FitFeat

Archive for category Handy Kitchen Tools

Last Minute Gifts for Foodies

Dec 12

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 8 Comments

Hi friends!

Happy Monday!  December is flying by and Christmas Day is sneaking up so quickly!  For those of you who celebrate the holiday and might be in need of some inexpensive last minute gift ideas for the foodie in your life (or even just looking for some stocking stuffer ideas), here are some of the things I love in my own kitchen.

1.) Handheld Kyocera mandoline slicer (around $19)

This great little tool makes paper-thin slices of things like cucumber, celery, potato, beets, etc.  And because it’s a ceramic blade it is crazy sharp and will last for a really, really, really long time without needing to be sharpened.

Look at how thin it slices!

2.) Microplane Grater/Zester (around $14)

Cory got this for me for Christmas one year, and I think we use it almost every day.  I use it most to add citrus zest to things  or to grate a superfine dusting of goat cheddar onto things.  I also love to grate dark chocolate garnish onto desserts.  It’s a great tool to have around and once you start using one, you’ll find it indispensable.

3.) Grapefruit knife (around $4 to $12 depending on the brand)

Mine is from Pampered Chef and I’ve had it for years now.   Yes, it looks like a torture tool of some sort!  But it makes easy work of eating grapefruit halves without all of the pulp-y membranes between each segment.

This is my favorite way to eat grapefruit.  Cut into two halves, using the grapefruit knife to loosen the segments.  Then I drizzle just a hint of raw honey and sprinkle with freshly ground flaxseeds.

4.)  Silpat Silicone baking liner (around $15)

This is the latest addition to my kitchen and eliminates the need for parchment paper.  It makes cleanup a breeze because nothing sticks to it and now I don’t have to feel wasteful throwing away sheet after sheet of used parchment.

5.)  Eating Well magazine subscription ($9.99)

Eating Well is one of my favorite recipe magazines – I go to their website often for ideas.  Who wouldn’t love to get a magazine in their mailbox 6 times over the next year?  They’ll think of you each time one arrives.  I love magazines as gifts.

6.) Specialty spices and/or recipes (as little or as much as you want)

Find a delicious recipe, print it onto a recipe card and purchase one of the items from the ingredient list to wrap up.  For example, here is a recipe from Eating Well for a Smoked Paprika Vinaigrette and you could put that with a bottle of the smoked paprika.

Or specialty vinegars, like champagne vinegar or white balsamic.  Or a specialty salt like fleur de sel or Hawaiian black sea salt.

***

For more ideas, check out last year’s FitFeat post about last minute gift ideas for fitness fans and foodies.

Have a great day, blog buds!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: ,

Take Your Temperature

Oct 27

Posted by Shari B. in Adventures in Dehydrating, Cooking, Handy Kitchen Tools | 2 Comments

Hi friends!

I’ve had a topic that I’ve wanted to cover for a while and seeing how this has been the week of bizarre weather extremes in Colorado (record heat on Monday, then snow yesterday and near record lows this morning), I figured it’s the perfect time to talk about TEMPERATURE!  But instead of outdoors, I’m talking about in some of your appliances!

When I work in a client’s kitchen, the first thing I do when I’m there is test the accuracy of their oven.  The last thing I want is to burn their food if I think I’m cooking something in their oven at 350° only to find out that it’s actually much higher than that.  You’d be surprised how the dials tell a completely different story than the actual temp inside your oven.

You can find an inexpensive hanging thermometer that you can pop right onto a rack in your oven and leave it there.

You can also determine “hot spots” in your oven this way as well by moving it to different locations.  This would explain why that batch of cookies you made burned on the back right side of the cookie sheet and the front left ones were perfect.  :)   You’ll find that if you have a convection oven the temp may jump around a bit as the fan turns on and off.  If I set my oven at 325° often times it actually registers on the thermometer at 350°.

