You know it's fall when...

...Gina breaks out her knit work and starts trying various new things cooking- and baking-wise :-) But first things first. I tried the Vegetarian Pizza Quesadillas last time and they were a big success. This recipe - do it the vegetarian way or add some thinly sliced ham or whatever tickles your fancy - has moved up to my go-to list for quick, delicious dishes. So what else happened since the last time I posted? I gave the following new-to-me recipes a try (in no particular order):

• Healthy Pumpkin Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread
• French Toast
• Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies 

The bread is incredible - moist, full of flavors and super delicious! French Toast suprised me with its nutrition values. I use Ja! Natürlich Mehrkorntoast, which is a whole grain toast variety that's available here, plus the classic Joy of Cooking recipe. I always thought it was a high-cal high-sugar thing - it's not! Also it's quick and easy, and my kids loved it. Definitely a weekend breakfast favorite. As for the cookies... My daughter isn't very fond of all things coconut (to put it mildly) and wolfed them down. Any questions? ;-)
What I'm planning to try next (tomorrow) is Mexican Chicken Quinoa Casserole - interesting insofar as it's a "first" in using black beans. Around here you only get them in the dried version so I'm making a very rough conversion of amount, I'm curious how it will turn out (and if my family will eat it ;-) ).

On a tangent - why does everyone seemingly shy away from recipes that have "healthy" in their name/description? I love having food that's good for my body and tastes great - healthy doesn't automatically have to mean bland or boring!?!?!? OK, end of rant...

A favorite go-to recipe when fall is in full force, showing its beautiful colors is what I dubbed the "Family Fruitbread" recipe which actually stems from my coworker Christian's grandmother if I can remember correctly. It's one of the best I've tried, a great mixture of spices, lusciously moist fruit and tasty nuts and flours. So without further ado...

Fruitbread aka Apfelbrot

500g apples, coarsely grated (about 3 medium sized ones, Gala will fit just fine)
170g dried figs, chopped up into small pieces
80g raisins
100g walnuts or pecan nuts, coarsely chopped up
160g demerara (brown) sugar
80g sour cream
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
4cl rum
170g spelt flour (whole grain)
80g rye flour
1.5 tsp baking flour
1 egg (large)
0.5 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 200°C/390°F. Prepare a loaf pan, butter the inside and lightly coat with flour. Mix the fruits with rum, cover and let soak over night. Mix flours with baking soda and spices, blend egg, sour cream and salt, put all ingredients into a big bowl and stir until evenly mixed. Pour into the loaf pan, bake for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C/350°F and bake another 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Yields 14 slices - nutrition values (per slice):
Calories - 228kcal
Fat - 6.5g
Carbs - 38.3g
Protein - 4.1g

As always, if you find errors in this recipe or find that my terminology/vocabulary isn't right please feel free to mail me with suggestions for improvement!

Food - US-ian cooking

Heya peeps! I continue my endeavors of trying various dishes of the US-ian cuisine and make them in a clean eating and healthier version where possible. For one because I do love and miss the US and secondly because I like to broaden my horizon and choice of menus for the family. So - what could be more American than oven baked Mac & Cheese? Querying Pinterest yielded a couple of recipes and I went with one that promised a "healthy low-cal version that doesn't taste like cardboard". Sadly the nutritional values and calories didn't add up (meaning they cheated or left out some crucial ingredients in their calculations) AND it didn't come out right as the proportions didn't work out the way they should. Too late I consulted "The Joy Of Cooking", which I bought during my summer vacation - including a set of proper measuring cups - and didn't trust my experience and gut feeling. While the dish didn't come out bad per se it was kind of bland and not worth the effort. Next time I'll try a different recipe/approach as this is a dish I really Want To Get Right :-)

As to a successful result - when searching for American family dish recipes, Pinterest came up with a suggestion for quick teriyaki chicken which sounded too good to be true. I'd given a few sweet & sour chicken recipes a try over the years but it never came out quite right so I thought "well, why not". Know what? This thing is perfect. And quick. And easy. And "clean eating". And low cal. Color me impressed and my belly full - I sadly didn't take any pictures as it was made and eaten way too fast. Sorry! :-)

Several American friends of mine suggested various dishes upon my inquiry for recipes and one that has popped up often is meat loaf. I did check with JOC and io behold, it's very similar to the Austrian/German "Faschierter Braten" which I have made a couple of times and my family loves. Guess what's for dinner tomorrow evening? Side dishes will be an US/Austrian mix I guess, thinking of something along the lines of mashed sweet potato and peas... Lunch will have me try vegetarian pizza quesadillas filled with lots of delicious veggies - I used whole wheat tortillas for my lunch wraps in summer and my kids have been begging me to try them as well. Whole grains + veggies + fun for the kids filling the things for themselves = WIN! (or so I hope, wish me luck)

Seriously - healthy food is so much fun and so much better than pre-processed crap. And if you stock your pantry right, it doesn't take much extra time. Give it a try, it's worth it. Your body will thank you for it, too...

