Steak Teriyaki

I made a turkey teriyaki quite a while back and I remember it being fairly good but I honestly cant remember if it was worth not trying another recipe I stumbled across. I found this teriyaki dressing here...http://westonaprice.org/beginner-videos/beginner-videos/salad-dressings-and-basic-sauces-video-by-sarah-pope
She has several other home made condiment recipes so feel free to browse what she has listed there. I edited the recipe to suit what I had on hand and felt good about so here is the sauce I ended up with.

Teriyaki Sauce

2 TBL grated ginger
6 peeled and mashed garlic cloves (I use the pre-minced in a jar and just guesstimate)
2 TBL extra virgin olive oil (I didnt have sesame oil but I bet that would be better)
2 TBL apple cider vinegar (my rice wine vinegar had HFCS in it so I refused to use it, need to pitch it)
2 TBL agave
1 cup braggs liquid aminos (or soy sauce read the ingredients to make sure there is nothing funky)

I mixed that all together in a jar in a mad rush to get out the door to work. Once I made it to work I poured the sauce on the meat and let it marinate all morning. I had 3 little round steaks so I cooked them on medium high heat for 3 min each side. Then I removed the steak from the skillet and set aside. I poured the sauce into the same skillet and added 1 Tablespoon of whole wheat flour whisked it in and boiled it until the sauce started to thicken. Add in my boiled (plain) broccoli and rice (cooked in water with no butter) and I had a pretty delicious meal.

There are of course a few tweaks I will make next time. I think I will cut the soy sauce in half and sub in water or almond milk for the remainder. The sauce was just really to salty for me even after being dulled by the completely unseasoned broccoli and rice. Trust me folks if I say something is too salty do not try it! It is very rare I think something is too salty I love salt! I would also love to try this with the sesame oil and ideally with some rice vinegar if I can find some without added sweetener and other funkiness.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Hello who loves carrot cake? I DO!!! Love it! In fact I am not much of a cake fan unless its carrot cake yum yum! So I stumbled across a recipe for Carrot Cake Pancakes and I knew I had to try to find a way to edit the recipe to suit my desires of what I look for in food (whole food ingredients, Dairy free and free of processed sugars) I had another recipe I needed a few carrots for so I already had carrots in the fridge and all the other ingredients I needed so why not give it a whirl.



Carrot Cake Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
pinch of ground ginger
1/4 cup agave (honey or pure maple syrup would work)
1/2 cup almond milk buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs lightly beaten
2 cups grated carrot (probably about 4 carrots)

How to:

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and ginger and whisk together

In a medium bowl whisk together agave, almond milk buttermilk, vanilla and eggs.

Add liquid mixture to flour mix and gently combine. This is a pretty thick batter but if you would like thinner pancake batter you could add more almond milk buttermilk (at least I think that would work) fold in carrots. Cook in buttered skillet over medium heat and then serve warm with butter (fake butter in my case) and pure maple syrup.

In the future I think I will try 3/4 cup almond milk buttermilk and I think I will try cooking the carrots for a bit first as they still had a bit of crunch to them.

That is it folks they were really quick and easy to whip up! Dont forget to use the grate function on your food processor for those carrots if you have one. If you dont have one then consider it an arm workout grating those carrots.

If you are wondering where to get almond milk buttermilk well I can tell you I have no idea. Just take a cup of milk or almond milk and add a tablespoon of vinegar and stir and let it sit a minute. Voila buttermilk or almond milk buttermilk :)

Did I tell you guys I am training for another 25k trail run? I have doing my long saturday runs with the local trail running group and let me tell you I am getting tired of being the only one at the back of the pack. There are folks running that are older than my parents and I cant even come close to keeping up with them! Saturday a super nice man periodically waited up for me to catch up just to make sure I was safe and didnt get lost. I felt horrible knowing I was slowing him down so much and I just felt terrible and really defeated. I wanted to quit the training program and hang up my shoelaces that day I even shed a tear or two running back there. I reminded myself it was a full moon and that I would get better and faster eventually and kept on plugging. I hope this saturdays run goes better...12 miles pray for me! One of my best friends from high school is training with me. She is a Mom of 3 kids and works, she is AMAZING!!!

