To "D" or not to "D", that is the question....

Do you love the sun as much as I do? Because I live in DC, I don’t get to the beach as often as I would like (growing up in Miami has ruined me).

I am sure that you are aware that the sun provides our bodies with Vitamin D. But are you aware that most people are Vitamin D deficient? While being out in the sun is a great way to get Vitamin D, it is not the only way (you can supplement by taking it in pill form or by the foods you eat). And with reports of skin cancer and sun damage on the rise, we are not getting the adequate sun exposure needed to benefit us (well, those of us who live in the southeastern States usually do a little better).

Vitamin D is actually one of the more important vitamins that we don’t get enough of in our systems. But what does it do exactly?

• The major biologic function of vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus.
• Vitamin D is absolutely necessary for the growth and development of bones and teeth.
• It is essential for the proper absorption and utilization of calcium and phosphorus in the body; both are important to the health of the skeleton.
• Vitamin D promotes bone mineralization with a number of other vitamins, minerals, and hormones.

(Reference)

Vitamin D also helps control glucose levels, which are directly tied to diabetes. Diabetics found with low Vitamin D levels also had little control of their diabetes. More and more doctors are recommending that their diabetic patients use a Vitamin D supplement to help their diabetes.

I can’t tell you how much Vitamin D you need (only your doctor can do that), but I can recommend that you go see your doctor and get tested if you need a Vitamin D supplement. Its a simple blood test that should be done at least one a year, during your yearly checkup (ask your doctor to specifically look at your Vitamin D levels).

Good luck!

For more information:

What is Vitamin D?

The Sun!

Vitamin D and Diabetes

Are You Deficient?

impressing on no time, no effort, and just a little bit of creativity.

so i don't know if you're like me, but when my mom comes to visit, i want to impress her with my stellar housekeeping skills. somehow i think that it's my way of proving that she did a good job. as if i am saying "look mom! i can cook! i can do dishes! i can take care of myself and my family! YAY!"

it's probably some sort of warped psychological need for approval or something, but there you go.

but with that desire comes pressure. normally, musicboy is pretty easy to please. he likes meat, but he'll roll with whatever i want.  breakfast for dinner? sweet.  black bean burgers out of the freezer depths? neat! he is positive guy.

mom is easy to please too, but i feel the aforementioned pressure to do more and be IMPRESSIVE.

normally, in my mind, that means i must slave away. but lately, i've been nothing but not excited to spend time in the kitchen, so i'm going to share with you my secret go-to weapon of looking like you're impressive but really expending very little effort at all.

here's what you'll need to make what has been universally declared DELICIOUS, or what we call spicy sticky sweet chicken/pork in this house:

• about 1 pound of white meat (i normally cut use boneless skinless chicken breast or inexpensive pork chops that i cut off the bones) 
• 1 package of spaghetti-like noodles (i've used angel hair or thin spaghetti)
• a vegetable of your choice that goes well with soy sauce (i usually use broccoli, but cauliflower, carrots, sugar snap peas, or really almost anything like that would work well--but broccoli IS a superfood)
• honey
• soy sauce (remember the sodium content of this--it will already be salty, so don't add any additional salt)
• ginger (fresh or powdered from your spice rack)
• hot sauce
• garlic (again, fresh or powdered from your spice rack)
• parmesan cheese

now, i'm a "i throw things together and taste them and then add until it tastes better" kind of cook, but here's the general idea of how to make the marinade.

• create a base of soy sauce. to feed three of us, i used about 1/2 cup of soy sauce. you'll want to adjust based on how much sauce you want left over.
• add about a teaspoon of honey to begin with. you may add more if you want it to taste sweeter.
• add about 1/2 teaspoon of ginger and garlic to begin with.  you really will need to tinker with the spices to your individual taste. i usually end up adding additional garlic if it tastes too much like soy for my particular taste.
• add three or four splashes of hot sauce, depending on how spicy your family likes it. don't be afraid of the hot sauce--even if you don't like spice, it's a necessary element to balance the other flavors.

just mix them all together.  add the meat and let it marinate for about 15 minutes.  during this time, get your water started for the noodles and chop up your vegetables (or get them prepared for steaming).

when you think that the meat has marinated enough to gather some flavor (if you're using chicken, the easiest way to tell is to see if the chicken has changed color to adopt the dark color of the marinade), throw it in a pan.  DO NOT PUT ALL OF THE MARINADE WITH IT.  trust me.  essentially, you're just going to stirfry this meat over about medium/medium-high heat; by this time, your noodles should already be in and you should start your vegetables.

