Weightloss Extravaganza ~ 1 Month Update

Welly-well, it's been a bit more than a month since I decided to jumpstart my weightloss again. To recap, my initial goal is to lose 5 lbs. This wont make any huge, drastic difference, I will still be a size 2 pants and a size 4 petite dress,  but I will have slimmed and "things" will just fit better inside of my clothes ha...ha.

I've lost 3 lbs (daaaang, right??) and I've started feeling a lot better about my external self. It should be noted: at a little over 5'2, losing 3 lbs is tough especially because I'm already at what's considered a healthy weight with a BMI of 20.7. So I'm not looking to lose weight for any sort of health reason, because, well, I'm already there! This is for pure, slightly vain, bodily comfort and that's it!

My eating habits have become more controlled in regards to snacking in the evening, and I've opted for foods that don't hurt my stomach and bloat me like a little ol hot air balloon. My workout regime is fairly moderate as it's winter and tough to get outside and run, and I don't own a gym membership. I do manage 2-3 days of outside acitivity each week.

*yawn-fest*

With the holidays around the corner, most people start to worry that their waistline will expand with their level of merriment, but I've never had that problem mainly due to my disinterest in baked goods and heavy cream filled concoctions. Once I reach my 5 lb goal, which I hope to accomplish mid-december, I will look ahead to my next goal of 10 lbs. That's a ways away because I'm certainly not going to sacrifice my best bud Goldfish or my other buddy-roo vodka anytime soon! So cheers to little salty face and their grain alcohol counterpart!

sweet work bathrom picy, duuuude

Vegan, Gluten Free Peanut Butter Energy Bites!

These little dudes are super easy to make and contain only 5 ingredients! They're based on an adaptation of another energy bite recipe I made during the summer but cannot recall. Hrm. Anyway, the whole recipe said and done takes about 20-25 minutes, which is perfect because I have a little infant crawling around and she allows approximately 5-10 minute spans of time where she doesn't necessarily need my undivided attention. It's tiring to tell you the truth ha...ha

Recipe Deets

1 cup gluten free rolled oats
1/4 almond flour
1/4 cup vegan choco chips (I use Enjoy Life)
1/4 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
2/3-1 cup peanut butter or nut butter of choice (I used reconstituted peanut butter due to less fat/cals)

Preheat oven to 350 F
- In a big ol bowl toss all ingredients except peanut butter
- Now add the peanut butter and mix thoroughly
- Roll ingredients with your own two hands into the size of golf bowls
- Place on parchment paper covered baking sheet
- bake 5 minutes
- Seal in an air tight container

I suggest heating them up in a toaster oven whenever you feel the need to munch. Though! Cold is fine and dandy too!

Now go fill your mouth with some protein packed energy.

Super Simple, Super Cheap Christmas Garland!

I decided to get a head start on the Christmas season (shhhh, don't tell the Husband lest I want to have the entire house decorated, both Christmas trees up, and presents wrapped and ready all before Thanksgiving...no thanks). Essentially I wished to add a little pizzazz (channeling my inner 80s child here) to our mantel prior to the addition of stockings and our little village homes, which will adorn the shelf portion.

I thunky-thunk and sent little singles between synapses trying to figure out what to do. Should I sew something? Nah, I no good at that. Should I make a tissue garland? No, the fireplace may prove to be a dangerous place for that. Hrrrrrmmm. Ah ha! Tiny felt hats and mittens with ribbons and dangly thinga-muh-gigs!! Doh!

Material Deets
Hot glue gun
Felt (1 green, 1 red, and 1 white)
Cardboard
2 different ribbons of choice
3 dangly things (go in your wreath section of any craft store and you'll find items you can attach and twist on to wreaths...these work perfectly)
5 feet of twine

1. Trace 2 mittens onto the cardboard (I used my daughter's tiny mitten where her tiny hand is kept to keep it warm), but if you don't have a tiny mitten that houses tiny hands, you can just draw one. Cut out said tiny mittens and use that as a guideline to trace/cut out 1 red and 1 green felt mitten. Attach the felt to the cardboard mitten with hot glue.

2. Draw a tiny hat with a pom pom on top. I used the Husband for this part...just because. Do the same as you did with the tiny mittens, 1 green and 1 red.

3. With the white felt decorate your green hat and mitten (see photos above)

4. With extra green felt decorate your red hat and mitten.

5. On the back of each mitten and hat glue a tiny loop made out of felt to the upper portion of the object. This is so you can run your twine through the backs without it being seen.

