Foodie Pen Pal #1

So I was supposed to post about my Foodie Pen Pal yesterday, but I TOTALLY forgot!  Uh oh!

So I signed up for this thing called Foodie Pen Pal at the beginning of the month.  It's this awesome thing where all these fold from the U.S. and Canada sign up and then are paired with someone else to be their pen pal for the month.  The premise is to share local and healthy foods with other folks in the country.  There is a $15 spending limit on the food you send, so it can't get too out of hand.  If you want to participate email theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:
-Your full name
-Your email address
-Your blog name/address
-Your twitter handle (if applicable)
-WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT.  

It is way worth it!  So much fun!  
My foodie pen pal was Chung-Ah Rhee who lives in California.  Her awesome blog is: http://damndelicious.tumblr.com/

I was so excited when I got my box in the mail!  I told Chung-Ah that I mostly try to eat clean, so she sent me some awesome goodies!  My box contained a box Kashi honey and flax seed cereal, sesame seeds, banana chips, and some amazing homemade chocolate chip almond butter granola bars.


I  haven't had banana chips in so long, and I had forgotten how good they are!  I've been enjoying the Kashi cereal topped with the sesame seeds on days I'm lacking time to make oats and egg whites.  So yummy!

Now the granola bars...oh.my.goodness. You can find the recipe for them here.  I absolutely plan on making them sometime!  I ate one as soon as I opened the box, and then I had to eat another one right away because they were just that good!

So many goodies!  

The letter Chung-Ah included explaining everything.  = )

If you want to see the goodies that I sent out to Holly Coleman, check out her blog: http://thepioneerapron.blogspot.com/

Would you be surprised if I told you I was drinking coffee right now?

Yup, I've got a coffee cup right next to my computer right now.  Maybe that's a little dangerous, but I like to live life on the wild side every now and then.

 I read a quote the other day that said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you realize why."  The "why."  Why are you here?  Why am I here?  WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE?  I don't know about you, but I need a reason to live.  I NEED reinforcement.  I need to know and believe that I am doing right by my life.  That's why sometimes, in the midsts of things I feel discouragement.  This is a marathon we're talking about, and it is easy to lose your way when you're on mile 6 of 26.  I lose my way a lot, but somehow I keep working my way back to the right path.  One key I've learned to live by is to never give up.  Just keep going.  Just keep running.  Just keep pushing forward.

The whole "it get's better" movement, IT'S TRUE! It is absolutely true, if you just keep going.  When you find your purpose, keep going!  If you haven't found your purpose yet, then keep searching! Keep going!

If you get knocked down 9 times, get up 10.  Another quote I recently read: I would rather live a life of 'oh wells' then live a life of 'what ifs.'  


I'm 25 years old.  I've already had some huge failures.  That's okay.  I tried.  I put my entire self into what I was doing, and it just didn't happen at the time.  You live, you learn, and you move on.  I like to replace 'move on' with move FORWARD.

Here's some encouragement for your Thursday morning:

I CAN DO ANYTHING GOOD!  

I still believe that people are inherently good.  I still believe that I can be anything I want to be, just like you can too!  

Funk?

I'm in a funk, and I just don't know why.  I've felt really lonely the past few days and I have no clue why. I have plenty of friends, and it's not like I've had to spend a ton of alone time lately.  I don't know.  I guess being lonely doesn't always mean being alone. It really is just a weird feeling.  I suppose it is just a result of being so close to graduation. My life has the potential to dramatically change in a short 12 weeks.  This makes for awkward social constraints. I'm going skiing tomorrow.  Maybe that will make me feel better.  There really is something rejuvenation about being on the mountain and seeing God's beauty.

Baked mango and blueberry oat yum yums

 So I the other day I was in a serious baking mood.  =)  Luckily this time instead of making cookies I made that delicious pumpkin goodness and some baked oats for breakfast!

Now, when you eat clean, eating oats for breakfast becomes a standard.  Sure their are other amazing complex carbs for breakfast, and I have an awesome berry quinoa breakfast recipe, but oats are the big breakfast grain in my opinion.  I'm always game to play around with recipes.

These baked oats were so amazing.  It is a must try and it reheats so well.  I've got one more serving left that will be breakfast tomorrow.  When I open my own clean eatery this will absolutely be on the brunch menu!  

Ingredients for Baked Mango and Blueberry Oats: 

• 1 cup frozen blueberries 
• 1/2 cup - 1 cup frozen mango 
• 3/4 cup light soy milk 
• 1 tbsp maple syrup 
• 3 egg whites 
• 1 1/2 cup rolled oats 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 4 tbsp ground flax  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Use safflower oil (or whatever oil you have around) to coat your 9 inch pie dish.  Then distribute the mango and blueberries on the bottom of the pan.  In a mixing bowl mix together the soy milk, vanilla, maple syrup, and egg whites.  Add the dry ingredients and mix well!  Pour the oat mixture over the fruit and pop in the oven.  Bake for 30 minutes until your oats are golden brown on top.  This makes 4 servings!  It really is absolutely delicious!  Mango is already so good, but mango after being baked for 30 minutes melts in your mouth.  

Pinterest Craze Pumpkin and Cream Oat Muffins!

