More Recipes and Favorites

Hello everyone! I worked 24 hours this past weekend (12 Saturday and 12 Sunday) and I was exhausted! I sent the above picture to Matt, telling him to come kidnap me from work. Luckily I packed my clean healthy food to fuel me throughout the day! I wanted to mention a little about how I prepare for work to make it easy to eat healthy while being surrounded by junk food. On top of working 24 hours this past weekend, I have also spent the last week studying for my upcoming final and had to make healthy meals last throughout the week that didn't take a long time to prepare. (I will get to that part at the end)





 So here is a little bit of what I have been working on this past week. First up, kale salad! I first fell in love with kale salad while working at 131 Main. It's sooo good but I found a bit of a healthier way to make it without changing the flavor too much! I didn't measure anything, I just tossed it all together and kept adding and tasting until it came out right.

 Kale Salad

-Before you begin put a piece of whole grain toast in the toaster and get it cripsy (used for bread crumbs)

-Preparing the kale: First strip the kale off the large stem. Next take chunks of kale and cut into very small pieces using a chef's knife. (Most time consuming part of the recipe but soo worth it!) The kale shrinks after the other ingredients are added so be sure to do a large amount. I did half a bushel.

-Put the kale into a bowl and add lemon juice and olive oil, enough to get the leaves wet but not soaked.

 Use more lemon juice than olive oil.

-Add a little pinch of salt and red pepper flakes, more or less if you like heat

- Now 131 recipe uses parmesan but my lactose hating belly can't eat it so I used nutritional yeast (more about that in an upcoming post but basically a vegan product that tastes just like cheese) Just give the bottle a few shakes to cover the kale. You can purchase nutritional yeast at a health foods store.

-Finally crumble your toasted bread into crumbs and add to the kale and toss everything together!

I seriously eat the whole bowl at a time, I love love love this stuff! Great way to get your greens!

Ok lets talk about fish. I cut out a lot of meat I was eating but now that I am working out, I needed a little bit more protein so I have been doing a lot more fish lately. At first I was intimidated by different kinds of fish but after the wonderful TRADER JOES, I now am not :) Matt and I made dinner last week and he brought over alaskan cod from TJ's, soooo yummy! This inspired me to go back and get other kinds. I got tilapia, tuna, mahi mahi, and more cod. All in the freezer section. The great thing about TJ's fish is that there is instructions on how to make it in the package!! It tells you all kinds of ways and is super easy. I have been baking mine with salt, pepper, parsley, lemon juice, a little olive oil and sometimes lemon pepper seasoning. I cook the whole package at once and save the leftovers for grab and go's. Below is a picture of the whole meal we had. (Asparagus, cod, kale salad, brown rice, and a little crab cake for a cheat ;)

Ok next up DESSERT!! This is my favorite subject ever!! We made chocolate mousse and crumb topping. I am telling you it is way better and more satisfying than a lot of the old dessert I used to eat!          

The First picture is the crumb topping on warm apples with a little drizzle of honey and the second is the crumb topping on the bottom (like a crust) with the chocolate mousse and strawberries on top. (and no these both weren't eaten in the same night! haha) These two recipes come from Raw Food Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet - Yes I know I am breaking the copyright rules but I had to share these, they were so good and guilt free!

Chocolate mousse Recipe:

1/4 cup pitted medjool dates (soak for 30 min)

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons coco powder

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 avocados mashed up (YES AVOCADOS!! they take the place of cream, butter, and eggs!)

Place the dates, agave nectar and vanilla in food processor and process until smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until creamy. Make sure you stop periodically to scrape down the sides of the food processor to get everything mixed in. It makes 1 cup or 2 servings and lasts for 3 days in the fridge. (mine lasted a day!)

Crumb topping or crust:

2 cups raw pecans

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon all spice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup raisins

8 pitted medjool dates

Place everything but the dates and raisins in the food processor and process until coarsely ground. Then add the dates and raisins and process until it forms "crumbs" SO EASY! Topping will keep for one month in the fridge- yea right!

The last recipe I made is beer whole wheat veggie pizza, yes I said BEER! First off, I haven't had pizza in two months! The last time I ate it, I was curled up in the couch in fetal position for hours and swore to never eat that cheesy greasy goodness again and then I discovered this recipe that was lactose free and way healthier!

