Eat Happy, Be Happy

I consider myself observant.  I love to observe behaviors of my children, my husband and those around me.  I'm not trying to find faults, I just simply enjoy watching and figuring out why things are the way they are. Three years ago this week I graduated from massage therapy school, one of the greatest years of my life!  In school I learned to turn those observations inward.  Focus on what I was feeling, dig deeper and question why I feel the way I do.. This could mean emotionally, physically or spiritually.  I found out so much about myself in that year, most of which I was pleased to discover.  I found talents and I'm working on many I would love to fine tune.  I've had the opportunity to observe how I've felt physically and emotionally over the last two months while we did a complete overhaul on our nutrition and I'd like to share that with you now. 
Like an infant, if I go unfed, I'm cranky.  Very very cranky.  But that doesn't take much observation so we'll move on.  After each meal I've prepared, sat down and enjoyed eating with my family (especially dinners) a  certain sense of joy is felt.  Many of you may be thinking... well ya, you stuff your gut with food you (emotionally) love and everyone is happy! Let me clarify.  There is a difference. There is a specific, deeper appreciation that is felt when I consciously make good decisions on what I'm cooking, how I'm preparing it and sitting down to enjoy it because I know I'm feeding myself and my family with nutrients to fuel our bodies, not work against them.  It's euphoric.  After meals, in the past, I'm too bogged down to get up and clean the kitchen, or do anything for the rest of the night.  So yes, maybe I could eat a carb-a-licous meal and feel somewhat happy because I fulfilled an emotional need deep inside, but energy? Gone. Emotional needs? Temporarily met but nothing sustainable.  I'd bottom out, go to bed, get up tired and try functioning on what little nutrition was offered the night before.  Being tired, I'd make another lazy meal, and another and another until the downward spiral plummets into the darkness.  After finishing meals now I not only have the energy to get up, get out and get going, I have this inner accomplished, guiltless happy feeling. Not feeling guilty about what's in my gut is euphoric all on it's own, but knowing my family is benefiting too is the cherry on top. I think I've established a good healthy relationship with food, and that's a balance to do cartwheels over. So yes, eat for your health, but eat for your happiness too!

I had a funny conversation with my older sister the other night after I sliced a chunk of my finger off.  I told her how suddenly uneasy around knifes and everything sharp in my kitchen I became after the "incident".  In a silly voice she said, "if you fall of the horse, you have to get back on!" Silly, because I was bucked off once, tried again, bucked off again, tried one last time and was thrown off.  So horses and aren't friends.  And I've never been back on since.  I stood next to one once, had to pose for a picture, and that was about all my little heart could handle.  So, I had to get back on my "mandolin horse" and I'm happy to report all limbs are in tact.  In fact I made my first batch of zucchini noodles, where have these been my whole life???  I julienned them, cooked them in coconut oil for only a few minutes and served them with my favorite peanut sauce, broccoli slaw, shrimp, scallions and lime wedges.  Sometimes I get so excited to eat my food I forget to take pictures.  This was one of those times.  But aren't those noodles lovely??

My paleo spin on a good old American classic.  Chili fries!!  I made chocolate chili...yes, CHOCOLATE.  Unsweetened cocoa powder is on the approved list! Simmered ground turkey in an array of spices and cocoa powder, tomato paste, a can of diced tomatoes (juices and all) and water.  It had such a deep textured flavor to it, almost like a mole'.  Then I decided (since I'm trying not to be afraid of my mandolin) to julienne up some sweet potatoes and bake them in the oven to serve with the chili.  My 5 year old had 3 bowls.  My 2 year old had 2 bowls.  My husband never admitted how many he had, but I can only imagine.  The sweet potatoes added just the right sweetness to the chili...my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I'm not sure how many of you are actually reading this, but I do appreciate the feedback.  I love hearing your ideas, your favorite meals, how you incorporate veggies into child friendly meals and your successes too! Thank you for sharing!

Eating Healthy Can Be Painful?