It also helps you to know if your oven preheats in the amount of time it says it does.  Just because your oven beeps that the oven has reached the desired temp doesn’t actually mean it has.  I’ve had some client ovens signal preheated when still 100° away.  So place your thermometer and then compare.  Is it at the expected temp when it tells you it’s ready?

Don’t just stop at your oven though.  Do you have a toaster oven?  I do.  And I used to make the mistake of trusting the dial on the front. Until something came out of it TOTALLY charred (and not in that tasty ‘blackened Cajun fish’ kind of way).  It hadn’t occurred to me until then to check my toaster oven and BOY was it ever OFF.  I’m talking almost 200 DEGREES off.  I thought I was cooking at 325° and it was over 500°!

Another good appliance to test is your dehydrator, if you have one.  Many raw food enthusiasts use dehydrators to dry their food below certain temperatures in order to preserve the live enzymes in the food.  (Depending on which expert you follow, some say that is below 105°, some say 114°, and others say below 118°.)  So if you want your kale chips dehydrating at 105° and they are actually at 130°, you no longer have raw chips.

My dehydrator’s dial is anything but accurate when it comes to determining where the white dot actually is on the temp range.  In this photo, I’d figured I was set at about 108°:

But I was actually much closer to 120°:

To test your dehydrator, rather than using an oven thermometer you’ll want to use an instant read thermometer that will give you a smaller range.

And last but not definitely not least, you should also check your refrigerator and freezer temperatures rather than trusting what the built-in appliance thermometer may be telling you.   A recent job I was on found me working with a fridge/freezer that just didn’t want to stay as cold as they should.  In the Food Safety world there is something called the DANGER ZONE that you don’t want your food sitting at for too long and that’s between 40° and 140°.  In that range bacteria can multiply in phenomenal numbers.  So you want your fridge to be under 40° but not freezing (ideally 33-37°).  And ideally your freezer should read at 0-3°.  Otherwise you might have a few million (billion, trillion) more ‘guests’ joining you with dinner than you may have anticipated!

Do you check your appliance temperatures on a regular basis?

– Shari B.

***

Stop by Cindy’s blog today and check out this delightful post about her visit with a good friend.  ;)

***

Shari Becht is a Certified Natural Chef, Fit Living Coach and ACE Certified Personal Trainer.  She is extremely passionate about teaching people how they can take steps to fit healthy habits into their busy lives. 

If you or someone you know could use some help learning how to eat more healthfully, achieve a healthy bodyweight or fit more “FIT” into their lives, please feel free to email her at shari [at] fitfeat  [dot] com.  For more information, click here.

Tags: , , , ,

Party Like It’s An IKEA Opening!

Aug 1

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking, Handy Kitchen Tools | 14 Comments

Hi friends!

Last week I promised I’d give some more detail on a special day in our house:  the Grand Opening of our first Colorado IKEA store.  Months ago when we heard that the opening day was going to be July 27, we decided that we’d take a day off and go – mainly because it was also Cory’s birthday and a good reason to take a day off work, right?

Then as the day drew near, we realized that pretty much the rest of Denver and its outlying areas had the same idea.  It opened on a Wednesday and people started CAMPING OUT on Saturday night.  Now, I don’t care WHAT kind of free couch you give me, I am not going to camp out in a tent on a sidewalk for FOUR nights.  (well, unless that couch is perhaps filled with like $100,000 or something.)  ;)

We started to wonder if we’d even get anywhere in the VICINITY of IKEA that day, let alone in the front doors. Especially when we started seeing electronic signs all over town that said “Tune Into 1630 AM for IKEA Traffic Info”.  WHAT???  Really?  They are expecting so many people that they have an AM station designated just for it?

We drove by the night before to scope it out (and giggle at the people in their tents!) You should have seen all the cones, cops, traffic attendants, parking attendants.  It was pretty crazy!

When we went to bed that night, the plan was that we’d go just when they opened at 9:00 and not worry about any of the giveaways.   Then the morning of, when we woke up and turned on the news at 5:00, lines were getting bigger and we just got excited!  So we went to Starbucks to get a large latte to go and went to check it out.