I found this recipe on another bloggers site and had to try it! I will say to be sure you use a non stick spray before you put the pizza down because I didn't and I had a very hard time getting it off the tinfoil!

Crust:

Preheat oven to 350 and bake at 10-15 min

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 can light beer

1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix and form into a dough and kneed with a little extra flour, then either cut into two pieces to make two mini pizzas or leave it as one big one.

Flatten and place onto nonstick pan. Make sure you flatten it pretty then so it cooks all the way through.

Now for my pizza I added my home made raw marinara sauce I had saved from earlier in the week. I then added tomatoes, red onion, red bell pepper, oregano, parsley, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast (that vegan cheese again)

-I put it back in the oven for another 10-15 min (cook longer if the crust is thick) and VOILA best pizza ever!! I made sure to add a salad to get my greens in and so I wouldn't fill my belly up on only pizza! My craving was met well beyond my expectations and it is a very easy pizza to make with plenty of left overs for grab and gos.

Grab and gos for work:

This weekend I packed all kinds of yummy goodness. I had my leftover fish for both days. Easy tip when making large batches of fish, I also made veggies and brown rice. I had about three tupperware containers packed with each of the three ready to go at the end. I threw that into my lunch bag and microwaved it and had a gourmet lunch! I also made a batch of the tuna pate mentioned in a previous post and threw that on a salad for dinner. I packed apples and little packets of peanut butter for a snack. (Justin's prepackaged is great, they have all kinds: almond butter, peanut butter, chocolate pb and ab) I also had pre packed carrots and threw my hummus in there as well! For breakfast I pack a cup of almond milk and a plastic bag of granola or muesli cereal. When I get to work I chop up a banana and throw that and the granola into the almond milk for a quick breakfast. I also love Larabars, they're like my healthy candy bar of the day and they make quick easy to go grabs for lunches. Finally I bought a raw protein powder that I put in a little plastic bag and more almond milk in a shaker cup. These protein powders can be expensive so I always wait to get them on sale or online when they are cheaper.  The picture below shows some of the products:

Ok that about wraps it up, Im gonna turn in early tonight  so I have a clear brain for my last full day of studying before my final :/ I am also exhausted!!! I had another workout with my trainer today and he made us do cardio for 45 min outside in 80 degree weather and then 15 min of abs inside! Here is a picture of he and I below, he's the best! I love and hate him all at the same time!

Me and My Stomach Issues

This one is gonna be personal, but I wanted to share the battle I have been dealing with for over a year now. Let me first start off by saying, like many girls, I was diet obsessed. I am talking every diet out there, I tried! I gained and lost 20lbs three times in a year and a half. So. Not. Healthy. I would starve and deprive myself for weeks, loose the weight and then gain it back plus more. Food was all I thought about, especially the things I couldn't have, they consumed my mind. Im not sure where this obsession came from, I was never even very fat. My guess is maybe from when I use to be into modeling. I was signed with an agency and spent months doing runway prep for an upcoming show and all I kept hearing was to loose weight. Let me tell you right now if I was the weight I was then, I would be the happiest person alive. I could eat whatever I want and still have a six pack. I was bone skinny and that still wasn't enough for them....now cut to college. At 19, I moved out and realized I got to choose the foods that I ate, how fun is that? No more good for you veggies, all junk food and soda! Guess what happened? BAM 30lbs over the next three years. This is when my diet obsession started. I did weight watchers, counted calories, ate lean cuisines, drank only protein shakes, went to medi weight loss clinic, the 21 day diet and did the infamous HCG diet. Any of my close friends that I work with or live with reading this, you know how crazy of a dieter I was! After the HCG diet is when all of my stomach issues began. For 21 days I ate nothing but 500 calories. No breakfast, one protein with one veggie and one fruit for lunch and dinner. Can you imagine how unhealthy that is? I lost weight but I was the most miserable person ever!