 Hello fellow health eaters!  I hope this week found you happy, healthy and satisfied.  Last weekend I had to put my self control to the test as it was my sister in law's wedding and all that was served was hot chocolate and a smore's bar.  I won't even go in to the details of each morsel that was served...but I did it, I passed it all up.  Seems as though, once I had already made up my mind before the reception even started, It wasn't all that hard to avoid the table of refreshments all together.  My 5 and 2 year old on the other hand...?? Each time I saw them they were in the presence of someone new, eating more chocolate.  What are you going to do? It was a night of feasting on treats for them, once in a while can slide I suppose.
     Last week we invested in some new kitchen gadgets.  If your family is anything like mine, they snack and snack and snack until the cows come home.  I'm tired of feeding my kids the high fructose versions of fruit snacks and frankly haven't found any home-made version of them on pinterest that have worked.  Buying dried fruits are expensive, so we decided to by a dehydrator and do it ourselves.  Our first go at it, I was suppose to slice everything in perfect uniform slices but failed to do so.  It wasn't too big of a deal, I had to keep taking pieces out as they were done while leaving the other fatter sliced items in to dry a little longer...

(Notice my little Stella's art piece in the background? It's my new favorite, It makes me so happy when I see it, so in the kitchen it'll stay.)

So we decided to get one of these as well.  Pretty nifty, especially since it tells me what thickness I'm slicing exactly.  And I can also make my zucchini noodles and David's favorite baked sweet potato fries!

Unfortunately, my first use with my first veggie, I learned my first very important lesson.  Use the veggie holder, not your hand to hold the food!  (This picture was taken 2 days after the incident, it's looking quite a bit better) Side story:  Picture me in the kitchen late Saturday night, slicing sweet potatoes, sprinkling them with cinnamon and dreaming about how delicious they would be coming out of the dehydrator the next morning.   And then, slice! Me (calmly to David watching the soccer game) "And there goes my finger"  He honestly didn't believe me.  Then he saw the amount of blood dripping down my hand, arm, kitchen counter and floor...then he believed me:) How much did I slice off? 3/16 of an inch, aren't I glad I have the nifty dial on the mandolin to tell me so? David found the slice of finger, so don't worry, no one digested it.  I wasn't so smart in wrapping it that night.  I just stuck cotton on it and wrapped it in co flex.  The next morning I tried pulling off the cotton to change the dressing and the wound scabbed right on to the cotton.  I soaked it and tried peeling it off but it hurt so bad!  I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but the ordeal made me so sick to my stomach, I started blacking out, knew I was going to pass out, and laid on the ground to do so.  When I lost consciousness, Stella was telling me a story, when I regained, she was still telling me a story so I know I wasn't out for too long ...or was I? Her stories can go both ways. Anyway, wimpy I know, especially coming from a gal who worked in nursing homes and hospitals all those years.  And some of those years as a phlebotomist!  Not my finest hour.  I've been a little funny in the kitchen this weekend,  knives and graters make me cringe.  I'm just a little more cautious to say the least.  Also, David follows me around the house saying "chop chop"

Now that I have burned that image in your head, let me share some of the food we've enjoyed.  This is what we've been eating for breakfasts.  My rendition of green eggs and ham!  I buy turkey ham, dice it and grill it in the the pan until it starts to crisp on some of the sides.  I add the scrambled eggs to the pan along with some thawed out frozen spinach from a box.  I add a lot, because honestly? You can't taste it...at all.  Scramble until cooked through.  We enjoy ours with pico de gallo on top but any salsa would work great. 

Rogan Josh From Well Fed with Cauliflower mashed taters, tomatoes and pineapple. 

Pizza Frittata.  Go nuts here.  Start by scrambling a lot of eggs and poor into a pan.  I let mine cook until set about halfway.  I added Italian flavored sausage, mushrooms, olives, onions, sun dried tomatoes and anything else I needed to use up.  Finish cooking by placing in the oven set at 350 for at least 20 minutes.  There are so many variations to fritatta's, and they're easy, so give them a try.

My pomegranate guacamole!  In this particular dish I added the following:  2 large ripe avocados, 1 cup pico de gallo, 1 cup of pomegranate seeds and salt to taste.  That's it! We wolfed it down in 10 minutes...maybe less.  You don't want to eat it by the spoon fulls? Sweet potato or zucchini chips work great:)

A little added energy.  It wasn't recommended in my Whole30 book to drink a lot of juice, even if extracted on my own.  So I don't use it to replace meals, however, I do use it when I feel a cold coming on, or if I feel a little tired and need an extra boost.  My favorite combo's are orange carrot ginger and apple beet lemon.  Again with the combinations, endless!

