Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes

During our trip to San Diego, all the boys ordered more delicious food than me 90% of the time. Isn't that the way it goes when you hang out with boys with super metabolisms? I mean, don't get me wrong, I LOVE the way I eat. I wouldn't choose to eat in a way I hated...well at least not at this point in my life, and the way heavy calorie dense food make me feel super icky definitely triumphs the taste factor. Delicious and at least moderately healthy is always the best game plan. And I chowed down on amazing sushi, a mexi potatoey breakfast, Mexican food, a delicious veggie-egg white-goat cheese-potato hash, and whole lot of Pinkberry (or as Nacho calls it, Pigeon Berry--I don't even know how that got started but now I can't call it anything else), so I was in no way deprived on this trip, but after tasting Jason's blueberry cornmeal pancakes, I was a little jealous.

Saturday before Steve and I went grocery shopping, I suggested we decide on a breakfast plan for the next day so we could get everything we needed. He asked for pancakes--duhhh--he almost always chooses pancakes. It must be a result of the dark ages in which none of us even sampled a carb for months at a time--so awful--NEVER DO A CARB DIET!!! Anyway, we are still dealing with our carb cravings haha.

Obviously, I decided we had to recreate these babies
Mine may not be as pretty (if you haven't noticed, presentation is not my forte!), but I would venture to say I liked them better than the original and they kept me full for hours!

Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes:
yield 2 servings

*1/2 cup reduced fat buttermilk
*1/4 cup water
*1 egg white
*1/2 tbs honey
*1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
*1/4 cup cornmeal
*1/2 tbs sugar substitute (or f you don't want to go fake, skip it and double the honey)
*1 tbs milled flax seed
*1/2 tbs chia seeds
*1/2 tsp baking powder
*1/4 tsp baking soda
*Pinch salt
*Blueberries--lots of 'em! As many as you can fit! I just dumped them in to my desired amount, but probably used almost a cup!

Suggested toppings:
*Syrup (I use sugar-free, but a pure maple syrup would probably actually be more healthy)
*Nut butter
*Yogurt
*Fried egg
*Granola
*Fruit

**NOTE**You could also mix some protein powder and/or oats into the batter!

Mix wet ingredients in a small bowl and dry ingredients (excluding blueberries) in a medium bowl. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry until just combined (over mixing=tough pancakes! Don't be afraid of small lumps!). Gently fold in blueberries. Cook over medium low heat in a greased pan until bubbles start to form on top, flip and cook for an other minute or so until finished.

I just cooked each of us our own huge pancake

And for once, didn't completely mess it up in the flipping process!
Steve topped his with an over medium egg+a white and sf maple syrup
I topped mine with sunflower butter, sugar free maple syrup, non fat vanilla greek yogurt and a sprinkling of low fat granola on the very top. It was amazing to say the least, but no surprise I was full for so long--it was a lot of food!
It was the perfect start to our Sunday and went much better than my two failed attempts at making goat cheese. Ugghh, I hate it when I try to make something and it doesn't work out--it makes me GRUMPY! But at least I had a super successful dinner on Friday and this delicious breakfast to keep my spirits up! Oh, and my cute life long boyfriend :O)

Healthy vs. Skinny

I have a confession. The truth is I am not at my goal weight. Still actually a whopping 25 lbs away to be honest. Sometimes I have to fight embarrassment when trying to write a blog about healthy recipes and healthy living in general. It gets so easy for me to invalidate my progress with the fact that I'm not skinny, and I'm not currently losing weight--I'm just kind of sitting in the plateau and allowing that to be okay.

It's funny every time I whine at the doctor's office about how I eat healthy and I work out and I count my calories (well back when I did--RELIGIOUSLY), they always say to me "Well, you're perfectly healthy. Maybe this is just where your body wants to be." And I look at them in utter shock each time thinking "Did you see the scale when you just weighed me?!?! You must be mistaken." Every time. I'm not sure what exactly I'm expecting them to say, really.

I feel like there is so much stigma in our society about healthy meaning skinny and vice versa. It's funny because I know plenty o' skinny minis that are far from healthy. It also goes back to the fact that health is so much more than 1 dimensional. Mind, body and spirit. Multi-dimensional. Of course non of us are perfect and making perfectly healthy choices in every area 100% of the time--we're human, but I feel like being healthy means actively striving to make the best choices every day to be the best that we can be in mind, body and spirit.