When I started to eat real foods again after the three weeks of HCG is when I began to have awful stomach problems. I would bloat out like a balloon after every meal, healthy or not. It was awful, over the past year and a half I have seen several doctors. At first I was tested for a gluten allergy, negative. I then had a endoscopy for them to tell me I had gastritis. I then had surgery done to remove my endometriosis, which we thought was contributing to the enlarged stomach. Although it cleared up pain, it didn't solve my problem. I then was told I have a small lactose allergy (probably from not eating any dairy for three weeks and then suddenly eating it again) and I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I stopped seeing the doctors for a while after that due to frustration. A few months ago, I had severe pain in my right side under my right lung. I went to the ER and they thought it was my gallbladder, after a HIDA scan, my gallbladder came back clear and negative of any abnormalities. (Thank God) They also thought I had a stomach ulcer and I was put on prilosec for a month. At my follow up GI appointment my doctor told me I had SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth and put me on 2 weeks of antibiotics. This only made it way worse. I went back and we then thought it could be candida and I went on 7 days worth of diflucan, the anti fungal. Didn't work.

While visiting my holistic chiropractor (there for my back) I mentioned some of my stomach problems and she immediately told me to change my diet and gave me more information. That's how my new obsession started. I realized that everything I put in my mouth affects my digestive system. It has been 2 months now and although I still have bad days, I have a lot more good days. I am still trying to find out what I can and can not eat. What is gonna make me flare up and what keeps my stomach flat. The big thing is I no longer have stomach pain after I eat. It use to hinder my daily life, my poor boyfriend would only hear me complain about my stomach all the time! All of my free time went into researching how foods could heal the body and I found out that there are more people like me with stomach issues out there! I know it will take a while to completely know what makes me feel good and to loose these extra "college eating" lbs but I do realize that it took years of bad decisions for my body to get this way. I have no doubt that my countless diets have something to do with my GI issues.

As a nursing student, I do countless hours of research on my patients and majority of them have contributed if not caused their conditions. This is frustrating for me because I am there to make them better and when they leave, I don't want them going back to their old ways. Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol CAN be prevented. All of these problems cause additional harm to your body, making your chances of good health even worse. You can also reverse disease with food! I cannot preach that enough!

I can say for the first time in my life, that I am consciously healthy about what I choose to eat. It doesn't consume my thoughts and I feel satisfied after eating. It is a huge passion though, one I love to talk about ;) I no longer binge and count calories. I enjoy whole, good for you foods until I am full. I HATE the scale, I usually go by the way I feel in my clothes now. I don't weigh myself a lot at all. I am not a number and a number doesn't define me. My boyfriend is so great at telling me how awesome he thinks I look and that's good enough for me. I wish I had the power to get into every girls head and tell them everything I have learned and delt with. It doesn't have to be that way! Don't get me wrong, I still get self conscious! But I know I am doing everything I can do to be good to my body and I have just added exercise so it can only get better!  Ok that was a hard one, very personal and humbling to talk about. Hopefully someone will relate, please feel free to ask any other questions!

NEW FOODS, NEW OUTLOOK :)

New. That's the word I want to start off this post with for many reasons. First off, this whole raw, vegan, clean eating food thing is so NEW to me. I am in no way an expert, I don't follow specific rules and I don't have a specific type of eating style. I am trying to figure out what I can eat that doesn't throw my digestive system completely out of whack, foods that I actually enjoy eating. That doesn't mean that I eat only raw and vegan foods, however, everything I do eat is clean. I make sure everything is a whole food and a third grader can pronounce the ingredients in the packaging. Everything I get to learn about is so eye opening! I have never known how incredible the benefits of food can be! Secondly, all of these foods I have made are completely NEW to me. Half of the stuff I can't pronounce (muesli) or have never heard of, it's like there is a whole new world out there! Thirdly, everything I have made has been delicious and hard to believe good for me! I am developing a whole NEW outlook on the concept of food. Ok now onto what I have been experimenting with this week! First off, anyone who wants to eat raw and is intimidated by it, get the book Raw Food Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet. My first three dishes came from her book and all I needed was a food processor!

