Dear Scale,

I would like to take this time to thank you for having so much in common with a well known antagonist.

You have taunted me, pointed fingers at me, cackled at me and threatened to steal away my little dog. (OK maybe not that last one. But then again I don’t have a dog.)

But now, thanks to some splashy children and your inability to bear so much water weight due poor placement at our new house, you are dead.

So here we are Scale. You are refusing to turn on even though I didn’t drop a house on you. But lucky for me, I have a brain. I know when I’m eating healthy. Daily physical activity is second nature to me and my heart now. I can tell by the way my clothes fit and look if there’s a steady imbalance between the calories in and calories out equation. In fact, most mornings I could wake up and predict precisely what you were going to tell me. Any increase or decrease in your numbers never came as a surprise. I knew you that well scale!

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve come to know my body that well.

Scale, you were an incredible tool when I was learning how to nourish and fuel my body properly. You were a huge factor in learning the caloric mathematical formula that is weight loss. But now? I don’t need you. And you certainly never needed me. Now Scale, my munchkins will be forced to use the real stool when they stand at the bathroom sink to brush their teeth and make a huge mess.

I think I’m going to do me and the other math equation in my life (Checkbook) a big favor and not replace you. I’m no coward! I can live without your numbers! I’ve still got that giant, public, for-the-whole-world-to-see scale at Wegmans if I get really curious after all.

I can I tell if I’m at healthy weight without you Scale! I can see with my own two eyes that my children are robust and healthy – they don’t need you either. All you really are now is one more thing to pick up when I get out my broom. (Stop cackling Scale, you know I do sweep sometimes!)

In summary Scale, I have put you in the trash and will not be replacing you with another scale from the Wicked Target of the East. An offer of a free pair of sparkly red shoes with every scale purchase won’t convince me either, so don’t even try it.

It’s been real scale – thanks for everything. There’s no place for you in my home. See ya at the doctor’s office, or maybe at Wegmans if I ever get the courage.

• Glitter
• Whensday?
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight

Almost a month ago my sweet friend Cindy asked me if I might be interested in trying a recipe she created. I said “Sure!” and she sent the recipe to me, and that recipe has sat in my inbox all this time, patiently waiting for me to make good on my promise.

Well today is finally the day! Cranberry Orange Bites here we come!

I did a little tweaking of Cindy’s recipe, so check hers out for the original version.

Crust
1 C soaked, raw cashews
4-6 ripe large medjool dates (pitted)
1 Tbsp coconut oil

Cranberry Filling
1 C + 1/2 C whole, fresh cranberries, separated
2 Tbsp agave
1/2 C dried sweetened cranberries
1/2 C Orange Juice

Cindy’s original recipe calls for almonds but I was short on almonds so I used 1 cup of cashews instead. I let them soak in water all morning and drained them when I was ready to get started.

Soaked cashews went into the food processor with 5 medjool dates and a 1 Tbsp of coconut oil.

I scrounged out some muffins tins from the cupboard.

Yes, I care!

I pressed a heaping tablespoon of the crust mix into each tin.

Next into the food processor went 1 cup of cranberries and 2 Tbsp of agave nectar to make a cranberry puree. Mixed in with the cranberry puree went the other 1/2 c of whole cranberries, 1/2 c of dried cranberries and 1/2 cup of orange juice.

As instructed, I preheated the oven to 300 and then turned it off as I placed the cranberry bites in for about 2 hours.

This cranberry orange bite recipe made 12 servings, 130 calories each.

While I had the food processor out, I figured I might as well put it to work.

Curried Chick Pea Sandwich Spread for lunch tomorrow, for both me and the Z Man.

Next up? Some Sun Dried Tomato Hummus, sampled with a couple (four) Kashi crackers – just to make sure it wasn’t poisonous.