Get out there, be active, do something you love, speak kindness and do kindness to all and eat something delicious and healthy! I love you guys!

Food.Exercise.Life
Marcy

Working out- what I am up to

lately it has been way to hot for me to even entertain the idea of climbing. So I haven't. I finally realized I was getting a little lazy so I had to do something to stay in shape. With that said I did 2 things.
Thing #1
I committed to doing the Dogwood Canyon 25k trail run again. That's 15.5 miles up and down Branson hills and through water streams. I cant wait! I even talked one of my long time best friends into doing it with me this year. I have kinda started training but not seriously yet. I did meet with the Springfield Trail Runners group Saturday morning at a local park at 630am for a run. They said they would do a 3 mile loop which considering I haven't been training I thought sounded perfect. It did seem a bit longer but I just figured it was the steep hills messing with my sense of distance in my out of shape body. Turns out I was right they took me for a 5 mile run. Can someone say SORE!
Thing #2
I talked my boss into paying half of my gym membership this allows me the ability to take their kids to play at the pool as well as allows me to attend workout classes or just hop on a treadmill if I need to get a run in. 2 weeks ago I tried out their yoga class for the first time and fell in love. Good workout, nice and relaxing and no hocus pocus weird stuff that I always seem to get in all the yoga videos I have acquired. Today I decided to try a 45 min long strength training class (keep in mind I am still sore from my 5 mile Saturday run. I will tell you the aftermath and that should be sufficient to explain the workout class. Upon leaving the class I had to walk downstairs to the 1st floor to leave the gym. The first floor is tall to accommodate the basketball courts therefore it is a very lengthy set of stairs. Two steps in I almost ended up rolling the rest of the way down because my legs literally gave out, praise God for stair rails! I was afraid to drive the 1/2 mile home due to my jello legs but I did manage to make it safely. I stood at the bottom of the steps looking up towards my apartment and actually started to shed a tear just at the thought of going up them. Several times on my way up my legs began to crumble beneath me and I had to clutch the railing to remain standing. I am afraid of what tomorrow will be like.

So anyway that's what I am up to. Yoga is tomorrow evening so I hope I am not to sore to go!

Food.Exercise.Life

Banana Nut Bread

I have been experimenting with new recipes and new ingredients lately and have found some delicious treats as a result. I have made a ton of new recipes out of clean eating magazine which I have been very impressed with unfortunately I cant find the charger for my camera battery so you guys don't get pictures. Without pictures I lack motivation to blog and therefore you see why I haven't posted much lately.

I have to share with you this blog I found which I am so thrilled about its called the spunky coconut. I love it because her recipes are dairy free and sugar free which is exactly what I aim for! Her recipes are also gluten free and I don't mind diversifying my diet with some gluten free treats. Here is the first of her recipes I have tried http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/2011/04/nutty-banana-bread-gluten-free-dairy.html
Banana nut bread packed with protein and oh so good! Even my boyfriend gave it his seal of approval! It calls for a lot of ingredients you may not have, if you live on a tight budget like me then try buying one or 2 ingredients a month until you have them all. I am not sure if my oven doesn't bake well or if there is something about the shape of my bread pan but my breads never seem to get done in the center. Because of this I will be making this into muffins in the future instead of a loaf of bread. That is honestly the only change I would make to this recipe, it is heavenly warm with a little of my dairy free butter :) Enjoy!

Food.Exercise.Life

Peanut Butter Cookies

I wanted to share with you guys my all time favorite Peanut Butter Cookie recipe. As an added bonus its healthy and sweetened with Maple Syrup but don't be fooled they taste like little morsels from heaven! Here is the recipe http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/peanut-butter-cookies-recipe.html
Be sure to get peanut butter without sugar or anything added (read the ingredients) I have a preference for creamy peanut butter over chunky so that's what I always use and they turn out great! I have made them with spelt and with whole wheat pastry flour and they turned out great both times. I think in the future I may try a high quality coconut oil instead of the EVOO.

Hope you guys love them as much as I do! God bless!

