Pane Toscano

Nothing helps to shake off the cold like a nice warm slice of fresh bread and my daughter was begging for some soft white bread for sandwiches after I'd made a loaf of multigrain bread.

This was my first recipe I've tried that required a sponge starter, so I started this process Tuesday night and I followed the King Arthur Tuscan Bread recipe, which was fantastic! It's true, there's not a lot of flavor to this bread, though you could probably add 1 1/4 tsp of salt to fix that, but last night after shoveling, it was the perfect treat, warm and dipped in a mix of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic, & pecorino romano cheese. YUM!!!!!

I haven't bought store made bread now in 2 weeks and I honestly don't miss it.

Finally, last night, I whipped up a tofu stirfry over brown rice. A quick and easy one definitely, but I was SPENT from a long day. I use Mongolian fire oil to saute the tofu to give it a spicy kick. I'm a huge fan of this stuff. I also recently discovered, via some neighbor friends, Braggs Liquid Aminos, which I spritzed on the stirfry instead of using a stirfry sauce or regular soy sauce. Oh, man, is this stuff good. It's like high end soy sauce...I'm telling you...this is the good stuff.

Now, so far this year, my clean eating along with taking 20 minutes a day to get a short, but intense work out in has resulted in a loss of 6lbs! The primary changes in my diet/lifestyle have been eating more vegetables (of every color), cutting out processed foods/preservatives as much as possible (I finally killed off my coffee mate vice), and adding just 20 minutes of exercise a day. 3 small changes that have had a big impact.