Oreo Truffles!

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Another boring recap post.

Foods:

Chicken Fajitas for dinner on Tuesday. Mine with corn tortillas and Tyler’s with flour. Topped with TONS of sriracha.

Starbucks (totally a treat for me)

More coconut flour pancakes. This time I put the fruit IN the batter so everything was nice and warm. Way better that way. And I topped the stack with a combo of Click espresso protein powder and greek yogurt. That breakfast keeps me full for forever.

I hit the Calgary Farmer’s Market yesterday and got great produce (for cheap) and a treat!

Buffalo mozzarella, an eggplant, mangoes, green beens and pomegranates ($1 each!)

A maple bacon donut and a s’mores donut from Jelly Modern Donuts. Tyler and I have been meaning to get to their actual store for quite some time now, but they’re in a completely different part of Calgary that it never made sense to make the trek on a weekend morning. I saw their kiosk at the farmer’s market, and the purchase was totally on impulse. I cut them up and we tested them after our dinner last night. The verdict: turns out maple and bacon is not our preferred salty/sweet combo, but the s’mores was pretty tasty.

Speaking of Valentine’s dinner, I hit up Safeway yesterday early morning (I thought everyone would be flocking to the butcher counter for steaks, and I wanted to make sure I got two good ones for us). We had steak, asparagus and baked potatoes. One of the best-and most basic- meals ever. Honest to God, Alberta beef is out of this world dynamite. I hardly had to cut it and we only seasoned with a pinch of salt. Melt in your mouth deliciousness.

It took almost all my willpower to not inhale that steak.

I also managed to slap on an apron at some point in the day and make a special valentine’s treat for Tyler.

Oreo Truffles!

Super easy to make: Throw 36 Oreos (almost TWO packages…I swear they’re getting smaller and smaller) in the food processor until crumbled. Throw in a package of cream cheese (8 oz) and pulse until incorporated. Empty contents into a bowl and ensure the mixture is thoroughly mixed. On a double boiler, add 2 8 oz. packages of Baker’s white chocolate. Make sure to constantly stir. Roll the Oreo mixture into tablespoon sized balls, drop in the white chocolate, and fully coat. Use a fork to retrieve out of the chocolate and let cool on waxed paper. Refrigerate.

They’re not the most glamourous looking truffles, but they show the homemadeness which makes them all that much better (and WAY more thoughtful!)

I topped this batch with some rainbow sprinkles for a little decoration. You could use extra Oreo crumbles or graham crackers or nuts or….whatever!

Mmmmmmm.

Layla got a few Valentine treats herself! I call them Refrigerator Cookies, because she prefers the yogurt coating to be cold. (Don’t know how that was discovered, but she is a pretty spoiled dog). First, her daily morning RC stick in PINK, then a Valentine’s heart that was bigger than my hand.

Workouts:

Tuesday: 50 minutes of crazy intense spinning!

Wednesday: My tummy was a little agitated after dinner, so I opted out of the planned BBB workout and chose to go through 5 superset tabatas for my upper body. Apparently the pumping adrenaline helped, because I was able to round out the workout with 50 burpees!

Thursday: I did 4 miles of intervals on the treadmill.

Random Things:

Finally got new sunglasses. They look identical to my old ones. (I would use the saying If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it but in this particular case, I suppose that doesn’t fit)

I went to pick up some stuff that Tyler found on Kijiji. This woman was giving away TONS of wine and beer making equipment for free! I barely fit it all in my car.

And that’s all I have. For now.

Harlem Shake

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I have a clusterfudge of stuff to share with you (it took me 4 days to gather enough stuff worthy of a post)

Let’s start with food. I have been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen lately. Mostly they are just new recipes on basic meals. Still, it was fun to follow other recipes and see how they turned out.

First up: PIZZA. Tyler and I love pizza. We used to order it all the time, but I have chosen to make our pizzas as a means of controlling what goes into the mix. I like knowing there are no preservatives in my food, thankyouverymuch. However, most all the recipes I tried resulted in uber doughy pizza. Yuck. I don’t want bread for dinner, I want PIZZA.