We stood in line for a little over 2 hours, during which time they gave some speeches, had news crews there, sang the national anthems (both ours and Sweden’s) and it was actually a really great time in line!

Here’s what it looked like:

If you’ve ever been to a big amusement park and you have the maze of lines that you go to and fro in, that’s what this was.  Rows and rows…  But it was really organized and everyone was having a good time.

We got there early enough that when we walked through the doors (finally!!! yay!) we were each handed a $10 gift card.  And fortunately the night before I’d read on their site that if your birthday was ON the day of their opening, you could also get a gift card for $52.80 (in honor of their Mile High City opening).  So as soon as we were in we went straight to get that!  Now we had $72.80 worth of FREE IKEA stuff just for showing up!  Can’t beat that!

Let the shopping begin!

On our first time through we only spent $30 of our free money.  Then we went to enjoy a birthday lunch/margarita at the Rio.  And we felt like we just didn’t quite tackle IKEA yet, so we actually WENT BACK AGAIN at 5:00 PM that evening!  (We’re nuts, I tell you.) Final tally spent on IKEA during that day:  7 hours!!!

Here are some of the few things we picked up.

This fun napkin holder with weight, and some napkins to go in it (like $5!).

A two-sided mirror for our bathroom so I can put on my mascara and tweez my eyebrows without practically climbing onto our bathroom vanity!  Again, $5.

An expandable cabinet organizer that was meant for lids but that I’m using for cutting boards and baking sheets.  You guessed it, $5.

A new holder for any plastic bags we end up with – I used to have a cloth one that my mom made for me, but a dog ate it.  :)   This one was only $2!

The most exciting purchase of the day was this beautiful blue 5-qt cast iron and enamel dutch oven.  I’ve been wanting one for a year and refused to spend a ridiculous amount of money on one by Le Creuset (5 qt is $190!!). I told myself that if I lifted the lid of the IKEA one and found that it had basting spikes, I was going for it.

It did!  This one only set us back $49 – except that it didn’t because we used our free gift cards!  Bonus!  Wahoooo!

We got a few other odds and ends as well.  It was a super fun day, they gave away tons of food samples (three kinds of chocolates, little cinnamon rolls, Swedish meatballs, sparkling juices).  When you walked in early in the day, hundreds of IKEA employees were cheering and clapping at you. Plus we LOVE browsing at home goods stores to get ideas of things we can do in our house.  I’d rather shop for home stuff any day than for clothes, shoes, purses, etc.

Silly as it sounds, this birthday celebration is one we’ll remember for a while! I’ve already used the new dutch oven for some recipe testing:

It worked great!  I made a ridiculously healthy soup with 8 different veggies, beans and seaweed that I plan to cook for a certain personal chef client next week.  Love when something tastes GREAT and is insanely healthy at the same time!

Are you a home goods freak like we are?  Do you have a local IKEA (or have you been to one)?

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , ,

Juicehead

Apr 16

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools, vegan | 8 Comments

High-Dee-Hoe friends!  Any Jersey Shore fans out there?  If so, let me assure you the title of this post is not “juicehead” in the same meaning used on the show, LOL!  ;) (But I must admit my Thursday TV line-up feels a little blah now that Season 3 is over!)

Anyhoooo – I think I may actually have (partially) rejoined the land of the living.  This “cold” or whatever it is has really wreaked a little havoc on things around here.  Primarily my SCHEDULE!!  Oh yeah, and any thoughts of wanting to exercise.

I feel like my poor liver is going to be a toxic wasteland after all this, because I’ve resorted taking Advil, Nyquil, Mucinex, Jack Daniels, Ambien, you name it, if it might make me feel better, I was ready to pop it (and just to be clear, I am not taking these at the same time.  Well, except for the one night that I did have Nyquil and a cup of hot toddy which does have whiskey in it ;D ).

