Banana Bread

Today’s Deceptively Delicious recipe is Banana Bread. The hidden ingredient?

Cauliflower

My son LOVES it! He obviously has no idea what’s in the bread other than bananas. The book even says that (despite the brown sugar in it), it works for any time of day, from breakfast to snack to dessert.

WHAT?! Breakfast? How can that be?? Well, it does have cauliflower and bananas in it…

(I didn’t get a pic of the full loaf because we immediately dug in and I forgot till after it was half-gone.)

In pararenthesis are the changes I made for a gluten/dairy-free version that I could eat (except the olive oil which is merely the kind of oil we always have).

Ingredients:

• Nonstick cooking spray (fake butter)
• 3/4c whole-wheat flour (brown rice flour)
• 1/2c all-purpose flour (allergen-free)
• 1/2tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/2tsp cinnamon opt
• 1/2c firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
• 1/4c canola or vegetable oil (olive oil)
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2c banana puree
• 1/2c cauliflower puree
• 1tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat 9×5″ loaf pan, or 2 mini pans, with cooking spray (fake butter).
2. In bowl or zipper-lock bag, mix flours with baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, if using. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar and oil until well combined. Mix in egg whites, banana and cauliflower purees, and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix just until combined.
4. Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 55-60 minutes for the large loaf, 25-30 minutes for the mini loaves. Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn the bread out of the pan to cool before serving.

It’s absolutely delicious!! My son is really constipated all the time too so it’s super helpful in helping him poop.

What’s your favorite kind of sweet bread?

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Sleep and Why We Need It

It seems humans, like every other animal, are programmed to be asleep multiple times a day. Afternoon naps sound familiar? My theory is that we’ve disciplined ourselves away from what nature intended because we need as many daylight hours as possible.

Even before today’s world of business and computers etc, we would’ve needed the daylight to get our farming etc done because we couldn’t see at night.

Whatever the reason, is it a good idea to nix naps?

I’m not a napper for various reasons, but I do believe in getting plenty of sleep at night. The older I get, the more difficulty I often have with sleeping. When I was a child, I lived in SoCal was able to sleep through earthquakes. My sister used to be able to push me out of bed on to the floor and I still wouldn’t have woken up.

Sleep for me meant slipping into a coma at night and only grudgingly (with much prodding, shaking, and yelling) coming out of it in the morning.

Now, however, it can take me up to an hour to fall asleep at times and I’ll wake up multiple times during the night. Insomnia has attacked me a number of times till I was desperate and fell back on medication. No, not insomnia meds. I’d turn to NyQuil or Benadryl. The doctor recommended Benadryl because it was non-habit forming, I have allergies anyway, and my body wouldn’t grow accustomed to it.

There are times I’ll take Benadryl for so long that I’m afraid to stop because I don’t want to be unable to sleep again. But I force myself to stop after awhile and my sleep patterns go back to normal. Yay!

What do you do when you can’t sleep?

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Sweet Potato Pancakes

My son is inhumanly stubborn about what he’ll eat. I thought my husband and I were stubborn (and we seriously are) but the Turdlet far surpasses us. If he doesn’t want to eat something, he’ll starve himself until he starts throwing up and can no longer easily eat anything.

So how to feed veggies to someone who will starve himself before he touches a veggie?

My cousin solved my dilemma and I love her forever for it.

Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld

In it are “normal” recipes that most kids love. They all have secret ingredients though that kids can’t taste – veggies and fruit. The secret is to puree them.

I’ve never tried pureeing before, even when my son was a baby. Other mothers pureed their baby’s food; I bought Gerbers. It probably would’ve been cheaper to puree, but I’m still happy I bought Gerbers. Less fuss and easier to take on trips.

It’d difficult to puree with a blender by the way. I’m hoping to buy a food processor soon because this pureeing veggies thing and hiding it in the food actually works.

I’ve tried 2 recipes so far because they’re easy and I wanted to test this stuff out to see if it worked on the Turdlet before getting tons of ingredients to do more complicated recipes. So far my son looked at the Deviled Eggs (delicious by the way) and said, “Ew! Gross!” He wouldn’t touch them but I figured he wouldn’t. I made those for myself and my husband. The Sweet Potato Pancakes, however, he ADORES.

So! Here it is!

Ingredients:

• 1c water (I use Silk Vanilla Almond Milk Protein & Fiber)
• 1/2c sweet potato puree
• 1/4tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (opt)
• 1c pancake mix (I use Bisquick Pancake and Baking Mix – Gluten-Free)
• nonstick cooking spray (opt in my mind)
• 1tbsp canola or vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix the water (almond milk), sweet potato puree, and cinnamon/pumpkin pie spice (if using). Add pancake mix and stir just to combine – the batter should be lumpy.
2. Coat a griddle or large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over med-high heat. When pan is hot, add oil, and spoon the batter onto griddle or pan, using 1/4c batter for each pancake.
3. Cook until bubbles form on top of pancakes and the batter is set, 2-3 minutes. Then use spatula to flip pancakes and cook them until golden brown on the other side, 2-3 minutes.