First up: Homemade raw marinara sauce with zucchini pasta. Surprisingly this dish tricks your taste buds into thinking it is real pasta you are eating! I used a vegetable peeler to make thin slices of the zucchini but I can NOT wait to purchase a vegetable spiralizer! That thing actually turns the vegetables into real noodle sizes! The sauce was OMG good and I plan on using the rest of it tonight on a whole wheat veggie pizza! The only con about the dish is that you can't let the zucchini noodles sit in the pasta sauce too long because they get watery. I am not gonna post the recipe for copyright reasons but if ya see me in person, Ill be happy to share. In the meantime, here is Jennifer's video on making it herself.

http://youtu.be/eLi5657CSos

and my creation:

Second dish of the night: DESSERT!! My favorite meal of the day! I made raw strawberry chocolate torte! AHHHMAAZZIINNGG and you will never guess that the key ingredient to creaminess is avocado!! You can't even taste it and best of all there is no dairy, refined sugar, eggs, oil, or butter! The crust is made out of almonds and dates. The filling has avocado, coco powder, agave nectar, salt, and dates. My room mates and I ate out of the dish with forks, so so good and you don't have to feel guilty about it!

My third dish out of the book is "Not Tuna Pate": This is a substitute for tuna or chicken salad. You can use it on sandwiches, to dip veggie sticks in or throw it on top of a salad (my favorite way). The main ingredient is sunflower seeds, it also has celery, red onion, dill, salt, carrots, and parsley. I have eaten it for the past three days and it seriously is way better than stinky tuna salad! It is a hearty dish, perfect for a rib sticking lunch. I put mine on a bed of mixed greens topped with red pepper, cucumbers, raisins and a tablespoon of lite dressing. A pate is a spread or dip made mainly out of nuts, I had never heard of that word before this dish. Only con about this dish is you have to soak the nuts the night before you make it, I am usually to impatient for that, I wanted to make it right away! Here is Jennifer's youtube video of her making it: http://youtu.be/HK4EdmliApM

 gorgeous :)

Now for a recipe you can finally have! Whole Wheat vegan pancakes!! I can't tell you how long I have had a craving for pancakes but these hit the spot! No eggs, no butter, no dairy, no oil! BOOM! good for you pancakes?! HECK YES! These are by far the easiest things to make too! Below picture is what you need.

Whole Wheat Vegan Banana Pancakes with Chocolate Chips:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 banana mashed up (other half for garnish)
1 cup water
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup so delicious coconut milk french vanilla creamer
3 drops liquid stevia
Small handful of dairy free chocolate chips
Topped of with 2 tbsp pure maple syrup or honey

Oil a pan, pour into circles, flip and WHAM BAM best pancakes ever! I ate half last night and the other half this morning, yummy in my tummy!

All of these items can be found at Earth Fare or healthy home market! They are a bit more pricey than regular grocery stores but most of my stuff lasts forever and healthy home market always has good sales! I hope y'all get to make these yummy feel good recipes! I am going to make that whole wheat veggie pizza and I will let y'all know how that turns out. Spoiler Alert: the pizza dough has beer in it!!  HAPPY HEALTHY EATING EVERYONE!

Fasts and Eating Clean and Diets: IMPORTANT

Disclaimer: This is kinda a long one, but important! Although, I'll continue to post shorter posts on different super foods and my favorite recipes to make it easier ;)

Lately I have had a lot of questions on a juice fast I recently did. First off I want to explain why I did the fast and what it consisted of. I have recently become very very health conscious because of several stomach issues that have come up. I have been to several doctors and been put on different antibiotics/ medicines, none of which cured my problem. Desperate and over medicated, I realized that there had to be another way to help solve my stomach and digestive issues. ( all of the individual details of my problems is gonna have to be a whole different post haha) So my eyes became open to food healing! I suggest for all of you to watch Hungry For Change, a health documentary you can find on Netflix. This really opened my eyes to what I was putting in my body. When you eat foods with tons of chemicals, your body doesn't know how to process it. Chemicals were never meant to enter our body, therefore, it takes more energy to break down the chemicals than it does the actual food. I was addicted to Diet Coke and was drinking 4-5 a day (no water I might add). I then found out what a demon aspartame was! Did you know Aspartame was denied by the FDA 5 times?! (Resource: Skinny Bitch)

Over the next few weeks I watched countless documentaries and read every "clean and natural and raw" book I could get my hands on. (I'll post a picture of my favorites at the end of this post) I learned a lot and continue to have a passion for learning about all of this stuff! After watching Hungry for Change and another documentary called Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, I decided to try a juice fast. I purchased Jason Vale's book, 7 lbs in 7 days and a breville juicer. I followed the plan of the book, which comes with great recipes and handy shopping lists. My full intention was to do all 7 days....

