Chocolate Protein Pancakes!!

image

I’ve been craving sweets lately (which sucks when you’re avoiding carbs, since everything sweet is carb-laden). Liquid stevia has become my best friend; we get it at Trader Joe’s, and one bottle will last both of us a couple of months.

I’m also prone to “food tantrums” (where nothing sounds good or what does sound good is an irresponsible choice). They used to be terrible and resulted in plenty of fights between Joey and me. I’m much better now (probably from a combination of being older and wiser and having some great medication), but I’m still prone to getting frustrated when I don’t know what I want or want something I can’t have.

Anyway, this morning, I was in desperate need of some pancakes. We’d already tried protein pancakes a few days ago, but Joey wanted to try making a chocolate version.  I looked over a few recipes out in the blogosphere, but I didn’t follow anything close enough to reference, so this is mostly a result of trial-and-error.

Makes 6 pancakes

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 2.5 tablespoons coconut flour
  • 1/2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 scoop of Protein powder (We used MHP Paleo Protein in Vanilla Almond flavor)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 5-7 drops liquid stevia
  • 1/4-1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (start with a quarter cup and increase as needed)
  • butter (to grease the pan)

Directions:

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium-high heat
  2. Add all ingredients in a large mixing bowl
  3. Whisk until thoroughly blended and lump-free
  4. Use butter to grease non-stick skillet or griddle
  5. Pour batter onto skillet (we cooked them three at a time based on our skillet size)
  6. Cook on first side until you begin to see the bubbles on the surface of the pancake pop without re-forming.
  7. Flip and cook until done throughout

This recipe makes six pancakes that are about 3″ in diameter.

We had ours topped with peanut butter. They’re also good with freshly whipped heavy cream and/or sugar free syrup! To make them without the chocolate flavor, just omit the cocoa powder and increase the coconut flour by 1/2 tbsp.

Enjoy. Today, we’ve conquered the bedroom closet.  Another two garbage bags full of clothes off to Goodwill, and we were able to whittle the contents of a very large closet down to this:

clothesTonight, we’ve got a huge bag of our socks to match up and put away (or toss).  We’re getting there, little by little.

Advertisement

Functional Adulthood Takes Work. Lots of Work.

I conquered the top two dresser drawers over the weekend…almost.  I’ve got about half a drawer’s worth of things that I know I need to keep but am not yet sure where to house them permanently.  I’m still counting it a success, though.  Tonight, we conquer the laundry pile.  Our laundry room has been mostly unusable for the past five years or so because we’ve got so much stuff (and clean laundry), so I’m anticipating a great purge is to come tonight.  I swear, our tax return next year is going to rock.

The de-cluttering euphoria is helping, but I’m still overwhelmed by how much work it is to be a functional adult.  We’ve been in “survival mode” for so many years that we’ve forgotten how to take care of ourselves.  I mean, I cleaned the entertainment center before Christmas, and there’s dust on it again.  Ugh.  But, functional adults dust things.  And fold clean laundry.

Bear with me for a bit while I find my blog voice.  There’s so much that I want to do and talk about, but I mostly find myself staring at the screen getting overwhelmed and feeling that I’m profoundly boring.  I don’t cook enough to be a food blogger, I don’t knit enough to be a knit blogger…I don’t have a kid, so I can’t be a mommy blogger.  I’m not a runner (yet), but even if I was, I think running blogs can be a little boring.  As is often the case in life, I’m not quite sure where I fit.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the moon I took the other night; it’s COLD in Charlotte, right now, and they’re even talking about a wintry mix tomorrow night.  I’d be thrilled if we got a little snow.

cold moon

Conquering the “Stuff”

junk pile

I know.  I’m ashamed of it.  But it’s mostly gone now.  This was on my dresser.  Then it became “on my bed,” which was fortuitous because it forced me to go through it, lest I relegate myself (and the husband.  and the cat) onto the couch for the night.  This huge pile birthed two trash bags full of Goodwill donations, one of actual trash, and one of clothes to keep.  I may have also located three grocery bags worth of yarn (with many half-completed projects).  I wish I could show you a clean dresser, but we’re not quite there yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  We’ll see.

I had two things that I wanted to accomplish yesterday, and I managed both of them.  The first, pictured above, and the second was to make soup.  Joey ended up taking my instruction and making the soup himself while I sat on my bed and alternated between crying and tearing my hair out by the roots.  The soup, alas, was a fail; it’s a passable broccoli cheese soup, but desperately needs some meat and something else that I haven’t figured out yet.  It also looks a little like baby vomit, so I’ll spare you a photo.

Tonight, however, was an incredible dinner win!  I found this recipe for Carne Asada on Pinterest a few days ago, and skirt steak was on sale at Aldi Sunday, so we went ahead and grabbed the rest of the ingredients and set up the crock pot this morning.

flank steak

It’s beautiful, right?  The paste on top is a mix of garlic, jalapeno, and cilantro.  In retrospect, I would’ve added the juice and zest of one lime; it needed a little tang.  Either way, it will definitely be joining the Weaver dinner rotation.  The finished product:

cooked asada

We added some steamed broccoli and ate it off my super-fancy Corelle dishes which made me feel a tiny bit like I may be succeeding at being a functional adult.

I get overwhelmed easily these days, so I’m trying to break this de-cluttering process into very small, manageable chunks. And to be entirely honest, I thought the dresser would only take one night, so I was disappointed in myself when I came to the realization after three hours that, even though the big items were handled, I’ve got tons of “little things” to still go through: cds, ear buds, lip gloss, jewelry, a thousand hair clips, pens, buttons; you know, the usual little things that most people eventually throw away.  Except I didn’t.  For, like, three years.  I used to see a therapist, and I told her many times that I just wanted to conquer the dresser.

I’m not done yet, but yesterday, I conquered the dresser.

Why We Need to Learn to Be More Spontaneous…

Indy let us sleep in until about 0730, at which point Joey went out to wrangle her and I tried to sleep a bit longer, but to no avail. I weighed myself this morning (first time in a month) and was pleasantly surprised with a MAJOR success (post to come).

Holy crap, was she terrible. I had to occupy her while Joey was making breakfast and I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind. She’s doing this thing now where she dives under the couch and comes back out with something that we didn’t know was under there and that she undoubtedly should not ingest. Deep in the dark part of my heart, I’m eagerly anticipating the day that she’s too big and ends up in a bad predicament when she tries to fling herself under there.

Joey took her for her morning walk and I took the opportunity to vacuum the living room and kitchen. Those of you who’ve read for a while know that I’m slovenly. To voluntarily choose to vacuum is not only completely foreign to me, but also a frightening-yet-heartening development. I felt immediately peaceful when it was done.

image

This is definitely a trend that I hope continues. I could really use an inner drive to clean.

Anyway, a Facebook message from my friend Katie led a group of us into an impromptu gathering at a local park to BYOM (bring your own meat……to grill y’all…geez) and let the children (both two and four-legged) play for awhile.

Indy made a new puppy friend..

image

while the rest of us enjoyed hanging out in the great weather together.

image

Just the girls here…the boys were doing their own thing.

Indy is exhausted.

image

Times like these remind me that I need to be able to be more spontaneous. Usually, an impromptu hang-out request would give me immense anxiety, but this time, I just rolled with it, and turned an otherwise boring Saturday into an excellent day (and a great way to wear Indy out). Spontaneity can be a good thing.

It was an afternoon well spent.

image