Good work is, well, good–useful, productive, comforting. It’s how most of us spend our days, but it doesn’t have the thrilling challenge of innovation that Great Work gives you. Great Work stimulates, energizes and engages you–it’s the kind of thing that made you want to get into your line of work. Michael Bungay Stanier’s Do More Great Work guides you through fifteen exercises to guide you in finding, starting and sustaining Great Work.

It’s easy to find information on how and why to live a heart-healthy lifestyle, but the hardest part is making the commitment to change your lifestyle, and then doing it for the rest of your life.

Joe Piscatella’s Positive Mind, Healthy Heart! focuses the practical application of heart health information. It’s filled with all the motivational stories, inspirations, quotes, wisdom, meditations, tips that inspired Joe with his own lifestyle changes and keep him on track each and every day.

Believe it or not, January 27th is the official Chocolate Cake Day.  Nestled between National Peanut Brittle Day and National Kazoo Day, it provides – at the very least – a reason to whip up a celebratory confection. Yesterday we shared a few tips from Andrea Chesman & Fran Raboff’s 250 Treasured Country Desserts. Armed with your new-found knowledge, try your hand at making their Chocolate Zucchini Cake.

Frosted Chocolate-Zucchini Layer Cake
This is a rich, dark chocolate cake. The zucchini is barely noticeable, except to give the cake an unusually moist texture.  Serves 10-12

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter; at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream
3 cups grated zucchini or summer squash

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour two 9-inch round nonstick cake pans. If you are using uncoated aluminum bakeware, grease the cake pans and line with parchment paper.
2. Combine the chocolate and oil in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water. Stir until completely smooth and glossy. Remove the top of the double boiler from the heat and set aside.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
4. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the melted chocolate mixture and the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk and beat until just combined. Fold in the zucchini. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
5. Bake for 40 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center of one of the cake layers comes out clean.
6. Cool on wire racks for about 10 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and cool completely.
7. Fill between the layers and frost with the frosting of your choice.

Unless you have a favorite frosting you’d like to use, here’s a suggested option:

Chocolate Frosting
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 tablespoons butter
3 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
Pinch of salt
7 tablespoons milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water. Stir until completely smooth and glossy. Remove the top of the double boiler from the heat and let cool slightly.
2. Blend in the confectioners’ sugar and salt, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Mix until the frosting is smooth and has a good consistency for spreading.

It’s week 2 of the Bananagrams contest, and if you play the online version of the game Bananagrams on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, or as an iPhone app, you could win a copy of Bananagrams! The Official Book. Just get past the challenge of the week to be entered into a drawing for your own copy of the book.

This week’s challenge, running from January 18-22, is:
Beat 40 seconds in solo café mode

The contest runs through February 12. Each player can have up to 5 chances to win (one per day) so play every day to maximize your chances.

Feb 1st to Feb 5th – Win more than 12 live games per day
Feb 8th to Feb 12th – Beat 35 seconds in solo café mode

There are four different places to play. Enter the contest by playing on any of them:
Facebook
Myspace
Bebo
iPhone app

Do you have questions about the game? Visit the game FAQ for answers: http://www.largeanimal.com/faq/bananagrams

If you’ve turned out leaden, less-than-tasty or attractive baked goods in the past, you may want to review a few tips from Andrea Chesman and Fran Raboff’s 250 Treasured Country Desserts.

The cake is dense and heavy:
•    The eggs were too small. Always use large eggs when baking.
•    Insufficient air was whisked into the egg and sugar mixture.
•    The butter, sugar and eggs were not beaten together long enough.
•    The flour was not folded in gently or was beaten at too high a speed.
•    Too much flour was used.
•    The oven temperature was too low.

The cake rose unevenly in the oven:
•    The flour was not blended evenly in the batter.
•    The temperature inside the oven was uneven, or the oven temperature was too high.