Day One, I jumped out of bed so ready to start! I will say one of the most annoying things about a juice fast is the prep and time. You have to make 5-6 juices a day and clean the juicer and blender every time you use it. ( yes, some of the recipes called for a juicer and a blender). My roomies were not pleased with the noise especially because our schedules are so different and I was awake before them.  Day one went off with no problems though, I wasn't hungry and didn't feel bad and I had survived my first day. Day Two, however, was the WORST day. I felt sick all day: nauseated, headaches, exhausted and drained. On top of that my face began to break out (a detox symptom). I couldn't concentrate in class and was so ready for the day to be over. I continued on through Day Three but decided to stop after that. Here is why: when in nursing school, I have to be cognitively alert at all times and I wasn't on the juice fast. My roomies were also getting pretty annoyed with all of the noise. I got through Day 3 and I decided that it had been a pretty good experience for me. Disclaimer: I did a juice fast because I wanted to let my digestive system heal for a few days, NOT TO LOSE WEIGHT. I didn't even weight myself when the fast was over. I don't think fasts are a good way to lose weight, they are extremely strict and require a lot of time and effort. It would be very easy to go insane on a juice fast if you were doing it only to lost weight, in my opinion. I am not opposed to trying another juice fast this summer when I am not in school. If you do follow a fast, please follow a plan, don't do it blindly. Also keep in mind when you are done with the fast, you usually have to eat raw foods for a few days to get your digestive tract use to eating food again.

I personally have found the best way to loose weight is to not concentrate on trying. Stop weighing yourselves and eat good, whole, natural foods for your body and the weight will fall off. I promise. When we go into to diet mode, it's all about what we CANT eat, focus on what you can. When eating clean, you don't have to deprive yourself, you can even have dark chocolate! (72% cacao and above). Focus more on the good you are doing for your body. You are no longer poisoning it with bad chemicals and "no fat" processed foods. In the book, "The Raw Food Detox Diet" the author, Natalia Rose, makes an excellent point. She says when most people are asked to choose what is healthier between an avocado and a protein bar, they chose the protein bar because it has less calories. This is not true, our bodies don't know how to digest the chemicals in protein bars vs a whole food like an avocado. This post could go on and on and on. I have a huge passion for clean foods and want to share it with everyone, the point is I can't word it as good as the authors do below. I started eating clean at the end of Feb this year and have stuck with it and will continue to. So far I have lost 15lbs and I really wasn't even trying to! My skin has a nice glow to it, I have more energy, I feel lighter and I know I am doing something great for my body.

Like any diet (I don't even like that word, Diet. eewww) or "change of lifestyle", its gonna take some time to get use to. Don't expect to wake up the next week and be 20 lbs lighter. But with eating clean, you're not restricted to a low amount of calories a day so you don't feel hungry all the time, it's more likely to be something you stick to!! I have been every diet you can think of and this is the only thing that I love and can stick too!

Ok that's enough rambling for this post, now on to the pros for advice!!

Juice Website www.juicemaster.com

Documentary to watch: Hungry for Change (watch instantly on Netflix)

Easy Youtube Raw Recipes: http://youtu.be/bo6AdFYIidc by Jennifer Cornbleet

Favorite Websites: http://www.therawtarian.com/ and http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/

Some of my favorite Books:
The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose
The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno ( she has several books, all of which are fantastic!)
Raw Food Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet
The Beginners Guide to Natural Living by Larry Cook
Skinny Bitch and Skinny Bitch in the Kitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson

Any other questions: Please please please ask me! This is my new passion and I love talking about it and helping others experience what I know feel!

Lullaby.

you know when sometimes you are in a certain mood and the right song makes it just right? Whether it be an emotional fight, something to fall asleep to, or something that makes you stop and breathe in. I think girls especially love songs like that. Our emotions can be so overwhelming that sometimes we just like slow love songs or even sad songs. They just make us feel good inside or they fit with whatever situation we're feeling. I know for me that there are songs with the most perfect lyrics that say exactly what I am feeling.  Nursing school has definitely made my anxiety level sky rocket so i like songs that I can just burn candles to. I think music is a way of daydreaming too, it helps you escape to any place you want to be. It's crazy that something that lasts 3-4 minutes can really have great effect. Below are some of my favorite candle burning lullabies. I feel like this is gonna be a post I update often.

