the milk in the batter it came out more like cake. So I thought I would intentionally try to make it today,

I ate all of it- I liked it as much as the pumpkin oatmeal mixes I usually do! However, I do want to “work on” the recipe so as a general recap it included: egg whites, blueberries, sprinkle of oats, milk, cinnamon. It didn’t “look” good enough to me so I topped it with coconut, flaxseed butter, and almonds.

Snowman Says “Yes Ma`m”

I still wanted more of “something”… so I made a coffee with milk… did the trick to finish up my meal.

I am out of canned pumpkin, bread, Smart Balance Oil and frozen fruit, oh no!

We may or may not be heading to Nana’s this weekend- Jeff has not been able to get christmas shopping done and the rest of the family will not be there either-

My mom is maybe on here way?… My dad woke up sick ( get well dad! sorry you aren’t feeling well! love you) so not sure what the plan is for today.

*update to last night*
Some people actually asked me “so what do you do when you have a piece of chocolate or something “bad” ?” ….. which is hard to address the “bad” part because I refuse to acknowledge that FOOD is bad ( FOOD -not nutrients- i.e I consider saturated/trans fats as “bad” for your health but they are not a FOOD. Food that contains them is not necessarily “bad” because the FOOD offers many other “good” nutrients )

Anyway- I told them I just take a picture of whatever it is or write about it the next day. Last night Jeff and I watched a movie together on the couch and it was just so nice to snuggle. We stayed up way too late. I had:

Chocolate chips… (milk chocolate)

and some mini reese’s pieces.

Weekend Photo Recap

 

Friday Lunch: Leftover Mediterranean Primavera Pasta with extra veggies (from dinner on wednesday night)

Friday Non-Dinner: English Muffin,1/2 with Peanut Butter n Pumpkin Butter ( bottom left), 1/2 with Rosemary Pork (top left), Cranberry Relish and Chobani Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt (top right) a bite of Tiramisu (bottom right)

 

Saturday Breakfast: Oatmeal (irish style oats mixed with water), lots of Cinnamon, Half a banana, peanut butter, Blueberries, Egg whites with Hot Sauce

 

Saturday Lunch: Tuna with a pickle and mustard, Healthy Choice Chicken Noodle Soup
 
(dinner out Grilled Chicken Salad)
Sunday Breakfast:
Coconut, Berries, Nonfat greek yogurt, pumpkin butter, peanut butter on top of Pumpkin mixed with egg whites, cinnamon, baking powder, and irish style oats

Sunday Dinner: SO GOOD! Some leftover rosemary pork, Annie’s mac and cheese , and TONS of frozen veggies:
Asparagus , Bell Pepper Mix , Spinach , Broccoli, Artichokes- All heated up in the microwave with a little TJ poultry seasoning and some parm cheese.
 

 

Monday Breakfast
Pumpkin Pie for 1 (sort of) and Berries! I didn’t bake it because I was hungry and lazy- I added tsp peanut butter (bottom, left) and a tsp of flax butter (bottom, right) Some pumpkin butter not even a tsp, and about 1/4 cup chobani nonfat plain yogurt ( love it- its the best texture i think)

Pumpkin Steel Cut Oats with Banana, Cranberries, Cocunt, Flaxseed, Egg Whites,

I prepared Organic Steel Oats ( bought from Trader Joes for $2.99 for the tub! )
with water- its a 4:1 ratio so I only had 1/2 cup left of dry oats- I started 2 cups water to boil on the stove, then added the oats stirring for the first 5 minutes. Dropped the heat down and let them simmer for 20 minutes…

I took out about a serving, mixed in
1/4 cup organic pumpking (also got at Trader Joes for $2)
1/4 cage free egg whites in a carton (also from TJ for $2)
cinnamon

and…. half teaspoon baking powder ( hooray for not overdoing it!)

After microwaving that for another 1 minute- I added cocunut, organic peanut butter (its hiding under the bananas and flaxseed cereal ( Uncle’ Sams) and coconut. Layered that with sliced banana

I ate all the fruit and add-ins but only about half the oats… (in case you are interested- the total calorie count came to 390 for the whole bowl… so what I ate from it was about 290 calories)

Off to run at 8:30!!!I am closing in on this! Woohooo!

Body:
Run

Mind: Love thursday because you all must know its.. Advanced Nutrient Metabolism Day! I will continue to post my notes after classes so it keeps interesting info on the blog AND so it helps me retain information as well!

Also working on my Minority Health Presentation

Soul:

-Hopefully fit in shopping for running gear!
-Clean up the guest room for D-Hurt ( he is coming on monday for a concert monday night! He is the SWEETEST guy- he is a little older than Jeff and used to work with him but quit his chemical engineering after years to be an equipment manager for a professional baseball team! HE LOVES doing their laundry and cooking for them- and he gets paid well! He is one of the most genuine people I know)
- Get back to jacob’s mom and the agency that I can’t work… not sure how I will do this yet… but by writing about it I really got to work through my thoughts and found out what I needed to do.
Thanks for patience and suggestions when I write about issues like this!

Battery Exhausted

Oh this title is so metaphoric!
Last night I went to Jeff’s hockey game and caught up chatting with a friend on the phone before the game started AND read more of WH magazine waiting for him after they WON!!! Jeff scored the 8th goal and I totally saw it! ( sometimes i have a hard time figuring out whats going on during the game, that little puck goes so fast!)

Anyhow, I was exausted when we got home! And… the last check up on my car ( from the shady car dealers that ALWAYS mess up my car and I only keep going back so they fix what they mess up. Long story short, they told me last time my battery while not start once the weather gets colder. ??? I am now always concerned my car just won’t start!

and… I went to take a picture this morning of breakfast and “Battery Exhausted” popped up on the screen. My last camera had its docking station- so when I went to upload photos I also automatically charged it. Well, this one is different- the usb directly connects to the camera but you have to disconnect the battery to charge it on the charging station.

Oh well, time to recharge for everyone I guess!

Breakfast I made another attempt at pumpkin filling with much less baking powder and a little baking soda — ( which in Adv. Nutrient Metabolism we talked about how it helps reduce lactic acid build up in your muscles – will make a separate post about it)

Poofy Pumpkin breakfast was pretty much like yesterdays unfortunately. Fortunately it was much less “baking powdery” so a little better! So I added:

-Unsweetened Coconut flakes (reminded me of Madison at Follow My Weigh)
-Peanut Butter
-Half Banana
-Blueberries! ( i have missed them! )
-Strawberries

Hooray for improvement!