Link Love #10

It’s that time again! 🙂

Health

How to: Learn to Love Yourself in 10 Steps – ElectraFi

How to: Learn to Love Yourself in 10 Steps – ElectraFi
Low Calorie Diets Can Be Dangerous – Slim Sanity
What I Need: The Problem With “Balance” – Fighting for Wellness
Feel Good Friday & Why is so hard to compliment Women? – Cotter Crunch
Tips for taking criticism without falling apart. – MizFit

Fitness

Max It Out Muscular Endurance Circuit – Fitnessista

Max It Out Muscular Endurance Workout – Fitnessista
Legs Like Jello Workout – Peanut Butter Fingers
Workout Finishers: Kettlebell Complex – Trainer Paige
The 5-Minute Workout Even the Busiest of Girls Can Make Time For – FitSugar
Super Sweaty 60 Minute Complete Body Circuit – Treble in the Kitchen

Food

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie – Peachy Palate

The Pie I Want to Be Buried With… – Peachy Palate
Epic Crispy Quinoa Burgers Topped with Sweet Potato Fries, Beer Caramelized Onions + Gruyere – Half Baked Harvest
Roasted Butternut Squash Zucchini Pasta with Kale, Apricots and Wheatberries – Inspiralized
Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce over Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Rice – COOKIE + Kate
15-Minute Mini Apple Pies – Dashing Dish

Food for Thought

What is your favorite post from the past week?

Have you made any new recipes that you’ve recently found?

Foodie Friday: Pancake Variations

It’s clearly been a week of pancakes. These pancakes are delicious and I love the stats.. you can’t beat 350 cals, 35g protein, and 15g fiber! I’ve had far too much fun playing with the flavor combos [ok, not really too much fun..] so I wanted to share a couple successes.

It all started with the original..

Peanut Butter ‘Cake’ Coconut Flour Pancakes

via Dashing Dish

Makes 6-7 pancakes for 1 serving

Peanut Butter ‘Cake’ Coconut Flour Pancakes – Dashing Dish

Ingredients
– 5 tbsp coconut flour
– 1/4 tsp baking powder
– 2 tsp peanut butter or 2 tbsp peanut flour [I chose peanut flour]
– 1-2 pkts stevia or sweetener of choice [I used 16 drops of liquid stevia]
– Pinch of salt
– 7 egg whites
– 1/4 – 1/2 cup water

Directions
Place a pan over medium heat. In a medium size bowl, mix all ingredients together except the water. As they all come together, slowly add the water a little bit at a time until a thick batter forms. Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan per pancake and cook until they become a little bubbly around the edges. Flip the pancakes and cook through.

In between each pancake and atop of the stack, I covered them with more peanut fluff [1 1/2 tbsp peanut flour, ~3 drops liquid stevia, and water] and a little granola.

Next up came the Banana Coconut variety. These look beautious but the flavors need a little work. I’ll report back soon 😉

Banana Coconut Coconut Flour Pancakes

Then I knew it was time to go for pumpkin.

Pumpkin Coconut Flour Pancakes

Pumpkin Coconut Flour Pancakes

Ingredients
– 5 tbsp coconut flour
– 1/4 tsp baking powder
– 1/4 cup pumpkin [NOT pumpkin pie filling!]
– 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
– 16 drops of liquid stevia
– Pinch of salt
– 7 egg whites
– 1/4 – 1/2 cup water

I swapped out the peanut butter for pumpkin and added some pumpkin pie spice and it was fabulous! I also topped [and layered] these with pumpkin peanut fluff [1 1/2 tbsp peanut flour, 2 tbsp pumpkin, ~4 drops liquid stevia, pumpkin pie spice, and water] and of course a little granola.

My final flavor of the week involved some of my absolute favorite flavors in the world!

Reese’s Coconut Flour Pancakes

Reese’s Coconut Flour Pancakes

Ingredients
– 5 tbsp coconut flour
– 1/4 tsp baking powder
– 2 tbsp dark chocolate cocoa powder
– 16 drops of liquid stevia
– Pinch of salt
– 7 egg whites
– 1/4 – 1/2 cup water

This time, I swapped in the cocoa powder and topped/layered with regular peanut fluff and a sprinkling of granola.

To say this was a good breakfast week would be an understatement! Time to load up on eggs again and get back to work 😉

Food for Thought

What is your favorite flavor combination?

What strange but good combinations can you come up with?

Have you ever had coconut flour pancakes before?

What I Ate Wednesday #57: Pancake Party!

I have to be honest, my last week of eats, with the exception of what I already showed you on Monday, has not been very exciting. So rather than sharing the same pictures over again, I thought I’d share my latest morning fun.

On Monday, I decided to venture outside of the breakfast world of my daily protein oats and go for some pancakes again. I’ve been seeing mile-high stacks of coconut flour pancakes on my instagram feed so I went for a peanut butter pancake recipe from Dashing Dish.

Peanut Butter ‘Cake’ Coconut Flour Pancakes – Dashing Dish

I topped this stack with peanut fluff [peanut flour, stevia, and water] and the last of my maple blueberry Michele’s Granola. It was bittersweet. Using the last of the granola.. not the pancakes! 😉 The pancakes were actually very light and fluffy! They held me over for about 5 1/2 hours but they didn’t sit heavy. It was great!

Obviously now I have to play around with flavors..

Tuesday’s flavor was banana coconut.

Banana Coconut Coconut Flour Pancakes

These pancakes were topped with coconut protein fluff [vanilla protein powder, coconut extract, and water], a little coconut butter, and toasted coconut. They were good, but this recipe is still in the works.