Which leads me to an other thought I've been having. I chose the name "Skinnified" for my blog when I wanted it to be all about the food and the recipes. And honestly, I never thought it would be something I'd want to put much time into, but the more I write, the more I discover that what I actually want it to be about is me--more specifically how my journey can help others discover their own journey. I feel like I have a lot to share and others have a lot to teach me. I want to be a resource for others who want to make a change.

I remember when I first started changing my eating habits, I felt clueless and helpless. I had no idea how to eat healthily or how to work out. It's sad that I was 23 years old with absolutely no knowledge. I don't think she even realizes it, but my friend Mandie was one of the most influential people in helping me to achieve my goals and make better choices. She answered all of my questions without ever once making me feel stupid or inferior for not knowing. She was a resource filled with information and I trusted her to be able to ask the simplest of questions like "Why do some people not eat red meat? What's the difference?"

Anyway, back on the topic of blog names--now that it's about me and my focus is far from being skinny--should I change the blog name? Any suggestions?

And just for fun and to remind myself that my 70 lbs lost is nothing to feel embarrassed about,

Then:
Now:

Lavosh Pizzas

If you've ever eaten the glazed chicken lavosh pizza @ Pita Jungle, then you can understand my excitement when I found not just regular lavosh, but WHOLE WHEAT lavosh bread at Trader Joe's. Seriously the PERFECT pizza crust!

Last weekend when we were in San Diego, my mom, Hank and Charlie graciously offered to babysit out children.

So Friday night I invited them over for dinner to say thank you. As soon as I saw the lavosh bread @ TJ's, I was inspired to make my own flat bread pizza creations. I decided to try to recreate the Glazed Chicken Lavosh, and create my own BBQ Chicken.

Steve recently splurged on a fancy new camera and has become obsessed with taking pictures. When he began photographing me in action, I was less than amused.
But I quickly warmed up to the idea when I realized how much more fun the recipe/life blog would become with actual quality pictures and not the lame-o cell phone ones I've been trying to pass as good enough!

Now that I am measuring less and improvising more, it is making recipe writing a lot more challenging, but I will do my best to use more actual terms and less terms like "a crap load" :O)

BBQ Chicken Lavosh Pizza:
*1 whole wheat lavosh bread
*1/4 cup BBQ sauce
*1/4 red onion, sliced and caramelized (To caramelize, I just cook on low heat with a little olive oil and balsalmic vinegar for what seems like forever until the onions are super sweet and softened)
*Kernels from 1 ear corn, roasted (I brushed it with BBQ sauce before roasting YUM!)
*2 tbs cilantro, chopped
*1/2 cooked chicken breast, cubed (I marinated in BBQ sauce for 1 hour, then browned on the stove in a cast iron and transferred to the oven @ 350 for about 20 min)
*Freshly shredded part skim mozzarella
*Freshly shredded goat cheddar (I found it @ TJ's...in fact I got all my ingredients there!)

Crisp bread in the oven @ 400 degrees for 4 min. Spread a thin layer of BBQ sauce. Evenly spread chicken, corn, onions and cilantro. Top with desired amount of cheese (I used a 2:1 ratio of mozzarella and cheddar). Place back in the oven for an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is fully melted. Slice and serve!

Glazed Chicken Lavosh Pizza:
*1 whole wheat
*1/4 red onion, sliced and carmelized
*1/2 cooked chicken breast, cubed (I marinated in honey mustard for 1 hour, then browned on the stove in a cast iron and transferred to the oven @ 350 for about 20 min)
*Freshly shredded part skim mozzarella
*Crumbled reduced fat feta cheese
*Sriracha sauce for topping (optional)

This one is super easy--place chicken and onion on the lavosh bread, top with cheese (I used an equal ratio of these cheeses). Cook in the oven @ 400 for approx 8 minutes or until the cheese is fully melted.


**NOTE** If I were to do this again, I would have given it a sauce. I don't think they do at Pita Jungle, but it would have made it better I think. I would have mixed some olive oil with some honey mustard and brushed it on the bread--however, if you do this, you will want to crisp up the bread first like in the BBQ recipe!

BBQ Salad:
*Leaves from 1 heart romaine
*Kernels from 2 ears corn, roasted (the same way as the pizza corn)
*1 red bell pepper, chopped
*2 tbs cilantro, chopped
*1 hard boiled egg + 2 hard boiled whites
*1 can reduced sodium black beans, drained and rinsed
*1/4 cup low fat feta, crumbled
*1/4 cup goat cheddar
*I would add some roma tomato, but my step dad is not a fan

Mix everything together in a big bowl and top with

BBQ Ranch Dressing:
*2:1:1 ratio fat free ranch, BBQ sauce, and fat free sour cream
*1 tbs cilantro, chopped

Whisk together!
Steve's plate (which looked pretty much exactly like mine)

The wrath of what Steve calls "Hurricane Ariana" in the kitchen
Yes, I do manage to use all of my luxurious counter space almost any time I cook absolutely anything. That's what it's there for!

