Cupcakes!!!!

I have been trying to eat less sugar for many years. Sometimes it goes great, other times my moods could kill. It is crazy how hard it is to lower my sugar intake. I read that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. I have never used cocaine, but I am highly aware of how addictive sugar can be. I remember growing up I would go to the grocery store down the street from my house and buy 12 packs of peanut butter cups and eat them all in a few minutes. I was never a soda drinker, but I ate candy every single day. Sometimes I would eat a lot of candy. I used to drink about 6-8 glasses of sweet tea a day. I lived off of sugar and caffeine for a longggggggg time. I noticed when I started trying to lower my caffeine and sugar intake that I felt a lot worse than usual. I get headaches. I get tired which is terrible because I am normally overloaded with energy. At one point I started napping in the middle of the day. I almost fell asleep at work several times. I fell asleep in my car in 90 degree weather when I was at school! I thought about candy and tea way more than I should have. I can be a little obsessive. When I want some particular food item, I can't stop thinking about it until I have it, much to the annoyance of people around me!

Cafe Du Monde bird. I would say doughnuts are a favorite of mine! 

It was hard to motivate myself to change because I didn't really have any outward appearances of being unhealthy. I have been about the same weight since high school. I had beautiful clear skin until I was 25, and I was, like I said, overloaded with energy. By all appearances, I was in perfect health. I always got compliments about how skinny and healthy I looked. One of my old friends that was very similar to me used to say that we were skinny fat. The outside looks fine but inside we weren't healthy. All good, or bad things, come to an end eventually though. It all came to an end a few years ago when I started having health issues. That is when I realized that I had to start changing my lifestyle. The body can only function so long on crap before it starts to fail.

I kind of got off track because this post was suppose to be about cupcakes! Oh well, now is one of those moods to kill sugar cravings. I am no longer buying candy other than the occasional chocolate bar, but I do still make sweets at home sometimes. I think I am finally past the caffeine cravings, but I still love baking and eating baked goods! At least, I can control the ingredients when I bake my own desserts, so I don't have to worry about what sort of flavoring additives or preservatives might be in the food. I get scared away from products that don't list all of the ingredients. "Natural flavorings" and "artificial flavorings" in a product could be so many different ingredients... I even thought about writing some of my favorite companies and asking if they would send me a list of all the ingredients. I, at least, want to research the additives before I put them in my body.

Also, almost everything has some sort of corn additive in it. When I see corn as an ingredient, I think cheap. I am paying money for a nutritionally deficient cheap product. I get some flack (jokingly) about not consuming high fructose corn syrup. Even if I did eat corn products there is still the issue of taste. I like sugar flavor and HFCS has a chemical flavor to me.

I decided to stay away from the more processed foods, so I never did send those letters. My taste buds adapted to my home cooked treats, and now I love them way more than any store made product.

I made cupcakes yesterday, and they were amazing. This recipe made ten cupcakes, of which I ate 5 over the span of 2 days.

Vegan Cupcakes with Chai Buttercream Frosting

Cupcake recipe was adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, and frosting is from an amazing blog, eat, live, run, that I found yesterday while I was looking for a cuban black bean recipe. I was at my sisters house browsing the recipes when I came across the post about these cupcakes. I went home and made them. They were so good! I have a feeling I will be making a lot of recipes from the eat, live, run blog.

Cupcakes

1 cup almond milk
1 Teaspoon raw apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Frosting

1/2 cup of butter or butter like product of your choice
3-4 cups powdered sugar
2 chai teabags
2 tablespoons boiling water
2 tablespoons almond milk (original used soy)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

1. Combine the almond milk and vinegar and let sit for at least 5 minutes.
2. Beat the sugar, oil, and vanilla together. A caution if you use coconut oil, it has to melt first!
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and mix them until they are combined.
5. Bake in a greased cake pan or cupcake pan for 25 minutes or until springy. When they are done cooking, make sure you let them cool before you frost them.
6. For the frosting, place the teabags in the 2 tbs. of boiling water for at least 10 minutes to brew. Whip the butter. Then add the brewed chai and milk to the butter. Last add the powdered sugar and beat for 10 minutes to get the best looking whipped buttercream.

