The longer answer starts with a story…

I have recently begun working with Katherine Quinn “KQ” of Outside the Box Fitness (site relaunching in late January so bookmark it now!).  We had the great pleasure of meeting waaay back in the summer when our mutual friends invited us to a box suite at a Washington Nationals game.  It was pouring and we were sure the game would not happen so we filled up on all sorts of yummies and watched the football game on the giant flatscreen in the box.  oh it was fancy!    I think I was most impressed that KQ ate with out hesitation.  I suppose I had always assumed ‘healthy’ types didn’t eat or something?  Kind of crazy how your brain doesn’t always think things through!  I may have also been a little preoccupied with my giggles about watching football at a baseball stadium.  The game eventually started (amazing how they ‘dry’ out the field!) and ended with an amazing 9th inning Nationals home-run with bases loaded!  (I only remember this because it’s the only baseball game I have been to!)

The game finally started, about an hour or so late, but THEY DID IT!

So during the course of conversation, KQ mentioned that she was going to need a website at some point so she could expand her business to the next level.  We exchanged info and plans to meet up soon… soon turned into umm late December and January!  Time does fly… but she has been very busy during all that time!  She’s on Twitter and has an article out in the Washington Flyer and more on the way!  So much productivity!!  So we finally found a slot of time in our schedules to meet up and discuss her website.  Of course we both went to different Starbucks the first time, but then we FINALLY met and talked and…

IDEAS WERE EVERYWHERE!

Spilling out onto the floor, filling notebook pages, building excitement at what could become reality.  I am sure some of the other folks in that Starbucks had their own great ideas just from overhearing us… it was THAT GOOD!  So our 2nd meeting I set my expectations lower since the excitement and inspiration encountered during the first meeting could surely not be duplicated.  I mean really, how often does inspiration strike?  Well apparently, when you are with people open to ideas and used to thinking ‘outside the box’ it can happen over and over again.  WHO KNEW THIS AND DID NOT TELL ME?!  I swear, every time we meet up it’s like an inspiration explosion!

So I have learned that the slightly longer answer to being an inspiration really requires at least 2 people who: 
1.  are open to any idea, no matter how crazy!
2.  challenge you and who can build on your ideas (and you on theirs and so on)
3.  work out next steps:  do you want to really do this?  who does what?
4.  keep meeting, keep sharing, keep connecting
5.  keep DOING

Katherine and I together come up with great idea after great idea, and even better?  We are taking action!  We are DOING!  We have some great things in the works… and we are so excited about them!  Are they all going to be ready in 2 weeks?  Nope. Will some of them get scrapped for even better ideas?  Absolutely.

Now, go and be inspirational and report back

• Q:  How are you?
• A:  Good

• Q:  How’s Work?
• A:  Good

• Q:  How’s the family/wife/husband/kids?
• A:  Good

COME ON!  There is so much more to the story.

Earlier this week, a dear friend came to visit and when she asked, “What do you WANT to do?”  I started to say “I donno” and change the subject, as usual.  Then I stopped.  I did know.  I just didn’t know how to translate it into a job.  So instead, I just admitted this and a relatively short discussion reveled that she actually has a friend who helps folks find the experience for the job they want, embedded in the stuff they’ve already done.  KINDA IMPORTANT don’t you think?  If I had only said ‘I donno’ I would never have learned this.  And now, I have some butterflies in my belly at the idea of making a shift in 2012

Answering questions thoughtfully, listening and asking questions in return can lead to really surprising information.  (ok this particular frend probably would have told me I was lying and we would have gotten there eventually, so good friends are also a good idea. Listening and asking questions also leads to good friends.  Go figure.)

And also?  VERY EXCITED FOR 2012!!!

Just thought I would mention that

And even more than that – all that new and fresh and interesting motivates me to do the same. 

i need an update!

Thank  goodness it’s so close to January – the legendary month to kick off updates!

So I have decided in these last few weeks of December, instead of stressing over not really following my own challenge (hey, I tried!  Be quiet, Yoda) I will plan for my own update.

So far I have:

1. Write more and hit that blue ‘publish’ button even if i think it’s not good enough
2. Encourage even more people to do what their hearts tell them.  (seriously, nothing is more soul satisfying!)
3. Eat more veggies! (even us veggies sometimes get stuck in a carb rut)
4. Be thankful and enjoy
5. Buy some new clothes already! Yesh! so over the frump.
6. Sleep 8 hours a night, preferably uninterrupted (hahaha i think i need to inform the baby about this one)

Ok that’s all I have so far.  What about you all?  Anything exciting I should add to my list?  Inspire me with some ideas please!!

apparently I eat more fried food than I would have liked to admit.  

There.  I said it!

