To Do List: Thrifted 3 tiered stand

I am always on the look out for fun things at yard sales and thrift stores to re-purpose. This is brilliant idea, and I will keep my eyes peeled for the materials to make this!

3-tiered Stand from The Crafting Chicks

To Do List: Polaroid Magnets

I absolutely have to make these! There is nothing that I can say that will expand on the actual page, so I'm just going to post the link. When I actually make them, I'll post pictures. Enjoy!

Tiny Polaroid Magnets

Bringing some new life into the house (and yard!)

I got quite a few new plants to add to the house and I re-potted them all in cute pots. Aren't they cute?

I also got 9 stems of salvia (not the drug kind, but the sage kind) hoping to attract some hummingbirds and 2 Ice Plants (because they cascade and flower) to hang outside. They are both perennials and both like full sun, which they're going to get. I'm very excited about the new additions.

Colorful Deliciousness a.k.a. Rainbow Hashbrowns (Photo Heavy)

So, I'm trying to get more vegetables in our diets. There are quite a few that my husband doesn't like/won't eat, so I'm trying to be creative. I've been looking through many vegetarian cookbooks lately and I found this recipe. I don't remember what cookbook it was in, and I've changed the recipe a bit, so I'll list it here.

The thing I love about this recipe is that it contains 5 vegetables that my husband doesn't like and a couple that he doesn't care for! It's a great way to get him to eat a variety of veggies without forcing food he hates down his throat. This meal is a little time-consuming on the prep part, but so worth it. So so worth it. I loved every bite and I cannot wait to make it again. I loved photographing all the colors so I took a picture of almost every step, which is really unnecessary, but fun.

This is a really simple recipe. You take a bunch of vegetables (I used potatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers, red onions, and carrots), shred them, squeeze the water out of them and then fry them in a skillet with canola or olive oil, just like you would shredded hash browns. Then eat with lots of ketchup! Yum!

I think a way to improve this recipe would be to par-boil the veggies first and drain/press really well. For the harder veggies to cook, the softer veggies have to reach a point of mushiness, which is no fun. In the future, I'll parboil the veggies, dry them, and spread them on a baking sheet to freeze and keep a bag in the freezer for mornings.

An easy, relaxing (non-frugal) meal

When I was a kid, every once in a while my family would have a meal of 'finger foods'. Mostly it would be meat, cheese and crackers. I loved that kind of meal. We all used our fingers and shared off of the same big plate in the middle. We seemed to talk more and have more fun. So, I wanted to do that with my husband. We made up the platters and sat on the floor in the living room and watched a movie. It was cute, it was fun, and best of all, no cooking on a busy night.

It's a little bit of an expensive meal because I have this love affair with certain cheeses and just HAVE to have them when I do a thing like this. Namely, smoked gouda. Mmmmm... So good. We got monterrey and colby jack, Laughing Cow spreadable swiss, smoked gouda, and a port and wine cheeseball. Turkey and ham were our meats. I threw in some carrots with the crackers so we'd have some kind of vegetable for this finger-food meal.
Yummy!

We tried Roasted Vegetable Ritz crackers and I LOVED them. I like them a lot better than the original flavor. I just think they have a lot more to offer, flavor-wise.
We also tried these babies. SO good! There's shredded cheese melted on top of the crackers, so they're super tasty. They're a little expensive for how much you get, but if you're treating yourself, why not? They're good!

I hope everyone has at least one fun, easy dinner in their repertoire!

I need a change

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong with the way I treat myself. I feel like crap. I am constantly hungry, never have any energy, I feel sick all the time, and I am so super lethargic. So, I MUST be doing something wrong. I believe that I'm just putting the wrong things in my body. If I believe the mantras 'You are what you eat' and 'Put good in, get good out' and I am feeling the way I do, then the logical answer to my problems would be that I am putting 'crap' in. When I examine my eating habits and my lifestyle, I can see that that is indeed true. I eat whatever I want, pretty much in whatever quantity I want, don't exercise enough, and don't take care of myself in the way I should. So, what's the solution? Start eating well! All the time! (Or most of the time, at least!) And exercise!

My husband and I so often eat fast food that we almost never get the veggies we need. We blame it on the 'no time' we have, but really, it's just a lie that we use so that we can be lazy. We've got to stop eating out so much, first and foremost. Secondly, we need to eat more vegetables! I started this last night with an AMAZING recipe which I will talk about in my next post. Third, we need to eat more fruit. Fruit is best for breakfast, by itself, because fruit tends to digest rather quickly on its own which means you will get the nutrients, fiber, and vitamins faster. If you eat fruit with other slower-digesting food, you'll have the fruit just sitting there for much longer than needed in your hot stomach. Yuck! Fermenting fruit=so not tasty! So, I want to eat raw fruit for breakfast and wait at least 30 minutes before eating anything else. That way, I'm guaranteed to get the servings of fruit I need. Take, for example, this morning. I ate most of a medium mango, a small kiwi, and 1/4 of a cantaloupe. Took me about 5 minutes to prep and cut up, but I stayed satisfied for a little under 3 hours, which is rather unusual for me (I'm ALWAYS hungry, even if I just ate a huge meal at a buffet.) I know that I started my day off with plenty of vitamins and enzymes and fiber and just... delicious. I should do this every day. See?
I'll post more about the vegetables and recipes I'm going to start adding to our diets soon.

Healthy Start

Everyone knows that they are supposed to eat lots of greens everyday, right? Sometimes, though, you just don't have the time to sit down and eat a salad. You should make this instead: I got the idea from Tasha at Clean Eating Mama blog (original post here) and I love it. I changed the recipe a bit, so here's what I did:

8 oz. almond milk
3 tablespoons flax meal
2 large bananas
3 large handfuls of greens (spinach, kale, mixed baby greens)
1 cup fresh strawberries, hulled
1 1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1 tablespoon agave (note about agave at the bottom)
drizzle strawberry syrup (optional, and shouldn't really be in this list)

Place the almond milk, flax, and bananas in your regular old blender and blend. Add your greens and blend until smooth. Add in all your strawberries until completely smooth and taste. If you think it needs a bit of sweetness, add some agave nectar (or maybe a simple syrup if you don't have/don't like agave) and taste again. It should be thick, cold, and taste like strawberries with a hint of banana. You won't be able to taste the greens at all. (I accidentally pu too much flax in mine and the flavor of it over powered the drink so I put in some strawberry syrup. I realize this was a silly thing to do since I'm drinking this for the ton of healthy stuff in it, but oh well; we can't be perfect all the time! =D) Pour it in a tall clear glass, and garnish with a strawberry. It's pretty, tasty, and healthy. You'll have several servings of fruit, a couple servings of vegetables, healthy fats from the almond milk, and plenty of Omega-3s from the flax. Not to mention plenty of fiber from the strawberries and flax. Very tasty.


And look who else liked it!

She mostly just wanted the strawberry, though.
Now, about agave nectar: If you've never tried it, you must! It's amazing stuff. The agave is closely related to the lilly and amaryllis, and the nectar is a delicious sap called aguamiel (honey water.) It is sweet and delicious, and healthier than processed white sugar, especially if you get raw agave nectar. It is a great vegetarian replacement for honey, and some tequila is made with agave. I use it in sweet tea, on pancakes, in coffee, to sweeten up vegetable shakes, etc. It's cheaper than honey, and lasts me a long time. Try it out!