Reinvented Reese’s Cup

I’ve always loved a food challenge that promotes healthy eating and creative cooking. Paleo is a frontier I had yet to venture. Last Monday my coworker told me she was attempting to go Paleo for the next month to get in shape for a wedding she’s in this December. Food challenges are always easier with a partner, so I told her I was in too. This won’t be forever, but it’s fun for now!

For some background, the Paleo or “caveman” diet is based on foods that humans were eating 10,000 years ago – food that can be found in nature and wasn’t a product of farming or processing – and can be eaten raw or (cooked over a fire?) This eliminates grains (wheat, barley, quinoa, ALL of them), dairy, sweets (real or fake sugar), beans or soy, potatoes…This leaves us with vegetables, fruits, nuts (but not peanuts), meat, fish and eggs. Now, in order to make this diet sustainable for myself, I had to do a little customization. In my version of this diet I am including corn, some beans, sweet potatoes, plain yogurt, and, on occasion, brown rice (mostly in the form of rice cakes) and I am excluding red meat. The good news: wine is allowed. I am already on day 7, and it has been surprisingly easy to follow “my rules.” My vegetable and fruit intake was already super high to start with, but the creative part comes in when you have to swap out tortillas, pasta, bread and other “vehicles” for food and sauces that I’m used to. However, most sandwiches can be made into salads, most pastas can be replaced with thinly sliced vegetables like zucchini or spaghetti squash, and what can’t be mixed into eggs?

Creating Paleo “sweets” was an interesting challenge. But I was determined. Sorry I’m not sorry I need a chocolate fix once in a while. The reinvented Reese’s cup:

The difference between mine and Reese’s: mine is packed with fiber, antioxidants, no sugar and low in calories, while the other will spike your blood sugar, tax your liver to process and provide no fiber with tons of calories. Okay, and they might taste a LITTLE different. One version was made with spiced pumpkin puree, the other with almond butter.

Reinvented Reese’s
Makes 4 small cups

2 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
1-2 stevia extract packets (for desired sweetness)

4 tablespoons almond butter
OR
4 tablespoons pumpkin puree
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
dashes of pumpkin pie spice

Melt chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave, then stir in stevia packet. Prepare muffin tin with 4 paper muffin cups. Pour enough chocolate into muffin cups to cover the bottom, then spoon 1 tablespoon almond butter or pumpkin mixture into each cup. Cover mixture with remaining chocolate. Place muffin tin in the freezer to harden.

Trial and Error with Honeycomb Brittle

Saturday started off as a beautiful day with fun errands planned like a trip to the craft store, making brittle and decorating the house. Then I saw the FedEx "We Missed You" slip I had ignored for a few days and realized that the package was my replacement phone! The major hurdle with this was that the pick-up center was located in Northeast DC. If I did not go today, I know it would be another two weeks before I would retrieve it...so I ventured out sans a GPS (!) to the notorious NE. 

There is a striking change in scenery starting around 2nd street as you make your way into this quadrant. I felt like I was in a rap video, or an Eminem movie. 

With only two wrong turns I made it safely to the FedEx pick up building to pick up my package. Then I opened the package to find my new phone was PURPLE. 

Somewhere along the line I came down with a serious case of Christmas Fever. I completely bypassed Thanksgiving and have decked the halls, so to speak. The excuse for this is the dinner party we are hosting on Monday night for some old and new friends, so naturally I went a little overboard. 
First came the homemade wreath.

Followed by the tablescape.

Then went crazy with Christmas lights.

Lastly, I made honeycomb brittle. Or tried, at least. For only having four ingredients, one of which is water, it is remarkably fragile. I found this recipe in my Martha Stewart Living magazine and was so excited because I've loved this stuff forever but have not found a recipe. 

Ingredients: 
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp baking soda

I put the sugar, honey and water in a pot to bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Then lower heat to medium, stop stirring until mixture reaches 300 degrees on candy thermometer. -- It was this step that tripped me up. My candy thermometer must be a little off because it took too long the first time for it to reach hard crack temperature, so it burned. Once you take the sugar off the heat, you mix in the baking soda and gently pour into a pan that is coated with cooking spray. This batch did not smell great, nor did it taste good. Into the trash it went.

Second attempt:

I took into consideration that my thermometer was slow and just watched for the sugar to turn a caramel color. My error was prematurely taking the sugar off the heat and mixed in the baking soda. Since it hadn't reached the hard crack stage, it never formed the crunchy, airy consistency of honeycomb brittle.

 Another batch straight into the trash. UGH! 

I'm now out of honey, so I will try this again when I buy some more. I will NOT give up. Maybe I'll opt for a nice peppermint or peanut butter swirl bark until then.

Making Marshmallows

It has been a very inconsistent past 24 hours. It started at around 5 pm yesterday when I came down with a cold, which led to staying awake till almost 5 am with a fever. Dinner last night was a large mug of Peach Detox tea and a bowl of oatmeal - not exactly the garlic & parmesan Tilapia I had been planning on.

Per Mama's orders, I took 1000 mg's of Vitamin C...and wouldn't you know it, I felt so much better today! Not 100% but close enough feel up to making marshmallows. I have been planning on making these marshmallows for over a week. My emotions have ranged from anxiety, excitement, apprehension, back to anxiety, and resignation. I knew I had to at least try them, knowing full well they might be a disaster. On my sick, rainy day off I took the D2 bus down to Safeway and picked up the healthy and nutrient rich ingredients for making the mallows. 

This was a first for me using gelatin and corn syrup. I've decided gelatin freaks me out - but that's not what's important right now. The process of making marshmallows is pretty involved, but Pastry Pal's step-by-step instructions held my hand through it. 

The most sensitive point is getting the sugar-corn syrup mixture to exactly 250 before dumping in the gelatin mixture while having egg whites at soft peaks. 

Mix, mix, mix.

Pour it out.

And then you wait. I'll dust it in powdered sugar and cut it up into cute pumpkin shapes tomorrow to bring into work on Friday for our Final Friday Pumpkin Carving festivities. I, however, will not be eating those. I'm taking this Health Movement seriously. Today I watched Food Matters, the movie my mom's been pushing me to see. Now it's my turn to push everyone else. I'm a big a fan of the message (eat healthy to be healthy, essentially) and that educating people (making them face reality) will hopefully lead them to make better choices. It's on Netflix, go watch! 


After the movie and a snack of sliced bell pepper, celery and carrots, I went for a 45 minute walk/run around the neighborhood. How's that for juxtaposition? Super sick to making marshmallows to being Healthy Hannah. 
You never know with me.