Pumpkin Crepes

Pumpkin crepes. If you’ve been following along with my breakfast posts, you know that I’ve been having issues making pumpkin pancakes. I have never made crepes before. So what made me decide to try my hand at pumpkin crepes? Honestly, I have no idea.

Thankfully, it was a great decision!

Alright my little chefs. First, gather up your dry ingredients and mix ‘em all together.

Next, add eggs and applesauce and beat until mixed. Once mixed, add milk and water and beat. When everything is mixed together, add the pumpkin and vanilla and beat until combined.

Set the batter in the fridge and let it sit for one hour.

Once the batter has set for an hour, prepare your skillet. Place about ¼ of a tablespoon of coconut oil on a skillet and heat until melted. Then add your batter and smooth it out until it’s a thin pancake.

Sprinkle on some sugary goodness on the wet batter, then flip the crepe and bake for another minute or so.

Place crepes on a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven until you are ready to serve them. (Or if you're going to serve them soon, you can just set them out on a cutting board like I did.)

Spread about a tablespoon of vanilla Greek yogurt down the middle of the crepe, then roll up and serve/eat and enjoy the deliciousness of fall!

Again, if you’ve been following along with my breakfast recipe posts, you know that I’ve been “banned” from making pumpkin breakfasts. Well, I made these for dinner and I needed to use up some leftover pumpkin, so my family just had to suffer. And suffer they did – of full stomachs! They loved the crepes! Kyle, my brother, even came in after his first serving, looked at me, and licked his lips (his way of asking for seconds). So now I’m unbanned from pumpkin breakfasts. Yay!

Pumpkin Crepes

Ingredients

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

Coconut oil

Cinnamon sugar

Vanilla Greek yogurt (I used nonfat)

Directions

Combine and mix the flour, baking powder, spices, and sugar in a bowl. Add the eggs and applesauce and beat with an electric mixer until combined. Once combined, add the milk and water and beat until incorporated. Finally, add the pumpkin and vanilla and beat until the batter is smooth.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in the fridge for one hour.

Once the batter has set for an hour, prepare your skillet by heating apx. 1/4 Tbsp of coconut oil (if you don't have coconut oil, butter should work, too). Once the oil has melted, turn the heat down a but and add about 1/3 cup of the batter to the pan.

In order to make crepes and not pancakes, you need to spread the batter out with a spoon so that it makes a like really thin pancake.You need to work fast because once the batter is on the skillet, it's going to start frying.

Once you've spread out the batter, sprinkle about 1/4 tsp of cinnamon sugar on top of the crepe. 

The crepes only take about 1 - 2 minutes per side. Once they are fried, place on a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven or serve immediately.

When preparing to eat, place the crepe with the cinnamon sugar side down. Add about 2 Tbsp of Greek yogurt down the middle of the crepe. Roll the crepe up and serve!

Motivational Monday 6 - Success, Failure, and What Really Counts

I am addicted to Pinterest. Seriously.

One of my favorite boards is my “inspirational” board. That one has a lot of inspiring messages that I like to look at when I’m feeling down and out. I really couldn’t pick my favorite quote, but I’ve noticed that I have a lot of quotes pinned by Churchill and Emerson. I might cover Emerson in a later post, but right now I want to discuss one of Churchill’s quotes.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

How many celebrities do we hear about in a year falling from their pedestal? Celebrities are the “idols” many people strive to be like. They’re rich, famous, usually have gorgeous spouses, and they’re rich (did I already mention that?). They are the epitome of successful. However, it is all-too common to hear about one celebrity or another losing control of their life. Success is not final.

Likewise, do we even have a number on the amount of successful people who started out as failures? JK Rowling was turned down several times before someone agreed to publish the Harry Potter series. Beethoven’s music teacher told him he was hopeless. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lacking creative ideas. The list goes on and on! (And you would like to see a list of 20 famous failures, you can check it out here.) Failure is not final.

So if success and failure don’t count, what does? As Winston Churchill, another famous failure, says, it is “the courage to continue that counts.”

Whether you’re at the top of a mountain or the bottom of a ravine, know that where you are is not a guaranteed position. Everything worth having in life requires work and effort. Keep at it, and you’ll do and see and accomplish great things.

Cheers!

