Sugar Detoxing and setting up for a healthier 2019

I have decided to start a new journey of health and wellness.  I had originally planned this for 2018 and had started it in September 2017 before Taylor got sick and everything went off the rails, so now that I have some time on my hands and I am trying to look forward and make some goals, this one has resurfaced for many reasons:

• Having more energy to do the things I want to do (being the fun auntie involves wanting to do fun stuff like swimming, skating, skiing, tobogganing, playing at the park, etc.)
• Feeling more confident in my own skin (and it wouldn't hurt to feel less self conscious on vacations involving beaches and pools)
• More fashion options that I feel comfortable in (I like to play vintage dress up for photos and many of those styles just look better and are more available in non-plus sizes)
• Health = prevention of many diseases (if I can prevent it or lower my odds, its probably worth it - I am not getting any younger)
• Not feeling soooo out of shape when doing common things - so building endurance and stamina is important too (being the sweaty person in the group isn't much fun)

So, that's a bit about my goals - I don't have a specific goal weight in mind or any huge lofty goals really - its more of a lifestyle change that I believe will result in achieving these priorities for me.

Some of the things I am doing to make this happen is:

1. Sugar Detoxing

I have been baking like crazy this past year, thankfully not eating all of what I have been baking, but when I see all of the sugar and carbs going into all of the stuff I am feeding everyone, I must admit - it definitely makes me realize that treats are exactly that...treats - meaning they should be a special indulgence and not an every day or several a day snack.  Soooo I have started a sugar detox where I am not consuming any food products that contain sugar (natural or refined) with the exception of one fruit serving per day (or as close to this as I can stick to).  This paired with drinking TONS of water and eating healthier snacks (the much dreaded vegetable) throughout the day and very restricted carbs (complex carbs only).  Headaches, the shakes, being sluggish...all side effects of kicking my sugar habit, but all worth it to come out the other side being able to not just think about sweets and treats all day!  I will be doing this for about 7 days before starting a more fulsome nutrition plan that allows more carbs and fruits, but still restricts refined sugar for the most part except if its a special occasion (cuz this girl is not turning down birthday cake or a girls night out with yummy food and wine!)

2. Sugar-Free Baking

As most of you know, I love baking, and baking treats mostly...so I need to come up with a way to continue my passion and stress coping technique that won't sabotage my health goals.  I was at a New Years Day dinner with family when it was suggested that I look into diabetic friendly baking or no added sugar baking...once I looked into it, it just clicked!  I can still bake and be healthy - win win, what a relief!

Stay tuned for some recipes that I will trial and share - and if you have some - please send them my way!!!  Eventually I will also look at sugar substitutes (starting with natural ones of course, but for now I am going to start with fruit and veggies as the only source of sugar).

3. Exercise (ugh...)

OK, this is by far my least favourite part of starting a health journey...I can find absolutely every excuse possible for not wanting to exercise...workout clothing not feeling comfortable, I need new (insert workout gear) before I can start, not having time or energy to have another shower after I get all sweaty, I don't have an ideal workout "area", it's too hard, I'm too tired, I don't have time, I should really get those dishes or laundry done first, etc.  You name it - I have used it as an excuse.  I am finally beginning to realize that I am the one losing out...I am not getting away with not exercising, I am just exacerbating my own misery and self loathing.

So I am going to start really slow with 5 minutes of exercise per day (maybe more if the 5 minutes isn't horrible) and work up to 20 minutes per day within the next 30 days.  5 minutes of heart pumping exercise is the goal...so I'm not talking about a 5 minute walk, as I am getting lots of steps in per day, but not enough intensity.

If anyone is looking for accountability partners please let me know - we can start a FB group or text group and check in and motivate each other.  Just send me a PM and we can chat more.

4. Healthy Eating

I am horrible for remembering to eat throughout the day, I am just not a "schedule or routine" person - even if I put it in a calendar and on my phone with reminders - so part of this goal is trying to eat more regularly in smaller portions - and being conscious of what I am putting in my body (including more water).  So, two cups of coffee is what I have set as my limit per day - otherwise I could end up drinking coffee all day and not drinking any water until supper time, EEK!

Part of my journey will include looking for yummy ways to eat complex carbs and make vegetables taste more appealing to me.  I don't eat many vegetables or fruits for that matter, so this is another big shift for me.  I tend to like the taste of most vegetables thankfully, so that will help provide more variety to my diet than some of you picky pants' out there (HE HE I am talking about my sister Leah mostly).

