Dark Chocolate Banana Brownies

I made iced coffee last night, and before leaving the house this morning I made one with 1/2 cup of light chocolate soy milk and 1 tbsp of light Hershey's chocolate syrup. It was gone when I pulled into the parking garage.

At work I had a breakfast of 1/2 cup of oats, 2 medium farm fresh peaches, and 3 ounces of 0% Fage. This was super filling and I couldn't finish the last couple bites.

I packed a container of grapes to snack on during the day. For all the comments on the colorful grapes, 10 varieties of grapes are on sale at my grocery store for 99 cents a pound, so I really stocked up on the seedless types they had. So there are green, black, and red seedless grapes. I had some of these grapes at 11am.

I went to the gym at noon to get in a weight workout. I did a variety of bicep, triceps, and back exercises. I did a few abs, but not too many. Also the walk to my gym is about 6 or 7 blocks, I should measure actual distance sometime.

I ate lunch after the gym. I ate a individual microwavable serving packet of Annie's Natural Mac & Cheese (I love that they don't use animal enzymes), I added 1 tbsp of 0% Fage, 1/3 cup Morningstar Crumbles, and 1/3 cup of frozen peas. This was such a yummy lunch. I also decided to eat the rest of my grapes.

Around 4pm I started to get hungry in my head. I wasn't hungry in my stomach but I started getting sort of light headed. So I decided to go to Starbucks to get a Mocha Light Frap. I had decided that would keep me full until getting home for dinner.

I got home at 7pm and had a WONDERFUL meal cooked by my husband. This morning Steve threw together his Vegetarian Chili into the Crock Pot and cooked it on low for 8 hours. The house smelled amazing when I walked in. I enjoyed a bowl of chili with a salad and a slice of English Toasting Bread from the bakery at a local farm. This isn't whole wheat, but it is pretty good.

This means lots of leftovers:

After dinner it was time for one of the Dark Chocolate Banana Brownies I made last night. I topped it with light cool whip and some Hershey's light chocolate syrup.

And after the dessert I used our treadmill (we bought one from Dick's Sporting Goods last weekend), I did one of the programs that changes the incline and speed. I only did 25 minutes.

Last night, I saw some very ripe bananas on our counter and I asked my husband what I should make, he requested banana chocolate chip bars that I made the week before we went away, I vetoed that idea. I decided I wanted to find a recipe for banana brownies. He was skeptical. I searched around online and put together and modified based on a couple I saw. Steve loves these and thought they might have been one of my best creations so far. You might find them to be a little closer to chocolate cake than brownies. So here is the recipe for Dark Chocolate Banana Brownies:

Ingredients:
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup boiling water
4 egg whites
1-1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: Preheat oven at 350. In a small bowl, combine oats and boiling water; let stand for 5 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites, bananas, sugars, oil and vanilla until blended. Combine the dry ingredients; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in the oat mixture. When stirring in the oat mixture you might notice it is lumpy. I was lazy and did end up with some oatmeal lumps in the baked brownies, but I thought it was great that way.

Spread into a 13-in. x 9-in. pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (do not overbake).

Tomorrow is Friday : )

Kashi how I love you:)

This morning I decided on apple oatmeal. I used one apple that I bought at a nearby farm. It is a Rambo apple which is now in season. By fall this farm has 15 different types of apples that they grow in their Orchard. I peeled and cored the apple and sprinkled it with cinnamon. I do this the night before, because I eat breakfast a work. I microwaved it for 3 minutes because I like it really soft in my oats. I then cooked 1/2 cup of oats in the microwave with water. I mixed the cooked oats and cooked apples and topped it with vanilla yogurt and some crunchy things that came with my yogurt.

This was so good. Thinking about it makes me want this for breakfast tomorrow, but I already packed something else.



Around 11am I was so tired at my desk, I blame it on the Olympics! So I went to Starbucks for a Skinny Carmel Latte. This perked me up. I was good to go hungerwise based on the skim milk in the Latte, but I had some grapes because I was planning a late lunch and a 1pm trip to the gym.




