Yummy Yummy In My Tummy

So I made a recipe last night that I found on Eating Bird Food for homemade, sugar free apple butter. Now, my sugar free muffins were not super successful. I actually have had a hard time eating them because they just are too dry. But I am not one to be wasteful, and I thought apple butter sounded like about the perfect thing to make with my 5 lb. bag of apples to spice up my muffins and have around for awesomeness!

Here is the recipe straight from Eating Bird Food

(with the changes I made starred ***)

Healthy Homemade Apple Butter (no sugar added)
10 medium sized apples (choose a sweet variety like Red Delicious or Gala)

***I used about 13 apples, the entire 5 lb. bag because they were pretty small
2 cups of unsweetened apple juice or approximately 5 apples juiced

***I used no sugar added 100% apple juice
1/4 cup water

***I added this, but would probably leave it out next time...just seemed a little too liquidy and if it needs more moisture I would go with more juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 T cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg

***I used about 1 Tb (give or take) of pumpkin pie seasoning and tossed a whole cinnamon stick in the crockpot while it was cooking for seasoning...I like the ginger flavor that it adds.

1/2 t pure vanilla extract
pinch of sea salt

Prep:
1. Place cored and sliced apples (not peeled) into a large crock-pot / slow cooker.
2. Juice apples and pour juice on top of sliced apples. Add water, apple cider vinegar and spices. Stir all ingredients together, cover pot and let it cook for 15 hours on low.
3. The liquid will reduce and the apples will be very soft, darker in color, and smell lovely. Turn the crock pot off and let the apples cool down a bit (about 30 minutes), then transfer the mixture into a blender (or use a hand/stick blender) and blend until completely smooth.
4. Let the apple butter cool and then transfer into storage containers. It should store well in the fridge for about 3 weeks.

***I ended up getting a peanut butter jar, a marinated artichoke jar, and an Earth Balance tub full of apple butter (hooray for reusing containers!) I am keeping the peanut butter jar in the fridge to use over the next 3 weeks and I froze the other 2 containers to take out when I finish off the first one. And I am TOTALLY making another batch of this and getting pretty little jars and giving it away with batches of homemade muffins for Christmas!

I made a peanut butter & apple butter (pb&ab) sandwich to go with my leftover chili for lunch today, and brought another little tub to go with a muffin for an afternoon snack. It is just yummy! No sugar, no sweeteners so I like it even better than jam. And it can't get much cheaper to make for how much you get! ($3 for a bag of apples, $2 for a jug of juice that I froze the rest to use next time, $1 for a jar of vinegar that I was buying anyway for my hair and face). Definitely in love with this stuff...try it this weekend, you will be happy you did!

Other variations I would love to try are apple/pear and apple/pumpkin. Can you think of other variations that would be good? Let me know!

Oh yeah, and anyone who reads this blog who I may be giving a Christmas gift to...you will forget everything you just read :-)

Massive Cooking Weekend - No Cooking Week

So I have disappeared for a little bit because I have been crazy busy! The musical 7 Deadly Sins runs this weekend at school and I am the Assistant Stage Manager so I have been in rehearsals from 6pm-11pm pretty much every night, and this is after being in school and work from 8am-5pm every day!! Knowing in advance this would be happening, though, I took my free time this past weekend and did a MASSIVE cooking frenzy to stock my fridge in advance. And I have to say, it has worked out pretty well.

Here is a rundown of everything I cooked this weekend with some pictures. No real recipes this week because everything was more of a throw together:

1) Cherries and apples stewed in red wine and cinnamon

2) Potato and oyster corn chowder

3) Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

4) Chili
5) Brown Rice
6) Marinated Tofu
7) Peanut Butter Cookies
8) Sweet Potato Muffins
9) Baked Eggs
- I whisked together 8 eggs and about 2/3 cup of milk with some seasonings as if I was making scrambled eggs. Put a small piece of whole wheat bread in the bottom of each cup of a greased muffin tin, topped with a little diced cheese, and poured the eggs evenly into each cup and then baked. Yummy, but I would make a few changes next time. I would toast the bread first so it didn't get as soaked up into the egg as it did this time and I would add veggies like spinach or broccoli to bulk it up and make it more satisfying (and healthier!). I have also seen an idea to do this with a crust made of biscuit dough or puff pastry which would also be an option, although more expensive. I will include pictures and a REAL recipe when I do it again and feel happier with the results.