 That's all the excitement for this post.  It seems like I mentioned a lot of  kitchen appliances that may not be in most kitchens.  Don't let that stop you from eating well.  Eating healthy has to start somewhere, let it start in your kitchen, fill your fridge with fresh fruits and veggies and learn to incorporate them into every meal.  It's easy to over consume on carbs, sugars and dairies... but you can never have too many greens!

 Bet you thought I disappeared, called it quits and was gorging on french fries and donuts.  Good news, not the case!  We've been a little stressed and distracted in our household the last couple of weeks.  David works on the base and was furloughed last week.  I put in extra hours at the spa and we both committed ourselves to projects to keep us busy and distracted from the underlying issue of "will we get paid?"  I have to admit that I am a stress eater, but that's just not an option anymore.  I'm also a stress shopper, and, well, not knowing if/when we'll get paid, that's not an option either!! What's a girl to do?  Go to the kitchen and get the creative healthy juices flowing.  So that's what I've been doing.

My own take on Pad Thai.  I'm getting more comfortable with what to cook and how to cook it.  What in the the beginning took hours of preparing at times, has dramatically lessened to quick dinners.  What a relief!  This certainly wasn't as fancy as the peanut sauce recipe in my trusty Well Fed cookbook. But it was still delicious and perfect for a fast meal.   For the peanut sauce I took about a fourth of a cup of almond butter, a splash of coconut milk, a few chugs each of coconut aminos, redboat fish sauce, and rice vinegar, stirred it all together over low heat and taste tested often to adjust seasonings.  It became rather thick so I added a couple tablespoons of water and let simmer until I was ready to pour it over my sauteed cabbage, sugar snap peas, garlic, ginger, onions and shrimp.  It was awesome and approved around the dinner table.

Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork) with "Fried Rice" from Well Fed.  Oh the glaze, oh the aroma, oh so good!  Ps.  Melissa Joulwan, Author of Well Fed has come out with Well Fed 2 available end of October.  This makes me giddy.

Quick dinner night.  Steak and garden tomatoes with homemade Italian dressing.  

So we made it through our Whole30 cleanse.  30 Days without grains, sugars, legumes and dairy.  We are currently in the phase of reintroducing some of these foods back into our diet and experimenting with what they "do to" us.  In the book we are instructed on day 31 to add yogurt to our breakfast, cheese for lunch and have a dish of ice cream after dinner.  While David was doing cartwheels over the ice cream, I was dreading it.  I already know what effects  ice creams and heavy dairies have on my system.  Then we eat as we have been the previous 30 days for the next 3 days and scope out the long term effects of our introduced food choices.  David didn't experience anything abnormal, maybe an extra trip to the bathroom, but I'm sure it was worth it to him.  I won't get into my issues.  It's best just to rule out dairy for me in general, ha ha! (That's the beauty of this cleanse, you are your own physician, you will find out what foods do what to you and what to stay away from).  Yesterday we gave grains a go.  I had a half of a bagel in the morning and felt like I had a brick in my stomach most of the day.  I didn't eat grains for lunch, however David had a side of pasta with his lunch and we both had bread with our Waldorf tuna salad for dinner.  He was dragging, I was dragging. We were sluggish and tired, It wasn't fun.  Bread won't be missed.  I've loved how we've dined those 30 days, I've already made up my mind to continue eating in the same fashion.  My taste buds have awakened, my energy has improved and I don't feel like I'm missing out on a thing. Oh, except 5 pounds! Although I want to add, losing weight is not why I chose to change my life style.  I worked hard in the past to lose weight and I don't have all that much to lose now...but hey, who doesn't like stepping onto the scale to a few pounds lighter? So it's a choice, satisfy that sweet tooth for a moment and put a drag on the rest of your day, even days!  Or put nutrient dense foods on your plate and be an energizer bunny.  These are only the immediate effects of course, I won't get in to the dangers of inflammatory diseases and everything that follows, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, congestive heart failure...oh look I'm going in to it anyway.  All dangerous and all VERY reversible...just by what you put on your plate.  What's on your plate??