when you cook it, you want the heat to be high enough to cook the meat, but not so high that the sauce in the meat begins to burn.  if you keep it at medium/medium-high, you should see the sauce bubbling and creating a liquid to braise the meat in. 

once the meat is cooked, add the marinade.  YOU CANNOT SERVE THIS SAUCE UNTIL YOU'VE BOILED IT, since it's been with raw meat. if you boil it, however, it will be safe to eat.  this should be the last step, and while you're doing this, you can take your noodles off of the stove and drain them. 

when the meat has boiled a bit in the marinade (keep the heat at the same level), turn it off.  serve the meat over the noodles, with spoonfuls of sauce.  serve the vegetable on the side. 

i often add parmesan cheese to my noodles, and it adds a nice complementary flavor to the asian zing of the dish.

it may sound like a strange dish, and i wish that i would think ahead to take pictures of these yummy things i'm making, but it's a really easy dish to make and it impresses.

from start to finish, it's probably a 30 minute meal.  take that, rachael ray!

Spinach Ricotta Bites

In my search for recipes to sneak veggies into my toddler's diet (and mine), I found this one over at Weelicious. Weelicious never disappoints, so I gave it a try.

I'm not going to write out the entire recipe because there were no changes from the original.

You can find the recipe HERE.

Why spinach?

Everyone who knows me knows I hate spinach. It grosses me out. Something about it... blah. But I know, as did this smarty pants, that spinach is one of nature's super foods. I want to be super. I want my family to be super. So we try spinach... over and over... until we can find a way to keep it in our mouths and out of the trash.

Did you know that calorie for calorie, leafy green vegetables like Spinach contain more nutrients than anything else? Researchers have identified at least 13 different flavonoid compounds that function as antioxidants and as anticancer agents. The nutrients in spinach can also help provide protection against osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, and arthritis. To read more about spinach, visit the spinach page at The World's Healthiest Foods.

These little spinach ricotta bites are a tasty and sneaky way to get spinach into your diet.

So what's the verdict?

What do you think?

A Bottle Closer to Buff

Since our lovely Elizabeth is currently preparing for baby, I decided to postpone my post until today to give you all something riveting to take you through the weekend (We’ll see if that actually happens).

I posted a Link to Health last week that I titled "The Best Weight Loss Drink." It was an article about research from Vanderbilt University showing the physiological effects that a certain drink could have, particularly on blood pressure, alertness, and energy expenditure. The article was discussing that one drink that doctors are constantly telling us we need more of and exercises tends to leave us with less of...water.

I was going to just let the article speak for itself, but I think it is really important to focus in on the necessity of water in your health and fitness journey because it is a major contributing factor toward success (also, I have the slight nagging feeling that not everyone clicks on the Links to Health...so water gets a post all it's own).

You can stop rolling your eyes now. Aside from the aforementioned physiological benefits, drinking water contributes to successful weight loss. I'm speaking from experience here kids. I did a Health and Fitness challenge at the beginning of this year called 10 in '10. The premise was setting healthy lifestyle goals for the first 10 weeks of 2010. One of my "goals" was to completely eliminate soda from my diet. Basically, it was a way for me to avoid using the term “resolutions”, because I was technically only committing myself to 10 weeks…rather than an entire year. Wouldn't you know it though...doing something for 10 weeks goes long past the "28 days necessary to make a habit" and the soda thing stuck. It's now August and I am still soda free in 2010.

With the soda goal, I also decided to significantly cut back on drinks with calories. I'd rather have my calories elsewhere...you know…somewhere important like Sweetarts and Lemonheads. So with that, I decided to mainly switch to water. I know. I know. You are probably thinking...water is boring and rarely goes well with (pizza/steak/pancakes/enter your chosen food to gripe about here). You also might be thinking about all the extra..ahem..breaks you will need to take when you up your water consumption. The fact is though...you get used to it. Your body gets used to it. The "breaks" decrease significantly. Water becomes what you like to drink with your meals and you feel good doing it. The health and weight loss benefits become a quick and easy bonus. Plus, you can always add a slice of lemon or lime (or even try flavored water or Crystal Light) if you really need some flavor with your drink.

