Healthy Whole-Wheat Honey Banana Muffins

If you couldn’t tell by the title, this recipe is very healthy. There is no sugar and no refined flour. AND THEY TASTE GOOD. I wouldn’t lie. This is my first time baking muffins from scratch, so I’m very pleased. I found the recipe here, altered it slightly and cut in half because I only have a 12-count muffin pan. And this was all the while watching Fawlty Towers!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 17 minutes
Yields: 12 beautiful muffins

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
2 bananas mashed
1/4 cup hot water

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees and grease the muffin pan
Put the whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt into a small bowl and mix.

Put the dry ingredients to the side and get a bigger bowl where everything will end up. Put in the olive oil and honey and whisk well.

Once that is well mixed, drop in those two eggs and mix mix mix!

Once those are beaten, then add the mashed (MASH THEM) bananas into the mix.
Now the dry ingredients are ready to make friends with the wet ingredients. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients, alternating with pouring in a little of the hot water you measured out before. Mix well!

Mix all ready to go

The mix is delicious by the way–had way too much of it before it hit the oven. Go a head and pour the mix into your muffin pan. Fill it as high up as you want–it all depends on how big muffins you’d like.

Put in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Mine cooked in about 17 minutes. Try going for 15 minutes and test them.

And here they are. The texture turned out wonderfully, the taste not overpowering, and the structural integrity strong. Very excited about these.

Chris’ hand (you can see dinner in the background)

My hand

Cheers! Enjoy the recipe and the food! Delicious

Jan272013

You Can Train Your Cats Too

I have always been a dog person. Not to say that I was a cat hater, but if given the choice of feline or canine, I would always go with the dogs. I am an animal lover, thus I do enjoy cats as well, but they never seemed as approachable or personable as dogs did. I’m still a huge dog person, but now I’m a cat person too (somehow that makes me sigh). Since I’ve gotten our kittens, I’ve learned to love them. Instantly. And now I see that they aren’t so different from dogs after all. Especially Nymeria.

Sleepy Nymeria

If you’ve read about her, you’ll know that she acts like a dog, rough housing, and cuddling, and afraid of nothing. Sajah, our newer kitten, behaves like a dog when it comes to food…and he’s become quite the cuddler as well. I’m drawing the connection between these two species for a reason. Dogs are trained right from when they are of puppy age (if possible) to sit, lie down, come, and so forth. Rarely will you find people training their cats this way. Sure, they might urge them towards a litter box when they’re young (although they are born with the tendency to go to the bathroom in a confined place), but when do you ever hear of someone training their cats as you would dogs?

Rarely. And I ask, why? Why should dogs be trained to do certain tasks or tricks but not felines? It doesn’t make sense to me. It just seems to be a cultural thing to just train dogs and not cats. With Nymeria, we’ve been training her to do pull-ups on her cat tree since she was young. Even though she’s smaller than Sajah (and was smaller than Misty too), she can use her upper body wiry strength to get out of a bind. That was just a little thing.

Up until the kittens, I’ve only known how to raise a dog. So I am raising the kittens like puppies. I’ve begun a training regimen with both of them, and I try to keep to it every day. And guess what–they’ve learned commands incredibly fast. At the same speed or quicker than dogs that I’ve trained. So there’s to people who think that cats aren’t made for training.

How do you train them? Some might ask. All I do is cut treats into small pieces (we use “Greenies” for good kitty dental health) and have them follow different commands. It can be tough and hectic training them both at the same time, but if one starts interfering just plop them somewhere else. Say the commands and show them what to do until they understand.

Random window pic

Both Sajah and Nymeria know “come” although they don’t always choose to follow that one without treats. Nymeria is an expert at “sit.” She does it on command without treats now and understands the word. How did I get her to understand? I would say, “Nymeria, sit” and then position her body in a seated position. Eventually, she connected it and put it together.

Nymeria, sit!

Sajah, on the other hand, is an expert at “up.” He knows even by the hand gesture of patting the couch that he will jump up right beside me. He picked that one up quickly and does it frequently whenever I ask. Of course, he’s hoping for treats, but it’s great that he will do it without them.

Sajah en route to command “up!”

It takes time and patience, as all thing such as these require, but I think it’s worth it. Some may call it odd or strange, but I believe it’s due to culture that people don’t train their cats. It’s simply not the thing to do. So break the pattern, get with your kittens, and give them a few minutes of training every day so they can become intelligent, task-managing fiends!

Cheers!

