Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to take a minute and wish my Canadian readers and friends and family a Happy Thanksgiving.  I have so much to be thankful for, and words can't express how grateful I am to get to spend each and every day with my family.  I'm lucky enough to be a stay at home Mom, to have my Husband home every evening for dinner and to help me tuck our little girl in at night and it is truly a blessing.  So from our home and family to yours,

Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

So with thanks to our local grocery store and my husband being one of the produce guys, I managed to score this beautiful box of bananas for $3.00 originally I called it a "case" but my husband has corrected me and said a case comes with a lot more, to me this looked like a lot--I used one bunch for the below listed snack that is not in the picture :)

So now the question is what to do with all these bananas?!  This mornin I got to work!
To add to my list of frozen treats first on the agenda was banana bites, I've done them before and my daughter and I like them, my husband not so much, so you be the judge :)

Slice bananas and lay them all on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper.  Add peanut butter.

Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl (I use chocolate chips) in 10 second increments, careful not to burn.  (As I've said I've done this before and when I first did it I melted just the chocolate chips by themeselves, this time I added about 2 Tbsp of milk and found it worked slightly better as the chocolate wasnt as thick and didn't freeze solid, yes its a gooey mess to eat but almost ice cream treat like!) 

One at a time drop banana pieces into bowl, and use spoon to cover with chocolate, I found if you try to roll them in the chocolate most of the peanut butter will come off, then use a fork to lift the pieces out.  Freeze and once frozen remove from tray and store in container in freezer.

Corn Dog Mini Muffins!

I told you I loved my mini-muffin pans!  The sight of these made me think "pogo" and "the fair", and with this recipe you get the best of both worlds as it is baked and not deep fried.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (you could use applesauce to make them healthier)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 package hot dogs (I used approx 7)

  Preheat oven to 400°, Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in two separate bowls 

Gently mix together wet and dry ingredients, stirring only to coat. Be careful not to over mix here or you will have tough, dry muffins. There might be small lumps in your batter, and that is okay.  Be sure to grease your pan (I used Pam).  Using a tablespoon, fill each muffin cup 3/4 full. Be sure not to fill all the way to the top or they will be too full once you add your hotdog-- which you will see I didn't follow directions, haha.

Cut hotdogs and place one in each cup

Bake for 10-15mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, be sure to watch them though as every oven is different and overcooked cornbread will be tough and dry.  I think they took slightly less than 10 mins in my oven, but as I've said in prior posts I've found propane cooks faster.

Remove from pan while still hot to avoid over cooking, and enjoy!  I really liked these and was impressed with howeasy they were to make, so made a 2nd batch to freeze and use for Brook-Lynns lunches....I'm going to try thawing them and mircrowaving to see how that works, but I would THINK to avoid soggy muffins the best bet would be to reheat in the oven  :)

Mini Pancake Muffins

Well it's Saturday, and one thing I remember from when I was a child going to school is that Saturday meant a special delicious breakfast instead of just a rushed bowl of cereal or toast.  My dad kind of spoiled us when he was home, and he would make us french toast or pancakes or one of his famous "bologna and egg sandwiches" (they may not sound like a big deal, but growing up they were the best things ever!).  So trying to continue the tradition this morning I made these adorable "Mini Pancake Muffins" :

We buy our pancake mix from Costco, so I used a Costco Mix that is combined with a whole wheat pancake mix, since Brook doesn't like the whole wheat mix on its own....

Grease the Pan (I used Pam), Pour in prepared pancake mix (ours is the just add water kind), Then drop chocolate chips or blueberries or whatever your heart desires with your pancakes in the cup & bake @ 350° for 8-9mins or until golden brown.

Pop them out and drizzle with syrup, yum!

No-Bake Energy Bites

Well after another 5km and a round of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred, I was in need of a post workout snack.  After a few minutes of scanning through some recipes I knew just what I wanted to make, and I thought I had all the ingredients to make them...

Ingredients:

1 cup oatmeal (dry)

1/2 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)

1/3 cup honey

1 cup coconut flakes

1/2 cup ground flaxseed

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Combine ingredients in bowl, refrigerate for a half hour, then roll into balls.

Should make 18-20 balls.

  The thing I love about these is as the original poster *Smashed Peas and Carrots said the ingredient list is so flexible.  I didn't have quite enough honey so I added a little more vanilla and peanut butter, then I didn't have flax seed so added some raisins instead, they are GOOD.  So many variations could be made, a keeper recipe for sure. 

Frozen Yogurt Dots & Yogurt Covered Strawberries

These two healthy snacks have been on a pin board for probably almost as long as I've been a Pinterest member so today I decided to finally give them a try. They are so easy to prepare I'm not sure why I've waited this long.

Frozen Yogurt Dots:

Cover a cookie sheet with wax paper, fill a ziploc bag with yogurt and cut off the corner, then squeeze the yogurt in dots onto the wax paper.  Freeze (probably take 10-15 minutes I made the next snack while they froze).  Remove from wax paper and put into container in the freezer.

Yogurt Covered Strawberries:

Again cover cookie sheet with wax paper, then cut strawberries in half and drop them into a bowl of yogurt to coat them.  I used a fork to grab them out and place them on the cookie sheet.  Freeze 10-15 minutes.  I then washed out the empty yogurt container to store them in and refroze.

 
 My daughter has already gotten into both of these snacks and she loves them, next time I'll have to make more!

Healthy Habits

With the month of October (and my 25th Birthday) fast approaching, I have made a pledge to myself, I will make healthier habits.  I'm going to give up fast food/restaurant food for the ENTIRE month of October.  It may seem like an easy task to most people, but neither of my parents have their drivers licenses so they rely heavily on me to get them out of the house and help them run their errands--which consequently adds to my already busy/hectic life and has me spending more time at coffee shops than I would like.

So for the month of October (and heck why wait that long, I'm starting today) I'm going to start making better choices to get me closer to my ultimate goal weight and make sure that the 1st month of being 25 years old is a step toward something positive.

I made my first step this morning, despite the cold air that quenched my lungs as I opened the front door to walk my daughter to the bus stop, I made sure to have my good runners on and after the bus left I took off in the opposite direction of home and jogged/walked a 5km.  It's the first outdoor 5km I've done in far too long and it felt great!  I arrived home with tons of energy to spare so popped my p90x ab ripper X dvd into the player and got it done. 

Like I've said in a previous post, once I get started working out, I turn into kind of a workout junkie.  I love to workout, I'm just terrible at pairing it with healthy eating, which is why it took me 2 years to lose 70lbs.  I still consider it an incredible accomplishment, but sometimes lose track of why I started in the first place and what my ultimate goal was--a healthier overall life.  So over the next month I'm going to be dedicating some of my blog posts to my new healthier habits.  One thing I'm going to need is some healthier go-to snacks and after workout eats.  So stay tuned and today I'll be posting some of my pinterest finds for those!

Happy Thursday everyone, have a great one :)

 The first step is always the hardest to take, but once you take it you'll never regret it :)