Fitness, Leftovers and some Energy Bars

As we already established the last time, I'm not really going away but I will pop up time and again with something new on this tiny blog. Whether anyone cares or not, that doesn't really matter. I care and this is sufficient for me.

So what have I been up to lately? These last few month I have been doing a lot of fitness at home and this way I have bit by bit turned our living room into a gym, much to the nuisance of my wife. However, she humbly endures it. On my way I have discovered quite a few workout videos on YouTube. I started out with some Spanish videos but they seemed to be rather for women. Well, if the instructor keeps on saying 'Vamos chicas! Con alegria!' then it really seems to me like this. 

So I switched over to some guys. I did quite a lot HIIT workouts with Joe Wicks' videos and some with Alex Crockford. Finally, I ended up with the crockfit app from the latter when since he had a good offer I couldn't resist and, that is if you really stick to it, the results are quite impressive and I can only recommend it ... Well, now as it is, I just keep on going ...

While being into fitness doesn't mean, I am not going to eat a lot ... well, I kind of do it in a more controlled way now, so it isn't really clashing with my fitness goals, although I am getting braver now.

Along this line then, I got a recipe for some energy bars today. I increased the amount of protein they have by adding some leftover protein powder I had sitting there in the kitchen. Mainly, though, it's good fats and carbs.

I would say I whipped them up using leftovers as I didn't buy any additional ingredients apart from what I had already in the house. I wanted to have some honey or sugar syrup in it to bring the ingredients together. For that purpose there was a jar of sugar syrup lingering in the fridge. It was a gift from some friends. They meant well, but normally I am not so much in eating this syrup on bread as many others around here would do. This way this jar would occupy space forever in the fridge or it would turn blue or green eventually. However, for this recipe the syrup was just fine.

Ingredients

200 g porridge (or just oats)

78 g protein powder (whatever you have)

44 g peanut butter

64 g mixed nuts, chopped up

55 g ground almonds (they were really leftovers)

105 g dates, chopped up

320 g sugar syrup (or honey or whatever you have in this direction) 

250 ml water (if it's not really coming together otherwise)

Method

Well, you have seen the list of the ingredients. There is not really much telling of what you have to do with all of them. Just throw all the ingredients into a sufficiently large bowl and mix it well together. As the list says, use water if you need so to bring it all together.

Heat up your oven to 180°C (you maybe remember that this is my favourite temperature).

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread the energy bar dough on it. Do it as neatly as your personality requires.

Once the oven has reached the heat, the energy bars go into the oven for ... have a guess ... no, not 30 minutes, as would be my favourite baking time, but rather only 20 minutes this time. This is completely sufficient.

After that time, let them cool down and then you can cut them into pieces of your desired seize and eat them, gift them, guard them or even freeze them. I cut my mass into 16 pieces and according to my calculations one energy bar has about 169 kcal, that is, if you need to know.

Now let's get back to my exercises and my gym. Have a slight peek of what's there.

I guess there is still missing a little bit. I could really use some more weights, but then again I need to be careful and not upset my wife. After all, it still is the living room. As we don't have so many visitors these days it might be fine like that, but that's not going to last forever.

Now you can have an energy bar right before training or afterwards to fill up your storage again or, as I often do, just use them as a snack at work.

How are you with fitness? Have you been doing some exercise lately? As I was just sitting around most of the time, at work and a lot at home as well, I had to do something. Have you ever thought about it? Do you have some more ideas for fitness food? Just let me know below in the comments.

Thank you once more for bearing with me right to the end of this blog entry. It has been a pleasure writing for you and I hope you liked reading it and will come back in the future or in the meantime you just check out what else there is on this blog.

See ya!

Lord of the Cupcakes ... Peanut and Bacon Cupcakes

As strangely as you know me, I had an idea for a blog post. It was supposed to go somehow like this ...

Three Cupcakes for the gluten-free under the sky.

Seven for the chocolate-lovers in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to eat,

One for the Dark Baker in his dark kitchen

In the Land of Sugar where the Calories lies.

One Cupcake to rule them all,

One Cupcake to find them,

One Cupcake to bring them all,

and in the sweetness bind them

In the Land of Sugar where the Calories lie.

Well, well, well, that was about the idea. Logically there were supposed to be baked goods on it. Here we go ...

Now, the question would have been, totally hypothetical, of course,whether that would be the one cupcake for you ...

All the Sweet Things

Of what use is it to have a food blog? ... eh ... I mean, of what a use is it to have a food blog, cooking and writing lovely recipes and no-one is going to try them (at least not that you know of)?
Are the things just nice to look at or are they really delicious and easy to reproduce or at least made to satisfaction?
It's time to find out ...