Jan172013

Wild Boar Burgers

If you know me, you know I have a weird diet philosophy. I call myself a vegetarian, but I will eat any wild-caught fish or hunted meat. Just my desire to go back to a more natural age before the meat industry. ANYHOW, now that you know how and what I eat, let me introduce tonight’s dinner: Wild Boar Burgers and Chips. Everything homemade, of course. It actually turned out great despite my NEVER cooking boar before and rarely (pun intended) ever cook meat. Check it out

Ingredients

2 potatoes
kaiser rolls
wild boar meat
grilled onions
tomato
spinach
pickles
garlic
dried rosemary & basil
salt & pepper

Directions

First thing I did was cut up my taters. Slice into very thin pieces, so they cook into crispy chips (fries, for you Americans)

Now, I cooked and cut up my condiments. It’s your choice if you want to do this now or later, but this is how I did it. I grilled up some onions, cut tomatoes, and pickles. I also got out some spinach to go atop the burger as well.

Now it’s time to tackle the boar meat. We got ours ground, so it was pretty easy. Put the meat in a sizable bowl so you can season it. You can season it however you want, but I used garlic, garlic pepper, salt, dried basil and rosemary. I use plenty of garlic, 2 cloves and slice it up. Oh, and a little dash of soy sauce. Then dig around and make sure it’s somewhat evened out.

Now have two pans with oil getting hot on the stove. Flatten out the patties semi-thin, just not thick. Put your potatoes in one pan and salt them up. Now put your patties in the other pan, put them on a medium-low heat, so they don’t get burnt on the outside while they’re cooking on the inside.

Now it’s really up to you to monitor the burgers and the chips. Maybe go set the table, get some drinks out. You want the chips nice and crispy and the boar burgers cooked well, but still juicy. We cooked ours for about 6 minutes. Aaaaand done!

It turned out very well, the chips were crispy, the burgers were loaded with flavor, and our bellies were very happy. I hadn’t eaten any kind of meat (last time was wild bison) in about a year. Oh, and our drink of choice, none other but gourmet root beer.

Go ahead and try out the recipe, let us know if you have any questions about anything. PS- you can see Nymeria on the step-stool in the picture above.

Cheers!

Dec202012

Slow Down: Be Grateful and Feel Thankful

Too often, I believe this culture is too busy to remember what we are grateful for. What we should feel so eternally thankful for. And this is just a gentle short reminder post on the long-running list of things you are and can be thankful for. Being thankful isn’t just to ease your morality and do your “good deed for the day,” it makes you happy too. Who can beat a free dose of happiness?

Can’t particularly think of anything right now? Let me start you off…

Feel thankful for your health. Too often we forget this…until we become ill.

Feel thankful for those in your life who impact you every day.

Starting to get the notion? I’ll throw out some more random ones that I may or may not feel…

Feel thankful for the random Christmas card from a professor that you didn’t expect.

Feel thankful that just as you feel like falling, someone is there to pick you up.

Feel thankful you have a beautiful amount of life thriving around you, it’s everywhere when you look.

Be grateful that your partner understands you as a best friend/soul mate freakish hybrid would.

Be grateful for the kindness and humor of an Emergency Room doctor late in her shift.

Be grateful when your 6-month old kitten buries her head in your arm and snuggles like there’s no tomorrow.

Feel thankful when you have the chance look at the snow slowly falling from the trees, the salt misting above the sea, and the fog rolling off the plains.

Be grateful for the ability to ground yourself in peace with a few thoughts.

Feel thankful for the ready availability of water, shelter, and food.

Feel thankful that your family and friends accept you for who you are.

Be grateful that thoughts are immortal no matter what their contents contain…you can always remember them.

Feel thankful for the way you are raised and the way you are today…all those good traits.

Be grateful for the imagination that rules your mind and can let you escape to somewhere else whenever you choose.

Be grateful for family who will cry with you.

The list plunges ever on, but I wanted to share a few with you that perhaps you can connect with. I know that Thanksgiving has passed, but I believe in stopping for just a moment or two, to find something to be thankful for and smile about. In an era of business and money, this is a small place of refuge.

Thanks to you all!

Dec182012

11 Ways to Maintain or Lose Weight Throughout the Holidays

The holidays are never easy for those trying to maintain or lose weight. Never ever. You’re typically surrounded by family shoving food in your face like ham and cookies. We’ve created a guide that you should follow to weather this tumultuous season. Let’s stay on track!

