Mocha Muffins

So I got a refreshing 12 ½ hours of sleep last night.  It was quite nice.  I did however get startled awake by an insanely loud boom of thunder around 11.  We’ve finally been getting rain here in Arkansas and it has had some crazy lightening and loud thunder along with it.  So once the puppy girls woke us up at 9 this morning, because they were starving, I got up and made mocha muffins.  The total amount of sodium per muffin was about 40mg more than what the recipe said.  This is because I’m still using regular butter instead of unsalted.  I just can’t throw out 2 tubs of butter, especially when one is unopened.  I also choose to use milk chocolate chips (5mg per tbsp) instead of semi-sweet chocolate chips (0mg per 1 tbsp).  The butter added the most amount of sodium for a total of 760mg.

So I started making them and the batter was smelling sooooo good.  I made a total of 16 muffins that had approximately 63mg of sodium per muffin.  We each were only able to eat 3 muffins because they were pretty filling.  I think I’m going to make these muffins for my work Christmas party since we’re doing a breakfast.

We’ve got to clean the gym up a little today and once we do I’ll post the before and after video, so be looking for that later today.

Homemade Pizza

So tonight we used the pizza yeast to make our 0mg sodium pizza crust.  It appeared to be fine before we put it in the oven (I was worried since we had to use the salt substitute).  Clay is the pizza guy so I let him do all the pizza making.  He dressed the crust and popped it in the oven.  Once it came out we weren’t too sure how the crust cooked.  It seemed like it might be a little doughy and we like really crispy crust, but it turned out to be just fine.  It was a really thick crust so it was real filling.   

Since we made our own crust and sauce and used fresh produce for toppings we really cut back on the sodium content of the pizza.  Most of the sodium comes from the mozzarella cheese.  The total count for the entire pizza (8 slices) came out to be 1200mg, which is a total of 150mg per slice!  And it tastes good too, I mean it’s no Domino’s, but it’ll do. 

We both decided that the next time we’re going to pre cook the crust for a few minutes to get it crispier.  We also think that we should add some garlic powder, oregano, and basil to mix into the crust to give it some extra flavor. 

Tomorrow morning I plan on sleeping in and waking up and making those mocha muffins I have been talking about in almost every blog post.

Oh and we also recently converted our home office into a home gym.  As you may remember the doc gave Clay order to exercised on a regular basis and it’s been ridiculously hot here in Arkansas for that past few months, so we decided that since we weren’t using our spare bedroom we’d just make that the office and make the office our gym.  It looks pretty good and I hope to be able to post the before and after video sometime this weekend.

Smoke Out

So I made black bean burgers tonight and the only sodium in the patty itself was from the egg, which is only 65mg per one egg, and I made 5 patties so that’s a total of like 13mg of sodium per patty!  The whole-wheat buns have 190mg and I don’t know about the cheese because I already threw the packaging away.  But it’s way less than 500mg per burger total, and that’s not bad.  I also substituted the chili powder with the Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning.  It was really good with that seasoning in it.  I think next time I may try the extra spicy seasoning.

I also made my own french fries from scratch.  I used the Mrs. Dash tomato basil garlic blend to season the fries.  They actually turned out pretty good.  Here’s a pic of our dinner from tonight:

Oh, and I'm not sure, but I don't think Canola Oil is really made to do much cooking on the stove because I totally smoked up the WHOLE house.  Riley HATES smoke and she bolted outside and stayed.  We finally had to open a window and turn on a fan to get it all out.  I'm surprised the smoke alarms didn't go off.

I also forgot that we bought the Mrs. Dash table blend yesterday too.  Today I stopped by Kroger to pick up the instant coffee and chocolate chips for my mocha muffins.  I also found 2 different flavors of the Mrs. Dash marinades so I bought them both (Spicy Teriyaki and Zesty Garlic Herb).  I also found pizza yeast, which has 0mg of sodium, but it requires ¾ teaspoon of salt.  So I called Clay to have him look up how much sodium is in 1 serving of salt.  It’s insane.  1 teaspoon of salt has 2400mg of sodium!!!!  WOW!  Sooooooo we decided to try using a salt substitute, which has 0mg of sodium.  I’m not sure how it will work since baking is like chemistry and the salt and the salt substitute don’t have the same chemical makeup.  We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow.

I know I’ve been talking about Mrs. Dash in almost all of my blog posts, but it really has been a lifesaver when it comes to making food taste great.  I even dreamed about Mrs. Dash last night and how I walked into this store that has shelves upon shelves of seasonings and marinades all in alphabetical order.  But I guess that’s better than the dream I had Monday night about being in a tornado.  

Mrs. Dash is my mistress

So I forgot to mention that one day last week I made fried potatoes and I seasoned them with Mrs. Dash southwest chipotle seasoning.  I thought it tasted really and Clay said he couldn’t even taste it.  He’s already used his hot sauce and I think that we’re always going to have to keep a bottle in our house at all times.  We stopped by Wal-Mart tonight and we went ahead and bought a few more Mrs. Dash seasonings.  We picked up the garlic herb, tomato basil garlic, fiesta lime (my cousin’s favorite), and original.  I LOVE garlic so I had to get the 2 garlic ones.  I read on http://www.mrsdash.com/ that the garlic ones are good on bread, so we’ll have to try it the next time we have spaghetti.

