Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Making the Healthy Switch to Olive Oil

Have you ever found yourself eating too much of something like cake and then when the scale shows those extra pounds declaring to yourself that you are never going to eat cake again.  No matter how much you really want to give up eating cake most people that make declarations like that never make it very far.  One of the reasons why you fail when you say that you'll never to do something again is because it is too extreme of a jump.  Because there is no instant gratification for giving it up, you don't all of a sudden lose all of the weight you gained by quitting eating cake.  So in a society driven by instant gratification it is too big of a temptation to get frustrated and give up and continue with our bad habits.  I have been guilty of being a yo-yo dieter for so much of my adult life often going to extreme measures of preventing myself from eating my favorite foods will forcing myself to eat terrible things like those awful prepackaged meals from NutriSystem.  But nothing ever worked because I couldn't stick to it.  But a year and a half ago my husband and I talked about how we needed to make some real changes to our diet and lifestyle other wise, so we decided to make some smaller more realistic goals.  Small things like, I started buying brown rice and whole wheat pasta.  We stopped keeping the house stocked with chips and instead got granola bars and trail mix.  We didn't make all of the changes at once but over time we added and took away more things, and over time we turned our changes  into habits.  We don't even think about the changes any more they are so apart of our life that it feels normal.

Another of the small changes was I switched to Olive Oil, like Olivari Olive Oil, for almost all of my cooking, from everything from baking to frying.  Some people feel that the taste of olive oil isn't good for certain foods but what I found was that I am so use to it that I don't notice it.  Olive oil has the lowest amount of saturated fat and contains more monosaturated fat a healthier type of fat that can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in your blood, it is considered the healthiest oil to cook with. Substituting olive oil was a small change but one that has reduced the calorie count and fat count of every dish I make.  Just another of the small changes that made a big difference in mine and my husband's life.

If you want more information about the benefits of olive oil and other facts you can check out this article

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Gluten-Free Hazelnut Cake

Gluten-Free Hazelnut Cake

I had the privilege of being a guest blogger for my old friend, Kimberly Schaub, a nutritionist and foodie who has an amazing blog called Peas on Moss.  She writes nutrition articles for Livestrong, and has published an article about Chef Ethan Stowell’s Staple and Fancy Mercantile in the Washington Magazine, based in Spokane. Kimberly's husband has celiac disease and they follow a Gluten-Free diet.  I love reading her blog and hope that you enjoy it too.  So take a look at my first guest blog where I share a recipe for a Hazelnut Cake that is Gluten-Free and delicious.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Cinnamon Banana Bread

I am not sure what your mornings are like but ours can be rushed and often lead to missing the most important meal of the day.  Now I have never been good about breakfast but especially now that I am pregnant I am trying really hard to make more of a conscious effort.  So having something on hand and ready to go is definitely a must.  And my husband loves nothing more then a slice of homemade banana bread with his morning cup of tea.  Having something that is ready to go in the morning can be a true money saver because it saves that quick Starbucks pastry purchase when you realize you are hungry a few hours later.  This recipe makes two loaves so I carefully wrap one of them up and put it in the freezer so that I have one on hand for later on.  It also makes great free gifts during the holiday season, or any season for that matter.  For this batch I decided to do something a little different to my regular banana loaf and to results turned out to be a keeper.