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Sprinkle the yeast on top.

Six ingredients:

Allow Yeast to foam 5-10 minutes

1 cup Hodgson Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour 2.  Stir in sugar and sprinkle yeast on TOP.

Knead a few minutes

Coat generously in Olive oil



Cover and allow to rise.

 

Fully Risen (double batch)



Roll out the dough.  I’ve never gotten the hang of using a rolling pin… hence the pint glass (I know how one of those works!)

Prebake, decorate and bake 10-12 at 400′ Enjoy!

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>Want to lose weight? Want to have more energy? Want to feel good about what you are eating? March is National Nutrition Month, so here’s the plan of action: Eat whole foods whenever possible and cover half your plate in fruits and vegetables at every meal.

I often work with clients who want to lose weight and expect that working out with a trainer for a few hours a week will offset their bad habits the rest of the week. It’s actually the time outside the gym, when a person isn’t working out, that counts the most toward weight loss. You must embrace a healthy lifestyle to keep the gains you make from all the hard work of exercise. An active, healthy lifestyle will help you maintain a healthy weight and live your life to the fullest. Follow these steps and you’ll be on your personal path to a healthy lifestyle.

Step 1: Clean out your pantry

Ask yourself: Is it FOOD or is it a FOOD PRODUCT? Take a look at the foods in your home. If they have more than 6 ingredients it’s probably a food product, despite all the healthy labeling. If your grandparents wouldn’t recognize it or its ingredients, THROW IT OUT! Would you rather feel guilty about throwing something away or about eating junk? Keep in mind that it is much easier to toss it than to burn off the excess calories. Consider that a person who weighs 150lbs will have to walk nearly an HOUR just to burn off six Oreo cookies!

Step 2: Go shopping

Now that you’ve removed all the junk, your kitchen may look a bit bare. Your assignment: Go shop the border of the grocery store and choose a week’s worth of fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, and dairy. Note that most of the food products are in the aisles.

Reading labels at the store may seem very time consuming, but once you have discovered what not to buy you can save a lot of time and money. You will be able to skip certain areas of the store completely! For example:

• Skip the cracker & cookie aisle: There’s zero FOOD there.

• Skip the liquid calorie aisle of juices and soft drinks (not FOOD!)

• Skip the cereal aisle except to get old fashioned oatmeal

• Skip most of the frozen foods department…it’s mostly food products.

Step 3: Cover Half your Plate in Vegetables and Fruits

This is the new “keep it simple” message from the USDA and eatright.org. It is much easier than counting how many servings you have eaten or measuring each serving. Here are some ways to eat more:

• Put vegetables/fruits on your plate first and cover half your plate with them

• If you have seconds, be sure that you reload your plate the same way (or just have more vegetables)

• Make it a habit to eat a fruit or vegetable with every meal and snack.

• Keep a fruit bowl in plain sight instead of a candy dish.

Step 4: Follow the 80/20 rule

Nobody’s perfect, so follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of the time, eat whole foods. The rest of the time, eat things that are as whole as possible. For most of us it simply is not possible to prepare a “from scratch” meal like Grandma used to make each and every day. Here are some suggestions for healthy, quick meals:

Breakfasts:

1. Old Fashioned Oatmeal (less processed than the instant stuff) add nuts and dried fruit

2. Hard-boiled egg and fresh fruit

3. Scrambled eggs are quick too; add left-over veggies and/or canned beans to increase fiber content and get that first serving of veggies for the day.

Lunch:

1. Whole wheat bread with at least 2.5 grams of fiber/slice to make your sandwich.

2. Lean lunch meats are fine, just look for the least processed ones.

3. Peanut butter (go natural)…no added sugar.

4. Be sure to include lots of fresh fruit, raw vegetables

Dinner:

1. Broiled fish or chicken (one quarter of your plate)

2. Brown Rice/Quinoa/Potato (one quarter of your plate) Prepare enough for two meals to save on time later in the week

3. Steam your vegetables until they are al dente (still firm) and cover half your plate!

Snacks:

1. Fresh fruit and a handful of nuts make a heart healthy snack.

2. Make your own trail mix with walnuts and dried fruit.

Cleaning out your pantry and creating a healthy relationship with food is a critical step toward your healthy lifestyle. It may seem like a lot of work up front, but focusing on improving the foods you and your family are eat, will give you more energy, and best of all, you’ll naturally lose weight.

Karin Jennings owns and operates XO Fitness, LLC in De Pere with her husband, Ryan. She has been a certified personal trainer since 1996. XO Fitness specializes in personal and small group training. They focus on helping people reach their health & fitness goals through exercise and lifestyle changes.

