Category Archives: nut butter

Chili on a chilly day.

Quite the rainy  and cool day today!  Perfect day to have a warm bowl of banana custard oats.

Topped with chocolate fluff and some homemade pecan butter.  I really relished this bowl and took my time eating it.  Yay!

There is a large art show each year sponsored by the lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council (Larac). It joins with another group and they have a big festival, so we went down to check it out.

Too bad it was rainy, but didn’t really seem to stop the crowds too much.  I would have taken more pictures of art, but most artists/craftspeople don’t like pictures taken of their wares.  I came really close to buying another pottery bowl, but what I really want is a new plate.  Instead, I just got some jelly made with beer!

The gentleman selling it kept talking about putting in on meat before grilling, but I am all the while thinking it is going to end up on my oats in the morning.  Starting the day off with beer?  Could be interesting!

Went out to lunch afterward.  O’Tooles.   It’s very sports bar-like.

I am itching to watch a football game here (come on preseason!).  I do like this place, but so many tempting (read fried) stuff on the menu.  Since it is cooler out, I decided on some chili with a side salad.

Look at all that dressing.  I did the fork dipping technique with this stuff.  I also had a few of John’s sweet potato fries.  Just cannot get them this crisp at home.

I think I did pretty good food wise here, and enjoyed it quite a bit!

Then grocery shopping and home.  I also stopped at the pet store for kitty supplies and got Pixie a refill on one of her favorite toys – Da bird.  She annihilated the last one – just loves it.

Action shot – she does move around, just so you know.

Soon it was latte time!

With some Divine mint chocolate.  Good stuff.

You know that toy pictured above for Pixie?  She just broke it…  Time to get out the super glue.  Again, cannot have nice things.

John cooked up pork burgers for dinner.  I had a toasted slice of bread with laughing cow with mine.  This was sooooo good!  Lean pork, but very moist.

I didn’t feel like any veggies tonight, so I went with the flow.

With no outside biking today due to rain, we watched the Tour de Suisse on TV:

Time trial tonight and 2nd stage tomorrow.  I’ll have to sneak some watching in during work.

Going to get some good sleep for the race tomorrow.  It’s at 9 am and the forecast is about 60 and partly cloudy.  Sounds pretty perfect to me!

Question:  Any fun activities on tap today?

Nut Butter Primer

I’ve gotten a couple emails and comments about the nut butter process, so here goes.

The above is peanut butter.  No added oil and just a couple tsp of agave for 8 oz.

All you really need is a food processor and some nuts, basically 😀

I have a mini food processor.  You could do it in a large one, but you would need to make more at a time.  I use 8 oz of nuts for each batch.  If you toast the nuts, let them cool completely before grinding, as they sometimes just stay mealy if you don’t.

Add the nuts to the food processor and pulse until you get small pieces.  Then set it to just run.  You will notice the nut meal start to climb the sides of the processor.  You can either shake the unit (probably not recommended, but what I do 🙂  ) or stop and push the nut meal back down.  This is the most tedious part of the process.  Keep doing this and then you will start to notice the nut butter forming at the bottom of the bowl.  Once that starts, you can usually just let it run until it is the consistency you want.  It can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the nut you use.  Oil and sweetener are optional most times, although some nuts just seem to need a little oil.  Add the sweetener when the nut butter is almost done.  If you add it in the beginning, it just gums up and the nut butter won’t form right.  At least that is what happens to me.  For chunky nut butter, plus some of the nuts into small chunks, pull them out and reserve until the end and stir in.

Freshness of the nuts matters, too.  Older nuts will need oil.

Here are the nuts and combos I have tried:

1. Peanuts:  Easy.  Usually do not need oil with this.  Good additions are honey or maple syrup or cinnamon or cocoa powder.

2.  Cashews: Fairly easy, although I find a little bit of oil helps.  This butter is ah-mazing.  Jar-Spoon-Mouth type of amazing.

3. Pecans.  The easiest and quickest nut of all.  I would actually try this one first to have success.  Toast the nuts first, please.  No oil needed.  In fact, this is a pretty oily nut.  Great combos for this are cinnamon/maple syrup, coconut.