Molly

Control Freaks

Show of hands: how many of you are control freaks?

*raises hand*
Image courtesy of Google Images

I freak out whenever I lose control of something, and I will try pretty much everything in my power to get that something back under my control. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a nasty habit; it’s something that I need to work on.

I am awful at group projects. Well, kind of. If it’s a paper, I’m all over it. I’ll tell my partner(s) to do some research, then I’ll put together the final project. If it’s not a paper, I freak out because it’s not something I’m comfortable with and therefore not something that I’m able to control; I need to rely on my partner(s) in this case. In the first situation, I’m a control freak; in the second, I’m a complete spaz. Either way, I’m not a pleasant partner.

One of my problems with being a control freak is that I like to control everything. Unfortunately, I am only human and there are plenty of things that I am unable to control. It’s not my job to save the planet or correct politics, but I still feel the urge at times to try to do my best to complete both of those tasks.

I’m only human. There is no way that humans as a whole can control everything in the universe, so it’s ridiculous for me to think that I, a single human, can. But still I try to play God. The problem with that? I’m not God; God is God.

Although I am a control freak, I know that it’s a good thing that God is in control. I know he has everything under control and that he, as God, can and will control it. If I can’t control it, then I’m content to know that someone much better at controlling things is behind the scenes working stuff out. Romans 8:28 says that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.

As a control freak, I get stressed out easily. Sometimes I sit back and think about all the stuff I need to do and then start worrying about how I’ll get it done. It’s so nice to be able to remind myself when I start to stress this kind of stuff that I don’t have to worry because God is in control.

Dear fellow control freaks: I know it’s hard, but it’s God; we can trust him.

Next time you start to worry – or see someone you know start to worry – take a step back, breathe, and remember: God works everything out for the good of those who love him. We don’t have to understand it, and we don’t have to agree with it. We just have to accept it.

And isn’t it wonderful, knowing that God, the creator of the universe, is in control?

Cheers!

Molly

Apple Spice Pancakes

It’s apple week! Okay, so technically it was apple week last week. But isn’t the entire fall season all about pumpkin and apples? If you ask me, every week is apple week in the fall.

Besides ranting about apple week versus apple season, my purpose for this post is to share an awesome apple recipe with all of you wonderful readers! Since it was apple week, I decided I wanted to make an apple-y breakfast for my family. Plus, I’m still “banned” from making pumpkin flavored anything for breakfast, so this way I still got that awesome fall flavor in.

Of course I’m still mixing up all the dry ingredients the night before. When Kyle asked what I was doing and I told him I was making breakfast, he immediately asked: “Is it pumpkin?” An innocent question on its own, but his tone let me know pumpkin was still out.

After you’ve got all the dry ingredients mixed in a bowl, peel and core an apple, then chop it into tiny little bite size pieces. Then chop up about a half cup of pecans. Set the apples and nuts aside and move on to the wet ingredients.

If you’ve been following along with my blog, you know that I’ve been having serious issues with my pumpkin pancakes. I think the issue is that the batter is too thick. Since I wanted to avoid a thick batter, I didn’t use much baking powder/soda in this recipe. I also did not use Greek yogurt in this recipe, because that thickens the batter up. I know, you’re shocked. Take a few minutes to recover.

Because of I didn’t use as much baking soda/powder and left out Greek yogurt, the batter was a bit runny. Don’t panic: the pancakes still turn out okay and taste great.

The pancakes take about ten minutes on each side. Because of the chunks of apples in the batter, you need to press down on the pancakes from time to time so that the sides get done. Again, don’t worry: they turn out great!

Kyle loved the pancakes so much that he had seconds and even had more later on in the day. They are so flavorful that Mom and I were able to eat them without any toppings. Mom even said that she was having issues keeping herself from eating them all!

Apple Spice Pancakes

Ingredients

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup oats

1 tsp baking powder

2        tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 ½ cup milk (I used 1%)

2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 medium baking apple, chopped

½ cup chopped pecans

Directions

Mix up your dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Core, peel, and chop your apple into bite size pieces. Chop the pecans. Set both aside.

Mix your wet ingredients together. When the wet ingredients are all blended together, add the dry ingredients and stir until batter is smooth. Fold in the apples.

