Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Banana Nut Pancakes

 

You know how it's called comfort food because it's meant to be comforting and yummy and feel-good? Well you also know comfort food is a big no no when you're trying to stay healthy and keep your bikini from being your worst nightmare. I am always trying to find ways to make compromises so I can keep my bikini body AND my insatiable appetite in sync. So, here is another recipe that is guaranteed to make you happy (so long as you like bananas.)

A friend of mine recently posted a recipe on Facebook about having made pancakes using only two ingredients: one banana and two eggs. (Hey Alice!) Naturally, I was slightly skeptical and also very intrigued, so I had to make them. 

Roy's birthday was this past Sunday, and since we have his kids with us this summer, I thought it'd be nice to treat them all to some yummy cinnamon roll pancakes; a recipe I found on Pinterest. (When I told Roy about them, he said: "They're not just sin. They're the express train to hell pancakes.") Now, that recipe is absolutely deliciously disastrous for your waist as well as most of your internal organs, but hey, you gotta live a little. I informed the kids that had they known me during "Flabby Gabby Days," we'd all be well on our way into daily diabetic shocks. But since Flabby Gabby turned into Skinny Minnie, thankfully that won't be happening. Once in awhile however, I allow them all to indulge, and I thought Roy's birthday would be the perfect opportunity. I won't be going into the cinnamon roll pancakes, but I will post a lovely photo of them and all their cinnamony glory. Yummo.

Roy's Birthday Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
For myself though, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to try out those banana pancakes Alice posted. It was simple enough. I threw a super ripe banana into the Vitamix along with two eggs, blended, and poured the batter into the skillet. I'll say it was a bit of a nightmare to flip the banana pancakes, but I managed to do it, and we all nommed on our breakfast happily. While I ate, I imagined all the ways I could improve the two-ingredient recipe, and this morning I tested out my plan.

I blended a banana and two eggs, and then added some cinnamon and nutmeg to the blender. Once it was blended, I added about a quarter of a cup of raw walnuts, and pulsed a few times to chop up the walnuts but not puree. Then, remembering the difficulty I had flipping the pancakes on Sunday, I made small silver-dollar-sized pancakes. They sizzled and bubbled, and flipped relatively easily with my spatula. The smell was amazing, and it smelled like a fresh baked banana nut loaf coming out of the oven. Mmmm mmmmm. I used a little bit of agave as my maple syrup stand-in because I didn't have any maple syrup (we didn't buy any for the cinnamon roll pancakes because they didn't require any since they're topped with a cream cheese icing). The result was amazeballs. Truly, amazingly delicious. And zero guilt. AND zero bloat! I ate a plateful of these delicious pancakes and didn't feel like I needed a nap afterward. And no, it didn't taste like a banana omelet. The egg and banana mixture make that fluffy consistency you get with regular flour pancakes, and neither flavor overpowers the other. The ratio of one banana to two eggs is perfect. I do wish they wouldn't fall apart quite so easily, but that's why I recommend making smaller pancakes. Plus, they look so cute and it's the perfect bite-size pancake.

Perfect silver-dollar-sized pancakes
I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Kudos to Alice for posting on her Facebook wall about these. I'd otherwise have never found out about them! Let me know if you think of some other flavor enhancers for these bad boys. I am definitely going to be playing around with a blueberry pancake idea shortly. I'll keep you posted!

Til next time!

-Kale Queen

Friday, July 12, 2013

Peanut Butter, Powdered Peanut Butter, and that other Inspired-By-Peanut-Butter stuff


 

I have so many recipes I want to share and often times, there are ingredients that appear more often than others. Powdered peanut butter is one such ingredient, especially in my kale shakes. Chocolate peanut butter, banana peanut butter, strawberry peanut butter, peanut butter mocha... If you can't tell, I love peanut butter.

