Keeping it basic

Look what I grew in my garden! I'm so proud... but really all I did was put the little plant in and God did the rest.

A friend and I were talking about our post challenge eating and how it is easy to get into bad habits of not eating enough of phase one. Fruits and vegetables really are the most important part of anyone's diet. It's easy to fall into the habit of grabbing a slice of bread as a snack instead of a piece of fruit or a handful of carrot sticks.
This week I am working on getting back to the basics and eating my fruits and veggies. Right now as I am typing this I am also enjoying a yummy green leaf lettuce salad with sauteed zucchini and walnuts. I am going to cut up veggies and fruit for the week too and store them in containers in the fridge then I can just pull some out as a snack or mix a few for a fast salad. Another easy way I get enough fruits and vegetables every single day is by taking Juice Plus +. Juice Plus + is 17 different fruits and vegetables in a capsule. I take the fruits in the morning with breakfast and the vegetables at night with dinner. I have seen so many amazing health benefits since taking Juice Plus + for 6 years that I am now a distributor - If you would like more info on it or if you would like to order it here is the website: http://www.tpalmerjuiceplus.com/

Have a healthy happy day!

A gift from Grenada

Banana pancakes made with rice flour and nutmeg. Yummy!


Lake Bars Jason and I made out of: dates, raisins, almonds, walnuts, almond butter, sunflower seed butter, vanilla, sea salt and nutmeg everything ground in a food processor then formed into bars and rolled in coconut.

Fresh nutmeg!

Jason came home from our practice a few days ago with two shiny brown seeds. One of his patients had visited Grenada and she was thoughtful enough to bring us fresh nutmeg.

I knew very little about nutmeg and even less about Grenada so I did a little google research. Grenada is known as "The Spice Island of the Caribbean". It is said you can smell the nutmeg wafting in the air.

"There are three layers that surround the nutmeg fruit. The outer layer, known as the pericarp, is used to make nutmeg jelly. The red membrane, which enwraps the shiny dark nutmeg shell, is known as mace, nutmeg's twin spice, which is eventually dried and ground, and used in a variety of dishes. Inside this shell is a seed - the nutmeg. No part of the nutmeg is ever wasted including the shell, which is used as flower bed mulch and for covering garden plants." http://www.nut-med.com/story.htm

Well I was excited to get such an unusual treat and from such a far away land! I broke the thin outer layer off exposing the meat of the seed. I have been grating nutmeg and sprinkling it on almost anything the past few days - love it.

We took a trip up to the mountains to escape the heat and take the baby to the lake. We decided to make a little snack with us. Jason and I set to work making fruit and nut bars. I grabbed the food processor and Jason started pulling stuff out of the cupboard - the result yummy bars. We rolled them in fine coconut tand packaged them up they were perfect to enjoy by the cool lake.

WE DID IT!!! 40 DAYS

We have officially completed our 40 day challenge! You would think I would feel excited or liberated... well it's just the opposite. I'm a bit sad and wondering now what. I won't be anticipating the next phase because there are no more phases... oh wait... phase 4 "40 DAY LIFESYLE". I really love eating extra healthy - my taste buds have changed in the last 40 days- I love the way real food tastes in my mouth and the way you still feel great after a large meal or a "healthy treat". There is no way to beat pure basic real food - the way God intended it!
This morning Jason, Jacob and I set out to... yep... the "green lady" AKA Starbucks to get "daddy" a cup of coffee. Coffee was not part of the challenge so Jason had gone 40 days without drinking a single cup - way to go Jason! He got a modest tall cup of Pikes Place brewed coffee w/ cream and raw sugar. After the first sip he wasn't too sure. Lots of build up well did he still like coffee...


As it turns out he does. He said it was good but not as exciting as he had anticipated. I think he is going to continue to drink coffee but not like before. He would have about 2 - 3 cups a day. Later today we made a blended coffee drink from a recipe I got from a great blog I have been reading http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/. Jason and our friend Josh really enjoyed the drink and it was dairy and sugar free - yum... I found it super good too but because of breastfeeding I only had a little.

Our friend Charissa - a fellow "40 dayer"

A month ago Trader Joes was selling Haggen Dazs honey ice cream - well it was only $1.99 a pint so Jason picked some up and hid it in the back of the freezer for today. I was going to make a sugar filled white flour cake to go with it but we have been enjoying healthy desserts so much I opted to make a chocolate bean cake. See how we have changed - white flour and sugar - "na I'll have black beans and honey in my cake". So anyway the ice cream was yummy but - ugh way too sweet and rich. I felt so yucky after I had to have another bowl of salad to offset the feeling.


Chocolate bean cake and the ice cream that I don't want anymore of even though I waited a month to eat it :)



I made almond milk last night and it was so easy and it really is good. We usually drink rice milk but we will be switching over to almond now. When you make the milk you have leftover almond meal after straining the milk. I decided to make brownies out of mine and they turned out so good - you won't believe they are healthy. We even took some to our neighbors to get their opinion and they enjoyed them too.

