Vegan Banana Bread

My cousin Diane gave me "The Happy Herbivore" cookbook by Lindsay Nixon for my birthday. Now that I am on winter break I actually have time to explore and try some of the recipes. While I am not thinking about becoming a vegan, I think it's just a healthier way of cooking and baking and I am always up for something new. Now that I have been working on losing weight for officially one year, I need to shake things up. The first thing I tried (pictured above) was banana bread. It filled my house with a sweet aroma and tasted delicious! The next recipe from this cookbook is sweet cinnamon rolls. Here is the recipe for the banana bread...

Ingredients:
1/4 cup non dairy milk (I bought light, vanilla silk soymilk)
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice (the kind in the plastic lemon bottle will do)
4 or 5 spotted or browning bananas (our bananas go bad often, now I won't have to throw them away!)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup raw sugar (I recommend adding a little extra sugar for a sweeter taste)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (go easy on this ingredient)
2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon pure maple syrup (expensive... but I figure it will last a long time)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 8 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. Whisk the non-dairy milk and lemon juice together until bubbly and set aside.
3. Cream bananas with brown sugar and raw sugar using a spatula or food processor until smooth and creamy, set aside (I left some little chunks and thought this was a good thing).
4. In a large bowl (I got to use my new kitchen aid, yahoo), whisk spices, flour, baking soda, and baking powder together.
5. Add milk-lemon juice and banana mixture, as well as vanilla extract and maple syrup (I also added coconut extract for a little extra zing... you could add other extracts like cherry or almond to kick it up a notch).
6. Pour into loaf pan, using a spatula to evenly distribute and smooth out the top.
7. Lay a large piece of foil on top (do not wrap tightly).
8. Bake 45-60 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (it does take a long time for this to bake).

Let me know if you make this and how it goes! :) Also, what are your favorite healthy recipes? I need some new ideas!

Our Version of a Gingerbread House!

At 5 and 2 years old we are not quite ready to enter the realm of gingerbread house making, so our compromise for the last 2 years has been to make a Rice Krispie Treats "Holiday House" the last two years. It comes with everything you need except for 2 tablespoons of butter and I found it at 5 and Below (though I have seen it at other stores such as Target).


Daddy, Caleb, and Blake enjoyed decorating their houses with red/green icing, gum drops, and candy balls.


The final products were two masterpieces!


As fun as they were to make, the best part was eating the final product!

Wise Avenue Train Garden in Dundalk

Tonight we visited the Wise Avenue Train Garden in Dundalk. It's been a solid family tradition since I was an infant and I am excited to pass it on to my boys. This year was the most fun we've ever had as both boys were both into it and excited! Above is a picture of Blake with his Mom Mom Ament. She was a much appreciated pair of extra hands.


Caleb couldn't stop pointing at the different displays. His favorite of the evening (not shocking for a 5 year old boy) was the detailed model of the Dundalk Poop Plant. He couldn't control his giggling.


I know my Mom has similar pictures of me that I would love to pull out.



The display alternates between day and night and both are just as beautiful. There are so many tiny details that it would be impossible to find them all. If you haven't been you really should go! Located at 214 Wise Avenue at Dundalk the train garden will be open through January 8th. Admission is a very affordable $1 with children under 7 free. Visit their website www.wavfc.com for detailed information!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

My friend Stacey posted a recipe for "skinny" pumpkin cupcakes recently and I decided to surprise her with them. The recipe and the website (www.skinnytaste.com) they came from have instantly become favorites! Here is the recipe with some slight tweaking from me, I have made 3 batches in the last week! :)

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients:

Cupcakes-

18.25 ounce vanilla cake mix (look carefully for this, some cake mixes are only 15 ounces)

1 cup pumpkin puree (I used canned)

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (expensive... ouch)

1 cup water

Cream Cheese Icing-

8 oz. cream cheese frosting

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp cinnamon (I only did 1/2 tsp as I did not like how strong the taste was in the first batch)

1 tsp vanilla (be careful not to go overboard)

6 tbsp brown sugar (I added more to take bitterness out)

Mix cake ingredients until well blended, pour into 24 cupcake liners. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Usually our oven bakes things quickly, but these cupcakes truly need the 25 minutes or they will be undercooked.

Mix cream cheese icing ingredients at highest speed until well incorporated (on the second batch I didn't blend well enough and ended up clogging my piping gun with a chunk of cream cheese). I believe if you simply use a knife to spread a small amount of icing it would make it to 24 cupcakes, however I like mine to be pretty with a piping gun and needed to double the icing recipe.

These cupcakes are absolutely delicious and much healthier than a regular cupcake since there are no eggs or oil. According to www.skinnytaste.com they are 121 calories a piece, but because of the extra icing I used they may have been a smidgen more. These have been a total hit!