The top of the cake sank:
•    The oven temperature was too hot.
•    The cake was not baked long enough.
•    The oven door was opened too soon.

The top of the cake peaked or cracked:
•    The oven temperature was too hot, causing the outside of the cake to bake and form a crust too quickly.
•    The cake wasn’t baked on the center rack of the oven.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

-Edith Lovejoy Pierce

That pile of crispy, salty fries that comes with your sandwich at lunch, or the overflowing bowl of pappardelle with ragù are all delicious, there’s no denying that. But according to Joseph C. Piscatella’s Positive Mind, Healthy Heart!, portion size is the secret behind weight gain and with plate sizes expanding from 9.5-in. in the 1970s to 14.5-in. today, it’s easy to put on a few pounds—even if you eat more than the proper portion of healthy food.  So when you sit down and look at your plate wondering what exactly does a portion look like?  Here are a few simple guidelines:

3 ounces of meat, poultry or fish = a bar of soap, a checkbook or a deck of playing cards

2 tablespoons of peanut butter = a golf ball

1 medium bagel = a hockey puck

3 ounces of hamburger = the lid of a medium-size jar of mayonnaise

½ cup of cooked vegetables, cut fruit, cooked rice or pasta = a cupcake line

1 cup of raw, leafy vegetables or dry cereal = a baseball

1 ounce of cheese = 4 dice

If you’re looking to brew a unique beer with a flavor that isn’t often found in beers available in the US, try smoked beer. Below is an excerpt from The Home Brewer’s Answer Book by Ashton Lewis with tips for smoking your beer.

Smoking Your Beer

There are three common methods to make smoked beer. One is to use peated malt as one of the grains. Peated malt is used to make Scotch whiskey and has a powerful medicinal-phenolic aroma. I don’t like peated malt in beer, but if you do use it, be careful! More than 1 percent peated malt is usually too much.

Another method is to use liquid smoke. This product is intended for cooking. I can’t stand its nasty flavor in food, but I have heard that it can be used successfully in beer.

The most famous smoked beer is the German rauchbier (rauch means smoked). It is principally brewed in Bamberg and is made using a very lightly smoked Munich-style malt. Rauch malt is smoked over beechwood and has a wonderful smoked meat flavor. Because the smoking process is relatively cool, enzymes are not destroyed and rauch malt is used as a high proportion of the malt in the mash. Most rauchbiers contain well above 75 percent rauch malt. Aside from the ingredients, rauchbier is brewed like other lagers.

The key to rauchbier is obtaining the malt. One German maltster, Weyermann, exports rauch malt to the United States. If you want to try this style of beer, buy some Weyermann rauch malt and go for it! You may want to taste a rauchbier before brewing it; Schlenkerla Rauchbier is available in the States.

For a recipe for an American Pale Ale and more about homebrewing, read yesterday’s post

Somewhere between going on my first tour of an American craft brewery to tasting the best beer of my life at a monastery in Prague, I fell in love with well-crafted beers. After I experienced the delicate, perfect balance of hops, malt, yeast, and water in great beer, I couldn’t go back to the watery mass-produced stuff.

It’s easy to get swept away by great beers on tap in your local pub, but the best part about beer is that you can start your own brewery. All you need are a few ingredients and supplies to become the brewmaster of your own kitchen!

I’ve never brewed my very own batch before, but I’ve assisted with homebrew experimentation and it’s a fun process that, with some patience, can yield some very delicious results. To get started homebrewing on your own, check out Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide to learn all the basics. If you’re already into homebrew and looking to take your beer to the next level, The Home Brewer’s Answer Book by Ashton Lewis covers everything from specific hops and grains to achieving the perfect pour when your beer is ready to serve.

Here’s a homebrew recipe for one of my personal favorites, Dale’s Pale Ale, from the 365 Bottles of Beer Page-A-Day Calendar.