And then I’m not sure exactly what came over me, but I was in the mood to do some experimenting and created my very own vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe. The crust from Cindy’s Cranberry Bites was so incredibly yummy I used it my source of inspiration for the cookies.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 C of raw cashews
6 medjool dates, pitted
1/3 C raw almonds
1 1/2 C rolled oats
1/2 C almond milk
1/2 C chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli and as far as I can tell from the ingredient list, they appear to be dairy free)

First, I made oat flour with 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats.

Look! Oat flour! Like magic! A big shout out to Mama Averie for this tip!

Empty the oats into a separate bowl and make a big wet ball of dough with cashews, dates and almond.

Mix well, add 1/2 c of almond milk and then gently fold in chocolate chips.

The cranberry bites had been in the oven for about an hour and a half at this point and I pulled them out and turned the oven back on to 375. 1 Tbsp Cookie dough balls scooped out and plopped onto coconut oil greased cookie sheets. Cooked for 9 – 11 minutes.

I ended up putting my cranberry bites back into the oven at 375 for a little while because I wanted the whole cranberries to break down just a little bit more. After 10 minutes I took them out and put them on a rack to cool their jets.

The cookies came out of the oven just in time for the cookie inspectors to arrive.

Ava Tested, Ava Approved.

Maxine was too busy chowing to give me any sort of hand signals to whether or not she liked them. The cookie disappeared though and hasn’t been seen since this picture was taken. I’ve notified the authorities.

Then the time came do a little cranberry bite profiling.

They totally rocked! Good job Cindy, Zak and I both loved them. The kids wouldn’t eat them but this is no surprise. I’m sure they just look a little too healthy. We loved how perfectly sweet and tangy they were!

The cookies turned out great too, especially considering I had no recipe and was flying by the seat of my cookie pants. I love that they have no refined sugar, but they could have been just a *little* sweeter. If I had to tweak them I would have added a 1/4 – 1/2 cup of agave nectar. The chocolate chips saved the sweetness day.

These cookies clocked in at just 83 calories each. 26 cookies were made from this recipe.

It’s been a fun afternoon food processor! We make a good team!

You did real good my giant Cuisinart. Now hit the showers – you are a total mess.

• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• We’re Off to Weigh the Wizard
• Two Lefts Don't Make a Right

This fine Saturday started out with a 7 mile trail run early this morning, much like last weekend’s trail run, but without all the photo shop fun.

We left early this afternoon on a little road trip for a family birthday party about an hour and a half away.

A glass of Pinot Grigio upon arrival? Why certainly!

Tons of great party food.

Lots of veggies!

A few different pasta casseroles were served for dinner tonight. I can’t remember the last time I had pasta and it was a welcome treat!

On my plate, lots of greens with crumbly bleu cheese – plus a serving of the cheesy broccoli pesto casserole and some of the sundried tomato asparagus casserole as well. Both were amazing!

And no birthday party is complete without kids waiting for cake to be served.

It’s almost time kiddos!

Max requested the piece with the most amount of frosting.

OK but we’re not leaving until the sugar buzz has worn off!

After cake I switched from wine and sugar to water. I most definitely wanted to avoid waking up tomorrow morning like I did last Sunday.

Time to head outside for a fire!

And keeping warm under the outdoor heaters.

I didn’t worry about calorie counting today and just enjoyed myself this evening with good company and good food without going overboard. I think it helps that the scale is moving in the right direction and I’m feeling motivated to not completely derail my efforts without depriving myself either. It’s all part of the journey I suppose. It’s certainly nice though to have a Saturday with a long run and a party end as enjoyably as it started!

• Thanksgiving is Officially Over
• Stay at Home
• Glitter

Given that yesterday was our Stay At Home day, I decided to take the girls car seats out of the car to wash the covers. Upon removing the Britax Beasts, I discovered they were harboring a small community of broken crayons, cheerios and Kashi granola bar crumb fugitives.

So this morning instead of running past the car wash like I do day after day, I thought my carseat-less vehicle could use a little quality time with the vacuum before I spent a half hour reinstalling the seats.

But without car seats in the car, I couldn’t take the kids with me. Therefore, morning run time was swapped out to pay for serious suction while Zak was around to stay home with the girls.

