HAWMC Day 29: Kudos To Me!

Today's Day 29 task for WEGO Health's Health Activist Writer's Challenge is to talk about three things that I love about...myself!

This is very difficult I think I am not alone in the group of people that don't really know what they like never mind love about themselves. This took some time to come up with.

1.) Kindness: I will admit that my true nature takes a while to come out. I have a hard time being out going to people I don't really know so I am sure there are many people out there who probably think that I am (for lack of a better word) a bitch. But probably more due to my lack of interaction as apposed to just not being very nice. But once you get to know me I would basically do just about anything to help other people. Even if that is just to simply brighten their day. I take pride in just plain being kind and doing things for other people so that is one thing I love about myself.

2.) Stubbornness: This one probably takes people by surprise but I love that I am stubborn. But for good reason, it usually means that I don't give up on things. I know it can have it's negative side but I try to keep it positive. My own stubbornness is what keeps me moving forward with all my health adventures (eating healthy, exercising, pushing myself to try new things and try new races).

3.) Cook/Bake: I love that I love to cook & bake! And it helps that I am good at it. I like to find new recipes and  try them out or make my own adaptations to old recipes. This also happens to fall under my kindness cause I usually bake for other people. Often those who are a large part of my life. But It also helps me by giving them to people because then they are not around my house for me to eat!

Hopefully this will help others find what they like or love about themselves. This was quite the topic to write about.

A Delicious Experiment!

My class did a berry tasting last week. We turned it into snack and they got to choose which berries they wanted to mix with their yogurt. As it turned out there was a giant bowl of cut up strawberries and blueberries that was left over. I don't know about you but I hate throwing perfectly good fruit away. So I put it into a bag a brought it home.

When the weekend rolled around I knew I had to make something with it before it went bad. But I had no idea what I wanted to make. Then I remembered a strawberry bread that a friend of mine had made and figured it would be fun to make a bread. I turned to my friend Google and started searching for a recipe. After not that long I came across this recipe for strawberry nut bread.

I got started. I already knew that I wanted to change the recipe slightly by using whole wheat flour instead of bleached flour, I was planning on omitting the nuts and using a mix of the strawberries and blueberries. I started collecting the ingredients and got to the cinnamon. I looked all over the kitchen with no luck. Then I remembered my husband had made a cheesecake recently and asked where the cinnamon was. That is when he told me it was gone. Cinnamon is not really something you can replace with a similar taste so I thought I wasn't going to make this after all. But I remembered I had this...

I dumped some into my small food processor and pulsed until it was basically a cinnamon flavored wheat flour. I got about a 1/2 cup from what I processed. I filled the remainder of the cup with oats. So I eliminated a cup of flour. I also cut the sugar down to only one cup. I also thought the 1 1/4 cup of vegetable oil was alot. If I had bananas I think I would have tried to substitute with them but I was all out. As it turns out I had chocolate flavored olive oil that my cousin had given me for Christmas so I used 1/4 cup of that and 3/4 vegetable oil (I cut out 1/4 oil as well). I mixed everything together except the fruit and the batter was a little thick. I added a 1/4 of water to thin it out a little. I folded in the fruit and it seemed to be working.

I like to be able to give things away as gifts so I decided to put this into small loaf pans. It made four small loaves. I spooned the batter and in and they were ready for the oven.

I just hoped this little experiment of mine worked out.

After about 50-60 minutes they seemed to be done. I pulled them out of the oven and let them cool.

I could not wait to taste them. So I sliced it up and hoped for the best!

It was fantastic! I even got my husband to try it and he was just as surprised as I was at how good it turned out. I have since tried it for breakfast adding a little bit of chocolate peanut butter to it and it is just as delicious! If you want to give it a try I have included my adjusted recipe but you can always what kind of experiment you can come up with!

Strawberry Blueberry Bread:
2 Cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup processed cinnamon harvest Kashi cereal
1/2 cup oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
2 cups sliced strawberries and whole blueberries
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1/4 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 4x2.5 inch loaf pans.
2. Sift together the flour, cereal, oats, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. Beat together the eggs and oil and pour them into the well. Stir just enough to moisten the ingredients. If batter is thick slowly add in up to 1/4 cup of water. Fold in the strawberries and blueberries. Pour mixture into prepared pans; fill containers no more than half full.
3. Bake in a preheated oven about 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 20 to 30 minutes before removing from pans. Move to a rack to cool completely before slicing.

