Success! and Weigh-In Wednesday

Sadly, that success is not directed at the scale this week. No change from last. However, being the eternal optimist I like to think that the reason the scale has not changed is because my body is busy converting my fat stores into muscle- which is denser and weighs more. Right? I have been very successful with exercising over the last week. I ordered an aerobic step and have been enjoying the benefits. I feel very good physically when I exercise, and I do just enough that I can feel it in my muscles just a tad, so I know things are working. My pants are also feeling a little less snug, so perhaps I have a broken scale? Lol. C'est La Vie.

No, my success today comes from my multi-grain bread that I have been working on. Two weeks ago I picked up a new healthful cereal. Hodgson Mills Multi-Grain Cereal with milled flaxseed and soy. Sounded okay to me. I love oatmeal, and have been enjoying Mother's brand Multi-Grain cereals. But this one...not so much. I made it for the first time yesterday, and I just was having a hard time getting into it. I was expecting something like oatmeal, but this was (texturewise) more like Cream of Wheat. And as I was eating the cereal, I thought it tasted very much like a slice of soggy bread. Ah!! That was the light bulb moment. I had about a cup of cooked cereal remaining, could it work? I didn't have time yesterday to attempt another batch, but took to it first thing this morning.

My whole wheat bread has about 5 cups of flour in it total- give or take a half cup or so for moisture in the air. And to make whole wheat I swap 2 of those cups of bread flour for whole grain whole wheat flour. This makes a great bread. It's tasty, healthy, and still has that fantastic softness that I love about bread. So today I took out 1 cup of the whole wheat flour, and subbed in 1 cup of pre-cooked mulit grain cereal. Then as I was getting my milk mixture ready, it occurred to me that cooked grains of cereal already had moisture in them, so I reduced the water from 1 cup to 3/4 cup. Next time I'll reduce the water by half. I kneaded in the remainder of the flour, and was quite optimistic. Three rises later I have 16 heart healthy whole grain rolls on the cooling rack. It worked perfectly!! I am quite excited about this one, who would have thought breakfast cereal would do the trick? My next step is to attempt kneading in some whole wheat berries or sunflower seeds to give it some texture, but otherwise, this bread is perfect! I am thrilled.

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel a little off when you get up in the morning? And you chalk it up to not getting enough sleep? That's me today. I know I didn't sleep the best, but when I got up I got right to work cleaning up the kitchen, doing laundry, baking bread, etc. But of course as the day has gone on, I've felt a little more off and a little more off. And now I have a distinct tickle in my sinuses and a bit of a lumpiness going on in my throat, and my eyes feel hot. (if that makes any sense). So today I am not going to do my workout, I did quite a bit scrubbing the kitchen today, and I am starting to just not feel well, I think. Zander's had a mild cough and a runny nose, and I think that he has shared. Lucky me. Just in time to have company for the weekend of course. And again, that eternal optimism chalked it up to spring allergies arriving early. Alas, the Alavert I took earlier has done squat for me, so I suspect a touch of a cold. Thanks Zander.

Lucky for me, I have supper already in the fridge for tonight. Sunday for Company Dinner I made Sloppy Joe's, and I had plenty left over for dinner tonight. I can't say that I use a specific recipe for sloppy joe's. But essentially it is ground beef, browned up with some onions and peppers. Then I add in a can of tomatoes and a bottle of barbecue sauce. Cook the liquid away and you have sloppy joe's. But this week the sneaky Mom made an appearance while making the sloppy joe mixture. In addition to the 3 pounds of ground beef, I also took 3 carrots, 2 celery stalks, half of both a red and yellow bell pepper, and 3 scallions and whirred them all up in the food processor until the veggies were the size of ground beef crumbles. Ah. See where I'm going with this? I ended up with about 3 cups of finely minced veggies, and by the time they have cooked for a couple of hours in the ground beef and sauce mixture, the veggies look just like the ground meat. So we get a fantastic addition of flavor, and picky kids have no idea they are eating good for you cooked vegetables. It really is good, and a great way to add some good-for-you nutrients.

So that's it for today. I'm going to go see what's left on the DVR for this afternoon.