Southern Style, Y’all!

Howdy! How are y’all?!

My workout today: only Zumba (45 minutes) and a 20 minute ab workout.

Lunch today was a mug of Mom’s (best batch ever!) turkey chili with a dollop of Angus Barn cheddar cheese (wow, that was amazing!) with some Brussels sprouts, a Fuji apple with peanut flour sauce dip. It was so colorful, yummy, and healthy.

I’ve been having savory snacks lately. Usually, I’ll have something sweet like greek yogurt and fruit or an apple and PB, but lately it’s been hummus and cheese with veggies (carrots and celery today with roasted red pepper hummus). I feel like the hummus is multiplying! I can NOT get rid of it. This particular kind isn’t that great, but I don’t want to open a new container until I finish this one, you know?

Today, I studied about metabolic acids, ketone bodies, ion concentration, acids and bases…it sounds so nerdy, but, again, our bodies are SO COOL!

Daddy and I are home alone this week because Mom’s out of town on business. We’ve been watching hunting shows in Africa together in the afternoons. They are SO cool! I can’t wait to go!!! (not to hunt hehe)

I’ve been planning dinner in my head since my Trader Joe’s shopping extravaganza last week. I wanted some southern cookin’, clean style…sort of!

Some ingredients…

That turned into…

1/2 package Chicken-less Pulled Chicken (like pulled pork), 1/2 a sah-weet potato with organic baked beans, a huge bunch of kale (like collard greens) that I felt like needed to be finished off. I almost made some sweet tea, but saved the calories for this instead…

a glass of Christmas wine from Duplin County.

And for dessert…

Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake adapted from Gina

Serves: 1

Ingredients:

-2 T flour of choice (I used peanut, but whole wheat or gluten-free would be great too)

-1 T protein powder (I used Chocolate)

-1 T special dark chocolate powder (or 1/2 T of cooked cacao powder)

-1/4 t baking soda

-pinch of sea salt

-1 flax egg (1 T milled flax seed mixed with 3 T water)

-2 T almond milk (or any other milk of choice)

-1 square crumbled 100% cacao

-1/2 T unsweetened applesauce (optional, for moisture)

-1/2 t vanilla extract

-cinnamon and Truvia, to taste

-greek yogurt for a la mode style  (optional)

Directions:

1. Spray the inside of a microwave-safe coffee mug with nonstick spray

2. Add the dry ingredients (flour, protein, cacao, baking soda and salt), and stir well to combine

3. Add the wet ingredients and mix with a spoon until mixture resembles a thin cake batter –make sure there are no flour chunks in there.

4. Taste the mixture and add Truvia and cinnamon to your tastebuds. Stir in chocolate chips or even nuts if you want to.

5. Microwave on high for 2 1/2 – 3 minutes, until the cake is cooked on top and around the edges. (I did 2 and 1/2 minutes and had a chocolate lava explosion in the microwave hehe)

6. Using a spoon, loosen the edges (or scrape it off the microwave 😉 ) and plop onto a plate. Garnish with fruit, chocolate syrup, cacao nibs, sexy spice, or nut butter…even make it “a la  yogurt” if you’d like.

7. Feast!