I Workout...Sort of

I have some baby weight to lose. But it's OK right? Because I worked for 10 loooong months to bring a beautiful person into this world. Except that beautiful person is now 18 months old. Hmmm....At what point does it stop being "baby weight" and just become "weight". I can still get away with saying I had a baby last year. Because I did! No one needs to know it was in the beginning of last year, right?

I find myself thinking back to my 20's. Ah the 20's. When if you wanted to lose some weight, you skipped a meal and lost 5lbs. If you sneezed you lost another 5. If you thought about working out, boom! Off goes 10lbs. Those were the golden years.

So here I am now, in my 30's 2 kids later. I don't look the way I used to. Ok, I'm only about 5lbs over my pre pregnancy weight. But as far as consistency of that weight...no where near what it was pre pregnancy. After trying diets, sporadic work outs and really wishing really really hard that I would get back to my pre baby body I had to face facts. It's time to really work out.

So, here is my DIY gym work out:

1. Find a gym. I can't go to a gym where hundreds of perfectly tanned, lulu lemon wearing perfect bodied people are. I just can't. I feel bad about myself enough at the gym without having to workout next to real life barbie. After a bit of research I found a gym that decently fit what I was looking for. You can't avoid the perfect people everywhere. And honestly I guess they are good motivation to get my but in gear. But I found one that is not to far away, easy on the budget and offers the basic things I need.

2.Actually work out. I went to the gym and did a Zumba class three times in 1 week! Three times! Then I didn't go for a month. For some reason, I'm not seeing any results here.

3. Really actually go to the gym and work out. After my month long hiatus I realized while I enjoy Zumba, it's too hard to tie myself into 1 hour of the day. And the class is soo packed ( seriously, they have to be over capacity in there) that I'd have to get there 20 min early to get a spot. It was time. Time to woman up and actually work out. Like on gym equipment.

A little pre story here:
Back pre kids, when I was in school and worked part time I worked out quite a bit. Back when I had nothing but time on my hands. I was never in fantastic shape, but I was in the best shape of my life. That was in 2009. I haven't touched a gym machine since then. After I had my first baby, I did Pilates to get back into shape. And then I really got into Zumba. Then I got pregnant with Claire and considered rolling off my couch high intensity cardio.

4. Get ready to look stupid, but it will be worth it ( hopefully). So, I went to the gym to actually work out. Like on machines. The machines that I haven't used in 6 years. I walked in already feeling like I didn't belong there. Would everyone else be able to see I had no idea what I was doing? Probably. But the only way to know what I was doing was to actually try it.

I started on the stair master. I pressed a bunch of random buttons until things started moving. It asked me for my weight, which I found quite rude. We've only just met stair master. I don't give that info out freely. But, in attempt to get the best workout possible, I obliged. It popped up with a time of 8 min. Ok, I can do 8 min. Right? Easy. After 4 min, not so easy. Really not so easy. I honestly thought I was gong to be one of those people who goes flying off the equipment because they couldn't keep up. But, I was determined. I just about died, but I was determined.

Next, the weighted equipment. Hmm. It was all over the place. Some looked familiar, some not so much. I bopped around from machine to machine looking like a chicken with my head cut off. I was trying to figure out what each thing did. Some machines, I literally could not figure out. Honestly. Instead of asking someone ( like a normal person) I scurried away and onto the next machine. I went over to the mats and tried to do a 100 ( which is a pilates ab move if you don't know). My version ended up being a 60. The icing on my cake was when 2 elderly men came over to me to tell me I was using a machine wrong. They kindly showed me how to do it the right way. Wow! When father time is correcting your machine usage, it's a new kind of low.

In life, sometimes we look stupid. There is no way around it. And boy did I look stupid. Putting your self out there to be ridiculed is hard!  However, hopefully the next time I go to the gym ( which will be sooner rather than later) I won't look as stupid. And maybe at some point I'll actually feel like I know what i'm doing when I go there. But, thanks to those nice 2 old men I'll at least know I'm doing one machine correctly!