At the gym I did 30 minutes on the stair climber. My heart rate monitor said that I burned 300 calories. My heart rate was at 160 bpm almost the whole time, which is intense for me. When I got back at 2pm I was ready for lunch. I was soooo excited because I packed a new Kashi product that I picked up on Monday. It is a frozen pocket bread sandwich, the bread was so good. I had mine in the fridge all day instead of the freezer, so I think mine was softer than if kept in the freezer until microwaving. The flavor of it was great. It states on the box that it is Vegan.

This is just a very small paper plate, so don't think this is a huge pocket, but it is very filling.

I also had a salad on the side. It was romaine lettuce, green beans, and mushrooms, with a little Kraft Light Done Right Balsamic salad dressing.

My lunch filled me up well, until around 6pm and I was suddenly starved. I should have packed an afternoon snack for sure!

For dinner I had a Garden Burger brand patty the Chik’n Grill one. I love this patty so much! I ate it on a whole wheat english muffin with some mustard and tomato. I had the rest of the tomato on the side, with some Kashi crackers and cubed soy cheese. I had more crackers than showed on this plate, because I was eating them as my muffin toasted. I ate too fast to really enjoy this (need to work on this). I am ALWAYS rushing and feel like I don't have time to eat my food slowly and really enjoy it.

After dinner I was still hungry, because I let myself get too hungry and then ate too fast. I had a pack of Quaker Mini Delights and some Silk Light Chocolate Soy Milk (love this).

I should do a side by side taste taste of 8th Continent vs Silk light chocolate soy milk sometime. Which do you prefer?

I baked my husband Dark Chocolate Banana Brownies, I didn't try one yet, but I may post about those tomorrow. It is 11pm and I need to get ready for bed, so until tomorrow....

Hawaii!

Thank you for all the kind words about the loss of our yellow lab. Pets do feel so much like family, and it is hard when they are gone.

On a happy note, here are some pictures from Hawaii.

This is a pretty picture from a flag at Pearl Harbor.

Here is Steve in Maui.
This is a beautiful picture of a sunset in Honolulu.



This is me holding up a fish I made by weaving at the Polynesian Cultural Center.


This is me and Steve making music by banging bamboo sticks on the ground.

This picture is my shock of how much a carton of ice cream is that would normally be $4.99 in Pittsburgh. How much does Edy's or Dryer's slow churned cost where you live (not on sale)?? I want to move to Maui, but with these prices I don't know how I would live. The cost of living in Pittsburgh is so wonderful.

I think this is the only other food picture I took the week I was gone. This is a nonalcoholic smoothie in a fresh pineapple. It was so yummy!

I plan to be back to regular food blogs tomorrow. Have a wonderful night!

Sad Monday!!

I know I had promised Hawaii pictures and a regular post, but today I had to go with my mom to put our 14 year old yellow lab Becca to sleep. This was very hard for my mom because Becca was such the perfect dog. It hurt so much to see my mom cry and I was sad too because I grew up with Becca. Here is a picture from a month or so ago. She still looked happy even though she was sick with cancer. My mom took such great care for her!


We miss you Becca!!!

I thought I would take this post to introduce you to my mom's other dogs...

A year before we got Becca we bought what was my first dog ever, Champ the Maltese. Champ is now 15 years old. He is still moving around, although we joke that he had Dementia.


These were my mom's only dogs until 2 years ago when she got sad knowing that Becca and Champ were getting old. So December of 2006 my mom got a Powder Puff Chinese Crescent (usually the Chinese Crescents are the ugly dogs with no fur, but the Powder Puff has the same body type but with lots of hair). My mom named her Noelle because she got it at Christmas time.



Then in May of this year my mom added another to the family this is the Yorkie named Angel Baby:)

Well this post is obviously not health related (and I even took food pictures of all of my meals for Monday) but the sadness of losing Becca made it too hard to post about food. I will try my best to give you a good post tonight about Hawaii or healthy living!!

Thanks for understanding!

Back from Hawaii!!

So sorry that I didn't get to post before I left, so hopefully I didn't lose too many readers!! I just got back from 8 days in Hawaii. I may post a few pictures tomorrow and I will start back to daily blogging tomorrow.

Unless it was for work (which was less than 30 minutes a day) I didn't use the Internet all week, so lots of reading to do!!

