I’m still getting used to the fact that I live in California.  I still marvel at the fact that I get to see this when I wake up in the morning in my very own backyard:

Food & Nutrition, Recipes, NY-LA

Navel Oranges

Seeing orange trees all around does makes me happy.  I’m used to seeing grey and snow (and sometimes grey snow) at this time of year in New York.

However, as I’ve mentioned, I’m also trying not go down Depression Road with this back injury.  I’ve been more than frustrated and in an attempt to make myself feel productive (since I can’t work toward running the #13in2013 rightthissecond), I decided to tackle an attainable goal, improve nutritional intake.  With nutrition, it’s easy to improve intake at just the next meal.  You don’t have to wait for the next day, the next week or the next month.

It’s true that are oranges in season but the Registered Dietitian in me also knows that they are a fabulous source of Vitamin C.  According to the USDA, 1 medium orange (1 cup) is considered 1 serving and contains between 80-97 mg of Vitamin C.  The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is 75 mg for Adult Women and 90 mg for Adult Men.

However, I didn’t know that a clinical study in 2010 found that Vitamin C has been found to boost the mood of acutely hospitalized patients.  See here for details.  I may not be hospitalized but I could definitely use a boost in my mood!   If you want to know even more about the benefits of Vitamin C, click here for information from the revered Linus Pauling Institute.

Since my family doesn’t love fruit with savory meals and since I love breakfast (and strawberries), I was thrilled to find this recipe,  Strawberry-Orange Muffins, from Eating Well Magazine and away I went.

I’ll warn you now.  I became a dietitian because I love to talk, read and learn about food.  Mostly, I really like to eat food.  I love just about everything about food except cooking it.  I used to say that if I had more time and space in my home, I’d enjoy cooking more.  However,  now that I have more time on my hands and space in my home, I’m still waiting to fall in love with cooking.  I want to but I haven’t yet.

However, since I do have to eat and I realize that I don’t live in a restaurant, I do have to cook sometimes.  The two pictures below are evidence that I do cook some of the time (although Jay is better at it and he enjoys it much more than I do).

I won’t lie, I didn’t have all of the ingredients asked for in the recipe.  I’m a huge proponent for Cook’s Thesaurus which is a cook’s encyclopedia but it also tells you which ingredients to substitute if you are missing an ingredient in a dish.

#13in2013, Diet & Nutrition, Oranges

Ingredients (the orange juice in the bottle is fresh squeezed from my tree – just reusing the bottle).

13in2013,

Mixing ingredients – yup I almost forgot the baking powder (not in the last picture)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll tell you now what I substituted:

– I used pine nuts for almonds

– I used applesauce for oil

– I used all whole wheat flour for white and wheat flour

– I increased the baking powder and baking soda (due to the heavier wheat flour)

Guess what?  The recipe came out not half bad.  Take a look.

13in2013, Food & Nutrition, health

Yum!

The muffins were pretty good.  I was also in a better mood after eating them.  I’m not sure if it was because I was productive or because of the influx of Vitamin C but I don’t care because I made progress toward my #13in2013 goals less than one week into the year!