Heat a nonstick griddle and pour about ¼ cup of batter per pancake on the griddle. Add about 1 tsp of the pecans to the top of the pancakes. Fry the pancakes for about ten minutes, flipping every two minutes.

Serve hot and with whatever toppings you choose! Or you can eat them plain – it’s up to you!

Nutrition (based on my ingredients and measures)

Calories: 110

Fat: 1.1 g

Sodium: 189 mg

Protein: 3.4 g

Motivational Monday 5 - Humans: The Critical Species

For both my high school Sociology class and my Cultural Diversity class in college I had to read an article titled “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema.” If you’ve ever had to read the article then you probably know where I’m going with this. If you haven’t read the article, here’s a synopsis: the article tells of a people living in North America who spend so much of their day going through rituals to cleanse their bodies of its evil naturalness. They poke sticks with fur in their mouths, the women bake their heads in ovens, and they give elaborate gifts to medicine men who will tell them how they can make themselves even better, but in order to make themselves better they need to give elaborate gifts to another medicine man in order to receive the “treatments.”

The article is great and my synopsis seems very poor in comparison. However, this is a blog and I can’t write a 1,000+ word post. If you’re interested in reading the article, you can check it out here. However, I’m about to spoil the ending for you in the next paragraph.

If you read “Nacirema” backwards, it ends up spelling “American.” These people with strange practices are actually an advanced culture, shown through a lens of someone unfamiliar with their practices. And although American people differ from Europeans and other advanced cultures, there is an underlying similarity (and I’m sure we all brush out teeth, go to beauty salons, and see doctors about our ailments just so we can spend more money at the pharmacy for our prescriptions). So the article can pretty much stand for a diverse group of people.

So my question is: why are humans so critical of themselves? If we don’t like our hair coloring, we can change it! If we don’t like our eye coloring, we can get colored contacts! If we don’t like how pale we are, we can go tanning! If we don’t like something about our bodies, we can go get it changed by spending a ton of money! We were created a certain way, but for some reason we find the need to make ourselves even better.

It’s disturbing enough that we criticize ourselves, but I think it’s even more disturbing that we criticize others. We know how stressful it is to be human, so why do we feel the need to criticize others and make their lives even harder? It’s my personal opinion that people criticize others in order to feel better about themselves. “Well, I’m definitely doing better in my life than that person, so I suppose I’m not doing too poorly.”

I might be ashamed to admit it, but I’ll do it anyways: I’m guilty of these kinds of thoughts. I’ll belittle someone in order to make myself feel better. But you know what scares me even more than knowing that I am capable of having such thoughts? The knowledge that I’m not the only one having these thoughts and that it’s normal to hear people ridiculing others.

Maybe if we all took a step back and recognized that we’re all human and that we’re all trying our best, we would stop criticizing others so much. However, I believe that in order to do that, the first step is to recognize that we ourselves are doing our best. Maybe instead of focusing on the negatives and rather acknowledging that we really are trying our best, we can stop trying to make ourselves feel better by making others feel worse.

We’re all human. We’re all running the race of life. You know what the prize is at the end? Death. We’re all going to end up dying (I know, it’s morbid, but it’s true!) so, really, there is no reason for us to be trying to beat someone at the game of life. Instead of focusing on how to be better than someone else, we need to focus on being better than who we were the day before. Being the best that we can be is how we will win at life, not by making others feel bad about themselves so that we can feel better.

We’re all human. We are all running the race of life. The way that you win is not by beating others, but by being the best that you can be. So go out there and focus on being better than who you were yesterday rather than the people you encounter today.

Cheers!

Molly

Black Bean Burgers

Guys! Okay, so I usually don’t have any new posts over the weekend, but I just tried this recipe and I’m too excited NOT to share it!

So it’s Saturday morning and I get up, make my tea and some breakfast, then go sit in the living room and watch TV with Mom. All of my TV shows are on hiatus right now, so the only channel I’ve been watching is FoodNetwork. One of my favorite shows on that channel is The Pioneer Woman, and that’s what I was watching this morning.

The Pioneer Woman was making stuff with black beans. She made pizza, burritos, and burgers. As Mom and I were watching her, we both commented that we wanted to try her burgers. I’ve never actually made any of her food, so it was just wishful thinking. Still, the burgers looked really good.

