Monday, November 22, 2010

90 Day Challenge Update - Week 4

Well, unfortunately, week 4 was not the success I had hoped for.

Not only did I fail to get all the work outs in I had hoped for, The scale wasn't my friend this week either. Yesterday's weigh in says I have actually gained a pound this week!!! A whole pound!!!


Gaining a pound puts me off of my target weight loss by 3 pounds in total. The two pounds I SHOULD havd lost this last week, plus the pound I gained... :(

Goal for week 4 = total loss of 8 lb
Actual for week 4 = total loss of 5 lb

So I am trying to get back on the band wagon this week.
I started today off on the right foot....

Breakfast
♦Quinoa with hemp hearts, sesaeme seeds, cinnamon and soy milk.

Coffee Break
♦Boiled Egg
♦Carrot Sticks

Lunch
♦ 6 Bean and Wild Rice Chilli
♦ Mandarin Orange

Afternoon Snack
♦Veggies

Supper
♦1/2 baked potato
♦ Baked Chicken
♦ Raw Veggies

Snack
♦Banana

Hopefully, I can get back on track this week and regain my momentum....
Wish me luck!!

In the mean time...Keep it "Natural"!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Amazing Quinoa Brownie Cake

I have been cooking and eating Quinoa for quite some time, but I have been wanting to try a new recipe I read about for some time. I wanted to make Chocolate Quinoa Cake. This cake is made using Quinoa seed, no the flour.

If you haven't heard of Quinoa yet, its time you did. Quinoa is the current media favorite. You see it cropping up in all the magazines and cook books, and for good reason! Quinoa is gluten free, making it suitable for those with Celiacs. It is a low glycemic-index carb, which makes it great for diabetics. Quinoa is a complete protein - great for the vegetarian in your life.

There are several different types of Quinoa, most of which grow high in the mountains of South America, the native home of Quinoa. South American varieties include White Quinoa, Red Quinoa and Black Quinoa. Due to its unique growing requirements, Quinoa does not grow in the USA and only one company grows it in Canada. I am using the Canadian Grown Golden Quinoa, purchased from Northern Quinoa Corp. in Saskatchewan, Canada. It can be found at http://www.quinoa.com/. While most Quinoa is rather tasteless (like white rice), Golden Quinoa has a nutty flavor that lends itself well to baked goods!

So lets get cooking!!

The first step in this amazing concoction is to cook the Quinoa. Since I am using Golden Quinoa, I am jut boiling my Quinoa with equal amount of water until done. The water cooks off and you can see the little "tails" of the Quinoa seed uncurl.

 Golden Quinoa cooking away!

Once the Quinoa has cooked and cooled, I began to assemble the rest of the ingredients. They were pretty simple, soy milk (family is lactose intolerant!), water, eggs, extract, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and butter.

The rest of the ingredients!

To assemble the recipe:

I blended Soy Milk, water and rum extract in the blender until smooth. I added the cooled Quinoa and butter to the blender and blended until smooth.

I then mixed the following dry ingredients in a bowl: sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the ingredients in the blender to the bowl and mix well.


Mixed ingredients poured and ready for the oven.


Once ingredients are well blended, pour them into a greased pan with parchment paper on the bottom. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until done.



Just out of the oven...






Cut and about to try it out.....




Yummy!! Wow is that rich!


This cake ends up with a very brownie-like texture and it is VERY rich! So how did it go over? Only Two hours after coming out of the oven, the cake was almost entirely gone!! I saved a few pieces for morning lunches, but I had to fight to get those!!
The recipe is easy and quick to make. It is a wonderful alternative to the typical wheat chocolate cake and way richer. If you did not tell people what it was made of they would never know that it didn't have flour. But they would rave about the taste!!

So here is the Recipe.

Chocolate Quinoa Cake

2 cups cooked quinoa
1/3 cup soy milk
1/3 cup water
4 eggs
1 tsp rum extract
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt


Mix soy milk, water, eggs and rum extrat in blender until smooth. Add Quinoa and butter and blend until smooth. If thick, add a bit more water to mixture.

In bowl blend cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add contents from blender and mix well.

Grease baking pan and line bottom with parchment paper. Pour batter into pan and bake for 40 - 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let the cake cool completely and the turn upside down on plate and remove parchment paper before cutting and serving. 

Decorate as you wish, though this cake doesn't need it!! It is amazing all on its own!!