6. Run the twine through and hang on mantel in loops. On each loop add a bow (every other color of choice of ribbon). On every other loop add a dangly thing - this is so you can place your stockings within the loop openings without dangly things getting all messy with the cool stuff your parents (or Husband) will be stuffing into them!

I'm sure my directions are super unclear, so take your little eyeballs and look at the photos above!

This project cost me less than $6 (unless you don't own a glue gun, so it may cost ya another $7-8). It's fun to do with school age kiddies and 30-something year old Husbands alike...so have at it and make some tiny Christmas decor!

Vegan Pecan Pie

Let's start this off with a bit of fact: I don't enjoy pie. How can I say that, right? There are a million pies out there, and for me to make some blanket statement like that not only exposes my ignorance of the wonderful world of pies, but also makes my pie recipe post a bit confusing! Well then, let me be a bit more clear, when I say I don't ENJOY pie, it doesn't mean I DISLIKE pie. Get it? No? Here's the deal, I cannot eat pie (or any pastry for that matter) without an explosion of immediate guilt afterward. It's a sad little existence, but one which I have accepted! What's one piece of pie? Or one cupcake? Or a cookie here or there? And you're correct, it really wouldn't hurt to dabble a bit in sugary, mouth-watering euphoria...well...until the mental guilt hits. Besides, I'd rather faceplant into a bed of Goldfish, or any salty snack, anyway.

So why this recipe? It's for the most amazing man in existence (or at least my existence) - the Husband! He loves sugar, he loves sugar placed into warm, baked concoctions, and he absolutely adores pecan pie!

Here is my first attempt at veganizing a pecan pie recipe from House of Bakes - I also looked up a crust recipe and veganized that ol thang.

Recipe Deets

Crust (adapted from just about any simple crust recipe)
1/2 Pastry flour
1/2 Reg flour
1/4 cup Earth Balance butter
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1/4 cup Cold water

Filling
10 Saltine crackers (saw this little tip on a few of the recipes!)
1/2 cup Water
2 1/2 tbsp Earth Balance butter
1 1/4 cup Light brown sugar
1/4 cup Agave
2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 1/2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce (substituted for oil, so feel free to use oil instead)
3 1/2 tbsp Arrowroot (or cornstarch)

Pecan Top
1 cup pecan halves
1/2 tbsp Earth balance butter (just enough to cover the pecans)
1 tbsp Light brown sugar
a bit of salt

Preheat oven to 325

Crust—place pastry and all-purpose flour, butter, salt, and baking powder into a large bowl and blend (I used a hand blender, but a food processor would work too). Add water then blend into a dough ball thingy.

Sprinkle some flour on top of your counter and take dough ball and roll it out into a 1/4 inch thick sheet, then transfer to pie plate and trim the edges that are hanging off.  Prick across the bottom of the crust 5 or 6 times to aerate. Place in oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Pecan Topping—place pecan halves, butter, brown sugar and salt into a frying pan on medium heat. As soon as it starts to sizzle turn the heat down to medium-low and stir occasionally while working on the filling.

Filling—crumble crackers into a small mixing bowl and pour in water. Let cracker crumbs soak all the water up.

With a hand blender or food processor, place butter, brown sugar, agave, vanilla, applesauce , arrowroot, and crack mixture in bowl and mix until liquid. Pour into saucepan on medium heat and bring to a low boil, stirring constantly. When it comes to a boil, let cook for a couple-o-minutes. Pour into crust shell while still hot. Then put pecan halves on top (you can be all fancy-schmancy about it if you want. Place into oven and cook 55 minutes.

Voila! You just made your first pie, like me! Or unlike me, this may be your 5th pie (or some other number higher than 1).

Halloween is for Professionals

In a world of Frozen, superheros, and baby animals (babies as superheros and animals = adorable/amazing/squeezable!) my husband and I decided to go a different route. We didn't have much time to get a costume together, as we had waited last minute and Halloween fell on the same day when we were scheduled to take his daughter up to Pratt in Brooklyn for a college tour (which was a lot of fun!), so we scrambled for an idea! I didn't want to spend money on a costume for her this particular year, because as an 8 month old she isn't Trick or Treating, nor does she care about candy/costumes/festivities, so I mentioned using the surgeon's outfit I had from my own childhood! She would be the smallest, cutest tiny surgeon currently on Earth and that would be easy peasy!

I have to thank my mother-in-law for really pulling it together. She made the head smock out of decorative napkins I already had in the house, and she also went to the local Five & Dime and found a toy medical kit. Everything looked great and Mirabelle got a new toy out of the deal! Win win!

Now that we have all of this Halloween mish mash behind us, now onto my favorite holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas!!

See ya next year for more Last Minute Littlefield decisions...