Healthy Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread

This bread is technically vegan, but I am the least vegan person out there, so I decided to keep that one out of the post title. Anyway, happy Tuesday! It's the first day back at school for many, and I'm really looking forward to a great semester. The spring semester is always a bit longer than the fall, and it definitely feels a lot longer because we go ten weeks without any real break. And these ten weeks are going to be pedal to the medal, because one week after spring break we have the dreaded anticipated STAAR test. Not ideal, but you gotta do what you gotta do. It also feels a lot more calm, because I don't have the daily demands of volleyball (though I did get suckered into coaching club volleyball, more on that to come), so I have a little bit more free time. Just a little bit. But I'll take any extra time with the pup that I can get.

Speaking of, I had my first real "mom moment" the other day. Mack is a 19-week old puppy, and he's also a beagle (duh). Beagles are the absolute best, but they're also absolute lunatics. Mack's nose gets him into more trouble, and he doesn't always come when we call him. It was time for him to attend puppy classes, but with my crazy school and coaching schedule, there was no way for me to consistently attend puppy classes with him. The most viable option was sending him to a board-and-train obedience school for a couple of weeks, but my heart absolutely broke while saying goodbye to him. It didn't help that just about an hour after he'd left, I got a call from the trainer saying he had a very swollen nose and face. My thoughts are that he got bitten by ants when we was sticking his nose in the grass just minutes before he was picked up, but it made me want to drive down and take him right back home. However, I know it will be good for him (and me), and I also have no doubt that Mack wanted all of the attention to be on him. I miss him more than I can even put into words, but these next couple of weeks will fly by. I just know it.

Mack and me

And now onto the reason for today's post: healthy banana bread! I don't know many people who don't enjoy a warm piece of banana bread, but it can often be loaded with calories. This one is low on the calories and sugar, but high on taste and health points. You're even sneaking in some veggies so, bam! Take that New Year's resolutions.

I actually based this recipe off of this recipe from Vegan Heaven, though I changed a couple of ingredients here and there. 

Healthy Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 tablespoon honey (or agave, if you want to be totally vegan)
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds
• 4 tablespoons water
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup zucchini, grated (about 1 medium zucchini)
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (plus a little more, because I'm me)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup almond milk

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees 
2. Prepare your quinoa according to the directions on the box
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl and stir together
4. Once ready, stir in the quinoa
5. Liberally grease a bread pan and pour in the batter
6. Cook for 60 minutes, and allow to cool before removing from the pan
7. Enjoy!

Breakfast? Dessert? Snack? I'll let you be the judge. But with only 12 days until the Chevron Houston Marathon, I'm making every effort to incorporate a few more carbohydrates into my daily diet. And thankfully, it's both a healthy and a delicious one!

A to Z Survey

Another Sunday, another survey, this one focusing on the alphabet. Enjoy!

A. Age?

22, going on 23. There’s a whole blog post to come on my thoughts and feelings about that!

B. Best friend?

I’ve got many best friends, or who I consider to be best friends. From different stages of life, from different places, for different reasons, but here are a few of them.

C. Cake or pie?

I’d have to go with pie. As long as it’s dairy-free, of course!

 

Royer's Pie Haven in Roundtop

D. Day of choice?

Either Friday or Saturday. Friday, because even though I still have to go to school, I can breathe a little easier knowing that it’s the last day of the work week. And Saturday because, well, I’ve got a whole day to myself and the next day is still the weekend!

E. Essential item?

I’m going to have to copy the answer before me – a water bottle. I almost feel lost without my CamelBak.

F. Favorite color?

Pink! But I love most colors – red, orange, yellow, gray. I don’t discriminate!

G. Gummy bears or worms?

Worms, particularly sour gummy worms.

H. Home town?

Houston, Texas. Born and raised. And back here again.

I. Favorite indulgence?

Frozen yogurt, naturally. Pinkberry is at the top of my list, and I am glad to see that another location has since popped up in Houston (next to Whole Foods – a match made in heaven).

J. January or July?

July. I love the prospect of a new year, but the cold, dreary January weather automatically gives July the edge. Plus, July means summer vacation, and you know I won’t be complaining about that!

K. Kids?

Someday, yes, I would like kids. As someone wisely said, “Teaching high school is the most effective form of birth control,” and after teaching for just four months, I would have to agree.

L. Life isn’t complete without?

There are many, many things that are so important to me, but the one on my mind right now is travel. I would gladly live out of my suitcase if it meant that I could see the world and gather up new experiences. Especially being the age that I am – why not travel while I have the least amount of responsibilities that I will ever have?