10) Baked potatoes

Holy hell! Looking at the list even I am overwhelmed by how much I did! But it has worked out great...I have been able to take chili over a baked potato for lunches, muffins and eggs for breakfasts, have a cup of chowder and a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, pack a couple of peanut butter cookies as an afternoon snack/treat, marinated tofu with brown rice...it has been super easy just to reach in the fridge, grab something and go!


Now granted, I didn't do a whole lot of planning on this and I probably overdid it. For example, I baked 7 potatoes and I am NOT eating a potato a day. I did freeze half the muffins, but I will probably need to freeze some of the chili and brown rice too so it doesn't go bad because I just can't eat it all when I am one person and I cook for an army (something I still need to work on). I think for next week I am going to do some better menu planning, for one to make sure I am getting more veggies in my meals, and also so that I don't end up overwhelmed with a fridge full of food I just can't eat in 1 week.

I am still on a strict budget (and I will be for the next few years, might as well get used to it now!) so I won't be doing much more grocery shopping except maybe some fruit and veggies. I am also planning on going through my freezer to see what I have already stashed there that I want to thaw and eat before it gets too old. I know I froze a couple containers of black bean soup so I think that will accompany some quesadillas for lunches and dinners next week! This pantry cooking is actually a lot of fun and a great challenge - Use what you have instead of going crazy spending a ton on stuff for a single recipe.

Still feeling healthy and riding my bike to school every day. It is definitely feeling easier too! I am taking less breaks heading up the hill (only 1 pause this morning and I was stopping 3-4 times when I started 3 weeks ago!) and able to do it faster without feeling like I am dying. Once it gets to the point where I don't feel like it is pushing as much anymore, I am going to start taking the gears up slowly so it remains a good workout. As long as I keep the intensity high, it will continue to be a good 1/2 hr or so of exercise every day and that is a good start to getting healthy! I will say though, riding my bike after 6 hours of sleep and riding it after 8 hours of sleep I can sure tell a difference in how sluggish my legs feel...sleep really is key, and once the show is over I will start getting it again :-)

The "I am totally broke and using it as a gimic" Post

Ok - So here is the deal...I am broke. Like as in, flat, crazy, $20 to my name broke until I get a paycheck in 2-3 weeks and even then most of that will have to be saved for rent and car insurance. I guess that's what comes of being a college student again and not having a job until this week. So that means I get to now figure out how to eat on $20 or less for the next 3 weeks (and in turn take these frugal lessons along with me as I continue to be a relatively poor student for the next 3 years. And let's be honest - I am studying theatre, as I continue to be a poor artist for the next 10 years!)

Things in my favor:
1) I have a relatively well stocked pantry with a few sauces, peanut butter, a couple cans of tomatoes, tons of spices, a good amount of rice and grits and pasta and tortillas, some frozen veggies, flour, basics like that.
2) I am a good cook, a confident cook, and I have an adventurous palate so eating some crazy concoctions doesn't phase me

Things going against me:
1) I have a ton of carb items and very few protein items. I have, 1 can of chickpeas, 1 tin of protein powder, 2 tubs of tofu, about 1 lb. of ground beef, 2 cans of smoked oysters and 2 cans of smoked sardines - that is is when it comes to protein for the next 3 weeks.
2) I will run out of muffins this week and I don't have any sweet potatoes on hand to make new ones
3) I will run out of bananas and milk this week for making smoothies
4) I am very limited on fresh produce and I don't have much canned or frozen as backup

So what do you think? Can I live out of my pantry without grocery shopping for the next 3 weeks? If I have to go to the store I don't want to spare more than $10 so what do you think would be the best things to get for that $10? Dried beans? Fresh fruit? Canned fruit? Frozen veggies?

