My Interim Hobby While it Snows

We had a nice change from snow today, rain.  Since I can’t ride my motorcycle because of the weather, I did a few other things in the kitchen.

I made some Apple Quinoa Muffins. I found the recipe at Cooking Quinoa which is a whole blog dedicated to recipes using quinoa. I made a few substitutions like using raw cane sugar, cranberries, cinnamon, and oat flour but they still turned out yummy! Here’s a picture.

Apple Quinoa Mufffins!

Then I made Spring Rolls. No particular recipe. I filled the rice wraps with cabbage, bean sprouts, carrots, romaine lettuce and green onions. They were very tasty too! We had a very spicy sauce and a sweet and sour too. Nom, nom, nom.

Spring Roll

Here’s to hoping the weather changes soon!

P.S. I awoke Monday to this weather report for the next couple of days.

Will it ever end??

Weather image source

Snow, Exercise, and Food

Today is April 14, 2013. I thought for sure I would have been out on my motorcycle by now! I couldn’t have been more wrong. Spring is no where to be found here in Minnesota.  We’ve had snow, followed by more snow, and then snow. Today we had a little remix of snow, ice, and rain. Make it stop!!

Enough whining. So, what have I been up to? Well I’m still working on training for The Color Run 5K in July. I did a preset workout on my treadmill today called the Maui 5K. It varies the incline to be similar to the actual three mile course in Hawaii [wish I were in Hawaii] and I’ll continue training indoor until the weather cooperates. I worked out listening to Classic Rock on Pandora. It is a nice way to keep a pace steady. Anyone else run to a Pandora station? Suggestions are welcome.

Another change that hubby and I have made is to our diet after watching Forks over Knives documentary. There are a couple of health issues hubby has wrestled with and we are not a fan of popping pills so dietary changes seem like a good course to try. We picked up the book The Engine 2 Diet to follow the 28 day meal plans based on a plant strong diet. We are two weeks in and liking it!

Here are a couple of meals we’ve had lately.

Tomato soap, salad with lots of sprouts, and open faced refried bean sandwich

Plant strong pizza with almond/soy cheese

This is quite a bit of a change from our previous lean meat and dairy diet and takes some planning. Hubby made me a chalkboard for the kitchen. Love it!!

Meal planning!

I’ve been really encouraged by Trobairtiz‘s other blog Trobairitz Table d’hote | A  Motorcyclist’s Adventures with Vegan Cuisine. Great resource for more recipes. Yay!

Belated Birthday Dinner with my Son

My son’s birthday is the day before mine in November. We finally were able to go out to eat all together Saturday night after last week’s delay of game with 16 inches of snow!!

We went to Osaka Seafood Steakhouse. It is a fun restaurant where they cook on a hibachi grill at your table. The chef was amazing twirling, slicing, and cooking our food. He cut up a bunch of veggies and started launching them to us as we tried to catch them! He also shot Sake in our mouths and counted to see how long we would last – I think my son lasted the longest. The chef made a volcano out of an onion by stacking the rings and filling it with Sake then lighting it on fire! The cooking show was amazing and the food was fabulous. I had the lobster, shrimp, and scallops with fried rice and a huge pile of veggies. Nom, nom, nom.

There were three of us at our table celebrating a birthday. At the end of dinner the disco lights start flashing, “Happy, happy birthday!” blares over the intercom, and they bring out these headpieces for us to wear as they bang on drums! And a plate of fried bananas drenched in chocolate topped with whipped cream was served. Tummy-lious!

Ha-ha! Here’s me in the mask they brought out.

After all that food I better plan on getting back into exercising and eating healthy!

Fall Food Challenge!

A recent tweet from @JuJu21 (meet her here)  got me thinking about cool weather food! She had declared oatmeal season officially open and I chimed in with chili, and her response was soup too! And then I thought I’d throw out a challenge to see what Fall food you like too. If you blog, blog about it and let me know I’ll link to your post. If you want to submit a recipe via the comments, please do! I love trying new recipes. Here’s mine! A long family favorite tradition.

Apple Pancake
You’ll need a seasoned 10 1/2″ cast iron frying pan and preheat the oven 400 F.
Ingredients
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup flour
4 to 6 apples

Peel and cut apples. Saute in butter using the cast iron frying pan. Set aside.

Beat eggs; add remaining ingredients. Beat until smooth. Pour mixture over sauteed apples. Bake 15 minutes. Sprinkle sugar/cinnamon mix over top and dot with butter. Bake 5 minutes more.

Old Fashion Apple Pancakes

Enjoy! And share your favorite too!