Low Calorie Sugar Cookies for the Weekend

INGREDIENTS

• Sugar cookie dough

• Vegetable oil cooking spray

• 6 tablespoons bittersweet chocolate chips

• 1/4 cup half-and-half

PREPARATION

Heat oven to 350°. 

•Cut dough in half; roll out both halves to an even 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out cookies with a round 1-inch cookie cutter, re-rolling scraps to get 72 cookies. Coat 2 cookie sheets with cooking spray; place cookies on sheets 1 inch apart and bake 1 batch at a time until firm, 3 to 5 minutes. Cool on wire racks. 

• Simmer chocolate chips and half-and-half in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring once or twice, until chocolate melts and is smooth, 1 to 2 minutes; remove from heat. Let cool 1 minute. 
• Spread 1/2 tsp chocolate ganache on a cookie; press a second cookie on top to form a sandwich. Repeat with remaining cookies and ganache.

“THE SKINNY”

53 calories per cookie, 2 g fat (1 g saturated), 8 g carbs, 0 g fiber, 1 g protein

In Health, 

Zeke Samples - IFA, - IDEA

Contributing author for www.FitAphrodite.com

surrealbody@gmail.com

Spinach Cashew Chicken with a Fresh Pepper 'Kick'

2-1/2 cups fresh spinach (Blanched)

Mixed Peppers (I use 3 kinds of peppers) 1-1/2 Cups

Chicken (julienned) 16 ounces 

Cashew paste 1 Tbsp 

Tomato purée 2 Tbsp 

Cumin powder 0.5 gms 

Cayenne powder 0.5 gms 

Ginger garlic paste 2 gms 

Grape seed oil 1 Tbsp

First, Sauté half of the ginger garlic with the peppers 

Next, Add the spinach and check for seasonings

Third, Sauté the remaining ginger garlic paste along with the cashew paste, the cayenne, cumin, and all the spices for 5 minutes. 

Add chicken and cook 6-8min or until done. 

Finally, Add cilantro or parsley for garnish 

In Health, 

Zeke Samples - IFA, - IDEA

Contributing author for www.FitAphrodite.com

surrealbody@gmail.com

The Teddy-Bear Omelet

Need a good idea for a special occasion or a loved one this weekend? Maybe breakfast in bed for a child's birthday??
Try this recipe and comment back on what reaction they gave you. I'm confident it will bring a smile :)

Note: The size of the omelet is intended for 'presentation' purposes. If they can eat it all, then great. But if not, you can always take a photo of your masterpiece and then divide it up proportionately to share.

You Will Need:
6 Large Eggs (4 Whites Only and 2 Whole)
1 Cup Cooked Rice (Uncle Ben's 'Quick' Brown Rice Cooks the Best)
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Slice Cheese (of Choice) for the 'pillow' as seen in photo
2 Un-Cooked Dark Brown Rice Grains for the 'eyes' as seen in photo
1 Piece Dark Chocolate (Hardened prior to presentation) for the 'nose' as seen in photo
Butter (Amount and location described within the presentation below)

The 'Art' of this recipe is what to keep in mind; not all ingredients sound like they mix and match with the taste buds, I know, but the Rice can be replaced after the presentation with another Low Glycemic carbohydrate source such as oatmeal.  The 'eyes'; the two uncooked dark brown rice grains, can be removed.  The 'nose'; the chocolate (cut into a triangle) and then hardened in refrigerator or freezer and placed on the presentation immediately prior to consumption, can be removed.  The butter (cut into half circles for the ears, and a full circle for the nose) needs to be hardened in the refrigerator or freezer and placed on the presentation immediately prior to consumption as well, and it can be removed.

Recipe Steps:
Pre-Heat burner to medium/medium-high heat.
1. Pre-Heat and cook rice an hour prior to cooking eggs.  Place 1 Tbsp sugar in rice; mix; place in refrigerator to cool/harden.  This will be important to harden the rice when making the Bear's head.
2. Prepare the butter in the shapes seen above, and cut the chocolate for the 'nose' into the triangle.  Slice the thin piece of cheese for the 'pillow'.
3. Crack the eggs, using just the whites out of four of the six.  The remaining two eggs can be mixed in whole.  Mix all eggs together and add to small or medium size skillet (a large skillet will make it difficult to flip the entire amount of eggs because of the width they will spread apart if cooked in a large skillet).  Cook eggs evenly and try your best to use a spatula large enough that when you flip the eggs it will stay as close to one piece as possible.  The eggs may become slightly brown on the edges (as seen in photo); which is fine; they just won't make a good "blanket" if they are not still together when you flip them over to cook the other side.
4. Remove the rice from the refrigerator, mold it to make the head and ears.
5. Place the cooked eggs onto the plate and fold the omelet over to give height to the "blanket".
6. Lastly, add the remaining butter, two brown rice pieces, and the chocolate to the chilled rice.
Present Your Masterpiece, Enjoy the Smile You Receive, Have a Great Time!! ..and ENJOY!!
-Zeke Samples, IFA, IDEA

Tell me How Many Ounces of Something to Eat; What Works for Me??

I have never combined nutritional plans before, but today, I have.  Two clients both work at the same restaurant, are both room mates, eating about the same thing 75% of the time, and so I I decided that it would be a good advantage to them.  The first and biggest wall I had to take in to account before I pursued this was to make sure that they were eating similar amounts.  While one is physically larger than the other, the smaller of the two is more of an ectomorph (hard-gainer), luckily they are workout partners as well and the ectomorph's metabolism is through the roof.  A few of the many reasons I came up with the comfort level of combining the nutrition are that they would know..

1. What each other was doing to help them both stay accountable and motivate each other
2. This will make it easier when it comes to the restaurant and the accessibility to the foods that they have to eat.
3. One gave me a 3 Day Food Log with ‘pieces’ as the description of food. After dining a lot on the same things myself, I can understand and relate to the size of the ‘pieces’.  In the past during my competition phases of hard dieting and micronizing every ounce I consumed, my friends laughed when I could pick up a yam at the grocery store, bounce it once in my hand, and could tell them how much it weighed..  In addition, I know when meats are cooked, the water can be removed from the meat and this will make the meats lighter, so “pre-cooked weight’ is what we want to measure from all the time.  The other (fortunately the ectomorph) gave me 'ounce' measurements in his 3 Day Log; this is great because it is the weight we need to keep track of during the nutritional goal planning.  

Fact: 4oz = +/- 25 grams of protein.  Remember, 1 gram Protein = 4 calories, so 25gx4cal/gram=100 calories of Protein within 4 ounces of meat.  So, when I see 15 ounces of meat consumed, it means you consumed 93.75 grams of protein.  The kidneys will only be able to handle about 40 to 50 grams ‘tops’ of protein per meal.  So this means many things.  The extra protein could have the risk of being stored as fat on the body because it is on overload trying to digest more than the 50 grams.  Note:  Females need to stay between lower numbers; much lower; nearly half no matter what goals they have (build muscle or tone).  Remember ladies, without pharmaceuticals, you will not gain so much muscle that you resemble a man or show a man-like resemblance.  

So, with a lot of education from me that will guide them for the future, a few tweaks to associate the carbohydrates consumed to the meal time, time of day, and what workout they are doing that day, we can make you see the results they want to see very quickly.

- Zeke Samples, IFA, IDEA Certified