4. Sunflower:  Easy.This is a cheap seed LOL!  I don’t care for the taste as much.  This one needed a little oil.

5.  Almond.  Hard.  If find almonds take the longest of all the nuts to make butter with and they need some kind of oil.  Do not blanch the almonds.  Toast and let cool completely.  Almonds pretty much take at least 15 minutes of processing or longer.  Good stuff, though.

6. Hazelnut:  Medium.  This nut seems to need some oil, and it never gets super smooth.  The taste is worth it, though.

7.  Walnut.  Easy.  Like pecan butter, it forms easily, but stays fairly chunky. I am just not a fan of walnut taste so much.

Note:  Making nut butter in the Magic Bullet is not a good idea.  It never forms and just makes a mess.   ’nuff said.  Not sure if a regular blender would work either.  I think it is the speed.

Narcotics and chocolate and coffee, oh my!

Hello from cloud 9 everybody!

I convinced John to make me some pumpkin custard oats for breakfast, and he just doubled the batch and shared with me.  Yay – I got him to eat more superfoods!

I got in to see the doctor this morning.  The pain had lessened enough so I can get around some, but my knee is numb and my thigh is really painful still.  I asked John to take a picture of me in the parking lot on my crutches.

First time in my life ever on crutches.  So, here is the deal on my injury:  I herniated a disk in my back.  When I twisted around, I pulled/popped the disk, which compressed the sciatic nerve.  That’s why the pain started in my back and gradually moved down into my leg and my knee, and which is causing the numbness there.  Fun, fun.  So, this is going to take a lot longer to recover since it is more than just a muscle pull.  I can progress activities as tolerated, and the doctor gave me some Vicodin and Flexeril.   😯 😯   I refused the prednisone.  Former fatty does *not* want to take a steroid, thankyouverymuch.  I would never re-lose that weight.

Of course, I do have to say that I have some real fear here about not being active.  I have to be so very careful about what I am eating because I am burning so few calories not moving around.  I made my way downstairs for the first time in a couple days, and the first thing I see is an open bag of chocolate chips on the counter.  Of course I hobbled over and snagged some like the addict I am.  John had to put them back up high again.  Who knows what he was eating downstairs when I couldn’t get down there :mrgreen:

I know that I am not going to wake up 100 pounds heavier.  I know that.  My rational mind knows that.  But the fear is there, you know?

I actually was able to make my own lunch today!  I kept it simple and somewhat random.  Tortilla with some Nuttzo and jam as my sandwich.

I really like the Nuttzo, I have to say.  It’s pricey, but quite good.  It took me forever to make this while leaning on my crutches, and then I had to have John come carry my plate for me.  I cannot tell you how hard this is for a fiercely independent woman….

I have been working some today to make up for Wednesday, but it is a relaxed kind of working.  Those are good days, don’t you agree?  Especially when a snack arrives for me:

Caffeine and chocolate!

200 calorie snack, which is just about perfect.  And really is perfect taste wise 😀

I also wanted to again thank every one you from the bottom of my heart for all your comments and emails the last couple days.  I was bowled over by them, truly.  I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life, virtually and physically!

Dinner time came, and I was able to work on my salad bowl.  I haven’t had a BBQ chicken salad in awhile!

After dinner, I was feeling pretty good what with the meds and all, so we went out to pick up some food for Pixie and make a pit stop:

This is the reduced fat berry coffee cake at Starbies.  It’s pretty good.  It was so great to get out of the house, too, although I am pretty slow. 😀

Here’s to a good night’s sleep!

Question:  Have you ever had sciatica symptoms?

Sm’oats!

I slept in some today!  Yay!  I woke up around 7 am, which is pretty late for me.  Had a pre workout snack of half a sandwich thin spread with some Nuttzo.  That’s unsweetened nut butter that is crunchy with seeds!

It was almost 50 degrees, so I laced up and went down to the track to run.  No school this week, so I could run without feeling like a stalker.  While the track can be boring, I do like it because I can just go on autopilot and think.  No worries about traffic or crossing the street or getting too far from home.  Just me, my tunes, and the early sun.  I did 4 easy miles.  I really need to do speed work (note how I keep saying that…), but I am just kind of lazy about not doing it.