During the year I was losing weight, I had peanut butter at my desk, and if I was in the mood to nosh, I'd grab a spoonful of natural crunchy peanut butter. I could have eaten the entire container really, but at 190 - 200 calories for two tablespoons, that wasn't gonna happen.

Back then, I didn't know a thing about powdered peanut butter. Now, you'll see many recipes I post contain PB2 or JustGreatStuff as an ingredient, and I realized that YOU may not know what it is. So to that point, I'm going to spend this entire post on the three peanut butters you may or may not be familiar with.



The first is your standard Jif, Planters or Skippy peanut butter. For this particular post, I will reference Planters Natural Peanut Butter, because that's what I had on hand. You can see the serving size for the Planters is 2 TBS. There are 190 calories; 150 of which are from fat. The ingredients aren't bad, as there's nothing I can't pronounce. But there is sugar added. The overall taste is great of course. Did I mention I'm a peanut butter fiend? Fiend I tell you, FIEND!


When I started losing weight, I realized I couldn't be gobbling down vast amounts of peanut butter, and when I found what I call the "inspired by peanut butter" stuff, I bought it to give it a try. The "stuff" I'm talking about is Walden Farms Whipped Peanut Spread, and I bought the jar because it says it's sugar free, calorie free and fat free. This was back before I paid too much attention to the ingredients of things, and instead focused on those glamorous words "calorie free" and "fat free." You can see from the photo I took of the nutrition label on the back of the jar how UN-nutritious it really was. The ingredients list has Yellow #5, sodium benzoate, FD & C (????). So in other words, ingredients that I can barely pronounce and have no idea about. There's also that keen little line below the ingredients that says "*Contains Trace Calories" so it's not as calorie free as I thought it was. I am wondering how it's calorie free at all! What sort of black magic is this that with so many ingredients, this has no fat, no calories and no sugar? Most importantly though, the taste was horrendous. I imagine sometimes, when my dog has that really runny, goopy, what-the-hell-did-you-eat?!, yellow-brownish diarrhea, it would taste similar to this peanut spread. I'm sorry to tell you that. Really truly, I hope you weren't eating or drinking something when you read that last bit. But if I can save anyone from this revulsion, then it was worth it.


Moving on. I had googled tons of recipes online and diet tips and tricks. I read about PB2 and found out that it supposedly tastes just like peanut butter, but it's a peanut powder, and it has 85% less fat than regular peanut butter because the oil has been removed. I was skeptical, because this is my  post-traumatic-stress-from-inspired-by-peanut-butter-self. But, I kept reading more and more about it, and the reviews I read were pretty much the same. Most people loved the stuff in their shakes, or mixed with water and eaten in more traditional ways (PB&J, or PB and celery sticks.)


I happened to see a health food store near our house on a trip to the grocery store, so we stopped by. They didn't have PB2, but the lady told me they did have Betty Lou's JustGreatStuff Organic Powdered Peanut Butter. So I brought it home, fell in love, and we lived happily ever after. The end.

Well, I'm still in ever after actually. And you deserve to know about it! I did end up buying PB2 later on, and I have both at home now. They taste almost identical to me but there are differences on the nutrition label. PB2 has 2 grams of fiber, whereas JustGreatStuff has 1 gram. PB2 also has 5 grams of protein as opposed to JustGreatStuff's 4 grams. What I like though is that JustGreatStuff is sweetened with organic coconut sugar, while PB2 only mentions sugar. Either way, they're both great and taste amazing and make me sing with happiness that in 2 TBS, there's only 45 calories compared to regular peanut butter's 190. And only about 10 - 13 calories are from fat, compared to regular peanut butter's 150.

I feel like powdered peanut butter is just another reason to believe in humanity. Somebody somewhere loved peanut butter as much as I do, and decided that poor shmucks like me who are trying desperately to shed some poundage deserve low fat and low calorie peanut butter. And then, they made it!