February Foodie Penpal Reveal

This month marks my one year anniversary since joining foodie penpals and I have enjoyed every minute of it. However I must say when I got an email from Leah asking about all my likes/dislikes and she told me she would be sending me a package from Okinawa Japan I got very excited! Just knowing my package was coming from half way around the world I knew this was going to be fantastic. Let me tell you Leah did not disappoint! I really can't even begin to thank you enough Leah! The package was fantastic and I don't even know where to begin.

This is what I was greeted with as I opened the box. I love that Leah included some menus and sales flyers from Japan. She even included the letter that her electric bill comes in. She can't read it so she just pays it.

Then it got into all the goodies!YUM!

I told her that I love chocolate and peanut butter and she definitely ran with that which I love.

This was an array of chocolate "bars" that she sent me. Leah thank you so much for your notes some of them I wouldn't of had a clue; not that it would have stopped me from trying them! I have already tried the mega combo which was tasty a cross between a wafer and those hershey delites chocolates. I also drove into the Godiva bar. Who can resist anything that says it is filled with chocolate souffle? The one on the bottom left is their version of a larabar or soyjoy. I have yet to try it but no doubt that I will most likely enjoy it!

These caught my eye next. They are probably the smallest donuts I have ever seen. And they are yummy too! I had to make sure I put the bag away so I didn't eat them all at once.

I had to break this into two to be able to take a picture because it was too long for me to get the whole thing and it be a close shot. It reminds me of the candy you could get at a carnival or fair. They are all individually packaged but stuck together with perforations in between each which has been fantastic cause I can pack one in my lunch for a little something sweet and not have to worry about not eating a whole candy bar, etc.

This is probably the one thing I am most excited to try although I will admit I have not tried it yet. It is basically little packets that you squeeze together to get chocolate peanut butter. My two favorite things!!

The note had fallen off this one and until I opened it and figured out that this is the note that went with it I was totally lost what this was. I opened it and had to taste it despite that it is bitter cocoa spread. It actually tastes pretty good. I have decided I want to use this in my baking some how I haven't decided exactly how but I will figure it out.

These are interesting because when I think of caramel corn I think of popped popcorn caramelized. However these are different, the texture is more like Cheetos but they are sweet and strawberry flavored. This was a big hit with my husband. He has become very involved with the foodie penpal packages and that is what he chose to open to try.

I was very excited about these. When I went on a kayaking trip last year one of the snacks they had for us were these organic dried veggies which are very similar to these. They were really good and I am hoping these will be the same when I try them.

I love the Leah sent some hard candy too. The bag on the left is flavored sugarless candies. They are delicious and I would have never guessed they were sugarless they are that good. The ones on the right are lemon & salt. They are very good and a very interesting combo. I was a little unsure at first but it definitely a good flavor.

This package was 100% worth the wait and I really can't thank Leah enough for listening to my likes/dislikes and sending such a phenomenal package! and of course thanks to Lindsay for putting together this fantastic program!

Now after reading all this you know you want to join for March, so here is all the info!

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.

Click HERE to get more information on the terms and conditions of the program and to sign up!

Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!
***If you’re in the UK, please contact Carol Anne from This Is Rock Salt at rocksalt@thisisrocksalt.com to get involved!

Fruit Gone Bad!

So I don't know about any of you but I always buy fresh fruit and will take it along as a snack, add it to my yogurt or cereal or use it as a side to a meal. However it never fails that I some how never use it fast enough before it spoils. I absolutely hate throwing food away so I try and find a way to use it without having to throw it in the garbage. (I thought about starting compost but I just don't have the mind to wrap around figuring out how to do it). 

I decided that I needed to figure out what the one meal my house never seems to have time for is? That would be breakfast! We are not morning people so trying to have some breakfast before leaving the house usually doesn't happen so I came up with a muffin recipe. The great part about it is, there is no flavor to it so whatever fruit you happen to have you can add to it and the batter will absorb that flavor. YUM!

So I happen to always over buy strawberries. And since I decided to bike to the farm stand yesterday and squished a carton of strawberries in my backpack on the ride home, I figured what better way to use them up!

Muffin Recipe:

1/4 C. Canola Oil

1/2 C. Milk

1 Egg

1 3/4 C. Flour

1/2 C. Sugar

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Salt

1 C. Chopped Fruit

-Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place paper liners in a 12 cupcake pan.

-In a small bowl combine oil, milk and egg. Beat Slightly. 

-In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

-Toss in chopped fruit and stir to coat with flour mixture.

-Pour in wet ingredients and stir together.

-Fill all 12 muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes or until tops bounce back from touch.

-Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan to finish cooling or serve warm!

They come out fantastic! They are so tasty too!

I have substituted apple, blueberries, cherries and peaches and they always come out delicious. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

Happy Tasting!