Baking Healthy

Baking healthy is for the birds.

It's ironic because I am a die-hard Weight Watchers member and fan but one thing I really can't handle is trying to bake healthy. What's the point? Why not just have a nice small piece of the real thing instead of choking down a slightly bigger piece of something that is just so-so?

Against my better judgement I decided to try to bake some "Energy" muffins for the Napa Valley Ragnar Race we ran this past weekend. I looked up a few recipes that I thought might be good - made with things I could pronounce - and found one via Oxygen Magazine that looked decent. The recipe called for all sorts of protein-packed ingredients and mostly yummy things.

The original recipe called for Strawberries as the fruit-of-choice but I decided to change it up and use bananas (potassium!) and cinnamon (always tasty!).

One of the cool things about this recipe is that you basically take all of the ingredients and toss them in a blender to mash up and mix. Then you pour them in the muffin tins and bake. Easy-peasy.

Overall, the muffins came out ok. I say ok because they didn't taste like much. I definitely think i could have easily doubled the cinnamon, added more bananas and maybe added some extra vanilla or something else festive. Maybe some mini chocolate chips! Yeaahhh....

Did these muffins serve their purpose? Yes.
Do I want to try these again? Probably... with some tweaks
Do I condone healthy baking? Not if you can help it... but there is a time and place for everything.

For now, I'll just stick to baking with butter and cream and leave the healthy things to others.

Cheers to the cook!

Oh.. and just because I can... check out the sweet medals we got for finishing our race this weekend. Yep. I wear them all the time.. they go with everything!

Energy Muffins [adapted from Oxygen Magazine]

Ingredients:

 

• 2 cups egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups oats or 1 cup instant oatmeal or 1½ cups quick oatmeal
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup 1% cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup whey protein powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 almonds
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/8 tsp or pinch of salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3 very ripe bananas
• optional add-ins (pick one): 
• 1 cup of mini chocolate chips 
• 1 cup of toasted walnuts
• 1 cup of shredded coconut 

Instructions:

 

Pre-heat oven to 350˚F. Pour ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Mix in fruit by hand, if you want it to remain chunky or include in the blender for smoother texture. Pour into greased muffin tins - I don't suggest using paper liners (the muffins stick to the paper once cooled). Cook until toothpick comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes). Cool on wire rack; store in air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

SoCal Ragnar 2012: Recap

Our dear, beloved Ragnar Relay has come and gone... sigh..


I  know I've mentioned it before but Ragnar was sort of the focus of my life for the last few weeks. Trying to work in running every night - juggling a toddler schedule, 2 soccer games, making dinner, the occasional cleaning spree or laundry event made running sometimes hard and frustrating, but it all paid off and we had a great race. 


I shall share a short recap in pictures. 

This is our team - A Case of the Runs - pre-race, aptly located in front of the port-o-potties. It was about 5am.

The Start Line. It was 5:15am so everyone had to wear their reflective vests and headlamps. 

  

 Me (center w/o bib) with about half our team at Exchange 3

Our most stylish runner, by far!

My husband... who makes running 5 miles look like a walk from the living room to the kitchen. And, yes... his legs really are that white. 

Probably the most unflattering picture of me... and notice I'm not exactly running... It was 110 degrees off the pavement so I was walking at this point. Notice I have water, Gatorade and Mark has 2 ice bags for me. It was ridiculously hot. I want no comments about my outfit not matching, either. It did match. And it was bright and cheery! 

Skip ahead about 25 hours and here we are on beautiful Coronado Island - finished with the race. I am on the left end - I  was runner #12 so I had just finished my last leg about 10 minutes before this. Thus the sweaty glow and stellar outfit choice. Notice our very cool medals (they double as bottle openers!)

Our celebratory lunch at Pizzeria Luigi on Golden Hill in San Diego. The pizza is worth doing the race for. Delish!

It was a great race and our team did great! Everyone is so pumped that we're putting together a team to do the NorCal race in September.


But for now... amidst the running... back to food! 


photo credit: Erin & Roger McCraner

In Training

I bet you're wondering where I went... ok.. hopefully you're wondering where I went. 

A couple of things have kept me from blogging as much as I would like. 

First is my crazy toddler - Drew. He has decided that he wanted to move his bedtime from 7pm back to 8pm which means my "me" time has been reduced by an hour. Phoo! But the trade-off has been him sleeping through the night (most nights). I guess I'll just have to deal because I think I would rather give him the hour before bedtime rather than at 3am. No thank you!

Second is the Ragnar Relay. For those of you who weren't following me an entire year ago, the Ragnar Relay is a 200-mile relay race from Huntington Beach to Coronado Island (San Diego). Last year, Mark and I joined a team with his cousins and this year we formed a new team made up of a mish-mash of cool people we know. The relay basically functions like.. well.. a relay race. There is a "baton" that is passed from one runner to the next and we just run in sequence until we reach the finish line. There are 12 people on each team (unless you're crazy *ahem, Carl* and run an Ultra team, which is only 6 people) and each runner runs 3 legs. Legs can vary from about 3 miles to 10 miles, flat & hilly, day and over-night. It is an amazing experience & we're super excited to be running it again... in less than 4 weeks! So that is where the rest of my evenings have been going. Since it is crunch time for our training, I've been running at night trying to get my body ready for this race. 

So, please forgive my absence. Trust me, I'd love to be focusing on other things.. like this new brownie recipe I found. But all in due time. Next week should be better and I'll try to get my act together and blog for realsies.

I leave you with a few fun pics from last year's Ragnar Race...

Me & Mark before the race - it was a beautiful weekend!

The Starting Line - Huntington Beach

 

Who wouldn't be motivated by this?!

Have a very happy weekend!