After reading about the beautiful roads on this motorcycle blog, I’ve decided that I’am going on a vacation to Florida in January with my family, so I decided it’s time to shape up a bit, especially because I’m looking forward to lounging on the beach in a piece of designer swimwear. Since I can’t afford a gym membership (and even if I had one, I doubt I would go very often), I’ve been trying some at-home exercises. I’ve also been going for runs a couple of times a week. It’s getting cold, but I’m inspired by other runners on the street who jog through thick and thin, rain and sleet! My goal is to lose around ten pounds by mid-January, which is going to be a challenge with Christmas coming up. Here’s my plan:

EXERCISE
- Run three times a week for 45 minutes.
- Do some muscle toning exercises with 5 to 8 pound weights (calf raises, shoulder presses, bicep curls, etc.)
- Do ab work (various sit-ups in reps of 20, ab “bridge” exercises as seen in yoga).
- Stretch while watching TV.

DIET
- Avoid refined carbs and sugars as much as possible and load up on lean proteins, whole grains and greens.
- Eat 5-6 small meals a day instead of 3 large meals and eat more protein and healthy fat in the morning/early afternoon.
- Drinks lots of water and herbal teas to flush out the system.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

I went to a bakery a couple of weeks ago and picked up some homemade sausage rolls for my kids and WOW did they love them. I thought they might be upset that I didn’t have  something sweet for them (I often bring home oatmeal raisin cookies from another organic bakery close to me), but my five-year-old scarfed down two big rolls and even my three-year-old who is picky and doesn’t eat much at the moment took a few bites.

Because of that success rate, I decided to make my own sausage rolls and they were surprisingly easy. I chose a lower-fat recipe that has a mixture of minced pork and chicken instead of pure sausage. Of course, you have to work with puff pastry, which can be a bit difficult.

Here are some of my tips for working with frozen puff pastry:

- Make sure to buy puff pastry that is pre-rolled (this is easy to find). It makes life much easier.
- It usually takes about 20-30 minutes for puff pastry to thaw and become pliable, so take it out of the freezer as you’re starting to prepare a filling for a recipe and don’t handle it until it’s thawed. DO NOT microwave to defrost.
- If cracks develop in your pastry as you’re working with it, put some water on your fingers and gently press together the dough.
- Use a sharp knife when working with puff pastry. That way, you’ll avoid tearing.
- Handle the dough as little as possible — in other words, don’t fuss over it!
- If you’re using an egg wash (the sausage roll recipe calls for it), only brush it on the top of the pastry because if it goes on the sides, it can prevent the pastry from rising completely.

I was really happy with how my homemade sausage rolls turned out and my kids said they were ALMOST as good as the ones I bought at the bakery. As for me, I’m trying to avoid consumption of too much puff pastry because I’ve booked a vacation for January and I want to be able to buy some designer swimwear and look good in it!