Most people realize that drinking water will help your body to flush out stored water (thereby decreasing the water stored in various body parts). Some people might also realize that drinking water helps liver and kidney function. When the kidneys are deprived of water, your liver has to switch into overdrive to compensate. This lowers the livers productivity (i.e. the liver can't work as hard to convert stored fat to energy --metabolism--) because it has to work twice as hard. What you may not realize though, is the effect water can have on your muscle tone. Workouts become much more efficient when muscles are hydrated, because they tend to contract more easily. This is my favorite benefit of drinking water. But remember to increase your intake of water when exercising.

Links to Health:

BYU Study Finds Sibling Relationships Positively Effect Mental Health

Follow Along as the “Get in Shape Girl” Shreds it for 30 Days

Lance Armstrong Accused of Using Performance Enhancing Drugs

August is National Immunization Awareness Month (as a Public Health girl, I had to throw this in)

Avoiding Emotional Overeating

A little help...

I think you know that I love to cook. I wish I were able to come up with recipe all by myself (I am just not that talented), but alas, I accept my limits.

So, I wanted to share with you where I get some of my ideas for recipes.

Hungry Girl: Her website and books are amazing! She loves Fiber One Cereal and butternut squash and her recipes for desserts are actually really good!

Green Lite Bites: This is Roni, who lost a bunch of weight on Weight Watchers and not dedicates her life to cooking healthy. I have many a wonderful cooking experience with her recipes and I love that she will often have video to show how to do certain things (like cutting butternut squash).

AllRecipes: This is a fantastic recipe website that I use regularly. But what I love about this website is that you can input the ingredients that you have and it gives you recipes that includes those ingredients.

Skinny Taste: This is a website that I just recently discovered. The recipes look simple enough and if her pictures are any indication, I think the food will be delicious!

You don't have to be a gourmet cook in order to eat well. It comes down to being dedicated to eating right and putting in the effort to cook. And don't forget that you can cook extra and have lunch for the next day. Or freeze the food for a night that you don't feel like cooking...

hummus: not as gross as it looks or sounds.

hummus.

let's traffic in a few alarmingly false stereotypes (but, possibly, some that you may still hold), shall we? 

• hummus is the food of hippies, those people who won't eat meat and refuse to eat real bread, instead eating only things with sprouts and pita. 

• hummus looks and tastes like spackle.

• hummus can only be found in overpriced, strangely flavored portion sizes at crunchy health food stores and local restaurants whose main side dish is quinoa. 

(cue a whole host of stereotypes about quinoa, which i have never tasted. in fact, my husband just asked "what is that?" and i said "i don't know...it's a grain." so there you go.)

in short, many people believe that hummus is gross, overpriced, and not good for anything except a strangely exotic, somewhat out-of-the-box appetizer for a lame potluck.

i hate to tell you this, but if you think any of these things, you are 100% dead wrong.

(i'll give you a moment to let that sink in.)

hummus is, in fact, an exceptionally good and healthy ingredient to have in your refrigerator, as it makes an excellent snack, meal, or building block to a vegetarian feast. 

i have been a fan of hummus for a while now. when i eat sandwiches that require condiments, i will often use flavored hummus (one of my go-to favorites is roasted red pepper) as a substitute for mayonaise or mustard. it gives the lunch meat flavor and texture in lesser quantities than the fatty mayo would. also, because it is made with olive oil and ground chickpeas, it contains monounsaturated fat as well as protein and fiber.  it also makes for a tasty lunch with some pita bread, which is probably its most traditional incarnation.  i've been eating it regularly for about two years now.

but you may be wondering why i'm suddenly writing about hummus now.  why now, teachergirl...why now?

well, i've been...not a fan of meat lately. it just doesn't do anything for me, and in the course of trying to remember what i was doing when i was successfully losing weight, i realized that i was eating a lot less meat. but mainly? i just don't want to eat much meat anymore.  so i've been trying to find ways to incorporate more meatless dinners into the teachergirl/musicboy household.

let me just stop a minute and tell you that, when asked for a game for my bridal shower what his favorite snack food was, musicboy said meat.  the boy would be thrilled if he could eat meat and bread at every meal. in fact, i'm pretty sure he would think he had reached a level of nirvana.

however, knowing what i know and dearly hoping to have him healthy and happy and with me forever, i don't let that happen.  but his meatloving tendencies have made a dent in my dinner planning. 

until i stopped wanting meat. then i started to get a bit more aggressive with the meatless meal planning and, bless him, my dear musicboy tries anything i make with a willingness of heart that i hope all husbands, friends, children, and guests show.  he's a wonderful person to cook for.

in the course of doing this, i have found a few new wonderful ways to use hummus. 

