Banana nut chocolate chip muffins or bread (gluten free recipe)

I love baking, especially on chilly winter days.  I love this recipe because I add raisins and chocolate chips to it and they add a nice sweetness, so I can use less sugar.  If you are not gluten free you may use regular all-purpose flour.  ENJOY!

1 1/2 cup ripe bananas (about 3 medium bananas), mashed
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla (if you are GF be sure your vanilla is too!)
1 3/4 cup GF all-purpose baking flour (I like Bob's Red Mill or Pamela's)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tesaspoon xanthan gun or gaur gum (a GF thickener that you do not need if this is not a GF batch)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease loaf or muffin pans. Cream together oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in an electric mixer.  Add flour, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon to egg mixture, alternating with mashed bananas.  Beat until smooth.  Stir in nuts, raisins, and chocolate chips.  Bake loaf for an hour, regular muffins for 30 minutes and mini-muffins (my favorite!) for about 20 minutes.
ENJOY!!

Everyone needs a good night's sleep...here are a few ideas (that I am going to try!) and maybe will help you too

It seems that every morning I wake up exhausted, drag myself out of bed and into the shower.  Slowly I get ready, eat breakfast and pour myself into my car.  Then run around all day, searching for coffee or green tea, to energize myself.  I arrive home in the evening, exhausted and hungry, I try to work out, give it a half hearted attempt, shower, make dinner, do some work, and get a second wind around 9pm, which takes me until 11pm or so to wind down, which of course sets me up for failure when my alarm sounds sweetly around 6:30am...and it happens all over again...I need to break the cycle.  I am willing to try just about anything to break this horrible cycle...

Sleep, or good sleep is counted in REMs, not sheep.  You first enter a light sleep, then a deep sleep and then a dreaming or REM sleep.  The cycle lasts about 90 minutes and repeats itself four to six times throughout the night.

1) Skip the snooze button.  Experts state that while it is tempting to try and squeeze every last second out of your sleep time, it takes a lot of energy to try and fall back into a deep sleep, that you do not recharge what you expend.

2) Work out first thing in the morning. It gives you a shot of energy and decreases levels of stress hormones making it easier for you to wind down and fall asleep.  People who worked out for 30 minutes at 7am significantly improved their sleep that night resulting in 75% more time in deep sleep vs. a workout at 1pm or 7pm.

3) Take a breathing break mid-day.  It allows your brain to relax and process information which would otherwise keep you awake at night.  Otherwise, when you lie down at night, it is like a fast-moving car slamming on the brakes and everything in the back seat flying to the front.

4) Stop intake of caffeine around 1pm.  It takes about 4-7 hours for caffeine to leave your system. And not just coffee, watch out for soda, tea, and chocolate.  A cup of coffee has 95mg of caffeine, coffee ice cream has 48mg, one can of diet coke has 47mg, tea has 40mg and dark chocolate has 25mg of caffeine.

5) Around 3pm, take a quick, fast walk, get some sunshine.  It allows your normal hormone pattern to reset itself.  This is essential if you are not able to get your workout in first thing in the morning.

6) Eat dinner around 7pm.  It takes 2 hours to fully digest a meal, 3 hours for a larger meal.  Eating close to bedtime makes it difficult to for the body to wind down.

7) An hour before bed have a protein-carb snack.  It aides the body to produce melatonin and serotonin.  (I hope that beer & almonds count!)

8) A half hour before bed, start winding down.  This allows our bodies to transition from fast pace day to sleep mode.  You can wash your face, brush your teeth, dim the lights, turn off the tv and computer, meditate, read, or some other soothing action to send a signal to your brain to prepare for sleep.

9) Get into bed, breathe deeply and stretch.  Take a few deep breathes and lightly stretch (30 seconds or so), reach for your toes, or another light stretch.  Up to 20 minutes to fall asleep is normal.  If you fall asleep immediately that means that you are sleep deprived.

Christmas time!

I love this season :-)  Time for family, happiness, and celebration of the birth of Christ.

I am a fan of purchasing decorations at the end of the season for the following year and I can usually snag them at a 50-90% discount.  

Easy and inexpensive ways to decorate your home - ornaments in vases or pretty bowls.  

I also purchased a strand of wire with red berries on it.  I used the part of it on my lights over the dining room table, cut a few branches and put them in a vase, added a few to a candle holder and added a few to a wreath.  The red berry strand cost me maybe $5 at after Christmas sale at Target in early January. 

Shepard's pie without the Shepard

A new version of Farmer's pie, so perfect for a cool evening and it hits the spot - I just had three bowls!  Super tasty and very healthy.  It is a vegan alternative to Shepard's pie.  It may seem like a lot of ingredients but use whatever you have available and substitute as you like, that makes it more fun!  Enjoy!