Weight Loss Journey

On December 26th 2010 at 267 pounds I was unhappy. I was also unhealthy. My blood pressure was through the roof. It was only a matter of time before I was put on medication. It was so high that I had to get renal artery testing. I had also been diagnosed with arthritis in my knees and it was an almost daily struggle just to walk. I actually was taking two naproxen pills a day just to get by.

I was looking for some before shots and honestly there really aren't many. I didn't like my picture being taken! Here are a few any way:

This was the winter of 2009-2010 at a concert.

This was late in September of 2010. I had the once in lifetime opportunity to go backstage to meet Mercyme. I believe my jeans were a size 26 or 28 in this picture.

This was October of 2010. My shirt was a 2x.

Here is my after picture! 199 pounds (though I'm down to 197 at this moment). I am wearing size 14 pants and an XL top. However the XL tops are getting baggy and I think it's time to go down to an L. My blood pressure had dropped dramatically, in fact I had to giggle at my last check up when they said it was a "tad on the low side." My knees don't bother me 99% of the time. The only time they do bother me is after an intense workout.

I've gotten a lot of emails and facebook messages asking me how I have done this. Here are some ideas! First and foremost and I had to work on the inside before I worked on the outside. My Christian faith delivered me from a lot of my insecurities. For the first 6 months I did everything entirely on my own. In hindsight this was most likely not the best approach, but I needed to build some confidence before I was ready to ask for help. I did lose the first 50 pounds this way.

There are two important components to losing weight, exercise and what you eat. I enjoy listening to Jimmy Page on Shine FM. He summed it up well when he said "Losing weight is simple, but it's not easy." A great tool in balancing both of these aspects has been the website www.myfitnesspal.com. If you are one of my facebook friends you probably see my daily posts about being under my calorie goal/exercising. This website is completely FREE and it is amazing! Not only does it help you lay out the calories you eat but other important aspects such as sodium, carbs, and fats. It is also set up like facebook in that you have friends. You and your friends get to see what each other is eating, provide each other pats on the back for a job well done, encouragement when things aren't going well, and you get to share what is working/not working. I can't recommend this site enough! If you decide to join, my screename is mrsament and I would LOVE for you to add me as a friend!

As for exercise Planet Fitness has been a God send for me. Seeing as we are on a limited budget with two small children I could not afford other pricey gyms. It is truly $10 a month with no catches. They also provide free personal training which has been valuable for a person like me that has no clue what they are doing. When I started last December I could only do about 10 minutes on a treadmill and 10 minutes on a bike before almost passing out. I couldn't even handle an eliptical. I now do 45 minutes on the eliptical or the 30 minute circuit several times a week.

Another recent exercise that I have started to LOVE is Zumba! I had heard about it for months but felt too self conscious about dancing in front of other people! I heard the singer Mandisa talk about how it had helped her lose 100 pounds and at the same time classes began to be offered at my church. I stepped way out of my comfort zone and went! Now I can say that I "live it, love it!" (What the front of my Zumba shirt says!) It's a faced paced 60 minute cardio challenge. I have an absolute blast and the time goes by so quickly! For my current weight I burn anywhere from 700 to 1,000 calories in an hour all while having a great time! See the website www.zumbacalories.com to see how many calories you would burn. If you are one of my Baltimore friends and you would like to join me, I would love it! I go every Saturday at 10 a.m. to Di Bobrow's class at Community Christian Church. I also go occasionally (it's harder to fit into our schedule) to Mary Ellen Fromm's classes. Send me an email if you'd like to come! You won't regret it!

Finally, I would be wrong not to shout out my husband Jason. Through his new Christian faith he has completely transformed himself and our marriage in the last year. As a result he has been extremely supportive of my weight loss journey. Exercising does take time and has taken me away from home (on top of my full time job). I don't like losing any more time with my two little boys than I lose from working, so I tend to go early in the morning before they get up or at night when they are asleep. This means I haven't had as much time to take care of household chores and Jason has stepped in a major way to fill in this gap. For example this week he took care of all cleaning and laundry. Amazing!

My biggest fear right now is gaining weight back, hold me accountable people! For those of you who are messaging me, keep them coming. You can do it too and you are worth it!

Crockpot Applesauce

Last weekend we went to Baugher's Farm in Westminster for our annual apple picking trip. In our excitement to pick apples we picked way too many! Not wanting to be wasteful we had to come up with something to do with all of these apples and decided to make crock pot applesauce. It was FABULOUSLY WONDERFUL! I could seriously eat it all day! Below is roughly the recipe, we took ideas from several resources.

Just a few of the nearly 50 apples we brought home!

