An Italian Christmas

Happy "day after Christmas" everyone!! Does anyone else always get kind of sad the day after Christmas? As much as I am a Scroodge at the beginning of the season, I really start getting into it by the end, and I always miss it when it's over. This year, however, Christmas lives on! Tonight Nick and I are splitting up, while he goes to another Christmas event with his family, and I go out with my high school friends.

The classic Christmas photo, I just had to share this one.

On Thursday night, Christmas Eve, we went to Nick's mother's house.

Check out Tiger Woods, with his pants down! Nice, huh? Nick's sister made this, I just had to take a picture of it.

Nick's mom decorates so well, as does his sister. They decorate their gifts in such a creative and unique fashion, I almost don't want to open them.

But of course I always do. Here are some of the highlights that you might like.

MAGIC BULLET!! Boy was I excited to see this. I'll need some suggestions from you all for some great smoothies, etc.


Alton Brown, in my kitchen! This beats Julia Child, in my opinion. I'm thinking of cooking my way through this book, yeah? That would be a lot of fun.

New wine glasses, that are "shatter proof". We hit them against the table, and they didn't break. This is just want I need, as I've broken two of our own wine glasses. We received glasses for both white and red wine. This one is for red:

And I got a Snuggie. haha, jk. Nick's nieces got Snuggies, I just had to try it on.

Nick's mom makes the BEST rigatoni. I definitely ate some wheat on Christmas, as it's almost impossible not to when both of our family's have an Italian Christmas.

The meatballs were my favorite, I had two. Muahaha!

And I may have had a slice of this pumpkin cake. It's basically carrot cake, but pumpkin. In other words, it's amazing.

Nick's mom has a Japanese Shin. This is SUSHI. Say hi to Sushi as she growwwwwls at you!

On Friday, Christmas, we went to my family's house. I didn't take many pictures, but I wanted to let you know that Nick and I got SO MUCH candy, we may be good for a whole year. This is only part of what we got.....

I learned in college that people who aren't from Ohio don't know what Buckeyes are, am I correct? Well, they are a nut that grows on a buckeye tree, however they are also a candy. See below. They are basically a ball of peanut butter, covered in chocolate. So a glorified Reese's peanut butter cup I guess!

We also had lasagna, antipasto, and salad at my aunt's house. As always, it was amazing.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

5 RANDOM Things I've Learned This Year
(Continued from previous posts)

- How to cut a pomegranate

- I love steel cut oats, and oat bran! I may even love it more than CEREAL!

- I love to read. This year I have read about 15 books, which is about 15 more than usual :)

- Eating more during the day, and less at night, is really good advice. I'm glad I started taking my own advice, and practicing what I preach.

- I will never get sick of Seinfeld. It's official.

Updates/Coming Up

What's everyone doing for New Year's Eve? We still don't have concrete plans, as we always deal with having two sets of close friends who have plans, and we can never decide what to do. We'll probably have a nice dinner with just the two of us, at home, then go meet up with people....somewhere!
Coming up on my next post I will share my goals for the year (not resolutions, I like "Goals" better) and my new plans for the blog! Thanks for reading, and have a great day.

Pepperoni Bread and a New "Must Have" iPhone Application

Happy Hump day, and happy Christmas Eve day Eve. haha! I still can't get over how fast Christmas came, and how soon all the holiday festivities will be over :( Of course, Christmas/Hanukkah always seems to come super fast, so it will be back next year before we know it.

Pepperoni Bread

On Sunday my mom and I made our "famous" pepperoni bread. I plan to bring it to both Nick's and my house for Christmas.

We start with 5 loafs of frozen bread dough, which they don't have in whole wheat varieties, bummer.

Normally we thaw them individually in the microwave, but my brilliant mother put them in the refrigerator about 2 hours before we started. Well, they started thawing and blending into one another.....

I basically had to make 5 separate dough balls, which were definitely not all the same size.

We flatten the dough, similar to pizza, but instead of making a circle we create more of a rectangle.