Copy Cat- Rosemary Bread

Todays inspiration- Macaroni Grill. Their food is pretty tasty. But the best part of eating there for me is when the waiter writes their name in crayon on the butcher paper on your table. That really makes my restaurant visit exciting. I'm totally kidding- it's the bread!

Many restaurants have a free bread to start off with. A genius idea. Being a carb lover to the core, a free bread will push me to go eat at certain places. Seriously. I wish I was kidding.

The bread at Macaroni Grill is probably my favorite. It's amazing. I LOVE rosemary. Rosemary anything. So combining rosemary and bread? Whats not to like?

I scoured the internet for good recipes. Using my trusty method of reading the reviews, I came across this one. It has 264 reviews, all of them positive!

Ingredients:

1 Tbl yeast
1 Tbl sugar
1 cup warm water
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbl rosemary
2 Tbl butter

All pretty basic right? Except rosemary. I don't have that. Luckily, Walmart had my back. I bought this little pack here.

It was really expensive I think,  like $4. $4 for some twigs! Really? This was my first fresh herb experience. I'm seeing why people use dried herbs for things. But, go big or go home right?

I took a few sprigs ( I think that is what you are supposed to call twigs of herbs?) and plucked off the leaves with a finesse I've only witnessed on the Food Network.

Turns out chopping fresh herbs is harder than I thought. They aren't dry, so they are rubbery and kept moving all over. After many attempts, I had chopped enough.

Now that I have all my ingredients, I'm ready to go!

Except Claire ( my 18 month old) has done this to my kitchen.

 Does this happen to anyone else? Whenever I'm trying to do something in the kitchen, I end up tripping over Tupperware and kicking balls out of my way. After picking up tornado baby's destruction, and shooing her out of the kitchen, then I was ready to go.

Method:

1. Place yeast, sugar and water in large bowl and allow mixture to become bubbly. I used my trusty kitchen aid mixing bowl. This recipe calls for a ton of yeast. Like more than any recipe I've ever done. Yes, you read that right. 2 TABLESPOONS of yeast.

2. Mix in 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, and 2 and 1/2 cups of flour. The recipe doesn't specify melted or softened butter. So I met in the middle and did partially melted.

3. Add 1 tablespoon of the fresh chopped rosemary

4.Time to knead. I don't knead by hand. Like ever. I strapped on the paddle attachment to pink panther ( aka my kitchen aid mixer) and let it go to town. The recipe says knead for 10 min, but I find that excessive. I put my mixer on speed 2 and let it go for a while. Maybe like 5 min? The dough should look smooth and elastic. Like this.

6. Spray oil in a bowl, put dough in and cover with a towel. The picture above is after I'd transferred my dough to an oiled bowl. This is a sticky dough ( in my experience, most soft breads have a sticky dough). I used a spatula to scrap it all out of the mixer bowl and plop it into this plastic bowl. 

7. Let dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. I live in AZ. The whole state is a warm place. So on my counter top it sat. I set my timer for an hour and fuddled around my house. Boy did it rise! I should have expected this, based on the exorbitant amount of yeast. It was almost at the TOP of this bowl after 1 hour!

8. Turn out to a floured work surface, and divide in 1/2. This dough is sticky, so you will need a decently floured surface. It's like Goldilocks here- not too much flour otherwise it can dry out your bread. Not too little flour, or your bread will stick to the work surface making you have very angry emotions. I put a little flour on, spread it around and see how it does. If' it's still a bit sticky, I add a bit more. 

9. Spray a baking pan or cookie sheet with spray oil.

10. Shape dough into two round loaves. If you don't know how to shape dough, youtube it! I'm not kidding. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit watching videos on how to shape rolls and loaves. 

11. Sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon of rosemary over the loaves, and lightly press into the surface. I decided to put both loaves on 1 cookie sheet. I' not sure why. Rookie mistake, considering I knew how much yeast was involved here. Sure they look fine now. But....