Oddly enough my son doesn’t sticky syrup all over his pancakes so he eats them plain. I, however, like a little butter on mine to liven the flavor so I spread fake butter on them. I use the light buttery spread that has flaxseed oil from Smart Balance. I can’t say for sure if it tastes like butter because I haven’t had butter in so long but I think it does.

My son’s favorite pancakes are chocolate chip pancakes so I add about 1/4c of chocolate chips into the batter after I’ve cooked about half of it so my husband and I don’t have to have them.

I’ll be trying different recipes soon.

How do you get a stubborn person to eat right?

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Playing in the Pool

Can you believe I had to make a deal with my son just to get him to go to his swimming lesson the other day?

Ridiculous! He LOVES being in the pool.

The differences between playing in the pool and having a swim lesson:

• he can wear his yellow goggles (face mask that covers his nose)
• swim lesson is only 15 minutes long
• he wears a life jacket to play in the pool and so can paddle around all by himself as much as he wants

When he asked if he was going to swim in the pool, I misunderstood and said yes but then realized he meant playing in the pool in our complex so I said no, we were doing a lesson with his teacher.

He got super excited and then he crumpled when I corrected myself and he started crying. It literally took 1-2 seconds. Wow. He refused to go to his swim lesson so I made a deal with him that if he went to his lesson in the morning then I’d take him to play in the pool in the afternoon after lunch.

After awhile he agreed and then, just as I thought, was super excited to have his lesson (his excitement had nothing to do with the deal). Our weather has been in the triple digits for weeks now, ever since mid-July so it was a good day to splash in the cool water anyway.

The last time I took my son to the pool, I made up an impromptu workout. Sure enough, the next day my arms and legs felt a bit sore. It wasn’t a hard workout or anything though.

This time I did a pre-made pool workout from Self.com. Naturally, I couldn’t remember how many times or long I was supposed to do each move so I did the amount I thought appropriate. It was refreshing and different and my son thought it was super fun to do it with me. “We’re doing our exercises, Mommy!”

I did 4 sets of the entire thing, alternating between the cardio and the strength training. 1 minute for each cardio move and 20 reps for each strength training move.

Naturally when I went to look it up online, I couldn’t find the exact one I did (though the above link I gave brought up the right cardio) and I forgot to take a pic of the magazine page I have. It had ab work, chest presses, and hamstring curls though.

Here’s another workout, however, that looks fun that I think I’ll try the next time I go to the pool.

I also did a lot of active playing/swimming in the pool as well. No rest for me in the water!

I’m not much of a sunbather (skin cancer! Hello!) but I think I enjoyed sunbathing as much as my pool time. It was enjoyable to relax and let the sun bake me dry while I kept a hawk eye on my son in the water.

And, yes, though I don’t normally wear sunscreen when I go outside, I always put sunscreen on my son and I when we go to the pool.

After washing both of us and our swim clothes, all I wanted was to lie down and sleep. When I stay outside for extended periods of time, I always get so sleepy! I don’t understand this.

It takes a ton of hard exercise to feel that tired or about 30 minutes in the company of practically anyone (introvert over here; social situations are exhausting).

Does being out in the sun for a long time make you sleepy?

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20 Push-ups!

Okay, who was surprised that I was never able to keep on with the 30-Day Shred?

Seriously? I have NEVER been able to finish that thing! I always start off with the best intentions and then am never able to go for more than a week at most. Something always comes along to mess it all up.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter if I never finish it because anything is better than nothing. And I did make progress! I think my diet change may have contributed more to that than anything else, but I have proof that I’m stronger now as well so it’s not just the diet.

Here are my new stats:

• Weight: 169.4 lbs (-4.6lb)
• Arms: 11 1/8″ (L), 11 7/8″ (R) (-.5″)
• Chest: 30″ (-.5″)
• Waist: 32″ (-1″)
• Below Belly Button: 39.5″ (-.5″)
• Hips: 42″ (-1″)
• Thighs: 23″ (L), 22.5″ (R) (-.5″)

Total inches lost: 4″

Now here’s my proof that I’m stronger!

• finally able to do 20 full push-ups in one sitting
• able to do 5 assisted chin-ups

Those chin-ups are with a chair but I’m not putting weight on my foot I swear! Or at least not much weight. And my nose isn’t touching the floor or anything with those push-ups but my elbows are bending a respectable degree.

Anyway, that’s leagues better than I was able to do before.

Do you have a fitness goal?

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Time for a Hair Cut

It’s that time again. After about 2 years, I’ve gotten my hair cut. And I mean CUT. We’re not talking trims to even out hair and get rid of split ends. We’re talking my son’s swim teacher coming up to start the lesson and doing a double-take when she sees my face because she didn’t know it was me sitting with him.

Yeah. I got a haircut.

Here was me after 2 years of growing my hair out so I could put it in braids again:

Now here I am:

Voila! I’m a different person. Hair magic!

