She's Back! With Recap Part II

Whew! I feel like the weekend is here and it's only Wednesday night! I feel that way because it's been SO unbelievably busy around here that I haven't had a chance to do anything but work! I thought we were in a recession!? I'm so glad to be so covered up with work, but I'm also exhausted. I have so missed my nightly blogging session over the past few days! But each day I only had a little extra time and it was either work out, or update my blog, so you can guess which one I chose!

On that note: check out Jodie's blog, she has posted another killer core workout that is more of a butt kicker than the first one, and I LOVE it! Seriously, if you are looking to add some core training, check these routines out, I had been working out my abs prior and these still make me sore!

Okay, first things first, as promised on my last post:

Flourless Brownies (the secret ingredient is black beans! don't tell anyone and they'll never know!!)


Since beans are a legume, they are easily substituted for flour in recipes like this one. When I saw this recipe the other day on SS&GF, I knew I had to try it. There was some tweaking involved to suit my own needs and use what I had on hand. But I think they turned out beautifully, and OH SO yummy too!!


wet ingredients:
1 can black beans drained and rinsed
2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs (next time I might use 2 eggs and one extra white for more fluffiness)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. butter (I always use salted butter then I don't have to add salt to the mix)
3 squares Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate (I've tried other brands and keep coming back to Baker's)

dry ingredients:
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

optional topping: 1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat Oven to 350 and line an 8x8 baking dish with foil

Melt butter and chocolate in the microwave in 30 second increments stirring in between until smooth.

Combine all the wet ingredients in the food processor and blend until smooth (there will still be small chunks at this stage) Then add your dry ingredients and blend until smooth again the chunks should have blended out and the mix will look super smooth and creamy like this:


Pour into your baking dish, top with chocolate chips and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Before

After


Cut into 16 squares, enjoy with people you love! My fam totally gobbled these up!

Like I said before I might add an additional egg white to these next time for more body, but they came out pretty darn good for a first attempt at something!! My whole family loved them, and never would have known there were beans in the recipe if I hadn't told them! They are completely gluten free and I tallied everything up, and each brownie comes out to around 115 cals! Not bad.

Menden totally guessed the mystery fabric in my last post! It is an apron, and my grandmother is making me two of them, so when they are both finished I will post them. They are going to be adorable!


Here's a sneak peak at me trying out the pattern, she made out of newspaper (that's right, she makes her own patterns, cuz she rolls old school like that!) and an early stage of the first one and also a preliminary design I laid out with chosen fabrics for the other I went through these huge bins of scrap fabric she had and picked out two sets for aprons, and she is sweet enough to sew them for me!


And lastly to finish off the recap, my mom did an incredibly sweet thing this past weekend. She gave me something absolutely priceless. She gave me the New Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1965 edition) that had belonged to my grandmother on my dad's side. She passed away when I was 14, and when she did, my mom got her cookbook.




Inside is a treasure trove of handwritten notes and recipes she collected over the years and tucked in there between pages. Of course seeing all of those things, I was overcome with emotion, and bawled like a baby, but I was also extremely happy and grateful that my mom had given me something so special, and it's now my most prized possession. Thanks, Mom!

The Food!

Okay, so I've been completely going into withdrawals not being able to blog the past few days, but I still took pics of everything because it's a habit now! So here are a few highlights:

Tuesday night's dinner was SO good, after my workout I came home and threw together this quick salad with baby greens, yellow tomato, 1/4 avocado, feta, balsamic, and an extra little yellow tomato hummus boat on the side! I also had a much needed glass of red vino!


Tuesday's breakfast was a small green smoothie and Joan's GF english muffin toasted to perfection and topped with a little lowfat cream cheese and black currant jam.


I overslept this morning and lunch was such a throw together I had NO time to even snap a pic.

Breakfast was a quickie too: GF waffle topped with some AB and banana and the other half of the banana stuffed with more AB. I have noticed that food does not shoot that well on red plates. Has anyone else experienced this?



After work I went to the gym, did abs/legs and then came home and walked the puppy for 40 minutes (so much more fun than the treadmill)

Preworkout fuel was this lovely juice!


I'm still in love with the juicer, and plan on posting a full review soon!

After my workout, I made a dinner. I had half of a California veggie burger topped with guacamole and jalepenos, some kale chips, and a few carrot sticks with roasted red pepper hummus. It was AH-Mazing! Yum.



I am happily full, and now enjoying a glass of red wine. I'm so glad to have a little reprieve from work for a night and to be able to get back to my blog! I missed it, and I missed all my bloggy friends!! Speaking of which, I am going to sign off now and see what everyone else has been up to the past couple days!!

See you soon!