Handy Dandy Gadget Blog #3- My Rice Cooker

I really suck at making brown rice on the stove.  White rice?  I'm a pro.  But Brown rice?  The long-cook kind?  Just about every time it comes out crunchy.

I knew about rice cookers (Who doesn't know about rice cookers?), but I thought it would wind up being just another appliance that was more trouble than it was worth and after two frustrating attempts it'd wind up in a garage sale.  That is, until I posted another whiney status update on Facebook saying that I, once again, broke the brown rice.  That prompted someone (may have been Carolyn, who told me to suck it up and get a coffee grinder for my flaxseed) to tell me that rice cookers do a great job at making brown rice the way it should be (non-crunchy), and that they aren't hard to use OR hard to clean, which were my biggest concerns.

So I asked for a rice cooker for my birthday, and my husband gave me one.  I told him to please not get me the kind that vacuums the carpets and does taxes.  I just wanted the most basic model possible, because I never use the extra stuff on appliances.  He was obedient and got me the basic model by Aroma:

It comes with a steamer insert thingy, so that you can cook veggies on top (It has yet to be put into action.  See? I don't use extra stuff), and a measuring cup.  The inside is non-stick and the inside of the top of the lid pops off for super-easy cleanup: 

The process for making rice with this thing couldn't be simpler- Toss the rice and water in there, close the lid down tight, plug it in, and turn it on.  It somehow senses when the rice is done and moves it to the "keep warm" setting for several hours.  No watching for water to boil, cleaning up of boil-overs on my stove, or scrubbing burnt rice of of the bottom of a pan because I accidentally cooked it too long.  Additionally, I can set it off to the side and all my burners are still free for anything else I might be cooking.  As an added bonus, it's ready in about half the time it takes to make rice on the stove.

The ratio of water to rice are different for brown rice than white, so I still have to look it up in the manual each time I use it, but let me tell ya something; this thing couldn't be easier to use.  And the rice has never once turned out anything other than wonderful!  Sometimes I use chicken broth instead of water, for some extra flavor. I almost always cook up more than we need and store the leftover in the fridge to use as a healthy carb over the next few days.  (Did you know that cold brown rice makes a wonderful addition to salads?)

As is always the case, though, I started thinking:  I usually have oatmeal for breakfast, which I cook in my Micro Steamer (blogged about it here).  But I've wanted to try steel cut oats.  The thing is, they take so blessed long to cook that I only tried them once.  I'm just too hungry in the mornings to wait that long to eat, plus I had to keep stirring them because they threatened to burn to the bottom of my pot.  Since the cooking method for steel-cut oats is very similar to rice, I started wondering if I could cook them in the rice cooker.  I did a quick Google search and, sure enough, you can.  One part oats and three parts water, but don't fill the cooker more than half full, because oats like to foam up when they cook.  This is REALLY cool, because I can jump out of bed, dump the oats and water in the rice cooker, then run off to the bedroom to make the bed, brush my teeth, and do my normal morning "stuff".  When I get to the kitchen, the oats are pretty much done.  I just give them a quick stir because there is water on top, then close the lid back down and let it absorb a bit while I get my vitamins together, feed the dog, and make my eggs or mix up a protein shake. 

So there 'ya have it- My third and final gadget blog.  (To link my first one, CLICK HERE. The link to the second one is above in the coffee grinder link.)  Useful things I use regularly and make my life a lot easier AND healthier.  Let me know what you think!  (And tell me what you use YOUR rice cooker for- I'm always looking for new ideas!)

Handy Dandy Gadget Blog #2- Mini Coffee Grinder

Yep.  I said coffee grinder. And it's all Carolyn's fault.

My friend Carolyn, of Fabulous Fitness fame, read me whining one day about having to buy ground flaxseeds in such large quantity that I feared they were losing their nutrients before I could use them. See, flaxseeds are wonderful little nutritional powerhouses, but you can't get absorb their nutrients in the whole form.  They have to be ground.  Here's where the problem comes in:  They start to lose their nutrients fairly quickly (within a week or two after grinding). A bag of ground flaxseeds lasts a VERY long time when you are only using a tablespoon most days.

So I whined about it, and Carolyn told me to get one of those mini coffee grinders to grind them as I use them. She said it cost about ten dollars at WalMart.  Go get one, already, and stop your whining!  (Okay, she didn't say it JUST like that, but it makes for a more interesting story.)

Anyhow, I went to WalMart and got one, and Carolyn was wrong:  It wasn't ten dollars- It was thirteen.  (Carolyn- you own me three bucks.)

Anyway, I took it home, read the directions (yes, I am one of THOSE people), dropped some whole flaxseed into it that I purchased in the bulk section at United Market Street for about sixty-eight cents (I wasn't going to buy a whole bag just to find out it didn't work), pressed the little button and..... viola!  Ground flaxseed, nutrients intact.  That was pretty cool!  (Can you tell I am easily amused?)