Underground Cooking and Hawaiian Luau time

Let me get one thing straight right away, this is not just a fooling around blog, but Cooking Around the World. Due to that fact, at times it's necessary to work hard for this.
So I got myself a shovel and went to the garden ...

A grave? Does this mean someone has to die or has died already?

A day without chocolate is a lost day! Therefore: Chewy Marshmallow Chocolate Cookies

Well, well, well, well, well, what shall I say? Hopefully more then just 'well, well, well'!
Hm, maybe get it over with? I don't know. I suppose nothing much would be gained with the year being over already. In fact every day is worth to be turned into a good and enjoyable one. There is the saying: "A day without chocolate is a lost day!"
No? There is no such saying? Well, let's have one then and prepare some chocolate cookies ...

Well (to bring it up again), we are using some marshmallows and a few other things as well, namely ...

Ingredients:
100 g butter
100 g sugar
1 tbs peanut butter
A splash of rum (if you like to)
200 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
80 g chocolate
150 g mini marshmallows
80 ml cream

Preparation:
Thanks to Karen, if I may say so, I have now a new way of preparing dough for baking. In fact, now there is one more use for my 'beloved' pan. As far as I am concerned, manufacturers are having a crisis, because I'm not buying, since I have a universal pan I nearly do everything with and no it's chewy marshmallow chocolate cookies.
Therefore I started by melting the butter in the pan. As soon as that has happened I turned off the heat and took the pan from the heat.
Next I put in the sugar, the peanut butter and the splash of rum and starting mixing those things through.
After that the flour and the baking powder followed to be incorporated.
In the next step the chocolate, the marshmallows and the cream were added to get a luvly cookie dough.
Said and done, it's time to place bits of the dough on baking sheets and transfer to the oven for 15 minutes at 180°C.
Reserve a bit of time for cooling after baking and then ... 

... well, well, well, have a bit of chocolate by eating those chewy marshmallow chocolate cookies.
If that won't do it, have a look at the December Improv Challenge. 

Let's have a cookie, or two, or more: Peanut Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Give me three reasons why someone should buy cookies from a supermarket!
OK, make one reason start with an "X", one end with a "P" and one whatever. You're having difficulties with that?
Honestly, if you prepare your own cookies ... you have the power and are in control what gets in there, it doesn't take much time and they are much tastier, that is if you are no complete looser in the baking department.

Ingredients:
200 g of sugar (icing sugar, if you have)
150 g butter 
100 g peanut butter
250 g spelt flour
100 g dark chocolate

Method:
First of all, cream the sugar and the butter ... sort of.
Then add the flour and ... ah ... just go for it. Have the chocolate in reasonable sized chunks (whatever reasonable is supposed to mean) and put it in as well.
Mix all together ... do it well!

Making cookies by the size according to your liking and arrange them on a baking tray with ... reasonable ... distance in between and bake at 200°C for 10-15 minutes (depending on your oven - just remember: the cookies are not supposed to be black).

Allow sufficient time for the cookies to cool down so you can enjoy them to the full! I'm not sure, though, whether I should really have four of them.
Just think a bit about it ...
You can have any flavouring you like. If you don't try, you will never find out.

Raiders of the Lost Cake - ChoPeaPan-Cake

There comes a time in the life of a man, where he has to go nuts … Wait! That is nuts!

Let’s start again! Sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do, even if it is nuts … Hm, that sounds nuts, too.

Under certain circumstances things might just go nuts … argh … forget it. It’s all nuts anyway.

What I really wanted to say is: It’s time to prepare some nice sweet food and while doing that use some nuts, because I want it that way … and … read right to the end to find out.

Some time ago I read about a cake with pancakes and just kept the information in mind. You never know when things might come in handy. Well, today was that day. I was in the mood for a cake, but not really for the process of proper baking. On top of that, I still didn’t go shopping and was once again left with what was … eh … left at home in the storage.

This now leads to our ChoPeaPan-Cake. 

Let me say just one more thing before I start.

Or well, put in a little story again. You might know the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy has recovered the Ark and lost it. Now he is free again and the Germans want to get the Ark away with a truck. Here goes the dialogue between Indy and Sallah. Indy: “Meet me at Omar’s. be ready for me. I’m going after that truck.” Sallah: “How?” Indy: “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.”

In that spirit I like to go on here, making it up as I go. This is more or less a live post. It is the first time I try this cake. It might or might not be nice. We will see later. If not, this recipe might be usable with some adjustments. I try to include suggestions if necessary.