And finally, today I went for the pumpkin! About time, right?!

Pumpkin Coconut Flour Pancakes

These were awesome.. so much pumpkin flavor! I topped this stack with peanut fluff mixed with extra pumpkin, a little pumpkin pie spice, and granola.I’ll definitely be making this flavor again soon but I still want to try other flavor combos and hash out my banana coconut flavor too 🙂

And the best part about these pancakes? They’re only about 350 calories per serving with about 35g protein and 15g fiber. That’s what I call staying power!

Food for Thought

What flavor would you try first?

What flavor combos should I try?

A Baking Kinda Weekend

I really, strongly believe that the weekend should be 5 days and the week should be 2 days. Why hasn’t someone made this happen yet? Oh well.. here’s to another Marvelous Monday!

Marvelous is testing recipes! It might not have been my most successful weekend but it was fun nonetheless. I ended up with 1 success, 2 works-in-progress, and 1 total flop. The success? Mini chocolate cupcakes from Chocolate Covered Katie.

Look how cute they are with the white chocolate chips!

I did, however, make a few adjustments to the recipe so I was very pleased when they turned out! I subbed pastry flour for all-purpose, xylitol for sugar, and pumpkin for applesauce. I also left out the peppermint extract since I was just looking for a good chocolate cupcake. The only thing left is to top it with frosting!

French bread in one hour is one of my works-in-progress. I wish I had a picture of the way mine came out.. it’s so dense Nathan described it as a bagel loaf. I think he was being nice about it too! I just bought some brand spankin’ new yeast and plan on another attempt soon in hopes that old yeast was the issue. [That doesn’t sound so nice.. ha!]

Marvelous is some tasty new treats from Lindsay. I was SO psyched when my Healthy Bites came in on Friday that I almost ate all of them as soon as I opened the box! I refrained and am trying to pace myself but holy moly they’re amazing!

Healthy Bites! Muddy Buddy Mocha, Chocolate Whey Good, & Reese’s!

My favorite flavor is the Reese’s because I just can’t say no to anything chocolate and peanut butter but I would highly recommend all of them! She even gave me a vegan version of the Reese’s and a paleo version of the Chocolate Whey Good. And I will be ordering more 🙂

Marvelous is going back to our favorite Thai restaurant for the first time in months. I’m absolutely in love with the Hot Pot!

Hot pot with pork, broccoli, onion, baby corn, carrots, bean thread noodles, and light bean sauce

And almost as marvelous is having leftovers with a little coconut curry hefeweizen to boot. Side note: the beer was interesting but not awesome.. I wouldn’t get it again but I couldn’t pass it up when I saw it!

Leftover hot pot with broccoli, cauliflower, cashews, and a coconut curry hefeweizen.

Marvelous is starting my morning with another awesome Best Body Bootcamp workout and refueling with these bad boys!

Peanut Butter ‘Cake’ Coconut Flour Pancakes – Dashing Dish

These pancakes may very well jump start another pancake kick! And when my parents asked how many people I made these pancakes for, I politely responded with this:

I ATE EM ALL!

Happy Monday, friends!

Food for Thought

Did you do anything fun over the weekend?

How are you kicking off your week?

A Valentine’s Date

Every year for Valentine’s Day, Nathan and I try to figure out something special that we can do for dinner. Years ago, that entailed dressing up and going out to a nice restaurant. We’ve since learned that everyone and their mom goes out to a nice restaurant for Valentine’s Day making for crowded restaurants and a long wait for food. Sounds extra special, right? 😉

Nowadays you’ll find us scouring the grocery store for a fun protein to play with. Typically Nathan is in charge of preparing the majority of dinner and I handle dessert. One year we had filet mignon in a mushroom green pepper sauce with roasted fingerlings followed by blackberry cobbler and chocolate raspberry truffles. Another year we did a pan-seared whole duck with a cherry glaze, duck-fat pan-fried potatoes, and asparagus.. you get the idea.

As I was brainstorming for this years menu, I thought it would be really fun to experiment with homemade dim sum. Not only is it delicious, but it would be a great activity to do together! So, of course, I ran on over to Pinterest and found a bunch of recipes we can try.. for when we’re feeling brave 🙂

Dim Sum Valentine’s Date

Sweet and Spicy Soy-Glazed Edamame – Shared Appetite

This is a quick and easy recipe and you can munch on these bad boys while you’re making everything else!

Wonton Soup – Martha Stewart

Wonton soup. It’s just a staple.

Mango, Avocado, and Cucumber Spring Rolls – Cupcakes and Kale

A fun twist on a typical app. The mango will give it a slightly sweet flavor and the avocado will make it nice and creamy.

Asian Shrimp Dumplings – Dashing Dish

Dumplings or pot stickers are such an easy thing to do when you have wonton wrappers. Not to mention, I love this low cal option!

Pork, Ginger & Mushroom Shumai – What’s Cookin, Chicago?

A little bit more time consuming than the pot stickers above, but well worth the effort. These steamed dumplings are always full of flavor and this recipe looks to be on point!

Char Siu Bao (Barbecue Pork Steamed Buns) – Mike and Molly’s House

This would be the ultimate. If we’re feeling brave enough, I’d love to make everything from start to finish. The barbecue pork, the yeast dough.. homemade pork buns would take the cake.

Mango Pudding – Eating Well

You can’t skip dessert on Valentine’s Day. This mango pudding would be the perfect way to end the meal.

And, of course, don’t forget to pick up your favorite sake, some Tsingtao and have a wonderful date night! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Food for Thought

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? Are you going out to dinner or staying in?