The last two became the last one shortly after this shot! 

I am not the best cupcake icer. Icing is something that I do a few seconds before the cupcake is eaten, so it does not get special treatment. I thought of some cool icing ideas for these cupcakes, but I will have to try them next time! :)

Top Documentaries to Encourage Healthy Eating! Determined by ME!

There are a lot of good films about vegetarian eating and why it is good for you to eat mostly plants. I know not everyone has the time or desire to read, so I wanted to compile a list of the documentaries that helped me decide to eat a plant based diet. Later I will make a post about my favorite vegetarian books for my fellow book lovers! I was always mostly vegetarian  So much so, that many people think I was a vegetarian for years. I have been "caught in the act" of eating bacon once or twice, and it is funny the look I get. Honestly, I have only been eating a plant based diet (I hate the word diet) for a few months, and I would not say that I am strict about it. I feel better when I don't eat meat, and that is the guide that I use. I never ate a lot of meat. I don't like most meats, but it is more of a taste thing for me. I will tell you more in the post about why I chose to eat mostly vegetarian.

One suggestion I would make is to ease into vegetarian eating. There is an overwhelming amount of info about healthy eating, and it is not that complicated! I like how Michael Pollen put it, "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much." For me, eating better makes me feel healthier, so it is a self propelling change.

A simple documentary that that will give you a starting point is Hungry for Change. This film is a broad documentary that will introduce you to healthy eating, juicing, reading labels etc. It also has tips for overcoming cravings, detox, and looking better. It is a really great film, and it is fun to watch.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead is definitely what turned me on to juicing. Drinking vegetable juices was a little hard at first, but now I love them! Joe Cross is also Australian, and I could listen to people speaking in accents all day. It is a win win! :)

One of the first documentaries that opened my eyes to the tremendous benefits of eating more plants was Forks Over Knives. The theme of this film is that plant based diets can reverse and cure most degenerative diseases. Bold claims but the evidence is very well laid out by two scientists. This is a must see film!

Food Matters is an exciting film that focuses on the natural treatments for illnesses and diseases. I am more of a natural treatment person, so this film was really exciting for me to watch.

King Corn follows two guys as they grow a acre of corn and see where it ends up. It really highlights how many processed corn products are in processed foods. Corn is a major part of the American diet, and this documentary show just how major it is.

Food Fight is about fresh food and local food. It follows the fresh food movement. I really liked the part about the farm bill.

I loved Fresh because it followed some small organic farmers and showed the difference they were making in their communities. It was an inspiring film, and it encouraged me to grow some of my own food. I also like that it mentioned that not everyone has access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Have you ever heard of a food desert? In some areas of our country, people only have gas station and fast food type food to live on. Growing food on their own is one way to help alleviate that problem. 

I watched these on Netflix streaming, but sometimes they are free to watch online!


I will add to this post as I see new ones. If you have any documentaries that inspired you to be healthy, let me know! I want to watch them.

My first love...

It is raining outside, so I thought it would be a good time to write about my first love. Tea. I love tea. I have always loved tea, and I am fairly sure that I will  always love tea. It is delicious. It is refreshing. It is calming. I could write a novel about it, but I will spare you. I know not everyone loves tea as much as I do, but it always surprises me when I hear that some people don't like tea. I have also met some people who are allergic tea. So sad! I would say that one of the few pleasures in life is to drink a cup of tea, and no matter how great or terrible my life goes, that always remains true.

Right now I am drinking yerba mate tea. I drink it in the mornings instead of coffee because I am trying (for the millionth time) to drink less caffeine. I first found this tea in October of last year at a Gainesville Publix. I had never seen it before, and the packaging was appealing with all of the bright pictures. I bought a small packet of tea bags which I quickly used. I found the loose leaf version at the health food store which was great because it was cheaper and has 76 servings in it. It contains the same amount of caffeine as 3/4 a cup of coffee. It is supposed to help with vitality, clarity, and well being, but I like it for the taste. I know companies can advertise almost anything they want to on packaging. It is a distinctively different flavor than any tea that I have had in the past, but it is not so distinct that it gets old quickly. Have you ever met someone new that you feel like you have known forever? That would be the best way to describe this tea.

