Clean Banana Bread (make this banana bread right now)

One of my friends made whole wheat banana bread a few weeks ago and I have been wanting some ever since.  But I was sure there were recipes that didn't include a ton of sugar, or any sugar actually.  I'm trying to not eat sugar.

I found this recipe, and it was awesome!!  Call me crazy, but I thought it was a little bit sweet, so I swapped the honey with the applesauce and I think it was much better balanced.  Instead of 1/2 c honey and 1/4 c apple sauce, I did 1/2 c applesauce and 1/4 c honey.  Perfection.

It's so good for you, you can eat it for breakfast.  It's so good tasting, you can eat it for dessert.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp ground flaxseed (I never have any so I leave this out)
• Pinch of sea salt
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 1/4 cup safflower oil
• 1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate (or semisweet chocolate chips)
• Olive oil cooking spray, optional

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, flaxseed and salt.
2. In a large bowl, with a hand mixer, beat bananas until smooth. Add egg whites and beat until combined. Gradually mix in applesauce, honey and safflower oil.  (OR you can do what I do and put the bananas and eggs in the blender and whip 'em up good and then add in the the remaining wet ingredients) 
3. Mix dry ingredients into banana mixture; stir in chocolate. (You can add the dry ingredients to the blender and pulse a few times, but you'll have to stir the chocolate chips in with a spoon) 
4. Mist a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Pour batter into pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until browned on top.

Honestly, I have a hard time getting my banana bread not gooey in the middle.  Sometimes it comes out great and other times not.  I'm going to try five degrees hotter and five extra minutes next time I make it.  Tomorrow.  Or today.  Right now. 

Update: When I pulled my banana bread out of the oven I stuck a knife in it and it was still doughy in the middle. So I put some foil over the top and stuck it back in for ten minutes and voila!  Perfectly baked.  Also, when mixing the batter I used a whole egg instead of two egg whites because it's just one yolk and I hate to waste :)

September's Goal

Ah, I can't believe this month is already over!  You would think a month where I ate no sugar would drag on forever, but that hasn't been the case (most days!)

In starting to recap the month, I feel like a war veteran, like I'm changed now that I'm on the other side.  I see the world differently.  But I don't have PTSD, I don't think.

It was hard at first, my time between kids going to bed and my own bedtime was the hardest time of day.  This is when I usually have some sort of treat.  A cup of cocoa or ice cream that Adam bought when he ran to the store for milk and came home with $40 of groceries I would never buy (but love to eat!).  If we don't have anything good, I can usually count on sweet cereal to fill the void.

The first night without sugar I had ice water.  I just need something to snack on.  It wasn't the same, but it wasn't the worst either.  Later, my twitter friend Meredith recommended gum.  I had great success with the mint chocolate chip gum.

I also loved Bengal Spice herbal tea. This stuff is seriously the best.  A little honey, a splash of almond milk. . . heaven.  Oh yeah, honey doesn't count.  You might argue that the body responds to it in the same way it responds to sugar.  I don't care.  I have to draw the line somewhere.

This isn't to say I was perfect.  I allowed myself the occasional cheat day.  Because I love cake pops, but I find the opportunities to eat really good cake pops are few and far between.  My friend Brandy had them at her daughter's 1st birthday party, so you know, I had to.

Still, I lost 4lbs!

Here's why I think this worked for me.  Sugar is my biggest weakness.  Going vegetarian did nothing for me because I'm practically vegetarian already.  I cooked four vegetarian meals this week with out even trying.  And two of the other days I ate vegetarian leftovers.  So, it didn't really change my diet that much.

But sugar.

Like I said, I was eating a treat almost every night.  Those were all extra calories.

So my hope is, going forward, that I will continue to stop my eating after dinner.  I'll throw 7pm out there, but sometimes we eat diner at 5:30 so it might be even earlier.  I want to think about dessert like I think about soda.  I love Dr. Pepper, but I don't drink it every day.  I don't drink it every week.  Maybe one a month, but I try to have one every other month or so.  I don't feel sad about it because I know I can have some in the future.  And I feel good drinking water.  So I want to think about dessert like that.  I love it, but I don't have to have it all the time.

Tomorrow?  I'm making dessert.  I think I've earned it. 

August and September Goals

So August's goal was to read religious texts daily, and I've improved, but I haven't been perfect.  The plan was to wake up when I feed Axel at 6:30 and then read scriptures after I put him back in bed (He only wakes up the one time "in the night".  It's morning to us, but it's still his night).  Shots + vacation + cold = Axel's schedule really messed up.  It's getting better, but for a while he was waking up to eat at 5am and I just couldn't start my day at 5!  I tried going back to sleep and then waking up at 6:30 but I swear I've been drugged.

Excuses, excuses.  But it's hard to do something daily when you can't get into a good rhythm.  Still working on this one.

September really snuck up on me in some ways (blogging ways) but it others I've been looking forward to it!  (Last September was the best month of my life, mostly because of the gorgeous weather!)