8 oz. light caramel malt
6 lb. pale malt extract syrup
1½ oz. Northern Brewer hops, 60 minutes from end of boil
1 oz. Cascade hops, 15 minutes from end of boil
1 oz. Cascade hops, 5 minutes from end of boil
American or California ale yeast
1 oz. Cascade hops, dry-hopped in secondary fermenter
¾ cup corn sugar for bottling

Crack or crush grains. Bring three gallons water to 160°F. Steep grains in hot water for 30 minutes using a mesh bag. Remove grains, add dry malt extract and bring to a boil. Boil 60 minutes adding hops as stated. Remove from heat and cool. Siphon into primary fermenter with enough cold water to make five gallons. Add yeast when beer is 70°F and aerate well. Ferment for three to six days at 65-70°F. Transfer to secondary, add dry hops, and condition one to two weeks. When finished, dissolve ¾ cup corn sugar into beer, bottle, and age at room temperature for two weeks.

We all indulge over the holidays, and what feels fun and festive leading up to New Years, can make your jeans feel a bit too snug after the fact. Whether you’re looking to shed a couple extra pounds or make an entire lifestyle overhaul, Rick Gallop’s The G.I. Diet covers the ten behaviors that must be addressed if you are to be successful in reaching and maintaining weight-loss goals…

So kick off 2010 with some healthy choices:

1. Skipping Breakfast: When most people get up in the morning, they generally haven’t eaten for 10-12 hours. As a result, skipping breakfast will certainly cause you to snack throughout the day, and you’ll most likely reach for high-calorie, high-fat foods. By the time evening rolls around, you’ll be starving and stuff yourself at dinner. Lesson of the day: eat breakfast.

2. Not Taking the Time to Eat Properly: It’s easy to slip into a cycle of fattening convenience foods or short-term energy fixes. But it really only takes 15 minutes to make a healthy breakfast in the morning.  If you can’t fix your own lunch, there are healthier  options than a slice of pizza. And if you eat well throughout the day, you’ll have much more energy to prepare a quick dinner at home, versus picking up waist-expanding take-out.

3. Grazing: A few nuts here, a couple of cookie there, a tablespoon or two of peanut butter, and a few glasses of juice all look pretty harmless in themselves, but taken together, they can easily total several hundred extra calories a day! And those can add up to more than 20 pounds of additional weight a year.

4. Unconscious Eating: Eating should never be a peripheral activity—it should always be the focus. Eat your meals at the table, and set aside distractions such as the TV, computer, video games or telephone while you have your snacks. Eat consciously and be aware of exactly how much you’re ingesting.

5. Eating Too Quickly: It takes 20-30 minutes for the stomach to let the brain know it’s full. So if you eat slower it allows your brain to catch up with your stomach. At meals, put your fork down between bites and really savor the flavors and textures of what you eat.

6. Not Drinking Enough: Did you know that by the time your feel thirsty you’re already dehydrated? You’re body’s need for water is only second to its need for oxygen. Always carry water with you, drink eight glasses of fluids a day, and being hydrated will go a long way to helping control appetite and weight loss.

7. Rewarding Exercise With Food: It’s common for people to reward themselves with food for exercising. But what often happens is the cookie you consume as a reward adds more calories than is expended during your exercise.

8. Cleaning the Plate: This deeply entrenched habit, taught at a young age, is not a friend of your waistline. Get into the habit of letting your stomach—and your brain—not the quantity of food on your plate—determine when you are full. Put out only enough food for the meal—no extras.

9. Shopping on an Empty Stomach: Grocery shopping on an empty stomach is a bad idea. So make sure you shop after a meal, or take a snack with you—you’ll make far wiser choices this way.

10. Eating High-Sugar, High-Fat Treats: Food is a huge part of the holidays and get-togethers. Food is also linked to positive experiences and memories. Unfortunately those treats tend to be high in calories, sugar and fat. There’s no need to completely forgo any type of reward, but just choose wisely. Indulge in the occasional square of dark chocolate or a low-fat frozen yogurt.