I also have to make a confession - although I generally am very opposed to the industrial agricultural food system and I try to buy only organic meat and dairy products (or natural non-dairy products like almond milk and earth balance "butter"). However, I went to the store yesterday with a $10 budget and I ended up caving to my principles for the sake of cost and got store brand milk and cheap ground beef. It's not that I eat a ton of meat anyway, and I don't think I will do that again...but I have more of an appreciation now about how saying "eat organic no matter what" can seem like a very elite cry when people have to eat and they just don't have the money. That being said, I wasn't happy about eating the beef and I think I am going to go back to vegetarian if I can't afford organic and get dried beans and such instead. I just can't compromise quite that much.

Now - To launch things off, here are some pictures from my pantry cooking last night!



Dinner was an enchilada casserole made with homemade salsa, whole wheat tortillas, a mixture of ground beef, brown rice, and mashed sweet potato seasoned with cumin and chili powder, topped with 1/2 package of frozen veggies, more salsa, more tortillas and sliced cheddar cheese. Baked it at 375 for 20 minutes without the cheese and added the cheese for the last 10 minutes. I don't feel it is worth doing an official recipe for because it was yummy, but pretty basic, and nothing I would be able to repeat since it was made with just whatever was in my fridge last night :-)
I admit, it looks a little goopy when it is all served up, but it was really quite tasty! If I make it again, I will substitute black beans for the ground beef. And if I could buy whatever I wanted to add to it, I would get kale or collard greens and saute those down and add a layer too - but that doesn't fit with my current challenge so frozen veggies it is!

I also had about 5 peaches that were getting really overripe and I needed to do something with them. So I peeled and sliced them all up and tossed them with some cinnamon and ginger.


Added about a cup or so of white wine and simmered it all together for about 20 minutes until it was nice and boiled down and syrupy and super yummy!

I had about 1/2 of this mixture for dessert with one of those mini containers of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia I had in the freezer and a glass of the white wine I used for simmering. Absolutely divine! The other half of the peaches is in the fridge for tonight. I have some cherries that are getting past prime in my fridge too, I might do those with red wine tonight.


So folks - I could use your input here. Any ideas, suggestions, or thoughts on ways to get through this 3 weeks and what I should spend my last $10 of grocery budget on next week would be greatly appreciated! I will try to keep you updated on how it is going and one way or another, I'm pretty sure I won't starve :-)

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

So after a great first week of school, I set myself up for the second week...to fail. Ok, so maybe failure is a harsh word. But I ended up NOT going to the grocery store yesterday to replenish my important basics of yogurt, almond milk and frozen spinach. I also fell into the trap of not falling asleep until late last night which means I overslept this morning and only had 20 minutes to get ready and out the door.

So what does that mean? It means that fortunately I had muffins still that I grabbed for breakfast, but no protein smoothie which means I need to be aware if I am more hungry than usual later today. It also means no morning snack of yogurt and granola, so again...lighter eating this morning means I need to be aware of my body later if I feel more hungry than normal. It also means I didn't have time to pack a lunch so I will have to buy something from the fast food wasteland that is campus. And being aware of my overly carb happy breakfast, I probably want to go with something more protein packed for lunch so that I don't TOTALLY crash this afternoon.So yes...this boys and girls is an example of "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail!" We will pretend I did it on purpose so at to serve as a valuable lesson to you all ;-)

So how am I salvaging this day?
1) I still rode my bike to school so I am still getting exercise.
2) I grabbed 2 muffins, one for breakfast and one for an afternoon snack so I don't fade too badly
3) I am going to make the healthiest lunch choice from the options available - possibly a veggie burrito or sushi and fruit
4) I am going to the grocery store after work to get those things I am missing
5) I am going to turn off the super awesome Quantum Leap reruns at a decent time tonight and get some real sleep (Did I just reveal what a geek I am? Because I totally have had a thing for Dean Stockwell since I was like 10 years old!)


Happy Monday everyone!

The College Lunch Revolution

I am writing a post to contribute to the Fed Up With Lunch blog party talking about school lunch revolution! Now, I am not the average target audience of Mrs. Q's crusade to change school lunch in grades K-12, but I think that it is just as important to look at how poor nutrition and food choices affect college students too!