M. Most valued possession?

Another really tough question. Of course I value my material possessions – my phone, my computer, my clothes – because, let’s be honest, I like having all of those things. They make me feel comfortable, and they sure make life a lot easier. But (and I know this is also a material possession), I value pictures so, so much. I love taking pictures wherever I am because I love being able to look back on them weeks and months and years later and smile at the sweet memories that were made.

N. Number of brothers/sisters?

One little brother who attends that school north of the Red River.

O. Oranges or Apples?

Apples, for sure. I don’t love oranges, but I do love cuties. To me, they taste completely different, and besides, cuties are much easier to peel. They make for an ideal road trip snack. So I guess what I'm saying is, both are wonderful!

P. Phobias?

Escalators. I’ve talked about this on the blog before, and I know this is an irrational fear, but I always have a little bit of fear when stepping onto one, and this is because one of my friend’s dads told me that 70 deaths a year occur due to people falling through loose steps. Not the ideal way to go out.

Q. Quotes?

I love words and quotes and I plan on doing a whole blog post on them one day soon, but for now I’ll share a couple of my recent favorites. And I say recent because I probably find a new quote that I love every single day. I used to be so good about typing them up and printing them out and gluing them into a journal, but for now, I keep them all together on my Pinterest boards.
                1: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen

                2: “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” – e.e. cummings

R. Reasons to smile?

Wow, this is one tough question. I have a LOT of reasons to smile, even when I think that I don’t. Too many times I will find myself complaining, and the truth is, I have a lot to be thankful for. I’m in good health, as are my friends and family, I have an incredible job that I look forward to doing (most days), I have a whole lot of love around me, and I know that I have opportunities that some can only dream of having. But, some of the little things that make me smile are –

• Puppies (especially beagle puppies)
• Walks at Hermann Park and/or bike rides around my neighborhood
• 90s music
• Handwritten letters
• The perfect Honeycrisp apple                        
• KSBJ Monday Morning Devotional

S. Season of choice?

There are things I love about every season, but I just really love the carefree feeling that comes with the summer season. Bathing suits and shorts and Chacos and swimming pools and beach hair and spontaneous adventures and watermelon and so much more. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

T. Tag 5 People.

I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that no one I tag is going to complete this, mainly because I don’t have five blogging friends, but I’ll just list some of my favorite blogs to read.

• Peanut Butter Fingers
• Carrots ‘n’ Cake
• Bakers Royale
• The Pioneer Woman
• BuzzFeed (okay, not technically a blog, but I do get a lot of good recipes from there)

U. Unknown fact about me?

My brother and I were born in the exact same hospital room. And that happened completely by chance.

V. Vegetable?

I really love most vegetables, and that is not something I realized until I went to college and had a vegetable option at every single meal. I am probably most shocked that I love Brussels sprouts as much as I do, after turning my nose up at them for so long.

W. Worst habit?

I hate to admit this, but I have a bad habit of checking my phone while I am driving. I have gotten a lot better about it, but even still I will use the time when traffic is “slowing down” to see who posted what on Instagram. I’m also extremely directionally challenged, so I do look at my phone frequently so I can know where I am going. Having the new iPhone software helps a lot with that, as it talks to you so you don’t have to look down at a phone.

X. X-Ray or ultrasound?

I’ve never had an ultrasound, and though x-rays aren’t exactly fun, I guess I’ll go with x-ray.

Y. Your favorite food?

This is another really difficult question. My all-time favorite food? I’m just not sure that I can give you an answer! My current favorite food is the quinoa salad with salmon from Hungry’s. I’ve had it twice already this year, and I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon.

Z. Zodiac sign?

Aquarius. Though with this new system they tried to introduce, I think it might have changed. I still consider myself an Aquarius, on the rare occasion that I do some sort of horoscope quiz.

It's a bit of bummer that we don't have any football to veg out and watch today, but I guess we have the big game to look forward to next week. Though I can't say I'm that excited about it, after all of the speculation surrounding the Patriots. I'm not sure what I believe, but it has kind of taken the magic out of it all.

Rainbow Pizza

For those of you who were lucky enough to have yesterday off from work, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed your holiday. It doesn't seem right to not include a little inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr., as he was the reason for the holiday, and he also inspired quite a few people himself. My favorite words of his are:

(Source)

It's really as simple as that. Love is far easier than hate, and this concept is something we can all choose to live by.

