Chocolate Raspberry Bombs (aka Bitches)

Sometimes, I just feel the need to cover food in chocolate.

I call these things “Bitches.” Partly because I couldn’t think of anything to name my weird new concoction, and partly because I’ve been watching a lot of Breaking Bad recently. Since I couldn’t really make any reference to meth while…. cooking …. I went for the next best thing; Jesse Pinkman’s classic “BITCH!” which I love so fiercely that I’ve tried to get Aaron Paul to call me bitch on Twitter for days and days now.

Okay, back to the food.

These guys are super simple, and were a total impulse and weird creation that I thought might be delicious. Raspberries, stuffed with homemade whipped cream, covered in dark chocolate. And, for the record, they’re pretty easy.

Start with raspberries that are fairly large and firm; wash them and discard any of the smaller or soft berries. Make your own whipped cream. Seriously, if you use store bought whipped cream for this, I will cry. Whipped cream is the simplest thing to make and blows away the store-bought disgusting canned stuff, and, it’s really fun to do! All you need is:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Chill the bowl for a couple of minutes in the freezer until it’s cool (it helps with the reaction), then just whip the hell out of the three ingredients until soft peaks start to form. Viola.

I thought the next part would be the hardest, but it actually was the easiest of the entire process. Using a paring knife, take a little of the whipped cream and fill the raspberries. This goes quickly! I managed to get them all done in about 15 minutes, despite my thoughts that stuffing small berries would be time-consuming. When they’re all filled, throw them in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. I left mine in for about three hours since I went out after completing the first two steps, but the colder the berry and cream is before the next step, the better.

Aren’t they so cute! Little bitches.

Once they’re nice and cold, melt the chocolate. I always use the microwave, and the key to doing this is to go slow. Really slow. I go about 45 seconds at a time on 60% with lots of stirring in between so it doesn’t burn or clump. Dipping the raspberries is by far the hardest part of this, because you have to do it fast enough so the whipped cream doesn’t melt before you’ve got them coated in warm chocolate. I suppose toothpicks would work well to stick them in and roll them around, but what has always worked for me is a fork and a skewer — one in each hand, just roll the berry then lift it out with the fork and plop it onto the wax-paper-covered surface. This does take a while, though I’m assuming other people are a lot better at dipping things in chocolate than I am. I really suck at it.

Once they’re all covered, throw them back in the fridge or freezer to let them set. I enjoy them a lot more out of the fridge than out of the freezer, but you could eat them either way.

Enjoy the little Bitches!

Homemade (healthy!) Oreos

What’s the best part of an Oreo — cookie? or cream?

In this case, Imma say the cookie!

These homemade Oreos are awesome, and they come from my all-time favorite food blog and blogger — Chocolate Covered Katie. Katie is amazing. Not only does she offer healthy alternatives to favorite snacks, but they actually taste good. Like. Really good. She’s the queen of substitution, as far as I’m concerned, and since I’m always trying to lower calories in sweets when I bake, I always turn to this girl’s blog! The cookie recipe is pretty simple and can be found here.

Mine turned out pretty great, but I have to admit that they took me two attempts. I tried first last night and the filling was just fine, but the cookie dough was way, way too soft and sticky to do anything with. This could be my fault, because I was on the phone with my mother when I was working on the dough, so I probably slipped up on some measurement. I was pretty sad, frustrated, and unsure I’d try again, but when I did this afternoon everything went much better. Right away I could tell that it was going to work — the dough pre-fridge should be sticky, but not so sticky it attacks your fingers. It’s a little strange to work with but manageable. And yummy. Because I don’t own a round cookie cutter, I used a shot glass to cut out my shapes and it worked perfectly. They’re actually a liiiitle bit bigger than your standard Oreo, but who the hell complains about a bigger cookie?!

Before baking… don’t they look like little peppermint patties!?