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Greetings! In keeping with the mission of XO Fitness to enhance your lifestyle, we’ve decided to introduce a new weekly food blog we call Friday Foodie. Ryan, Karin or one of our trainers will be sharing a healthy recipe that they love every Friday. Our intent is that these recipe’s are relatively easy, delicious and use the fewest pots and pans for easy clean-up. This week’s recipe is Easy Salmon Patties by Ryan.  Since you all know Ryan can’t count, expect the spices to be conservative estimates.  Tweak to your liking.

Salmon Patties are fast, easy, full of heart healthy Omega 3’s (nearly 800mg/pattie) and quality protein (11 grams/pattie), ~8% of your daily calcium and only 100 calories per pattie.  Depending on how you make them, they’re economical too, costing less than 50 cents a pattie.  What more could you ask for? 

How about a place to hide leftovers? Welllll, OK, I’ve got a confession to make.  I sneak leftovers into these all the time.  The ones I made last night had about a cup of quinoa mixed in.  Leftover brown basmati rice is another common additive.  Both do a great job of lightening the texture without taking over the taste.  Note:  Calorie/nutrition estimates do not include leftover inclusion!!!

Salmon Patties – Fast version:
1 can (15oz) of Salmon
2 eggs
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/8-1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 pinch of black pepper
1/4 cup (or so) bread crumbs ( Panko crumbs are the best with the fewest ingredients, the ones I used for this time are definitely a food product with a list of ingredients as long as my arm.  Might as well be wonder bread.  Calcium Propionate?  Yum!)

I like to use an ice-cream scoop to plop even amounts onto my hand, form into patties and arrange onto a pre-heated, canola or olive oil sprayed pan.  Brown on both sides. Serve plain, on a halved slice of toasted bread as a bun (3+ fiber/slice) or as a leftover with an egg for breakfast.


Slightly more complex version for those with time:  Replace the onion and garlic powder with 1/4 cup+ of finely diced onions and a crushed clove of fresh garlic.

Boneless but more expensive version for anyone not willing to handle bone removal:  Substitute the inexpensive can (~$2.50) with (3) 6 oz packets (~$6-7) of Chicken of the Sea Pink Salmon (plain, not flavored). BTW: Interestingly Omega 3’s drop by over 60% if you choose this option (1000mg down to 400mg) and no bones = no calcium. You could get a pound of salmon fillet and broil it for the slightly more money.  Your choice but I’d go for the fillet!

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>Greetings!  In keeping with the mission of XO Fitness to enhance your lifestyle, we’ve decided to introduce a new weekly food blog we call Friday Foodie.  Ryan, Karin or one of our trainers will be sharing a healthy recipe that they love every Friday.  Our intent is that these recipe’s are relatively easy, delicious and use the fewest pots and pans for easy clean-up.  This week’s recipe is Spinach and Black-Eyed Pea Curry.

I’ve been making spinach and black-eyed pea curry ever since I first had it at a tiny Nepali restaurant called Himal Chuli on State Street in Madison about 15 years ago.  Although I’ve never quite emulated the complex flavor, this recipe can be made as simple or as difficult as you choose and every variation is enjoyable.  There are infinite ways of making the curry sauce; what follows is by far the fastest version I’ve made that takes only 20 minutes or so. -Ryan.

Ingredients:
1 block frozen chopped spinach, defrosted.
1 medium onion, small diced.
2 cloves of garlic, minced.

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>Saturday, November 12…12 pm-4 pm

Downtown restaurants and retailers will be offering great specials and collecting cans for The De Pere Christian Outreach Food Pantry.

Cost: $10…there are only 100 tickets, get them while they’re HOT…tickets are available at many downtown restaurants and retailers!

What you get:

Downtown restaurants including Alpha Delights, Caliente, George St. Cafe, Great Harvest Bread, Hansen’s Dairy & Deli, McGeorges and The Vault will be serving soup along with other food and drink specials.
You get to vote for your favorite soup!!

>Save your money, save your waist-line…

It’s only September, but the trick-or-treat candy displays are out in full force! Be realistic, if you buy Halloween candy now will it actually be around on October 31st when the kids come knocking? I doubt it! Instead you or your spouse and/or your kids will have eaten it all up and you will have to go buy more for the trick-or-treaters.

My advice, leave the candy in the store until just a few days before Halloween otherwise, stepping on the scale might get a little scary!

Yours in Health & Fitness,
Karin Jennings
XO Fitness
karin@xofitness.com