So good!

I am reading a new book called Clean by Dr. Alejandro Junger. It is about the body's natural ability to heal itself. I got it for fifty cents at an estate sale. It was unread but still sort of funny to buy a book about healing at an estate sale. I don't buy books new, and I have been looking for this book for months. I saw this doctor on the film Hungry for Change, and he is awesome. The book is pretty good so far. It outlines a one to three week detox sort of program to get the body back in prime working condition and allow it to heal. I skipped ahead, and saw in the drink dos and don'ts that coffee was in the don't and yerba mate is in the do section for the one to three week detox time. That won't be a hard change for me, as I already do it!  I am going to finish the book this week and try the detox in a week or two. I will let you know how it goes!

I make loose leaf tea in a french press. I did have a beautiful clear glass tea pot that I LOVED, but is was fragile. I broke it... The french press works just as well as any tea press, and it is a lot less expensive.

If it looks used, it is because I just used it! 

Another tea that I drink a lot is Mint Medley. I wanted spearmint tea because it helps with acne, but spearmint tea is seven dollars a box. In my opinion, that is an outrageous price for tea, so I buy mint medley which is spearmint and peppermint mixed. I  really enjoy this mint tea. It is also good when I want a decaffeinated drink other than water during the day. I am growing my own spearmint. So far, I have not eaten any of it. The plant is just too pretty to pull the leaves off of. When I have a bigger garden, I will be more likely to harvest my spearmint. I drink at least 2 cups of mint tea a day, so I would quickly deplete my plant.

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I also love Yogi DeTox tea. I am such a sucker for the word detox... That is why I originally bought this tea. I continued buying it because it has a nice flavor. Somewhere in my mind, I feel like I might be doing something good for my kidneys, but who knows. I found it on sale for $2.10 a box at Publix last week, so I bought three boxes. Hindsight: I should have bought them all!

DeTox!

Ingredients for DeTox tea. I am a big licorice fan. :)

Last but not least is the best tea of all time. It has been a lifelong favorite, and according to the packaging, it is "America's Favorite Tea." Lipton black tea! I always read articles and books about how soda companies try to get children to drink their brand because brand loyalty/taste preference starts at a young age. Plus they get more years of paying customers if the customers start as children. I was rarely allowed to drink soda as a young child, but I drank lots of tea. I definitely like Lipton tea taste. I am sure that years of having the same tea gave me some brand loyalty, but more than that, it is a great tea. It has a simple taste. It is cheap. I have not been drinking as much as I used to because of the caffeine in it, but I do drink several cups a week. It is my take time to relax tea. I have the brewing to a science. I fill a clear glass with water, place the tea bag in the glass, microwave it for one minute and twenty three seconds, leave it in the microwave for about a minute, take it out, dunk the tea bag a few times, smell the tea to make sure it is perfectly brewed, add sugar, and then drink it when it cools slightly. I have tried it a million ways, and this way makes it taste the best!

This is also a pet favorite. I have a dog named Blackjack. If I leave my purse open where he can get in it, he goes through it and removes anything edible. The vet once gave me a treat sample that I placed in my purse. Even though the treat is long gone, Blackjack's remembers there is good stuff in my purse. He will pull the tea bags out and tear them up. I guess he likes the tea leaves. That pup!

An old favorite! 

Of course, I have a million more kinds of tea that I drink occasionally, but the above are my staple teas. For now. Below are some of the teas I like to keep around. I have others that are at work right now, but this is a pretty much the normal group. I have not tried the bilberry or chickweed. I bought them because I wanted to try out a tea weight loss program on someone, but I never found anyone that wanted to do it. I sort of forgot about it until I found the teas hiding in the back of my cabinet.

Drink more tea! 

Homemade vanilla extract

I use vanilla a lot because I love baking. I run out frequently, and I rarely remember that I need it because it is normally hiding in the spice cabinet. Yesterday I found a vanilla extract kit. It came with a bottle, instructions, and three vanilla beans.