12. Let loaves rise again, about 45 min. Boy did they rise, again. And into each other a little bit which is not what I wanted. It wasn't terrible, but when I make this again I'll do two separate sheets to avoid them rising into each other in the future. 

13. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

14. Spray loaves with misted water ( this will help making a crispy crust, if that is what you are going for) and put in the oven for 15-20 min, until lightly browned. I put mine in for about 18 ish. Personal preference here. 

15. Remove from oven, brush with remaining butter and sprinkle with sea salt. 

Umm....yum. 

And more yum.  Because of the airy nature of this bread, it works better if you just get in there and tear off a hunk. Cutting it squishes the loaf. 

We put some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and pepper in a dish and are in bread dipping heaven. 

Recipe pros and cons:

This bread is delish! There is a reason it has so many good reviews. And fairly easy as long as breads are concerned. Next time, I'll add more rosemary into the dough. I was nervous to add more. I didn't want an over powering rosemary flavor. And never having worked with fresh herbs before, I had no idea what I would get. I'm thinking if you are a rosemary lover like me, probably 1 and 1/2 tablespoons in the dough. This recipe makes 2 loaves, but they go really fast. Like they're both almost gone now. If more than just one person is eating it, I'd double the recipe to make sure everyone gets their fill. All and all, a keeper for sure. Now to just invest in a rosemary plant....

Recipe courtesy of Food.com

Back to Basics

Today, I wanted to make something easy. Not every baking adventure has to be like making pie crust right? Right! So, I went with.....drum roll please...brownies!

I love, love, love brownies! But I love, love, love chocolate so it makes sense. However, brownies are on my long list of things I've never made from scratch.

I like a fudgy brownie. A chewy brownie. If I wanted cake, I'd eat cake. I was on the quest to find a good brownie recipe.

When looking for recipes online, it can be overwhelming. So MANY recipes! How do you find the good ones? I don't know. If someone does know, could they clue me in? LOL! I look at reviews and ingredients and try to pick the best one. If it requires 50 ingredients that I don't have, skip! On to the next. There is nothing worse than spending $100 on ingredients for a recipe that you'll never use again, and then have that recipe suck. Yeah. Been there, done that.

Here is the recipe I went with

Ingredients:

1 and 1/3 cups of butter, softened
2 and 2/3 cups of sugar
4 eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups of all purpose flour
1 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
Confectioners sugar, optional ( but really, is it optional? I think not)

Turns out brownies are just sweetened chocolate butter! Who knew? No wonder why I like them so much.

Method:

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa and salt. Gradually add to the creamed mixture

2. The recipe calls for you to spread into a greased 13 by 9 pan. But I opted for parchment paper. I LOVE parchment paper. It's easy. It's non stick. And there is NO mess to clean out of a pan when you use it. I cut a piece of parchment paper to fit my pan and did that instead. Spreading it was a little tricky at first. It's much thicker than store bought brownie mix. It was like the consistency of a thick frosting. But after some elbow grease I got it spread fairly evenly in the pan.

3.Bake at 350 degrees for anywhere from 25-40 min! The recipe said 25-30, but it took mine 35-40 to be done. The top should look dry, and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Then, walk away. Yes it looks good. Yes you want to try it RIGHT now. But walk away. Brownies are like cookies- they need to set up a bit otherwise they are just mush. They are much better after they've cooled down.

I harnessed my patience and waited. Dusted on the  "optional" powdered sugar and dug in. It was definitely worth the weight ( pun intended).

They are delicious! Thick, but not too thick. Chewy, fudgy and oh so chocolatey. Yum!

I'll make this recipe again, but probably not TOO often. Butter is too expensive, I'm tempted to eat the whole pan- that's not good, and I'm lazy. I like my brownies from a box. But once in a while a homemade treat like this just hits the spot.

Recipe courtesy of Taste of Home