I did forget to pick up some chocolate chips tonight at the store and instant coffee for my mocha muffins.  So it looks like I’ll have to stop by the store so I can make these muffins.  I hope they taste good since I’ve really been looking forward to them for so long.  I’ve also got to go to our big Kroger later this week to pick up some Udi’s pizza crust since our Kroger doesn’t have them.  I also need to look for the Mrs. Dash marinades.  Also a few co-workers have mentioned that I should stop by the Drug Emporium because they have a big selection of gluten free products and low sodium products. 

Oh and we had a slight little fiasco with cooking the bagged black beans.  I rinsed and drained them and soaked them overnight (just like the package said) and in the morning I rinsed and drained them again and put them in the fridge to cook later for black bean burgers.  So I had Clay start cooking them before I got home and 2 hours later (again, just like the package said) they were NOWHERE near being done.  I actually forgot about them and they cooked till 8:30 (total of 4 hours) and they still were not done.  So today I said something to a co-worker and she said that I needed to put them in the Crock-Pot to cook.  So I had Clay put them in the Crock-Pot on low at noon and they were finally done when I got home.  The beans were too hot to make burgers tonight so we’re going to have them tomorrow (the patties will practically be salt free!).

Oh yeah, before I forget Clay made the pizza sauce tonight and it was the best so far.  He is the pizza connoisseur.  

Craziness

Life has been pretty crazy this past week.  Last Friday one of my Aunt’s passed away so we had the visitation and funeral this past week.  I was at the hospital when my Aunt passed that Friday night.  At one point one of my Aunt’s pastors was talking to her husband, my Uncle Joe, and my Uncle Joe said, “I know this is going to sound weird, but when I brought her to the hospital that day I knew she wasn’t going to be going home with me.”  The pastor said, “No, that doesn’t sound weird.  It sounds like someone who’s been married for a long time.”  He and my Aunt would have been married 40 years at the end of this year.

On top of that we got an e-mail Monday night while we were at my Aunt’s visitation from the animal shelter saying that they had gotten a really good application for Marcus.  Clay and I got to review the application and we felt that it would be the perfect place for him.  We took him to Petsmart this morning and the woman and her grandson came and immediately fell in love, especially the grandson.  He couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear.  I think Marcus is going to very happy in his new home.  We told the shelter today that we are definitely interested in fostering again; we had such a great experience.  We even had a little “going away party” for Mr. Marcus Friday night.  I made some frozen treats and let them all go crazy licking and eating them. 

Also, today we got our stuff in the mail from the Healthy Heart Market.  Clay tasted the hot sauce and the Mrs. Dash mesquite marinade and he likes them both.  I also got my sodium free baking powder and soda so I’ll be getting to make those Mocha Muffins soon!  I’m also going to be trying to make my own granola bars soon since Clay will be starting school in 2 weeks.

So since I’ve showed you pictures of Mr. Marcus here are a couple of my favorite pics of my baby girls Riley (Golden Retriever) and Olive “Bug” (lab/cocker spaniel/greyhound mix).

Online Grocery Shopping

So today I finally broke down and did some grocery shopping online.  This store: http://healthyheartmarket.com/ has a lot of sodium free options, and even have a link to all of their sodium free items.  That makes for easy shopping, which I love.  I think that’s the one gene I didn’t inherit as a female, well except for when it comes to shoes.  So it’ll be like Christmas getting all these new items to try.  I bought the Featherweight Sodium Free Baking Powder, Ener-G Baking Soda, Mr. Spice Tangy Bang Hot Sauce, Mrs. Dash Mesquite Grille 10 Minute Marinade, and more Herb-Ox Beef Bouillon (50 packets).

I can’t wait to get the baking powder and soda so I can try those mocha muffins and some other desserts.  Also Clay was excited that I found the Mrs. Dash marinade.  He looked at Wal-Mart before I ordered and he couldn’t find the marinade so I just ordered it.  He also LOVES hot sauce, so we’ll give this one a shot and see how he likes it.  I’m pretty sure he could eat hot sauce on everything.

Also http://www.kashi.com/kidfriendlyfoods is giving away a free sample of either their Cinnamon Harvest cereal (which has 0mg of sodium, wow!) or there Peanutty Dark Chocolate layered granola bar (which has 80mg of sodium).  So since it’s a free sample we chose the cereal for Clay to try.  I think have multiple options is good so we’ll see how he likes it.

Sprinkles

So we bought a few different “sprinkles” or Mrs. Dash’s seasonings tonight.  We bought Southwest Chipotle, Chicken, and Extra Spicy. 

Clay also bought some unseasoned chicken wings that he can spice up.  The great thing about Mrs. Dash is that she has about 10 different mixes that are all salt free.  Clay decided to try the Southwes Chipotle blend tonight and he said it was pretty good.  It’s a really good thing he likes spices, especially spicy spices.  I just don’t what else you can put the spices on, maybe rice or some other grain?  Has anyone ever tried it on anything non-meat?