This bug is very stealth.  It likes to trick you into thinking you are getting better because during the daytime you feel physically OK for the most part.  But then evening hits, and BAM, it takes you DOWN in a hurry (and steals your sleep with it)!  Hence trying anything each day to see if I could get a few zzzzzzz’s.

I feel the need to do a little “cleansing” because of all this so I actually caved and got a juicer.

I’ve always been a bit “anti-juice”.  I think this comes from way back in my “Zone Diet days”.  Juice was the devil because you were getting all of the sugar and none of the fiber, which would in turn cause your blood sugar to spike.  This is partly why I prefer “blended” juices (like green smoothies) where the fiber remains for consumption.

Let me state for the record that I still feel this way about most fruit juices.

However, I think I’ve been sold on green juice.  On a recent trip, I had the good fortune of being treated to an organic, fresh, all-green juice.  It was fabulous and I literally felt a sense of ‘energetics’ in my body shortly after drinking it, almost like a caffeine buzz.

So I searched high and low for a place around where I live that makes fresh ORGANIC green juice.  I found two places about 15 miles away, but neither is using organic veggies.  Which just wigs me out when it comes to juice.  I do not want a glass of concentrated pesticides, thankyouverymuch.

The next nearest place was 30 miles – but a 60 mile round trip for juice is just a little silly.

Enter the “20% off” coupon from Bed, Bath and Beyond and I’m now the new owner of a Breville JuiceFountain.

For my first few batches I used celery, cucumber, parsley, ginger, and a little lemon.

Then this morning I got a little more brave.  This combo sounds like it should be gross but it was so good! Don’t let the red fool you though, this juice was mostly from greens.

  • 1/2 raw beet
  • 2 large stalks from heads of broccoli
  • about 1 head of romaine
  • large handful of parsley
  • about 2″ of ginger root
  • 1/4 fuji apple
  • 1 english cucumber
  • juice from half a lemon (which I just squeezed in at the end)

It made about a glass and a half of the one pictured above.  I forced encouraged MSP to take a sip, which he finally did.  Let’s just say he’ll be sticking to carrot apple juice for now.  :)

I’ll never replace my green smoothies, that’s for sure.  But I like having the option to add even a little more “green” to my day, especially while I clean all the ‘junk’ from my system over the next few weeks.

Are you a fan or foe of juicing?  If you juice, do you have a favorite veggie? My great friend Keri (owner of Om of the Rockies yoga) shared with me that she likes to include daikon radish in hers.  I thought that was genius and I can’t wait to give it a try!

Have a SPLENDID Saturday!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Birthday Blast!

Feb 10

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 4 Comments

Hi friends!  I’m still alive and kickin’!  Even though it’s been quiet on the blog front in recent weeks, life itself definitely has been anything but!

With all the hub-bub as of late, I did take a little time out for birthday celebrations!  It was a beautiful birthday and I feel SO blessed to have such loving people in my life.

MSP added to my future cheffing equipment – with an electric Cuisinart pressure cooker I’ve had my eye on.  Be prepared to see some recipes in the future using this baby!  It rocks!  The first batch of basmati rice I made with it came out PERFECT.  However… I do have some work to do when it comes to making perfect soaked beans/lentils!

I received some delicious, unique wine from WA state (thanks N & D!).  Cranberry wine!  Blackberry wine!  Too fun!

Even Starbucks sent me a gift.  Wahoo, TRIPLE VENTI SOY LATTE here I come!  Hey, when it’s free, you might as well get their money’s worth and do ALL the add-ins right?

No birthday would be complete if I didn’t also buy MYSELF a gift!  (OK, so maybe this qualifies as a gift for my Global chef knife that likes to bite my fingertips!)  My cheap-o honing steel didn’t work great at all.  But this one….?  Whew – look out fingers!  My knife stays CRAZY sharp now!

A beautifully wrapped package made its way from sunny California to snowy Colorado.

