Muffins, Mozzarella and Billions of Bananas (Recipes)

In my last post I talked about the successful Spin-a-thon I held at Sky Club Fitness and Spa in Hoboken this past weekend.  The event was great and raised more than $500.  I am very proud of all the attendees and I was exhausted after it was over.

I bought so much food to prep for the event, I put together candy bags for every attendee (it's close to Valentine's Day!) and I brought oranges, bananas, bagels, granola bars and trail mix. Unfortunately, people did not eat as much as I anticipated, except for the oranges and I brought home a bunch of bananas and more.  While granola bars will stay and be great for summer biking, what the heck was I gonna do with all these bananas??

So during lunch I googled banana recipes and I cranked out these recipes.

Oatmeal Banana Muffins.
I made a few tweaks, I added 2 tbsp peanut butter and 2 tsp of vanilla and instead of a loaf I made muffins, baking them at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/banana-oatmeal-bread-10000000222215/
I have eaten one each morning with yogurt and fruit on the side. 

Strawberry Banana Fro Yo
Since there were a ton of bananas I also bought some vanilla fro you and jazzed it up with this recipe
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/mango-banana-frozen-yogurt-10000000223070/
Unfortunately Mangoes are not in season so I used strawberries and I did not have reg. milk so I used almond. I don't have an ice cream maker but I put it in an airtight container in the freezer. The mixture tasted so GOOD!! I could've drank the whole thing as a smoothie right there! I tried a bit yesterday and it rocked.

I also had a lot of mozzarella cheese leftover from making pizza the night before so I threw together rice and pasta for that night and the rest of the week.  The pasta lasted us that night and my lunch for the next day. And the brown rice I ate last night and we'll eat tonight.

Pasta
Whole wheat spaghetti cooked to package directions
Pesto store bought and reheated
Pine nuts - toasted in a dry skillet
Sauteed kale and spinach and zucchini - in a skillet w/EVOO and S&P
Mix all ingredients together with 1 cup shredded mozzarella and 1 tbsp parm

Rice
Cook Brown Rice to Package Directions in Low Sodium Chicken Stock
After it's done, fluff with a fork and add crushed tomatoes and mozzarella. and 1 tbsp parm.
I ate with a veggie burger and a salad and tonight I am serving with turkey breast.

On the Menu! Brunch! Lemon Ricotta Pancakes & Whole Wheat Waffles

I think everyone would agree that brunch is the best meal you can get.  It takes place in the middle of the day so there's no rushing. Fits in nicely after a morning workout.  It's an excellent way to kill a few hours with out of town family.  Alcohol consumption is encouraged during the day time and in many cases in our brunch bar town, there's no reason to dress up so you can wear your yoga pants or leggings (aka eating pants) to the table. Plus the food is delish. Who doesn't love pancakes, eggs and waffles?  However, local brunches with the bacon, alcohol and stuffed french toast don't fit in our new healthy 2013 diet so I made us brunch this weekend after a swim/spin class on Saturday and a 5.5 mile on Sunday that my boyfriend and I did together.  He did some time on the trainer Saturday so he earned his brunch reward.

Saturday Pancakes - Lemon Ricotta.  This recipe was inspired by pancakes we had in Sonoma, CA at the Mission Inn's restaurant - they were lemon ricotta and amazing.  They were totally not low-fat but I made an effort to cut the hfa

Dry Ingredients
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.25 tsp salt
whisk together

Wet ingredients
1 cup nonfat milk
3 tblsp part skim ricotta cheese
3 tblsp vanilla Greek yogurt
3 tblsp Coconut Milk or almond milk
1 tablespoon honey
1tsp vanilla
1tsp lemon extract
2 tsp lemon zest
2 eggs
2 tblsp canola oil
whisk together

Stir wet ingredients into dry.

Put some Pam on the griddle and cook like you would regular pancakes. I had some leftover bananas so I put some mushed bananas into half my pancakes.  They were delicious.  We ate with syrup and fresh cut strawberries.


Sunday Waffles - Whole Wheat Waffles with Blueberry Syrup
On Sunday we had a 5.5 mile run and wanted to reward ourselves with waffles. I had gotten a really nice waffle iron some time ago when I first moved in by myself from Williams and Sonoma. I never used it by since Billy and I moved into our house 3 years ago we've used it all the time. Today we tag teamed the waffles, I made the batter and he cooked it up.

Dry ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
.25 cup almond flour
.25 Corn meal
1.5 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp baking soda
.25 tsp salt
whisk together

Wet ingredients
2 eggs
1 tbls vanilla
1 tblsp almond extract
2 tbsp canola oil
2 cups almond milk
whisk together

Mix the ingredients together and we served with blueberry syrup and a lil bit of powdered sugar and margarine.