After the show, I went to go do homework (which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now… oh well, it can wait a few more minutes). The closer it came to lunchtime, the more I found myself wanting to try making black bean burgers. So, after mustering my courage, I headed into the kitchen to try my hand.

Sadly, I couldn’t find the Pioneer Woman’s recipe on her blog, so I went ahead and made stuff up as I went. (Besides, since when do I follow someone else's recipe??) Thankfully Mom trusts my judgment enough and let me do it without an actual recipe.

First, take a can of black beans, drain them, pour them in a colander and rinse. 

Once they’re rinsed, pour them in a bowl and mash ‘em up so that they’re pasty, with just a few chunks.

When your beans are mashed up good, add the seasonings, breadcrumbs, and eggs. Then it’s time to get your hands dirty.

If you read my post about my family’s meatloaf recipe, you know that I hate mixing meat with my hands. The good news is that even though the beans feel kind of like meat, they aren’t meat! They’re beans! (I’m probably way more excited about that than I should be, but whatever. Who’s judging me?)

Once everything is mixed up, form them into patties and place them on an oiled skillet. Bake until done and build your sandwich.

Because we hadn’t been planning on having burgers anytime soon, we didn’t have any buns. But that’s okay! I grabbed a slice of multigrain bread, toasted it, then spread a mayonnaise/Greek yogurt mixture on its surface and cut it in half. The burger fit nicely, then I topped it with some lettuce and it was ready to eat!

Here’s where I’m going to tell you how skeptical I was. I’d already tried my hand at spaghetti squash and was disappointed with the result (do NOT let people fool you! It does NOT taste like spaghetti!) If this recipe didn’t turn out, I’d just wasted a perfectly good can of black beans. Not to mention, I’d also wasted a good chunk of my time.

The burgers were AMAZING. Mom and I LOVE them. They had great flavor, good texture, and they’re cheap and pretty easy to make! Plus, they’re pretty dang healthy! Black bean burgers are now on my list of favorite dishes, and that’s why I decided to share my recipe with you this weekend.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients

1 can (15 oz) black beans

½ cup bread crumbs

1 egg

1 tsp Tastefully Simple’s Garlic Garlic (or one medium clove of fresh garlic)

1 Tbsp Tastefully Simple’s Onion Onion (or 6 Tbsp of fresh grated onion)

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground red pepper

Black pepper for taste

2 Tbsp olive oil

Directions

Pour oil in skillet and set aside.

Drain beans. Pour the beans into a colander and rinse. Once rinsed, pour beans into a bowl and mash. I used a masher, but you can use a fork (it will probably just take more effort). Mash until the beans are pasty with only a few chunks.

Once the beans are mashed, add your spices, the bread crumbs, and egg. Mix with hands until all ingredients are incorporated. Form into patties (my recipe made three, but your number will depend on the size you want).

Heat oil in skillet. Once it’s heated (you’ll know it is when it moves around fast when skillet is tipped), turn the heat down to medium-low and place patties in the skillet. Bake on one side for 4 minutes, then flip and bake on the other side for another 4 minutes. Flip and bake for about 2 minutes, then flip and bake for another 2 minutes.

Build your sandwiches however you like and dig in!

How To Deal When You Binge

I have a confession to make. Even though I promote healthy living and making healthy choices, I don’t always follow my own advice. I’m human and I’m allowed to make mistakes. Plus, I’m a young woman; I’m pretty much owed a binge day every so often. This past weekend was my binge day.

But, just like fair food, road trip food doesn’t really count, right?

Sadly, fair food, road trip food, and vacation food all count. Last weekend my family took a trip up to Cedar Point for their opening weekend of the 2014 Halloweekends. The trip took us almost two hours by car, and, being taught several years ago by our Aunt Iris that road trip food is absolutely essential to any road trip, my brother and I both purchased junk food at a gas station. So on the way up, I am guilty of eating about 1.5 servings of candy corn and several handfuls of pretzels.

What do you think these guys ate on their road trip? I'm thinking I'm gonna skip on whatever it was!

But wait, that’s not all!

