Category Archives: gardening

March 17, 2011 · 2:30 pm

Kiss Me…

…I’ve got some Irish in me!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Leave it to the Irish to turn a holy day into a day associated with BEER!  Not that I’m complaining, I am planning on enjoying a Guinness float in honor of my Irish Pappy.

If there are any Irish readers out there, how is St. Patrick’s Day celebrated in Ireland?  Is it more about the church service and less about the green booze?

March 17th is a special day in my family because it’s my mother-in-laws birthday!  Happy birthday Shay!

I made her a birthday cake but since she lives 3 hours away we had to eat it all ourselves. 😉

This flour-less, low-fat chocolate torte was an experiment that turned out really well.

  • 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 nugget panela dissolved* in 1/4 cup water OR 3 tablespoons brown sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 cup cocoa (non alkalized is much higher in antioxidants)
  • 3 eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • ~1/4 cup unsweetened baking chocolate

Whisk all ingredients except the baking chocolate together in a bowl.  Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler and quickly whisk into the other ingredients.  Taste for sweetness.  This is meant to be a rich, semi-sweet torte but if you prefer it a little sweeter you can add another tablespoon of brown sugar/panela dissolved in a tablespoon of warm water.

Butter and cocoa your baking dish. I used an 8 inch pan but I would have preferred it a little thicker so next time I will double the recipe or use a smaller dish.  Bake at 350 for 22 minutes.  Take out of the oven when it still looks a little undercooked.  Since this torte is low-fat is will dry out if cooked too long.

I glazed the top with a Cabernet Sauvignon jam that I melted in the microwave. Raspberry would be great too. If you wanted to go full-on decedent a chocolate-coconut icing like the one I made for Halloween would be pretty amazing.

*Panela

These morsels of unrefined cane sugar are my go-to for all of my sugar needs lately (Kefir Spritzer, Kombucha, the occasional sugar-sweetened dessert).  They can be found at any Latin American specialty store for a few bucks a bag.  Panela dissolves quickly in hot or cold water and tastes similar to brown sugar but unlike brown sugar is unrefined.  Most brown sugar is just refined white sugar with processed molasses added back in.  The processing of both the sugar and the molasses stripes out the nutrients and you are left with empty, nutritionally-void calories.  Panela is minimally processed and the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals remain.

It’s a gorgeous day and along with a little yoga and a quick kettlebell workout, my exercise will come in the form of yard work and walking dates with girl friends.  Love Spring.  Enjoy!

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March 2, 2011 · 2:37 pm

Got Goals?

Thank you all for your very sweet words, thoughts, and prayers in response to my nana’s passing yesterday.  I felt like I had a support system spanning the globe.  Thank you.

Despite the obvious difficulty that yesterday brought it was a lovely day.  Tate was a content birthday boy and we both felt very welcomed into Charlottesville with a great turn-out for his dinner party at South Street Brewery.

As regular readers know, I am all about goal-setting these days.   Regular readers also may have noticed that I rarely actually achieve my goals 100%.   I used to find this discouraging but lately I actually find it motivating to set my sights slightly higher than I will actually accomplish.

On that note, February wrap-up

My goals were

  1. get health insurance (I know, I know, it’s preposterous that I don’t have it but I was out of the country and I am a procrastinator!)
  2. walk 100 miles (anyone care to join me?  It’s only 3.5 miles a day!)
  3. run 30 miles
  4. start teaching exercise classes
  5. practice lots of yoga
  6. begin choreographing my dance for May (more on this soon)
  7. start my garden
  8. eat lots of amazing food with amazing people

    Let’s see how I did

    1. health insurance is in process
    2. 100 80 miles walked!
    3. I ran 33.5 miles!
    4. I started classes at my studio but there were no students the first week…I am still going to call this goal reached.
    5. I totally dropped the yoga ball!  😦
    6. the music is chosen, a few minutes are mapped out, and I am excited!
    7. we still need to buy some topsoil to fill our raised beds but I got started on organizing, cleaning up the hibernating herbs, and drooling over seed catalogs.
    8. this was perhaps to most successfully accomplished goal ;)!

    I also achieved some unwritten, unplanned goals last month.

    • I started foam rolling regularly!  I have owned a foam roller for nearly 10 years but have only used it intermittently until now.  Daily rolling does the body good!
    • I started meditating.  3 minutes a day, most days, and I am loving it.  I fell for yoga long ago but was not interested in meditating beyond the mat until recently.
    • I have jumped on the kettlebell bandwagon!  What started as a cautious and skeptical affair has grown into a full blown infatuation.  I will be purchasing my second ‘bell soon!

    And now it’s time for a new set of goals for MARCH!

    1. run at least 10 miles a week
    2. 3 strength training sessions a week (two Core Four, one kettlebell)
    3. walk 100 miles
    4. work up to 5 minutes of meditation most days of the week
    5. use my car less (I don’t drive that much but lately I’ve gotten a little lazy about driving to the clinic)
    6. practice yoga 5 days a week

    I also have a long list of “Spring Cleaning” type projects for this month that I am excited about, I’ll let you in on them as they happen.

    Set goals my friends! Big or small, epic or trivial, clarify what you want and how to accomplish it!

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