However, I also figured out that I don’t really care all that much about fried foods – I don’t seek them out.  Which is likely why I never really realized I ate that many.  If it’s there I eat it, which is not a good thing, obviously.  Now that I am aware, this whole ban of fried foods for November thing is turning out to be rather educational. huh. (aka “funny”, see above)

Last night we went out to dinner and I avoided fries and other various unhealthy options.  But then I got the Caesar salad.  Not sure if that was a healthy option, but I figured it was better than the mac and cheese!  Of course, I added an alcoholic creamy beverage.  so um.  maybe the fries would have been better?

Really though, while my partner in crime over at SingleishMom might be losing more weight, I can’t really complain that during my halfassed attempt this week, I lost 2 lbs.

What? oh yes, you read that – 2 pouds buh-bye.  Now let’s just see if that was water or if the scale continues it’s downward trajectory this week.  I will also claim that she has more online support with twitter and what not.  (yes, twitter on my iphone will not work, nor will it allow me to install iOS5.  Whole other annoyance on that issue).

Now that I will have a full week of no-fried foods and OK FINE I will take the stairs more and keep other crap to a minimum.  maybe. ok I will try. goodness those hairy eyeballs are frightening.

Your turn – what do you plan on changing this week?  Are you avoiding fried foods too?  It’s comfy on this here bandwagon, you should hop on!

food is DELICIOUS!

However, since I apparently don’t melt in the rain, I have to try another tactic.

My friend over at SingleishMom and I were talking about this and came up with a way to make it kind of fun to change things up:

We are going to try giving up one thing a month for the next 6 months.

We figure this is a lot easier than trying to give it ALL up at once – FOREVER!  That is so not gonna happen.  This way at the end of the month we can determine if we want to add it back or not.  If nothing else, it forces us to change our habits and shake things up a bit!  And likely, lose some weight.  At least that’s the goal.  Plus it’s a little bit of a creative outlet for me – I loooove trying new foods and recipes!  I may also be doctoring some old favorites to see if I can make them healthy AND delicious.  I do like a challenge.  A delicious challenge is even better.

SO

November – we are in you already.  A little bit of a late start, but for November we are giving up:

*drumroll*

FRIED FOODS!

What does this mean?  We are not eating ANYTHING deep fried. Until December.  Pan frying/sauteing does not count. I am all for enjoy a sauteed onions and seasoning in butter or olive oil in whatever is required to make yummy food.  However, battered onions in 3 inches of oil? a polite ‘no thank you’.

We may have strategically selected fried foods because of Thanksgiving.  Maybe.  No fried turkey!  But then, I don’t eat turkey anyway, so more veggies for me

If this inspires you – JOIN US!  Let me know in the comments or write your own post about it and link back so we can add you to our blog roll.  I can’t wait to see what people come up with.  Of course, you are also welcome to sit there with your french fries and your fried crispy turkey leg and mock us.  But really?  It’s only 28 days.

1. You have lists on random pieces of paper all over the house, in your purse/pocket, in your car, at your desk – basically everywhere
2. You have electronic documents  lists in google docs and/or your phone
3. When using electronic lists, you wonder if you want bullets or numbers, which is most appropriate for this particular list?
4. Other people make fun of your lists and you didn’t even realize you were making one
5. You start to twitch when you have a lot of things to get done – and no pencil/paper/iphone with which to make a list

It’s funny how list people and non-list people marvel at one another.  What I find so surprising about non-list people is that when given a list, they just generally follow it.  Me? When I make a list I am editing, rearranging, reorganizing, prioritizing… it changes CONSTANTLY making last minute substitutions, and then sometimes  don’t even follow it *gasp* (sometimes).

Ok so mostly that’s at the grocery store when i decide that $6 is too much to pay for hummus thankyouverymuch.  That one will wait for a coupon!  Of course that goes on the list, don’t be ridiculous!  This blog however, has not been on the list – obviously.  But ahh I feel so much better now, it is not only on the list but getting up there in priority ranking.

So, what I really want to know, is how do non-list people can function?  How do they hold all the stuff in their heads that they want to get done?  Do they not want to get things done or are they just better at not needing to write things down?

I really am curious – are you a list person?  If not, HOW do you do that?  I’m getting all twitchy just thinking about it!

not that I am panicking

or standing in front of said window unit when holding the heater the baby.  Who has decided that from 1-2pm (at least) the only things she wants is to be held by mama! STANDING MOVING MAMA!  I totally count doing the baby sway for over an hour as a work-out.

