Busy Baker

Killa Choc Cupcakes from Gonna Want Seconds – oh my lord they were! Not in the slightest bit clean so its good I didn’t eat much more than half a mini one

A very over-exposed half batch of pumpkin muffins from here (I also added a mix of the following spices amoungst 12 muffins for a chai flavour.

Chai Spice Mix for Baking
1 ½ tsp ground cardamom
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground nutmeg

The spice was very subtle. I would recommend doubling, and use 1/4 of the mix to sprinkle on top, or mix into cream cheese icing.

And mini banana muffins from here, my go-to recipe for banana bread. They are about the diameter of a 50c coin – great for a mini sweet hit  after lunch. Added ch-ch-chia and walnuts on top

Playing catch ups

A little behind because I’ve been to a cocktail party, a wedding and have fallen off my clean eating wagon!!

Breakfast: Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal with banana, peanut butter and soy milk.

I got the cereal from a friend who visited the US. Kashi is a pretty popular brand, particularly for those who are trying to eat a little healthier, but looking at the ingredients its still a bit of a concoction, and has added sweeteners - at least its all relatively natural. Usually I steer clear of cold cereals due to the added sugar and often empty carbs. But on those mornings when you just can’t stomach something warm or heavy, cereals fits in perfectly. Just have to remember to balance with protein and good fats!

Enjoyed with some fresh flowers!

 

Lunch: Leftover Bento

This was really delicious! Peanut soba with extra broadbeans, a gyzoa and chicken yakitori. The white nectarine was over ripe and juicy and exactly what I needed as a pick me up at work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: The boy’s Macaroni and cheese.

Not at all clean! At least it wasn't too cheesy – most of it was low fat ricotta. He is trying. Also became our breakfast the next day before the wedding.

The wedding was a crazy feast of champagne, delicious but fried nibbles, fresh entre and main interspersed with anecdotes from the family and friends of the gorgeous bride and ecstatic groom, and so much cake!  I don’t drink often, and I never forget anything or have bad hangovers, so I am a little cocky when it comes to drinking. Recently however, the next day has been a challenge – I just feel weak, dizzy, sick, am unproductive and just want to eat-eat-eat! I think my body is really trying to tell me something, and this time I am going to listen!

The Mac cheese was also accompanied by mint lemonade and some magazines. The new Cosmo health. $13 is a little steep for a magazine, but 1. its a special and 2. I get a free medium boost juice, so that’s $5 off the cover price (because I actually buy boost). It also came with a free bootcamp pass, but I don’t live close enough to the locations to get any benefit (so let me know if you want the voucher!) I bought it to read when I feel like eating chocolate – a distraction!

The mint lemonade is something I am trying to develop from Mint Lemonada I had at a Turkish Restaurant. The recipe so far is…

Mint Lemonada

1-2 lemons (depending on size) or about 1/3 c fresh lemon juice (pulp ok too)
1 stevia tablet (or tsp natural sweetener)
2 tsp agave nectar or honey
2 tsp to 1 tbsp mint (or a bunch of fresh mint, preferred)
1/2 c ice
1 c water or soda water

Blend all ingredients. Ignore colour. Delicious!

I think its still missing something. More lemon perhaps? Its meant to be tart and refreshing – a perfect beverage to cut through the powerful flavours of hummus, shish kebab and burek.

Today’s Noms

I actually got up  at 5:30am to attempt to ease myself back into fitness. At my peak I was doing an hour 5-6 days a week (1 cardio, 1 weights, 2 circuits, 1 yoga) but I have barely clocked up a whole hour in the past week! This morning was 30 mins – 10 min run, 10 min brisk walk, 10 min stretches and abs. Its difficult when you come home late, don’t get tired until after “bed-time” but want to get max sleep so you can concentrate on academia and work. But no excuses anymore – it should help me clear my head and get to sleep faster!

But onto the foods!!

Breakfast: Muffin and Egg – small but powerful!

Not ideal, but didn’t feel like oats. A “failure” muffin – carrots/bran/chia -  frozen then reheated became doughy and very edible (especially with natural peanut butter). Mini glass of Soy Milky. I also tried to boil an egg, but it came out runny... so I stuck it in the microwave, turned my back and when I came back the egg was gone!