Enjoy!!

Pumped Up Week: Back on Track

 Included:

Daily Workouts: running, bootcamp and sculpt

Recipes: Grillin' fish, Potatoes, and Quinoa Salad with Red Pepper and Pineapple

Much like the stall in blog posts, my recent efforts to do my best to track my food, calories and budget, meaning cook more and take lunch to work were seriously stalled last week.  I couldn’t drag my bum to the store which meant no food in the house which meant a lot of eating pasta and peanut butter sandwiches and buying salads at work – not completely unhealthy but not cooking at home the 5-6 times a week I promised myself during the New Year, it was on my list.  Billy and I both made resolution lists on our new Ipads at the start of the year but haven't kept the resolutions too well. 

In spite of it being St. Patty’s day, I managed to start the weekend off right with a 10 mile run and then left to watch Billy play the fiddle.   After a weekend of a few beers, ice cream, pizza and other grease, it was time to tip the scales the other way. Though technically with my long run, limited food intake and rushing to NYC to the bar to see Billy play, myfitnesspal told me I’d weight 20lbs less if every day were like this (10 mile run, 3 beers, 3 pieces of pizza – super healthy). 

 

This week was FABULOUS in NYC!  It was close to 70 degrees all week – it was time for some serious grilling.  I forced Billy to pull out the grill on Monday evening and we grilled up some tilapia and I made roasted brussel sprouts and cauliflower.  It was delicious and low-carb.   I also roasted some potatoes but they didn’t quite finish in time for dinner.  Oops.  However, I did use them the next day in a stir fry – normally I’d use rice but what the heck?  I put a can of tuna in the stir fry with lime and soy sauce.  Delish. 

Tuesday started my non-stop gym workouts.  I’d done a tempo run with speed intervals Monday but Tuesday began the Sky Club Marathon of subbing and teaching classes right through next Thursday when I get a big rest day. Tuesday morning I taught my bootcamp class and we really worked hard – we did high intensity intervals (i.e. burpees and squat jumps on the step) for 50 sec, 10 sec rest 2x each, so 4 min total, then we got 1 minute recover. 

Wednesday I taught my scheduled spin and went to teach abs but no one showed so I went to work and that night went for a light run. To steal myself to continue and get up on a day when I normally take a nap, Thursday, – I made roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes on the grill (however I preheated in the micro for 5 and 10 min, respectively).  I also made chicken breasts with lemon and rosemary on the grill and some grilled asparagus. Thursday morning I taught a sculpt class where we focused on legs and push-ups.  For legs my new favorite move is having one foot on the step standing in front of it (like your going to do lunges with one foot on the step) and powering up into a jump – such a great move and good for outside too. Strong women in that class!  After class I went for a run and worked speed intervals – 3 half mile repeats with a mile warm up and cool down. I forgot to mention Tues and Thurs I rewarded myself with fro yo – it was that warm. 

Friday I woke up in so exhausted, super sore and my knee was aching despite my best efforts to get to bed early last night and ice my knee.  I totally missed Golden Girls at midnight because I was asleep and I had busted my butt to get dinner on the table. I made tuna steaks for the first time and the result was so-so.  I think I may have cooked them a minute too long.  Ah, well. Live and learn.  We marinated them in lime and soy sauce.  I paired it with a quinoa salad.  I sautéed red peppers and zucchini (Billy bought them) and cooked the quinoa in coconut water and a pinch of crushed red pepper.  I chopped the pineapple tiny and mixed it all together in a bowl.  Billy thinks in the future we should grill the pineapple, which is a good point –but it was delicious anyway– the veggies had canola oil and salt and pepper and little cilantro which made a nice dressing. Billy took a picture of it so I will post it soon. So back to this morning – exhausted I told my class I needed to teach on and off the bike – they were great.  I ended up on and off the bike anyway trying to combat the horrible heat that cranked the room up to 76 degrees.   Bikram spin is not fun – thankfully management is on the case and it's fixes (yay!). I think our surprising warm weather is coming too fast.  Also, that’s one of the downsides to being the first one in the room – any elements that might impair your ride or AC that’s not kicked in yet, you’re left to deal with but we managed to sweat and get in an early AM workout.  I came home went for a slow run/walk and went to work, drinking my Ellie Krieger PB smoothie as I got ready. 

This weekend is going I have to squeeze out some running and sub kickboxing on Sunday (I ended up bailing on running Saturday opting for sleeping in with Billy rather than running - we went for a nice bike ride 17 miles which worked off the calories we ate at dinner at Hoboken Bar and Grill last night). I've always thought if you don't wake up feeling it and I are in too much pain - take a rest day.