So in preparation for he continued increase in temperature – I am fighting back with yummies!  Soothing both the soul and cooling off all in one. And it’s fairly good for you too – SCORE (ok good for you might be a stretch, but not so bad for you? i donno, it’s delicious and only 4 of those damn weight watcher new-fangled points) (yes, I don’t even want to talk about it)

I am going to e picky here and say YES you have to use good chocolate chips.  I used Ghiradelli chips, both milk and semi-sweet.  over a double boiler.  DO THIS! or better chocolate.  The cheap stuff just does not melt well.  That, or I have no idea what I am doing and somehow these chips overcome that issue.  Highly possible!

Once the chocolate is melted and smoooooth, add the oats and stir them in.  Actually, here you could add whatever you want – more oats, walnuts, chopped dried fruit, whatever floats your boat.

Now the fun part – covering the banana chunks! It’s a bit tricky… but just try to get a decent coating of whatever thickness you think will be delicious and plop them on the cookie sheet and toss them in the freezer.  UPDATE:  if you want your teeth, thaw in the fridge first or just store them there and eat within a couple of days.  your jaw and teeth will thank you!

DONE!

Ok not really, after they are solid and frozen, at least an hour, you have to EAT one!

Honestly, I know they are ugly – but trust me – they taste AMAZING!  My husband saw one and was like ‘hey, what is that? Can I have a bite?’ of course I gave him a bite and even HE was impresed.  Then about 10 minutes later we had the following exchange:

Him:  um so what was that?  what was the white stuff?

Me:  What white stuff, the stuff in the chocolate?  Oats

Him:  NO no no…

Me:  you mean THE BANANA??

Him:  THAT was banana?!  wow, I thought it was icecream

Needless to say, I then snuck off to the freezer to hide the rest under the frozen broccoli.

Ingredients:

• 2 Bananas
• 2 Cups of chocolate chips (I used 1/2 milk and 1/2 semi-sweet)
• 3/4 Cup of Old Fashioned Oats

Directions:

Prepare a cookie sheet with wax or parchment paper to fit and make some space in your freezer that will accommodate it laying flat.  Melt chocolate chips over a double boiler (if you can do it in the microwave, more power to YOU – that never works for me), stirring until smooth.  Remove from heat and add oats, stirring until completely incorporated.  Cut the bananas into 16 1 inch rounds (you know, approximately).  Coat bananas with chocolate mixture and place on prepared cookie sheet.  Once all are coated, pop into the freezer for at least one hour or the refrigerator for 2 hours before enjoying or moving to a plastic freezer bag.

Any other suggestions for stuff to add to the chocolate?  IDEAS PLEASE

Since they keep talking about how blueberries have all these anti-oxidants and healthy things, I decided I needed to find a way to eat more.  So, naturally, I decided to make…

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS!

You know how most people say cooking is easy and you can change things out with out much damage but baking, baking is a SCIENCE and exact and if you don’t respect that you end up with a mess? yeah, I kinda throw that out the window.  I can tweak a baking recipe on the fly, but for some reason I cannot throw together a pasta salad.  So, um, if you have a delicious recipe please send it along because I have a GIANT bowl of blah pasta salad in my fridge that is in serious need of flavor.

Anyway, my point with that tirade is that to make the blueberry muffins I not only combined two recipes but then I messed them all up – DELICIOUSLY!

The basic recipe is from King Aurthur Flour (ooh yes I am a flour snob, only KAF for me!!) whose recipes I have always had great success. And then I changed it up.

Yeah – doesn’t that look awesome? haha!  well this is all he wet ingredients, including the blueberry yogurt instead of say, lemon, or vanilla – it looks gross but tastes yummy!

There, MUCH better – once you add the dry ingredents and the blueberries.   I used a combo of regular AP Flour and White Whole Wheat flour.  You can use whatever combo you like.  My husband scarfed these down and I mentioned later that they had WWW flour and he had no idea.  I also used frozen blueberries – of course you could use fresh.  But then it wont be pretty and blue pffft who wants white muffin and blue berries? heh.

The batter is super thick, like cookie dough.  This actually makes it much easier to fill the muffin cups as you can use a cookie scoop!

<pretend there is a picture here of the muffins in the pan before being baked>

Then you add this delicious topping!  The topping, from the queen herself, Martha Stewart and her Baking Handbook.  Though, I should say ‘inspired by’ since i read it last week, then when I went to make it today i couldn’t find the book and so I just made up the proportion.  yeahhh found the book after and wow was I off!  But I must say, it was one tasty laps of memory.  I didn’t use it all… it keeps in the fridge for about 2 weeks (according to Martha, but then, hers was merely ‘inspiration’ ha)

Ingredients:

Muffins:

• 1 cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 cup All-Purpose White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup yogurt (ok i used one serving of chobani greek blueberry yogurt – lemon or vanilla would be delicious too!)
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

Topping:

• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt (i used kosher)

The How To:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with papers, and grease the papers (this way you dont leave 1/2 the muffin in the paper, i just use PAM)
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light in color and down right fluffy!
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time; then the vanilla extract and yogurt
5. Add the flour mixture slowly, mixing till everything is evenly moistened. It will be THICK, like a cookie dough.
6. Stir in the blueberries by hand, like when you add chocolate chips to cookies (skimmers, there are no chocolate chips in these muffins, but hmm that might be a tasty addition!)
7. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups. i used a large cookie scoop and it took about a scoop and a half to 2 scoops to fill.
8. Now you could stop here and they would be lovely, or as KAF suggests, just add some sparkling sugar to the top.  But if you want extra yum, now just grab a bunch of that topping mixture and pile it on top.  kinda squeeze it on there and use more than you think is necessary.  you will thank me later!