Exercise or MOVE 30 minutes a day. Minimum. That sounds like a lot. It’s not. Walk the dog, take a brisk walk round the neighborhood, scrub the floors, hop on the treadmill or elliptical. You can even pick up a light sport such as golfing, cycling or even hit the gym for a few weeks. It is worth it.
Limit yourself to 2-3 treats a week. This plays a big part in maintaining all of your progress. Don’t binge on treats all the time, it’s about moderation.
Strength train 2-3 times a week. Whether that means getting on the floor and doing core work, picking up weights, or using machines in a gym facility, get your muscles working. Keep up the toning and strength work. We want to keep burning calories after our workout!
Resist temptation most of the time. Say that pack of oreos or that ice cream sundae is looking fabulous. Try to resist as much as possible, but again, have a treat now and then. When you resist the cookies, supplement it with something else like banana and peanut butter, greek yogurt, crackers and peanut butter, or fruit. Still tasty, but tremendously better for maintaining your progress.
Get your friends and family in on the exercise. Think of how funny a plank or push up contest would be with all the folks. Get people to go for walks or jogs with you. Do a 15-minute timed abs routine with your cousins or siblings. Create family time around something other than food–and make it fun. Think how hilarious it would be to see your dad playing Just Dance.
Look at ingredient labels. If it has anything like “high fructose corn syrup” on it, STAY AWAY.
Eat breakfast. A simple simple way to control your metabolism and eating for the entire rest of the day. Not very hungry? Just have some greek yogurt and nuts, eggs on whole wheat toast, or a smoothie. Just to get the metabolism started and preventing a binge-fest later.
Control your portion size.We eat with our eyes and then we feel bad if we leave food on our plate. Break that habit and get small servings to start. You can always get more if you’re still hungry, right? Be smart about these choices. Use a smaller plate or bowl.
Eat often and well. When our glucose levels drop, we usually scrounge for something to satiate it: cookies, chips, ice cream, etc. However, when we eat often throughout the day (every 2-3 hours), that doesn’t happen. Have carrots, fruit, and nuts around the house—easy fix.
When you eat, just eat. Sounds weird, but if you eat while distracted, say, while watching television, you don’t pay attention to your food or how your body is responding to it. Take the time to eat and really enjoy the food. It’s a good meditation and you won’t overeat.
Is it worth it? Look at that piece of unhealthy food. Is it worth it? Is the satisfaction going to last more than ten minutes? What about that feeling of progress with weight or lean muscle? Weigh your decisions (no pun intended). Then reward yourself with a smile and know you did the right thing.

So there you have it. Not too difficult to follow because you do get some cheats and treats every once in a while. It’s all about moderation. Be realistic, but don’t overdo it. Good cheer and good luck this holiday season!

Dec172012

The Importance of Enjoying Work: Love What You Do and Do What You Love

I know these are hard economic times. I conducted five interviews on Friday with lots of amazing candidates with tons of experience in different fields to accompany their college degrees. People are forced to apply to any job that can pay the bills, whether they know how to do it or don’t, whether they’ll love every minute of it or wish the nightmare would just end. Alana and I both recently went through a lot of interviews of our own trying to figure out post-graduate work situations that would sustain our life in Boulder and, most importantly, for now, help pay off the student loans as soon as possible. But we were either smart or lucky, or a little bit of both. Our stubbornness in terms of applying to the right jobs and choosing the right jobs amongst a sea of interviews and offers seems to have paid off well.

Alana and I worked three jobs at one point over the past few months; one full time, one part time, and one very part time unofficial off-the-books job. Alana stopped doing her off-the-books job because it was just too much work for her when she was going seven days a week. Although, it was work that she enjoyed, it was too much and it’s important to know yourself and to know when to say enough is enough. Money is important, but we’re not the kind of people that enjoy the finer things in terms of clothing and cars and the flashy stuff. We’re happy with good food, good exercise, good family, and some nice books and video games. So our income doesn’t need to be excessive or even average, because it just needs to be coming from jobs that we enjoy.

Things we buy

For our personal update, without saying too much, Alana is working as a full-time certified personal trainer at the Longmont YMCA, Monday through Friday. On Sundays, she works as a caregiver at an assisted living home in Boulder. She loves training and this YMCA is very warm and friendly, so the job makes perfect sense. The commute is a little bit long for her liking, but it’s worth it. She works her second job to gain experience in the health care field in order to make her training in becoming a nurse a little easier. She just recently registered as a student with Front Range Community College so that she could take her pre-requisites for nursing school.

I am working as a full time swim teacher at the Swim School of Boulder. I also will be, or already am, the head coach of the Swim School of Boulder Club Swim Team. It officially launches January 1st 2013, but I’ve been working hard to make sure everything is prepared. Secondly, I work one or two days and seven to fourteen hours a week also at the Longmont YMCA as the instructional swim coordinator and aquatics advisor. I am trying to rebuild the aquatics department in order to provide the services to the community that I feel they deserve from an Aquatics department. Third, I walk a large dog in North Boulder, some times seven days a week typically for an hour at a time or some weeks not at all so it’s very on and off.

