Wow! We're 1/3 done. Overall I'd say it's been fairly easy. We already ate pretty healthy so mostly we've cut out candy and unhealthy snacks. I think I've lost 3 pounds so obviously we were eating more than I thought.
Breakfast- Kendra and Riley tried the pepperoni roll, they said it turned out good. I also made pancakes which we topped with blackberries (the girls had butter and I had maple syrup.)
Lunch- Kendra and Riley had bag lunches today (Field trip to the Zoo). They had pepperoni rolls, strawberries, carrots, string cheese and almond balls. They also had Original Lays potato chips and 100% juice boxes.
Turns out I was scheduled to go to the Zoo too. I'm glad I brought my own lunch too. I had tuna pasta salad, a yellow pepper, carrots, strawberries, coffee (black) and a dried mango slice. Later Riley had an apple and I had dried fruit, sesame sticks and cashews. The girls had another bag of Lays and both had more carrots. It was hard to be on a field trip and not munch on the leftover bag lunches that were packed for the kids, esp. the Oreos (they even had the white Oreos, sigh, I love those kind.) I resisted though. Kendra and Riley are already not big fans of Oreos so it was no biggie to them.
Dinner- I made homemade chicken soup with dumplings. The dumplings turned out very soft. The only thing I did different was add some garlic powder and I used coconut milk instead of regular milk. I'm beginning to suspect coconut milk may not work the same as regular milk? The thing is I've used it before for baking with no adverse affects so I'm not sure what the deal is. We also had sparkling water with some juice added.
Dessert- Kendra and Riley had almond/pb balls. I had a cupcake with experimental frosting.
Baking adventures and experiments-
Tomorrow is my birthday so I figured I ought to see if I could make cupcakes without sugar. My conclusions are as follows: Cake-YES, Frosting-NO
Here's what I did:
I made my Whacky Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe I found online last year and substituted honey for the sugar. Not as sweet (I'll add more honey next time.) but still tastes like chocolate cake.
I then tried to make frosting using Agave powder. Not only is it not as sweet as sugar but it does not work the same way or is even close to powdered sugar (proof that it's not how something or someone looks on the outside, but what's on the inside that counts.) I ended up having to add honey to sweeten it. By itself the frosting was kind of eh, but surprisingly I liked it on the cupcakes. I also tried to make frosting with honey and cocoa powder. By itself it wasn't too bad, but I didn't love it on the cupcakes. I'll post the recipes.
Something I discovered that made me a little bummed. Some artificial vanilla has invert sugar in it. Grrrrr! I guess I have to read EVERY label. (I know, I should be baking with the real stuff. I just go through it so fast making cakes all the time that I buy the cheap stuff. I guess now I know better. As soon as I use up the industrial sized jug of imitation stuff I just bought I'll be sure to replace it with the real stuff. The jug by the way does not have that invert sugar junk in it- WHEW!)
In addition to making cupcakes I made some cinnamon raisin bread for breakfast etc. this week. I had a piece for a bedtime snack. Warm and yummy! I also had some tea.
Decluttering for the day started out trying to find my kitchen sink. Anything that doesn't fit in the dishwasher winds up in the sink to do "later". (We all know how that goes.) I was doing ok, making dinner, doing dishes, feeding Tobin....Then I decided to bake. Let's just say any progress I made is now long gone and replaced by an even bigger mess. I think if I found someone who loved to clean as much as I love to bake...? Who am I kidding, we don't live in a perfect world yet.
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