Bake the muffins for 25 minutes. Use a toothpick to make sure they are done.  Remove them from the muffin pan as soon as you can handle so that they don’t get all steamy and yucky.  Hold off as long as possible then dive into to one just to make sure they taste right. It might take two to decide.

now, seriously, pasta salad help!

ok, technically that’s exactly what it is, actually.  harumph. (the second one, no lemons were harmed in the making of this dinner)

Well it was a pretty darn tasty iteration of cheese and starch and in a way that I have never done before so I am still counting it as new.

oh yes I am!

aaahh creamy delicious risotto!

It sounds all fancy.  I have had it at semi-fancy restaurants and lingered over the creamy ricey deliciousness.  Never thought I could even come close trying to do it at home.

I was so very wrong!

Of course, this is not a fancy version. oh no, this is just one step above the instructions on the box of rice, mixed up a little:

• 1 cup of Arborio rice
• 1 1/2 cup of vegetable stock
• 1 1/2 cup of water
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (seriously, you are making risotto, don’t skimp here, shred it yourself as part of your workout!)
• 1/2 cup (or so?) of frozen peas (yes I just dumped some from the bag, I did not measure. I’m all wild and crazy like that)

I followed the box instructions, sorta:

Over medium/medium-high heat, add 1 cup of liquid at a time until absorbed by the rice, approximately 5 min.

Stir constantly until your arm feels like it’s going to fall off, add another cup of liquid, pick arm up off the floor and KEEP STIRRING!

Remember that butter makes everything better and add it in (or you can do it at the beginning before liquid and toast the rice in it… this is what I will do next time.)

I didn’t really believe it would all get absorbed, but it did! Took me longer than 5 minutes between additions of liquid though…

Then when just about done, kill the heat, add the Parmesan until melted, and then dump in the peas

take a bite

*swoon*

This was good enough that I will be experimenting further!  So please share your favorite versions and customizations so I have some ideas on what to try!

*the egg-roll is kind of a long story.

So I went to the grocery store and bought three lemons – surely I could find something delicious to make with three lemons!  Then I found way too many recipes and hit overload and decided to stalk twitter instead.  My twitter buddy, Julia Mestas, insisted that Ina Garten recipes are never fail.  She knows what she’s talking about so I scurried over to check out recipes.

Eventually, I settled on her Lemon Bar recipe only to make a devastating discovery.  Her recipe calls for SIX lemons!  Of course I wait and make another grocery run, only to completely forget the additional lemons.  I am so smart.

I couldn’t take it anymore so I decided to modify and make this anyway.  ADVENTURE!

Or Mutant Lemon Bars:

Seriously, those are HUGE!  Yes I only took the one picture.  stop looking at me like that. That’s a desert plate there.  I really should have propped up a quarter for scale.  They’re taller than a quarter.  Seriously.

Here’s what happened:

In Kate logic, 3 lemons means less liquid so I should just make it in a 9×9 pan instead of a 9×13.

What really happened is that 3 lemons yields enough of the zest, but not nearly enough juice.  Mine only gave me a scant 1/4 cup and I need a WHOLE cup.  What’s a desperate lemonhead to do?  Well this one happened to open the fridge and discovered that she did, in fact, have a container of ‘lemon juice’.  yes from concentrate.  yes with ‘added ingredients’.  husha.

OH HELL YES I USED IT!!

What?  It had to be better than my idea of water + lemon extract.

At this point I already had the crust baked.  In the 9×9 pan.  So I mixed up the lemon part and poured it in the pan.  There was more filling than crust.  I was getting a little excited.  Ok, I was a little nervous.

I baked it for the recommended 30 min – it was very much raw.  An additional 15 min, much better!

They are HUGE but I must say, for all the challenges, they turned out pretty damn delicious.  The texture is thick and dense and super lemony.  I am now thinking of a zillion variations.  Thank goodness, because my husband came home from work that day with a bag of SIX lemons!  I think this lemon obsession might be contagious…

I am going to be lazy and just link you (again) to Ina’s recipe – you cannot go wrong, even if you try!