glorious breakfast

Hello blog readers.

Here in Chapel Hill, we had a beautiful sunny 60 degree day today...which I appreciated as Mike & I spent much of this morning raking leaves (yes, we still have leaves on the ground).

Anyway, I also had a chance to make some fantastic pancakes, and the recipe for them is below. When I was in MN, my mom and I went to a restaurant called Hell's Kitchen and ordered some lemon ricotta hotcakes. They were so good, I decided to search through recipes on the web, make my own modifications, and try my hand at my own version. Many of the recipes I found had a stick (or more) of melted butter, so I avoided those. I started with one from Nigella Lawson, and modified as follows.

Lemon Ricotta Hotcakes- serves 2, 6 points each
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp part skim ricotta cheese
1 egg, separated
1/4 cup skim milk
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp butter
3/8 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp powdered sugar
fresh berries

Heat an oven to 200 degrees. Combine ricotta, milk, and egg yolk, and stir till mostly smooth. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, mix till smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg white & granulated sugar till foamy (can do by hand). Fold egg whites into the ricotta mixture, then add lemon zest. Heat a griddle to medium-high, and coat with butter. Spoon batter onto the griddle (in a size of your own choosing), and flip once bubbles appear all over pancake. Once finished on both sides, add to a pie plate & put in warm oven to keep warm. Once all pancakes are done, divide among 2 plates, and top with powdered sugar (pushed through a strainer), and fresh berries. You can also use maple syrup too, but you need to count those points separately.

Enjoy!

just another manic monday

So here I am keeping up with the daily postings. Hopefully I'll keep going with this pattern.

Every semester, I have a new schedule. I'm a doctoral student by day, and a Jazzercise instructor by night (or sometimes morning). I am fortunate enough to have flexible bosses in both places, who are willing to let me shuffle around my availability.

Anyway, I taught jazzercise this morning at 9:15, and when I teach in the morning, I sometimes struggle about if I should eat first and what. Let me set the record straight--its a terrible idea to exercise on a completely empty stomach (though I do when I teach at 6:15 AM because I'm lucky to get my teeth brushed in time to teach that class...). Without fuel for the fire, its easy to feel starving after class (rather than hungry) and binge on unhealthy food.

Last Monday, I taught a 9:15 AM class, then headed to campus afterward. In order to fuel my workout and stave off hunger, I decided to split my breakfast. Before jazzercise, (~8:00 AM) I had a banana and half an ounce of almonds (yes, I weigh them out every time). After jazzercise, on my way to campus, (~10:45 AM) I had an apple and half an ounce of light sharp cheddar. I had a couple clementines at about noon, and wasn't hungry for lunch till 2!

So today, I decided to do things a little differently, since its a holiday, and I was going home after class. I had my banana and half ounce of almonds before jazzercise. I'm starting to feel hungry now, so I think I'll have a breakfast burrito and some pineapple, and then maybe a mini-meal for lunch later on. I'll let you know how it goes and how hungry I feel.

I've been on a thai kick lately, and wild caught NC shrimp were on sale at Whole Foods this week, so for dinner tonight (after consulting lots of different recipes), I'm going to give this one a try, with a few modifications. I think I'm going to replace the "oil" with sesame oil for deeper flavor. I'm also going to add a tablespoon of brown sugar at the end. Between 4 portions, that adds up to .25 points each, so its negligible. But, I like my thai food on the "americanized" side, so with a little extra sweetness, I think I'll have met my match. On the side, I'm going to make brown jasmine rice (which you can get in the bulk bins at Whole Foods), and steamed broccoli. All together, this adds up to a meal that's only 6 Points Plus!

This is a long posting but I have one more tip to share. I've always found making brown rice takes forever. So, now, in the morning, I put the rice & water (2 parts water 1 part rice) in the pan I'll cook it in. When it soaks all day, it only takes about 20 minutes to cook.

Finally--did you see I figured out how to do links? Not so bad for a beginner, huh? Now if anyone can tell me how to make my little heading go all the way across the top, that would be great :)