I'm not looking to start a meal plan that isn't sustainable or involves starving myself or eating stuff I have to choke down...it needs to be sustainable.  I am approaching this as a way to retrain my brain and my taste buds...at first it will take a conscious effort and lots of researching and trials, but once I get things to become my "go to" it will become my norm to eat these foods and eat more balanced.

I will share recipes that I come across and try, feel free to share your favourites with me too!

Happy 2019 everyone!

Parmigiana Mushroom Chicken with White Wine Sauce

I had all the ingredients for this recipe at home. 

I found this recipe on Pinterest it’s a weight watchers recipe.

I chopped up my onions and mushrooms first.

I fried up the mushrooms and onions.

I coated the chicken with the parmigiana flour mixture and put them in the pan.

I cooked the chicken on medium for two minutes like the recipe called for but there was no way that it was cooked it took more like twenty minutes to cook properly. This made the cheese burn. 

The sauce completely evaporated when I put the wine and water into the pan so I added some more water just to water it down this worked wonderfully. 

This was an extremely easy recipe. That I would make again it was very tasty and had a very nice cheesy flavour.

Roasted Carrot Soup with Curry and Coconut Milk

Recipe inspiration...I didn't plate mine with the coconut milk swirl and cilantro

On Friday I decided to make some soup from the Yum & Yummer cookbook.  It was pretty simple really - roast your veggies in the oven for about 45 minutes, then toss them in a pot with some spices and broth, then puree the soup either by blender or immersion blender (I don't have an immersion blender so I did it the more difficult way but it was SUPER smooth). I would say you can do this start to finish in about an hour.

Chopped veggies ready for the oven

I peeled and chopped up my carrots and sweet potato, and onion - I didn't have a clove of garlic as I don't use them - I buy the pre minced stuff in the jars, so I just skipped the garlic so it wouldn't end up being super garlicky (since a roasted clove tastes much weaker than diced up garlic).

I had to use a giant cookie sheet as it wouldn't fit on a standard one (according to the video I may have chopped my veggies a bit smaller than necessary).

the ingredients I used minus the veggies shown previously

Once the veggies were roasted, I tossed them into a big soup pot - and added the broth (I underestimated how much vegetable broth I needed and only bought one vegetable broth)...so I added two cups of beef broth which I don't think made much difference other than to a vegetarian...

Waiting for the broth to boil

I added all of the spices and brought to a boil...then took it off the heat and added the coconut milk. I had to whisk the coconut milk as it was pretty chunky...so just beware if you don't use coconut milk very often - I think if I had warmed it up a touch it would have been easier to mix back together, but whatever - it ended up just fine.

Blending about 1/3 of the soup at a time in the blender

Then came the tricky part...moving boiling hot soup into the blender.  My blender has a soup function so I just used that, but I assume any blender would work - just beware that it needs to vent while blending as its very hot...so don't put too much in the blender at once and be careful while blending to ensure it doesn't result in the lid popping off from the pressure of the steam.  

Soup transferred into a casserole dish

I moved the blended portions into a casserole dish until the last bit of chunky mixture went into the blender and I could mix it altogether again in the pot.

mmmm...fresh buns

I had made fresh buns to eat with it, which was nice, but I would have liked more texture and variety to the soup, as it is quite thick and I like to add crackers or eat a grilled cheese sandwich or something with this type of soup, but maybe a more refined person could add some croutons for some crunch or even some nice tandoori marinaded chicken would have been good to add just before serving.

Finished soup, super smooth and thick and creamy

It said it made about 8 cups...but I would say it made double that...so maybe I had way more vegetables than I should have, but based on the recipe, I used 2 lbs of carrots and a medium sweet potato and small/medium onion as the recipe called for...sooooo I'm not sure.

Link to the video for reference

Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

I decided to go rogue and am baking a recipe from Mindy’s repertoire instead of using the Yum & Yummer book. She gave me a few tips for baking these cookies and I should have listened closer.

All my ingredients ready to go.

I grated the carrots very finely and set them aside

I blended the butter sugar egg and vanilla and set it aside.

I don’t have a sifter so I just beat the dry mixture with a fork. I had raisins in my cupboard so I used them instead of currants. Then I added the wet mixture to the dry mixture mixing very very well.