Well... stuck to every wall of the microwave!! I made another… 

Some say egg yolk’s aren’t clean, but they seem pretty natural (and healthy) to  me. Sure, I’ll limit my intake, especially in pies/omelettes, but we don’t have egg beaters in Australia, and it would be such a waste to throw out every yolk!

 

 

Lunch: Beef n Black Bean and Brown Rice with Nori and sesame seed seasoning 

A co-worker's meat pie made me doubt my bento for a second, but once I digged in, I was happy. Did get hungry early - sugar in the jarred sauce? Peanut M&Ms were dancing in my head all afternoon – should have packed dessert. Drat. And then watermelon mid-afternoon, still CRAVING chocolate. Had a few cups of stevia sweetened tea.

Dinner: Teriyaki Salmon

At least the sauce is clean and the Salmon and veggies are fresh (and Australian!). The hokkein noodles, not so much. I like my Salmon skin-on but crispy, so I seared it in the wok, then added the sauce and brought to a boil.

The clean sauce was a marinade I turned into a sauce (see after the jump) Needs some adjusting – wayyy to salty! The boy didn’t finish his portion (extra noodles, mine was extra veg)

Recipe: BBB

Also known as
"Bron's Best B.L.T" (I love acronyms that have acronyms in them!!)

What you need for two:

• Woolworths Garlic and Olive Oil Sourdough bread - seriously imperative. If you don't, I GUESS you could use sourdough bread and spread garlic butter on it.
• 3-4 pieces of rindless bacon (I use middle bacon then trim it)
• Lettuce (anything which is crisp and vibrant and will do), washed and pulled apart into sandwhich sized pieces
• 1 juicy tomato, cut into approx 6 thick slices
• 1 avocado, halved, seed removed and mashed
• Salt and pepper to taste

Optional

• Aioli - amazement, making the above a BLAAT
• Caramelised onions - BLOAT?

1.  Grill or pan-fry the bacon on high heat until crispy.

2.  Cut the loaf of bread on an angle so you get decent sized pieces, not straight like normal bread. Grill on a sandwhich press until light brown char marks appear, or you can't stand the smell any longer (its so damn good)

4.  Slather on the avocado then salt, aioli and onion (if using). On the other slice place your lettuce, tomato and then bacon.

5.  Place the avo'd side onto the top of the rest of your sammo and DIG IN.

6.  Die happy (eventually)

I dont know what it is about bacon + avo but whatever it is its AMAZEBALLS

And you know what, its not an awfully unehalthy recipe. You could go the rye sourdough etc and just add garlic to your bacon, shortcut at that and skimp on the avo (I usually only put about 1/4 of one on and the boy gets 3/4 on his bigger sanga)

The bread really does make it, and I've heard they might discontinue it so I am going to buy as many loafs as I can and freeze them.

Its a bake-off!

Oh its been a while. But I have been busy-busy baking (instead of taking photos!)
First, I accepted the challenge to make Vegan cupcakes that were delicious. Enter Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World’s sexy low-fat vanilla cupcakes. I added sprinkles for look and crunch (and checked – the red isn't from crushed bugs as per normal, so they were ok to add)

I ended up topping these with a tofu-icing that REALLY DIDN’T WORK. The recipe just yielded liquid slush. I had to add cocoa, custard powder (dairy free of course – it was basically sugar and cornflour) all my cornflour, egg-replacer, anything powdery to dry it out. In the end I added all my coconut oil (about $5 worth, ugh, baking is costly) and froze. FINALLY, it became useable, and I also put on sprinkles. So imagine these with browny orange topping.

Odd thing was I made about 27, two trays of 12 and then some singlies, all from the same batter, but I could only put the trays in first lot around. The second lot seemed to be a lot more bouncy (below right). Perhaps letting the dough rest was ok. Also not burning them probably helped.

These ended up being a hit at work. I waited until people told me they were delicious before breaking the news that the topping was made out of tofu and there was no butter or milk in them. Oh, and they were low-fat. So a winner!
Next up were some ricotta cornmeal muffins I kinda made up/mixed up.

The recipe was an edit from Creative Gourmet, something like
Ingredients
1 cup shy self-raising flour (I used half wholemeal)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup polenta (yellow cornmeal)
1/4 + 2 tbsp cup caster sugar (I did half with splenda)
125g low fat ricotta cheese
1/4 c applesauce
1 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup water or as needed to make soft
1 1/4 cups berries, frozen or fresh
Instructions

1. Preheat oven at 160ºC (fan forced at 150ºC). Lightly grease a 1/2 cup-capacity 12 hole muffin pan.
   
2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, except blueberries. Using a large metal spoon, stir to combine. Spoon 2 tablespoons of mixture into each muffin cup. Dividing blueberries, top each with some frozen blueberries. Cover with remaining ricotta mixture. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Turn out from pans and serve warm.

