Food food food!

Creamy Broccoli Soup - Vegan!

Serves: 4

21DF: 1G, 1Y, 1/3B

Ingredients

• 1/3 Cup Raw Cashews
• 1tsp Olive Oil
• 1 Medium Onion, chopped
• 1c Carrots, diced
• 2c chopped potatoes 
• 2c Water
• 1tsp paprika
• 2tsp garlic powder
• 1/8tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
• 3Tbsp nutritional yeast 
• 4c vegetable broth
• 3 large heads broccoli 
• Himalayan Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper, to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Soak cashews in water for an hour (or more)
2. Add oil to a large saucepan, cook onions until translucent on medium heat
3. Add carrots and potatoes, salt and pepper (to taste) and 2 cups of water. Cook on medium for 20 minutes or until soft
4. Immersion blend (or add to a food processor)
5. Let cool, steaming broccoli as you wait
6. Add vegetable broth, paprika, garlic powder, cayenne pepper,  nutritional yeast, cashews, salt and pepper, blend well
7. Let simmer for 5- 10 minutes on medium to low heat
8. Add broccoli and serve!

Winter Wonderland

The last two weeks have been food filled! I found that I was getting bored of my same old foods so I started adding new ones in.  Complete with these cookies that we made for our paint night.

The photo is a bit blurry, but you can see the silliness that is our designs.  I made the cookies, and Ben decorated.   They aren't totally healthy but they are actually a pretty decent spin on Gingerbread cookies!



Here is our sign from the event.  We ran an event to help raise money to place a CuddleCot in a local hospital.   A CuddleCot is one thing that made our short time with Thomas a little softer, and less painful. It enabled us to have 18 hours with him, instead of an hour or less like many of my other Loss Mom friends.

I found this particular sign fitting, and we have it hung in our kitchen where I can see it as a reminder of Thomas, who we often think as visiting when it rains.




This entry is going to be a lot about food!  Since that was a focus.   Here is my favorite (easy) egg concoction - ground pepper, turmeric, eggs and spinach - it's an amazing mix and the turmeric with the ground pepper has enhanced benefits!



And of course Ben's favorite - 3 ingredient Banana pancakes.  They are extremely easy (I have another blog post on how to make). And full of protein!



Workouts have been better recently as well. The book I'm currently reading reiterates the importance of not pressing snooze - a nasty habit I've gotten myself into.  The fact is, when you snooze you put your body into a new REM cycle making it that much harder to wake up even after you get out of bed.  It really does help not to snooze!





I've also started making my smoothies in advance to help make the mornings go a bit more smoothly.  So far so good!





While I'm not a super make up person, I do have a pretty basic routine. I shared this routine with a private group I run.  For those looking to be a little spiffed up with minimal time or financial commitment.  This 'face' only took 3 minutes and 38 seconds to put on (I know because I timed it!).



I've been really getting into the crock pot recently - not very consistent with recipes, but more or less just looking at food groups and portions and hoping for the best.  This is a mix of tomatoes (1 large can, diced), onion, lentils, quinoa garlic and some bay leaves.  It was great!



Another easy quinoa dish, mix a bag of frozen veggies with quinoa, a little olive oil and pepper to taste!



More fitness news - I'm getting super excited for my January program. As much as I'm consistent with workouts, I do find I focus differently when I have something new.  The next program will run the course of 3 months and each day will be entirely different as it's recorded live (instead of a set of prerecorded workouts that you repeat).  I'm a little excited and a little scared!



And while we're talking about fitness - I wanted to share a quick visual on form.  It's so easy not to think about but so important to getting the most out of your workout as well as to avoiding injury.   Here's a quick visual I did on form and what things to look out for.   Option "E" is the safe option here - the others put strain on my back/neck/shoulders and don't work the right muscles.



This was another quick meal idea that I was able to eat all week - fajitas!




Here's a shot from our Mommy & Me class last week. I don't often get photos of myself teaching, so I was very grateful a mom in class snapped this for me!

Thanksgiving & 6 Months

This week was a hard one, this was our first Thanksgiving as well as the 6 month birthday of our second son, Thomas.   

When I look back at the last 6 months I am amazed at how fast the time has gone.  I also am grateful at the fact that I made it to this point. I honestly wasn't sure how I'd get here.

This little guy is a big reason I keep going each day.

We celebrated the holiday by going away, which meant extra time with my little guy and workouts each morning.   I think I needed it more than he did this week of all weeks.


On our 'rest day' we headed to a local indoor pool for some water fun!  I love sharing my love of fitness with Ben, we never do it because we 'have' to, we always do it because we want to! Which is huge, and something that took me years to figure out.



While I missed my bare bones basement gym, we had a nice back up gym in the garage - it was chilly, but once you get moving chilly doesn't matter anyway!


...but by chilly, the first day we went, it was 37 degrees! Thank goodness for heaters.



In food news....

This is a recipe I had found that I tweaked a bit - crock pot lentil chili! It was easy and I got to basically mix all the veggies I had in the house (squash, sweet potato, eggplant, onion, tomato) with lentils, quinoa and a few bay leafs for a yummy hearty meal!


And my other favorite food from the week is this salad - I can't claim to have made it but I can claim to have enjoyed it!  This is proof that you can eat well even on the go.   This is a 'double' order of the house salad at the restaurant I was at, I ordered the dressing on the side and asked for a veggie burger on the side as well.  A nice mix of fats, veggies and protein! And with the veggie burger I also get some healthy carbohydrates in as well.