Still Not Easy

Now that I'm done with my third week of trying to reduce my sugar intake, I have noticed a difference in what I'm eating. I crave oranges instead of Snickers bars, and I am seriously in love with my blender and the smoothies it makes. I still have a bad habit of just eating things that are on the break table at work, just because they're there. I need to get me some better willpower when it comes to sweets.

I also have a pretty intense love of baking, which is not helpful to cutting out sugar. I made these Snickerdoodle Bars for Chris, because he loves snickerdoodles, and took some in to work. I ended up eating quite a few of them. And with 2 cups of brown sugar in them, they aren't exactly they healthiest. But they were soooo good.

I have been eating a lot of fruit, but not as many veggies as I would like. I found this recipe on Pinterest for spinach ice cubes, which sound and look super gross, but are actually super handy. Basically, I took a bag of spinach and some water and blended them together:

I found the easiest way to do this for my blender was to add a little spinach, then some water, and then more spinach, and a little more water. I originally just added all the spinach to the blender with a little water and tried to blend it, and ended up having to take some out and blend it better.
Then, pour the mixture into two ice cube trays:

They look so appetizing.

 And freeze! Chris now considers these ice cube trays "forever unclean", but I loved it! I added these to my smoothies instead of the regular ice cubes, and they barely changed the flavor at all. Even Chris didn't notice a big change. And by blending them beforehand, there weren't any awkward errant leaves floating around my smoothie.

Smoothie with spinach: Not really a difference

I also tried adding cucumber to the smoothies, but that flavor really overpowered the fruit. It didn't taste bad, just a lot like cucumber. I've switched from vanilla yogurt to a mix of plain and greek yogurt with some honey added for sweetness. I drink one of these pretty much every day after I work out, and I really do feel kind of amazing afterward. Which is probably because of the workout and not the smoothie, but that's ok.

My goal for the next couple weeks is to not eat any of the treats left out at work. I've been bringing an orange in with my lunch every day, and hopefully I can just stick to that instead of grabbing for the chocolate covered pretzels that are on the table (sweet AND salty? Irresistible). I think if I can stick to that, my sugar intake will be way better and become more manageable. Wish me luck!

Pear Crisp

I always buy fruit thinking that I'll eat it, and then forget that I have it until it's almost bad. That's what prompted this recipe, because I bought 4 pears, ate one for lunch and then they got lost on my kitchen table behind the other groceries. I found them this morning, kind of mushy and almost bad, and decided to bake something with them. I found a recipe for a pear crisp online, and modified it to use with my three pears.

Ingredients:

3 pears

1 small lemon

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 & 1/2 tsp cornstarch

1 & 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 & 1/2 tbsp chilled butter, cut into small pieces 

1/4 cup regular oats

I used salted butter because I accidentally bought it instead of unsalted. If you use unsalted butter, add 1/4 tsp salt in with the flour mixture in step 5.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.

2. Cut up pears however you prefer. I diced them, but you could also slice them and arrange them all fancy.

3. Mix the juice of one lemon in with the pear pieces and toss to coat.

4. Combine granulated sugar, cornstarch, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp nutmeg and add to the pear pieces.

5. Combine flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, brown sugar and oats. Add the chilled butter and mix until it is a course texture. I don't have a food processor, so the easiest way for me to do this is with my hands. You can also use a fork and do it that way as well.

6. Put pear pieces into a baking dish and sprinkle the flour topping over it.

7. Bake for 40 minutes until the pears are bubbly and soft.

8. Serve with vanilla ice cream, of course.

I think there was a little too much topping for the small amount of pears I had, so I would probably cut everything down by a bit. That makes for awkward measurements though. A little less that 1/4 cup is not very precise. Just eyeball it and hope it turns out ok. That's pretty much what I did for this recipe, so as long as you keep the proportions mostly similar, it should turn out fine!