Food.Exercise.Life

Your prayers please

yeah you haven't heard much from me on the food front. Sorry I really need to get on that. For the time being I have been more than a little distracted by the tragedy that struck Joplin, MO on Sunday May 22nd. So far it is the single deadliest tornado in US history I think right now the death toll is at 125 and 1500 are still missing. From the moment I heard about it my heart has been yearning to go do whatever is necessary to help, I am sure many others have felt the same. Today I was presented with the opportunity to go down and work all day Saturday through the Samaritans Purse organization. I took some time to pray about it and I have decided to go, my boyfriend has decided to join me. With that said I want to beg you for your prayers. I know this will be the single most challenging thing I have ever done both physically and emotionally. Even still I know it wont be anything close to what the people there are going through. Please pray for my physical and emotional strength, please pray for my health as Saturday is supposed to be HOT and doing manual labor in the heat can sometimes be dangerous if one is not careful. Please pray that somehow someway God will use my efforts and the efforts of so many others to draw people to him. Please pray that if put in the situation God gives me the words of comfort or encouragement that someone needs to hear. Pray that we have a safe journey there and back and pray we make a difference. I am sure I missed something you will think of so please just take it to the Lord. I love you thank you for supporting me in prayer!

food.exercise.life

Strawberry pie healthy and delicious

First I want to apologize for 2 things, 1. for not posting any recipes in so long 2. no pictures of this delicious creation due to my camera batteries being dead and I cant find the charger :( Moving on lets talk spring. Has anyone else noticed the gorgeous strawberries in the stores lately? They have just been screaming eat me eat me! I kindly obliged and bought some and somehow they managed to not get eaten so I went back bought another box and decided to combine the 2 and make a strawberry pie to take to a friends BBQ tonight. I have bought crusts and I have made crusts but I decided I wanted to make something similar to a graham cracker crust but instead use almond flour as the base with coconut oil as the binding ingredient for a hint of coconut in the strawberry pie. I finally found a recipe that I was able to tweak for the crust. Here is the original recipe which was for a chocolate cream pie I think I just might have to make http://www.elanaspantry.com/chocolate-cream-pie/

Of course I had to tweak it so this is how my crust recipe went.

Almond Flour Crust
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup coconut oil melted (splurge and buy some good coconut oil it should have a fabulous scent when you open the jar)
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine flour,salt and baking soda and stir together until well combined. In a small bowl melt the coconut oil and then stir in the vanilla and agave (it wont mix together perfectly so just do the best you can). Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined. Pat dough into a 9.5 inch glass pie pan. It will take a little bit of work but just be patient. Bake at 325 for 10-15 minutes until golden brown remove and let cool.


original strawberry pie filling recipe that I edited is http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/strawberry-pie-ii/detail.aspx

Strawberry pie filling

1 quart fresh strawberries (that's 32 oz folks)
1 cup agave
3 Tablespoons cornstarch (in the future I will use arrowroot powder instead in the same amount)
smidgen of water

arrange some chunks of strawberries in the baked crust not a ton just enough to mostly cover the crust with some space between berries. Chunk the rest of the strawberries into a medium saucepan with the agave and heat over medium mashing the berries (I used a potato masher). It doesn't need to be a paste so don't go overboard with the mashing. None of the berries should remain whole but you don't need to mash them into total unrecognizable oblivion. Mixture should start to boil over medium heat and when it does be ready with your cornstarch (or arrowroot). What I do is I put my 3 Tab of cornstarch (or arrowroot) in like a 1/2 cup measuring cup then when the strawberry mixture starts to boil I add a little bit of water to the cornstarch (or arrowroot) and stir it up until all of the powder is dissolved just barely. Pour the cornstarch (or arrowroot) mixture into your boiling strawberry mixture and stir while pouring being sure to get it mixed in well. Lower your temp to low and stir mixture for 10 minutes. Pour mixture into the crust and put it into the fridge to chill 4-6 hours. Lick your strawberry spoon and dream of eating your home made healthy creation later in the day. I do also recommend you then spend some time on your knees praying that God will give you the strength and giving spirit needed to share your pie. Enjoy!