Katie offers a lot of alternatives in her recipes, but for mine I used all-purpose flour, Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa, sugar, coconut oil and agave. For the filling, I did not have (and could not make) coconut butter, and I took the risk of using coconut oil as a replacement. I’m happy to say that it worked. Because of this, and because of the coconut oil in the cookie, these Oreos have a hint of coconut to them. It’s not bad, especially because I like coconut (:D), but if you’d rather not have it I’d try without the coconut oil substitution.

And, like I said, the cookie part of these is freaking awesome. I’m not opposed to making just the cookie part from now on, perhaps in a donut pan or in some sort of whoopie pie (which is what these Oreos kind of remind me of), because holy crap, they taste amazing! I keep thinking how fantastic they would be on the side of coffee. Yum.

The nutrition info (which Katie offers on her site, basically always, for all recipes) comes out to about 64 calories per cookie, which is around 30 calories less than your real Oreo. They have fiber (which real Oreos do not have), 4 grams of fat (good for my gallbladder-less body!) and 0.8 grams of sugar instead of 8.0 grams. And they taste good!

I give these two thumbs up. And then down. Cause my thumbs are about to dunk these in a big glass of milk.

P.S — can’t have a post about Oreos without mentioning I have a cat named after the snack food! Awwww, isn’t she so cute?!

Product Review: Fitbit Flex

Almost three years ago I decided I wanted to get in shape. I’ve been overweight since around sixth grade (or at least that was the first time one of my classmates called me “fat”) and grew up with overweight parents. But in 2010, my dad had hip surgery and lost over 100 pounds (kept it off) and I suddenly felt self conscious in front of my dad, who no longer ate carbs or sugars. It took me another year, until November 2011 to decide to get off my ass, quit feeling self conscious and wearing baggy clothes, sucking in my gut, wearing sweaters in the summer; quit wishing I was thinner, and actually work toward it.

I started with counting calories. I downloaded the app MyFitnessPal and immediately saw results. Just by moderation (something I was never taught), the pounds started to come off; even faster when I started to exercise regularly. I was motivated! Almost three years later, I’m down 50+ pounds at about 130 — a healthy weight. I still want to lose five pounds (to hit my “goal”), but I’m very happy where I am. My doctors are happy, I’m happy. Everyone is happy.

Fitbit Flex in orange band. Look! A PennyCat cameo!

 

Connectivity 10/10

I love, love, love how interactive Fitbit is with other fitness apps. For people like me who seriously love a phone full of apps, Fitbit is conscious of these users. I use Runkeeper and Gympact and a few other to keep on myself, but none more than my beloved MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal and Fitbit work together perfectly. While I enter in all of my food eaten and swimming completed during the day, Fitbit calculates how many extra calories I’ve burned throughout the day on top of my regular burns. Like today’s diary entry (don’t worry, I’m not done eating for the day!) shows, I’ve got about 1,000 extra calories to nom on because of how active I’ve been.

For me, this is a serious motivation. Not because I want to eat 1,000 extra calories (I don’t), but because I just want to see how many extra calories I can get. These two apps work fantastic together, and for what it’s worth, they’re really easy to set up. It makes counting calories and looking at a life of dieting and moderation a little more bearable because it adds something fun to the mix. I highly recommend both of these together.

Use 9/10

Flex is nice and easy to use. A wristband you put on and it does all the work. The sensor is inside the band. Unlike the One or the Ultra, there’s no physical display but five little LED lights that light up to show progress. For every 20% of the goal completed a light comes on, and with a double tap to the band, you can see your progress. Once you hit your goal (10,000 is the standard, set goal, though it’s adjustable), the band vibrates and does a little dance on your wrist to let you know how awesome you are.

Fitbit Flex with all the lights blazing. Hit my goal!

Flex is great for motivation, too, because the social aspect makes you want to be better than everyone else around you. For me and my mom, we’re constantly fighting over first place in the rankings. Yes, I’m competitive, but I think this is a pretty good motivational tool for anyone who needs a hand in keeping up with things.