See you tomorrow!

Tag I'm It!

I have been officially tagged by C over at What I Ate Yesterday.
Here are the Rules:
1. Link back to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules of tagging on your blog
3. Blog about 6 unspectacular quirks about yourself
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on the blogs you tag so they know they are “it”
OK, so here goes, 6 things about me.

1. I strive for perfection. For example, I double majored in Political Science - Prelaw and Economics in College and I received one B the whole 4 years and it was in an African American Studies Class, so the last quarter of my Senior Year I retook that class so that I could graduate with a 3.92 and Summa Cum Laude. The B would have held me at Magna Cum Laude.

2. I had planned to try out for cheerleading in college and I worked on my tumbling all summer and in August before my freshman year I broke my elbow doing a back handspring. My mom said it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I guess she didn't think I could be an Honors Student and a College Cheerleader. I was an Universal Cheerleading Associations All-Star in High School, the captain, and I cheered in the London New Year's Parade on January 1, 2000 and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I am so excited for the Wii Cheerleading Game to come out :P

3. Sometimes I like to put my ipod on and dance in front of the mirror and sing into my hair brush pretending that I am on stage (i.e. American Idol). One time I was in our bedroom and my husband kept calling me from downstairs and finally he came up to check on me and I was totally rocking out in front of the mirror. He was at a loss for words.

4. I need to sleep with a cover all the way to my neck. I will get so hot in the middle of the night that my husband calls me a furnace, but I still need to be covered up to by neck.

5. I met my husband at a night club, we danced all night and I didn't expect him to ask for my number and when he did I didn't expect him to call. We tell most people that we met on the University Campus during my first year of law school.

6. I get grossed out seeing someone trim their toe nails, really I get chills. Some lady at the gym was doing it on the floor by her locker and I almost lost my lunch.

I feel like everyone had been tagged by now, so if you weren't tagged then you are it:P

Starbucks Sucker!!

Thanks for all of the get well wishes. I'm feeling better today. I found out that a few other people from my work got sick, a group of us went to volunteer with disabled kids on Saturday and played games in a gym with them. The girl that partnered with me held my hand the whole time and had her head on my shoulder, so I easily could have picked up germs.

Steve thinks that juice is the best thing to drink when you are sick, so I listen to him and had another of my drinks, this time I used light orange juice. This was no where good as the mixture with Naked Juice last night. This light orange juice is already watered down enough that mixing with more water just made it pretty tasteless. I took this drink in a purple cup for the car ride.

Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday's because it was so yummy, Chocolate Covered Cherry Oatmeal. Love it!! I may have to try Christie's suggestion and add Carob powder sometime although Chocolate Whey might taste good too.

Because of my sore throat (although I don't really need an excuse for Starbucks) I thought something cold would be good, so around 10am I had a Mocha Light Frap.

I decided that because I wasn't feeling weak, I would take the noon spin class, I could feel a difference from my healthy spinning, but I still managed to burn 300 calories in 35 minutes.

I ate lunch after Spinning. I had a can of Muir Glen lentil soup, this is one of my favorite brands. I really love having soup for lunch, the only downside is the high sodium count is canned soup. I also had some carrots and the last of my homemade hummus.

I was super busy, but around 4pm I wanted a snack. I couldn't believe how fast I ate this! I felt so pressured to get a project done, that I hogged it up. I know that I need to focus on eating more slowly.

I got home for dinner around 6:30pm and made Annie's Whole Wheat White Cheddar Mac & Cheese. I love this kind and it uses animal enzyme free cheese (which is the only kind I eat). I used 0% fage instead of milk and added morningstar crumbles and peas. This was such a great meal and I can't wait to make it again! Steve liked it too.

Starbucks sucked me in with its new promo which entitles morning customers to a $2 iced drink with their morning receipt. So after dinner I got a Skinny Vanilla Latte. Too much Caffeine for me, when up until 2 months ago I hadn't had any coffee products for over a year in an attempt to control bad acid reflux problems, but it tastes so good. No picture of the PM latte.

Last reminder about the udi's granola contest, I changed the date to Thursday, so please enter by Thursday at 5pm. Steve will pick the winner Thursday night.