Baked Pears, Sprouts & a workout

Hey!
What's happening in Blogger land?

Not a lot going on here. OH wait.. I did win an awesome prize from one of my favorite healthy blogs, www.bexlife.com.

It's a composting factory !!! *cheering and hand clapping*

It's a worm factory 360!! It comes with all the stuff minus the worms, you get those separately, and was a snap to set up!!  All I need to do is make the worm bedding with the pumice and bedding that was provided, order my worms and let them start turning garbage into compost. My husband built us 4 beautiful cedar raised beds last yr that are going to LOVE, LOVE this!!! Can you tell I'm excited!! when I get it set up and functioning, I will try to remember pictures or maybe even a vlog.. I'm interested in posting those sometimes I just need to figure out how to do it on my Macbook. Which I'm sure is super easy. :) you keep this little beauty inside. It doesn't like temps below 40 and above 80 degrees. It comes with 4 compartments but you start out with just one, when the worms have done their job and have turned the junk into compost then you simply add another compartment and they will work their little wiggly bodies up into that compartment and get busy working. You then add the bottom compost to your beds!! HOW EASY!!! and the way the worms work, there is no odor.. so don't worry about it smelling up the house, It won't! It was a little over 100 bucks, which I could not have afforded right now!! Thanks Bex!!

It seems when the weather turns cold, cloudy and snowy I turn to pj's and comfort foods. I haven't had a workout in the last couple days, So with that in mind I've tried to keep my eating on the good side.
I scoured over online recipes looking for a baked pear recipe that sounded good. But I only had what was in my kitchen to work with so that eliminated a lot of the recipes.
After not finding anything that really peaked my interest I decided to do what I usually do and that's to use a little of this and a pinch of that.
I had 2 Bosc pears in my fridge because this craving had been stewing a bit in my memory from seeing a delicious looking pear on foodgawker. I cut up the 2 pears into halves, cored them and placed them in a sprayed baking dish, then I took a couple handfuls of oats, a tsp of cinnamon, a little bit of ginger, a splash of vanilla, 1/2 cup brown sugar and some room temp Earth Balance butter maybe 3 tbls. and blended it all together with a fork.. I placed the oat mixture on top of the pears and baked it with foil at 400 for about 20 mins.. then took off the foil for about 5-10 mins. Pictures and a blog post was an after thought I'm sorry to say, so not great pictures!

This is before I cooked them. They were good. A couple days later I made them again but I used a Bartlett Pear and it was so much better. The Bartlett had so much more flavor and it created it's own juice. Even though they say Bosc are better for baking I'd use a Bartlett instead ;)

I love sprouts.. I remember my mom always had sprouts growing on the kitchen counter when I was a kid. I found this great website www.sproutpeople.com and found sprouts galore!! So I got myself a couple sprouters, or you can use the old school glass mason jars with a little screen in the tops. I like these because you can see the magic as it's happening but since my young ones aren't so young anymore and really don't care about sprouting sprouts, I opted for the "sprouter" at sproutpeople, along with the starter kit of sprouts. I have a bunch of different sprout varieties.. I've got...French garden, Italian blend, Spicy mix, alfalfa, clover, Russian mix, Oriental mix, Nick's mix, and Moo mix. You can go to the website I linked above to see what is in these mixes, but for instance the Oriental is what I sprouted and it's got, alfalfa, red clover, mustard, mizuna and tatsoi seeds! The first day you put 2 Tbls of seeds into your cup, then fill with water. Let seeds soak for 24 hrs on kitchen counter. In am drain and rinse seeds let sit on counter.. I usually rinse and drain 1-2 a day. Another reason I got this type of sprouter is because it's got an insert the when twisted it doesn't allow the inner compartment with your seeds in it, to touch the bottom. So it also works as a strainer. So if your using the old school mason jar, make sure your sprouts are not sitting in water.. that's the key to sprouts!!  In about 4 days depending on what sprouts your using you will have yummy healthy sprouts to eat!

Day 2

day 4 ready to eat

soak in water to remove hulls

Now your ready for some yummy sprout sandwiches!

I hope you've found something worth while on my blog today. Remember that today is what matters not yesterday. It's over and done. No replay!! so focus on TODAY and making good choices to improve your life! :)

EDITED @ 2:45pm

Hi again.. just finished my workout... here it is....
I did 5 exercises in a Tabata format, in between each exercise I alternated 50 toe taps and 50 mt. climbers. Here's the breakdown
10/20/8rds= 4 mins this is called a Tabata interval

1. Plie Squat w/12 lbs,  I did this 1 exercise for the whole 4 min tabata interval before moving on to my next exercise. remember 10 secs of rest and 20 secs of work for the whole 4 mins BEFORE moving to next one!!
9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 9, 10, 9

50 Toe Taps you can use the floor or a ball or what ever makes you feel good :)

2. Side Plank lift (R)
8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10,

50 Mt. Climbers

3. Side Plank lift (L)
12, 14, 12, 10, 11, 10, 11, 12

50 toe taps

4. alternating punches with resistance band.. hopefully you have a door attachment for your resistance band..put it in door attached to your RB shut door tightly. Stand with your back to the door gripping the handles on RB walk out until there is tension on your RB then alternating punches. ;)
17, 17, 17, 17, 17, 20, 20, 18 my shoulders were on fire by round 8!!

50 mt. climbers

5. Toe Touches laying on floor
11, 12, 12, 11, 11, 10, 13, 14

I feel better now!
Sherice ox