When we got to Cedar Point, we headed over to Johnny Rockets for lunch. (I absolutely LOVED Johnny Rockets at Daytona Beach, so I obviously had to try the one at Cedar Point.) There, I ate a hamburger and onion rings. I was going to order a side salad like I had at Daytona Beach, but the Cedar Point’s Johnny Rockets didn’t offer side salads. So I opted to split a side of onion rings with Mom and Kyle.

Johnny Rockets: Home of the original hamburger!

Then I ate the rest of my candy corn, which means I ate approximately 2.5 servings of candy corn in one day. We also got cookies and caramel apples before we left. And since I apparently wasn’t feeling sick enough, I ate 1.5 pieces of Little Caesar’s deep dish pepperoni pizza when we got home around 8:30.

I feel awful after bingeing. Seriously awful, and that’s enough to keep me from bingeing all day every day. But I am human and I am not always able to resist the temptation.

Instead of punishing myself in unhealthy ways such as vomiting after a binge, I punish myself in healthy ways. The term “punishment” is used very loosely here, because it just means I eat a salad for lunch and dinner the next day. And I like salads, so “punish” isn’t really the correct term.

In addition to upping my daily serving of salad, I also detox over the next 2-4 days with this delicious detox water recipe. It’s seriously simple and a great way to get your daily dosage of water if you are bored with plain water.

All it is is a pitcher of water with 1/3 to ½ a cucumber, 1-2 lemons, and approximately 8 mint leafs. Slice up the cucumber and lemon, put them in the water with the mint leafs and let it sit in the fridge overnight. It’s healthy, refreshing, and makes me feel a whole lot better!

Thankfully my metabolism is pretty good right now so I can afford to binge now and again. Unfortunately, bingeing really is unhealthy and even my “punishments” don’t make up for it. That’s why I only do it every so often, and I do NOT suggest bingeing! However, I just wanted to let you know that I, too, give into temptation. The correct response to bingeing is not to punish yourself, but to “punish” yourself in healthy ways, such as eating extra salads (healthy salads, don’t smother it in creamy dressings) and making sure you get your water in.

We’re all human. We all make mistakes. If you fall down, just pick yourself back up and keep going. You have it within you to get where you want to go, but you’ll never get there if you don’t keep going!

Cheers!

Molly

Chicken Alfredo Lasagna

Maybe you’ve noticed that a lot of the awesome photos I use in my posts are courtesy of Sabrina Bailey from The Red Room Photography. Well, not only is Sabrina an awesome photographer, she is also a close personal friend of mine!

I had Sabrina stay the night two Saturdays ago because her birthday was the next day and I wanted to spend time with her. So we did what girls do and talked and hung out and just had a blast being together.

Sabrina and I have a tradition of making lasagna for dinner every time we hang out. If you read my Baked Fried Chicken post, you’ll find out that my family pretty much doesn’t buy ground beef anymore and all of our meals have chicken. Plus, we didn’t have any ricotta cheese. So regular lasagna was out. However, we’re way too creative to let a couple obstacles get in the way of our tradition.

Thus, the idea of chicken alfredo lasagna was born!

Mom had the chance to review a couple products from Casa Bella, and I love the cutting board we got! It has a slide out tray that is perfect for getting the chopped food out of the way while I’m still working. So obviously I used it for cutting up the chicken for our recipe.

My alfredo sauce recipe is adapted from Iowa Girl Eats. I don’t follow the recipe exactly, but if you’re curious, you can check out the recipe here.

 Once the noodles, chicken, and sauce were ready, we constructed the lasagna. First went noodles, then chicken, then sauce, then cheese. It was kind of messy, but so worth it in the end.

 Bake, then serve it up with broccoli (or whatever green you prefer) and enjoy!

Chicken Alfredo Lasagna

Ingredients

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Your choice of seasoning for the chicken (I used Tastefully Simple’s Seasoned Salt)

9 lasagna noodles

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp garlic (I use Tastefully Simple’s Garlic Garlic)

2 tbsp flour

1 cup chicken broth (I used low sodium)

¼ cup milk (I used skim)

¼ cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt

½ cup parmesan cheese

2 cups low-fat shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

Bring enough water for your noodles to a boil. Once water is boiling, put noodles in the water and cook for about 10 minutes.