State of the Gina

Heya people!

My craft projects have somewhat been hibernation during the summer as I focused on working out quite extensively - up to six times a week - and trying to keep my diet balanced. Now as the days are getting shorter, weather's been changing for my favorite season and I feel a little bit like cocooning at home - plus I'm starting to wear lots of my knitwork - my focus is again shifting. And as a cold has me knocked out at home at the moment I even find time to blog again...

Where did I leave off? I'm still working on the mid-calf length black coat for myself. I started another beaded shawl with a pattern off Boo Knits for my Mom which should have been done by Mother's Day (oooooops) and I have some small things going like a simple cowl which I took with me on the plane as I spent a few days in Berlin for LinuxConf Europe last week, or like some socks for my son.

Speaking of Berlin I met a whole lot of amazing people and one of them (hi Carol!) commented on how she liked my Dragonfly Shawl and if I would make something like this on commission? I was kind of surprised as nobody had asked me such a thing before... We're now in the process of figuring out the pattern and colorways and then I'm off into my first project like this! I'm so much used to making things for myself and my loved ones that I rarely get to think outside the box aka colorways I love - this should be fun!

So, what else... I have advanced into the "don't eat crap" territory enough that I've started to swap ingredients for recipes on the fly and am making up new recipes on the go that fit my needs. A book that has helped me tremendously with understanding nutrition and changing diet accordingly for me was Jillian Michaels' "Master Your Metabolism" - I heartily recommend it if you want to understand how your body works when it comes to hormones and nutrition and how you can best influence your body food-wise.

I have further ventured into US-ian cooking, finally caved in and ordered some proper measuring cups which make life a lot easier. I also acquired "The Joy Of Cooking" and will try to make good use of it - I'm thinking of doing a Thanksgiving menu this year with a few of the usual dishes that go with it - wish me luck! :-)

Last but not least I'm leaving you with a recipe for some muffins I whipped up last night. I had a craving for the typical spices of fall, wanted something a little sweet yet savory and not too unhealthy. It's a recipe heavily modified from one of the muffin cook-books I have so I have no qualms posting it...

Oh, and as I'm no English native speaker and my kitchen vocabulary is still a little sketchy please feel free to send me corrections/hints for improvement - the various ways to contact me can be found here. Thank you!

Healthy Breakfast Muffins

100g dried fruits (dates, figs, apricots)
200g + 1 tbsp flour
100g bran flakes
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg (organic)
100g demerara sugar or maple syrup
80ml neutral oil (e.g. sunflower seed)
250g buttermilk

Caveat - I use wholegrain spelt flour for almost anything these days, as it soaks up fluids roughly as much as regular flour. If you want to use wholegrain wheat flour you might want to reduce the amount to 10% less as the muffins will probably get too dense/dry.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C/360°F (160°C/320°F if you have a convection oven), prepare muffin baking pan accordingly.

Blend the dried fruits and the 1 tbsp of flour and set aside (this went pretty badly at my first try but I managed to save the recipe in the end, see below ;-) ). Lightly crush the bran flakes, mix with flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon in one bowl.

In another bowl combine egg, maple syrup, oil and buttermilk and mix until well blended. Add the dry fruit mixture (this had formed a hard lump so I tossed the fruit into the liquid mixture and used my hand blender to make this work) and then add the flour mixture. Stir until all ingredients are properly mixed and wet but don't over-stir, fill into the muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

 

Yields 12 - nutritional values per piece:

- 200kcal
- 7,7g fat
- 27g carbs
- 4,9g protein

Food - Experiments in (healthy) carbs

Throughout the last couple of months I found that eating low-carb works out great for me. The amount of carbs I do eat I try to make "healthy" ones, as in whole grain and substituting wheat for other kinds of grain. Spelt has become rather popular around here so here go (in no particular order) my "experiments":

Whole grain spelt flour pancakes

Pancakes for a weekend's delicious breakfast. I've got this recipe from Celia Brooks Brown's book "International Vegetarisch". I substituted the flour for whole grain spelt flour on a 1:1 basis and it worked like a charm. The whole family loved the pancakes, each of them with their own favorite topping - be it blueberries (mine) or maple syrup or even Nutella *shudder* (out of a various number of reasons).

