Pin-Spirational: Chia Juice.

Welcome back to Pin-Spirational!

The Pin: Make Your Own Chia Drink

The Reason: I started drinking a big scoop of chia seeds in a tall glass of water every morning after reading about all the benefits of doing so from Kris Carr. I've been trying to get Rhyno on board with doing the same since we decided to get healthier before we become parents. I started with stirring the seeds into orange juice but he said they clumped up unless he stirred the whole time (high maintenance breakfast drinker, that one). During a grocery run at Target he picked up some of those Mamma Chia drinks--he loved them, which is great for his digestive health but not so great for our wallets. Those suckers are expensive and rarely do I find a coupon! So I set out to see if there was a way I could get the same gel-like texture at home.

The Process: I apologize in advance for the blurry photos...

Gather your supplies. In this case that means juice of your choice (we only had orange), chia seeds (I used black), a bowl, measuring utensils, and warm water. Easy enough!

 Put 2 tablespoons of chia seeds into a bowl--sorry I didn't use some cute, thrifted, twee bowl. I just used plain, ol' Tupperware.

Pour a cup of warm water over your seeds.

 

Stir it up! Make sure all your seeds are coated with water.

 

  Cover your seeds and leave in the fridge overnight.

The next day, remove your seeds (which will have a total jelly texture) and pour a nice, big glass of your juice of choice. Um, not too big though...I poured too much OJ and then had to gulp some down to make room for the seedlings.

Mix together! Stir it well. I noticed right away the texture is much different when you soak the seeds over night. I typically put a raw spoonful in water and it clumps together and stays at the top of the glass. After soaking, these were pretty evenly distributed and didn't seem to require constant stirring.

The Verdict: A winner! Though next time I might make the juice at home and try different flavors, Rhyno said the texture was spot-on and BOY does this save money! Mamma Chia can cost about $4 or $5 at our Target whereas I can get seeds in bulk for about $5 (and it'll last me weeks) and a carton of orange juice is only a couple bucks. I'm a hoarder of glass containers so this would be easy to pour into a recycled bottle and grab on the go.

Rhyno and I are already dreaming up other flavors to try--homemade grapefruit or cherry juice with a bit of coconut water? Carrot juice with kale? Watermelon juice with a little mint? The possibilities are endless!

Have you tried any great pins lately?

My Kind of Sort of Vegan Life (don't hold me to that).

It's no secret that I am basically obsessed with animals and I am an aspiring, but too lazy, vegan wanna be. I'm a longtime vegetarian but still trying to transition to fully vegan living. I've realized that the 80% vegan is probably where I fall--it's easy for me to stay on track during the week but harder on weekends or when we go out. Real vegans, please don't hurt me.

Instead of jumping in with both feet and throwing away every animal product I have on hand, I've slowed the transition. I've started doing one totally vegan day a week and last year started phasing out animal-tested (ew) cleaning and beauty products in our house. That's still tricky since I'm still researching which companies are evil...um...I mean...which companies still undergo animal lab tests and which don't. 

Anyway, the book above (from the lovely Angela at Oh She Glows). One thing I've come across with some vegan products and cookbooks...the chemicals. Oh, chemical warfare up in my mouth! I want to eat animal-free AND clean so I pre-ordered the OSG cook book and have been drooling over the beautiful, delicious-looking, whole foods recipes. I'm planning to cook some up this week and report back. I've been on the hunt for products that aren't loaded with chemicals (things like Larabars and almond cheeses) because this bod is a temple and I have no business fuming up my temple.

What are your favorite whole foods cook books or products?

What's (home) Cookin', Good Lookin'?

I am about to blow your mind: guess who has come to crave home cooked meals instead of fast food or lunches out? This moi.

I mentioned here that in our quest to get healthy, Rhyno and I have been trying to eat more meals at home. We've been trying to give new recipes a shot and update our old favorites (like buttered noodles) to make them a little lighter (gluten free noodles, subbing a smidge of olive oil for butter, and adding TONS of veggies). 

In addition to the delicious sweet potato cakes we made last week we also enjoyed...

 Gardein "turkey" cutlets with gravy, steamed veggies, and sweet n' spicy mashed sweet potatoes.

Personal quinoa taco casseroles and, shockingly enough, a big side of steamed broccoli. 

In the upcoming week I have even more homemade dinners planned (like fajitas, gluten free spaghetti, and a squash stir-fry). Admittedly, it does take a little extra effort since I've been trying to be religiously tracking every single bite on MyFitnessPal but it's been so worth it. I do find that keeping a variety on our dinner board can be tough (especially since I'm a vegetarian who is trying to go completely dairy free and Rhyno is a Type 1 Diabetic). Pinterest is a life-saver when it comes to trying to drum up 7 different dinners every single dang week. It's also been helping me to bookmark recipes I see on blogs throughout the week and flip through my giant stack of cookbooks while I drink my coffee in the morning.

What's your favorite healthy and home-cooked dinner? 

Hey, Sweet Potato!

Well, happy Monday, beautiful!