• quesadillas:  these are a HUGE hit in our household. spread a little bit of hummus on a small tortilla. add the cheese of your choice and then grill/brown as you normally would. i find roasted red pepper is especially good for this particular dish, as it adds just a kick of spice.  you probably only need about 1/2 a tablespoon (if that) for each quesadilla.  for your reference: 2 tablespoons of hummus has 60 calories.
• black bean and rice tacos/burritos: i was dying for these about a week ago, and so i made black beans and rice (i use a tomato paste/cumin/chili powder/cayenne/garlic combination of spices in my black beans and then i add yellow rice to them to make the burrito/taco mixture).  having just picked up a carton of jalapeno and cilantro hummus that day, i decided that it might make an otherwise DEEPLY vegetarian meal seem more palatable to my dear musicboy.  he LOVED them, and so did i. the flavors were incredible, and the hummus only brought out the loveliness of the black beans. i didn't even notice a lack of meat, and neither did musicboy.
• pizza: by far the most surprising of my discoveries, but hummus makes an excellent base for a white pizza. if you get a flavorful hummus (i used the jalapeno one again), and add italian cheeses like normal, you get an outstanding pizza that's just a little bit different. 

 (i am sad that i didn't get pictures of these triumphs--they really were discoveries made on the fly, and, as such, not planned blog fodder.)

these discoveries have made me even more of a hummus lover.  i was converted before, but now i might be close to a fanatic.

i encourage you, if you haven't already tried it, to give it a whirl.  choose a flavor that you think might work for your particular likes (if you're a garlic fan, choose a heavily garlic-infused flavor; if you're a fan of spice, might i suggest that you look for something with jalapeno?).  incorporate it slowly into your diet, and see if you find yourself appreciating the rich flavor that it offers.  before you know it, you'll be hooked--and you can feel good about choosing something good to eat and good for you!

Making Bread at Home

I've recently made the commitment to make my family's bread. This was an easy decision for me, thanks to great recipes, a bread machine, and my new, fancy-shmancy electric bread knife and bread cutting board.

(The knife and board were only $45 on Amazon and make life about ten billion times easier when making bread. Ten billion.)

Another contributing factor to my decision? Store-bought bread freaks me out a little bit. Have you noticed that it just doesn't mold anymore? Bread is supposed to mold.

I've been searching for good, fool-proof recipes and found one I'd like to share with you. But first, here are a few things I've learned about making bread.

1. The best ingredients make the best bread. When looking for bread flour, it is not the time to go generic.

2. You don't have to have a bread machine to make bread. My Mother-In-Law makes all her bread by hand and it's the best I've ever had.

3. Let it cool. Once your bread is done, get it out of its pan right away and let it cool. Give it a good 30-45 minutes before cutting. If you plan on eating your entire loaf in one setting (like with family dinner), no need to wait, dig in!

4. Get a bread knife. They're the long, serrated things. Don't you dare try to cut your fabulous homemade bread with a non-serrated blade. Bad things will happen.

Honey Wheat Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/8 cups warm water

2 cups wheat flour

1 cup bread flour

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp salt

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

Yields 1-pound Loaf

Bread machine instructions:

Pour all your wet ingredients in first (water, honey, oil), followed by your salt. Next add your flour. Make a small well in the flour to add your yeast. You do not want your yeast and water to meet. Use the wheat bread cycle and bake for a light crust.

Handmade instructions:

1. Mix all wet ingredients and salt together, either with a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, food processor, or by hand with a wooden spoon, then add the flour and yeast and kneed until smooth (about 15 minutes). It should feel tacky, but if the dough feels too sticky, add a little more flour. If it feels too dry, add a little more water.

2. Place dough in a large, greased bowl, turning once to grease top of dough ball. Cover with a clean towel and let rise until doubled (40-60 minutes).

3. Punch dough down and knead for a few minutes until smooth. Form into a loaf and place into greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled (30-40 minutes).

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes. If top of loaf is looking too brown, loosely cover with foil (just lay it on top) and continue baking.

5. Remove from oven and let rest a couple minutes before removing to cooling rack.