It started to cloud up as I finished up and now it is raining!  I have been thinking s’mores a lot lately, so I had to find some way to incorporate that into breakfast without going overload.  So I present the sm’oats!

  • 40 g of Multigrain hot cereal (130 cal)
  • 5 g of dark cocoa powder (10 cal)
  • 1 small banana mashed (90 cal)
  • 2 egg whites (30 cal)
  • 12 g of Fluff  (40 cal)
  • 1 square of crumbled graham cracker (35 cal)

I mixed the cereal and cocoa powder and added to boiling water with the mashed nana.  Cooked until almost done and tempered in the egg whites.  Then topped with fluff and graham cracker!  Total calories for the bowl is 335 calories.  I carefully measured everything, because it would be so easy to go overboard and pack on the calories.  That’s pretty much why I weigh things, because if I go by teaspoons and tablespoons, I get a bit generous and still call it the lower number.  Not sure who I think I’m fooling that way 😉

Lunch time included some more leftovers.

Stuffed shells – I hadn’t had those in years, but they were on the Easter menu and I forgot how good they were.  I don’t eat a lot of pasta anymore (being a volume eater and all), but I do like it.

And this was the tartest kiwi ever!  Dang I think they crossed the tree with a lemon or something.  Hope the other 2 aren’t quite so tart.

Update on the downward scale movement.  I lost a net of 1 pound in March.  The turtle is back!  I don’t know why I sometimes put myself at odds with myself by working heavier weights and then expecting the scale to go down.   Some of my snacking isn’t all that conducive, either LOL!  Working muscles harder and I get so hungry, so I eat.  I’ll just keep trucking along.  If I lost a pound a month for 6 months, I would be happy.

Snacky time!  John made me a protein latte, which I paired up with some dark chocolate.

Lattes, chocolate and rainy days are made for each other, don’t you think?

This morning, I pulled out what I thought was chicken to drop in the crockpot and found out it was pork.  I decided just to do that anyway.  I added some homemade salsa (from one of our customers) to the cooker and dropped in the pork loin.

Delicious!  Paired with the usual 😉

Tidbit:  On yesterday’s post, I mentioned doing lower weights and higher reps.  The reason for that is periodization.  I did 4 weeks with lower reps and heavier weights, now I am doing at least 1 week at higher reps and lower weights to help with endurance (slow twitch muscle fibers) to help with my bike riding.  Now that warm weather is here, likely to change up some routines!  It’s so hard to do all I want to do in a week of workouts.  I need to focus more on what I need to do to reach certain goals (i.e. 100 mile bike ride.)

John and I went out for a little together time tonight.  He wanted to go to the library, and you know I won’t turn that down or the coffee afterwards.

I was going t to get the 2nd Twilight book out.  I finished the first one.  I am not totally sure I liked it, but I can certainly see why they are popular.  All of the others were checked out, so I got a Stephen King short story book instead 😀

Snack while updating this post:

I love butter snap pretzels.  They are even better when paired with chocolate chips, although I restrained myself 😀

Have a great night!

Finger Lickin’ Good.

* Oatmeal bar giveaway – don’t forget!*

Another rainy, drizzly day today.  Hit the gym for a nice 4-mile run on the treadmill.  It felt quite good today.  Must be because I haven’t done a run in a week.  Biking does the legs some good! 🙂

John met me part way and we decided to partake in the Starbucks free pastry day for breakfast.  I had a skim latte (drizzled with honey):

And the reduced fat berry coffee cake.

It was fresh and pretty good, although still a little institutional tasting.  But thank you Starbucks!  Mucho appreciated!

Standard work day today.  Pixie kept me company for a while.

This girl really knows how to sleep.

Lunch was good today.  I made up an egg/egg white omelet (hot sauce? Yes please) and roasted up some cauliflower in the toaster oven with some Chinese 5-spice powder.

I think I would like the cauliflower to be a little more roasty than this.  The spices made it looks more toasty that it really was.

Glad you liked my post earlier on how I build my meals.  It is such a habit now that I don’t think too much about it.  I used to always want some kind of carb thing with dinner, but then I realized that could be fruit and not bread!