Miss CINDY knitted me my very own BEANIE!  And since I begged her to send some sun my way, she included some “Sun & Sand” from Yankee Candle.  So creative and thoughtful.  I have pretty much worn this hat from AM to PM since it arrived.  I adore this gift!  (Go check out her site for some of her other knitting fun!)

Even in class, our Kitchen Manager, Nelson, made me a DELICIOUS and VEGAN Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding.  and the class even sang!

It was a truly wonderful birthday in the midst of all the chaos!  I feel so lucky!

And there is light at the end of the crazy-train tunnel.  I’m down to less than 3 weeks of school left.  FitFeat will probably continue to be a little quiet in those 3 weeks since I’m feverishly working on our Culinary Showcase (kind of our grand finale catering event), the business/marketing plan (for a homework assignment), final presentations/papers, etc.  It’s bananas!  But so close now!  YAY!

I hope you are all doing well and keeping fit! Looking forward to getting back to posting more regularly!

What have you all been doing to keep fit in the middle of winter???

– Shari B. =)

Last Minute Inexpensive Gift Ideas for Foodies & Fitness Fans

Dec 13

Posted by Shari B. in Do Something Daily, Handy Kitchen Tools | 9 Comments

Hi friends!

Wow, less than two weeks until Christmas.  If you are someone who celebrates Christmas and are scrambling to find some reasonably priced gift ideas, I thought I’d share some of my favorite things with you.

Now first, let me just say this is not my wish list (mom, I’m talking to you ;) )  – these are things I already have, use and love.

Second, let me just say that there are no affiliations here.  I’m not endorsing products for any kind of kickback or payment.  Again, just things I have, use and love.

For the FOODIES in your life:

1. CITRUS PRESS: this is the coolest thing and it makes using fresh lemon/lime juices in recipes a cinch (or putting fresh lemon juice in your water, like I do every day!).  Depending on the brand you can get them for between $5 and $15.  I found mine at my grocery store for $4.90.  It’s super simple to use and clean.  And you end up with a fun hockey puck lemon after each use!

2. NUT MILK BAG: you can get an “actual” nutmilk bag for about $10.  Or you can pick up a paint strainer bag at your local hardware store for about $2 or $3 and it will do the same thing.  You can use it for a lot more than straining the pulp out of your homemade almond milk.  I use mine to squeeze juice out of grated ginger, to line a regular strainer if I need a “finer mesh”, or to strain soups after blending to keep out any seeds or bigger chunks that I might not want floating around.

3. SPROUTING STRAINER LID: a very inexpensive gift of around $4 or $5 that can turn a wide mouth mason jar into a sprouting jar, which is what I used when I finally was able to grow my own sprouts.  (The cheesecloth method didn’t work for me.)  Growing your own sprouts is a fun way to have a little garden in your house smack in the middle of winter – include a bag of organic sprouting seeds and a couple of recipes and you have a great little gift!

For your FITNESS-LOVING friends:

1. MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS:  I’m a big fan of magazines as gifts, because every time that magazine shows up in their mailbox they think of the person who gave them the gift!  Runner’s World offers 12 months for $15 and Women’s Health offers 12 months for $13.97.

2. GLIDING DISKS: I have a set of ValSlides which are awesome (oh the reverse sliding lunges – killer!).  On Amazon they are selling for $39, but I didn’t pay nearly that, so I’m guessing now that they are more popular the price has gone up.  There are other brands that do the same thing, such as Gliding Disks. But really, these are just the same thing as the moving disks you can put under furniture with an upcharge for a fitness professional’s name on it.  How about spending $9 and getting the moving disks?  I think they come in sets of FOUR so you can open it, and give 2 to one friend and 2 to another friend and then you’ve only spent $4.50!  Then print off the exercises at About.com to include in the wrapping and your giftee has a very portable workout system that can travel anywhere. To see how these  work, click here for some sample exercises.

