Day 5 - Recipes & Holiday Weekends

It's Labor Day weekend - a holiday that is celebrated as summer's last hurrah. Everyone is firing up the grill and squeezing in those last trips to the pool and beach. Remember my eating tips - stop when you're full! I'm finally going grocery shopping. Yippee! (I say with a sarcastic voice.)  So, that means I'll be reading labels and looking for organic, natural products to try. I've never been a fan of the gloppy look and oily taste of natural peanut butter, but it's time to give it another try. I'm so used to the taste of fat-free, low-sugar products. I have been so afraid of eating foods that contained fat, that I was actually increasing my sugar intake. If you look at the label of a regular full-fat item, like Jif Peanut Butter and then the label of their low-fat version, so will see the sugar content is increased. Now, it's only 1 gram of sugar, but that's just one example of the myriad low-fat foods I've been consuming over the years. Of course, you could make your own peanut butter with roasted peanuts, oil, salt and sugar. Perhaps I will try that next weekend if I can find some good peanuts around here.
My girls wanted pancakes this morning, so here's my recipe for whole wheat pancakes. (Since whole wheat flour isn't something I use all the time, I store mine in a ziploc bag in the freezer. It keeps much longer that way and you don't get those creepy little bugs.)
Whole Wheat Pancakes:
3/4 cup whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
heavy dash of cinnamon
Whisk in 1 1/4 cups skim milk, 1/2 stick melted butter or Promise, 2 eggs, and a dash of vanilla. Mix until combined.  Ladle onto hot buttered skillet and flip when bubbly. I add slices of banana or blueberries right on top of the batter on the skillet for an infusion of fresh fruit. To add more protein and calcium, top with Greek Yogurt and honey. No syrup. Makes about 8-12 regular-size pancakes.
Try it and let me know what you think.
Lunch was turkey and cheese on foccacia bread. Dinner was shrimp with angel hair pasta, tossed with a chili pepper, garlic, white wine, diced tomato, scallion, basil, lemon zest and juice. Takes 10 min and it's healthy and delicious!
Now, I'm off to Mom's Night Out. Let's see how good I can be. I already had 1/2 a glass of white wine with dinner. Ciao!