The only caveat is that once you start grinding flaxseeds with the coffee grinder, you do NOT want to grind coffee with it.  Or so I've heard.  The microscopic bits of flaxseed kinda cling to the inside of the grinder.  It's very hard to clean completely.  I'm going to make a guess that flax coffee is probably not so tasty.

So me and my little coffee grinder lived in harmony with the flaxseeds.  Then one day I started hearing about oat flour.  And then I found a recipe I wanted to try with oat flour in it.  (Chocolate PB Protein Brownies by Julie Lohre) I didn't want to buy an entire container of oat flour for a recipe that calls for just a cup.  So I started thinking.... and Googling  (what DID we do before Google?)........

Upon investigation, I found out that oat flour is simply finely ground oatmeal.  The recommendation was to grind it in a blender.  This sounded dusty to me.  I hate dust.  And then my eye fell on my little coffee grinder.  I thought "I wonder?", and dropped some oats in there.  A whirl or two later, and I found myself staring in amazement at oat flour!  And, to make matters better, when I poured the oat flour out of the grinder, the thing was clean as a whistle.  Double benefit.  Yay!

The brownie recipe was good, by the way, but, of course, I altered it to my own taste. Here's a link to my version.

And there you have it- More information than you ever wanted about mini coffee grinders.  But if you are a flaxseed eater, I'd highly recommend one.  Cheap, easy, and takes up almost no space.  How much better does a gadget get?

For Gadget Blog #1, click HERE.

Handy Dandy Gadget Blog #1- My Bread Machine

Do you ever look at a kitchen gadget or tool and think "I wonder if I'd use that?".  Yeah.... me too.

So I thought I would do a series on three gadgets I would have normally thought were a big, fat waste of money and kitchen space, yet have wound up becoming indispensable to me in my never ending quest to eat healthier.

The first "gadget" (although it's really more of an appliance) I am going to herald the value of is my bread machine: 

My first bread machine was given to me 13 years ago, I believe it was, by my then-mother-in-law.  I remember opening it and thinking "Oh, yeesh!  Some big thing I'll never use and have to find a place in my already-too-small kitchen for."  Suffice it to say, I was less than thrilled.

But, because she had paid good money for the thing and couldn't stop talking about hers, I dutifully read the instructions and put the ingredients for a loaf of bread in it.  I thought it would be inedible and I'd never use it again. Instead it kneaded, let rise, kneaded again, let rise again and then baked a loaf of bread just as delicious as any I'd made the hard way (read: tons and tons of kneading) in the past.  It was shaped tall instead of long, which made a rather funny looking loaf.  But to get a homemade loaf of bread for almost no effort, what did I care how it looked?  We were just going to eat it, anyhow.

Here is a picture of the inside, so you can see how the pan is shaped. This should explain why the loaf is tall instead of the traditional long shape: 

And that started my love of bread machines.

I finally used that old bread machine to death.  Literally.  It died mid-loaf one day when it just stopped kneading.  I replaced it promptly with the Corney Bakery brand bread machine pictured above.

Then I started on a quest to improve my health and the bread machine turned into a towel hanger for a long period of time.

One day I found myself with an overwhelming amount of ground flaxseed.  There was no way I could use it all up before it went bad. The bread machine caught my eye.  I'd been developing recipes of my own and  thought "I wonder.......?????".  As I Googled whole wheat flax breads I started to figure out the basic principles of how to bake with flaxseed.  So on a wing and a prayer I tossed what I believed to be the correct ingredients into my beloved bread machine.  Sure enough, out came a delicious and chewy whole wheat bread to rival anything else I'd ever tasted.

It was official:  My bread machine and I were dating again.

Since then, not only have I regularly used it for a variety of whole wheat breads (one of our favorites is an Italian Herb Bread recipe I created), but I have also used it on the "dough" setting for whole wheat biscuits AND (I saved the best for last!) a wonderful whole-wheat pizza dough that I developed a recipe for.  Topped with my grandma's pizza sauce, part-skim mozzarella, fresh-grated Parmesan, lean meats, and sliced fresh veggies, it's hard to top a home-made, delicious, and healthy pizza.
 

And let me tell ya, the bread machine makes the whole process a LOT easier!  Just toss the dough ingredients in, put it on "dough" setting, and let it do the hard part.  When your machine screams at you that it's done, take the pan out, punch the risen dough down, cover it, and stick it in the fridge until ready to use.  Being cold makes it a little easier to handle and gives the crust a nice texture when you bake it.

Double bonus?  My teenage daughter, who would rather skip breakfast, will gladly eat leftover pizza for breakfast the next morning. It's a healthy breakfast chock-full of whole grains, good fats, proteins, and even a few veggies to fuel her pretty little head for school.