3. EXERCISE TUBING: this is the same idea as above in that it’s extremely portable.  I love to travel with my medium or heavy weight exercise tubes because they are light as a feather and take up no space in my suitcase.  Medium to heavy weight tubes run between $10 and $15.  (Skip the light weight ones – they really don’t have enough resistance). And if you ADD this to the gliding disks above , your giftee won’t even NEED to go to a gym because they’ll have enough for an awesome workout at home.

Outside of that, I also offer gift-certificates for fit living coaching (healthy eating, exercise program design, weight loss) so if you have someone in your life that is looking to make a change in their lifestyle, I’d be happy to help out.  Feel free to drop me an email me at shari [at] fitfeat [dot] com for more info.

***

Update on the DDSD challenge for those of you playing along – for the second day in a row, all I was able to do was get in a walk.  The good news is that all the probiotics, wheat grass juice, kombucha, green tea, miso soup, fresh fruits and veggies have all helped a lot today and my headache is waning and my eyes are able to focus (MSP told me today that now HIS eyes were starting to hurt – sorry MSP!).  I do think it’s a cold I’m fighting because it was in my ears and throat today, but this evening I’m feeling MUCH better.  Unfortunately I had to stay home from school today (and missed RAW FOODS) because if I happened to have something contagious, I’d feel TERRIBLE if I passed anything on to my classmates, most of whom will be traveling home to other states for the holidays.  That’s NOT the kind of gift I want to be giving my friends!

Have a GREAT evening!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , ,

Wall o’ Spice

Sep 30

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 5 Comments

Hi FitFeat friends!

It’s been a busy week so far for me – how about you?  I noted on my Facebook page today that it’s been a LOOOONG time since I’ve had to write out homework papers!  8 pages took me forever!  Needless to say all that writing, plus recipe adapting (and creating and testing) this week has taken priority over my blogging schedule!

However, one of the recipes I adapted turned out so well that I’ll definitely have something to share with you on that soon!  (Let’s see what kind of grade I get on it from school first, LOL!).  It’s Indian-inspired and tastes like heaven.  I even impressed myself with this one.

In FitFeat Kitchen news….

I have a new place to start storing all of my spices now and had to show you!  How about that “S”?  For SHARI?  For SPICE?  (For SILLY???)  :D

If you are familiar with the most recent “Food Network Star” Aarti, she was a food blogger before she was a TV personality.  And in one of her posts, she shows a great spice wall that her husband and uncle made for her birthday.  That wall inspired us to do something similar only not quite as large.

We’ve had this empty wall next to our refrigerator with a spot where a wall-mount telephone can be installed (which we don’t need) so we’ve just had a painted cover on it.

We figured that would be a perfect spot to hang some stainless steel for our own spice wall. MSP is so handy.  :)

And the best thing about the little jars we found at the outlet store (beside a price that was 50% less than Bed Bath and Beyond, and beside the cool see-through lid) is the fact that I still have the ability to sprinkle!  (A feature I thought I would lose!)

And even pour!

Now I just need to get busy getting them filled.  I’m waiting until I know what I want to put in them (and for when have time to make some pretty labels.  Maybe this weekend…)  There is a lovely spice shop called Savory Spice that has 4 locations, one of which is right around the corner from my school (and we even get a culinary student discount there – BONUS!).  I haven’t gone in just yet, out of fear of wanting to take home the whole store.  When I need ONE specific spice, I’ll go then.  With CASH only.  Preferably a $5 bill.  Wallet with credit/debit cards must stay in the car… ;)

Hope that you having a fabulous week!  Have you tried the Upper/Core/Cardio circuit yet?  Joan did!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , ,

Mimic Your Favorites with Healthy Substitutions

Jan 21

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking, Handy Kitchen Tools, Keeping Fit | 4 Comments

Well hello there blog buds!  Did ya think I disappeared today? It’s been a busy one.  (What’s new, right?  I say that every day!)  ;)

Yesterday after jury duty, blogging, and some work I squeezed in 12 minutes of cardio boogie-ing and then did 42 minutes of my Physique 57 dvd, taking care to keep my toes out of the equation (or at least try).  I only did 42 minutes because I wasn’t in the mood to do abs, so I did all the upper and lower work.