PLEASE NOTE: This is a variation/modification of a recipe found in "Quinoa 365" by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

90 Day Challenge - Week 3!!

Well I am happy to report that week three is over and I am still on track with my goals. I am currently down 6 lbs!!! I do have to admit, however, that I am having more problems with the eating plan than I wish to admit. While the first week was very clean, my old eating habits seem to be coming to the forefront once again.  Specifically, I am having trouble with eating out too often. Life seems to get hectic and suddenly I find myself saying "Let's just grab something on the way...." This is never healthy, especially where I live. This is burger and Fries country.

I will be trying to tighten up the eating this week. I need to take an evening to prep foods for the week, and while that should have been Sunday, I was unable to do it then. I will have to go home tonight and get some meal prep done and packaged so I can grab and go for the rest of this week.

My treadmill and I have been getting along though. I have continued with my work outs and plan to begin my HIIT training tomorrow. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. I will start my program with a 5 minute warm up and will then cycle through a Run/Walk workout. I will run as hard as I can (about a 9 on a scale of 10) for 30 seconds and then walk to recover for 90 seconds. Each cycle is 2 minutes, so I will try to do 10 of them in a row, and then finish with a 5 minute cool down. I have done these before and they are very hard for me, but they yield results! And results are what I am looking for!!

I also want to try some new recipes this week, so watch for new postings and pictures of some yummy and healthy foods!!

I will see you later in the week....

Til next time....Keep it "Natural"!!

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Pantry Building 101

Kitchen Renovations are still underway. Excitingly, my husband and our friend Bill have built me a custom pantry unit. The unit is now complete and installed! The unit measures 8' tall by 34" wide and 2' deep. Can you say "HUGE"!! My kitchen has been lacking in storage space for so long and I am very excited for the completion of this unit.





Preparing to cut the pieces. Remember to measure twice and cut once!!





Assembling the Shelves.
They glued and then used an air gun to nail the parts together. 
It should hold through just about anything!!





Here the guys are assembling the back of the unit.
This is the final piece before they can move it into the space that will be its home!




Perfectly Level!! Way to go guys!





The pantry is now secured in place! Looks great.





Proudly showing off their hard work!



The next stage of the kitchen renovations is to refinish the cupboards, paint the pantry and put in the new counter top.

Watch out for these and other new additions to the Kitchen Renovations!!

See ya next time.

Until then....keep it "Natural"!!

Monday, November 1, 2010

90 Day Challenge - Week 1 Update

So I have completed week one of my 90 day challenge. This was a difficult week due to some family issues. I was not able to do everything exactly as I wanted, but for the most part, my week was good.

I began by adding a daily walk on my recently purchased treadmill. I bought the treadmill through the local buy and sell for a fraction of what it would have cost new. The treadmill had barely been used and is suiting my needs perfectly.

After a couple of days using only the treadmill for exercise, I added in a lower body weight work out and an upper body weight work out. I did each of these on successive days and then took a day off from weights. It has been a long while since I have done anything with weights and boy was I sore for several days after the lower body work out! It took probably 4 days for my quads (front leg muscles) to quit complaining. I had planned to do a second of each work out but ended up having to go out of town so I only had the two weight workouts in this first week.

My eating plan was the hardest part, I think. I cut out all processed foods, sugar and salt. I also limited my carbs to the first half of the day. My diet looked something like this:

Breakfast (post workout)
Protein shake with fruit, soy milk, yogurt and whey protein powder.

Mid Morning Snack
Boiled Egg
Veggie Sticks

Lunch
3 bean chili
Veggies
Grapefruit

Mid Afternoon Snack
Yogurt
10 almonds
Apple

Supper
Chicken Breast(baked)
Large Spinach Salad

Evening Snack
Either yogurt and fruit
Or fruit and nuts

I prepped my eggs, veggies and slow cooker chili on Sunday so I could just pop everything into a zippered cooler bag and take it to work with me.

I also worked on upping my water intake throughout the week. I probably tripled my water intake altogether. I had not realized how little water I was actually drinking!!


The addition of a clean diet, 5 cardio work outs and 2 weight work outs and tons of water have resulted in a two pound (2 LB) weight loss in this first week.

2 LB LOSS!!!!!
Yah, right on target for my goals!!


I am now entering week two and this week I need to try and get in all 4 weight work outs (2 lower and 2 upper body work outs!) plus the 5 days of cardio!


Wish me luck!!!!
Keepin’ it Natural!