http://youtu.be/uq5cC-HLe5Q Steve Azar: Sunshine

http://youtu.be/XF2AlO8cKbE Ed Sheeran: Give Me Love

http://youtu.be/Y-6EwdDiopQ The civil wars: poison and wine

http://youtu.be/bWTSZ9wN9B8 John Mayer: Free Falling

http://youtu.be/sOvb4g2upDo Matt Nathanson: Still

http://youtu.be/yFTvbcNhEgc Angus and Julia Stone: Big Jet Plane

http://youtu.be/JigjU373SKY Ed Sheeran: Firefly

http://youtu.be/OqrJJ6-f1co Ray LaMonagne: Jolene

http://youtu.be/kM0mjukDGRw Ryan Adams: Come pick me up

http://youtu.be/n1LOm69hpR0 Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris: Hallelujah 

Hope some of you can enjoy these as much as I do :)

Goodnight and Sweet Dreams!

xoxo,

Gracie Lou

A lesson (and well kept secret!) on Chia Seeds

Lets talk about Chia seeds! These tiny energy packed specs are one of the best kept secrets! They have so many healthy benefits and NO taste so they are easy to use in everything!

Chia seeds are great for detoxing your body, when exposed to water, they become a gel. This gel helps pick up nasty toxins from your body and these are then eliminated in your waste. What a great NATURAL way to get rid of unwanted poisonous toxins! Detoxing is a great way to get rid of past toxins you have put in your body, but you also have to make sure that they get out and don't stay stuck in there recycling back into your system. See below one of my favorite detox books!

Also because chia seeds form this "magic gel" it helps your body to stay full longer and don't us weight conscious people just LOVE that! They also have protein in them too! If you add 2 tablespoons to your water it is 6 grams of protein. PROTEIN WATER! who would of thought! And protein means energy! This is my favorite way to get my daily dose of chia seeds. I put them in my water bottle, that way I can always shake it up if they settle to the bottom. They really don't have a taste, you do feel the texture though. It's kinda cool to drink, you can feel the tiny beads in your mouth as your drinking and know you're doing something great for you that takes no time and is very cost friendly :)

Chia seeds are available at any health food store, make sure to get organic to stay away from unwanted pesticides! This bag cost me around $10 but at 2 tablespoons a day, it will last forever!!

To find out more about my new favorite "magic gel" click the link!http://www.mychiaseeds.com/articles/Top10ChiaBenefits.html

Favorite Detox Book: I fell in love with this book after discovering it at a lady's house I babysit for. What a great find! Natalia is so great about explaining why you need to change the way you eat and the benefits of it. It is a very easy to follow book and she is big about slow, gradual changes. Don't be fooled by the word RAW, she still lets you eat a little animal protein if you want. (something I can't give up) She also has great recipes in the back and you can find it on amazon for pretty cheap!

A picture story: People I love

These are my gorgeous triplet sisters and I. As you can see we do not look that much a like and our personalities are complete opposite! This was taken at a friends wedding we attended.

These are my crazy siblings! haha we always have fun together! This was taken at my parent's house after family dinner, it was once a nightly thing but now we're lucky to get together once a month!

  

This is my best friend, Lilian. These pictures were taken when we spent a "night on the town" The first one pretty much sums up our relationship! haha

This is my love, Matt. He's my superman.

Two things I find very sexy: my man and his guitar and red wine :)

Kale Chips and Sore Muscles

Ok! Post #2. So far, so good.

I wanted to share a yummy recipe I made recently, kale chips. What a healthy alternative to potato chips and you still get the crunch texture we all know and love. I wanted something to go along with the veggie burgers I have been eating and this is a perfect side dish!

First things first, I picked up some fresh organic kale from the healthy home market. It comes in very big leaves attached to a stem. Make sure you wash the kale very well before making the chips. I have a vegetable wash (also from the healthy home market) that I love. For being organic, the kale was actually pretty cheap! $2.99 for a whole bushel of it. This made about two pans of kale chips for me.

The Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Prepare a cookie sheet with tinfoil.
Wash your kale and pull of the stem.
Tear into pieces. (Make sure they are fairly large pieces because they shrink in the oven)
Lay them on the cookie sheet and pour a light coat of olive oil on them. (not too wet, just shiny)
Sprinkle with Sea Salt
Use whatever spices you like, I also used garlic pepper. You can use cheese too!
Put in the oven for 10 min, the edges of the chips will be slightly browned and the center of the chip should be crispy.
Let cool and enjoy!

PS: I am still experimenting on how to store these, I think an open bowl is best. I noticed when I put the lid on, the kale chips got kinda soggy.

Sore Muscles: So recently I decided I need to start working out! I have never done any kind of real professional exercise my entire life! I get a discount through the hospital I work at for a personal trainer. Every Monday and Wednesday we meet from 4 to 5pm with the trainer and about 4-5 other people. This past Monday was my first workout. I walked in totally intimidated to meet my trainer. When I saw him, the intimidation only got worse, he was a man about my height that looked like a real life hercules. This is gonna be painful was my first thought. Scott is very friendly and highly motivating though, something I need to get my flabby butt to move! We started the workout outside and of course I was wearing all black. 30 full minutes of cardio and lunges with weights later... I was a walking dead person. We then moved inside to do 30 minutes of core strengthening exercises more leg work. I left sore but with such a feeling of high, proud I got through the first day. When I got home I was pretty much useless for the rest of the night and then came the next morning. OWWWWW!! When I woke up lying in bed, I could only move my neck and I hobbled around throughout the day. Today, if it's possible, I am even more sore! I had to take ibuprofen just to fall asleep! And I have to go back today..... that makes me kinda want to vomit. All jokes aside though, the constant pain is a reminder that I am doing the right thing for my body and I can NOT wait to see the results of all this pain! I am thankful I have a trained professional to help teach me or I would be one lost puppy. Sooooo here is to today, hopefully I'll survive my 2nd workout ;)

Just Me.

Ive started and restarted this post 5 times now. So here we go, plain and simple. Ive started to start a blog for a few reasons. I find it highly therapeutic to write things down, it helps reflect who I am and can protect my sanity. Second, I love reading blogs so why not create one myself? Third, it can help me remember all the stages I go through. So a little about me:

Strong lover, horrible fighter. Compassionate. A bit dramatic at times. Giver. Emergency Medicine. Vulnerable. Faith based. Procrastinator. Southern born and raised. Red wine drinker. Horribly self conscious. Brown eyed. Sensual. Chill bump seeker. Loud and giggly. Too stubborn. Hopeless romantic. Unafraid of tears. Passion cravings. Night owl. Adrenaline Junkie. Daydreamer. Incredibly independent. Making a difference. Already too grown up. Acoustic sounds. Heart melting conversations.

Who knows if anyone will every read my posts but that doesn't matter, it's for me. In fact, I don't know what the heck I'm doing.  I am not that great of a writer and forget about the use of proper grammar or even spelling. These pages are for me to spill my emotions, thoughts, ideas and passions on. A public journal. Woah that's kinda scary. Ive noticed through out life that there are many different stages of growth, so maybe this is one of mine. 

Things I'll write about: recently Ive become incredibly health conscious due to some stomach issues I have had. My curiosity with food and its power to heal is inevitably growing. I have been experimenting with raw food, vegan and just plain clean eating. I am not an expert and most of my recipes come from online and other peoples blogs or videos. I will say that I feel a lot better and the loss of 15lbs doesn't hurt ;). I am also a first semester nursing student and while the stress of it is overwhelming, I love it. I am also very strong in my faith, Jesus Christ is my everything and sometimes I want to shout it from the mountain tops. As far as family, I am a triplet with two gorgeous sisters and I also have a handsome and witty younger brother. My love life, my incredibly supportive boyfriend, Matt, is sometimes the only thing that keeps me sane in my crazy world. What its like to be loved by a real man is unbelievable and an experience that I hope every woman has a chance in their lifetime to experience. My friends: My best friend Lilian and I have been hooked at the hip for 12 years now. Although sometimes we annoy the heck out of each other, she is the rock I can always lean on and learn from. We're very different and I think that is why we are so close, she always brings new opinions and ideas for me to learn from and I try to do the same for her.


Disclaimer: I am not an expert, these are opinions not facts. This is my judgement free zone where I can express myself and just be me. 

ok ready. get set. go.