Cinnamon and Sugar

When I woke up yesterday morning my husband said my hair smelled like baked goods. I thought he was crazy until the smell came out when the shower water hit the strands. I smelled like cinnamon and sugar. How sweet! Hehe.

Flax

 

I took a long weekend by taking Thursday and Friday off from work. I needed it. I've been noticing I've been pretty much checking out at work. Thursday I spent the morning wait for the installation crew from Home Depot to come replace the door. The initial door was installed with the peep hole about 12 inches from the top of the door. Now, I'm 5 ft 10 in and I had to stand on my toes to see out. It shouldn't be that high so my mom urged me to go to the store and complain. So I did and complained enough for them to reorder a door with the peephole at the right height.  While I waited for the guys, I decided the zucchini in the refrigerator was about on the edge and would be great for bread. I pulled out the mixer and all of the ingredients. I quickly realized that the applesauce I kept for replacing oil had gone bad so I didn't have that healthy baking alternative to use. I did however have a bag of ground flax meal that I had purchased on my last trip to the grocery store. I heard somewhere that the human body can not break down whole flax seeds so the seed needs to be ground for us to reap the benefits. So I put less 1/4 cup of flour and replaced it with a 1/4 cup of this meal. It's not really that noticeable and I actually like breads with a little more texture.

Whole Wheat Molasses Cookies

Speaking of texture, while the bread was in the oven, I still had the baking bug. After digging through my cupboards, I found a jar of molasses that I used last summer to make homemade baked beans and hadn't used it since then. I found a molasses cookie recipe online that looked pretty easy and doable. The recipe called for a whole cup of vegetable oil, which always seems like a lot to me. I always read the user reviews on recipes if I find them online. One person used extra virgin olive oil instead of veggie oil and I did the same thing. I also used 1 cup whole purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. That is where the texture thing comes in. The cookies are delicious and extra spicy, since I doubled the amount of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and all spice the recipe called for. It is a great way to increase the amount of flavor without increasing the calories all that much.

I plugged the recipes for both of these into the recipe builder on myfitnesspal.com (which I love btw and will be writing about it tomorrow). I made the cookie dough spread out for 32 small cookies at 100 calories each. The four cookies above were the only ones eaten between my hubby and I on Thursday and the rest were thrown into a freezer bag and frozen. Same with the zucchini bread, one frozen loaf out of two. Problem for me yesterday though, I finished off half a loaf, which is why I was over my daily calorie limit by noon. Bleh! I'm glad the other loaf is frozen and today starts a new day.

Have you every noticed how making something from scratch makes it taste so much better? Part of my changes is make food from scratch because there are so few chemicals. I was talking to someone lastnight at a gathering that bakes all the time and she makes cupcakes and cake from scratch and she said she would never go back to using a box of cake batter. Her cupcakes are delicious and sinful. She uses butter in her frosting. Yum. I'm glad I don't see her more than once a year.  A little over a year ago I started making buttermilk pancakes from scratch. I don't think I could ever go back to boxed mix. And I never buy real buttermilk. If I mix some white vinegar with skim milk, it pretty much is the same. I can add my flax meal and whole wheat flour to make them even better. I even stopped using pre-made jars of spaghetti sauce because I know I can make my own that tastes better. So here's to modifying recipes to make them healthier. Here is the recipe I use.

What recipes do you modify to make healthier?

Tune back tomorrow to hear what happened last week.