Onesies

If you have followed the juicing chronicles, they will continue soon. I just need to gather the photos and data...

SO, I wanted to make some gender neutral onesies for this bun in the oven (3 weeks til D-Day!). I had some iron-on transfer paper laying around and some ideas floating through my brain. I had seen on Pinterest a month or two ago a onesie that said "Glad to be out! I was running out of womb!" It was cute but too much wordage for a tiny newborn onesie in my opinion, so I just decided to shorten the phrase to "I ran out of womb." The elephant was a little trickier to construct. I had to find a picture I liked and then basically use my mouse and trace over it so that I could get an elephant silhoutte that I could change the colors as I pleased.

After getting the look I wanted, I reversed the images, printed them, and cut them as close as I could to the print. Voila. Cute onesies.


Thinking of selling these on my Etsy page that has been inactive since I opened it a year or two ago :) Worth $10?

The Juicing Chronicles, part IV

Day 15

Progress, progress, progress! I am so proud of the Mr. being strong through this change of diet. Drinking 2-3 meals a day is hard stuff!

We last left off at Day 10, where there wasn't a change from Day 5. As of this morning, the Mr. weighed in at....


192.8 lbs!!!


While very pleased with the current results, we aren't too shocked that this diet is working because it's simple really: cut back on calories, specifically carbs, dairy, and meat + increase vegetable and fruit intake = weight loss. But how can you convince yourself to not eat that tasty toasted turkey sandwich and instead eat, 2 carrots, 2 cups of spinach, 2 apples, 1/2 lime, 1 leaf of kale, 1 cup of pineapple, and a beet? Easy. You juice it all and it equals about 500 mL of liquid, or approximately a standard water bottle full. Most of time, the Mr. doesn't have a problem drinking a giant glass of juice, but if it's not the tastiest (remember the onion incident?), then a good nose pinch and deep breath will help guzzle the juice down. On top of the diet change, he also exercises lightly about three times a week. This includes a jog, several miles of brisk walking, and/or yoga. Woot woot!

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead boasts the importance of the micronutrients in juice, but since the Mr. doesn't want to juice only, we still incorportate the macronutrients found in the pulp.

The Mr. tried a few days of juicing all his meals, but in the end, the best way to stay on track of the diet was to continue juice breakfast and/or lunch and then have sensible snacks and dinner. Snacks are unlimited veggies or fruits, or if the temptation is too strong, he has eaten a few crunchy carbs, like whole wheat crackers with cheese, or a cookie here and there. Yesterday we had guests, so we splurged a little and had homemade pepperoni pizza! A typical dinner has been a green salad. Today we had chicken salad with a whole grain pita (he had a quarter pita and I ate his other quarter plus my half... I was hungry), sauteed yellow squash and asparagus, a fruit salad (pineapple, apples, and cantaloupe). Have you ever had apple slices with lime juice?! YUM. way better than lemon juice.


I'll try to post some recipes he's been making up and some that he's found. He is doing such a fantastic job! The goal is to hit 190 or below by the time babe #2 is born, which gives about 8 weeks to achieve this. I think he'll definitely reach his goal because he's amaaaaazing!

The Juicing Chronicles, part III

Well, it's day 10 and the final results..............


Still 196 lbs.


I'm pretty sure it's because I've made some tasty blog-worthy treats in the last five days. So the Mr. declared that today marked the start of the next phase of the diet, which will just be a continuation of the current diet, minus the treats. I'm working now anyway, so there's no time for baking treats every other night anymore.


Wish the Mr. luck! I know he can reach his goals!

The Juicing Chronicles, part II

if you're not caught up on to this mini-series, read part I here.

The Mr.:

starting weight- 199 lbs

as of this morning- 196 lbs!


Not bad for 5 days of juicing for breakfast and lunch only! The Mr. has been doing excellent. It's been really easy so far and the experiments haven't been too horrendous (minus the kind attempt I made to make homemade V8 for him- let's just say a small morsel of raw onion goes a looooooooooooooooooong way. and I mean all those "o's" in long. LONG. my mouth just burns thinking about that juice.)

The routine everyday has looked like this:

1) Gather all the vegetables/fruits to be juiced in a big bowl and give them a scrub.