After going home in January, I learned some special tips and tricks from my parents as to how to yield a decent homemade pizza (keep in mind the altitude in NY and the altitude here are drastically different).

Here’s a pic of my pizza- it had pineapple, olives, peppers, prosciutto, and a bit of leftover bacon crumbles from Tyler’s pizza.

It was really good- especially topped with tons of sriracha!

Sunday morning/afternoon, I made us brunch. We had hit up Costco on Saturday, so we were freshly stocked up on produce and meat and lots of other goodies.

Nothing like a TON of food on a Sunday afternoon to make you lazy. But that fruit was faaaaantastic. And so was the coffee..obviously.

Later that night, I decided to whip up yet another recipe that I finally snagged from my mom. In my parents town, there is this hot dog place that is out of this world fantastic. Not only are they tasty, but they are super cheap, and they have this really awesome meat sauce on them. My mom got the recipe from my uncle, and now it is finally in my hands. Bwahaha.

We used some of the yummy Costco hot dogs as our base (I think I managed to eat about half of this. Phew, was it a lot of food). The sauce took about 2 hours to simmer, and I’m pretty sure the next time I make it, I’ll have to put a lock on the lid- I went to the gym while it was simmering and I’m pretty sure Tyler would’ve eaten it straight out of the pot because the smell was so good.

If only there was smell-o-vision (or…smell-o-internet??)

Next up..cookies! I had recently gone to the health food store and picked up a bunch of ‘different’ baking ingredients so I decided on some paleo chocolate chip cookies.

I used this recipe, but substituted agave nectar for honey/maple syrup, used an egg, and used carob chips rather than chocolate chips (almost the same thing. google it)

They came out pretty great! At least, my tastebuds thought so because I inhaled way more than I’m willing to admit.

Ok. NEXT! Chili. I’m now on the Meatless Monday bandwagon- simply as a means to find more meals I can throw together without meat, both for money saving and health reasons.

I chose to use this recipe. Only changes I made were omitting one onion and adding a zucchini.

Meh. Quite flavorless. I added tons of sriracha in mine and Tyler mixed shredded cheddar in his, and there was hardly an ‘oo’ or an ‘ah’ at the table. I also had some leftover dough from pizza-making on friday, so I balled it off, topped with melted butter and garlic salt, and viola!

Sad to say that was probably the best part of the meal. No bueno, folks.

And last, but certainly not least, in honor of pancake day today, I made a hearty stack of coconut flour pancakes.

They took forever to cook on the griddle (different consistency since I was using coconut flour) but they still had tons of flavor.

I topped the stack with plain greek yogurt mixed with cinnamon, and strawberries/blueberries.

The fruit was yet again my favorite part of the meal. Yummmm.

Now that I have shown you all this food I’ve been eating, I guess I should jot down what I’ve been doing in attempts to burn it off.

Friday: Strength Workout C from BBB and 20 minutes of spin, followed by only 42 burpees.

Saturday: Day off. I originally planned on doing cardio, but my body felt so dead and heavy, that I opted to switch my cardio to Sunday. Thanks to a pep-talk facebook message from Athena. Thanks!

Sunday: 30 minute run and 90 burpees.

Monday: Strength Workout A from BBB, 125 burpees (done during Biggest Loser commercials) and a 30 minute run.

Now onto random things:

1. Took the dog to the dog park on Friday. Then we hopped in the car and went to another spot along the river for more walk/play.

This girl was plowing her face into the snow and ice so much that she made the bald spot on the inner part of her eyes bleed! Silly.

Lots of passersby were laughing or smiling at her romping and rolling.

2. Got my visa extension in the mail yesterday. Now I can plan a visit to see my best friend in Seattle!

3. I can’t wait to meet her beautiful baby. I’m also really glad to see she’s already pumping the iron I’ve sent her 😉

4. I brought back tons of bottles and cans and cartons to the bottle return the other day. Like, 2 carts worth. And I made $32.35. Too bad I probably won’t be making that much anymore since we are reusing our special bottles for homebrew.

