How To: Protein Pancakes

So apparently I’m really into pancakes. Unfortunately pancakes are not the most figure friendly breakfast, especially when you are trying to tighten up for summer. I have been working hard since the beginning of the year to eat a lot of protein and build muscle onto my weakling vegetarian body, and one thing I have found helpful is to eat a protein-packed breakfast. 

THE PROBLEM: What is a girl to do when all she wants to eat for breakfast is pancakes or oatmeal? So sweet, so carby and so lacking in protein.

THE ANSWER: PROTEIN PANCAKES!!!!!!!!

I have seen recipes for protein pancakes on blogs in the past but all attempts at recreating them at home have resulted in hopeless charred piles of nastiness. It wasn’t until I discovered ToneItUp.com and the Tone It Up Protein Pancake recipe that my faith in my pancake-flipping ability was restored. I love the Tone It Up girls, Karena and Katrina, and the amazing community of girls they have developed. I am currently doing their annual Bikini Series, which is a free 8 week program with workouts and nutrition tips to get girls into shape for the summer.

I have been eating protein pancakes almost every day for 2 months now and I haven’t gotten sick of them yet. They are surprisingly easy to make!

All you need is:

 

• 1/2 a banana
• 2 egg whites
• 1 scoop of protein powder 
• 1/2 Tablespoon flax seed meal
• Cinnamon

I like to mix the banana, egg whites and protein in a blender to ensure even distribution, but you can mix by hand if you prefer.

 

I then stir in the flax seed, cinnamon and any add-ins I might choose. Another thing I love about protein pancakes is that they can be so versatile depending on what kind of flavor combination I’m craving.

Some of my favorite protein pancake add-ins are:

• fresh or dried fruit
• nut butter and/or nuts
• shredded carrot and almonds (to make CARROT CAKE PROTEIN PANCAKES!!!)
• crumbled up Lara bars (for COOKIE DOUGH PROTEIN PANCAKES!!!)
• chopped dates and pecans (for PECAN PIE PROTEIN PANCAKES!!!)

After all my ingredients are added I pour the batter into a greased skillet on LOW heat. It is important to cook protein pancakes cook low and slow, if the heat is too high they burn on the outside but stay raw on the inside.

After 2-3 minutes, flip carefully.

Sometiems I make one big pancake, and other times I make mini pancakes (which are easier to flip) and can be turned into pretty little pancake stacks. 

My delicious breakfast this AM was something I like to call a Strawberry Short-stack, made by layering greek yogurt and fresh strawberries with my pancakes.

One recipe for protein pancakes makes one serving and packs in about 30g muscle-building protein which keeps me full much longer than my previous standard breakfast of oatmeal. Of course its not a REAL pancake, but its a healthy substitution that looks and kinda tastes like a real pancake so its perfect for sugar-junkies like me!

 

 

We’re Back!

Has anyone seen this movie? I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid.

Welcome back to Well-Fed Redhead! I took a rather lengthy hiatus to get my behind in gear after finishing culinary school and my internship in San Francisco. To briefly summarize the last three months of my life:

1. I moved back to NYC.
2. I got a low-paying job at a well-known international vegan restaurant that never had any customers.
3. I quit that job because it couldn’t support living in the city.
4. Upon realizing I was destitute and that my lease was up, I packed up my apartment and moved back to my parents house in NJ.
5. I got a new job in my hometown at a super meaty restaurant that cures its own bacon.

Now that my life has settled down a bit I want to get back to blogging and plan to use this blog for recipe development and as a wellness journal. My job keeps me pretty busy so I will probably only be posting a couple days a week, but the great part of having practically no audience is that I have no pressure to blog every day!

