My New Toy

Introducing my new Breville juicer. I *heart* it. It came in the mail a few days ago, and I ran right out to the store to get some veggies for an after-work juice.

I didn't have access to any recipes, because my smart phone would be so much smarter if it would remember to charge itself, so here I stood in Publix after a long day of work, with no real list of what to get for a juice. I decided to wing it, and made this...

3 handfuls of Kale

3 carrots

1 lemon

2 green apples

small amount of ginger

1 long cucumber

It was delicious and refreshing, and I felt great after drinking it. And the most important part was, I went to Publix at 8pm, starving, and did not get reeled into the deli-sandwich section.

Stubborn, Cranky, Tired

I'm tired. More tired than I've ever been before. More tired than pregnant tired, or new mom tired or pulling an all-nighter in college tired. My mom is sick. Really, really sick. She in in the end stages of terminal cancer and Hospice spends hours a day at her house. So for months, I've been juggling between work (long 12 hour, high intensity days), driving the 1 + hour drive to see my mother, organizing life for her (really, planning a funeral is never fun), cattle-prodding my ADD husband to keep moving forward with his school work, attending parent-teacher conferences, family coming in town, Birthday parties, and just trying to breath. I'd say my stress level has hit a new high. Somewhere around Christmas time things started falling apart with me, and well, I can't continue to be so exhausted all the time.

A good friend I work with suggest the book Wheat Belly. As he and I were talking, I was eating my delicious turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread in the breakroom, and he had heard me talk about my abdominal pain. Of course, because I want to eat healthy and lose weight, I've been all "whole wheat this" and "whole grain that". It is possible that the wheat mixed with my stress is causing my IBS to exacerbate right now. As somewhat of a cleanse before I leap into a wheat reduced diet, I'm going to try to juice for a few days to see if I can safely clean my wheat-inflamed digestive tract. Stay tuned for juicing recipes...

Happy New Year!

I'm not making a New Year's resolution. I'm carrying on with my quest to organize the house and make me the best me ever. I've moved some recipes over to my family site, but will be keeping my ramblings about my house keeping skills (or lack of!) and trying out new stuff in the kitchen and recapturing my health.

Over the past few days, I've been cleaning out my sons' dressers and shared closet. It's such a great feeling to know that the only clothes in their room are clothes that fit, are clean and not full of holes. Clothes that are ready to move on are in the guest room waiting to be tagged for the upcoming Just Between Friends sale. I've been ironing the little shirts and slacks every night while catching up on Season Two of Glee on Netflix.

I've also used my baking soda/lavender essential oil mix to clean the boys' mattresses. A light dusting on each mattress, let it sit for about 20 minutes and vacuumed it up...ewww. Even more eww, the kids looked at it under the microscope (pictures on the family blog). Their blankets, pillows and stuffed animals were all washed on the sanitary cycle tonight and were snuggly warm from the dryer just in time for tuck-ins.

The kids are still home on Christmas Break from school and I thought it would be a treat to have Chic-fil-a for lunch. But wowsa - the price of healthy fast food (two sandwiches on wheat buns with child sized lemonades and small fruit cups; two salads; and one order of chicken strips, small lemonade and small fruit cup = $33). Clearly, we won't be dining out that frequently anymore with our plan to use Dave Ramsey's principles to keep us from going in the red when I embark on my journey into Grad School in about 5 months.

It's been in the low 60's here for the high during the day. I made a delicious quick chunky chicken noodle soup for dinner. I enlisted some help from Wolfgang Puck and these yummy gluten-free noodles.
While the soup was cooking, I took out my new toy - a Ninja blender and made the hubby and me some nutrient-packed smoothies. So yummy...

- Almond Milk

- Frozen fruit

- Kale

I added my supplements to mine...and then it ended up tasting gross, so I dumped it down the sink. Next time, I'm only adding the chia seeds and leaving the Maca Powder (which doesn't taste too bad in OJ, but not so much in my smoothie) and the Spirullina out.

What, orange juice has scary stuff in it, too? Ugh

I've been hearing about all the uproar about arsenic in apple juice, and I hadn't really given it much thought since we are not big juice drinkers. Apple juice seems to upset my youngest's tummy to the point that we must remain near a restroom if a well-meaning grandparent gives him a juice box that contains apple juice. Sneaky apple juice is in nearly all juice boxes, so Daniel brings a special bottle of water each day in his lunch box.

This morning, my kids had a delicious breakfast including orange juice. According to the packaging, this OJ is made about 20 minutes away from my house. I was thinking it couldn't be too terribly bad. And then I read this article a physician friend of mine linked to Facebook. And of course, if it's on the internet, it must be true! While ordinarily, I take things I read online with a grain of salt, this business of OJ not really being as healthy as it proclaims itself, is something that I've been thinking about since viewing Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix last week.

I've asked for either a juicer or a Vita Mix for Christmas, but I know Santa's budget is pretty tight, so I don't know if it will work out. It's in my quest to try to get more raw fruits/veggies in my diet.