Ingredients:
4 large organic potatoes, peeled and cut into large pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 garlic cloves, chopped (I like a lot of garlic, I actually used about 20 cloves)
2 carrots, chopped (I used one cup of organic baby carrots)
1 onion, chopped
3 cups of organic vegetable or mushroom broth
2 cups of portobello mushrooms, chopped
1 1/2 cup of frozen organic peas
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon rosemary (I added more as I had some fresh available that needed to be used up)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional (use less if you like less spice)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons low-sodium, organic, gluten free tamari (or soy sauce, eliminate if you have a soy allergy)
1 teaspoon gaur gum (it's a very effective gluten free thickener with 8 times the thickening ability of cornstarch, you may use 2 tablespoons of corn starch) mixed with 1/3 cup of cold water
paprika

Method:
In a large pot or Dutch oven boil potatoes until tender.  Drain and use the same pot for the next portion, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Sauté the garlic, onion, and mushrooms for a few minutes. Add 1/4 cup of broth and cook for about 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are softened.  Add the peas, oregano, rosemary, cayenne and pepper and stir.  Add the remaining broth, tamari, and thickener and stir.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer until all the vegetables are soft and the sauce is thickened.  (The recipe says to pour into a 9 inch pie dish but I kept it in the Dutch oven)

Mash the potatoes (I added a little coconut milk that I had left over) and spread them out on top of the vegetable mixture (this was the most difficult part as the potatoes want to clump together and not spread well).  Broil for a few minutes until the potato crust is golden brown and sprinkle with paprika (I added some additional cayenne as well).  Serve immediately!  And ENJOY!!

Writing this makes me want to have a fourth bowl!!

Quinoa with Sweet Potato & Mushrooms

Quinoa is an amazing food.  It is considered a grain but is a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and swiss chard.  It is the only non-meat food that supplies a complete protein  This means that  it includes all nine essential amino acids and therefore it is a great choice for vegans, vegetarians, and all of us meat eaters that like to have other options.  It is also very rich in magnesium, folate, and phosphorus. AND it's gluten free!!!

You can find this amazing grain at most grocery and health food stores. Be sure to rinse the grain off before you cook it since it is a seed and it has a naturally occurring resin much of which is removed from the processing method but it could cause the quinoa to have a bitter taste. 

Ingredients:
1 cup of Quinoa
2 cups water
1 medium sweet potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup of mushrooms, chopped

Cooked quinoa in the background.

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, diced
2 leaves of swiss chard
2 tablespoons of sesame oil, you can also use olive or another oil you desire
1/2 cup white wine
red pepper flakes, optional, to taste
1 teaspoon sea salt (to aid the boiling process)
1 teaspoon smoked sea salt, optional

Cook quinoa as per instructions on the box.  Ideally you cook 1 cup of quinoa in 2 cups of water or chicken broth for more flavor.  Rinse the quinoa and add to the water.  (I add a pinch of sea salt to the water to speed up the boiling).  Bring the water and quinoa to a boil and cook for about 15-20 minutes.  When the quinoa is finished, there will be little white curls and the grain will be translucent.  

Swiss chard

In a saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the mushrooms, onion and garlic.  Sauté for about 5 minutes.  Add the sweet potato, half the white wine, red pepper, smoked salt and stir.  Cover the sauté pan, reduce the heat to medium low and cook for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft.  Chop the swiss chard leaves, after removing the stems and ribs (they are bitter).  Add the rest of the wine, turn the heat back up to medium and add the swiss chard.  Cook until the leaves become dark green and are soft, about 5-7 minutes.

Spoon vegetable mixture over the quinoa and ENJOY!!

The clean 15 - the safest foods that you can buy nonorganic, if need be

Buying organic is not the most economical option available.  Therefore, I was very excited when this list was published.  15 produce items with the least amount of pesticides used in conventional (nonorganic) farming.

So, if you are a little tight on cash or cannot find these items in the organic section, no need to worry.  Be sure to purchase organic versions of the 'dirty dozen' or the top 12 foods with the highest pesticide content.

The clean 15:
1) Onion
2) sweet corn (although be aware of non GMO versions and buy organic when you are able to ensure you are getting non GMO food)
3) pineapples
4) avocado
5) asparagus
6) sweet peas
7) mango
8) eggplant
9) cantaloupe (domestic)
10) kiwi
11) cabbage
12) watermelon
13) sweet potato
14) grapefruit
15) mushroom

ENJOY life, be healthy & save money!!!

The dirty dozen - top 12 foods to buy organic!!

The dirty dozen - 12 foods with the highest pesticide content (buy organic versions of theses foods) & the clean 15 - produce with the lowest pesticide content (safest to buy conventionally grown)





BUY THESE ORGANIC whenever possible as they contain the highest pesticide content of all foods:
1) Apples
2) Celery
3) Strawberries
4) Peaches
5) Spinach
6) Nectarines (Imported)
7) Grapes (Imported)
8) Sweet bell peppers
9) Potatoes
10) Blueberries (domestic)
11) Lettuce
12) Kale/Collard greens

Eat your fruits and vegetables! The health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure. Use EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides to reduce your exposures as much as possible, but eating conventionally-grown produce is far better than not eating fruits and vegetables at all. The Shopper's Guide to Pesticide in Produce will help you determine which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues and are the most important to buy organic. You can lower your pesticide intake substantially by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated produce.

Commodity crop corn used for animal feed and biofuels is almost all produced with genetically modified (GMO) seeds, as is some sweet corn sold for human consumption. Since GMO sweet corn is not labeled as such in US stores, EWG advises those who have concerns about GMOs to buy organic sweet corn.



Executive Summary | EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides | Environmental Working Group | EWG.org