Enjoy everyone! Happy Sunday :O)

Do you like figs?

I wasn't so sure. A big part of me didn't think I did because the word fig doesn't sound very appetizing, but I've heard people talk about how sweet and delicious they are so I decided I was at least open to trying them. I just got the most amazing new cookbook from Williams Sonoma (thanks to wedding gift cards! whoot!) called Eat Well, and I had book marked a bunch of pages (of course), so when I was trying to decide what to make when Jason came over for dinner on Wednesday, Steve suggested we each open the book to a bookmarked page and pick whichever recipe sounded better. I opened to pork tenderloin with fig, he opened to some pumpkin quinoa dish. I won.

This is definitely one of my favorite and probably most impressive meals I've made, but it was actually super easy! Once we decided, I of course had to figure a salad to go with it, so here's what we ended up with!

Salad:
*Arugula
*Toasted walnuts
*Dried mission fig, chopped
*Unsweetened dried cherries
*A generous helping of goat cheese on top

Dressing:
*1.5:1 Red wine vinegar and olive oil
*1-2 sprigs rosemary, stems discarded, finely chopped
*Drizzle honey dijon
*Drizzle plain ole honey
*Garlic pepper

Pork tenderloin with fig:
*12 dried mission figs, stemmed and halves
*1.5 cups dry red wine
*1.25 lb pork tenderloin
*Salt and pepper to taste
*Olive oil
*3 sprigs fresh thyme or rosemary
*1 tbs fig jam (I couldn't find it so I used fig butter)
*1 tsp lemon zest

Preheat oven to 400. Place figs and wine in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 min. Remove from heat and let stand for 15 min. Drain figs and reserve wine.

Pat pork dry, trim away fat, season with salt and pepper.

Season a cast iron skillet with olive oil and place over medium heat. Add pork and brown on all 4 sides (approx 5 min total). Arrange figs and herbs around pork and bake for 18-25 min when the meat reaches 155 degrees F (I cooked mine for 21 minutes and it came out PERFECT. Also, I cut the tenderloin in half to fit comfortable in the skillet).

Transfer tenderloin and figs to a platter, cover with tin foil and let rest for 10 min. Add wine, jam, and lemon zest to cast iron and bring to a boil over medium-high heat stirring often for 4-5 min. Remove and discard herbs.

Slice pork diagonally approx 1/2 inch thick. Arrange figs around pork and spoon sauce on top.

My plate:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oatmeal

Ummm, maybe the best breakfast EVER. I've been looking forward to today's breakfast ever since I had left over pumpkin from my 25 calorie pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I love pumpkin. I love chocolate. I love oatmeal. In fact I am pretty much obsessed with oats in any form right now--in oatmeal, in cookies, in smoothies, in yogurt--you name it. I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover their amazingness.

Heaven in a bowl AKA Pumpkin chocolate chip oatmeal:

*1/4 cup oats
*1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
*1 tsp milled flax seed
*1/2 tsp chia seeds
*1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder
*cinnamon to taste
*pinch salt
*1/3 cup canned pumpkin
*drizzle sf maple syrup
*optional: spoonful non fat vanilla yogurt
*grain sweetened chocolate chips for topping

Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips in a small pot on the stove, cook until desired consistency, put it in your bowl and top with chocolate chips! They melt just enough so that you have a delicious chocolate swirl running through your oatmeal. Man I should have taken a picture after I mixed it all up. So delicious.

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The 25 calorie cookie

I know what you're thinking. That can't be good. I'll tell you, they are tiny, and I would consider a serving size two cookies which technically comes out to 47 calories according to calorie count, but how amazing does it sound to say I created a 25 calorie cookie? Nevermind the fact that I actually just melded a few different recipes together with my own added twist :O) The truth is, these cookies are not just low calorie, but actually nutritious and I can't wait to add some protein powder to the mix and turn them into breakfast muffins and pancakes.

The idea? Mix a can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling!) with a box of spice cake. Mix, bake, done. I'll be honest, this version does not change the calorie count much, but whatever, my version is more fun and more fiberful!

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup milled flax seed
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup splenda brown sugar blend
  
• 1/2 cup sugar free maple syrup
  
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 egg whites
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 12oz can pumpkin
• 1 1/2ish cups grain sweetened chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients, add wet ingredients. Drop on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes!