Random Things + Cranberry Chocolate Chip Bread

Hey guys.

Some things to mention:

— Did this 40 minute elliptical workout from BBB last night, followed by my ab challenge.  10 burpees > ab ladder > 10 burpees > ab ladder > 10 burpees… phew!  For the cardio work, I ended up increasing the resistance a little more on the last round to 12.  I was sweaty!

— My friend Lindsey at work yesterday told me she joined the Y, and it may have been the highlight of my day.  #gymproblems

— New dress, via Old Navy:

Wasn’t sure how I felt about the horizontal stripes, but I think I can pull them off.  I feel like every single item in the store had horizontal stripes on it when I went shopping last week!

— I’m really bad at twittering.  Seriously though, I’ve been ON twitter for a while now, but never actively using it.  I’m TRYING to use it more to bump the blog numbers and be more involved in this “little” online health & wellness community.  Anyone want to give me a crash course?  Tweet me so I’m forced to learn?  Or at least follow me?  K, thanks.

— Dinner last night:

Made the zucchini boats again, this time with barley.  Love, love, love.  Can’t wait to eat leftovers for lunch today.

Recipe time!

This is a recipe I made so long ago (it feels), but I just haven’t gotten around to posting yet.  I baked this around New Year’s I think, because I was just craving baked bread and wanted to use up the rest of the cranberries from when we made our cranberry pomegranate Christmas punch.  As you probably know, I’m not a bad cook or baker, but I’m not very creative or ‘go with the flow.’  I’m just not good at figuring out what ingredients to just ‘throw together.’  I would say about 90% of the time, I do follow a recipe, and if I post the recipe I do give due credit by linking to where I found the original recipe in the first place.  This recipe, however, I actually did just kind of do!  I had a recipe from a cookbook that I don’t even remember the name of, and I played around with the ingredients to make it my own.  I think this was delicious, if I do say so myself, and Katrina and Slesh tried it when we went over for a dinner date recently.  They gobbled it right up, so I think they liked it too!

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Bread

 Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• A teeny bit of salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup cranberries, halved
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Whisk the egg, milk, and applesauce.  Stir into the dry ingredients.
4. Add the cranberries and chocolate chips.
5. Transfer to a greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
6. Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

The cranberry and chocolate chips together were mmm, mmm, mmm.  Nom, nom, nom.

Are you on Twitter?  What do you use more, Facebook or Twitter?  Are you someone who tends to follow a recipe or are you more go with the flow when it comes to cooking?

Time for work!