Whole grain spelt flour pancakes & blueberries

Whole grain wheat & spelt flour burger buns

The recipe for those buns comes from Hannah Frey's "Clean Eating" cookbook.  Again, substitute (parts of) the flour and maybe add some more liquid and you're off fine! For the beef patties I used one of Jamie Oliver's recipes, which turned out great for the adults but sadly were somewhat heavy on the pepper and too spicy for the kids. I sadly did not notice as I had lots of Jalapeños on my burger (I love love love hot/spicy food!) and will try to make better next time.

Whole grain wheat pizza dough

The ultimate family test/recipe? Pizza dough... I love the recipe I found on chefkoch.de a while back. It's pretty simple and straight forward and as my experience taught me only needs minor adjustments to work with whole grain flour. The original recipe asks for 450gr of flour which you can reduce by up to 1/10th and add a little bit more water to get a smooth texture. The rest? Just as noted, 200°C and 20-25mins in the oven. For my personal taste it worked like a charm. If you like your pizza what I call American style - use the indicated amounts and roll out the dough to the size of one big baking pan. If you like it Italiano - divide into two equal parts, roll out thin and make two pizzas (which I will try next time as my kids prefer the latter version).

Healthy breakfast

Last but not least - I found my favorite breakfast in the shape of Overnight Oats. Again inspired by Hannah Frey the perfect mixture for my taste consists of:

• 50gr of Muesli (Ja Natürlich! Basis Müesli)
• 10gr of chia seeds
• 200gr of low-fat plain yoghurt (Ja Natürlich! 1%)
• 60gr of frozen berries

On the evening before mix müesli, seeds and yoghurt together, top with frozen berries, close container and store in the fridge. In the morning - take container, mix it all through and enjoy. Easy as that! <3

Spelt oat porridge

My son in particular loves this recipe for breakfast on the weekends. Again it's one of Celia Brown Brooks' recipes from the "Clean Eating" cookbook which I changed to my taste. Instead of the blueberries she mentions I coarse-grate half of an apple into the porridge and add some cinnamon - instant healthy warm cozy comfort food!

There's more to come, so stay tuned :-)

Side-note - I'm trying not to push those dietary changes/restrictions onto my family as I'm aware that kids do need different nutrients than an adult, particularly an aerobic-nut who tries to melt the last pieces of unhealthy/uncomfortable body fat... What I'm happy about, though, is that my kids ask to try all the things I make/cook for myself and even have declared some of it to be their kind of comfort and/or favorite food, e.g. the spelt porridge for my son <3

General - Not dead, just very busy

*whooooooosh*

That's the sound that almost 4 months passing by make, it seems. I've been pretty busy, from my kids starting school through crafting quite a lot, following the clean eating and working out trail to lots of things happening work-wise. All summed up, life got busy.

Since my last craft-related blog entry I finished six pieces of work. From the Aurinko shawl to a sweater for myself, some socks and some more shawl and lace work. I will try to write them all up separately soon (hah!).

Food-wise there have been a ton of "kitchen first" adventures! Clean eating is still working out like a charm and while I don't manage to do it -all of the time- I think most of the time counts. Time constraints are a bit different since my kids started school, so... I'm still working out two to three times a week and I've been sticking with Jillian Michael's DVDs - and will probably continue to do so as I just started working on my six-pack proper ;-)

Seriously? My day should have 48 hours, minimum. My "old love" progressive/metal music has been coming back full force, I'd like to be able to read a good book every now and then, so there ain't much time to spare. Oh yes, did I mention I need to catch up on sleep?

Food - Clean eating and getting (back) into shape

While I lost the big part of my excess weight already a year ago I've been battling the beginning weight gain again and have/had the desire to get into shape. The natural consequence of this is to focus on two things - food/eating habits and exercise/work-out/sports.

For the latter I found that doing aerobics seems to work for me per se, but I had to find a way to incorporate it into my daily routine without much time to spare around so, apart from the costs, I ruled out going to the gym again. Through a very helpful group of twin moms on Facebook I stumbled across the home workout DVDs of Jillian Michaels (most notably her 30 Day Shred series) and a food/diet concept called "Clean Eating". I've tried both now for about two months and am super-happy with the results! My work out consists of about 30mins every other day and I'm curious about the other DVDs as I'm about to finish the 30 Day Shred series. While I haven't really lost much weight (4kg) I do have reduced measurements - about 7cm of waistline (almost 3") and 5cm (about 2") of upper leg circumference. Next goal - six pack ;-)

One of the consequences of Clean Eating - which basically means to avoid processed foods and artificial ingredients - is that I've learned to do more things from scratch, which always has been a strong interest of mine. As an IT specialist I always want(ed) to find out what's under the hood, poke at the basic elements and learn how to make things, so it's perfect for me!

My favorite things so far which I made from scratch:

Mexican (hot) salsa

Peanut sauce to go with satay skewers

Vanilla extract (which can't be found/bought here in Austria anyway)