I could have been that neighbor who’s running her vacuum outside at 7:30 in the morning, but instead I thought we’d just go Fresh’N Up! Doesn’t that sound lovely?

I mean, come on. Who needs to work out when you can play “Beat the Clock” with the car wash vacuum?

I totally used to be that person who’s car was always clean. But then I had kids. While I still always empty the car of items after each car adventure – regular vacuuming has fallen to the way side.

I did find some friends hiding under the seats though.

And I got a little wash woman pay for my services.

Even some GREEN! You mean to tell me there’s been a dollar bill under my seat all this time?

But then I hit the jackpot!

Time to celebrate! I put my car back together and ran off with my winnings to the little store near the car wash to score some bananas. Thank goodness bananas are cheap, I don’t think my rinky dink corner store is able to make change for a $500 bill.

I returned home with a nice and neat car, and very ready for some fruit cereal.

1 diced banana
2 Tbsp ground flax
1/8 c raisins
1 Tbsp raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 c unsweetened almond milk

Not only is my car NEAT, my morning activity was N E A T too! NEAT as in Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. NEAT is basically all the ways you burn calories that doesn’t have anything to do with a “real” work out, or the energy you expend to make your heart beat, digest food, sleep and remember to return library books on time.

From taking the stairs, doing housework, raking leaves for some yardio to secretly hauling things out of the house to donate – you burn calories doing all of these sorts of things and it can definitely add up.

Knowing this can actually make a difference in how many calories you burn. A few years ago there was this remarkable study done by Harvard University where researchers studied 84 female housekeepers at seven different hotels for four weeks. About half of the group of women were told that their housekeeping work can be considered exercise, and the other half were told nothing.

Of the women who were told that their day to day work is part of an active lifestyle, the researchers found that

the informed group had lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their blood pressure by almost 10 percent, and were significantly healthier as measured by body-fat percentage, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio.

The women in the control group had very few changes in body composition in comparison.

So you see, your mindset matters! You can bet your waist-to-hip ratio that I was thinking about how running to and fro between open car doors, flinging car mats around, ducking between seats to dig out pennies, $500 dollar bills and pink ponies was burning calories.

Isn’t that NEAT?

• A Real Rest Day
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Stay at Home

Today I am taking my title as Stay At Home Mom quite literally and we are not going anywhere today. No. Where.

Well, I did go for a run but that doesn’t count. I didn’t schlep children in and out of the car, carry arm loads of extra clothes, snacks, toys, mail, papers and shoes out the door with me, so really it doesn’t feel like I’ve gone anywhere at all.

On my didn’t-go-anywhere run, my lovely albeit slightly boring digital watch told me I was gone for 36 minutes. My inner GPS says I probably went about 4 and a half miles.

I’ve got a butt load of greens to eat up so a green smoothie was on the menu for this morning.

1 banana
1 1/2 cups of spinach (approx)
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk

+ 1 toasted slice of ezekiel cinnamon raisin toast and about a 1/2 tbsp of almond butter.

All this for 340 calories! What a steal!

Can I give a big shout to spinach for being so little in calories but so big in everything else?

Thank you spinach for being mild enough in flavor that I can throw you in a banana smoothie and barely notice you at all. You are so filling and have made my runs so much easier so I introduced you into my life on a regular basis. You truly are a special vegetable. Thank you.

In fact, I love spinach so much I’m going to stay home with it today! All day! Do you hear me spinach? ALL. DAY. Just for you.

• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Scary Spoon
• Manly Time Change

One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was at Wegmans, minding my own business, looking through the nice display of huge heads of cauliflower and searching for the perfect head that was destined to come home with me.

I noticed a woman checking out my head (talking about the cauliflower head here) as I approached the produce scale to get my bar code sticker. She commented on how beautiful it looked (I was hopeful she was talking about the head attached to my neck now…) She then told me how much she loves cauliflower. I agreed and we went on to discuss the various ways we like to eat cauliflower… steamed, raw, roasted or standing on our heads (cauliflower or otherwise), we’ll happily eat it.