What has been on my mind lately:

1. Running! I finished physical therapy in April after a whole year of not being able to run. Now I have ran 3 5K’s and 167 miles! I’m kind of obsessed now and think about running all the time. Yet somehow when I’m actually running I still can’t wait for it to be over… (pic from Dailymile.)
2. HENRY. Is Henry ever not on my mind? I plead the fifth but it should be known that I am obsessed my cat. In the best cat-lady way possible. Since we last spoke I have had a failed experiment with making raw cat food from scratch. I have also spent hundreds of dollars on vet bills because my precious feline so selflessly took it upon himself to develop chronic asthma while I was away in San Francisco. Yes, cat inhalers do exist. On a positive note, Henry has lost two pounds!
3. Coffee. I am officially re-addicted. What is your Starbucks order? Recently I am all about iced coffee with soy milk and one pump of pumpkin spice. It’s a mouthful to say but I love it!
4. Pitch Perfect! I just saw this last night and it is my new favorite movie. Everyone go see it immediately or we can’t be friends.
5. Pancakes! (Hint: this may or may not be related to tomorrow’s recipe)

I have a delicious fall-inspired recipe to share tomorrow. GET EXCITED!

Ana Mandara

San Francisco held this event the past two weeks called Dine About Town where upscale restaurants offer limited three-course menus for only $34.95.

Friday was the last day of Dine About Town (and it was also the day that a certain someone was coming IN to town to visit me) so I made sure to make reservations at one of the participating restaurant

I chose Ana Mandara, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant in Fisherman’s Wharf. Neither Dan nor I had ever been to a fancy Vietnamese restaurant before so it was a first for both of us. We felt kind of like impostors since the dining room was full of rich looking businessmen and families! When I arrived, the host said that usually they only offer the Dine About Town menu Sunday through Thursday but since I asked so nicely (and probably look so poor) they said we could do it eve though it was Friday.

The first course was an appetizer sampler that came with steamed Vietnamese chicken and shrimp Dumplings, fried wontons filled with Dungeness crab, cream cheese and sweet chili and an organic local baby greens salad with a ginger dressing.

Lucky Dan got a double helping of dumplings and wontons and I got two salads! Dan said that the dumplings and wontons were out of this world; he even said it was probably the best restaurant food he had ever eaten! I really liked the salad, the dressing was delicious but not overpowering and the lettuce was so fresh!

We got to choose a main course out of four options. I chose the Curry Tofu and my shrimp loving man ordered the Barbecue Jumbo Prawns.

This picture’s not great but my dish was, the curry was flavorful and the tofu was well cooked. I find often when I order tofu in restaurants it is either very plain and mushy or over fried, this wasn’t.

For dessert I had mango and passion fruit sorbet. They were delicious but if it was a contest, mango won. The sorbet came garnished with a cute (and tasty) little tuile!

Dan ordered the Flourless Coconut Rum Cake, which he said was only okay since it tasted too eggy.

Overall we had a good experience at Ana Mandara and would probably go back again if we could afford it. For now, it’s a little out of our price range…

• Appetizer: 5/5
• Entrée: 4/5
• Dessert: 3/5
• Service: 4/5
• Atmosphere: 5/5
• Total: 21/25

zoo york city

Today was awesome!

Reason #1: It started with pancakes!

I’m getting really pro at flipping pancakes! I made Chloe Coscarelli‘s recipe again but I subbed banana slices for blueberries. I feasted on these babies whilst listening to Jack Johnson sing about them 🙂

I quit my job at Sox in the City so I finally had a free day to do something fun outside. I have been super antsy lately because of the nice weather but have been too busy with school and work to enjoy it. Unfortunately today was chillier than earlier in the week but I still had a great time exploring Brooklyn with my boyfriend.

I barely ever venture outside of Manhattan so for me Brooklyn is like a completely different world. It’s so much more relaxed and spacious and green! Dan and I packed lunch and went to picnic in Prospect Park, which we both decided was vastly superior to the maze-like overcrowded Central Park. I even saw a group of equestrians on a trail ride! I was insanely jealous and want to figure out how I can do that… it has been way to long since I sat on a horse! I packed Vegan Caesar Salad and some Balthazar Bakery bread with leftover mushroom walnut paté from Monday’s class. I am obsessed with this salad, it is so amazing I want to eat it every single day (and lately I do).

After picnicking and waltzing our way through the park we ended up here:

I love zoos and had a blast at the one in Prospect Park. I think we were the only adults there without kids but who really cares right? Besides, who said we’re not kids…

I saw a bunch of cool animals including porcupines, wallabies, a sea otter, gold lion tamarins (my pic sucks but this one had a baby on her back!), sea lions and red pandas!