1) Answer any, all or one of the following questions in a blog post on your blog, flickr account, or youtube video:

• How is “Back to School” going for your family?
• Well, back to school is happening for me for the first time in 10 years :-) Returning to college as an adult is VERY unique. Things that I took for granted in the corporate world (refrigerator, microwave, money, stable schedule) are now GONE. I am back to packing my lunch in a lunch bag that can fit in my backpack and that doesn't require refrigeration or reheating. Also being in classes with people 8-10 years my junior does take some getting used to :-)
  
• Is school lunch important part of your child’s day?
• School lunch is not an important part of my day, but only because I live off campus and I don't have a dining plan.
  
• What is school lunch like at your school or your child’s school?
• School lunch (and breakfast and dinner and snacks) at college take place in the dining hall or in the food court in the University center. Basically, it is giving kids who are away from home for the first time, all you can eat access to fast food 24 hours a day. The quality of the food is low, and the choices are primarily high fat/high calorie/high sodium and the vegetarian alternatives are slim to none.
  
• Does school lunch need to be reformed?
• ABSOLUTELY school lunch needs to be reformed! And I think that needs to extend from preschool all the way up through college. Especially at a college like mine where town is 8 miles away so the only options for 80% of the student body is on campus, I think there is no excuse to take a captive audience and give them only unhealthy options because it will boost the school's profit margins. Even at the mini marts the best you can find is maybe an apple or a banana in among the candy and chips. I am lucky enough to have access to the grocery store so I can get fruit and veggies and the ingredients to cook and pack my own food, but many if not most of the students here don't have that option and I think that is a crime.
  
• Do you pack lunch for your kids and what do you pack?
• I pack lunches for myself and a sample (what I packed yesterday) would be: sandwich with hummus, sprouts and cucumbers, homemade granola and greek yogurt, apple slices, homemade muffin and cherries for an afternoon snack (recipes for my granola and muffins are both on my blog!!)
  
• What are some of your favorite lunch recipes (kid-friendly or adult-friendly)?
• My favorite recipe right now is for my pumpkin cranberry muffins (which I had to improvise and make with mashed baked sweet potato since there is still no canned pumpkin in the stores). It uses no oil, no butter, and is super awesome for breakfast and snacks. Recipe is on my blog!
  
• What are some great beverages for kids and adults?
  
• My favorite beverage is making a pitcher of iced tea and then just keeping that in the fridge. I collected a couple of Snapple size bottles and I keep them clean and then just fill them with my own iced tea when I want it to take with me. Might be tough for kids where the glass bottles would break, but it is perfect for me to take $0.o5 worth of tea instead of paying $1.50 for an oversweetened bottle when I am out.
  
• How much time should kids get to eat lunch?
• My biggest issue right now is that I only get about 10 minutes to eat lunch in between classes and work and running around. I have turned into more of a grazer bringing small snack items to eat when I have time instead of a big lunch like when I was in an office.
  
• What are some products that you use when you pack lunch?
• I bought myself an insulated lunch bag and a little blue ice pack and a selection of tupperware containers in 1/2 cup, 1 cup, 2 cup and 4 cup sizes. That and my giant waterbottle covers me on a daily basis.

So that is just a little bit of info from an (untraditional) college student's perspective on the school lunch issue.

Pumpkin (or sweet potato) Muffin Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white sugar (I used organic)
  
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoons nutmeg
• 1 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoons ground cloves
• NOTE - In place of the 3 above spices you can use 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
  
• 3 eggs (If you wanted to veganize I recommend using a combination of vegan replacers like flax seed, bananas or Ener-G)
  
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin OR 2-3 baked sweet potatoes, mashed to get approx. 2 cups
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Grease two 12 cup muffin pans, or line with paper muffin liners. Soak cranberries in hot water for ten minutes to plump, then drain.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, pumpkin, and applesauce, until smooth. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly to make a smooth batter. Stir the cranberries and almonds into the batter. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups to 3/4 full.
3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
4. Makes 16 muffins

These muffins are DELICIOUS! Sweet, but not overly so, dense but not heavy, not oily or greasy at all because there is no added fat, yummy burst of cranberry goodness throughout...the perfect thing to grab for breakfast with my smoothie in the morning instead of toast. I made 16 and I am refrigerating half and freezing the other half. And of course, because I am always thinking of ways to make additions, I may add some orange zest in with this next time...I bet the flavor would really add a lot!

