white chocolate biscotti

lent started yesterday. my MIL is giving up cookies for lent. as a little cookie send-off, i baked her some of her favorite cookies, biscotti, monday night and finished it tuesday morning; so she could eat the entire batch to her heart's content. hehehe ;)

i don't make biscottis very often. i've only made it a few times and always with the same recipe. but this time around i decided i'd try a different recipe. after a quick search online and going through multiple recipes, i settled on one from myrecipes. theirs seemed simple enough (and it was!).

as i said above, i've only made biscotti with one recipe in the past. this one from myrecipe was slightly different and uses no butter. i have never made biscotti without butter before (never even knew that traditional biscottis were made without butter!). anyway, these biscotti are so, so good. must be because they contain no butter, the way they should be made. this recipe produces the most super crunchy biscottis ever, especially if you eat it soon after they've cooled. i absolutely love the white chocolate-vanilla combo because it is like the perfect little bite of sweetness in your mouth. and the added lemon zest is a wonderful little surprise too. it's like a hint of freshness, refreshing and delicious.

so what are you waiting for? if you're a fan of biscotti, why not bake some today?!! and if you're not, you'll instantly become a fan. m doesn't care for biscotti, but he absolutely loves these. :)


this biscotti recipe is so simple to make and produces the most crunchiest biscotti ever.


these are insanely good. i've never thought i'd love biscottis this much. i seriously ate 3 in a row.


i absolutely love how these contain only 55 calories in one serving. i could have 2 biscottis and not feel guilty at all!

white chocolate biscotti
recipe adapted from myrecipes.

ingredients:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups (6-ounce) bar premium white chocolate, chopped or 1/2 bag of white chocolate baking chips

directions:

1. preheat oven to 300°F.
2. place first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. combine flour, baking soda, and salt; gradually add to sugar mixture, beating until well blended. stir in chocolate.
3. turn dough out onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. shape dough into 2 (12-inch-long) rolls; pat to 2 1/2-inch width.
4. bake at 300° for 35 minutes. remove rolls from baking sheet; cool 10 minutes on a wire rack.
5. cut rolls diagonally into 24 (1/2-inch) slices. place, cut sides down, on baking sheet. bake at 300° for 10 to 12 minutes. turn cookies over; bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). remove from baking sheet; cool completely on wire rack.

makes 24 (or however many depending on how thick/thin you slice it). these taste most delicious on the day they're baked, but will keep in an air-tight container for a few days.

55 calories per serving.

observing lent and the no junk food challenge

being that tomorrow is lent, is anyone observing it? i'm not catholic but m & my MIL are and they'll be giving up something for lent. i've done it several years now with them. this year, i can't seem to think of what to give up so i've decided to add on. and in doing so, i'm hoping that it will help me give up or eliminate some things i really shouldn't be doing or eating.

this year i've decided that i will eat more fruits and vegetables. at least the daily recommended amount, which is 5 servings. you see, i don't get enough fruits and vegetables in my diet. i'll go days and days without eating a single serving of fruit. vegetables are easier to come by since we do eat a proper dinner at our house everyday. apart from that, it's pretty bad. of course, there will be times when i eat nothing but fruit. i'll go on a giant fruit binge and eat like a whole 1-lb thing of strawberries or a 6-oz thing of raspberry and some kiwis. there's even been times when i ate like 10 nectarines in one day (over the course of a few hours). i know, my fruit and veggies eating is all out of whack. i need to be better at it.

my trouble is that i don't care for your typical apples, oranges, pears, bananas, etc that you can can get just about any time of year. i like to think that the fruits i like are more tropical, seasonal… more exotic? hahaha, something like that. i love fruits that are crunchy with lots of hints of sour/tartness to them. yes, like super firm and crunchy nectarines or peaches. or very green mangoes. pineapples are good too, and for sure passionfruits but those are hard to find here. and all the berries you can think of is definitely a go too. but all of these are hard to come by sometimes, especially when they're out of season or just isn't readily available (or too expensive). regardless, i've told myself that price isn't the issue here and that i should just suck it up and eat more. so, starting tomorrow, we shall see!

also starting tomorrow is this new thing m and i are going to try. it's really 21 days but we've decided to cut it short to only 20 days since we're taking off to europe by that time. so what do you think? want to do it too? why not! no junk food for 21 days (or 20 days for us). i saw this on pinterest and decided to give it a go. :)

motivational monday: one thing at a time

i wrote this long blog post last week thinking i'd post it, but i never did. what was it about? umm... about m and i, running for 30 days straight. actually, i think it was 32 straight since we started on january 26 and ended on february 26. yeah, pretty crazy, i know... and we actually did it too! we set out to run for a whole month with 1 mile being the bare minimum and we did it. like for real, no crazy excuses thrown in, nada, zilch, period. was it hard? you bet it was. it was insanely hard, especially during the first week. but as the days went on, it got a tad easier. i'm not saying it was easy towards the end or in the middle or at any point. every day we fought the urge to skip our daily runs. and each day the running won. we went out and ran. period.



last month i personally covered 67 miles (see graphic above) – the most i've ran in a long time. i think if i look back at my nike+ history, there are definitely months that i've ran more than the 67 i did last month. but 67 miles last month was a big accomplishment for me, especially lately anyway. i haven't been running a whole lot the last several months so it's a big deal to me. i'm just so proud of myself for sticking it through and so thankful to have m around who inspires me everyday to keep at it and stay positive.

with a few days of rest out of the way, this week is the start of a new challenge. i look forward to conquering another fitness goal. i'm just hoping that my eating habits will be better and that the number on the scale will actually reflect that. okay, maybe not the scale entirely, but other areas such as loose clothing, etc. you get the point.

below is the new challenge i hope to conquer by the end of the month. feel free to pin it for later, do it now, or whatever you like. and here's to us all getting fit, being healthy(ier) in our own body, our way. :)