I am going to add the instructions, so that you can make this at home even without the kit. All you need is a bottle with a great seal (it looks like a beer bottle seal), vodka (or bourbon), and vanilla beans. If you want the kit, click here. Slice the beans in half lengthwise and then return them to the bottle and add "your favorite vodka". I don't have a favorite vodka, so I just let the clerk at the store choose for me. 

My supplies 

Slice the beans in half. Easier said than done.

Fill the bottle with vodka and seal it. 

Store in the cool dry place.

Now for the hard part... Waiting 4 to 6 weeks.

Whenever you use the vanilla, add more vodka. This could last as long as seven years, and the flavor is said to get stronger with age.

It worked great! After a few weeks of waiting, I started using the vanilla in my baking items. It is just a good as the fancy vanilla that I normally buy.

My homemade vanilla extract. 

This stoopi ran out when I grabbed the vanilla because he thought
I might have been opening the cabinet for dog treats.  :)
No such luck.

Mushrooms!

I eat a lot of mushrooms. Garlic and mushrooms are probably my most purchased food item. I always hope that there are no consequences for eating too many mushrooms otherwise I might be in trouble. I only eat a pound or two of mushrooms a week, and a lot of that weight is water. I cook mushroom risotto, mushroom burgers, mushroom pie etc. Anything you can think of cooking with mushrooms, I have probably tried. I dream of a day when I am rich (or at least not super poor) and I can get truffles! It is possible, at this point, that I have hyped them up too much in my mind, but I bet they are amazing!

My latest mushroom dish is a mushroom burger. My normal mushroom burger is a portobello mushroom soaked in Mojo sauce then grilled. I have been trying new recipes, and the mushroom burger has been upgraded to the best mushroom burger ever.

I normally watch television for a few minutes while I eat breakfast, and I found this on a Roku box cooking channel show. Chef John has always been a favorite of mine, and he developed this gem of a burger. Watch the video on his website if there is any confusion on the instructions below. I normally change recipes, but this one is perfect.

SO here it is right before I ate it.

Ingredients 

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 1/2 pounds of mushrooms, sliced

1/2 onion, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2/3 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan 

3/4 cup breadcrumbs (I use panko bread crumbs)

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Saute the mushrooms, onion, garlic, and pinch of salt in 2 tablespoons olive oil on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until all the water is cooked out of the mushrooms. Add a little oregano towards the end.

2. Combine the sauteed mushrooms, oats, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, eggs, oregano, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix well.

3. Let the mixture sit for about 15 minutes so that the burger sticks together better.

4. Saute the desired number of burgers in the remaining olive oil on medium heat, and save the rest in the fridge. I normally eat them for dinner and then lunch the next day. Enjoy! 

It looks and tastes so amazing! 

On a side note, I use Japanese style panko breadcrumbs because every other type of breadcrumbs I found at the store had TRANS FAT in them. Sneaky sneaky... I had been making my own breadcrumbs at home, but sometimes I don't have time. Read the ingredients labels when you buy food. Remember that .5 grams per serving of trans fat is listed as 0g on a nutrition label, but you can tell it has trans fat if it says "partially hydrogenated" _____ oil of some sort in the ingredients. I am not a one serving eater, so before I started reading ingredients,  I was eating a lot of trans fat without even knowing it! 

It is one step forward two steps back when it comes to healthy food for me. I started eliminating with high fructose corn syrup from my diet many years ago. I would stay away from sodas and read the back of drink labels only to find years later that high fructose corn syrup is in almost everything. I stopped eating MSG only to find out (again, years later) that MSG can be contained in the blanket ingredient "natural flavoring". Now trans fat is not being labeled. My relationship to healthy food reads more like a self help book than a romance novel. We have been star crossed lovers for a long time. Now I read labels on everything, and it has eliminated so many products. My diet has simplified and gotten better. 

Raw food!