The Prospect Park Zoo also has a section called “The Barn” where they have farm animals. I fed some alpacas and sheep 🙂

After the zoo we were wandering around and decided to stop in here since we had time to kill before dinner:

Where I read three issues of this:

I actually really liked it. I am a crazier cat lady than I thought!

After the library we walked over to Maimonide in Brooklyn, a restaurant in Boerum Hill that I really wanted to try for a while now. After the glowing review Chef Elliott at the Natural Gourmet Institute gave it earlier this week I decided I needed to go stat. Plus, the chef is a graduate of the Natural Gourmet! (NGI REPRESENT)

I actually didn’t get to take any pictures of the food since my battery ran out right after I took this picture, but it was really good! First of all, I love this place because they gave us complimentary kale chips which was AWESOME. The menu is given along with a comic book that depicts the adventures of a hip hop vegan superhero, it’s really unique and I’m guessing they print new “episodes” all the time. I ordered the Glowing Skin MOB which was an olive and sunflower seed tapenade, avocado, grilled zucchini and cherry tomatoes on top of a pizza-like crust in the shape of the Brooklyn Bridge. Dan ordered the Brave Heart MOB which is sun-dried tomato, caper and parsley pesto with rosemary grilled portobello mushrooms and lemon. We split half of each and while I liked both I think the Brave Heart was a little better. To go on the side we got olive-oil roasted yucca fries and a Brooklyn brine pickle which were super yummy. I really wish I had gotten pictures because the food was presented so beautifully! I thought the atmosphere of MOB was great and definitely want to go back to try some of the other options, they all sound so delicious. I also really liked that the food was “real” as opposed to a lot of vegan restaurants that have a lot of imitation cheese and meat products. Maimonide is all about vegetables and healthy food that tastes great which is much more appealing to me than vegan “junk food.”

The subway line we needed to get back to Manhattan was in the same building as Target! I haven’t been in Target for so long and I went crazy and bought 2 bras and a $1 hippo-shaped watering can.

BEST SATURDAY EVER

booch face

You guys, I’m devastated. I feel like this pebble:

My camera broke because I dropped it. That’s why there have been very few recaps from class recently. Until I get a new one, I’m not going to be able to post much but hopefully I’ll have a camera to use later this week.

Other than my broken camera, life has been good! I love school, the weather’s been beautiful, my physical therapy has been going well and I successfully brewed my own kombucha!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE kombucha but I don’t love the price tag. At upwards of $4 a bottle I was thrilled to get the chance to make my own at home for pennies!

Other than being LiLo’s beverage of choice, “booch” is a fermented tea beverage and somewhat of an acquired taste (Mindy Kaling once said it tastes like champagne with phlegm in it), but it’s super popular in the health-conscious crowd for it’s beneficial properties. According to Wikipedia, “Kombucha producers often claim ‘kombucha detoxifies the body and energizes the mind’, although there is little published research on its health benefits. Proponents claim it aids cancer recovery, increases energy, sharpens eyesight, aids joint recovery, improves skin elasticity, aids digestion, and improves experience with foods that ‘stick’ going down, such as rice or pasta.” I personally love it and I feel good when I drink it as long as I don’t drink it too fast, which is similar to how I feel about tequila. It has natural probiotics (like yogurt), so if I drink too much too quickly it makes my tummy feel bubbly and weird.

A kombucha “mushroom” which is just a slimy ball of bacteria, is called a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). It looks real nasty and doesn’t get any prettier with age…

I got mine from the Natural Gourmet Institute where one of the employees, Olivia, makes kombucha all the time and agreed to give me one of the “babies.” She warned me not to go crazy and drink too much, like my mom did before I went to college, because when she first started brewing she overdid it and the kombucha leached vitamin K from her body causing her to get nosebleeds and bruises all the time. It’s powerful stuff!

After brewing some strong plain Irish Breakfast Tea and dissolving A LOT of sugar into it…

I added my scoby…

Waited for 8 days (in this position)…

And had this!