Cut up the chicken into bite size pieces and season with your desired seasoning. Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a skillet, then place chicken in the pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Once the chicken is cooked all the way through, remove, put into a bowl, and set aside. In the same skillet that the chicken was cooked in, add the remaining oil and the garlic. Heat, then whisk in the flour.

Heat the oil, garlic, and flour for about one minute, then add the broth, milk, and yogurt. Whisk until smooth and let simmer for a couple minutes. After sauce thickens a bit, stir in the parmesan cheese.

Spray an 8 x 11 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and spread a couple tablespoons of the alfredo sauce on the bottom of the pan. Construct the lasagna by layering 3 noodles, ½ of the chicken, 1/3 of the sauce, and 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat for one other layer, then finish by layering the remaining 3 noodles, remaining sauce, and remaining cheese.

Bake the lasagna at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Molly

Banana Nut Muffins

Last week’s breakfast didn’t turn out too great when I attempted to make pumpkin pancakes. While the outsides would get nice and crispy, the insides wouldn’t cook through no matter how long I left them on the griddle. I tried adapting the recipe and made a new batch for dinner the following Monday, but the insides were still a bit gooey.

I think the batter will work better as waffles, so I’ll try that sometime soon. However, I think my family is getting sick of my pumpkin breakfast experiment. Kyle asked me twice, “They’re not pumpkin, are they?” when I told him I was making breakfast this week. I’m not positive, but I think that was a hint. Well, fine then.

So in order to not make my family hate my cooking, I opted to try a different recipe. It still has the flavors of fall, but without the overused pumpkin: banana nut muffins!

I love bananas. I use them in my smoothies, I eat them with peanut butter…. Yum. I’m getting hungry just thinking about them! (Speaking of smoothies, I think it’s time to share some of my favorite recipes. Maybe I’ll do that next week!)

I still can’t function properly enough so early in the mornings to complete the full recipe, so I mixed up the dry ingredients the night before (the same as I have been doing these past few weeks). I also chopped the nuts, but I kept them separate from the dry ingredients (they need to be added last, not mixed in with everything else).

While I was looking up some recipes to get an idea for my own, I came across this awesome tip: when mixing your ingredients, only use half of the bananas. Smash up the other bananas and leave them out till the end, then fold them in with the nuts. Brilliant! The texture was great and the flavor was really enhanced.

Mashed 'nanas. You want to make sure half of the bananas aren't mashed too
much; you want to keep the texture and fold them in with the nuts.

The only issue I have with this recipe is that it uses a whole stick of butter. I don’t like to use butter that much since it’s really not that healthy, but since my pancake experiment hadn’t turned out well I wanted to make sure this recipe was yummy. Besides, when divided into individual servings, there really isn’t that much butter. I might try to adapt the recipe a bit next time so that there isn’t so much butter, though.

In order to balance out the unhealthy butter, I used plain, nonfat Greek yogurt and some whole wheat flour to give the recipe a nice dose of healthy.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients, then fold in the nuts and the mashed bananas.

I did have more sugar in this recipe than I usually use in my breakfasts, but, realizing that it goes throughout the whole recipe, I convinced myself to use it. (I really did not want another failed breakfast!)

Beat the wet and dry ingredients together, fold in the nuts and mashed 'nanas, and voila! Your batter is complete and ready to be scooped into the tin.

The muffins turned out great and my family loved them! They were super moist, fluffy, and had that awesome banana-nut flavor I was going for. I’ll definitely be making these again! (Maybe in between my many pumpkin experiments. I’m determined to get that pumpkin batter to work!)

Banana Nut Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

4 ripe bananas (lots of brown spots)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted

¼ cup nonfat, plain Greek yogurt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup chopped walnuts

Directions

In a bowl, mash two of the bananas until they’re smooth with some chunks. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients (except nuts).

In another bowl, mash the remaining two bananas. Add the butter, yogurt, eggs, and vanilla. Beat with a mixer until smooth. Add the dry ingredients and continue to beat until creamy.

Fold in the two mashed bananas and the chopped walnuts. Stir until incorporated throughout the batter, but no longer.

Line muffin tin with liners, spray the liners with non-stick cooking spray, and fill about 2/3 of the way. Bake muffins for about 18 minutes, remove, let cool for about five minutes, then serve.

Enjoy!