Anyway, I use PB2 or JustGreatStuff for any recipes that call for peanut butter. Sometimes, I'll admit, it's better to just use the regular peanut butter. For instance, I made peanut butter cookies that use garbanzo beans instead of flour, eggs, etc. The first time I made them, I used natural peanut butter because I wasn't home and I didn't have PB2 on hand. They were amazing, but with so much peanut butter in them, I knew I couldn't indulge quite as much as I would have wanted to. A few days later, when I was home, I tried the recipe again with PB2 instead of peanut butter. The cookies came out terrible. They essentially tasted like garbanzo bean cookies with a hint of peanut butter. Yuck. I will try them with half and half next time. Half fully oiled up peanut butter, half PB2.

They sure do look yummy, but I assure you, they weren't...

Mostly though, the PB2 is a wonderful substitute for the good stuff. I made a phad thai with zucchini noodles and veggies. The peanut sauce was perfect and the entire meal felt light, but was filling. I also add PB2 to shakes, and have created some yummy flavor combinations: PB & Banana. PB & J (just add strawberries, powdered peanut butter, and a quarter of a frozen banana to your regular greens and blend!) And now, PB2 and JustGreatStuff offer a CHOCOLATE powdered peanut butter, so think of all the shake possibilities there! You could have a healthy vegan Reese's flavored kale shake!!!!

Chocolate PB2!!!
As I mentioned, I found JustGreatStuff at a health food store, and I hate to say that it's not available everywhere. I know our GNC has PB2. I've never found PB2 or JustGreatStuff at any regular grocery store, even though they've gotten on the health bandwagon and have cashew butter, almond butter, coconut butter, etc. Isn't that weird? I'd recommend you purchase PB2 or JustGreatStuff online, because it's cheaper and you don't have to drive around town looking for a place that carries them. 

I'd love to hear from you if you use PB2 or JustGreatStuff. What are your favorite recipes?

Monday, July 8, 2013

Dear Skinny Bitches


Well hello again. I have been so crazy busy lately, I hope you all forgive me for my brief hiatus. I got engaged! So naturally, I'm reading other blogs, going on Pinterest, and discussing wedding plans with all my friends and family.

I have actually been working on another blog post which is almost done, but I had to put that aside because there was something extremely important on my mind and I absolutely have to get this out in writing. If you never read another blog post of mine, read this one before you write me off entirely.

The other day, I casually skimmed through my news feed on Facebook to get the latest scoop about the goings-on of my not-so-inner circle. A "friend" of mine (I will refrain from naming her, but not for the fear that she'll see this; I've since unfriended her) posted a status update that caught my attention. She wrote, and I quote: "If you really can't handle the first half of spin class without fans on, then you probably should reconsider working out altogether." Two of her charming friends responded to her status update. The first said: "People that use fans to work out should reconsider working out." The second friend, evidently a woman of few words wrote simply: "PREACH!"


I read it over and over, and came up with a dozen responses in my head of things I would have liked to say. I'll admit, most of the things I wanted to write were laden with profanity, but I willed myself to write, gently and eloquently so as to get my point across, "ouch. People have to start somewhere :-/"

Circa 2007, not yet at my heaviest
I'll be honest. I really thought that maybe since I had not written the expletive-ridden torrent I had intended to spill, some cosmic karma voodoo magicalness would swarm all over their pretty blonde heads and, oh I dunno, give them a reality check, or maybe some common decency, or a bit of heart. I waited patiently for the notification icon to pop up letting me know a new response had been added, but nothing came. After a few hours, I checked her page again, thinking maybe the notification popped up and I had missed it. I found the status entry, and instead of three comments underneath, found only two. She had deleted my comment...



 So here is the actual beginning of my long spiel. Buckle your seat-belts but don't go anywhere. This is where you're probably wondering why the hell I care what some "skinny bitch" said on her own Facebook wall. After all, she didn't go and blast it on some forum (as far as I know.) She also has every right to use her first amendment right to be as much of a bitch as she wants. She's not hurting anyone, technically. But oh my God, did it hurt like hell. I'll admit it.