I notice that there are a few things I have to be careful of. In some hand positions, the Flex doesn’t seem to register steps. For example, my hand around upper waist level while walking doesn’t count steps. If I’m pushing a shopping cart, it doesn’t count steps (today in Costco, for instance). So it means that sometimes, I have to be really conscious of where my hand is if I want my steps to count. On the other hand, sometimes if I flail my arms around while sitting (the other week I realized it does it while wrapping yarn) it’ll count steps even though I’m not taking any. So, maybe it all evens out — the ones I take that aren’t counted are counted when I’m sitting, flailing. Maybe I’m just picky because I spent a year with the Fitbit being attached to my waist, which was very accurate, and this is just an adjustment. Overall, it’s something I can live with.

So if the Flex is so great, why the missing a point? Because I’m a swimmer. The main reason I upgraded from the Ultra to the Flex was in hopes that the Flex (which is waterproof) would count some sort of steppage while I’m in the pool for over an hour. Not so. In over an hour, I got about 96 steps. Ouch. It’s a bummer that the bulk of my daily workout doesn’t count at all towards steps. Yes, it counts towards calories and minutes active, but I wish that it would take into consideration all hard work I do with my legs and body while I’m in the pool kicking ass. I hope with their next product, they’ll take swimmers into account and let some of that hard work I do count toward my daily steps.

App/Dashboard 9/10

The app for Fitbit is unfortunately pretty basic. Considering how much this product does and how interactive it is, I’d expect a fairly complicated app that gives you a lot of cool information. Not so. It’s pretty basic — steps, calories burned, distance traveled, weight, friends, etc. It’s not too bad, but I think there’s a lot more that could be done to help the app help the awesomeness of the overall product.

The dashboard is a little different. It actually is pretty cool. Fitbit just updated their dashboard and it’s a lot better than it was before, in my opinion. Since I’m a sucker for graphs and charts, I really like how Fitbit shows all of the activity. Graphs to show how you’ve done throughout the day, little circles that move depending on your activity and progress throughout the day. Also a leaderboard with friends that shows who’s beating who and the rankings for the day. It’s a nice visual feature for a fitness tool.

Comfort 10/10

Flex is comfortable. Period. I was worried about wearing a band 24/7 but it doesn’t bother me at all, even when I sleep. The band looks uncomfortable in pictures with the bump from the sensor inside the band, but it’s not. I think the Flex is also socially comfortable, too, as stupid as that sounds, but it’s nice to be able to change out colors so you can match it to whatever you’re wearing. I was also a little worried about people constantly asking “what is that?” but I’ve only had one query so far and it was from my childhood best friend. I’m assuming everyone else just thinks it’s a watch. Fine by me.

OVERALL RATING  9/10. I love my Flex. I do. I love that it’s comfortable, that it motivates me, that it works with my other apps. I just wish it would count my swimming, which is really my only complaint with the entire thing. Customer support is very good with their users — I’ve had accessories break and Fitbit send me replacements for free, and I’ve heard multiple stories of people breaking, losing or damaging their Fitbit and the company replacing the product at no cost. It’s great. I think it’s great for anyone who wants to keep consistent with their workout, have motivation to be more active, or stay on top of their new lifestyle. Well done, Flex!

Twisted First Attempt

This is a post about pretzels, which are twisted. Punny.

One of my worst habits is collecting recipes on Pinterest and never, ever making them. I wasn’t going to let that happen with the pretzel recipe I found, since I’m a pretzel addict, yet I never get them. 

These things are delicious and surprisingly super easy to make! The hardest part is actually getting the dough to stretch out as much as the recipe says it should (two feet of rope!), but they came out HUGE so next time I’ll just make smaller ropes. 

The dough doubles in size when it rises… use a larger bowl than you think you’ll need! Oops.

They’re easy. A lot easier than I initially thought they’d be once I figured out I had to boil them before baking. Yikes. I’m not so great with hot water. But it was simple: Mix, rise, shape, boil, bake. Eat. Yeah, that’s the last step. 

I’m going to go ahead and drop this attempt at making something new into the  “success” pile, because not only did they come out moderately pretty, but they came out freaking delicious and, really, who cares if they’re ugly if they taste great? Now I feel more confident to try bagels!