This kombucha is so much better than the bottled one’s you buy in stores, and I’m saving a lot of money making it on my own. It was surprisingly easy to make, and if you look closely in that last pic you can see I’m already brewing another batch for next week!

I highly recommend brewing kombucha for anyone who likes booch but doesn’t like wasting money. Hopefully I’ll get a new camera soon and get back to posting more pictures from class later this week!

Preparing for Travel by Baking Cookies

I’m leaving tonight for a vacation in Europe! My parents gave me a trip to Paris, Aachen and London as a graduation present and I am beyond excited to get on my way this evening. My first stop is Paris where I will be visiting with my freshman year roommate who I haven’t seen since last May!

Before I could start packing, however, I needed to get my bake on. I put on my new cupcake apron and set out to make a recipe from the copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar I received for Christmas. I made the Banana Everything Cookies and they were delicious. There is A LOT of oats in them so they are super chewy and taste pretty healthy. The addition of mashed banana, walnuts and chocolate chips added to the delicious factor of these babies and they were polished off by me and my family in no time. I did save one cookie to pack with me in my carry on as a snack later!

Does anyone else have the problem where you make your cookies larger than the recommended amount? This recipe made two dozen cookies but I only had eighteen! This always happens to me…

I’m kind of frightened of flying, I know it’s a silly thing to worry about but I’m always scared that something bad will happen. People always remind me that it’s much more likely to be in a car accident than a plane crash but it just feel so much more dangerous to be in the air! I usually just take a Benedryl so I get knocked out for the entire flight and don’t worry about it. I’m going to really miss this guy:

As a side note, last night I saw the movie Tintin in theaters. It was really good and there was a cat in it who looked just like Henry! It was a great adventure story and really clever, I highly recommend it and it’s not just because my cat stars in it. After baking and snapping some pics of my favorite kitty, I better get started on packing! My flight leaves in 9 hours, Europe here I come!

I probably won’t be posting once I’m abroad, but I’ll be back on the 23rd!

I’m a SkinnyGirl

Thursday afternoon I headed into NYC because Bethenny Frankel was doing a book signing at the Barnes and Nobles Union Square that evening.

I read A Place of Yes over the summer and really enjoyed it. I’m a huge fan of Bethenny from her reality show and her books did not disappoint. I also read Naturally Thin and think it is a great resource for people who want to lose weight without obsessing over food. A Place of Yes really helped me stop stressing out about not having a life plan. One of the chapters is called “All Roads Lead to Rome” and is about how you can always reach where you want to go even if you take a few detours. It was great to hear Bethenny speak in person and get her to sign my copy of her book!

Proof:

After the book signing, Dan met me in the city and we went for dinner. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant L’Annam, where I got a tofu curry.

I loved the presentation and it tasted pretty good but it was way too much food! Dan always makes fun of me because I complain that his dish is better than mine, but it usually is! He got the Vietnamese-style Pad Thai and it was really good and had a unique flavor. Someday I will have a tastier dish… someday.

After dinner we went bowling at the only bowling alley in Manhattan, Bowlmor Lanes. I had been there for mini golf before but never bowled there.

It was fun but so expensive, I guess they have a monopoly on bowling and can charge whatever price they want. It was $12.95 EACH per game! As students we could only afford to bowl one short game (which Dan won) but it was nice to do something different and fun with each other!

I had a nice (short) trip to NYC and it made me eager to be back there full-time at the end of the month!

First Swim and Shake

Thursday was my first swim of 2012!

Do you like my outfit? Super flattering right? It was an improvement on my last swim, I did 140 yards in 20 minutes. If you think about it, that is pretty pathetic, but it was only my 2nd swim so I don’t feel too bad about it.

After my swim I had my first protein shake of 2012! I had run out of protein powder so I was very happy when this arrived on my doorstep Wednesday afternoon.

I like Sunwarrior Protein Powder best because it tastes good and mixes well into smoothies and oats. I’ve heard conflicting views on soy protein so I prefer the brown rice protein in Sunwarrior. My smoothie was great, it contained 1 frozen banana, 1 scoop Sunwarrior, 1 Tbsp peanut butter, 1 cup Silk Vanilla Light Soy Milk and 2 ice cubes. Super scrummy 🙂

I find that eating a vegetarian diet I do not get enough protein so as I lost weight I ended up losing a lot of muscle as well. Protein powder has been a great way to up my protein intake and help build muscles! I’m gettin’ buff!