I have slowly been starting to eat more raw food. I didn't know much about the benefits of eating raw food until recent years. I have always eaten carrots or fruit raw but never really thought much of it. It is so ingrained in me to cook everything that it took me a little while to warm up to the raw food idea. It always seemed like a diet for people on the fringe of healthy eating, but now I realize that is not the case. Raw food is delicious  filling, and it makes me feel great! Here is the first dish that I made, and I still love it.

Keep in mind that some of the dishes do require a little planning as some of the items need to be soaked and sprouted.

Raw food dish that is great!

        Ingredients

        

       2 cups purple cabbage, chopped thin

       ½ cup cauliflower florets

       ½ cup mushrooms, chopped

       ½ cup carrots, shredded

     

      Sauce:

   

       1 cup raw peanuts, sprouted (My next post will show you how to do this)

       ½ cup coconut milk

       ¼ cup coconut meat

       2 tsp fresh ginger juice or ½ ginger powder (I juice the ginger right before I use it)

       Salt and chile pepper to taste

      Directions

   

        Combine sauce ingredients then serve over vegetables. If you don't have time to sprout the
      peanuts, then just soak them overnight. 

(Original recipe from Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens. If you haven't read this book, read it. It is pretty good!)

It is such a simple dish, and it keeps for several days. I take it on road trips as a on the go lunch. This makes 2 servings for me. 

Enjoy!

Salad!

Ahh... Another day and another dish to cook. Lately I have been making something new every day. There are so many recipes that I find five new ones every time I look for one. I used to eat staple meals most of the time. Nachos, casseroles, pot pie, and rice with vegetables were my foods of choice. I mostly branched out with dessert making. Now, I have just been on a roll with new foods. I learn about new ingredients every week, and my tastes have been awakened and broadened.

This week I tried a new salad, and it was delectable! It has purple cabbage, one of my favorite foods, in it. It looks, tastes, and smells beautiful.

Purple cabbage salad! 

Ingredients for the salad

Half a head of cabbage of your choice (purple for me)

1 bunch of watercress or favorite greens

large handful of bean sprouts 

3 stalks of celery, sliced

1 carrot, grated 

Ingredients for the dressing

1 lime with zest

1/3 cup fresh basil

5 tablespoons of rice vinegar

4 tablespoons of olive oil

4 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon of green curry paste (I made my own. Recipe below.)

salt to taste

Topping

cashews 

Directions

Place the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Then blend the dressing in a food processor or blender until it is smooth. Toss the dressing onto the salad and then top with the cashews. This makes four servings, so make sure to only put the dressing on what you want to eat so that the rest of the salad will be fresh for later consumption. 

Watercress

I have never bought watercress before, but it was surprisingly good. I am going to try to grow it at home, so I will let you know how it turns out.

I live in an area with very limited grocery options, so I could not find the green curry paste. Here is how I made it. 

Ingredients

1 stalk of lemon grass

1 jalapeno pepper with seeds removed, more if you like it spicy

1 shallot

5 garlic cloves

1 thumb size piece of ginger, sliced

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

1/2 cup fresh basil

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground while pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander 

3 tablespoons Bragg's Liquid Aminos or 1 tablespoon soy sauce

Juice of 1 lime

1 teaspoon brown sugar

3 tablespoons of coconut milk (more if you are having trouble blending the ingredients together)

Directions 

Process all of the above in a food processor or blender. It lasts about a week in the fridge or longer in the freezer. 

It makes a small mason jar worth of green curry paste. 

If you looked at the ingredient lemon grass with confusion, you are not alone. I had no idea what it was when I went into the store looking for it. It was not out with the vegetables or spices, and I had to request it from the clerk. It is sold here by the stalk, and one stalk was about two dollars. I had a little miscommunication (my fault+a language barrier) with the clerk, and he came out with about 10 stalks at first. They were HUGE! I then knew to ask for one stalk, not the two teaspoons I asked for originally... I had just listed "lemon grass" on my list, so by time I got to the store, I was thinking it was a spice! Sheesh!

Lemon grass!

The usable part of the grass is small though. The top layers have to be removed, and only the tender part of the plant is edible as far as I know. It did add a LOT of flavor.

I hope you enjoy this delicious meal! ♡