Marty’s Blueberry Pancakes and Balls

I always like to think that if Martha Stewart and I were friends, I would call her Marty.  We’d make muffins together, sit and have tea. She’d tell me all her cooking secrets.  She’d show me how to till a garden.

Since that likely is never going to happen in my lifetime, the best I can do is make her buttermilk pancakes.  Although I changed it up a bit – while I do love the flavor of buttermilk, I wanted to bring down the calories a bit.  My boss said this was comfort food at its best – and wait until you see the nutritional stats!

Marty’s Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes (well, Bizified)

• makes 10 pancakes, 5 servings – each serving: 181 calories, 6.03 fat, 26 carbs, 1.2 fiber and 5.25 protein

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 cup eggbeaters
• 1 cup non-fat buttermilk
• 2 cups unsweetened almond milk (mine is 30 calories a cup)
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup blueberries

Mix all the ingredients together except for the blueberries.  Let the batter sit for 10 or 15 minutes to let the baking powder do its magic.  This batter isn’t as thick as regular pancakes, but not as thin as the Jacky’s pancakes I made last week.  This batter fit in the bottom of my six inch skillet.

Once you pour the batter in, then place your blueberries, pressing them down a bit so they don’t fly off when you flip the pancake.  Not quite sure how I know that.

You know how your first pancake of a batch never browns right?  Yep, the pancake closest to me was the second one.  Since these were on the thinner side, I rolled them up cigar style and had a slice of rosemary ham on the side.  Delish!

Knowing that I had Max Recovery last night for Insanity – which is a lot of slow moving muscle building exercises, no cardio, I decided to run a 5k at lunch.  It had been a while since I ran!  In fact, when I went back to check when the last time I ran it was June 13!  And that’s when I hit my latest PR of 33:11.

I cut out that PR and put it on the treadmill for inspiration.  I am a slow to start runner, so I started out at 11:00 mph and as I felt more comfortable, I kept bumping up the pace – until my last 4 minutes were at a 8:43 pace!

HOLY SHIT!  I beat my previous PR by a full minute!  And you know what?  Typically my breathing is all over the place when I run for the longest time – but really after about five minutes my breathing was fine and my legs were strong.  To think I can run this fast at 167 pounds, can’t wait to break 30 minutes when I get smaller!

Last Friday I stopped by my local grocery store on the way home to pick something up – don’t even remember what it was, but you know I had to stop by the 50% off meat bin.  I scored on five pounds of ground sirloin for $6.50!  So I started googling “ground beef recipes” and when I found this recipe, I stopped – this was it.

I did change it up, as I do.  I left out the lemongrass, bumped up the other herbs a bit, and also used ground beef instead of ground chicken like she used.  I also made more sauce than she did. 

Thai-Spiced Beef Balls with Red Pepper Curry Sauce

(Inspired by Fork Knife Swoon)

• 4 servings: 6 meatballs and 1/3 cup of sauce
• balls: 228 calories, 11 fat, 7 carbs, 1.2 fiber and 24 protein
• sauce: 36 calories, 2 fat, 3.75 carbs, .5 fiber and 1 protein

Ingredients for balls:

• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
• 1/2 a grated jalapeno (adjust to spice level)
• zest of one lime
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 pound of ground sirloin

Mix all the ingredients together, just until combined, you don’t want to beat your meat too much (that’s what she said!).  While she baked hers, I like a crust on my meat balls, so Pam/grapeseed oil pan fried them for about 2 minutes.  I knew I was going to reheat these at work, so they weren’t fully cooked until I reheated them for lunch.

For the sauce:

• 1 cup jarred roasted red pepper
• 1/2 cup of light coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon hot curry paste (Mine was Thai Kitchen)
• salt and pepper to taste

Put all those in a mini chopper and blend until desired consistency.

For my lunch – 3/4 cup white rice on the bottom, 1 sauteed zucchini, 1/3 cup of the spicy sauce and six balls.

Yep, couldn’t decide which picture to post – so you get all three.  You’re welcome.

Holy balls these were tasty – I don’t think I’ve ever had mint in meat before, but the flavors were so good – flavorful spicy – I ended up just mixing everything together after the pictures were taken so I got a bit of the spicy red pepper sauce with each bite.

It was so nice outside when I got home.  It was like 72, no wind.  Tony was just finishing up mowing the lawn (looks great babe!) and we ended up sitting outside hanging out while Tony had a cigar for nearly an hour.  Turns out I can enjoy sitting outside without a glass of wine – who knew?!

On tap for dinner?  While you all know we love Tony’s famous fried rice, one of Tony’s favorite things to get when we go out for Chinese is something called a House Noodle dish – it has three different kinds of meat, the base is noodles and minimal vegetables.

I am his Sous Chef, so I got all the fixins together.  Weird thing is, I KNOW I bought bean sprouts.  I looked everywhere but couldn’t find them.  I even looked at my receipt and there they were!  Oh well, we had carrots, water chestnuts and broccoli slaw.

I cooked the pasta separately – angel hair – and once drained, just tossed in about a teaspoon of sesame oil to keep the pasta from clumping up.

Then Tony did his magic.  I coated the chicken in about a tablespoon of corn starch and salt and pepper.  He used soy sauce, honey and for me – sriracha for the seasonings.

He cooked the chicken first, then the veggies, then put the pasta at the bottom of the wok and let it get crispified – some of the pasta was soft and some was crunchy.  I have to tell you – that I think I like this version better than his fried rice – and that’s saying a lot!  This is four servings – I am bringing the extra two servings for me and my boss for lunch today.

So good – thanks Tony!  And guess who stopped by for dinner?  Lyle!  He’s still looking for my granola, but settled on almonds.

I let my dinner settle for about 45 minutes, then finished 45 minutes of Max Recovery – while it’s tough, I was able to complete 98% of it!

Stats for the Day:

• 1489 calories, 61 fat, 173 carbs, 15 fiber and 71 protein
• 47% of calories from carbs
• 37% from fat
• 16% from protein
• 40 minute total treadmill at lunch 32:11 PR!
• 45 minute Max Recovery

Alright, I have to scoot – I am making breakfast wontons for breakfast this morning and then have to put my shit together – I have twenty minutes to get it all done – no problem!

Make it a great day!