And NOW I just got back from a wonderful 4 mile run outdoors all by myself (no crazies on leashes) as the sun was setting.  It was perfect running weather, around 45 degrees with the little sunshine that was left.  So now I’m enjoying one of these:

Coconut water is ‘Nature’s Gatorade’ as Brendan Brazier would say.  I’ve now definitely worked up an appetite for dinner.  Which will most likely be leftovers from last night’s dinner because it was AWESOME! Doesn’t it look tasty?

Every year my mom and grandma make homemade noodles to include with their Christmas care packages.  This year, my sweet mommy made me a package of spinach noodles because she knows I’m a veggie-holic these days.

So I gathered up some of my ingredients:

Spinach noodles, organic Bertolli spaghetti sauce, and two Sunshine veggie burgers.  While the noodles were cooking, I worked on making the extra “pasta” that I’d be adding to my plate.

One zucchini and one spiralizer with the medium ‘noodle’ blade.  Check.  Check.

Once my mom’s noodles were done, they were drained.  I mixed mine with the zucchini ‘noodles’ to keep the veggies high and the flour intake lower.  Topped with the heated spaghetti sauce, crumbled Sunshine burgers and nutritional yeast.  MSP’s (on the right) was noodles, sauce, parmesan and the ‘burger’ crumbles.

This deserves a review of the close-up again!  :)

Such a fast and delicious meal.  And I totally went back for seconds.  Mom, thanks so much for the thoughtful gift!  Your noodles are the BEST!!  Can’t wait to have them again tonight!

Just goes to show that healthy eating does not require much time or even much thought.  Just pull together lots of veggies and try to ‘mimic’ some of your favorites.

1 cup of zucchini = 18 calories, whereas 1 cup of cooked spinach noodles = 185 calories

You don’t have to deny yourself things you enjoy, like my mom’s homemade noodles.  Make the MAJORITY of your meal out of low-cal, high-fiber veggies.  Then SUPPLEMENT with the ‘richer’ items that add up in calories faster.

I’m so excited that “The Office” is back tonight!  Wahoo!

Have a TERRIFIC Thursday night!  See ya next time!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , , , ,

Winter Outside, Spring Inside

Jan 6

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 6 Comments

Hi friends,

We have another crazy cold front moving in – tonight’s forecast is for temps of minus five – so yesterday afternoon MSP and I spent a good long time working on that ice issue out front again.   The pictures just don’t do it justice.

We are sore puppies today.  We got a good low back and upper body workout!

I think we are starting to understand why the previous owners decided to sell!  ;)

But luckily I have a little sunshine going on indoors!  Things are growing in my kitchen!

My awesome brother-in-law had my name in our gift exchange and he knew I was wanting to start looking into gardening and growing some herbs.  So he sent me an AeroGarden! Here’s a closer look on the day we set it up:

And here is a look at how they’ve grown:

Right now I have basil, chives and thyme growing.  It’s so fun to have a little feel of spring in the kitchen when it has been dreary and cold outside.

The AeroGarden website has a lot of different ‘pods’ you can purchase to grow besides just herbs.  They also have quite the variety of veggies and flowers.   I have no idea how long it will be before I can start harvesting my herbs, but I’m very excited to use them.  I have plenty of ideas of things to do with basil, but not so much for thyme and chives (well, outside of a baked potato that is!)

If you have a favorite recipe that uses thyme or chives that you’d be willing to share I’d LOVE to give it a try! Have you ever used an AeroGarden to grow your own herbs or veggies?  We’d love to hear your experience with it – drop a comment!

As much fun as I think it would be to grow flowers, I think I’ll stick with herbs for now (I love cilantro so that will be next) and maybe some veggies after that!