Yesterday was yet another beautiful day in Houston, Texas. I had on shorts, a short-sleeve shirt, and sandals, so I'm going to go ahead and say that's my idea of a perfect January day. The sun was shining and Amira and I took full advantage of the day. We started out with a rollerblade session along the bayou (because my half marathon is over, I feel as though I can rollerblade again), followed by a little Houston exploration. 

On sunny days, we blade

I had driven by The Biscuit Paint Wall on Westheimer on the way to a volleyball game late last year, and I made a note to go back and visit it. It has been popping up on my Instagram feed fairly frequently these days, and I knew today was the day to check it off my list. We had a lot of fun having our own little photo shoot in front of the wall, and quite a few other people had the same idea. We snapped a few quick pictures, and we vowed to come back and pay it a full visit sometime very soon.

Then we decided to check out the Greetings from Houston mural, located on the side of Gelazzi, a relatively new ice cream and gelato parlor located in The Heights. On the way over there we made a little pit stop at the "Before I Die..." wall, and had fun reading some of the (mostly inspiring, sometimes inappropriate) things people hope to accomplish in their lifetimes. 

All in all, a wonderful day off. If only we could have a three-day weekend every weekend! So, before we get to the heart of this post, let's start off with some normal fitnessandfroyo news - a workout and breakfast.

Workout

My sleeping schedule is all off these days. But lucky for me, no matter what time I go to sleep, my body seems to crave at least eight hours of it. So I popped up around 6:30am yesterday, but I made myself relax in bed before getting up and getting a head start on my to-do list. After a very full day, I was very tired very early. I crawled into bed around 8:30pm, meaning I woke up around 4:30am. That was okay with me, though, because I made myself get out of bed so that I could be at the gym right when it opened for a swim. As I have mentioned in previous posts, getting a lane after school hours is tough. There are lots of swim lessons and swim leagues, and if I want to swim, morning is the time to do it. I'm taking a couple of days off from running, and a swim is the perfect low-impact workout.

Breakfast

I'm sure you all will be surprised by this one. Scrambled egg whites and spinach, topped off with some lemon pepper and salsa. You would think I would be tired of this by now, but I'm just not. I typically don't eat it on the weekends, though, so I get that little break from it that prevents me from getting sick of it. Plus, I love squeezing in some veggies in the morning.

Rainbow Pizza

Going with our rainbow theme, I followed up my visit to The Biscuit Paint Wall with a Rainbow Pizza for dinner. I was reading a BuzzFeed article (shocker, right?), that provided readers with a list of rainbow recipes that are sure to brighten any day. There are quite a few aesthetically pleasing recipes on this list (that you know I pinned), but the first one that caught my eye was the Rainbow Veggie Flatbread Pizza from Gimme Some Oven. Not only does it make a pretty appearance, but it tastes great and it's healthy to boot. And it's extremely easy to prepare. I'm talking the time it takes for your oven to heat up easy.

Ingredients:

• 1 Multi-grain with flax Flatout Flatbread*
• 1/4 cup pizza sauce
• Turkey pepperoni
• Cherry tomatoes
• Orange bell pepper
• Squash
• Zucchini
• Broccoli
• Red onion
• Black olives
• Mushroom

*It turns out that this company has actual pizza crust flatbreads - I will be on the lookout for those and be sure to give them a try very soon! 
**You can use any veggies that you would like on this pizza. There are many other colorful vegetables that would have worked on this pizza - I just chose some of my very favorites!

Optional:

• Shredded cheese
• Lemon pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Lay out flatbread on a foil-lined baking sheet
3. Use a spoon to spread the pizza sauce over the flatbread
4. Arrange turkey pepperonis on top of the pizza sauce
OPTIONAL: if you are choosing to use cheese, now is the time to sprinkle it on your pizza
5. Chop veggies into small pieces and arrange in a rainbow pattern on top of the pepperoni

Before going into the oven

6. Sprinkle each pizza with your favorite seasonings
7. Cook for 15 minutes
8. Slice and enjoy (or you can eat it all by yourself like I did)!

The finished (delicious) product

NOTE: The amount of each veggie you use is completely up to you, and the size of the pizza crust that you use. This flatbread is a good option, as is Naan bread, or legitimate pizza dough as can be found in most grocery stores. I simply chopped up each veggie and arranged it on the pizza before starting on the next veggie, so that nothing would go to waste.

Have a great Tuesday, that's really a Monday, but so much better because there's only four work days this week!