2) Cut the produce that's ginormous, such as the XXL granny smiths and golden delicious apples on sale right now (The Mr. also seeds them, though this is not necessary). If using something like an orange or pineapple, then the rind is removed.

3) Turn on the juicer and send the produce to their next life.

4) Admire the the color that is produced and then stick the entire container in the freezer to chill during clean up.

Taste the Rainbow.

5) Clean out the pulp, scrub the strainer, and put everything in the dish drain to dry.

Seriously, a rainbow.

 6) Pour chilled juice in a cup and chug down all 500-600 mL!

This whole process, step 1-6, seriously only takes 20 minutes at most.


The diet is pretty clear on what it does- cuts back on calories to the wazoo. I have confidence in his goal to finally jump the 195 lb. hurdle he's been trying to get past the last few years!

Black Bottom Cupcakes

So I happened to stumble upon this website while looking for an easy dessert to feed our dinner guests yesterday evening. Apparently this gal is a med student and blogs recipes for fun? Her recipes all look delicious!

Back to the dessert- I didn't want any butter in it, since we haven't really had any in the fridge for the last two months, and it needed to be minimal clean up since the guests were arriving in approximately 30 min. Lo and behold, the title black-bottom cupcakes caught my eye. Chocolate cupcake meets cheesecake. Yes please.

The cupcake batter is actually eggless and similar to red velvet cake in that in has baking soda and white vinegar in it! Now, I made a change with the cheesecake part: instead of regular cream cheese, I used 1/3-less-fat and I skipped the chopped up chocolate pieces she throws into it as well. My cream cheese/egg/sugar mixture came out thinner- not sure if it's because it's missing 1/3 of its fat or because I was impatient and warmed my cream cheese in the microwave... most likely the latter- so it seemed too messy to spoon on top of each cupcake. Instead, I put the mixture into a sandwich ziploc, cut a corner, and squeezed a dollop into each cupcake, creating a "filled" cupcake. Then I took something pointy near me (I think it was a piece of cardboard?) and swirled the chocolate and cream cheese to make it look cooler.

They were delicious! And not too unhealthy :) By the way, if you didn't note what I am baking these in, it is a silicone muffin pan. I HIGHLY recommend them! So much easier to use and clean.

delicious cupcake guts. no frosting required. sweeeeet.

go check out the recipe!

The Juicing Chronicles

The Mr. and I watched the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead one evening while flipping through Netflix.

Wow. What an inspiring film. I'm serious! The director and main guy, Joe Cross, lost something crazy like 70 lbs and then he meets some trucker who's 400-something pounds and goes on to cut that weight in half! Basically, all they do is drink plain juicified (is that even a word?) fruits and vegetables for two months. And that's it. No extra fancy supplements or extreme exercise routine (though some exercise is done of course- very moderately since a diet of only fruits and vegetables is not quite the recipe for a great workout). On top of that, the diet program that is linked with the film, Reboot Your Life is completely free. No catches, no fees, nada. I was surprised! They have less extreme programs advertised than the one used in the film, but much more fit for the average joe.

When I say inspiring, I mean it. The Mr. has been wanting to shed a few pounds since before we were married. We are fairly healthy and active people (well he is. I'm just healthy, not so much active these pregnant days), so we never actually gained the "extra marriage love" when we first got married almost four years ago, but this is something he has wanted for a long long time. We didn't really have much to start this juice diet, so we basically started from nothing. Here is what we did (and are doing) and what may help you get started:

1. Of course watch the documentary first. Click the link above to watch it for free on Hulu.com if you do not have access to the film.

2. Get a juicer! So, we are not in the money market right now. Price was a major factor. However, through a credit card we use (go discover!), we've had gift cards racking up and happened to be able to get a $40-gets-you-$50 gift card at Cooking.com (I'll have to write up a post about credit cards one of these days. I love rewards!). On top of that, we got a $100 Visa gift card from AT&T U-Verse when we signed up for their Internet promotion upon moving into our apartment (always ask about promotions when getting Internet. Or anything really..). We had used the gift card to fill up on gas once or twice, but still had $60 left on it. So now we had $110 to spend. Well, like I was saying earlier, the Money Gods are not shedding their blessings upon us currently (I'm kidding. We believe in one God only), so while it was tempting to buy the $160 Breville used in the documentary, we decided to go with the FREE option of ordering the smaller $99 juicer (side note: Breville has some sort of lame contract with cooking.com that excludes them from all the offers like free shipping or 10-20% off your total purchase. BOO). Woot!