They were very tender, and not too sweet – great for lunch BUT the ones I left fresh in the baking box ended up going disgusting and tart and rotten. Lucky I froze a few for lunches!

Lastly I made this recipe from taste (minus the fruit)–  honing my fruitless hot cross bun recipe for easter. I actually halved the recipe but not the yeast and it worked perfectly – the boy prefers these to woolies (and to my previous attempts which turned out like bread rather than buns) Thank goodness for the Kenwood Chef!!

Yin and Yang

Hahha, its almost been a week now. As you can see I am not that great at sticking to resolutions (I am currently eating M&Ms and Malteasers...)

But onto the eats!

When I bake I like to bake a few things at once - you may as well put all that energy to good use! But at the same time, I dislike my trousers getting tighter, so I try to balance my exorbitance with something a little less decadent (and a fair bit of gym time). It also means, when I turn up to work, the health freaks don't... freak out. Although usually a bite of one of my banana-chai-white-choc cake pops soothes the savage beast.

So today I made some deliciously decadent Choc Chip Dough Balls, courtesy of The Chic Life, but also some Ginger-Bran Muffins, adpated from Womens Health Mag.

Ah balance!!

So recipes? I basically followed the recipe (except my egg had, surprise-surprise, two egg yolks, and I think that meant they are a bit more cookie, less doughy as I had to bake them longer?) so you can grab it from the Chic Life - kudos to her for all those experiements (and yay! A new blog for me to follow!!)

And secondly...

Ginger-Bran Muffins

Makes 12 medium sized muffins

1/2 cup bran (I used ALDI all-bran, crushed a little)
1 1/4 cup plain wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp applesauce
1 egg, beaten (I used 1 egg white and 1/2 an egg worth of egg substitute because its all I had left!)
A single-serve tub of yogurt (about 2/3 c. I used ALDI Low-fat Mango yogurt.)
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated (I used Gourmet Garden, a lifesafer!)
3 Tbsp golden syrup
A splash of fruit juice if its looking dry
1 cup shredded carrots (2-3 small ones)

1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Mix the dry the ingredients (bran to sugar) together.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining wet ingredients.
4. Combine the mixtures well. You may notice the baking soda/powder doing its job, puffing up the batter.
5. Spoon the batter into a 12 muffin pan, with either pre-prepared muffin cases, or well-greased pan. Bake at 190C until the muffin tops spring back when pressed lightly or a skewer comes out clean.

I also sprinkled in some chia seeds, totally optional, and some flaked almonds on top before the bake, and squeezed half a lime when done. It means you can enjoy them plain (like me) or with cream-cheese/jam/PB/coconut oil/butter like the boy will undoubtedly do (after I refuse to make another lime-white choc buttercream for last time's muffins)

The Living Cookbook calculates these (sans almonds and lime) as 126 calories, 1g fat, 2g fibre per muffin. Could be better, but one of the first muffins I've made that rose properly despite being low fat and wholemeal.

Notes:

• I use a whisk to mix the dry, then the wet then both mixtures. It combines the ingredients without pushing out the air like overbeating with a spoon might.
• I also use a silicone muffin pan for healthy or lower fat muffins as I find they stick to the paper. I spray this with canola oil first, and make sure I let the muffins cool - experience.
• Don't overbake! Once they are overbaked they can go chewy as hell. Boo. Plus if you freeze, then microwave them, they wont be too chewy.
• Lastly, low fat and wholemeal muffins taste a lot better the next day - more flavours, moister and not rubbery. So be patient, and eat your unhealthy treats today instead!

I tried to hide the leftovers in these nifty Spotlight tins as I am about 25% cookie right now. I dont get the nick-name Cookie Bronster for nothing, you know? Even my Step class and attempt at being virtuous...

Chlorophyll*

...doesnt compensate. Ah well, I would rather be pudgey and happy than skinny and deprived. Been there involuntarily, is not so great. And right now, I'm full of cookie, and happy.

* Every time I get this stuff out, straight or diluted I say aloud "Its so ... green"