What you might need:

One 250 ml cup of spelt flour

The same cup filled with milk

One whatever sized free range (if desired organic) well, eh … egg

A pinch of salt

One tablespoon of cocoa powder

100 g of dark chocolate

100 g of butter

2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar

50 g or so salted or unsalted peanut butter (as you wish)

As many peanuts as it takes

Oil for frying

How you might do it:

Make a pancake batter using the flour, the milk, the egg, a pinch of salt, the cocoa powder and one tablespoon of vanilla sugar. Beat it all like nuts.

Meanwhile heat a drop of oil in a small pan. If you want a bigger cake, you might have to double the amounts and use a bigger pan respectively.

Before you begin frying your cocoa pancakes in the pan, start to melt the chocolate together with the butter in a bowl above boiling water. Have it going? Good!

Now go for the pancakes. You should get four.

What I did then is, I finished one pancake, put it on a plate and started a new pancake. While that was happening, I spread some peanut butter on the ready pancake and scattered some peanuts on it.  

Then the next pancake, peanut butter, peanuts, pancake, peanut butter, peanuts and finishing off with the last pancake.  

When the chocolate has melted and looks shiny and silky, you can add the vanilla sugar and let the mass cool down a bit before you pour it over the layered pancakes.

Since sufficient(?) time has passed, we can pour the chocolate over the pancakes and … end up with a cake swimming in a pool of chocolate (sorry, the photo with the swimming cake didn't work out - don't know, why I had just one shot).

So … off to the fridge with the cake and with me to the computer to write this (right here it becomes more live).

…

It has been one hour now. I go and have a look.

…

Not so bad, the chocolate solidified. That gives me the opportunity to transfer the cake to a fresh plate and start with scraping off and eating the chocolate sticking to the old plate. Yum yum – chocolaty and tasty! So our little experiment might have a happy ending.  

The ChoPeaPan-Cake could use some decoration. We still have some peanuts left we can place on top, doing it carefully.

I got on all peanuts safely, apart from one. Maybe you can spot it on the photo … or maybe not.    

In the end there is only one thing left to do: the taste check. After spending quite a little bit of time on that cake I can reward me with the final result. Or is it not a reward? Let’s see … or better say taste.

…

It took me some time to cut out a piece of cake for me and  to take some final photos.    

Now the final verdict:

I’m not quite so sure about the salty peanut butter. It tasted fine, but since I did use this one and not the other one I cannot judge what tastes better … hm … but I think it has it’s place. All in all it was not so sweet. You might want to experiment a bit with the amounts of sugar or the kind of chocolate you use – maybe a better quality chocolate would be useful here or even one with flavour – I would suggest a Milka chocolate with Daim pieces in it. I could imagine doing it that way and tweak the amount of sugar for the pancake batter might change a tasty treat into a divine one.

This is the point where you have to either trust my judgement or you have to do it as Indy says in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “There is only one way to find out.” Then he took the holy grail with water and had a drink from it.

Ah … that was quite and adventure Indy had there.

And a nutty adventure we had here as well indeed (even without a bullwhip, Fedora hat and leather jacket).

This and that

It is definitely spring. This is what the calender says anyway. However, the full action is still delaying. The temperatures are not what I would like them to be. Here and there you see things sprouting, but it could be more.

Still, the sun is coming out from time to time. Then, of course, it's a good opportunity to have a quick lie down to catch some warming rays.
Go for it while it still lasts. You never know when it comes back.
Inspecting the garden there are some suspicious looking plants living, although they don't always appear to be.

The sage really doesn't look to promising, but when you take a real close look you may find those small leaves that are hiding somewhere.

For the oregano (left edge of the picture) things seem better. Next to it the mint looks totally dead. This, though, is no reason for the mint to come up somewhere else. It seems the supply for mint is secured.
Coming to the kitchen, what happened this weekend?

I changed a recipe I tried last week. Cardamom twists then and now cinnamon-peanut butter now. Simply replaced the cardamom with cinnamon and the filling with peanut butter. They were gone all so quickly!
Why with peanut butter? Well, I tried another recipe. Although I didn't use this peanut butter for the recipe above, it made me use peanut butter. The chocolate one I reserve for my breakfast.

Then I wanted to do some bread baking and had a go at French baguettes again.

The result was only average. Well, I wasn't too satisfied. They were edible, but lacking the special extra.
Finally the neighbours were doing some fish smoking and brought one smoked trout for tasting. Very kind! I didn't want to simply eat it as it was, so I went looking for a recipe again. I ended up with this: Baby Yorkshire Puds with creamy smoked trout.

The Yorkshire puddings are not quite baby and not quite normal looking as well. The taste was right. That's enough with testing for this week. The week is almost gone anyway. Do I get a drink somewhere?