In an effort to get my whole (tiny, two-person) family healthy I have been making an active effort to plan and actually make dinners from (mostly) scratch every night of the week. For the first couple of weeks I relied on our usual dinners (tofu stir-fries, Boca burgers and steamed veggies, loaded sweet potatoes) but those got old pretty fast. So I turned to the interwebz and each Friday when I'm meal planning, I try to incorporate at least two recipes that I've never tried before. 

I love sweet potatoes, while doing a search for some kind of new sweet P recipe I found these sweet potato quinoa balls and immediately put them on our dinner chalkboard.

They didn't disappoint! I used the slow cooker to cook the sweet potatoes (scrubbing the skin and then dropping 'em the crock pot for about 6 hours on low).  I made quite a few adjustments to the recipe (mostly because sometimes I don't pay full attention and I didn't have certain things on hand).

I love spicy food and I am addicted to crushed red pepper. I sprinkle it on everything.  To season the sweet potato-quinoa mixture I used chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and a bit of dried basil.

In the olden days when I was a kid, and a meat eater, I  loved making meat balls at my grandma's house. It was an almost once-a-week ritual and I loved to help season and form them. Now the thought of digging my hands into meat makes me want to ralph my guts out but digging into these brought back all the good pieces of those memories.

I didn't have a glass pan (one day I will buy one, I swear) and I had a real Goldilocks moment of "this metal pan is too small, this one is too big." So I settled on a good, ol' cupcake pan. It worked like a charm! They came out almost perfect and cooked pretty evenly. I *may* have overfilled the tin. Next time I'd definitely make them a teensy bit smaller.

 

I served them over a bed of spinach and covered with a hearty dose of sriracha sauce with some steamed lemon broccoli on the side. 

I thought these were delicious and would probably change it up a bit if we made the again--maybe adding diced apples and jalapenos to the mix. Even Rhyno agreed that these were SO filling (I put three on his plate and he only made it through two). I even made one garlic-free so Violet could have a taste (and I wonder why she begs at the table like a beast...). I will definitely make these again! 

Do you have any fantastic sweet potato recipes?

The Cranberries.

I hope you don't think this post is about the genius super group behind Zombie....but really? How awesome was that song? Dude. I need to dig up that CD stat.

 

Okay, anyway, this post is about cookies. They just have cranberries in them.

 

For the third annual JAM Cookie Exchange (so many great treats!) last weekend I had all intentions of making these beauts. I made the dough the night before and chilled it in the fridge beforehand...without paying attention to the "chill it in rolls" part. I opened the bowl in the morning to a crumbly pile of bad. After an hour of trying to roll out dough and just make it work, I sucked it up and made a new cookie....kinda.

 

 

So, instead, here's the base recipe (thanks, Pillsbury website).

 

Cookies            

-3/4 cup butter, softened

-3/4 cup granulated sugar

-1 egg

-1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel

-2  tablespoons lemon juice 

-2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

-1 teaspoon baking soda 

-1/4 teaspoon salt

-Handful of dried cranberries

-Handful of shelled, chopped pistachios

-2 cups milk chocolate chips

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

 

In large bowl, beat butter and granulated sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. On low speed, beat in egg, lemon peel and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt until well blended.

 

Fold in dried cranberries, roll into tiny rounds, place on ungreased cookie sheet, top with pistachios. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Cool on rack.

 

When fully cooled, melt milk chocolate and drizzle across cookies. Allow chocolate to fully cool before serving.

 

ENJOY!

Soup Love.

Man, I love soup.

 

 

In an effort to get healthy, lose weight, and save some moolah, Rhyno and I have been making a conscious effort to cook more meals at home. While it's SUPER easy to get stuck in a rut (for us that means stir-fries over spaghetti squash, spicy pasta with vegan ground "beef," or...when all else fails or laziness sets in...take out), I've been trying to find recipes that are fun and quick. This Saturday, with nothing great on our chalkboard dinner board (post on that forthcoming) we decided to keep it light and have soup. After much discussion and looking for recipes, the Guffeys Make Dinner: Soup Cook-Off was born.

We decided neither of us could use a pre-existing recipe. I will say upfront I have no recipe for Rhyno's soup. He was a madman, running around the kitchen tossing things into a pot. He decided on a broccoli-cheese concoction, I chose a tomato-basil soup.

So, here's mine...

What You Need
-1 tablespoon coconut oil (olive oil would work too)
-5 cloves of garlic
-8 large tomatoes
-a handful of fresh basil (ours was homegrown!)
-dash of sea salt
-dash of black pepper
-1 cup plain 0% greek yogurt

-as much and whatever kind of cheese you prefer (I used gruyere)
-Bacon or a bacon substitute (if desired, for topping)

What You Do
1.) Girl (or boy), grab a big ol' soup pot and heat it up on a front burner
2.) Chop up those garlic cloves, add the oil to the pot (careful, if it's super hot it WILL pop!) and then toss in the garlic
3.) Chop up all them tomatoes, add 'em to the pot (I squeezed mine a bit while throwing them in)
4.) Dash a' salt, dash a' pepper
5.) Chop up the basil (it doesn't matter how fine)
6.) Once everything has cooked together, turn the burner off, toss it all in a blender
7.) Once in the blender (you may have to do it in stages, depending on the size of your pitcher), add the greek yogurt and hit Puree

Yes, I have man-hands. They look just like my dad's hands but with nail polish. Move on.