Brownies using leftover almond meal (Jason is excited - he said "now every week after we make almond milk we will have brownies too)

Brownies

1 C black beans

2 eggs

2 TBS olive oil (still need to order coconut oil - ahh)

2 TBS cocoa powder

1/2 C leftover wet almond meal
1/3 C honey

1 packet stevia

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 C chocolate chips - or dark chocolate chunks

1/2 C coconut flour

Blend beans and eggs in blender until very smooth dump into a bowl. In a tiny bowl mix oil and cocoa (I think you could skip this step) add to large bowl add all the rest of the ingredients and mix well. (It seemed a little too runny so that's why I added the coconut flour - I may try it without just to see if they still turn out good.) Dump into a greased 8X8 glass pan and bake 350 degrees for about 22 min. Cool some until you can cut them then dig in - really good warm.

Oh yeah... I frosted them with 1/3 C chocolate chips and 1/3 C coconut milk (full fat) melt in the micro 20-30 sec and stir well. ;)

Muffins

We had our girls Bible study here today and for snack one of the girls brought these yummy muffins from Trader Joe's. I have had these muffins before and they are healthy and good. However they are really big - you could split one - they cost a lot and they spoil quickly. The spoiling part is good because you know for sure they don't have preservatives. Anyway I decided I wanted to try to make my own muffins similar to those. They are sweetened with white grape juice and I happened to have some left over from the jello cups. I took a peek at the ingredient list and went from there. My muffins turned out great and Jason said they are better than the Trader Joe's ones. I was excited to make such a yummy muffin recipe so I will share it with you.

TP's Muffins :)

1 C bran

1 C oats - coarsely ground in the blender

1/2 C whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp sea salt

mix together in a large bowl

2 C white grape juice - simmer in a small pot until reduced to 1 cup - important

1/4 C coconut oil

1/4 C applesauce

2 eggs - I think I will try it with just 1 egg next time

1/2 C blueberries - mine were frozen

1/2 C mango - chopped small - reserve some for topping

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix just until combined. Spoon into greased muffin pan and top with 1 or 2 pieces of mango. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 min. Remove from pan and cool. Makes 12 muffins

Red, white and blue jello

We had a wonderful 4th of July up in the cool mountains. We had a healthy spread for lunch of barbecued chicken and fresh sand bass - caught the day before by our friend Josh- olive oil potato salad, green salad, corn on the cob and homemade baked beans. For dessert I made these festive jello cups. I layered fruit juice jello from white grape juice and strawberries then topped it with yogurt pana cotta and fresh blueberries. It was very patriotic and fun to have a cool treat.

Jello cups:

3 Envelopes of plain gelatin

1 C cold juice

3 C boiling juice

1 1/2 pints strawberries

1 envelope plain gelatin

2 C whole milk yogurt

1/4 C honey

1/2 C water

1 pint blueberries

Smash 1 pint of fresh strawberries press through a strainer keep solids for another use and add juice to the white grape juice to make 4 cups. Sprinkle gelatin over 1 cup cold juice and let set 1min add 3 cups boiling juice and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Pour into individual cups add about 1 TBS chopped strawberries to each cup and refrigerate until set. Heat honey and water until boiling pour over gelatin in a small bowl stir until gelatin is completely dissolved cool some and then add yogurt and stir well. Refrigerate until mixture just starts to set up. Then pour over set gelatin cups top with blueberries and refrigerate until set.

Granola

I have been waiting until we could add honey to make more granola. I made some with stevia and it was good but now I made some with honey and wow it is really good. I made one batch and we ate so much of it that I just made another batch. We have been eating granola around here all day and we still want more. Granola is really good on yogurt, fruit, with rice milk, warm from the oven or by the handful. It is so easy to make if you haven't made it before try it. The possibilities are endless but I will put my recipe on here if you want to give it a try. You really have to watch it and stir it often. It takes a while to crisp up but when it starts to it can start to burn and turn brown kinda fast.

Basic recipe

1/4 C coconut oil (I ran out so I used olive oil not the best choice because of heat)

1/3 C honey

2 TBS maple syrup (I left this out and used a little more honey the 2nd time)

1/4 C water (or coconut milk)

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

heat in a small pan on the stove at med/low until just simmering remove and add

1 tsp vanilla

then mix

4 C oatmeal

1 C sliced almonds

1 C chopped walnuts

1/2 C dried unsweetened coconut

combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and pour hot mixture in and stir to combine. Pour out onto a large cookie sheet and bake at 275 degrees stirring often and checking for about 1hr. Remove and add

1 C raisins

12 chopped dates

stir cool and store in airtight containers. I have no idea how long it lasts because we eat it too fast.

Day 32 - lunch

Wednesday's lunch - Trader Joe's sells a great loaf of whole wheat bread with very few ingredients and the right ones. We really enjoy this bread and it comes with a small price tag too $1.99! I toasted the bread and then I made a spread out of Greek yogurt. I mixed a small amount of yogurt with chopped fresh basil and herbamare seasoning but you can use any seasoning you would like. I spread both pieces of bread with the yogurt then layered cashews, sliced red onion, grilled white onion and red leaf lettuce and closed it up. It was a easy sandwich I just threw together but Jason and I were both really surprised how much we liked it. We will definitely be making it again.