NYBNY Challenge October (closed group)

Today I invited a former co-worker to my house for dinner this weekend.

ROAK for Tuesday:

I am in charge of our Adopt-A-Class program for my office and we are going to visit our little 5-6 year olds on Monday. I spent my lunch break shopping for goodies and then spent part of my afternoon filling goody bags for the kids. I can't wait to see them on Halloween!

I know I'm tired when I interpret your RAOK to mean that you ate the neighbors. Time for bed! LOL!

I've noticed my appetite for salads has lowered and I remembered back to what a nutritionist once told me about warming and cooling foods. Here's part of an article I found related to warming and cooling foods, I hope you find it useful.

Warming and Cooling Characteristics of Common Foods
Published on Jan 25, 2010 by Ping Ming Health in Food & Diet
2 Each food has its own characteristics. In very ancient times Chinese TCM practitioners use specific foods to balance the bodies yin and yang and to treat disease. Because Chinese medicine discovered that most foods have either cooling or warming characteristics so when you eat cooling foods, it is adding cooling effects to your body and eating warm foods will adding warming effects to your body so they can be used to balance the body which may be deficient in yin or yang. Chinese medicine has divided food into three characteristics;
1) cooling food
2) warming food
3) balanced food (neither cool nor warm)

1) Effects of cooling foods
Cooling food has effects of clearing heat and toxins, cooling and calming the blood and nourishing yin. These types of food are suitable for people who have heat constitution of the body. Usually these people have the following symptoms; The body feeling hot, perspiration, thirst, constipation, pungent wind and stool, burning of the *kitten* area after bowl movement, anxiety, red eyes, red face, emotional, head aches, vivid dreams, ulcers in the mouth or tongue, coldsore’s around the mouth, red tongue with a thick yellow coating on the tongue, rapid pulse, heart burn and dark or yellow urine.
If you have any of the symptoms listed above, the following cooling foods are suitable to be eaten;

Cooling foods:
Celery, chinese radish, cabbage, cucumber, tomato, mushrooms, eggplant, green vegetables, spinach, bananas, pear, oranges, apples, kiwi fruit, winter-melon, watermelon, sweet melon, chicken eggs, duck eggs, rabbit, crabs, seaweed, green tea, peppermint tea, mung beans, lotus root, locuts and tofu.

2) Effects of warming foods
Warming foods have the effects of raising the yang, energy (qi) of organs and warming and improving the circulation and dispelling the cold. These types of food are suitable for people who are yang deficient. Usually with the following symptoms; cold hand, cold feet, cold body, diarrhea, stomach pains or discomfort after eating or drinking cold things, bloating after eating, lack of energy, sore joints, odema and fluid retention.
If you have any of the following symptoms listed above, it is suitable to eat more of the following foods;

Warming foods
Onion, chives, ginger, spring onions, garlic, chilli, pumpkin, coconut, cherries, peaches, dates, nectarine, lamb, deer, chicken, ham, goat milk, prawns and pepper.

3) Foods which are neither warm nor cold, and is suitable for any type of body;
Chinese cabbage, carrots, sweet potato, potato, black mushrooms, peanuts, olives, lemons, grapes, plums, sunflower seeds, pork, beef, duck, fish, oysters and cow milk.

http://www.pingminghealth.com/article/581/warming-and-cooling-characteristics-of-common-foods/

Recipe today!

Mini Pumpkin Muffins: 48 calories each!
1 - box of Spice Cake Mix
1 - Can of canned pumpkin (15oz)
2 - large eggs

Mix everything together and bake in mini cupcake pan for about 15 minutes on 350! So simple and so yummy!

I made 1/2 of them as cupcakes and topped them with cream cheese icing for my co-workers today!

Simple Turkey Chili

Ground Turkey (I use Jenni-o 93/7 Lean Ground Turkey) 20oz pack
1 can Low Sodium kidney beans
1 can diced roasted tomatoes
cayenne
red pepper flakes
pepper/salt

First I brown the turkey in a little olive oil. If I've got it together I add a crushed garlic clove or two along witht he spices and seasonings. I try to make this a little spicy so I go light on salt and pepper and a little heavy on the cayenne and red pepper flakes. When browned, I add the drained kidney beans and the tomatoes. I only drain a little of the juice from the tomatoes and add the rest into the pan.

I simmer till for about 15-20 minutes.

This makes about 10 servings measured out in 1/2 cups. For lunch I usually have 1 cup with rice or a salad.

a 1/2 cup is 77 calories and 8 gr protein.

Try to go for low sodium in the beans. I didn't this time and one serving is 273 for sodium! I try to watch that because it can add up fast throughout the day.

Katie

Stole this recipe from: http://wingitvegan.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloweegan-kicks-off-with-leggy.html

It looked like an awesome idea for a Halloween treat!

Leggy Whoopie Spiders (Gluten-Free and Soy-Free)


For the whipped ganache:

1/2 cup full fat coconut milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
7 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (it's about one heaping cup)

1. Bring the coconut milk and maple syrup to a boil and immediately remove from heat.

2. Add the vanilla and the chocolate chips and whisk as if your life depended on it! The chocolate should melt completely and it should become lovely and smooth, but if it's not happening you can warm it up for a few seconds while stirring or whisking constantly. Watch it carefully, burnt chocolate is the only type of chocolate that sucks.

3. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or until it's completely cold. We will whip it later...


For the cookies:

1/2 heaping cup rolled oats
1/4 heaping cup dried coconut flakes
1/2 cup ground turbinado sugar or white sugar
2 tbsp tapioca starch
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup full fat coconut milk (at room temperature)
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter or other smooth nut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.