To Serve
Add your cheese (I sliced my gruyere with a potato peeler) and add any additional toppings like bacon imitation or garlic croutons. Then, enjoy it!!

We counted our Soup-Off as a draw--they were both pretty delicious...and filling! I was stuffed for the rest of the night. With the Midwest weather cooling, I think we have quite a few more soup nights in the works.

What's your favorite soup recipe?
 

MasterChef Party.

So, I am pretty much obsessed with Gordon Ramsey's MasterChef. Rhyno and I just happened to catch it as it premiered four seasons ago and have been hooked ever since. This year was especially tense since my two favorites (James and Bri!) were eliminated too soon but I was deeply rooting against the sore loser Natasha.

Luca, forever. I love me some underdog.

My cousin-like-a-sister Samantha (who is also an MC fanatic) and I decided to have our own Mystery Box Challenge to celebrate the MasterChef finale. We included her momma and each of us would receive 5 different ingredients to make into a dish.

My ingredients (sent by my Aunt Julie)? Bacon, a baguette, rum extract, apples, and sweet potatoes. I immediately decided to do a dessert bruschetta (or as Italian Luca would say "bru-CHETT!"). I toasted my baguette with a homemade rum butter and cinnamon-sugar topping. I candied bacon, pan-fried apples, and made a sweet potato sauce to create the bruschetta experience. 

My plating. I do not hide my allegiance.

Sam's: A delicious tofu stir-fry

A.J.'s: Rice balls and mango salsa with fried chopsticks.

I won plating but A.J. wound up winning the taste competition. But, happily enough, Luca won the whole she-bang!

Feelin' Peachy.

"Grandma got some fresh peaches, when you go over there today she'll give you a few." Rhyno's mom. 

 

Turns out a "few" peaches actually meant a TON! Rhyno went to his Grandma's and returned with a bucket full of summery fruit goodness. I always think of that Dita Von Teese quote, "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach and there will always be someone who hates peaches." Ugh. I love her. Anywho!

I love fruit. Dang you, naturally sugary goodness! As much as I love a good peach, I knew we wouldn't burn through the entire bucket without a few going bad. I went to bed thinking of fun recipes I could make and when I woke up Rhyno had left a print out of this Mr. Food recipe on the counter. Hint taken!

I had picked up a package of fresh blueberries from the local farmer's market last week so I switched out raspberries for blueberries--honestly I probably would've done that anyhow because Rhyno is a blueberry fiend! He would eat them in everything if he could. 

Let's discuss how delicious this made my kitchen smell while it was baking--peaches, oats, brown sugar. SO DELICIOUS! End of discussion.

I think next time I make this recipe, and there will be a next time, I will drain the fruit before putting it in the baking dish. My crumble was a bit soggy. I don't know that Rhyno noticed though because he inhaled the piece I cut for him and asked if I could toss some in a Tupperware for his lunch...and then he got seconds. 

What's your favorite peach-centric recipe?

I Used to Mispronounce the Word Quinoa.

 

Quinoa is the worst word. For so long I thought it was pronounced Quin-ow-uh but then I learned it's keen-wah and I wanted to cringe at the times I semi-pretentiously said it incorrectly.

 

Anywho, it is stupid to pronounce and can be stupid delicious when prepared the right way. I'm always on the look out for healthy lunches I can prepare ahead of time. My go to is usually Manifest Vegan's sweet potato and cauliflower soup but looking for a change of pace (and realizing I had four bags of quinoa in my pantry) I decided to try out a quinoa salad.

 

 

After spending quite a bit of time Googling and Pinteresting (are those officially verbs yet?) vegetarian quinoa salads with calorie counts, I got frustrated and decided to just somewhat wing it. I cooked the quinoa based on this recipe--subbing vegetable stock for chicken stock.

 

 

While the quinoa was cookin' I chopped up some veggies to toss into my salad. Asparagus, zucchini, broccoli, garlic, red bell pepper, and tomatoes (fresh from our garden!). I sautéed most of these delicious green beasts in a large frying pan with a spritz of Trader Joe's coconut oil cooking spray. I've been trying to stay away from added salt and sugar-heavy sauces. The more I stay away from those things, the more garlic I use. I left the tomatoes raw since I don't care for them when they are soggy.

 

Red onion, always and forever. Rhyno and I add red onion to EVERYTHING. I steamed the red onions and asparagus together--I loved all of the different textures together.

 

Final conclusion? DELICIOUS! I snuck a test bite before packaging my salad for the week's lunches and it was amazing. I drizzled a little bit of lemon juice over the salad with a pinch of black pepper and I was not disappointed. I loved the contrast between slightly spicy quinoa and fresh veggies. This recipe is going into my weekly lunch rotation immediately!

 

What's your favorite quick n' healthy lunch?