Now I normally am not too fussy about the nutrition info or tracking calories religiously, but I was curious to see what the nutrition info was on this recipe because I did alter it from another recipe using different measurements of nuts and fruit, switching whole wheat flour for all purpose and cutting the sugar in half (because I don't want my breakfast muffins to taste like cupcakes!) and I was pleasantly surprised. If you make 16 muffins from this recipe each muffin comes out to about 175 calories, 3 g of fat, 3.5 grams of fiber and almost 5 grams of protein. Not to bad if you ask me! I included the full breakdown below if you are interested. I got this from entering the recipe into Spark People's recipe calculator which is a very handy tool.

So please make a batch of these and let me know how you like them!

Amount Per Serving
Calories		177.1
Total Fat		3.1 g
	Saturated Fat	0.5 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.6 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	1.5 g
Cholesterol		39.8 mg
Sodium		18.9 mg
Potassium		132.5 mg
Total Carbohydrate		34.9 g
	Dietary Fiber	3.6 g
	Sugars	17.5 g
Protein		4.8 g

Pictures!

Ok folks, so I took some pictures to share with you today to make up for Tuesday's picture-less post.

First - a couple pictures of the lovely, tasty and nutritional powerhouse green monster smoothie! I drink a little bit while getting ready and put the rest in my water bottle and take it to school to drink during my 8am classes.


Also a picture of my yogurt and granola all ready to be mixed and consumed before my 11am class :-)

Now I have LOVED these Oikos individual organic greek yogurt cups with honey and they are perfect for bringing to school. However, my budget will no longer allow me to buy them so I am probably going to just be switching to regular plain yogurt and premixing it in my lovely 1 cup liquid-tight tupperware containers with my homemade granola. Oh the sacrifices of a poor student!

And here is a picture of the illustrious Blue Bomber - my trusty companion to and from school and all over campus.

Please note the helmet hanging from the handlebar (normally on my head) because safety is important and I have had a couple of bad bike accidents in my past (if you launch headfirst over the front of your bike and catch a handlebar in the gut you may end up with a face full of pavement, a lacerated spleen and internal bleeding...I'm just sayin'!), the backpack and water bottle with WATER in the basket up front, and the water bottle with smoothie in the handy dandy water bottle holder. Much like running, I may not be the fastest one in the pack, but by god I am going to get there!

For a couple of new items may I present my new breakfast goodie - pumpkin spice muffins!

"Now wait a moment!" You might be saying..."I thought there was no canned pumpkin available in the stores right now because of the big pumpkin harvest rotting last year!" And you would be right. For those of you who don't know, all the commercial pumpkins last year basically rotted on the vines and there has been no canned pumpkin available since Christmas last year until the new harvest ripens this year. So I did what any enterprising cook who wanted muffins would do, I baked sweet potatoes used the mashed meat from those instead. Voila! Made with whole wheat flour, sweet potato, applesauce instead of oil, and studded with cranberries and almonds. A not-too-sweet but oh so delicious breakfast item to keep in the fridge and grab all week. I will do a separate post with the recipe and nutrition info.

Note to self however - do NOT attempt to balance said muffin on the backpack in the above pictured bike basket and expect it to stay in place when going over a speed bump...1/2 a muffin was sacrificed to learn that lesson today. Will adjust for tomorrow :-)

Also a pic of my sandwich today. Tuesday/Thursday is my day that I have 10 minutes to eat lunch because I have class from 11am-2pm with only that short break in between. Last time I brought tuna and dill dip and crackers, and decided that eating pungent tuna before going into acting class was not the greatest idea. Last night I made some lemon dill hummus and turned it into a hummus/sprouts/cucumber sandwich for lunch today. Will let you know how that goes, but it sure looks yummy!

By the way...any suggestions or ideas on 10 minute lunches would be greatly appreciated!