2. Grind the oats and the coconut in a blender or food processor. I use my Magic Bullet with the short blade base. Sift them into a medium size mixing bowl. There will be gritty bits left in the sifter that you will discard, which is why you will need heapingness when you measure the oats and the coconut.

3. Add the sugar, tapioca, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, coconut milk, peanut butter, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat with an electric mixer for about 30 to 45 seconds.

4. Use a medium size (1.5 tbsp) cookie Scoopto drop one cookie onto the baking sheet and watch it for a few seconds. The soft batter should barely flatten itself on top, but it shouldn't spread more than a couple of millimeters. If it spreads too much. add a little more ground coconut. If the top doesn't flatten at all add a little more coconut milk. When you're happy with your batter, scoop the rest of it onto the baking sheet leaving a couple of inches in between cookies.

5. Bake for 12 minutes. Gingerly remove the cookies from the oven without banging the baking sheet against the oven walls or rack or they might *de-poof*. Let them sit on the sheet for five minutes. Use a thin metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let them come to room temperature.


To assemble the cookies:

1. When the ganache is cold and the cookies are at room temperature, use an electric mixer to whip the ganache. Beat on high for about a minute or until it looks soft and fluffy and the color changes from dark brown to a lighter brown. If it's too hard and it's refusing to whip, add a tablespoon of coconut milk. It shouldn't be too soft though, or it won't stay put between the cookies.

2. Test the ganache on a cookie: grab a cookie bottom-side-up, scoop a generous amount of whipped ganache on top, and top it with another cookie bottom-side-down. Gently press down the top cookie just a little to help the ganache spread toward the sides. If it spreads out too much and it runs down the sides of the bottom cookie, add 1 tablespoon of sifted powdered sugar plus 1/2 tablespoon of sifted unsweetened cocoa powder to the rest of the ganache and keep beating until well combined. Keep adding sugar and cocoa powder until it's firm enough. That's it! Finish the rest of the cookies and move on to the fun part - leg making!


To make the legs:

1. Set up your leg making station. Print out the leg pattern and tape it to a chopping board. Tape a piece of wax paper on top of the pattern, just big enough to cover it.

2. Melt about 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chippers in the microwave in a dry glass bowl. It took my microwave 90 seconds on medium power, stirring every 30 seconds, to melt the chips completely. Transfer the melted chips to a small ziploc bag and cut the tip off one of the bottom corners. Just a small cut, no more than three millimeters.

3. Ready? Fun! Squeeze the melted chocolate out of the little opening and onto the wax paper, drawing the legs as you squeeze. I knew this would be hard for me to explain, so I made a video of my hands making the spidery legs. Instead of dragging the chocolate against the wax paper, squeeze it out from about a half an inch above the paper and let the stringy chocolate fall on it as you draw the legs. See? I told you I wouldn't be able to explain it! The video should help, it's right below the recipe

4. Take the whole chopping board to the freezer and let the chocolate harden for about five minutes. Remove from the freezer and gently peel off the legs using a thin metal spatula. Transfer the legs to a compulsively dry large plate. Repeat until you've made enough legs for 6 spiders.

5. Working quickly, because those legs will melt in your fingers if you dilly-dally, insert four legs into a side of one spider's creamy filling (insert the shortest tip into the filling) and four more legs into the opposite side. You'll notice that the pattern pint-out has four legs facing one way and four legs facing the opposite way, that is so that no legs look flat from the front.


Are you tired of working on them or do you want to add eyes to them? You do? Awesome!

Combine 1/4 cup of powdered sugar plus 1/2 tablespoon of water and stir until well combined. It should be rather stiff, but if it's crumbly you can add a few more drops of water until it complies. Use a little ziploc bag with a cut-off corner again to squeeze the little eyes onto the tops of the spiders. At this point, you probably have a little leftover chocolate from all the leg making, use a toothpick to drop a tiny drop of chocolate in the middle of each eye. Warm up the chocolate in the microwave for a few seconds (though not in the ziploc!) if it's too hard. Now we're all done! Phew!

This adventure makes 6 (3 inches wide) Whoopie Spiders!

Ceviche recipe!

What you'll need

4-5 Fresh firm-fleshed fish filets (that's a great example of alliteration right there!)
About 15 limes
A handful of jumbo shrimp - cooked
1 cucumber- diced
1 red onion- diced
2 roma tomatoes- diced
1 tsp garlic powder
1 good squirt of ketchup (yes, seriously)
1.5 cups of Clamato juice
Salt and Pepper to taste
Optional- a few dashes of hot sauce

Take your fish filets and rinse them off, and cut them into small chunks. This is really your preference on how big your chunks of fish are, but remember the bigger the chunks the longer this will need to marinate. Put the fish-chunks into a bowl.

Squeeze all your limes with a citrus juicer, or a citrus press,. You *have* to use fresh lime juice, so no cheating with bottled. It's ok for some pulp to be present. Pour the lime juice over the fish and make sure it's all covered. You may need to squeeze more limes to make sure there is enough juice to cover all of the fish.

Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and put the fish and lime juice mixture into the fridge to marinate, the minimum time is 2 hours, but I usually leave it for much longer, about 4-6 hours, and overnight if you're really paranoid. You know when it's done when the fish turns from pink and semi- transparent to a solid opaque white. The acid in the lime juice "cooks" the fish and changes it's makeup to make it safe for eating.

When the fish is thoroughly "cooked", add in your diced veggies, seasonings, and the Clamato juice, stir it up, and enjoy with chips or on tostadas. Yum!