Then we add:
~2 t olive oil
~2 t Italian seasoning
~1 t garlic powder
~ 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese
~50 pepperoni
~1/4 cup mozzarella cheese on top

Then we roll the dough into a long, well...roll! Usually they are the same size, but since I had to make the dough balls myself, they are slightly out of proportion.

Heat in the oven for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees (we follow the directions on the back of the bread dough bag).

What do you think of the finished product? I tried to get a good up-close picture, but sort of failed. The bread is served with hot marinara sauce.




New iPhone Application

Anyone else out there own an iPhone? If so, you've got to download this great application. I believe it's called "Sleep Cycle" and it determines your sleep phases by monitoring your movements in bed. The phases range from light sleep/dreaming to deep sleep. The program wakes you when you are in the "light phase" of sleep, which is when you are supposed to naturally wake up. This is the best time to wake up if you want to feel rested and refreshed! It wakes you within a 30 minute window of your desired wake time. Here were my stat from a couple weeks ago. Not much deep sleep, huh? Since I downloaded this application I've been getting more and more "deep sleep" and I swear I've been feeling better.

On this particular morning my alarm went off at 7am, even though I set my alarm for 7:10, because apparently at 7 am I was in the "light" sleep phase! If you never reach the "light" phase before your desired wake time, your alarm will go off anyway, at the exact time you set it for. The only problem is that it's difficult to press snooze, because you have to re-set the entire alarm system to do that, which means I rarely push snooze anymore (Angie....take note!!!).

Could it be a placebo effect? Possibly. But you should have seen the peaks and valleys from last Saturday night when I may have had a few too many of these:

Let's just say I didn't get much "deep sleep".
If you're a beer lover, like Nick and myself, you've got to try this Goose Island Christmas Ale. I don't know if it's better than the Great Lakes Christmas Ale, but it's pretty darn good! For the life of us we can't find the other beer anywhere. It's so popular that no one can keep it in stock :(

Coming Up
Tonight I'm going out with high school friends, which excites me just thinking about it. I love it when they are all in town. Obviously Thursday is Christmas eve, which is when Nick and his family celebrate Christmas (so convenient), and then on Friday my family celebrates. My next post will consist of a Christmas re-cap, and in the next few weeks I have a major announcement to make! OK, not major, but I'm excited about it.

Check out a Barney Butter giveaway here. Oh wait, no, it's not really a giveaway, don't enter please!! haha, jk ;)

Thanks for reading, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Holiday Weight Managment, and a Coffee/Tea/Caffeine Update

Earlier in the year I confessed to drinking about 600-800 mg caffeine per day. My goal was to cut this in half, and so far, so good. As of now I am consuming around 300-400 mg caffeine per day, which is a huge improvement. I recently learned that the average daily consumption of caffeine in the USA is 1000 mg, so perhaps I wasn't doing so bad after all. Yikes!

An article I recently Tweeted about made these claims regarding caffeine:

- Prolonged administration of caffeine is not associated with a significant elevation in blood pressure.

- Caffeine consumption does not result in water-electrolyte imbalance (mainly a concern of athletes).

- Although the above has been shown in studies, be aware that side effects could include anxiety, jitters, inability to focus, gastrointestinal distress, insomnia, irritability, and with higher doses possible heart arrhythmia.

Source: NCSA's Performance Training Journal, volume 8, Issue 6

Speaking of caffeine, here are some excerpts from an article found in BBC news regarding yet another possible benefit of tea and coffee!
Researchers looked at 18 separate studies involving nearly 500,000 people. The analysis revealed that people who drink three or four cups of coffee or tea a day cut their risk [of diabetes, type II] by a fifth or more, say researchers.

The same amount of decaffeinated coffee had an even bigger effect, lowering risk by a third.

If the findings prove true, doctors may well start advising people to put the kettle on as well as take more exercise and watch their weight, say the researchers.

When the authors combined and analyzed the data, they found that each additional cup of coffee consumed in a day cut diabetes risk by 7%.

Compounds in coffee and tea - including magnesium and antioxidants known as lignans or chlorogenic [which have been shown to slow down the release of glucose into the blood after a meal] acids - may be involved.