So if you've joined the latest Pinterest craze (which I must admit I am officially hooked) then you MUST have seen the recipe for the Pumpkin Cream Cheese bread going around that claims to be 500 calories per loaf.  Well I don't know if I really believe that, but I just HAD to check it out.  Clearly someone doesn't know how to add because under the serving size it says 14 slices per loaf with about 46 calories per slice. Well the loaves turned out to be SUPER SMALL.  So yeah, maybe I do believe, but come on 46 X 14 = 644.  NOT 500.  But so anyway, I love pumpkin. Love doesn't begin to describe my feeling for the over grown squash.  In October when the organic cans were on sale for 2 for $3, I bought about 10 cans.  October is my favorite food month I think just because people start putting pumpkin in EVERYTHING.  

Well so anyway I was examining the recipe more and more and decided to play around with it.  So play around I did.  I made 6 muffins and 1 small loaf.  Moderation is key with anything sweet, so the muffins really help me portion control, but you can use a loaf pan if you want.

You can find the original recipe here.  By all means use that recipe if you want, but here is my variation!  

Yields about 10 medium size muffins (that's a guestimate btw, like I said I made 6 muffins and 1 small loaf).    

Batter:

1 15 oz can pureed pumpkin.
3/4 c. unsweetened cinnamon applecause
1 whole egg
1/2 c. egg whites
1 c. oat flour (just take 1 cup rolled oats and throw them in the blender to create the flour)
2/3 c. whole wheat pastry flour
8 packets stevia in the raw
1/2 c. cane sugar (I went for the lower end of 1/2 c.)
1 t. baking soda
1 tbs. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla extract

Cream filling:
4 oz light cream cheese (I had neufchâtel cheese in my fridge which is basically a very light cream cheese)
1 tbs. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. egg white
1 t. vanilla extract
2 tbs. cane sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

1. Mix the batter:  Use an electric mixer if you want, but I just threw everything into my blender after making the oat flour.  Make sure everything mixes evenly.  A food processor would work better then a blender. I really need to get one of those!

2. For the filling mixture, let the cream cheese get soft then in a mixing bowl, use your electric mixer to beat everything together.

3.  Be sure to grease whatever kind of pan you use!  Pour half of the batter into your pans and then pour the cream cheese mixture over each muffin or loaf.  Lastly cover the cream cheese mixture with the rest of the batter. It's okay if you still see white after covering it with the rest of the batter!

Pop in the over and bake for about 30-40 minutes.  Keep an eye on them because cooking time will vary with whatever size pan you use.

My advice: Make sure you stick to your guns with portion control!  Even too much of a good thing is bad.  I ate the first muffin and wanted to go back for more, but I didn't!  I'm saving them for the next few days!   Gonna share these yummy treats with some friends too.

That's all for now!   ENJOY!  Later I'll post my version of baked oatmeal that I got from Pinterest as well.

Love.

I need to post more....

So I've had all these thoughts lately.  Thoughts where I go, I should really blog about this.  And then I just don't. I get home and I'd rather be lazy or go to bed. Tonight is not one of those nights. We had a wind ensemble concert tonight.  I love performing.  And I use the term love loosely.  It doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about performing.  Performing has taught me so much throughout my meager unimportant life.  It has taught me how to make friends, how to strive for excellence, how to persevere, and the list goes on and on.  Rarely during a performance do I actually have thoughts that I can go back to and meditate on.  Performance thoughts are much like a dream.  You dream so much during any given sleep, but usually you remember one dream, possibly two if any at all.  I usually get done with a performance and can't tell you what I was thinking about throughout the piece.  If I can tell you what I was thinking about it was usually because I was over thinking the piece, which happens a lot.

But tonight I can tell you a little about my thought process and it wasn't because I was over thinking it at all.  We played a piece by Frank Tichelli tonight called "Sanctuary."  You can find a recording of the piece here.   So a few rehearsals ago the graduate student conductor went on about finding what your sanctuary was during this piece.  Most of the time those sort of things don't work for me, unless I'm in a performance setting.  Well tonight, during the concert we were playing and I had all these memories flood my mind.  I can't remember all of them, but the ones that stuck out were like so:  1.  One of the memories was me running in Ohio during the Bluecoats move in for 2010.  2. Another was me having lunch with a friend from my undergraduate while on tour with drum corps.  3.  The last one I remember was me exploring Japan by myself in 2008 when I was performing with Brass Odyssey.  

There were other memories and thoughts, but much like a night of dreaming where you have multiple dreams but remember few, those are the only ones I can recall now.    

I suppose my subconscious was trying to tell me that those places are my sanctuaries.  One of my sanctuaries involves me taking care of myself.  Running as always been an emotional and spiritual act for myself.  I don't run to go fast, or to prove anything, I run because I can (even thought the past few months I physically have not been able to, I'm working on that!), because it is one thing can do that has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in my life. It makes me feel good. Another one of my sanctuaries is my relationships.  My friends.   What is a career or life if you don't have people that you love to do it with it?  I don't feel like I need to expand more than that.  And the last sanctuary that stood out tonight was me exploring the world, alone.  This may contradict what I just said, but I'm not afraid to search for my life by myself.  That is something that has never been an issue for me.  I have a goal and a dream, and I will continue to explore that area of my life.   Maybe my short responses to these thoughts don't make sense to you, and that's okay.  It's late, and I'm tired, and it mostly makes sense to me.

I have so many other things to say, but that's about it for now.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll post again.  I really do need to be better about posting here...

Love.

2012

I realized something today.   Up until today I thought this year was going to be my year, a year all about me. About my success, my career, my life, my dreams, etc.  But you know what? 2012 is not about me.  2012 is about God.  2012 is about my God, AND my relationship with my savior.