Just Peachy -Eating and Cooking with @juliejulie

Don't worry, we'll get back to Fitarella and the New Balance boy in a bit, but first I want to tell you what I did with my frozen peaches.

I usually don't talk about what I eat and how far I did or did not run here on this blog, but the fact is, I have lost weight through careful diet and exercise this past year, and some of you are asking for ideas about food.

I do like good food, and I get tired of eating the same 15 things that help me stay on track with my health and fitness goals. So, welcome to my weird little food section here at Chubby Mommy Running Club. Please send me your ideas, and I'll share some of mine.

I also started @twitrecipes over on Twitter and I need to start updating again. I'm happy to link to your recipes! You can send me links in comments or via email or my Facebook Fan Page if you aren't on Twitter.

Some of you may remember when I worked with Cathy Sassin of Intrafit, a well respected sports nutritionist who is also an ultra marathoner and was on American Gladiator once. Her food plan really works and I saw results right away.

I still follow it loosely and continue to lose slowly but surely, if I work out and measure everything. But I'm also a big fan of real life and balance and I'm in this healthy lifestyle thing for the long run. So, I'm about 80% careful about food, and enjoy my other 20%.

Here's how I eat, in general:

• I try to eat a small, balanced 400 calorie meal every 3-4 hours. Balanced means some carbs, protein and a little fat. The combo keeps my blood sugar even. Nuts, egg yolks, olive oil, etc. are all fats. Hint: if I cut out fat, I get really, really hungry within 2 hours and tend to crash. Other hint: it's all about portion control. Read the label. 1/4 cup of nuts isn't much, people.
• I've had good luck with natural products like Cliff's Builder's protein bars, which offer 270 calories of decent, balanced carbs, protein and fat with natural ingredients, when I'm busy, traveling, etc. I eat one in the morning for breakfast, 1.5 to 2 hours before I exercise.
• I don't eat much refined sugar, although I always choose real sugar over artificial sweeteners. I don't like how aspartame tastes, and I don't like how I feel when I eat it.
• I don't drink soda, diet or otherwise. I do like Dry Soda and buy it for parties, but in general, we don't drink soda very often. We do buy the kids regular soda (they like 7Up and Dr. Pepper!) for special occasions and let them drink it at restaurants. I think of it like dessert.
• I drink lots of water. I don't drink much juice. I'm not anti-juice, I'd just rather have fiber with my fruit and not waste calories. Water is my main beverage.
• Right now I'm avoiding wheat and dairy. I've gone on and off both of these for years. I have a bit of an immune system reaction to them which flares up every 5 or 6 years when my hormones change for the next round of life. For me this means I get a sore throat, swollen glands and feel over the top exhausted within 20 minutes of eating the offending foods. My 44 year old perimenopausal brain was feeling especially foggy a few months ago, so I cut these foods out again and within 2 weeks I felt back to normal. A little bit here and there is fine now, but I don't eat a bowl of cereal every morning any more.
• I'm usually not a big vitamin taker, but since I cut out wheat and dairy I started a multi vitamin and a calcium supplement.
• I eat a lot of lean meat and vegetables. It's just what works for me. I do cook vegetarian because I have a kid who's veggie, so I'm cool with it. I respect vegetarians, but I'm a carnivore, so please don't try to convert me.

Ok, on to the recipe. I made this up this morning. I improvised with what we had lying around, and I don't really measure. And yes, I used some sugar and some flour, but not much. Also, I just ate a very small portion, but my kids chowed down and even my picky husband liked this.

Use protein powder or soy flour to add more protein if needed to make this a meal, or serve it with some Morningstar Farms Veggie sausages, a good source of lower fat protein, and one of my kid's favorites.

@juliejulie's Baked Peach Thingy

Ingredients:

Cream cheese (you could also use extra firm tofu or Tofutti cream cheese)

Brown Sugar

Oatmeal

Peaches

Flour

Eggs or Egg White Product

Coconut

1. Mix 1/2 cup of cream cheese with a little brown sugar and enough oatmeal to bind it together (1/2 cup?) I used lowfat cream cheese this time, I'd probably use less if it were regular strength.
2. Sprinkle some brown sugar and oatmeal in bottom of a glass baking dish
3. Lay some sliced peaches on top
4. Use half the cream cheese mixture and drop it in little blobs on top of peaches
5. Sprinkle more sugar and oatmeal on top
6. Lay some more peaches on top of that
7. Sprinkle flour on top of that layer (rice flour, soy flour, whatever) this will make everything hold together as it cooks. It's science.
8. Pour some liquid egg mixture on top of all of it and let it sink in (I use Trader Joe's "Just Whites" or Costco's "Real Egg" Product, but you could use real eggs mixed with a bit of milk, too.)
9. Top off with the rest of the cream cheese mixture, more brown sugar and oatmeal and some coconut. Yum. We like coconut.
10. Bake at 350' for 45 minutes, or until hot and not too runny in the middle. I covered it in foil for a while, then took it off at the end to get the top crispy.
11. Let it cool, maybe a half hour if you can wait that long.

I was going to take a picture but I forgot, and this thing disappeared in about 6 minutes.

Yay for peaches!