What a perfect gift idea for someone who feels like she has trouble keeping plants alive – something to keep in mind for those ‘hard to buy for’ people.

Hope that your Wednesday has been fabulous!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , ,

Cuts Like Buttah

Dec 28

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 5 Comments

Noooooo…. I’m not ready for the long holiday weekend to be over!!!  This is always my favorite weekend of the year!  Do we HAVE to go back to work?  :)

If I was the type of person who called in sick (but I’m not), today would be the day for it because somehow I managed to hobble myself yesterday.  During a workout, of all things.  I’m not even sure what movement did it, but it has something to do with my hip flexors.  I stretched off and on all day yesterday, did some yoga, all to no avail.  I have yet to pop an ibuprofen though.  That is the absolute last resort.  I know, I’m weird.  But once you get all that garbage out of your system, it’s a tough choice to put it back in.  Since April 1, I’ve had two Advil and that’s IT.

It’s a little better this morning so I’ll take the morning off of working out, and soak in the tub instead to see if that loosens anything up.  I exercised all 4 days of my long holiday weekend.  Tomorrow is my planned ‘rest day’ so I’ll just flip-flop my days.  This is my cue that I NEED more core strengthening work if a few days of core DVDs cripples me!  Ha!

Yesterday was a nice, normal veggie-filled food day.  A 30 oz. green smoothie in the morning:

A Banana Bread Larabar during the 10:00 a.m. showing of “Sherlock Holmes”:

A super-sized Shari salad in the 11″ bowl (I’ve missed my big bowl…) with spinach, dulse, roma tomatoes, spiralized zucchini, nutritional yeast, chia seeds and topped with 1 tbsp of Annie’s Goddess dressing.

With a side of baked kale (that looks burnt, but it’s not).  It’s red kale so it has a deep purple/red color:

An easy, early “dinner” of Ezekial toast with almond butter and raw honey drizzle, with a side of decaf  (the Broncos game was still on and I didn’t want to miss anything making a meal):

And an evening snack of two Wasa light rye crackers smeared with Tofutti (the ‘un-cream cheese’) and sprinkled with cumin and Mrs. Dash:

It was a fiber-licious day to be sure! :)

Riley got a dose of fiber too (of the synthetic variety) thanks to ripping her Christmas gift to shreds.  Poor stuffed squirrel.  Riley was too tired to even flee from the crime scene:

I, on the other hand, take much better care of MY Christmas gifts.  :)

As mentioned I have a bunch of them to tell you about (because I am incredibly blessed to have received so many great gifts from my family).  One of which is a new set of AWESOME knives from my mom. When I was visiting her back in September, I was crazy for her RADA knives and utensils.  I had two small RADA knives that I’d received as gifts back in 1991 and they LOOK like they’ve been used a TON.  My mom had the cool extras like a tomato knife, a peeler, and all sorts of other neat knives.  So I was thrilled when I opened a wrapped gift containing a whole SET of these cool tools.  It’s hard to see through the curtain of hair here but there’s a silly grin on my face (and apparently Riley and Rascal are just as excited about my gift):

They are SHARP!!!  I guess all of my other knives must need sharpening, because I forgot how nice it is to slice through food like it’s “BUTTAH”  :)

The potato peeler worked like a charm peeling this mango:

If you have a foodie in your life, I highly recommend gifting them with something from RADA.  I’m so impressed.  And I can tell you that these will be used every single day in this house!  I even rearranged my knife drawer so that I can keep them in their gift box and have easy access to them as I’m prepping veggies every day.  And I just noticed that they are available through Amazon.com so you can bet I’ll be adding these to the FitFeat “Favorite Things” Store!

Thanks for the GREAT gift, Mom!  PERFECT!

Today’s question:  Do you have a favorite brand of knife or prep utensil that you use daily? Drop a comment to share with us!

Have yourself a MARVELOUS Monday, friends!  I’m off to hit the tub and then to work!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,