HEY EVERYONE

UT LCS NOT ALL GOLD EVERYTHING VS REGIS BANANAS
I'm going to be so bad at casting.. you should witness it

http://www.twitch.tv/mahpycart

Steak and Veggies!

I decided to reward myself for not eating the french bread at Jimmy John's, so I made myself a steak! Why have carbs when you can have all this protein,  amirite? :)

I got the steak out from the freezer and ran cold water on it for about 5 minutes to soften it up a bit. Make sure you use cold water otherwise the hot water will start cooking the steak.. and that's no bueno. Then I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I basically took a pinch of both and rubbed it on each side of the steak. Then I cut about 1/2 a tablespoon of butter and let it melt on the pan because I wanted to make Paula Dean proud.

I let it cook on each side until it was about this color before flipping it. It is definitely not ready at this point. You can guess how long to keep cooking it by how you generally like your steak. I personally like it at a medium rare, but I didn't want to take that risk since I didn't have all of my cooking supplies. The best way to figure this out is to use an internal thermometer. Here's a chart that will help :)

Source

I took a guess and cooked mine until it was this pretty brown. I kind of like it kind of burnt lol

So after I was finished, I wanted to add a bit of veggies since I'm trying to be grown up. I just boiled some broccoli and carrots for a few minutes until they were soft. It'll take longer for the carrots to soften, so you should add those in before the broccoli if you want to take them out at the same time. I also added a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese on top of the broccoli to give it a little more flavor and used a bit of A.1. Spicy and Bold sauce on the steak. Here's the outcome! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Jimmy John's Turkey Tom Unwrapped!

I was extremely hungry, and I've been out all day... So I decided to try Jimmy John's Turkey Tom Unwrapped! I can't tell you how much I love their bread, so making this choice was possibly the hardest thing I had to do all day.

Don't let this fool you. There's no bread in it!

Review:

I absolutely loved it! Of course it would never substitute bread, but it was definitely delicious. I like how it gave it a little crunch because of the lettuce. The mayo definitely helped add a lot of flavor to the "sandwich." My friend didn't like it as much since he said that it wasn't a real sandwich unless there was bread, haha. But I on the other hand, 10/10 would eat again. The only thing I have to critique it is that you could easily do this on your own for half the cost. I don't really feel like I got my money's worth since it was basically two pieces of lettuce holding together a few pieces of turkey and mayonnaise. Other than that, thumbs up :)

Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Ever since I started my low carb diet, I've been really craving chocolate a lot more than usual to be honest. I did a lot of googling and searched all over reddit for a good recipe. It took me about an hour or so until I stumbled upon this one! Rather than making them into cookies, I decided to use my mini-cupcake pans and turn them into tiny muffins.

Here's the link from it's original source: Click Here

Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies (Grain-free) -Author: Detoxinista.com

Ingredients:

⅓ cup coconut flour
¼ cup coconut oil, melted
¼ cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
2 whole eggs
⅓ cup dark chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the coconut flour, coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla, salt and eggs until a uniform batter is created. The batter will start off a bit runny, but will thicken as the coconut flour starts to absorb the moisture. Add in the chocolate chips, and stir to distribute them evenly. (I used Enjoy Life allergen-free mini chocolate chips in this particular batch.)
3. Use a heaping tablespoon to drop the cookie dough onto the lined baking sheet, and use your hands to flatten the cookies. Keep in mind these cookies will NOT spread on their own, so you’ll want to shape them how you’d like them to turn out.
4. Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I basically did the same thing besides the following:

• Rather than using coconut oil, I just used butter
• Rather than maple syrup, I substituted that for water and added a little bit of sugar
• I added a little bit more flour since the batter was very runny
• I lined up the mini-cupcake liners in the pan and baked it in there for about 13 minutes

Honey Shrimp with Rice!

So for this recipe, I was just REALLY hungry and really wanted to make put something together really fast. This isn't the healthiest, but I guess I can consider it my 'last meal' haha. I don't remember exactly how much the proportions were in the recipe, so try to use your best judgement and flavor to taste :)

Ingredients:

2 cups of uncooked shrimp
1 cup of flour
1 egg
1/2 cup of water
1/3 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of honey
1 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
1 tbsp of cayenne pepper powder
1 tbsp of black pepper
1 cup of uncooked jasmine rice
Canola oil for frying

Directions:

1. Boil a quart of water until it starts to boil, and then drop the shrimps in. You can add a pinch of salt and seasoning if you're feeling kinda frisky. Keep them in there until they start to float and turn into a pinkish orangeish color.
2. If you have a rice cooker, now would be a great time to cook the rice. Make sure you wash and rinse the rice until the water almost turns clear. If you don't have a rice cooker, you can google how to cook rice on a stove top :)
3. Drain the shrimp and place them on napkins to dry. Next, grab the flour, egg, water, and sugar. Mix them until you have a smooth creamy batter. You don't want it to be too runny, so if you feel like there's too much water, add some more flour. In the meantime, heat up some oil in a frying pan but make sure it's on medium heat. You don't want to burn yourself when the oil ricochets after you drop the shrimps in!
4. In another medium sized bowl, mix the mayonnaise, honey, cayenne pepper, and black pepper together. This is when you can go wild and season it to taste!
5. Grab the shrimps from the napkins and pour them all into the batter. Stir it around a bit until the shrimps are completely covered in batter.
6. Go over to the frying pan and test to see if the oil is ready. You can do this by adding a drop of the batter and seeing if it starts sizzling or not. If it doesn't, just wait for a few more minutes. If it is ready, then go ahead and drop a few shrimps in. You don't want to put too much in there because you won't be able to keep up with it and it might burn. Let it sizzle and cook in the oil for about 2 minutes or until it turns a golden brown. When it's done, place it on a plate with napkins so that it can soak all the excess oil. Repeat until you're done with all your shrimp!
7. After you fry all your shrimps, pour them into the mayonnaise mix and stir thoroughly so that you get the sauce all over the shrimp!
8. Time to nomnoms on your shrimp and rice! You can decorate your plate however you like because you're done!

New Year, New Me!

I cannot tell you how much I hate that phrase... But here I am using it!

I really wanted to try something new this year, and I feel like this is going to help me achieve my goal of living and eating a healthier lifestyle! I've actually been feeling really weird like I don't have enough energy or that I can't sleep even though I'm really REALLY tired. I just started a few days ago, but I'll be posting a few recipes along with pictures to show you guys some healthy alternatives. I'll also use this as a progression tracker by adding random work out routines I'm trying out :)