2009. I was 22 years old

This all takes me back to when I was "Flabby Gabby." When I hated going to the gym and being around skinny girls who I swear gave me dirty looks. Was it my own imagination that the gorgeous, fit girls were judging me while I struggled on the treadmill? Maybe. It might have been in my head that they were secretly laughing at me or looking at how revolting my belly and thighs looked. Everywhere I looked, people were scoping out other people. Quick peeks, strange glances, all of which I imagined were for comparison. My legs are so much better than hers. Her butt looks amazing. OMG that girl's hips are so wide; glad I don't look like that. When I made fleeting eye contact with another person, I over-analyzed what they must have seen and thought about me: that I'm just a gross fat girl who should just give up. My so-called friend's status update validated every fear I ever had.

I used to always "cover" myself with purses, or in this case, a pillow to hide...

My ex-boyfriend's father once said I would always be a fat girl. I remember the first time a girl at school matter-of-factly referred to me as 'chubby'. And it was someone in my used-to-be-inner-circle who dubbed me Flabby Gabby. And you know what? That whole bullshit about using the negative comments as fuel to prove people wrong NEVER FUCKING WORKED. Oh, I'd think it all right, in my head, it was all, I'll show them! I'll lose this weight and be so hot they'll be sorry. But it never happened. I went home and scarfed my heart out on whatever was in the fridge. You say I needed better friends? You betcha.


Visiting my family in AZ in 2009

The first step on my path of transformation really did involve removing myself from the bad, negative, hurtful, detrimental people. The second step was surrounding myself with people who motivated me, encouraged me, told me I was beautiful no matter what, and loved me for me regardless of the size of my jeans.


2010. The most I ever weighed. I wore a size 10-11 at 5' tall and 140ish lbs
I needed some serious prodding to get back in the gym, and it only happened after I lost my first twenty pounds. Even then, I stayed for ten minutes. That included getting a paper cup of water and slowly ambling toward the "death machines."




I can't even imagine what would have happened if someone laughed at me about that, or if I overheard some girl snidely remarking "that girl who barely worked out for ten minutes should just reconsider working out altogether." I would have quit. I would have been defeated. Am I proud about that? No, not really, but I'm being blatantly honest. I would not have come back, because there'd be no way to get up to "her workout standards" overnight, and subjecting myself to that kind of bullying would be too difficult. I already endured enough bullying in grade school for being too short, having the wrong haircut, wearing cheap clothes, having crooked teeth and "four eyes." In those days, I had no choice but to go to school and be subjected to the brutality. As an adult though, it's a different battlefield, and I can choose whether or not I want to fight in it.


Down 40 lbs!

I would have walked away...


Hiking. Look at those guns!
I'm so grateful that I made it to my goal, and have successfully kept off the weight for two years now. My self confidence has never been higher, and I actually feel pretty. It's not just because I'm thinner. It's also because I worked so hard, didn't give up, and achieved something I never thought I could. I am so proud of myself! That's why when anyone tells me they'd like to lose weight or get healthier, I do anything I can to help them, motivate and encourage them, and answer all their questions. That's why I started this blog! I wanted it to be easier for you guys to find my favorite recipes, tips and exercises that helped me lose weight!

No witchcraft here. Just positive energy, motivation and hard work!

I hope what you take from this blog post and what you remember most is that I started out as Flabby Gabby who ate macaroni and cheese daily, hated exercise, and was constantly derailed from improving my life by the negativity around me. But I slowly made the changes to my diet, and I took those scary steps into the gym. I thrived because of the positivity around me and avoided people and situations that would hinder me. My ten minutes on the elliptical the first day turned into fifteen and then thirty. Now, I can ride that sucker for an hour like a boss. And I'm down forty pounds.


And you know what? I use the damn fans.

Snorkeling during my last vacation. #nofilter #nophotoshop #thatsmybody