Despite working 45-50 hours a week each, on average, we’re extremely happy with our jobs and employers. It makes the rest of life a lot easier and even though we don’t make as much money as we might be able to, we appreciate the fact that we are employed and able to feed ourselves and stay warm at night. We try not to take anything for granted and remember we’re just the same as everyone else in terms of having to face this struggle.

So even though I can’t do anything to make you as lucky as us, be stubborn, and try your hardest without starving to find a job that you really enjoy, because it will make you that much happier.

Dec142012

Midnight Showing Review: The Hobbit

If you know us, or if you’ve read this post, you know we are huge Tolkien/Middle Earth fans. So, obviously, we were at the midnight premiere of The Hobbit by the wonderful Peter Jackson & Co. Although we didn’t dress up (sigh), we were brimming with excitement. Finally! It’s out! So I was expecting to leave about 9:30/10PM to wait in line, my cousin said that there won’t be crazy lines. You never know, coming from Los Angeles and New York, we’ve both waited in hefty lines for big movies like this. So we left at 11 (took us ten minutes to get to the theatre).

We packed into the car and got there–no line. Yes! We didn’t have to wait in the cold. Plus, if we paid an extra $1 per ticket, we would get a free t-shirt. Uh, duh. So we got our shirts, our tickets, my smuggled popcorn and sat down for a 3D Dolby Atmos viewing.

Eventually, the movie started. Now with this insane amazing sound system, our ears kind of hurt. And it wasn’t just mine (I have sensitive ears, Chris calls me “wolf ears”), everyone’s was kind of ringing after. Especially battle scenes. The 3D was good, immersive, and not that silly “pop-out” kind of 3D that I hate. And for the picture…I believe it was a much faster frame rate. Now this was distracting. It looked like a filmed play, it was too realistic, and not theatrical enough. If you have an HD tv, sometime you can see this in certain shows. However, the action was pretty incredible and had a good flow. But…onto the story!

The story was pretty accurate to the book, though I haven’t read it in awhile. And he obviously split it up. I would give the Best Acting Awards to Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), and Richard Armitage (Thorin). And of course, to Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee, though small roles in this movie they played. One thing I wished is that they made Thorin look more like a Dwarf and less like a Man. I know people were nervous about Martin Freeman playing Bilbo, but let me tell you, he was spot on. Seriously. And of course there’s Andy Serkis as Gollum who really just brings the caliber up. The riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum was absolutely brilliant.

I started off unsure about it, how I felt, because it takes a little while to get rolling. There’s good humor with the dwarves and it’s fun to see Bilbo before he was an adventurer. By the end, after all the lore (which we love to see), fight scenes, troll scenes, and excellent dialog, I was happy. I want to see it again when it’s not 12 AM. Perhaps during Christmas week with the family.

Lastly…Howard Shore. What would the Lord of the Rings trilogy be without those held-close-to-heart themes that you know as soon as you hear them…the Shire…the Trio…Gollum’s music…It’s all Howard Shore. And he brings it back just as well this time. When we see the Shire, that familiar light-of-heart music comes on and you can’t help but smile. When Gollum comes creeping into the movie, so does his eerie music. And, with this new story (or old, if we’re talking timeline wise), he created a brilliant sound bit for the new adventure gang.

Rest assured, you will be laughing, gripping your seat, and holding your breath. Now stop reading this and go see it!

Dec112012

Nerd Movie Marathon: Lord of the Rings

Every Sunday, we try to see two movies at discounted rates before we have to work in the afternoon. However, we’ve now seen 28 movies in theaters this year, and even though we skipped Sunday (because some of the movies we wanted to see weren’t playing and mainly because I have been very sick) because we saw a triple on Saturday!

In preparation for the Hobbit, theaters were showing a marathon of all the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It clocked in at a whopping 13 hours and 27 minutes of movie watching. There were intermissions of 30 and 40 minutes in between each movie, but we wish they were shorter so we could keep watching. And we wanted more when it was over.

There were probably less than 100 people in the theater that holds 500 and the employees were saying how it was an underwhelming turnout. Basically, in terms of reviews, these are some of my favorite movies of all time. They’re all basically tens if you ask me. I have my favorite parts in each so I won’t rank them. And now we can’t wait for the Hobbit, which we have tickets for Thursday night at midnight with the family.