Put My Swag On

Happy Tuesday everybody! As I informed you I was thinking about heading to the mall in yesterday’s post, and I did! I had a successful shopping trip where I hit up Aritzia and Express with some gift cards.

Aritzia is one of my favorite shops, I got hooked on it a few years ago when I visited my roommate in Vancouver. It’s a Canadian company with only a few U.S. stores but luckily for me they opened their first east coast location in the mall near my parents house pretty about two years ago! They also opened a flagship store in SoHo this summer, which was incredibly exciting for me. The only downside is that everything is so expensive… The combination of a gift card and winter sales was in my favor yesterday and I made two great purchases 🙂

a Talula cashmere sweater on sale

a HUGE Wilfred wool scarf on sale

I’m obsessed with both things but I especially love the scarf, it’s so big I can wear it as a shawl, a regular scarf or an infinity scarf!

After Aritzia I made a pit stop at Anthropologie where I purchased a birthday gift for my mom and then headed to Express. Dan’s mom gave me a gift card to Express for Christmas so I thought I would check out what they had. I ended up getting this super chunky wool waterfall sweater. It was originally $98 but with the combination of sales and my gift card I ended up only paying $22.99! I love a good deal and try never to pay full price for anything.

Overall I had a successful shopping trip! On the agenda for the rest of my day is helping my mom take down the Christmas decorations, doing an upper body workout and physical therapy. I’ll do an update on PT tonight, see you crazy kids later!

Hangover Run and Resolutions

Happy New Year!

How did you all celebrate the beginning of 2012? I rang in the apocayear with a Hangover Run in Westfield, NJ. I wasn’t hungover but I was certainly sleep deprived from a late night partying with my boyfriend’s family last night. I walked the entire race with my dad and we finished in 47 minutes and 17 seconds! We did jog the last 0.2 miles but other than that we kept a good walking pace because I didn’t want to interfere with healing my runner’s knee. Walking is harder than it seems, I was definitely feeling it in my hips by the end of the race and getting a little out of breath when we went up the hills.

I wore the new shoes my boyfriend gave me for my birthday, Nike Free Run 2’s. I really like them; they are adorable and comfy as anything. However, they don’t offer a lot of support and are probably not a good choice for running for me personally because of my knee issues. I love them for strength training and other gym workouts though since they are so flexible and light. They honestly feel like slippers!

My dad watches a lot of soccer (or as he calls it, football) and he told me that soccer players only really suffer from three ailments, hamstring twang, groin-gah!, and knee knack. So I guess I have knee knack!

I had a lot of fun with my dad! I was originally going to do it with my mom but she broke her ankle 2 weeks ago, so I was pleased when my dad agreed to take her place! We chatted the whole time and plotted to overtake other walkers ahead of us. He said that maybe this could be our new father daughter thing, and we already made plans to do it again next year running the whole time. Running a 5k is a good attainable goal and as long as my knee gets better I don’t see why I won’t be able to do it! I would love to be able to train for a half marathon but I don’t want to set my sights on that until it looks like my knees are getting better. It’s tough having my goals limited by my body but hopefully patience will pay off!

My other fitness goals for 2012 are:

• To do at least one unassisted pull-up
• To be able to do regular push-ups (not girly ones)
• To do yoga at least 3x week

Instead of New Year’s resolutions, I like to do monthly resolutions. This way I can reevaluate my progress each month and adjust my goals as I see fit.

So without ado, my January resolutions are:

• Blog at least 5 times a week
• Try a new recipe every week
• Swim twice a week
• Practice yoga twice a week
• Stick to my budget (this might be hard since I will be traveling for 2 weeks!)

I feel that these resolutions are within my reach but not entirely without a challenge. It will be interesting to see how I feel about them come February!

I’m exhausted from last night a so I’m going turn in early this evening. See you tomorrow Lovelies! 🙂