The Mr. posing with his new juicer

3. Come up with a menu idea for meals and a schedule for how long you want to do this. The Mr. wants to try for 10 days and we decided to just juice for breakfast and lunch only and continue with healthy dinners. I highly recommend going with challenging but achievable goals. Unlike the documentary, the Mr. still has to work and be around his family (who are not participating). No 10 day vacations by the lake.

4. Buy ingredients that are on sale, in season, and something you can eat without gagging. We calculated that 5 days of produce would be about $40- we ended up at about $50, but I'm pretty sure it will last at least 7-8 days with the amount we brought home.


That all being said, check out the Mr.'s breakfast this morning:

Looks like it's a drink from outerspace!

We will be documenting his experience and reporting half way and then once the 10 days are over. Enjoy!

Frozen Hot Chocolate

Again, while roaming through the land of Pinterest, a recipe for frozen hot chocolate caught my eye. What can I say? I love chocolate. So I tried out the recipe last night and I think it was delicious.

The recipe can be halved, but since it takes 5 packets of cocoa in the original (I used Trader Joe's as well- so good!), be sure to make up for the half packet. I didn't want to use only half a packet, so I went ahead and added ovaltine to it (regular rich chocolate ovaltines is greeeeaaat) as well.

As another helpful hint, use powdered sugar and vanilla in the whipped cream. The powdered sugar keeps the fluff in whipped cream much better! I went ahead and just used 1% milk instead of whole milk as well. It was plenty creamy already.

I will definitely be making this again! Just maybe not too close to bedtime... it's really sweet and I had a bad case of restlessness last night haha.

Baked Doughnuts

Ok, I am back from my blogging hiatus. You know how the holidays are. Anyway, I'm always on the look out for healthier alternatives for tasty foods, so while skimming through Pinterest last week, I saw a pin for BAKED DOUGHNUTS. I happen to have a doughnut cutter (circa 1950's- it was my grandpa's!) even.

Now, I am pregnant and though I don't typically have cravings, I can barely turn down a chocolate glazed doughnut. I'm sure I could eat a dozen in one sitting. At least. It's much easier buying a doughnut than to convince myself to fry a batch. All that oil. I can't do it!

So back to the baked doughnuts- I wasn't very impressed with the results. The pictures on the blog look so convincing that you'll get a fluffy sweet treat, but this was not so. In fact, I felt like I was eating a dinner roll with chocolate glaze. Nonetheless, I ate a couple of doughnut holes and a whole doughnut or two even. They weren't bad, just not doughnuts. Here's some documentation:

Aw, little doughnut holes.

The baking.

Glazed and ready to be eaten.

I just added cocoa powder and ovaltine to the glaze recipe provided.


They need to be kept in a sealed container of some sort after baking- they dry out very quickly.

Mini Butternut Squash Pies

This was a tasty treat and somewhat unusual since it uses a butternut squash instead of pumpkin. The difference is very subtle, but with all the usual pumpkin pie ingredients, you can hardly notice! I found this recipe at AllRecipes.com, which is a favorite for finding new recipes, and pretty much followed it exactly with the exception of roasting the squash instead of boiling it.

So I had a medium size butternut squash that was going to become delicious soup, but then tiny mold spots appeared at the stem. I guess that's why they were so cheap at the store :( We had the tasty soup not too long ago, so I searched on All Recipes for a recipe that was not soup, and then I found it! I didn't take pictures of the process, but here's how to make them:

Pie Filling:
1 1/2 c.peeled and cubed butternut squash (medium squash yields about this much)

1 c. lightly packed brown sugar

1 T. cornstarch

1 egg, beaten

1 c. evaporated milk

2 t. ground cinnamon

1 pinch ground allspice

1 pinch ground cloves

1 pinch ground ginger

1 pinch ground nutmeg

(i basically just sprinkled in the pinches to what seemed appropriate)

Crust: (not a favorite crust, but it works. use your preferred pie crust if you have one)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 c. cubed butter wannabe, like a healthy margarine such as Promise or Smart Balance - freeze this for a few hours. since it's not butter, it won't get too hard, but just extra cold.