All mixed up

12 minutes in the oven and they were ready. I used a small scoop to try and make them the same size but I obviously screwed it up. I thought I was making them small enough but they turned into GIANTS! There’s no possible way to make my mini cakes into sandwiches that will fit into my mouth so I decided to ice one side of each cookie. My icing was runny so I’m not sure how you would pipe it nicely. Maybe if I were to refrigerate the icing first it might be better for piping.

These cookies taste like little cakes not really a cookie. Nice and moist with wonderful texture from the coconut and oatmeal. The raisins were a great choice adding sweetness as these are not overly sweet. I will definitely have to make these again I will make the wet dough flatter before going into the oven next time.

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Hidden Veggies

I got my ingredients from Superstore but I could not find a Boston lettuce.

 I would suggest that you buy a small amount of zucchini and cucumber because you don’t use very much of either of them if you don’t really like them for something else you’re going to have leftovers. First thing I did was to chop up all my veggies very very small.

 She calls for ground chicken for this recipe but I choose to use ground beef because that’s what I had in my fridge. In hindsight I should have used ground chicken because the ground beef was quite strong tasting and kind of over took the lovely sauce flavor. 

 I whipped up the sauce and set it aside. 

 I started to cook the meat 

 Now  the meat is all cooked and ready for me to add the vegetables that are chopped very finely.

 I added zucchini the onions and the mushrooms to sauté then I added the water chestnuts and the sauce to the meat mixture and set it aside. 

I broke the Romain into leaves and chopped up some green onion and Julinne  cucumbers as garnish I forgot to put the sesame seeds on until the very end but they sure added a nice texture to the meat mixture.

 This was super easy to make and very tasty I don’t think that I would make it with Romain lettuce again because the lettuce was hard it and  didn’t hold like a taco very well. The taste was great and I think I’ll make this again one day. 

Staff Potluck Means a Tasty Treat!

 So I had a staff potluck coming, and I was wanting to cook something delicious. I really had hoped to do something from Yum and Yummer, but kind of was feeling lazy as its hard to prep when you teach so that things are ready for lunch. Plus you have to drag all the stuff with you that you will need. I figured I would make a dessert as I saw people were doing more salty/savoury food....and let's be serious, I like sweets and treats!

I have made this recipe in the past for Christmas dinners, and its sort of perfect for this time of year, White Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake cups. I came across the recipe on my many hours of pinning on Pinterest and dreaming of all the delicious foods I could make. I put the actual recipe and the link to the website that has this recipe.

As usual I modify and use my own eyeball measurements. I am sort of brilliant, so I bought desserts in cups from Costco awhile ago and was clever enough to see if I cleaned them and saved them I could reuse. They are glass, which is sort of wonderful and because they have a plastic container they sit in, it makes it super easy to take them for potlucks, etc. Yes, it is okay to mutter to yourself, "she is a freaking genius"!

I cheated and just used a chocolate cookie crumb, and even went for the cheap brand!

So my first modification was to not use the "Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers". I find they can be pricey, and there really are not that many in the boxes you get. I also have found them hard to find or sold out at a lot of stores. So I just grabbed a bag of chocolate cooking crumbs, and totally cheaped out and bought the no-name brand. Did I mention I am cheap? You can splurge and buy fancy, but I found these were great and you saved a whole dollar!

One of my favourites

Yummy butter! A little extra never hurt anyone...

So the base asks for the cookies (that you turn into crumbs so it seems sort of daft that you don't just start there), butter, and After Eight chocolates.  I may have put in a few extra After Eights (I totally did), and extra butter! I just scooped generous Tablespoons. Anyhow I ended up adding more crumbs which gave me more cookie base, which I liked as I added some on top at the end. I hate when you eat all the stuff on top with no base as its tricky scooping out that base in a deeper jar.

I added some peppermint candy cane bits over the cookie butter base

The cookie base

So I scooped in the base and decided I would use some peppermint crunch stuff I have on top of the base for a little contrast and flavour. Next was the chocolate mint cheesecake filling. I can never find the exact stuff they ask for with puddings. I find most stores do not fully stock various flavours that are available in the US, or other places. I did find a sugar-free white chocolate instant pudding. Frankly, I would have preferred with sugar as I always find you can taste a hint of the sugar sweetener.  I did not find a cheesecake flavour pudding mix so I used vanilla pudding and NOT sugar-free. My guess is if you wanted you could just use chocolate too, which I considered but you won't get the same aesthetic. (The recipe is below)

So I put it all together and filled up my cups. I then added my extra crumb on top and added some peppermint crunch and a small candy cane. These are super easy and look fantastic. Everyone enjoyed them at work. 