5. Skyfall and The Man With the Iron Fists: bad movies.

6. I am obsessed with the Harlem Shake videos. Honestly, I would post them all here if I could, (and I could), but I won’t. Here are a couple to give you the idea:

I’m off to workout and find another pair of sunglasses since I managed to break my $5 ones that have lasted me about 4 years. What are you up to on this fine, Fat Tuesday??

My Favorite Date

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Happy Friday, y’all!

Yesterday I took the day off from social media. 1.) Because I was frustrated, and 2.) Because it was not a good day. Especially when a day starts with these two things

Ok, maybe for some of you having those things makes for a good day? But not in this household- they were for Layla. She was acting really strange with her butt again, so I went to the store to get the ‘necessities’ for what needed to be done. As I was getting into my car, Layla tried to escape, and in my attempts to grab her before she got out of the garage, I completely WHACKED my head on the read view mirror of Tyler’s truck. Luckily, I grabbed the dog in time, but I now have a neat red line/bump/bruise across my forehead.

Anyhoo, my attempts to resolve her issue didn’t seem to take effect, so I made an appointment to have her see a vet tech. Sitting on pins and needles for 4 hours waiting for the appointment time is NOT fun. The good news is, the tech examined Layla and said that I had apparently fixed the problem because her butt was A-ok.

And now we are done with the butt talk.

And now would be the most appropriate time to transition to food. Right? Riiiight?

Some eats we’ve has as of late:

Homemade Vegetarian Wontons- so good! I gobbled them up.

Blueberry Purses- using the same wonton wrappers, except with a concoction I threw together with fresh blueberries, a bit of butter and some honey. These were like chips to me. I could not. Stop. Eating them.

Paleo Turkey Meatballs and Sauce. I followed this recipe, except I used No Yolk noodles. The best part of the ball recipe was that it used almond meal as a binding agent (instead of panko or bread crumbs). It made all the difference! I have had so much trouble with ground turkey because I have not been able to keep patties or balls together; they all tend to crumble. But this recipe with the almond meal, made them stick together and offered an awesome flavor that both Tyler and I enjoyed. And the sauce was SUPER easy to make, too!

I just made these suckers this morning. The recipe needs to be tweaked a bit, but the flavor was definitely there. Among the ingredients: coconut flour, almond milk, chia seeds, and Click protein powder.

Now on to the workouts (I’m thinking of condensing my workouts to just a weekly post so they are all in one place/I don’t bore you everyday. Thoughts?)

Wednesday: Workout B from BBB and 85 burpees.

Thursday: Treadmill intervals for 30 minutes + 100 burpees (The burpees for this day were actually the challenge for Healthy sELF! I was pumped since I have already been on the burpee-train as of late 🙂

(Insert my first PicMonkey collage. Sorry, it’s terrible. But I was trying to pay homage to Boston and their upcoming storm. Which you would think they had never experienced inclement weather before. That’s a whole other story..)

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday (Valentine’s Day) and for the sake of bulking up my post, I decided I wanted to write about my FAVORITE date. And yes, it was with Tyler. In fact, it was our FIRST date!

Tyler had flown out to see me in Boston, and brilliant me decided we could drink the city. Good thing it was up his alley as well. We took the 57 bus from Oak Square (after getting LARGE Dunks coffees) and got dropped off at Fenway. From there, we walked to Newbury Street and really began our adventure. From roughly noon that day, until about 1am when we got back to my apartment, we walked, talked, ate, and drank through the following places:

There might have been more, but my memory is foggy (for obvious reasons). We both calculate that we drank 2039572039572095 drinks and walked 09357209375210 miles- so they countered each other. I do remember at one point, we got pizza and I walked barefoot the last 2 miles home. Gross.

But so much fun.

What’s your favorite date?