John made up lattes today, and I left out the protein powder, but there was a square of this (x2)!

A package arrive for me today containing this I ordered:

Of course, I had to open it up and stick my finger in there:

Then I did this:

Think I liked it?  So good.  Little crunchy toffee bits and peanuty goodness.  Hellooooo oatmeal!!  I need to try to make some more different kinds of nut butter like this.  I’d start a business if there wasn’t already a local nut butter seller!

I think I might be safe in telling you all that I have an offer on the rental property!  That was my one goal in March – to sell it, and I got a good offer a couple weeks ago.  Last week were the 2 biggies from my end, which were the inspection and the appraisal.  Both went well, so that is all I can do from my end.  Now we just need their concrete mortgage finalized and closing will be in late April.  I was leaping around on Friday after the inspection came back in the clear!  This will be a *huge* stress off my back once the sale is done.  Now I probably jinxed it by saying something about it :mrgreen:

Dinner time:

This looks small, but there was a cup of broccoli in there 3 oz of shrimp, plus a little bit of the rice John cooked yesterday.

I even have a more appetizing snack for tonight:

My first time trying the mini babybels.  Have you had them?  If it is cheese anything, I will like it….

Tally of fruits and veggies today:

F: 2 clementines, strawberries, 1 pear

V:  1 cup cauliflower, 1 cup broccoli

Question:  How is your veggie challenge going this week? Getting in any extra?

Everything’s bigger in… NY??

Woke up way too early this morning.  My gym doesn’t open until 8, and I was up at 6:30.  I had a snack and thought “It’s supposed to be 40 degrees today, I can run outside!”  Well, yes 40 degrees, but not at 7 am!  I did a 2-mile loop and came back to the house.  It was cold and the sidewalks were really sloppy, so I had to run in the shoulder (hope Mom doesn’t read that 😕  ).  Anyway, I decided to just wait and finish up at the gym.  Ran 4 miles on the treadmill for a good 6 mile run total.  Saturday workouts always feel like a Friday, if that makes any sense, in that it’s the last workout of the week for me, so I am ready for a day off tomorrow!  I am very pleased about my mileage this week.  I did a total of 20 miles!  That is a 10% increase from last week.  I will keep it the same for next week, as it is important not to increase too much each week.

With such a spaced out workout, I was ready for brekkie!  Pumpkin multigrain topped with craisins and a bit of pecan butter.

Yay!  It was good.  I was very sad when this bowl was gone (how sad is that :mrgreen:  ).  I finally got caught up in my google reader and with emails and such.  I swear that’s a full-time job in itself, know what I mean??

I was trying to use up some fridge stuff for lunch, so I made an interesting meal.  I mixed together chocolate protein powder (don’t forget to read my post from earlier!) and greek yogurt, and spread it on a toasted Josef’s pita with the last sprinkle of mini chips.

This was  good, although the pita was so crispy I had to use a fork to eat it because it kept breaking apart.

After lunch, it was down to meet my sister at BJ’s Wholesale.  My trial membership expires in a couple weeks, so we wanted to stock up on a few staples.  Afterwards, we popped across to the mall and stopped at a coffee shop that had the perfect name!

It was cute.  The owner obviously does artwork and jewelry, since this was for sale everywhere.

I had a latte and half a cookie.

Me and sister (who sprained her knee – ouch!).

One thing about BJ’s, either everything is in case form or giant form.  Check out these huge bags:

That chocolate chip bag is 72 ounces!  Should last a good long time.  John and I eat a lot of nuts and make nut butters.  BJs has great prices on almonds and pecans.  Almonds were $3.99 a pound!

Football time!  That means we’re in for the night.  I had a dinner salad and cleaned out the rest of the spring mix bag.  Check out this giant bowl of lettuce for 30 calories!

Guess that’s the good thing about salads.

Off to watch more of the games.  There is chocolate in the house…….

Want a chance to win a VitaMix mixer?  I know I do!  Check out Katie’s giveaway here!

And don’t forget to enter the Lose The Diet Book giveaway!  Ends Sunday.