Crock pot Applesauce

8 apples, peeled, cored, chopped into small chunks

Juice from 2 lemons

3/4 t cinnamon (we made 3 batches and the first one was too strong on the cinnamon with 1 tsp cinnamon... go easy on this ingredient!)

1 t vanilla (what really makes this applesauce magical)

1 T brown sugar

A little dash of honey

1/2 cup water

Place apples in crock pot. Add the lemon juice, water, vanilla, and honey. Stir in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours (or if you're impatient like us do it on high for about an hour).

Stir rapidly with a whisk and VOILA! I recommend not using a blender if you like chunky applesauce like I do. However, if you don't like it chunky (or plump, inside joke, HA) blend away! ENJOY!

P.s. I must give credit where it is due... my job was to eat the applesauce, Jason's job was to make it! Shout out to my husband!

Turkey Hill Experience

Yesterday we visited the Turkey Hill Experience in Columbia, PA!

We arrived early so that we could avoid crowds and the boys kept themselves playing with the large cow and ice cream container.

The boys (especially Caleb) grew very excited and a tad impatient as we waited for them to open the doors.

This is a view from the lobby. The "experience" begins with a large area filled with historical information for adults.

Then there is an area about milk (a critical part of making turkey hill ice cream) that includes cows that you can "milk."

Next you learn about tea and get to choose a sample.

Then the real fun began! The biggest part of the exhibit is designing your own ice cream flavor, carton, and making a commercial to go with it.

There is a random ball pit and slides to keep the little ones happy!

Caleb designing his ice cream flavor with Daddy.

Caleb, Daddy, and Blake making their commercial!

The last stop is a free ice cream sample!

The Turkey Hill experience is located about an hour and ten minutes from Baltimore. Admission is $11.50 for adults, $8.50 for children with 4 and under being free. It took us about an hour to get through the entire place. I do recommend that you go early or late as it was extremely crowded as we left and it would be difficult to enjoy if overcrowded. For more information visit their website at: http://www.turkeyhillexperience.com/

Wilson Point Park

Today we went on a play date with our friends Sierra and Savannah and discovered an awesome new place (to us any way), Wilson Point Park!

Blake enjoyed the slides the most! He nearly gave me a heart attack when he climbed to top of a "big kid" slide by himself and came whizzing down. This is the same boy who a few weeks ago wouldn't go down a little kid slide if I didn't stand at the bottom to catch him. I'm not sure how I feel about this sudden wild streak!

Caleb tried to learn how to swing by himself, but in the end his friend Sierra pushed him!

There was a cool airplane or shark. I am not sure what it was exactly!

My favorite part was the board walk on the water. Though smaller, it reminds me a lot of the Promenade in Havre de Grace. It was good exercise for Blake who ran the entire thing.

Of course competitive Caleb (I think this should be his new nickname) created a "slide race."

Wilson Point Park is located in Middle River just off of Eastern Avenue near Martin State Airport. You turn right onto Wilson Point Road (the same road as the Middle River Post Office) and then turn right onto Beech Drive. I plan to go back soon for a picnic dinner on the water. What fun!

Awesome Math Website

Caleb is doing well with reading, but struggles a bit with math. We've decided to spend these last two weeks of summer really working on addition. While I know math is a lot more involved than addition, I think it's a good start.

The website is:

http://www.fun4thebrain.com/addition.html

There are several games to choose from, but our favorites are "Color Your Vacation" (where you get to color after you unlock all of the paint colors) and "Farmer Fred's Pumpkin Patch" (we are excited for Autumn). As you can see above Caleb has a handful of two-color counters that were given to me at a math training. I think you could use most anything that is small that you have a bunch of though (pasta, pennies, marshmallows). I think at 5 years old he needs to be as hands on as possible. Today he discovered on his own the rule for adding zero and how to quickly add one. Him figuring that out on his own was way better than me teaching him.

There are additional math skills/games that you can find depending on what your child needs on the main website at:

http://www.fun4thebrain.com/main.html

What are your favorite learning websites? Please do share!

The Avenue Farmer's Market

On Friday we visited the Farmer's Market at the Avenue at White Marsh. It's been on our "to-do list" for quite some time. Part of our healthy new lifestyle means purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables twice a week.
Located behind the A.C. Moore at the Avenue the Farmer's Market features several local farms including Richardson's Farm. It's somewhat small, which is somewhat perfect if your are by yourself with two small children.

Despite the fact that it's not huge, there was a huge variety of produce. We purchased a watermelon, cucumber, 8 ears of corn, 3 tomatoes, and green beans for less than $15. I recommend walking down the entire strip before purchasing anything. This will allow you to find the best bargain for what you plan to buy. We wound up purchasing from three different stands after trying this strategy!