Burpee Love

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

The last two nights have been fun. Why, you ask? Because I did TONS of burpees. Yes, I am now officially obsessed with them. Only took about 9 years. As soon as Biggest Loser started on Monday night (I watched it at 6pm since it was a New England broadcast) I got right into the strength portion of my Best Body Bootcamp workout. I told myself that during every commercial break of the 2 hour long show I would do 10 burpees. So, on top of getting my designated lower/upper body workout done, I also managed to get 100 burpees done! (And I had run for 36 minutes earlier in the day on the treadmill).

(Source)

Then, yesterday, I managed to bust through a 20 minute circuit workout I originally posted here. Once Bachelor (part 2) started, I did another 100 burpees- this time with an audience- then went to the gym for an AWESOME 30 minutes of HIIT on the bike.

Let’s see, burpees have been my life as of late. Other than that, I have been napping or hanging around the house, so there really isn’t that much to share. I DO have some new music that I’ve recently added to my playlist:

And I DID take Layla to the dog park yesterday to stretch her legs.

I have a new recipe that I’m trying for dinner, so stay tuned to see if I post it (totally to be determined by their outcome!)

Here are some other recipes that I’ve bookmarked:

1. Um, anything and everything CAN be made with sriracha, or ‘rooster sauce.’ This post has 50 healthified recipes that include the stuff.

2. Although there is no chocolate in this recipe, it caught my eye. PB&J is always a winner.

3. Yet another way to make quinoa.

4. Gluten Free cheddar cornbread. Yum

I have also been looking through tons of recipes that use alternative flours, etc. Some are paleo, some are not. I’m not leaning towards eating a particular diet, I just thought it would be fun to play around with different ingredients! Any suggestions?

Chia Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Aaaand I totally thought it was Tuesday. But it’s not.

Moving on!

Happy Monday, folks. What oh what do I have to share with you today? Well, there’s a recipe. That’s about it.

These cookies are seriously delicious. I was searching around the internets to find inspiration and after about 2 hours of wandering, I found it. These are chia chocolate chip cookies that I modified to accommodate what I had in the house and what I actually would want to eat.

Chia Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 c quick oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 c flour
1 scoop chocolate protein powder (I used Click, an espresso protein powder-my FAVORITE-, which gave it an awesome coffee kick!)
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/4 c butter
1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 c peanut butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie pans with cooking spray.

2. In a bowl, mix oats, baking powder, flour, protein powder, and chia seeds.

3. In another bowl (or mixer), beat eggs and butter until smooth. Add peanut butter, eggs, and vanilla. Slowly add oat mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Take tbsp amounts of dough, form into balls using your palms and place on cookies sheets. Bake 13 minutes and allow to cool.

I think it’s safe to say these are some of my favorite cookies ever. They have protein. And peanut butter. And chocolate. The chia seeds give it a great twist, too!

They keep their shape in small, roundish balls. Cue me eating more than intended. And they have a super yummy middle.

Ok, ok, I’m going to stop describing them. Mmmm….so good.

I managed to get in the cardio portion of Workout A from Best Body Bootcamp already. I ran about 40 minutes of intervals on the treadmill. It felt SO GOOD to get back on those nice treadmills and really push myself.

I’ll be getting the strength portion done while I watch Biggest Loser tonight. AND, as an added bonus, I’ve decided to do 10 burpees for every set of commercials (doesn’t hurt that the show is 2 hours!)

And last, but certainly not least, today is the first day of the Healthy sELF challenge.

The challenge was designed as a way for people to connect through social media as a means of motivating each other to choose healthy options in life. Healthy through food, fitness, love, etc. Today’s challenge was go to meatless. That’s kind of hard when you’re coming off a Super Bowl high and live with a guy who loves meat. But, I managed to come up with an interesting concoction. Insert: tofu tacos with slaw, tangy sauce and warmed grapefruit.

They had a lot of different flavors and textures, but it just didn’t feel like a cohesive dish. Nonetheless, I got in my protein, kept it meatless, and filled my tummy with an assortment of goodness.