What To Do When It Snows

Well, we made it back from church, but holy COW – it’s an annihilation out here.  I was driving us back going about 25 miles an hour and sliding all over the place.  Currently it’s about 23 degrees and snowing HARD!

Since that pretty much settles what I’m doing for the rest of the day, I had a VERY pathetic lunch of this…

because I was saving the rest of my meal for THIS!!!

Chocolate Avocado Banana Bread

(adapted from Allyson’s recipe)

I added applesauce, swapped out flours, added Pecans, and scaled down on everything because I wanted to save at least 1/2 of a banana for breakfast tomorrow!

Ingredients:

• 1 + 1/2 ripe bananas
• 3/4 ripe avocado
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1.5T olive oil
• 1.5T unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 tsp lemon juice
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 Flax Egg (3/4 T ground flaxseed + 1.5 T water, mixed and warmed AND set aside)
• 1 + 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 3T Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1/4 cup chopped Pecans (straight from my grandpa’s backyard!!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease/flour a bread loaf pan.  Mash banana and avocado (I used a fork).  Add in and mix the sugar, baking soda, baking powder, olive oil, applesauce, lemon juice, salt, and the flax egg. 

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder – add this into the wet ingredients in small amounts until combined.

Gently fold in the chopped pecans.

Pour into loaf pan and bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until you poke a toothpick in it and it comes out clean .

Let it cool on a rack for 10 or so minutes (or when you can’t STAND it any longer and need a “tasting sample”)  I failed and immediately cut off the end piece (it crumbled…), and sampled it three different ways: with a little Earth Balance, plain, and of course with some PB.

Food coma!  Chocolaty, gooey, warm bread HEAVEN .  I actually liked it plain the best.  This bread is very dense, you can’t taste the avocado at all, but it was a more “creamy” texture than a regular banana bread. This is going to be dangerous to keep in the apartment, especially because Scott HATES bananas .  I made him try this and he basically went, “Meh, it tastes like banana bread” – aka… I get the WHOLE loaf  

And then right after that I ate the slice I cut for the “photo picture” of this recipe.  Two slices down, about 10 or so to go.  *drools*

A Colorful Kind of Morning

Happy Monday!! Are you ready for the week?! It’s a short week for me because I get Friday Off! (Gotta LOVE a 9-80 work schedule!!) How’s this for waking up on a Monday…

As I was coming in for work, there was a GINORMOUS double rainbow right over the mountains – that’s a good start to the week

This morning I grabbed a really quick pre-workout snack of a half Luna bar and a half a banana. I always feel like I’m running a bit late on Mondays so of course, something easy was needed…

Spin this morning was quite a rough endurance ride:

Warm up

Stage 1: 6min, 5 min, 4 min, 3 min, 2 min, 1 min. All with 30 second rests in between and increasing resistance each segment

Stage 2: 4 min, 3 min, 2 min, 1 min. Also with 30 second rests in between and increasing resistance, but starting at the resistance level from the 3 min segment in Stage 1 (so.. ending on the highest resistance of the class).

Cool down

My totals for today: 506 cals,  58 min,  15.5 miles.  A bit less mileage than normal, but this is expected due to the endurance ride – which was mainly focusing on Watts, not mph. However, my legs are still feeling like Jell-O after this one….

Post-workout breakfast was a delicious, homemade, turkey, egg, cheese, and avocado bagel sandwich… with the Hemp Bagels again. I’m trying to come up with a bunch of different ways to eat these to see how they taste . This was pretty much inhaled at my desk in …um… 3 minutes? Yum!

I also brought in all the pumpkin seeds I roasted from our pumpkin carving…I had WAY too many. I made three batches: Cinnamon and Sugar, Garlic and Italian Seasoning, and Worcester ones. All I did was dry them out, lightly coat them in olive oil, and the sprinkle on the seasonings. I roasted them for about 20 minutes (stirring them at 10 minutes) at 300 degrees.

Lunch was leftover pasta salad (… again…), but I threw in some black beans for extra protein.  This stuff is almost gone (thank goodness), so I can eat something else now! While I was on a quick walk I also had a new cookie from Wonder Foods that I picked up at the Farmer’s Market this weekend–Pumpkin flavored!!! It was really tasty, but the consistency/texture of it was a little off. It was very moist, but very crumbly… sort of completely fell apart. Oh well.

Late afternoon snack was a Gala apple and some of the pumpkin spice almond butter I made yesterday… probably around 1.5 tablespoons… (plus 1 or 2 bits extra off the spoon ).

 

So now that it’s the beginning of the week, and our snacks have been stocked up – I thought I’d show you what I’m NOT eating during the day…

(Grandma’s trans fat cookies, Lay’s Potato Oil chips, Peanut M&Ms, Milky Ways, BBQ Chips, Pretzels (the LEAST evil of these).

 

As well as an unlimited supply of sugar and chemicals soda!!

Now, don’t get me wrong…. I’m not saying I NEVER consume these things… I very well have had a diet soda every once in a blue moon if it’s absolutely necessary for some quick, quick caffeine (…I’m talking like once every two or three months here).  I absolutely won’t TOUCH grandma’s cookies, and might have a few chips or something if someone offers (I won’t buy them myself).

The reason why I won’t TOUCH the cookies?!?!: (Nutrition Label Here)

There’s 370 calories in an entire package of Chocolate Chip Cookies (and let’s be real here… you ARE going to eat both cookies if you get this) , 30g of sugar, no fiber to be seen (barely), 6g of saturated fat, it’s got an ingredient list the size of Botswana, High Fructose corn syrup (a personal choice of mine to eat as LITTLE as possible of that stuff, or none!), partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil (aka… trans fat), and a bunch of other chemically things that should not be in “real food”.

I actually did the calorie count of my breakfast this morning (bagel sandwich only):

My sandwich: 450 calories, 40g carbs, 32g protein, 19g fat (mainly the GOOD fats from the avocado, the poly’s and the mono’s), 4g sugar, and 16g fiber

vs.

“Cookies”: 370 calories, 50g carbs, 4g protein, 17g fat (mainly BAD fat (6g sat, 3.5g trans)), 30g sugar, and 4g fiber

While my food has a slightly higher caloric value, it’s (insanely) more nutrient dense and sooo much more satiating (among other things…).  Which would you rather eat??

Office food is soooooooo gross sometimes .

/end rant/ *phew*

Now, off to eat something yummy, homemade,  and healthy! – veggie fajitas!!