We got a free lanyard with a keychain, and even treated ourselves to snacks. We brought some goodies that we went to the car to eat, but we bought Skittles, Buncha Crunch (went so fast), and a large large root beer. And we renewed our AMC Stubs card, finally.

Fellowship: So happy, with beautiful landscapes and an upbeat soundtrack. Gimli in Moria.

Towers: So quotable, incredible action and big sound.

Return: The beacon is lit, Into the West incredible wrap up.

We love these movies so much which makes us so excited for the Hobbit. It was a pretty epic marathon, and we left with sore upper backs, but it was worth it. Everyone clapping, cheering, and laughing together. Everyone is so connected to these films The Shire made us want to go to New Zealand so badly. Soon! Much love to Tolkien for creating such an amazing world.

Nov272012

Thanksgiving Feast: Do it Right

Okay, so we’ve been gone for…a week. But we have plenty reason why! My family came in and it was a very excellent, fun, way-too-fast vacation for all of us here in Boulder. But you’re not here to listen to my excuses about family and not being able to post. You’re here to see food. And since we’re just getting back to full-time blogging, I’ll post a nice light array of food.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. When is it not? Don’t answer that, yes I know the turkey could light the house on fire. Family, food, sunset walks, and good tv. WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Don’t answer that. But seriously, everything went well for us and we had an amazing time (kittens included). So, my parents and brother came in for the week and we had a 9-person Thanksgiving. It was beautiful and great and just LOOK AT IT ALL.

Mum’s homemade cranberry sauce, from stewed cranberries and sugar

Baked yams with shaved almonds on top

Mashed potatoes (of course)

Martinelli’s…Thanksgiving Classic

TURKEY. We didn’t eat it, but others did

My beautiful plate…you can see salmon (wild caught) as my meat in addition to a roll, mushrooms, and brussel sprouts (as well as other food covered already)

You will always find amazing salads at Marga’s house

Plate all clean! Well except for the avocado Kai dropped on the floor

One of the two pies we had. This one was a bakery-made Peach-Raspberry (yum) and Megan made a top-notch pumpkin pie that I wish still existed

So that really covers it for Thanksgiving food…except for the stuffing and gravy and other alcohol served. Everyone had a good stuffed time. How was yours?

You know it…BONUS KITTY PIC

Nov192012

Restaurant Rave: Kho’s Asian Bistro

After our workouts (usually legs) at the Longmont YMCA, we typically go out to eat. It’s our eating-out treat day. And for the past two Fridays, we’ve gone to Kho’s Asian Bistro. You can guess if this is going to be a positive review or not. WE LOVE IT HERE. It’s not just the food, which is obviously made with love, but the incredible atmosphere and service.

So this place is tucked away, literally you have to go down No Name Road to get there. No, seriously, it exists. Once you get there, it’s in a complex with other shops. As soon as we walk in, we’re blasted to Malaysia, with fountains and beautiful sculptures and ethnic items on the wall. The sushi chef is the first to say hello and wave us to a table.

After being seated, we are soon approached by a waitress (all three we’ve interacted with have been absolutely great) and offered drinks. I almost without fail can never resist a Thai Iced Tea. Chris gets his green tea which comes in a huge pot and fills us up plenty.

We’re also pretty settled upon what we want at this point and we order our appetizer (Chris gets white rice, I get Hot n Sour Soup). The thing I love about this place is that everyone here is earnest and really wants to make you happy. We’re smiling as soon as we walk in the door.

We gobble down that quickly and we order our dishes. The first time, I got a Malaysian Curry and it was delicious (I could barely make a dent in it). Chris got the Una-Don which is his favorite. This time, I got the Buddhist Delight and he got Shrimp Ramen. I can never finish the dishes here, they’re so huge and decently priced. Packed with flavor but none of the heavy sauces that always hurt my tummy.

You can just tell: IT LOOKS DELICIOUS. BECAUSE IT IS. And that’s not all. This is the second time we’ve been here and the second time we’ve received a little special something on the house. This time it was two veggie pieces of sushi. Needless to say, we were happy.

Speaking of sushi, they have the best white tuna I’ve tasted so far. Haven’t loved it (because we’re spoiled from the coasts), but I definitely ate all my pieces last time I had some. The only negative about this restaurant is that they don’t have ethnic music on…it’s current music which we dislike. All in all, this is a fantastic joint and we will be coming back every Friday. We feel so welcomed, wanted, and happy that we’d be fools to go elsewhere. Thanks Kho’s Asian Cuisine! And where else can you find such great fortune cookie fortunes…