This lovely stranger then went on to describe a cauliflower pie recipe that she loves and makes frequently. She told me this recipe has a crust made with shredded potatoes and the potato crust is filled with sauteed cauliflower and cheese. From her gestures and movements I could tell she wanted to write the recipe down for me, but then suddenly with excitement she said “It’s in the Moosewood Cookbook! Do you know it?”

Sort of. I knew that The Moosewood Cookbook was from Ithaca, New York – a city about 2 hours from here. That was all I really knew of it though, I’d never looked through it or had even seen it for that matter. I told my Cauliflower Sister that I would look for the recipe online and thanked her for the idea.

I’d almost forgotten about this conversation until this afternoon. Today while visiting a girlfriend and perusing her collection of cookbooks, I spotted The Moosewood Cookbook! The cauliflower conversation came flooding back as I snagged the book off the shelf. I flipped to the index and sure enough, there it was! Cauliflower Cheese Pie.

And my inspiration for tonight’s dinner was born.

It turns out that all the recipes in The Moosewood Cookbook are vegetarian! I had no idea! It was originally written in 1977 and is based on the cuisine of The Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca.

While all the recipes are vegetarian, most of the recipes contain large quantities of cheese, eggs, milk and butter. I took the original Cauliflower Cheese Pie recipe and made some tweaks to make it slightly healthier and a little lower in fat and calories.

Here’s my adapated version of the Moosewood Cauliflower Pie Recipe that I made tonight.

Crust:

1 large sweet potato, peeled (optional) and shredded. (I swapped out white potato.)
1 egg, beaten
1 small onion, shredded

Pre-heat oven to 400 F. Add shredded potato and onion to beaten egg, stir well to combine. Grease 9 inch pie pan and form potato mixture into crust. Bake crust for 40 minutes.

Filling:

4 – 5 oz shredded cheese
1 medium cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 cups of spinach, trimmed and washed
1 glove of garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 eggs
1/4 milk (I used plain, unsweetened almond milk)
thyme, basil, paprika

In my version, I swapped out 3 tablespoons of butter for 1 Tablespoon of olive oil and a half cup of vegetable broth. Add olive oil, diced onion and minced garlic into a pan and sautee until soft. Add herbs and spices to mixture and stir well until veggies are well coated.

Add broth and cauliflower to pan and cover, cooking for about 10 minutes. Add spinach to pan and cook for 5 minutes. The original recipe didn’t call for spinach but I wanted a little bit of green in this pie!

The spinach reduces down to almost nothing when cooked so don’t be shy throwing a couple handfuls in.

In a separate bowl beat two eggs and add milk, set aside.

When the crust is ready, remove from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375 F.

Layer half of the cheddar cheese on the bottom of the cooked crust.

Top with cauliflower/spinach mixture.

Sprinkle remaining cheese on top of veggies and finally pour egg/milk mixture over the entire pie.

Bake pie at 375 for about 35 minutes.

Time to eat.

My math tells me this entire pie contained 1302 calories. Cut into 6 slices, 217 calories per slice. I expected it to be much more so this was a pleasant surprise.

I thumbed through Moosewood Cookbook while the pie was baking and I can’t wait to try more the recipes in this book, so many great ideas! I snagged another book from my friend Tara’s house when I was there too, oh boy I’m gonna be busy.

Dear Stranger From Wegmans,

Thank you so much for recommending this recipe to me! It was delicious and nutritious. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. In fact, I think I might even make this for our main course at Thanksgiving while our carnivorous family members dine on turkey. Even if you only complimented one of the two heads I had with me on that fateful day, I am grateful for our short conversation. I liked your head too.

Your Truly,
Two Headed Mama

• Strawberry Shortcuts
• Stay at Home
• Raw Deals

One more run with my borrowed Garmin 405 this morning before it turns back into a pumpkin. Well, maybe not a pumpkin exactly but they will charge my debit card $350 if I don’t bring it back today. I don’t know about you but that’s more than I want to spend on a pumpkin.