NBC4, Columbus News Segment

If you don't already know, I'm the local NBC4 news "Health and Nutrition Expert". I got lucky because my friend is the producer of the show ;) For the month of December I was asked to do a segment on "how to maintain your weight over the holidays". Sorry there isn't a clip of my news segment, but if you want to see my last one (about vitamin D) look on the side bar, I added it! Here are some of the points I made:

1) Increase your exercise, even just a little. Add 5-10 minutes to your normal routine, or include some cross training and/or intervals. If you don't workout, start walking around the block after dinner, or lifting small weights to build a bit of muscle and make up for those extra calories inevitably consumed.

2) If you have a party to go to at night, remember it's not good to skip meals during the day (many people do this so they can "enjoy" the party and eat whatever they want). This is a bad idea because your metabolism slows down and you usually end up eating a lot more than you should, because you're so hungry! Just eat normally throughout the day and don't go to the party overly hungry.

3) Plan ahead. Make a goal of a specific number of treats to allow yourself at any holiday party. I like the goal of 2 or less treats, which includes alcoholic beverages. Another treat might be a piece of fudge or 2 small cookies. If you plan ahead, you are more likely to stick to your weight management goals.

4) Modify traditional, higher calorie holiday foods/drinks. Check out the eggnog I made on camera here. It's not me, just the recipe. Leave a fun comment if you feel like it!

Update

I hope everyone has a fun week ahead of them! I have a tiny bit more shopping and a lot more wrapping, plus a lot of actual work to do before Thursday. Nick and I got a lot done this weekend, but I feel like the "to do" list is never ending. Alright, deeeeep breaths...in....out..... Off I go! Pepperoni bread and my new favorite iPhone application coming up on my next post. Everyone, have a great Monday and thanks for reading!

Six Months of Freedom

Is everyone having a good weekend so far?? I'm so glad it's Saturday. I have so much to do, but in a good way. Basically I have last minute shopping, gift wrapping, and baking to do, which is all stuff I love. Nick and I are going to the big Columbus mall, Easton Town Center, today. He is doing ALL of his Christmas shopping, while I am just getting some of the last things on my list. Obviously we'll be split up while he buys me ALL MY GIFTS! hehe

On Thursday night we celebrated Nick's 6 month anniversary of being free of nicotene. He wanted Chipotle (he's so easy to please), so that's what I got him!

I knew I couldn't really eat anything form Chipotle besides rice, lettuce, tomatoes, and chicken (FODMAPS diet...) so instead of wasting money on something I could make at home, I made something at home! I thankfully remembered we had meat that was about to go bad if it wasn't eaten soon. I threw some 90/10 (lean to fat ratio) organic ground beef into my sweet potato soup, with some broccoli and Greek yogurt, and made a delicious meal.

This picture looks bad, you think I'm crazy, right? It wasn't as good as Chipotle, but this soup was actually quite delicious.

Here is the soup. It's sweet potato, which finally comes in a low sodium variety!

Love the ingredients here. I'm not one of those RDs who is obsessed with everything organic, but it's sometimes fun to see that all the ingredients are organic. Notice the last ingredient is salt, very nice.

Unfortunately this soup is clearly lacking some spunk (aka, salt). Other soups make up for the low sodium claim by adding other spices, but this was pretty bland. I've been adding garlic and pepper and it tastes much better.

So back to Nick's dinner..... I put everything in this baby, but the kitchen sink. I also asked for extra beans, which is one of the healthiest foods available in my opinion. They have fiber, phytonutrients, iron, and folate!

And he's going for a bite!

Oh, but not before he covers it with guacamole! Hey, it's better than nicotene, right??


With only a few bites worth of help from me, here was his plate after ten minutes. And in his own words "I've haven't felt this full in a longggg time".


But what about dessert?! I picked up two of these, which happen to be Nick's (and my!) favorite candy.



Nick crumbled it over some homemade ice cream/frozen yogurt.



I crumbled it over some Greek yogurt mixed with unsweetened cacao powder, because I had some ice cream earlier and felt that was plenty.


And I had my nightly treat; 2 pieces of Lindt's 85% dark chocolate. Have you tried it? It's so good!

