Happy Wednesday!

Hi Ladies,
Yesterday went pretty well diet-wise, and I was able to do a full 45 minutes of cardio (a four mile run...ew.) at the gym yesterday. I was really drained from the workout, so ended up with a dinner of whole wheat pasta. If I had the energy, I could have/should have added some kind of vegetable in there- but lesson learned.

I posted yesterday about sharing recipes. I've got two that I LOVE and that my boyfriend will also happily eat.

Alton Brown's recipe for popcorn. We use Canola oil instead of peanut oil, and use spray butter at the end instead of the unsalted. We also use kosher salt instead of popcorn salt, since we have it in the kitchen. This is beyond a doubt the BEST popcorn I have ever had. Much better than movie theatre popcorn, microwave popcorn, and certainly better than plain air-popped popcorn. It's great to have around if you're watching a movie so you're not tempted to have anything else. I also suggest filling an enormous glass with water and drinking that with the popcorn.

Second, we try every so often to make these Pear Bran Muffins that I got from a South Beach recipe book. They are sort of a pain to make, so we always multiply the recipe x4 and freeze them so that we don't have to go through the process again. We made about 5 dozen this weekend. They're great to have as a mid morning snack, or around 4pm when you're hungry and need something in you before you hit the gym. Tip: you may have trouble finding whole-grain pastry flour and/or wheat bran. Whole Foods has both and you can buy the exact amount you need (it's something like $ .69/lb). King Arthur Flour sells whole-grain pastry flour and you should be able to find it at the local grocery store.

Let me know if you try either one- and if you have other ideas!