September is NO SUGAR!!!!  I really really need it this time.  Back in May I decided I was going to lose the baby weight.  Soon I realized that when I lost weight, I lost my milk supply.  And since I wasn't trying to lose weight, I swear I started eating like I was trying to gain.  And I did.  Most of my problem is sweets.  Actually that's pretty much my only problem.  I don't like junk food (chips, or. . . see I can't even think of non-sweet treats!) but I love candy and desserts.  The rest of my meals are like oatmeal, beans, rice, quinoa, salads, whole wheat pasta, veggies, the occasional chicken or turkey. 

Do you want to join in with me on this one??? (Here are the rules.  Feel free to make up your own though!) It's a fun time of year to drop the sugar because soon we'll have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas thrown at us and getting it out of your system now can help make those holidays a little easier!!

I think I'm going to do a giveaway on Monday, so make sure you check it out!

How to survive a month with out sugar

So even though I wasn't perfect during No Sugar September, I still did pretty good.  No chocolate chips were consumed straight out of the bag, so not too shabby.  It should be obvious that the main thing I miss during No Sugar September is chocolate and so I was forced to invent the sugar free version of one of my favorite snacks.  

All Natural Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana 
(You cannot take a pretty picture of this, I tried several times and suffered through eating several chocolate peanut butter bananas but in the end I have given up and you'll just have to imagine)

This article is pretty funny

Ingredients:
1 spoonful natural peanut butter (we use Adam's, with no sugar added*)
1/2 spoonful honey (if you use regular peanut butter maybe you can leave this out, maybe you can't.  You'll have to try it both ways, darn it!)
Some cocoa powder

Directions:
Melt peanut butter and honey (or just peanut butter) in small bowl (like the size you use to feed your six month old baby) for like 10-15 second.  Stir in however much cocoa powder you want.  Taste it and add more cocoa powder (probably).  Dip your banana in this and eat it.  Lick the bowl.

*I recommend never getting the peanut butter with no salt added.  Never ever get it.

(The regular version of this is peanut butter with some chocolate chips melted in, in case you wanted to know) 

No Sugar September: FAIL

So at the beginning of September I decided I wasn't going to eat any sugar for a month.  Fun right?  No big deal, I'd done it before and lost 4 pounds with out even trying!  Plus I totally lost my sweet tooth that month making it much easier by the end.  

2012: I did great for the first two weeks.  Then, slowly and surely, sugar crept back in.  A bowl of Corn Pops here, a bite of Adam's cookie there. 

So technically it was a fail.  Still, I'll count it as a good experience.  Here's why:

I ate way less sugar than I would have otherwise.  I didn't eat any of my mother-in-law's chocolate chip cookies (not a whole one, anyway!) and they are probably one of my favorite things in the world.  I can't eat one, or two, I usually eat three. I also avoided other candies I might have otherwise eaten that I don't even really care for, like the airheads I bought for my nanny kids. 

After all this effort, I gained a lot this month.  But my doctor measured my tummy and assured me it was all baby.  Of course he added I should still keep trying to be healthy and get in my exercise. 

That being said, I'm quitting early!  (Um, not that I've been totally following the rules or anything. . .) I'm considering today to be the last day of September and allowing myself some slack starting with the weekend! 

To keep in line with my healthy promise, I'm going to be making treats from Chocolate Covered Katie more often than the Pioneer Woman.  :)  Also, Monday I'll be sharing one of my favorite "sugar free" treats (processed sugar free).  Have a great weekend!!

No Sugar September!!

Source: photoxyz.com via Delaine on Pinterest

Last year for Labor Day Adam and I went on a whirl wind trip to Logan UT and then down the opposite direction to Parowan UT.  Adam ran in a mud run, we visited friends and then met up with my parents during my dad's high school reunion.  We had a great time but after eating a huge bag of M&Ms and a large basket of fried food at my grandpa's old dairy freeze I was feeling pretty crappy.  Not to mention I had 20 pounds of baby weight needing to be lost!  So the day after Labor Day I decided I would not have any sugar at all for the remainder of September.  Crazy, I know. 

But I did it!!  And I lost five pounds with out even doing anything else.  When I went a little crazy on October 1st (and 2nd and 3rd. . . ) I didn't gain any of it back. 

As I looked back on that goal today, I've decided to try it again.  Its hard, yes, but knowing you'll have these foods again in October really helps me say no.  My mother-in-law's cookies?  They're always in the freezer.  Chocolate chips?  The grocery store isn't going to run out.  Plus there is a lot of sugar I eat that I don't even care for!  Sour patch kids?  I'll eat them if you offer, but I'll never go out of my way for them.

I'll be following the same three rules as last year:

1. Honey.  I can't eat my 7 grain cereal without a little sweetener! (And I DON'T do artificial sweetener)  *This year I am also going to include agave. 
2. Sugar that is included in non-dessert food.  I'm talking yogurt, peanut butter, ketchup and other stuff that I can't think of right now.  You get the idea.
3. Fruit, and other naturally occurring sugar.  Like sweet potatoes.  Mmmmm.

Of course I'm in no condition to be losing weight, but my doctor has approved of me gaining as little as possible as long as I'm eating plenty of healthy food and working out.  The baby should do just fine if keep eating lots and lots of fruits and veggies and whole grains.

Join in?