Oh Garmin stats, it’s been fun.

A frosty 27 degrees this morning but with running tights, turtle neck, light jacket, gloves and a hat that I knit myself I was warmed up and comfortable by the first half mile.

4.5 miles this morning in just under 40 minutes. The chill this morning made me crave something warm for breakfast but I was in the mood for something other than oatmeal.

How about Quinoa for breakfast then?

1/4 c quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/2 c unsweetened chocolate almond milk
1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 Banana, thinly sliced

After I rinsed the bitter saponins away I added all quinoa, chocolate almond milk and cocoa powder to a small pan and cooked on medium high, stirring until the cocoa powder dissolved. The choice to go with chocolate was by default, as I only had chocolate almond milk on hand. And if I’m using chocolate almond milk, you can bet your quinoa buttons I’m adding a little cocoa powder too.

Once mixture begins to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer. I added half of a thinly sliced banana to naturally sweeten the deal.

Stirring occasionally to help the bananas completely dissolve.

I let it simmer for about 10 minutes and then transferred my sweet brown pile to a bowl.

Topped with the other half of my banana and another little brown pile, errr… I mean, 1 Tbsp of almond butter.

This was very different but still very good! Quinoa is naturally nutty so the almond butter and banana were nice compliments – the chocolate worked out great too! I especially liked the slight crunchy of the quinoa, not to mention the natural protein kick in the pants too.

This bowl, toppings and all, tallies up to about 400 calories.

Now it’s time to pack up the Garmin and get it ready to return this afternoon. Goodbye Prince Garmin! It’s been fun.

• Stay at Home
• Chocolate Smoothies Built for Two
• A Breakfast Carol

Having started last Saturday with a fast 7 miles, I decided this Saturday would be another long run – but this one at a comfortable pace and maybe a little further. Matt’s post on Stu Mittleman got me revved up for an enjoyable long run and today was the day.

I wasn’t sure exactly how far I was going to go this morning, and decided to play it by ear. First things first though, a MamaBite while loading the dishwasher multi-tasking.

Come on coconut oil, show me what you got!

My plan was to maintain a nice easy pace and to just get out there and enjoy myself for a nice long Saturday run. With my borrowed Garmin strapped wrist, I ventured off my usual long run route and ran through a park, a cemetery and various neighborhood streets I wouldn’t otherwise explore, a just let the distance be whatever it was going to be.

I kept an eye on my watch and saw my pace was hanging out between 8:40 – 8:50. As I neared home, I decided to finish strong and picked up the pace for the final mile. Maybe I should have titled this post A Nice and Easy 8 with a Fast 1.

Clicky clicky to see the biggie pic-y. I am just loving that I get to see these stats. What fun!

9 miles, 1 hour and 17 minutes later, time to whip out a few of my favorite things.

This is my latest mid-morning snack favorite. Two slices of toasted cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread, 1 tbsp of almond butter topped with sliced banana. I’ve eaten this concoction many times before but it had sort of fallen off the radar for a while. (Thank you Holly for this reminder!)

And my most favorite thing of all? Almond butter in bulk! 4.99 a pound, baby!

Did you know?

Calorie counting saves you money? It saves me money at least! Now that I’m eating less almond butter I haven’t been spending a fortune re-stocking my fridge with it every other day! Who knew?

My post long run breakfast in all it’s normal portioned almond butter glory!

The children have been shipped off to Granny’s house for the afternoon and I’ve got a few hours of silence in store! Off to kick up my child-free heels for a spell.

• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Stay at Home
• Half Marathon Race Recap

Now this is what I call a real salad.

I guess I’ll just have to be my own fruit and salad company. You know what they say! If you want something done right you just have to do it yourself. Can do.

We kept ourselves busy today, both in and out of the kitchen.

Let’s make more MamaBars!

Let’s make something with glitter! *insert insane shrieking here* ANYTHING WITH GLITTER! Let’s make it! Gliiittteeerrrrrrrrrr…

I’m not so sure though that the “do it yourself” cliche applies to Christmas ornaments. Some things really are better store-bought.