Cups all ready to go! I got these from trying some cups of treats at Costco and with forethought kept them to use for my own treats.

Delicious tasty treat...not the greatest photo, but you get the idea

No-Bake White Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecakes

DESCRIPTION

Note: Please be sure to use real peppermint extract in this recipe for the best results. Be careful NOT to buy mint extract which is usually a combination of peppermint and spearmint. The spearmint flavoring will be too strong for this dessert.

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INGREDIENTS

For the crust

• ½ package Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers (about 20 cookies)
• 10 After Eight chocolate mints
• 2 tablespoons melted butter

For the filling

• 1 1-ounce package sugar-free white chocolate instant pudding mix (or a 3-ounce package of the regular pudding mix)
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1 1-ounce package sugar-free cheesecake-flavored instant pudding mix (or a 3-ounce package of the regular pudding mix)
• ½ teaspoon real peppermint extract (do not use mint extract which is typically a combination of peppermint and spearmint)
• 1 12-ounce container frozen whipped topping, plus extra for garnish, if desired
• 1-2 drops of red food coloring (optional)
• Candy cane sticks, After Eight chocolate mints, and additional crushed chocolate wafers and crushed candy canes for garnish, if desired

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INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place the chocolate wafers and chocolate mints in the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and pulse again until combined.
2. Spoon the crumbs into individual 9-ounce plastic cups (or other individual sized cups for serving). Place in the refrigerator to set while you are preparing the filling.
3. Prepare the white chocolate pudding with the milk according to package instructions. (Note: Do NOT prepare the cheesecake pudding mix – that will be added as a dry stabilizer later in the recipe.)
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until light and creamy.
5. Add the prepared white chocolate pudding, the dry cheesecake pudding mix and the peppermint extract and beat until completely mixed, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure that all ingredients are well combined.
6. Change your stand mixture attachment to the wire whisk. On slow speed, fold in the tub of frozen whipped topping and until well combined. If you’d like to tint your cheesecakes a light pink “peppermint” color, add 1 drop of red food coloring – you can leave the color swirled or mix completely for a light pink color. If desired, add a second drop of red food coloring if you want a darker pink color and mix again.
7. Allow the mixture to sit in the refrigerator for about an hour to firm up.
8. Using a large pastry bag with a large tip, or a spoon, top the chocolate mint crumb crust in each cup with the cheesecake mixture and refrigerate until ready to serve.
9. Garnish with additional whipped topping, a candy cane stick, a chocolate mint and crushed chocolate wafers and candy canes, if desired.
10. https://www.afamilyfeast.com/no-bake-white-chocolate-peppermint-cheesecakes/
11. 
    

Lip-Smacking Maple-Curry Chicken

Well I’ve been meaning to make this for a while now, and even went to make it this weekend but discovered I didn’t have all of the ingredients - ugh!  So tonight was the night!

I used chicken thighs as that’s what I had in my freezer and my hubby gets sick of chicken breast  all of the time since he prefers dark meat.  I also didn’t use real maple syrup (I’m sure I may have my Canadian citizenship revolked by saying this, but I don’t like the real stuff...it’s too watery!) so I buy good old Aunt Jemima!  I also don’t buy low sodium soy sauce as when I do use it, I want the saltiness.

I only marinaded for just about two hours - I honestly didn’t check the instructions beforehand so I didn’t realize I needed to let it marinade first.

This is what it looked like once it was all mixed up and ready to go into the fridge.

I decided to just put all of the marinade and chicken into the pan to cook it, but we discovered that this may have led to it being too saucy.  My hubby felt the curry and mustard was a bit overwhelming but it could be that it was caked in the sauce and not just a “drizzle” of it added before baking.  I personally felt like the flavours conflicted a bit to me...like a hybrid honey mustard and curry taste.  It definitely had lots of flavour but it wasn’t something I would put in my regular rotation for cooking.  Maybe it was the maple syrup or soy sauce or lack of marinading, or too much sauce...I guess one will only know if they venture to try it again!

Link to the video clip of the recipe being made is here