FitFeat

Archive for May, 2011

Yardio Time is Here Again!

May 27

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 8 Comments

Happy Friday FitFeat Friends!  It’s time for a long holiday weekend – oh yeah!  I’m very excited!

The sun is finally out again today so I took the chance to get in my YARDIO just in case it decided to hide behind the clouds again.  It was a very productive morning.  Before 8:30 I’d had a cup of coffee, made a delicious (and HUGE) glass of green juice, picked up land mines (aka dog doody), and got the yard edged, trimmed and mowed!  This is only the second yardio session of the year, because our grass hasn’t been growing much.

Green juice and grass clippings:  mmmm

Oh I should add to my list of productivity “clean up kitchen post-juicing” – what a mess!

It felt GREAT to get back to doing yardwork – I especially LOVE to run the weedwhacker (trimmer).  I need to devise a contraption or exercise that mimics running the weedwhacker because it works my rear shoulders like nothing else I’ve ever done.  Or maybe I just got really out of YARDIO shape over the last year, since I didn’t really do any last summer while I was still working at the securities firm.  :D

I also got to spend some extra yardio time moving river rocks last week.  I’m saving the big rocks…

…because we are finally (and begrudgingly) having our driveway replaced.  We could have purchased a small car (or a nice vacation to Italy or replaced all of our carpeting) for the cost of this project, but it had to be done or we were certain to get a letter from the HOA.  It’s been disintegrating at the seams for about 3 years.  And since we are adding a couple of sidewalk extensions, I’m saving the bigger river rocks to put down somewhere else.

The concrete guy is pretty cool and he has FUN yardio toys!

He even helped us pull out some overgrown bushes.

Bye bye crazy juniper, bushy spirea (or whatever you were) and dead aspen!  If we ever move into another house, we will make sure there are NO juniper bushes – this thing spread “creepers”  quite a ways into our neighbor’s grass.

So tonight as soon as MSP is off of work, we are heading to the local nursery to start looking at plants to consider installing in their place.  We need to do a little homework to find out which ones won’t grow like weeds, will work in the Colorado climate and most importantly won’t COST a fortune.  Then we have to sketch it out and turn it all in to our homeowner’s association architectural committee to see if they’ll even approve it.

Um, Dear HOA: I already ripped out those crazy bushes.  I know I didn’t ask for permission first.  But it’s your fault those crazy plants were there in the first place since you approved them for the previous owners! ;)

We can’t wait to have a fresh new driveway.  Partly because we haven’t been able to use our garage for a week, and it will be another 2 weeks before we can get back in!

And last but not least, we finally got our FIRST veggie garden planted!

(Is my husband a handy guy or what?  Check out that raised 4×8 garden bed on STILTS!!)

We planted red peppers, tomatoes, kale (of course I planted KALE – the best veggie on the planet!), cucumber, zucchini, mint, basil, scallions, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.  We can’t wait to see how it grows!  If only staring at it would cause the plants to grow faster, we’d be set!  Because we have both been out there hovering over it every day in the week since we planted!

Have you done any YARDIO yet this season?  Planted any veggies?

I hope you have a MEMORABLE Memorial Day weekend, blog buds!

– Shari B. =)

P.S.on the subject of veggies, if you are looking for something to do this long holiday weekend:  find a viewing of  Forks Over Knives at your local theater (in all of Denver it’s only showing in ONE theater, so look for places that show indie films and documentaries).  I really enjoyed it and you really come out of it wanting to take your nutrition to the next level and improve your health.

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Fun with Fermenting: Water Kefir

May 25

Posted by Shari B. in Adventures in Fermenting | 5 Comments

Hi friends!

Before I get into today’s post topic I just wanted to express my heartache at the devastation in our country’s heartland lately.  Looking at all of the lives and homes lost in the tornadoes this week, the flooding all along the Mississippi River, the Tuscaloosa tornado, the wildfires that burned all over Texas… Let’s all take some time this week to put some perspective into our lives and to be thankful for our blessings.

I’m sure you may have all seen this during the news coverage, but just in case… if you want to do something to help, the American Red Cross could really use donations.  All you need to do is:

And then hug your family and friends today.  And say hello to your neighbors.  There was a story on the news this morning about a group of neighbors who were worried about the 73 year old man who lived on alone their street that they thought was missing after the Joplin tornado.  As it turned out, he was staying elsewhere but when he found out people were concerned, he said he had no idea that people had cared about him.  How touching is that?

***

In a post last week I mentioned that an upcoming post would talk about water kefir. I’d actually never even heard of it until a friend of mine asked me if I’d like some of her extra kefir grains to start my own.  I was only familiar with dairy-based kefir and coconut kefir.  Game to try new things (and always enjoying growing bacteria in my kitchen, ha ha!) I jumped at the chance.  It’s taken a few weeks for my little grains to really get in their groove but now that they are, I’m enjoying it!  I think it tastes a lot like kombucha but it’s a lot easier and it ferments much faster (and in smaller batches).

There are a lot of different instructions out there, but I found that I like the easiest ones (shocker, right?) where all I have to do is add the grains, the filtered water, and some organic sugar then cover with a coffee filter and rubberband.  Let it sit for about 48 hours for its first ferment.  I’m making mine in smaller batches, so I use

  • 3 cups filtered water
  • 3 tablespoons organic sugar or Sucanat
  • kefir grains (enough to fill about 1/2 to 3/4  measuring cup)

Then you are supposed to strain out the liquid, place the liquid in a second jar with some optional flavoring (I have been enjoying a splash of Açai juice), and tightly cover it with a lid for a second ferment for another day or two to let the carbonation build.  I’ve found that if I leave a few spoons’ worth of grains in my second ferment, I get a lot more FIZZ!  (Which is what I have been missing from storebought kombucha teas lately).

Look at how fizzy today’s turned out!

And then you start your remaining grains into another fresh ferment.

My friend Heather who turned me on to this fun drink recommends “burping” the lid of your second ferment once or twice a day to avoid a kefir explosion from the buildup of carbonation.  (Thank you Heather for all the great tips and for introducing me to something new!)

I’m enjoying having something that “feels like soda” to sip on, while not having to pay the crazy price of pre-bottled kombucha.  Not to mention the beneficial probiotic bacteria that supposedly comes from this drink!

Have you ever made or tasted water kefir?

– Shari B. =)

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Spinach Abuse

May 20

Posted by Shari B. in Food Rants | 8 Comments

Happy Friday FitFeat Friends!

After a bunch of rain and dreary weather (with more on the way) we have a brief bit of sunshine right now.  I am thrilled!  Regular readers of this blog know that I run on SOLAR POWER and too many days of clouds zaps my ZIP!  So I’m throwing on the sneakers in a minute and heading out for a WOG to soak up some rays.

I know I said my next post would be about water kefir and yardio … but this morning while researching some recipe stuff I came across something so ironic that I couldn’t help but share this with you guys!

I happened upon a recipe on a popular recipe sharing site.  In the notes, the author states:

“Your kids will eat their spinach when you serve this creamy and delicious side dish. It’s easy enough for family dinners and elegant enough for company and holidays.”

Now take a look at the INGREDIENTS in her recipe:

  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon white pepper (optional)
  • 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of celery soup
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 3 (10 ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
  • 1 (6 ounce) can French-fried onions
  • 2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Lady, if this is what it takes to get your kids to eat a little spinach, I think you’ve got bigger problems!  Or you certainly will when they become obese with heart disease and/or diabetes.

Yikes.

I hate to sound judgmental, but this kind of stuff just really fires me up.   It kills me that kids who have to rely on what their parents feed them are forced to eat this stuff (and under the guise of ‘healthy’ because it has spinach in it??)  Hey real butter and real cheese are fine (in reasonable amounts) if they are from a quality source and free of hormones and antibiotics.  But have you looked at the ingredients lately in condensed cream soups or french-fried onions?

I even feel bad for the spinach.

I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts on this!  Talk to me.  Does it make you nuts or do you think I’m nuts? :)

– Shari B. =)

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A Post Chock Full of Veggies

May 18

Posted by Shari B. in Adventures in Dehydrating, Cooking | 7 Comments

Hi blog buds!  What’s new?  I hope that you are having a wonderful week so far!  As usual when a week goes by between posts I have more to share with you than you probably have time to read!  I’ll try to keep it from being TOO long and then come back and post again sooner this time!

I have been spending a decent amount of time in the kitchen recently (pictures to follow later in the post). Today when I was testing a new recipe adaptation for a vegetarian Adzuki Bean Shepherd’s Pie (with spicy mashed yams on top… mmmm!) I was realizing that if I were ever to have a cooking show it would most likely be featured on Comedy Central as opposed to the Food Network.  And not so much because of my silly sense of humor but because of the string of crazy things that seem to happen when I step into my own kitchen.

Like when I was trying to pour from a new container of vegetable stock and it decided to “glug” WAAAAY past the measuring cup and splash all over my arm and shirt.

Or when I was stirring a mixture of adzuki beans and vegetables sauteeing on the stovetop and my spatula took on a life of its own, made some sort of slingshot maneuver and flung bean mixture EVERYWHERE.  (Seriously – I’m going to have to move my stove out from the wall to clean this one up.)

I feel fortunate that when I used both my blender and my food processor today, the lids were firmly in place.  It could have been disastrous – it has just been one of those days!

The good news?  The shepherd’s pie was delicious!  (I’m not really sure what to call it – it’s obviously not shepherd’s pie if there’s no lamb in it.  “Farmer’s Pie” maybe?)

It’s not very pretty in the casserole dish pictured below.  When I make this for the intended client, it will be in single serving baking dishes and I’ll fancy up the yam topper (maybe with a pastry bag) but when I’m just checking to see how it tastes and how it will freeze/thaw/reheat, I’m not worried about the looks yet.  :)

However, some of the other things I’ve made lately are much easier on the eyes:

Raw “Fruit Truffles”
with dates, carob, orange zest/juice, dried cranberries and rolled in raw sesame seeds

Orange Chia Seed MiniCakes with Dark Chocolate Coconut Ganache
and White Chocolate abstracts (all vegan except for the white chocolate)
(I was sharing with the neighbors, so I put their initials on them)

I also made some quick-bread muffins with the pulp leftover from my juicer…

… but then I forgot to take a picture when they were done!

(I’m putting together an alternative ingredient dessert class that will be hosted in the near future by a wonderful gal I know!  Just so you don’t think all I’m eating these days is sweets!  ;) )

I also tried Gena’s raw juice pulp crackers in the dehydrator and I tossed some green olives, garlic, capers and artichoke hearts into the food processor to make a quick ‘tapenade’:

***

I’ve gotten back into the swing of eating again like I used to:  aiming for a minimum of a pound of raw veggies a day via green smoothie and large salad, plus some cooked veggies.  And on top of that I’m also adding in some fresh green juice as well – it feels GREAT to be getting back to that.  I have so much food testing to do now as a part of my job that I’d really gotten away from getting in all my raw veggies.  Granted, most of the test food I make has TONS of veggies in it (even just today’s recipe alone had onion, mushrooms, carrot, zucchini, celery and yam) – but RAW veggies are very important for us as well for the enzymes and vitamins that can be diminished or destroyed by cooking.

I weighed my smoothie veggies for fun:

13.6 oz of GREEN just in my smoothie!  Wahoo!

Rascal… every morning he just EYEBALLS my smoothies.

Juice with fun things like broccoli stalks, parsley, cucumber, celery, kale and a green apple:

Kale salad (massaged in hemp oil) and topped with a very-veggie-egg salad (green onions, celery, kale stalks, carrots, beans and sprouts):

Chard Boats filled with navy beans, sprouts, carrots, leftover Pesto Tilapia mixed with a little Vegenaise:

***

Speaking of healthy eating (and JUICING specifically), MSP and I watched a wonderful documentary this past weekend called “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead“.  (I wanted to embed the trailer here but it’s not playing nice with me today so click HERE for the link to watch it on YouTube.)

Long story short:  the man in the film got up to 309 lbs and also suffered from an autoimmune disease.  He went on a physician-monitored green juice fast … for SIXTY DAYS!!  (Incidentally that doc was Dr. Joel Fuhrman – whose books I love and who first turned me on to the idea of getting at least 1 lb of raw veggies per day).  Can you imagine ONLY drinking juice for 60 days straight?  WOW!  that makes EATING green veggies seem so much easier by comparison, don’t you think?  He then went on to help another man who was 428 lbs (and suffering from the same autoimmune disorder) on his juice fast journey.  There is more to the film – you can “rent” it at Amazon.com and stream it right to your computer.   Check it out!

“Forks Over Knives” (meaning ‘choose nutrition first instead of later having to resort to meds/surgery’), another nutrition documentary, opens in Denver this weekend and I can’t wait to see that one too!

Have you seen either of these movies?  Have you ever done an extended juice fast?

Have a great day friends!  I’ll be back again (sooner this time, I promise) so I can tell you about the start of YARDIO season and also about WATER KEFIR that a friend clued me in on!

– Shari B. =)

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You Win Some, You Lose Some

May 10

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 6 Comments

Well hello there blog buds!

In the food blog world, we are all bombarded with photos of beautiful creations and fabulous recipes.  Does that ever make you feel inadequate in the kitchen?  It does me, I’ll tell you that!  (It also makes me feel inadequate as a photographer!)

So today I thought it might be fun to show you something that I thought was going to be this amazing idea only to have it just not pan out in reality.  (Truth be told, this happens more often than you might imagine!)

I’ve been carrying around this idea in my head that I wanted to make a vegan enchilada using a leafy green in lieu of tortillas to lighten it up a bit.  When I was little my mom used to make great cabbage rolls (why oh why didn’t I hang out more in the kitchen when she used to cook?) so I thought I’d take the idea of a cabbage roll but make it more of a Mexican style dish.

Sounds good so far, right?

Well, rather than the usual blah green cabbage, I decided to use red cabbage.  And to contrast that, I thought I’d use a green enchilada sauce.  Can you just picture the bright red of the cabbage with the green sauce?  Doesn’t that sound pretty?

So I steamed up a whole head of red cabbage (to make the leaves more pliable) and set it aside to cool:

I made a filling out of tofu, lentils, mushrooms, onions, celery, spices:

Then I stuffed the leaves and rolled them up:

And this is when things just started to go downhill.  First, the color of the cabbage was greatly diminished in the steaming so I no longer had that vibrant burgundy color.  Now it was just on the other side of blue.

Additionally the pigment of the steamed cabbage was staining everything just like beets do!  My fingernails looked like I’d been working on my car’s engine!  NOW I see why I wasn’t finding many red cabbage rolls online!

Next, the sauce I chose was one by Rick Bayless.  (He’s wonderful at Mexican cuisine – I’m not above using a quality premade sauce sometimes!)

For the record, I’ll tell you the sauce is delicious (so are the other sauces of his that I’ve tried).  BUT – when I looked more closely at the ingredients, it DID contain milk (so much for my vegan enchiladas!) and the color was … well … NOT very green.

I topped it with Daiya vegan cheese and baked.

Overall, I was a little disappointed only because the LOOK of them wasn’t nearly as vibrant as I’d had in my mind.  And the cabbage just didn’t compare as a shell vs. the corn tortilla.  BUT the stuffing turned out great and I’ll use the lentil/mushroom/tofu combo again in something else.  I made a little side salad out of jicama and served it up (on Cinco de Mayo actually):

So there you have it.  Not everything turns out “chef-tastic” in the FitFeat kitchen!  I’ll go back to the drawing board and come up with something else that might work along these lines and try again.  But you have to give things a try because you just never know when you’ll make something that surprises you!

Like this easy snack:

In lieu of my usual almond butter, I smeared a little fresh avocado on my Ezekial toast the other day and topped it with dried cranberries and a sprinkle of hemp seeds!  It was a really fun contract of color AND taste.  I bought a bag of dried cranberries the other day to use in a recipe test for a client meal, and I’ve been adding the leftovers to all kinds of things.  I even made a little ‘trailmix’ of roasted wasabi soybeans and cranberries!  Sounds crazy but it ended up working!

***

A BIG thank you to Joan (of the delightful and immensely informative gardening/beekeeping blog I’m in the Garden Today) for the wonderful gift of homegrown Organic Garlic Powder – her sister grows her own garlic and then even makes her own garlic powder!  It’s wonderful – thank you Joan for the thoughtful treat!  I’m enjoying using it in my cooking!

Have a great day friends!

– Shari B. =)

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Broccomole

May 5

Posted by Shari B. in Product Review, Recipes | 4 Comments

Hi blog buds!

A while back, as a part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, I received some free samples of Tostitos Dip Creation mixes to try.  Of course, being the guacamole lover that I am, I decided to start with this packet:

And seeing how it’s Cinco de Mayo, I figured today would be a good day to share this particular creation.

Instead of using avocados as the directions stated, I thought it would be fun to try another green food.  You know I’m always looking for ways to boost my intake of green veggies.

How about trying it with a whole head of broccoli?

Truth be told, I was a little alarmed at the level of sodium in the dry mix so I figured that broccoli would not only keep the calories in check it would also provide a good amount of potassium to balance out some of the sodium.  If you were to use the entire packet, the sodium would be 1920 mg.  That’s a lot.  So I decided to use only half the packet and see how it would taste.

I steamed one head of broccoli florets for about 5 minutes, until they were bright green and fork tender, transferred them to my Blendtec with 1/2 packet of the guacamole mix and puréed.

Place into your favorite dip bowl and garnish:

Cover and place in refrigerator for a bit until the “Broccomole” chills out a bit.

Then enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips!

This was a really tasty snack and would be a great way to get those non-veggie loving friends or family members to boost their green veg intake as well.

One note:  you will want to eat this on the same day you make it.  Leaving it in the refrigerator overnight causes the broccoli flavor to get really strong. :)

You could also try this with green peas, green beans or edamame.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, friends!

– Shari B. =)

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