MamaBars though? Yeah, I’ll take my chances and make those myself.

8 Dates
1/2 c raw cashews
1/3 c sesame seeds
1 banana
3/4 c ground flax seed
1 Tbsp coconut oil
Dash of cinnamon

Everything into the food processor and press the ON button! Easy, right? Well, sort of.

I started with just 1/4 c of flax but it was really wet so I added a 1/4 c at a time for a total of 3/4 of a cup until it was firm enough to shape into bars. But this meant a lot of turns of the food processor blade which is basically code for “a big hot sticky banana mess”.

Thanks to a tip I remembered from Mama Averie, I knew putting the dough in the fridge for a while would help them firm up and reduce the stickiness factor, thus make shaping them into bars easier.

Now it’s time to get to work on a Mama Pea inspired dinner.

It all started with a fun new squash I found at Wegmans the other day.

Carnival Squash!

I snagged one from the pile and sliced the lucky squash open tonight to be baked it at 375 for about an hour. Rumor has it a sweet potato kept the squash company on the cookie sheet. They are now BFF.

With banana dough a-chilling, squash a-baking, six geese a-laying, I diced up an onion.

To saute with two cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Add a 14 oz can of tomatoes, 4 cups of water and/or vegetable broth and a 1 lb of red lentils, rinsed and drained.

Once the squash and potato were soft and fork-able (about an hour), their innards were scooped out and then added to the lentils – to be smashed and broken up with with a wooden spoon.

A couple tablespoons of curry powder, a dash of red pepper, kosher salt and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes or so until the lentil are completely cooked.

While the soup was cooking, the unthinkable happened.

I let the girls wear Girl Scout Cookie glasses.

I don’t know where they get this stuff from.

Yes, yes… I was cornered by a gang of Girl Scouts and was coerced into filling out their form. Can I help it if I’m a sucker for cute little girls? NO! Fortunately for me I am not at all in the mood to wear Thin Mint or Samoa glasses – I’ve still got my contact lenses in.

Dinner is served! Curried Squash and Lentil Soup with a side of steamed broccoli and cauliflower topped with a little Parmesan cheese. The soup recipe made 10, one cup servings, about 200 calories each.

Notice the glitter on the table?

Yeah, eat first. Clean up later. That’s my motto.

After dinner my banana dough was ready to be whipped into shape to officially be knighted and named MamaBites.

After making MamaBars last week I realized I prefer small 1 oz bite sized servings as opposed to 2 oz bars. But for your noshing pleasure MamaBites come a variety of sizes – double your pleasure, double your fun.

These worked out to be 105 calories per 1 oz bite, or 210 calories for a 2 oz bar. Pretty dang close to a Larabar! Me likey!

I called the cat’s name so he would look at me for my photo. And the other cat immediately came running, surely wanting to know what he was getting to eat that she was missing out on.

Dude, doesn’t anyone do anything around here but eat? Oh yeah, we make ornaments too.

• Stay at Home
• A Day of Calorie Counting
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight

I declared Monday a rest day and then went and proceeded to rake and haul leaves for more than three hours, making Monday anything but a rest day.

Today though, is really going to be a rest day. After two days of non-stop action, this house is most definitely showing signs of neglect and lots of comings and goings… why do I feel so stressed when the house is a mess? Is it because stress and mess rhyme? Probably.

It must have been a sign from above that the Garmin 405 was picked up with a dead battery and needs to be recharged.

So this morning with my bowl of chocolate fruit cereal, I had a side of Garmin battery charging.

1 diced banana
1 diced gala apple
2 Tbsp ground flax
1 Tbsp raw cacao nibs
2 Tbsp sliced almonds
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 c unsweetened chocolate almond milk

The Daily Plate says: 427 Calories.

I’m going to take a cue from the Garmin today:

Time for Mama to recharge her batteries too. Looks like that Garmin is taking a deep, cleansing breath, doesn’t it? I need to do that as well.

• A NEAT Morning
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Stay at Home