We also enjoyed Julie and Julia, the movie, as we were celebrating on Thursday night. The movie was fantastic and both Nick and I agreed that Julie and Eric were so similar to us! Minus all the money for cool parties, food, and all that amazing cooking.....oh well, soon :)

Coming Up

Yesterday I did my second news segment for NBC4, Columbus. I probably won't have a clip this time, as it was much shorter, but I will post about it next time and give you more detail. My next post will also have some new information about the benefits of coffee, and tea, plus some highlights of more Gina and mom cooking adventures. This time we're making pepperoni bread. We're Italian, we gotta make this stuff, right?!

Giveaway
Mari is giving away some Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a mug. Have you tried this coffee yet? It's actually fantastic! Check it out here.

Thanks for reading, and have a great holidays weekend!

Christmas Traditions; Chocolate Waffle Cones!

You all seemed to really appreciate and relate to the question I received from the anonymous reader (my last post). I loved reading your own opinions on the subject. Interestingly I had never really thought about it before, but I'm glad the question was proposed! Again, your comments never cease to amaze me.

Chocolate Dipped Waffle Cones

Every year my mom and I make waffle cones for family and friends. We usually provide gift certificates to the local ice cream shop with the cones, or sometimes (ok, once) I make ice cream for people. I learned this skill while working at a local ice cream shop, called Graeter's Ice Cream, in high school. It's so fun, but it does take practice. On Tuesday night my mom and I made our first batch of waffles for the holiday season.

You must start with one of these; a Waffle Cone Maker!
This is Cuisine Art, but there are many companies that make them.

Here is what the inside looks like. Can you tell we've been doing this for almost 5 years? It looks pretty worn down, that's for sure.

You've got to have two things (other than the obvious equipment and ingredients) when making waffle cones: wine and spandex winter gloves

Why gloves? Because these things are hot as HECK when you take them out of the machine and fold them! They don't warn you in the instruction guide, but what the heck else are we supposed to use? We always wash them in the washing machine prior to touching the cones.

Why wine? I don't know, it's fun.
My mom is known for her awful photography skills. Check out the up close picture of me, with the awful lighting.

Here is the general recipe from the instruction manual. Notice, it calls for white flour......

Problem number one: We forgot to turn the machine on the proper setting before we put the first ladle of batter down. When we lifted the handle it was all gooey and stuck to the machine. Oops.

Problem number two: I accidently used whole wheat flour.
I know what you're thinking, "she wanted to make them healthier!" But in reality I didn't even grab the whole wheat on purpose! I've taken enough food science classes to know that this is one of those instances where whole wheat flour can not be substituted. They wouldn't fold around the cone molder properly, so we made flat "waffle cookies".

Then of course we re-made the batter and tried again.

Ladle about 1/4 cup onto the machine (once it's nice and hot).

Press down and wait for the light to shine, which means "ready!".

Fold the cones around the plastic cone shape.

And set out to dry!

Melt the dipping chocolate.

Dip the dry cones.

Drool time!
These turned out awesome, as always. haha. But seriously, you need a waffle cone maker, especially if you own an ice cream maker. It makes sense, right?

5 RANDOM Things I've Learned This Year
(Continued from past posts)

I love pumpkin puree

I can actually survive without 7 cups of coffee per day (I'm down to 3-4 now!). These aren't Starbuck's coffees, so close those mouths. These are Maxwell house, so less caffeine.

Nick and I need a new mattress, BAD! I'm thinking Tempur-Pedic.

Telling friends and family that they should not eat something because it may have bad consequences, doesn't work. I need to keep my work life and private life separate.

I could live off of $1000/month, if I had to. This is what I was earning at school the past two years, until now....kind of cool, huh?!

Life Update

Work has been picking up tremendously, which is nice, but I've been super busy, especially with the holidays mixed in. Nick's 6 month anniversary from quitting nicotene is on Friday! I am going to surprise him with Chipotle tonight (since he works on Friday nights). Also, stay tuned for a post coming up with my second NBC4 news segment! On Friday I'll be on again, talking about "maintaining your weight through the holidays". How exciting!

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day.