Lessons To Learn

What a day!  I love having only one class to worry about.  That will all change next week, but I choose not to think about that now!    I got up with Dave this morning and sent him off to work.  Then I headed down to the fitness center and pounded out an unexpected 13.5 miles while flipping through magazines and listening to music.  I finished in 2:01, so the 13.1 miles were sub-2:00 which made my day right from the get-go!  I think most people need to mentally prepare to run long distances.  Me?  I tend to do better when I don’t plan on it.  I’ll just be feeling good and I keep on going!

That alone was a great start to the day.  Then I came home and read all of your comments on my post yesterday.  It makes me feel good to know that I’m not the only one who needs to work on being more mindful about prices in the grocery store.  Some of you had really good tips too!  Thank you!  I love blogging not only for the awesome people I have met, but for all I learn from you all!

My good day continued when I checked the availability of the Microbiology course I want to take this semester…. It is offered in the standard format for the entire semester with a professor who confused the hell out of me in Biology.  And then it is offered as a hybrid (coursework on-line, lab in person) 8 week course with a different professor.  Since the professor I had for Biology was so difficult to follow, I wanted to take the hybrid course.  But unfortunately, the section meeting for the first 8 weeks of the semester was full, so I had to sign up for the 2nd 8 week session.  I have been checking multiple times a day to see if an opening comes up in 1st 8 weed session, but no luck.  I checked this morning before my run and it was still full.  But after my run, someone must have dropped it because there was an opening!  This means that the next 8 weeks will be tough with semester #2 of Chemistry, as well as a very concentrated Microbiology.  But it also means that by March I will be down to 2 classes and perhaps I can find a part-time job to take me through the summer.

What could be better than a kick-ass run, and a perfectly arranged spring semester….another gluten-free success.  I’ve told you that one of the things I have missed most is bread.  Doughiness!  I miss the texture of it.  Last week I had success with a banana/pumpkin recipe my mom gave to me.  So today I decided to try another recipe she gave me.

The original recipe was for Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake.  But I wanted something a bit more healthy for a daily indulgence.  So I omitted some sugar, from the already healthy recipe, I omitted the crumb topping (which I will save fo rwhen I want something extra sinful!), and I poured the recipe into muffin tins instead of a cake pan.

I give you, Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins:

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cups sugar
3 egg whites
1 cup fat free sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups gf all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups blueberries (may be thawed frozen)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream applesauce and sugar together.
Beat in egg whites,  one at a time.
Mix in sour cream and vanilla.
Mix flour and baking soda together.
Mix flour mixture into wet ingredients.
Stir in blueberries.
Pour into muffin tins
Bake about 25-30
Serve warm or cooled.  Makes approx. 15 muffins.

These were amazing!  The recipe made about 15 muffins.  I say “about” because I only had one pan of regular muffins, so I made 12 of those and then 6 mini muffins.

Out of curiousity I used Gina’s recommendation of CalorieCount.com, as well as SparkRecipes.com, to see if the nutrition information came out as I had calculated in my head.   It was pretty close on both websites: about 125 calories, 2 grams of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.  And as you can tell from the ingredient list, these are really low in fat too.

I really liked the pumpkin muffins I made last week.  But these are even better!  The original recipe called for regular flour, so these can be made with regular or gluten-free flour.  I already ate 3!  A girl needs to refuel after all that running, you know!

One the menu tonight is fish with a gluten-free crumb topping.  Hopefully I’ll have another recipe to add tomorrow!

Have a good night everyone.  Dave has several business dinners coming up and I am going to be out one night a week for my class, so we have only a couple of evenings together this week.  I am going to turn off the computer for the night, make a nice dinner for us, and cozy up with all my boys!