The boys enjoyed looking at all the produce. Caleb got exercise by carrying a watermelon! I have been working on colors with Blake and we were sure to point out the rainbow of colors found in the produce. People probably thought I was a little off my rocker ("Look Blake, green! Yellow! Red!"), but that's okay!

Another fun part of the Farmer's Market is running into friends. Above is a picture of Caleb with a teacher friend's daughter Sierra. What is extra special about Sierra is that her and Caleb share the same birthday! They were born exactly one year apart at almost the same time!

The Farmer's Market is held each Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through October! The produce couldn't be fresher or more affordable, give it a try!

Baltimore Snowball Company

I have an addiction to confess... I am crazy about snowballs! Some people like steak. Some people enjoy chocolate. I on the other hand can't get enough snowballs!

My quest for the best snowball around lead me to the Baltimore Snowball Company in Essex, MD. The gold medal goes to this place!

Their flavor selection is ridiculous. Think of any traditional flavor and they probably 3-4 varieties. They also have more crazy flavors than I can list in one place... everything from pumpkin pie, to tiramisu, to tootsie roll. In addition to a wide variety of flavors they have marshmallow AND ice cream options. They will also "level off" snowballs to take the messy level for little ones from gigantic down to huge.

It may not look like much on the outside, but the it's what's on the inside that counts!

You probably think I am a bit to passionate about my snowballs at this point and you're right. Today I tried the wedding cake flavor. It was pretty good! I honestly enjoy the cherry kola the best so far. The ice is also the right consistency. Not so soft that it melts and turns into a drink within minutes and not so hard that large chunks form that you have to throw away.

At the BSF they have a customer loyalty program where you get 1 snowball free for every 10 you buy. I only found this gem yesterday and we're already on the verge of a free one!

There is a cute little area with picnic tables to eat. The boys had a blast!

The BSF is located at 701 Mace Avenue, Essex, MD 21221. It's at the corner of Myrth Avenue, just across the street from the Royal Farm store. Prices range from $1.50 to $4.00 a snowball depending on how large you want it to be and which add ins you include. I recommend getting a medium as their large is my version of a jumbo (so you definitely get your money's worth). Get there soon before summer is over! :)

Litterbox Cake!

Once a month I get together with my Mom and her friends for "old ladies night." Some times we play games, some times we go out to eat, and almost every month we celebrate a birthday. We've been doing this for several years and I tend to make the birthday cake.

This month we had a crab feast in honor of Jayne's birthday and I decided to make a litter box cake. She has a strong sense of humor (necessary for this cake) and a cat. Ironically she had also spent the week before our get together caring for her son's five cats while he was on vacation!


The idea for the cake came from allrecipes.com Essentially all you need is a chocolate cake mix, white cake mix, two boxes of instant vanilla pudding, vanilla cream cookies, green food coloring, and a bag of tootsie rolls. It's also nice and extra gross to buy a real litter box and scooper from the dollar store. Unfortunately I could only get the scooper and I just bought a large metal pan in place of the litter box.

Bake both cakes according to the box directions. Prepare pudding according to directions. Finely chop/process the cookies. Reserve 1/4 cup of the cookies and mix with green food coloring, save for later. Once cakes are completely cool, crumble them into your biggest bowl. Mix them well using the pudding and half of the remaining cookie crumbs. You won't need all of the pudding, you just want the cake to be moist. Place cake mixture into pan. Microwave tootsie rolls and make litter box ornaments (poop). Put half in the cake as surprises. Sprinkle remaining half of cookies on top. Put the other half of the ornaments on the top. It's really effective to have one hanging off the side. Finally, sprinkle green crumbs on top (although you may want to roll the ornaments in the green crumbs as well).


Jayne thought it was great!

We all laughed until it hurt...

then we enjoyed eating this delicious dessert!

Goop!

After making "Goop" at school as a part of learning about directions I decided to bring the fun home to the boys!

Goop is a mixture of cornstarch and water. You can also add food coloring to the water to make it any color you'd like. A metal spoon (the plastic ones broke) and resealable container are also helpful.

The recipe calls for 1/4 cup cornstarch and then for you to slowly add 1/2 cup of water a few drops at a time. I found that it was really more of a guessing game. We added corn starch/water until the correctly consistency was reached. Note the dollar store table cloth on the table. I always try to keep a few of these on standby for our messier activities! (This does make a mess, I won't lie!)

Blake even got in on it by stirring his goop.

You know the goop is the correct consistency when it pours like a liquid but feels like a solid when you pinch it (great vocabulary development for my little word sponges). This was a fun, cheap project! You most likely have everything you need in your kitchen already!

Blake doesn't appreciate messes and refused to actually touch the goop! I'd love more ideas for indoor activities to keep the boys happy and busy during this heat wave! Please share!