Molly

Motivational Monday 4 - The Perfect Time

Fall is a beautiful season here in northeast Ohio. Although summer is my favorite season, fall is a close runner up. The weather gets cooler, drinks get warmer, and the trees are bursting with color. Plus, pretty much everything smells and tastes like pumpkin!

Image courtesy of Google Images

For a lot of people, fall is a season of starting over. It’s like a beautiful death of the world, which will come back to life in spring (which here in northeast Ohio usually doesn’t come until May…). Death and dying and regeneration are used in literature symbolically for change and/or starting over. I’ve read plenty of literature that uses the autumn season as another symbolism for change.

Image courtesy of Sabrina Bailey from The Red Room Photography.

However, we need to realize that fall isn’t a time to start over. People tend to wait to make changes until fall, January 1^st, Monday, or whatever works best for them. The truth, though, is that there is no specific time to start over! The perfect time to start over and make changes is whenever you decide it is.

Waiting until the “perfect time” is just a copout for waiting until you’re “ready.” As Lemony Snicket wisely puts it, “If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.” You can’t just keep putting things off forever. Eventually you will need to make a choice: will you make the change or will you keep waiting?

If you truly want to make a change, in any aspect of your life, quit putting it off! Take the risk, make the change. It might be scary and it might not be easy, but if it’s worth it, it will definitely pay off!

Cheers!

Molly

Simple, Easy Health Tips

So you want to start living healthier but you don’t want to commit time to the gym. If this is the case, you should check out my “Save The Excuses – A Perspective on Fitness” post. However, if you really, truly cannot find the time to exercise, there are some easier ways to help you start living healthier. Here I’ve listed a few out for you.

1. Drink more water! This is something you hear again and again. It’s the cliché of all clichés when it comes to healthy living. Well, guess what? Clichés exist because they’re true! Water can, among other things, help control calories by nourishing your body for free (as opposed to many other beverages that have a high calorie number attached to them), cleanse your body of toxins (it’s a great detoxifier!), and prevents cramps by essentially “greasing” your muscles.

2. Eat your greens! Greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, high in fiber and low in calories, and fat and cholesterol free. Greens are also reported to help in preventing some cancers. Want to read up on some more benefits of greens? You can check out the website leafy-greens.org here. 

3. Limit your sugar intake. I know how hard it is to resist sugary things, especially when someone in your family can’t live without candy and/or baked pastries. I am a young adult woman: TRUST ME, I know how hard it is to resist! However, I’ve found that it’s easier when you remind yourself that it won’t be the last time you have to eat a sweet. There will always be more donuts; you just need to wait until your “cheat day” to have one!

4. Take your vitamins. I always got Flintstones (or similar) vitamins as a child. I especially loved the vanilla-flavored calcium chews! Unfortunately, vitamins become less exciting when you’re an adult. Instead of awesome chews, you get to take pills. Bleck. But vitamins really do promote healthy living and are essential. And there are chewy/gummy options available for some adult vitamins (and there is nothing wrong with taking Flintstones vitamins! I still take them and I’m almost 20 years old!)

5. Get enough sleep. Studies show that sleep really does impact your health (and weight!). If you have a hard time falling asleep, maybe try waking up earlier and going to bed earlier? Maybe you could try some yoga? There are a lot of suggestions out there to help with sleep. My brother has a hard time sleeping, so he takes melatonin. However, I would ask your doctor before taking melatonin because some people have qualms about taking it. 

6. Make some healthy switches! Take brown rice instead of white. Whole wheat or multigrain bread instead of *insert unhealthy choice of bread here*. Munch on apples, carrots, or almonds instead of potato chips. Try to eat one salad every day, and use vinaigrette instead of a creamy dressing. Get grilled rather than fried chicken. Go easy on the salt. There are so many different options available. There are some other great suggestions on wholeliving.com. 

It’s a lot easier to start living healthier than a lot of people would think. You don’t even need to spend that much money (which is one of the more popular excuses). Try making just a few healthy choices, and I can guarantee you’ll start to notice a difference. I know I can tell when I’ve cheated myself of healthy choices (bloating is a big indicator).

If you already make healthy choices, what are some of your favorites? What would you add to my list? If you haven’t yet started to make healthier choices, what are you going to start on? Let me know in the comments!

Cheers!