Was I nervous?

No, I wasn’t nervous. I’ve done this sort of thing about 4 times before. I’ve known since I was in high school or younger that hair is one of the only impermanent changes you can make to your body. So if you’re desperate for some kind of change in your life, don’t get a tattoo or spend lots of moola on your clothes or shoes, do something to your hair! If you don’t like how it looks, shrug it off, make a joke to your friends/colleages, and move on. It’ll grow out.

Why did I get this drastic haircut?

I loved putting french braids in my hair. I had actually gotten decent at it. Lots of side problems with that though that I won’t go into. So I’d put it in ponytails and buns and pigtails. More problems I won’t go into. And the amount of time I had to take it to make it look nice without braids? ugh. Then it would never stay styled anyway and it would poof out into a lion’s mane.

I was getting so annoyed with my hair that I decided while doing my cardio on Friday that I was going to get it all cut off and then I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

BAM! Problems solved.

This kind of haircut has problems as well (mainly that my ears itch from where the hair ends on them), but it’s soooo much better to manage. Now I no longer have to worry about my hair when I exercise! And the rest of the time I can just run gel through it and voila! Done.

In other news, the tendenitis in my left thumb is acting up again. ARGH! My thumb hurts!!! And the air in town is smoky smoky smoky.

Do you think it takes bravery to chop off a foot or more of hair? Would you do it?

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Husband Gives the Cold Hard Truth

Yeah, my weight and belly had gotten way out of hand despite my exercise. My husband gave me what-for and told me I needed to eat less and only eat certain foods.

How did this subject come up? Despite being on daily Omeprazole I was getting heartburn in the afternoon and night again. Ew! How serious things were getting if I was getting heartburn even with the heavy duty antacids. I didn’t think that was even possible.

So now I’m on a very strict diet to get my appetite and stomach acid under control.

Since I don’t know what all will trigger me, I’m sticking to the most basic foods I already know are safe.

• protein smoothie
• oatmeal w/granola
• bananas
• salmon (but only with other food, preferably smoothie)
• miso soup (except with denjang which is really the same thing but denjang is made in South Korea and miso is made in Japan)
• various veggies (mushrooms, carrots, green beans, black olives, peas)
• eggs (scrambled and mixed with lots of other food)
• ground turkey
• rice
• barley tea
• coffee

Yeah, mostly it’s just oatmeal for breakfast, smoothie and fish for lunch, and miso soup with whatever rice-thing is available for dinner. Coffee for morning snack (yeah, I know this can give heartburn but I currently don’t want to live without it). Banana for afternoon snack if I get hungry.

I know for healthy eating reasons I should have a snack after dinner if I get hungry, but eating after 6pm gives me heartburn so I’m sticking with barley tea for my evening “snack.”

So far it’s worked wonders. After 3 days I’ve lost weight and kept my appetite under control. It’s not a gross diet and I’m never really hungry either! Until near meal time of course.

(Side Note: Watching George of the Jungle. Can I just say something? Young Brendan Frasier? Wearing loincloth throughout almost the whole movie? OH. MY. GOD! Even wearing loose suit clothes. OH. MY. GOD! This does not mean I’m not a fan of present-day Brendan Frasier. I have always been a big fan. He’s HOT!)

What do you do to keep heartburn away?

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Gettin’ My Yoga On

Some years ago when I was working as a sub at a preschool, I was “injured.” I developed a tendency to carry all my stress in my neck and a particular incident at the school carried my stress overboard so I ended up at the chiropractor after 3 full days of nonstop neck pain.

It was awful. Not the chiropractor (who rocked by the way) but the neck pain. And the job. That wasn’t the best school. Luckily a woman who worked with my mom at the time had had a baby and needed to get back to work so I left to take care of their chubby little monkey.

Actually, he wasn’t much like a monkey but like a gas-powered godzilla.

He farted so much we called him the Putt-Putt Baby and joked that we could throw him out the window and his farts would bring him back up like a jet.

Putt putt putt putt putt putt putt putt…

Anyway, I taught myself how to crack my neck (probably not the best thing) while I took care of her baby because I wasn’t able to get to the chiropractor (I had to leave home and live with my parents because they lived closer to this woman). But it wasn’t enough and I was advised to take up some kind of exercise or activity that worked the kinks out of my neck and calmed me. The doctor suggested yoga.

So I’ve done it off and on and usually feel better when I do it on a normal basis. I prefer certain yoga classes that were at my last gym but I no longer have access there and I have no internet access at my home so I’m going to have to fall back on DVDs.

Here’s the problem:

I haven’t found a DVD that I really like. So far they’re just so-so. Either they’re too focused on strength or they’re boring instead of relaxing.

Yoga with Adriene on YouTube has some good stuff but, like I said, I have no internet connection at home.

Right now I’m having to stick with printed out pictures of individual poses.

These are good too but I still want to find a good DVD.

Do you have any suggestions for yoga DVDs?

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