This morning, I made a yummy smoothie in my cheap-o Oster blender that was a wedding gift 13 years ago.

1 cup of ice

1 cup of Almond Milk

2 TBSP greek yogurt

1/2 cup frozen strawberries

1/2 cup frozen blackberries

1 cup frozen spinach

1 scoop chocolate flavored protein powder

1 TBSP chia seeds

Documentary watching fool

I haven't had time to sit to post, and I have a dozen or so recipes to post. However, I have been spending some quality time with my treadmill and have managed to find a way to get my netbook to stay on the top of the treadmill so that I can watch movies while I walk/trot. I just watched the documentary Forks Over Knives. I had already heard much about it from my father-in-law, and it did not disappoint. My problem is (well, one of many!) that I know which foods are good for me foods, and which foods are bad for me foods. I just don't seem to have the time to make the good for me foods.

Then, a couple of days ago, while on the treadmill watching Food Matters, something really sunk in. I had been trying to hard to make meals based on what a "meal" was when I was growing up - meat, potatoes, veggie, rolls, and a drink. And meals my husband grew up with were vegetarian and moderately healthy, but full of sodium, preservatives and butter-soaked veggies.

So anyway, I'm watching this documentary and a light bulb goes off over my head when the documentary starts talking about raw foods. Duh, when my kids were little toddlers, our whole diet was pretty much raw or lightly steamed fruits/veggies. I would say our diet is about 25 percent fresh, raw fruits/veggies right now. I'm working hard to increase that to at least 50% of each meal.

I'm also working hard to not beat myself up when I don't have time to cook.

Dinner last night...

- Grilled Cheese (real cheese)

- Sliced honey crisp apples

- Carrot chips (found in the organic section of our grocery story - just sliced crisp cold carrots)

- Rice cakes (by request from the youngest)

- Ice water with lemon

Not impressive by any means, but also not a Happy Meal.

Chinese Cabbage Salad

Let me say that my husband loved this salad and requested it be added to the dinner rotation. I had intended for this to be a side dish, but since I live in Florida and it's ridiculously hot and humid, salads are meals around here. It became a meal when I broiled some marinated chicken cutlets and shredded the chicken to add into the salad.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 (3 ounce) package chicken flavored ramen noodles, crushed, seasoning packet reserved
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 (16 ounce) package broccoli coleslaw mix
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions
• 4 ounces toasted slivered almonds
• 
  
• 1. In a small saucepan, cook the vinegar and sugar over medium heat until dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in salt, pepper, ramen seasoning packet and oil. Set aside to cool.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the uncooked ramen noodles, broccoli coleslaw mix, and green onions. Pour dressing over salad; toss evenly to coat. Refrigerate until chilled.
  3. Sprinkle with almonds.

Surviving Dinner with Young Kids

I'm pretty blessed that mealtimes at our house seem to go without much argument. Since the early days of toddler-hood, I've believed in a "meal of 4 items". There are so many different tid-bits of information out there, that I find it hard to wade through the sea of knowledge without feeling like I'm sinking. I do believe in much of what Ellyn Satter has to say about it only being my responsibility to provide appropriate meals - it is my child's responsibility to eat. I've also had the pleasure of meeting members of the Popsicle Center.

So this meal of 4 items (and I apologize, since I don't know if I read about it somewhere, or how I started doing this!) is really a simple concept. Basically, it means that we aren't having just a dish of spaghetti, or just a bowl of cereal, or just a sandwich. Basically, with each meal I strive for 2 different fruits/veggies, 1 protein/carb and maybe something fun (basically, the 4th item is always something I know my kids will eat - even if I have to chop up a cheese stick.)

In this meal - we were celebrating our trip to Disney's Animal Kingdom. There is a salad, and Rainier cherries, and Mickey shaped chicken nuggets (Costco) and baked onion rings leftover from another meal. I know for sure my kids are going to devour the nuggets. So what's so important about being sure there's at least one thing you know the kids love? Well - that gives you creative licensing to mess around with the rest of the plate - add something new, or even re-try something that hasn't been successful a month or so back. It takes a few times to warm up to some foods.

Our "rule" on second helpings of food goes a little something like this: you don't have to eat everything on your plate, but if are hungry enough to want more chicken mickey heads, then you are hungry enough to work on the rest of your plate. With the exception of the new food. If the new food is a bust, then it's okay to overlook that slimy onion-ring for the sake of more broccoli in the salad. Who knew? My kids have never had onion rings before and really didn't like them! The whole point of having 4 items is that some will be hits and some will be misses, but you will likely get some nutrition in your kids without an argument, and without without bribing them to eat, and the big catch is that one day they will surprise you and ask for more broccoli for their salad.

Speaking of salads. I keep a variety of dressings on hand. Some store bought and some that I've made myself. My two favorite are here:
The hospital I work in has a great salad bar, but their variety in dressing is ho-hum. So as odd as it sounds, I pack along my salad dressing! This week, I've gotten up a little earlier and packed along some Super Greens to have with my salad. My big wish is for a Vita Mix for Christmas, so I can juice my greens.