I love knowing what is in the foods that my family is eating.  By using the bread machine, I am able to avoid any chemicals or "what is that?" type ingredients that I often find on packaged breads, doughs, and crusts.  And, of course, fresh-baked always tastes better.

Ever Wonder the Daily Habits of the Most Muscular Guy in the Gym?

Last year I did a blog titled Ever Wondered How the Most Muscular Guy in the Gym Lifts? on SparkPeople.com.  I did it there and not here because my following here appears to be mostly female, and a lot of guys follow me on Spark.  I've always felt a follow-up blog about some of his daily habits would perhaps help someone else looking to make the most of their physique.  While the weight lifting is obviously what has put all of that muscle on Ivory, what he does day-in and day-out contributes heavily to his health and appearance, as well.  It really is a whole package if you want to get results as impressive as his:

*********NOTE***** I am not implying that anyone else should adopt ALL of these habits!  Even Ivory didn't take them all on at once.  Like anyone else who has made lasting lifestyle changes, he implement these bit by bit over the course of years.

So here, in no particular order, are some of the things I have observed and/or wrangled out of Ivory about what it is he does on a day-to-day basis:

Dietary:
- Never drinks soda.  Unsweet tea?   Yes.  The occasional sugar-free Rock Star before a workout? Unfortunately, yes. (This makes me batty!)  But carbonated beverages?  In three years I've never seen him ingest one.
- Never drinks alcohol.  No kidding.
- Drinks a LOT of water, although, surprisingly, he does not keep a bottle with him when he works out.  He either goes to the drinking fountain, or swipes some of mine.  (He's nice, though, and refills it for me if it is low.)
- Rarely ingests sugar.  I mean, hardly ever.  Around the holidays he may have a piece of sweet potato pie or banana pudding, but sugar for the most part is not in his diet.
- Keeps white flour to a bare minimum.  Maybe once every week or two he'll have pancakes (with sugar-free syrup) right after a workout, but almost every other starch Ivory eats is either potatoes or whole grain.
- Not afraid of carbs, but eats plenty of protein.  Protein is the center of most of his meals, but he always has some kind of a starch and usually either veggies or fruit along with it.
- Loves his veggies!
- Keeps fruit consumption fairly low- perhaps a piece of fruit a day.
- Eats an extremely wide variety of foods.
- Stops eating when he is full.  He'll leave half a plate of food because "I'm full"
- And, because everyone wonders this:  Doesn't go anywhere near steroids or other stuff purported to help you gain muscle.  Tried Creatine once, but it dehydrated him so bad that he wound up in the ER.  About the only thing supplemental he takes is the occasional scoop of protein powder and a multivitamin when he remembers it.  Really.  (I made him pinky swear on this one.)

Exercise:
- Cardio is short (usually 20-30 minutes) but very intense.  I'm tellin' ya, the guy is positively raining sweat when he gets done with a cardio session.
- Changes set/rep scheme and the exercises he does frequently. 
-  Hits every muscle group once a week.
- Takes more time to train shoulders than any other body part.
- Takes 1 day a week as rest day from gym.  He typically lifts weights Mon-Fri and does cardio Mon, Fri, and Sat.  Sometimes Tuesday.
- Gives full rest between sets.  This way, he's able to put maximum effort into all of his lifting.
- Asks for a spotter when he goes super-heavy.  If there is no one around to spot, he doesn't go heavy that day and does more reps.
- Does abbreviated movements on big lifts- stays in the tension. 
- Always keeps good form.  If he can't keep proper form, he lowers the weight.

Life in General:
- Keeps a relaxed attitude- What some would call stressful, he just accepts as life and rolls with it.
- Is hardly ever in a hurry.  For as fast as this guy moves during cardio, he kinda ambles around the rest of the time.
- Prioritizes taking time to do things he enjoys (coaching football, playing softball, going to his kids sporting events, fishing)
- Invests time in friendships.
- Keeps current on fitness information and is always willing to learn and try new things.
- Makes an effort to stand up strait- excellent posture.
- Lost weight when he needed to. Ivory told me that at 6'2" he weighed 330, if I remember correctly, for quite a while. It was affecting his health.  The doctor gave him what-for, Ivory listened and started eating better and adding cardio to his exercise routine (he'd been lifting all along).  He lost 50 pounds and the weight has stayed off.  Gotta respect that.


Lastly, I feel compelled to point out that it has taken years of doing these same things, day in and day out, to get to where he is now.  Genetically Ivory is indeed gifted, but the mounds of thick and well-defined muscle would not be there if he didn't work hard and stay consistent in his habits.  So if you aren't getting the results you want in a few weeks or months, remember that it takes sticking to doing the right things over and over for many years on end to be able to carry this kind of a look well into your 40's (Ivory is 45), and beyond.