Molly

Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken and Veggies

Sometimes my experimental recipes turn out OK. At other times, though, I wonder how I have ever been able to make anything edible. Thankfully, this recipe was one that turned out alright.

Creamy chicken and veggies. I mean, how could I have screwed that up? (Thankfully I didn’t find out how.)

This recipe is probably one of the simplest I’ve ever made, and it’s delicious!

First, start off by putting the chicken in a greased slow cooker. Chop up an onion and place it in with the chicken, along with some spices and some water.

Bake for a couple hours, remove the food, dump the liquid, shred the chicken, and replace the food in the slow cooker.

Then, add the veggies, spices, and the delicious creaminess.

Finally, serve. OR mix up a packet of corn muffins and pour on top, then bake in the oven until done.

Easy, delicious, simple. What’s better than that?

Recipe

Ingredients

1.5 lbs chicken breast
1 medium onion

16 oz frozen mixed veggies

1 can cream of chicken soup

½ cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt

½ cup sour cream

Salt and pepper (for flavoring; I also used a bit of garlic powder)

Directions

Place chicken in a greased slow cooker. Chop onion and place on top of chicken. Season to taste. Add 1/4 cup of water.

Cover and cook on low for about 2.5 hours. Remove food and shred the chicken. Drain the juices and replace chicken.

Dump veggies, soup, yogurt, and sour cream into slow cooker with shredded chicken and onion. Add more salt and pepper (and garlic, if desired). Give a good stir. Cover and cook on low for about 2 hours.

If you want to make chicken in the corn, pour chicken mixture into a baking dish (unless you have a removable crock that can be placed in the oven; in which case, just leave the mixture in the crock). Mix up one box of Jiffy cornmeal (or whatever brand you prefer) according to the directions on the box, then pour on top of chicken mixture. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

A Miracle from a Mess

I found a recipe on Pinterest for Texas sheet cake cookies. My grandma has an awesome sheet cake recipe. So I thought to myself, “Why not adapt Grandma’s recipe?” I’ve been able to successfully adapt recipes before, so I figured I would be able to make cookies out of my grandma’s cake recipe.

I made a mess. An ooey-gooey, sticky mess.

I had put so much effort into the batter that I was determined to make these cookies. So I plopped 8 spoonfuls of batter onto a cookie tray and baked them at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes. The following picture is the result.

They tasted really good, though! They just didn’t have the right consistency. However, as I said, I’d put so much effort into the batter and I didn’t want it to go to waste. So I decided to try making Texas sheet cake cupcakes. I had better success with those.

Sadly, the recipe was such a fail (although the cupcakes tasted pretty good) that I couldn’t share it here on my blog, which was one of the reasons I’d tried the recipe. After giving it some thought, though, I came to the conclusion that it makes a pretty good story. It’s funny, proves that I’m not the best baker in the world, and it teaches a pretty good lesson.

Although I had originally set out to make cookies, I ended up making a mess. Thankfully, I was able to change my mindset enough so that they still worked out. Cupcakes may not have what I had originally planned, but at least the recipe worked in the end.

Sometimes things happen in our lives that don’t make sense. Sometimes we can think that God is against us or even that God doesn’t exist because what kind of God lets such terrible things happen in the world? If everything happens according to God’s will, what does it say about him when there are school shootings, fatal car accidents, and children dying of cancer in this world?

The best example is to look at the story of Job. I’ve seen people try to turn Job into a story that says God isn’t always looking out for us, but I think it’s a great example of Romans 8:28. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, those who have been called according to his purpose.”

When bad things happen to people it does not mean that God is against them, it doesn’t mean he’s abandoned them, and it doesn’t mean that he has willed it. The Bible never promises that life is going to be easy. The Bible does, however, promise that God works everything out for those who love him.

Making cupcakes was not my plan. However, when the cookies didn’t work out, I was able to use the batter to make a dessert that tasted really good. God doesn’t want bad things to happen to us; he loves us. But just like in the story of Job, bad things happen to people who love God. It is not God’s plan for bad things to happen to us. The thing about God, though, is that he is God and he can make a miracle out of a disaster. If I, a mere human, can save a basic dessert recipe, God, who is God, can save a situation no matter how awful it seems.

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” 1 Peter 5:10