1 T. healthy shortening (please no trans fat) (oh, you could probably do without this too- the original recipe has 5 T. butter and 4 T. shortening. What a drag to measure tub shortening, so I just used one stick of butter wannabe plus a tablespoon shortening)

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons ice water

***you'll want to double this pie crust recipe to use all of the pie filling. or save on time and use premade ones. I hear Whole Foods makes an excellent crust.

Directions:

1. Roast the squash. Don't know how to roast? Line a cookie sheet with foil, spray with cooking spray/smear oil on it, cut the squash in half and seed it (remove stem too), place cut side down and bake for 30-40 min at 375* F.

2. Meanwhile, load up your pie crust ingredients in your food processesor and pulse three times, three seconds each. It should look like fine crumbles. Lay out some plastic wrap and put the crumbles in the center. Wrap it up so that the crumbles come together as a ball. Once it holds together well on it's own, place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or more.

3. While the dough is setting up, your squash should be almost done. When it's done, I let it cool a little before working with it, but you could be impatient and burn your fingers a little along the way. You'll need to take off the skin and stringy stuff and puree it in the food processor or blender. Once it's all smooth, combine the rest of the filling ingredients. Stick it in the fridge while you wait for the dough. You could preheat your oven to 350* at this time as well.

4. Roll out the dough and cut out circles. A wide mouth mason jar lid ring works well. In each standard sized muffin tin, place the dough in it and conform it to the bottom and make a crust with any excess dough. again and again.

5. Fill each mini pie to the tip top. You'll notice in m picture that the filling shrunk. So, filling to the tip top is the way to go.

6. Bake for 40 min at 350*

Yum!

DIY Tile Coasters

Ok, I am a major Pinterester and have seen these tile coasters floating around the boards such as this one, so I am adding to them :)

It was an amazingly cheap and easy project to do- one that took less than the entire nap time of my son (I value that time greatly and hate when I use up the entire time doing dishes or doing something non-productive. For instance, I can easily watch an entire episode of Bones or Grey's AND finish this coaster project and maybe even a short cat nap myself. Sweet.)

What you'll need:

- cheapest tiles (about 4x4 inches) from Lowes or similar. I bought 12 tiles for $0.16 EACH!
- scrapbook paper of your choice. I am not a scrapbooker by any means, so I just went to Walmart and bought a pack of 7 pages for $0.99
- modge podge (I love matte anything, so naturally I went with the matte finish)
- sponge brushes
- felt (Joann's sells by the sheet as well as roll. Just go with cheapest, which depends on the sale)
- hot glue

Instructions:

1. Cut out a 4x4 inch square. The tiles are like 4.245678800000009 inches in width and length, so I like a little of the white border.

2. Lay on a nice thick layer of modge podge on the entire surface.

3. Place cut scrapbook paper on tile and smooth out any lumps or bubbles.

4. Let it dry for a few seconds if you're impatient like me, or a few minutes if you're not

5. Lay on another thick layer of modge podge, this time sealing your work.

6. Nice even coat. I coat the sides as well since they are a little unfinished and rough.

7. While tile is drying, cut out a 4x4 inch square piece of felt. As you can see, I use a pre-cut piece of paper (which happens to have a star wars harrison ford + others featured on it) to make paper and felt cutting process faster.

8. Use the hot glue to hold down the felt. I do one side at a time and only do the edges. You could technically use less felt as long as you covered the four corners, but I think the underside is ugly, so I cover it all up.

9. Finished coaster bottom (obviously on a different coaster)

10. Ta da! Easy Schmeasy. 9 of the 12 tiles!

Fun, cheap and easy. Not including the hot glue, sponge brushes (which are super cheap at walmart as well), and modge podge. This entire project of 12 coasters cost $3.41.

My only concern is that the modge podge may feel a little tacky and not hold up from the condensation of a cold drink. So far, it has not been an issue, but I haven't put a super cold drink on there yet. I will update of any problems occur. Enjoy the tutorial!

Pin It